Bernard Knight - Fear in the Forest

Nesta nodded mutely as Lucy shook out from the pot half a dozen irregular brown lumps, the size of beans.

‘What are they?’ she asked in a lacklustre voice.

‘A mixture of my own — just to bring on your flow, mind,’ she warned again. ‘Only herbs — parsley, tansy, pennyroyal, laburnum, rue and hellebore.’ She dropped the crude pills into Nesta’s hand and closed her fingers over them. ‘I make no promise that they will work. You will feel ill after you take them and no doubt spend half the day in the privy. If you begin to bleed, then probably God would have willed it anyway. And if you bleed too much, call an apothecary — but whatever you do, never mention my name. Though my life here is hardly worth living, I prefer not to end it dangling from a gallows!’

In the late afternoon of that day, John de Wolfe was relaxing as best he could before his own cold fireplace. He had not long arrived back from Manaton and, ignoring Matilda’s displeasure, was sprawled in one of the monk’s chairs with a quart of ale in one hand, the other resting on Brutus’s head. His long legs were stretched out in front of him, his feet enjoying their freedom after a day in tight riding boots. His wife’s tut-tutting was due to his lounging in his black woollen hose without shoes, especially as one big toe protruded through a hole in the foot.

‘You still behave like a rough soldier, John!’ she scolded, sitting opposite him in tight-lipped disapproval. ‘Why can’t you comport yourself like a knight and a gentleman? What would anyone think if they came in now?’

He rolled up his eyes in silent exasperation at her eternal snobbishness.

‘I’ll do what I like in my own house, wife,’ he grunted. ‘And who in hell is likely to come calling here on a hot Monday afternoon, eh?’

Promptly, as if the fates were conspiring against him, there was a loud rapping on the front door. Mary was cleaning his boots in the vestibule and answered straight away, then put her head around the screens to announce visitors.

‘It’s Lord Guy Ferrars — and some other nobles,’ she proclaimed in a somewhat awed voice. Matilda jumped to her feet as if struck by lightning, and hurriedly began to straighten the wimple at her throat and pat down her kirtle.

‘Put on your shoes, at once!’ she hissed, as John hauled himself from the chair and groped for his house slippers. A moment later, Mary had stood aside for three men to stride past her into the hall.

‘De Wolfe, forgive us for intruding unannounced,’ boomed the leading man, who sounded as if he was in no way seeking such forgiveness. A powerful, arrogant fellow, some years older than John, Guy Ferrars was one of the major landowners in Devon — and indeed had manors in half a dozen other counties. De Wolfe knew him slightly and disliked him for an overbearing, ruthless baron, whose only saving grace was that he had been a good soldier and a loyal supporter of King Richard.

Behind him was Sir Reginald de Courcy, a lesser light but still an important member of the county elite, with manors at Shillingford and Clyst St George, as well as property outside Devon. The third man was also known to the coroner by sight, being Sir Nicholas de Molis, whose honour included a number of manors along the eastern edge of Dartmoor. Rapidly gathering his wits together after this sudden invasion, John ushered the visitors to the long table, as there were too few chairs at the hearth.

‘Mary, wine and some wafers or whatever you have for our guests,’ he commanded, pulling out the benches on either side of the table. Matilda, her sallow face flushed with mixed pride, excitement and shame at her husband’s dishevelled appearance, stopped bobbing her head and knee and rushed after their cook-maid to accelerate the arrival of refreshments.

John took the chair at the end of the table, with Reginald de Courcy on his left and the other pair to his right. Lord Ferrars began without any preamble, his harsh voice echoing in the bare hall.

‘We have just come from the castle, where we attended upon your dear brother-in-law.’ The tone was unambiguously sarcastic, and John was glad that Matilda was out of the room. The speaker was a large, florid man with a mop of brown hair and a full moustache, both flecked with grey. He wore a long yellow tunic, slit back and front for riding, with a light surcoat of green linen on top. The last time the coroner had seen him he had had a full beard, but this was now gone. That had been a sad occasion, as the fiancé of Ferrar’s son Hugh had been found dead in an Exeter churchyard — and she had been the daughter of Reginald de Courcy.

‘Our meeting was less than satisfactory, de Wolfe,’ continued Ferrars. ‘We went as a deputation of landowners to protest at various happenings in the Royal Forest, but received little satisfaction.’

‘None at all, to be frank!’ snapped the third man, Nicholas de Molis. ‘De Revelle was his usual mealy-mouthed self, full of evasions and excuses.’

Mary bustled back with a tray full of savoury tarts and fresh-baked pastry wafers, together with a large jug of wine. Matilda was close behind and de Molis, a burly man with a face like a bull-dog, snapped his mouth shut on any further condemnation of her brother. She went to a chest against the far wall and took out some goblets of thick Flemish glass, only brought out on special occasions.

When she had poured wine for them all, simpering and nodding at these county luminaries who had graced her house, she retired to one of the fireside chairs. Only the linen cover-chief over her head stopped her ears from flapping, determined as she was to hear every word of their conversation. Guy Ferrars looked across at her in irritation, but he could hardly evict the woman from her own hall. He turned back to the coroner.

‘I know you have been involved twice within the past few days on some of these matters, de Wolfe. But our complaints go back much farther.’

‘And concern many more than we three,’ said de Courcy, speaking for the first time. ‘We are but a deputation — the Abbot of Tavistock was to have joined us today, but he is indisposed.’

John knew that Tavistock Abbey was a major landholder in Devon and anything that interfered with its business would be greatly resented. In fact, he had learned only today that the burned-out tannery in Manaton had belonged to them.

‘So what can I do for you in this situation?’ he asked cautiously.

De Courcy, a thin, gaunt man with a completely bald head and a thin rim of grey beard running around his jaw, thumped the table with his fist.

‘We know you for a man of honour and one totally loyal to the King. There seems to be a campaign afoot to greatly increase the royal revenues from the forest at our expense.’

‘Though I wonder how much of this extra profit ever gets to the treasure chest in Winchester,’ added Nicholas de Molis, with a look over his shoulder at the woman listening avidly across the room. For once, Matilda took the hint, murmured something about fetching more wine and left the hall. A few moments later, John’s keen ears heard the solar door open and close, and guessed that she was listening through the slit high up on one side of the chimney breast.

By now, the three visitors were in full flow, their indignation more potent than the wine in loosening their tongues. ‘More and more of the breweries, forges and tanneries in the forest are being taken over by the bloody foresters,’ ranted Guy Ferrars. ‘I’m losing revenue hand over fist — and when my men protest, they are told that the forest law allows this and there is nothing that we can do to stop it.’

Nicholas de Molis took up the complaint. ‘They are enforcing the rules of venison and vert even more strictly than before. I make no complaint about punishing a man who hunts down a stag or wild boar, but for years many a blind eye has been turned to some peasant who traps a coney or puts an arrow in a fox that’s been stealing his chickens. Now they treat them as if they are murderers and the families are thrown on the parish for us to support.’