Fear in the Forest (38 page)

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!’

Richard opened his mouth to protest again, but the choleric baron gave him no chance. ‘I’ve been telling this man of the latest outrages, de Wolfe. I’ll repeat it for your benefit, as will de Courcy here – but first, what’s been happening to you?’

John told his story with some relish, even pulling up his tunic to show them his bandage, through which a slight stain of blood had again appeared to give credence to his tale. He omitted the fact that Ralph Morin had taken men-at-arms from the castle to search for him, as he wanted to avoid giving Richard grounds for complaint. Something also made him hold back any mention of the mysterious priest, as if the sheriff was involved he might put out a warning. But he was quite happy to tell them about the horse-trader.

‘This Stephen Cruch is involved, beyond any doubt,’ he said. ‘My officer saw him with one of Robert Winter’s outlaws – and then with my own eyes I saw the same man at a rendezvous with Winter in the forest, just before some of his men attacked me. There’s little doubt he’s acting as a go-between for someone outside and the rogues who are doing the dirty work for the foresters.’

Richard de Revelle looked desperately uneasy at this revelation, but Guy Ferrars was exultant. ‘It all fits together, Crowner. I know this man Cruch, my steward has had dealings with him over horses. A sly, crafty devil – there are rumours that he was outlawed himself, years ago.’

‘That’s just gossip,’ blustered Richard. ‘We know nothing of this man.’

‘Are you defending him?’ shouted Ferrars. ‘Do you doubt that de Wolfe’s telling the truth?’ He turned to Reginald de Courcy. ‘Repeat for his benefit what you told de Revelle here.’

The other landowner was less fiery than his companion, but his voice was bitter as he related his most recent complaints.

‘The fees for agistment in four of my manors have been doubled! Right up to the start of the fence month, it was half a penny a beast per year – then my villeins come and tell me the agisters are going to claim a full penny after the glades are open again next month. When they complained, the blasted foresters threatened to give them a beating.’

‘And that mealy-mouth new verderer, Philip de Strete, confirmed it when I challenged him,’ cut in Ferrars, unwilling to be left out of the drama.

‘It’s more than the damned pigs are worth, for the sake of them grubbing at some beech mast and a few acorns!’ went on de Courcy. ‘And to add insult to injury, they’ve set up two new forges on my land, which will take half the business away from the ones I’ve had there for twenty years and more.’

He glared at the sheriff. ‘And you seem quite content to let this go on unabated. I tell you, whatever money I lose over this is going be taken from what you screw from me for the county farm. How are you going to explain to the Chancellor why you’re short, when you next take your loot to Winchester, eh?’

De Revelle, whose face under this barrage of complaints had gone as pale as the others were suffused, turned up his hands in a Gallic gesture of helplessness.

‘You are talking of the Royal Forests, sirs, the domain of the King himself! I have no power there, all this is due to the incompetence of the Warden. I have done my best to help by installing a younger, more active verderer in at least one of the bailiwicks.’

‘Yes, a bloody idiot! The Warden says he has no power to intervene, so where are we?’ rasped de Courcy in his steely voice.

‘There are three other verderers in the Devon forest – are they also to be shot in the back so that new ones can be installed?’ asked Guy Ferrars, with heavy sarcasm.

John followed all this with satisfaction, relishing the evasive cringing of his brother-in-law in the face of these two powerful men. He almost forgot his aches and pains as they continued to hammer de Revelle.

‘Tell them of your problems, Ferrars,’ said Reginald icily.’ Some that should concern him, as a coroner.’

‘Ha, yes! A dead body is involved, if only we could find it.’

Guy Ferrars dropped heavily on to the chair behind him and leaned forward towards de Wolfe, ignoring the sheriff altogether.

‘On one of my manors near Lustleigh I have a chase which abuts on to the edge of the Royal Forest – even though all the bloody land belongs to me on both sides of the boundary. There is a small valley leading from my chase into the King’s ground – and a week ago those damned foresters built a saltatorium just a few yards on their side.’

John, though not a keen huntsman, knew that a saltatorium was a ‘deer leap’, a deep ditch with one vertical wall, the opposite one being sloping. The agile beasts could easily leap down the steep face and run up the other side, but could not return. The device was used to trap wild deer to increase the stock in a private chase or park, but was illegal on private ground within two miles of a Royal Forest, for obvious reasons.

‘Now these cunning swine have reversed the rules!’ fumed Guy Ferrars. ‘They deliberately sited the leap inside their territory, so that beasts from my chase will run into their forest and not be able to return down the valley, which is one of the main deer tracks.’

Richard de Revelle listened in silence, but de Courcy egged his friend on. ‘But that’s not the half of it. Tell the crowner the rest.’

Guy Ferrars banged the desk with his fist.

‘When my bailiff took a pair of my woodwards to break down the illegal leap, a pair of foresters appeared with their ruffianly pages and threatened to thrash them all if they persisted. On my own land, was this! The two woodwards refused to fight, saying they had sworn the forest oath and had to do what the foresters told them, even though I’m the one who pays the bastards!’

From his recent research, John knew that woodwards, though employed by the landowners of chases and parks, were in a difficult position, as they had a divided loyalty to both their employers and the Royal Forest.

‘So what of this dead man you mentioned?’ he queried, puzzled as to where this was leading.

