Fear in the Forest (33 page)

‘Can’t be that far to Ashburton now. Perhaps the bastard is just going about his normal business,’ offered Gwyn.

They slowed up as much as they could, the merchants almost on their heels. Then the difficult situation was avoided as they rounded a slight bend and saw a tiny hamlet ahead. It was little more than a few cottages, one of which had a bush hanging over its door to signify an alehouse. The place was an outlier of a larger village half a mile off the road, the additional strip-fields here having being assarted by the manor-lord, being just outside the boundary of the Royal Forest.

‘He’s stopping there, Crowner,’ hissed Gwyn. ‘We’d better pull up.’

They reined in and let the merchants pass, getting curious looks at their riding antics. Their quarry had pulled over to the hitching rail of the tavern, where several other horses were tethered, then dismounted and gone inside. The merchants and their escort also stopped and entered the low building, while the coroner and his officer eased their horses on to the verge, partly sheltered by a scraggy elder tree.

‘Now what do we do?’ demanded Gwyn. ‘I could do with a quart myself, but we can’t go near that place in case there’s someone in there who would recognise one of us.’

De Wolfe pondered the situation, indulging in his habit of rasping his fingers over his stubble, which was again, almost due for its weekly mowing. ‘Depends on who might be in there with him – though he might just have fancied a drink. You can’t go, for if it’s one of Winter’s band, he’ll know you, like as not.’

Gwyn reluctantly agreed. ‘But you’re too well known as the coroner throughout the whole county, so you can’t risk it. We’re stuck here, then!’

They waited behind the stunted tree for what seemed an age. Gwyn dismounted and squatted on a dry-stone wall at the edge of the field, which contained serried rows of crops slanting up the hillside. De Wolfe lay on his side in the weeds, chewing a stem of long grass while he kept an eye on the alehouse, a few hundred yards away. After years of campaigning, he was well accustomed to waiting, as most soldiering consisted of weeks of inaction before a few hours of bloody battle. Almost an hour went by and the midsummer sun rose higher in a pale blue sky, making the morning hotter and hotter. Gwyn’s dust-laden throat was crying out for a jug of ale, but his saddle flask was empty.

Suddenly, John sat up on the grass. ‘There’s a priest just come out of the door,’ he whispered. ‘Get a good look at him and fix his face in your mind.’

They saw a fairly tall man in a dark clerical tunic go to the hitching rail and untie a handsome russet mare. Even at that distance they could see his bald scalp where his tonsure had been shaved, below which was a ring of dark hair above a shaven neck. Tucking his gown up between his legs, he swung himself expertly into the saddle and trotted off westwards, away from them. They had time to see that he had a strong, fine-featured face. His black hair had been shaved high on his neck, so that it looked almost as if a band of fur was wrapped around his head below the baldness of his tonsure.

‘Who the hell is he?’ growled Gwyn. ‘It can’t be Thomas’s monk from Buckfast – he was a Cistercian.’

His master was not listening. His eyes had swivelled back to the door of the alehouse. ‘Look who’s here! Our horse-trader! And staring after the priest. Maybe he’s his confessor!’

Stephen Cruch had indeed emerged and, after standing a moment to gaze after the diminishing figure of the cleric, went to his own horse and led him over to a water trough against the inn wall, placed out there as an encouragement for travellers to stop to relieve their own thirst. When his stallion had satisfied itself, he climbed into the saddle and walked his horse away, following the priest.

‘Now what? Do we carry on after him?’ queried Gwyn.

‘We’ve no choice or we’ve wasted a day,’ growled de Wolfe. ‘But wait until he’s far enough away before we follow.’

Cruch seemed in no hurry; his pace was much slower than when approaching the ale-house.

‘If he’s going to Ashburton or Buckfast, why didn’t he meet this fellow there, instead of making him ride up this far?’ grumbled the Cornishman. A few moments later, the horse-dealer answered him by wheeling his horse to the right and vanishing into the trees.

‘Now where the hell’s he gone?’ snapped de Wolfe, as they cautiously followed to the spot where Cruch had turned. ‘I trust he’s not spotted us and is about to disappear.’

However, when they came level they saw that a narrow track led off the main road, leading north towards the distant high moors that could be seen through gaps in the trees.

