The Noble Outlaw

CHAPTER THREE

Next morning, the coroner was obliged to attend the Tuesday hangings, to record the event and officially to seize the property of the four felons, which was forfeit to the Crown. The executions were held outside the city at Heavitree, where the gallows stood along Magdalene Street, one of the main roads going eastwards.

Thomas was there to scribe the details on his parchment sheets, and as usual Gwyn followed in the shadow of his master, partly as bodyguard, but mainly as assistant and companion, as he had done for twenty years in Irish rain, French mists and Levantine sunshine.

After the wretched victims had dropped from the crossbar of the high scaffold with ropes around their necks, the coroner's team made their way back to the South Gate and de Wolfe strode reluctantly towards his house, aggrieved that no legal emergency had cropped up to use as an excuse to avoid dinner with his brother-in-law. He heard Richard de Revelle' s braying voice as soon as he entered the vestibule and groaned as he lifted the latch of the hall and went inside.

Richard was sitting in John's chair near the hearth, drinking their best wine from one of the glass goblets that were brought out only on special occasions. Matilda, in her best brocade kirtle, sat opposite and scowled at her husband as he entered.

'You're late, John. I've had to tell Mary to wait before serving the food.'

'Well, I'm here now. Some of us have duties to attend to,' he retorted, with a meaningful nod at her brother.

He went to a side table and poured himself some wine, pointedly using a pottery cup instead of one of the heavy glasses he had bought at considerable cost in France some years earlier. 'Matilda tells me you had something to discuss with me, Richard,' he grunted.

'Let that rest until we have eaten,' commanded his wife, as Mary came in with a wooden tray bearing a boiled duck. They came to the table and began eating, today using pewter plates instead of the usual bread trenchers. Bowls of cabbage, onions and beans were brought in from the kitchen shed, together with a large jug of a different wine. The courteous Richard cut slices from the plump bird with his knife and placed them on his sister's platter before serving himself, leaving John to fend for himself.

As de Wolfe had recently ruined de Revelle's political ambitions and come within a whisker of having him arrested and possibly hanged, it was hardly surprising that the atmosphere was strained. However, the former sheriff was beholden to John several times over, and he could not afford to be too openly antagonistic to the coroner, especially as de Wolfe still had enough evidence to have him indicted for treason over Richard's support for the rebellious Prince John.

They began eating in a state of muted truce, the dapper Richard making some small talk, largely with his sister, leaving John to chew undisturbed and to regard their visitor from under his black eyebrows. He saw a slight man of average height, with wavy brown hair and a small pointed beard which made his face look triangular. Like his sister, Richard had rather small brown eyes, which darted restlessly around, giving him a shifty appearance that matched what John knew of his nature. But what most drew the attention was the splendour of his dress, for though he was not as showy as John's trading partner, Hugh de Relaga, de Revelle had expensive tastes in costume. He wore a calf-length tunic of the best green linen, heavily embroidered around the neck and hem with gold thread, and, clinching his waist, a wide belt of elaborately tooled leather. Over these he wore an open surcoat of fine yellow wool, while on a hook behind the screens hung a further defence against the chill of winter, a heavy, fur-lined mantle of blue cloth. As they ate, Richard regaled his sister with details of the house he had just bought in the city.

'In an excellent district, of course,' he brayed. Just inside the North Gate, with a hall, a solar and two extra rooms.'

'Starting another school, are you?' observed John with heavy sarcasm. Impervious to the jibe, de Revelle explained that he needed somewhere to stay in the city when he was attending to his various business interests in Exeter, his manors at Tiverton and Revelstoke being far away at opposite ends of Devon. The fact that he no longer had quarters in Rougemont because he had been ejected in disgrace, was carefully avoided.

When they had eaten a dessert of stewed figs imported from Provence and sampled Mary's bread and cheese, they returned to the wine and the problem that Richard had brought.

'It's this damned corpse found in my new school in the lower town,' he began in his rather effeminate, high-pitched voice. 'I gather that you are dealing with the matter, John?'

'I'm the only coroner in Exeter, so I have little choice,' growled de Wolfe.

