Fear in the Forest

by Bernard Knight

  Nesta gave a slight nod. ‘She’s passed by once or twice.’

  She seemed unwilling to elaborate and John, suspecting that she had been ignored by his wife or even vilified, hesitated to probe further. There was no sign of Matilda when he left, and as the prioress was also nowhere to be seen he hauled himself on to Odin and took himself home, feeling that a good battle in the forest was preferable to trying to understand women.

  Early on Sunday evening, a meeting was held in Rougemont of all those who were to be involved in directing the campaign the next day. To keep clear of the sheriff, they met in the Shire Hall in the inner bailey, using the benches and trestles on the platform of the bare courthouse for their conference.

  The two Ferrars, de Courcy, Ralph Morin, John de Wolfe and Gwyn were joined by three Hampshire knights who had accompanied the foot soldiers from Portsmouth. Only Thomas de Peyne was absent, as John felt his timid presence would be no asset in a battle.

  On a large piece of slate, fallen from some roof around the castle, the constable scratched a crude map with a lump of limestone. Like John, he was unable to read or write, but had a good sense of orientation and could draw a useful plan.

  ‘Here’s Ashburton – and up here is Moretonhampstead,’ he boomed. ‘Between them, and to the west, is a tract of forest where it seems most likely that Winter’s gang is camping at present.’

  ‘How can you know that?’ grunted Guy Ferrars.

  ‘Two reeves came in this afternoon, as arranged. They have been spying out the situation for a couple of days on my orders. Several of Winter’s men have been seen in alehouses along the road between these two towns – and they vanished into the forest west of the road.’

  ‘Does this knave have any useful information?’ asked Hugh Ferrars, jerking a thumb down towards the hall, where Sergeant Gabriel held the shoulder of a dishevelled Stephen Cruch, brought over in manacles from the cells under the keep.

  Morin beckoned and Gabriel prodded the horse-dealer nearer the raised dais. ‘How many camps do these brigands have in that part of the forest?’ he demanded.

  Cruch, very conscious of the fact that his life and liberty depended on his cooperation, stuttered out all he knew on the matter.

  ‘I’ve been to three, sire, but there may be more that I’ve never seen.’

  At a sign, the sergeant dragged his prisoner up on to the platform and propelled him over to the table.

  ‘Point to where you think they might be!’ commanded the elder Ferrars. Lifting his chained wrists together, Cruch took the chalk lump and added some marks to the slate.

  ‘This one’s on the slope of the high moor about here.’

  ‘That’s the one I visited,’ cut in Gwyn.

  The horse-trader pointed out two other sites and gave some directions as to how they could be reached.

  ‘Take him back to the keep until tomorrow,’ ordered Morin. ‘He can come with us to show us the paths to these places – and woe betide him if he’s trying to fool us!’

  Guy Ferrars and Reginald de Courcy, some years older than John, had seen plenty of fighting in their time and were well-acquainted with campaign tactics.

  ‘I say we should divide the men into two groups and push into the forest from both ends, starting from Ashburton and Moreton,’ said Ferrars.

  ‘And also have a few men moving up and down the road between them, in case they break out of the middle and vanish across into the woods on the eastern side,’ added de Courcy.

  They discussed variations on this plan for a while, with the coroner quietly hoping that they would be lucky enough to find any of Winter’s gang. From past experience, he knew how difficult it could be to find men in dense forest. However, late that evening they had some good fortune which allayed John’s fears about missing the outlaws altogether. A messenger from the bailiff in Lustleigh rode in on a lathered horse with the news that a group of twenty outlaws had been seen by a shepherd late that afternoon. They were crossing the old clapper bridge on the Bovey river, westwards into the forest between Manaton and North Bovey. This at least reduced the large area in which to search for some of them – and it was not far from one of the camps that Cruch had indicated, on the slopes of Easdon Tor.

  Soon after dawn, the small army set out, the northern party under Ferrars and de Courcy marching for Moretonhampstead, together with Hugh Ferrars and a score of local men, who would patrol the road. They took Stephen Cruch with them, his wrists loosely tied and an archer stationed near him with orders to shoot him if he tried to escape.

