Bernard Knight - Fear in the Forest

There was a growl of assent from the village men, but the coroner was stubborn in his desire for certainty.

‘The face is unrecognisable, so can you be quite sure?’

‘His build is stocky, he has that short thick neck, middling brown hair, a full moustache and no beard. It must be him, for the other verderers would have no occasion to be in his part of the forest.’

‘Where is he from?’

‘He lives in Ashburton, he has a wife and three children, to the best of my recollection,’ answered de Pagnell. ‘He must be in his late thirties, a freeholder with a few acres. He was once a retainer of Reginald de Courcy, but bought out his knight-service some years ago.’

Though women and girls were legally excluded from the judicial process as being of no account, they had all congregated behind their men, determined not to miss any of the drama that so rarely visited their hamlet. Now one of them raised her voice from the back — John recognised her as the dumpy ale-wife who had served them.

‘Look at his left hand, Crowner!’ she yelled. ‘I’ve given him meat and drink more than once when he was passing through and I noticed he had a finger missing.’

Before the coroner could declare a woman’s evidence inadmissible, Gwyn had grabbed the corpse’s hand and held it up, breaking the stiffness of rigor mortis.

‘She’s right, Crowner — an old amputation,’ he said triumphantly.

John rumbled in his throat, his usual response when he had nothing to say, and the manor lord gave a smug smile as the coroner finally gave way.

‘Very well, I will accept that this is Humphrey le Bonde.’

Though not a vindictive man, de Wolfe felt mild satisfaction in delivering his next declaration. ‘So he is undoubtedly of Norman stock and no possibility of Presentment of Englishry can apply. I therefore amerce the village in the sum of ten marks.’

There was a groan from the few men who understood what was implied. Since the Conquest, anyone found dead was assumed to be a Norman and thus the victim of Saxon assassination, unless the community could present evidence that the dead man was himself a Saxon. After well over a century, this rule was cynically out of date, especially since intermarriage had blunted the distinction between the races — but it was still a useful source of revenue for the Crown. However, the coroner’s next words blunted the severity of the potential fine.

‘This will be recorded on my rolls to be presented to the Justices at the next Eyre, for them to decide if it shall be enforced.’

As the Eyre had only just been held in Exeter, it was likely to be at least a couple of years before it returned, so the villagers had a long breathing space. If the murderer were found in the meantime, then the amercement would lapse.

With the eyes of the audience glued upon him, de Wolfe turned back to the corpse and groped in le Bonde’s money pouch. He took out a handful of silver pennies, together with a small ivory charm crudely carved into the shape of the Virgin Mary.

‘That didn’t bring him much luck,’ murmured de Pagnell sarcastically.

The coroner scowled, his dark eyes glittering angrily from under the bushy black brows that crested his long face.

‘Neither was the poor man killed for his money — for murdered he certainly was!’

He gestured to Gwyn, who turned the burly corpse over as if it were a feather pillow and laid it face down on the rough boards. Though they already knew the circumstances, there was a subdued hiss of dismay and concern from the encircling jurors as they saw the stump of the broken shaft sticking from between the shoulder-blades. Dried blood discoloured the tunic over a large area of the back.

Well used to the routine, Gwyn unbuckled the belt and began undressing the deceased man, removing the ripped tunic and undershirt, but leaving the breeches in place. He slid the upper garments over the stump of the arrow and held them up to display the slit made by the steel head.

De Wolfe grasped the missile and waggled it about in the wound.

‘It’s in deep, by the feel of it,’ he said, half to himself. With a few experimental twists, he lined up the barbs with the wound between the ribs, close to the spine. He pulled and with a sucking sound some four inches of willow shaft came out, along with a gout of clotted blood.

He bent to wipe it in the grass at his feet, then examined it closely, before handing it to Gwyn.

‘Well, what d’you think?’

‘Serviceable, but not a professional job,’ said his officer critically. ‘The sort of thing a bowman would make up himself.’

‘Like an outlaw?’ suggested de Pagnell. ‘There’s plenty of those in the forest hereabouts. But he wasn’t robbed.’

‘The horse may have bolted and carried him away before they had a chance to rifle his purse,’ said de Wolfe. He took the remains of the arrow back from Gwyn and dropped it on to the cart.

‘Men of the jury, you all need to pass by the cadaver and look at the fatal wound and the instrument that caused it.’

As the villagers shuffled past, their expressions varying from sheepishness to avid curiosity, John de Wolfe checked with his clerk to make sure that his roll had captured what had been said. Though the coroner could read and write little more than his own name, he was trying to learn and made a show of looking over Thomas’s shoulder to see how much Latin script was on the parchment. When the jury had seen their fill, Gwyn herded them back into line and John began to wind up the brief proceedings.

‘Have any of you anything useful to tell me about this matter?’ he growled, scanning the guileless faces as if daring them to say anything.

‘There’s little they could know, as this poor fellow was dragged into their village from God knows where!’ objected William de Pagnell.

De Wolfe ignored the interruption, though he would dearly have liked to have put his boot up the backside of the lord of the manor.

‘Then I require you to consider your verdict — though it can be no other than that this man was slain by someone as yet unknown.’

He fixed the village reeve with a stony stare. ‘You are the foreman, so speak with your fellows.’ The coroner’s tone suggested that he defied any man to challenge his conclusions. It took only a few seconds of heads being put together and rapid whispering for Morcar to turn back to de Wolfe and meekly agree with his suggestion. Clearing his throat noisily, the coroner closed the proceedings with a few words.

‘I find that the deceased was Humphrey le Bonde, a Norman of Ashburton and a verderer of the Royal Forest. He died at a place undetermined within the County of Devon on the fourteenth day of June in the year of Our Lord 1195. He was unlawfully slain by an arrow in his back, murdered by a person or persons as yet unknown.’

With a final glare around the assembled villagers, he turned away to indicate that the performance was over.

‘Cover him up and put him back in that shed,’ he commanded Gwyn. ‘But keep that arrowhead.’

His officer picked up the missile and looked at it dubiously, as the reeve pushed the cart away. ‘It’s no good as a deodand, surely?’

Any object that caused a death could be seized by the coroner and declared deodand, then sold for the King’s treasury or sometimes for the benefit of the deceased’s family. A good sword, a horse or cart and even a mill-wheel might fetch a decent price, but a broken arrow was worthless.

‘No, but maybe we’ll come across another exactly the same somewhere.’ De Wolfe turned to William de Pagnell. ‘I’ve finished with the corpse — what’s to become of it?’

‘My steward sent a message to Ashburton. Le Bonde’s brother is coming with a cart later today to take it home for burial.’ The manor lord looked genuinely troubled for once. ‘There’ll be sadness in that household, with a widow and little ones to care for. Why slay the fellow, if it was not for robbery?’