Fear in the Forest

by Bernard Knight

  The coroner’s route lay down the other side of the river as far as the port of Topsham, where he led Odin on to the flimsy skiff of the rope-ferry for the short crossing to other bank. In the fine air of early morning, he trotted across the flat, marshy ground of the estuary towards the line of hills that stretched down to the coast. With his sword hanging from his saddle, he had little fear of ambush, even though he rode alone. This well-used coast track was rarely plagued by outlaws, and the sight of the tall, hawkish figure in black on a heavy warhorse was not a tempting prospect for any casual robber.

  Little over an hour after leaving the ferry, he found himself approaching the village of Dawlish, on its small creek leading up from the beach. Slowing Odin to a walk, he carefully scanned the few boats pulled up on the muddy bank of the tidal stream. With some disappointment, he saw that one was the larger seagoing vessel that often carried some of the wool sold to Brittany by Hugh de Relaga and himself. It belonged to Thorgils the Boatman, the elderly husband of the beautiful Hilda, who had been John’s adolescent sweetheart and occasional mistress ever since. His vessel had been damaged in a storm some time ago, and even now he could see that men were still working on it, replacing ribs and planks along both sides of the hull. Regretfully, he touched his stallion with a spur and moved on – even if Hilda had been available, his sense of loyalty to Nesta in her present condition was too great to allow him to dally in Dawlish, though his recent enforced celibacy, which seemed likely to continue for many months, gave him an uncomfortable ache in his loins. He wondered briefly whether he could last out that long, then chided himself for his selfish lack of honour.

  The rest of the journey was pleasant and uneventful, as he gave Odin his head and cantered along the cliff-top track towards Teignmouth.

  The sky was deep blue and the heat of the day increased as the morning wore on. The weeks of hot weather were giving manor-reeves and bailiffs concern about a drought, but far out on the western horizon he could see a line of clouds massing, suggesting that another day would see a change. When he reached the Teign, the river was very low and, with the tide out, he could wade his horse across the ford just above the beach, barely wetting his stirrups.

  The de Wolfe family had two manors, the main one at Stoke and the other at Holcombe, just off the track between Dawlish and Teignmouth. In fact, the delectable Hilda was the daughter of their bailiff at Holcombe. He often called in passing, both to see her father and to look over the manor, but today he felt a need to see his family without distractions.

  His brother William, a few years older and of a quite different temperament, ran their two manors with quiet efficiency. Their father had died fighting in Ireland for old King Henry fifteen years earlier and had left his estate to his eldest son, on condition that he supported his mother and sister and gave a quarter share of the income from the estate to John. This, together with the spoils of war from years of campaigning and the income from his wool partnership, kept John in comfortable security. He got on well with brother William, who, though he looked a lot like John, was of a much milder disposition, concerned only with farming and managing the estate, rather than fighting in foreign lands.

  These thoughts usually recurred to John as he was completing the last few miles to Stoke-in-Teignhead, which was in a small valley in the forests on the other side of the river. He came into the vale with his usual feelings of nostalgia, for it was here that he was born and where he spent his childhood and youth. The strip-fields were immaculate and the dwellings of the villeins and free men better built and maintained than in most villages. As he walked Odin down the track towards the manor house, he was met with salutes and beaming smiles from many who had known him all his life. It was a happy place, and he already felt better for the tranquillity that palpably pervaded the whole manor.

  His father’s house was a square stone edifice behind a palisade of stakes. News of his coming had already been taken inside by an excited urchin running on ahead, and his mother and sister were on the steps of the main entrance to welcome him. A cluster of servants appeared from the cook-house and stables and a groom hurried out to take Odin’s bridle as he slid off and bent to kiss his womenfolk. His mother Enyd, a pretty woman still with only a few streaks of grey in her red hair, stood on tiptoe to hug him around the neck, her eyes sparkling with delight at the unexpected arrival of her second son.

  ‘William is off towards the river, where they are cutting assarts. He thinks no one can do anything properly unless he is there to supervise!’