‘How can we follow him along there without being seen? It’s little better than a footpath.’ Both Gwyn and de Wolfe were about eight feet above the ground on their mounts, hardly inconspicuous in a forest lane.

They waited uncertainly at the entrance to the trail. ‘We’ve got to do something, or we’ll lose him altogether,’ snapped the coroner. ‘As far as I remember, Owlacombe is on the other side of this bit of forest, then far beyond is Widecombe, where we had that Crusader’s body in the stream last autumn. It’s nowhere near where you found your outlaw’s camp.’

‘Only a few miles as the crow flies,’ objected Gwyn. ‘Winter has far more men than I saw there. He must have several camps dotted around the forest. Maybe there’s another near here.’

De Wolfe threw his leg over his saddle and dropped to the ground.

‘We daren’t take the horses, so we can’t both go. You stay here on the road – or better still, go back to the alehouse to wait for me.’

Much as the prospect of a tavern appealed to him, his officer was reluctant to let his master go. ‘I’m coming with you! I’ll hobble them, they’ll be safe enough.’

De Wolfe waved him away imperiously. ‘No, Gwyn, not this time. He can only be tracked on foot and I’ll not leave the horses. If I don’t go now, I may lose him.’

He allowed no further argument and Gwyn watched anxiously as he loped away up the track, keeping to the edge where fallen leaves deadened his footfalls. His henchman waited until he had vanished around a bend, then slowly and unhappily rode back down the main road, leading the hired horse alongside him.

When Thomas de Peyne went as usual to the chamber in the gatehouse, he found it deserted, and it remained so for the rest of that morning, there being no sign of his master or Gwyn appearing for their usual food and drink. This was not all that unusual, as sometimes they were called out overnight and left the city without him. The clerk had plenty of work to get on with, copying duplicate rolls of inquests, confessions, depositions and other parchments that must eventually be presented to the Commissioners or the royal justices.

Eventually, he decided to walk down to the Bush inn. This was partly because he thought he should have some food, though poverty had trained him to be a frugal eater. After his disgrace in Winchester, he had been virtually a beggar until he walked to Exeter, where his archdeacon uncle had prevailed upon the coroner to employ him. However, a stronger reason for his going to Idle Lane was concern over Nesta, who had been so kind to him a couple of months ago, when he had been evicted from his lodgings on the false suspicion of being a murderer. Her present troubles preyed on the mind of the compassionate clerk, especially since she had revealed the identity of her child’s father and her thoughts of doing away with herself.

He walked down from Rougemont and through the crowded High Street to reach the lower town, his lame leg aching a little today, accentuating his slight limp. At the inn, one of Nesta’s maids, who both treated Thomas like a stray kitten, brought him a cup of watered wine and a bowl of stew with a small loaf of coarse barley bread. There was no sign of Nesta, and after the clerk had finished his simple meal he signalled to Edwin, the one-eyed potman.

‘Where’s the mistress? Is she brewing or baking?’

The old soldier looked uneasy. ‘She went out an hour ago, without a word to anyone. Mind you, she’s said very few words this past week. The girls and I are getting worried about her, poor soul.’

‘Any idea where she’s gone?’

‘No. She’s taken to walking by herself lately. I saw her going down towards the Water Gate on Thursday evening.’ He hesitated, his whitened eye rolling horribly in its scarred socket. ‘It didn’t help that the crowner failed to turn up last evening. She said nothing to us, but we could see she was on the lookout for him until dark.’

‘I think I’ll take a walk and see if I can find her, give her a little company,’ murmured Thomas. He hauled himself to his feet and put a quarter segment of one of his precious pennies on the table for his meal.

Edwin pushed it back to him and shook his head. ‘We’ve got strict orders from the mistress not to take anything from you, Thomas. Go you now and talk softly to her.’

Outside, the clerk surveyed the rough weed-covered ground either side of the tavern and the built-up lanes that led from it. On his right Smythen Street led down past the Saracen to Stepcote Hill and the West Gate. In the other direction, Priest Street crossed the end of Idle Lane, dropping down towards the Water Gate.

