The Noble Outlaw

CHAPTER FIVE

As the first pale glimmer of dawn appeared in the eastern sky next morning, people began converging on the city gates like iron filings to a lodestone. There were four main entrances to the city, a legacy of the symmetrical Roman plan that still governed the layout of Exeter.

Recently a fifth opening, the Water Gate, had been knocked through the south-western corner of the old walls to give direct access to the quayside, necessary now that trade was burgeoning in the city.

Although Exeter was too far upriver to be prey to the sea raiders and pirates that sometimes ravished the towns on the coast, the city gates were still closed from dusk to dawn, and at the West Gate that morning, a hundred or so people waited patiently to be admitted. As well as farmers driving beasts to be slaughtered in the Shambles, there were many traders and peasants with goods to sell, as Thursday was a market day.

Though in winter the range of foodstuffs was limited, ox-carts hauled cabbages and root vegetables, and men pushed wheelbarrows piled with other produce, including live chickens trussed by their legs. Fishermen who had boated up on the flood tide from Topsham had wicker creels of fresh fish, and old women stumbled up with baskets of eggs or a goose or duck tucked under their arms.

Nearby, the new stone bridge across the River Exe was still far from complete, as the builder had once again run out of money, so the figure merging amongst the latecomers had to pass over the rickety footbridge that was the only dry route. In times past, Sir Nicholas de Arundell would have ridden his horse across the ford next to the bridge, but today he trudged with the peasantry, wearing a floppy, wide-brimmed hat, a tall staff in his hand. The grey woollen cloak that enveloped him was thin and stained, and from his shoulder hung a shapeless hessian bag. In the cold wind and the dim morning light, no one gave him a second glance; all were too intent on both their own business and their shivering bodies to concern themselves with another pilgrim, probably on his way to the shrines in the cathedral — or even making for distant Canterbury. With a few days' growth of stubble on his cheeks and a cloth wound round his chin as a scarf, Nicholas was next to unrecognisable, even if there had been anyone in Exeter who might have known this man from a small manor way out in the countryside.

He crossed with the others on to the marshy ground of Exe Island, and followed the well-beaten track from the bridge to the gate. Here he hunched himself into his cloak and stamped his feet with the other freezing travellers until dawn was unmistakably streaking the sky and the porters took pity on the perishing folk huddled outside. There was a rumble as the bars were slid from their sockets; then, to squeals from the rusty hinges, the huge pair of oaken doors slowly swung open.

As the press of humanity surged through ahead of the livestock and the carts, the two gate guards made no attempt to check anyone's identity. This was a routine that had been going on for centuries and, except in times of war or rebellion, security was lax. Those who would have to pay market dues for trading would be seized upon by the tally clerks as soon as they set up stalls or crouched at the roadside to sell their eggs or onions, but that was no concern of the gate men. The man in the pilgrim's hat had banked on this and walked boldly into Exeter alongside a man leading a goat on a length of cord.

Though Nicholas was not very familiar with Exeter, he walked steadily up Fore Street, which climbed from the river up to Carfoix, the junction where the roads from the four original gates met in the centre of the city. This was bustling with activity, as booths and stalls were being set up along the sides of the streets, making the narrow lanes even more congested as early-morning shoppers came out to get the freshest produce. He carried on up High Street past the new Guildhall, looking neither to right or to left in his effort to remain inconspicuous. However, he had to dodge many passers-by, especially those porters who jogged along with great bales of wool hanging from a pole across their shoulders, and milkmaids with a pair of wooden buckets swinging from their shoulders. When he got within sight of the East Gate at the other end of the town, he searched his memory for his only previous visit with his wife to her cousin, which was now fully five years ago. A landmark he remembered was the New Inn, Exeter's largest hostelry, where the judges and commissioners stayed when they came to hold c6urt. Turning fight just past it, he thought he recognised a quiet street where the burgage plots were large and the houses amongst the best in the city.

