Bernard Knight - Fear in the Forest

Incredulous, Widow Mody screeched back at the man in green. ‘I don’t want your bloody ale! Take it away, wherever it came from!’

‘Where did it come from, anyway?’ asked the smith, truculently.

‘From the new brew-house near Chudleigh. From now on, all the alehouses within a day’s cart journey will sell it.’

‘Who says so?’ yelled the ale-wife, her hands planted belligerently on her hips.

‘I say so, woman! On behalf of the King, whose forest this is.’

‘And is this ale a present from King Richard?’ she snapped sarcastically.

William Lupus looked down at her coldly. ‘It will cost you one shilling for a twenty-gallon cask. How much you sell it for is your business.’

For a moment, Widow Mody was speechless at the extortion.

‘That’s well over a ha’penny a gallon! I can brew it for less than half that price. No one will buy it from me. I’ll be ruined and will starve!’

There was a general murmur of horror from the bystanders, who saw their only pleasure being priced beyond their reach, but the forester shrugged indifferently.

‘If they don’t buy it, then they can go thirsty — or drink water.’

Morcar, though he already had a presentiment that the fight was lost before it had begun, felt that he must make some effort on behalf of his village.

‘This is part of the manor of Ilsington, Lupus. I must first hear what our lord William de Pagnell has to say.’

‘It matters not what he says, Reeve. He does not sell ale, so mind your own business.’

‘I will still have to send word to him and his steward and bailiff, Forester. No doubt he will need to protest this to the verderer.’

William Lupus gave a nasty smile, the thin lips parting over his yellowed teeth. ‘The verderer is dead. You all should know that only too well, as his body lay here only yesterday.’

‘There will be a new verderer appointed soon,’ persisted Morcar doggedly.

The smile cracked even wider. ‘There will indeed — and undoubtedly it will be Philip de Strete, who will have little sympathy with your useless complaints.’

There was renewed murmuring amongst the small crowd of villagers who had gathered around the cart. Philip de Strete was about as popular in mid-Devon as Philip of France.

‘No doubt our lord will appeal to the Warden, then,’ grumbled the reeve obstinately.

‘He has no say in the matter — and I doubt he’ll be there for much longer,’ snapped Lupus. When he saw that the carter and the other man had taken the casks inside, he gave a sign to his thuggish page, who slid from his horse and ambled into the alehouse. The widow took fright and hurried after him, but she was too late. There was a scream of anguish and a splashing of liquid, then the page and the ruffian from the cart reappeared with four large earthenware crocks, each of several gallons’ capacity, the dregs of mash and ale still dripping from them. William Lupus nodded at the men, and almost carelessly they tossed them into the air, letting them smash into a thousand pieces on the hard-baked ground.

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.