Fear in the Forest (22 page)

‘Anything you say, Chief,’ rumbled Gwyn. ‘What happens today?’

The outlaw leader looked at Angot, who jerked a thumb towards the men sitting around the fire.

‘A few of them are doing a little task for a forester today. Go with them, Jess – there’s hardly likely to be much rough stuff, but someone your size might be useful if any persuasion is needed.’

Apparently satisfied, the two outlaws sauntered back towards the bigger shelter, leaving Gwyn to his own devices. He wandered over to the rest of the men and squatted down with them.

‘I’m to go with you on some persuading expedition,’ he announced. ‘What’s it all about?’

Like their leaders, the men seemed to have accepted Gwyn without query. He suspected that there was a high turnover of similar recruits and deserters in the gang. One of them spat into the fire before answering him.

‘We’re going to shake up some freeholder who refused to honour his obligations to William Lupus,’ explained the man, a tough-looking fellow of about twenty. He had a fringe of dark beard and a jagged scar on his right cheek. The name Lupus rang an alarm bell in Gwyn’s mind.

‘Who’s he?’ he asked gruffly, not wishing to show that he already knew.

‘One of the foresters around here. This bloody pig-keeper refused to feed the horses belonging to him and his page, so we’re to teach him some manners.’

Gwyn leaned forward to push a log farther into the fire.

‘Why are we doing such a favour for a forester? Where I come from, we prefer to cut their throats!’

One of the other men answered this time, a young weaselly fellow with a bad squint.

‘It pays not to ask too many questions around here,’ he advised.

Gwyn shrugged indifferently.’I don’t give a damn. When are we going?’

For an answer, three of the men, including the one with the scar, clambered to their feet. One ambled across to a pile of weapons and brought over four heavy cudgels, one of which he handed to Gwyn.

‘Here you are, Jess. You won’t need your sword today – this isn’t the Battle of Wexford!’ said the bearded youth.

There was no way that Gwyn was going to be parted from his blade, but no further jest was made when he left it hanging at his side. The four men set off down the steep heathland, leaving a few outlaws back in the camp. A few hundred yards below the rocky outcrop, the bare ground gave way to trees, and soon the single file of marauders was winding its way along an ill-defined path through dense woodland down into the valley. Gwyn was in the rear, the leader being Simon, a swarthy ruffian of about thirty who reminded Gwyn of a wild boar, as his dark hairy face and boasted a mouth that had a pair of large yellowed eye-teeth projecting like tusks from his lower jaw. He loped through the fallen leaves and wild garlic with the assurance of one who knew every step of the way, swinging his ugly-looking club in one hand. The other two, Scarface and the one with the squint, were dressed in little better than rags, and Gwyn wondered what sins had driven them from home to eke out this miserable existence in the forest.

After the better part of an hour’s silent tramping, they skirted some cultivated fields where the valley began to widen out and reached a narrow track, rutted by cartwheels. After following this for half a mile, they crossed a wider road which Gwyn recognised as the highway from Ashburton to Moretonhampstead. He could see a small hamlet in the distance, but after furtive glances up and down the road, Simon marched them straight across and took a path that led into the trees on the other side. This wound along for a while until it debouched into a large clearing in which there was a fair-sized cottage built of whitewashed cob, a mixture of mud, horsehair and dung, plastered on to a lattice of hazel withies.

A couple of sheds stood behind it, alongside a wattle fence enclosing a large patch of stinking mud in which more than two score pigs snuffled and grunted. In front of the dwelling was another fenced area, planted with orderly rows of beans, cabbage, onions, lettuce and herbs. Simon came to halt facing the cottage and pointed towards it with his club.

‘Right, boys, we’re to beat him up a little, but not enough to croak him – understand?’

Gwyn became very uneasy – as the dilemma had presented itself so abruptly. Simon stood at the fence around the plot and stared at the silent cottage, the others gathering behind him.

‘What are we here for?’ grunted Gwyn.

The leader turned his ugly head. ‘To teach this fellow a lesson – and to oblige William Lupus.’

‘Can’t a forester settle his own problems? What’s this cottar done to offend him?’

‘You ask a lot of questions, for a newcomer,’ snapped Simon.

‘It’s because I’m a newcomer. I don’t know what’s going on,’ Gwyn replied reasonably. One of the younger men explained.

