The Noble Outlaw

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

It might have been Denise's ointment or simply the healing power of nature, but Geoffrey Trove's arm had improved over the past two days. Although it was still throbbing and painful, his fever had subsided — and, best of all, his mistress's constant nagging for him to attend an apothecary had faded with the infection.

The journeyman was still afraid to go out in the daytime, for fear of being recognised, but in the old black cloak with a deep hood — the one he had worn to attack the sister of that swine de Revelle — he had ventured out to a low alehouse the previous evening to eavesdrop on the city gossip.

He heard about the battle up at the castle and gloated that the two objects of his hate had both come to grief in different ways. He sincerely hoped that Pomeroy's seizure would prove fatal, but the news that Nicholas de Arundell had contemptuously spared the life of Richard de Revelle annoyed him greatly. If he had killed him and Pomeroy had also died, then Geoffrey, who was basically very religious in spite of his disregard for some of the Commandments, would have considered that God had smitten the evil-doers on his behalf.

Now that de Revelle was not only unharmed but a free man, Geoffrey decided that it was up to him to complete the task that the Almighty seemed to have overlooked. Denise was out, buying some food at the stalls in High Street. Now that she had given up whoring and he had left his job, he had to support them both from the meagre savings he had accumulated from his pay as a journeyman — another reason for seeking violent revenge against those who had prevented him becoming a rich man with his own business.

He went to his small chest in the corner, one of the few things he had brought from his shack on Exe Island, and took out a duplicate of his master-work. It was the prototype of the one he had left behind in his hut, as he was afraid that some poison on the springs of that one might again contaminate him. This other device was slightly smaller, but equally efficient in firing a bolt.

He had made the second one with greater care and better metal, finishing it off meticulously to display his skill — yet still those hidebound bastards of guild masters had rejected it. He placed it on the table, checked the mechanism, then fired a bolt against the opposite wall, where it stuck quivering in the whitewashed cob, two inches deep into the plaster. Satisfied, he pulled it out and cleaned it, then wrapped the miniature crossbow in a cloth and put it back into the chest before the nosy Denise returned.

Lady Eleanor de Revelle had been quite satisfied with her new town house in Exeter. When her husband was sheriff, she had firmly refused to spend any time in his official residence in the keep of Rougemont, which she considered a bleak, draughty place unfitting for a woman of her station in life. Eleanor was an even greater snob than Matilda — who she despised — and when Richard was living in Exeter castle, she had insisted on living either at their manor in Tiverton or at Revelstoke. She endured his frequent falls from grace with apparent indifference, keeping his professional life at arm's length. However, his dismissal as sheriff and now his ignominious defeat at the hands of Nicholas de Arundell were hard to bear, but she dealt with this latest embarrassment by keeping herself aloof from any of her husband's activities, and often his very company.

A tall, angular woman with an icy personality, she had long regretted her marriage to Richard de Revelle, as she considered that she had married well beneath her.

She was the third daughter of an earl with estates in Somerset and Gloucestershire and, like Matilda, had been married off as one of the least saleable assets of the family to a moderately acceptable young knight. After twenty years of marriage, she had accepted her fate stoically, settling for extravagant creature comforts bought both by Richard's money and, a generous allowance from her own family. It was Eleanor who had prodded her husband into purchasing the house in North Gate Street, partly with the excuse that if he was entering into this respectable venture to establish a college in Smythen Street, then he needed to be much nearer to it than either of their manors at opposite ends of the large county. The house gave her an opportunity to spend as much time as she wished in a city where there were greater market facilities and frequent fairs and festivals, a welcome change from the boring isolation of their manors.

Though she had little affection for her husband, she had become used to him and had no desire to lose him either to another woman or to death — though his neck had come perilously close to the hangman's noose on several occasions. Eleanor was well aware of his predilection for harlots, though she never admitted to herself that it was her own frigidity that was the main reason for this behaviour. As long as he did not shame her over his amorous activities, she was prepared to pretend this situation did not exist.

