Crowner's Crusade (23 page)

The old earth had been covered by massive slabs of a slatey stone, shipped from Cornwall. On them sat a long oak table, with a bench on each side and a heavy chair at either end. In front of the hearth, were a pair of ‘monk's settles', wooden chairs hooded up the sides over the top, to keep out draughts. The solitary glassless window facing the lane was firmly shuttered and the other walls carried sombre tapestries depicting biblical scenes, which Nesta guessed were Matilda's choice, as John would have preferred pictures of battle.

‘Come around to the yard,' he commanded and when they came out of the side passage, she saw that a room had been built on massive legs, so that it projected under a gable from the top half of the house. A flight of stairs led up to its door and at ground level, another small room had been inserted between the supports.

‘That box is for her lady's maid!' he explained, scornfully. ‘She insists on having some poor wench to help with her gowns and frizzle her hair!'

‘Has she found one yet?'

‘No, nor do we have a cookmaid, which is a damned sight more important. She'll have to live in the kitchen shed there, but at least I've had it made a bit larger and more comfortable than the old one.'

Nesta declined to go up and look inside the solar, as this would be where John slept with his wife and somehow, she preferred not to see such an intimate place. They left the house in a rather subdued mood, each wondering what the other was thinking, but Nesta's cheerful spirit soon revived and by the time they got back to the Bush, she was offering to look out for a reliable cookmaid for the new house.

That evening turned into something of a celebration, as Gwyn came down with Agnes to check on Molly's progress as a cook. The master mason and carpenter came in later with their senior journeymen, to announce that they would be clearing up and removing their tools from St Martin's Lane that week, so John decided to invite them all to eat at his expense to mark the end of their labours and the rebirth of the Bush's fortunes.

After they had all eaten and approved Molly's fresh salmon and roast pork, followed by frumenty,
⁵
the best ale in Exeter flowed freely and an impromptu party developed. Old Edwin revealed a hidden talent in playing merry country tunes on the three-holed pipe and Gwyn, with a gallon of ale and cider inside him, used his deep bass voice to bellow the words of many songs picked up over campfires across Europe.

The regular patrons of the Bush readily joined in the fun, as since his return, their hero Sir John de Wolfe was the city's most popular man. Soon, the few women present were hauled to their feet as they danced the jigging steps of rural England, laughing and chattering as those at the tables banged out the rhythm with empty ale jugs. With autumn logs crackling in the firepit, the scene in the dark taproom began to look like some scene from Celtic mythology.

John looked on with amiable approval and even ventured a couple of ballads of his own, carefully censored because of the respectable women there – the Bush was rarely used by whores, as Nesta discouraged that trade, leaving it to disreputable inns like the Saracen, two streets away.

Then Agnes dragged him to his feet and they laughingly attempted the simple steps of the dance, mostly hand-holding, advancing, retreating and turning. John was no dancer and only the loosening of inhibitions caused by the ale persuaded him to take part. Then Agnes, who had a very shrewd head on her plump shoulders, waited until one of the masons had released Nesta, then steered John into the landlady's path. Smiling happily, she cavorted with him around the firepit and even his saturnine features creased into an almost foolish grin as they stamped and pranced to the obvious approval of the others, who clapped in time to Edwin's piping and the thump of a small drum that someone had produced.

When they finally flopped down on to their bench, Agnes noted with satisfaction that John's arm remained draped around Nesta's shoulders. She knew, through Gwyn, of de Wolfe's frustrating marriage and also of his past affairs with Hilda of Dawlish and other women, but also knew that he was a lonely man at heart. It was about time, she decided, that he enjoyed some female company.

When the party broke up, Gwyn took Agnes up to her sister's in Gandy Lane, as it was far too late to get out of the city, the gates being firmly closed at dusk. The others faded away and John, slightly unsteady on his feet, offered to help Nesta clear up, with Edwin and the two other servants. But the Welshwoman, having herself drunk a little more than her usual moderate amount, declared that it should be left until morning and told the others to go to their homes.

