Fear in the Forest

CHAPTER SEVEN

Gwyn woke up at dawn to find himself staring at a rocky ceiling. He was used to curling up in a wide variety of places and could sleep soundly anywhere, from the heaving deck of a fishing boat to the open deserts of Outremer. However, since settling down a couple of years ago, he now usually awoke either in his family hut in St Sidwell’s — or somewhere in Exeter, if he had been out drinking after the city gates closed at curfew.

He stared at the damp rock for a moment, gathering his sleep-fuddled senses, before recollecting that he was in an outlaw’s cave about five miles north of Ashburton. After leaving the alehouse the previous evening, Martin Angot had walked with him out of the little town for about a mile up the road towards Haytor. It was almost dark by then, though a pink summer glow in the west gave enough light for them to see their way. At a bend in the lane, Martin suddenly plunged off the road and, a few hundred paces through the trees, came upon a sturdy pony on a long head-rope, contentedly cropping the grass in a clearing.

‘You’ll have to walk behind, it’s a couple more miles at least,’ he said rather thickly, as the outlaw did not have the iron head that Gwyn possessed when it came to drinking ale.

They plodded for an hour along an ill-defined track through the woods alongside a valley, then came out on moorland and began to climb towards the rocks of a jagged tor silhouetted against the sky.

A full moon now rose above the eastern horizon, and for another mile the coroner’s officer, who had given his name as Jess, followed the rump of the pony up towards the high moor.

There was a hoot ahead which was a fair imitation of an owl, though Gwyn was well aware that it came from a human throat. Martin Angot called a soft reply and a moment later the figure of a sentinel loomed up from behind a rock, a lance in his hands.

‘Who’s this, Martin?’ he demanded.

‘A new recruit — an abjurer who lost his way,’ jested the blond man.

The guard waved them on, and in a few minutes they came upon a deep dell set into the edge of the escarpment. Behind a barrier of piled moor-stones the glowing ashes of a fire remained, one fed only with dry wood to avoid smoke. A few crude shelters made of stones and wood, with turf roofs supported on branches, were propped against the rocky faces of the dell, and at its apex was a wide, shallow cave. Snores from the shelters and the cave drew Gwyn’s gaze to about a score of sleeping men, wrapped in cloaks and rough blankets. Martin slid from his pony and pulled off the oat sack he used for a saddle. Giving the beast a slap on the rump to send it out of the dell for the night, he muttered, ‘It’ll not go far, there are others tethered around the corner. Find a space in the cavern — at least it’s better than a ditch or pigsty,’ he grunted, making for one of the turfed shelters. ‘I’ll take you to the chief in the morning — he’ll either accept you or slit your throat.’

Now, at dawn, Gwyn lay wondering what he had let himself in for, penetrating this den of thieves. If any of them recognised him as the coroner’s henchman, he was in big trouble, but he felt it worth the risk if he could learn something useful for his master.

The danger was that, though probably none of the gang of outcasts would have seen him before, the description of a huge, ginger-haired Cornishman acting as the crowner’s officer might be common enough currency in the countryside to give him away. It would surely happen sooner or later, but as he intended only to spend a day or so as an outlaw, he gambled on it being later.

As the dawn strengthened, men began to move, stretching and cursing as they pulled on their boots. They drifted to the fire, which someone had blown into life, piling on fresh wood, so that a cauldron of yesterday’s stew could be heated for breakfast. Some stale bread, stolen at knife-point from some village bake-house days before, was the only accompaniment, washed down by a sour ale.

The other men, who varied from hideous ruffians to weak-looking runts who must have been clerks escaping from embezzlement charges, seemed incurious about him, and Gwyn assumed that the membership of the gang was a fluid affair, with much coming and going. During the desultory converation around the cauldron, he stuck to his story about being ‘Jess’, an absconding abjurer, and no one seemed interested enough to question him in any detail about his orginal crimes. Thankfully, no one leapt to his feet and pointed a quivering finger at him, accusing him of being the Exeter coroner’s officer.

After they had finished picking out shreds of fatty meat and gristle from the pot with their knives and drinking the thin soup dipped out with their empty ale-mugs, a dozen of the outlaws trooped off on foot, one of them telling Gwyn that they were going up to the high moor to steal some sheep belonging to Buckfast Abbey. For some reason, the mention of this religious house seemed to cause some amusement, and Gwyn heard one man cackling about ‘Biting the hand that feeds you!’.

As they left, Martin Angot came across from one of the shelters, walking with a tall, slim man with brown hair and beard. He was better dressed than the others, with a green tunic circled with a belt and baldric from which hung a heavy sword. Ankle-length boots were worn over cross-gartered breeches, and his head was partly covered by a pointed woollen cap that flopped over to one side.

‘Is this the man, Martin?’ he asked his lieutenant. Gwyn recognised that his voice was more cultured than the other men’s, though he spoke English with a Devon accent.

