Crowner's Crusade

SEVENTEEN

The following week, now almost into December, Ralph Morin and his fellow vigilantes took a patrol of six mounted soldiers up the main road eastwards, along the highway that went via Honiton towards Ilminster and thence to Bristol and London. Though there was no continuous forest very near Exeter, there were substantial patches where the road passed through dense woods for several miles. Although the trees were supposed to be cut back for a distance of a bow shot each side, this was rarely done and in places, the track almost ran through tunnels, where the large trees arched overhead.

With Morin and de Wolfe at their head and Gwyn and Gabriel bringing up the rear, they trotted along, intent on showing themselves to any prying eyes that might be lurking in the fringes of the forest. As they came around a bend in one of the narrower sections, a violent scene suddenly presented itself.

Ahead of them, a number of horses and people were jostling in the road, shouts and screams being mixed with the clash of weapons. Spurring Bran forward, with the castellan alongside him, John galloped down the few hundred paces that separated them from the melee, closely followed by the other men. As John hammered along, already drawing his sword in readiness, he saw that a pair of horses had fallen, overturning the litter that had been carried between them. Two women were crouched in the road, screaming at the tops of their voices. Half a dozen attackers were obviously gaining the upper hand over the same number of men trying to defend themselves and the ladies. Two of the travelling party were lying in the road, one ominously still and the other writhing in agony.

The battle was short and vicious, as the military contingent thundered up to the scene of the ambush. At the first sight of the soldiers, the outlaws abandoned their attack and fled for the cover of the trees, but one who was still fighting a member of the escort, was felled by a blow from the man’s sword as he turned away.

‘Archers, dismount and get after them!’ bellowed Ralph Morin, as the attackers began vanishing into the undergrowth at the side of the road. With John and Gwyn alongside him, they hauled their horses around and charged off the track as two soldiers were stringing their bows and firing off a volley after the retreating ruffians. Within a few yards, the mounted men had to slide off their steeds, as dense saplings and brambles made it impossible to ride any deeper into the forest at anything other than a walking pace. Scrambling after the assailants, Gwyn tripped over one, who lay groaning with an arrow shaft sticking from his back. Within a couple of minutes, Ralph and John realized that it was fruitless to continue the chase, as the remaining fugitives had already gained too great a distance on them and had faded into the trees.

‘Back to the road, they may need our help!’ yelled the constable and when they had recovered their horses, they walked out on to the road, Gwyn dragging the wounded man by his arms, to dump him at the side of the track.

There was confusion at the scene of the ambush, as the men-at-arms were pacifying the frightened horses and trying to attend to the wounded travellers. John now saw that the two females were nuns and that the immobile figure in the road, who appeared to be dead, was a priest. The tall man who had struck one of the attackers — who now lay whining in the dust, clutching his bleeding shoulder — stumbled across to Ralph.

‘Thank God you came in time, sir!’ he panted. ‘I am Justin, one of the proctor’s men from the cathedral. I must attend to those poor ladies!’

John and Ralph went with him to assist the pair of nuns, who were clutching each other as they sat in the dirt. One was elderly and was muttering prayers with her eyes firmly shut, while her companion was a much younger woman, doing her best to console her sister-in-God.

‘Are you hurt, ladies?’ asked John gently, looking at their torn habits and the dirt on their white wimples.

The younger one smiled bravely and shook her head. ‘Thank you, sir, not wounded, but bruised and shaken from being pitched from that litter.’

The soldiers had now managed to force the fallen horses to their feet and as they struggled up, the covered litter, supported by long poles slung between the harnesses, righted itself. Leaving Justin and two of the other servants to get the two nuns back aboard, John and Ralph went to assess the damage to the ecclesiastical party.

‘The priest is stone dead, I fear,’ growled Gwyn, who was standing over the inert shape of a fat, middle-aged cleric. ‘He’s had a blow on the head that’s stove in his skull.’

The other injured man was one of the cathedral servants, who had suffered a severe blow from a mace to his shoulder and chest. ‘His arm’s broken and I think some ribs are stove in,’ announced Gabriel. ‘But he should live, if we get him back to the cathedral infirmary.’

Gwyn had appointed himself gaoler to the two injured robbers, as he had grabbed the one with the broken shoulder and dragged him across to lie in the weeds of the verge, alongside the man with the arrow still projecting from his chest. This one was already in extremis, being semi-conscious and gasping for breath as blood began bubbling from his mouth. The other one was bleeding from a wound across the top of his shoulder. He was moaning with pain, but Gwyn felt that his shifty eyes were looking for a chance to leap up and make a run for the trees.

