Fear in the Forest

by Bernard Knight

  Facing them were the men responsible for their capture, together with Nicholas de Bosco, the Warden of the Forests, Philip de Strete, the new verederer, and Brother Roger, who, as castle chaplain, now had a legitimate reason for being present, as a priest was required at such events in case a prisoner died during the Ordeal or torture. Thomas was also there, squatting on a keg, with his writing materials before him on a crate, ready to record any confessions.

  ‘All we need now is the damned sheriff!’ bellowed Guy Ferrars.

  ‘I thought you said he had promised to come?’ demanded Reginald de Courcy of the constable.

  Before Ralph Morin could reply, a shadow darkened the light coming through the small entrance at the foot of the steps leading down from the inner ward. It was Richard de Revelle, scowling like thunder and obviously making a point by arriving last. He had a light mantle tightly wrapped around his body, as if to insulate himself from the others in the undercroft. The faces of the foresters brightened slightly when they saw him, as if they expected him to save them from this nightmare.

  ‘About time, de Revelle,’ barked the elder Ferrars. ‘This is something you should have done long ago.’

  The sheriff glowered, but made no response, standing apart from the others as if he had no interest in the proceedings.

  John de Wolfe bent to Thomas’s makeshift table and picked up the rolls of his Commission, which he brandished at the prisoners.

  ‘These are signed by the Chief Justiciar himself, on behalf of our sovereign lord King Richard!’ he announced. ‘So let no one here try to dispute my right to proceed as I think fit.’

  He handed the parchments back to his clerk, then took a step nearer the foresters, his fists planted aggressively on his belt.

  ‘You, William Lupus – and you, Michael Crespin. I summoned you both to attend my inquests on the tanner, Elias Necke, and Edward of Manaton. You refused to attend and are already in mercy for that. Why did you not come?’

  The elder of the two foresters appeared to have regained some of his former arrogance, perhaps emboldened by the presence of the sheriff and the verderer, who he assumed would be on his side.

  ‘You had no right to interfere in forest affairs. They are regulated by the forest law,’ he growled.

  ‘Nonsense. The king’s peace covers the whole of England, including his own forests,’ snapped de Wolfe. ‘The forest laws deal only with matters of vert and venison.’

  ‘You had no Royal Commission when you summoned them, de Wolfe,’ snarled the sheriff, opening his mouth for the first time.

  ‘I needed no special commission to attach witnesses for an inquest,’ said the coroner, testily. ‘That power was granted by the Crown in Article Twenty of the General Eyre held in Kent last September.’

  He turned back to Lupus. ‘You and your accomplices have perpetrated a reign of terror and extortion in that bailiwick of the forest of Devon. You have closed forges, forced alehouses to take your own product, destroyed a tannery and caused the deaths of at least three people.’

  ‘I’ve killed no one. Those outlaws did the deeds,’ shouted Lupus violently. ‘You can prove nothing against us. We did what we were told in the matter of commerce, like brewing and forges.’

  ‘Told by whom?’ demanded Ferrars, determined to play a part in the coroner’s inquiry.

  Lupus looked furtively at Crespin, then at de Strete.

  ‘By the previous verderer, Humphrey le Bonde.’

  There was a snort of derision from several throats at this.

  ‘You damned liar!’ shouted de Courcy. ‘Very convenient to blame him, now that he can’t contradict you. No doubt he was killed because he tried to moderate your evil schemes.’

  ‘Which one of you put an arrow in his back?’ demanded Ralph Morin.

  ‘It was an outlaw, some footpad who wanted to steal his purse.’

  ‘Strange that every penny was still inside it when he was found,’ said de Wolfe, with heavy sarcasm. He turned to the elderly Warden, who had been standing with a grim expression on his lined face.

  ‘De Bosco, what do you make of all this?’

  ‘It saddens me to think that forest officers, who on their appointment swore loyalty to the King, should have degenerated into little better than outlaws themselves. Whatever else happens to them, they are not fit to wear the horn badge of a forester, and I hereby dismiss them, as from this moment!’

