Impatiently Fitzhamon pulled round his horse’s head to aim it at the gate, but then relaxed the reins to launch another tirade at Pomeroy’s right-hand man. ‘You can also tell him that those two men murdered by his mercenary thugs today will be investigated by Sir John de Wolfe, the King’s crowner, to whom I have already sent a messenger. He also may have a thing or two to tell Hubert Walter about how they came to their deaths!’
As he dragged on the stallion’s bit again, Fitzhamon made one last parting shot. ‘And tell Pomeroy that I can give the Justiciar some other damning news about him and his treacherous friends!’
With that, he dug his prick-spurs into the horse’s belly and hammered across the bailey, his silent companions close behind.
As they vanished over the drawbridge and into the gloom of the trees, the old steward leaned on the rail and rubbed his wispy beard thoughtfully. If he had ever heard a direct threat, this was it. And it was a dangerous one for quite a few nobles in this part of England.
Chapter Five
In which Crowner John visits a lady
In the late afternoon of the day after Christ Mass, a lone rider came through the West Gate and made his way up to Rougemont. He was unfamiliar with Exeter, having been to the city only once before. Unsure of where he should deliver his message, he dismounted at the drawbridge to the inner bailey and asked the guard for directions to someone in authority. The man-at-arms stuck his head into the door at the foot of the gatehouse, and Gabriel, the sergeant of the castle guard, soon appeared.
‘My name is Ulf, bailiff to Sir William Fitzhamon at Dartington, near Totnes, come to report two dead bodies in Loventor,’ declared the man. ‘Who should I speak to about them?’
Gabriel, a rugged old veteran of many campaigns, was glad of an excuse to visit his friends on the top floor and led the bailiff up the narrow stairs to the small upper chamber. Here, John de Wolfe was silently mouthing the Latin phrases set by his tutor for tomorrow’s lesson. Gwyn was squatting on his window-ledge, peeling an apple with his dagger, and missing the opportunity to bait Thomas, who was still in the Chapter House, searching for the missing parchment.
Gabriel announced Ulf as one of Fitzhamon’s bailiffs, then subsided on to Thomas’s vacant stool to eavesdrop on any news. The bailiff told his story about the sudden descent of the avengers upon Loventor’s attempt to repulse the assart-cutters. ‘Those men were professional soldiers, Crowner. They were well armed and cut down two of our men without warning. Though we wished to teach de la Pomeroy’s woodsmen a lesson, we only intended to cause some sore heads and a few bruises – but these men slew two of ours as you would swat flies.’
‘When did this happen? And what have you done with the bodies?’ demanded de Wolfe.
‘This very morning, sir,’ replied Ulf, a heavily built Saxon with a hoarse voice. ‘Sir William’s steward knew that we have to report such violent deaths to the crowner so he sent me in haste to tell you.’
‘You’ve not buried them?’ growled Gwyn, knowing that the disposal of embarrassing bodies was usually a first priority of villages.
‘Indeed not!’ replied Ulf virtuously. ‘We have put hurdles around them to keep off the dogs, who showed a great interest in the smell of blood.’
‘Do you know who attacked your men?’ asked de Wolfe.
‘I was not there myself, but two reliable men who were leading the outlaws we hired said that one man was Giles Fulford, though the leader was a fellow with red hair, a darker shade than your man here. They did not know his name.’
The coroner looked at Gwyn enquiringly, then back at the bailiff. ‘Does the name Jocelin de Braose mean anything to you?’
Ulf looked blank. ‘No, never heard of him. Our men may have, but not me.’
After a few more questions, John arranged to meet the man early next morning to ride to Loventor, and Gabriel took him away, with the advice to seek a penny bed and meal at the Bush, the best inn in the city.
When they had gone, the coroner pondered the reappearance of Fulford in this incident, but felt it was impossible to relate it to the death of the canon.
‘This red-headed leader, Gwyn,’ he demanded of his officer. ‘We must discover if this man is Jocelin de Braose. Who would know if he has the same coloured thatch?’
The Cornishman lifted a hand to his own unruly ginger hair. ‘There are plenty of us about! But I’ll ask at the Saracen tonight to see if anyone knows him – his squire seems to visit the place often enough.’
As it was getting dusk, before long John trudged home to Martin’s Lane, to spend an evening of sullen silence with his wife, relieved only by mulled wine and dozing by the fire until it was time to stumble to bed.
In the grey light of dawn next day, the coroner rode his great stallion Bran down Fore Street to the West Gate, with Gwyn close behind on a big brown mare. The usual chill wind was blowing from the east, but there was no fresh snow. Both men wore heavy woollen tunics down to mid-calf, divided front and back to allow them to sit in the saddle. De Wolfe had a black leather hood, pointed at the back, over his long riding cloak, while Gwyn had a hessian sack wrapped around his head, the ends tucked into the frayed collar of his thick leather jerkin.
Ulf of Dartington was waiting for them inside the gate, which had just opened for the day. It was a hanging offence for a porter to allow any gate to be opened between dusk and dawn, except in some rare emergency sanctioned by the sheriff.
The three mounted men moved through the gate against a milling crowd pressing the opposite way. These were mainly countryfolk, laden with baskets of vegetables, eggs and chickens or pushing handcarts piled high with such produce. They came to sell to the city-dwellers, setting out their wares on the edge of the street or supplying the established stall-holders with fresh stock.
Once out of the gate, the riders crossed on to Exe Island, the marshy area reclaimed from the river, which supported mean huts clustered around the fulling mills for washing and preparing wool. At the other side of the island, de Wolfe led them into the cold water of the Exe, to splash across the shallows. There was a flimsy wooden bridge for travellers on foot, but the long stone bridge stood unfinished, as the builder, Walter Gervase, had again run out of funds.
Once up the opposite bank, they took the main highway west towards Plymouth and Cornwall. The going was good as the usual muddy morass had been hardened by the frost into a firm surface. Clipping along at a trot, they reached Chudleigh in less than two hours and turned off the main track southwards, to head towards Totnes on the river Dart.
Another hour or so brought them near the village of Ipplepen, when they branched off again on to tracks through the scrub and forest that lay between the villages. John knew this area welclass="underline" he had been born and brought up at Stoke-in-Teignhead, a manor in a small valley south of the Teign estuary. Here his mother, brother and sister still lived and he resolved to call upon them on the way back to Exeter. Eventually they reached the hamlet of Loventor, where Ulf led them behind a tithe barn near the small wooden church. A few curious villagers trailed up to them as they slid from their horses and lashed the reins to a fence. Behind the barn, a leaning structure of wattle walls and a thatched roof, was some wasteground on which several hurdles of woven hazel-withies had been stuck in the ground to form a square against the back wall of the barn.
‘We kept them in here for you, Crowner,’ said Ulf proudly, aiming a kick at a scraggy dog sniffing at the enclosure.
The bailiff pulled aside a hurdle and ushered de Wolfe and his henchman inside. On the ground were two bodies, laid side by side. They were dressed in clothing so rough as to be little better than rags. ‘These were outlaws?’ The coroner’s remark was more a statement than a question.