'Then I trust that you will settle the case with the utmost speed and discretion. Such unwelcome publicity can do nothing but harm to my venture there.'

'I'll do what I have to do, Richard. No more nor no less than my duty.'

Brother and sister exchanged looks loaded with exasperation at this unhelpful attitude, but John was damned if he was going to do any special favours for this rogue who was only interested in his own profit.

'I swear this corpse was put there deliberately to embarrass me and spoil my efforts to bring some more culture to this city,' whined Richard. 'Both potential students and prominent families who are considering enrolling their sons can only be discouraged by such goings-on.'

'Are you accusing the masters of your rival schools as the culprits?' asked John mischievously. 'Maybe this famous poet Joseph Iscanus slew the fellow and dragged him up into your loft?'

'Don't be so ridiculous, husband. Listen to what my brother is telling you,' snapped Matilda. 'This death is an embarrassment to Richard and can only do a disservice to both him and the progress of education in this city,' she added pompously.

'Iscanus is a good teacher,' said Richard condescendingly. 'I only hope that our new establishment can match his excellence, given time. If we can all urge more students to enrol, then Exeter could come to rival Oxford.'

Remembering the main reason for his visit, he changed the subject. 'Have you made no progress at all in clearing up the death of this damned intruder into my school?' he demanded.

De Wolfe grunted into his wine cup, his usual response to being nagged. 'We don't even know who the fellow was, yet. Have you any idea how he came to be in your property?'

'He must have been hidden there to cause us trouble,' claimed de Revelle.

'But I'm told you acquired the place only at Michaelmas,' countered John.

Richard shook his head stubbornly. 'I'll wager he wasn't there when we took over. Depend on it, he was dumped there deliberately.'

The coroner shrugged. 'And who would want to have done a thing like that, for God's sake?'

'I know one, for a start,' replied Richard, darkly. 'The man who has been plaguing me for many months, damn him.'

John waited for an explanation. His brother-in-law had a legion of enemies and he wondered which one would be chosen this time.

'That thrice-cursed outlaw from Cornwall, I'll wager he's behind this,' snarled Richard. 'That bloody Arundell fellow.'

John pricked up his ears. 'Arundell? Which one is that? There were several of that name out in Palestine when I was there.'

'They're scattered all over the West Country like a swarm of flies,' grumbled de Revelle. 'William of Normandy should never have given them so much land after Hastings, they became a plague on the country.'

'Which one, I said?' snapped John impatiently. If a fellow Crusader was involved, he wanted to know about it.

'Nicholas, who used to hold Hempston Arundell years ago, though he should have stayed with the rest of the barbarians in Cornwall.'

De Wolfe shook his head. 'I don't know of a Nicholas from my time in the Holy Land. But Hempston is near Totnes, isn't it?'

De Revelle nodded his elegant head. 'A dismal little manor next to Henry Pomeroy's lands.' He seemed to John to become suddenly evasive.

'So why should he want to harm you? What have you done to him?' he demanded.

Richard waved a be-ringed hand dismissively. 'It's a long story, John. Suffice it to say that he has threatened me a number of times and tried to bring an action against me in the courts. But of course, an outlaw has no legal existence, so he has no chance of that, unless he wants to lose his head.'

He refused to enlarge upon the issue and John guessed that he had swindled this Arundell out of something. He was not sufficiently interested to press his brother-in-law further, so Richard repeated his earlier request.

'I trust you, and that senile sheriff we have now, will clear up this mystery with the utmost speed. I can expect little from de Furnellis, but I hope that you will do all you can to settle the matter before it becomes the talk of Devon.'

John stood up, his bench grating on the flagstones. 'I'll do what I can, as always. But you have no idea at all who this dead man might be?' When Richard shook his head, de Wolfe persisted. 'You are always parading about the county between your manors, have you heard of anyone going missing this past half-year?'

John, I have better things to occupy me than listening to gossip, other than that concerning the gentry of this county.' De Revelle was an even bigger snob than his sister.

'This man was no beggar or serf, he wore good clothing, so he need not have been beneath your notice,' said John, sarcastically.