‘He wouldn’t give Lupus everything he wanted. Under forest law, everyone dwelling in a royal forest must give the putre on demand to any forest officer and his groom, as well as fodder for his horse and food for his hound.’

‘What the hell’s “putre”?’

‘The forest fee – bed and board, oats for the horse, two tallow candles a night and black bread for the forester’s dog.’

‘So why’s bed and board a problem?’ muttered Gwyn.

‘Edwin, the freeholder here, refused to give Lupus everything else he wanted, including a couple of pigs and some fowls – in fact, he and his two sons threatened to give him a beating if he didn’t go away.’

‘So why didn’t this Edwin give the forester what he was entitled to?’

The cross-eyed outlaw sniggered. ‘Because Lupus had been back three times inside two weeks, demanding his dues. He’d cleaned the old man out of the last of his fodder, I heard. The final straw was him wanting three of his best breeding sows.’

Simon smacked the lad around the head with a heavy hand. ‘For Mary’s sake, give over gossiping! There’s work to be done. Go and chase those bloody pigs into the forest. That’ll get him into trouble for unlawful agisting, especially this time of year, in the fence month.’

Rubbing his sore head, the youth loped away towards the back of the cottage, while the leading outlaw gave the other youngster a push on the shoulder. ‘You, get in that garden and wreck those plants of Edwin’s. Let him go hungry, after he’s recovered from his thrashing.’

He motioned to Gwyn to follow him and made for the front of the cottage.

The coroner’s officer was feeling increasingly uneasy at what was happening, especially when he saw the carefully tended vegetables being either uprooted or trodden underfoot by the ruffian in the garden plot. But for the moment he could hardly afford to abandon his deception, just when he might be able to learn something. Reluctantly, he tramped after Simon, the cudgel he had been given dangling from his hand. As they neared the heavy sheet of thick leather that hung over the door of the windowless dwelling, he heard the squeal of pigs as they were chased off into the woods behind, from where it would be a marathon task to gather them together again.

As they stood near the rough timber frame of the door, there was still no sound from within. The youth was still crashing about in the vegetable plot, but there was no reaction from inside the cottage.

‘Maybe he’s not here,’ said Gwyn, trying to keep the relief from his voice. There was no way in which he could stand by and let these thugs assault an innocent man, even if it did expose him as a spy.

Simon looked disgruntled at the prospect of a wasted journey. ‘It’s a market day in Moretonhampstead. Maybe the bastard has gone there to sell some of his hogs.’

He pushed aside the leather with the point of his cudgel and peered into the single room. ‘No one here, blast it!’ he snarled.

Gwyn decided to use the anticlimax to try to wheedle out some more information.

‘I still don’t see why we’re doing the forester’s dirty work.’

Simon turned impatiently from the door. ‘Because Winter gets paid to do it, that’s why. And the rest of us get a share-out now and then. Where else d’you think we get money for ale and wenching when we slide into the town?’

‘Who pays him, then?’ asked Gwyn, boldly.

The outlaw glared suspiciously at him. ‘You’re a big fellow, but you’ve got an even bigger mouth! Why d’you want to know? It’s none of your business.’

Gwyn held up his hands apologetically. ‘I’ve just got a curious nature – I’m no sheriff’s man, for God’s sake!’

This seemed to amuse Simon.

‘Sheriff’s man – that’s a laugh, that is! Now shut up and get in there and smash everything within sight. If we can’t break Edwin’s head, we’ll just have break up his homestead.’ To demonstrate what he meant, Simon pulled violently at the leather door flap, ripping it from its fastenings.

As if this was a signal, all hell was let loose.

There was a warning scream from the lad in the garden and a pounding of feet from the direction of a small shed at the side of the house. Two men came flying around the corner, one hefting a three-foot piece of branch, the other waving a small but wicked-looking firewood axe. With yells of defiance, they fell upon the two men at their door, the younger fellow catching Simon a heavy blow with the branch, which he fended off with his left arm. The older man, obviously his father, took a swing at Gwyn with his axe, but the experienced fighter easily parried it with his cudgel, the blade becoming deeply embedded in the wood.

