Bernard Knight - Fear in the Forest

Passing through East Gate, they turned up Castle Hill at the top of which John glowered at the sentry as he entered Rougemont. Throwing Odin’s reins at the man, he slid from the saddle with a grimace of pain from the pull of his new stitches and loped off across the inner ward towards the keep. As he had half expected, the sheriff had not yet returned from his manor in Tiverton, and John returned to the gatehouse, where Gwyn was sitting in the guard room with a jar of ale.

‘Go home to St Sidwell’s and see your wife, she’ll have forgotten what you look like,’ John said gruffly. ‘And I thank you once more for your faithful service. I just might not have got from against that tree if you’d not persisted in looking for me!’ Like Thomas, Gwyn was unused to any thanks from de Wolfe and scratched his crotch vigorously to cover his embarrassment.

‘You look after that wound, Crowner,’ he grunted. ‘You’ll be at Polsloe often enough now, so get them to put a clean bandage on it.’

John nodded and ended their brief intimacy by stalking out to his stallion. In the absence of his brother-in-law, he decided to talk again to the Warden of the Forest, so walked Odin through the narrow streets to the house in St Pancras Lane.

There was a new, middle-aged retainer there in place of the murdered steward, and the man showed him into the gloomy hall, where Nicholas de Bosco sat by the empty fireplace, a blanket thrown over his shoulders. He seemed ten years older than on the coroner’s last visit; the attack he had suffered had suddenly aged him. John accepted a cup of wine and, sitting on a stool opposite the older man, brought him up to date with the latest events in the forest.

‘I should already have known about all these matters,’ de Bosco said sadly. ‘Here I am, the King’s warden, and none of my own officers tells me anything! They ignore me and treat me with contempt.’

‘It’s all part of the plan,’ said de Wolfe, trying to reassure him and restore some of his injured feelings. ‘But have you heard nothing of the new verderer, this Philip de Strete?’

‘Not a word! The damned fellow hasn’t been near me. Not that he needs to legally, as the Forest Eyre is not due until next year at the earliest. But as a matter of courtesy, you’d think the devil would come to pass the time of day, as the verderers from the other bailiwicks do occasionally.’

He pulled his blanket closer around him, though the day was warm.

‘And I’ve had several more demands to resign — a letter from the sheriff, damn his impudent eyes, saying that he had reports of continual unrest in the forest and holds me responsible!’

‘You said several?’ said John.

‘The other from Henry Marshal — or at least from his chaplain on his behalf. I suppose the bishop is too grand to write to me direct. Almost word for word what the sheriff claimed. It’s a damned conspiracy!’

De Wolfe felt sorry for the old warrior. He had been given this sinecure as a reward for his long and faithful service to the King — and now treacherous elements were trying to take it from him.

‘It’s just as well that we have Hubert Walter behind us. Neither a sheriff nor a bishop can prevail against his will. I’m going to see him very soon. I’ll make sure he keeps confirming you in office — if that’s what you really want.’

He added the last in case Nicholas decided that a quiet retirement was preferable to constantly looking over his shoulder for more assassins.

‘I no longer relish the damned job, but I’m not going to be frightened out of it by the Count of Mortain and his scheming curs!’ snapped the Warden, defiantly.

The coroner stayed a while to talk with him, though there was nothing useful de Bosco could tell him, as he had been ignored since the attempt on his life. When he climbed stiffly back on to Odin’s back, John almost fell off with a sudden attack of dizziness, and with a throbbing head and an aching side, he slowly let the beast take him home to Martin’s Lane.

Andrew helped him down and took him across to his house, sitting him down on the bench in the vestibule. The farrier called Mary from the back yard and the pair half dragged him up to his bed in the solar, where the maid clucked over him like a hen with a sick chick. John had intended going back to Rougement to confront Richard de Revelle when he returned, and then returning again to Polsloe, but the strong-willed Mary kept him in bed.

She undressed him to change his bandage, which was still weeping thin blood. The maid had seen him naked at close quarters many times before, though this time he was in no condition to take advantage of her — not that Mary would have objected too much, with both his wife and mistress well out of the way. She forced him to take some hot broth and a herbal remedy, which cured his headache by driving him into a deep sleep.

The next thing he knew, it was morning. Feeling stiff and haggard, he dragged himself from his bed, but found that he could deal adequately with Mary’s robust breakfast of oat gruel, salt bacon, eggs and fresh bread. His wound seemed to have dried up and the dressing was clean, so they decided to let well alone. His forehead bruise looked worse than ever, a purple stain creeping from beneath his thick hair to spread down to his eyebrow and back to his left ear, but it was less painful to the touch and his headache had dulled down.

He had missed his Saturday shave, but no way was he going to attack his stubble with a knife until his facial injuries had abated, so Black John looked blacker than ever.

‘All the better to confront the bloody sheriff!’ he growled to Mary, before he left the house. ‘Maybe I can frighten the swine into submission.’

On his slow walk to the castle, he received many congratulations and genuinely thankful greetings from passers-by, some of whom he did not even recognise. They seemed truly glad that the rumours of the previous couple of days had proved to be false, and although he acknowledged them all only with a stern jerk of his head, he felt an inner glow of satisfaction that so many people seemed to approve of him.

At Rougemont, de Wolfe went straight to the keep, without going up to his garret in the gatehouse. He marched straight into de Revelle’s chamber, intending to launch a blistering attack on his brother-in-law about the problems in the county.

Somewhat to his surprise, but soon to his gratification, he found two other men there on much the same mission. Once more, Guy Ferrars and Reginald de Courcy had come to protest to the sheriff about the situation, and this time they were in no mood to be fobbed off.

Ferrars was in full flow as John entered, leaning over Richard’s table and haranguing him at close quarters, while de Courcy sat grimly upright on a chair alongside him, nodding agreement to every point that Sir Guy was making. When they heard de Wolfe enter, all three pairs of eyes swivelled to the door and Guy Ferrars paused in his lecture to the sheriff.

‘God’s knuckles, de Wolfe, yesterday we heard that you were dead!’ bellowed Ferrars. ‘Then today that you were half dead — now you walk in on us, quite alive!’

‘That’s a powerful bruise you have on your head,’ commented de Courcy. ‘And why are you limping?’

John dropped the buttock on his uninjured side on to the corner of the table.

‘You may well ask, de Courcy! Two bastards attacked me in the forest and I suffered from both ends of a pike. Still, their bodies are rotting under the trees now.’

Guy Ferrars, his red face almost pulsating with indignation, turned back to the sheriff, who sat there bemused by what was turning into a three-pronged assault.

‘There, de Revelle! More evidence of what we were telling you! This forest situation is out of control, and if you’ll not do anything about it then we’ll go elsewhere for relief!’