The Noble Outlaw

CHAPTER TEN

Part of Gwyn's expedition was to prove successful, but his intention of trying to match the metal rod-that had killed the candlemaker was overtaken by events. Towards noon, John de Wolfe was making for his house, his mind on what Mary might have cooked for his dinner. Both he and Matilda were enthusiastic eaters and food played an important part in their lives. He allowed Mary a liberal allowance for her housekeeping and she was a seasoned hand at the market, as well as being a good cook. Soon after dawn each day, she would take her basket around the stalls and booths in Carfoix and Southgate Street and judiciously choose the best meats, fish and vegetables that were on offer. When he had broken his fast with gruel, boiled eggs and bread in her kitchen-shed early that morning, she said she had bought a fine hare for dinner and now he looked forward to having it boiled in its own blood, with red wine, lemon, onions and cloves.

This pleasant reverie was rudely ended when he saw his brother-in-law coming along the High Street towards him, just as they both reached the narrow entrance to Martin's Lane.

'I was just coming to see you, John,' he brayed, and brandished what looked like a short lance in the coroner's face. As they turned towards his house, John saw that Richard was grasping an iron rod seemingly identical to the one that had been stuck through the eye of Robert de Hokesham.

'Where the devil did you get this?' he demanded, taking the rusty metal from him.

'You may well invoke Satan, John,' cried Richard, with a touch of panic. 'It came from the side gate of my house in North Gate Street. And the one alongside it is missing, no doubt pulled out by the murdering swine to use on your candlemaker.'

Somewhat reluctantly, John took him into the house, and they stood in the small vestibule to examine the rod more closely. As Richard had claimed, it was the exact twin of the one used in St Bartholomew's churchyard.

'The gate is made of an oaken frame with holes top and bottom, into which half a dozen of these stout rods are fixed,' gabbled his brother-in-law. 'The gate must be old, and the bars are loose enough to be lifted out.' He grabbed at John's arm. 'I tell you, this proves that the killing was meant to be linked to me! Just as the first corpse was dumped in my college, then the next was Pomeroy's glazier. Matilda's assailant was telling the truth, God blast him — that bastard de Arundell is playing with us, telling us that we might be next. You must do something, John!'

Just then, the inner door to the hall jerked open and Matilda stood there, looking like some Old Testament prophet on Judgment Day.

'Richard. I thought I heard your voice,' she grated. 'Come inside, I have much to say to you.' Behind his bemused brother-in-law, John grinned to himself as he anticipated the tongue-lashing that Richard was going to get from his sister.

It was almost worth the delay in sitting down to his jugged hare.

Though Gwyn had failed to find the depredations to the gate of de Revelle's yard, he had made a fortunate discovery about Maurice, Gillian le Bret's servant. The Cornishman had visited a few alehouses and toured some sweets looking for suitable iron rods. One fellow — a drinker in the Anchor Inn — was acquainted with the servant at the le Bret house, who also patronised that tavern. Although he knew nothing of Maurice's comings and goings, he described the man graphically.

'Like a beanpole he is, tall and thin. Got this curse all down his face, poor sod. A great thick, purple patch — they say his mother must have been frightened by the devil when she was a-carrying of him.'

Gwyn had intended speaking to the porters at each of the city's five gates and now he had a better description of his quarry. As anyone going to Dartlnoor would probably choose either the West or the North Gate, he tried those first and struck gold at the second attempt.

At the top of North Gate Street he spoke to one of the gatekeepers, who was one of his hundreds of drinking acquaintances across the city. The fellow's job was to open and close the great doors at dawn and dusk, as well as to collect tolls from those who were bringing goods or beasts into the city. Without hesitation, he said he knew Maurice Axeworthy.

'Who doesn't, poor sod?' he exclaimed. 'Hardly miss him, with a face like that. Often riding through here, he is.'

Gwyn felt a tingle of excitement, as it was unusual for a mere house servant to have the frequent use of a horse to leave the city. Further questioning revealed that Gillian le Bret's man had for some weeks been in the habit of riding out early every Monday morning and returning later the same day.

'Reckon he must be going to visit a sick relative or something, maybe up Crediton way?' hazarded the porter.

Gwyn hurried back to Rougemont with his news and found his master in the hall of the keep, maliciously regaling the sheriff with an account of the verbal drubbing his wife had given to her brother that dinnertime.

'By Saint Peter's nose, didn't she let him have it,' he said with ill-concealed glee. 'Her tongue is sharp enough when she spears me with it, but for him, she dipped it in acid as well!'

Matilda had released all her pent-up disillusion and indignation at her brother's incessant wrong-doings which for years, she now realised, had blighted her life.

This time, her extraordinary affection for her new friend Joan de Arundell had heightened her exasperation and she had torn into Richard.

As de Revelle escaped from her tirade, she had hurled final threats at him and demanded that he undo the damage he and Henry de la Pomeroy had wreaked on the unfortunate de Arundells.

'You had best hurry, for my husband is about to petition Hubert Walter, and perhaps the king himself, for restitution of their manor — and retribution on you grasping pair of villains.' With this final barb, she had slammed the door on him, then promptly gone back into the hall, where she threw herself into a chair and burst into tears.

When de Wolfe had finished telling the sheriff his dramatic story, he turned to his officer. Gwyn told him of his discoveries about Maurice Axeworthy, and together with Henry de Furnellis, they discussed how they might use the information to their advantage.

'I'm sure this fellow meets someone out there in the country, so that news can pass back and forth between them,' claimed John. 'If we can follow this Maurice, we might be led to where Nicholas and his gang hide out.'

'A force of soldiers large enough to capture them would never be able to track men over open country,' objected the sheriff. 'They'd just melt away as soon as they spotted anyone following them.'