Edwin and his teenaged son were courageous enough, fighting desperately for their home, if not their lives. But once the element of surprise was lost, they were no match for the outlaws, especially when the two others came running, one from the garden and the other attracted by the noise on his way back from chasing the pigs. As Edwin, a grizzled, toothless man of about fifty, struggled to pull his axe from Gwyn’s club, the Cornishman put a massive arm around his shoulders and pulled him close.

‘Stop struggling and you won’t be hurt,’ he whispered into his ear. The older man looked at him in surprise, then went limp. At the same time, Simon, rubbing his bruised arm, was dodging another blow from the son, a burly youth who was red in the face with mixed anger and fear. The outlaw, no stranger to vicious infighting, rapidly rallied against the unexpected attack and swung his own club, striking the son hard on the shoulder, making him howl. By now, the two other ruffians had arrived and grabbed the son by the arms. He managed to pull his right one free long enough to deliver a swinging blow with his branch to the temple of the youth who had trampled his garden, sending the fellow to the ground as if poleaxed. Gwyn had to hang on to the father as he struggled and swore when Simon drove his fist into the son’s belly, causing him to double up. The lad sagged in the grip of the other outlaw, as he vomited his breakfast on to the ground.

The younger outlaw gave him a cruel kick in the ribs as he dropped him to the floor and turned to see what Simon was going to do to the father.

‘Well done, Cornishman! Now we’ll punish the silly old fool for daring to attack us.’ As he spoke, Simon drew back his arm and punched Edwin in the face, splitting his lip and making his nose bleed.

‘That’s just a start – you can let him go now, Gwyn. I want to kick him around the garden for a bit.’

Gwyn reluctantly decided that this was the moment of truth.

‘Leave him alone, Simon. And the boy.’

The outlaw stopped with his fist already raised for another blow, a puzzled expression on his face. His two yellowed fangs stuck out as his mouth stayed open in surprise.

‘What the devil are you playing at, man? Get out of the way!’

By way of reply, Gwyn gave him a push in the chest that sent him staggering back into the younger outlaw. The cottar’s son was recovering by now and was leaning against the whitewashed wall, wiping vomit from his chin with the back of his hand. His father wriggled from Gwyn’s loosening grasp and went to the aid of his boy.

‘Look, we’ve done them enough harm already,’ barked Gwyn hurriedly, in an attempt to preserve his cover. ‘Wrecked their garden, driven off their pigs – why not call it a day and let the bloody foresters do their own dirty work?’

Simon stared at the big redhead in amazement. ‘What are you saying, you damned fool? Even if we weren’t being paid for this, I’d half kill these swine for this – look what they did to Ralph there!’

In a fury, he pointed to the other outlaw, who was groaning as he slowly pulled himself to a crouch, blood oozing from between the fingers he held to the side of his head.

Simon advanced on Edwin and his son, his cudgel raised, but Gwyn swiftly stepped between them, his own club held out as a protective barrier against the angry outlaw. ‘I said leave them alone!’ he boomed, resigned now to abandoning any hope of further deception.

The thug’s ugly face creased into a sneer and Gwyn recognised that here was a man who revelled in inflicting pain, suffering and humilation on others.

‘Right, you’ve had your chance, you big Cornish bastard!’ he snarled. Pulling a long dagger from a sheath on the back of his belt, he came at Gwyn, club raised in one hand, the knife in the other. The bearded ruffian was close behind him, as the other young outlaw struggled to his feet a few yards away.

Gwyn smiled beatifically at the prospect of a good fight. Though he had had a few skirmishes since becoming coroner’s officer, they were few and far between compared to his old warrior days, and he missed the rough-and-tumble of confrontation. As Simon lunged at him with the blade and swung at his head with the club, he dodged and used his own club to give the attacker a crack on the wrist that made him howl, the dagger flying off into the dirt.

‘Watch the other one!’ yelled the cottar, as the other outlaw dived at Gwyn, his heavy stick raised. The defender parried the blow, the crack of wood on wood echoing from the cottage wall as he brought up his foot and kicked the youth hard between the legs. With a scream, he backed away, clutching his groin, but he stayed on his feet. By now, Ralph had recovered enough to stagger upright and was fumbling to draw his own knife. Simon, his left hand numb from the blow he had taken, had dropped his bludgeon and groped for his fallen dagger. A moment later, Gwyn faced two very angry men clutching long-bladed knives and another with a large club and a score to pay for his bruised testicles.