Crowner's Crusade

FOURTEEN

As Gwyn had said, compared with crossing half of Europe, the journey to Winchester was far from arduous and they reached it in five days. John had decided not to ride the older and heavier Bran and had rented another horse from Andrew’s stables, though Gwyn was happy to use his own brown mare.

They stayed in inns on the way, a luxury after their rough living on the continent, but John was taking advantage of his recently increased wealth and saw no reason to stint themselves whilst on the king’s business. When the walled city, for centuries the capital of England, came into sight, Gwyn was greatly impressed by the huge cathedral and the massive castle, but after a night’s rest at an inn in the High Street, the morning brought disappointment.

Enquiries at the castle told them that the Chief Justiciar was in London, having just returned from another visit to Germany, where he was once again trying to negotiate the king’s release. Within a couple of hours, the two men from Devon were on the road again, heading for the new capital on the Thames. After another night in Guildford and a second in Esher, the third day saw them across the Thames and into Westminster. Having stabled their horses and rented a couple of beds at a hostelry in King Street, de Wolfe led Gwyn across to the palace, a group of rambling buildings attached to William Rufus’s Great Hall on the riverbank adjacent to Westminster Abbey. Inside the wide courtyard, the next problem was to gain admittance to the man they had come to visit. Hubert Walter was now the greatest in the land, being both head of the Church and the head of government, especially since the hated Chancellor, William Longchamp, had had to flee to Rouen.

John presented himself at the porch beyond the Great Hall and after telling a porter that he was Sir John de Wolfe, found a small room where a gruff clerk sat at a table shuffling parchments.

John identified himself again and said that he wanted to speak to someone who had access to the Justiciar, on a matter of importance.

The official, whose stiff hair surrounded a clerical tonsure, looked at him suspiciously. ‘How do I know you are who you claim to be?’ he muttered.

‘What is this business that brings you here?’

De Wolfe glowered at the man. ‘It’s confidential, at least to such as you,’ he retorted.

Nettled, the clerk glared back. ‘You could be some French spy or an assassin wishing harm to the Justiciar?’

John felt like grabbing the fellow by the throat and shaking him, but Gwyn put a restraining hand on his shoulder, as he spoke to the obstructive clerk.

‘My master and I fought alongside Hubert Walter in the Holy Land — and we were part of the king’s company on his journey back from there.’

The man behind the table looked suspiciously at them, but sensed trouble for himself if he got this wrong. ‘Can you prove that?’ he snapped.

For answer, John dipped his fingers into his scrip and produced the courier’s ring. Holding it out, he pointed to the pair of royal lions engraved on the inside. ‘Does this convince you?’

The man’s attitude changed immediately. With a mumbled apology, he beckoned to the porter, who was hovering in the doorway. ‘Escort these gentlemen to the Justiciar’s chambers and find one of his officers to speak to them.’

With Gwyn grinning behind him at being called ‘a gentleman’, the man led de Wolfe into the gloomy passages of the palace and, after several turns then up some stairs, arrived at a busy room where many clerks and servants bustled about. The porter spoke to one of them and soon a fat priest appeared from another room, clutching lists of accounts.

John again explained who he was and why he needed to speak to the archbishop. When Brother Roland heard that this was the John de Wolfe that Hubert Walter had spoken of in connection with the king’s capture, his eyes widened and he treated the knight with considerable respect.

‘The Justiciar has heard from the king’s own lips the sorry tale of his outrageous abduction in Vienna — and he spoke warmly of your faithful service,’ he said obsequiously.

He led them through several more rooms and a passage to another antechamber where a chaplain was seated and after a whispered consultation, the chaplain vanished through an inner door.

A few moments later, he returned and ushered them into a large, but plainly furnished chamber where a lean man with a lined face and greying brown hair rose from his chair to greet them.

Hubert Walter did not assume the trappings that might be expected of such a powerful man. All that suggested that he was an archbishop was the plain red cassock with a small gold cross hanging around his neck.

‘Sir John, old friend!’ he said quietly, as he came across the room to grip de Wolfe’s arms in greeting. ‘And Gwyn of Polruan, too! It’s good to see you safe and sound after all we went through in Palestine — though the king told me that you and he had suffered even more later on!’

Having been with the king’s guards for much of the campaign, the two Exeter men had seen a lot of the Bishop of Salisbury, as Hubert had been then. Originally he was made the chaplain to the English crusading contingent after Archbishop Baldwin had died of disease — though Hubert did far more fighting and diplomacy than any priestly duties.

He went back his chair and motioned the others to bring up stools to the table. ‘Now tell me of what happened after you sailed from Acre. I’ve heard it from Richard, but not in much detail.’

For half an hour John related the story of the eventful voyage and then the disastrous ride across country to Vienna. ‘I feel shame at not being able to have prevented our lord king’s capture,’ he concluded sorrowfully. ‘If we had not gone out searching for food, perhaps I could have saved him.’

Hubert shook his head. ‘When I spoke to the king in Wurzburg, he was adamant that you did all you could for him. You had to buy provisions for the journey — and you could have done nothing to overcome a whole troop of soldiers, other than lose your own lives.’

John shook his head sadly. ‘I would gladly have given my life for him, sir. This will plague me for the rest of my life.’

They spoke about it for a few more minutes, Gwyn respectfully asking the Justiciar how he found the Lionheart in body and spirit.

‘He is now almost restored to his usual fiery self,’ said Hubert with a smile. ‘At first he was confined in a remote castle on a crag, at Durnstein on the Danube. Then he was dragged off by Count Leopold to Regensburg in Germany to meet the Emperor and your old enemy Count Meinhard of Gorz, but Leopold distrusted King Henry and took him back to Austria after two days. Then a month later, he sells him on to Henry and our king was taken to Wurzburg.’

John leaned forward with a question. ‘There’s been some tale going around that one of the king’s troubadours, Blondel of Nesle, first discovered him by singing a song they composed together and heard the Lionheart respond with another verse from behind his prison bars at this Durnstein place!’

