Fear in the Forest

CHAPTER FOUR

The next few days passed quickly for the coroner, as there was a Summer Fair in Exeter, including a Horse Fair on Bull-mead outside the South Gate. Hundreds of traders flocked into the city, and stalls and booths sprang up along the main streets, though the focus of activity was in the cathedral Close, the fair being linked to a saint’s day. Many fairs in England were franchised by the Church, which made a handsome profit from licences to traders. Unlike some towns, which closed all the regular shops during the fair, the merchants of Exeter joined in the general scramble for custom, and for several days the city was a seething hotbed of buying, selling, trading, entertainment and revelry. Every bed in every inn was taken and the alehouses were overflowing with drinkers and drunks.

John de Wolfe was kept busy with a number of incidents, most related to the turmoil of the fair. There was a brawl at the Saracen inn on Stepcote Hill, in which a man was killed from being kicked in the head, several others being injured in the drunken mêlée. Then a visiting stall-holder from Dorchester was stabbed in a dark alley behind a brothel in Bretayne, the poorest part of the city. His purse was stolen and he died before he could be carried off to the small infirmary at the nearby St Nicholas Priory.

John managed to get to the Bush for an hour on Saturday evening, and upstairs in her little cubicle a subdued Nesta confirmed to him that she was indeed pregnant. As they both had more or less accepted the fact even before she had visited the midwife, it was no great surprise to him, but Nesta failed to respond to her lover’s efforts at reassurance and support. John was puzzled and rather hurt by her lack of reaction to his attempts at being enthusiastic about the future.

‘I’ll bring the lad up as if he were my legitimate son,’ he declared, oblivious to the fact that the child might be a girl. ‘If Matilda doesn’t like it, then to hell with her. We’ll live apart, it will be little different from my present existence.’

Nesta shook her head sadly. ‘How can you do that, John? Everyone will know — they’ll know even months before the birth, if I judge Exeter gossips correctly.’

‘What of it? I’ve told you before, half the men I know have one or two extra families about the place. Matilda’s own brother, for one.’

The auburn-haired innkeeper sat mutely, and John persisted in his uphill attempts to cheer her. ‘The name ‘Fitzwolfe’ sounds impressive, eh? Then later we’ll have to decide on his baptismal name.’

At this, Nesta burst into tears and an embarrassed and half-terrified John pulled her jerkily to his chest with spasms of his arm and incoherent mutterings intended to soothe her. He tried to console himself with the assumption that these strange moods were a passing symptom of pregnancy, like the strange appetites that he had vaguely heard about.

Though he hated to admit it even to himself, he was relieved when a tapping on the door heralded the potman. Old Edwin came to tell them that he was needed downstairs, where Gwyn was waiting with an urgent message.

It turned out to be a summons to a house near the East Gate, where a middle-aged cordwainer had returned early from his stall at the fair, to find his young wife in bed with an itinerant haberdasher, who had persuaded her into more than his ribbons and buttons when he called at the door.

When de Wolfe arrived, the haberdasher was lying naked and dead on the floor of the solar and the husband was spread-eagled across him, unconscious and bleeding from a deep gash on his scalp.

‘It seems the cuckolded merchant stabbed the fellow in the back while he was lying across his wife,’ explained Gwyn. ‘Then the woman got up and smashed the water pitcher over her husband’s head, in a fury at having been deprived of a far better lover than the shoemaker!’

The house was in chaos, with Osric the constable trying to restrain the screaming wife. The grandmother and several relatives were all shouting and wailing, and it was midnight before the coroner and his henchman could get away from the turmoil, John deeming it wise to attach the cordwainer for ten marks to appear at the inquest on Monday. There was no way in which the man would ever be convicted of murder, in the circumstances of finding a stranger in flagrante delicto with his wife. De Wolfe felt that a low-key handling of the affair was all that was required for the present — let the justices sort the matter out when they next came to Exeter.

The next day was quieter, so John could find no excuse to avoid being hauled off by Matilda to morning Mass at the cathedral, something she succeeded in doing about once a month. Unlike Gwyn, he had no strong objection to going to church, though he was supremely uninterested in both the future of his immortal soul and the boring liturgy purveyed by the clergy. Being dragged to the cathedral was at least preferable to her forcing him to St Olave’s, her favourite little church in Fore Street. One of his objections to this place was Julian Fulk, the smug priest who officiated there. During the recent spate of priestly killings in Exeter, Fulk had been a suspect and the collapse of John’s suspicions against him gave the podgy priest an extra reason to smirk at the coroner.

