Then, just as he was about to turn back, he glimpsed a flash of white some yards ahead. Staring, he made out the top of a linen coif, on the head of someone who was just below the lip of the river-bank. Hurrying as fast as his infirm leg would allow, he came up to the woman and saw that it was indeed Nesta, crouching in the long grass and cow parsley, within arm’s length of the turbid brown waters of the Exe. She appeared oblivious of his approach and was rocking herself dangerously back and forth on her heels, soft keening coming from her throat.
Afraid to surprise her too abruptly, lest she fell forward into the swirling flood tide, Thomas squatted on the path and whispered her name, repeating it until she stopped whimpering and slowly looked around.
‘Thomas? What are you doing here?’
‘Looking for you, dear woman. Come here, take my hand.’
Gently, he coaxed her away from the bank and they stood on the path, arms around each other. She was an inch taller than the clerk, but they leaned together with chins on each other’s shoulders, Thomas patting her gently on the back.
‘They are worried about you at the Bush, Nesta,’ he said after a moment. ‘I came to look for you. What are you doing down here?’
She pushed back from him and dropped her eyes.
‘I came to think, Thomas. To think about ending it all.’
He knew better than to scold or plead with her at this stage.
‘Then like me, when I fell from the cathedral roof, the good God has sent you a sign, Nesta. I never expected to be worthy enough to be the Almighty’s messenger, but so it seems to have turned out!’
‘I’m not sure if I believe in God any longer, Thomas. He took my husband from me, then he taunted me by giving me John, only to make me drive him away.’
The little-ex-priest took her hands in his and gazed earnestly into her eyes. ‘That cannot be true, good woman! Yes, many lose good husbands, just as so many women lose their newborn and husbands lose their wives in childbed. That is the way of the world, and always has been. But to say that you have driven John de Wolfe away is just not true.’
Tears welled up in her eyes, dry until now.
‘But it is only his honour that forces him to say that he welcomes the child … and that in ignorance of knowing who the real father must be.’ She moved forward again and pressed her face into his faded tunic. ‘I tried to do what you advised, Thomas, truly I did! But the words would not pass my lips, for I knew they would finish everything between us.’
The clerk slid his arm around her and gently eased her along the path, a step at a time. ‘Jumping in the Exe will not benefit the crowner, my dear. It would destroy him with guilt. He would never be the same man again.’
She gripped his arm so tightly that he winced.
‘So what shall I do, Thomas? Life is too difficult.’
‘Your life belongs to God, Nesta. He gave it to you and he will take it away in his own good time. As he showed me, poor sinner that I am, it’s not for us to decide when it shall end.’
He grinned wryly, in an attempt to lighten the mood.
‘And certainly not in the river, just downstream of the Shitbrook!’
De Wolfe cautiously followed Stephen Cruch for a mile up the track, which became narrower and more overgrown as he went. In some places the passage of the stallion had broken off thin branches which overhung the path. He kept well back for fear of being detected, but could hear the rider ahead by the occasional crack of a stick under the horse’s hoofs. The coroner wondered why this track existed, as they were now well away from the patch of cultivation near the alehouse and were in deep forest. Whatever it had been, it was clear it was a long time since it had been in use.
Eventually, John realised that he had heard nothing from up ahead for several minutes and stopped in case he overran his quarry. Leaving the path, he slid between the trees to one side, then struck off diagonally again. Soon the gloom of the oak-and-beech canopy seemed to lighten ahead and, as he crept forward, he saw a large clearing where trees had been felled in the past. Concealed behind a trunk, he realised that this was an abandoned settlement, possibly an illegal assart from many years earlier. Though there were no large trees, bushy saplings were springing up among the thick undergrowth and in a few years’ time this scar in the forest would have healed itself. Among the profusion of weeds and bushes he saw the remains of a burned cottage, the surviving timbers wreathed in ivy.
What was more interesting was the sight of the horse-dealer sitting in his saddle, in the act of raising a cow horn to his lips. Three mournful hoots echoed through the woods, then Cruch sat immobile, intently watching and listening. Nothing happened and, a few minutes later, three more blasts were given on the horn. Then, distantly, came an answering blast, repeated four times, on a horn with a higher pitch.
Soon, two riders came into the clearing from the opposite side and met Stephen Cruch in the centre, alongside the ruined hut. They were astride moorland ponies and wore swords, with maces hanging behind their saddles. John recognised neither man, but suspected from Gwyn’s description that these were Robert Winter and Martin Angot.
They remained on their horses and began an animated conversation, but from a hundred paces away John had no hope of catching any words.
A leather bag was passed over to the bearded man that he assumed was Winter, but again he had no way of knowing whether it contained money.
The meeting was very short, for as soon as the bag was stowed away in his saddlebag the leader raised his hand in salute and the pair pulled their short-legged ponies around and walked out of the clearing the way they had come. Stephen Cruch also turned and departed much faster than he had arrived.
De Wolfe was in a quandary as to what he should do. He doubted both the wisdom of following the presumed outlaws and his ability to do so, as only God knew how far they intended riding, and even in the woods he could never keep up on foot for any great distance. And what could he do, if he ended up at an outlaw camp with twenty or thirty desperate villains against him? Discretion seemed not only the better part of valour, but eminently more sensible, so he decided to retrace his steps and get back to Gwyn. He was eager to get a better description of the two outlaws, now that he had seen them with his own eyes.
No doubt Thomas would have advised him that ‘man proposes, but God disposes’, for as he left the shelter of his tree trunk to find his way back to the path, there was a bull-like roar from his right and a yell from his left. Two ragged men hurtled towards him through the trees, kicking up showers of dried leaves as they came. Shocked for an instant, as he had thought himself alone, he barely had time to draw his sword before the first was upon him. Thankfully — for it probably saved John’s life — the other caught his foot in a trailing brier and fell heavily on his face, delaying him for almost a minute.
During that time, the first man skidded to a halt before the tip of the coroner’s weapon, his expression suggesting that he had not expected to be confronted by a fighting man wielding a Crusader’s broadsword — and one who appeared to be well accustomed to using it.
‘I’ll get you, you bastard!’ he yelled, lifting a ball-mace in one hand, the other brandishing a dagger. He was not a big man, being a fellow of about twenty years, dressed in a tattered tunic which was pulled up in front between his legs, the hem tucked into his belt. His head was covered in unkempt brown hair which merged with a wispy beard of the same colour.