'Is this Raden Lane?' he asked a ragged urchin who was standing on the corner with a smaller child on his hip, begging from passers-by. The boy, barefoot and blue with cold, nodded jerkily, his teeth chattering. He gave a beatific smile as Nicholas slipped him a quarter-penny, which had come from a fat purse taken from a waylaid horse dealer a week before.

Raden Lane was almost empty of people and he felt more exposed as he walked along, looking for the house where his wife was staying. Some dwellings were right on the lane, their doors opening straight off the street.

Others were further back on their plots, with a fence and gate at the front. Most were built of wood or were half-timbered with cob plastered between the frames, but a few of the newer houses were made of stone. Some were tall and narrow, others low and wide, half of them with two storeys. The city wall was visible at the end of the lane and he knew that the cousin, now a widow of comfortable means, lived about halfway along on the right. He spotted the house, distinguished by its arched gate leading into a garden plot, and not wanting to draw attention to himself by hesitating, he strode up to the gate and pushed at the stout boards. It was locked and there was no handle. Cursing under his breath short-temperedly, he rapped on it with the end of his staff until he heard slow footsteps on the other side. The gate creaked open and a man in late middle age peered out, an iron-tipped wooden spade in his hand — whether intended as a weapon or an implement was not clear.

He was unusually tall and thin, with a large purple birthmark of coarse, thickened skin disfiguring the whole of one side of his face. The apparition gaped toothlessly at the visitor, but said nothing.

'Is this the dwelling of Mistress le Bret?' demanded Nicholas. He had a deep voice, and a brusque manner even when he was in a benign mood, which was not often these days.

The servant nodded, but still seemed suspicious of early-morning callers. 'Who wants her?' he croaked.

'I am Philip de Whiteford, returning from Canterbury,' he lied. 'I am husband to Mistress Joan, who is staying here.'

These were aliases he and his wife had decided on long before; she had kept to her real Christian name as she feared she could never avoid answering to it.

The servant's strange features relaxed and he pulled the door open. 'Welcome, Sir Nicholas! Your good lady will be glad to see you.'

Obviously, the true state of affairs was no secret within the house, and Nicholas fervently hoped that the servants kept their mouths firmly shut when they left it.

He was led through a well-kept garden to an old timber-framed building with a steeply pitched roof of stone tiles. Inside, a hall occupied most of the ground floor, with a solar and a bedroom built on at the side. It was a substantial dwelling, as Joan's cousin, Gillian le Bret, was the widow of a wealthy tinmaster and on his death, five years earlier, he had left her comfortably off, for they had no children to share the inheritance.

As Nicholas entered, a small, fair woman rushed out of an inner door and threw herself at him, sobbing and laughing in turns. As they hugged each other and kissed, an older, handsome woman appeared from the solar.

Gillian le Bret watched indulgently as the pair made an emotional reunion, then went across to the old servant Maurice, who had stood uncertainly in the doorway, and whispered something to him, drawing a warning finger across her lips. He wandered off in the direction of the kitchen shed in the back yard, with orders for the cook-maid to prepare food and drink for the visitor.

Gradually, the de Arundells settled down, and Nicholas greeted Gillian with a kiss and profound thanks for sheltering Joan for the past month since she had come up from her exile in Cornwall. The widow was considerably older than her cousin, with greying hair peeping from under the white linen wimple that framed her pleasant face. When the knight and his lady had prised themselves apart again from a second embrace, Gillian managed to set them down on a long settle facing the burning logs in the firepit.

'Are you sure you went unrecognised in the city?' asked Joan. Though her pretty face was now flushed with tears of joy, she lived with the constant worry that her husband would be arrested, which inevitably would mean would be hanged or beheaded. At twenty-six, she seven years his junior, and sometimes she looked even younger. Pretty rather than beautiful, she had a determined set to her face, partly born of the troubles she had suffered these past few years.