After midday dinner, John arranged to met Gwyn and walk down to Bull-mead, just outside the town, where the Horse Fair was still in progress. Like most active men, they were both interested in horses, and this was an opportunity to walk around the field and look at the profusion of animals and gossip about them both with the dealers and many of their local cronies. As the tall, stooping coroner and his massive wild-haired officer paraded along the lines of beasts and watched them being pranced around the display area in the centre, at least one pair of wary eyes followed them. Stephen Cruch, who had a dozen stallions, mares and geldings there for sale, contemplated the former Crusader thoughtfully — and wondered what it was about him that made even the reckless Robert Winter a little uneasy.

It was often mid-morning when new cases were reported to the coroner from outside Exeter. In the summertime, a rider from a town or village in the south or west of the county could leave at dawn and be in Exeter after two or three hours’ riding, before the cathedral bells rang for Prime or Terce.

The Monday after the fair was no exception, and before the eighth hour the manor-reeve from the village of Manaton had clattered up to the gatehouse of Rougemont and slid from his horse to enquire for the coroner. Though Gwyn and Thomas were in the bare chamber above, John de Wolfe had gone across to the castle keep to view the body of the man kicked to death in the Saracen inn. Usually, dead bodies were housed in a ramshackle cart-shed against the wall of the inner ward, but this had recently been knocked down for rebuilding. Now any stray corpses awaiting burial were being taken to an empty cell in the castle prison, the dismal undercroft beneath the keep, ruled over by Stigand, the repulsive gaoler. The cadaver had been carried up to the castle before de Wolfe had visited the tavern — an offence in itself for which someone would be amerced — so he was obliged to view it before the inquest later that morning.

It was here that the gatehouse guard sent Robert Barat, the reeve of Manaton, a village between Moretonhampstead and Ashburton, on the south-western edge of Dartmoor. The reeve, a tall man of thirty-five, had hair and a flowing moustache of an almost yellow colour that pointed to Saxon ancestry, in spite of his Norman name. He was the headman of the village, responsible for organising the rota of work in the fields and acting as the link between the lord’s bailiff and steward and the common folk of the hamlet.

Robert cautiously went down the few steps from ground level into the undercroft, a semi-basement below the keep which acted as gaol and storehouse. When his eyes became accustomed to the gloom after the bright morning sun outside, he saw a low chamber with stone pillars supporting an arched roof, discoloured with patches of lichen and slime. The floor was of damp beaten earth, divided across the centre by a stone wall containing a rusted iron fence, in the centre of which was a metal gate leading into a passageway lined with squalid cells. The only illumination came from a pair of flickering pitch brands stuck into iron rings on the wall and a charcoal brazier in one of the alcoves, where the gaoler slept on a filthy straw mattress. The whole place stank of damp, mould and excrement.

As he went in, ducking his head under the low arch at the entrance, he saw a grossly fat man waddle out of the iron gate, a horn lantern in one hand. He had an almost bald head and rolls of fat hid his neck. Piggy little eyes peered from a pallid, round face, a slack mouth exposing toothless gums.

He wore a shapeless smock of dirty brown wool, which bulged over his globular stomach, covered by a thick leather apron which had many stains that looked ominously like dried blood.

For a moment, Robert Barat feared that this revolting apparition might be the coroner, but thankfully the grotesque figure was followed out of the gate by a tall, dark man dressed entirely in black and grey. The reeve walked towards him and they met halfway from the entrance.

‘Are you the crowner, sir?’

De Wolfe stopped and nodded at the man, who seemed to be a respectable peasant, dressed in plain homespun and a good pair of riding boots.

‘I am indeed — who are you?’

‘Robert Barat, the manor-reeve from Manaton, sir. My lord’s bailiff sent me urgently to find you.’

John sighed. How many times had he had a similar visit in the nine months since he had been coroner?

‘Tell me the worst, Robert. Is it a beaten wife or a tavern brawl — or has another child fallen under the mill-wheel?’

‘None of those things, Crowner. It’s a fire in the tannery.’

John’s black brows came down in a frown. It was true that fires were within a coroner’s remit, but it was rare for him to be told of one in the countryside. In towns or cities it was a different matter, with the ever-present risk of a conflagration sweeping through the closely packed buildings, but out in the villages, fires were less common and certainly less dangerous, so they were rarely reported to him.

‘Just a fire, Reeve? Your bailiff must be a very conscientious fellow.’

The tall, fair man shifted uneasily. ‘It may be more than that, sir. The tanner is missing, too. We don’t know whether he’s still in the ashes or whether he has vanished. There’s something odd about the fire. I’m sure it was set deliberately.’

John sensed that even this extra explanation was not the whole story, but the reeve was not forthcoming with any more details.

‘Who is the lord of Manaton?’ he demanded.

‘Henry le Denneis, Crowner. Though he holds the manor as a tenant of the Abbot of Tavistock.’

