The Noble Outlaw Page 17

  Joan shook her head again. 'I knew Robert Hereward, of course. He was our steward and a kind, steady man. There was also Martin the manor reeve, but I don't recall much about all the others. I had little to do with the running of the manor, Robert Hereward saw to all that, especially after Nicholas was so gallant as to go off and take the Cross.'

  She sounded bitter about this, her husband leaving for the Holy Land and leaving her to cope with his alleged death and then the sequestration of her home.

  Matilda spoke for the first time Since she arrived. 'I was wrong to speak as I did this afternoon, dear Joan. I was distressed by what had happened to me and to discover that you were no widow, and that your husband was whom I assumed to be my assailant threw me into a unreasonable temper.' She patted the other woman's arm. 'I shall make confession and do penance for my impetuousness, never fear.'

  De Wolfe gave one of his loud throat rumblings to halt the possible decline into sentimentality. 'What is to be done, that is the problem? I quite understand why you are firm in your defence of your husband, but you are hardly an unbiased witness.'

  Gillian came back into the debate. 'There is nothing further we can tell you, Crowner. All the fault lies in those who took advantage of Nicholas's absence in Palestine to falsely take possession of his manor. That is where the answer lies, surely.'

  Matilda turned to look across the room at her husband, having so rapidly moved from accuser to protector of her young friend.

  'John, it occurs to me that the swine who accosted me might certainly have been from Hempston, but may have long left that place and be nothing at all to do with the men on Dartmoor.'

  Gillian agreed with her. 'In fact, it seems more likely, as how else could these crimes have been committed within the city?'

  She forbore to mention that Nicholas de Arundell had entered and left Exeter without any problem, and instead raised the subject of how to lift the fatal stigma of outlaw from him.

  'We had already wondered if we could implore you to intercede for Nicholas with the king's council,' she said earnestly. At this, Joan stood up and passionately added her own pleas.

  'Sir John, you are a man with a reputation for honesty and a sense of justice, which is more than can be said for so many in positions of authority. Is there nothing that can be done to obtain a pardon for him? Though surely pardon is the wrong word, for he did nothing wrong to deserve being outlawed for trying to defend our home against these pillagers.'

  Matilda nodded vigorously, even though her own brother was implicitly being accused by Joan's words.

  'John, you are well acquainted with the Chief Justiciar and even King Richard himself. Surely you can make some representations?' Even in this highly charged discussion, she could not resist dropping names to emphasise how well connected her husband was.

  He cleared his throat again, cursing Matilda for pressing him too far. 'There is much to be discovered about all aspects of this. The events occurred before I was coroner, and before I can make any move I need to know exactly what went on in Hempston almost three years ago. There is no doubt that your husband and these men on the moor were properly decided exigent, as there are court records to that effect. Thus, legally, no law officer can approach them except to arrest them.'

  They spoke together for some time longer, but John gained no more information. The wife was fiercely defensive of her husband, as was to be expected, but claimed that she knew virtually, nothing of his present circumstances or whereabouts on the moor. Neither could she suggest anyone from Hempston who might have homicidal tendencies.

  Eventually, he prised Matilda away from her rapprochement with Joan de Arundell and they left, his wife making ardent invitations to both Joan and Gillian le Bret to visit her to discuss the matter further.

  On the walk back through streets dimly lit by a hazy gibbous moon, Matilda repeated her repentance at having dealt so impetuously with Joan that afternoon and pressed John to do all he could to obtain a pardon for Joan's husband.

  Almost in retaliation, John raised the matter of her brother. 'You realise that pursuing this will reflect badly upon Richard, to say nothing of that treacherous bastard Henry de la Pomeroy.' He could not see her face in the gloom, but he could imagine her lips tightening.

  'Richard is my flesh and blood, John, but if this story is true, then he should be ashamed of himself. No doubt he was led astray by Pomeroy, but he should have restrained himself. My brother has always been greedy for wealth and power, but this time he has gone too far.' John wondered at her logic, which placed cheating a minor landowner out of his small manor as a worse crime than treachery and sedition in repeatedly supporting the rebellious attempts of Prince John to unseat their rightful king.

  'This places me in a difficult position, Matilda,' he said gravely as they reached the corner of Martin's Lane. 'My duty as a law officer obliges me to apprehend all outlaws and either slay them or bring them to the gallows. Now I am being petitioned to seek a royal pardon for these men, yet I cannot approach them other than to arrest them.'

