Fear in the Forest

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

It was Thursday evening before John returned to Exeter, but before entering the city he called at Polsloe, leaving Gwyn to escort the timid clerk the last remaining mile or two. He found Nesta even less well than when he had left. Though she was still deathly pale, there was a flush on her forehead and her eyes appeared slightly suffused.

‘She has a slight fever, which gives us some concern,’ said Dame Madge, when she took John aside and insisted on inspecting the healing wound on his hip.

‘Is she in any danger?’ asked John anxiously.

The cadaverous nun shrugged. ‘Not at present, though everything is in the hands of God. Her loss of blood when she miscarried has lowered her resistance to bad humours. She needs good nursing and constant prayer, Crowner. We can supply both, though it would not come amiss if you went on your knees more often yourself on her behalf.’

When he went back in to Nesta, to softly tell her all his news of the journey to Winchester, she seemed attentive enough, but hardly spoke. Yet he felt that her mood had improved since before he went away, and she seemed slyly amused about something, but would not tell him what it was. He put a hand on her brow and felt the unhealthy warmth and saw a prickle of sweat on her upper lip.

‘You are warm, my love, but Dame Madge says you are in no danger,’ he said, diplomatically slanting the infirmarian’s comments. ‘You need the best attention, which I’m sure you get in this blessed place.’

Again the half-smile as she nodded slightly and reached for his hand.

‘I’m glad the long journey went safely, John. The roads can be dangerous places.’

He avoided telling her that he was soon likely to face considerably more danger in confronting the outlaws and turned the conversation on to more innocent paths, such as Thomas’s nostalgic ramblings around Winchester.

As he left her little room, he stared down the corridor of the infirmary and thought he just caught sight of a familiar figure stepping quickly into a doorway.

‘No change there, Crowner,’ said a voice from behind him, and he turned to meet the prioress.

‘She still refuses to talk to me?’

Dame Margaret nodded sadly. ‘I doubt you’ll ever bring her round, sir. She seems set on staying here, though the time for a decision as to taking her vows is still a long way off. But she has a natural talent for nursing — the infirmary seems to suit her well.’

John recollected how Matilda had looked after him with such grim efficiency when he had broken his leg earlier in the year.

‘I hope she finds happiness here, lady. But I would like to speak with her, just to say how sorry I am that I have brought her to this condition. Please intercede for me, when you get the opportunity.’

The prioress nodded. ‘I’ll do my best, but she seems firm in her intentions at present.’

With that he had to be content and, climbing up on to weary, patient Odin, he set off on the last lap of his journey to Martin’s Lane. Here Mary was pleased to see him home, soon setting out some clean clothes to replace the dust-laden ones that had crossed half of southern England. After he had doused himself with a bucket of cold water in the yard, he dressed and sat down to a good meal hurriedly put together by the faithful maid. Later than evening, he went up to Rougemont and sought out the constable to tell him of recent developments. He found Ralph Morin not in the keep, but closeted with Brother Roger, the castle chaplain. They were in the tiny sacristy of St Mary’s chapel, just inside the inner ward — not engaged in any devotions, but covertly sharing a stone jar of good Anjou wine.

‘I’m keeping out of the way of the bloody sheriff,’ complained Ralph. ‘He pesters me ten times a day as to whether you’ve returned from Winchester and what action is to be taken.’

The amiable Roger produced another earthenware cup and poured John a liberal dose of the rich French wine. ‘This is a better drink than the sips of watered vinegar I’m used to handing out at Mass,’ he said with a twinkle in his eye.

They waited expectantly for John to regale them with details of his journey. The castellan was entitled to know and, as usual, the chaplain was consumed with curiosity.

‘Hubert Walter was very cooperative, thank God,’ he began.

‘Is he providing some troops?’ was Ralph’s first question.

‘Yes. The two Ferrars and their men left Winchester for Southampton, with authority to collect sixty men-at-arms and archers, who were waiting to cross to Harfleur. The Justiciar said that though they were intended for Richard’s army, they could delay for a few weeks and come down here. He placed them under your command, Ralph, to do whatever you think necessary.’

Morin’s bushy eyebrows lifted almost into his hairline.

‘Me? Not the sheriff?’

De Wolfe took a sip of his wine and explained.

‘De Revelle is in bad odour with the Justiciar, though he can’t get rid of him just yet because of his influential allies. But Hubert has given me a coroner’s Royal Commission to use whatever means I wish to sort out this mess in the forest. That includes using these troops under your direct command.’

The constable looked delirious with joy. ‘God’s teeth, that’s marvellous! But will the sheriff let you get away with it? He’s supposed to be the King’s man in the county.’

‘I have letters from the Justiciar, speaking for the Curia Regis, which confirms the Commission. They strictly forbid de Revelle from countermanding my activities, as well as stopping him from becoming Warden.’

The man with the forked beard beamed. ‘Anything else?’

‘Another parchment gives me the power to arrest any forest officer whom I consider to be guilty of an offence, irrespective of forest law. As the Royal Forests are royal, they can hardly oppose a direct order on behalf of the King!’

‘Is there anything you can’t do?’ asked the portly chaplain.

‘You’re safe enough, being a man of the cloth,’ replied John. ‘I’ve no mandate to do anything against clerics or any ecclesiastical or monastic establishments. So I can’t act against this damned Father Edmund, apart from handing him over to the Church authorities, which would probably be a waste of time.’