De Wolfe agreed. 'I'm not proposing a confrontation in the first instance,' he said. 'But if one or two of us could shadow this messenger, he may lead us to where they have their camp. Then we can return with enough of Ralph Morin's men-at-arms to overpower them and find out the truth about this alleged seizure of their manor — and see if our murderer is amongst them.'

'This servant can hardly be going deep into the moor,' observed Henry. 'Your porter says he goes out in the morning and is back before dusk. That must mean he meets someone on the way.

'It's always on Monday,' Gwyn reminded them. 'That's the day after tomorrow.'

'Then the sooner the better,' grunted De Wolfe. 'This is a task just for you and me, Gwyn. We'll leave the little clerk to his devotions and his parchments.'

Knowing that Maurice always left by the North Gate if he indeed was making a trip this week- his two trackers rode out early and concealed themselves in a clump of trees several miles beyond the city but, within sight of the first fork in the road. Straight on was Crediton, an unlikely destination for someone aiming for the high moor. Sure enough, when the tall horseman with the stained face passed by, he turned left, aiming west for Dunsford. His horse was a palfrey, a favourite with ladies, and this one had distinctive dappled grey markings.

They allowed him to get a considerable distance ahead before following. Both John and Gwyn had discarded their usual big steeds as being too conspicuous and had hired a pair of docile rounseys from Andrew's stables.

At Dunsford, they asked a shepherd driving a flock towards them whether he had seen 'their friend' on the road, a man with a discoloured face, and were told that he was not more than half a mile ahead of them.

Reassured that he had not already vanished into the woods, they carried on at the same pace and eventually came into Moretonhampstead, a village about twelve miles from Exeter. It was almost a small town, a busy place with a stock market and a few taverns that were thronged with freeman smallholders, horse traders and tinners.

'This Maurice knows me, so I'll keep out of the way,' said de Wolfe, as they reined in at the edge of the straggle of cottages and shacks. 'Leave your horse with me and go around the alehouses to see if you can spot that dappled palfrey.'

Ten minutes later, his officer was back, wiping his luxuriant moustaches with the back of his hand. 'Found him easy enough, in the inn with the sign of the plough outside. He's in a corner, eating a pie and talking head to head with a big, rough-looking fellow.' Gwyn pointed back to the village, which was spread around a crossroads. The tavern was a large thatched hut, almost on the corner of the road that went up towards Chagford.

'Would you know this other man again?' demanded de Wolfe.

Gwyn nodded. 'He's young, not above twenty, I reckon. And a thatch of ginger hair, brighter than mine, a real red-knob he is!'

John chewed his lip in indecision. 'Do we follow this one? Did he seem just a casual drinking mate, or are they meeting on purpose?'

'I've a gut feeling it's the real thing, Crowner. They were muttering close together, as if they wanted to keep their talk to themselves.'

'Right, get back in the saddle and hang around there until this ginger fellow leaves. We'll have to track him as best we can, though God knows it will be difficult once he leaves the road.'

And difficult it proved to be, following a horseman in open country without giving themselves away. They had had to wait for half an hour, until the carrot-haired man emerged and trotted off on a sturdy moorland pony. John and Gwyn split up, keeping just out of sight of each other, then alternating their positions in respect of the presumed outlaw so that he would not glimpse the same man every time if they inadvertently came within his view. For a couple of miles they were on a proper road, the one that ran southwards to Ashburton, but then the distant man turned right on to a track that went to the hamlet of North Bovey.

When they reached the village, there was no sign of him, and a boy herding goats at the side of the road said that no one had passed by in the last hour. Cursing, they wheeled around and, almost in desperation, took the only side track a quarter of a mile back. This led through trees to a bare heathland and Gwyn was able to find some hoof-prints in a boggy area where water was still oozing back into the cavities.

'Trodden very recently, I reckon,' he grunted. 'He must have come this way.'

Cautiously, they followed the track which began to climb on to the moor, a land of bare ridges with valleys which were filled with a patchwork of woods, waste and strip fields. As they went a mile or so beyond the village, now seen down below, the track became little more than a beaten path, with scrub and bushes on each side.

Though it was not raining, a thin mist hung over the countryside and the higher parts of the moor were lost in grey cloud. Gwyn and the coroner rode cautiously, their eyes straining for a glimpse of the man ahead, and their hands never far from the hilts of their swords.

After another two miles or so, the landscape grew bleaker as they rose towards the upper plateau of Dartmoor. The mist thickened into wreathing shapes as the breeze whispered through dead grass. Eventually, the path dipped steeply down into a combe along the bottom of which ran a clear stream; bushes, dead brambles and some stunted trees filled the glen. As they splashed through the brook, Gwyn, who was in the lead on this narrow path, suddenly stopped and whipped out his sword with a hiss of steel. A man on a short-legged moorland pony had moved out from behind the bushes and now confronted them, It was not the ginger youth they had been following, but suddenly he also appeared behind the first fellow, an older man with unkempt dark hair. The redhead jabbed a finger at them and spoke excitedly.

'That's them, Philip. Been following Maurice and then me all the way from Exeter.'

So much for our clever plan, thought John as he hauled out his own sword. The two men who confronted them kept at a distance and made no move to threaten them. They had daggers in their belts, and the dark one had a short spear across his saddle, but he let it lie there undisturbed.

'Sir John de Wolfe, the crowner?' he asked in a broad, rural accent.

De Wolfe stared at him in surprise. 'How the hell do you know who I am?' he demanded, holding his sword at the ready. 'And what do you want? Who are you anyway?'

The man smiled thinly. 'A lot of questions, Crowner! Old Maurice told Peter here who you were, though God knows how you got on to him. And I am Philip Girard, once a huntmaster in happier times.'

