Fear in the Forest

CHAPTER TWELVE

Guy Ferrars had gone to Lustleigh the previous evening and billeted himself, his son and servants on his tenant there, Roger Cotterel. The manor was not an ancient one, being ignored in William the Bastard’s great survey over a century earlier. It had been hewn from some of Baldwin the Sheriff’s lands many years before, and Ferrars’ father had purchased it as an addition to his extensive estates in the county.

The manor house was small, but built of stone with a slate roof, and when John de Wolfe and Gwyn arrived the next morning, the bailey within the surrounding fence was humming with activity. Guy Ferrars had brought eight of his private soldiers from Tiverton, together with his hound-master, steward and bailiff. Half a dozen lean brown hounds yapped excitedly in an empty pigsty, where they had been confined for the night.

Ferrars invited the coroner and his officer into the hall, which occupied the whole ground floor, Cotterel’s living quarters being on the upper floor. The reluctant host was a tall, thin man with sandy hair, who was trying his best to look as if he enjoyed having his landlord and his retinue foisted upon him for a day and a night. Food and drink were plentiful on the trestles, and they all filled themselves ready for the search in the adjacent forest.

Together with Cotterel, his manor-reeve and a dozen villagers, the party moved out on foot, as the edge of the woods was barely a quarter of a mile to the west, beyond which the land dropped down into the valley of the Bovey river, with Trendlebere Down on the other side. As they walked ahead of the motley crowd, the dogs now following slavishly behind the whip-carrying hound-master, Ferrars explained the lie of the land.

‘I own everything as far as you can see,’ he bellowed, waving his arm expansively at the tree-covered horizon. ‘I use the land beyond the village fields as part of my chase, which extends for four miles north of here. But farther up, the bloody Royal Forest comes right across the river.’

They walked on for half an hour, diving into the trees and turning right within sound of the Bovey in its deep valley. John and Gwyn, who had their own swords buckled on, saw that every man was armed in some way, two of the retainers being bowmen. They seemed a large enough party to repulse anything other than a major force of outlaws, but John felt vulnerable after his recent experiences and kept a wary eye open for any sign of opposition. Hugh Ferrars walked with them in the vanguard. He was a younger version of his father in build and colouring, but had barely half his father’s personality and energy. John assumed that the tragic Adele de Courcy had been given little choice in her betrothal to this boorish young man. The manor-lord, Roger Cotterel, was the first to spot the demolished deer-leap that had caused this trouble. He pointed ahead to a tumble of earth and turf among the trees.

‘There’s the saltatorium, so we’re in royal territory now, by a few hundred paces.’

The leap had been built across a narrow defile which carried a well-trodden deer path down the centre. Though it had been partly destroyed by the efforts of Ferrar men, John could see that an eight-foot bank had been thrown up from a deep ditch, which sloped gently up on the far side. The agile deer could easily spring down the sheer face and scamper up the slope, but the return journey was blocked as they could not get enough of a run in the ditch to scale the vertical wall.

The party scrambled down the tumbled earth and stood in the partly filled trench to await orders from the baron. He called over his steward, a venerable-looking elder with snowy hair.

‘Have you got that clothing from the widow?’

The steward unslung a leather shoulder bag and produced a ragged pair of woollen breeches. ‘These had been discarded but not washed, my lord. They will have his scent upon them.’

Guy Ferrars put his nose to the rags and grimaced. He held them out to John, who even at arm’s length could savour the mixture of stale sweat and urine.

‘Don’t need a bloody dog. I could follow that myself!’ said Gwyn, when he had also sampled the odour.

Ferrars threw the garment at the hound-master, a wizened fellow dressed all in green, with a horn hanging around his neck on a leather thong. He caught it and looked dubiously at the hounds.

‘I’ve never tried this before, sir. They’ll follow a fox or a stag to the ends of the earth, but I don’t know if they understand about humans.’