His brother-in-law had the grace to look a little abashed. 'I still have no notion of who he might have been. Perhaps you can stir your sheriff into enquiring amongst the tithings and the serjeants of the Hundreds, to see if anyone has gone missing?'

De Wolfe began backing towards the door. 'That is being done, but somehow I suspect he is a townsman rather than a villager.'

Matilda glared at his retreating figure. 'Are you leaving so early, husband? Can you not stay to entertain our guest longer?'

Reaching the screens, he raised his hand in a perfunctory farewell. 'I have urgent business at the castle. This morning's business at the gallows has put me behind, I must go.'

Before more protests could be made, he marched out of the door, grabbed his boots and cloak from the vestibule, and made a hurried getaway into the street.

The chapter house of Exeter cathedral was a timber structure built just outside the massive south tower. It was an old building, now indisputably inadequate for housing both the chamber on the ground floor where the canons daily debated their business, as well as the scriptorium and archives on the upper level. The bishop had promised to donate part of the nearby palace garden for a new building in stone, but so far it was still no more than a drawing on a sheet of parchment.

It was to the scriptorium that Thomas made his way that afternoon, climbing the wooden stairs in the corner of the bare chapter house with joy in his heart. A born academic, he loved both the Church and its historical accoutrements, so to him the steps up to this dusty library were like the first flight of a stairway to heaven. After two years in the wilderness following his unfrocking, to be legitimately returned to the fold and also to have the run of the books and manuscripts in the archives was paradise on earth. When recently he had been restored in Winchester to the priesthood, one of the conditions was that he should be found some ecclesiastical employment, so his uncle John de Alencon, Archdeacon of Exeter, had arranged some part-time jobs for him. As well as teaching young choristers to read and write, Thomas was to begin cataloguing the cathedral archives, which over the years had declined into a disorganised jumble of manuscripts. This was a delight to Thomas, for he could spend as much time as he liked reading them, as well as the several score valuable books which were chained around the walls.

Today, however, he had an added motive in spending a few hours in the chapter house, as he wanted to discover if anyone there had any idea of the identity of their most recent corpse. There were usually a few people in the scriptorium, either laboriously copying old papers or researching some obscure point of canon law. Exeter was one of the nine secular cathedrals in England, staffed by canons and their minions, so there were no monks there, only various grades of cleric like Thomas himself. These were at least as prone to gossip as the butcher or baker, and Thomas had no difficulty in getting them talking, albeit in low tones so as not to disturb the couple of old prebendaries who were dozing at their desks.

Adept at worming out information without giving rise to suspicion, the little clerk spent the whole afternoon interrogating a pair of vicars, three parish priests and an old canon who spent most of his time in the scriptorium because of the pleasant warmth given off by the stone chimney that came up from the hearth in the chamber beneath. Thomas had hoped that one of them might have had parishioners who had vanished or perhaps had known of a missing member of the congregation from one of the twenty-seven churches in the city. In addition, though the confessional was sacrosanct, priests were known when amongst themselves to let drop anonymous information, but perhaps this was too much to expect. In the event, his afternoon was wasted, as absolutely nothing turned up that might shed any light on the identity of the unknown corpse. John could only hope that Gwyn would have better fortune than Thomas de Peyne.

In fact, his officer's attempts at gaining information were not only more successful, but much more exciting than the clerk's placid hours in the cathedral scriptorium. The big Cornishman had spent the afternoon and early part of the evening making a tour of Exeter's taverns. Having at least one large jar of ale in each, by twilight a lesser man would have sunk unconscious into the gutter, but Gwyn's iron head and large bladder could deal with prodigious quantities of drink without much effect upon him. But a couple of hours after nightfall, he had still learned nothing of any use and he decided to make his way in the icy moonlight back down to the Bush to report his failure to his master. On his way down Smythen Street, where their problem had begun, he resolved to make one last call and carried on down towards Stepcote Hill, a lane leading down towards the West Gate and so steep that it was terraced to offer safe footing. At its top was the most disreputable alehouse in the city, the Saracen. A haunt of thieves, whores and assorted villains, the tavern was run by Willem the Fleming, an obese giant almost as big as Gwyn, who ruled his disorderly house by sheer physical force. Gwyn rarely went there except when there was an affray or a murder, not only because he represented unwelcome law and order, but also because the ale was so foul compared with Nesta's brew.