He was a thin, haggard man of about John's age, the skin of his face looking as if it had been dried over an open fire. He wore a tattered leather jerkin over worsted breeches and an open cloak of frayed moleskin with a round hood. John noticed that he had a hunting horn on his belt, as well as the dagger and a short sword.

The coroner gruftly acknowledged his identity. 'And this is my officer, Gwyn of Polruan. Now, are you proposing to prevent us from continuing our journey?' he added with a hint of sarcasm.

Girard grinned. 'And just where were you proposing to journey to, sir? With no one to follow?' He pulled the horn from his belt and gave a long double blast that echoed around the banks of the little glen.

'What's that for?' demanded Gwyn aggressively, waving his sword at the huntsman.

'You'll see in a moment, sirs. Until then, can I invite you to follow us for a few miles? The choice is yours, you can turn back now, if you wish.'

Gwyn flushed and moved his horse forwards a few feet towards the speaker. 'Don't tell us what we can or can't do. I'll Cut your bloody head off if you don't get out of the way!'

'Hold fast a moment, Gwyn,' called de Wolfe, then directed his piercing gaze at Girard. Am I right in thinking that you are one of de Arundell's outlaws?'

'I am one of Sir Nicholas's men, yes,' admitted the man, emphasising the noble title of his leader. 'He has been hoping to have the chance to talk to you, as long as it was on equal terms… Though I never thought we would come across you in this fashion. Maybe it is the will of God.'

'Equal terms?' snapped John. 'I am a law officer and you and your master have been legally declared outwith that law. The only true terms would be for me to lead you back to the gallows in Exeter on the end of a rope.'

Philip Girard smiled wanly. 'That won't be happening today, Crowner.' He gave another single mournful blast on his horn, and almost immediately three men on horseback burst through the bushes. Muffled in ragged clothes, they were a menacing trio, bearded and longhaired.

'You are still welcome to come or go, Sir John, but I doubt even fighters with such a doughty reputation as you and your squire would prevail against we five, if you contemplated arresting us.'

John was intrigued by the situation, sharing little of Gwyn's truculent indignation at being ambushed.

'So what are you proposing, eh?'

Girard, who was obviously the senior member of this bunch, answered for all of them. 'We know from Maurice, when he comes each week to Moreton, that Lady Joan wants her husband to take our predicament to the highest authorities. Sir Nicholas ardently wishes to explain everything to you in person, but could not devise a way of bringing this about. Now you seem to have taken the matter into your own hands.'

Gwyn was still smarting from being outmanoeuvred by the outlaws. 'We followed your carrot-knob to discover your hideout, so that we could return with a troop of men-at-arms to flush you out,' he growled.

All the men grinned at this. 'It's been tried more than once,' retorted the ginger youth. 'But have you ever tried catching a ferret in a cornfield?'

De Wolfe kept to the main issue. 'So you want us to come and talk to Nicholas de Arundell, is that it?'

The former huntsman inclined his head. 'As a matter of honour — and we still have that left, in spite of every misfortune that has been heaped upon us — we swear that we will conduct you to him and see that you return safely.'

John looked acoss at Gwyn, 'It's up to you, you can turn back if you wish. But we came to find Nick o' the Moor and now we are being offered guides to that very end.'

Gwyn seemed to accept his master's confidence and he settled back into his usual amiable burnout. He slid his sword back into its scabbard. 'Very well, as long as they've got something to eat and drink in their den, wherever it is.'

The atmosphere suddenly lightened, and John also sheathed his weapon. 'We'll come with you, then, on those terms. How long a journey will it be, for it looks as if we'll not get back to Exeter this day?'

'More than an hour from here, sir. We can feed and bed you for the night, primitive as it might be. Though I'm sure that will be no novelty to the pair of you.' He pulled his pony around and led the way along the path, the other four outlaws failing in behind Gwyn and de Wolfe.

'We must soon leave this track and cut across country,' said Girard. 'My friends and I are not popular with villagers and smallholders in these parts.' He smiled rather sadly.

'Neither would I be pleased if my hens and goats vanished and the cabbages disappeared from my croft.' They struck off up the valley and followed the stream, then went through woodland until they came out on the lower slopes of a bare hill with strangely rounded rocks on the top.

'That must be Easdon Down, where we fought last year,' muttered Gwyn, as he recognised the scene of a fight against a different band of outlaws. The man in front continued around the base of the down, and once again they plunged into the forest, avoiding a small village on their left.

Philip Girard rode his pony without saddle or stirrups, with just a folded blanket over the beast's back and a bridle to control it. Even so, he kept up a fair pace given the difficult terrain, especially when they were in dense woodland.

'Is it much further?' demanded Gwyn, seeing another and much higher barren hill appear in front of them.

Their guide turned and pointed ahead.

'We're passing Heathercombe Down, then we'll go between King Tor and Hamel Down. A mile beyond that and we're there.'

They left the trees and climbed up across desolate moorland, the east wind now catching them again, blowing wreaths of thin cloud across the upper slopes.

Reaching a saddle between two high bluffs, they began descending towards a distant valley, but before they reached it, they crossed an odd structure.

'What the hell's this place?' asked Gwyn, his Celtic sensitivity tuned to some ancient vibrations. In the bowl of moorland between the two bluffs, a waist-high wall of blackened moorstones made an almost perfect circle, a bow-shot across. The stones were in a double line and the remains of a ditch lay outside the circle. Dotted around inside were the remains of small round huts, most with stone doorposts and some with angled entrance passages. Three or four had rough roofs of branches and turf, though these seemed to have been added recently. Girard stopped his horse at the far side, where there was a flagstoned entrance to the compound.