He called his beasts to him and, as they clustered excitedly around his feet, held the breeches to their snouts. The hounds looked puzzled but willing, and seemed to understand when he waved them away and gave a blast on his horn as encouragement. He started running away from the deer-leap farther into the King’s forest, the dogs running yelping before him. They began spreading out and putting their noses to the ground and to bushes and tree trunks. In a moment they all seemed to converge on to a side track and went racing away, barking excitedly.

‘Looks as if they’ve got the idea!’ said Gwyn, to whom dogs were preferable to most men. They all hurried after the hound-master, who was trying to keep up with his charges. The party swished through the sparse undergrowth beneath the tall trees, the stench from crushed garlic strong on the still air. After some four hundred yards, labouring up a slope from the defile, they saw the green tunic of the hound-master in a small hollow at the base of a huge oak. As they panted up, the man looked crestfallen.

‘I think they’ve been misled by the scent of a fox, my lord.’

The six dogs were milling around a wide hole between the roots of the great tree, which was poised on the edge of a dip in the ground. Red Devon earth was exposed, and fresh soil was scattered downhill from the tunnel mouth. The hounds were milling about in circles, yapping and barking, and one had his head in the hole, trying to worm his way inside.

Gwyn bent to look closely at the ground around the hole.

‘This doesn’t look right for a foxhole or a badger sett,’ he grunted. ‘The earth has been thrown up against the bottom, not dug out from it.’

The hound-master looked and agreed with him. ‘There was a sett here — a big one, but it’s been partly refilled.’

The two men, watched by the rest of the party, seized a couple of fallen branches and broke off four-foot lengths to use as crude spades. They attacked the soft, crumbly soil, pulling it back to slide down the slope below the hole, which now appeared as a much larger aperture. The dogs, which had been hovering excitedly around them, whimpered even louder, and one, more daring animal again dived head first into the hole. The houndsman yelled at it and gave it a smack across the bottom to get it out. Gwyn took its place, dropping to his knees to peer down the shaft, which went obliquely down between the tree roots.

‘See anything?’ snapped the impatient coroner.

Instead of answering, his officer dropped on to his side, careless of the damp rusty earth soiling his clothing, and stuck his right arm up to the shoulder into the hole. The onlookers watched his face change to an expression of disgust as he pulled his arm out of the tunnel and looked at his hand.

‘No wonder the hounds were so excited,’ he said with his usual infuriating slowness in imparting information. ‘How long has this man been missing?’

A jabber of consternation broke out among the watchers as Gwyn held up his hand to show a piece of greenish skin stuck to his palm.

‘Is that human?’ demanded Guy Ferrars.

‘It slid off something with five fingers and a thumb!’ answered the Cornishman with black humour. ‘I think he’s in head first, with the legs under this earth.’ He clambered to his feet and pointed to the soil that was still piled below the hole. Now the baron snapped into activity, shouting orders at his retainers, while de Wolfe and his henchman stood and watched. The dogs were called off and three Lustleigh men energetically began scraping away the earth with pieces of wood. Within a couple of minutes one of them gave a yell and bent to brush away loose soil with his hand, exposing a bare foot. It was white and wrinkled but not decomposed, and very soon both legs were uncovered.

‘Can you drag it out now?’ demanded the manor-reeve, who was hovering over the three villagers. They dropped their branches and heaved on the ankles of the corpse. After a momentary hesitation, there was a minor avalanche of powdery earth and the body slid out of the hole, into which it had been pushed up to the knees, then covered with loose soil. One arm below the elbow had been exposed within the tunnel, and it was this that Gwyn had felt. The diggers brushed off most of the earth from the body and stood back to allow everyone to see the dead man.

‘There’s no doubt it’s William Gurnon,’ said the reeve. ‘He’s not too mortified, considering it’s a week since he died.’

‘The earth helps preserve them,’ said John de Wolfe, an expert on corpses. ‘Only that hand is green and slimy, because it was out in the air.’