Ralph Morin was already imagining himself in command of a small army. ‘When do these soldiers get here?’ he demanded.

‘As soon as Ferrars can march them from Southampton — they should be halfway here by now. You’ll have to find some accommodation for them somewhere.’

The constable swallowed the rest of his wine and jumped to his feet.

‘I’d better get started — tents and shelters to put up in the outer ward and extra victuals to get in. The sheriff will have apoplexy when he hears, not least when he realises the cost of feeding these men!’

At the door of the sacristy, he turned to John,

‘Please, let me come with you when you tell the bastard about all this. I wouldn’t want to miss seeing his face at the news!’

John decided that there was no time like the present, and they walked across the bailey to the keep, smugly anticipating the violent reaction of de Revelle when he heard how he was being sidelined. But the man was not there, and from the furtive looks and feeble excuses of his chamber servant, John suspected that he had some dubious assignation in some backstreet of the city.

‘Delay increases the anticipation of good things,’ he told Ralph philosophically. ‘We’ll ruin his day by telling him first thing in the morning.’

As he walked through the gatehouse arch on his way home, Sergeant Gabriel bobbed out of the guardroom to intercept him.

‘Crowner, Gwyn sent a message up by a lad a few minutes ago. He said to meet him as soon as you can just above the Saracen, but not to go inside.’

John stared at the grizzled soldier, unsure of the meaning of this cryptic message.

‘Any idea what it’s about?

‘No idea, sir, but it was from Gwyn all right — I questioned the boy and he said it was a giant with red hair who gave him a quarter penny to run with the message!’

For Gwyn to be so generous for such a small task must surely mean something important, thought John.

‘That Saracen’s an evil place, Crowner. Would you like me to come with you, in case there’s any rough stuff?’

The old soldier was obviously curious, as well as trying to be helpful, so John accepted his offer and they set off at a quick march for the lower town. The tavern of ill repute was at the top of Stepcote Hill, leading down to the West Gate, and ten minutes later they were within sight of the low thatched building, with dirty yellow-plastered walls displaying a crude painting of a Musselman over the door.

In the rays of the setting sun, they saw Gwyn lurking fifty paces short of the ale house, trying unsuccessfully to look inconspicuous in the doorway of the last house in Smythen Street. They walked cautiously up to him, as he peered down towards the hill.

‘What the devil’s going on, Gwyn? Are you spying on someone?’

He pointed a forefinger the size of a blood sausage towards the Saracen. ‘He’s in there! I didn’t want to scare him off before you came.’

The Cornishman was in one of his exasperatingly obscure moods.

‘Who, for Christ’s sake?’ snarled de Wolfe.

Gwyn looked as his master in surprise, as if he should already know.

‘Stephen Cruch, of course! I was going to the Bush along Idle Lane when I spotted him creeping down here. I followed him and saw him going into the tavern.’

‘After that affair in the forest near Ashburton, it’s a wonder he’d show his face within miles of the city,’ observed Gabriel.

‘Maybe he didn’t know about it — though every one else in Exeter does,’ replied de Wolfe.

‘From the way he was skulking along, I think he’s well aware of the danger,’ said Gwyn. ‘Perhaps he left something in the Saracen last time he stayed there, which he urgently needs before making a run for it, out of the county.’

De Wolfe stared down the street, keeping the door of the tavern in view.

‘If we seized him, it might help when the troops arrive. He can probably tell us where the various outlaw camps are placed. The one you saw, Gwyn — that must be only one of many.’

The big man’s huge moustache lifted as he grinned. ‘I’m sure he can “probably” tell us, crowner. Especially if I lean on him a little. He’s only a small fellow!’

‘How are we going to do it?’ asked Gabriel.

‘Just march in and grab him!’ said John bluntly. ‘Though I’ve got the King’s Commission to do almost anything I like, he’s already due for a hanging for consorting with outlaws — which I saw with my own eyes!’

‘A good bargaining point!’ chuckled Gabriel. ‘Let’s go.’

The taking of the horse-dealer was simplicity itself. The three men, two unusually large and the third in a military tunic, brandishing a sword, burst into the taproom of the tavern. There was a stunned silence from all the patrons, a rough-looking bunch with a sprinkling of resident harlots. As John and his friends scanned the room for Stephen Cruch, the silence was broken by the landlord, a grossly fat man called Willem the Fleming, with whom John had often had dealings, usually unpleasant.

‘What the hell do you want!’ he shouted.

Gwyn spotted Cruch sliding behind the fat innkeeper, trying to make for the back door. With a roar, he charged forward, brushed Willem aside and grabbed the horse-trader by his greasy hair. As he dragged the smaller man back towards the entrance, pandemonium broke out and the patrons surged forward, but Gabriel swished his sword back and forth in warning as he and de Wolfe retreated to the door and left.

Outside, their captive was writhing in Gwyn’s grasp, now with a massive arm locked around his neck, cutting off most of the oaths and blasphemies that he was trying to scream. They dragged him across to Idle Lane, where beyond the Bush on waste ground were a few scrubby trees. From the pocket of his jerkin, Gwyn produced a short length of stout twine and, pushing Cruch back against the trunk of an elder, he tied his wrists behind it, then stepped back.

The three men stood around him, regarding him grimly.

‘Your life is already forfeit, Cruch,’ said John harshly. ‘You have been seen not once but twice dealing with Robert Winter’s scum.’