Meanwhile, John went across to the litter to see how the two nuns were faring. They had been helped back into the long, hammock-like device which had a tent-like roof and side curtains. The younger one, who sat behind the one with the thin, lined face, again thanked their rescuers, but was herself crying at the death of their priestly colleague.

‘Father Edward was escorting us to Glastonbury, where we are to join the community of sisters at the abbey,’ she sniffed. ‘We have come from Tavistock, stopping at Buckfast Abbey and Polsloe Priory in Exeter. We left there several hours ago, with a new escort kindly arranged by the Archdeacon.’

Justin, the man from the cathedral, told John that Father Edward was a canon of Tavistock Abbey and had been killed when he tried to stop one of the outlaws seizing the purse of silver he carried for expenses on the journey.

Within a quarter of an hour, order had been restored and Ralph Morin announced that he would take the travellers back to Exeter, escorted by his men. ‘We can take the ladies to Polsloe, where the injured fellow can be treated.’

Polsloe was a small convent a mile outside the city, run by a few sisters whose main function was medical care, especially of women’s ailments. John said that he would stay with Gwyn and deal with the two remnants of the robber band, one dead, one alive. After the cavalcade had gone, they went to stand over the survivor, a skinny fellow of about thirty, dressed in a dirty red tunic with gold embroidery, obviously stolen from a previous victim. He had a few blackened teeth in his mouth, visible when he cursed both of them, using some of the foulest language that even the campaign-hardened de Wolfe had ever heard.

Gwyn gave him a hefty kick in the ribs as he lay in the grass. ‘Keep that filthy tongue in your head, you murdering bastard!’ he growled. ‘Or use it to say your last prayers for killing a priest and attacking nuns!’

‘Are you going to kill me here and now?’ snarled the man.

John looked down at him with distaste. ‘You’re going to die, that’s for sure — either at the end of a rope or having your head taken off.’

‘That’s the best way,’ said Gwyn. ‘We can get five shillings bounty for it if we take it to the sheriff.’ In an undertone, he added: ‘If we had a sheriff.’

John knew he could not bring himself to kill the man in cold blood. Since Acre, where he had seen several thousand Saracen prisoners beheaded in a mass execution, he could not contemplate the act, even though it was perfectly legal for anyone to kill an outlaw on sight. ‘There’s some rope on my saddlebow, Gwyn. Tie his hands and he can walk back to Rougemont behind your horse. If he can’t keep up, just drag him along, it’s far less than he deserves.’

‘What about the corpsed one?’ asked Gwyn, as the arrowed victim was now well and truly dead.

‘Leave him, like the ones in Haldon Forest. Our furry friends will soon get rid of him.’

In spite of their threats, the two horsemen went at a sedate pace back to Exeter, so that the prisoner could keep up with them without falling down and being dragged. Exhausted, he toiled up the slope to the castle and was hauled over to the keep, where the prison was situated in the undercroft. This was the basement, partly underground and completely separated from the upper levels. The only entrance to the keep itself was up the wooden stairs to the main door on the first floor, a safety measure in case of siege.

The warder was an evil, obese Saxon called Stigand, a sadistic man of low mentality who was both gaoler, torturer and storeman. The undercroft, a gloomy vault bounded by the slimy stone arches that supported the upper storeys, was divided in half by a rusty iron fence into an area which held the stinking cells, the rest being storage. Stigand lived here, in a foul nest under one of the arches, where a mattress accompanied a brazier that both cooked his food and heated the branding irons and ploughshares for Ordeals.

Gwyn untied his prisoner, who claimed to be Arnulf of Devizes, and prodded him down the few steps that led from the inner ward into the semi-darkness of the undercroft.

Stigand appeared from his den, his waxy face and piggy eyes gloating with anticipation. ‘I heard from the others who came back just now, that you were bringing an outlaw. Is he to hang straight away or do you want me to first make him suffer a little?’

‘Just put him in a cell until we know what’s to happen to him,’ snapped de Wolfe, who could not stand the sight of the foul custodian.

Before Arnulf was pulled away towards a gate in the iron stockade, he pointed a finger of his uninjured arm at John’s belt. ‘How did you get hold of that, then?’ he croaked. ‘I’ve only seen one like that before, a dragon in a circle.’

