Bernard Knight - The Tinner's corpse

De Wolfe’s temper, never far below the surface, twitched at this. ‘Lady, what answer is that? You are my best friend, to say the least.’

Nesta sighed, and her shoulders sagged. ‘John, there’s no future for us, is there? This dalliance with Alan, swine that he was, came from frustration — or desperation.’

He stared blankly at her, uncomprehending in his masculine simplicity. ‘But we’ve been content, Nesta, you and I together this past year and more.’

She smiled bleakly at him. ‘Content? You may have been content, John, having a warm welcome and a warm body to visit whenever you felt so inclined, a haven for a few hours from a nagging wife. Then you could return to your grand house and your life as a Norman knight and a great law officer.’

His long, brooding face regarded her with astonishment. Astute as a coroner, courageous in a fight, he was still a simpleton when it came to matters of the heart. ‘But surely we can put what happened behind us, woman — forget that scheming bastard ever existed and take up where we were before.’ Some kindly spirit prevented him from adding, ‘I forgive you,’ which had been on the tip of his tongue.

Nesta reached out across the table and patted the back of his hand, more like a mother with a son than a mistress with a recent lover. ‘I can put Alan behind me well enough, John — but what am I to do with you? I have twenty-eight years to look back on, and how many to look forward to? And with whom?’

‘If I was free, I would marry you tomorrow,’ blurted John, with a gallantry safely guarded by an indissoluble marriage.

‘I’m sure you truly think you would, good man,’ she replied sadly.

De Wolfe shook his head desperately, like a tethered bull tormented by dogs.

‘What’s the problem, then? What am I to do for you?’ he asked.

‘Do? There’s nothing to do, John. You are ever welcome here, for the best food and ale in Exeter.’ Her eyes flicked to the wide steps that led to the upper floor as if to say, ‘But not up there.’

They talked a little longer, in lower tones as the inn began to fill with customers, many of whom grew flapping ears when they saw Nesta and de Wolfe together again. But their conversation seemed to grow more stilted, as if a barrier was slowly descending between them, like a portcullis over a gate.

When one of the maids called her away to attend to some urgent problem in the kitchen hut, John rose slowly and, with dragging feet, walked to the door. As he left he, too, looked at the ladder up to Nesta’s room and his French bed, wondering what had gone on up there during the past few weeks.

Sadly, he decided it was one of the things he was never destined to know, along with the true identity of Walter Knapman’s killer.

Footnotes

Chapter Four

1now Preston Street.

Chapter Seven

1now Gandy Lane.

Chapter Fifteen

1This Commission materialised in 1198, when William de Wrotham became Sheriff and Lord Warden