The leathery features of the dealer contorted as he babbled his innocence, but the faces of his accusers remained implacable.

‘You will hang, unless the justices decide you should be mutilated, blinded and castrated,’ said de Wolfe. At this, Cruch sagged against the tree, almost fainting with terror.

‘There is one possible chance for you, if you can persuade me to be lenient.’

‘Anything, anything, Crowner! I had no part in the attack on you last week,’ croaked Stephen. ‘It was Winter who sent his men to deal with whoever was spying on them. We had no idea it was you.’

When de Wolfe put his questions to the man, he was so eager to reply that his words fell out in an almost incomprehensible gabble.

They learned that he admitted to being a messenger between Father Edmund and Robert Winter. This had arisen as an offshoot of his legitimate trading with Buckfast. Some months before, Treipas had paid him to seek out the outlaws, who were known to creep back into towns and villages for clandestine drinking and whoring. Cruch had provided ponies for the outlaws, paid for by the priest, then sent purses to them for reasons which Cruch claimed he knew nothing about.

‘There were slips of parchment with the money, which Robert Winter alone could read, for I could not. I keep my accounts on tally sticks.’

Even Gwyn’s heavy hands squeezing his neck until his eyes bulged and his tongue protruded failed to get the man to admit any more, and John was eventually satisfied that they had learned all they could for the moment.

‘We’ll keep you in the cells in Rougemont for now,’ he said. ‘When we move against Winter’s gang, we will need you to show us the various places where you met him in the forest. If you comply, then maybe I will turn my back at the end of it all and forget that you are a prisoner — understand?’

Cruch nodded his understanding, well aware that with hard men like the coroner and his officer, his life hung by a thread. Gabriel and Gwyn agreed to take the man back to Rougemont and deliver him to the care of Stigand the gaoler, while John went home to a well-earned rest. As they began to frog-march him away, de Wolfe called a last warning to the horse-trader.

‘I hear it rumoured that you yourself are already an escaped outlaw. If you have any sense, if we do let you go at the end of this you’ll either take ship out of England — or at least hide yourself in Yorkshire or Norfolk, well away from here!’

With a wry grin at Cruch’s abject terror, the coroner set off for home and bed.

The interview with the sheriff next morning, which Ralph Morin had been anticipating with such delight, came fully up to his expectations. He marched into de Revelle’s chamber behind the coroner, a forbidding figure in his long mailed hauberk, wearing a round iron helmet and a sword dangling from his hip, as if ready to do battle that very moment.

De Wolfe’s armament was less obvious, but even more potent. He carried three rolls of parchment, from which dangled the red seals of both the Chief Justiciar and one of the lesser seals of King Richard, which had been entrusted to Hubert Walter during the monarch’s absence abroad.

John threw these down on to the sheriff’s desk with a flourish. Though he could not read them himself, he knew every word by heart, thanks to Thomas’s translation.

‘Read those first, before you even open your mouth to protest!’ he snarled to his brother-in-law, a more literate man than himself. The coroner’s triumphant tone stifled Richard’s tirade before it began and he rapidly scanned through the unambiguous Commissions that the Justiciar had issued. His appreciative audience watched the sheriff’s narrow face tighten with horror, indignation and finally anger as the import of the documents sank in.

‘This is intolerable — outrageous!’ he fumed, as he threw the rolls back across the table towards John. ‘I am the supreme authority in this county. You can’t usurp the shrievalty with something penned on a piece of parchment!’

De Wolfe leered at him, delighted at this further opportunity to pay Richard back for all the sneers and slights he had inflicted in the past — especially his spitefulness in telling Matilda of Nesta’s pregnancy.

‘That smacks of outright treason, brother-in-law!’ he responded. ‘See those seals? They are those of your king and the man to whom he has entrusted his kingdom. The king who, misguided as he may have been, made you sheriff. Are you now saying you dispute those orders or intend to disobey them?’

De Revelle’s mouth opened and closed like that of a stranded fish, as his face flushed like a beetroot. He was desperate to protest, but afraid that any rash words would brand him openly as a rebel or traitor. The coroner went through the main provisions of the Commission, ticking off the points on his fingers. When he came to the matter of the Wardenship, he took particular delight in demolishing de Revelle’s ambitions.

‘You are specifically excluded from putting yourself forward as Warden of the Forests, in the unlikely event of Nicholas de Bosco giving up that office. And unless you tread very carefully indeed, Richard, you may well be deprived of the office you now hold. It was only thanks to our sovereign’s good nature — some would say folly — that he failed to crack down on all the supporters of John’s rebellion.’

It was a fact that when the Lionheart had been released from his incarceration in Germany he had been extraordinarily lenient with those who had plotted to steal his throne in his absence — he even forgave the ringleader, his brother John, and restored many of his possessions.

The sheriff began some stuttering condemnation of this latest humiliation, but his past record of flirting with the rebels left him too vulnerable to make any effective argument against John’s new-found supremacy.

‘We are going to march against these outlaws and bring these forester friends of yours to account,’ declared the coroner. ‘And I doubt that your verderer protégé Philip le Strete will have his appointment ratified when the matter next comes before the County Court!’

At that moment the door burst open and Guy Ferrars and his son strode in, ignoring the attempts of the guard on the door to announce them.

‘You’ve told him already, then?’ barked the irascible baron. ‘We arrived from Portsmouth last night. The foot soldiers should be here by this evening.’