Nicholas slid a brawny arm around her slender shoulders, which were becomingly draped in a green pelisse over a pale yellow kirtle,

'Don't fret, my love. No one was interested in a scruffy pilgrim like me. I'll have to leave in a day or two, but, until then, I'll not show my face outside the gate. As long as everyone in this household keeps a tight hold on their tongue, there'll be no problem.'

A few minutes later, their chatter was interrupted the arrival of cold meats, bread, cheese and ale. After eating, de Arundell spent the rest of the morning until dinnertime talking to Joan about his existence on Dartmoor. He told of life in the abandoned village and tales of his men, many of whom had been retainers in Hempston and were well remembered by his wife. After a hearty dinner at noon, Cousin Gillian diplomatically went off to her solar to give the pair some privacy.

'I just had to see you, Joan, apart from talking about a plan of campaign,' he began, hugging her on the settle in front of the glowing logs. 'D'you realise that I've only been with you for a few days since I went off to Outremer?'

When he returned so unexpectedly from the Holy Land, his wife had already returned to Cornwall, dispossessed by Pomeroy and de Revelle and convinced that Nicholas was long dead. After the news of his resurrection percolated down to her relative's manor in Cornwall, she had had great difficulty in getting a message to him on Dartmoor, and it was due to Gillian le Bret and her servant Maurice that contact had been made again. Since then, they had only managed two fleeting meetings such as this, both in Totnes, where the risk of his being recognised was becoming too great for him to venture there again.

'So what is to be done, my love?' asked Joan, a very practical woman despite her winsome prettiness. 'If you were not so shamefully outlawed, you could bring an action in the courts and certainly should win.' They had been over this ground many times before, and Nicholas shook his head impatiently. 'Impossible. I have no legal rights and if I dared show myself publicly to try to retrieve them, I would be dead within the day. There are too many supporters of the Count of Mortain around to risk it — to say nothing of that bastard de Revellel'

Once again, they talked the problem through, up hill and down dale, without coming to any conclusion.

'Some new approach is the only hope,' he said with anger, for this emotion was never far below the surface with de Arundell. 'I have even thought of seeking out the king in Normandy to ask for justice.'

Joan looked frightened at this. 'The risks of trying to escape the country and finding King Richard are too great, Nicholas. You are as much an outlaw in Normandy as you are over here.'

'It may be the only path open to us, Joan,' he muttered.

'But would you ever get audience with him?' she persisted. 'You are just a poor knight, with even the small manor of Hempston snatched from you now. You need a strong champion to plead your case — or even to get it noticed by those in high places.'

Nicholas moodily had to agree with her. 'What champion could I find?' he said bitterly. 'Though I was in Sicily fighting for our king as well as in the Holy Land, I never distinguished myself in anyway. I was just another country knight amongst thousands. I never even got within shouting distance of the Lionheart, I've only ever seen him from afar.'

Joan gripped his arm and hugged him to her, desolate at seeing him so despondent. 'There must be some good men somewhere,' she whispered. 'Surely all those in positions of authority are not as corrupt as de Revelle and John Lackland?'

Nicholas shrugged listlessly. 'Maybe there are — but I don't know any, Joan.'

She tried to lift him from his gloom. 'I have heard that Hubert Walter, the Chief Justiciar, is a fair-minded man. He virtually rules England now that the king has gone permanently to France.'

Her husband sighed. 'That may well be, dearest woman. But he might as well be on the moon for all the chance I have of putting my case before him.' The thought of Hubert Walter, who was also Archbishop of Canterbury as well as being England's chief law officer, triggered a chain of thought in Joan's active mind, which was desperate to help her husband in his dangerous predicament.

'I have heard that the Justiciar was responsible for appointing the coroner in Devon and that they are good friends since their time in Palestine.'

Nicholas looked at her blankly. 'What has that to do with us?'

