Crowner's Quest (16 page)

As Thomas was not there to pen a record on to his rolls, de Wolfe had to remember the few relevant facts so that he could relay them to the clerk when they got back to Exeter. With a handful of village men as a jury, the coroner rapidly recounted the circumstances of the killings. Though there was obviously no way to ‘present Englishry’ on a pair of nameless outlaws, he was reluctant to amerce the village with a murdrum fine, salving his legal conscience with the excuse that as the men were legally non-existent, it did not matter from what race they came.

Within ten minutes, the circle of uncomprehending men standing around the corpses had been told by the coroner to bring in a verdict of murder by persons unknown. They were allowed then to shuffle away, reluctantly going back to their tedious labours after this unusual diversion from the endless drudgery of village routine.

‘I had thought to name Giles Fulford as one of the killers,’ said John to his officer, ‘but there’s no proof other than the word of a villager – and little good it would do anyway. But we must keep a closer eye on Master Fulford when we get back to Exeter.’

It was gone noon when they left Loventor, and although they could have got back to Exeter before curfew closed the gates, de Wolfe took the opportunity to visit his family. Though they travelled through lonely countryside, along narrow tracks well suited to ambush, the two old fighting companions felt no threat from wayside brigands. John’s steed patently advertised the fact that he was a warrior, for Bran was a giant of a horse, his size and hairy feet proclaiming him for a destrier, a warhorse used to carrying the weight of arms and armour. As for Gwyn, it was the man rather than the brown mare that would have given any footpad cause to hesitate. The wild, hairy giant, with his leather cuirass, shoulders protected with metal plates, had a ferocious look that strongly suggested he would be quite happy to use the huge sword hanging from one saddle-peg or the hand-axe swinging from the other.

An hour and a half took them the nine miles from Loventor, through Kinkerswell to Stoke-in-Teignhead, a well-ordered village with a neat manor house, nestling in a green valley a mile or so from the sea. The house was solidly built in stone, one of the last acts of his father, Simon de Wolfe, before he went off to the Irish wars where he was killed. Years of peace had allowed the defences of the house to be relaxed, and though there was a wooden stockade around the yard, its drawbridge had not been raised for as long as John could remember. They clattered across it to be greeted with genuine pleasure by the servants, some of whom had known John since he was a child. Gwyn was also a favourite, as he had been there many times. Both serving-wenches and the men enjoyed his boisterous good humour, which gave the lie to his wild looks. He went off to the kitchens to pinch the cook-maids’ bottoms and be fed until he could eat no more, while de Wolfe went in to his family.

The steward, an old Saxon called Alsi, met him on the stairs from the yard, beaming his pleasure at the visit. ‘Your brother is at Holcombe today, Master John, but your mother and sister are up in the solar.’

The rest of the day was spent in eating, drinking and gossiping around a roaring fire in the hall. His mother, Enyd de Wolfe, was a sprightly, still attractive woman of sixty-three, with auburn hair, which now, however, contained some silver threads. Small and dainty, her vivacity made everyone love her, from the lowest servant to her three children. The eldest was William, today at their other manor a few miles north along the coast at Holcombe, near Dawlish. He was two years older than John, but looked much like him – tall, dark and lean, like their father. But William’s nature was different: he had no interest in travel, fighting or foreign wars. His passions were farming, sheep-rearing and running the two manors. When their father had died, he had inherited the estate, but equal shares of the income came to Enyd and the two other children, the third being Evelyn. She was the baby, now thirty-four, an amiable, gossipy woman. Evelyn had wished to become a nun, but after her father’s death, Enyd had asked her to stay at home and help run the household.

This cold evening, they delighted in fussing over John, extracting all the news and Exeter gossip that they could get from him – even that concerning Matilda, whom they disliked as much as she disliked them. Privately, Enyd always regretted her son’s marriage into the de Revelle family, which had been engineered by his father as a socially advantageous move that would enable John to become a county notable. However, Simon had not foreseen his own early death – nor that John would spend two decades away from Devon at the wars, mainly to keep away from his unpleasant wife. That his mother was Celtic, with a Welsh mother and a Cornish father, was anathema to Matilda, to whom anyone less than full-blooded Norman was on a par with the animal kingdom.