The Justiciar smiled. ‘A picturesque fable, John! There was no mystery about where he was confined, right from the start. Emperor Henry even wrote a letter to Philip Augustus within days of his capture, giving the details. I have a copy in this very room, for they proudly bandied the news all over Europe.’

‘So where is our lord now?’ asked Gwyn.

‘He’s been shuttled about from Ochsenfurt to Speyer, where he was tried in March, though there he turned the tables on Henry and Philip by gaining the sympathy and support of many of the Emperor’s rebellious princes and bishops. After that he was in Trifels Castle, then Hagenau, but is now at the royal court in Mainz. We are still trying to get a definite date for his release, but that bloody man Philip of France keeps trying to bribe Henry to hand him over to him.’ His face darkened. ‘And our Prince John is colluding with the French in that! Between them they offered the Emperor eighty thousand silver marks for our king.’

The mention of the prince gave John an opening for the second reason for his audience with the Chief Justiciar. Once more he pulled out the ring and gave it to Hubert Walter. ‘I came across a murdered man last week, sire. His body was thrown into a river after his throat had been cut. This was the only identification upon him, he had been robbed of everything else including his money.’

With a puzzled expression, Hubert took the ring and turned it in his fingers until he saw the engravings. He looked up quizzically at de Wolfe. ‘Unless he had stolen this from someone, he must have been one of our court couriers. You say his body was found in Devonshire?’

As John confirmed this, Hubert rang a small bell that stood on his desk and immediately, the chaplain came in from the outer room. As he bent over the archbishop, Hubert murmured something in a low voice and the priest nodded and went out again.

‘I’ve started some enquiries — we have a number of men who travel discreetly around the country, taking messages and collecting information. Our present concern is naturally Prince John and his supporters. After his rebellion was defeated earlier this year, he agreed to a truce, but he’s not to be trusted.’

‘Is this dead man one of yours, then?’ asked John.

‘I’ve sent to find out who was down in the West Country — and you say you think he had been as far as Cornwall, so possibly he has been seeking information about St Michael’s Mount, which Henry de la Pomeroy holds on behalf of Prince John.’ He rose from his chair again. ‘It will take some time for my clerks to discover who this might be, so return here tomorrow when I hope to have some news for you. This unfortunate man deserves to have a name on his grave, if nothing else — and I might have a task for you as well.’

After their days in the saddle, John de Wolfe and Gwyn were happy to have some rest and after returning to their inn, had a good meal of fried bacon, eggs and black pudding, washed down with a quart of ale. As they sat looking out of the unshuttered window at the crowded Royal Way outside, Gwyn wondered what ‘task’ the Chief Justiciar might give them.

‘We are fortunate to be on such easy terms with the man who runs England,’ he said. ‘I still find it hard to believe that all this has happened to me in the past year or two, being just a rough soldier from Cornwall.’

John punched him on the arm, which had muscles like iron. ‘Don’t underestimate yourself, man! Hubert can see a trustworthy fellow when he sees one. I’ll warrant he’ll want us to find out why this courier died and who killed him. With no sheriff in the county, who else can do it? And if it was because he was poking about in John’s affairs, then the last thing the prince will want is some investigation.’

The Cornishman grunted. ‘That’s probably why Richard de Revelle shows such a lack of interest, though being such a lazy swine, it’s hard to pin any motive on what he does or doesn’t do.’

They spent a couple of hours or so wandering around Westminster and along the river towards the city, then came back for more food, drink and an early bed.

‘If Hubert finishes his business with us in the morning, we can be back on the road again later in the day — and home in Exeter within the week,’ said John. He realized that he missed his lodgings in the Bush, especially the company of Nesta and he looked forward with foreboding to having to settle down in a house with Matilda.

Early next day, they were back at the palace to resume their meeting with the Justiciar. He was at an early Mass in St Stephen’s Chapel, the palace’s place of worship, but eventually arrived and they were ushered into his presence again by Brother Roland.

Hubert Walter was looking more haggard today, weighed down by the strain of both running a country and finding a vast sum of money to pay for the king’s release. A hundred and fifty thousand marks was the equivalent of thirty tons of silver, two or three times the annual income of England. ‘It’s being collected by the special Ransom Exchequer and stored in the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral,’ he had explained to them the previous day, but now he wanted to tell them about the corpse in the River Exe.

‘He was Roger Smale, a former soldier working in the Chancery. As I suspected, he was sent down to Cornwall with messages for the constable of Launceston Castle, but also to spy out the situation at St Michael’s Mount, fortified for the prince. Since the truce, he has not been attacked by us, but the Curia wanted to know if the stronghold was being further strengthened in preparation for future conflict.’

De Wolfe recalled the horrific wound to the man’s throat which had half-severed his neck. ‘He must have found out something, for them to dispatch him so brutally,’ he said.

The Justiciar shrugged. ‘There’s nothing we can do about it now, but I wonder why he was killed in Devon and not Cornwall.’

‘Perhaps he found out other things as well. John’s cause has sympathizers in Devon, as we know.’ Some trace of family loyalty caused him to refrain from mentioning his brother-in-law, though he suspected that Hubert knew of all the potential adherents in that part of the country, especially as some of Exeter’s twenty-four canons were known to side with Bishop Hugh of Coventry.

‘We have lost one agent who seems have known his way around the West Country,’ went on Hubert. ‘So I am going to ask you to continue the faithful service that you have already given to our Lord King, by keeping your eyes and ears open for any other evidence of the prince’s treachery. He had most of his castles taken from him back in February, when he kept claiming that the king was dead and that he was now on the throne, but he has refused to hand over Nottingham or Tickhill and is covertly provisioning them for a future battle. As I said before, we have a so-called truce, but that is really a waiting game to see what happens over the Lionheart’s release.’

John and Gwyn readily agreed to his request, being happy to have some further way of serving the king, partly to assuage their consciences over their failure to prevent his capture. They arranged to forward any information via Ralph Morin, who had regular messengers going between the royal castle and Westminster. They took their leave of the archbishop, Gwyn still awed by their familiarity, which seemed far stranger here than in the common danger and discomfort of Palestine. Soon they were in the saddle again, riding west, with at least a name to give John de Alencon to read over the new grave in the cathedral precinct.