  ‘I doubt you have that power, Warden,’ objected de Strete. The verderer sounded hesitant, as if afraid to commit himself to one side or the other. ‘You certainly cannot dismiss a verderer. I am nominated by the sheriff, elected by the County Court and responsible only to the King.’

  Richard de Revelle supported his protégé, his voice high pitched and pompous. ‘The Warden can nominate foresters, but my recent researches show that he cannot dismiss them – once appointed, they are royal officers.’

  John de Wolfe lost patience with this bickering. He grabbed the parchment roll from Thomas once more and brandished it in the face of the sheriff and the verderer.

  ‘Must I tell you again, damn it?’ he shouted. ‘This is all the authority I need to do as I see fit! I speak now, not as the county coroner, but as a Royal Commissioner.’

  He waved the roll again at Philip de Strete. ‘The first action I take under these powers is to dismiss you from your office.’

  The podgy verderer found enough courage to protest. ‘You can’t do that. I was nominated under a writ from the sheriff here!’

  De Revelle also snarled a contradiction at his brother-in-law.

  ‘And he was duly elected by the County Court!’

  John dropped the roll back on to Thomas’s packing case.

  ‘The appointment has to be ratified by the Curia or their Justiciar – and I can assure you, Hubert Walter had no hesitation in annulling that confirmation.’

  Philip de Strete, now the ex-verderer, responded by walking out of the undercroft, giving the sheriff a look of bitter recrimination on the way.

  ‘Let’s get on with the business, de Wolfe,’ rasped Guy Ferrars. ‘What are you going to do with these rascals, if you won’t send them to be hanged straight away?’

  ‘I want some answers from them, for a start. I’m declaring this to be the continued inquests on Elias Necke, Edward of Manaton and William Gurnon, a woodward of Lustleigh. Put that on your record, Thomas.’

  His eyes moved slowly along the line of men opposite, his face like thunder.

  ‘Who killed Elias the tanner? Was it you, Crespin – or you, Lupus? Or did you send one of these louts you call pages to do it for you?’

  The so-called pages, bullies usually full of swagger, seemed to have crumpled after a few hours manacled in the cells and now faced with the implements of physical persuasion. The ugly Henry Smok had a haunted, fearful look on his face and was the one who answered the coroner, the words tumbling out.

  ‘None of us, sir, certainly not me! It was those men belonging to Winter. They came down from the edge of the woods and put a torch to the place.’

  ‘You seem to know a lot about it, you rogue,’ rasped de Courcy. ‘So tell us who gave them the orders – and who paid them.’

  Smok caught a poisonous look from his master, William Lupus, and avoided an answer, mumbling that he did not know.

  ‘Then who killed Edward, the poacher from Manaton?’ demanded de Wolfe. The four men looked at each other warily, but all shook their heads.

  ‘Right, it seems that your memories need jogging,’ snapped the coroner. He had identified Henry Smok as the weakest link, though the other page, who was called Miles, also looked as if he would betray anyone if it could save his neck. John crooked a finger at Stigand, who was waiting expectantly a few yards away. The finger moved to point at Smok and the gaoler waddled across to grab the page. The man struggled violently, but Gabriel and Gwyn seized his arms and dragged him across to the brazier. Stigand pulled an iron rod from the glowing charcoal and spat on the small cross-piece a
t the end. There was a hiss of steam as the gobbet vaporised and an almost simultaneous scream of fear from Henry Smok.

  ‘It was Crespin, he fired the arrow!’ he yelled in terror.

  ‘Into the back of Edward?’ persisted de Wolfe.

  ‘Yes. The poacher was running away, but he said he’d teach the bastard a lesson,’ gabbled the page.

  There was a roar of denial from Michael Crespin, but Lupus was silent. If it had not been Crespin, then he would have had to take the blame.

  Lord Ferrars felt he had been silent for too long.

  ‘Who directed you to start all this upheaval in the forest, eh?’

  He took a step forward and glared at Lupus and then Crespin, his nose almost touching theirs. ‘Where did you get your orders?’

  There was a sullen silence, then Lupus growled that there were no orders, they had done it for their own purposes, to make more money for themselves and the verderer.