Eventually, almost dizzy from too much food, wine and chatter, de Wolfe stumbled off to a mattress stuffed with goose feathers set out for him at the side of the hearth and slept as well as Gwyn, who had a blanket thrown over a pile of hay in the warmth of the kitchen hut.

In the morning, the twenty-eighth day of December, after a huge breakfast, they left Stoke and rode gently up to the mouth of the Teign. At low tide they waded their horses across the narrow river where it passed the sand-bar to reach the sea. On the other side, John led the way up the coast track, then turned slightly inland to reach the village of Holcombe. Here he found his brother supervising the building of a barn, part of which was to store the wool from an increased flock of sheep that helped to sustain de Wolfe’s income.

William came down a crude ladder to greet his brother, and the two men embraced warmly. ‘I couldn’t pass by without giving you my wishes for a prosperous New Year, brother!’ exclaimed John. ‘Especially as my own prosperity depends so much on your efforts.’

They talked for a while about the manors and the wool trade, which was the economic strength of England. Gwyn watched from a polite distance, marvelling again at the similarity in the appearance of the brothers, and in the difference between their personalities. After family talk had been exhausted, William asked about the coroner’s work, which seemed to fascinate him. De Wolfe related his current problems, then asked if his brother knew anything of Giles Fulford and Jocelin de Braose, but William had never heard of them.

Gwyn waited patiently for half an hour until the two men had had their say. Then, after mutual slaps on the back, de Wolfe climbed aboard his great horse and they set off again northwards. It was not yet mid-morning as they cantered along the coastal track towards Dawlish, a few miles further on. They could have reached Exeter by early afternoon, but from past experience Gwyn suspected that they would just make the city gates as they were closing at dusk.

Fishermen’s huts along the beach indicated that they were in Dawlish, though the centre of the village was a little inland, up a small creek where boats were beached on the banks. John slowed Bran to a walk as he turned up the path alongside the little river and seemed to be staring intently at them as if seeking a particular vessel. Then he prodded the stallion into a trot and moved up the track to where a number of houses, both wooden and stone, formed the nucleus of the hamlet. He reined up outside a new dwelling, built of grey stone with two round arches facing the road, enclosing a sheltered arcade in the Breton style. He turned in his saddle to speak to his officer. ‘Gwyn, I have a call to make, so find yourself the alehouse and have some food and drink. I’ll see you later.’

The Cornishman grinned under his bushy moustache: his earlier prophecy had been confirmed. As he plodded away for some welcome meat and ale, de Wolfe dismounted and tied his horse to a rail at the side of the new house. There was a closed door at the front, under the arches, but he walked down the side towards the yard at the back, seeking the rear entrance.

‘Are you a thief who tries to sneak into my house unobserved?’ came a voice from behind him.

He swung round and a smile of pure pleasure transformed his usually sombre features. An attractive lady was standing there, having slipped out of the front door and followed him round. ‘Hilda! By God, you look more lovely every time I see you.’ The sincerity of his greeting brought colour to her cheeks and she stepped forward to kiss his lips. Her oval face was made brilliant by two large blue eyes and a full red mouth, but her glory was the cascade of pale blonde hair that fell below her shoulders. The usual cover-chief of white linen was absent and her long neck was bare of any wimple, though it carried a heavy-linked gold chain. She wore a simple kirtle of cream linen with blue embroidery around the high neck-line. A blue cord was wound twice around her waist, the long tasselled ends falling almost to her feet.

She linked her arm in his and pulled him towards the gate into the yard. ‘You may as well come in by the servant’s entrance, if you were so reluctant to use the front door,’ she teased.

‘I couldn’t see Thorgils’ boat in the river, but he might have changed it, for all I knew,’ he explained sheepishly.

As they made for the back door, she told him that her husband was away. ‘As usual, so I see him about one day in twenty. He has taken wool to St Malo and will not be back until next week.’ Probably some of my own wool, thought de Wolfe, as he had both the partnership with his brother and another with one of the Exeter portreeves, Hugh de Relaga.