Tonight he ducked under the low lintel of the front door, above which was painted a crude representation of a Moorish head, complete with turban. Inside, the taproom was foul with smoke from the central firepit, its odour mixed with the stench of unwashed bodies, spilt ale and the miasma rising from month-old rushes rotting on the floor. A pair of stray dogs competed with rats in searching for old food scraps dropped beneath the rickety tables, at which drunken patrons sat with a few raucous whores. The rest of the room was filled with rough-looking men who stood drinking, shouting and arguing, when they were not pinching the bottoms and bosoms of the three slatterns who pushed through the crowd bearing large jugs to refill empty pots.

Gwyn got himself a mug of cider, which was slightly more palatable than the ale, ignoring the hostile looks of some men who recognised him as the coroner's officer. Picking on an older man sitting alone against the wall, he began a conversation about the weather and then the iniquities of rising prices until he felt able to bring the talk around to missing persons in the city. He soon discovered he was wasting his time with the taciturn fellow and moved on to try the same ploy with others. His efforts fell on equally barren soil and he was about to give up in disgust and go to the Bush, when he felt a hand grip him roughly by the shoulder.

'Why the hell are you asking all these questions, man?' snarled a voice. Turning, Gwyn saw a big black-bearded fellow, whose scarred face seemed vaguely familiar, though he could not put a name to him.

'What's it to you? Unless you've got some answers for me!' responded Gwyn, not a man to take kindly to being spoken to in that tone.

'Bloody spy, that's what you are,' spat Blackbeard. 'I know who you are — the crowner's nark, nosing your way in here like this.' He raised his fist in a threatening gesture and shook it under Gwyn's large nose.

Gwyn, who was always partial to a fight to liven up the evening, pushed the fellow in the chest. Large as he was, Blackbeard staggered back under the thrust of a hand the size of a horse's hoof. Though fights were almost an hourly event in the Saracen, this one promised to be better than the usual run of squabbles, as it involved a red-haired Goliath and their own pugnacious tavern-champion.

The patrons rapidly scattered to form a ring around the combatants and began yelling encouragement at Blackbeard, advising him to tear off the law officer's head. Though Gwyn was unusually large, the other man was also heavily built and a decade younger, as well as evidently being the possessor of an evil temper. He rushed back at the Cornishman, fists flailing, and landed one heavy blow on his upper belly and a sideswipe at Gwyn's lantern jaw. For all the effect it had, Blackbeard might as well have punched the stone wall opposite. Almost lazily, the coroner's officer reached out and repaid him with an open-handed slap across the side of the head, which sent him reeling.

'I don't want to hurt you, son,' growled Gwyn. 'So for God's sake, stop irritating me!'

Now livid with rage and humiliation, Blackbeard began mouthing invective at the ginger giant as he regained his feet and crouched in preparation for another assault. He was encouraged by renewed yells of support from the tipsy spectators, and especially the frenzied screams of the strumpets, who seemed near-orgasmic at the prospect of blood. One of them wore the red wig and striped gown of a Southwark prostitute, being for some reason far from her home territory. This time, the resident fighter managed to land a heavy blow on Gwyn's face, making blood spurt from his nose, and this so annoyed the coroner's officer that he grabbed Blackbeard by the throat and shook him like a dog shakes a rat.

'Will you stop your bloody nonsense, man?' exploded Gwyn, exasperated now at this uncalled-for provocation. 'All I was asking was whether anyone here knew of someone gone missing in the city these past few months.'

His adversary was incapable of speech with Gwyn's massive hand clamped around his throat, though as his face went blue, he continued to thrash his arms and legs in a futile attempt to land some blows. Seeing their champion getting the worst of the contest, the crowd began to quieten, but one moderately sober man, wearing a blood-stained butcher's apron, challenged Gwyn.