'This is Grimspound, an ancient village,' he said. 'Far older than Christ's birth, so the wise men say, though how they can tell, I don't know. The folk that used to live in the place we use now, claimed it's haunted and certainly most people down the valley wouldn't come near here at night, for fear of seeing the little folk.' They jogged on, riding down steeply from the mysterious stone camp into the main valley, but John was still intrigued.

'Who put roofs on some of those huts?' he questioned.

'A couple were made by passing tinners, as a shelter when caught by bad weather, but we repaired some others as a refuge should some large force come against us in Challacombe,' he replied.

John had heard of Challacombe but never been near it, as it was in a remote part of the moor. At the bottom of the slopes they reached a track that ran southwards down a valley through which a stream babbled. On each side were high bare hills and at the bottom, alongside the brook, a few sparse trees grew. The old huntsman took them about half a mile farther, as the wind dropped and the mist crept down from the moor.

'That's where we live, if you can call it living,' said Philip Girard bitterly. He pointed across the stream where, beyond a thin copse of stunted, black trees, the irregular outlines of some low, crude buildings could be seen behind an old wall. In single file, they rode towards them and crossed the stream over a rough bridge of fallen logs. As they approached the enclosure, men came out through a gap in the surrounding walls and waited for them to dismount.

'That's Sir Nicholas, our lord,' murmured Girard to the coroner, indicating the figure standing in the middle of the small group, staring at the newcomers. John saw a stocky man in his mid thirties, dressed in much the same type of clothing as his men. A leather jerkin and worsted breeches seemed the most practical garb for living in these wild conditions. Girard dismounted and hurried ahead to explain to his master what had happened.

De Wolfe stepped forward, as did Nicholas de Arundell, so that they met on the patch of rough ground that separated the two groups.

'You are welcome, Sir John,' said Nicholas in his deep voice. 'I only wish it was in more civilised surroundings.' The two men weighed each other up, making no move to grasp each other's arm in greeting. John took in de Arundell's strong, rather stubborn features, but Nicholas held his gaze unwaveringly. The younger man recognised an even tougher character, de Wolfe's dark face carrying the stamp of grim resolve and determination.

'We are both old Crusaders, I understand?' grunted de Wolfe. 'We never met in Outremer, which is hardly surprising given the chaos and turmoil we all suffered.'

'I was delayed for almost a year in Sicily, fighting another war,' explained Nicholas. 'But we have other matters to discuss first, so please come into our shelter, which at least will be warm and where we can feed you.' As they walked into the compound where the stone shacks were built, the former steward, Robert Hereward, made himself known. Then Philip Girard introduced Gwyn to the other men. Inside the largest of the huts, the fire had been built up to defeat the cold outside; though the fumes seeking to escape through the gaps under the thatch prickled the men's eyeballs. Daylight from the open door and the flames gave enough illumination for the visitors to see the sparse furnishings and the piles of bracken where some of the men slept.

At Nicholas's invitation, they sat at the trestle table and from the other end, the old woman shuffled forward, carrying some wooden bowls and a loaf of bread.

'This is Gunilda, the most important member of our tribe,' said Nicholas. 'She keeps us fed and moderately clean, God bless her.'

The woman put her load on the table and nodded at the visitors, before going to the firepit to take a blackened cauldron off the stones near the edge. After she had ladled out a thick vegetable potage into their bowls, the other men crowded round with their own pots and dishes, then went to sit or crouch around the fire to eat.

'There'll be venison later on,' promised Hereward. 'Peter Cuffe, our best archer, got a hind yesterday down towards Widecombe. That's a hanging offence, I know, but you can't be hanged more than once!' There was a guffaw of laughter from the outlaws; Gunilda distributed more hunks of bread to them and went back for the ale pitcher.

De Wolfe, who had been silently taking in the situation, began asking questions of de Arundell.

'Are these all your company?'

'They are, apart from a lookout down the valley. We are now only twelve men — and a woman.'

'And this is your permanent home?' asked John.

'At present, though we have several smaller hideouts scattered over the moor. We need to be able to vanish within minutes if anyone comes against us.'

Gwyn raised his head from his soup bowl. 'Does that ever happen?' he asked.

Robert Hereward, also sitting at the table, answered with a nod. 'Yes, but not often, thank God. A year ago, a large gang of desperate men from over the Tavistock end of the moor took it into their heads to finish us off, but we melted away and they achieved nothing but wrecking this place. It is poor, but soon mended.'

De Wolfe picked up the ale pot which Gunilda placed before him. 'So no law officers have come against you?'

Nicholas shook his head. 'Not for a long time, thank God. In the earlier days, Richard de Revelle tried to pursue us here with the excuse that he was sheriff, but he sent only a few men and we soon lost them in the wildness of the moor.'

'This place is very remote, being near the centre of Dartmoor,' added Philip Girard. 'There is often bad weather and it is easy to evade those clodhoppers who march up the valley. Our sentinel spots them in plenty of time and we just vanish.'

There was a pause, then the coroner spoke again. The tone of the meeting changed perceptibly and the other men around the hut listened attentively, for possibly their lives depended upon what was to be said.

'You must understand that as a senior law officer, I should not be here, except to arrest you all or strike off your heads. But I have heard certain things about you, which I need to investigate further.' He paused and looked sternly around the ring of faces seen dimly in the poor light. 'Officially, I am not here — understand?' There was a muttered chorus of agreement.

'Now, I need to know exactly what happened at your former manor — and what has transpired since then.' He took a gulp of ale and looked expectantly at Nicholas de Arundell.

The blue eyes in a handsome, rather flushed face looked back at him steadily. 'I will start at the beginning, Crowner.