‘Some animal, rats or a fox, must have unearthed it,’ added Gwyn, not to be outdone in matters of death. ‘All the tendons on the back have been laid bare where it’s been nibbled.’

Guy Ferrars was more interested in what had killed his servant, rather than the effects of death. ‘Have a look at him, de Wolfe. He’s a coroner’s responsibility now.’

John and his officer went into their familiar routine of examining the cadaver. As he squatted by the body. de Wolfe observed aloud that someone had already committed several offences, by failing to report a sudden death to him and by concealing the corpse from his view. A week’s hot weather had begun to affect the body, though as John had already pointed out, being buried in a cool wood had markedly slowed down putrefaction. The dead man wore a short tunic and knee-length breeches, his feet being bare. The upper garment had ridden up over his worn leather belt and the exposed belly was greenish and slightly swollen. His face was somewhat flattened from the weight of soil on it and the eyes were collapsed and opaque, but the features were still recognisable to the other men from Lustleigh.

‘Here’s the trouble, Crowner!’ said Gwyn, pointing to ominous brown staining on the neutral-coloured wool of the tunic. On both sides, coming around under the armpits, the staining was partly obscured by adherent loose soil, but when Gwyn rolled the corpse over, the whole of the back of the clothing, from shoulder blades down to waist, was stiff with dried blood. When the belt was removed and the tunic pulled right up, the cause was obvious.

‘Stabbed in the back — twice!’ barked Ferrars, who was peering over John’s shoulder.

‘Bloody cowards! Two with arrows in their backs, and now a knife in the same place,’ added his son belligerently.

The coroner traced out the two wounds with his finger. One was a few inches from the centre of the back on the right side, where the lower ribs began. It was two finger-breadths wide and shaped like a teardrop, with a sharply pointed lower end and a rounded top.

‘A single-edged knife, that!’ said Gwyn. ‘Quite a wide blade, too.’

‘Probably the same weapon did this other one,’ observed de Wolfe. He rested his forefinger alongside the second stab wound, which was slightly higher and in the exact centre of the back, over the knobs of the spine. It was half the length of the other, but had the same shape.

‘A tapered blade couldn’t go in so deeply, because of the bone underneath,’ he muttered, half to himself. He poked his finger into the hole to measure the depth and gave a short exclamation as he jerked his digit out again and examined the tip, which now had a small cut on it.

With a curse, he wiped it on the dead man’s coarse tunic, then sucked it vigorously, spitting repeatedly on to the ground.

‘Careful with that, Crowner!’ growled Gwyn. ‘Corpse juice can give you a nasty septic wound. Was it a spike of bone that you hit?’

‘Didn’t feel like it. Let’s have a better look.’

He pulled out his own dagger from the back of his belt and enlarged the stab wound over the spine with a slash a few inches long. Taking the free edge of the dead man’s tunic, he carefully mopped up the blood and tissue fluid from the wound, revealing a metallic glint inside. Using the point of his dagger, he levered out a piece of steel, which he displayed on his palm.

‘Whoever did this snapped off the tip of his knife in the bone,’ he announced to the heads craning over him to see what he was doing. ‘The other wound was the one that killed him. It’s gone deep into his chest and belly.’

He displayed the small triangle of sharp metal, which had an irregular edge where it had been snapped off. As he wrapped it in a dock leaf and put it away carefully in his belt-pouch, he turned to Guy Ferrars.

‘At least we’ve found your man and you can take him back to his family for a decent burial.’

The baron glowered at the corpse. ‘I want the swine who killed him. Was it these outlaws or the foresters? Whoever it is will be sorry when I catch up with them.’

‘The King’s law will deal with them. But we have to find them first.’

Ferrars ordered his men to make a rough bier of branches to carry the body home and they then set out on the tramp back to Lustleigh.