  John turned to embrace his sister, more of an armful than his mother. Evelyn was still a spinster, having once wanted to become a nun. She was in her early thirties, a plump, homely girl now satisfied to stay companion to her widowed mother.

  The ground floor was occupied by the hall, the solar and several other chambers being upstairs. It was into the hall that John was ushered now, where smiling servants fussed around with food and drink as his mother and Evelyn sat opposite him at a table to make sure that he ate enough after his journey to feed a horse. They pressed him for news, wanting to know all the gossip of the big city, his sister asking unanswerable questions about fashions and the current length of toes on stylish shoes.

  ‘And is that insufferable wife of yours as rude as ever?’ asked his mother bluntly. After years of vainly trying to be pleasant to Matilda, she had given up the attempt and now was quite open about her regret at her late husband’s insistence on John marrying into the de Revelle family.

  ‘And what about that nice Welsh girl, Nesta?’ asked Evelyn. The fact that he had a mistress was no secret, and the practical mother and sister, detesting his wife as they did, were pleased that not only had he found some happiness elsewhere, but also that she was Welsh. As if to underline the point, Evelyn asked the question now in the Celtic language, which they all spoke fluently, as Enyd’s father had been Cornish and her mother came from Gwent, as did Nesta.

  John smiled wryly at the question. He had not expected the motive for his visit to be arrived at so quickly.

  ‘It’s about Nesta that I’ve come for your advice – not that I wasn’t coming to see you anyway,’ he added hastily.

  His mother gave him a roguish smile and punched him gently on the shoulder.

  ‘Come on, my son, out with it! Are you leaving Matilda and eloping with your inn-keeper?’

  ‘Maybe it will come to that one of these days,’ he said wryly. ‘Especially after what I’ve got to tell you now.’

  Enyd fixed him with her bright eyes, a knowing smile on her face.

  ‘You’ve got her with child, haven’t you?’

  John sighed at his mother’s perceptivness. Ever since his childhood he had known that it was useless trying to keep anything from her.

  ‘It’s true, Mother. I am to be a father towards the end of the year.’

  Evelyn’s homely face creased into a smile. She was happy for her brother, who had so far been childless. Illegitimacy was so common among the ruling class that it was considered normal. Only the poor suffered the stigma of adultery and fornication and had their bastards taken from them to be reared in monastery orphanages.

  Her mother turned to a more practical aspect.

  ‘Does your wife know about this?’

  ‘Not yet, though I suspect she will very soon. Exeter is a hotbed of gossip – news travels there faster than forked lightning.’

  Enyd de Wolfe dumped another meat pasty on to his pewter platter and gave him a look that defied him to refuse it.

  ‘You’ll have a hard time, son, when she does find out.’

  John nodded, his mouth full of mutton and pastry. When he had swallowed, he confirmed that he had an unpleasant time ahead.

  ‘She’ll go mad, I know. Not because she particularly cares about my sin, but she will be afraid that her grand friends, and all the lesser nobility she cultivates, will think the less of her.’

  ‘Silly cow!’ observed Evelyn, with blunt good sense.

  ‘And you,
John – are you going to acknowledge the babe?’ asked his mother, her voice deadly serious now.

  ‘Of course! What else would I do?’ he snapped, rather put out that she needed to even ask such a question. ‘But that’s the problem, Nesta doesn’t want me to suffer in any way because of this and is refusing to let me proclaim the child as mine.’

  His mother frowned. ‘She is a kind, considerate woman, that much I saw when we met in Exeter that time. But unless she goes away with the infant, perhaps back to her folk in Wales, it’s bound to become public knowledge. Do you mind that?’

  ‘Not at all. If people don’t like it, be damned to them. No doubt that swine of a sheriff will make as much capital out of it as he can, especially as his sister will seem to be the aggrieved party, but I don’t give a damn.’

  ‘Could it affect your position as coroner?’ asked his sister, who was quite proud of her brother’s eminence.