‘Off to bed with you, Sir John, Great Crusader!' she said with an unusual lack of inhibition. She climbed the ladder to the loft, and missed her grip on the top step, falling back into his ready arms.

John pushed her up to safety and they stood swaying slightly outside her small room. There were several lodgers on the other side of the loft, but their lusty snores told that they were oblivious to what was going on. Her cheerful mood suddenly melted into tears and she laid her head on his chest.

‘John, thank you for everything. What would I do without you?'

His arms went around her and he drew her tightly to him. She raised her face and kissed him on the lips, long and earnestly. Then with a sudden movement, she twisted away and opened the door to her bedchamber. ‘Good night, sweet man, sleep well and may God watch over you this night!'

She slipped inside and the door closed with a click of finality as the wooden latch dropped into place.

John stood there stupidly, touching his lips where they had kissed. His rapid arousal faded almost as quickly as it had arisen and he stumbled across to his cubicle and sat heavily on the edge of his mattress.

‘I think I'm in love again, blast it!' he muttered.

For the next few days, John went around in an abstracted frame of mind, behaving perfectly normally, but in a distant mood that Gwyn detected only too well. Agnes, who had almost a wise woman's sixth sense, had told him what was going on and received a rebuke from her husband for meddling in matters that didn't concern her. John still had his reservations about becoming emotionally involved with a friend's widow, but he found Nesta increasingly attractive and desirable. At intervals, he chastised himself for his juvenile qualms – for God's sake, he was a Norman knight, a member of a class who thought no more of seducing or even ravishing an alehouse keeper than kicking a stray dog! Why should he be different with this particular woman?

Yet Nesta affected him in a way similar to the feelings he had for Hilda, who was now out of his reach – and strangely, he felt more remote from her now that Nesta had come into his life. Not an introspective man, he usually dealt with such situations by demanding some robust action. One morning, he marched up to Rougemont and pulled Gwyn out of a game of cards in the gatehouse.

‘We need to start our campaign against these bastards who are infesting the roads,' he proclaimed. ‘Let's see what Ralph Morin has to say about it.'

They found the castellan in his chamber, haranguing Gabriel and another sergeant about the lacklustre appearance and performance of the last batch of recruits to the garrison.

‘Maybe we can offer something that will put some steel into their backs,' suggested de Wolfe. ‘It's about time we took some action against these scum who are attacking travellers and thieving from villages with little to discourage them.'

After an hour's discussion and plotting, they decided to comb the forest area where John and Gwyn had been attacked.

‘Those three we dispatched seemed lone wolves, but there have been many more organized raids on passing traffic, so there must be a more substantial gang in there somewhere,' he said.

They set a day the following week, giving the sergeant time to pick a score of men and get them fit and well equipped.

‘Are we going to tell de Revelle?' asked Morin, dubiously.

‘I'll tell him, just to let him know how idle we think he is, but it's really none of his business. We are doing this on behalf of the
Curia
and Hubert Walter. In fact, when we talked in London not long ago, he hinted that he was thinking of setting up some unemployed knights in every county, as “keepers of the peace”, so we're just anticipating his wishes.'

John was as good as his word and loped into his brother-in-law's chamber, ostensibly to offer him congratulations on his recent birthday. ‘I trust you had a good celebration, Richard – Matilda told me that it was a festive occasion.'

De Revelle showed no embarrassment at the implied rebuke for the lack of invitation to John and merely asked if his sister's house was fit for habitation yet, again with the implication that it was hardly suitable for a woman of her status.

‘We hope to move ourselves in there very soon,' said John, omitting to say that he looked on the occasion with gloomy foreboding. He would a thousand times prefer to stay in his little cubicle in the Bush, almost within arm's reach of Nesta.

‘You have engaged servants, I hope?' enquired Richard, loftily.

‘A customer of Hugh de Relaga has recommended a young woman who used to cook for him before he moved to Dartmouth. And a church friend of Matilda's has palmed off a French girl on her to act as her personal maid.'