‘De Wolfe, I’ve been thinking about your journey to Winchester. In the circumstances, I’ve decided to come with you. I need to go there soon on other business, but you may need a little extra persuasion to get the Curia to send a force down here. To them, Devon is a distant country full of yokels and savages, good only for producing tin and wool for their benefit.’

Privately, John felt that his personal connections, especially with his old crusading commander, Hubert Walter, would be sufficient, but he was in no position to contradict Lord Ferrars. He accepted with good grace, and on reflection thought that however proficient he and Gwyn were with swords, a larger party would be that much safer on the long road to Hampshire.

When they arrived back in Lustleigh, they delivered the dead man to his wailing wife and grieving family. For formality’s sake, to fulfil the legal requirements, John held a five-minute inquest using the members of the search party as jurors, to deliver a verdict of murder by persons as yet unknown. Thomas was not there to record the very abbreviated proceedings, but de Wolfe could dictate the essentials when he returned to Exeter.

Ferrars and his son and steward were going back to Tiverton, so John bade them farewell at Lustleigh, arranging to meet them at Honiton, on the road to the east, at noon in two days’ time, all prepared for the journey to England’s royal capital.

John debated whether or not to take Thomas de Peyne with them to Winchester. He doubted whether such a poor horseman could keep up with the party, especially as Ferrars was such a short-tempered, intolerant man. However, on Gwyn’s suggestion, they hired a better horse from the farrier’s stables for the clerk, a sturdy but docile palfrey, meant for a lady’s mount. In the one day they had before leaving, Gwyn insisted that Thomas give up his side saddle and ‘sit on a horse like a man’, as he put it. Ignoring Thomas’s protests, he made him practise up and down Canon’s Row for an hour until the little fellow learned not to fall off. On Friday morning, the three of them set of for Honiton, which was a convenient meeting point for riders from both Exeter and Tiverton. Guy and Hugh Ferrars arrived with half a dozen men-at-arms in leather cuirasses. These were covered with tabards bearing Ferrars’ armorial emblem, in the new fashion for displaying the family crest — in this case a golden arm grasping a hammer, on a field of crimson. De Wolfe suspected that Ferrars was developing political ambitions to match his increasing lands and wealth and wanted to make an impression on the established grandees who ran England in the continued absence of the King. It was probably this motive, as much as concern about the forest problem, which was taking him to Winchester.

The journey was long but uneventful, apart from Thomas slipping from his saddle near Wimbourne Minster, to the great amusement of Ferrars’ soldiers. The distance from Exeter was over a hundred miles, and at a steady pace the journey took them three days.

They stopped overnight at Dorchester and Ringwood, where Ferrars claimed hospitality from manorial lords that he knew — in one case, he actually owned the manor himself. He, together with his son, steward and John de Wolfe, fed and slept in the manor houses, while Gwyn, Thomas and the men-at-arms found a heap of straw in the outhouses and barns and ate well in the kitchens, to the delight and amusement of the maids.

During the many hours of riding through the long summer days, John had plenty of time to mull over his personal affairs back in Exeter, not that such prolonged meditation brought him any nearer a solution. What did he really feel about the women in his life? Similar to his devotion to King Richard, his ingrained sense of honour tilted him towards his duty to Matilda, much as she exasperated and annoyed him for most of his waking hours. It had been a marriage of convenience, and though John had had virtually no say in the decision, the bond had been made under the judicial and spiritual laws and was almost impossible to put asunder. His hopes that Matilda’s entry into a nunnery would annul the marriage contract seemed doomed, as John de Alençon, who should be best informed, seemed to be pessimistic about his chances.

In any case, would Matilda stay in Polsloe? After more than sixteen years of wedded purgatory, he knew his wife’s character very well indeed, and was all too aware of her fondness for good food and fine clothes. Though he did not doubt her genuine regard for the Church and all its appurtenances, as well as her faith in God and all his saints, he also well knew that there was a large social element in her endless attendances at St Olave’s and the cathedral. They were the places to be seen with the wives of burgesses, knights and guildmasters — venues for showing off her newest kirtles and mantles and currying invitations to feasts in the Guildhall.