  ‘So you killed three men, burned down a tannery and consorted with a gang of outlaws, all on your own initiative?’ snarled Ferrars. ‘A likely story!’ He turned to the gaoler, who stood hopefully in his filthy leather apron, spotted with burns and what looked like dried bloodstains.

  ‘Carry on, Stigand, see if you can restore the page’s memory – then we’ll try this other lout, before moving on to the men in green.’

  The grossly fat gaoler stuck the first iron back into the fire to reheat and pulled out another, the end of which glowed a dull red. Advancing on the cringing Smok, he reached out and ripped down the neck of his tunic to expose a broad, hairy chest. The page wriggled violently in the grip of the men holding him and screamed out in a last attempt to avoid the branding.

  ‘I don’t know, I’m just a servant!’ he howled. ‘I suppose it must have been that horse-dealer – he was always bringing purses of money and whispering into the foresters’ ears!’

  The hot iron was now near enough to start singeing the hairs on Smok’s chest, but the coroner waved Stigand back, much to the sadistic gaoler’s disappointment. John accepted that the page was not privy to any important information, so he turned back to the foresters.

  ‘And what can you two fine men tell me about it?’ he asked ominously. ‘There’s plenty of charcoal to keep the fire going, remember.’

  ‘You wouldn’t dare torture us, we’re officers of the King,’ Crespin said defiantly.

  ‘No, you’re not any longer! Didn’t you hear the Warden dismiss you just now?’ snapped de Wolfe. ‘And if he hadn’t, I would have, under the terms of my Commission. You’re just common men now, subject to the law like anyone else.’

  He turned to face the elder man. ‘Who was behind all this, Lupus? We know Stephen Cruch instructed and paid you, but he was just a messenger.’

  ‘Stop beating about the bush, de Wolfe! Was the Count of Mortain behind all this, Lupus?’ Ferrars seemed permanently angry, but today he was even more pugnacious than usual.

  The granite-faced forester looked stonily at the coroner. ‘The Prince’s name was never mentioned. I know nothing of politics, I did what I was asked and was paid for it, that’s all.’

  ‘Were you also asked to stab William Gurnon to death at the deer-leap – or was that your idea?’ growled Ferrars, still smarting at the loss of some roe buck and his servant.

  ‘We were told to get Winter’s men to dig the saltatorium – but I killed no one afterwards,’ said Lupus stonily.

  De Wolfe pointed to the men’s weapons lying on the floor.

  ‘Are those your daggers?’ he demanded, motioning to Gwyn to bring them across. He held the belts up for them to see.

  ‘Which is yours and which belongs to Crespin?’

  Sullenly, the men confirmed which was their property. John slid the knife belonging to Michael Crespin from its sheath and looked at the intact blade. He laid it on Thomas’s writing desk, then pulled out the weapon belonging to William Lupus. Dropping the belt to the floor, he used his free hand to feel in his waist pouch, pulling out a shrivelled green leaf. His fingers freed a shining triangle of steel and, wordlessly, he held the dagger up for all to see. As he displayed the broken tip, he showed how the fragment from his pouch fitted exactly.

  ‘I took that scrap of metal from the body of William Gurnon. Does any one here need better proof?’

  There was silence, broken only by the footsteps of Richard de Revelle, as he followed the example of Philip de Strete and walked out of the undercroft without another word.

  John went home to his empty house for a meal. He could have gone to the Bush, where he had eaten so often in the past, for the cook-maid was providing the same good fare as before Nesta had been taken to Polsloe. However, with his mistress absent, he had no urge to sit at their table by the hearth without her and preferred to eat in his own hall. Mary kept him company for a while, as she brought him various dishes from her shack in the back yard. As he tackled the ham-and-bean stew and the boiled knuckle of lamb with cabbage and onions, she sat across the table, her handsome dark head supported on her fist, listening to his account of the past few days. When she came back with bread, butter and cheese, she raised the subject of Matilda, her worries about the future still nagging away.

  ‘I’m going up to Polsloe later this evening,’ said John, with a reassuring tone that failed to convince her. ‘Gwyn and Thomas have asked if they can come with me, as they’ve not seen Nesta for some time, with all this commotion in the forest.’

  He paused to cut a thick slice from the loaf with his knife.

