Bernard Knight - Fear in the Forest

‘Where are you living these days?’ asked Cruch casually.

Winter took another drink from the flask and tapped the side of his nose artfully. ‘Ask no questions and you’ll be told no lies! We keep on the move, that’s the secret of survival — not that that bloody sheriff is much concerned with catching us. I’m more wary of that coroner fellow they brought in last autumn. I hear he’s a dangerous bastard — and one that’s impossible to buy off like most of the other law officers. I’d advise you to keep well out of sight when he’s around, Stephen.’

Cruch shrugged — he too had heard about Sir John de Wolfe, but their paths were unlikely to cross unless he did something unwise. As for Winter, after a man was declared outlaw at the County Court he legally ceased to exist and could be legitimately killed by anyone who fancied the attempt. Indeed, an outlaw was declared to be ‘as the wolf’s head’, for if anyone could slay him and take the severed head to the sheriff, he would be awarded a substantial bounty, similar to the persecuted wolf. Stephen Cruch persisted in asking where they lived, and after another swig of brandy wine Robert Winter became more expansive.

‘We have a few places deep in the woods, where we keep the ponies — and some caves we keep provisioned in case the going gets too hot. But oftentimes we slink into a village or even a town for a night or two. A fistful of money is marvellous for keeping innkeepers’ mouths tightly closed!’

The horse-trader knew that many outlaws crept back to their homes now and then — sometimes permanently. Many moved to another part of England where they were not known and slipped back into the community — some even gaining public office or becoming successful merchants. It was easier in towns, where the population was larger and less incestuous — in villages everyone knew everyone else and the frank-pledge system made it difficult for a stranger to become integrated. Cruch often wondered about Robert Winter, as an intelligent man like him was unlikely to spend the rest of his life skulking in the woods. He knew little about his past, except that he was from Exeter and had escaped a hanging there about three years earlier.

The outlaw’s voice brought him back to the present.

‘Have you any more work like that for me?’

Stephen’s monkey-like face wrinkled in thought. ‘Not at the moment. But the way I suspect things are moving, you may be needed for some more persuasion very soon. Things are changing fast in this bailiwick, but I can only pass on what others wish to have done.’

Winter rattled the money bag. ‘More like this will be welcome any time. Leave a message as usual at the alehouse at Ashburton when you next need to meet.’

Cruch nodded and carefully retrieved his wine flask before mounting up and riding away. Before he reached the track near the river, he turned in his saddle to look back, but men and ponies had already vanished without trace.

By noon, Nesta knew definitely that she was pregnant. She had been taken by one of her maids to a house in Rock Street, where the girl’s mother had examined her. She was the self-appointed midwife and herbal healer to the street and the adjacent lanes in that part of the city. A rosy-cheeked widow, fat and amiable, she made Nesta welcome in the pair of small rooms she occupied at the back of the dwelling. After expelling a pair of boisterous children, she asked the innkeeper about her monthly courses and any symptoms that commonly went with being gravid. Then, with the rickety door firmly closed against the urchins, the midwife put Nesta on a low bed against the wall and gently examined her under the cover of her full woollen skirt. After a patient and careful examination with her warm hands, both on her belly and internally, she smiled and invited Nesta to rise, while she wiped her hands on a piece of cloth.

‘No doubt about it, my dear. You’re going to be a mother, bless you!’

As Nesta shook down her shift and rearranged her skirt, she asked the widow whether she could tell how far gone she was.

‘Hard to say, my love. It’s early, just enough for me to be definite about it. But you’ve plenty of time yet to make swaddling clothes!’

With that Nesta had to be content, and after failing to get the woman to accept any payment she walked silently home with her cook-maid, who solicitously held her arm as if she were likely to go into labour at any moment.

When they arrived at the Bush, Nesta climbed the steps to her room and threw herself on the bed that John had bought her the previous year.

She lay unmoving for a long time, staring up at the dusty rafters and the woven hazel boughs that supported the thatch. It was on this bed, she thought bitterly, that she and John had so often made love — and where she had betrayed him, albeit for such a short time. Nesta was well aware that he had not been faithful to her — but this was the way of men, who could rarely refuse the favours of another woman. Yet she sensed that lately he had not wandered from her, though she was realistic enough to wonder whether this was from choice or lack of opportunity.

But his actions were no excuse for her, though she had been provoked several months ago by his neglect. She had known that it was from force of circumstances, before another coroner was appointed for the north of the county, but she should have been more understanding. As she stared up at the roof, her eyes filled with tears as doubt and indecision clouded her mind. The midwife had confirmed what she knew already, as for several weeks something inside had told her as plain as day that she was with child. She wished that the woman could have been more definite about the duration of her pregnancy, but the widow was no professional and had done her best out of kindness.

Laying a hand on her still-flat stomach, Nesta wondered whether to love or hate what was growing within her womb. Turning on her side, she wept herself softly to sleep, for once uncaring about her busy taproom down below.

The next few days passed quickly for the coroner, as there was a Summer Fair in Exeter, including a Horse Fair on Bull-mead outside the South Gate. Hundreds of traders flocked into the city, and stalls and booths sprang up along the main streets, though the focus of activity was in the cathedral Close, the fair being linked to a saint’s day. Many fairs in England were franchised by the Church, which made a handsome profit from licences to traders. Unlike some towns, which closed all the regular shops during the fair, the merchants of Exeter joined in the general scramble for custom, and for several days the city was a seething hotbed of buying, selling, trading, entertainment and revelry. Every bed in every inn was taken and the alehouses were overflowing with drinkers and drunks.

John de Wolfe was kept busy with a number of incidents, most related to the turmoil of the fair. There was a brawl at the Saracen inn on Stepcote Hill, in which a man was killed from being kicked in the head, several others being injured in the drunken mêlée. Then a visiting stall-holder from Dorchester was stabbed in a dark alley behind a brothel in Bretayne, the poorest part of the city. His purse was stolen and he died before he could be carried off to the small infirmary at the nearby St Nicholas Priory.

John managed to get to the Bush for an hour on Saturday evening, and upstairs in her little cubicle a subdued Nesta confirmed to him that she was indeed pregnant. As they both had more or less accepted the fact even before she had visited the midwife, it was no great surprise to him, but Nesta failed to respond to her lover’s efforts at reassurance and support. John was puzzled and rather hurt by her lack of reaction to his attempts at being enthusiastic about the future.