Richard sorted parchments on his table with an impatient gesture, implying that John's presence was delaying important work. ‘I hear that you are contemplating some vigilante activities against trail bastons,' he said loftily. ‘Are you setting yourself up as an unofficial sheriff?'

De Wolfe glowered at him. ‘We've already got one of those, by the looks of it, except that he seems to have no interest in keeping the king's peace!'

Richard shrugged indifferently. ‘It's none of my business, John. I am merely doing a service for the prince – who at least is in England and not absenting himself for three years, probably never to return.'

He always knew how to rile his sister's husband, as any criticism of the Lionheart was anathema to John.

‘I'm just doing what any honest knight should do, trying to clear our roads of the murderous villains that infest them!' he roared. ‘When you have personally found a king's servant with his throat cut and then been attacked on the highway by a couple of thugs intent on killing you, it's a great incentive to do something about it!'

Richard pulled some documents towards him is a gesture of dismissal. ‘Then I wish you luck, John. I always travel with a strong bodyguard, so the matter is of no consequence to me.'

John gave up trying to hold a reasonable conversation with him and marched out, giving the heavy door a satisfying slam behind him.

T
he first expedition of the posse from Rougemont was an anticlimax, after the excited young men-at-arms had worked themselves up into a lather of expectation at defeating a band of murderous outlaws. Ralph and John had chosen Haldon Forest as their target, as this was where de Wolfe had been attacked. Twenty men, together with the two knights, Gwyn and Sergeant Gabriel marched the five miles out of Exeter, being seen off by rather mystified townsfolk as they stamped their way out of the West Gate, as if leaving from some distant battle.

They all wore short chain mail hauberks, breeches and round helmets, their weapons being a mixture of pikes and swords, with half a dozen archers amongst them. It would have taken twenty-score men to thoroughly comb that area of woodland, but a start had to be made somewhere, if only to leave a message that the authorities were not going to let lawlessness go unchecked.

They stopped on the road at the point where the three would-be assassins had been killed. There was no sign of the bodies and as the castle constable had already questioned the bailiff of the Exminster Hundred, who told him that no one had recovered or even told him about corpses in that area, it was assumed that the local wildlife had dealt with their disposal.

The soldiers fanned out in pairs and began advancing into the forest, keeping within shouting distance. They had no hope of coming upon any outlaws by stealth but on this preliminary foray, wanted to make their presence known and to discover any camps that may have been set up.

After a couple of hours, they had passed beyond the halfway mark in the direction of Trusham village, when a cry from men on the left of the line brought the three leaders to the place. In a clearing, there were the remains of a fire, with a wisp of smoke still rising from logs which had been hastily kicked apart. Nearby were some crude shelters of woven branches built against the trunks of trees, in which were a few scattered articles of tattered clothing.

‘They've made a run for it, no doubt they heard us coming from a furlong away,' declared Ralph Morin.

De Wolfe kicked at a half-eaten carcass of a chicken, lying near the fire. ‘A hell of a way to live, especially with winter coming on. Still, I expect they think it's better than having their necks stretched on the gallows in Exeter.' From the appearance of the rough shelters, he thought that about six men had been camping out there.

‘We'll not catch them today, I fear,' said Gabriel, hefting his long pike in frustration. ‘They can circle round us and vanish in any direction without us getting a sight of them.'

‘Still, we've made it clear that they can't have their own way any longer,' said Ralph resignedly. ‘If I had five hundred men, we could encircle the place and drive them to the centre, like rabbits in a harvest field.'

The men relit the fire and sat around it to eat the bread, meat and cheese they had brought with them, washing it down with water from a nearby stream.

Afterwards, they carried on until they emerged from the trees in sight of the strip fields of Trusham and began marching back home through smaller lanes.

‘At least it's given these lads some exercise and a taste of discipline,' said Gabriel. ‘Maybe next time, they can get some proper action.'