They arrived at the Bush, wet and weary, over a week later. The weather had turned bad and the roads were thick with mud, slowing them down and adding an extra day to their journey. The horses had been returned to their stables and the two travellers arrived on foot at the door of the inn, where Brutus was waiting to greet his master, having again used the mysterious powers of a dog to anticipate John’s return. Nesta, equally delighted to see them safe and sound, rushed around to get them hot food and to take John’s riding cloak to dry in the wash-shed outside. Gwyn had his usual leather jerkin and hood, which he threw carelessly over a stool to drip into the rushes.

Edwin plied them with ale and then, as they ate grilled trout, beans and leeks, Nesta sat with them at the table. She listened with awe to their tales of exotic places like Winchester and London and about exalted persons like the Archbishop of Canterbury.

‘At least we know who the murdered fellow was,’ said John. ‘And we were right, he was a spy for the king’s government. As we expected, the Prince is still up to his tricks and though there’s supposed to be peace between him and the barons, no one in their right mind would trust him after his past record.’

He decided not to voice abroad their promised role as secret agents for the Chief Justiciar, as this might jeopardize any hope of learning things that they were not supposed to hear. However, John promised himself that he would tell Nesta when they were alone together, as he felt she could be trusted to keep it to herself. Also, with so many travellers passing through the Bush, she might overhear something useful. After eating, Gwyn decided to go home to his wife, who Nesta said had been down several times in the past two weeks to help clean up the inn and make sure that her protégée Molly was cooking satisfactorily. De Wolfe also thought he had better visit his wife, though less eagerly than his squire. The rain had stopped and the August evening was warm, so he left his damp cloak and walked up Smythen Street and across a side lane to come out in Fore Street, opposite the dwelling of Matilda’s cousin.

The expected baby was getting near to appearing in the world and the women of the household were too preoccupied to bother much with a mere man. Even though the childless Matilda had never seemed over-endowed with maternal feelings, she was also caught up in the general enthusiasm and gave John a perfunctory welcome. He kept out of the way for a time, skulking in a room as far away as possible from the birthing stool and lying-in bed.

Eventually Matilda came in and he gave her an abbreviated account of his trip. Predictably, the fact that he had had two meetings with the Head of the English Church and seemed almost on gossiping terms with him, fuelled Matilda’s fascination for anything ecclesiastical and gave her more ammunition to fire at her social rivals in the town.

‘Have you thought any more about seeking a house for us?’ he asked in a tone that would have better suited an enquiry about his own funeral arrangements.

‘I have heard of several in the city,’ she replied. ‘But none would have been good enough for us. You are a knight of the realm and we can’t live in some dreary dwelling more suited to a candle maker or apothecary.’

John decided to grasp the nettle and go along with her ambitions. Much as he liked staying in the Bush, especially with Nesta there, he knew that it could not be a long-term solution. ‘Andrew the farrier, where I stable my horse, told me today that one of the houses in St Martin’s Lane is vacant. The old lawyer who lived there has gone to Plympton to live with his daughter.’

Matilda’s square face showed even more interest than when he was talking about the Archbishop of Canterbury. ‘That was the house of Adam of Lyme,’ she replied. ‘It’s in a good position, I could walk to the cathedral from there in two minutes!’ The ease with which she could attend her endless devotions seemed a major criterion for her.

‘The farrier says that it is old and has been neglected by the occupant since his wife died five years ago,’ said John cautiously. ‘It would need a lot of work done on it.’

They agreed to go and inspect it as soon as John could discover who held the lease.

Leaving an unusually placid Matilda behind him, he went wearily back to the Bush and after a pleasant hour talking to Nesta between her attending to her other patrons, climbed the steps and fell gratefully on to his bed and was asleep inside five minutes.

Next day, he walked with Gwyn and the hound up to the Cathedral Close, the large area around the huge church of St Peter and St Paul, whose two great towers dominated the whole of Exeter. Building work was still going on, though it was now nearing completion, as the original Norman cathedral, built on the site of a small Saxon abbey, had been almost totally rebuilt during the past sixty years. The Close, which was an ecclesiastical enclave independent of the city authorities, was also the burial ground for all Exeter and the surrounding area. Only in exceptional circumstances could burials take place anywhere else, as the cathedral jealously guarded the fees that came from disposing of the dead.

One of these graves was that of the courier John had found on the river bank. He enquired of a sexton and was shown a heap of fresh earth near the north tower. The whole Close was more like an excavation site than a peaceful cemetery, with newly dug graves mixed with old ones covered with weeds. The place was ill-kept, piles of rubbish abounding and beggars, drunks and noisy urchins competing for space with a few goats and even a rooting pig.

They stood over the lonely heap of red Devon soil and John took out the signet ring and looked at it. ‘We know the poor fellow’s name now, it’s Roger Smale,’ said John. ‘I’ll ask the archdeacon to come and offer a prayer over the grave and say a Mass for him at one of the cathedral shrines.’

Ignoring the yells of children racing around with their mangy dogs and kicking balls of tied-up rags, the two men stood there for a moment, one each side of the mound. John, in his long grey tunic clinched around his waist with his sword-belt, stared pensively down, his black hair blowing in the breeze above his dark, hawklike face. His squire looked as immovable as an oak tree, broad-shouldered in his scuffed jerkin, the ginger hair and moustaches framing his big, ruddy features.

‘Are we going to seek his killers, Sir John?’ he rumbled.

‘He served the king as much as we did, in his way, Gwyn. So he deserves avenging, but where do we start looking?’

The Cornishman ran his hand through his tangled locks. ‘We have a name now — and we think he must have come down the river. I can’t really see him being washed up from the sea. So can we not ride up the Exe and the Yeo for a few miles and ask if anyone had seen him?’

They began walking slowly away before de Wolfe answered. ‘No harm done in that. We have little else to occupy us at the moment. We’ll try it tomorrow, though I have no great hope of success.’

John wanted to check on Bran in Andrew’s stables, so they crossed the northern corner of the Close to the little church of St Martin, which stood at the end of the lane bearing the same name.