Richard de Revelle, his nerves now twanging like a bow-string, stared at the new arrivals as if they had come from the moon.

‘What soldiers? What are you talking about?’

‘I’d not got around to that yet, Richard,’ snapped de Wolfe. ‘You explain, Ralph — they’re your troops.’

The castle constable gleefully told the sheriff that he had been put in command of a company of men-at-arms destined for the King’s army, to flush out the outlaws and other undesirables from the most troublesome part of the forest.

‘This is intolerable!’ gibbered de Revelle. ‘I am sheriff and they should be placed under my control. So don’t expect me to cooperate with you. I want nothing to do with this madness.’

‘You won’t be asked to take part, Richard,’ growled de Wolfe. ‘In fact, as Commissioner, I won’t have you anywhere near this operation. I don’t trust you.’

De Revelle ranted and raved for a few more minutes, being repeatedly rebuffed by the others. Finally, an irate Guy Ferrars leaned over his table and thrust his face close to that of the sheriff.

‘Listen, de Revelle! You’re lucky to be allowed to sit safely in this chamber while better men go off to clear up the chaos you helped to foment. But I tell you, though the friends you have among certain barons and churchmen may have protected you so far, your time is fast running out!’

He drew back and stalked to the door, his son and the coroner following him. As he jerked it open, Ferrars made one last threat.

‘I shall devote myself to getting rid of you as sheriff of this county. We need someone trustworthy, like Henry de Furnellis, to sit there in your place!’

After his visitors had stormed out, Richard de Revelle picked up a pottery ink bottle from his table and with a scream of ill temper hurled it at the opposite wall. The missile exploded and black fluid ran down the stones like blood leaking from his wounded heart.

The men-at-arms from Portsmouth spent the next two days resting from their long march and getting their equipment ready for the fray on Monday. During this time, the coroner was called out to a fatal accident in the small town of Crediton, where a wall around a cattle pound had collapsed on top of a wood-turner, crushing him under a pile of stones. The wall had been declared unsafe beforehand by many of the local people, and John attached the manor bailiff to the next Eyre, to appear to answer a charge of negligence. He did this with poorly hidden satisfaction, as the manor was one of many belonging to Bishop Marshal. He would have to pay any fine and compensation, which was likely to be substantial, as the turner was a craftsman with a wife and five children to support. John was sorry that he could not have declared the wall a deodand, as it was the instrument of death, but the value of a heap of stones confiscated on behalf of the widow was negligible.

This episode took much of the day, as he held the inquest as soon as he had inspected the scene and the corpse, so it was early evening before he made his daily visit to Nesta at Polsloe Priory. She still had a slight fever, but Dame Madge seemed satisfied that it had not become worse.

John sat by her bed and regaled her with a monologue about the day’s events and the sheriff’s discomfiture at having his authority usurped by his brother-in-law. His mistress listened quietly, holding his hand in hers, until he came to speak of the campaign planned against the outlaws in two days’ time.

Then she struggled more upright on her bed and turned a pale and anxious face towards him.

‘Be careful, John, please! For God’s sake, don’t risk your life again. You were nearly killed by them but a few days ago!’

She sank back, even the effort to rise exhausting her. He gave a lopsided grin, meant to be reassuring.

‘Don’t fret, there’ll be almost a hundred others there too — a few knights and scores of men-at-arms, as well as Ferrars, de Courcy and their men.’

Nesta looked up at him, fearful of losing him after all that she had gone through lately. ‘All the men in England can’t stop a stray arrow striking you, John!’ she whispered.

Anxious to stop this preying on her mind, he changed the subject.

‘Have you seen any sign of Matilda?’ he asked. ‘She still refuses to speak to me, though I’ve glimpsed her in the distance once or twice.’

Nesta gave a slight nod. ‘She’s passed by once or twice.’

She seemed unwilling to elaborate and John, suspecting that she had been ignored by his wife or even vilified, hesitated to probe further. There was no sign of Matilda when he left, and as the prioress was also nowhere to be seen he hauled himself on to Odin and took himself home, feeling that a good battle in the forest was preferable to trying to understand women.

Early on Sunday evening, a meeting was held in Rougemont of all those who were to be involved in directing the campaign the next day. To keep clear of the sheriff, they met in the Shire Hall in the inner bailey, using the benches and trestles on the platform of the bare courthouse for their conference.

The two Ferrars, de Courcy, Ralph Morin, John de Wolfe and Gwyn were joined by three Hampshire knights who had accompanied the foot soldiers from Portsmouth. Only Thomas de Peyne was absent, as John felt his timid presence would be no asset in a battle.

On a large piece of slate, fallen from some roof around the castle, the constable scratched a crude map with a lump of limestone. Like John, he was unable to read or write, but had a good sense of orientation and could draw a useful plan.

‘Here’s Ashburton — and up here is Moretonhampstead,’ he boomed. ‘Between them, and to the west, is a tract of forest where it seems most likely that Winter’s gang is camping at present.’

‘How can you know that?’ grunted Guy Ferrars.

‘Two reeves came in this afternoon, as arranged. They have been spying out the situation for a couple of days on my orders. Several of Winter’s men have been seen in alehouses along the road between these two towns — and they vanished into the forest west of the road.’

‘Does this knave have any useful information?’ asked Hugh Ferrars, jerking a thumb down towards the hall, where Sergeant Gabriel held the shoulder of a dishevelled Stephen Cruch, brought over in manacles from the cells under the keep.

