Fear in the Forest

CHAPTER THREE

Though considerably recovered, de Bosco was of little further help when John went to visit him in the early evening. Adam Russell, the apothecary, was just leaving as the coroner arrived and confirmed that the older man would have a sore head for a week or two, but was in no danger as long as fever did not set in from the gash on his head. When the coroner climbed to the solar where the injured man was in his bed, he found a neighbour’s ample wife came to sit with him until nightfall.

Standing alongside the pallet like some great black crow, John looked down at the bandaged head and saw that the eyes were now almost closed from the bruised swelling of the lids. However, what could be seen of them was bright enough and Nicholas spoke quite rationally.

‘I suppose you have no hope of catching those murdering bastards?’

He had been told of the death of his bottler and was grieving for the loss of the innocent old man.

‘I wish I had better news for you, but there was no chance of finding these men. We had no description whatsoever and they had been gone from your house many hours before you were found. I’m sorry.’

‘No matter. When I’m able to move, I’ll take myself off to one of my manors, where I can feel safe with my servants around me. For they’ll try again, mark my words.’

‘So you don’t believe they were common robbers?’

De Bosco’s toothless mouth made a derisory sound. ‘Not at all, Crowner! You can’t think that yourself, with the verderer slain not two days before — and me having been threatened to give up my duties.’

‘Will this encourage you to do that?’ ventured de Wolfe.

‘No, be damned to them, whoever it is!’ snapped Nicholas. ‘I was appointed by my King to do his duty, just as I fought for him in the wars. I’m not going to be frightened off by a bang on the head.’

John forbore to mention that his bottler had suffered more than a bang on the head, as had Humphrey le Bonde. He admired the older man’s courage, but hoped that he would do as he promised and retire to the safety of one of his manors to carry out his duties.

‘Can you hazard any guess at all as to what’s behind this?’ he asked, as a last query.

‘Someone wants to infiltrate the forest administration, I suspect. But why, God alone knows! There’s plenty of graft and dishonesty there, but that’s mainly the perquisite of the foresters and woodwards. It would be unusually well-organised corruption if the verderers and the Warden had their fingers in the same pie.’

As John left, he wondered whether de Bosco had struck nearer the truth than he imagined.

In the long summer evenings, they ate supper much later in the house in Martin’s Lane, and John found he had a couple of hours to spare before he need sit with Matilda at their silent meal. His feet took him automatically towards Idle Lane, and as he strode through the town his thoughts abandoned dead men and split heads, in favour of his lady love.

He became more uneasy the nearer he came to the Bush. It was over a week now since he had been with Nesta in her room upstairs in the inn. Usually, their lovemaking was carefree and enthusiastic, sometimes even boisterous. Dour as John was to the outside world, alone with the Welsh woman he was a changed man — tender, sensual and happy.

So it was with grave concern that he pondered what had happened over this past week or two. Once again, he tortured himself with thoughts of Nesta being involved with another lover, but somehow the signs of that were lacking. He wondered with dread whether she was ill or sickening for something, though she looked healthy enough. As he stooped to enter the low door of the inn, his resolve hardened to find out what was going on. A coward in the face of embarrassing emotions, he steeled himself to confront Nesta head on tonight. For once, fortune favoured him as he saw her standing at the back of the low room, watching Edwin hammering a wooden spigot into a fresh cask of ale. There were relatively few patrons sitting around and he grabbed his mistress by the hand and pulled her towards the back door.

‘We’re going for a little walk, madam,’ he said firmly, leading her into the yard behind. As she turned a surprised face towards the suddenly masterful coroner, he saw that they were not alone, as one of the cook-maids was coming out of the kitchen shed and a customer was relieving himself against the fence behind the brew-house.

‘This way, then,’ he snapped, turning sharply to avoid an audience. He opened the wicket gate that led out on to the waste ground alongside the inn, and with an arm now around her shoulders walked Nesta towards the junction of Idle Lane and Priest Street.

‘What are you doing, John? I’ve got a tavern to run!’ she protested.