Gwyn lumbered to his feet and nodded to the newcomer, who he assumed was Robert Winter. ‘Jess is my name. I seek somewhere to stay in peace for a time, until I can carry on with my journey.’

The outlaw grinned, his face lighting up pleasantly, his intelligent eyes scanning Gwyn’s huge frame and his dishevelled clothing.

‘Martin tells me you’ve walked from Bristol? You look as if it was from York, by the state of you.’

Now it was Gwyn’s bulbous features which cracked into a smile. ‘Almost as far, for I walked from Anglesey in Wales to Bristol, having taken ship from Ireland.’

He knew Ireland and Wales well and felt easier talking about somewhere that was not pure invention.

‘What were you doing in Ireland?’ asked Martin.

‘Selling my sword-arm as usual. But they’ve run out of wars there at the moment, so I was making for home. Then, being without money after a gaming match, I relieved a Bristol merchant of his purse, but the damned man had two servants following behind. I laid them out, but then had to run for sanctuary.’

It was a simple enough story to be credible, and neither of the outlaws seemed suspicious.

‘D’you mind risking your head as an outlaw?’

Gwyn grinned at the question.

‘It makes no odds to me whether my neck is severed or stretched on the gallows tree, which is what would happen if Bristol caught up with me!’

Winter looked keenly at the big man, sizing up his huge muscles before his eyes settled on the broadsword hanging from his baldric.

‘Are you any good with that thing, Jess?’

Gwyn rattled the battered blade in its scabbard of scuffed leather.

‘It’s kept me alive these past twenty years, so I reckon on being able to use it well enough — though I’ll admit I’m no bowman.’

Both Robert Winter and his deputy Martin Angot asked some more questions, mainly about his origins and where he had served as a mercenary soldier. Once again, Gwyn stuck as near to the truth as possible, which he could do without difficulty. His accent confirmed him as a Cornishman and he correctly claimed to be the son of a tin miner who had given up the trade to become a fisherman at Polruan, where Gwyn had spent the first sixteen years of his life. As to campaigning, he stuck to his actual escapades in France, Ireland and Wales, leaving out any mention of the Holy Land or Austria, which might have brought him uncomfortably near John de Wolfe.

After a few minutes, the other men appeared satisfied that this dishevelled giant was what he claimed to be.

‘You’re welcome to stay with us, Jess, until you want to move on. But you’ll have to earn your keep and our protection,’ said Winter.

‘Anything you say, Chief,’ rumbled Gwyn. ‘What happens today?’

The outlaw leader looked at Angot, who jerked a thumb towards the men sitting around the fire.

‘A few of them are doing a little task for a forester today. Go with them, Jess — there’s hardly likely to be much rough stuff, but someone your size might be useful if any persuasion is needed.’

Apparently satisfied, the two outlaws sauntered back towards the bigger shelter, leaving Gwyn to his own devices. He wandered over to the rest of the men and squatted down with them.

‘I’m to go with you on some persuading expedition,’ he announced. ‘What’s it all about?’

Like their leaders, the men seemed to have accepted Gwyn without query. He suspected that there was a high turnover of similar recruits and deserters in the gang. One of them spat into the fire before answering him.

‘We’re going to shake up some freeholder who refused to honour his obligations to William Lupus,’ explained the man, a tough-looking fellow of about twenty. He had a fringe of dark beard and a jagged scar on his right cheek. The name Lupus rang an alarm bell in Gwyn’s mind.

‘Who’s he?’ he asked gruffly, not wishing to show that he already knew.

‘One of the foresters around here. This bloody pig-keeper refused to feed the horses belonging to him and his page, so we’re to teach him some manners.’

Gwyn leaned forward to push a log farther into the fire.

‘Why are we doing such a favour for a forester? Where I come from, we prefer to cut their throats!’

One of the other men answered this time, a young weaselly fellow with a bad squint.

‘It pays not to ask too many questions around here,’ he advised.

Gwyn shrugged indifferently.’I don’t give a damn. When are we going?’

For an answer, three of the men, including the one with the scar, clambered to their feet. One ambled across to a pile of weapons and brought over four heavy cudgels, one of which he handed to Gwyn.

‘Here you are, Jess. You won’t need your sword today — this isn’t the Battle of Wexford!’ said the bearded youth.

There was no way that Gwyn was going to be parted from his blade, but no further jest was made when he left it hanging at his side. The four men set off down the steep heathland, leaving a few outlaws back in the camp. A few hundred yards below the rocky outcrop, the bare ground gave way to trees, and soon the single file of marauders was winding its way along an ill-defined path through dense woodland down into the valley. Gwyn was in the rear, the leader being Simon, a swarthy ruffian of about thirty who reminded Gwyn of a wild boar, as his dark hairy face and boasted a mouth that had a pair of large yellowed eye-teeth projecting like tusks from his lower jaw. He loped through the fallen leaves and wild garlic with the assurance of one who knew every step of the way, swinging his ugly-looking club in one hand. The other two, Scarface and the one with the squint, were dressed in little better than rags, and Gwyn wondered what sins had driven them from home to eke out this miserable existence in the forest.

