Fear in the Forest (8 page)

With a wail and a stream of invective, the ale-wife rushed at the page, but he gave her a resounding smack across the face and a push that sent her to her knees. She began blubbering into her apron, as a woman neighbour ran to comfort her.

There was a general growl of anger from the half-dozen village men and they took a step towards the page. But there was also a rattle of steel as the forester pulled a foot of sword from its scabbard. Wisely, the men subsided into a resentful, sullen silence.

‘Let no one get any ideas of brewing their own here, either in the alehouse or your homes. If I get wind of it, the verderer will have you arraigned at the Woodmote faster than you can take a breath.’

He jerked his head at his page to remount, then pulled his own horse around and trotted out of Sigford, leaving the villagers to become more resentful, impoverished and thirsty.

Later that morning, the coroner succeeded in tracking down the sheriff, who often tried to avoid him. As Richard de Revelle was not to be found in his chamber in the keep, he looked in the courthouse, but the dismal hall was empty. Irritated at the waste of time, he went back to the gatehouse and demanded of the solitary guard whether he had seen him. The man pointed his lance towards the tiny building that stood on the far side of the gateway, towards the eastern curtain wall.

‘I saw him go in there, Crowner – not long ago, with another man.’

Muttering under his breath, de Wolfe strode across to St Mary’s, the little chapel that served the garrison. It was poorly attended except on saints’ days and special occasions, so the full series of daily services had been greatly thinned down by the amiable chaplain, Father Roger.

Unlike his sister, Richard was not renowned for his devotion, except when it was politically expedient to appear in church or cathedral, so John wondered why he had shown this sudden urge to go to chapel on a Wednesday morning.

He opened the main door on the side of the building and stepped out of the bright sunlight into the dim interior. As his eyes adjusted, he saw his brother-in-law in the act of closing a smaller door on the other side of the nave, holding up a hand in what seemed to be a farewell gesture.

‘Taken to holding your meetings on holy ground now, Richard?’ de Wolfe called. The sheriff spun around and peered across the paved floor at him.

‘It’s you, John! Are you spying on me?’

He walked across the empty chapel towards the coroner. Richard was a head shorter than de Wolfe and lightly built, a dapper man with a taste for expensive and showy clothes. Today he wore a peacock-blue tunic down to his calves, the neck and hem embroidered with a double line of gold stitching. White hose ended in extravagantly pointed shoes in the latest fashion. He had light brown wavy hair curling over his ears and a neat, pointed beard of the same colour. His narrow face wore a permanently petulant expression, especially now, as he seemed annoyed that the coroner had surprised him in some private matter.

‘Who was that, then? Your confessor?’ snapped John, deliberately provoking his brother-in-law.

‘It’s no concern of yours. What did you want with me?’

‘You must have really pounded the road between Tiverton and here, to arrive by this hour.’

De Revelle shook his head impatiently. ‘The dawn comes early in June. I took to the road while you were still snoring, no doubt.’

He came closer and lifted his face to look up at the coroner. ‘Were you looking for me for some particular reason?’

Shafts of sunlight poured through the small unglazed windows high in the wall, causing dust motes to dance in the beams. Pools of light fell upon the stone ledges that ran down both walls of the little nave, the only place where the older or more infirm of the congregation could sit. John lowered himself to the cold slabs, but the sheriff remained standing, his gloved hands jabbed impatiently into his waist as John spoke.

‘I came to tell you that one of the verderers has been murdered – Humphrey le Bonde. As he was a King’s officer like us, I thought you should be told as soon as possible.’

John was puzzled to see a look of relief pass over Richard’s face – he seemed to relax suddenly, almost as if the air had escaped from a punctured bladder.

‘Thank you, John, but I already knew that. In fact, I have already appointed his successor – that was the fellow who just left through the other door. A messenger came to my manor last night, to tell me of the death.’

The coroner sighed – de Revelle so often seemed one step ahead of him, thanks to the legion of informers that he had scattered around the county.

‘You were quick off the mark filling his shoes! Who is it?’

Richard stroked his small beard with his fingertips, a mannerism that annoyed de Wolfe – though almost everything about the sheriff annoyed him.

