Crowner's Crusade

by Bernard Knight

  A large thatched roof sat on a square of wall at little more than head height, with a yard behind with the usual huts for the kitchen, brewery, stable and privy. The front door had a withered bush of twigs hanging over it from a projecting beam, the sign of a tavern since Roman times. This was appropriate, as Exeter’s street plan was laid out by the Romans and much of the town wall was built by them, added to later by Saxons and Normans.

  De Wolfe tied up his hired horse near a water trough at the side of the inn, as the July weather was becoming very warm. When he went round to the front door, he frowned as he noticed that the limed walls were in dire need of their annual whitewash and the thatch above was becoming tattered and frayed. Three years ago, when he was last here, the place was spruce and fresh, as Meredydd and Nesta had made great improvements to what had been a scruffy old alehouse.

  He went inside and again was dismayed to see broken benches and dirty rushes on the floor. The place smelt strongly of urine, mould and spilled ale. A slatternly girl of about twelve was bringing earthenware mugs of ale from the casks at the back of the large room to a few men seated on the benches. There were no more than half a dozen of them, far fewer patrons than he remembered from three years ago. John beckoned the girl and asked for a quart of ale.

  ‘Where’s Meredydd, your master?’ he asked her. The child, for she was little more than that, stared at him from big eyes in a thin, pale face. As she backed away, she shook her head, but made no reply. Afraid that his scruffy appearance had scared her, he asked her gently to fetch Mistress Nesta. This time she nodded, then vanished through the back door into the yard behind.

  John sat on an empty bench at a table near the central firepit, now filled with dead ashes within its ring of whitewashed stones. Again he noticed the neglected state of everything, so different from its former state. As he pondered the possible reasons for the decline in the Bush, a pot of ale was put on the table before him.

  ‘You asked for my husband?’ came a well-remembered voice. He lifted his face and saw Nesta staring down at him. Then with dawning comprehension, she gasped as she saw his features instead of the dirty straggle of black hair on top of his head. ‘John? Is it really you, John?’ Her face showed amazement, her hazel eyes enormous as they opened wide in disbelief.

  John smiled wryly at her. ‘Sorry, I expect I look more like John the Baptist than John de Wolfe, but I’ve come more than a thousand miles! So where is Meredydd?’

  To his surprise and utter embarrassment, the landlady slumped down on to the bench alongside him and leaning into his shoulder, promptly burst into tears. Awkwardly, he put an arm around her shoulders, ignoring the curious glances of several other drinkers across the room.

  ‘Mistress, what is it that troubles you? Where’s Meredydd?’

  For answer, she buried her face in his cloak, oblivious of the dank smell.

  ‘Dead!’ she sobbed. ‘Dead of a fever, last Michaelmas. I am at my wit’s end, John.’

  Gently, he sat her upright and sat with one hand lying on hers on the table. ‘Nesta, I am here now, I will do all I can to help you. Tell me from the beginning what happened?’

  Taking Hugh’s advice, when John eventually left the inn he went straight to several clothiers’ booths recommended by Nesta after her weeping had stopped, following his assurances that he would come to her aid. In a matter of an hour, he equipped himself with a couple of undershirts, two grey tunics, long hose, worsted breeches, a pair of riding boots and some house shoes. No longer masquerading as a pilgrim, he had no need yet of a hat in this clement weather, as he preferred going bareheaded.

  Stuffing his purchases into a saddlebag, he went in search of Gwyn’s cottage in the small village of St Sidwell’s, virtually a suburb of the city just beyond the East Gate. Here he interrupted the celebrations of his squire’s homecoming to give Gwyn and his plump wife a share of the money he had been given by Hugh de Relaga and to ask them if he could use their yard to have a wash!

  With Gwyn and two delighted lads assisting, he stripped off before the ruminant gaze of their house cow and had leather buckets of water from the well thrown over him. Agnes produced some soap she had made from goose fat mixed with wood ash and, ignoring his nakedness, lathered and scrubbed him clean. Afterwards, before donning his new clothes, he hacked off his beard and scraped the stubble with the specially honed little knife he carried in his scrip. Finishing off with Agnes trimming his black locks to a manageable length, he felt like a new man. Still putting off his search for Matilda, he sat in their one-room cottage and over a bowl of potage and some ale, told them of the crisis in the Bush.