After the better part of an hour’s silent tramping, they skirted some cultivated fields where the valley began to widen out and reached a narrow track, rutted by cartwheels. After following this for half a mile, they crossed a wider road which Gwyn recognised as the highway from Ashburton to Moretonhampstead. He could see a small hamlet in the distance, but after furtive glances up and down the road, Simon marched them straight across and took a path that led into the trees on the other side. This wound along for a while until it debouched into a large clearing in which there was a fair-sized cottage built of whitewashed cob, a mixture of mud, horsehair and dung, plastered on to a lattice of hazel withies.

A couple of sheds stood behind it, alongside a wattle fence enclosing a large patch of stinking mud in which more than two score pigs snuffled and grunted. In front of the dwelling was another fenced area, planted with orderly rows of beans, cabbage, onions, lettuce and herbs. Simon came to halt facing the cottage and pointed towards it with his club.

‘Right, boys, we’re to beat him up a little, but not enough to croak him — understand?’

Gwyn became very uneasy — as the dilemma had presented itself so abruptly. Simon stood at the fence around the plot and stared at the silent cottage, the others gathering behind him.

‘What are we here for?’ grunted Gwyn.

The leader turned his ugly head. ‘To teach this fellow a lesson — and to oblige William Lupus.’

‘Can’t a forester settle his own problems? What’s this cottar done to offend him?’

‘You ask a lot of questions, for a newcomer,’ snapped Simon.

‘It’s because I’m a newcomer. I don’t know what’s going on,’ Gwyn replied reasonably. One of the younger men explained.

‘He wouldn’t give Lupus everything he wanted. Under forest law, everyone dwelling in a royal forest must give the putre on demand to any forest officer and his groom, as well as fodder for his horse and food for his hound.’

‘What the hell’s “putre”?’

‘The forest fee — bed and board, oats for the horse, two tallow candles a night and black bread for the forester’s dog.’

‘So why’s bed and board a problem?’ muttered Gwyn.

‘Edwin, the freeholder here, refused to give Lupus everything else he wanted, including a couple of pigs and some fowls — in fact, he and his two sons threatened to give him a beating if he didn’t go away.’

‘So why didn’t this Edwin give the forester what he was entitled to?’

The cross-eyed outlaw sniggered. ‘Because Lupus had been back three times inside two weeks, demanding his dues. He’d cleaned the old man out of the last of his fodder, I heard. The final straw was him wanting three of his best breeding sows.’

Simon smacked the lad around the head with a heavy hand. ‘For Mary’s sake, give over gossiping! There’s work to be done. Go and chase those bloody pigs into the forest. That’ll get him into trouble for unlawful agisting, especially this time of year, in the fence month.’

Rubbing his sore head, the youth loped away towards the back of the cottage, while the leading outlaw gave the other youngster a push on the shoulder. ‘You, get in that garden and wreck those plants of Edwin’s. Let him go hungry, after he’s recovered from his thrashing.’

He motioned to Gwyn to follow him and made for the front of the cottage.

The coroner’s officer was feeling increasingly uneasy at what was happening, especially when he saw the carefully tended vegetables being either uprooted or trodden underfoot by the ruffian in the garden plot. But for the moment he could hardly afford to abandon his deception, just when he might be able to learn something. Reluctantly, he tramped after Simon, the cudgel he had been given dangling from his hand. As they neared the heavy sheet of thick leather that hung over the door of the windowless dwelling, he heard the squeal of pigs as they were chased off into the woods behind, from where it would be a marathon task to gather them together again.

As they stood near the rough timber frame of the door, there was still no sound from within. The youth was still crashing about in the vegetable plot, but there was no reaction from inside the cottage.

‘Maybe he’s not here,’ said Gwyn, trying to keep the relief from his voice. There was no way in which he could stand by and let these thugs assault an innocent man, even if it did expose him as a spy.

Simon looked disgruntled at the prospect of a wasted journey. ‘It’s a market day in Moretonhampstead. Maybe the bastard has gone there to sell some of his hogs.’

He pushed aside the leather with the point of his cudgel and peered into the single room. ‘No one here, blast it!’ he snarled.

Gwyn decided to use the anticlimax to try to wheedle out some more information.

‘I still don’t see why we’re doing the forester’s dirty work.’

Simon turned impatiently from the door. ‘Because Winter gets paid to do it, that’s why. And the rest of us get a share-out now and then. Where else d’you think we get money for ale and wenching when we slide into the town?’

‘Who pays him, then?’ asked Gwyn, boldly.

The outlaw glared suspiciously at him. ‘You’re a big fellow, but you’ve got an even bigger mouth! Why d’you want to know? It’s none of your business.’

Gwyn held up his hands apologetically. ‘I’ve just got a curious nature — I’m no sheriff’s man, for God’s sake!’

This seemed to amuse Simon.

