Fear in the Forest Read online

  ‘Well, are you going to tell me or not?’ she snapped, interrupting his sullen reverie.

  Too weary to argue, he swallowed his exasperation and related the story of the dead verderer.

  ‘Your brother has gone to Tiverton, so I presume that he’s not yet aware of the loss of one of his appointees,’ he concluded, sensing that she was only mildly interested in his story, as the dead man was merely a minor knight and not one of the county aristocracy. Matilda was an avid follower of the notabilities of Devon and was always angling for ways to ascend the social hierarchy of the county. Being sister to the King’s sheriff and wife to the King’s coroner was a good start, but she closely followed the activities and intrigues of the barons, richer burgesses and manor-lords, pushing for invitations to feasts and receptions at every opportunity. It was largely at her instigation that her husband had accepted the coroner’s post the previous year, with Matilda nagging her reluctant brother to support John’s bid. But the violent demise of Humphrey le Bonde struck no chord with her and the only faint interest was that Richard de Revelle would be the one who would recommend his successor for election by the freeholders in his County Court.

  Their desultory conversation was interrupted by Mary coming in from the kitchen-shed with their supper. The main meal was dinner in the late morning, but the pangs of night starvation were kept at bay by slices of cold pork on a thick trencher of stale bread, with side dishes of fried onions and boiled cabbage. Fresh bread and hard cheese filled up any remaining empty spaces in their stomachs, washed down with ale and cider.

  They moved to the long oak table, where the steady champing of Matilda’s jaws removed the strain of devising any further talk, though her husband also acquitted himself well with the food, after a day in the saddle. By the time they had finished and the cook-maid came to take away the remains, it was growing dark in the hall. The one small window-opening, covered in varnished linen, looked out onto the narrow lane lined with high buildings, which was in shadow even when the open cathedral precinct was still well lit. Matilda abruptly pushed back her stool and announced that she was going up to the solar, where her maid Lucille could prepare her for bed.

  John, following a well-used pattern, said that he would have some more ale, then take Brutus for a walk. They both knew where the hound was likely to take him, but only a tightening of her lips betrayed her feelings as she stamped off through the outer passage to reach the back yard and the stairs to her upper room.

  At about the same time as the coroner of Devon was whistling for his dog, twenty miles farther west in the county, a Cistercian monk was sitting across a table from a horse trader. They were in the large guest house of Buckfast Abbey, in a small room adjacent to the refectory reserved for feeding travellers who sought lodging for the night during the journey from Exeter to Plymouth. Across the large walled courtyard with its two gatehouses was the abbey church with the cloisters and other monastic buildings alongside.

  However, Stephen Cruch, the dealer in horses, was no casual visitor to the abbey, as he often spent a night there on business. The austere Cistercians were famed for their prowess in agriculture and animal husbandry. The monks and lay brothers of Buckfast not only kept large flocks of sheep for their wool and meat, but bred both sheep and horses for sale. Richard Cruch had a standing contract as an agent for moving on their horseflesh and frequently came to negotiate with the abbey on behalf of buyers from all over the West Country and beyond.

  His contact was Father Edmund Treipas, who conducted most of the trade with the outside world. Though an ordained priest as well as a monk, Father Edmund was a down-to-earth businessman, which was undoubtedly why he was also the abbey’s cellarer, responsible for all the provisions needed by the large establishment. In both roles, that of sales manager and storekeeper, he was unique in the enclosed community of Grey Monks, in that he frequently journeyed abroad, visiting Plymouth, Exeter and even Southampton on the abbot’s business.

  These two unlikely acquaintances now sat head to head across the table, with a flask of mead between them, for Buckfast was famous for its honey. Edmund Treipas held a short roll of parchment, on which were the details of a batch of horses to be taken away the following morning to a buyer in Plymouth, who would ship them across the Channel for resale in Brittany. The priest had been going through the list of thirty beasts, noting whether they were stallions, mares or geldings, ticking off their value on the document with a charcoal stub. Stephen Cruch, who could neither read nor write, was using a tally made of a length of twine with different-sized knots, which he fingered one by one as the priest checked off the animals.