Thus that evening, when he gruffly told her that he was going out to meet a friend in the New Inn, Eleanor was indifferent to the news, suspecting that he would probably end up in one of the brothels that abounded in the back streets. She retired early, going to the upstairs solar with her tire-maid to prepare for bed. Waking some time during the night, she found that her husband was absent from his side of the large feather palliasse they shared.

Again, this was no novelty and she turned over under her blankets and bearskin and went back to sleep.

However, in the morning, there was still no sign of Richard de Revelle and he failed to arrive when their servants brought bread, sweet gruel and coddled eggs to break their fast. This was unusual, as he was fond of his early-morning victuals, but questioning of the three servants they employed threw no light on de Revelle's absence.

Irritated rather than worried, she had herself dressed and went with her maid to morning Mass at the nearby church of St Keryans, for rather like Matilda, attending frequent services was one way of filling the empty life of a gentlewoman. On her return, she was approached deferentially by Matthew, the bottler who took on the role of their steward in that small household.

'My lady, I am becoming concerned about Sir Richard,' he said hesitantly, as his mistress had a sharp tongue when dealing with her servants. 'He has still not returned and the old man who comes to chop kindling and draw water from the well found these in the yard behind the house.' He held out a floppy velvet hat with a crumpled feather and a rusty iron rod longer than his arm.

'That is my husband's hat,' snapped Eleanor, snatching it from him and turning it around in her hands.

'And this is another bar pulled from our back gate, a twin to the one the master told us about — the one that was used to slay some guildsman in a churchyard.' As Eleanor stared at him with mounting concern, Matthew added, 'And both are stained with blood.'

* * *

'This small amount of blood is not from a stabbing, Eleanor. The smears both on the rod and the hat suggest that he has been struck a blow on the head and this is bleeding from his scalp.'

John de Wolfe tried to make this sound like good news, not mentioning the possibility that Richard's skull might have been cracked like an egg.

He was standing in the yard behind the house in North Gate Street, with Gwyn busy examining the back gate, which now had two of its half-dozen bars missing. The lady of the house was listening to him tight-lipped, with Matilda hovering anxiously behind her, common adversity driving these two women into an attempt to be friendly and supportive to each other. In fact Matilda, for all her recent antagonism to her brother, seemed the more upset, though Eleanor's usual glacial manner might have concealed more concern than was apparent.

'Did he not return home last night?' Matilda asked anxiously. 'Where can he have been?'

Her sister-in-law was not anxious to answer that last question, as she suspected that she knew what had taken her husband out into the dark streets.

'He was not in his bed at all. This accident must have occurred late last evening, after I had retired.'

She had responded to de Wolfe's routine questions with some reluctance, as she thought him little better than an ill-mannered soldier, but the evidence that Matthew had found had left her with little option but to send a message to Richard's sister, since her husband was a senior law officer — albeit one she blamed for Richard's repeated falls from grace,

'I fear this can be no accident, lady,' said John, as gently as he could. 'No one strikes themselves on the head hard enough to draw blood. And the use of this iron rod makes it impossible to believe that the petpetrator is anyone other than the assassin who killed those other men.'

Eleanor de Revelle drew her thin body stiffly upright and fixed him with her pale blue eyes. 'So you think Richard is dead, John?' she asked tonelessly. Already she was readjusting herself to the role of widow and wondering if it might not be preferable to being married to an inveterate scoundrel.

But de Wolfe was not yet ready to go along with her speculations. Strangely, he admitted to himself, though he had often wished his brother-in-law in hell, under these circumstances he ardently hoped that the man was still alive and not another victim of this murdering bastard. If Richard was to forfeit his life, it should be legally at the end of a rope, not by being slain by some crazed journeyman.

'He may well be alive, Eleanor,' he reassured her.

'This spike, whose partner was used to kill another man, has not been used other than as a club.' He hefted the rod in his hand to assess its weight. 'I think Richard was struck to deprive him of his wits and has been carried off somewhere. Maybe he is being held as a hostage, as we have been seeking this Geoffrey Trove all over the city. At least we know who the villain is that attacked your husband.'

