‘And you, John — are you going to acknowledge the babe?’ asked his mother, her voice deadly serious now.
‘Of course! What else would I do?’ he snapped, rather put out that she needed to even ask such a question. ‘But that’s the problem, Nesta doesn’t want me to suffer in any way because of this and is refusing to let me proclaim the child as mine.’
His mother frowned. ‘She is a kind, considerate woman, that much I saw when we met in Exeter that time. But unless she goes away with the infant, perhaps back to her folk in Wales, it’s bound to become public knowledge. Do you mind that?’
‘Not at all. If people don’t like it, be damned to them. No doubt that swine of a sheriff will make as much capital out of it as he can, especially as his sister will seem to be the aggrieved party, but I don’t give a damn.’
‘Could it affect your position as coroner?’ asked his sister, who was quite proud of her brother’s eminence.
‘Richard de Revelle will undoubtedly try to stir up trouble — he would dearly like to see me removed as coroner and some pliant nobody elected in my place. I don’t need the job, but I’ve come to enjoy it, I admit. If he tries any tricks, I’ll appeal straight away to the Justiciar.’
‘Might Matilda leave you?’ asked his mother, almost hopefully.
‘I doubt it. The house in Martin’s Lane is mine — I bought it many years ago with profit from the wars. She has money laid away by her family, I know, but she enjoys good food, clothes and a sound roof over her head too much to desert me. Though God knows, she’ll try to make my life hell.’
The two women were agog with excitement and curiosity. John’s unexpected visit had been surpassed by this momentous news. Enyd was to be a grandmother and Evelyn an aunt.
‘And is Nesta well with her pregnancy?’ demanded his mother. ‘I remember being so sick when I was carrying William.’
‘She is well in body, though it’s early days yet. It is only a short time since she suspected that she was with child and had it confirmed by a midwife.’
Enyd immediately picked up on part of his statement. ‘What do you mean, John — well in body?’ she demanded.
He shifted uneasily on the bench. His mother’s interrogations were always searching.
‘I told you, she does not wish me to acknowledge the child, for my sake. But she seems very upset generally, she cries a lot and sometimes refuses to talk to me. The other evening she ran to her chamber and locked herself in. Last night she was better, but seems always so sad and will not talk sensibly to me.’
His mother, wise with her years and from carrying three children, put a hand on his arm affectionately.
‘Being gravid affects women in different ways, John. Some say they never felt better in their life, others become weepy and withdrawn. Maybe it will pass soon. You must be patient.’
Privately she could think of several reasons why Nesta was in such a miserable state, but reassurance was what he needed now.
‘Why not bring her down here to stay for a time?’ she continued. ‘Nesta can lodge here for as long as she likes — she could come for childbed when that day comes.’
‘Thank you, Mother, you are the kindest person in the world. But she has an inn to run, certainly until near her time.’
‘Nonsense, having the baby is far more important. You say she has three servants working there. She could get someone to run the alehouse for a few months.’
With memories of Alan of Lyme in his mind, this idea did not greatly appeal to John, but he agreed to put it to Nesta on his return.
The chatter went on until even the two women had exhausted the subject of childbirth and babies. Almost too full to rise from the table, de Wolfe eventually made the effort and then decided to walk off his full stomach by seeking out his brother in the woods.
While John de Wolfe was riding down the coast, his officer and clerk were making a more leisurely excursion westwards, their speed limited by the shorter legs of Thomas’s pony and his awkward posture on its side saddle.
As churches and alehouses were almost invariably twinned in most villages, Gwyn decided to chaperone the little clerk for most of the journey, vanishing into each tavern while Thomas sought out the local healer of souls. The coroner had given them enough silver pennies to provide them with bed and board on a modest scale for four nights, so they looked upon this venture as a rare holiday from their usual routine.
Three hours after leaving Exeter, the pair made their first stop at Bovey Tracey, where Gwyn promptly vanished into one of the two alehouses. Thomas was dressed as usual in his long, threadbare tunic, which looked much like a black clerical cassock, helping to give the impression that he was still in Holy Orders. He made his way to the church and, after much genuflecting and crossing himself, found the parish priest and engaged him in conversation, using the excuse that he had come to see the new stone church built by the lord of the manor, Sir William Tracey. He was one of the four knights who had murdered Archbishop Thomas Becket at King Henry’s behest, and the erection of a church was in atonement for his sin. However, the clerk learned nothing useful from the local man, however skilfully he manoeuvred the conversation towards problems in the forest.
The same routine was followed as the coroner’s assistants made their way slowly around the villages on the eastern flank of Dartmoor. During the rest of the day, they went from Bovey up to Hennock, then to Lustleigh and finally across to Manaton, where Thomas renewed his acquaintance with Father Amicus and Gwyn drank in the tavern with the reeve, Robert Barat. Here they could make no pretence at being passing travellers, as they were well remembered from the inquest on Elias Necke, the dead tanner — but after the aggravation with William Lupus, the village men were happy to gossip about the iniquities of the foresters. They had no new information to pass on, but reported that the outlaws seemed to be becoming bolder, often being seen on the roads and lurking in the nearby woods with no concern about being apprehended.
‘And who is likely to challenge them?’ growled Robert Barat. ‘We never see a man-at-arms around here, the sheriff is but a distant figure in Exeter. No local man is going to risk his neck trying to get a wolf’s head when the foresters themselves seem to protect the vermin.’
That night Gwyn and Thomas found a free bed in an outhouse behind the reeve’s cottage. It was only a pile of straw, but it was clean and the night was warm, though the clouds that their master had seen massing over the sea had rolled in and threatened a change in the weather for the coming days.
Half a penny had bought them a good meal in the alehouse, and in the dusk of a late summer evening they lay sleepily discussing what they had learned that day, which was very little.
‘Let’s hope we ferret out more than this tomorrow and the next day,’ murmured the Cornishman eventually. ‘Else the crowner will want his money back!’
The clerk slapped at some ants that were crawling up his face.
‘No one has heard of any priest who’s in league with either the foresters or the outlaws,’ he said. ‘I wonder if that’s just some idle tale, as no parish priest is able to wander around the countryside as the fancy takes him. Only fairly senior clerics can travel any distance.’
Gwyn rolled over on his heap of straw and pulled up the pointed hood of his leather jerkin to shut out the world.
‘Let’s worry about that tomorrow, Thomas. I need my sleep now.’
Next morning they worked their way along the very edge of the barren moor, coming down to Widecombe, where the previous year their master had investigated the corpse of a young Crusader found in a stream. From there, they jogged to Dunstone, Buckland and Holne, repeating their routine in church houses and taverns. In the evening, they arrived back on the main Exeter road at Ashburton. This was one of the four Stannary towns involved in the assay of the Dartmoor tin, which along with wool was the major export of the county. Here they had a choice of alehouses, but only one church. Thomas, a poor and reluctant horseman, was saddle sore and weary and could not face replaying his usual confidence game with the local priest that evening. This time they had to pay for a place to stay in one of the inns, and after an indifferent meal of leek stew and a leathery fowl the clerk climbed into the loft to collapse face down on to his hay-filled palliasse, giving his aching backside a chance to recover.