‘Sheriff’s man — that’s a laugh, that is! Now shut up and get in there and smash everything within sight. If we can’t break Edwin’s head, we’ll just have break up his homestead.’ To demonstrate what he meant, Simon pulled violently at the leather door flap, ripping it from its fastenings.

As if this was a signal, all hell was let loose.

There was a warning scream from the lad in the garden and a pounding of feet from the direction of a small shed at the side of the house. Two men came flying around the corner, one hefting a three-foot piece of branch, the other waving a small but wicked-looking firewood axe. With yells of defiance, they fell upon the two men at their door, the younger fellow catching Simon a heavy blow with the branch, which he fended off with his left arm. The older man, obviously his father, took a swing at Gwyn with his axe, but the experienced fighter easily parried it with his cudgel, the blade becoming deeply embedded in the wood.

Edwin and his teenaged son were courageous enough, fighting desperately for their home, if not their lives. But once the element of surprise was lost, they were no match for the outlaws, especially when the two others came running, one from the garden and the other attracted by the noise on his way back from chasing the pigs. As Edwin, a grizzled, toothless man of about fifty, struggled to pull his axe from Gwyn’s club, the Cornishman put a massive arm around his shoulders and pulled him close.

‘Stop struggling and you won’t be hurt,’ he whispered into his ear. The older man looked at him in surprise, then went limp. At the same time, Simon, rubbing his bruised arm, was dodging another blow from the son, a burly youth who was red in the face with mixed anger and fear. The outlaw, no stranger to vicious infighting, rapidly rallied against the unexpected attack and swung his own club, striking the son hard on the shoulder, making him howl. By now, the two other ruffians had arrived and grabbed the son by the arms. He managed to pull his right one free long enough to deliver a swinging blow with his branch to the temple of the youth who had trampled his garden, sending the fellow to the ground as if poleaxed. Gwyn had to hang on to the father as he struggled and swore when Simon drove his fist into the son’s belly, causing him to double up. The lad sagged in the grip of the other outlaw, as he vomited his breakfast on to the ground.

The younger outlaw gave him a cruel kick in the ribs as he dropped him to the floor and turned to see what Simon was going to do to the father.

‘Well done, Cornishman! Now we’ll punish the silly old fool for daring to attack us.’ As he spoke, Simon drew back his arm and punched Edwin in the face, splitting his lip and making his nose bleed.

‘That’s just a start — you can let him go now, Gwyn. I want to kick him around the garden for a bit.’

Gwyn reluctantly decided that this was the moment of truth.

‘Leave him alone, Simon. And the boy.’

The outlaw stopped with his fist already raised for another blow, a puzzled expression on his face. His two yellowed fangs stuck out as his mouth stayed open in surprise.

‘What the devil are you playing at, man? Get out of the way!’

By way of reply, Gwyn gave him a push in the chest that sent him staggering back into the younger outlaw. The cottar’s son was recovering by now and was leaning against the whitewashed wall, wiping vomit from his chin with the back of his hand. His father wriggled from Gwyn’s loosening grasp and went to the aid of his boy.

‘Look, we’ve done them enough harm already,’ barked Gwyn hurriedly, in an attempt to preserve his cover. ‘Wrecked their garden, driven off their pigs — why not call it a day and let the bloody foresters do their own dirty work?’

Simon stared at the big redhead in amazement. ‘What are you saying, you damned fool? Even if we weren’t being paid for this, I’d half kill these swine for this — look what they did to Ralph there!’

In a fury, he pointed to the other outlaw, who was groaning as he slowly pulled himself to a crouch, blood oozing from between the fingers he held to the side of his head.

Simon advanced on Edwin and his son, his cudgel raised, but Gwyn swiftly stepped between them, his own club held out as a protective barrier against the angry outlaw. ‘I said leave them alone!’ he boomed, resigned now to abandoning any hope of further deception.

The thug’s ugly face creased into a sneer and Gwyn recognised that here was a man who revelled in inflicting pain, suffering and humilation on others.

‘Right, you’ve had your chance, you big Cornish bastard!’ he snarled. Pulling a long dagger from a sheath on the back of his belt, he came at Gwyn, club raised in one hand, the knife in the other. The bearded ruffian was close behind him, as the other young outlaw struggled to his feet a few yards away.

Gwyn smiled beatifically at the prospect of a good fight. Though he had had a few skirmishes since becoming coroner’s officer, they were few and far between compared to his old warrior days, and he missed the rough-and-tumble of confrontation. As Simon lunged at him with the blade and swung at his head with the club, he dodged and used his own club to give the attacker a crack on the wrist that made him howl, the dagger flying off into the dirt.

‘Watch the other one!’ yelled the cottar, as the other outlaw dived at Gwyn, his heavy stick raised. The defender parried the blow, the crack of wood on wood echoing from the cottage wall as he brought up his foot and kicked the youth hard between the legs. With a scream, he backed away, clutching his groin, but he stayed on his feet. By now, Ralph had recovered enough to stagger upright and was fumbling to draw his own knife. Simon, his left hand numb from the blow he had taken, had dropped his bludgeon and groped for his fallen dagger. A moment later, Gwyn faced two very angry men clutching long-bladed knives and another with a large club and a score to pay for his bruised testicles.