Surprised, John held up a hand to stop Stigand tugging at the prisoner. ‘Where did you see it?’ he demanded, putting a thumb behind his belt to push Roger Smale’s buckle forwards.

Arnulf shrugged indifferently, with the desperate bravado of a man already marked for execution. ‘I’m going to be hanged whatever happens, so I may as well tell you. It was on the belt of a man we slew, up Crediton way. Never seen a design like that before.’

‘When was this? Another highway robbery?’

Arnulf shook his head wearily. ‘No, it was a bit unusual, that killing. A month or two back, our leader, Walter Hamelin, was paid to ambush a certain man, kill him and steal any parchments he might be carrying.’

Gwyn gave the man a hefty push in the chest, which made him howl, as his arm was dangling uselessly by his side. ‘Are you spinning us some bloody yarn?’ growled the Cornishman. ‘It sounds like a pack of lies. Who would pay for such a killing?’

Arnulf cringed as Gwyn raised his fist again. ‘It’s the truth, I tell you. On my dear mother’s grave, I swear it! Walter was told a few days before that this man would be travelling alone down from Crediton and we were to lie in wait for him and slay him. He described him as a fair-headed fellow, riding a big strawberry roan.’

‘So who ordered it and what happened to any documents you found?’ demanded John. ‘How did he know how to meet your leader, this bastard Walter you speak of?’

‘I don’t know, it was privy to Walter and this young man who ordered it. Walter got a bag of silver, that I do recollect, for he gave the rest of us each five pence as our share, though it was Walter himself as cut his throat. We just grabbed him off his horse and threw his body into the river.’

‘So who was this young man you speak of, you cold-blooded swine?’ persisted John, glowering at the self-confessed murderer’s accomplice.

Arnulf sagged, seeing any hope of earning himself a reprieve fading. ‘Some smart fellow, looked like a knight’s squire. He met Walter at some arranged place on the road, but I know that Walter had seen him before in Crediton. Though an outlaw like the rest of us, he was always sloping off into town.’

‘Do you know this squire’s name or where he was from?’ shouted Gwyn, thrusting his ferocious face towards the man.

‘Never heard his name, but I did catch that he had to take these bits of written parchment back to Berry when he came again to see if Walter had carried out his task.’

‘Berry? You mean Pomeroy’s castle near Totnes?’ snapped John, alert now that names were being named.

Arnulf tried to shrug, but his shoulder was too painful. ‘I don’t know, it was no concern of mine. I got my few pence, that’s all I cared about.’

More questions drew nothing useful and the doomed man was dragged off by Stigand to spend the short remainder of his miserable life in a rat-infested cell with a slate slab as a bed and leather bucket for his ablutions.

John and Gwyn went up to the floor above and sought out Ralph Morin, who was eating and drinking to fortify himself after their escapade at the forest’s edge. John told him of what Arnulf had said and the castellan whistled through his beard at its significance.

‘So now you’ve got something you can tell Hubert Walter! If that squire was from Berry, then it incriminates Henry de la Pomeroy, which is no great surprise.’

The de la Pomeroys were a widespread dynasty named after their apple orchards in Normandy, whose early members had come over to fight with William of Falaise at the Battle of Hastings and as a reward, had vast tracts of land given them in several parts of England. The present lord in the south-west was Henry, whose main residence was at Berry Pomeroy Castle, twenty miles south-west of Exeter. He was known to be a keen supporter of the Count of Mortain and had fortified the island of St Michael’s Mount at the extreme end of Cornwall, to act as one of the prince’s strongholds.

‘The Justiciar will already be well aware of Henry’s partiality to John,’ observed de Wolfe. ‘But for him to slay a king’s servant and steal his dispatches must surely be a new development, suggesting that the prince is contemplating open revolt again.’

The constable agreed and said that he would get an urgent report drafted by his clerk and send it to Hubert Walter by a herald who was due to return to Winchester in the next few days.

‘What about this Walter Hamelin, who was the actual killer, according to that piece of scum down below?’ asked Gwyn.

John rasped a finger over his black stubble. ‘Yes, he deserves a rope around his neck, too. That Arnulf says he visits Crediton openly, so maybe one of these days we can spare a few hours to flush him out!’

The murder of Roger Smale preyed on John’s mind, especially now that they knew the name of his killer, as well as a strong suspicion that it was done at the behest of Prince John.