The wife scowled at the coroner. 'And what good is knowing his name, if you cannot find him — or where he has taken my husband?'

Matilda, who cared for her sister-in-law about as much as the Lionheart cared for Philip of France, came to her husband's defence.

'John is doing all he can, Eleanor! This killer has led everyone a merry dance for weeks — as I know to my cost, as he half-killed me in the cathedral Close.' De Wolfe decided to leave his wife to bandy words with Richard's haughty wife and walked across the muddy yard to where Gwyn was peering at the ground near the gate, which led into a short side lane leading out to North Gate Street.

'There's a real mess of footprints around here, Crowner, but nothing of any use, with so many people in and out of here every day.'

John looked down and agreed with his officer. 'If de Revelle was struck on the head, as he surely must have been, where is he now?' he rasped. 'Dead or alive, I doubt he walked out of here.'

Just then Thomas arrived, out of breath after hurrying from his chantry duties at the cathedral, and the coroner briefly explained what had happened.

'He must have been carried away, or possibly dragged,' suggested the clerk. 'Was this Geoffrey a big man, strong enough to do that?'

'I only saw him once, in that guild meeting,' grunted the coroner. 'But he seemed tough enough, which is what you would expect of a blacksmith and ironworker.'

'No drag marks in the mud,' growled Gwyn, looking again at the ground. 'If he was hauled away, you'd expect his heels to leave a couple of grooves in this soft muck.'

De Wolfe opened the gate, which was now minus two of its rails, and went out into the lane. He looked first up to North Gate Street, only a few yards away.

'I can't see Trove struggling through the main streets with a body in his arms, even late at night. Surely he would have gone the other way?'

They turned and looked down the narrow lane, which was no more than a path between the yards of the burgages on either side. Matthew, the steward of the house, was hovering around, looking lost and anxious, and John beckoned him nearer.

'Where does this lane go?' he demanded.

The servant, a middle-aged fellow with a bad turn in his eye, seemed to stare directly at both Gwyn and the coroner simultaneously.

'It goes past burgage plots and vegetable gardens through to St Mary Arches Lane, sir. Beyond that is St Nicholas Priory and the warren of Bretayne.'

De Wolfe cursed under his breath. From there, the whole of the bottom quarter of the city was accessible.

In the squalor of Bretayne, no one would look twice at a man stumbling along at night with a drunken friend — or even a corpse.

'What about a hound, master?' asked Thomas, as usual having the quickest mind amongst them. 'Could not a lymer sniff out a human quarry, if he is given something with his scent upon it?'

A lymer was one of the several types of hunting dog, the breed with the keenest nose, as opposed to the greyhound, which hunted by sight. John looked at Gwyn questioningly, as neither of them had thought of this novel idea.

'We've got the hat he wore last night, with his blood upon it,' said the coroner. 'Do you think it would work?'

'What dog could we use?' asked Gwyn, then his broad face lit up. 'Your Brutus, why not? He was a grand old lymer when he was younger, and there's nothing wrong with his snout even now.

The Cornishman was a great dog-lover, and they seemed to respond to him in a similar fashion. A few moments later, he was hurrying back down North Street and soon he had returned with the long-legged brown hound, taken from the coroner's house under Mary's astonished gaze.

John had explained to the two ladies what they were going to try and when Brutus arrived, he stuffed the foppish hat under the dog's nose, hoping that his old hound would grasp what was required.

The animal seemed delighted at this novel outing, which was a change from his usual walk down to the Bush tavern. When Gwyn called him into the lane and set off through the garden plots, he loped ahead in a determined way, stopping every few yards to sniff the weeds and fence posts on either side.

'He's going somewhere, bless him,' yelled Gwyn, as he hurried to keep up with the dog, with the coroner, his clerk and the steward trotting along behind.

At the end of the path, they came out on to a wider lane which came from Fore Street past St Mary Arches church and wound around the compound of St Nicholas Priory, where the few Benedictine monks kept a large vegetable garden in addition to their devotional tasks.

Brutus sniffed deeply at a bush on the corner, then cocked his leg against it, before ambling off with the diagonal gait that so many long-legged dogs possessed.