'Talking with Cousin Gillian these past few weeks, she has told me many things, for she is knowledgeable about all that goes on in Exeter. She says that the coroner, Sir John de Wolfe, is a most upright and honourable man. It so happens that I have become acquainted with his wife Matilda, as she kindly befriended me when I began attending Mass at the cathedral.'

Nicholas was suddenly anxious. 'The coroner's wife! For the Virgin's sake, be careful, Joan! You did not let slip who you really are, I trust?'

His wife shook her head emphatically. 'In Exeter, I am Lady Whiteford, the widow of a minor knight from the far end of Somerset, staying with my dear cousin Gillian here.'

Her husband still failed to see the point of her sudden diversion. 'He might be as upright as the Archangel Gabriel, but what help is that?'

Joan sat up on the bench, suddenly enthusiastic about her idea. 'Two things, Nicholas. He was a Crusader like you — and a very distinguished one, for he formed part of the king's bodyguard on his journey home. But more important, he hates Richard de Revelle and it was he who had him ejected as sheriff a few months back.'

De Arundell scratched at the itching stubble on his face. He could follow the way his wife's mind was working, but failed to see how it could accomplish anything helpful. 'What can I do about it, Joan? For an outlaw to approach a senior law officer would be as good as laying my neck down on the block. Apart from the sheriff, he is about the most dangerous person in England I could fear to meet!'

Although the celebration of Christ's birth was a week away, the Guild of Mercers decided to include some premature Yuletide festivities in their regular quarterly feast. The Guildhall was decked out with holly and bay branches and the traditional mistletoe. The food provided was even more lavish than usual, as was the music and entertainment- The mercers were one of the leading guilds, for although they dealt in most types of cloth, their speciality was the more luxurious fabrics, such as silk and velvet. Though not the most numerous of the Exeter merchants, they were amongst the most prosperous, and they certainly considered themselves the elite of the trading classes. The warden of the guild in Devon was Benedict de Buttelscumbe who, though only the son of a weaver, thought himself the primate of the Exeter burgesses and was eternally resentful of the fact that his fellow members of the city council had not elected him as one of the two portreeves.

John and Matilda arrived at the Guildhall at dusk, as feasts traditionally began early, though the drinking afterwards might last until midnight. John wore his best tunic of sombre grey, with a heavy surcoat of black serge against the cold night air. In stark contrast, Matilda wore her voluminous new mantle of blue velvet over a kirtle of red satin, the knotted tippets of her bell-shaped sleeves reaching almost to the floor. As became all married women appearing in public, her head was swathed in a linen wimple, secured around the forehead by a narrow band that matched her gown.

She clutched John's arm possessively as they entered the large door from the High Street and was gratified to have the guild treasurer meet them inside and conduct them to their places on the top table, enabling her to gesture condescendingly to several of her friends who were seated lower down the hall.

The large chamber, which had recently been rebuilt in stone, had two chimneyed hearths on each side, but there was still a chill in the air which would persist until the sweat and body heat of over a hundred guests warmed the atmosphere. The table for the important personages was set across the full width of the top of the hall, with two more stretching at right angles down the length of the room, leaving a wide space between for the entertainers. Three musicians were already hard at work, trying to make themselves heard above the buzz of talking, laughing and shouting that was already rising in volume. Merry music on sackbut, fiddle and drum helped create a festive atmosphere, but fell a long way behind the effects of the large quantities of ale, cider and wine that were being liberally dispensed.

Sir John de Wolfe and his lady were led down the side of the hall to their seats near one end of the top table.

Matilda had insisted on arriving late so that her entrance could be seen by those already there, and all the other places on the warden's table were filled. Apart from Benedict de Buttelscumbe himself, who occupied a large carved chair in the centre, everyone sat on benches.

They obligingly stood and moved a bench back so that Matilda, beaming at the attention she was receiving, could more decorously slide her skirts around the end.

When they were settled, John found himself between his friend and partner Hugh de Relaga and a man he recognised as a former warden of the Bakers' Guild.