‘The Bush can look after itself for half an hour. I want to talk to you.’

The Welsh woman must have had an inkling of what was to come, for she went along meekly as they walked silently down the steep street towards the city walls near the river. At the south-west corner, a new gate had been cut through in recent years, to reach the quay-side where smaller ships lay beached on the mud outside the warehouses.

John led Nesta over to some casks and crates awaiting shipment, where there was no one within earshot. He sat her on a large bale of wool wrapped in sacking and stood in front of her, his hands on her shoulders.

‘Something is concerning you, my love. You may as well tell me what it is, first as last.’

As Nesta looked up at him, her eyes brimmed over with tears. She shook her head and looked away, rubbing her face with the sleeve of her working gown.

‘Tell me!’ he commanded, his voice almost harsh from fear of what he might be about to hear.

Nesta swung her face back towards him, her eyelids red and glistening. She sniffed back her tears, then leant forwards, her head against his wide sword-belt.

‘I think I may be with child, John. I’m so sorry!’

‘Sorry? Why should you be sorry, for God’s sake?’ he bellowed.

After sixteen years of marriage to Matilda, never once had she conceived — though in truth he had been absent for most of that time and for the past few years they had never lain together.

He pushed her gently away so that he could look down at her face, his own expression being a mixture of wonderment and anxiety.

‘Are you sure, dear woman?’

She shrugged slightly. ‘Not sure, but something tells me that I am. My monthly curse has never been that regular since I miscarried when Meredydd was alive, so it’s difficult to tell.’

He pulled her back tightly against him and bent to kiss the top of her head.

‘Have you been to see a good-wife who knows about these matters?’

‘Not yet — but I will, very soon.’

De Wolfe eased himself away and then sat down alongside her on the bale, slipping an arm around her shoulders.

‘This is no reason for tears, Nesta,’ he said gently. ‘If it really is true, then I will be glad and proud to acknowledge myself as the father.’

Nesta burst into tears, sobs this time, rather than just moist eyes. John jerked her shoulder helplessly, completely adrift with a weeping woman.

‘Don’t be sad, my love, please! Why are you crying? I said I’ll be joyful about becoming a father.’

The Welsh woman shook her head desperately. ‘I’ve brought you nothing but trouble, John. You’re a high official, a knight and a Norman gentleman — and what am I? A lowly ale-wife.’

‘That be damned. Half the Norman gentleman I know have several families — both sides of the blanket, as they say. Even my poisonous brother-in-law has got two bastards by different mothers. And they are just the ones that we know about!’

Nesta refused to be comforted and continued to sob against his side.

‘Matilda … she’ll make your life a misery if this comes to light, as it surely must. In this damned city no one can keep a secret longer than a candle burns.’

John gave one of his rumbles, deep in his throat. ‘Matilda will be a problem, I’ll admit. But she’ll just have to accept it and be damned to her.’

They sat quietly for a moment. Realisation began to seep into his mind and for all his bold promises to Nesta he started to see a rough road ahead — mainly because of his wife, who would use this to make his life a torment.

But, pragmatic as always, the coroner decided to face the problem one step at a time — and the first was to make sure that Nesta’s suspicions were correct.

‘Do you know of a reliable midwife who can confirm what you think?’ he asked. ‘There is that formidable nun out in Polsloe Priory who seems a fount of knowledge in these matters.’

Sniffing away the remnants of her tears, Nesta sat up straighter on the bale.

‘No need to go that far, John. The mother of one of my maids lives in Rack Lane and has a good reputation as a lying-in nurse. I’ll see her tomorrow.’

She rose to her feet and looked up at the concerned face of her lover.

‘I must go back now, John. Life doesn’t stop for things like this.’

She sounded so sad that his heart ached.

‘Are you not just a little glad of it?’ he asked gently.

She smiled wanly at him. ‘Part of me is, John. But I will cause you so much trouble.’

Slowly they walked back towards Idle Lane, as de Wolfe tried to get his mind around the anticipation of this unexpected and profound change in his life — becoming a father.