Probably like your own family, we Arundells came over at the time of William's conquest, and settled mainly in Sussex and the West Country. The Bastard gave much land to Roger, the first of the Arundells down here in the west, most of it in Somerset and Devon, though lately many of the family have settled in Cornwall.'

'Sensible people,' grunted Gwyn.

'His son Robert was my grandfather,' continued Nicholas. 'He gave Roger's name to my father, who acquired the manor of Hempston, near Tomes, from the descendants of Judhael who was granted all the land thereabouts by the Conqueror.'

'How did your father come by it?' asked de Wolfe, who wanted to exclude any false title to the land before they went any further.

'It was all quite legitimate,' answered Nicholas, anticipating the coroner's caution. 'He was left land in Somerset by my grandfather and he exchanged it for Hempston, which was part of the adjacent Pomeroy estate. The bargain was sealed with a witnessed deed in the proper way.'

'Where is that deed now?'

The noble outlaw's face darkened. 'If I know de Revelle and Henry de la Pomeroy, the parchment is ash scattered to the winds by now. It was in my chest at Hempston, but when I had to run for my life, I had no chance to recover such things.'

John looked over the horn spoon that he was dipping into his stew. 'Such a deed of transfer for such a significant item as a manor would have a copy lodged in the Chancery in Winchester or London. But carry on with your tale, sir.'

'When my father died some eight years ago, I inherited the manor as his only son. I married Joan and all was well for a few years until I decided to take the Cross and go off to Palestine.'

He paused and rubbed his forehead in some anguish.

'If I had stayed at home, none of this would have happened. I sometimes wonder why God called me to the Holy Land, then stabbed me in the back after I went.'

De Wolfe gave one of his throat clearings, this time intended to convey sympathy. 'Why indeed? Why did any of us go, for there was little booty to be gained, unless it was for our souls?'

'My father was always keen on my supporting the Pope when he declared a Crusade. He had been on the ill-fated one in the forties. Anyway, go I did and was away almost three years. When I got back, that bastard de Revelle and his crony at Berry Pomeroy had annexed Hempston, claiming that I had been assumed dead and that the land had reverted to the original freeholders.'

'Why should they consider you dead?' demanded the coroner.

'Because it suited their purpose,' snapped Nicholas, banging the table and making the ale pots rattle. 'I had twice sent messages home to my wife, written by our chaplain, as I have no skill with letters. But I later learnt that one certainly never arrived, as the friend to whom I had entrusted it was shipwrecked off Italy. God knows what happened to the other; I have never heard since of the knight who promised to deliver it.'

'Then what?' prompted John, as his host seemed to go into a gloomy reverie at these evil memories.

'Almost three years ago, having arrived by ship at Dartmouth, I arrived unannounced at my manor. I found the house occupied by strangers, my wife gone, and my steward and reeve replaced by men from Berry.' He looked across at the dour Robert Hereward. 'He can tell you better what had happened, Crowner.'

The older man nodded and leaned forwards across the table. 'Three months before my lord came home, a group of horsemen rode up to the manor house one day and confronted Lady Joan and myself. They were led by Henry de la Pomeroy, Lord of Berry, and Richard de Revelle, who at that time was not yet the sheriff.' He stopped and shook his head as if trying to rid himself of the memory. 'They said that Sir Nicholas was dead, so that the manor now escheated to the tenant-in-chief — John, Count of Mortain — who had decreed that Hempston would in future be held by the former freeholders, the Pomeroys.'

There was a murmur of anger from the men around; though they knew the sad tale backwards, it never failed to stir their emotions.

'So how did de Revelle come into this?' asked Gwyn.

'No one mentioned it at the time, but later it seems that Henry de la Pomeroy and Richard de Revelle made some deal with each other, to divide up the revenues of Hempston between them. Anyway, I was thrown out and a bailiff from Revelstoke, Richard's main manor near Plympton, was installed for a time — then Pomeroy's man Ogerus Coffin arrived, and he remains there to this day, God curse his guts!'

'And my wife was also turned out,' snarled Nicholas, returning to the story. 'Those two swine declared her a widow, though she had no proof of it except my absence in Outremer and my silence. They even had the bloody gall to offer her some damned Pomeroy cousin as a husband, the bait being that she could then stay on in Hempston as the new lady of the manor.'

'So what did she do?' asked de Wolfe, impressed by the sincerity of the outlaw's complaints.

'Joan is a spirited woman, right enough. It seems she told them to go to hell and take their miserable cousin with them.'

'The lady actually spat in Pomeroy's face,' said Hereward with some relish. 'She screamed and raved at them and tried to get us servants to attack them, but it was hopeless. They had men-at-arms and a whole crowd of retainers to manhandle us out of the hall. I ended up living with Martin there, in the reeve's cottage though he wasn't the reeve any longer. They imported their own from de Revelle's place near Tiverton and built him a new house.'

Gunilda came around with her jug to refill their pots.

'I lived in Totnes at the time,' she said indignantly. 'Not a word of the real truth reached there, all that was said was that Sir Nicholas had died on Crusade and that Lady Joan had sold up the manor and gone back to Cornwall.'

De Arundell took a deep drink and moodily continued his saga. 'They were right in that she went back to Cornwall, for she had nowhere else to go. She threw herself on the mercy of her second cousin, Humphrey de Arundell of Trefry, who has been good enough to support her.'

John de Wolfe scratched at his bristly face and scowled at his host. 'But we have not come to an explanation of why you are now outlawed,' he said bluntly.

'I arrived at Hempston with only a few attendants, my squire Philip Girard there and a couple of men.' He waved at the lean, wiry fellow with the horn at his belt.

'Philip had been the chief huntsman at the manor and came with me to Palestine. Like your man Gwyn here, he has been a constant and faithful companion to me.'

