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.’
She put down her wine cup and snuggled closer to de Wolfe. ‘I’m tired of talking about my husband’s cargoes. Are you only here to spy on me, John, and wheedle out the secrets of Dawlish?’
He grinned his rare grin again, and held her by the shoulders to look at her smooth, lovely face. A purist might have thought her nose a trifle too long, but for a woman of thirty-two she was as near perfection as any man could want.
He leaned forward and they kissed again, then slowly slid sideways on top of the sheepskins.
As Gwyn had predicted, they reached Exeter with little time to spare before the city gates creaked shut. Gwyn carried on outside the walls to reach his hut in St Sidwell’s, while the coroner plodded his tired stallion up to the livery stables in Martin’s Lane. When he had seen Bran safely fed and watered, he walked across to his own house and cautiously entered the hall. There was no sign of Mary to give him early warning of any domestic strife so he had to cross the flagstones to the hearth, where he could see a pair of feet projecting from one of the cowled monks’ chairs.