The ground floor of the house, which was large by local standards, was a storeroom for Thorgils’ trade and was piled high with bales, boxes and casks. A girl was searching for something among them, and smiled archly at John and her mistress as they made for the stairs to the upper floor. Hilda gave her a light clip around the ear and ordered her to bring some food from the kitchen for her guest. Grinning even more widely, the girl scuttled out to take the latest gossip to the other servants.

The upper floor was the living quarters, with a stone chimney, a table and chairs and a sleeping area with a large palliasse covered in sheepskins. The room was warm from a glowing fire and Hilda struggled to pull off John’s cloak and hood. He released his clumsy sword scabbard and dropped the massive weapon with a clang on to the floorboards. He sank down thankfully on the edge of the palliasse and waited for her to pour some wine from a stone bottle into two shallow cups.

As they drank, the pert serving-maid came carefully up the steep stairs with a board carrying bread, meat and fish. She put it down, then left, and, for the next few minutes, the blonde woman watched him eat, as they caught up with each other’s news.

De Wolfe had known Hilda since she was a child, as she was the daughter of the former manor reeve in Holcombe. He was eight years older than her, but even before he left home for the wars when he was seventeen, she had been a budding beauty. At every homecoming afterwards they would flirt and by the time she was fifteen they were lovers. Both knew that it would never progress beyond happy tumbles in the hay, as she was from a lowly Saxon family who served the Norman lord of the manor and his family, of which de Wolfe was a member. One day, when John returned from France, he found that Hilda had been married to a much older man, Thorgils the Boatman in nearby Dawlish. She was not unhappy at that: he was a good man with an excellent business who could give her most things in life – this new house was evidence of his prosperity. De Wolfe thought that, years ago, he might have been in love with Hilda, but long separations and her marriage had rendered his feelings to genuine affection and a healthy lust. He suspected that Thorgils knew he was being cuckolded – and maybe by others than himself – but nothing was ever said. Perhaps the sixty-year-old mariner accepted that leaving ashore a beautiful wife half his age carried inevitable risks.

Hilda poured more wine and sat down next to him on the bed. He told her of the current goings-on and the problems with both the dead canon and the land dispute not far away in Loventor. When he mentioned Giles Fulford, her face darkened. ‘That man and his master – they are a pair of lecherous swine!’

John looked at her in surprise. ‘You know them?’

‘Hardly know them, but they came here some weeks ago, to meet Thorgils’ boat when he returned from Caen. He was two days late because of contrary winds so they stayed in the village. Both of them tried to seduce me – to pass the time, it seemed, even though they had their own doxies with them.’

‘What was his master like? You know his name?’

‘Of course. It was Jocelin de Braose. Those two were more like brothers than lord and squire. I suspect they took it in turns with the same women. One was a black-haired harlot – Rosamunde of Rye, they called her.’

‘What does he look like, this Jocelin?’

Hilda leaned back to look at him quizzically. ‘Why are you so interested, John? Are you going to challenge them for trying to lie with me?’

‘We know this Giles is involved in several dubious escapades, but de Braose is more elusive. What’s he like?’

‘Good-looking, I must admit, though he has none of your mature charms, John.’

He tapped her shapely bottom in rebuke. ‘I asked what he looks like.’

‘Red hair – a dark auburn, in curls. Quite a lady’s man, if you fall for that sort of pretty boy.’

‘By all accounts he’s pretty handy with a sword. Yesterday I held an inquest on two men he and his friends had hacked to death.’ De Wolfe threw back the rest of his wine. ‘Why should they want to see Thorgils, anyway?’

She tossed her long hair with an elegant swing of her head. ‘He was bringing half a dozen men from France. They came to meet them from his boat.’

‘What sort of men?’

‘Soldiers, I’m sure. Not ordinary men-at-arms, but well-dressed, well-armed knights. They were Normans – I mean, men from Normandy itself, for they had not a word of English between them.’

‘Has this happened before?’

‘Yes, both Thorgils and some of the other boatmen along the coast have been ferrying such men for the past couple of months. I don’t know where they go, but someone brings spare horses for them and they gallop off into the countryside somewhere.’