As they trotted along through endless lines of trees and past a legion of strip-fields around the villages on the Winchester road, his thoughts turned to Nesta, whom he had left still pale and fragile in a priory cell.

She had changed somehow, he reflected. In the weeks since she had announced her pregnancy, she seemed to have shrunk away from him, though since her miscarriage her attitude had slanted a different way, one that his blunt masculine sensibility could not fathom. He felt recently that even Thomas now had more of a rapport with Nesta that he did himself. Though it would be ludicrous to feel any jealousy for the little clerk, he had the impression that there was some secret between them to which he was not privy. He loved Nesta, he decided with some trepidation — and having got used to the idea of becoming father to her child, the sudden ending of that prospect seemed to have left him adrift.

Was he being punished for his sins? he wondered. Like everyone — with the possible exception of Gwyn — he believed in the Almighty. He had never even contemplated not believing, as faith was an ingrained part of life, like sleeping, eating and making love. It was dinned into everyone from the moment they could crawl — mothers, fathers and the priests built up a solidly tangible milieu of God, Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, the saints and angels, as well as heaven, hell and the Devil. Sin was inescapable: the clerics thundered that every child was born with original sin and you should spend the rest of your life trying to diminish its burden before you died. Most people lost no sleep over this, and though they never dreamt of questioning it most never gave it a thought, except perhaps during the hour spent standing in a cold church being harangued by the parish priest.

But maybe he had done something so wrong that his burden of sin had increased almost beyond redemption, and now he was being warned to be vigilant before it was too late. As he rode along, he went over all his potential mortal sins during the past forty-one years. He had killed plenty of men, God knew — and, of course, God did know. But they were all slain in battle or self-defence, so surely that was no sin? He had dispatched two in the forest only a few days ago, but it was him or them. He had killed dozens in Palestine, but surely ridding the Holy Land of Mohammedans was the whole point of the Crusades! Did not the Church actively canvas for recruits to liberate Jerusalem? John himself had accompanied Archbishop Baldwin around Wales in ’88 in an intensive recruiting campaign for the Third Crusade. In the Irish and French campaigns, again he had slain countless men, but that was for his King, the anointed of God. No, a soldier’s duty could be no sin.

He had never raped a woman, though he had had plenty of willing ones. He had never robbed anyone, for looting in war was legitimate. What other transgressions could have been responsible for his present state? Yes, he had been jealous on occasions and covetous of other men’s wives — who hadn’t? If avarice, extortion and embezzlement were heinous sins, then why was his brother-in-law apparently so comfortable with himself? He should be frying in hell by now.

At the end of it all, John was driven back on his love life to explain his present unease. He had been constantly unfaithful to Matilda all his married life, but he would be hard pressed to think of a man of his acquaintance who was different. In his many years away at the wars, he had lechered and whored like anyone else — and since he had been home, he had dallied with the delicious Hilda of Dawlish whenever he had the chance, as well as their maid Mary and a certain widow in Sidmouth — and a few more he could hardly recall. And, of course, Nesta, sweet Nesta, was the culmination of them all. So that must be the answer, he concluded gloomily — his infidelity had been punished by taking away his first son before it was even born, leaving him in limbo between an absent wife and a mistress whose attitude towards him seemed to have become strange.

Thankfully, these dismal thoughts were brought to an end by Guy Ferrars yelling up ahead and waving his arm at the village of Ringwood to indicate that this was where they would spend their last night before Winchester.

With a sigh, he switched his mind from women to the prospect of a good meal, a few quarts of ale and a palliasse in the hall of the manor house.

