Little over an hour after leaving the ferry, he found himself approaching the village of Dawlish, on its small creek leading up from the beach. Slowing Odin to a walk, he carefully scanned the few boats pulled up on the muddy bank of the tidal stream. With some disappointment, he saw that one was the larger seagoing vessel that often carried some of the wool sold to Brittany by Hugh de Relaga and himself. It belonged to Thorgils the Boatman, the elderly husband of the beautiful Hilda, who had been John’s adolescent sweetheart and occasional mistress ever since. His vessel had been damaged in a storm some time ago, and even now he could see that men were still working on it, replacing ribs and planks along both sides of the hull. Regretfully, he touched his stallion with a spur and moved on — even if Hilda had been available, his sense of loyalty to Nesta in her present condition was too great to allow him to dally in Dawlish, though his recent enforced celibacy, which seemed likely to continue for many months, gave him an uncomfortable ache in his loins. He wondered briefly whether he could last out that long, then chided himself for his selfish lack of honour.
The rest of the journey was pleasant and uneventful, as he gave Odin his head and cantered along the cliff-top track towards Teignmouth.
The sky was deep blue and the heat of the day increased as the morning wore on. The weeks of hot weather were giving manor-reeves and bailiffs concern about a drought, but far out on the western horizon he could see a line of clouds massing, suggesting that another day would see a change. When he reached the Teign, the river was very low and, with the tide out, he could wade his horse across the ford just above the beach, barely wetting his stirrups.
The de Wolfe family had two manors, the main one at Stoke and the other at Holcombe, just off the track between Dawlish and Teignmouth. In fact, the delectable Hilda was the daughter of their bailiff at Holcombe. He often called in passing, both to see her father and to look over the manor, but today he felt a need to see his family without distractions.
His brother William, a few years older and of a quite different temperament, ran their two manors with quiet efficiency. Their father had died fighting in Ireland for old King Henry fifteen years earlier and had left his estate to his eldest son, on condition that he supported his mother and sister and gave a quarter share of the income from the estate to John. This, together with the spoils of war from years of campaigning and the income from his wool partnership, kept John in comfortable security. He got on well with brother William, who, though he looked a lot like John, was of a much milder disposition, concerned only with farming and managing the estate, rather than fighting in foreign lands.
These thoughts usually recurred to John as he was completing the last few miles to Stoke-in-Teignhead, which was in a small valley in the forests on the other side of the river. He came into the vale with his usual feelings of nostalgia, for it was here that he was born and where he spent his childhood and youth. The strip-fields were immaculate and the dwellings of the villeins and free men better built and maintained than in most villages. As he walked Odin down the track towards the manor house, he was met with salutes and beaming smiles from many who had known him all his life. It was a happy place, and he already felt better for the tranquillity that palpably pervaded the whole manor.
His father’s house was a square stone edifice behind a palisade of stakes. News of his coming had already been taken inside by an excited urchin running on ahead, and his mother and sister were on the steps of the main entrance to welcome him. A cluster of servants appeared from the cook-house and stables and a groom hurried out to take Odin’s bridle as he slid off and bent to kiss his womenfolk. His mother Enyd, a pretty woman still with only a few streaks of grey in her red hair, stood on tiptoe to hug him around the neck, her eyes sparkling with delight at the unexpected arrival of her second son.
‘William is off towards the river, where they are cutting assarts. He thinks no one can do anything properly unless he is there to supervise!’
John turned to embrace his sister, more of an armful than his mother. Evelyn was still a spinster, having once wanted to become a nun. She was in her early thirties, a plump, homely girl now satisfied to stay companion to her widowed mother.
The ground floor was occupied by the hall, the solar and several other chambers being upstairs. It was into the hall that John was ushered now, where smiling servants fussed around with food and drink as his mother and Evelyn sat opposite him at a table to make sure that he ate enough after his journey to feed a horse. They pressed him for news, wanting to know all the gossip of the big city, his sister asking unanswerable questions about fashions and the current length of toes on stylish shoes.
‘And is that insufferable wife of yours as rude as ever?’ asked his mother bluntly. After years of vainly trying to be pleasant to Matilda, she had given up the attempt and now was quite open about her regret at her late husband’s insistence on John marrying into the de Revelle family.
‘And what about that nice Welsh girl, Nesta?’ asked Evelyn. The fact that he had a mistress was no secret, and the practical mother and sister, detesting his wife as they did, were pleased that not only had he found some happiness elsewhere, but also that she was Welsh. As if to underline the point, Evelyn asked the question now in the Celtic language, which they all spoke fluently, as Enyd’s father had been Cornish and her mother came from Gwent, as did Nesta.
John smiled wryly at the question. He had not expected the motive for his visit to be arrived at so quickly.
‘It’s about Nesta that I’ve come for your advice — not that I wasn’t coming to see you anyway,’ he added hastily.
His mother gave him a roguish smile and punched him gently on the shoulder.
‘Come on, my son, out with it! Are you leaving Matilda and eloping with your inn-keeper?’
‘Maybe it will come to that one of these days,’ he said wryly. ‘Especially after what I’ve got to tell you now.’
Enyd fixed him with her bright eyes, a knowing smile on her face.
‘You’ve got her with child, haven’t you?’
John sighed at his mother’s perceptivness. Ever since his childhood he had known that it was useless trying to keep anything from her.
‘It’s true, Mother. I am to be a father towards the end of the year.’
Evelyn’s homely face creased into a smile. She was happy for her brother, who had so far been childless. Illegitimacy was so common among the ruling class that it was considered normal. Only the poor suffered the stigma of adultery and fornication and had their bastards taken from them to be reared in monastery orphanages.
Her mother turned to a more practical aspect.
‘Does your wife know about this?’
‘Not yet, though I suspect she will very soon. Exeter is a hotbed of gossip — news travels there faster than forked lightning.’
Enyd de Wolfe dumped another meat pasty on to his pewter platter and gave him a look that defied him to refuse it.
‘You’ll have a hard time, son, when she does find out.’
John nodded, his mouth full of mutton and pastry. When he had swallowed, he confirmed that he had an unpleasant time ahead.
‘She’ll go mad, I know. Not because she particularly cares about my sin, but she will be afraid that her grand friends, and all the lesser nobility she cultivates, will think the less of her.’
‘Silly cow!’ observed Evelyn, with blunt good sense.