‘And you say Fulford will go to Dunsford to make the search tomorrow?’ confirmed the coroner.
The scar-faced vicar nodded gloomily. ‘He will be there at noon, he said. He was riding off somewhere at crack of dawn today, but will be back at Dunsford tomorrow.’
‘And he accepted that you must be there also?’ asked John de Alencon.
The vicar sighed. ‘Yes, sir, to my peril. In fact he gave me back the parchment. He said it was no use to him without me to read it. I am to meet him just outside the village at midday.’
‘Did he say who will be with him?’ demanded the coroner.
‘I tried to discover that, Crowner, but he told me to mind my own business. He’s not a man you can ask twice.’
John turned to his officer. ‘We will get there well before him and conceal ourselves somewhere within sight. Thomas is not needed. He can continue to look for this real document.’
The clerk had mixed feelings about this. A self-admitted coward, he was happy to avoid any violent confrontation, but he would have liked to witness the climax of the affair, preferably from a safe distance.
‘Archdeacon, we may take the two men you mentioned from these houses to add strength to our arms?’ asked de Wolfe.
The ecclesiastical John nodded, though his lean face looked worried. ‘I hope no harm will come to them. As cathedral servants, they do not expect to act as warriors.’
‘Look upon it as them policing the safety of the canons, John. This all stems from the murder of one of your brothers.’
This satisfied de Alencon’s conscience and he looked hard at Eric Langton. ‘If you conduct yourself well in this, it will go in your favour when you are judged by the Bishop. He returns tomorrow night and will have to be informed at once of all these unfortunate happenings during his absence.’ His grey eyes strayed to Roger de Limesi, who tried to look both virtuous and contrite.
‘How long did it take you to ride to Dunsford?’ the coroner snapped at the vicar.
‘My poor nag is broken in the wind and she can move at little more than a walk. But on your steeds you could reach the village in just over an hour – it is but seven miles away.’
The coroner arranged for Gwyn to make sure that the cathedral servants were well mounted and armed, and to meet himself and his officer at the ford beyond the West Gate three hours before noon the following day. Then the meeting broke up, but the Archdeacon took John aside as the rest were leaving. ‘Why are you avoiding the sheriff’s participation in this?’ he asked.
De Wolfe replied, in a low voice so that the others would not overhear, ‘There is something going on that I do not understand yet. This man Fulford – and, I suspect, his master de Braose – keeps appearing in various places, yet de Revelle seems reluctant even to question them. That is partly why I hope to catch at least one of them red-handed tomorrow. Then the sheriff can hardly avoid taking some official notice.’
The two Johns eyed each other steadily and each felt sure their thoughts were similar. ‘Are the old troubles starting up again?’ asked the priest cryptically.
The coroner sighed. ‘I have no proof, but my guts tell me that something is brewing. Let’s just watch and wait, old friend.’
Henri de Nonant’s breakfast, though lavish in quality and especially quantity, did not last the hungry hunters many hours. Chasing around the countryside, even on horseback, was an effective way for large, muscular men to use up energy – and when their quarry was nearby, they would dismount and chase on foot with their long-bows, working up both a sweat and an appetite. By noon, they were making their way back to Totnes, their throats dry from shouting and horn-blowing, their stomachs rumbling with hunger. In dribs and drabs, the score and a half men came back into the castle bailey, a few with deer draped across their squire’s saddle-bows and one or two with dead foxes. The sport had not been too good – most of the animals of the upper Dart valley had had the sense to keep out of range of the hunters and their hounds.
Once again, the lord of this honour had laid on plenty of food and drink, and soon the hall was resounding with noisy chatter, coarse laughter and the sounds of eating, drinking and belching. De Nonant was acting the perfect host, going from group to group, slapping backs, making jokes and listening to the interminable exaggerations of the hunters about the one that got away.
But outside, one man was not so cheerful and became more worried as time went by. Those who were not landowners or their squires were fed in the kitchens, a dozen or so men, usually far better hunters than their masters. Among them was Ansgot, whose eyes kept turning to the gateway in the bailey as he waited for his master to return. He began to question the others as to whether they had seen Sir William Fitzhamon after he himself had had to return with his lame mare. He was met with shaken heads and blank expressions – some of them wouldn’t have recognised Fitzhamon. Eventually, Ansgot left his food and climbed the wooden stairs to the entrance to the hall. He put his head in at the door and looked for de Nonant’s steward. After a while he managed to attract his attention – the older man was supervising the servants taking food, ale and wine around to the hunters.
‘Is my master here, Sir William Fitzhamon?’ He wondered if, in some unlikely way, he had arrived unseen.
The steward shook his head. ‘Not in here, brother. I haven’t seen him since breakfast.’
The bailiff became more worried than ever, for although his lord was a stern, unbending man, he was not feared or disliked. He was always fair with his people, both freemen and villeins. His wife, too, was a good woman, who did her best to help the more unfortunate of the villagers, especially sick children. He had no desire to see Fitzhamon lying injured in the forest, perhaps gored by a maddened wild boar. Ansgot went back to the kitchen and spoke to a few men he knew, reeves and falconers from other villages. Two left their pots of ale and cider, and went out with him to look for his master. He borrowed a sound horse and the three men rode quietly away over the drawbridge and down through the town into the woods. The Saxon led the way along the path he had taken that morning, before his horse went lame, then continued on to the river, which was the way Fitzhamon had said he was going. At the other side of the small ford, the three men separated and went off at parallel routes, a few hundred paces apart.
Ansgot was now alone and carried on for the better part of a mile before he heard urgent blasts of a horn to his right, followed by the plaintive baying of hounds. The man on his left came crashing through the undergrowth to respond to the summons and Ansgot joined him. The three were soon together again, and Fitzhamon’s two hounds bounded to the familiar figure of the reeve.
The falconer slung his horn back over his shoulder and slid from his horse to approach something hidden by a clump of withered ferns covered in hoar-frost, with trees on every side.
‘It’s Fitzhamon, Ansgot. And he’s dead.’
Matilda was in a half-way mood, as John described it to Nesta later that evening. She was not raving at him or throwing shoes, as she sometimes did, but was distant and sullen, replying to his attempts at conversation with polite disdain, not using two words where one would curtly suffice. Thankfully, she managed enough speech to tell him that she was going to one of her interminable services at the small church of St Olave, at the top of Fore Street.
They had already eaten their evening meal, boiled belly of pork with cabbage and onions. The supper was a silent, strained affair, but Mary gave de Wolfe a broad wink every time she passed behind Matilda to show that she was sympathising with him. As soon as she had cleared the debris of the bread trenchers and spilt gravy from the scrubbed boards of the table, John retired to the fireside with another quart of cider, whilst his wife marched up to the solar for Lucille to dress her for church. Her maid was a refugee from the Vexin, north of the lower Seine, which Prince John had lost to Philip of France while the Lionheart was imprisoned in Germany.