He thought about it during that night as he lay in bed, with Matilda snoring a few feet away under the heavy coverlet. What was the point of hanging little rogues, when those higher in the chain went unpunished? Hubert Walter had asked him to keep his ear to the ground in the West Country, but when something happened, there was no one in authority to take any action. John turned over restlessly and decided that Roger Smale must not rot away unavenged under his mound of damp earth outside the cathedral.

Next morning, he went back to the undercroft at Rougemont and ordered Stigand to let him into the cells. Grumbling at being interrupted while frying his breakfast of eggs and bread on a skillet over the branding brazier, the gaoler opened the outer gate for him and went back to his crude cooking. The half-dozen rusty cages inside the prison area were empty apart from Arnulf’s and John strode down to glare in at the solitary occupant. The outlaw was sitting dejectedly on the slate slab that served as his bed, his feet in the sodden, filthy straw that covered the floor, watching a pair of rats squabbling over some refuse in the corner. It was dark, cold and stinking and although John was hardened to misery, he felt that a man’s last days in a condemned cell need not be as cruel as this.

The man looked up listlessly as he became aware of someone outside his cell. ‘What do you want now?’ he rasped. ‘Have you come to gloat over me?’

De Wolfe folded his arms and stared at the prisoner. ‘I need some more information about this man you spoke of, this Walter Hamelin.’

This seemed to spur Arnulf out of his apathy and he scowled angrily at the tall man in the long grey tunic, a broadsword slung at his waist. ‘Why should I? What’s in it for me? You’re going to gibbet me whatever happens.’

‘Listen to me! Only God knows when the justices will come to try you, it may be months yet,’ growled John. ‘Do you want to stay as filthy as this for all that time?’ He gestured at the dirty pan of drinking water, in which floated soiled straw and rat droppings — and at the slop bucket, overturned under the slate slab.

‘What choice do I have?’ snarled Arnulf. ‘I’d like to kill myself, but there’s no way of managing that in here.’

‘Tell me what I want to know and I’ll get that evil bastard out there to give you clean straw and a blanket. I’ll even bribe the swine to get you some food that would at least be fit for dogs.’

The outlaw looked suspiciously at his visitor, then decided that he had nothing to lose and possibly something to gain. ‘What do you want to know?’ he muttered.

‘Where can I find this Walter? I need to talk to him, to discover who wanted Roger Smale killed — and why?’ snapped de Wolfe.

‘Talk to him? You mean kill him, I suppose,’ sneered Arnulf.

‘That would be up to the justices — unless he tried to kill me first, when I would certainly slay him!’ said John calmly.

‘You’d have your work cut out! Walter’s never been bested by anyone yet.’

John became impatient with this verbal fencing. ‘You said that though outlawed, he sometimes went back into town. D’you mean Crediton?’

‘Yes, most often. Though he has been into Moretonhampstead and Tiverton, even came once here to Exeter.’ The man was almost boastful about his former leader’s boldness.

‘Why does his risk that?’ demanded John.

The man leered up at him. ‘Walter’s fond of a tavern — and even fonder of a woman now and then. And he does a bit of business, selling venison and other game we poached from the forest. There’s little risk, with no sheriff’s men to bother him. If the town bailiff or the forest officers get too nosy, he either bribes them or makes a run for it.’

John thought about this for a moment. ‘How often does he go there? Does he have a favourite tavern in Crediton?’

Arnulf shrugged. ‘Depends which part of the forest we were in. It was rare for him to go a week without wanting to ride some doxy. And as for an inn, the Bell was his usual haunt, for he had some arrangement with the landlord. Walter took me there once to help him take a deer we’d killed.’

John tried the man with a few more questions, but there was nothing useful that he could squeeze from him. On the way out of the undercroft, he grabbed Stigand by the throat and threatened him with violence if he failed to clean up the prisoner’s cell and treat him more humanely. Thrusting a few pence at him, he promised to send Gwyn in regularly to check that Arnulf received some edible food at least once a day.

As he walked across the muddy inner ward, he wondered why he had suddenly been struck by this attack of compassion for a murderous outlaw, when he had seen scores of other men die in equally foul circumstances. Perhaps age was turning him soft, but then he decided it was just an honest bargain, exchanging a favour for information, scanty though it was.