‘What makes you think that the place was fired deliberately?’

Robert Barat raised his eyes to look directly at the coroner. ‘We have had trouble in the village these last few weeks, Sir John. You’ll know we are just within the Royal Forest, more’s the pity. Although it has always made things difficult, recently it has got worse.’

John pricked up his ears at this. Almost every day now, it seemed, some problem appeared linked to the forest.

‘What sort of trouble?’ he asked, as they walked back towards the daylight streaming down the steps.

‘I think you had better ask our bailiff or the lord’s steward,’ the reeve replied cautiously. ‘They know more about it, but it all goes back to the new tannery the foresters have set up near Moretonhampstead. They demanded that our small tannery should close down, so that theirs could take its trade.’

Though de Wolfe immediately appreciated this familiar situation, he pressed the other to finish his explanation.

‘So what happened?’

‘Our tanner, Elias Necke, refused to close down. How could he, for he and his three sons depend on it for their living. He was threatened more than once by that bastard William Lupus. Then, on Saturday night, the place burnt down and Elias went missing.’

Out in the inner ward, de Wolfe stopped and turned to the village reeve.

‘I’ll come out to Manaton later this morning, with my officer and clerk. I have to attend to an inquest first, but will set off before noon. If you get yourself some food and drink while your horse rests, you can set off ahead of us.’

Robert Barat respectfully touched his forehead and set off for the gatehouse, where his mare was tethered. De Wolfe called after him.

‘Tell the bailiff to gather as many villagers as he can for a jury, especially those who may know anything about the fire, even if they only watched it burn.’

The coroner’s trio reached the village in mid-afternoon, Manaton being about fifteen miles from the city. It was a hamlet typical of the edge of Dartmoor, nestling on the slope of a valley among wooded countryside. Above it was a hill crowned by jagged rocks, and across the vale was a smoother mound of moorland. In the distance, more granite tors stood on the skyline, like broken teeth against the sky.

The village straddled the crossing of two lanes, and as the three riders came up the eastern track from the Becka waterfalls, they could smell the fire before the remains came into sight.

‘What a bloody stench!’ grumbled Gwyn. ‘Tanneries are bad enough at the best of times, but a burnt one …!’

Thomas de Peyne, jogging side-saddle behind them, almost retched as they came up to the still-smoking ruin, which lay a few hundred paces east of the village. A thin haze of blue smoke wavered in the slight breeze and the heat from the ashes caused the distant woods to shimmer in the sun. The tannery had been set in a large plot, giving room for the stone tanks set in the ground, where the skins were soaked and which added their aroma to the acrid stench of scorched leather. Their smell came from dog droppings, as the strong ferments in the excreta were used to strip the soft tissue from the cow hides and sheepskins.

As they halted on the road to look across at the desolation, a group of people came towards them from the wide green in the centre of the village, which consisted of a loose cluster of cottages set around a church and an alehouse. The first to greet them was Robert Barat, who deferentially introduced a fat, self-important man as the manor lord’s bailiff, Matthew Juvenis.

‘This is a bad business, Crowner. When you have finished here, my master would like to speak with you at the manor house.’

‘Has there been any sign of the tanner?’ asked John.

The bailiff half turned to wave a hand towards the group of villagers standing a few paces away, most of them gazing at the new arrivals as if they had two heads each. However, three tough-looking young men remained grim faced, the eldest with an arm around an older woman, whose tearful features told de Wolfe that this must be the tanner’s wife and the men her sons.

‘They’re sure he must be in there, sir.’ Matthew Juvenis pointed to the blackened ashes. ‘He went from their cottage, which is just down the road, soon after midnight to see why his hound was barking — and never came back.’

‘Have you looked in the ruins?’ demanded Gwyn.

‘They were still too hot this morning, but maybe we can probe around now.’

The coroner and his officer slid from their mounts, which were taken off by a couple of villagers to be watered and fed. Thomas let them take his pony, but he kept well back from the smoking ashes. Followed by the tanner’s sons, the reeve and the bailiff, they walked to the edge of the scorched patch of grass that surrounded the remains of the tannery.

‘There was a two-storeyed building here,’ grunted the eldest son, a gruff fellow of about twenty-five. ‘And behind it were a couple of sheds, this side of the tanks. All old wood and damned dry in this weather.’

All that remained of the three structures was a tumbled scatter of charred wood, some of the thicker beams still in pieces up to a few feet long, but split and blackened, with smoke still wreathing from the cracks. The rest was grey-black ash and charcoal, with occasional layers of fragile sheets like the leaves of a large book.

‘Those are the stacks of cured hides, which were stored upstairs,’ explained another of the sons.