‘You may well ask, de Wolfe!’ trumpeted Guy Ferrars. ‘When my bailiff returned with the news, my temper knew no bounds. I sent my steward and three bailiffs, together with six men-at-arms from my own retinue, back to destroy the saltatorium. They had been there less than an hour when they were ambushed by a rabble hiding in the trees. Almost twice our number, they were undoubtedly part of this band of outlaws you describe, run by the man Winter. But one of my bailiffs said that he clearly saw a forester lurking among them at the rear.’

‘So what happened?’

‘There was a short, sharp fight and several of my men were wounded by arrows. We killed two of their ruffians and eventually drove them back, but one of my guard vanished. Another man said that he saw him fall during the fight, but as they were still being plagued by arrows from behind the trees, my men failed to find him or his body. Next day, I sent a party to search, but they found nothing except the two dead outlaws, which we left there.’

Still the sheriff kept silent, but John pressed Ferrars for more details.

‘So the dead man is still there somewhere? This is another murder – I should have been informed.’

‘We had no body to show you, Crowner,’ snapped the baron. ‘I have no doubt he is dead, but as yet there is no actual proof, though the fellow has certainly disappeared.’

Reginald de Courcy was becoming impatient. ‘What’s to be done about all this? De Revelle here seems remarkably loath to take any action.’

He turned to glare at the sheriff. ‘It is no secret that you have ambitions to become Warden of the Forest, though God knows why. It makes your motives in refusing to act all the more suspicious – and with your history over the past year or two, you can ill afford for that to happen.’

Richard glowered back at the rich landowner. ‘There are those who think otherwise, sir – and many are barons with considerable influence. I am a servant of the King, but no king reigns for ever!’

Guy Ferrars, a staunch supporter of the Lionheart, turned almost purple.

‘Have a care, de Revelle!’ he yelled. ‘Your neck will stretch the same as any other man’s who contemplates disloyalty!’

‘This is getting us nowhere,’ complained de Courcy testily. ‘Crowner, you have had evidence of deaths and crimes aplenty in the forest, against the King’s peace. What do you suggest?’

‘It’s not his place to suggest anything,’ yelped de Revelle. ‘I am the sheriff in this county, and I say that the forest laws look after themselves. De Wolfe has no jurisdiction there.’

‘Nonsense, de Revelle! What do you say, Crowner?’ snapped Ferrars.

John hesitated for a moment while he found the right words.

‘I need to resume several inquests, as no satisfactory evidence was offered. I have to enforce the attendance of two foresters, who refused to come to a King’s Court – and a greater force of arms is needed to rout out these outlaws who seem to be mercenaries for the forest administration.’

‘And how are we going to achieve that?’ grunted Ferrars. ‘I’ve only a few men left in my retinue, the rest have gone to fight in France. And de Courcy here has none at all.’

‘Then we must petition the Curia, through the Chief Justiciar. I’ll have to ride to find him, wherever he is, though I cannot leave for some days, owing to personal circumstances.’

‘Ha, we all know what they are!’ sneered Richard, spitefully, but the others ignored him.

‘I’ll do that towards the end of the week, but first I need to ride down to Buckfast to satisfy myself about a certain priest.’

He caught his brother-in-law’s eye and held it until Richard’s gaze dropped.

Other duties kept him occupied for the rest of the day, including riding just outside the city to the village of Clyst St Mary to see to a thief who had taken sanctuary in the church. The man refused to confess his crime, which was stealing a silver candlestick from the house of the parish priest. As the object was a personal belonging of the incumbent, rather than in the possession of the church, the offence of sacrilege could not be brought. If it had, then sanctuary would have been forfeited and the miscreant could have been dragged out of the church. The manor of Clyst St Mary belonged to the Bishop of Exeter, which explained why the priest was affluent enough to possess such a valuable object.

John failed to persuade the miserable thief, who cowered near the altar, to confess his sins and abjure the realm, which would at least have saved his neck. As it was the coroner ordered the villagers to guard the church for the next forty days, unless the culprit had a change of heart. If, at the end of that time, he still refused to confess and abjure, the coroner would order that he be deprived of food and drink until he died.

In fact, a large proportion of sanctuary-seekers were allowed to escape, as the villagers begrudged the expense and effort of feeding and guarding the criminal for almost six weeks, even at the cost of being fined by the coroner. In this case, however, the irate priest was likely to exact his revenge on the man and force his parishioners to do their legal duty.

In the early evening, de Wolfe went again to Polsloe Priory to see Nesta. She was much as before, very weak and as pale as skimmed milk.

The Welsh woman was ineffably sad and spoke very little, but lay quietly, with her hand in John’s as he sat alongside her low truckle bed in the bare cell. He talked soothingly to her and gave her news of how Edwin and the girls were faring well in running the Bush in her absence. They hardly spoke about the loss of her child; John was too timid to risk provoking a flow of tears. Instead, he sat talking of other things, like his problems in the forest and his trip to Clyst St Mary. Between these tales, he awkwardly murmured repetitively that all would well between them and that she must get well and come home to the Bush, whereupon things would be just as before. Matilda was not mentioned between them and, when he left, there was no sign of her in the infirmary corridor.

As he went to the door, Dame Madge appeared and brusquely ordered him into the treatment room to have his wound inspected and a new dressing applied.

‘It looks healthy. You are a tough man,’ she proclaimed, tugging at the linen stitches, which made him wince. ‘The edges of the wound are a little red, but there’s no pus at all.’

As she skilfully wound a new strip of linen around his waist, she told him that Nesta was still quite ill, having lost a great deal of blood after her miscarriage, though this flow had now abated. When he hesitantly asked about his wife, she shook her head sternly and said that there had been no change in ‘Sister’ Matilda’s attitude towards him.