That evening was to be full of unexpected events for John, as when he arrived back at Martin’s Lane he discovered that his brother-in-law had invited himself for supper.

Though usually such a visit would have been received sourly by de Wolfe, he was rather glad of a distraction this particular evening. After having had such potentially momentous news from Nesta, a meal alone with Matilda would have been more of a strain than usual, as her gimlet eyes and shrewd mind may well have suspected that her husband had something new to hide from her. As it was, the patronising comments that were Richard’s usual form of conversation could be used as a cover for his own sullen silence, for Matilda was well aware of John’s dislike of and contempt for her brother.

‘And how are all the corpses today, Crowner?’ began de Revelle, in his bantering, sarcastic manner.

‘One dead bottler, so far,’ muttered de Wolfe, with a scowl that suggested that he would be happy if Richard were to be the next. ‘But you must have heard about that, being the guardian of the King’s peace in this county!’

He tried to match his brother-in-law’s sarcasm, but it washed over their guest like a bucket of water on a goose.

‘I heard nothing of it. I leave such minor matters to the constables.’

‘Then you’ll not have heard that the poor fellow was slain at the same time as they left his master for dead — the Warden of the Forests.’

The sheriff sat up suddenly from the settle in which he had been lounging, almost spilling a cup of wine he was holding.

‘Nicholas de Bosco? Holy Mary, I knew nothing of this!’

Rather against his will, John somehow believed him. ‘A verderer and the Warden attacked within a few days. What’s going on, Richard?’

Matilda had been listening to their exchange, her small eyes flicking from one to the other. ‘You told me you had appointed a new verderer already, brother,’ she observed.

Richard nodded distractedly. ‘Yes, the woodmotes must carry on. This Philip de Strete will be a worthy successor in organising them.’

‘What are woodmotes?’ she demanded, and her husband answered her.

‘Some use that word for the Attachment Courts, others call them forty-day courts. Whatever they’re called, the forest folk hate them — they usually mean more fines and punishments.’

‘Careful, John, these are the King’s forests you’re talking about. You don’t want to be mouthing treason, do you?’

Both the others knew that de Revelle was sneering at de Wolfe’s well-known devotion to Richard Coeur-de-Lion, but his sister was not amused.

‘The less you say about that the better,’ she growled, and her brother sank back in his settle, suddenly engrossed in the decoration around his pewter cup. This was a sensitive subject and Matilda’s warning was the first time she had broached the matter since de Revelle’s brush with treachery a few months earlier.

Thankfully, the awkward silence was broken by Mary bustling in with a large bowl of stew, causing them to rise and take their places at the long table. Two fresh loaves cut into quarters and a platter of yellow butter accompanied the mutton-and-onion soup. Mary ladled big portions into wooden bowls and laid deep spoons carved from cow horn before them. Then she came back with ale, cider and more wine, and left them to fill their bellies. This did away with the necessity for much conversation until the second course, a boiled salmon which John dissected with his dagger, placing portions in the empty soup bowls of the other two diners. As they picked out the bones and licked their fingers, the coroner returned to the problems in the forest.

‘There is increasing disaffection among some of the barons and manor-lords over this,’ he began. ‘My brother William down in Stoke-in-Teignhead, who knows more about rural life than I do, told me that in Hampshire and Northampton they are petitioning the King to disafforest some areas. Increasingly they resent not being able to hunt the venison on their own lands.’

De Revelle dug a fish bone from between his teeth before answering.

‘They have no chance of that, unless they pay a large fee to the Crown. It was old King Henry who made the largest encroachments into their lands. Why should his sons give any of it up now?’

De Wolfe noticed that he said ‘sons’, a slip which showed that the sheriff still had John, Count of Mortain, in mind as one of the possible beneficiaries of the fruits of the forest. He thought of making an issue of it, but decided that he was in no mood to reopen the old controversy again and further distress Matilda, as she had been devastated when her brother’s active sympathy for the usurper had been discovered by her husband.

She reached across the table to scoop up another segment of pink fish with her spoon. ‘Have the Devonshire gentry expressed the same concerns to you, Richard?’