In the guardroom of the gatehouse, he found Gwyn at his usual game of dice and after waiting to see him win a ha’penny from Sergeant Gabriel, told them of his visit to Stigand’s captive.

‘Are you thinking of laying an ambush for this Walter fellow?’ asked Gabriel. ‘He must be a pretty slippery chap to come and go into Crediton as he pleases.’

‘Half these towns turn a blind eye to outlaws,’ declared Gwyn, as he dropped his winnings into his scrip. ‘They buy illegal game from them and then sell them food and drink to keep them happy in the forest. It all helps to keep the wheels of trade turning — and why should the townsfolk put themselves out to get them arrested?’

Gabriel nodded his agreement. ‘I have heard tell of outlaws slipping back to live full-time in towns well away from where they came from. Some have started businesses and even become respectable burgesses!’

‘Well this bastard isn’t respectable and I’m going to do my damnedest to catch him!’ declared de Wolfe. ‘We need to get some idea of his habits up around Crediton. I’m too well known to go snooping, so I think it’s a job for you, Gwyn. Investigating alehouses should suit you well!’

His henchman agreed, as the prospect of legitimately drinking a great deal appealed to him, especially as John gave him four pence to fund the investigation, enough to buy sufficient ale to float a rowing boat.

The Cornishman went to collect his mare from the castle stables and, within the hour, had set off on the few miles to Crediton.

‘That rogue in the cells was right. Walter Hamelin does patronize the Bell quite often.’ Late that evening, Gwyn was reporting to John on his spying mission, as they sat in the Bush enjoying mutton pasties and a jug of Nesta’s best ale.

‘How did you come to discover that?’ asked de Wolfe, wondering if his friend had threatened some hapless patron of the alehouse in Crediton.

Gwyn grinned through his ginger moustache. ‘Easy! I claimed that I was looking to buy some illegal venison for my master and had heard that Walter Hamelin sometimes had a haunch or two for sale.’

‘Who told you? The landlord himself?’

‘Indeed it was! It looks as if he acts as a middleman for Walter. A risky business, poaching deer from the forest — a capital offence, but I suppose if you’re already an outlaw, you can’t be hanged twice.’

John was distracted for a moment, as Nesta came across from talking to other customers and slid on to the bench alongside him. He told her what Gwyn had been up to that day and she was intrigued to know what they were going to do next.

Gwyn swallowed almost a pint of ale before answering her. ‘I’ve already done it,’ he said. ‘The landlord told me that Hamelin was due in on Friday with two brace of pheasants and a couple of hares that another customer had ordered. If I wanted to talk to him about venison, he said I should come and bargain a price with him.’

Nesta’s arched eyebrows rose in surprise. ‘They seem very casual about outlawry in Crediton. Have they no fear of the law there?’

John scowled, his bushy black brows meeting in the middle. ‘That’s the problem, there is no law worth speaking of! That scab in the castle gaol said that the local officers can easily be bought off, with no proper sheriff to police the county.’

‘So what are you going to do about this Hamelin fellow?’ persisted Nesta.

Gwyn looked at de Wolfe for approval. ‘I suppose I’ll have to go and talk to him on Friday, see if I can lure him outside where we can seize him?’

John ran his fingers through his hair, pulling the thick dark locks back towards the nape of his neck. ‘He’ll be wary, meeting a complete stranger. You told the landlord that you wanted the venison for your master — did he ask who that was?’

Gwyn nodded. ‘He did, but I told him my master wanted to keep his name well away from any illegal dealings, which seemed to satisfy him.’

John pondered this for a moment. ‘We need to ambush him, but no doubt he’ll be cautious, for all that Crediton seems a safe haven for rogues. If we gallop into the town with a posse, he’ll vanish through the back door, that’s for sure.’

Gwyn nodded, as he slurped some more ale. ‘We don’t even know what he looks like, so I’ll have to keep that meeting, just to clap eyes on the man. I’ll make a date to collect the haunch of meat, then somehow we can nab him when he leaves, for he has to go back into the forest afterwards.’

But Nesta, always mindful of their safety, had thought of a danger they had not mentioned. ‘What if he recognizes you, Gwyn? He was the leader of that gang that attacked the nuns. You were there too and you’re not exactly inconspicuous!’

The Cornishman was unconcerned. ‘They vanished into the trees like greased lightning as soon as they saw us coming. Only Arnulf was left in the road, fending off one of the escort — and he’s locked in the cells.’

