De Wolfe noticed that he said ‘sons’, a slip which showed that the sheriff still had John, Count of Mortain, in mind as one of the possible beneficiaries of the fruits of the forest. He thought of making an issue of it, but decided that he was in no mood to reopen the old controversy again and further distress Matilda, as she had been devastated when her brother’s active sympathy for the usurper had been discovered by her husband.
She reached across the table to scoop up another segment of pink fish with her spoon. ‘Have the Devonshire gentry expressed the same concerns to you, Richard?’
‘In passing, yes. Guy Ferrars and Arnulf de Mowbray were moaning to me about having to do all their hunting in their chases and parks, instead of on all the other land they own. But they’re always complaining about something — the more they have, the more they want.’
John gave a derisive grunt — that was rich, he thought, coming from de Revelle, who was a champion money-grubber himself.
‘Why should anyone want to kill Nicholas de Bosco?’ persisted Matilda. ‘He seemed a harmless enough fellow. I’ve often seen him at worship in the cathedral.’ Anyone who was a devout attender at Mass was bound to be looked on favourably by her, even if he had horns and a tail.
‘Nice he may have been, but I’d prefer to say he was weak,’ snapped Richard. ‘A new Warden is needed. De Bosco is just an old soldier, given that job as a sinecure for past services.’
He gave a meaningful look across at his brother-in-law as he said this, but John steadfastly ignored the jibe.
‘Is it possible that someone tried to remove him from office by an attempt to murder him?’ asked Matilda, oblivious of a trickle of salmon fat running down her chin. ‘But who would want such a job, so dismal and unpaid?’
John stared pointedly at de Revelle, until the sheriff began to look decidedly uncomfortable. ‘Well, Richard, haven’t I heard rumours about your ambitions in that direction?’
‘If the office happened to fall vacant, then yes, I’d be interested. It would be a challenge, as this de Bosco has let things slip recently. The forests are teeming with outlaws, the discipline of the foresters is all to hell, and I’m sure the royal exchequer is not gaining all the profit it should from the forests.’
De Wolfe leered across the table at his brother-in-law. ‘No, I’m sure you would find many ways of increasing the revenue, Richard!’
He avoided saying that much of this extra revenue would never reach the royal treasure chests in Winchester or Westminster, but the sheriff knew very well what he was implying.
After a bowl of early summer fruits swimming in fresh cream and a glass of sweet dessert wine, Richard left for his apartments in Rougemont and Matilda called for her maid Lucille to prepare her for bed, as the late summer dusk was now upon them.
To give them time for their womanly pursuits in the solar, John took Brutus for a walk around the cathedral Close. Walking amid the graves, the rubbish piles and the rank grass, he pondered the news that Nesta had laid upon him that evening.
Did he really want to be a father? Could he survive the inevitable onslaught from Matilda, who would taunt him for ever with having sired a bastard on a tavern-keeper? Would Nesta survive childbirth, which claimed such a large proportion of new mothers? Why had this come now, when he had been lying with Nesta for two years? And why had none of his other women, going back over many years, ever conceived?
These questions milled about in his mind as he loped around the huge church of St Mary and St Andrew, following his hound, which dashed hither and thither in search of new smells. He passed beggars sleeping alongside new grave-pits, truant urchins playing tag in defiance of their mother’s screeching, and lovers walking hand in hand or kissing in dark corners under the cathedral’s looming walls. Oblivious to all these familiar sights, he circled the Close and plodded back to his house with none of the questions answered in his turbulent mind.
Hennock lay about two-thirds of the way between Exeter and Sigford and was a larger village than the latter. Early the next morning, three riders came into Hennock and reined up outside the forge. It was a large shack set at the edge of the roadside, its walls of wattle and daub set in a rough timber frame. The sagging roof was covered with faded wooden shingles, which were less inflammable than straw thatch. Behind was a cottage sitting in a patch of garden, with two pigs penned in by a fence and a few chickens scratching in the dust.
The riders sat silently on their mounts for a few moments, listening to the rhythmic clanging of a pair of hammers on the anvil, as the smith and his eldest son rained precise blows on a red-hot length of rod than was destined to be a cart axle. A younger boy, about eight years of age, was in the shadows at the back of the hut, pumping away at a large leather-and-wood bellows to keep the charcoal of the furnace glowing almost white.
Eventually, forester William Lupus gave a curt nod to one of the others and his page slid from his horse and walked towards the forge. Henry Smok was utterly unlike the usual image of a ‘page’, being a bull-necked man of about forty, with a roll like a sailor and a coarse face surmounted by a tangle of dirty black hair. His breeches were coarse cloth and his brown leather jerkin was tightly belted to carry the weight of a broadsword as well as a dagger.
Smok ambled up to the open double doors of the smithy and stood insolently alongside the anvil, his thumbs hooked into his belt.
‘Hey, you! You’re wanted outside.’
Eustace Smith jerked his head up to look at the intruder. He was a crop-haired Saxon in middle age, his leathery face pitted with small scars from sparks and hot metal. The alternate clanging of the hammers ceased and the younger Smith stared uneasily at Smok.
‘As soon as we finish this piece, before it cools too much,’ he grunted.
The page gave the son a shove that sent him staggering. Though both the ironworkers were tough, muscular men, Henry Smok had the physique of a bull and the temperament of a bully.
‘Out, I said! Both of you.’
The craftsmen knew very well who Smok was and who would be outside. Like all villagers in the forest, they had suffered the arrogance of the foresters and their creatures for years. Reluctantly dropping their hammers to the floor, they walked out into the morning sunshine and looked up at the other two horsemen. One was the forester, the other Walter Tirel, a woodward employed by the de Pomery estate, but who often acted as an assistant to Lupus.
‘Well, William Lupus, what is it now?’ asked Eustace wearily. ‘Has your mare cast a shoe — or do you just want to increase the private tithes you extort from me?’
His words were bravely defiant, but there was a tremor in his voice.
‘Watch that mouth of yours,’ growled the forester, looking down at the smith as if he were a heap of manure.
‘We’ve come with some good news for you,’ sneered Walter Tirel, who acted as a sycophantic shadow to William Lupus. He was a thin, wiry man with one drooped eyelid that made him look as if he were permanently winking.
‘That’ll be the day when you bring anything but trouble,’ said the smith bitterly.
‘The news is that you’re going to work for the King,’ grated Lupus.
Eustace stood in his scorched and scarred leather apron, looking suspiciously from one man to the other.
‘What the hell do you mean?’
‘A new forge has been built at Trusham, two miles up the road.’
Eustace scowled at the reminder. ‘So I’ve heard — though why, I can’t fathom. There’s no need for two so close together.’
Walter Tirel grinned. ‘I agree, so now there’ll be but the one … at Trusham.’
Eustace gaped at the two mounted men, words failing him.
‘This forge is closed as from tomorrow,’ snapped William Lupus. ‘The new rule in the King’s forest is that smiths work only for the King. You’ll be paid a wage, like any other workman. But you’ll labour at Trusham, under a forge-master I’ve appointed. You’ll have company, for Lawrence the smith from Coombe is in the same position as yourself.’