John moved nearer, treading among the crumbling ash, which sent up clouds of fine grey dust. ‘Did no one try to put the fire out?’ he snapped.

‘It was impossible,’ said Robert Barat. ‘I was one of the first here, when the eldest boy raised the alarm. He had gone to see why his father had not returned home. But already the place was like an inferno and the nearest water was the stream down in the valley, apart from a couple of small springs there.’ He waved his arm vaguely behind him. ‘By the time we had got enough men and buckets, the roofs had fallen in and we couldn’t get within thirty paces because of the heat.’

It was still hot, as de Wolfe found as he moved nearer the larger debris in the centre. His feet became warm and, looking down, he saw that the leather of his shoes was starting to blister. He moved back to cooler ground, but a couple of the more enterprising villagers had brought up a few wide, rough planks, pulled from a fence. They laid these end to end into the hot ashes and the coroner walked carefully along them to get much nearer the centre of the fallen building. He peered around him for a few moments, hunched forward with his hands behind his back.

‘Pass me a long stick or a pole, Gwyn,’ he called. The Cornishman, who was itching to look for himself, relayed the command to the villagers and in a moment one ran back with a long bean-stick, filched from the vegetable plot of the nearest cottage. It was about eight feet long, and with it de Wolfe could prod well into the centre of the fallen beams. They were mostly ash and either crumbled to the touch or rolled over easily. He poked about in various parts of the smoking heap for a few minutes, then walked back and asked the reeve to put the planks on the other side of the cindered plot. This was too much for his officer to endure.

‘Let me try this time, Crowner,’ he pleaded.’ You’ll be roasted if you stay there much longer.’

With the hot sun and the radiant heat from the hot ashes, John was sweating like a pig and gladly handed his bean-pole to Gwyn. The big redhead started poking vigorously at a different part of the blackened debris and almost at once let out a cry of triumph. He had rolled over a short, thick length of burnt timber, which had probably supported the upper floor of the main building. ‘There’s what looks like bone under here!’ he yelled over his shoulder.

Using his crooked pole like a lance, he leaned forward to carefully spear something, and a moment later backed down the plank, bearing a bleached white object dangling from the tip.

When he reached the edge of the scorched area, he laid it down gently on the grass and withdrew his bean-stick. The others crowded around, de Wolfe, the reeve and the bailiff in front. However, the sons and their mother were at the other side and a screech went up from the woman. As she burst into a torrent of wailing and weeping, a son and several good-wives clustered around and drew her gently away. What she had seen was the remains of a skull, partly blackened, but the cranium a brittle white from the incandescent heat of the fire.

John dropped to a crouch over it, almost nose to nose with Gwyn.

‘Looks like a man to me, by the size and those thick ridges over the eyes,’ said the coroner’s officer judiciously.

‘God’s teeth, Gwyn, it’s hardly likely to be a woman, in the circumstances,’ growled de Wolfe, but his officer just grinned at the sarcasm.

‘Talking of teeth, this one’s got big gnashers, like a man,’ he persisted. The lower jaw had fallen away, but in the upper there were still some teeth, blackened and split at the tips, but still intact.

‘What’s that big hole in the side?’ asked Juvenis.

‘Was our father struck on the head by those bastards who set the fire?’ shouted the tanner’s eldest son, in whom sorrow, revulsion and rage vied for priority.

Gwyn shook his untidy head. ‘That’s where my stick went through, I’m afraid. The burnt bone is as soft as dried clay, owing to the heat.’

John de Wolfe stood up and ineffectually brushed the grey dust that had smeared the front of his long black tunic. ‘We can never be sure that this is actually your father,’ he said gently to the sons. ‘Of course, there is every likelihood that it is, I’m afraid — but for all we know, it could just be one of the fire-setters, if that was what happened.’

‘So where is my father, if that’s not him?’ demanded the eldest lad, his attitude belligerent following the tragedy that had befallen their family.

The coroner nodded.

‘I agree that there is little doubt that this is your father, and for the purposes of my inquest that is what I will assume. I’m sorry, lad.’

He turned to the bailiff. ‘When the ashes are cold, you must make a careful search and retrieve any more bones you can find. What’s left of the poor man deserves a decent burial.’

John looked down at the pathetic skull on the grass. ‘Be careful with that, it will fall to pieces if it’s not handled very gently.’

The bailiff made a gesture to someone on the edge of the crowd and a fat man came forward, dressed like a farm labourer in a rough smock, a shovel in his hand.

‘This is Father Amicus, our parish priest. He will take care of any remains and give them a pious send-off in the church.’

The priest looked down rather ruefully at his very secular garb.

‘The stipend is poor here, Crowner. I work most of the time in the fields,’ he explained. ‘But I will do the right thing by poor Elias here.’