Beyond the priory wall there were no more dwellings, as the city wall loomed ahead, and the land up to the wall for a considerable distance in each direction was taken up by garden plots, some overgrown and neglected. The hound suddenly stopped and raised his muzzle as if sniffing for inspiration. Gwyn caught up with him and held the cap to Brutus's nose to reinforce the reason for their game. The hound lifted one of his forepaws as he took a final sniff, then shook himself and set off more slowly into the rough ground, where old onion beds, coarse grass and nettles had died back for the winter.

'Where's he off to now, Gwyn?' called de Wolfe.

'Maybe he's just got the whiff of a rat, but he seems to know where he's going,' replied the officer, proud of the performance so far of his canine friend. Brutus pushed his way through the frost-shrivelled weeds of a neglected plot and then slowed down and stopped. With his neck outstretched and a forepaw again delicately raised, he gave a throaty growl, then looked up enquiringly at Gwyn.

'I reckon he's telling us something, Crowner,' said Gwyn. 'What's that ahead of us, at the foot of the wall?' The others came up to stand behind the now wary hound and looked at where Gwyn was pointing. The town wall, built of Saxon and Norman stones on top of the original Roman base, was only about a dozen feet high here, as beyond it the ground dropped off suddenly into Northernhay. Away to the fight were the towers of the North Gate and on the left, the wall sloped down past St Bartholomew's churchyard towards the river.

Along the inside of the wall were a few ramshackle huts, little more than shelters for those who worked the many plots that filled the areas where there were no houses. Some were derelict and unused, though a few beggars and homeless poor sometimes camped out in them for want of better lodging. The nearest was no more than six feet square, built of panels of mouldering woven hazel withies, covered by a lean-to roof of tattered reed thatch, the upper end of which rested against the town wall.

'Let's have a look in there, anyway,' growled de Wolfe. 'It may only be a badger or a fox that's upset old Brutus.'

They walked cautiously across the waste ground, the dog now keeping to Gwyn's heels. As they got nearer, John could see that the closed end of the hut faced them, so presumably the entrance was on the opposite side. Both the coroner and his officer drew their swords as a precaution, and Thomas and the steward dropped back, being unwilling to become involved in any possible violence.

'Anyone in there?' yelled' Gwyn in a voice that could be heard over half the city. He did not really expect a response and was startled to hear a harsh voice reply from inside the shack.

'Keep away, damn you — or I'll kill him now!' Eyebrows raised in surprise, de Wolfe motioned to Gwyn to stay where he was, whilst he himself moved quietly around the hut until he could see into the open end, keeping a dozen paces away from it.

'I said stay away, or he'll get it now,' came the same voice, tense and high-pitched with fear and defiance. It was indeed Geoffrey Trove, for now John recognised him as the man from the guild meeting. He was leaning against the stones of the wall, the only place where the sloping roof was high enough for him to stand upright. At his feet was the body of a man, stretched out on the ground, with a sack over his head. From the ornate embroidery around the bottom of the green tunic, John had no doubt that the figure was that of his brother-in-law, though whether dead or alive, he could not tell.

'You are the ironworker called Geoffrey Trove?' snapped the coroner. 'Come out of there and give yourself into custody at once!'

There was a laugh, harsh and hysterical from the swarthy journeyman. 'Not a chance, coroner! I've outwitted you four times already and I'll do it again. Another step nearer and this thieving bastard gets his throat cut.'

Geoffrey bent and pulled off the sack, revealing Richard's face, dried blood crusted on his forehead and cheek. He was conscious, but a length of cloth was tied over his mouth as an effective gag, and cords secured his ankles and wrists. His captor brandished a long dagger and John, knowing Trove's lack of compunction in killing and attacking defenceless people, was prepared to believe his present threat.

'You can never get away with this,' he barked, but stopped moving towards the open end of the shelter.

Gwyn had moved to stand alongside him and both held their swords at the slope, ready to dash forwards if the crazy metalworker made any move to strike de Revelle.