'That was a terrible day, it still haunts me in my dreams,' contributed Girard. 'We expected a rapturous welcome — and all we got was black disaster.' Nicholas nodded in agreement. 'In my hall, I looked for my wife and her tire-women — and was met by a total stranger, this bailiff, who claimed we were impostors and threatened to have us whipped out of the village. Some of the old servants were hanging back behind him, too afraid to come forward and greet us.'

'We tried to throw him out' said Philip Girard. 'But he hollered for help and half a dozen strangers ran in and forcibly pushed us out of the house and into the road outside the stockade, threatening to cut our throats if we tried to come in again.'

'I saw a horseman ride out as if the devil was after him,' added Nicholas. 'I later learned that he had been sent to Berry Castle, to warn the Pomeroys of our return.

By now, some of our villagers had come around the gate, attracted by the noise. Robert Hereward was one and he told us what had happened, so we went back to the reeve's house to recover our wits.'

The rest of the story came out, a catalogue of deceit and violence. While the shaken Crusaders sat taking some food and ale in Martin's cottage, a force arrived from Berry. Henry de la Pomeroy was the leader, and brought with him not only his steward, castellan and a score of men, but also Richard de Revelle, who had been staying with him at Berry.

De Wolfe, working out the time-scale, strongly suspected that this must have happened during the very period when the two malcontents were plotting to join the rebellion of Prince John against the captured king languishing in Germany. But Nicholas and his men were still describing what had happened at Hempston.

'We confronted them in the compound surrounding my manor house,' he went on. 'I admit I was in a towering rage — and who could blame me? We shouted and abused each other roundly, each becoming more angry with every passing moment. My own men, good Hereward here and Martin and Philip, joined in the shouting, for they had suffered almost as much as me, with the loss of their positions in the manor.'

The haggard steward fervently agreed with his lord.

'This was the first time we had the opportunity to vent our feelings, Crowner,' he said. 'It seemed that at last Sir Nicholas had returned to rid us of these interlopers, so we stood together and trusted that our righteous cause would prevail.'

Nicholas shook his head sadly. 'When the words became inflamed, then Pomeroy and de Revelle turned nasty and ordered their men to eject us from the village.

A riot began, with my men and some more of the villagers turning on the guards from Berry, though they outnumbered us and were better armed. In fact, I and Philip Girard were the only ones wearing swords, as we had just arrived.'

'In a trice, it became violent,' said Robert Hereward. 'We were set upon by these oafs belonging to de la Pomeroy and had to fight back as best we could, with staves and cudgels.' His voice dropped as he recollected that day. 'A fellow came at me with a dagger and I hit him with my staff. He fell, as did others, but this one never got up. He died later of some unlucky damage to his brain.'

'We were being steadily pressed back by the armed men,' declared de Arundell. 'We had no chance of winning and I realised that those devils would either kill us or fabricate some charge against us to get us hanged. They could not afford to do otherwise: if they let us live they would lose their claim to the manor and probably be hauled before the king's justices themselves.'

'So what did you do?' asked John, gripped by the drama of the story.

'When I saw we had no hope of prevailing, I yelled to my men to run for the church. It is built close against the manor house, within the palisade hardly a score of paces away. Some of the other villagers, God bless them, threw themselves in the way of the usurpers for long enough for a few of us to stagger into the porch and slam the door shut. Henry Pomeroy was yelling for us to be dragged out, but our parish priest, old Father Herbert, screamed defiance at them and waved his crucifix in their faces, threatening them with eternal damnation and excommunication if they dared to break sanctuary.'

'Eight of us were in there, all of them here now,' said Philip Girard, waving his hand around the hut to encompass the faces gazing intently at the storytellers. 'De Revelle and Henry posted their men all around the church and shouted that they would starve us out well before the forty days that we were entitled to hide there.'

'That's against the law,' boomed Gwyn indignantly. 'Sanctuary seekers are entitled to be fed by the village for those forty days.'

'The law was whatever those bastards wanted it to be,' said Martin Wimund. 'We starved and thirsted for three days, as they stopped our people from coming near us, even the priest was kept from his own church until he promised not to bring us any aid.'

'Then Pomeroy's bailiff, that arrogant swine Coffin, shouted to us that one of their men was dead and that we were all murderers, with nothing to expect but a hanging when we were dragged out,' continued Hereward. 'I offered to surrender myself, as I was the one who had cracked his head — but my master and the others said that we would all shoulder the blame together.'

There was a growl of agreement from the men as the manor lord took up the story again. 'On the fourth night, we were sorely affected by hunger and thirst — all we had had between us was a pitcher of holy water for filling the stoup. There was nothing to lose, and for once the good Lord was with us, for around midnight we heard the few guards singing drunkenly, as they had been at the ale. By then, the rest had gone back to Berry, thinking that as we were within the stockade around the church and manor house, a few sentries would be sufficient when the gate was closed.'

'So I gather you made your escape that night?' suggested the coroner.

'It was the only choice other than starvation or hanging, especially when later the priest crept up to the door and told us that half the guards were fast asleep.

Then the good old man set fire to the thatch of one of the privies on the other side of the house, and in the confusion we just ran for the gate, beat up the one sentry left there and ran like hell out of the village into the night.'

'Thus putting yourself outside the law,' observed de Wolfe, not without sympathy.

Nicholas smiled wryly. 'There was no way we were going back to the Hundred Court in Tomes to answer charges. That would only have ended in a hanging, with de la Pomeroy and de Revelle the most powerful lords in the district.'

'So in due course, I presume that when you failed to answer four times to your attachments to the county court, you were all declared exigent?' concluded John. 'And here you are now, outlawed and at the mercy of any man who wishes to claim five shillings for your wolf's head.'