Morin beckoned and Gabriel prodded the horse-dealer nearer the raised dais. ‘How many camps do these brigands have in that part of the forest?’ he demanded.

Cruch, very conscious of the fact that his life and liberty depended on his cooperation, stuttered out all he knew on the matter.

‘I’ve been to three, sire, but there may be more that I’ve never seen.’

At a sign, the sergeant dragged his prisoner up on to the platform and propelled him over to the table.

‘Point to where you think they might be!’ commanded the elder Ferrars. Lifting his chained wrists together, Cruch took the chalk lump and added some marks to the slate.

‘This one’s on the slope of the high moor about here.’

‘That’s the one I visited,’ cut in Gwyn.

The horse-trader pointed out two other sites and gave some directions as to how they could be reached.

‘Take him back to the keep until tomorrow,’ ordered Morin. ‘He can come with us to show us the paths to these places — and woe betide him if he’s trying to fool us!’

Guy Ferrars and Reginald de Courcy, some years older than John, had seen plenty of fighting in their time and were well-acquainted with campaign tactics.

‘I say we should divide the men into two groups and push into the forest from both ends, starting from Ashburton and Moreton,’ said Ferrars.

‘And also have a few men moving up and down the road between them, in case they break out of the middle and vanish across into the woods on the eastern side,’ added de Courcy.

They discussed variations on this plan for a while, with the coroner quietly hoping that they would be lucky enough to find any of Winter’s gang. From past experience, he knew how difficult it could be to find men in dense forest. However, late that evening they had some good fortune which allayed John’s fears about missing the outlaws altogether. A messenger from the bailiff in Lustleigh rode in on a lathered horse with the news that a group of twenty outlaws had been seen by a shepherd late that afternoon. They were crossing the old clapper bridge on the Bovey river, westwards into the forest between Manaton and North Bovey. This at least reduced the large area in which to search for some of them — and it was not far from one of the camps that Cruch had indicated, on the slopes of Easdon Tor.

Soon after dawn, the small army set out, the northern party under Ferrars and de Courcy marching for Moretonhampstead, together with Hugh Ferrars and a score of local men, who would patrol the road. They took Stephen Cruch with them, his wrists loosely tied and an archer stationed near him with orders to shoot him if he tried to escape.

Ralph Morin, de Wolfe and Gwyn took the remainder of the men south-westward to Bovey Tracey, as with the news of the latest position of Winter’s men it was now unnecessary to go as far south as Ashburton.

Both groups were accompanied by the few mounted knights and their esquires who had brought the troop from Portsmouth.

All set off at a marching pace, the riders walking their mounts behind the foot soldiers. At that speed it took until early afternoon to get into position, and after eating the rations they carried, the two arms of Morin’s pincer movement moved towards each other, their target being Easdon Down.

De Wolfe and Gwyn rode alongside the constable, feeling an exhilaration born of memories of many a campaign in years gone by. Even Odin, who was too young to have been in combat before, snorted his excitement as he stepped out along the track, and John had to keep him reined in so as not to pull away from the column of men walking behind.

It was six miles between Bovey and Moreton, with Lustleigh just off the track about halfway between them. Before they reached Lustleigh, Ralph Morin called a halt, and when the thirty men-at-arms had all caught up, he gave orders for them to put on their armour.

The hauberks had been carried in two ox-carts at the back of the column, as it was impractical for the men to march the fifteen miles from Exeter in hot summer weather wearing knee-length chain mail. The hauberks each had a pole thrust through their sleeves and were hung on two rails fixed in the carts. Each man helped a comrade to get the cumbersome garment over his head, then adjust the mailed aventail which hung from their basin-shaped helmets down to their shoulders. Morin and de Wolfe did the same, as although they had great horses to carry the weight, neither wanted to sit in a hauberk for four hours in the July heat. Gwyn always refused to wear mail, relying on an extra-thick jerkin of boiled leather, which he now put on, but he did condescend to jam a round helmet on his wild red hair, the long nasal guard having been bent up a little to accommodate his bulbous nose.

When all was ready, the ox-carts were left on the track in the care of their civilian drivers and the posse turned off into the woods, heading for the narrow valley of the Bovey to the north-west. Four archers, not wearing armour, were sent on ahead as scouts. When all reached the river, they crossed and carried on steadily up the right bank, where the trees were less of an impediment to the mounted men than on the valley slopes. For an hour they saw nothing but greenery and the shimmer of the small river. There was an occasional glimpse of a startled deer and the distant crash of a boar as it hurried out of their path.

They passed through an area which a local Lustleigh guide said was called Water Cleave and then curved below Manaton, though it was invisible, being high up to their left and a mile away. The guide advised the constable that to aim for Easdon Tor they should begin to bear west, as the ground flattened out a little from the thickly wooded valley. Soon after they had moved away from the river, two of the archers came running back.

‘More than a dozen men, camped in a clearing, five hundred paces ahead,’ panted one.

Quickly, Morin divided his force into two and took half up the slope to the left, leaving de Wolfe to take the rest along the flatter ground to the right. Silently, his score of soldiers padded between the trees, one of the archers out ahead. A few moments later the scout held up his hand and the men slunk forward carefully. Another archer stood immobile, near the body of a young outlaw with an arrow sticking out of his chest, obviously a sentinel who had paid with his life for his inattention. The bowman pointed forward and John saw thin smoke rising from above some bushes where the sunlight was brighter in a gap in the trees. He gestured to the men-at-arms to spread out and then waved them on as he advanced, Gwyn at his side.

