Bernard Knight - Fear in the Forest

De Wolfe shrugged his shoulders, towering above the shorter man.

‘The forest officers have never been popular — he wouldn’t be the first to take an arrow in the back.’

‘Foresters, maybe — even woodwards. But verderers only run the forty-day courts, they’re not involved in the everyday rough and tumble.’

The coroner, anxious to get away, edged around the manor-lord.

‘That’s one of the matters I have to look into. When I get back to Exeter, I’ll call on the Warden of the Forests, to see what he says. But now we must go back towards Ashburton and see if there are any signs of where this attack took place.’

Minutes later they were back in the saddle and, with a feeling of relief, the villagers of Sigford watched them vanish around the same bend from which the trouble had galloped in the day before.

Going back to Ashburton meant riding away from the direction of the city and then retracing their route by a different road, using the main track from Plymouth to Exeter, so it was early evening before they splashed through the ford on the River Exe to reach the West Gate. The detour had been a waste of time, but one which John de Wolfe felt had to be made.

A number of horses and oxen had passed along the way from Sigford to Ashburton in the day since the murder, so there was no chance of finding where the scuff marks from the dragged victim began on the hard, dusty road. With no assault from staff or sword, there would be no bloodstaining or crushing of undergrowth on the verge — just a swift, silent arrow whistling out of the trees at a passing horseman.

It should have been the sheriff’s job to hunt for the killer, as Sir Richard de Revelle was the supposed enforcer of law and order in the county — but from bitter experience John knew that his brother-in-law was more concerned with raising taxes and creaming off as much as possible for himself, through the many devious schemes he had in operation.

Though de Revelle was sneeringly contemptuous of the new office of coroner, which had been established only the previous autumn, he was already content to let de Wolfe do much of the hard work of investigation, as long as he could claim the credit for any successes.

The thought of his brother-in-law led John’s mind to his wife Matilda and his habitual scowl deepened as he rode through the gate and up the slope of Fore Street to the centre of the city. The streets were narrow and crowded, so the coroner’s big horse often had to nudge people aside to make any progress. As they passed Carfoix, the crossing of the four roads from each main gate, he reined up in the congested high street to wait for Gwyn to pull alongside. Their clerk was still far behind, saddle-sick on his long-suffering pony.

‘I’ll have to call in at my house to say I’m back or I’ll get the evil eye,’ de Wolfe growled. ‘But in an hour I want to talk to the Warden, Nicholas de Bosco. You know where he lives?’

‘I thought he had a manor out at Kenn.’

‘He has, but since his wife died and his daughters married away he spends much of his time in his townhouse in St Pancras Lane. So get yourself there, tell him one of his verderers is dead and that I’d like to speak to him at his home in an hour or so.’

The Cornishman pulled his mare around and pushed his way through the crowd into a side street on their left, anxious to get this errand done so that he could visit the Bush Inn to satisfy his insatiable appetite for food and ale.

De Wolfe plodded slowly up the narrow main street, lined by houses and shops of all shapes and sizes. Many of the original wooden buildings were being replaced in stone, as the city dwellers became more affluent. Exeter was now a rich city, the revenues from wool and tin, as well as the agricultural produce for miles around, filling the coffers of its many burgesses. John himself derived a good income from trade, as he had ploughed his spoils from foreign campaigns into a wool-exporting partnership with one of the city’s two Portreeves, the men elected by the burgesses to administer the city. He had no salary for being the King’s coroner — in fact coroners were forbidden to take any profit at all and must already have a private income of at least twenty pounds a year, the theory being that rich men had no need for graft and embezzlement. Though John stuck rigidly to this rule, he was the exception, as most officials — especially the sheriffs — were notorious for their greed and dishonesty.

As he walked his horse Odin past the new Guildhall, he nodded and grunted at many passers-by who knew him — there were few in the city who did not recognise the tall, grim ex-Crusader. People struggled past handcarts, porters with huge bundles, pedlars, priests, beggars and urchins, all so massed on the rubbish-strewn cobbles that the big stallion had to tread carefully to avoid crushing someone. Most of Exeter’s streets were hard-packed earth, but High Street was roughly paved, with a central gutter that carried the sewage downhill to the river.

Some way farther up, he reached a narrow opening and turned into one of the narrow passageways into the Cathedral Close. This was Martin’s Lane, where he had his own dwelling. Two tall, narrow houses stood together on his right, opposite the pine-end of an inn, behind which was a livery stable. Here John dismounted and left Odin in the care of Andrew the farrier, before crossing the lane and pushing open his heavy front door.

He dropped with a sigh of relief on to a bench along the back wall of the small vestibule, dragging off his riding boots to put on a pair of soft, pointed house shoes. On his left was the planked door to his hall, firmly closed. With a sinking feeling, he opened it and stepped through into the space behind the screens that helped to block the winter draughts. Beyond them, the high, bare main room of his house stretched up to the exposed rafters of the roof. Even in this sultry summer weather, it felt cold and unwelcoming, the timber walls hung with dismal tapestries. The only redeeming feature filled the far wall, a large stone fireplace with its conical chimney, which John had built to replace the usual fire-pit in the centre of the floor. At the same time, Matilda had insisted on covering that floor with flagstones, insisting that the usual rush-covered beaten earth was beneath the dignity of a sheriff’s sister and a coroner’s wife.

He looked towards the empty hearth, expecting to see Matilda filling one of the cowl-backed chairs, but for once the room was empty. He glanced up at the slit window high to one side of the fireplace, which went through into the solar, the only other room in the house, which doubled as his wife’s boudoir and their bedroom. There was no sound or movement, and he turned and went back into the vestibule.

From the covered passage that led around the side of the house to the yard behind came a handsome, dark-haired young woman, a smile of welcome on her face. A large hound ambled after her.

‘I thought I heard the door slam, Crowner! The mistress is at her prayers in St Olave’s.’

‘Thank God for that, Mary! I need food and drink.’

As he followed her back down the alleyway, he placed an affectionate hand on her bottom, but she skipped a pace ahead of him.

‘Now, Crowner! I tend only to the needs of your stomach these days, remember?’ He grinned wryly, remembering nostalgically the times when their cook-maid had been more accommodating — until the suspicions of her mistress, aroused by her nosy French maid Lucille, had decided Mary that her job was more valuable than flirting with the master.

In the yard were the shacks that housed the kitchen, where Mary lived, the woodshed and the privy. Beneath the outside wooden stairs that led up to the solar, Matilda’s maid dwelt in a large box-like cabin, but at the moment she was with her mistress at church.