  ‘Nesta said their business was doing well until Meredydd fell ill last year with a purulent cough and fever. He was dead inside a week and since then she has been struggling to carry on.’

  ‘Does she not have assistance there?’ demanded Agnes, instantly sympathetic to another working woman in distress. ‘I thought they had a pot-man and a couple of girls to help with the cooking and serving.’

  ‘They did have – but the man tried to make lewd advances after her husband died and she dismissed him. Then her cookmaid got herself with child and Nesta found she could not afford to hire new people.’

  Gwyn frowned. ‘But I thought the Bush had become very profitable since Meredydd and Nesta took it over. It was thought of as the best tavern in the city – clean, with good food and excellent ale, thanks to Nesta’s brewing.’

  John nodded sadly. ‘It was, but when she became hard-pressed from working alone, things went downhill. Less income meant less to spend on good food and brewing materials. The customers began to dwindle, especially those from out of town, like the travellers and carters who used to stay there when visiting the city.’

  Agnes clucked her tongue in dismay. ‘Such a pity, Sir John, after all the work they put into making it a success, especially as you helped them so much.’

  ‘I recall you lending them a fair sum when they bought the place,’ observed Gwyn. ‘You told me Meredydd needed some silver to make up the price and you gave it him to save him paying usurious interest to the moneylenders.’

  De Wolfe grunted, his usual response to anything that might embarrass him.

  ‘He paid me back quickly. It was just a helping hand to an old comrade. Meredydd was a damned good archer when he was with us in France.’

  ‘So is there anything we can do to help the poor girl?’ asked the ever-practical Agnes. ‘Gwyn could go down there for a bit, to help her. Now that he’s come home, I don’t want him under my feet here all day, I can tell you!’ She smiled affectionately at her large, clumsy husband.

  He nodded amiably. ‘Sure, I can tidy the place up a bit and mend anything broken. Help with the brewing and that.’

  ‘You’ll drink more than you’ll brew, but never mind,’ scolded Agnes.

  ‘What about the cooking and looking after the lodgers?’

  John ran a hand through his newly cleaned hair. ‘She’ll need a potman and another maid, one that can cook and is more experienced than the poor child that’s there now. Do you know anyone?’

  Gwyn tugged at his moustache and frowned as he considered the problem.

  ‘What about old Edwin down the street?’ he suggested to his wife.

  Agnes thought for a moment, then nodded. ‘He lives with his married daughter and she says he also gets under her feet, just like you, Gwyn. They might both be glad to see him off the premises.’

  Gwyn turned to de Wolfe. ‘You’ll recall Edwin, he was a pikeman with us at Wexford years ago. Lost an eye and part of a foot there. Terrible old gossip, but reliable enough. He might like to earn a few pennies.’

  Agnes, who knew everyone for a mile around, said that her second cousin’s daughter Molly was a good cook and an honest girl who might consider the job.

  After some more gossip, John felt that he could not put off his filial duties any longer, so leaving Gwyn and his wife to follow up their suggestions about help for Nesta, he left to walk the s
hort distance back into the city. He had left his horse with Andrew, the farrier in St Martin’s Lane, as in town a large animal was more of an encumbrance than a help in getting around.

  In his new clothes and feeling clean for the first time since Acre, he set off through the city gate and down the High Street past the Guildhall once more. At Carfoix, where the roads from the four main gates crossed, thanks to the Roman general Vespasian’s town planning, John carried straight on down Fore Street, which went downhill towards the West Gate. On the right, he passed the little church of St Olave, where his wife spent so much time on her knees and then came to her cousin’s house. This was a small, but well-kept two-storey dwelling built of cob plastered between frames of old oak.