'Why d'you want to know that, ginger? What business is it of yours?' he called aggressively.

Gwyn flung Blackbeard back, so that he again staggered into the arms of the spectators behind him. Turning to the butcher, Gwyn bellowed an answer. 'Because we want to know the name of the corpse found in the forge just up the street. After all, he was a neighbour of yours, albeit as dead as mutton!'

Instead of replying, the butcher suddenly pointed behind Gwyn. Swinging round, he saw that Blackbeard was running at him again, this time waving a wicked-looking knife that he must have snatched from his belt.

'Oh Christ, not again,' muttered Gwyn, just having time to kick the man in the crotch as he came within reach. He grabbed his knife arm and wrenched it up and back, extracting a scream of pain as the shoulder dislocated, pain that merged into the agony of having his genitals hammered by a large boot. This time Blackbeard went down and stayed down, curled into a ball and moaning as he tried to clutch simultaneously his nether regions and his injured shoulder.

The crowd now seemed divided between those who resented their man being defeated by an outsider and those who felt that drawing a knife on an unarmed opponent was unsporting. Gwyn felt it diplomatic to leave, especially as the uncouth landlord, Willem the Fleming, was pushing his way through the throng, intent on restoring order with a large club that he kept near the ale casks.

Gwyn shoved his way through to the street door, went out into the cold night air and crossed the narrow street to where Idle Lane went off at right angles. On the corner, he stopped to wipe the blood from his nose with the back of his hand, hawking and spitting out some that had trickled down into his throat. He chuckled at the memory of the brief fight, as he had felt that recently life had been getting too staid, with little to get the pulses racing.

As he gave a final sniff, he suddenly heard a footstep behind him. He whirled around in case someone from the Saracen had decided to pursue him with retribution in mind. With fist half-raised, Gwyn peered in the wan light of the gibbous moon and saw a small man of indeterminate age, swaddled in a dark cloak, a woollen cap on his head, the tasselled point hanging over one ear.

'Who the hell are you? Are you following me?' he growled. The fellow looked on closer inspection to be well past middle age and seemed an unlikely assailant.

'I heard what you said in the alehouse just now. I know you for the squire of Sir John de Wolfe and I might have some information for him.' Gwyn peered more closely and saw a pair of sharp eyes glinting in a lined face free of any beard or moustache.

'What sort of information? Who are you anyway?'

'I am Waiter Pole, a harness maker from St Mary Arches. You were asking about persons who have gone missing from the city and I may be able to help you.'

Gwyn gripped Walter by the shoulder. 'We can't talk out here, it's as cold as a witch's womb! If you'll walk a few hundred paces with me to the Bush tavern, you'll be able to tell your story to Sir John himself.'

Gwyn displayed the harness maker to the coroner with a proprietary air, as if he had manufactured the fellow himself for de Wolfe's edification.

'This is Walter Pole, Crowner. He says he has something useful to tell us about our corpse,' he announced, as they stood before John's table in the taproom of the Bush.

De Wolfe's long face glowered up at the new arrival, but he waved him down to a bench opposite and beckoned to Edwin to bring Waiter a jar of ale. Glad to be near the fire and out of the biting cold outside, the craftsman lowered himself gratefully on to the seat and pulled off his pointed cap, revealing a shock of wiry grey hair.

'So what's this you've got to say to me about the dead man in Smythen Street?' demanded John. He had already decided that Pole had an honest face and might be worth listening to.

'I think I might know who he is, Crowner,' began the harness maker, taking a swallow of the ale that the potman had placed before him. 'Or at least, I can tell you about someone who's gone missing from the city.'

De Wolfe's black eyebrows climbed up his forehead. 'Indeed? Who is he — and why has no one noticed his absence before this?'

'I'm talking about Matthew Morcok, a former master saddler, sir. He had given up his trade due to bad health, almost a twelve-month ago.'

'So why has no one raised a hue and cry about his disappearance?' asked John. 'Had he no wife or family to question his whereabouts?'