The coroner’s henchman quickly decided that, in spite of his greater size and fighting experience, it would be politic to draw his sword. With a metallic rattle, he removed the tempered steel from its scabbard and waved it in an arc before the advancing outlaws.

‘That’s enough, boys!’ he snapped. ‘You’ve done enough here for one day. Now just go home, there’s good fellows.’

He was wasting his breath, however, as the men, livid with excitement and fury, came on to crouch in a semicircle just beyond the reach of Gwyn’s weaving broadsword. Edwin, a few feet away to the left, now drew his own knife, and his son had recovered enough breath to grope for his fallen stave of timber.

‘Keep out of it. These bastards are killers!’ boomed Gwyn, seeing the movement out of the corner of his eye. With Simon feinting with his dagger right in front of the Cornishman, the two younger outlaws rushed in from either side, creating a situation that even the battle-hardened Gwyn found disconcerting. He slashed his sword forward to keep Simon at bay, and simultaneously swung a massive arm towards Ralph, an arm that had an oaken cudgel on the end. It connected with the youth’s already battered face, and for the second time in a few minutes, Ralph staggered back to collapse on the ground.

However, Gwyn had but two arms, and without the intervention of Edwin and his son he would have been in serious trouble, as the other ruffian was coming at his side with a very sharp knife. The cottar dived at the youth’s dagger-arm just as the tip stuck into Gwyn’s thick jerkin of boiled leather. He stopped the momentum of the thrust and his muscular son followed up by jumping on the man’s back and getting his neck in an arm-lock. Between them they wrestled him to the ground, but not before Edwin suffered a long slash across the back of his forearm.

With both young villains out of the fray, Gwyn turned his full attention to Simon. The long reach of his sword completely outclassed the other man’s dagger. The outlaw now bitterly regretted having left his own at the camp, as he had expected today’s activity only to be an easy roughing-up of a simple freeholder.

‘Drop it, Simon, or I’ll have your head off your shoulders!’ bellowed Gwyn.

The man with the boar’s teeth stared at him for second, as if debating whether to chance an attack, then his knife-arm drooped towards the ground. ‘You’ll answer for this, Jess. What in hell’s name has got into you?’ he snarled.

‘Let’s just say that I’ve got a particular hate for bloody foresters. This poor fellow here should get a bounty for telling one to go to hell, not get roughed up.’

Gwyn began to wonder whether he could yet retrieve something from this fiasco, but Simon was not forgiving.

‘You’re dabbling in affairs you know nothing about. This is more than just stirring up some petty freeholder.’

Gwyn lowered the point of his sword. ‘Drop that knife, then we can talk about it.’

‘Don’t trust the swine!’ yelled Edwin, looking up from where he was kneeling on the young outlaw’s legs. His son had dragged the boy to the ground and was holding him there with the branch pressed across his throat, half strangling him. The other youth, having had his head cracked twice within three minutes, was crawling away across the garden on his hands and knees. These events distracted Gwyn’s attention for a brief moment, which was almost his undoing. Simon’s knife shot up again and he lunged at Gwyn with a ferocious cry.

Caught unawares, Gwyn was unable to step back as he was against the wall of the house, but his fast reflexes allowed him to twist sufficiently for the dagger to snag in the diagonal shoulder band of his baldric, which was hard leather a quarter of an inch thick. The keen blade sliced across the wide strap and embedded its point in his jerkin, but the force was lost and Gwyn suffered only a shallow cut on the skin of his midriff.

Though the Cornishman’s body was hardly injured, his pride at being caught off guard suffered greatly. With a roar of anger, he whistled his sword in half a circle above his head and brought it down on the outlaw, catching him between the base of his neck and his shoulder.

As the man crumpled in a welter of blood, Gwyn prodded him in the breast-bone with the point of the sword, so that he fell away on to the grass, twitching his last agonies at the edge of the garden that he had so successfully ordered ruined.

‘Are you hurt, man?’ gasped Edwin, his eyes like saucers as he watched the rapid dispatch of the evil Simon. Gwyn put a hand into his jerkin and looked ruefully at his severed baldric and bloodstained fingers. ‘Nothing a jug of good ale couldn’t put right. What about you and your son?’

Edwin rubbed a hand across the drying blood on his face and the slash on his forearm. ‘We’ll survive — until those bastards come again.’

Gwyn took a couple of steps towards Simon, who had stopped jerking and was lying in a widening pool of blood that was soaking into the dry soil. ‘He’ll give you no more trouble — what about that one?’

He moved to stand over the younger outlaw and rested the tip of his sword gently on his belly. ‘You can let him go now, son. Pity to choke him to death with a stick, when hanging’s so much easier!’