‘In passing, yes. Guy Ferrars and Arnulf de Mowbray were moaning to me about having to do all their hunting in their chases and parks, instead of on all the other land they own. But they’re always complaining about something — the more they have, the more they want.’

John gave a derisive grunt — that was rich, he thought, coming from de Revelle, who was a champion money-grubber himself.

‘Why should anyone want to kill Nicholas de Bosco?’ persisted Matilda. ‘He seemed a harmless enough fellow. I’ve often seen him at worship in the cathedral.’ Anyone who was a devout attender at Mass was bound to be looked on favourably by her, even if he had horns and a tail.

‘Nice he may have been, but I’d prefer to say he was weak,’ snapped Richard. ‘A new Warden is needed. De Bosco is just an old soldier, given that job as a sinecure for past services.’

He gave a meaningful look across at his brother-in-law as he said this, but John steadfastly ignored the jibe.

‘Is it possible that someone tried to remove him from office by an attempt to murder him?’ asked Matilda, oblivious of a trickle of salmon fat running down her chin. ‘But who would want such a job, so dismal and unpaid?’

John stared pointedly at de Revelle, until the sheriff began to look decidedly uncomfortable. ‘Well, Richard, haven’t I heard rumours about your ambitions in that direction?’

‘If the office happened to fall vacant, then yes, I’d be interested. It would be a challenge, as this de Bosco has let things slip recently. The forests are teeming with outlaws, the discipline of the foresters is all to hell, and I’m sure the royal exchequer is not gaining all the profit it should from the forests.’

De Wolfe leered across the table at his brother-in-law. ‘No, I’m sure you would find many ways of increasing the revenue, Richard!’

He avoided saying that much of this extra revenue would never reach the royal treasure chests in Winchester or Westminster, but the sheriff knew very well what he was implying.

After a bowl of early summer fruits swimming in fresh cream and a glass of sweet dessert wine, Richard left for his apartments in Rougemont and Matilda called for her maid Lucille to prepare her for bed, as the late summer dusk was now upon them.

To give them time for their womanly pursuits in the solar, John took Brutus for a walk around the cathedral Close. Walking amid the graves, the rubbish piles and the rank grass, he pondered the news that Nesta had laid upon him that evening.

Did he really want to be a father? Could he survive the inevitable onslaught from Matilda, who would taunt him for ever with having sired a bastard on a tavern-keeper? Would Nesta survive childbirth, which claimed such a large proportion of new mothers? Why had this come now, when he had been lying with Nesta for two years? And why had none of his other women, going back over many years, ever conceived?

These questions milled about in his mind as he loped around the huge church of St Mary and St Andrew, following his hound, which dashed hither and thither in search of new smells. He passed beggars sleeping alongside new grave-pits, truant urchins playing tag in defiance of their mother’s screeching, and lovers walking hand in hand or kissing in dark corners under the cathedral’s looming walls. Oblivious to all these familiar sights, he circled the Close and plodded back to his house with none of the questions answered in his turbulent mind.

Hennock lay about two-thirds of the way between Exeter and Sigford and was a larger village than the latter. Early the next morning, three riders came into Hennock and reined up outside the forge. It was a large shack set at the edge of the roadside, its walls of wattle and daub set in a rough timber frame. The sagging roof was covered with faded wooden shingles, which were less inflammable than straw thatch. Behind was a cottage sitting in a patch of garden, with two pigs penned in by a fence and a few chickens scratching in the dust.

The riders sat silently on their mounts for a few moments, listening to the rhythmic clanging of a pair of hammers on the anvil, as the smith and his eldest son rained precise blows on a red-hot length of rod than was destined to be a cart axle. A younger boy, about eight years of age, was in the shadows at the back of the hut, pumping away at a large leather-and-wood bellows to keep the charcoal of the furnace glowing almost white.