  As well as the difference in their stations in life, the two men were markedly unlike each other in appearance. Father Edmund, in his habit of pale grey wool with a black scapula apron, was tall and angular, with a Roman nose and jet-black hair cropped short below his tonsure. He was in his late thirties and had a brisk, businesslike manner, unlike the typical image of a monastic recluse.

  The horse-dealer was, by contrast, small and furtive. A dozen years older, he had a leathery, wizened face, darkened by an outdoor life. His mobile features had a sly look, his eyes constantly darting about him. When he spoke, it always seemed to be from one corner of his mouth. He allegedly lived in Totnes, but was always on the move between horse fairs and markets. Some rumours had it that he was an illegally returned abjurer from Wiltshire, but other gossip said that he was an outlaw from Gloucester’s Forest of Dean who had slipped back into circulation years before.

  When both were satisfied that their lists coincided, Father Treipas rolled up his parchment and slipped it into his sleeve, while Cruch tucked his tally into the pouch he carried on his belt. They raised their pewter cups of mead to seal the bargain and drained them. The priest refilled from the flask.

  ‘My men will rope them up from the top paddock in the morning, Father,’ said the dealer. ‘We should be in Plymouth well before evening.’

  He pushed a heavy leather bag across the table, the neck tied securely with a thong. ‘That’s the price we agreed. Count it if you wish.’

  Edmund Treipas shook his head briskly. ‘No need. We’ve done business too often for you to short-change the abbey.’

  He pulled the bag of silver coins nearer, then looked quickly around the room, to check that no one else was within sight. Dipping into a deep pocket in his loose robe, he pulled out a smaller purse and slid it across to Stephen. The bag, clinking a little, vanished as if by magic into some recess in Cruch’s brown serge surcoat.

  ‘I don’t want to know any details, understand?’ said the monk. ‘Just don’t tell me. It’s none of my business how you arrange these affairs.’

  He threw down the rest of his drink and stood up, nodding rather curtly at the horse dealer.

  ‘I’ll see you off with the beasts in the morning, straight after Prime. And you’ll be back here as arranged, in three days’ time.’

  He strode out without a backward glance.

  In the gathering dusk, John de Wolfe made his way across the Close, the large space around the cathedral. It was almost a city within a city, being under canon law, where the jurisdiction of neither the sheriff and burgesses nor himself could run without the consent of Bishop Henry Marshal.

  Tonight no offences were being committed there, apart from Brutus’s leg-lifting desecration of every tree and occasional grave-mound in the cluttered, rubbish-strewn area. Even the irreligious John thought this place was an eyesore, so close to the magnificent church which had so recently been completed.

  However, John’s mind was not on the state of ecclesiastical Exeter, but on Nesta, the landlady of the Bush Inn and his beloved mistress. For the last week or two, he had had the feeling that something was wrong. Nothing that he could put a finger on, but in the back of his mind there was a little flutter of concern. Nesta was as affectionate as ever, as talkative as usual and looked as beautiful as always – but something was amiss. He had caught the odd sideways glance whe
n she thought he was not looking and his ear, attuned by two years of loving her, picked up a change in the timbre of her voice now and then.

  Much of the time he berated himself for being an old fool, but the worm of doubt always came back to wriggle in his brain. They had had their bad patches and it was only a couple of months since they had got back together again, following her brief affair with Alan of Lyme, the rogue who had run off with her virtue, a week’s takings and her prettiest serving maid.

  He could not but help wonder whether some other bastard had taken her fancy, but somehow he thought not. Before the Alan business, he had given her cause for disaffection by neglecting her during a time of particular problems in the coroner’s work, but since they had been reconciled he had gone out of his way to be more attentive. He had not seen any of his other women for a long time – one had dropped out of circulation by getting married again and even the glorious Hilda of Dawlish, the blonde he had known from his youth, was unavailable because her seafaring husband was now shore-bound after a shipwreck.

