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they had dealt with scores of dead bodies, rapes and assaults, as well as a few fires, wrecks, troves of treasure and even catches of the royal fish, the whale and the sturgeon. During this eventful year, the twenty-year bond between the Cornishman and his master had strengthened, as each had saved the life of the other yet again. This time, the rescues had been within the county boundary, rather than in campaigns across the known world from Ireland to Outremer.
    Gwyn looked across the hall at the man whose life was inextricably bound with his own. He saw a tall, slightly hunched figure, jet-black hair swept back from his forehead, long enough to fall to his collar, unlike the usual severe cropping of the neck and sides effected by most Normans. His face was long and hollow cheeked, with a large hooked nose surmounted by bushy eyebrows. Though de Wolfe shaved once a week, there was usually dark stubble on his face, and this, together with his habit of invariably dressing in black or grey, had long earned him the nickname of 'Black John' among the soldiery with whom they had spent much of their lives until three years ago.
    Gwyn had been his companion, bodyguard and friend for almost two decades, since he had given up being a fisherman in Polruan to become John's servant in one of the early Irish wars. Their final campaign had been as part of the small band that accompanied the Lionheart on his ill-fated journey home from the Crusade, when a shipwreck in the Adriatic drove him overland to be captured in Vienna and held prisoner in Austria and Germany for well over a year. Both Gwyn and de Wolfe still blamed themselves for not being able to prevent the ambush, especially as they had managed to escape.
    Now he stood in the hall and looked across with dogged affection at his master, as he hunched like a great crow over his wife and friend. He knew that de Wolfe's relations with his wife were stressful, there being faults on both sides. The marriage had been arranged by their respective fathers and both were reluctant partners. De Wolfe had solved much of the problem by managing to be away for most of the seventeen years of his married life, finding wars, campaigns and crusades to keep him far from Exeter. In all that time, Gwyn doubted that they had Spent more than a month in any one year at home, It was only when they returned from Austria that they found that they had run out of wars to fight, as well as becoming too old at forty to have the stamina for prolonged campaigning.
    Gwyn shrugged off this rare moment of reverie; he was like his master in that contemplation and emotion were foreign to his nature. Pushing past a couple of kitchen servants who were collecting empty mugs and tankards, he walked between the trestles and benches to within a few yards of the coroner and made a discreet signal to him.
    With an alacrity that showed that he was relieved to get away from Hugh de Relaga's prattling, de Wolfe moved across to his officer, a questioning look on his long face.
    'Well?' he snapped, the severity of his tone being his normal method of address.
    'We've got a corpse from the river, Crowner,' drawled Gwyn easily. 'Osric reckons it's fresh. Naked and beaten up, so he's unrecognisable.' John rubbed his hands together. He was not delighted at the thought of another man's death, but pleased to have an excuse to get away from this gathering, as the effort to be sociable was becoming a strain.
    'I'll arrange to have my, wife taken home, then I'll come. Where's the body?'
    'Still down on the quay-side. They're learning at last that no one is to interfere with corpses until you view them.'
    John turned on his heel and stalked back to the nearby table, where Gwyn saw him making some excuse to Matilda and a request to the corpulent portreeve. Then he was back at his officer's side.
    'I see our brave clerk is still here. Get him to come down with us.'
    Gwyn signalled to Thomas, who was talking to a vicar-choral of his acquaintance,