John nodded as Gwyn carefully handed the still-warm skull to Father Amicus.

‘I will need it to put before the jury when I hold the inquest later this afternoon. After that, see that he is put to rest in a dignified way.’

The priest took it, then hesitated before moving away. ‘There is something I should tell you. It may have some bearing on what’s happened.’

De Wolfe’s dark features stared at him questioningly, especially when the father steered him well away from the crowd and spoke in a low voice, his lips close to John’s ear.

‘One of the youngsters in the village came to me this morning, in a state of guilt. What he told me was not a confession, in the true religious sense, so I can divulge it.’ He suddenly looked rebellious. ‘Though maybe I would, even if it had been, given the awful thing that has happened in our village.’

‘What is it you have to tell me?’ asked John impatiently.

‘This lad was out in the fields late last night — with a girl, if you get my meaning.’

John nodded — the meaning was clear and by no means unusual in any place or at any time.

‘Just before the fire was seen, these two were lying under a hedge where the strip-fields meet the common land. They saw two men hurrying along the edge of the field from the direction of the tannery, then they went on to the common and vanished into the woods.’ He pointed eastwards, where the road ran down towards the deep valley of the Bovey river in the distance.

‘Did they see who they were?’

‘Not a chance, Crowner. It was a half-moon, but being in an awkward situation so to speak the lad could not move or let himself be seen. And at that moment, of course, he had no reason to think that anything evil was to come to light.’

‘Who is this young man?’ demanded the coroner.

Father Amicus shifted from foot to foot. ‘It’s very difficult, sir. If the village get to know about this, there’ll be hell to pay, both from his father and the girl’s family. You don’t need another murder on your hands, do you?’

De Wolfe considered this for a moment. By rights, everyone who had information should speak up at the inquest, but as the boy had no idea who the shadowy figures were — or even if they had anything to do with the fire — it seemed unduly harsh to expose him and the girl to the vendetta that might engulf them and their families in a closed community like Manaton.

He reassured the parish priest that he would keep the information anonymous, then arranged with Gwyn and the manor-reeve to collect as many men as he could for the inquest in a hour or two. This done, he turned to Matthew Juvenis.

‘Bailiff, I need to see your lord — and you said he wishes to talk to me.’

The bailiff inclined his head. ‘The manor house is just along the track, Crowner, hardly worth getting to horse again.’

They left Gwyn to organise the inquiry, but before they left de Wolfe took Thomas de Peyne aside and gave him some murmured instructions. The little clerk brightened up at being asked to assist his revered master and limped off in the direction of the church. The bailiff walked beside the coroner through the village to the crossroads and turned up the lane that ran northwards past the village green and the church. Most of the dwellings were typical of Devonshire hamlets, small tofts of cob or wattle and daub within rough-hewn wooden frames. They were separated by plots of varying size, crofts now harbouring summer vegetables and grass for goats and the milk cow. At the edge of the green was the alehouse and a small forge, and opposite stood the small stone church which in recent years had replaced an even smaller wooden structure bult in Saxon times. Alongside was a tithe barn and priest’s cottage, up the path to which Thomas was pursuing the man with the skull and spade.

The coroner and bailiff continued along the lane out of the village for a few hundred yards past the last of the cottages. Three fields of oats, wheat, rye and beans stretched away from the track in narrow stripes of different greens, then came a patch of common land, beyond which was the old fortified manor, nestling under the slope rising up to Manaton Rocks.

A deep ditch ran around a large square plot, guarded by a high fence of wooden stakes. Double gates stood open to the road, and John’s experienced eye told him that the manor had not feared any attack for many years, as the gates were rotten at the bottom, where rank weeds grew up against the planks. He followed the bailiff into the compound and saw in the centre a substantial manor house, built of granite moorstone, with a roof of thick slates. Stables, a byre, kitchen, brew-shed and various huts for servants half filled the rest of the space within the stockade. An older man came out of the main door, which was at the top of the steps over the undercroft.

‘That’s Austin, the steward,’ said the bailiff. ‘He’ll take you to the master.’

The grey-haired steward, a slow-moving man with a long, mournful face, greeted the coroner civilly and led him inside, the bailiff vanishing somewhere behind the house. The large hall, which had a fireplace and chimney in place of a fire-pit, had doors on either side leading to extra rooms, as there was no upper floor. Knocking at one on the left, the steward stood aside and followed John into a solar, which had glass in its one window, a sign of relative affluence on the part of the owner.