  ‘Richard de Revelle will undoubtedly try to stir up trouble – he would dearly like to see me removed as coroner and some pliant nobody elected in my place. I don’t need the job, but I’ve come to enjoy it, I admit. If he tries any tricks, I’ll appeal straight away to the Justiciar.’

  ‘Might Matilda leave you?’ asked his mother, almost hopefully.

  ‘I doubt it. The house in Martin’s Lane is mine – I bought it many years ago with profit from the wars. She has money laid away by her family, I know, but she enjoys good food, clothes and a sound roof over her head too much to desert me. Though God knows, she’ll try to make my life hell.’

  The two women were agog with excitement and curiosity. John’s unexpected visit had been surpassed by this momentous news. Enyd was to be a grandmother and Evelyn an aunt.

  ‘And is Nesta well with her pregnancy?’ demanded his mother. ‘I remember being so sick when I was carrying William.’

  ‘She is well in body, though it’s early days yet. It is only a short time since she suspected that she was with child and had it confirmed by a midwife.’

  Enyd immediately picked up on part of his statement. ‘What do you mean, John – well in body?’ she demanded.

  He shifted uneasily on the bench. His mother’s interrogations were always searching.

  ‘I told you, she does not wish me to acknowledge the child, for my sake. But she seems very upset generally, she cries a lot and sometimes refuses to talk to me. The other evening she ran to her chamber and locked herself in. Last night she was better, but seems always so sad and will not talk sensibly to me.’

  His mother, wise with her years and from carrying three children, put a hand on his arm affectionately.

  ‘Being gravid affects women in different ways, John. Some say they never felt better in their life, others become weepy and withdrawn. Maybe it will pass soon. You must be patient.’

  Privately she could think of several reasons why Nesta was in such a miserable state, but reassurance was what he needed now.

  ‘Why not bring her down here to stay for a time?’ she continued. ‘Nesta can lodge here for as long as she likes – she could come for childbed when that day comes.’

  ‘Thank you, Mother, you are the kindest person in the world. But she has an inn to run, certainly until near her time.’

  ‘Nonsense, having the baby is far more important. You say she has three servants working there. She could get someone to run the alehouse for a few months.’

  With memories of Alan of Lyme in his mind, this idea did not greatly appeal to John, but he agreed to put it to Nesta on his return.

  The chatter went on until even the two women had exhausted the subject of childbirth and babies. Almost too full to rise from the table, de Wolfe eventually made the effort and then decided to walk off his full stomach by seeking out his brother in the woods.

  While John de Wolfe was riding down the coast, his officer and clerk were making a more leisurely excursion westwards, their speed limited by the shorter legs of Thomas’s pony and his awkward posture on its side saddle.

  As churches and alehouses were almost invariably twinned in most villages, Gwyn decided to chaperone the little clerk for most of the journey, vanishing into each tavern while Thomas sought out the local healer of souls. The coroner had given them enough silver pennies to provide them with bed and board on a modest scale for four nights, so they looked upon this venture as a rare holiday from their usual routine.

  Three hours after leaving Exeter, the pair made their first stop at Bovey Tracey, where Gwyn promptly vanished into one of the two alehouses. Thomas was dressed as usual in his long, threadbare tunic, which looked much like a black clerical cassock, helping to give the impression that he was still in Holy Orders. He made his way to the church and, after much genuflecting and crossing himself, found the parish priest and engaged him in conversation, using the excuse that he had come to see the new stone church built by the lord of the manor, Sir William Tracey. He was one of the four knights who had murdered Archbishop Thomas Becket at King Henry’s behest, and the erection of a church was in atonement for his sin. However, the clerk learned nothing useful from the local man, however skilfully he manoeuvred the conversation towards problems in the forest.

  The same routine was followed as the coroner’s assistants made their way slowly around the villages on the eastern flank of Dartmoor. During the rest of the day, they went from Bovey up to Hennock, then to Lustleigh and finally across to Manaton, where Thomas renewed his acquaintance with Father Amicus and Gwyn drank in the tavern with the reeve, Robert Barat. Here they could make no pretence at being passing travellers, as they were well remembered from the inquest on Elias Necke, the dead tanner – but after the aggravation with William Lupus, the village men were happy to gossip about the iniquities of the foresters. They had no new information to pass on, but reported that the outlaws seemed to be becoming bolder, often being seen on the roads and lurking in the nearby woods with no concern about being apprehended.