Robert Hereward nodded ruefully. 'They've got to catch us first. But I'm getting too old to live like a badger on the moor, skulking from one hole to another. This place is not too bad, but before we came here six months ago, we lived like rats.'

Gwyn looked around the hut. 'You said eight of you left Hempston — so where did the others come from?' Nicholas looked around the hut at his faithful band.

'Two more from the village eventually ran away to join us; they were unmarried and weary of the oppressive ways of this bailiff. The others, including Mother Gunilda, drifted here for refuge — and very welcome they have been. Others have come and gone over the years, a few found living on the moor too arduous for them and slunk away, God knows where.'

The tale was now told, and de Wolfe sat back thoughtfully to digest what he had heard. 'One reason that I needed to seek you out,' he said grimly, 'was the matter of some bizarre killings in Exeter recently. Have you heard anything of those?'

Nicholas looked mystified and shook his head. John realised that he had not yet had a chance to hear any news from his wife from Peter Cuffe, who would have collected any messages from the servant Maurice. De Wolfe briefly described the slaying of the three guildsmen and then rounded off his narrative with an account of the attack on Matilda and the accusations made by her assailant.

De Arundell seemed genuinely shocked. 'I can scarcely credit this, Sir John. My wife last week sent me news that your wife had kindly befriended her — and now to hear that some swine has so badly used her! That's terrible.'

'It was indeed,' growled de Wolfe. 'But what of this claim the bastard made that he was avenging Hempston? The only thing to be read into that is that he was one of your band here.'

Nicholas was clearly aghast at this suggestion, and the growls from the men around showed that they were equally horrified.

'Impossible! No one here would do that — and anyway, what chance would they get of wandering around Exeter intent on mayhem and murder?' Nicholas avoided mentioning that he had entered the city with little trouble.

'So why should he say such a thing?' persisted John.

'Why would he want to link his attacks with de Revelle and Pomeroy, then claim it was for Hempston, unless he was connected with you?'

Nicholas, his face flushed with anger, stood up and faced his own followers. Gunilda stopped in the middle of bringing more bread and watched the tense scene with her hand to her mouth.

'Have any of you anything to tell me about this?' Nicholas demanded, glaring around the ring of faces. 'The coroner would not tell us anything other than the truth, so how can this be explained?'

There was silence, each man looking at his fellows with a mixture of apprehension and suspicion. 'I can't believe any of us are involved,' replied Robert Hereward. 'Could it be one of those men who used to be here, but have now gone?'

'What men have left, over the years you have been outlawed?' asked the coroner, as this seemed a reasonable possibility. There was an immediate buzz of voices, as this avenue of escape was seized upon.

'Probably six or eight have joined us and then drifted away,' said Martin Wimund. 'Mostly those who came from elsewhere, though several were originally Hempston villagers.'

There were murmurs of agreement around the room and one older man spoke up. 'That blacksmith, James de Pessy, he was a bad lot. Then there was William de Leghe, who thieved from us — but he had the phthisis badly and his chest could not stand the damp, so he's probably long dead by now.'

Several other men were mentioned, including a thatcher, Walter Lovetrot, who had stabbed another man and then run off into the hills.

'What happened to these other men?' asked Gwyn.

Robert Hereward shrugged. 'God knows, but several who went said that they were going to walk to distant towns like Bristol and Southampton and try their luck at staying undetected. As long as they were not identified as outlaws, they could claim their freedom after a year and a day.'

'Why d'you say this blacksmith was a bad lot?' queried the coroner.

'He was a freeman who had come from somewhere a few years earlier and set up a forge in the village. Always protesting and complaining about something, he was a pain in the arse. Though he joined us in our fight and was outlawed with the rest of us, he never stopped whining about the loss of his forge. One day, he said he'd had enough and just walked away. He was one of those who said he was going to try to settle elsewhere, maybe in Brittany.'

John tried to get a description of him, but the result was so vague as to be useless. 'Just a man in his thirties with dark hair,' was the best he could extract from the gang. The same applied to Walter Lovetrot, the murderous thatcher, so de Wolfe turned to another matter.

'This man who died, you swear it was not a deliberate killing?' he demanded sternly.

Robert Hereward leaned forward again. 'It was a free-for-all fight, sir. They were hitting the hell out of us and we were flailing around in response. This fellow pulled a knife on me and I swung at him with a stave. I've done it before and caused nothing but a sore head. It was just unfortunate that he must have had a thin skull or some such.'

'And as this was more than two years ago, before the coroners were introduced, there would have been no inquest,' mused de Wolfe. 'Was the sheriff involved in this at all?'

Nicholas de Arundell shrugged his broad shoulders.

'Hard for us to know, Crowner, being tucked away up here in Dartmoor. But we never heard any more of it, so I think Pomeroy and de Revelle kept their heads well down over the whole affair, so as not to draw attention to their misdeeds.'

'The sheriff then would have been the one before Richard de Revelle — and guess who that was?' cut in Gwyn cynically. 'The Count of bloody Mortain himself.'

De Wolfe nodded. 'Quite so. Though Prince John never showed his face in the county all the years he was supposed to be sheriff, after William Brewer gave up in '79. He left all the work to his serjeants and bailiffs'.

Robert Hereward voiced his continued indignation. 'No wonder the outrage was never challenged. As sheriff, he was hardly likely to condemn what his treacherous supporters had done. De Revelle undoubtedly got the shrievalty handed on to him because of Prince John's patronage.'

'So the whole bloody affair was nicely sewn up between them,' sneered Gwyn. 'I doubt it ever came to the ears of the judges or the Justiciar, let alone the king himself.'

