Bernard Knight - Fear in the Forest

‘I know nothing about these verderers, John, they’re just a name to me. Everyone knows of the foresters, though. All the country dwellers hate them for their harshness and corruption, that’s common knowledge.’

‘You’ve heard no idle chatter in here, about anything going on in the forests?’ he asked hopefully, but Nesta shook her head.

‘There was some talk the other day about the outlaws becoming bolder than ever. Some of the carters and drovers from the west were complaining that they sometimes get charged an illegal toll when passing through the more lonely stretches of the high road. They were cursing the sheriff for doing nothing about it.’

‘Nothing new about that!’ John replied cynically. ‘There’s no profit for de Revelle in chasing off a few vagabonds from the highway.’

Eventually, he ran out of other news and turned to a more immediate prospect.

‘I’m in no rush to get back tonight, madam. Will you be having a quiet hour before midnight?’ His eyes strayed to the wide ladder at the back of the inn, which led up to the upper floor. Here Nesta had a small room partitioned off from the rest of the loft, where the straw pallets of the guests were laid. She gave him one of her sidelong glances, then looked away.

‘Not tonight, John. It’s … well, not convenient.’

Gently, she pulled herself away and went off to the kitchen, tapping a shoulder here and giving a greeting there as she weaved through the patrons on her way to the back door. John followed her with his eyes, puzzled and disappointed. Their lovemaking upstairs, in the big French bed that he had bought her, was one of the most satisfactory things in his life. They were both enthusiasts in that direction, which made his devotion to her all the more complete. From her tone, he presumed that the time of the month had conspired against him tonight, but her attitude still made him uneasy. As he sat there despondently, staring down into his ale jug cupped between his hands, he felt the bench creak dangerously. Looking up, he found Gwyn’s huge frame alongside him, his eyes twinkling in his rugged face.

‘I thought you had gone home to St Sidwell’s. It’s past curfew now,’ grunted de Wolfe, jerking his head at the last of the twilight visible outside the open door. One of the maids was bringing a taper round to light the tallow dips hung in sconces around the walls.

‘I was going, but I got into a game of dice with Gabriel and some of the men up at the guardroom. I won three pence from them, so I thought I’d treat myself to one of Nesta’s mutton stews and a mattress here for the night.’

‘I’m glad someone will be staying up the ladder here tonight,’ grunted John sourly. ‘But it looks as if it won’t be me!’

The Cornishman’s straggling red eyebrows rose towards his even wilder hair. ‘Problems, Crowner?’ he asked solicitously. He had a dog-like fondness for Nesta and had been delighted when she and his master had got back together recently, after their rift a few months earlier. Now the prospect of more trouble genuinely worried him.

‘I don’t know, Gwyn, something seems to be concerning her. But I’ve been behaving myself these past weeks, haven’t I? There’s no reason why she should become cool towards me?’

Gwyn was more than a squire and bodyguard, he was a friend of twenty years’ standing, and each had saved the life of the other more than once in battles, ambushes and assaults. John was not the most articulate of men, and Gwyn was the only one to whom he could speak on intimate matters.

His officer scratched his armpit fiercely, annihilating a few fleas.

‘Come to think of it, the good woman has been a bit distant lately. Nothing to speak of, but she seems a bit far away sometimes, as if she has something heavy on her mind.’

Their conversation was interrupted by the potman, who stumped up to bring Gwyn a quart of ale.

‘You’ll be wanting another of the same, Captain?’ Edwin asked the coroner. He was an old soldier who had lost one eye and part of a foot in the Irish wars. Both de Wolfe and Gwyn had been in the same campaign and Edwin deferred to them as if he were still one of their men-at-arms.

John shook his head. ‘I’d better be getting back home,’ he muttered. ‘But no doubt my man here will want to be filled up with food.’

Whistling at Brutus to creep out from under the table, where the dog-loving Gwyn had been stroking his head, de Wolfe made for the backyard of the inn, to give Nesta a goodnight squeeze and a kiss, before trudging back to Martin’s Lane and his lonely side of an unwelcoming bed.

An hour after dawn the following morning, a cart drawn by two patient oxen drew up outside the alehouse in the village of Sigford. In the back were two large barrels and as soon as the clumsy vehicle came to a stop the driver and his villainous-looking companion jumped down and removed the tailboard. They propped a couple of planks against the back of the cart and knocked out the wooden wedges that secured the first cask.

As they rolled the heavy barrel to the ground, the door to the tavern flew open and the ale-wife bustled out.

‘What do think you’re doing?’ she screeched. ‘I don’t need any ale, I brew my own!

The driver’s assistant, a rough fellow dressed in little better than rags, gave her a gap-toothed leer. ‘Yes, and it tastes like cow-piss, so I’ve heard!’

Widow Mody, broad of hip and bosom, advanced furiously on the man and raised her hand to clip his ear, but he gave a her a push that sent her staggering.

‘This is some decent stuff, Mother, whether you like it or not.’

Outraged, but now wary after the threat of violence, the woman looked around the threadbare village green for someone to help her. Outside his cottage a hundred paces away, she saw their reeve looking towards the cart and she waved wildly at him.

‘Morcar, Morcar, come here!’ she yelled, before turning back to the pair, now getting the second cask down to the ground.

‘There’s some mistake! Where’s this come from? I don’t want it.’

The carter, a milder-looking man who seemed embarrassed by the proceedings, spoke for the first time.

‘It’s nothing to do with us, woman. We’re just delivering it.’

He started rolling the barrel towards the door of the alehouse, the other fellow grinning as he began to follow him.

‘If you’ve got any questions, ask them!’ He jerked a thumb over his shoulder and turning, the widow saw two men on horseback coming into the village. As Morcar arrived, so the riders reined up alongside the cart. By now several other men had been attracted by the shouting and were drifting towards the green, the smith amongst them.

The village reeve scowled up at the first horseman, a thin, erect fellow with grizzled iron-grey hair. He had unusually high cheekbones, over which the skin of his face was stretched like a drum. His chin and hollow cheeks were covered with dark grey stubble, framing a humourless, thin mouth. He wore a green tunic and a short leather cape, the hood hanging down his back. A thick belt carried a short sword and a dagger, and from his saddle hung a long, evil-looking club. On the breast of his tunic was a yellow badge depicting a hunting horn, the insignia of a forester. The other rider stayed a few paces behind in deference to his master, as he was what was euphemistically called the forester’s ‘page’, though he was a rugged bruiser in his late thirties.

Morcar continued to eye the newcomer with distaste.

‘What’s all this about, William Lupus?’

The forester stared down impassively at the village reeve.

‘From today, only this ale will be sold in Sigford. It will save that good-wife from the labour of brewing her own.’