The lord of the manor rose from a window seat, where he had been drinking from a pot of ale and fondling the ears of a large mastiff, which looked suspiciously at the newcomer. Henry le Denneis grasped the coroner’s arm in greeting and bade him be seated on a leather-backed folding chair near by. He offered ale or wine, and while Austin brought another tankard filled from a pitcher on the table, de Wolfe took stock of his host.

Le Denneis was a burly man of about his own age, with a rugged, red face pitted with small scars. He was clean shaven and his sandy hair was flecked with grey. A loose house robe of brown wool was draped over his shoulders, revealing a short tan tunic over worsted breeches. He certainly was no dandy like Richard de Revelle, but gave the impression of being more interested in his land and crops, as was John’s own elder brother.

Henry le Denneis dispensed with any small talk and came straight to the point.

‘Have you found any sign of Elias Necke?’ he asked in a deep voice. John told him of the finding of the skull and the assumption that it was that of the tanner. Henry shook his head sadly.

‘A sad business. His whole family depended on their labours there.’

John took a deep draught of the ale, thankful to slake a thirst aggravated by the hot weather and the heat of the smouldering building.

‘You must already know that the fire was almost certainly started deliberately,’ he said. ‘His sons told me that he went out because the dog he kept at the tannery began barking late that night. The animal was found wandering later on. And now we have evidence that two men were seen crossing the fields towards the forest at about the same time.’

Manaton’s lord stood up and gazed pensively through the narrow window.

‘I have been afraid that something like this might happen — but not that a villager would lose his life.’

‘What’s going on in the forest these days?’ demanded de Wolfe harshly. ‘A verderer is murdered on the high road, the Warden is attacked in his dwelling — now a man is burned to death in his own tannery, all within a week. Surely this is no coincidence?’

Le Denneis refilled both their ale-pots and sat down with a sigh.

‘The tannery did not belong to Elias as a freeholder, he rented it from the Abbot of Tavistock — as indeed, I do this manor. At the Conquest, Baldwin the Sheriff took it from the Saxon Alwi — then it was handed on as a knight’s fee of the Abbey to one of my forebears, who came over with William of Falaise and fought at Hastings.’ He paused, as if contemplating his ancestors, then, with a jerk, brought himself back to the present tragedy.

‘The foresters have always been scheming, grasping swine, as we all well know. But we had learned to live with it over the years — and a few of them, like Michael Crespin, until recently have been reasonable enough in their demands.’

‘Who’s he?’ asked de Wolfe.

‘Another of the foresters in this bailiwick. He’s been around for many years and though he sees he gets his cut from whatever is going, he’s not quite as bad as that arrogant bastard Lupus, who I suspect is behind much of this present trouble.’

‘So what’s changed recently?’ demanded de Wolfe.

‘Some weeks ago, they began to put the pressure on, in all sorts of ways. Their extortions became more blatant and penalties against the common folk became harsher and more frequent. Though the Attachment Courts are not supposed to pass judgement on any but minor offences against the vert, they started to mete out severe punishments instead of referring them to the forest Eyre.’

‘But that’s not legitimate! How can they get away with it?’

Le Denneis sighed. ‘Because no one stops them any longer. To be frank, the Warden is a weak man, getting old and largely unaware of what goes on in the forest. De Bosco never comes around to see what’s really happening on the ground, he’s content to leave it to the verderers.’

‘And what about them? Don’t the verderers keep a grip on what’s happening?’

The manor-lord gave a cynical laugh. ‘It’s not really their responsibility, they are supposed only to organise the lower courts. The only one to protest to the foresters at some of their excesses was Humphrey le Bonde. And look what happened to him — an arrow in the back!’

John gulped down the last of his ale as he considered what Henry had said.

‘So are the foresters responsible for all of this hardening of the regime?’ he demanded.

Le Denneis shrugged, his expression despondent.

‘They are the instruments of what is happening and they certainly gain personally from the extortions. But somehow I feel there must be others more powerful behind them.’

‘Do they actually perpetrate these acts themselves?’

‘Some of the time, yes. They — or their thuggish grooms — beat up villeins and free men alike who they consider to have made any infringement of the forest laws or who resist some new piece of extortion. But I doubt they would personally kill a verderer or fire a tannery, even if somehow they are behind it.’

‘So who may have done these wicked acts?’ persisted de Wolfe.

‘There are outlaws galore in these woods and moors. They’re not above doing the dirty work for a purse of silver. The main villains in this area are those who follow Robert Winter.’

John nodded. That name was not unfamiliar to him. He stood up ready to leave.

‘So where do you stand in all this?’ he asked. ‘Is there nothing you can do to protect your own villagers?’

Henry le Denneis walked him towards the door of the chamber. ‘I have no say in this,’ he said sadly.’I run my manor, I have my own moot court to control and discipline my people — but only in matters which are not related to the forest. The mill is mine, but not the tannery. If the foresters set up another in competition over towards Moretonhampstead, it’s none of my business.’