‘I told my wife last night that this house was vacant — perhaps unwisely, for she seemed quite taken with the idea.’

He stopped outside a tall, narrow building, the first on the left side. Beyond it, set back a little, was a similar house, as there were only two in the alley. At each end were the backs of houses in either the Close or the High Street. Opposite was the farrier’s establishment between the rear of a tavern in the main street and another house in a lane alongside the church.

Gwyn looked at it critically. ‘A big old place for just two of you! Needs a lot of work done on it, too. Just look at that roof.’

Standing back, they looked up and saw that some of the thin wooden shingles of the steeply sloping roof were missing and others warped and cracked.

‘Good front door, though,’ said Gwyn, pointing at the stout boards of blackened oak, with rusty iron hinges and studded nails. Between the door and the farther end of the house, there was one window at chest level. It was firmly shuttered, and nothing else broke the high frontage of heavy oak frames which supported panels of cob, covered with discoloured whitewash.

‘The price should be lower, given the state it’s in,’ muttered John.

When they crossed to the stables, John asked the farrier if he knew who was offering the house for sale or rent.

‘It’s the old man’s partner, a lawyer in Northgate Street,’ replied Andrew. ‘The place has been empty for more than a year, so maybe he’ll be anxious to get rid of it.’

After reassuring his old stallion that he had not been forgotten, John told the stableman to get him ready for early next morning, when Gwyn and he would ride up the valley of the Exe seeking any clue as to the way in which Roger Smale met his death.

Their next stop was Rougemont, where de Wolfe sought out the constable, while Gwyn went in search of a few soldiers willing to start a game of dice. Gabriel was drilling some young recruits in the inner ward, avoiding the ox-carts that rumbled in with supplies and the chickens and pigs that rooted about in the muddy earth churned up by the incessant activity of a busy castle. Ralph Morin was in his chamber, checking the number and quality of newly delivered arrows from a local fletcher, but gladly took a break when John arrived. Broaching a skin of wine, they sat and drank while John told him of his visit to London and the information that the Justiciar had given him.

‘So they don’t trust Prince John, even after the so-called truce,’ observed Ralph. ‘It’s a wonder that they don’t deprive him of those six counties, but I suppose as the king gave them to him, only he can take them away.’

‘And I’m appointed by Hubert Walter as a kind of unofficial watcher in the West Country, to warn of any signs that a new rebellion is fomenting,’ added de Wolfe. ‘In other words, a royal spy, not that I like the idea. I’d rather come out and confront the bastards, with sword and shield.’

‘It may come to that, John. The barons took away many of his castles earlier in the year, but he still has Windsor, Tickhill and Nottingham. Also, some of his covert supporters have their own castles dotted around, which he could rely on if it came to civil war.’

John nodded gloomily. ‘Unfortunately, there’s a lot of people he could rely on. Thank God his mother, sensible woman, keeps her own stern eye on him while our king is locked up abroad.’

‘We may be sharpening our swords again before long if King Richard doesn’t come home soon,’ said the castellan.

‘Or even if he does!’ added John. ‘If the prince persists in defying his brother and starting an insurrection, Richard will have to crush him. The danger is that John is cultivating his alliance with Philip of France, who has greedy eyes not only on Normandy, but England itself.’

The talk turned to more immediate matters.

‘What can be done to find the killers of this Roger Smale?’ asked de Wolfe. ‘With no effective sheriff, no one seems to care about the king’s peace any longer.’

‘I can see your brother-in-law eventually being elected as acting sheriff by the prince, in the absence of anyone else,’ declared Ralph. ‘God help us, he’s only good for a tax-collector, I doubt his sword has been out of its scabbard these past ten years. You should be given the job, John, but the prince knows you are a staunch king’s man.’

‘No chance of that, Ralph. But Gwyn and I are going to try to learn something about Smale’s last days, if only to satisfy ourselves.’

When he left the castle, he went down to find the lawyer in North Street and discuss the vacant house with him. The advocate, a middle-aged fellow who seemed quite sensible and cooperative, told him that the owner, now fragile in mind and body, was willing to dispose of the house on a ten-year lease for twenty-five pounds. He gave John a large key and said he was welcome to take his wife to inspect the dwelling at any time, so John’s next stop was Fore Street, where he managed to attract Matilda’s attention away from the heavily pregnant niece for long enough to tell her about the house in St Martin’s Lane. She still seemed moderately interested and John arranged to walk up with her that evening to inspect it.

Back at the Bush, he ate a midday meal provided by Nesta and her new cook, a bowl of mutton potage followed by grilled sea bream with beans and cabbage. Fresh bread and cheese followed and after the privations of the past few months, John felt that he had entered a culinary heaven. Afterwards, Nesta came to sit with him and he told her about the house in St Martin’s Lane.

‘Why don’t you walk up with me now and have a look?’ he asked, when he saw how interested she was in seeing inside a town house.

‘Won’t your wife be annoyed at you taking a strange woman there, even before she’s seen it herself?’ asked Nesta, anxiously.

He couldn’t resist slipping an arm around her waist and briefly squeezing her. ‘You’re not a strange woman, you’re my landlady! And she will never know, anyway, Matilda is too besotted with the prospect of soon having a new baby to croon over.’

Nesta pulled a light hooded cloak over her kirtle and walked with him to Southgate Street and across into one of the entrances to the cathedral precinct. As they crossed the rugged ground, he pointed out the new grave mound of Roger Smale.

‘I’m going out with Gwyn tomorrow to see if we can find some trace of the poor fellow in the days before he was so foully killed. I promised the Justiciar that I would try to discover if any active plot was being hatched by Prince John down here in the west.’

The Welshwoman looked at him in concern. ‘Be careful, John, I’ve heard that he and his men can be ruthless. We don’t want you coming to any harm, after surviving all you’ve gone through these past few years.’

He warmed to her worrying about him, so different to Matilda’s usual indifference. ‘I’ll manage, dear Nesta. Compared to Saladin’s army, I doubt the Count of Mortain’s rabble will prove much of a challenge.’

