Bernard Knight - The Manor of Death

'This is that Owain, no doubt?' he muttered grimly, already wondering whether he should seek out the stonemason and kill him.

'Of course it is Owain,' she answered. 'A good man, kind, and of my own age and kin. He has asked me to marry him and I have said that I will — and go home to Wales with him.'

'Have you lain with him?' he rasped.

Nesta stiffened a little and stared at him defiantly. 'How is that any of your business, John? You are not my husband,' she said crisply. 'But if you must know, I have not! He is a man of honour and is content to wait until the Church has bound us together.'

De Wolfe, for all his stern, stolid nature, crumpled at this. He pulled her to him, and his hand pressed her head against his chest.

'Nesta, Nesta! Does this have to be? I thought you loved me?'

'Of course I love you, John! But now I also love Owain, and he I can have, unlike you.'

'How can you love us both?'

She looked up at him in reproof. 'You should know that, sir! I have always felt that I have shared you with Hilda of Dawlish.'

It was something of a shock for him to realise that she was right. He had never suspected that she knew of his real feelings for the blonde Saxon.

'Is there nothing that I can say or promise that might change your mind?'

She shook her head, still close to his body. 'You cannot marry me or take me home to Gwent, John.'

There was iron determination in her voice that told him that nothing he could say would alter her decision. At that moment he knew that his life was going to change far more than just a move to London. His mind capitulated and his practical nature straightway began to make plans.

'Sit here, my love. We must make sense of this thing,' he said gently, guiding her to one of the stone blocks that sat behind the crenellations of the wall. Down below, Brutus had run along keeping pace with them and was now sitting looking up, whimpering slightly as he sensed that something disturbing was going on.

'Nothing will divert you from this course?' he began.

She shook her head again. 'God knows I have agonised over it long enough, but this is my last chance. I want to go home and I want to be with this good man. Do not hate him for it, John. He truly loves me and will be kind to me.'

'I should break every bone in his body, Nesta — and chastise myself as well, for it was I who was foolish enough to bring him to you!' He said this without bitterness, as a kind of calm had descended upon him. 'But what are we to do about everything?' he asked helplessly.

She reached out and held his hand again, as they sat side by side on the cold stone. 'You have been so good to me, John. When Meredydd died, you saved the Bush and saved me. And again after the fire, you had the inn rebuilt. I can never repay you enough.'

He gave one of his throat clearings to cover his emotion. 'It was nothing, for I loved you, Nesta. But what are we going to do now?'

'You are going to London, I am going to Wales. The Bush is rightly yours, you must do as you think fit. Sell it and recover what you have spent on it.'

He pulled her head towards him. The shawl had slipped off and her auburn hair flowed over his shoulder. 'Nonsense! The Bush belongs to you. That loan I made when your husband died has been repaid, thanks to the skill you showed in running the place so successfully. '

'You paid for the repairs when it was burnt, John!'

'The profit from a few cargoes of wool soon covered that. No, it is yours, for you will need money to start your new life.'

'Owain is a master mason, he has a house in Chepstow and can support a wife with ease.'

John did not miss the tinge of pride in her voice and knew that the situation was irrevocable now. 'Money never comes amiss, but we will see. Maybe I already have the germ of an idea,' he said.

Now that the die was cast, he became the practical man of action that had ensured his survival as a warrior and his success as a law officer. Shocked though he had been, he already felt an unexpected sense of lightening and freedom, like lizards he had seen in the desert, which shrugged off their old skin and started life afresh. Standing up, he held out his hands to the woman he still loved but could not have.

'Come, let's go back to the Bush. I had better meet this Owain again and congratulate him — the swine!'

Next morning de Wolfe carried on with his usual routine, going up to the gatehouse of the castle to decide on the day's tasks with his clerk and officer. When Mary had put his breakfast before him in the cook-shed, he had decided not to tell her about Nesta until he had worked out a plan of action. As he spooned down his oatmeal gruel sweetened with honey, he recalled with some, surprise that he had slept like a log, after fearing that sorrow and recrimination over Nesta would keep him awake all night.

Now, he was sitting behind his table in the bleak chamber at Rougemont, with Thomas scratching away on his rolls with a goose quill and Gwyn perched on his window-ledge, picking his teeth with a splinter of wood.

'When the cathedral bells ring for Prime, we are to meet the sheriff and Ralph Morin in the undercroft to see what we get from those bastards locked up there,' he announced. 'In the meantime I have some grave news to tell you.'

His tone made Gwyn throw down his toothpick and Thomas laid his pen aside, as both men stared expectantly at their master.

'Nesta is to be married to that stonemason and is going back to live with him in Wales,' he announced flatly.

The reaction of the two men was very different.

Thomas adored Nesta, who had been kindness itself to him during his many and various problems. He was devastated and his eyes immediately filled up.

'Nesta leaving us?' he gasped. 'May Christ Jesus make her happy, but, oh, how I will miss her!' He crossed himself repeatedly and sniffed back his tears.

Gwyn, on the other hand, scowled ferociously and offered to go down and strangle Owain ap Gronow. When de Wolfe had explained a little more and made it clear that he had become resigned to the situation, Gwyn asked the obvious question. 'But what about the Bush?' he demanded. 'What will happen to that when we go to London?'

John, who had thought long and hard about it before going to bed the previous night, had a proposition to make.

'Gwyn, you are fonder than most men of good food and good ale. How would you like to be the new owner of the Bush?'

The big Cornishman stared at him, uncomprehending. 'Me? How could I buy the Bush? I've not two pennies to rattle together!'

'I'll buy it for you, Gwyn,' growled John. 'Nesta is going. Though she wants to give me the place, I'll buy it from her, then pass it over to you.'

His officer looked at the coroner as if he had taken leave of his senses — which perhaps he had.

'But I'm coming to London with you!' he protested. 'How can I become an alehouse keeper in Exeter?'

John was unperturbed. 'You live in a hovel in St Sidwell's, renting a shack from some grasping landlord. You have said many times that you wish you could move your goodwife and children into somewhere better, so now's your chance!'

'You mean put them in the Bush?' asked Gwyn incredulously.

'Why not? I know your wife is a capable, strong-willed woman and a good cook. She could run the inn as well as Nesta, for there's old Edwin and the two maids to do much of the work.'

Gwyn floundered for something to say. 'But why me? Why give a valuable property to a drunken old soldier like me?'

'An old drunk you may be, but you've served me for twenty years and saved my life more times than I can count on my fingers. It's time you had something to rely on for your old age.'

'I can't just take it, Crowner. How can I? It's not proper.'

John turned up his hands. 'I don't want to see the Bush fall into disrepute and end up a foul den like the bloody Saracen. If it eases your conscience, I'll keep the freehold myself and give you a rent-free lease for your lifetime, allowing you to keep any profit you make. That should see your wife and family secure.'