Nesta was not totally convinced, but the two men seemed set on this escapade and John partly mollified her by promising to take Gabriel and a few men-at-arms with them.

When Friday afternoon came, six men set off on the eight miles to Crediton, which they reached at twilight. All except Gwyn took cover in a wood just outside the town, the others tethering their horses there and waiting for half an hour to allow Gwyn to reach the Bell tavern. They had brought an extra horse from the castle stables, in the hope of having a captive to take back with them.

Leaving the youngest soldier to look after their mounts, the remaining four set off separately to follow Gwyn into the town. All wore nondescript clothing, John covering his long black hair under a pilgrim’s hat, the wide brim shadowing his face in the approaching dusk. Though he was well known in Exeter, having been abroad for three years made it unlikely that he would be easily recognized in Crediton, but to add to the image of a pilgrim, he had a long cloak to conceal his sword and carried a staff in his hand. Pilgrims were often seen in the town, as its main claim to fame was as the birthplace of the great St Boniface, who centuries earlier had taken Christianity to Germany and become its patron saint.

There were several small alehouses in the town, apart from the Bell, and John sent the two men-at-arms into one with a penny for their ale. They could hardly linger in the street for any length of time and there was no way of telling when Walter Hamelin would appear, if at all.

John walked on up the High Street with Gabriel, who had entered into the spirit of the adventure and disguised himself as a tanner, even to the extent of borrowing a leather apron from a friend in Exeter, which stank of the noxious animal substances that were used in treating hides. They passed the Bell on the other side of the main street, but there was no sign of the Cornishman outside the low thatched building.

‘We’d best go into the churchyard and wait,’ muttered John, as they came level with the large parish church. Slipping through the lychgate, the two men lurked behind the stone wall, trying to look unobtrusive, while still keeping an eye on the door of the Bell. John was afraid that they might waste a whole evening waiting for Walter, the deepening darkness making it more difficult to see who was coming and going.

But almost immediately, Gabriel hissed a warning. ‘There’s Gwyn on the doorstep, looking up and down the street. There’s no one with him.’

Going back into the roadway, they waved at him and he came across.

‘He’s been and gone again,’ he reported. ‘The landlord says he’ll be back later, but God alone knows when.’

‘Does he know where the bloody man has gone?’ demanded de Wolfe.

‘He’s gone to visit a doxy, so it depends on his stamina as to when he’ll be back,’ replied Gwyn, with a broad grin.

‘Maybe a good time to nab him, with his breeches down — if we knew where he was,’ suggested Gabriel.

‘He’s gone to see his regular whore, according to the landlord,’ said Gwyn. ‘A hussy called Alys, who plies her trade from a cottage next to the slaughterhouse at the end of the road.’ He pointed in the opposite direction to that which they had come and immediately, John began striding off, already loosening his cloak so that he could get at his sword.

The High Street soon petered out and beyond the last straggle of cottages the position of the slaughterhouse was easily apparent by the stench of rotten entrails piled outside. Beyond it, a dim light flickered behind the shutters of a solitary window in a cob-and-thatch hovel, too small to be called a cottage.

‘That must be the place,’ growled Gabriel. ‘It’s got a lighted candle, perhaps he likes to see what he’s doing!’

There was no gate or fence around the hut and John stepped quietly up to the window and put an eye to a crack in the ill-fitting shutter. Then backing away, he went back to the other two and spoke in a whisper. ‘It’s him all right — unless someone else is enjoying the delights of Alys.’

‘Shall I go back and fetch the other two lads?’ suggested Gabriel.

‘No, if three of us old warriors can’t grab one man, we ought to go home and sit by the fire for the rest of our days!’

Gwyn nodded in the gloom. ‘Yes, let’s jump him now, but we’ll need the others to drag him safely back to Exeter.’

They moved quietly up to the door, a rickety collection of planks with leather hinges, but no handle or latch. John opened it by simply raising his foot and smashing it against the flimsy barrier, which flew back with a crash. With his sword drawn, he charged inside, closely followed by his two companions. The light from the candle was dim, but he had no difficulty in seeing a man straddling a woman on a grubby mattress placed on the floor in one corner. His roar of challenge was matched by a strident bellow from the man, who leapt up dressed only in an undershirt, the pandemonium being added to by piercing shrieks from the woman who lay naked on the palliasse. She had good reason to be frightened, as three large men appeared around her bed, all brandishing large swords.