  De Wolfe churned all this around in his mind as he loped through the lanes into South Gate Street and across to Priest Street and then down the hill towards Idle Lane and the tavern. His dog zigzagged before him, marking every house-corner with an inexhaustible supply of urine until they reached the inn on its open patch of ground. Its low stone walls supported a huge thatched roof, and over the low front door a bundle of twigs hung from a bracket to mark its name for the illiterate majority.

  Inside, the popular alehouse was as full as usual, but at least the normal fug of spilt ale, cooked onions and sweat was free from eye-smarting smoke, as there was no fire in the big hearth on this warm summer evening. Normally, the wood smoke hung about in a haze until it found its way out beneath the eaves, for unlike John’s house, most buildings did not have the luxury of a chimney.

  From habit, he found his usual seat on a bench near the empty fireplace and Brutus crept into his accustomed place on the earthen floor under the rough table. He nodded to a number of other patrons who were regulars like himself and exchanged a few words with the nearest, who all were well aware of – and applauded – his relations with the Welsh innkeeper.

  Usually old Edwin, the one-eyed potman, served him as soon as he arrived, but tonight Nesta herself bustled over with a large quart pottery jar of her best brew.

  ‘And how is the King’s crowner tonight?’ she asked, as she deposited the ale on the boards before him. In spite of her light tone, John already thought he detected something, maybe a forced gaiety. But he was so glad to see her, to be with her, that he pushed the thought aside in the pleasure of the moment.

  ‘Sit down, my love, and talk to me.’ He looked up at her as she leaned against the table, as neat as ever in a gown of yellow linen, tightly laced around her slim waist, emphasising the curve of her breasts above. Her heart-shaped face had a high forehead and snub nose, the full lips made for kissing. Some curls strayed from under her white linen helmet, as russet as Gwyn’s beard.

  ‘I can stay only a moment,’ she exclaimed, slipping onto the bench next to him. ‘There’s a party of wool merchants here tonight and they’re clamouring for their supper, so I must chase those idle girls in the back yard.’ The kitchen was in a shed behind the inn, the usual arrangement when fire was such a hazard to other buildings. The Bush had a reputation for the best cooking in the city, as well as for being the cleanest place to get a penny bed for the night.

  John slipped an arm around her, heedless of the covert grins of some men on the next table. He felt her softness relax against him and somehow he was reassured that she had not found another man. Yet when they started talking about the events of the two days since he had last seen her, John still sensed that there was something she was leaving unsaid. He was reluctant to ask her straight out whether anything was amiss, in case she told him something he wouldn’t wish to hear. They talked for a few minutes, Nesta telling him of minor problems of the tavern, which she now ran herself with the help of Edwin, two maids and a cook. Until two years earlier, the innkeeper had been her husband Meredydd, a former Welsh archer in the service of King Richard. John had known him from his campaigning days, and when Meredydd had given up fighting because of a wound, he had taken on the Bush. But within a year he was dead of a fever, and for friendship’s sake de Wolfe had loaned his widow enough money to keep the inn going. He had helped her generally to survive, as a young woman trying to run a city tavern was a prime target for the unscrupulous. His protection had turned into affection and then genuine love, but they were sometimes disillusioned, mainly because Nesta fully realised that a Norman knight, married to the sheriff’s sister, was a hopeless long-term prospect for a lowly alehouse keeper.

  John told her about the murder of the verderer and she listened carefully, as she always did to his tales of mayhem in Devon. He found it useful to pour out his problems, as it helped clear them in his mind – and her own quick brain not infrequently lighted on some point that he had missed. Sometimes, even more than Mary, she could give him some useful information, as Nesta was a mine of knowledge about what went on in the city and beyond. The Bush was the most popular inn for travellers passing through Exeter and she heard much of the gossip that was bandied about between the customers. This time, though, she had little to contribute.