She still looked uneasy, but in a couple of minutes they were outside the heavy door of the house in St Martin’s Lane. De Wolfe produced the key and with a squeak of rusty metal, turned it and shoved the door open. They found themselves in a narrow vestibule partitioned off from the main room. It was bare apart from a bench against the opposite wall, under which were a few old shoes. Above it was a row of wooden clothes pegs stuck into the wall. On the right was a door leading into the main hall and on the left, an opening leading to a covered passage that ran along the side of the house to reach the backyard.

‘A bit grim, but nothing wrong so far,’ observed Nesta. ‘Let’s see the hall.’

She went to the inner door and pushed it open to reveal panelled draught screens just inside. Beyond these was the only room in the house, apart from the vestibule. They stood by the screens and gazed around. It was very high but spacious, in spite of the narrow frontage.

‘That roof must be twenty feet high!’ said John, craning his neck to look up at the dusty beams far above, supporting the rafters that carried the wooden tiles. Here and there, they could see daylight where some were missing and a couple of small birds fluttered out, disturbed by these rare visitors.

At ground level, the floor was of beaten earth, rock hard from a century of treading feet. A thin scattering of mouldy rushes covered it, apart from the central firepit, which was ringed with stones. An iron trivet and a pair of roasting dogs sat forlornly over the long-dead ashes. The walls were all timber, the inner side of the frame-and-cob walls being planked for warmth A few faded tapestries hung on them in an effort to relieve the spartan appearance of the chamber.

‘I’ve seen more cheerful barrack rooms than this,’ grunted John. ‘But it seems sound enough in its structure.’

Nesta had at first been disappointed by the bare, gloomy dwelling, but she could imagine what could be done to improve it. ‘Given time and money, John, it could be made into a fine house. Of course, it will depend on what your wife thinks of it.’ There was a tinge of jealousy in her voice as she felt herself excluded from the domesticity that she had lost with Meredydd’s death.

‘Let’s have a look at the yard,’ suggested John and led them back through the vestibule and down the side passage. Here there was a fairly large area, bounded by the back of the houses in the Cathedral Close on one side and a high fence between them and a similar yard next door.

‘There are a lot of huts in here,’ said Nesta. ‘Looks like the back of the Bush. Best see what’s in them.’

Exploration revealed a privy, a wash house, a wood store, a pigsty and a large kitchen shed, which still had a mouldering mattress in the corner, where obviously the cookmaid had slept. A well had been dug in the centre of the muddy plot, too near to the pigsty for Nesta’s liking. They surveyed the scene and then looked back at the house, where a completely blank wall reached up to the roof.

‘Well, it’s all here, John, but needs a great deal of improvement.’

He readily agreed with her opinion. ‘Depends on how much the owner wants for it. The need for so much to be spent on the place should be a good lever to lower his price.’

They walked back to the Bush, John’s mind half on the house and half on Nesta walking sedately alongside him. He wondered how long it would be before Matilda accused him of lusting after a common alewife, as no doubt one of her church cronies would eventually hear of it and revel in telling her.

When he went back to St Martin’s Lane with his wife that evening, he took care to act as if he had never seen inside the place before. They paraded around for half an hour and almost reluctantly, Matilda agreed that, after a great deal of work, possibly it could be turned into a dwelling fit for the wife of a knight.

‘But where did they sleep?’ she demanded, when they were looking around the hall again.

John saw some discoloured lines in one corner, with old nails projecting. ‘I think there was a partition there, cutting off a small room. Perhaps that was it.’

Matilda sneered. ‘I’m not sleeping in some box, John! We would need a proper room for me to have a maid to help me dress and do my hair.’

De Wolfe looked at the dusty firepit and imagined the haze of smoke that would normally ascend from it to find its way out through the eaves high above.

‘And I would like a fireplace with a chimney. I saw one in Brittany a few years ago, built in stone. We could combine that with a solar built on to the back of the house.’ He became almost enthusiastic and wondered if he had now reached an age where home comforts were more important than the thrill of jousting or the bloodlust of battle.

Having seen all they needed, he locked up and walked her back to Fore Street. ‘I’ll be away tomorrow, on the Archbishop’s business, but when I’m back I’ll see about making a bargain with the owner.’

He was careful to mention Hubert Walter, as he knew that dropping the name of the highest clergyman in the land would keep his wife content — as would the thought of living in a house within a stone’s throw of the cathedral.

The long day’s ride up the Exe valley and one of its tributaries turned out to be fruitless. De Wolfe and Gwyn rode north from Exeter through all the small villages and manor up the river. They called to enquire at many alehouses and spoke to manor reeves and bailiffs, all of whom denied any sighting of a man answering the description of Roger Smale. True, their description was very vague and the only useful detail was the unusual buckle, which John wore on his own belt. He displayed it time and time again, without getting any flicker of recognition.

Several of the people they questioned, especially the reeves and bailiffs, wanted to know what his interest was and what authority he had to ask such questions. John hedged his answers slightly, saying that he was on a commission from the King’s Justices, which was not all that far from the truth, given that Hubert Walter was the head of England’s legal system.

After riding as far as Crediton and Tiverton, the two men arrived back in Exeter as the sun was setting. As soon as they had stabled their horses, Gwyn went home to St Sidwells, while John walked down to the Bush, looking forward to some good ale, a good meal and Nesta’s company.

When all three were set before him, he tackled Molly’s boiled bacon, peas and leeks with appreciation and over a dish of plums and nuts, told the landlady about his disappointing expedition into the country.

‘Never mind, John, you did all you could,’ she said consolingly. ‘It’s three weeks since you found the body and from what you describe of him, he must have been dead for some time before that.’

Edwin, who had been hovering to listen to his tale, topped up his pot from a large jug. ‘Can’t win them all, cap’n,’ he observed sympathetically. ‘Maybe something will turn up one day to help you nail the swine who did it.’

John sat talking to Nesta for a long while, discussing the improvement in trade and income that was already apparent at the Bush.

‘Just knowing that you are involved seems to have brought old customers back, John,’ she said happily. ‘Everyone admired you before, but since you came back from the Crusade and especially as you were so close to the king, you are a hero to every man in Exeter!’