As the two cottars released the lad and stood up, there was a scuffling noise behind them as the third ruffian managed to get to his feet and tottered rapidly towards the ring of trees around the homestead.

‘He’s getting away! After him, Garth,’ shouted Edwin. Gwyn put out a hand to restrain the son from pursuing the terrified fugitive, who had just seen the summary dispatch of his leader.

‘Don’t bother with him. Let’s see what this one has to tell us.’ He grinned down at the youth under his sword-point, who stared back fearfully.

‘Who are you?’ he croaked. ‘Why have you turned against us?’

‘I’m the officer of the King’s coroner for this county, that’s who I am. And you are in big trouble, my lad. A fatal kind of trouble!’

Edwin looked at Gwyn, then at his son. ‘The crowner? That’s the Sir John de Wolfe that we heard looked into that death of the tanner in Manaton last week.’

Gwyn nodded. ‘The very same — and foresters were mixed up in that affair, too.’

The cottar’s face darkened. ‘Those swine — they’re the cause of all this.’ His arm swept around to encompass his ruined vegetable plot and the corpse still oozing blood into his soil. He gave the prostrate outlaw a hefty kick in the ribs to relieve his feelings.

‘What are you going to do with this piece of filth?’ he demanded.

Gwyn looked down and grinned again. ‘I could cut off his head and give it to you. With the other one there, you could claim four shillings bounty, if you took them to the sheriff.’

The young outlaw, having seen what this hairy giant had done to Simon, was in no doubt that Gwyn was quite capable of carrying out his promise. He began squirming under the sword and babbling pleas for his life.

‘Let’s see if you can change my mind, lad,’ offered the coroner’s henchman. ‘Tell me what you know about this campaign to terrorise law-abiding dwellers in the forest — and what the foresters have to do with it.’

The boy protested that he knew next to nothing and in spite of a few small pricks with Gwyn’s sword-tip all he could say was that he had once seen William Lupus talking amicably with Robert Winter on the roadside near Ashburton — and that occasionally a man who was said to be a horse-trader came to meet Winter and money was handed over.

In spite of futher threats, which reduced the youth to a state of abject terror, it became obvious that he was such a minor part of the outlaw gang that he had no significant knowledge to disclose. Against the inclinations of the cottar and his son, Gwyn decided to send him on his way, rather than be saddled with a pathetic and useless prisoner who would inevitably end up on the gallows. He dragged him to his feet and gave him a push to help him on his way. As he tottered across the garden in the wake of his fellow villain, both Edwin and his son gave him a series of buffets across the head as parting gifts. The last they saw of him was a ragged figure stumbling into the shelter of the trees.

The freeholder stooped to pick up the torn door-leather and stood looking sadly at the ruin of his vegetable plot.

‘There goes much of our food for the winter. And what’s to become of us now? Those bastards will be back as soon as they hear what happened here.’

Gwyn slid his sword back into the scabbard, after wiping it on the grass.

‘I’ve a feeling that all this trouble will be settled before long. The coroner will have to get help from outside if the sheriff won’t act. Have you nowhere you can go for a few weeks?’

‘There is my brother near Moretonhampstead. We can round up most of our pigs and drive them over there. My wife died last year and there is little else of value here now, only the land itself.’

Garth went off with a dog that had been locked in one of the sheds, to see if he could gather the hogs together, while Gwyn helped Edwin to load some of his meagre household goods on to a small handcart.

As they worked, the coroner’s officer learned more details of the brush with the foresters.

‘These past months it has become much worse,’ said the old man, repeating the same litany that had been told elswhere in the forest. ‘They always had the right to demand a night’s lodging and food from any forest dwelling, together with feeding their horse and hound. But lately they have been grossly abusing the right, coming every week, bringing their pages as well — and claiming extra fodder for their mounts, which they take away across their pages’ saddles. They have been deliberately provoking us — for other cottars in the area have been treated likewise.’

He threw a couple of coarse blankets on to the cart as he spoke.

‘The last straw was William Lupus claiming three of my best sows last week. That’s well outside the law, but he threatened us when I told him to clear off. My other son was here that day, the one who works with my brother, so we were enough to turn him away. No doubt he’s behind what’s happened here today.’

‘Is it always this Lupus fellow who causes such trouble?’

‘Most of the time, though Michael Crespin, the other forester in this bailiwick, sometimes gets up to the same tricks.’

‘Why do you think all this has blown up only in the past months?’ asked Gwyn, as he helped Edwin throw a securing rope over the pile of belongings on the cart.

‘It seems that they are doing this as part of some plan to create chaos and dissatisfaction in the forest. The death of the verderer, who was a decent man, all seems part of something — though God knows what!’

There was little more to be learned, and while the father went off to help his son find their missing pigs, Gwyn dragged Simon’s body into the woods and buried him in a shallow depression, covering the corpse with armfuls of last autumn’s leaves, though no doubt foxes and badgers would soon unearth him. Coming back, he covered the bloodstains with soil, using a wooden shovel he found in a shed.