  ‘And who is likely to challenge them?’ growled Robert Barat. ‘We never see a man-at-arms around here, the sheriff is but a distant figure in Exeter. No local man is going to risk his neck trying to get a wolf’s head when the foresters themselves seem to protect the vermin.’

  That night Gwyn and Thomas found a free bed in an outhouse behind the reeve’s cottage. It was only a pile of straw, but it was clean and the night was warm, though the clouds that their master had seen massing over the sea had rolled in and threatened a change in the weather for the coming days.

  Half a penny had bought them a good meal in the alehouse, and in the dusk of a late summer evening they lay sleepily discussing what they had learned that day, which was very little.

  ‘Let’s hope we ferret out more than this tomorrow and the next day,’ murmured the Cornishman eventually. ‘Else the crowner will want his money back!’

  The clerk slapped at some ants that were crawling up his face.

  ‘No one has heard of any priest who’s in league with either the foresters or the outlaws,’ he said. ‘I wonder if that’s just some idle tale, as no parish priest is able to wander around the countryside as the fancy takes him. Only fairly senior clerics can travel any distance.’

  Gwyn rolled over on his heap of straw and pulled up the pointed hood of his leather jerkin to shut out the world.

  ‘Let’s worry about that tomorrow, Thomas. I need my sleep now.’

  Next morning they worked their way along the very edge of the barren moor, coming down to Widecombe, where the previous year their master had investigated the corpse of a young Crusader found in a stream. From there, they jogged to Dunstone, Buckland and Holne, repeating their routine in church houses and taverns. In the evening, they arrived back on the main Exeter road at Ashburton. This was one of the four Stannary towns involved in the assay of the Dartmoor tin, which along with wool was the major export of the county. Here they had a choice of alehouses, but only one church. Thomas, a poor and reluctant horseman, was saddle sore and weary and could not face replaying his usual
confidence game with the local priest that evening. This time they had to pay for a place to stay in one of the inns, and after an indifferent meal of leek stew and a leathery fowl the clerk climbed into the loft to collapse face down on to his hay-filled palliasse, giving his aching backside a chance to recover.

  Gwyn, who could spend all day on a horse without a twinge, set off to do a tour of all the other alehouses in the hope of hearing something useful. In the fourth, by which time he had drunk the better part of a gallon of common ale, he fell into conversation with two tinners, who had brought a train of pack ponies down that day from the high moor, laden with crudely smelted tin ready for the next assay. Their talk followed the usual pattern – complaints about the stinginess of their employers, the outrageous taxes on the tin and the corruption of the Warden of the Stannaries, who was none other than Sheriff Richard de Revelle. As the ale flowed and tongues became loosened, Gwyn turned the talk to extortion in the forest and had a useful response from the grousing tinners.

  ‘Thank God we’re exempt from the antics of these bloody foresters!’ said one. ‘The stannary laws and our parliament on the moor make sure that they don’t interfere with us. But I pity the folk who live off the land down here, they’re getting a harder time than ever.’

  Gwyn encouraged them to keep talking by waving down a potboy and getting in more quarts. ‘What’s going on in the forest, then? I’m from Exeter, we don’t hear much about it there,’ he added ingenuously.

  ‘More oppression from the foresters. They’ve become worse lately,’ growled the other man, a huge bear of a fellow with a black beard. ‘Forcing alehouses to take their brew, setting up forges and tanneries – taking the very bread from people’s mouths.’

  ‘Can’t they do something about it?’ asked Gwyn, his blue eyes radiating innocent curiosity.

  ‘What can they do?’ retorted Blackbeard belligerently. ‘The manor-lords are either powerless to act against royal custom or their palms are being crossed with silver to persuade them to mind their own business.’