  Matilda saw no problem in this. 'As you have no idea where they are, how can you even consider trying to arrest them? That does not affect your ability to seek some resolution of the scandal from Winchester or London.'

  As they reached their door, she added grimly, 'When I next see Richard, I will speak my mind to him in no uncertain way. And I'll get the whole truth out of him about how he came to have a share of this Hempston place.'

  'And I need to find out much more before I go hating off to the Chief Justiciar,' muttered her husband. 'What in hell this has to do with three murdered guild masters, I just do not know.'

  * * *

  By next morning it had warmed up considerably, but a depressing winter rain was falling from a grey sky, washing away the remnants of the snow. John went up to his bleak chamber in the castle gatehouse and chewed over the recent events with Gwyn and Thomas, who had just returned from his early duties in the cathedral.

  'God's guts, fancy Nick's woman living here in the city as bold as brass,' observed Gwyn. 'Can't you get her hanged for that, Crowner?'

  John gave a rare grin as he shook his head. 'It's no crime, she's not the outlaw. And even if it was, Matilda would skin me alive if I as much as harmed a hair of her head, she's almost adopted this Joan as a daughter.' The thought suddenly came to him that maybe that was not too far from the truth. They had had no children, and given the little time John had spent at home with his wife over the past seventeen years it was not surprising - especially as for many a year now, their marital bed had been used solely for sleeping.

  'So what's to be done, master?' asked Thomas, who had listened to the updated tale with interest. 'Are you going to bring this to the notice of Hubert Walter?'

  'He should have known all about it, but we've not had a General Eyre visit the county since all this happened three years ago, so the judges would not yet have wind of the fracas in Hempston, even if they were made aware of it, which I doubt they would be. It was before I was made coroner, and with the bloody Count of Mortain nominally the sheriff, followed by Richard de Revelle, I'll wager none of it would have been reported to them anyway.'

  That didn't answer Thomas's question about telling the Chief Justiciar, and when he asked again, the coroner sighed.

  'I don't know what to do, I'll have to talk it over with the sheriff. My wife will badger me about it from now until kingdom come, but I need to get at the absolute truth first. These outlaws may not be the wronged angels some make them out to be, they could be the usual vicious pack of scum that infest the forests and moors.'

  'And what's the connection between them and these murdered burgesses?' grunted Gwyn. 'If this bastard who attacked Lady Matilda hadn't dropped the word Hempston, we'd have no reason to link Nick o' the Moor with the killings.'

  His words brought de Wolfe back to what was the more urgent of his investigations. 'Have you any better idea of what that iron spike was and where it came from?' he asked his
officer.

  Gwyn admitted he had made no progress. 'I feel it must have been part of a railing of some sort. I'll have a wander round the streets later and see if I can spot anything similar.'

  John rapped irritably on the table with his fingers.

  'I've got the feeling that Joan de Arundell knows more about her husband's whereabouts than she's admitting. She let drop a word or two about him saying how rough the life was up on the moor. I'll wager she has some way of getting in touch with him - and will probably do so now, to tell him that she has been exposed and she is trying to get him a pardon.'

  The others considered this possibility. 'How's she going to manage it?' asked Gwyn dubiously.

  'There would have to be some arrangement already in place,' observed the astute clerk. 'A rendezvous somewhere on certain days, perhaps?'

  'And a go-between - or maybe more than one. There's no way she could go up on the moor herself,' added Gwyn, talking himself into agreeing with them.

  John nodded. 'Neither would the cousin risk herself. The only other person is the manservant, an oldish fellow with a deformed face - but he looks fit and active enough.'

  'We can hardly watch him day in, day out,' objected Thomas. 'And we might be totally wrong about the whole idea anyway.'

  Gwyn stood up and reached for his worn leather jerkin which hung from a peg driven between the stones of the wall. 'I'll have a wander round the town - you never know what gossip I may pick up. I'll keep an eye out for that spike and see if any of the gatekeepers know of this servant.'

  John thought it was a long shot and that Gwyn's investigations would undoubtedly be centred on a succession of city taverns, but he had no better suggestions and left the draughty chamber for the more comfortable room of the sheriff, where over a cup of good wine, he could inform de Furnellis of the latest twist in this tortuous tale.

  CHAPTER TEN

  In which Crowner John rides to Dartmoor

  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.