'What is it you are hoping to gain by this foolishness?' yelled the coroner. 'You cannot escape, there's nowhere for you to hide now.'

'I have a hostage, unless I decide to kill him,' called Trove, dimly seen in the dark hut. 'I want safe conduct to a church, God knows there are plenty of those near here.'

'The swine wants to seek sanctuary and then abjure the realm,' exclaimed Gwyn. 'Some hope, after all the crimes he's committed.'

John was not so sure that the size of the crime affected the right to sanctuary, unless it was sacrilege. If any fugitive gained a church, or even its churchyard, he could claim forty days' immunity from arrest and then, if he confessed, the right to go to a port and take ship out of England. The irony would be that Trove's confession would have to be taken by a coroner, in this case, the husband of the woman he had attacked! First, Trove had to reach a church, and John was damned if he was going to get the opportunity.

'Not a chance, Trove!' he shouted back. 'You'll never get ten paces away from that hut with your prisoner, let alone to the nearest church. Is he still alive after that wicked blow you gave him with your precious rod of iron?'

For answer, Trove gave the inert figure a kick and then hauled Richard's head from the ground by the hair. There was a groan and as de Wolfe inched nearer, he saw that de Revelle's eyes were rolling wildly, though the gag prevented him from calling out.

'He's alive all right, though only you coming along stopped me using this on him!' Trove reached down and picked up something from the floor, which he brandished at those outside. John saw it was another of the infernal machines for firing small iron arrows.

'Now he's my bargaining counter for my freedom, Crowner! Make up your mind quickly, who is it you want dead — me or your brother-in-law?'

'Shoot the bastard, for all we care,' muttered Gwyn, but he was careful not to utter the words loudly enough for the man to hear.

'This is madness, Trove!' said de Wolfe in exasperation, beginning to edge forwards towards the hut, lifting his sword a little as he went. 'My officer and I will cut you down the moment you set foot out of that hovel. Throw down those weapons now and let's have an end to this.'

This made no impression on the beleaguered man.

Knowing that unless he could gain sanctuary, his life was forfeit whether he surrendered or fought it out, he had nothing to lose.

'If you come a step nearer, I'll shoot you with my master-work,' he threatened, hefting the miniature crossbow in one hand. 'It's drawn back and the bolt's in place, all I need do is pull the trigger. I'll not miss this time — that damned weaver was lucky in that he stumbled at the privy door.'

The prospect of eight inches of iron rod being projected into his chest caused John to stop moving and he stood in the wilted nettles, frustrated by the deadlocked situation. He looked across at Gwyn for inspiration.

'I'll go and get more men, Crowner,' said the Comishman in a loud voice and gave a knowing wink.

He moved away, back past the hut, scuffing his feet noisily until he was a score of yards away. Then he stopped and waited, well out of sight of Geoffrey Trove.

De Wolfe forced himself not to look in Gwyn's direction and called again to the man in the shack to divert his attention.

'Why did you kill all those innocent guildsmen, Trove?'

'You know damn well, Crowner! They conspired against me to deprive me of a decent living. I am a skilled worker and fully deserving of becoming my own master. They were jealous of me and wanted to keep me out of their cosy little society. After all I've suffered, that was the final insult.'

'You killed them by such cruel means, damn you. They didn't deserve that,' snarled the coroner, anxious to keep the man's attention distracted.

'For ruining my life? Of course they did! I stalked them one by one, they were as unsuspecting as sheep coming to slaughter.'

Out of the comer of his eye, De Wolfe sensed Gwyn slowly creeping towards the back of the hut, putting each foot down carefully to avoid any noise. John carried on with his diversionary tactics.

'Why so angry with de Revelle and Pomeroy, then?' The figure inside the shack gave Richard another kick.

'The bastards! For the second time, my attempts at settling down to a decent trade were ruined by them. I had to leave Plymouth on some trumped-up accusation of stealing another man's tools, so I took another name and set up as a blacksmith and farrier in Hempston. A lowly job for a craftsman like me, but I could have made a success of it as the first step. Then those sods stole the manor and in my temper, I joined with de Arundell against them — and got outlawed for my pains.'

