Fear in the Forest (5 page)

He paused to sip his wine, staring pensively into the cold ashes of the firepit. ‘In the last year there has been some agitation to remove me. No one will come forward openly, but I have had anonymous letters telling me to resign – and even a couple of threats on my life.’

John sat up straighter – this might have some bearing on le Bonde’s killing.

‘Do you know if the same happened to the verderer?’

De Bosco shook his head. ‘Not that I know of – and I would be surprised if it were so. I’m sure this is a political matter, which would not affect a mere verderer. I don’t wish to sound patronising, but there is considerable difference between our ranks. Wardens, like coroners, have to be men of substance – at least manor lords or even a baron. Verderers are drawn from the ranks of lesser knights or even just freeholders.’

De Wolfe, who had spent much of his adult life out of England, had never before needed to understand the hierarchy of the forest officers and sought some explanation.

‘So are verderers also appointed by the Crown?’

De Bosco exhaled through his bare gums. ‘It’s complicated! There are four of them in every forest, one to each quadrant. They are recommended by a sheriff’s writ and elected by freeholders in the County Court. But at least in theory they are responsible directly to the King, not to the Warden. It’s a strange system.’

John had pricked his ears up at the mention of the sheriff. Anything that involved his brother-in-law needed to be looked at very carefully.

‘So the nomination comes from the sheriff?’

The Warden nodded. ‘No doubt Richard de Revelle already has someone in mind, if he knows yet about the death of Humphrey le Bonde.’

‘What’s the difference in the functions of these officers?’

Nicholas drained his cup and waved it at his servant to be refilled.

‘I’m just an administrator – it matters not whether I ever set foot in the forest. With my clerk, I compile the records of all income to the Treasury from forest activities and of all court cases, to send to the Justiciar each year.’

He stared rather glumly into his wine cup. ‘It’s hardly an exciting task, but our king was minded to give it to me, so I do the best job I can. I have to organise the Forest Eyre, though that court is rarely held more often than every three years. I am supposed to deal with all complaints relating to forest law and exercise discipline over all the other forest staff, though in fact the verderers cannot be dismissed except by royal command.’

‘And these verderers – what do they do?’

‘Their main function is to deal with the lower forest courts – the Attachment Courts, where most of the everyday offences are heard.’

De Wolfe rubbed his black stubble.

‘Are they the same as these ‘forty-day’ courts?’

‘That’s the common man’s name for them, though some call them ‘woodmotes’. The verderers can deal with minor offences at these courts, mainly those against the vert of the forest. Anything more serious, such as accusations of venison, has to be referred to the Forest Eyre – which means that many poor bloody miscreants spend a few years in prison, where they often die before their case is even heard.’

Though John might be vague about the administration of the forest, he knew very well that ‘vert’ referred to the trees, vegetation and indeed trade in the royal demesne. ‘Venison’ concerned the creatures of the forest, though even these were strictly categorised from roe deer down to rabbits.

‘So who does the actual supervision of the forest, if verderers are really only concerned with their local courts?’

A sour expression clouded De Bosco’s lined face. ‘The damned foresters, that’s who! Though they’re rough, common men, they rule the forests as if they own them! I’m supposed to be in charge of them, but they go their own way almost unchecked.’

‘You don’t sound over-fond of them, Warden.’

Nicholas scowled. ‘Their name is a byword for greed and corruption, Crowner! They have too much authority and they misuse it to terrorise the forest folk. They take full advantage of their power, especially when the verderer is weak and lets them get away with it.’

‘Was Humphrey le Bonde weak?’

De Bosco shook his head. ‘Not particularly. He did his best to control the worst excesses, and we sometimes spoke of finding some way to curb the misrule of the foresters. But they always had some excuse and recently claimed that they had the backing of the sheriff in some of what they did.’

Again, an alarm bell clanged inside John’s head at the mention of Richard de Revelle’s possible involvement. He declined another measure of wine and stood up ready to leave, thanking the Warden for his help.

‘I may need to call on you again, when more facts are known. But at the moment, you have no idea why anyone should want to murder a verderer?’

Nicholas de Bosco walked the coroner to his street door.