John was uncertain when to attack, as he did not know whether Ralph’s force was in position yet on the other side, but his dilemma was soon solved as there was a sudden yelling and crashing from ahead.

‘Come on, men!’ he screamed, his pulse suddenly racing with the prospect of battle. The line of soldiers dashed forward towards the clearing, straight into the remnants of the panic-stricken outlaw band, who were fleeing from Morin’s assault from the other side.

The action lasted no more than a couple of minutes and was more of a massacre than a combat. The two archers dropped the first pair of fugitives, then the rest careered blindly into the line of soldiers, to be cut down with sword and hand-axe. Every man was killed on the spot, which solved one problem for de Wolfe, as he was in no position to waste men on guarding prisoners.

A hoarse shouting from the clearing was a warning from Morin and his force that they were not to be mistaken for more adversaries, and seconds later the big constable lumbered up to John, still swinging a ball-mace threateningly.

‘Any of yours left?’ he demanded, looking at the still corpses scattered between the trees.

‘All dead. None of them lifted so much as a finger against us,’ grunted Gwyn, in disgust. As a fight it was a non-event as far as he was concerned.

‘Like butchering sheep in the shambles,’ confirmed de Wolfe. ‘I don’t think many of them even had time to pick up a sword before they fled.’

Ralph Morin stood counting the bodies. ‘We put down eight — one ran away and it’s not worth wasting time chasing him. So that makes fourteen exterminated so far.’

He called the scattered men-at-arms together and they began their march again, after a cursory look at the outlaw camp. There was little there, apart from some rude shelters made of boughs and canvas and some food and utensils around the fire.

‘No sign of either Robert Winter or his lieutenant, this Martin Angot?’

De Wolfe addressed this to Gwyn, as he was the only one who knew them by sight. The Cornishman shook his head. ‘Never seen any of this bunch before. They weren’t in that camp down towards Buckland.’

‘I wonder if there are still some ruffians down there,’ mused Morin.

‘It’s a long way south of here, but if we don’t find the ringleaders at this Easdon Tor place, then I suppose we’ll have to go back there,’ answered John.

They set off northwards again, wary of any further surprise contacts, leaving the bodies scattered where they had fallen. The four archers went on ahead as before, and gradually the ground flattened off, though it was still densely wooded. Where a fallen tree or a small clearing gave a glimpse to the north-west, now and then they could see the bare outline of the higher moor, with misshapen rocks sometimes crowning the skyline. The man Ferrars had given them as a guide from his manor at Lustleigh dropped back and touched his floppy woollen cap to the coroner.

‘Sir, if we are going to Easdon Down, then soon we have either to cut left across country past Langstone or go on up the river to the clapper bridge, then take the track westwards.’

‘Which is quickest?’

‘Past Langstone, Crowner. No more than a mile, I’d say.’

They decided on the direct route and started climbing rising ground, still thick with trees. The few houses and fields of Langstone were off somewhere to their right as they crossed the lower slopes of Easdon Tor.

‘What do we do if some of these bloody thieves throw up their hands without a fight?’ asked Morin.

John was wondering that himself and hoped the matter would not arise. Perhaps they had been lucky back in the valley, where all the outlaws had blundered on to swords and axes.

‘By definition, they are outside the law and don’t exist in any legal sense,’ he answered. ‘Anyone can kill them at will — and get a bounty for it!’

‘So we kill them all, even if they have their hands up in the air in surrender?’ queried Morin.

‘It sounds difficult, I know,’ replied John. ‘But if we take them back to Exeter they will be hanged without trial, as judgement has already been passed on them in declaring them outlaw. So it seems pointless to delay their deaths. They know this and may well try to flee as their only hope, in which case we can kill them with an easier conscience.’

‘What about this Robert Winter himself? Does the same apply to him?’

De Wolfe considered this as they trudged diagonally across the steepening slope. ‘He will die, one way or the other. But as the leader he might have information that could be useful, perhaps about the people behind this conspiracy.’

There was a soft call from ahead as one of the scouts turned back to warn them that the trees were thinning out ahead. They came to halt just inside the edge of the woods and saw that bare moor, with patches of bracken and bramble, rose up ahead to a jumble of rocks high above. To the right, the tree line curved around into the distance.

‘That’s Easdon Tor above — and the down runs right around its foot,’ explained the guide.

The posse stopped for rest, while Morin and the coroner conferred.

‘We don’t know where this camp is supposed to be. The other party has got Cruch with them to pinpoint it.’

‘And we don’t know where they are at the moment,’ growled Gwyn.

‘They had a shorter distance to march than we, so they should be in position somewhere near by.’

‘Surely the outlaws wouldn’t make camp out in the open up there,’ muttered Morin. ‘They’d stick to the trees.’

‘The place I saw was out of the trees, but they had a little nook in some rocks,’ Gwyn told them.

De Wolfe turned to the guide. ‘Is there anywhere like that up towards the tor?’

‘Not really, sir. There are some ancient old hut ruins around the other side of the tor, but I wouldn’t call that Easdon Down.’

‘That damned Cruch was pretty vague about where the camps were, though he only had a lump of chalk and slate to work with. It could be that way, I suppose.’