After they had said farewell, John walked back to the centre of the village, turning over in his mind what le Denneis had said. Somehow the coroner doubted that the lord of the manor’s proclaimed inability to do anything about the tannery was true, and he suspected that he may have had his palm crossed with silver to mind his own business. Yet now he would have the problem of finding other work for the sons of the destitute widow. De Wolfe also wondered what the Abbot of Tavistock would say when he heard that his tannery had been reduced to ashes, its rent so abruptly terminated.

It was still too soon for the inquest to begin, and when he reached the oblong green in the centre of Manaton de Wolfe looked for his officer and clerk to seek some food in the alehouse. Henry le Denneis had offered him a meal, but he preferred to eat with his own men. Gwyn was already standing at the door of the tavern, a quart pot in his hand.

‘Here comes our little spy,’ he said affectionately, waving his pot in the direction of the church of St Andrew opposite. Thomas was coming down the path from the priest’s house, his limp accentuated by his haste. He crossed the grass towards them, his shapeless cloth pouch of writing materials swinging from his lowered shoulder.

‘We can talk over our bread,’ snapped John, leading the way into the low, dark room of the alehouse. Most of these primitive hostelries were run by widow women, who had little other means of livelihood and who were often expert brewers. This one was a fat, amiable woman, who in spite of smelling strongly of the privy brought them a couple of tasty mutton pies and a platter carrying a fresh loaf, butter and hard cheese. Thomas, who disliked both ale and cider but was forced to drink one of them by default of anything else, settled for a pint of turbid cider and the two larger men took more ale. They sat at a rough oak trestle, the only table in the room, and as they ate and drank, the clerk told his story.

‘This parish priest seems better than many,’ he began, his gimlet eyes flicking from one to the other. ‘In spite of looking like a serf from the fields, he can read and write and doesn’t seem to be a drunk. But he thought I was still an ordained priest myself and I didn’t trouble to contradict him, so we got on quite well.’

The coroner had learned that Thomas could be very useful in ferreting out information from the local clergy by pretending to be in Holy Orders. He was a highly intelligent young man, well educated and with an insatiable curiosity that made him a valuable investigator. On a number of occasions he had been able to tease out local gossip and discover confidential information that the coroner himself would never have obtained.

‘It seems that Elias the tanner was a devout man and confided a lot in Father Amicus, especially during his recent troubles.’

‘What recent troubles?’ demanded de Wolfe.

‘Several weeks ago the foresters came and announced that he must close down his tannery, as the King had established a new one near Moretonhampstead.’

‘You say ‘foresters’ — was it more than one?’

Thomas was crestfallen. ‘I didn’t think to ask that, Crowner. They offered him and his sons jobs in the new place, but Elias told them to go to hell. Apart from wanting to carry on with his own business, he and the lads would have had to travel miles each day and get a pittance in return.’

‘So what happened?’ asked Gwyn.

‘The tanner told them to clear off, but the thug who was one of the forester’s henchmen tried to beat him up. The sons dragged him off and gave him a hammering, then the forester and his men rode away, yelling threats of retribution. It looks as if those threats have come home to roost.’

De Wolfe digested this, along with the last of his mutton pie.

‘Did the priest tell you anything else of use?’

‘He said that the foresters and woodwards have become much more aggressive of late. They used to turn a blind eye to a bit of poaching, if it was only coney or partridge or taking a few fallen branches for firewood, as long as the cottar slipped them a couple of pence now and then. But recently they have come down hard, dragging offenders off to the gaol or hauling them up before the court.’

‘It seems the same story all over the forest,’ mused John. ‘Anything else?’

‘Father Amicus reckons the outlaws are becoming more bold around here. One of them, belonging to this gang of Robert Winter, even slips into confession now and then. The priest wouldn’t reveal what was said, of course, but he had the feeling that the foresters and the outlaws had agreed not to interfere with each other.’

That was about all that Thomas had to relate before it was time to go outside to hold the inquest on the pathetically scanty remains of the cremated tanner. Most of the village of Manaton was gathered on the green as a jury was assembled and the usual ritual was gone through, with the skull being paraded around carefully by Gwyn of Polruan. The inevitable conclusion was that Elias Necke had been killed unlawfully by unknown persons, but as the coroner was delivering this verdict he was incensed to hear hissing and sullen curses coming from the crowd.

At first he angrily assumed that they were disagreeing with his findings, but then he saw that their eyes were focused on someone behind him. Turning, he saw that a pair of horsemen had come up silently on the turf and were sitting behind the circle of villagers, listening to his final pronouncements.