Nicholas sighed and motioned Gunilda to go around again with her jug. 'That's the whole story, Sir John,' he said. 'That's what I get for going off to the Crusades, losing my manor and my wife — and if I'm caught, my very life. To say nothing of my honour and reputation sacrificed in this injustice.'

'What's to be done about it, that's the thing?' said Martin Wimund. 'You are our last and only hope, Crowner.'

There was a tense silence, as all the hardened men looked at de Wolfe, who was turning the situation over in his mind.

'You have lived as fugitives up here on Dartmoor for almost three years, robbing travellers, poaching and stealing from honest men?' he asked harshly.

Nicholas glared at him, sudden suspicion showing on his face. 'What else should we do, starve or freeze to death? If it were not for those bastard swine de Revelle and de la Pomeroy, we would be hard-working, peaceful men, tending our acres down in Hempston.'

Robert Hereward's voice was vibrant with emotion: 'I killed a man without intent when he drew a blade on me during a melee, Crowner. I am more than willing to pay the price: I would give myself up to be hanged tomorrow if it would help these others — but it would be futile.' He thumped the table. 'But I swear by Mary, Mother of God and all the saints you wish to name, that we have never killed a single person these past two years. Yes, we have cut purses from fat priests and wealthy merchants — and we have stolen geese, sheep and the occasional deer for Gunilda to cook for our bellies. But that was for survival, nothing else.'

His voice shook with sincerity and John believed him.

Next morning the coroner and his companion were riding back through Dunsford as the bell in the village church tolled for the noon hour. They had spent the night in Challacombe with their outlaw hosts, lying wrapped in their own cloaks on a pile of dried bracken around the firepit. At dawn, after a meagre breakfast provided by Gunilda, Robert Hereward and Martin Wimund had escorted them back over the moor and left them within sight of Bovey.

'So what did you think of all that?' grunted the coroner after they had ridden in silence for a mile.

'Their tale rang very true, Crowner,' answered Gwyn.

'The whole sad story is typical of that bastard Richard de Revelle and that swine Henry de la Pomeroy. He's every bit as bad as his treacherous father, who may be dead, but I don't mind speaking ill of him!' John's face remained dour, and he remained silent for another few minutes as he assembled his thoughts.

'I too believe what those men told me, and I intend to seek justice for them,' he said finally. 'The stumbling block is that they are undoubtedly outlaws and criminals, having preyed on the population for a couple of years. Every one of their legion of thefts is a capital offence, and even if it were not so, just being outlaws earns them a hanging.'

'But none of that would have happened if it were not for the vile crime that those lords committed,' protested the Cornishman. 'They are victims of circumstance and deserve better than to be stranded on Dartmoor with every man's hand against them.'

'I agree with you,' replied the coroner. 'But though they slipped into becoming a gang of desperate men with little difficulty, finding a solution will be a great deal harder.'

'So what are you going to do about it?' boomed the ever-practical Gwyn.

John leaned back against the cantle of his saddle, easing his back which had stiffened during the ride. He was getting old and soft, he thought, not like the days when he could spend a week on a horse and think nothing of it. He dragged his mind back to the immediate problem.

'Henry de la Pomeroy seems to be the prime instigator of this plot, but my dearly beloved brother-in-law is also very much involved. He is the first person I must confront about this, though my wife has already given him a drubbing over it.'

'But remember, he's the one who is accusing Sir Nicholas of planting that murdered body in his school,' said Gwyn. 'Perhaps he's saying that just as a means of further blackening Arundell's name, as an extra safeguard for keeping him beyond the law.'

John nodded. 'De Revlele will no doubt remember the body, too, when I tackle him about Hempston.'

'You'll get short shrift from that slippery eel,' prophesied Gwyn. 'Whatever you say, he'll twist your words and try to put you in the wrong. But it's bloody daft to think that Nicholas and his men had anything to do with these guild killings.'

'Though the second murder was on the high road near Ashburton — a place that outlaws and footpads habitually haunt in order to attack travellers,' said de Wolfe, playing at devil's advocate himself to tease Gwyn.

'But if you get nowhere with de Revelle, what else can be done?'

They were trudging uphill now, their horses labouring against the gradient of the rutted track.

'I'll go to see Lady Joan again,' answered de Wolfe.

'She has no reason to hide now, for being the wife of an outlaw is no crime. She may be able to tell me something that's of use. But in the circumstances, the only real solution is a royal pardon. Even in the highly unlikely event of de Revelle agreeing to hand back the manor, that still leaves those men outlaws, unless the royal justices feel able to revoke the writ of exigent — or the king grants a pardon.'

Gwyn pulled up the hood of his leather jerkin as they crested the hill and met the full force of an icy wind.

'And how the hell do you get a royal pardon?' he shouted. 'Sail the winter sea to France to seek King Richard?'

'Not in this weather! Nicholas can wait on the moor a few more months. But perhaps I'll take a ride to Winchester to seek Hubert Walter and talk it over with him. Maybe he can offer a pardon on the king's behalf, if he thinks the case is strong enough.' The Chief Justiciar had been in charge of the army in Palestine after the king left for home, and he knew John de Wolfe well in fact, it was he who had suggested to the Lionheart that John be appointed coroner in Devon. Since the king had left for France again the previous year, Hubert had become the virtual ruler of England, as well as being Archbishop of Canterbury.

They rode on, conversation stalling as they sank their chins into their hoods against the numbing wind. A few more miles and the great twin towers of Exeter's cathedral were in sight, outlined against grey clouds that threatened more snow.

They had missed their dinner, so Gwyn made for the nearest inn as soon as they entered the city and John went home to Martin's Lane, where he could always depend on Mary to find him something substantial to eat in her cook-shed.