They decided to send their scouts in both directions, working along inside the tree line to see whether they could find Guy Ferrars and his men. The whole area in question was no more than a quarter-mile across so they had to be somewhere near. Settling back against a tree trunk, Morin signalled the perspiring men to rest, and they sank to the ground to take the weight of their hauberks from their shoulders.

Ten minutes later, a pair of archers came silently back from their left side, with news of the rest of the squadron.

‘Lord Ferrars and his men are concealed about five hundred paces to the west, Crowner. They were waiting for us, as they have sighted a large group of outlaws further up the hill, camped in some old ruins.’

‘Those are the tumbled huts I told of,’ said the guide. ‘They were built by the ancient men of the moor, God knows how long ago.’

In no mood to consider history now, John waved all the men to their feet and, demanding complete silence from now on, led the way with Ralph along the edge of the forest towards the other half of the posse.

Within a few minutes they were reunited and the leaders quietly discussed tactics.

‘There’re a lot of men up there, you can see them moving about. I can’t see any lookouts posted, the useless scum,’ growled Guy Ferrars. ‘But it’s all open ground between us here in the trees and those heaps of stones that they’re using to shelter their camp.’

John and Ralph Morin moved cautiously to the edge of the wood to look up the slope of Easdon Tor. It was a double hill, with a higher, rugged silhouette on the left and a lower, smoother mound on the right. The ruined huts were much lower down on a small, flatter part of the hill.

‘They can’t escape uphill, it’s too steep. We must attack them in a broad arc, to stop them running down into the trees,’ advised Ralph Morin. The other leaders agreed and the soldiers were spread out in a single line three hundred paces long, each behind a tree until the signal was given.

‘If they see all of us they’ll scatter and run for it, so let’s entice them down here first,’ advised de Wolfe. ‘Keep the men-at-arms out of sight for the moment.’

With Gwyn and several of the roughly dressed men from Lustleigh, the coroner stepped boldly out of the trees and began walking up towards the little plateau that carried the tumbled stones, partly covered with grass.

‘Slowly does it, Gwyn,’ muttered John.’We don’t want to be too far away from the men behind when they catch sight of us.’

As if the outlaws had heard him, there were some distant yells from above and a dozen heads appeared to stare down the slope at them. Then, with yells of derision and anger, a crowd of men surged from between the stones and began running down at them, waving swords, staves and maces. At least a score of ruffians came storming down the hillside, and the men from Lustleigh faltered at the prospect of being massacred.

But just at the right moment, thanks to the timing of old campaigner Guy Ferrars, the whole force of mailed soldiers burst out of the trees and began running in an unbroken line towards the outlaws, the ends of the line curving around in a constricting arc.

At the sudden appearance of three times their number of mailed soldiers, the men from the camp skidded to a halt and desperately looked for a way of escape. Some who had just come out of the old ruins turned around and vanished uphill, but the men lower down had nowhere to go except into the arms of the rapidly closing troops.

It was almost a repeat of the earlier blood-bath, as the men-at-arms had been told to give no quarter and the outlaws knew that the only alternative to escape was death. The ragtag crowd, with not a single piece of armour between them, fought furiously but were no match for the mailed and helmeted troops. The four archers stood slightly to the rear, and whenever a clear target presented itself they shot with deadly accuracy.

Within ten minutes it was all over. Four of the outlaws managed to evade both the soldiers and their arrows and, being fleet of foot, fled across the scrub-covered ground and vanished into the trees. The rest lay dead among the scrubby vegetation of Easdon Down. Gwyn had dispatched two himself, crushing one man’s head with his mace and hacking the neck of another. De Wolfe, at the spearhead of the attackers, also accounted for two, running one through the chest with his sword and stabbing another in the throat with his dagger, after the man had wrapped the chain of his mace around John’s sword-hilt.

He looked around at the scene of mayhem, with twenty-seven corpses lying on the ground. In the battles in the Holy Land, especially at Acre, and to a lesser extent in Ireland and France, he had seen ten times that number of dead in one engagement. Still, this was Devon, and he had a momentary twinge of conscience until he again recognised that any survivors would have been either beheaded or hanged.

The only casualty among the attackers turned out to be Hugh Ferrars, who had received a hacking blow on his left arm. The sleeve of his hauberk had saved him, but he had a large bruise spreading from elbow to wrist. He seemed mightily pleased with it, as a token of his first wound in combat. Although well trained by his father and his squires, Hugh had been short of a war in which to fight, and now had something to boast about to his drinking friends.

Gabriel was prowling with his sword amongst the defeated men, giving the coup-de grâce to one or two who still twitched, until all was still.

Morin called back the soldiers to rest on the grass, then came over to where the Ferrars and de Courcy were talking to John de Wolfe.

‘Are there any more left?’ he demanded. ‘I suspect that any who stayed up in those ruins made a quick getaway across the shoulder of the tor. They’ll be a mile away by now.’

Guy Ferrars, his rugged face redder than usual with the exertion and excitement, leaned on his long sword. ‘We’ll take a walk up there in a moment to see. What about this lot? Did we get the leaders?’

They scanned the crumpled bodies lying among the ferns and long grass.

‘Gwyn is the only one who can recognise them now,’ said de Wolfe. True to his promise, he had let Stephen Cruch loose back in the tree line and the horse-dealer had vanished like a puff of smoke.

Gwyn ambled among the dead, turning some face up with his foot. After a while, he gave a shout. ‘This one’s Martin Angot, the fellow I saw with Cruch in the alehouse,’ he called. He looked at all the rest, then shook his head.