  Ralph Morin, de Wolfe and Gwyn took the remainder of the men south-westward to Bovey Tracey, as with the news of the latest position of Winter’s men it was now unnecessary to go as far south as Ashburton.

  Both groups were accompanied by the few mounted knights and their esquires who had brought the troop from Portsmouth.

  All set off at a marching pace, the riders walking their mounts behind the foot soldiers. At that speed it took until early afternoon to get into position, and after eating the rations they carried, the two arms of Morin’s pincer movement moved towards each other, their target being Easdon Down.

  De Wolfe and Gwyn rode alongside the constable, feeling an exhilaration born of memories of many a campaign in years gone by. Even Odin, who was too young to have been in combat before, snorted his excitement as he stepped out along the track, and John had to keep him reined in so as not to pull away from the column of men walking behind.

  It was six miles between Bovey and Moreton, with Lustleigh just off the track about halfway between them. Before they reached Lustleigh, Ralph Morin called a halt, and when the thirty men-at-arms had all caught up, he gave orders for them to put on their armour.

  The hauberks had been carried in two ox-carts at the back of the column, as it was impractical for the men to march the fifteen miles from Exeter in hot summer weather wearing knee-length chain mail. The hauberks each had a pole thrust through their sleeves and were hung on two rails fixed in the carts. Each man helped a comrade to get the cumbersome garment over his head, then adjust the mailed aventail which hung from their basin-shaped helmets down to their shoulders. Morin and de Wolfe did the same, as although they had great horses to carry the weight, neither wanted to sit in a hauberk for four hours in the July heat. Gwyn always refused to wear mail, relying on an extra-thick jerkin of boiled leather, which he now put on, but he did condescend to jam a round helmet on his wild red hair, the long nasal guard having been bent up a little to accommodate his bulbous nose.

  When all was ready, the ox-carts were left on the track in the care of their civilian drivers and the posse turned off into the woods, heading for the narrow valley of the Bovey to the north-west. Four archers, not wearing armour, were sent on ahead as scouts. When all reached the river, they crossed and carried on steadily up the right bank, where the trees were less of an impediment to the mounted men than on the valley slopes. For an hour they saw nothing but greenery and the shimmer of the small river. There was an occasional glimpse of a startled deer and the distant crash of a boar as it hurried out of their path.

  They passed through an area which a local Lustleigh guide said was called Water Cleave and then curved below Manaton, though it was invisible, being high up to their left and a mile away. The guide advised the constable that to aim for Easdon Tor they should begin to bear west, as the ground flattened out a little from the thickly wooded valley. Soon after they had moved away from the river, two of the archers came running back.

  ‘More than a dozen men, camped in a clearing, five hundred paces ahead,’ panted one.

  Quickly, Morin divided his force into two and took half up the slope to the left, leaving de Wolfe to take the rest along the flatter ground to the right. Silently, his score of soldiers padded between the trees, one of the archers out ahead. A few moments later the scout held up his hand and the men slunk forward carefully. Another archer stood immobile, near the body of a young outlaw with an arrow sticking out of his chest, obviously
a sentinel who had paid with his life for his inattention. The bowman pointed forward and John saw thin smoke rising from above some bushes where the sunlight was brighter in a gap in the trees. He gestured to the men-at-arms to spread out and then waved them on as he advanced, Gwyn at his side.

  John was uncertain when to attack, as he did not know whether Ralph’s force was in position yet on the other side, but his dilemma was soon solved as there was a sudden yelling and crashing from ahead.

  ‘Come on, men!’ he screamed, his pulse suddenly racing with the prospect of battle. The line of soldiers dashed forward towards the clearing, straight into the remnants of the panic-stricken outlaw band, who were fleeing from Morin’s assault from the other side.

  The action lasted no more than a couple of minutes and was more of a massacre than a combat. The two archers dropped the first pair of fugitives, then the rest careered blindly into the line of soldiers, to be cut down with sword and hand-axe. Every man was killed on the spot, which solved one problem for de Wolfe, as he was in no position to waste men on guarding prisoners.