Early the next evening they entered the bustling city through the West Gate and the two Ferrars and their steward made their way to an inn which they habitually used on their visits to Winchester. Their men-at-arms were given a few pence and told to fend for themselves until the morning. John de Wolfe and his companions found another tavern which provided straw-filled mattresses in a barn behind the main building, and after a meal in the taproom below, John sat with his officer having a few jars of ale and gossiping with other patrons.

Thomas had wandered off on a nostalgic tour of the city he knew so well and which had been the scene of his downfall. In truth, he was somewhat apprehensive of being recognised and perhaps reviled by old acquaintances, so he slunk along in the shadows of the approaching dusk, his eyes wary for any familiar face. He went cautiously into the cathedral and knelt in a dark corner, crossing himself and praying. The little clerk’s eyes were full of tears for what might have been, if he could have stayed long enough to gain a prized prebend. He might have become a canon in the place where he had studied, been ordained and taught, until the wiles of women and his own misguided foolishness had brought about the catastrophe that had all but ended his life.

As the twilight deepened, Thomas made his way back to the inn at the bottom of High Street, and wearily laid himself down on his bag of straw, pulling his thin cloak over him. He was still awake when the other two came to their own pallets, aching after a long day in the saddle, but the old campaigners were snoring within minutes of lying down fully clothed on their thin mattresses.

The morning came all too quickly for the tired travellers, but an hour after dawn saw them eating thin oatmeal gruel and coarse barley bread in the alehouse. Gwyn grumbled about the quality of the food, but as the price of their penny bed included the morning meal, they ate it on principle, though the Cornishman vowed that he would visit the first pie stall they saw when they went out. He did this on the way up the hill to the castle, where they had arranged to meet the Ferrars in the hall of the keep.

Winchester Castle was larger than Rougemont and far busier, so they had to push their way through the throngs of people in the vaulted chamber to reach the baron. He was standing with his son and steward, talking to a sombrely-dressed cleric who was one of the Justiciar’s chamberlains.

‘We’re fortunate, de Wolfe,’ Ferrars said as they approached. ‘Hubert Walter is here today, but leaves for London in the morning and then goes on to York.’ The itinerant Chief Justiciar combined running the political machinery of England with heading its Church as Archbishop of Canterbury. Hubert was an elusive figure, as he liked to inspect the kingdom at first hand as much as possible and was always on the move.

The chamberlain promised to expedite their audience with him, but they still had to cool their heels in the great hall for another two hours before they were taken to a chamber on an upper floor to meet the most powerful man in the country. The Justiciar was a down-to-earth man and rarely indulged in the pomp and ceremony that his rank allowed. He rose from his table to greet them, dressed in a plain brown tunic that displayed neither his political eminence nor his supreme ecclesiastical rank. The only token of his religious status was a small silver cross hanging on a chain around his neck.

He greeted Guy Ferrars first, as befitted his barony, but his arm clasp for John carried an extra warmth for an old friend and battle comrade. Hubert was a tall, strong man with a lean, leathery face tanned by his past campaigns and his constant travelling. He looked far more the soldier-statesman than Prelate of Canterbury. His businesslike manner marked him out as the genius behind England’s survival after the crippling financial crisis that the more feckless of King Richard’s wars and ransom had caused.

Gwyn and Thomas, together with Ferrars’ steward, retired to the back of the room to stand inconspicuously with several clerks, who hovered anxiously with parchment rolls for the Justiciar’s attention, while John, Guy Ferrars and his son were ushered to chairs in front of Hubert’s table. The chamberlain’s snapping fingers brought wine from a side table and then the Justiciar got down to business.

He listened intently as Ferrars bluntly outlined the problem in the Royal Forest of Devon and the coroner supplied more details of the transgressions of the foresters and the increasing boldness of the outlaws.

‘So Richard de Revelle may be up to his old tricks again?’ observed Hubert when they had finished. ‘I thought he might have learned his lesson after that trouble when I was in Exeter last.’