‘Philip de Strete – I offered to nominate him to the County Court just now and he quite naturally accepted,’ he said smugly.

John shrugged. ‘Never heard of him. Who is he and where’s he from?’

‘A knight from Plympton, not far from my other manor at Revelstoke – that’s how I know him, as a lesser neighbour.’

De Wolfe thought cynically that, like his sister, Richard was ever conscious of his position in the pecking order of the county aristocracy and could not resist emphasising his higher status over this Philip. He wondered why the man so conveniently happened to be in Exeter to be offered the unexpected vacancy, but could not think of any sinister reason for it – though anything involving the sheriff was always liable to be devious.

‘Why the rush to appoint someone? The previous incumbent is not even in his grave yet!’

De Revelle began to look impatient, tugging at the cuffs of his gloves and glancing at the door.

‘The verderer’s work has to go on. The Attachment Court is due next week, over which he must preside.’

‘Did you discuss it with Nicholas de Bosco before you offered the job to this man?’

Now the sheriff’s impatience turned to annoyance. ‘That man is an incompetent old fool. It’s none of his business. The appointment is made by the freeholders of the county upon my writ. The Warden of the Forests has no say in the matter.’

He paused, then added angrily, ‘Neither is it any of your concern, John. I hear that you went to Sigford yesterday and held an inquest on the dead man. You had no right – forest law prevails there.’

This was too much for de Wolfe. He jumped up to tower over the sheriff, his dark face glowering down at him.

‘What arrant nonsense you talk, Richard! I am the King’s coroner and it’s his rule that runs everywhere in England. The forest laws concern offences against venison and vert, not men being shot in the back!’

Richard’s face reddened in anger. ‘I dispute that! This coroner nonsense came into being only last year – before that the forest, the stanneries and the Church dealt themselves with matters within their own jurisdiction.’

‘Well, they don’t now, Sheriff!’ bellowed de Wolfe, equally incensed. ‘The tinners no longer dispute my right to investigate their dead, even though you, as their Warden, tried to stop me. And the Bishop has agreed that any violence in the cathedral precinct should be handed to the secular powers. So if you wish to question the will of our King Richard, do so and suffer the consequences.’

De Revelle marched towards the door. ‘I’ll not waste time bandying words with you, John. You’ll overstep the mark one of these days and then it will be you that suffers the consequences!’

As the sheriff furiously threw the door open so wide that it banged against the wall, de Wolfe called out a warning.

‘Your sudden interest in the forest officers is suspicious, Richard. I trust, if only for your sister’s sake, that you’re not up to your tricks again – remember that you’re still on probation!’

His brother-in-law vanished into the sunlight without deigning to reply and John sank down again onto the stone shelf to ponder the situation. Though he was the King’s representative in Devon and the highest law officer in that county, Richard de Revelle had been in trouble ever since he took office as sheriff. Appointed at Christmas ’93, he was dismissed by Hubert Walter, the Chief Justiciar, a few months later on suspicion of being a supporter of Prince John’s abortive rebellion against the Lionheart, when the King was imprisoned in Germany. De Wolfe well remembered the anguish that his wife showed then, as her brother was her idol. When he was suspected of having feet of clay, Matilda urged her reluctant husband to intercede on de Revelle’s behalf with both the Justiciar and William Marshal, the two most powerful men in the land. In the summer, nothing having proved against him, he was reinstated. It was partly out of a begrudging gratitude – and Matilda’s insistence – that the sheriff supported John’s election to the new post of coroner, offered by Hubert Walter on behalf of the King.

But ever since, apart from the usual embezzlement and corruption that were the hallmark of most sheriffs, de Revelle had begun toying again with a covert allegiance to Prince John. De Wolfe suspected that the Prince had promised the politically ambitious de Revelle advancement at court, should he be successful in unseating his royal brother. Others were of the same mind, including Bishop Henry, brother to William Marshal, several of the senior clergy and some of the Devonshire barons, such as the de Pomeroys. It was only a few months since de Wolfe had caught his brother-in-law in another embryonic plot to foment more rebellion – and again, only Matilda’s pleading had stopped him from exposing de Revelle’s treachery. Since then, the sheriff had been treading carefully, but John now always kept a sharp lookout for any schemes that Richard might be hatching.