  When he rapped on the iron knocker, he expected it to be answered either by the cousin Edith or her miserable old maidservant. It was quite a surprise when the door flew open and the irate visage of Matilda de Wolfe appeared.

  The reception he got was in stark contrast to that of Nesta in the Bush. Instead of collapsing against him in tears, his wife stared at him for a moment while her mind grappled with this unexpected situation.

  ‘Oh, it’s you John! I thought it was those cursed children again, playing “knock and run away”,’ she said evenly, as if he had just returned from visiting his mother, rather than an absence of over three years.

  ‘At least she didn’t say she thought I was dead,’ muttered John, as she stood aside and let him into the short passage that led to the kitchen, with two rooms leading off each side of the front door.

  He considered giving her a discreet kiss of welcome for form’s sake, but as she waddled in front of him with her back turned, he thought better of it. In the kitchen, a lean-to on the back of the house, Matilda motioned him to a stool at the table and produced two wine cups and a flask. After pouring the wine, she sat down heavily opposite her husband and glared at him. ‘So where have you been since gallivanting off with your precious king, leaving me alone to fend for myself?’

  It took an hour and the rest of the flask of wine for John to tell his wife of his adventures. Though initially she affected to be disinterested in his selfish affairs, her fascination with things religious gradually thawed her – along with more than a pint of Anjou red wine. Matilda was devoted to all things related to the Church and its priests – along with an almost equal love of food, wine and good clothing. The fact that he had been to Christ’s homeland, had actually seen Jerusalem, albeit at a distance and had trodden the hallowed shores of the Sea of Galilee, fascinated her. She began to look at this gaunt, dark man in a new light, just because he had actually breathed the air of the Holy Land and had done his best to free the sacred places from the grip of the infidel Saracens.

  She was far less interested in hearing of his arduous journey home, though she was patriotic enough to condemn the capture of a Crusading king by dirty foreigners from Germany. Matilda had been born in Devon, as had her parents and grandparents, but she firmly considered herself to be a true Norman, though she had only once set foot in Normandy, visiting distant relatives. To her, the English were an inferior race – and as for those locals who were remnants of the original Celtic peoples, especially the Cornish, to Matilda they were little better than savages. The fact that her husband had a half-Welsh mother had always been a thorn in her side.

  His story told, he enquired what had befallen her whilst he was away. Amid the expected recriminations of leaving her alone and penniless – a blatant untruth, as her father had settled a comfortable sum upon her at his death – John gathered that she had alternated between living with her brother at his estates in Revelstoke and Tiverton and staying with her cousin in Exeter, where the attractions of both the cathedral and St Olave’s were greater than the boredom of the countryside.

  ‘So are you staying or are you disappearing again with that uncouth Cornishman to carouse on some distant campaign where you can drink and wench to your heart’s content?’ she demanded.

  From long familiarity, John ignored her acidulous tongue and shook his head. ‘I’ve had a bellyful of wandering, good wife!’ he replied. ‘I’ve seen too much of foreign parts now, I need to enjoy the county of my birth for a while. I thought you wanted to settle in your own house at last?’

  He went on to tell her of the profits that Hugh de Relaga had earned for him during his absence and the gains from the manors at Stoke and Holcombe. ‘Together with what I have in my treasure chest at my brother’s house, we are very well provided for, Matilda. I know you prefer the city, so why do we not purchase a house here?’

  Even her ungracious nature could hardly turn this offer down and she celebrated this improvement in their relationship by fetching another flask of wine and discussing the merits and faults of various streets in Exeter. As an energetic social climber, she favoured the best areas, either up towards the North Gate or even better, between the cathedral and the east gate, where the wealthiest merchants lived.

  Eventually, the wine got the better of her and she rose unsteadily and said she must take her usual afternoon rest. ‘But you cannot stay here now, John. I came to help my cousin, as she has a daughter here waiting for childbed in a few weeks’ time. I have to share a room with Edith, so you must go elsewhere until we find our own house.’

  This was music to John’s ears, as he liked her cousin even less than Matilda herself and would be delighted to lodge elsewhere.