By now, Garth and his father had returned with all but two of their pigs, and soon set out with the little cart and their dog, driving the grunting flock ahead of them the few miles up the road to Moretonhamstead and relative safety.

With a sigh at the sad sight of a dispossessed family, Gwyn left them at the junction of their lane with the high road and set off briskly for Ashburton to reclaim his horse.

John de Wolfe’s holiday passed quickly and pleasantly in the company of his family. Though he had the worry about Nesta niggling at the back of his mind the whole time, he still managed to enjoy the copious food and drink and the obvious delight of his mother and sister at the chance to coddle him for three whole days. His brother’s welcome showed a more masculine restraint, but was none the less warm and genuine, so the days passed very pleasantly indeed.

He went out hunting again for one morning and spent a considerable time walking or riding with William around the manor. His brother showed him all the agricultural activites with obvious pride — and as part of John’s income came from the products of William’s enterprise, his interest was unfeigned. On the Friday evening, as he relaxed in the solar after a good meal, his mind strayed again to his two trusted servants, Gwyn of Polruan and Thomas de Peyne. He wondered how they had fared and looked forward to seeing them safely returned to Exeter when he got back on Sunday.

At the moment that de Wolfe was thinking about his clerk, Thomas was in his element in the new church at Buckfast Abbey. Secure in his masquerade as a priest, for no one here knew him, he was standing in the quire of the lofty building. Squeezed on to the end of a row of monks, he was chanting his heart out in the responses that were bringing the office of Compline to a close. He had arrived that afternoon, following a fruitless day jogging from one parish church to another, and went to enrol for the night at the large guest hall across the abbey compound from the imposing church, using his story of being a parish priest on his way to a living in Cornwall. The lay brother who administered the hall looked at this travel-weary little man and took in his worn clerical gown and his ragged tonsure.

‘You are a clerk, sir? Perhaps you would be better lodged in the dorter in the abbey over the way, rather than here among the common travellers.’

Thomas felt a pang of guilt in keeping up the deception that he was still in holy Orders, but a combination of intense longing, together with the knowledge that he was on the business of the King’s coroner, managed to dampen his misgivings. He mumbled something that sounded vaguely confirmatory and the custodian took him by the arm and walked him across to the main abbey buildings. They entered through a small door between the church and the imposing abbot’s lodging and passed through to the cloisters, a pillared arcade around four sides of a grassy square. In his seventh heaven, Thomas lingered behind his guide, basking in the serene peace of the monastic surroundings. Several monks passed, treading softly in their white robes, covered at the front by a brown scapular apron. They nodded at Thomas, but the strict Cistercian vow of silence forbade them from offering any other greeting. The lay brother, uninhibited by any such restraint, urged Thomas along and pointed out some of the main features of interest in the relatively new building, which before the Cistercians had been a Savignac house, and before that a Benedictine abbey founded in Saxon times.

They walked around the cloisters and then up some stairs to reach the long dorter, where the monks slept in spartan conditions, their hard pallets devoid of bedspreads and their clothing and meagre belongings conforming to the harsh edicts of the Rule of St Benedict, which the Cistercians had reintroduced earlier in the century. The lay brother stood with Thomas, looking down the long bare dormitory.

‘You may have been more comfortable in the guest hall, brother,’ he admitted rather sheepishly, but the coroner’s clerk was only too delighted to share the rigours of these men of God. An aged monk appeared from a small anteroom and introduced himself as Brother Howell, the curator of the dorter. He was allowed to talk when business demanded, especially to those not of his order, and soon settled Thomas on a spare mattress in a corner of the long, high-roofed sleeping hall.

‘We have no separate hospitium for accommodating visiting priests, but these pallets are reserved for them.’

‘You can eat in the refectory with the rest of the brethren,’ advised the lay brother as he left. ‘Though if you want anything other than vegetarian fare, you’ll have to come across to the guest house.’

Just as John de Wolfe was enjoying his visit to his old home, Thomas de Peyne was also relishing these two nights and a day in this beloved environment of a religious establishment. He went to every one of the six daily services, took the sacrament twice and was overjoyed on the second occasion to be asked to assist near the altar, attired in a borrowed surplice over his grubby robe.

So elated was he by his good fortune, Thomas almost forgot why he was there, and certainly, during his almost trance-like state during the offices, he had no thoughts to spare for the coroner’s problems. In the refectory, where he shared the extremely simple fare, eaten in silence whilst extracts from the Gospels and from the Rule of St Benedict were intoned by a brother standing at a lectern, there was nothing to be learned about the politics of Buckfast. However, during the brief periods after meals when conversation was allowed, he remembered his role as a spy and did his best to pick up any useful information. In truth, there was very little that the monks themselves could tell him as they led a very introverted existence and knew little of what went on outside the abbey.