Eventually, forester William Lupus gave a curt nod to one of the others and his page slid from his horse and walked towards the forge. Henry Smok was utterly unlike the usual image of a ‘page’, being a bull-necked man of about forty, with a roll like a sailor and a coarse face surmounted by a tangle of dirty black hair. His breeches were coarse cloth and his brown leather jerkin was tightly belted to carry the weight of a broadsword as well as a dagger.

Smok ambled up to the open double doors of the smithy and stood insolently alongside the anvil, his thumbs hooked into his belt.

‘Hey, you! You’re wanted outside.’

Eustace Smith jerked his head up to look at the intruder. He was a crop-haired Saxon in middle age, his leathery face pitted with small scars from sparks and hot metal. The alternate clanging of the hammers ceased and the younger Smith stared uneasily at Smok.

‘As soon as we finish this piece, before it cools too much,’ he grunted.

The page gave the son a shove that sent him staggering. Though both the ironworkers were tough, muscular men, Henry Smok had the physique of a bull and the temperament of a bully.

‘Out, I said! Both of you.’

The craftsmen knew very well who Smok was and who would be outside. Like all villagers in the forest, they had suffered the arrogance of the foresters and their creatures for years. Reluctantly dropping their hammers to the floor, they walked out into the morning sunshine and looked up at the other two horsemen. One was the forester, the other Walter Tirel, a woodward employed by the de Pomery estate, but who often acted as an assistant to Lupus.

‘Well, William Lupus, what is it now?’ asked Eustace wearily. ‘Has your mare cast a shoe — or do you just want to increase the private tithes you extort from me?’

His words were bravely defiant, but there was a tremor in his voice.

‘Watch that mouth of yours,’ growled the forester, looking down at the smith as if he were a heap of manure.

‘We’ve come with some good news for you,’ sneered Walter Tirel, who acted as a sycophantic shadow to William Lupus. He was a thin, wiry man with one drooped eyelid that made him look as if he were permanently winking.

‘That’ll be the day when you bring anything but trouble,’ said the smith bitterly.

‘The news is that you’re going to work for the King,’ grated Lupus.

Eustace stood in his scorched and scarred leather apron, looking suspiciously from one man to the other.

‘What the hell do you mean?’

‘A new forge has been built at Trusham, two miles up the road.’

Eustace scowled at the reminder. ‘So I’ve heard — though why, I can’t fathom. There’s no need for two so close together.’

Walter Tirel grinned. ‘I agree, so now there’ll be but the one … at Trusham.’

Eustace gaped at the two mounted men, words failing him.

‘This forge is closed as from tomorrow,’ snapped William Lupus. ‘The new rule in the King’s forest is that smiths work only for the King. You’ll be paid a wage, like any other workman. But you’ll labour at Trusham, under a forge-master I’ve appointed. You’ll have company, for Lawrence the smith from Coombe is in the same position as yourself.’

‘The Coombe smithy is closed too?’ said Eustace’s son, aghast.

‘It will be from tomorrow, like yours here. Finish what work you’ve started, then take your tools across to Trusham in the morning.’

The elder blacksmith found his voice again.

‘This is madness! I have had this forge for fifteen years. I have a licence from my manor-lord and pay him rent for it.’

‘Lucky man! Now you can save yourself the rent,’ cackled Henry Smok, swinging himself back into his saddle.

Eustace advanced up to the forester’s horse, his fists clenching as incredulity gave way to anger. ‘You can’t do this! I’m away to see my lord or his steward. He’ll soon put a stop to your games.’

‘He has no say in the matter. This is forest land, the King does what he wishes here. So keep your tongue quiet and be at Trusham at first light tomorrow.’

‘What about the verderer? Does Humphrey le Bonde know of this?’

The smith stopped short, suddenly remembering that le Bonde was dead.

William Lupus leered down at him. ‘Yes, he’s no longer with us, is he? And the new verderer not only knows of it, he ordered it!’

He pulled his horse’s head around, ready to move away. Desperately, Eustace grabbed his saddle-girth.

‘What about my sons? Are we all to come to Trusham?’

The forester smacked his hand away with a gloved fist.