A mellow voice suddenly brought him out of his reverie.

‘I’m glad to see you using my humble chapel for meditation, Crowner. Though I didn’t take you for someone with strong religious inclinations!’

Standing over him was a cheerful priest with a round face which matched the stomach that pushed out his black Benedictine habit into a comfortable bulge. He dropped down onto the ledge alongside de Wolfe and mopped his brow with a rag drawn from his gown.

‘Or maybe it was just cooler in here, Sir John.’

The coroner grinned crookedly at Father Roger, who he found an amiable companion. Only a short time before, the priest’s insatiable curiosity had briefly caused him to be suspected of multiple murders in the city, and John was glad that the accusations had soon proved unfounded.

‘Not curing souls this morning, Roger?’

‘Too hot for such laborious pastimes, Crowner. Thank God I only hold services here in the cool of early morning and towards dusk. Not that many of the heathen soldiery in Rougemont bother to attend, though their womenfolk are more devout.’

The priest had recently come from Bristol to become chaplain of the garrison and was always eager to learn more about Exeter, its people and its intrigues. The coroner told him of the killing of the verderer and the odd meeting in Roger’s own church between the sheriff and the new appointee. The chaplain was already well aware of the antagonism between coroner and sheriff and had a shrewd idea of its causes. John went on to recount to him the unrest that seemed to be growing in the Royal Forest and the unexplained antipathy towards the Warden, Nicholas de Bosco. He thought that the ever-curious chaplain might have heard some useful tittle-tattle from the priests in the town or nearby parishes.

‘I’ve heard nothing through the ecclesiastical grapevine,’ Roger said thoughtfully. ‘But I’ll keep my ears open for you. I sometimes meet parish priests from around Dartmoor – they are usually fond of a gossip.’

They chatted for some time, finding that they had many experiences in common. Roger of Bristol had a military past rather like de Wolfe’s, having been a chaplain to the King’s forces in several campaigns in which both had served, though they had never met before. His loyalty had been rewarded with curacy of the chapel at Bristol castle, until the soldierly Archbishop of Canterbury, the same Hubert Walter who was also Chief Justiciar, posted him to the vacancy at Exeter.

They found that they also had something else in common that morning, as today was a hanging day and it was Roger’s turn to shrive the two unfortunates who were to go to the gallows on Magdalen Street outside the city walls. The coroner also had to be present, so that his clerk could record the forfeiture of the felons’ property. The two men followed the sad procession as the ox-cart trundled its fatal burden from the castle gaol in the undercroft of the keep. When the condemned men had been dispatched into the next life, John left Thomas in Roger’s company and went back home for the midday meal, his appetite none the worse after watching the agonal thrashings of the strangled men dangling on their ropes.

Matilda was away, visiting her cousin in Fore Street, and John ate the boiled pig’s knuckle that Mary put before him in peace and quiet. This was shattered just as he was dropping the stripped bone under the table for Brutus.

A hammering on the front door was answered by the maid, as she was bringing a bowl of dried apricots for his dessert. Mary came through the screens into the hall, followed by the thin figure of one of the burgesses’ constables, responsible for trying to keep public order on the streets.

‘Osric’s here, in a lather of excitement,’ she said disapprovingly. ‘You’re wanted urgently, as usual, to the ruination of your digestion!’

The lanky Saxon, who seemed all limbs and Adam’s apple, stood awkwardly, twirling his floppy cap in his hands.

‘There’s been a killing and an assault, Crowner. Not an hour ago, in St Pancras Lane. I went up to Rougemont to report it, but Gwyn said you were at home. He’s gone straight to the house.’

At the mention of the address, de Wolfe rose to his feet.

‘St Pancras Lane – who’s involved?’

‘The dead ‘un is an old servant. Bottler to the injured party, Sir Nicholas.’

The coroner was already moving towards the door. ‘God’s toenails, what’s going on? I was with both of them only last evening!’

Striding through the streets, with the constable pattering alongside, the coroner looked like a large, avenging bat, his black surcoat flying wide over his long grey tunic. As they thrust aside folk dawdling in the lanes, Osric breathlessly added some details.