Matilda was on the other side of de Relaga, with the Mercers' treasurer next to her, so John knew that she would be happy in their company. Hugh was one of his few friends that she tolerated, as he was rich, overdressed, jolly and unfailing flattered her, albeit with tongue in cheek. Matilda also found it most congenial to be seated next to a senior official of the most prominent guild in the city.

Serving men arrived with wine and ale, and soon the feasting began. Thick wheaten bread trenchers were loaded with many kinds of meat, whole fowls arrived on platters, and in front of the warden, a roast swan appeared alongside a suckling pig, which was carved for them by one of the cooks. There was goose and woodcock, as well as venison with frumenty, a type of pudding made from wheat boiled in sugared milk, then flavoured with cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg.

The eating went on for almost two hours, with a wide range of delicacies presented that were rarely seen by the lesser mortals of Devon, many of whom had only umble pie as their Yuletide luxury.

As the wine flowed the noise increased, but John was able to engage both his fellow diners in useful conversation. Hugh de Relaga brought him up to date on the latest activities — and profits — of their wool trading. John tried to limit this particular topic to times when Matilda was engrossed in conversation with the treasurer, as any mention of their new maritime venture was apt to revive her jealous disapproval of Hilda's role in the partnership.

Above the hubbub in the hall, his conversation with the guildsman from the bakers and pastry-cooks was of some use. He raised the matter of the death of Matthew Morcok and asked the former warden, a man of some sixty years, if he had any opinions about the murder.

'I knew Matthew quite well,' the man replied, shaking his head sadly. 'He was a queer old fellow, though with an illness like that, who could blame him?'

'Can you think of any reason why he should have met such a violent end?' asked John.

The guildsman shrugged and reached for his wine cup. 'We have all puzzled over this for the last few days,' he said. 'Matthew was such an inoffensive old man there seems no reason at all why he should have been slain.'

'When he was active in his own guild, did anything happen that might have made him enemies?' queried John.

Again the older man shook his head. 'He did nothing out of the ordinary, he went about his business making saddles and kept to himself. He took part in the business of his guild and there was never a breath of scandal, even though he was treasurer, which can sometimes put temptation in men's way.' He took a deep draught of his wine and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. 'The only other activity he seemed to be involved in was being one of the examiners when journeymen presented their master-pieces. Unless he had some secret that we all knew nothing about, it remains a mystery. I can't see old Matthew being attacked by a jealous husband for making him a cuckold.'

John could get no more from the man that was of any use, and when the eating had finally come to an end he wandered down into the hall with a cup of wine, leaving Matilda deep in conversation with Hugh de Relaga and the Mercers' guild master. There were a number of men he knew, and with his usual gruff manner softened by the substantial amount he had had to drink, he chatted amiably with acquaintances, who included several more members of various guilds, from butchers to wood-turners and from sawyers to fishmongers.

With all of them he raised the matter of Morcok's death, but everywhere he was answered with the same incomprehension that such a mild old fellow should meet such a violent end. Several were outright in their disbelief of the manner of his death, until de Wolfe assured them that he had indeed been killed in a particularly bizarre manner. They all gave him a picture of a rather reserved, solitary man, bereft of wife and daughter, who had worked faithfully for his guild for many years until his illness had overtaken him.

Frustrated with facing such a blank wall, John wandered back to his wife and sat for a time talking with his partner in the wool business. As those who had drunk too much became raucous and argumentative, with several scuffles breaking out on the floor below, Matilda decided it was time for decent ladies to absent themselves. Demanding that John drape her best cloak over her shoulders, she bade goodnight to her neighbours on the top table and sailed out, determined to show off her finery one last time before her other lady friends also decided that it was time to leave. Sated with food and wine, John made no protest and escorted her out into the night, past the beggars waiting at the door for the used trenchers and other scraps, then made for Martin's Lane and a welcome bed.