Gwyn had moved nearer to the back of the hut now.

John was half afraid that Brutus, who had been lying down watching the proceedings with interest, might get up and run barking to his big ginger friend, but thankfully he seemed to sense that he should stay where he was.

'So why leave Sir Nicholas, after having been loyal to him against the men from Berry Pomeroy?' he called, still intent on keeping Trove's attention.

'Ha! A fine reward I had for my loyalty. Life on the moor was bad enough, but then one of those louts picked a fight with me and I had to defend myself with a knife. He hardly had a scratch, but I got the blame, so I told them all to go to hell and left them to rot.'

'You came into Exeter, an outlaw?' queried John, still intently watching Trove's grip on both his dagger and his crossbow.

'Nothing to it, if you're careful. I paid some clerk to write me a testimonial from an imaginary ironmaster in Bristol and got a journeyman's post on Exe Island, nearly three years ago now. If it hadn't been for those Godrotten guildsmen, I could have become a master and gone to another city to set up my own business.'

De Wolfe had now lost sight of Gwyn, who had vanished behind the back end of the hut. Then covertly looking under his lowered bushy eyebrows, he saw a hand come up above the further end of the roof and give a wave. Resolutely, he raised his sword and began walking towards the open end of the crude shack. He saw Richard wriggling on the ground, his eyes bulging with terror, faint noises coming from under the gag as he tried to shout or scream.

'Keep back, I say, damn you!' roared Geoffrey, as he ducked his head and moved to the middle of the hut to face the advancing coroner. 'I've three more of these bolts for those others, after I've dispatched you.' He raised the hand that held the device, a dagger still clutched in the other. John gritted his teeth and prepared to duck one way or the other as the bolt flew free. It had almost missed the weaver and it was a matter of chance which way he should swerve, depending on how inaccurate the flight of the missile would be.

'Not another step or I'll let fly!' screamed Trove, instinctively backing to the rear of the shed as the fearsome knight with the long sword continued to advance.

There was a twang and John threw himself down and to his right, hoping to God that the crossbow device was not biased to that side as well. Simultaneously he heard an agonised scream, and as he picked himself up from the weeds he feared that Geoffrey had also carried out his promise to cut Richard's throat. But his brother-in-law was gagged, so how could he have screamed? Staggering to his feet, hoping that Trove could not reload the bow that quickly, he launched himself at the doorway and in the confusion of the moment, was bemused to find himself crashing into Geoffrey, who seemed to crumple out of the opening against his own body.

John had no opportunity to raise his yard of steel as the man was fight on top of him: he half expected to feel Trove's dagger drive between his ribs. But the man just slid down his front to the floor and lay twitching on the ground, a wide red stain spreading across the back of his cloak.

Seconds later, Gwyn thundered around the hut and gazed in satisfaction at the body at their feet.

'Got the bastard! Are you all right, Crowner, I left it a bit late?'

An hour later, a cluster of men were gathered on the waste ground where the drama had taken place. As soon as it had ended, John had sent Thomas off at a limping trot to reassure Matilda and Eleanor that Richard was alive, if somewhat battered. Then he carried on to Rougemont to notify the sheriff, before going to Raden Lane to request the presence of Nicholas de Arundell, who would not yet have left for his repossessed manor.

At the same time, Matthew the steward hurried to fetch the apothecary Richard Lustcote to attend to Richard de Revelle.

'Saving your worthless life is getting to be a habit,' grumbled John as he used his dagger to cut through the tightened knot that held the gag in place, then the bonds on his limbs. They had dragged his brother-in-law out of the shack into the daylight, leaving the corpse of Geoffrey Trove spread-eagled across the threshold.

As soon as de Revelle's mouth was free, he gave a wail, which seemed to be a combination of relief, self-pity and pain. 'My head. Oh Christ, my head,' he moaned, and indeed, the state of his scalp was not a pleasant sight, as his hair was plastered with dried blood on one side, crusty streaks of it running down his face. They propped him sitting up against the city wall and when he calmed down sufficiently to speak sensibly, there was little useful he could tell them.