  ‘This time I’ll insist on seeing my wife. It’s ridiculous that I can’t get some kind of answer from her about her intentions, one way or the other.’

  ‘Lucille is even more concerned than I am,’ said Mary. ‘At least for me there’s always the house and the cooking to be attended to – but without a mistress, what use is a mistress’s maid? I don’t like the girl, I’ll admit – but I’m sorry for her, being so uncertain about her future.’

  Once more, John promised to discover what he could that evening, and when his meal was finished he walked the few yards across the cathedral Close to the house of his friend, the archdeacon.

  The evening period after Compline was the most restful time for the clergy, as this was the last of the nine canonical hours, the services that occupied most of the ecclesiastical day. There was free time now until Matins at midnight, when priests could pray, read, sleep, eat or gossip.

  John found the archdeacon in his usual place at that hour, sitting in his austere room, reading a book, with a flask of good wine on the table in front of him. He greeted his namesake with a smile and set another cup before him. Though de Wolfe rarely made formal confession, it was to the Archdeacon he came when that was necessary – but more often he unburdened himself to him as friend to friend, over a measure of wine.

  This was how it was tonight, as he unfolded the whole story of his visit to Winchester and the subsequent escapade in the forest.

  De Alençon listened intently, crossing himself when the coroner described the extermination of the outlaws. ‘It seems brutal, John, but as the law stands they would have died one way or the other, with every man’s hand against them,’ he said soberly.

  ‘They had burned the tanner alive, shot the verderer in the back and inflicted many other miseries on the forest dwellers,’ pointed out de Wolfe. ‘I have no stain on my conscience about them.’

  ‘What about these two foresters and their pages?’

  The coroner shrugged and took another sip of the excellent wine.

  ‘Crespin was denounced as a killer by Lupus’s brute – and I showed clearly that it was Lupus who stuck his dagger into the back of Ferrars’ woodward. Our impatient baron wanted them hanged straight away, but I have attached them to the next visit of the Commissioners of Gaol Delivery, who will undoubtedly send them to the gallows.’

  ‘And the pages, what about them?’

  ‘They are stupid louts, but I will do likewise with them and let the Commissio
ners decide on their fate.’

  The archdeacon drummed his fingers lightly on the leather cover of his book.

  ‘And your dear brother-in-law? How is he to come out of this?’

  John gave one of his rare lopsided grins. ‘The sheriff’s reputation, such as it was, is in tatters. Hubert Walter is well aware of the situation in Devon and I am sure he will begin maneuvering within the Curia to get rid of de Revelle. But you know as well as I that our sheriff is supported by some powerful names, both by barons and those in the Church.’

  ‘Some no more than a few hundred paces from here!’ agreed de Alençon, dryly. ‘Speaking of that, did you get my message about that monk from Buckfast?’

  The coroner nodded. ‘And I also hear that he has left for Coventry, for good, it seems.’

  ‘He’s gone back to that nest of insurrection built by Bishop Hugh. We’ll hear no more of him in these parts. The Cistercians will close ranks, as they have no love for this king, but have high hopes of who they think will be the next.’

  They sat silently for a moment, both thinking of the injustices that the division between Church and state could throw up.

  Then the archdeacon roused himself to broach another subject.

  ‘I have done some research into canon law on your behalf, John,’ he said rather diffidently. ‘I fear I can find no precedent for annulling a marriage because the wife has entered a monastic order. It would require an appeal to the Holy Father in Rome, and even then I doubt whether it would succeed.’

  John de Wolfe nodded glumly. ‘I had expected that would be the answer. I don’t know what’s going to happen there. She still refuses to speak to me. I’ve only clapped eyes on her once since she left – and that at a distance in the priory.’

  He threw down the rest of his wine and stood up.

  ‘I’m going up to Polsloe now, to see how Nesta is faring. According to Dame Madge, she came near to death from blood loss when she miscarried and is still far from well.’

  With the concerns of his friend and promises of his prayers in his ears, de Wolfe took his leave and walked up to Martin’s Lane in the evening warmth to fetch Odin from the stables. Gwyn and Thomas were waiting patiently for him on their mounts at the East Gate, and half an hour later they were at the gate in the wall of St Katherine’s.