  A hoarse shouting from the clearing was a warning from Morin and his force that they were not to be mistaken for more adversaries, and seconds later the big constable lumbered up to John, still swinging a ball-mace threateningly.

  ‘Any of yours left?’ he demanded, looking at the still corpses scattered between the trees.

  ‘All dead. None of them lifted so much as a finger against us,’ grunted Gwyn, in disgust. As a fight it was a non-event as far as he was concerned.

  ‘Like butchering sheep in the shambles,’ confirmed de Wolfe. ‘I don’t think many of them even had time to pick up a sword before they fled.’

  Ralph Morin stood counting the bodies. ‘We put down eight – one ran away and it’s not worth wasting time chasing him. So that makes fourteen exterminated so far.’

  He called the scattered men-at-arms together and they began their march again, after a cursory look at the outlaw camp. There was little there, apart from some rude shelters made of boughs and canvas and some food and utensils around the fire.

  ‘No sign of either Robert Winter or his lieutenant, this Martin Angot?’

  De Wolfe addressed this to Gwyn, as he was the only one who knew them by sight. The Cornishman shook his head. ‘Never seen any of this bunch before. They weren’t in that camp down towards Buckland.’

  ‘I wonder if there are still some ruffians down there,’ mused Morin.

  ‘It’s a long way south of here, but if we don’t find the ringleaders at this Easdon Tor place, then I suppose we’ll have to go back there,’ answered John.

  They set off northwards again, wary of any further surprise contacts, leaving the bodies scattered where they had fallen. The four archers went on ahead as before, and gradually the ground flattened off, though it was still densely wooded. Where a fallen tree or a small clearing gave a glimpse to the north-west, now and then they could see the bare outline of the higher moor, with misshapen rocks sometimes crowning the skyline. The man Ferrars had given them as a guide from his manor at Lustleigh dropped back and touched his floppy woollen cap to the coroner.

  ‘Sir, if we are going to Easdon Down, then soon we have either to cut left across country past Langstone or go on up the river to the clapper bridge, then take the track westwards.’

  ‘Which is quickest?’

  ‘Past Langstone, Crowner. No more than a mile, I’d say.’

  They decided on the direct route and started climbing rising ground, still thick with trees. The few houses and fields of Langstone were off somewhere to their right as they crossed the lower slopes of Easdon Tor.

  ‘What do we do if some of these bloody thieves throw up their hands without a fight?’ asked Morin.

  John was wondering that himself and hoped the matter would not arise. Perhaps they had been lucky back in the valley, where all the outlaws had blundered on to swords and axes.

  ‘By definition, they are outside the law and don’t exist in any legal sense,’ he answered. ‘Anyone can kill them at will – and get a bounty for it!’

  ‘So we kill them all, even if they have their hands up in the air in surrender?’ queried Morin.

  ‘It sounds difficult, I know,’ replied John. ‘But if we take them back to Exeter they will be hanged without trial, as judgement has already been passed on them in declaring them outlaw. So it seems pointless to delay their deaths. They know this and may well try to flee as their only hope, in which case we can kill them with an easier conscience.’

  ‘What about this Robert Winter himself? Does the same apply to him?’

  De Wolfe considered this as they trudged diagonally across the steepening slope. ‘He will die, one way or the other. But as the leader he might have information that could be useful, perhaps about the people behind this conspiracy.’

  There was a soft call from ahead as one of the scouts turned back to warn them that the trees were thinning out ahead. They came to halt just inside the edge of the woods and saw that bare moor, with patches of bracken and bramble, rose up ahead to a jumble of rocks high above. To the right, the tree line curved around into the distance.

  ‘That’s Easdon Tor above – and the down runs right around its foot,’ explained the guide.

  The posse stopped for rest, while Morin and the coroner conferred.

  ‘We don’t know where this camp is supposed to be. The other party has got Cruch with them to pinpoint it.’

  ‘And we don’t know where they are at the moment,’ growled Gwyn.