De Wolfe grunted to cover up his embarrassment, though coming from the lips of such a pretty, amiable woman, he secretly revelled in her praise. ‘There’s one man who doesn’t look on me with favour, and that’s my damned brother-in-law. This rumour that he might be made sheriff one day is enough to make me want to go back to Acre!’

‘But he can’t be sheriff while Prince John holds the county in his grasp,’ she objected. ‘Surely when King Richard is released, he will kick out his wayward brother — then the Lionheart ought to make you sheriff!’

John grinned at the thought of such an unlikely event. ‘Can you see me as a glorified tax-collector? Not that I’ll ever get the offer.’

He spent another night in the loft, conscious again of Nesta’s nearness in her little room until he fell asleep, oblivious to the snores of a fat merchant in the adjoining cubicle. Next morning was taken up with haggling with the lawyer over a price for a long lease on the house in St Martin’s Lane. John emphasized the poor condition and dragged the man down to the house to have all the faults pointed out. ‘It will cost me as much as I’m willing to give you, just to pay for the repairs and alterations!’ he claimed.

With an offer of twenty pounds, which was about seven years’ wages for a labourer, the lawyer promised to see if his old colleague would accept it and they parted amicably.

He called on Matilda to tell her what he had done and she seemed mildly interested, though immediately offering her own news that her niece’s ‘waters had broken’, which caused John to flee from the house, which seemed even more full of women than ever.

Going up to the castle on its low hill, he called in on Ralph Morin to tell him of the complete failure of the expedition the previous day. ‘I despair of seeing any justice done in this county now,’ he said grimly. ‘When William Brewer was sheriff, before the king gave Devon away four years ago, at least he made the effort to hunt down criminals. Now it seems that unless manor lords keep the peace in their own patches, no one cares about seeking miscreants, other than in the towns. And even in Exeter, the council has only two constables to try to keep order amongst four thousand people.’

The castellan agreed with him, but said he had no remit to intervene. ‘I am only empowered to act against insurrection or invasion,’ he said ruefully. ‘I could contribute some of the garrison to a posse comitatus, should a hunt be mounted for marauding outlaws or highway robbers. But that could only be done at the behest of a sheriff — and we don’t have one!’

John moved down a couple of doors and pushed into Richard de Revelle’s chamber, bent on irritating his brother-in-law. ‘I see you are still here, playing at being sheriff!’ he said sarcastically, wanting to get his words in first.

‘And what are you playing at, John?’ retorted Richard, suavely. ‘Practising to be an unemployed soldier, eh? God knows there are plenty of those about now, with no Crusade to offer an excuse for pillaging, drinking and whoring.’

John tried to ignore the jibe, but his unemployed state was too near the truth to prevent it from rankling. ‘I thought I would tell you that the Chief Justiciar has given me a commission to seek out and report any evidence of disaffection and treason against the king, until the Lionheart returns to this country — which now seems imminent.’

‘Why are you telling me this, John? It is none of my business.’ Richard tried to gloss over the matter with an air of indifference, but secretly he was concerned at the dangers of such a tenacious man as de Wolfe poking his big nose into the prince’s intrigues. He was also piqued that his sister’s husband was on such intimate terms with both the king and his chief minister, whilst he had make do with a more distant relationship with an errant prince.

They bandied words for a few more moments and then, given that Richard was Matilda’s closest relative, John thought that he had better tell him about the house he was proposing to buy for her.

‘I suppose it will be convenient for her devotions at the cathedral,’ replied Richard, loftily. ‘Of course, I have bought a large house in North Street, as my manors in Revelstoke, Tiverton and Somerset are sometimes too distant for convenience.’

John’s patience with the arrogant, self-centred man soon ran out and he departed, leaving Richard to worry about whether he had sufficiently covered his own tracks in his own contribution to the prince’s ambitions.

De Wolfe went back to the Bush for his noon dinner, where Molly brought him a large bread trencher carrying slices of roast mutton, with a platter of boiled onions, beans and carrots. Nesta came with a small loaf of maslin bread, made from both wheat and rye, and a slab of cheese, then sat with him as he ate and listened to his story about his offer for the house.

He followed this with a diatribe against Richard de Revelle for his sneering self-importance and total uninterest in the murder of a royal courier. As he was washing down the food with a pint of her new ale, he confessed his frustration at what seemed to be the prospect of endless inactivity in his life.

‘How am I to spend my time, cariad?’ he demanded in the Welsh they always used together. ‘Am I grow old and soft, concerning myself with carpenters and stonemasons over this damned house? Is my sword going to rust in its scabbard — and will I and my horse grow fat from lack of exercise?’

Nesta frowned at his obvious anxiety and laid a hand gently on his arm. ‘It’s only natural for you to feel like this, John, after the strenuous life you have led recently. But things will settle down — you could become more active in this wool enterprise that you have with the portreeve.’

De Wolfe shook his head. ‘Can you really see me sitting in the Guildhall, poring over bills and receipts?’ he growled. ‘Anyway, first I’d have to learn to read and write! I’d rather become a shipman and help Thorgils take our bloody wool to Flanders!’

She smiled at the thought of him doing either of these tasks. ‘I suppose you’re right, John. You belong in a saddle, with a lance under your arm. If it were not that I would fear for your life and limb, I’d say go back to competing in tournaments, as you used to. Though you no longer seem to need the prize money nor the ransoms.’

It was true that five or ten years ago, he was a successful contestant in the jousting that paid high rewards for the winners, as well as ruin or death for the losers. Though made illegal in England by the old King Henry, there were plenty of tourneys held outside the law — and many knights travelled abroad to compete in large-scale contests.

‘An attractive idea, Nesta — but I’m getting too old at almost forty. The risks of defeat increase greatly with age, for we get too slow and less agile than these young bloods!’