What meagre information he did manage to pick up came not from them, but from the lay brothers, who were local men who worked for the abbey for their bed and board plus a small wage. This was the workforce of the Cistercians, labourers who worked the huge estate, herded the sheep and cattle, ploughed the land, harvested the crops and did all the construction and maintenance work on the buildings. In his walks around the abbey compound and short forays out into the gardens, where huge vegetable plots and numerous beehives provided the sustenance for the community, he spoke to many of the workers, the majority of whom were happy to lean on their shovels or brooms for a moment to gossip.

In the stables, where his pony was also enjoying a well-fed respite, Thomas talked to the grooms and the farrier, storing up a picture of the abbey’s lifestyle and governance in his clever little head. Out of all this, Thomas gained very little of use to his master in Exeter, but one item of intelligence intrigued him, though he had no real reason to think that it had any bearing on his mission. On Saturday afternoon, he was exchanging small talk with the loquacious custodian of the guest hall, both of them standing outside the door in the sunshine, as the threatened bad weather had cleared after a mild thunderstorm the previous night. They were idly watching the comings and goings of people in the wide courtyard, which was bounded by a wall joining the abbey buildings, the large guest house opposite and the north and south gateways. A man came striding towards them, his clothes streaked with road grime, a saddlebag slung over his shoulder. A short fellow with a tanned, leathery face, the traveller gave a friendly nod to the lay brother and walked straight through the door with an assurance that indicated his familiarity with the place.

‘One of our regulars,’ commented the custodian, as if sensing Thomas’s thoughts. ‘Stays here every few weeks — more often that that, sometimes.’

‘Does he work for the abbey?’ asked the ever-curious clerk.

‘No, he’s a horse and stock dealer, but he does a lot of trade with us. He’s forever closeted with Father Edmund, bargaining over sales of our sheep, cattle and horses, especially breeding stock, for which Buckfast is famous.’

Thomas’s interest waned a little — he was not interested in the sale of beasts. However, a priest had been mentioned, one that he had never heard of before.

‘So who’s Father Edmund? One of the monks?’

‘Yes, he’s a senior man in the chapter is Father Edmund Treipas. A Cistercian, but also an ordained priest, like you. He came here from Exeter a couple of years ago to be the cellarer, though now he’s far more than that.’

‘How do you mean, more than that?’

‘Well, he’s more like the abbey’s ambassador, always travelling to buy and sell in the world outside. A big place like this is an industry in itself — and the abbot and the brothers don’t like going outside much, with their vows of silence and suchlike, so he does all that business side. We needed a clever mind, after that demand from the King in ’93, when were almost ruined over the wool crop.’

Thomas had the sense not to draw too much attention to himself with more enquiries, but the presence of a much-travelled senior ecclesiastic caused him to make a special foray early on Sunday morning, between services in the church. After taking directions from a porter in the courtyard, he made his way into the cloisters and sought out a small door off the southern arcade. Tapping gently on the heavy panels, he did not wait for a response, but pushed it open and peered around the edge. He saw an untidy room, looking quite unlike any other part of the well-ordered abbey. A wide table was covered with open rolls of parchment and a long rack on a side wall was filled with dozens of rolls sticking out of pigeon-holes. The floor was cluttered with crates and boxes, even a full bale of raw wool, some sticking out of the hessian covering as if having been sampled.

Behind the table was a monk in a Cistercian habit, but with a wide leather belt around his waist, which carried a large document scrip.

The cellarer was standing up, sorting parchment lists with an air of grim determination, his strong features set in concentration. He looked up at the sound of the door opening, irritation on his face at the interruption.

‘What is it? Who are you?’

As Thomas’s objective was merely to get a look at the man, he took the quickest means of escape. Fumbling in his scrip for some coins, he made the excuse that as a passing priest grateful for accommodation for a couple of nights, he thought he should give his widow’s mite to the abbey — and having heard that Father Treipas was the focal point of the management, he had come to offer a few pence, which was all he had.

The burly priest waved him away impatiently.

‘There’s an offertory in the church, brother — and another in the guest hall. Put it in there, don’t bother me with such trifles. I’ve two hundred bales to be carted to Plymouth tomorrow.’

Thomas bobbed his head apologetically and withdrew rapidly, but not before impressing the father’s face on his mind, in case he needed to recognise him again. Content that he had done all he could for the coroner, Thomas made his way reluctantly to the stables to collect his pony. As he rode out of the abbey compound under the south gatehouse towards the high road, he looked back longingly at the place where, for a few short hours, he had been a priest again, among his own kind and the prayers, chants and ceremonies that were so dear to him. He had given up all thoughts of trying to end his miserable life, as God had given him a sign when he had failed in his solitary attempt — now perhaps this was another sign, for if his uncle’s attempts to have him reinstated in Holy Orders failed, then perhaps he could seek solace by spending the rest of his life as an unordained monk.

As he turned his pony’s head towards the Exeter road and his rendezvous with Gwyn at Ashburton, he clung on to his side saddle in a better frame of mind than he had experienced for many months.