‘It’s a complete mystery to me, de Wolfe. But there are strange things stirring in the forest, and I don’t mean wild boar! Recently, some of the foresters are becoming even more strict and oppressive than usual, and the reaction from both the peasants and the barons is hardening. True, the income that I send to Winchester has increased lately, but I suspect that it is but a fraction of what is being extorted from the forest folk.’

His tired face looked even more unhappy as he finished his tale of woe. ‘I wish I knew what was going on myself – though I can’t see how this death can be connected with it.’

After he had left the Warden, de Wolfe loped along the streets towards Rougemont, trying to make sense of the death of le Bonde, who seemed an unlikely candidate for assassination, if robbery was not the motive. A large part of Devon was designated as a Royal Forest, where irrespective of the ownership of the land all hunting and many other aspects of the rural economy were reserved to the King. He had recently heard that many landowners, from cottagers to barons, were becoming increasingly aggravated by the situation and were beginning to agitate for the forest areas to be reduced and the punitive laws relaxed.

Devoted as he was to his King, John knew that Richard Coeur-de-Lion was only interested in his French wars, having spent only four months of his reign in England and seeming reluctant ever to return. The monarch was unlikely to agree to any loss of income to his exchequer, which paid for his troops to keep fighting Philip of France. The Royal Forests, which covered almost a third of England, were a lucrative source of income, and the Lionheart needed every penny, as the country was still paying off his huge ransom owed to Henry of Germany. De Wolfe still felt guilty about that, as he had been part of the King’s small bodyguard when he was captured in Austria, blaming himself for not being vigilant enough to prevent it.

His ruminations had brought him to the short hill that led up to the drawbridge over the dry moat of the castle. At the top was the tall gatehouse, on the upper floor of which the coroner had his miserable official chamber, grudgingly provided by the sheriff. Grunting at the solitary man-at-arms on sentry duty under the raised portcullis, he turned into the guardroom under the entrance arch and climbed the narrow twisting steps to the second floor.

Pushing through the sacking that hung as a draught-excluder over the open doorway, he entered his office, a dank and cobwebbed chamber under the roof, aired by two open slits that looked down over the city.

On such a long summer evening dusk was still a few hours away, and Gwyn was still here. He lived at St Sidwell’s, just outside the walls, and if he wanted to spend the night with his wife and children he would have to leave before the city gates were shut at curfew.

‘Where’s Thomas?’ demanded de Wolfe.

‘Probably crossing himself and gabbling his prayers down at the cathedral,’ grunted the Cornishman. ‘I think he’s practising for when he gets restored to Holy Office.’

‘I think that’ll be a long while yet, in spite of his yearning.’

John gestured at a large jug of cider by Gwyn’s stool and his officer poured a generous helping of the turbid fluid into two pottery jars standing on the rough trestle table.

‘I thought the bishop and archdeacon had given him some hope, in recompense for him nearly getting hanged by mistake,’ said his officer.

The coroner shrugged and took a long swallow of cider.

‘There’s still plenty of bad feeling against him amongst the other clerics – but at least Thomas is more cheerful these days. We don’t want him jumping off more roofs, trying to kill himself again.’

Their clerk, defrocked several years ago in Winchester for allegedly indecently assaulting one of his girl pupils in the cathedral school, was obsessed with regaining his ordination and had become very depressed at the failure to make any progress towards reinstatement.

De Wolfe slumped onto the bench behind his table and they sat in companionable silence for a few minutes, sucking at their mugs of fermented apple juice. Gwyn had been his bodyguard and companion for many years, travelling and fighting with de Wolfe through a dozen countries as far away as Palestine. Always a taciturn pair, they saw no need for idle chatter, but eventually Gwyn asked whether Nicholas de Bosco had thrown any light on the recent murder.

‘No, but he gave me the feeling that something is brewing in the forest. I’ve no idea yet what it could be, but I’ll wager there’s some politics behind it – which usually means my dear brother-in-law is involved.’

He drained his jar and pushed himself to his feet, leaning with his hands on the table, hunched like a black vulture.