  ‘They had a shorter distance to march than we, so they should be in position somewhere near by.’

  ‘Surely the outlaws wouldn’t make camp out in the open up there,’ muttered Morin. ‘They’d stick to the trees.’

  ‘The place I saw was out of the trees, but they had a little nook in some rocks,’ Gwyn told them.

  De Wolfe turned to the guide. ‘Is there anywhere like that up towards the tor?’

  ‘Not really, sir. There are some ancient old hut ruins around the other side of the tor, but I wouldn’t call that Easdon Down.’

  ‘That damned Cruch was pretty vague about where the camps were, though he only had a lump of chalk and slate to work with. It could be that way, I suppose.’

  They decided to send their scouts in both directions, working along inside the tree line to see whether they could find Guy Ferrars and his men. The whole area in question was no more than a quarter-mile across so they had to be somewhere near. Settling back against a tree trunk, Morin signalled the perspiring men to rest, and they sank to the ground to take the weight of their hauberks from their shoulders.

  Ten minutes later, a pair of archers came silently back from their left side, with news of the rest of the squadron.

  ‘Lord Ferrars and his men are concealed about five hundred paces to the west, Crowner. They were waiting for us, as they have sighted a large group of outlaws further up the hill, camped in some old ruins.’

  ‘Those are the tumbled huts I told of,’ said the guide. ‘They were built by the ancient men of the moor, God knows how long ago.’

  In no mood to consider history now, John waved all the men to their feet and, demanding complete silence from now on, led the way with Ralph along the edge of the forest towards the other half of the posse.

  Within a few minutes they were reunited and the leaders quietly discussed tactics.

  ‘There’re a lot of men up there, you can see them moving about. I can’t see any lookouts posted, the useless scum,’ growled Guy Ferrars. ‘But it’s all open ground between us here in the trees and those heaps of stones that they’re using to shelter their camp.’

  John and Ralph Morin moved cautiously to the edge of the wood to look up the slope of Easdon Tor. It was a double hill, with a higher, rugged silhouette on the left and a lower, smoother mound on the right. The ruined huts were much lower down on a small, flatter part of the hill.

  ‘They can’t escape uphill, it’s too steep.
We must attack them in a broad arc, to stop them running down into the trees,’ advised Ralph Morin. The other leaders agreed and the soldiers were spread out in a single line three hundred paces long, each behind a tree until the signal was given.

  ‘If they see all of us they’ll scatter and run for it, so let’s entice them down here first,’ advised de Wolfe. ‘Keep the men-at-arms out of sight for the moment.’

  With Gwyn and several of the roughly dressed men from Lustleigh, the coroner stepped boldly out of the trees and began walking up towards the little plateau that carried the tumbled stones, partly covered with grass.

  ‘Slowly does it, Gwyn,’ muttered John.’We don’t want to be too far away from the men behind when they catch sight of us.’

  As if the outlaws had heard him, there were some distant yells from above and a dozen heads appeared to stare down the slope at them. Then, with yells of derision and anger, a crowd of men surged from between the stones and began running down at them, waving swords, staves and maces. At least a score of ruffians came storming down the hillside, and the men from Lustleigh faltered at the prospect of being massacred.

  But just at the right moment, thanks to the timing of old campaigner Guy Ferrars, the whole force of mailed soldiers burst out of the trees and began running in an unbroken line towards the outlaws, the ends of the line curving around in a constricting arc.

  At the sudden appearance of three times their number of mailed soldiers, the men from the camp skidded to a halt and desperately looked for a way of escape. Some who had just come out of the old ruins turned around and vanished uphill, but the men lower down had nowhere to go except into the arms of the rapidly closing troops.

  It was almost a repeat of the earlier blood-bath, as the men-at-arms had been told to give no quarter and the outlaws knew that the only alternative to escape was death. The ragtag crowd, with not a single piece of armour between them, fought furiously but were no match for the mailed and helmeted troops. The four archers stood slightly to the rear, and whenever a clear target presented itself they shot with deadly accuracy.