‘No, we don’t want to pay all your damned family. Just you. Be there at dawn, understand — or you’ll be in great trouble.’

They cantered away, leaving the smith devastated at the prospect of having his small income halved and his family almost destitute.

Some five miles away, on a densely wooded hillside above the Bovey river, Stephen Cruch was waiting on a sleek palfrey at the foot of some large rocks. Below him was a cataract where the river rushed even faster on its journey down from the moor towards Bovey Tracey and the sea beyond.

Few travellers would risk penetrating the forest alone, especially this far from a main track or a village, but the horse-trader seemed quite at ease as he sat quietly in his saddle. Near by, two sturdy moorland ponies grazed contentedly, secured by their head-ropes to hazel saplings. Stephen looked up at the bright summer sun, occasionally crossed by a few stray clouds, and estimated that it was around the eighth hour. A few minutes more and he started to become a little impatient. Untying a thong on his belt, he raised a cow’s horn to his lips, blowing hard through the pewter mouthpiece. The mournful sound echoed through the valley, competing with the rush of water between the granite rocks.

A moment later, there was an answering call from a distance, and with a smile he tied his horn back on his belt and slipped from the saddle. A few minutes later, a handful of men appeared, one on a pony, the other half-dozen on foot. The mounted leader went straight towards the tethered horses and examined them critically, before walking his own across to Cruch.

‘Satisfied with them, Robert?’ enquired the dealer. ‘You said you wanted them small and tough.’

‘They look well enough, Stephen,’ replied Robert Winter. ‘Short legs and good wind is what we need in the woods and on the moor, not some spindly, long-legged racer that would fall at every rabbit-hole and badger sett.’

He threw a leg over the folded blanket that did service as his pony’s saddle and came across to Cruch, who turned to his own saddlebag and drew out a leather flask. He held it out to the outlaw who took a long swig of the brandy wine made by the monks of Buckfast Abbey.

‘That’s something you miss when you live in the forest,’ he said appreciatively, drawing a hand across his lips. ‘’But I hope you’ve got something even more pleasant for me?’

The horse-trader delved again in his saddlebag and handed over the money pouch that Father Edmund Treipas had given him, though it weighed somewhat less now.

‘That’s what we agreed — but the price of two good ponies had to come out of it.’

Robert grunted. ‘I doubt you’ve lost on the deal yourself, Stephen. You’re a bigger thief than I am!’ A grin robbed the words of any offence. The other men, dressed in a motley collection of clothes, stood at a distance and watched the transaction with curiosity. They were a villainous-looking bunch, several of them carrying longbows, the others having pikes.

Robert Winter was a handsome man in his early thirties, with features quite different from those of the other men. Brown, wavy hair and a matching beard and moustache framed a slim face with high cheek-bones. A straight nose, full lips and intelligent hazel eyes might lead an observer to think that he was from an aristocratic family, though Cruch knew that he was from the merchant class. He led a band of several score of ruffianly outlaws that ranged over the south-eastern fringes of Dartmoor, from Moretonhampstead down through Widecombe and across to Ashburton. There were other outlaws scattered throughout the forest, but they had learned not to challenge Winter’s supremacy in robbery, theft and extortion.

‘Where are you living these days?’ asked Cruch casually.

Winter took another drink from the flask and tapped the side of his nose artfully. ‘Ask no questions and you’ll be told no lies! We keep on the move, that’s the secret of survival — not that that bloody sheriff is much concerned with catching us. I’m more wary of that coroner fellow they brought in last autumn. I hear he’s a dangerous bastard — and one that’s impossible to buy off like most of the other law officers. I’d advise you to keep well out of sight when he’s around, Stephen.’

Cruch shrugged — he too had heard about Sir John de Wolfe, but their paths were unlikely to cross unless he did something unwise. As for Winter, after a man was declared outlaw at the County Court he legally ceased to exist and could be legitimately killed by anyone who fancied the attempt. Indeed, an outlaw was declared to be ‘as the wolf’s head’, for if anyone could slay him and take the severed head to the sheriff, he would be awarded a substantial bounty, similar to the persecuted wolf. Stephen Cruch persisted in asking where they lived, and after another swig of brandy wine Robert Winter became more expansive.