‘Robert Winter’s not among them. We’ve missed the leader, but now he has no one to lead.’

Ralph Morin stared around at the corpses strewn around.

‘What are we to do with these? They’ll be stinking by tomorrow!’

The guide and two of his fellows from Lustleigh deferentially tugged at their floppy caps, before making a suggestion.

‘We can get a bounty for each of these, sir. If we undertake to bury them all back in the wood there, can we take the heads and claim the bounty?’

Ralph and John roared with laughter, even at such a macabre suggestion. The thought of Richard de Revelle’s face, when an ox-cart trundled up to Exeter Castle filled with amputated heads, was too good to deny.

‘You do that, good man! And add those from the last camp to your collection for the sheriff. If he refuses to pay you, let me know.’

As the local men went enthusiastically about their business, the coroner decided that he would like to see what was in the camp up above.

The leaders of the expedition, together with Gabriel and two of the bowmen, began to walk up the slope towards the grassy platform where the ruined foundations lay. As they neared the edge, they became cautious, in case any surviving outlaws were laying in wait. The archers tensed their bow-strings and the others gripped their weapons, but all was quiet as they stepped between the mossy piles of stones, barely recognisable as the bases of old round huts.

In the centre of the jumble of rocks was a fire, a radiating ring of logs still smouldering. Some cooking pots and pottery mugs lay round about and the half-eaten carcass of a deer was spread on a large flat stone.

A few of the hut remnants had been partially and crudely rebuilt and roofed over with branches to make a couple of shelters, high enough for men to crawl inside.

‘What a way to live!’ said Reginald de Courcy in disgust. ‘Even animals fare better than this.’

‘Do you think we’ve wiped most of them out?’ asked Morin. ‘We’ve missed this man Winter — maybe he’s with another nest of the serpents somewhere?’

‘There can be very few of his gang left,’ replied de Wolfe. ‘Together with the ones we killed on the way, this accounts for most of those who the villagers allege were plaguing the countryside.’

‘We had better call at that camp Gwyn saw, down towards Ashburton,’ advised the constable. ‘I’ll take a dozen men and go that way back to Exeter.’

‘You’d best go with him, Gwyn,’ said the coroner. ‘You know exactly how to find it.’

But the Cornishman failed to respond. He had walked a little way from the group and was standing with his head cocked on one side, listening intently. Then tucking the handle of his mace into his belt, he slid out his sword and quietly advanced on one of the brush-covered shelters.

Bending down, he looked inside, and with a roar tore off one of the branches that straddled the stone walls.

‘Look what we’ve got here, Crowner!’ he yelled exultantly, waving his blade dangerously back and forth in the entrance of the shelter.

The others dashed over and Gabriel helped Gwyn drag off more of the crude roofing. Cowering inside the tunnel-like bivouac were four men, crouched against the end wall in a desperate effort to remain hidden.

‘Get out, blast you! Come out of there!’ yelled Gwyn, stabbing down with his sword to encourage the quartet to stumble out into the open.

De Wolfe stared in amazement when he saw who they had found.

‘God’s bowels! It’s the bloody foresters and their tame monkeys!’

With expressions of mixed fear and defiance, William Lupus and Michael Crespin came out of the shelter, followed by the ugly Henry Smok and another burly man, who John assumed was Crespin’s page.

Guy Ferrars was beside himself with rage, waving his fists in the air as he yelled at the foresters.

‘You’ll hang for this, you bastards! Consorting with outlaws, caught red handed in their very camp!’

Crespin looked desperately at his colleague, hoping for some deliverance. William Lupus glowered around at the leaders of the posse, racking his brains for an excuse.

‘We were taken prisoner by Winter and his men,’ he proclaimed. ‘Thank God you’ve come. They would have killed us.’

De Courcy gave Lupus a hard shove in the chest. ‘You bloody liar! If you were prisoners, how is it that you’ve still got your daggers in your belt and that lout there even has his mace?’

Lupus continued to bluster in an effort to regain the initiative.

‘What right have you to be here? This is Royal Forest, you have no power here! Where’s the sheriff? I want to talk to him.’

John stood right in front of the arrogant forester, his hooked nose almost touching his.

‘You can forget all that nonsense about Royal Forests! I’ve just returned from Winchester with a King’s Commission to clear up this anarchy and the sheriff is no part of it. We know about your dealings with Robert Winter — and Cruch the horse-dealer has confessed everything, including his priestly master.’

The surly forester seemed to slump with dismay at the coroner’s revelations, but de Wolfe had not finished.

‘Finding you skulking in Winter’s camp is the final touch. But I also want you in connection with several previous deaths and for refusing to attend my inquests.’

He stepped back and motioned to Gabriel and Gwyn.

‘Bind these men’s wrists and rope them together — and take those weapons from them. They’re coming back to Exeter with us, for a spell in Stigand’s jail in Rougemont.’

‘But only until we hang them!’ added Ferrars viciously.

Getting back to Exeter was a complicated operation, as John’s party had to return to the carts to shed their armour, collect the horses, then go on to Moretonhampstead to meet up with Ferrars’ group. By now it was too late to start out for the city, so the men camped overnight in the field where the sheep market was held. The town was scoured for enough food to last fifty men until morning, though at least Gwyn’s huge appetite was missing, as he had gone with Morin and some soldiers down to the southern campsite and would meet them in Exeter on the morrow.