  ‘I know nothing about these verderers, John, they’re just a name to me. Everyone knows of the foresters, though. All the country dwellers hate them for their harshness and corruption, that’s common knowledge.’

  ‘You’ve heard no idle chatter in here, about anything going on in the forests?’ he asked hopefully, but Nesta shook her head.

  ‘There was some talk the other day about the outlaws becoming bolder than ever. Some of the carters and drovers from the west were complaining that they sometimes get charged an illegal toll when passing through the more lonely stretches of the high road. They were cursing the sheriff for doing nothing about it.’

  ‘Nothing new about that!’ John replied cynically. ‘There’s no profit for de Revelle in chasing off a few vagabonds from the highway.’

  Eventually, he ran out of other news and turned to a more immediate prospect.

  ‘I’m in no rush to get back tonight, madam. Will you be having a quiet hour before midnight?’ His eyes strayed to the wide ladder at the back of the inn, which led up to the upper floor. Here Nesta had a small room partitioned off from the rest of the loft, where the straw pallets of the guests were laid. She gave him one of her sidelong glances, then looked away.

  ‘Not tonight, John. It’s … well, not convenient.’

  Gently, she pulled herself away and went off to the kitchen, tapping a shoulder here and giving a greeting there as she weaved through the patrons on her way to the back door. John followed her with his eyes, puzzled and disappointed. Their lovemaking upstairs, in the big French bed that he had bought her, was one of the most satisfactory things in his life. They were both enthusiasts in that direction, which made his devotion to her all the more complete. From her tone, he presumed that the time of the month had conspired against him tonight, but her attitude still made him uneasy. As he sat there despondently, staring down into his ale jug cupped between his hands, he felt the bench creak dangerously. Looking up, he found Gwyn’s huge frame alongside him, his eyes twinkling in his rugged face.

  ‘I thought you had gone home to St Sidwell’s. It’s past curfew now,’ grunted de Wolfe, jerking his head at the last of the twilight visible outside the open door. One of the maids was bringing a taper round to light the tallow dips hung in sconces around the walls.

  ‘I was going, but I got into a game of dice with Gabriel and some of the men up at the guardroom. I won three pence from them, so I thought I’d treat myself to one of Nesta’s mutton stews and a mattress here for the night.’

  ‘I’m glad someone will be staying up the ladder here tonight,’ grunted John sourly. ‘But it looks as if it won’t be me!’

  The Corn
ishman’s straggling red eyebrows rose towards his even wilder hair. ‘Problems, Crowner?’ he asked solicitously. He had a dog-like fondness for Nesta and had been delighted when she and his master had got back together recently, after their rift a few months earlier. Now the prospect of more trouble genuinely worried him.

  ‘I don’t know, Gwyn, something seems to be concerning her. But I’ve been behaving myself these past weeks, haven’t I? There’s no reason why she should become cool towards me?’

  Gwyn was more than a squire and bodyguard, he was a friend of twenty years’ standing, and each had saved the life of the other more than once in battles, ambushes and assaults. John was not the most articulate of men, and Gwyn was the only one to whom he could speak on intimate matters.

  His officer scratched his armpit fiercely, annihilating a few fleas.

  ‘Come to think of it, the good woman has been a bit distant lately. Nothing to speak of, but she seems a bit far away sometimes, as if she has something heavy on her mind.’

  Their conversation was interrupted by the potman, who stumped up to bring Gwyn a quart of ale.

  ‘You’ll be wanting another of the same, Captain?’ Edwin asked the coroner. He was an old soldier who had lost one eye and part of a foot in the Irish wars. Both de Wolfe and Gwyn had been in the same campaign and Edwin deferred to them as if he were still one of their men-at-arms.

  John shook his head. ‘I’d better be getting back home,’ he muttered. ‘But no doubt my man here will want to be filled up with food.’