Crowner’s Quest

Prologue

December 1194

The morning was ravaged by the sound of axe on tree and the crackle of flames as branches were hacked off and burned. A dozen men were slowly but surely pushing back the forest edge from the strips of cultivated land that lay on the valley slopes around the village of Afton, a few miles from Totnes. Already this month, in spite of interruptions caused by angry disputes with men from Loventor, the next village beyond the trees, they had advanced the new ground won from the woods by a dozen acres.

Alward, the Saxon reeve from Afton, was walking around the ash-strewn ground, counting the trees felled that week. He recorded them by notches cut with his dagger on a tally stick to show to the bailiff of his lord, Henry de la Pomeroy, who would inevitably complain about the amount of work done, whatever new area they had managed to add to his manor. Alward was well aware that they were on disputed land and that, with every tree dropped, they were getting deeper into the property claimed by Sir William Fitzhamon, who included the tiny hamlet of Loventor within his honour.

He disliked having to argue with the men from Loventor. When they had come to shout abuse at his team for trespassing the week before, it had come to blows: he had suffered a cut head and one of his men was knocked out during the scuffle. Following this, the bailiff had sent a couple of men-at-arms to escort the felling team, but after two days of peace, they were sent back to Berry Castle, the Pomeroy stronghold high on a ridge a mile away.

But that had proved to be the quiet before the storm. Today they had been at work for barely two hours when suddenly, from out of the trees opposite, came a yelling horde of men, waving cudgels and staves. Some of the Afton men immediately dropped their tools and ran downhill towards the village, which was visible in the distance. Others held their ground, encouraged by Alward, who tried to halt the attackers by shouting and waving his arms. The next moment a ragged figure felled him with a blow on the shoulder from a staff and another wild-looking peasant began kicking him. Similar scenes took place all over the despoiled area, with hand-to-hand fights going on amid yelling and curses.

Before long the rout was over – half the Afton men had fled and the rest were on the ground, nursing sore heads and bruised ribs, though no one was seriously hurt. Alward sat up painfully and saw that the raiders were now ignoring his men and collecting up all their tools. Within minutes, every axe and cleaver had vanished along with the marauders, who melted back into the forest as suddenly as they had appeared.

The reeve climbed to his feet, realising that, without their tools, there could be no more work that day – and that the bailiff and Lord Henry must be informed without delay. The message he must take to them was plain: this nibbling away at Fitzhamon’s land was no longer going to be easy.