Walter Pole shook his head firmly. 'That's the point, Crowner. He had been a widower these many years and had no children except a married daughter living away in Oxford. Morcok lived a solitary life in a small house in Priest Street and kept very much to himself.'

'Didn't his neighbours miss him?' said Gwyn, hovering over the table.

Waiter sighed into his ale. 'To tell the truth, Matthew was not a very sociable person and Priest Street is not very neighbourly, with so many different clerks and suchlike coming and going all the time. I suspect he had snubbed those few who tried to befriend him, so they kept well clear.'

'So how is it that you happen to know all this?' snapped de Wolfe.

'I worked for him for ten years, first as a journeyman, then as a partner. We had a workshop in Rock Street, making leather accoutrements for horses and oxen. When he gave up due to ill health, I bought his share in the business.'

'What sort of ill health did he suffer?'

Walter shrugged and turned his hands palms up. 'God alone knows its nature, sir. But he began shuffling as he walked and had a spasmodic twitch of the head. His fingers were always working, as if he was rolling pills between them.'

Gwyn broke in again. 'I remember seeing such a man about the streets a year or so back. Did he lean forwards as he walked as if he was going to fall on his face at every step?'

Waiter nodded in agreement. 'That he did! But his mind was clear, even if his speech wasn't. He could get about well enough, but his disability made him shun the company of others, which is why he hasn't been missed.'

De Wolfe gave one of his grunts, which could signify almost anything. 'So how is that you know he vanished? And when was this?'

'As I worked with him for so long, I tried to keep in touch, though even with me he was distant in his manner. I think he was so conscious of his ailments that he wanted to be left alone. But as he had been so active in the Guild of Leatherworkers, I usually went down to see him after a guild meeting to keep him abreast of what was being discussed — not that he seemed that interested.'

'And the last time?' asked John, striving to conceal his impatience at the long-windedness of Waiter Pole.

'Soon after Midsummer's Day, it must have been. I called upon him and tried to be sociable, but he was in his usual sour mood. Then I went again after the guild meeting at Michaelmas, but I got no answer at his house. I went back a few days later, but again I had no reply, the place was all shut up.'

'Was that the last time you tried?' said the coroner.

'No, I went down to Priest Street again a few weeks ago, but still no sign of him. I asked a couple of neighbours, but they said they hadn't laid eyes on him for months. Mind you, several of them had only been there that long themselves, there are so many lodging houses in that street with folks coming and going all the time.'

'Couldn't he have gone away, maybe to live with his daughter?' suggested Gwyn.

Walter Pole's lined face took on a dubious expression. 'They were never that close, sir. Morcok made no secret of the fact that he disliked the fellow she married, especially when he took her to live halfway across England. She hadn't visited him for a good three years that I know of, so I can't see him going to Oxford. In any case, what about his house? It was a decent freehold burgage, worth a few pounds of anyone's money, but it's never been put up for sale. So where is he?'

John saw Nesta weaving her way through her patrons to come to sit with him and decided that her company was preferable to that of the harness maker, as he seemed to have exhausted his tale about the missing saddler. Standing up, he gravely thanked Walter Pole for his help.

'You asked where is this Matthew Morcok?' he finished. 'Possibly still in the old forge, just up the street. I want you to come there an hour after dawn tomorrow and see if you can identify him for me. He's in bad shape, but you might still be able to recognise him.'

Taking the hint, Gwyn ushered Walter to a stool on the other side of the firepit, where a glowing pile of logs threw out a comforting heat. Motioning to one of the serving wenches to fetch the leatherworker another quart, Gwyn went back to his master's table and sat where Waiter had been, opposite de Wolfe and the fair Nesta, who had her arm through that of her lover.

'What d'you think of that tale, then?' he demanded of them.

John had just told Nesta the gist of Pole's story, while Edwin eavesdropped shamelessly. The old one-eyed servant, standing at the end of the table with a brace of empty jugs in his hands, took it upon himself to answer.

'I remember that old man from Priest Street, the one with the shaking palsy. He used to shuffle up this way now and then, I always was afeared that he would pitch forwards on to his nose, poor fellow. But I've not clapped my eye on him for many a month.' As if to illustrate this, he rolled the sunken, white orb of his horrible dead eye in its deformed socket, the legacy of a spear thrust during the Battle of Wexford.