Looking at the attractive redhead sitting next to him, he was conscious of another defect in his life. Over the years, he had had a number of mistresses, both in Devon and elsewhere. There was a certain widow in Sidmouth whom he used to visit and, of course, the delightful Hilda of Dawlish. She was now out of bounds for at least another month, as he had learned from Hugh de Relaga that her husband Thorgils had decided to have a break from voyaging while his ship underwent extensive repairs. On the weary six-month journey across the continent, John had occasionally bedded a buxom serving wench, but lately his sensual appetite had been unsatisfied. Relations of that kind with Matilda had ceased long ago, as like his sister Evelyn, her desires were mainly in the direction of becoming a nun. Several times, during some of their shouting matches, she had bitterly expressed her regret at her father’s refusal to allow her to take the veil. But when his thoughts turned to Nesta, he told himself that this was forbidden territory. The memory of Meredydd was still too fresh in her mind and he had a strong sense of obligation to the archer to take advantage of his wife.

Old Edwin limped up to console him with his ale jug and to lighten his mood. John complimented Nesta on the improvement of the brew.

‘I learned this recipe from my mother in Gwent,’ she replied. ‘But the good grain that Gwyn found for me is the main reason for the fine taste.’

John rasped at the dark bristles on his face — it was time for his weekly shave, but Nesta’s mention of Gwyn reminded him that he should pay another visit to his family down near the coast.

‘Gwyn was always a favourite of theirs, with his amiable nature and his easy wit,’ he said. ‘I promised them that I would bring him with me next time. Perhaps after the next Sabbath, we’ll take a ride down there.’

The days went by and his offer for the lease was accepted, so John needed to seek out workmen to begin renovating the neglected old dwelling. One of the regulars at the Bush was a master mason and another a carpenter, so he had long talks with them about what could be done to improve the place. Several times Matilda was weaned away from her cousin’s house to visit St Martin’s Lane with him, as the new baby was delivered at last and the fever of expectation replaced by the sober reality of endless feeding and washing soiled swaddling clothes.

He found her less scornful and abrasive as the novelty of a new house possessed her and they disagreed less than usual. Matilda wanted the earth floor covered with flagstones, a feature of the best houses — and he had his way with the chimneyed fireplace, mainly because it could be incorporated in the building of a solar for Matilda. The mason sketched out a rough plan with a piece of chalk on a slab of slate, showing how the panels of cob and the inner bracing beams could be removed from the back wall up to the level of the eaves and replaced with mortared stone.

‘It will take us a couple of months, Sir John,’ advised the artisan. ‘We will have to order and cart the stone from the quarries at Beer, as well as having the timber cut for the solar and the roof gable.’

Much of this was beyond John’s comprehension, but he trusted the man to get on with the job, though the proposed cost made him wince a little. It was a fortnight before he could carry out his promise to go down to Stoke-in-Teignhead with Gwyn and September had arrived before they set out one morning.

As John knew it was pointless hoping to see Hilda with her husband at home, they avoided Dawlish and took the inland route through Kennford, Haldon Forest and Chudleigh to cross the river at King’s Teignton and ride down the western bank to his family’s manor.

Haldon Forest was an area of particularly dense woodland, a few miles in extent, near the south-eastern edge of Dartmoor. As they rode the narrow road through it, both men kept sharp eyes and ears open for unwelcome company, as this stretch of road was notorious for armed robbers, both predatory outlaws and the more organized gangs of trail bastons. Though John kept a hand near his broadsword and Gwyn fondled the shaft of the ball mace that hung from his saddlebow, they traversed the mile of road without seeing anything move, other than a fox slinking into the undergrowth.

They had the usual warm welcome at Stoke and after eating their fill, sat in the hall of the manor house to hear John’s latest news of buying a house.

‘You’re settling down at last, John,’ beamed his sprightly mother. ‘A pity it has to be with that surly woman Matilda, but perhaps she will mellow with time.’

Enyd made no pretence at liking her son’s wife and secretly wished that he could have married Hilda of Holcombe. Her husband, shortly before he was killed, had given Hilda’s father his freedom from serfdom, which also made Hilda a free woman. But at that time, the social gap between them would still have been too wide — though now that she had married a wealthy shipmaster who owned three vessels, she would easily be eligible, had she been available.

The talk turned to the increasing dangers on the highways of England, sparked by Gwyn’s mention of their wariness coming through Haldon Forest.

‘That place and many others are becoming dangerous,’ complained John’s brother. ‘A week ago, they robbed and half-killed a corn merchant riding from Brixham to Exeter. His servant was also badly beaten and they still fear for his life.’

John told them of the body of the king’s courier that he had found on his way back from his last visit to Stoke. ‘God knows where he was put into the river, we can find no trace of him on his journey back from Cornwall.’

No one at Stoke had any memory of such a man in that area and John remained convinced that Roger Smale was killed upstream of where he was found.

He and Gwyn were persuaded to stay two nights and spent much of the next day inspecting the manor, of which William de Wolfe was inordinately proud. He was an excellent estate manager and his steward, bailiff and reeve were sensible, reliable men. They made the manor a profitable and happy place, unlike many where the manor lord was a harsh and often cruel tyrant. Orderly fields, plump sheep and barns now being filled with an early harvest ensured that the community would not go hungry over the coming winter.

‘We have a good surplus of oats and barley, which I am selling on, so your share of the profits will be even better this year, John,’ confided William. ‘By the sound of what you are doing to this house of yours, you’ll need it!’

They left early next morning and took the same route home.

When they reached Haldon Forest, they were even more alert than on the outward journey, after William’s account of the recent attacks on travellers. All seemed quiet and when they were almost within sight of more open scrubland beyond the trees, they relaxed a little. A moment later, Gwyn’s big mare whinnied and jerked, her acute hearing picking up the whine of an arrow in flight. Almost simultaneously, the missile thwacked into the thick leather of Gwyn’s saddle pommel, missing his leg by inches. With a roar of anger, he instantly swung the mare’s head around and galloped off the track into the undergrowth, where he estimated the shot had come from. As he went, he grabbed the shaft of his mace from the saddlebow and plunged under the trees, where he almost ran down the archer, who was just about to loose another arrow at him. Swinging the heavy spiked ball on the end of its chain, he smashed the bow from the man’s hands and following through, the mace ball caught the ruffian across the temple, pulping the skin and bones.