‘Talking of that devil, I’d better go across and see him. I suspect he’s already heard of the loss of one of his verderers, but I’ll have to make it official.’

Leaving the ever-famished Gwyn to attack a mutton pasty and some bread and cheese that he had bought at a street stall, de Wolfe stumped back down the stairs and turned into the inner ward of the castle. Rougemont had an outer line of defences lower down the hill, where a high earth bank and a ditch marked off a large area in the angle between the north and east city walls. In this outer ward lived many of the garrison and their families, as well as other camp followers. A profusion of huts and shacks, together with stables, forges, armourers and store sheds, turned this outer bailey into a small village. A high, castellated stone wall cut off the upper corner, creating the fortified inner ward, entered only through the gatehouse. Inside was the keep, a three-storeyed building against the far wall, where the sheriff and constable lived. The ward also contained the tiny garrison chapel of St Mary and the bleak stone barn that was the Shire Court. Around the inside of the curtain wall were more lean-to sheds and shacks, some being living quarters, others stables and storerooms. It had been more than half a century since the castle had seen any military action and the place was now hardly a fortress, but more the administrative hub of Devonshire, as well as the home of a few score soldiers and their families.

John de Wolfe strode across the ward, churned by the feet of countless horses, cart-oxen and soldiers into an almost grassless expanse of dried mud. The early evening sun was still warm and outside their huts a few wives were sewing and gossiping, as they watched urchins playing with mongrels or tossing balls of tied rags. Nodding curtly to a few acquaintances as he went, the coroner reached the wooden stairs that led up to the door of the keep, twelve feet above ground. In the unlikely event of besiegers breaking into the inner ward, the stairs could be thrown down and a portcullis dropped over the only entrance to this final refuge. This evening, the only threat to Rougemont’s inner sanctum was the grimly resolute look on the coroner’s face as he marched in, determined to discover whether the sheriff was involved in any new scheming in the Royal Forest.

On the main floor, above the undercroft that housed the fetid gaol, was the great hall of the castle, behind which were the rooms of the sheriff. The upper floor was occupied by the constable of Rougemont, as well as housing the cramped living quarters of numerous servants and clerks. De Wolfe was making straight for the door of his brother-in-law’s quarters, set at the side of the hall, when a voice hailed him from one of the trestle tables that were set out in the large, high chamber.

‘He’s not there, John. Gone to visit his wife, so he says!’

The coroner turned and saw a large, grey-bearded man wearing a mailed hauberk, sitting with Gabriel, the sergeant-at-arms. He was also in armour, his round metal helmet on the table near by. The senior man was Ralph Morin, the castle constable and a good friend of de Wolfe, who walked across and dropped on to the bench alongside them.

‘What’s all this chainmail, then? Are we expecting the French to invade us?’

Ralph grinned and waved to a passing servant to bring some ale across to them. He was living proof that the Normans were recent descendants of the Norsemen, as with his fair hair and forked beard he looked as if he had just stepped off a Viking longship.

‘Just got back from drilling some idle soldiers on Bull Mead,’ he grunted. ‘These days, most of the youngsters have never seen a sword lifted in anger – nor even a drop of blood spilt! We need a war to knock them into shape.’

‘Too damned hot for running around in a hauberk,’ added Gabriel, as a pitcher of ale and some pots were put on the table. The sergeant was a grizzled old warrior, nearing retirement age, who had seen plenty of service in the Irish and French wars. The three professional soldiers spent a few moments bemoaning the soft recruits and easy time that the military had these days, until Ralph Morin returned to the subject of the sheriff. Although de Revelle was nominally the constable’s superior, Rougemont was a royal castle, rather than the fief of a baron, so Ralph was responsible directly to the King for its security.

‘He went up to Tiverton on Sunday, supposed to return tomorrow. Perhaps his lady feels in need of some service!’

The sheriff’s wife, the frigid Lady Eleanor, refused to live with her husband in Exeter in the cold and draughty keep and spent her days either at their manor near Tiverton or at the family home at Revelstoke, near Plymouth. The arrangement seemed to suit Richard, who never lacked for illicit female company in his bedchamber, but every week or two he made short duty visits to his haughty spouse.