‘Who the hell are you?’ yelled the man, staring wildly at these apparitions, as he pulled his shirt down to cover his pubes. He was a tall, well-built man, fair-haired with coarsely handsome features.

‘Are you Walter Hamelin?’ roared de Wolfe. ‘If you are, then we’re arresting you!’

‘Arresting me? God’s teeth, what are you talking about, damn you?’ He sounded indignant, as well as shocked.

‘We are king’s officers!’ shouted John, stretching the truth a little. At least Gabriel was part of Exeter’s royal garrison and John’s warrant from the Justiciar effectively made him a king’s agent. ‘We are seizing you as an outlaw and also as a murderer,’ he added.

Walter virtually danced on the bed in desperation as he looked wildly around to see if he could reach his clothes piled on the floor, where his long dagger sat on his belt. It was a futile gesture, with three long sword-blades pointing steadily at him. Alys had given up screaming and had grabbed a woollen blanket and pulled it over herself, covering her head.

‘We are entitled to kill you now!’ boomed John. ‘But we’re taking you back to Exeter to question you, so get your breeches on. This is the last time you’ll ever soil a woman, whore though she may be!’

Gabriel bent to remove the dagger from Walter’s clothing and threw the serge trousers at him.

Still standing on the bed, the outlaw sullenly pulled them on as he snarled at John. ‘Who are you and how did you find me?’

‘I’m Sir John de Wolfe, a knight and a servant of King Richard. These men are my squire and the sergeant of the garrison at Rougemont. We were the ones who broke up your murderous attack on a priest and those nuns on the road to Honiton. That’s all you need to know, so get these on!’ He kicked a pair of boots towards the mattress, where the harlot still cowered under her blanket.

As soon as Walter had dragged them on, Gabriel sheathed his sword and stepped forward with a length of thin rope, which he had brought wrapped around his waist. As his two companions held their swords at the ready, he lashed Hamelin’s wrists together behind his back. With the outlaw’s own dagger in his hand, he used it to prod the captive in the back and urge him towards the door, keeping hold of the loose end of the rope.

As they left the miserable shack, Gwyn cackled at Walter. ‘At least you didn’t have to pay her this time, you’ve had your fun for free!’

In return, the outlaw spat a string of foul blasphemies at the Cornishman and received a clout across the ear for his trouble.

Hamelin continued to curse as they marched him back down the High Street, the moon giving them light enough from a clear sky.

Before they reached the alehouse where they had left the other soldiers, Walter ran out of abuse and managed to speak rationally again. ‘What are these bloody questions you want to ask me? You’re not sheriff’s men. Why don’t you just kill me and get it over with?’

De Wolfe stopped their progress in the middle of the street and held the tip of his sword to the man’s throat. ‘Maybe I will, just as you callously slashed the throat of Roger Smale and threw him into the river!’ he growled.

Walter shrugged, causing the tip of the blade to scratch his neck. ‘So that’s what this is all about!’ he sneered. ‘I usually slay people for free, but that time I got paid for it!’

‘And who was it who paid you?’ demanded John, angry at the man’s offhanded admission of murder.

‘Some dandy of a squire from Berry Pomeroy. I seemed to recollect he called himself Justin something-or-other.’

John dropped his sword from the man’s throat, but kept it ready at his side as they began to walk on again. ‘And how did he know how to find you?’ persisted de Wolfe.

Walter leered at him in the pale moonlight. ‘You’d be surprised at some of the folk who depend on me, some of them high and mighty.’

‘Depend? What do you mean — “depend”?’ growled Gwyn, who obviously detested this brigand.

‘A burgess wants a nice bit of venison or a vicar fancies a couple of brace of pheasant,’ boasted Walter. ‘And sometimes, an upright man wants his wife or his mistress done away with, while he’s conveniently miles away in Dorchester!’

They reached the other alehouse and stopped in the road outside. While Gabriel went in to fetch the two men-at-arms, John continued his questioning. ‘So this Justin wanted a particular man dead, is that it?’

‘Yes, but he mainly wanted some parchments he was carrying. He paid me ten shillings for the deed, half in advance, the rest when I handed over the stuff from the man’s pouch.’

‘You did better than Judas Iscariot, then!’ growled Gwyn. ‘He only got thirty pieces of silver, you managed a hundred and twenty.’