‘We have a few places deep in the woods, where we keep the ponies — and some caves we keep provisioned in case the going gets too hot. But oftentimes we slink into a village or even a town for a night or two. A fistful of money is marvellous for keeping innkeepers’ mouths tightly closed!’

The horse-trader knew that many outlaws crept back to their homes now and then — sometimes permanently. Many moved to another part of England where they were not known and slipped back into the community — some even gaining public office or becoming successful merchants. It was easier in towns, where the population was larger and less incestuous — in villages everyone knew everyone else and the frank-pledge system made it difficult for a stranger to become integrated. Cruch often wondered about Robert Winter, as an intelligent man like him was unlikely to spend the rest of his life skulking in the woods. He knew little about his past, except that he was from Exeter and had escaped a hanging there about three years earlier.

The outlaw’s voice brought him back to the present.

‘Have you any more work like that for me?’

Stephen’s monkey-like face wrinkled in thought. ‘Not at the moment. But the way I suspect things are moving, you may be needed for some more persuasion very soon. Things are changing fast in this bailiwick, but I can only pass on what others wish to have done.’

Winter rattled the money bag. ‘More like this will be welcome any time. Leave a message as usual at the alehouse at Ashburton when you next need to meet.’

Cruch nodded and carefully retrieved his wine flask before mounting up and riding away. Before he reached the track near the river, he turned in his saddle to look back, but men and ponies had already vanished without trace.

By noon, Nesta knew definitely that she was pregnant. She had been taken by one of her maids to a house in Rock Street, where the girl’s mother had examined her. She was the self-appointed midwife and herbal healer to the street and the adjacent lanes in that part of the city. A rosy-cheeked widow, fat and amiable, she made Nesta welcome in the pair of small rooms she occupied at the back of the dwelling. After expelling a pair of boisterous children, she asked the innkeeper about her monthly courses and any symptoms that commonly went with being gravid. Then, with the rickety door firmly closed against the urchins, the midwife put Nesta on a low bed against the wall and gently examined her under the cover of her full woollen skirt. After a patient and careful examination with her warm hands, both on her belly and internally, she smiled and invited Nesta to rise, while she wiped her hands on a piece of cloth.

‘No doubt about it, my dear. You’re going to be a mother, bless you!’

As Nesta shook down her shift and rearranged her skirt, she asked the widow whether she could tell how far gone she was.

‘Hard to say, my love. It’s early, just enough for me to be definite about it. But you’ve plenty of time yet to make swaddling clothes!’

With that Nesta had to be content, and after failing to get the woman to accept any payment she walked silently home with her cook-maid, who solicitously held her arm as if she were likely to go into labour at any moment.

When they arrived at the Bush, Nesta climbed the steps to her room and threw herself on the bed that John had bought her the previous year.

She lay unmoving for a long time, staring up at the dusty rafters and the woven hazel boughs that supported the thatch. It was on this bed, she thought bitterly, that she and John had so often made love — and where she had betrayed him, albeit for such a short time. Nesta was well aware that he had not been faithful to her — but this was the way of men, who could rarely refuse the favours of another woman. Yet she sensed that lately he had not wandered from her, though she was realistic enough to wonder whether this was from choice or lack of opportunity.

But his actions were no excuse for her, though she had been provoked several months ago by his neglect. She had known that it was from force of circumstances, before another coroner was appointed for the north of the county, but she should have been more understanding. As she stared up at the roof, her eyes filled with tears as doubt and indecision clouded her mind. The midwife had confirmed what she knew already, as for several weeks something inside had told her as plain as day that she was with child. She wished that the woman could have been more definite about the duration of her pregnancy, but the widow was no professional and had done her best out of kindness.

Laying a hand on her still-flat stomach, Nesta wondered whether to love or hate what was growing within her womb. Turning on her side, she wept herself softly to sleep, for once uncaring about her busy taproom down below.