'Well, we should know in the morning, if this man Pole can make anything of the features of the corpse,' observed John, gently massaging Nesta's shapely thigh under the table. 'Richard de Revelle has got some crazy notion that he was planted there by a Dartmoor outlaw just to discredit his bloody school.'

'What outlaw would that be, John?' asked Nesta, sliding her fingers over his.

'Another landless knight, I suppose. There are so many about these days. Since the Crusade ended, many warriors, mostly second sons without an inheritance, find themselves without either a war to fight or a manor to farm, so they take to armed robbery.' He paused to lift his pot with his free hand and take a long swallow, before continuing. 'This fellow is from some Cornish family. Maybe you know of them Gwyn, coming from those parts. He's Nicholas de Arundell, according to my dear brother-in-law. I vaguely recall the name, but our paths never crossed in Palestine.'

'It's a well-known family in Cornwall,' replied his officer. 'Been there since the Conquest, for William the Bastard handed out many parcels of land to the Arundells, all over the West Country.'

The potman, a champion nosy-parker well able to rival the inquisitive Thomas de Peyne, still hovered with his empty mugs, reluctant to leave without adding to the discussion.

'I know something of this outlaw fellow Nicholas,' he said. 'Some call him Nick o’ the Moor and many have a lot of sympathy with him.'

John was willing to listen to Edwin, as the old man often had useful snippets of information. Endlessly passing amongst the patrons of the Bush, distributing ale and collecting pots, he heard all kinds of conversations from men who travelled to Exeter from all over England and beyond.

Resting his pottery mugs on the end of the trestle, Edwin leaned forward and in a lowered voice, as if what he had to say was confidential, he told them what he knew about Nick o' the Moor.

'Gwyn's right about him being from this big Cornish family, but he inherited a small manor in Devon from his father. Somewhere near Totnes it is, I forget the actual name, but it's nigh to Berry Pomeroy.'

The coroner nodded, as this was what Richard de Revelle had told him. 'Hempston Arundell, that's the manor,' he grunted as Edwin went on with his story.

'Seems he had not long taken over the place after his father's death, when he was persuaded to take the Cross, back in 'eighty-nine. Doesn't get back for a few years and then finds that he has been declared dead and his manor confiscated by the Count of Mortain, who puts Pomeroy and de Revelle in his place.'

De Wolfe groaned. 'It's no surprise to hear those treacherous bastards would be involved in some underhand scheme like that. But how came this Nicholas to be outlawed?'

Here the potman had run out of gossip. 'I'm not sure of that, Crowner, I only overheard part of the talking and that was a year or two past. I seem to recall that this Nicholas is a hothead and he assaulted and killed somebody in his rage over the loss of his estate. He was arrested but escaped and ended up on the moor with a band of other men, most of them his own retainers.'

De Wolfe prodded Edwin a little more, but the old man had nothing further to offer. 'Now that I know the bones of it, I must discover the whole story,' John said ruminatively. 'De Revelle must have been up to his tricks before I got back from Austria.' That return was a sore memory for de Wolfe, for he had been one of the king's bodyguard when the Lionheart had been seized in Vienna and held to ransom in Austria and Germany for eighteen months. John still felt guilty of letting his monarch down, even though in fact he had been away foraging for fresh horses when the mayor of Vienna burst into the tavern and arrested Richard.

Pushing the recollection away, he decided to probe further into this affair of Nicholas de Arundell, though he thought it was preposterous to suggest it had anything at all to do with the death of the man in the forge. Slipping an arm around Nesta's shoulders, he looked meaningfully at the ceiling planks, which were also the floorboards of her little chamber up in the loft.

'Tomorrow, I'll get the full story from our sheriff,' he said, standing up as a signal to Gwyn and Edwin that he had other, more immediate plans in mind. 'Henry de Furnellis is of old Devon stock, he'll know all the scandal about the gentry. This might be another useful stick with which to beat my brother-in-law.'