‘Did this Justin say who had ordered him to employ you?’ snapped de Wolfe.

‘He didn’t say and I didn’t ask. It was none of my concern. We met both times in the Bell. It was arranged as usual by the landlord.’

‘Was Henry de la Pomeroy mentioned at all? Or Prince John?’ persisted John. He wanted to know how deeply the Lord of Berry could be tied into this murderous conspiracy, but Walter Hamelin was too far down the chain of conspirators to be of much use.

‘All he let slip was that he was a squire and lived in Berry Pomeroy castle,’ growled their prisoner. ‘He stayed at the inn the second night, as he said it was too far to ride back almost to Totnes that late in the day.’

By now, the two soldiers had come out of the alehouse and added themselves to the guard around the captive. They marched on to where they had left the horses, where the youngest soldier reported that he had seen no one since they left.

Walter was hoisted on to the spare horse, his hands tied in front of him so that he could still grip the pommel of the saddle, as the reins were held by Gabriel, who rode on one side with Gwyn on the other. John de Wolfe led the small procession through the moonlight, the other men-at-arms bringing up the rear. Their prisoner had given up his barrage of cursing and blasphemy and sat in sullen silence as they jogged along the deserted road.

‘The North Gate will have closed long since,’ said Gwyn. ‘How will we get this fellow to the castle?’

‘Don’t worry about that, I know all the night porters,’ Gabriel assured him. ‘They’ll open if I tell them it’s king’s business.’

All city gates were closed at dusk, but like the curfew that was supposed to keep people off the streets at night, the regulations were often broken, either for important people or for a bribe.

John had suspected that Walter might have made some desperate break for freedom, knowing that he was inevitably headed for the gallows, but after a couple of miles had passed without incident, he felt more confident that they would deliver the outlaw to Stigand’s tender care.

The track generally followed the little River Yeo, which joined the much larger Exe halfway to the city. It crossed the Yeo at one densely wooded point over an old humpback stone bridge a few yards long, which had a low parapet on each side. Halfway across, without the slightest warning, Walter Hamelin suddenly threw himself sideways from his saddle and fell to the ground virtually between the legs of Gabriel’s horse. The animal shied in alarm and caught unawares, the rider had difficulty in staying on its back. There was instant confusion in the gloom, now all the deeper because of the high trees all around the bridge. Amid the shouting and yells of alarm from the escort, the prisoner, who had caught a hefty blow from one hoof of Gabriel’s mount, managed to scrabble his way the few feet to the parapet and throw himself across it. Everyone else was sliding from their saddles to intercept him, but John and Gwyn were blocked by the horses on the narrow trackway. Gabriel almost fell from his own frightened mare, but managed to catch Walter by the ankle as he squirmed across the rough stones bordering the bridge

‘I’ve got the bastard!’ he yelled, but it was a premature claim, as with a frantic kick, the outlaw freed his leg and vanished head first over the wall. By now, the others had struggled to the spot and leaned over to look down into the river. Though only a dozen feet wide, it was in full spate, the water splashing over large stones in the gleam from the moon.

‘Can you see him?’ roared de Wolfe.

‘Not a sign, he’s washed down under the bridge,’ hollered one of the soldiers.

‘I heard a hell of crack as he went down,’ shouted Gabriel. ‘I reckon he landed on his head on those rocks.’

John stood up and began running across the bridge in the direction they had been going. ‘Quickly, follow the river down, he can’t have got far!’

Three of the men rushed across the bridge after him, but Gwyn and Gabriel went back over the bridge and clambered down to the bank, following the boisterous torrent downstream. The other party was opposite and in the poor light, they all began to comb the water’s edge as they stumbled along in the direction of the flow, shouting and cursing as they went.

After a hundred yards, Gwyn let out a thunderous bellow. ‘Here he is, caught up against a tree stump!’

As the others strained to see from the opposite bank, Gabriel helped him to haul out the sodden shape of Walter Hamelin and dump him on the grass at the base of a tree.

‘He looks dead to me!’ called out the sergeant.

John fumed on the other side. ‘He can’t have drowned in that time, he’s not been in the water five minutes!’ he yelled.

Gwyn, after a moment’s examination, mainly using his fingers in the dark, called back across the turbulent water. ‘No, but he can crack his head open! And I think he may have a broken neck.’

‘I said I heard him hit something,’ declared Gabriel. ‘Well, it saves having to hang the murderous swine!’