'I recall nothing after walking along North Street on my way home from … well, from the New Inn.' He seemed evasive about where he had been, but de Wolfe had not the slightest interest in that.

'After a good knock on the head, the wits before the blow often seem to vanish as well,' observed Gwyn cheerly.

'When did you recover them?' demanded de Wolfe.

Now that it seemed unlikely that Richard was going to die or even suffer any lasting effects, he felt little sympathy for his brother-in-law, especially after the cowardly performance he had put up in his trial by combat.

'I don't know. Sometime during the night, it was dark.' He groaned again and put up a hand and tentatively felt around the gash in his scalp. 'I was already bound and gagged. I had no notion of where I was until dawn came and I saw that foul hut and that swine standing over me, calling me obscene names and telling me with relish what he was going to do to me.' The apothecary came at that point and after feeling Richard's pulse, looking into his eyes and gently palpating his head, declared him fit to be taken home, where he would bathe and dress his scalp wound. Soon Matthew returned with a couple of men lugging a detached door to use as a stretcher, and the former sheriff was carried away, still moaning piteously.

'Let's have a good look at this murdering devil,' decided de Wolfe, and with Gwyn he dragged Trove out of the hut by his arms. One of them had strips of soiled linen wrapped around it, under which was a festering but healing cut. That was of little consequence compared to the wound in the middle of his back, just to one side of his spine.

'I don't like striking a man in the back, it's not fair play,' boomed the Cornishman. 'But I heard him threatening to skewer you with that infernal machine of his, so I reckoned that I'd better act fastl' He ripped Geoffrey's bloodstained tunic from his shoulders and exposed a two-inch wide slit over his ribs, from which oozed dark red blood. 'I felt him move against the wattle wall, so I jammed my sword blade between the withies and pushed like hell. He must have moved away, for I was almost up to the hilt before I hit him.'

'That's another one I owe you for, Gwyn,' said John, slapping his friend on the shoulder in a rare gesture of affection. 'I thought that bloody arrow might have hit me somewhere, but probably you stuck him just as he was letting fly.'

They were examining the 'infernal machine' when voices and the tramp of feet along the path heralded the sheriff, Sergeant Gabriel, two men-at-arms and Sir Nicholas de Arundell. They came and stood in a ring around the body, while John regaled them with what had happened.

'Is this the man that was once with you in Hempston?' he asked, as Gwyn rolled the body over to lie face up.

Nicholas bent to look, then nodded. 'That's James de Pessy, as we knew him. Our blacksmith, though he was adept at making all kinds of objects. A useful man, if he hadn't had that vicious streak in him.' Henry de Furnellis prodded the corpse with the toe of his boot. 'I wonder why he didn't just kill de Revelle in his yard, instead of clouting him?'

'And how did he get him here from his house?' added Nicholas.

John looked at the powerful frame of the ironworker as it lay outstretched like some hateful crucifixion. 'He must have carried him in his arms; he's a strong man and Richard is only a dapper little fellow.'

'But why keep him alive in this damned hut?' asked the sheriff. 'That could only increase the risks.' De Wolfe rubbed at the dark stubble on his cheeks.

'I think he intended to kill him at the end, but was hedging his bets. He took him as a hostage, as he plainly boasted to me. Mad as he was, he didn't wish to be caught for a certain hanging.'

Would you really have let him get to sanctuary, as he wished?' asked Nicholas.

De Wolfe shrugged. 'He had a knife ready to slit de Revelle's throat. My wife would never forgive me if I let that happen! It was only because I knew Gwyn was in position on the other side of that wattle panel that I took the risk of rushing him.'

After the fraught events of the past few days, a sense of anticlimax suddenly seemed to descend on them.

Then John looked down at Brutus, who was lying quietly, watching them with his big head resting on his outstretched paws.

'There's the hero of the hour,' he said fondly. 'Without his nose, we'd never have found them and that bastard might well have got away with it.'

The old hound rose and ambled across, putting his slobbering muzzle into John's outstretched hand. He looked up as if to say, 'It was nothing really, master!'