Simultaneously, John de Wolfe had been attacked by two men who rushed from the bushes, one wielding a rusty sword, the other a short spear. The three bandits had picked the wrong pair to attack, as the seasoned Crusaders, each with twenty years’ experience of fighting behind them, reacted with almost automatic precision.

Bran, virtually without orders, reared up and his front hoofs came down on top of the man with a spear. With a force of almost half a ton, the assailant was flattened into the hard-packed earth of the track. At the same time, John’s long sword had slithered out of its scabbard and as the big destrier came back down, it whistled through the air and almost completely severed the other outlaw’s arm at the elbow.

With a scream of pain and terror, he fell to the ground and watched his life’s blood pumping out into the dust of the high road. The two horsemen, wary of further attacks, closed together side-by-side in the middle of the track and scanned both sides of the road for further assailants.

‘There seem to be no more, Gwyn,’ called John after a moment. ‘But keep your eyes open while I see if these bastards are going to live.’ He slid from his saddle and, with his sword half raised, warily approached the two he had routed. The one that Bran had crushed was obviously dead, his neck bent back at an impossible angle.

The other lay in a spreading pool of blood, which had run into the ruts of the dried mud in the road. He was already barely conscious, his face having a deathly pallor, but he had enough wits left to spit weakly at de Wolfe as he bent over him.

‘You are dying, man!’ snapped John. ‘Are there more of you here?’ But the fellow’s eyes rolled up and he fell back, still just alive, but totally unresponsive.

‘Is your man able to speak?’ he called to Gwyn, who was looking down from his steed at the bowman he had struck.

‘No, and he’s not going to live long, Sir John. His brains are leaking from his ear!’

The forest was silent, apart from the twitter of uncaring birds and the distant howl of one of the few surviving wolves.

‘These three must have been trying their luck alone,’ observed John. He wiped the blood from his sword in the long grass and slid it back into its sheath. ‘They don’t seem to be part of a bigger gang.’

Gwyn dismounted and they looked at the three unsuccessful robbers, who were now either dead or on the point of expiring. Though they had just slain three men, they had no false sense of sorrow or guilt. These fellows had tried to murder them in an ambush solely for the contents of their purses; it was a matter of ‘kill or be killed’ and they felt no remorse for the outcome of their vigorous defence.

‘These seem to be low-class villains,’ grunted John. ‘Tattered clothes and home-made weapons, so they are presumably outlaws trying their luck on passers-by.’

Gwyn stood with his huge hands on his hips, staring at the scattered corpses. ‘What the hell are we going to do with them?’ he asked.

De Wolfe shrugged. ‘Drag them off the highway and leave them to rot. With no sheriff to report to, no one cares what happens to them. The local manor might bury them if they can be bothered, but I expect the local animals will see them off come darkness.’

As they pulled two off the track on to the weedy verge, Gwyn complained about the state of the country under Prince John. ‘We’re descending into barbarism, I reckon! I keep hearing that these attacks are now so common that many folk will only use the roads in company with at least a dozen others.’

When they got back to Exeter and made the same point to Ralph Morin, he not only agreed, but pointed out that even large groups of travellers had been attacked by bands of marauding outlaws. ‘You were lucky only to have a trio of lousy fighters against you,’ he said. ‘Even tough Crusaders like you would have a hard time if you were jumped on by Willem the Fleming or Harald de Marisco. They can each muster a score or more men, so it’s said. Even a squad of my men-at-arms would have their work cut out to defeat an ambush by them.’

They were sitting in the Bush, as Ralph had come down to see what changes had been made at the inn since John returned home.

‘Is there nothing that can be done to clear these vermin out of the forest?’ asked Nesta, who was sitting with them. ‘It’s got worse these past few years.’

The big constable shrugged. ‘There are a lot more vagrant soldiers about now, since the Irish wars cooled down and the Crusade is over. Knights without land and mercenaries without masters abound in the countryside. The forest is often the only place they have to lurk and highway robbery their only occupation.’

‘In some places, large gangs have actually sacked small towns, so I’ve heard,’ contributed Gwyn.

‘Not having a sheriff with any guts is another cause,’ grated John. ‘Six counties being bled dry by that useless prince, but no effort made to enforce law and order. The bailiffs and sergeants of the Hundreds are in the pocket of the manor lords and are only concerned with piddling local disputes.’

Gwyn scratched his tangled hair to annihilate a few wild beasts lurking there. ‘Sir Ralph, why not lend us a few of your garrison men to hunt down some of these bastards?’ he suggested. ‘Sergeant Gabriel would relish the chance of giving his idle soldiers some real fighting. Most of the youngsters I’ve seen lounging about Rougement can never have seen a weapon wielded in anger.’

The castellan’s bushy eyebrows came together as he considered this. ‘You mean a sort of posse?’ he asked. ‘But as we said before, you need a sheriff’s warrant to do that.’

Gwyn shook his head. ‘I meant more like the Templars, who were founded to protect pilgrims travelling to the holy places in Palestine. In fact, many of our travellers here must be pilgrims going to Canterbury or St David’s — or even to take ship to Santiago de Compostella.’

Morin looked at de Wolfe. ‘What do you feel about that, John?’

‘It’s a novel idea, certainly. The Chief Justiciar has commissioned me to root around for evidence that the Count of Mortain is still planning a revolt, so maybe we could make the excuse that these bands of armed robbers might also be offering themselves as mercenaries for him.’

Ralph took a huge swallow of ale before answering. ‘I don’t think we need an excuse to give it a trial, John. The King’s Peace is being broken on the king’s highways. I’m now the only royal representative in Devon, so I reckon I’m entitled to do what I think necessary to keep order.’

They fell to deciding on how to organize their vigilante operations, already keen to clear certain areas of the ‘forest’, a term which was not confined to dense woodland, but any wild land not under cultivation. Nesta became uneasy about John’s obvious eagerness to take part in anything that involved the use of sword and mace.

‘Don’t go getting yourself maimed or killed, Sir John!’ she admonished sternly. ‘God and all his saints saw fit to preserve you for three years when you were on their business in the Holy Land, but you can’t expect their benevolence to extend to chasing armed robbers!’