The archbishop had visited the city the previous autumn, when the coroner and the sheriff were locked in a dispute over jurisdiction and the courts. Both then and a few months later, de Revelle had sailed very close to the wind of treason, and only John’s reluctance to fully expose him — mainly because of Matilda’s pleas for her brother — had saved his shrievalty and possibly his neck. But Hubert Walter was well aware of the doubtful loyalty of the Sheriff of Devonshire.

‘Perhaps we should have got rid of him then,’ he observed. ‘Or even earlier, by refusing to confirm him as sheriff last year, when his original appointment was suspended for three months.’

‘The man’s been a bloody liability all along!’ rasped Guy Ferrars. ‘Can’t you just dismiss him? Surely you can persuade the Curia to throw him out.’

The Justiciar steepled his hands to his chin. ‘It’s not so easy. He has influential friends in Prince John’s camp. The Bishop down there supports him, as do some of your fellow barons, like the de Pomeroys.’

Ferrars made a rude noise, to indicate what he thought of the Pomeroys of Berry Castle. ‘They’re all part of this conspiracy to bring back John,’ he snarled. ‘Even the ringleader, Hugh of Nonant, is still plotting away, even though his fellow bishops dismissed him from Coventry. Now he skulks in Normandy, waiting his chance.’

‘So what can be done about this immediate problem in the forest?’ asked de Wolfe, afraid Ferrars would divert the discussion into broader issues.

Hubert pondered for a moment. ‘The Council wouldn’t back me in removing de Revelle as sheriff without clear proof of his involvement, but I can certainly block any ambitions he might have of becoming Warden of the Forests. In fact, plans are under way to hold a Commission on the Stannaries to unseat him from his position there as Lord Warden.’

He looked across at the coroner. ‘What about the present Warden, Nicholas de Bosco? We gave him that post almost as a sinecure, a reward for his long service. But is he up to it, in the present unrest?’

‘He has little real power, so I think he should stay,’ replied John. ‘It would help if some strong endorsement of his position came from you or the Curia, just to warn off de Revelle. It’s these outlaws that concern us.’

‘We don’t have enough men to make a determined sweep of the forest to get rid of them,’ snapped Ferrars. ‘Many of my tenant knights and their men-at-arms have been taken to France to fight with the King.’

De Wolfe explained how he was sure that they were being financed by Prince John, through a devious route, probably involving the Church.

‘It’s a hell of a coincidence that this Father Treipas, who is in a Cistercian house that strongly favours the Prince, came from Coventry, where he was an acolyte of Hugh of Nonant. And then he moved to Devon, via a close connection with our own Bishop Marshal!’

Guy Ferrars snorted. ‘It’s clearly a conspiracy. Without the help of these bandits, the foresters and verderer could not stir up so much trouble. The object seems to be to dislodge the Warden, as well as increase the forest revenues for John’s benefit, when he attempts another rebellion through the south-west.’

The Justiciar drummed his fingers restlessly on the edge of the table

‘It’s not only the south-west, in fact. Similar things are happening in other forests, like Essex and Savernake, though so far there’s been no outlaw involvement there.’

He thought again for a moment, staring blankly at a sliver of sky visible through a slit window on the opposite wall.

‘This is what I’ll do, de Wolfe. When I established the coroner system last September, the main object was to raise revenue in the royal courts as well as keeping a check on all these rapacious sheriffs. But I also made provision for coroners to be given roving commissions on an ad hoc basis, when some particular problem arose.’

John waited tensely. This sounded very interesting.

‘So I’ll draft you a King’s Commission this very day, which should solve most of the problems. I have every faith in you, John, to carry it out, just as you did your duty in the Holy Land and when you did your best to safeguard the Lionheart in Austria. I know I can depend on you.’

For an instant de Wolfe felt tears of pride prickling his eyes at this endorsement of his loyalty, and even the self-centred Lord Ferrars looked at him with new respect — this was fulsome praise from a man who was the virtual Regent of England.

They both leaned forward expectantly, as the Justiciar outlined his proposals.