  ‘I must first go to my family in Stoke, I will stay with them for a while. But first I have business to settle with Hugh de Relaga, so will board at an inn for a few days. Meanwhile, while you are staying in Exeter, you can discover what dwellings are for sale or lease in the town.’

  When he left Matilda, with a feeling of relief in spite of their fairly amicable reunion, he went up to Rougemont, the castle built soon after the Conquest by William the Bastard himself. An inner wall of the red sandstone that gave the fortress its name, carved off the upper corner of the Roman wall at the highest point of the city. Outside this was a much wider arc of wooden palisade mounted on an earthen bank, forming the outer ward where the garrison and their families lived in what was essentially a hutted village. The inner ward was guarded by a high gatehouse, its arched entrance having a drawbridge across a dry moat. Inside the inner ward were the keep, a small chapel and the barn-like Shire Hall which functioned as the court.

  John strode up to the gatehouse and when challenged about his business by a young soldier who had obviously never heard of Black John, he gruffly demanded that Sergeant Gabriel be called.

  The lad vanished into the guardroom inside the archway and a moment later, a grizzled man in a short belted tunic and breeches hurried out, a wide smile on his leathery face. ‘Blessed be to God Almighty, it is you, Sir John!’ He grasped him by both upper arms and shook him in an exuberance of delight.

  ‘Don’t say “I thought you must be dead,” for Christ’s sake!’ growled John, but his own wide grin showed his pleasure at seeing his old friend again. Years before they had served together in the North Country and he would trust Gabriel with his life. He rapidly gave him a summary of his doings these past three years, then asked if the castle constable was about. ‘We can sit together over a jar of ale and I’ll tell you more about my time with the king,’ he promised.

  A few minutes later, they climbed the wooden stairs to the entrance to the keep, a squat tower which was built over the prison and storehouse, on the further side of the inner ward. Inside, most of the first floor was one large hall, with a few small chambers along one side. This was the meeting place where most of the official business of Devonshire was done, the hall often being crowded with soldiers, nobles, clerks and merchants, all seeking something from the officials who occupied the castle.

  A firepit occupied the centre, but was unlit on this warm summer day. However, food was being carried in by servants from a kitchen hut at the back and ale was flowing as required from barrels in one corner. A few rough tables and benches occupied part of th
e hall and a number of men were eating and drinking at them amongst a babble of noise.

  ‘There he is, though his beard is greyer than when I last saw him!’ said de Wolfe, marching across to a table and clapping a hand on the shoulder of a very large man. Sir Ralph Morin looked like one of his Viking ancestors, with a nose as big as John’s and a forked beard that jutted out like the prow of a ship. As Gabriel had done, he went through the routine of surprise and delight when he saw who it was – and thankfully avoided telling John that he had expected him to be dead!

  John and the sergeant sat down and a servant brought them quarts of ale, as de Wolfe once again went through a summary of the fateful voyage from Acre. Ralph listened avidly, as he was tiring of the inactivity of peaceful Devon, after years where he had campaigned as actively as John. Also like John, he was a devoted king’s man, being the military commander of the castle and its garrison. Rougemont was one of the two West Country fortresses to be held by the king, the other being Launceston in Cornwall – a wise precaution as it turned out.

  ‘So how did you and that great lump Gwyn get home after that treacherous seizing of King Richard?’ Ralph wanted to know.

  ‘We walked most of the bloody way!’ growled John. ‘Took us over six months. Neither of us had a word of German between us and that lad had been seized as well, so as we both spoke the language, we posed as Welsh mercenaries, cut off from our main company.’

  Ralph Morin grinned, in spite of the seriousness of their plight. ‘Plenty of those knocking about in Europe,’ he said. ‘Did you meet any there?’

  De Wolfe nodded ruefully. ‘We did indeed, and fought with them for a time in a dispute between two German princedoms. We had sold our horses after a month when our money ran low and walked into Bavaria where there was a local war going on. A company of ruffians from Powys took us on. Thank God they were not from Gwent, for we are of little use with a longbow.’