The growling of the Manaton men increased and a few shaken fists and louder blasphemies showed the depth of feeling against the newcomers.

The leading man was bony faced and grey haired, sitting stiffly erect on his horse. He wore no mantle over his dark green tunic, on which was the horn badge of a forester. The other man was younger, but coarse featured and unkempt. As the crowd continued to demonstrate their ill feeling, a sneer appeared on the forester’s face as he looked down with obvious contempt at those who reviled him.

Father Amicus, perhaps bolder because of the protection of his cloth, pushed forward until he was almost against the stallion’s nose. He had donned a rather threadbare cassock for the inquest, in place of his workman’s smock. Looking up angrily at the rider, he pointed an accusing finger.

‘This is partly your work, William Lupus! I don’t know what role you played in the fire that killed this poor man, but Almighty God will know, be assured of that!’

The forester deliberately yanked on a rein, so that the horse’s head lunged against the priest and made him stagger backwards.

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, Father,’ he snarled. ‘Stick to the cure of souls and keep your nose out of business that doesn’t concern you.’

De Wolfe and Gwyn simultaneously moved towards the forester, shoving aside surly villagers to get to the priest’s side.

‘Are you this William Lupus I keep hearing about?’ rasped the coroner.

‘I am indeed — and I suppose you’re this new crowner I keep hearing about,’ replied the forester, with deliberate insolence in his voice.

‘Keep a civil tongue in your head!’ roared Gwyn. ‘Else I’ll pull you off that bloody horse and use your face for a door mat!’

Lupus ignored the threat and looked down at de Wolfe.

‘You have no authority here, this is the King’s forest.’

John looked up at the man with contempt in his dark face.

‘Don’t talk such arrant nonsense, fellow! I was appointed coroner by the King himself. His writ runs everywhere in England where death, injury or serious crime is suspected. Don’t think for a moment that your trivial powers extend to anything other than dealing with the theft of firewood or poaching a buck or boar!’

The taut features of the forester flushed at the insult to his importance.

‘You can’t speak to me like that, damn you!’ he shouted, his normal impassive composure shattered.

Gwyn grabbed his leg and pulled, causing Lupus to sway dangerously in his saddle. Only his feet jammed tightly in the stirrups allowed him to keep his balance.

Immediately, his ugly page Smok spurred his mare alongside Gwyn and aimed a blow at the Cornishman’s head with a short staff. Gwyn dodged it easily and with a roar of anger reached up and grabbed Smok around the waist in a bear-like grip. To the cheers of the people crowded around, the ginger-haired giant hauled the page clean out of his saddle and dumped him on the ground, where he aimed a series of kicks at his buttocks and shoulders.

‘That’s enough for now, Gwyn, let him be,’ ordered de Wolfe, after Smok had let out a tirade of yells and curses. Gwyn stepped back and the page scrambled to his feet and backed away, his piggy eyes blazing with hate.

William Lupus sat rigid, tight lipped with anger. It was something new for him to have his authority in the forest challenged so publicly.

‘You’ll regret this, de Wolfe!’ he hissed.

‘Sir John de Wolfe to you, fellow,’ snapped the coroner, with deliberate arrogance. ‘You’ll address a knight who carries the King’s commission with proper respect! Remember that you’re nothing but a common gamekeeper, even if you wear a fancy badge on your tunic.’

White faced with rage, Lupus pulled his stallion’s head around to leave, but John grabbed the bit-ring to stop him.

‘Wait, I’ve not finished with you yet. Get out of that saddle.’

The forester looked about him, ready to break away by force, but he found Gwyn on the other side, grinning up and rattling his sword in its scabbard.

With seething ill grace, he slowly dismounted and handed his reins to Henry Smok, who had got to his feet and was glowering at Gwyn, now his mortal enemy.

‘Well, what is it?’ he snarled to the coroner.

De Wolfe stood with his hands on his hips, his sword hilt prominently displayed as he glared at the other man.

‘I’ve been hearing bad tidings about you, William Lupus. I don’t know what your game is, but believe me, from now on you’re a marked man. So tread carefully, forester! Stick to your vert and your venison and don’t dare to question the powers of the King’s coroner again, d’you hear me?’

In spite of his innate arrogance, Lupus’s gaze dropped before the vulture-like figure of de Wolfe. He swung away and muttered threateningly under his breath, ‘You’ve not heard the last of this.’

John caught the words and snapped at the retreating back of the forester.

‘Neither has the Warden of the Forests. Nor the Chief Justiciar — nor King Richard himself, if needs be. Watch your step, William Lupus!’

This time the man made no reply, but after an angry gesture at his page he mounted up and the two cantered rapidly away, with the jeers of the villagers of Manaton ringing in their ears.