Remembering what Edwin had said, he decided to take the latter route, walking down past the lodgings of vicars and secondaries, with mild envy at their secure position in the ecclesiastical life that he longed for.

At the bottom, he turned left towards the Water Gate, which only in recent years had been knocked through the southern corner of the ancient city walls to give easier access to the quayside. Outside, the steep slope gave way to a level platform along the muddy river, part of the length being built up into a stone quay. The tide was in and several vessels floated against the wall: more were moored out in mid-stream.

Thomas stood amid the bales of wool heaped on the quay, waiting to be loaded. A procession of labourers were coming down two gang-planks from the nearest vessel, jog-trotting like a line of ants, each with a heavy sack on his shoulders. The rest of the wharf was cluttered with boxes and casks and heaps of rope, chain and bits of maritime equipment, between which sailors, labourers and merchants went about their business. The clerk searched the whole panorama for any sign of Nesta, but the only women in sight were two girls with reddened cheeks and lips who were eyeing the passing seamen with a view to doing business, even at that time of day.

Having no better plan, Thomas began walking downstream, as behind him was nothing but the unfinished bridge, the ford and the footbridge on Exe Island. He passed through the bustling activity on the stone quay and kept on along the natural bank of the river, which had a grassy rim below which was thick mud. At low tide this mud stretched halfway across the channel, on which vessels would heel over until the water flooded back again. To his left, past the wooden warehouses, the ground rose to the Topsham Road, where there were a few new dwellings and many more mean huts, the overspill of the thriving city. Thomas kept going until there were only trees and bushes on the bank, with a dusty path along the edge of the river. A growing stench told him he was nearing the Shitbrook, at the point where it vomited its sewage into the river. An old tree trunk had been rolled across it to act as a footbridge and, holding his breath against the smell and hoping that he could keep his footing on the mossy bark, he gained the other side. He walked on for a short distance until he decided he was foolish to keep going along a deserted path for no real reason.

Then, just as he was about to turn back, he glimpsed a flash of white some yards ahead. Staring, he made out the top of a linen coif, on the head of someone who was just below the lip of the river-bank. Hurrying as fast as his infirm leg would allow, he came up to the woman and saw that it was indeed Nesta, crouching in the long grass and cow parsley, within arm’s length of the turbid brown waters of the Exe. She appeared oblivious of his approach and was rocking herself dangerously back and forth on her heels, soft keening coming from her throat.

Afraid to surprise her too abruptly, lest she fell forward into the swirling flood tide, Thomas squatted on the path and whispered her name, repeating it until she stopped whimpering and slowly looked around.

‘Thomas? What are you doing here?’

‘Looking for you, dear woman. Come here, take my hand.’

Gently, he coaxed her away from the bank and they stood on the path, arms around each other. She was an inch taller than the clerk, but they leaned together with chins on each other’s shoulders, Thomas patting her gently on the back.

‘They are worried about you at the Bush, Nesta,’ he said after a moment. ‘I came to look for you. What are you doing down here?’

She pushed back from him and dropped her eyes.

‘I came to think, Thomas. To think about ending it all.’

He knew better than to scold or plead with her at this stage.

‘Then like me, when I fell from the cathedral roof, the good God has sent you a sign, Nesta. I never expected to be worthy enough to be the Almighty’s messenger, but so it seems to have turned out!’

‘I’m not sure if I believe in God any longer, Thomas. He took my husband from me, then he taunted me by giving me John, only to make me drive him away.’

The little-ex-priest took her hands in his and gazed earnestly into her eyes. ‘That cannot be true, good woman! Yes, many lose good husbands, just as so many women lose their newborn and husbands lose their wives in childbed. That is the way of the world, and always has been. But to say that you have driven John de Wolfe away is just not true.’

Tears welled up in her eyes, dry until now.

‘But it is only his honour that forces him to say that he welcomes the child … and that in ignorance of knowing who the real father must be.’ She moved forward again and pressed her face into his faded tunic. ‘I tried to do what you advised, Thomas, truly I did! But the words would not pass my lips, for I knew they would finish everything between us.’

The clerk slid his arm around her and gently eased her along the path, a step at a time. ‘Jumping in the Exe will not benefit the crowner, my dear. It would destroy him with guilt. He would never be the same man again.’