Now, at dawn, Gwyn lay wondering what he had let himself in for, penetrating this den of thieves. If any of them recognised him as the coroner’s henchman, he was in big trouble, but he felt it worth the risk if he could learn something useful for his master.
The danger was that, though probably none of the gang of outcasts would have seen him before, the description of a huge, ginger-haired Cornishman acting as the crowner’s officer might be common enough currency in the countryside to give him away. It would surely happen sooner or later, but as he intended only to spend a day or so as an outlaw, he gambled on it being later.
As the dawn strengthened, men began to move, stretching and cursing as they pulled on their boots. They drifted to the fire, which someone had blown into life, piling on fresh wood, so that a cauldron of yesterday’s stew could be heated for breakfast. Some stale bread, stolen at knife-point from some village bake-house days before, was the only accompaniment, washed down by a sour ale.
The other men, who varied from hideous ruffians to weak-looking runts who must have been clerks escaping from embezzlement charges, seemed incurious about him, and Gwyn assumed that the membership of the gang was a fluid affair, with much coming and going. During the desultory converation around the cauldron, he stuck to his story about being ‘Jess’, an absconding abjurer, and no one seemed interested enough to question him in any detail about his orginal crimes. Thankfully, no one leapt to his feet and pointed a quivering finger at him, accusing him of being the Exeter coroner’s officer.
After they had finished picking out shreds of fatty meat and gristle from the pot with their knives and drinking the thin soup dipped out with their empty ale-mugs, a dozen of the outlaws trooped off on foot, one of them telling Gwyn that they were going up to the high moor to steal some sheep belonging to Buckfast Abbey. For some reason, the mention of this religious house seemed to cause some amusement, and Gwyn heard one man cackling about ‘Biting the hand that feeds you!’.
As they left, Martin Angot came across from one of the shelters, walking with a tall, slim man with brown hair and beard. He was better dressed than the others, with a green tunic circled with a belt and baldric from which hung a heavy sword. Ankle-length boots were worn over cross-gartered breeches, and his head was partly covered by a pointed woollen cap that flopped over to one side.
‘Is this the man, Martin?’ he asked his lieutenant. Gwyn recognised that his voice was more cultured than the other men’s, though he spoke English with a Devon accent.
Gwyn lumbered to his feet and nodded to the newcomer, who he assumed was Robert Winter. ‘Jess is my name. I seek somewhere to stay in peace for a time, until I can carry on with my journey.’
The outlaw grinned, his face lighting up pleasantly, his intelligent eyes scanning Gwyn’s huge frame and his dishevelled clothing.
‘Martin tells me you’ve walked from Bristol? You look as if it was from York, by the state of you.’
Now it was Gwyn’s bulbous features which cracked into a smile. ‘Almost as far, for I walked from Anglesey in Wales to Bristol, having taken ship from Ireland.’
He knew Ireland and Wales well and felt easier talking about somewhere that was not pure invention.
‘What were you doing in Ireland?’ asked Martin.
‘Selling my sword-arm as usual. But they’ve run out of wars there at the moment, so I was making for home. Then, being without money after a gaming match, I relieved a Bristol merchant of his purse, but the damned man had two servants following behind. I laid them out, but then had to run for sanctuary.’
It was a simple enough story to be credible, and neither of the outlaws seemed suspicious.
‘D’you mind risking your head as an outlaw?’
Gwyn grinned at the question.
‘It makes no odds to me whether my neck is severed or stretched on the gallows tree, which is what would happen if Bristol caught up with me!’
Winter looked keenly at the big man, sizing up his huge muscles before his eyes settled on the broadsword hanging from his baldric.
‘Are you any good with that thing, Jess?’
Gwyn rattled the battered blade in its scabbard of scuffed leather.
‘It’s kept me alive these past twenty years, so I reckon on being able to use it well enough — though I’ll admit I’m no bowman.’
Both Robert Winter and his deputy Martin Angot asked some more questions, mainly about his origins and where he had served as a mercenary soldier. Once again, Gwyn stuck as near to the truth as possible, which he could do without difficulty. His accent confirmed him as a Cornishman and he correctly claimed to be the son of a tin miner who had given up the trade to become a fisherman at Polruan, where Gwyn had spent the first sixteen years of his life. As to campaigning, he stuck to his actual escapades in France, Ireland and Wales, leaving out any mention of the Holy Land or Austria, which might have brought him uncomfortably near John de Wolfe.
After a few minutes, the other men appeared satisfied that this dishevelled giant was what he claimed to be.
‘You’re welcome to stay with us, Jess, until you want to move on. But you’ll have to earn your keep and our protection,’ said Winter.
‘Anything you say, Chief,’ rumbled Gwyn. ‘What happens today?’
The outlaw leader looked at Angot, who jerked a thumb towards the men sitting around the fire.
‘A few of them are doing a little task for a forester today. Go with them, Jess — there’s hardly likely to be much rough stuff, but someone your size might be useful if any persuasion is needed.’
Apparently satisfied, the two outlaws sauntered back towards the bigger shelter, leaving Gwyn to his own devices. He wandered over to the rest of the men and squatted down with them.
‘I’m to go with you on some persuading expedition,’ he announced. ‘What’s it all about?’
Like their leaders, the men seemed to have accepted Gwyn without query. He suspected that there was a high turnover of similar recruits and deserters in the gang. One of them spat into the fire before answering him.
‘We’re going to shake up some freeholder who refused to honour his obligations to William Lupus,’ explained the man, a tough-looking fellow of about twenty. He had a fringe of dark beard and a jagged scar on his right cheek. The name Lupus rang an alarm bell in Gwyn’s mind.
‘Who’s he?’ he asked gruffly, not wishing to show that he already knew.
‘One of the foresters around here. This bloody pig-keeper refused to feed the horses belonging to him and his page, so we’re to teach him some manners.’
Gwyn leaned forward to push a log farther into the fire.
‘Why are we doing such a favour for a forester? Where I come from, we prefer to cut their throats!’
One of the other men answered this time, a young weaselly fellow with a bad squint.
‘It pays not to ask too many questions around here,’ he advised.
Gwyn shrugged indifferently.’I don’t give a damn. When are we going?’
For an answer, three of the men, including the one with the scar, clambered to their feet. One ambled across to a pile of weapons and brought over four heavy cudgels, one of which he handed to Gwyn.
‘Here you are, Jess. You won’t need your sword today — this isn’t the Battle of Wexford!’ said the bearded youth.
There was no way that Gwyn was going to be parted from his blade, but no further jest was made when he left it hanging at his side. The four men set off down the steep heathland, leaving a few outlaws back in the camp. A few hundred yards below the rocky outcrop, the bare ground gave way to trees, and soon the single file of marauders was winding its way along an ill-defined path through dense woodland down into the valley. Gwyn was in the rear, the leader being Simon, a swarthy ruffian of about thirty who reminded Gwyn of a wild boar, as his dark hairy face and boasted a mouth that had a pair of large yellowed eye-teeth projecting like tusks from his lower jaw. He loped through the fallen leaves and wild garlic with the assurance of one who knew every step of the way, swinging his ugly-looking club in one hand. The other two, Scarface and the one with the squint, were dressed in little better than rags, and Gwyn wondered what sins had driven them from home to eke out this miserable existence in the forest.