Ralph brought the talk around to current problems.
‘What are you going to do about these damned foresters and their accomplices? The soldiering part is over. Now it’s down to you and the law.’
‘Hang the swine out of hand!’ snarled Ferrars, still smarting at the loss of his woodward and his deer. ‘Surely conspiring with outlaws is a felony? They were caught red handed.’
De Wolfe shook his head. ‘They’re not declared outlaws — and they are still King’s officers. They will have to have a trial before the royal judges. I can’t advocate one sort of justice for some then hang others without trial.’
Ferrars made noises that suggested that it was all a waste of time and effort, but de Courcy agreed with John.
‘Have your trial, as long as it doesn’t go to the Shire Court, where the damned sheriff would probably not only acquit them but give them a few marks from the poor box for the inconvenience they suffered!’
The coroner used his teeth to strip the meat from a capon’s leg while he considered the matter.
‘Later today we must interrogate them down below.’ He pointed with his chicken bone at the floor, below which the prisoners were incarcerated in the undercroft. ‘The Warden of the Forest should be present, as well as this new verderer, de Strete. They are the seniors of these miscreants, they should hear what they have to say.’
Guy Ferrars nodded reluctant acceptance of this alternative to a quick hanging.
‘We’d better have de Revelle there, too, whether he likes it or not. I want to see him squirm when he sees his accomplices confess.’
‘As he’s still the sheriff, however much we resent it, he surely must fulfil his responsibilities as the enforcer of the King’s peace in the county,’ added Reginald, always a stickler for convention.
They agreed to assemble in the gaol after the bell for Compline, late in the afternoon. As John was fretting to get away to Polsloe, he left Ralph Morin to inveigle Richard de Revelle into attending in the undercroft.
When John arrived at the priory, he found Nesta slightly better than when he had last visited, a couple of days ago. She still had a slight fever and her pallor was not improved, but she seemed more cheerful and had lost the haunted look that had so worried him over the past two weeks. When he complimented her on the improvement, she managed a smile that was almost like her old self.
‘It’s the nursing, John, they are so kind to me that I cannot fail to get better every day. If only this fever would leave me, I’m sure I could go home.’
‘You stay here until you are really well, my love,’ he admonished. ‘You can’t struggle up that ladder in the Bush in your condition — and I can’t always be there to carry you up myself!’
They talked for a little while, with John as usual relating all his recent adventures. Nesta was overjoyed that he had not suffered any injury this time. He avoided asking her whether she had seen Matilda, as last time this seemed to have caused her to give him some odd looks, but on his way out Dame Madge materialised in the corridor. She demanded once again that he display his wound for her inspection, and while he bared his hip he asked whether there was any change in his wife’s resolution to ignore him. The bony midwife for once seemed oddly reluctant to answer him, saying that he had better talk to the prioress about such matters. When she had satisfied herself that his rapidly healing wound needed no further attention, he dropped his raised tunic and thanked her for her devoted care of Nesta.
‘She is a sweet woman, Crowner,’ said Dame Madge. ‘We are all very fond of her.’ Her tone suggested that Nesta deserved better than to be wasted on an adulterer like John de Wolfe, but she did not elaborate.
When he sought out Dame Margaret in her parlour, the nun who acted as her secretary told him that the prioress was at prayer in the new chapel and could not be disturbed. With a vague sense of foreboding, he climbed aboard Odin and set off for home, his mind divided between the problems of the foresters and of the women in his life.
Soon after the distant bell in the cathedral tower rang for Compline, men began gathering in the gloomy vault under the castle keep. Even in the dry heat of midsummer, the grey walls and low arches of the ceiling were dank and slimed with mould — a fitting location for the misery and torment that often took place there.
The four prisoners who were led out of the rusted iron door by the grotesque jailer were subdued and apprehensive even before they faced their accusers.
Though they had been in the squalid cells only since that morning, they were already dirty and tousled. The green tunics of the two foresters and the leather jerkins of their pages were streaked with grime, wisps of dirty straw adhering to their hair and hose.
With Sergeant Gabriel at one end and the obese Stigand at the other, they were prodded into a ragged line, clanking the heavy irons that secured their ankles. Their belts and weapons were laid out near by on the dried mud of the floor, and off to one side Stigand had helpfully set out a brazier, with branding irons stuck into the glowing coals.
Facing them were the men responsible for their capture, together with Nicholas de Bosco, the Warden of the Forests, Philip de Strete, the new verederer, and Brother Roger, who, as castle chaplain, now had a legitimate reason for being present, as a priest was required at such events in case a prisoner died during the Ordeal or torture. Thomas was also there, squatting on a keg, with his writing materials before him on a crate, ready to record any confessions.
‘All we need now is the damned sheriff!’ bellowed Guy Ferrars.
‘I thought you said he had promised to come?’ demanded Reginald de Courcy of the constable.
Before Ralph Morin could reply, a shadow darkened the light coming through the small entrance at the foot of the steps leading down from the inner ward. It was Richard de Revelle, scowling like thunder and obviously making a point by arriving last. He had a light mantle tightly wrapped around his body, as if to insulate himself from the others in the undercroft. The faces of the foresters brightened slightly when they saw him, as if they expected him to save them from this nightmare.
‘About time, de Revelle,’ barked the elder Ferrars. ‘This is something you should have done long ago.’
The sheriff glowered, but made no response, standing apart from the others as if he had no interest in the proceedings.
John de Wolfe bent to Thomas’s makeshift table and picked up the rolls of his Commission, which he brandished at the prisoners.
‘These are signed by the Chief Justiciar himself, on behalf of our sovereign lord King Richard!’ he announced. ‘So let no one here try to dispute my right to proceed as I think fit.’
He handed the parchments back to his clerk, then took a step nearer the foresters, his fists planted aggressively on his belt.
‘You, William Lupus — and you, Michael Crespin. I summoned you both to attend my inquests on the tanner, Elias Necke, and Edward of Manaton. You refused to attend and are already in mercy for that. Why did you not come?’
The elder of the two foresters appeared to have regained some of his former arrogance, perhaps emboldened by the presence of the sheriff and the verderer, who he assumed would be on his side.
‘You had no right to interfere in forest affairs. They are regulated by the forest law,’ he growled.
‘Nonsense. The king’s peace covers the whole of England, including his own forests,’ snapped de Wolfe. ‘The forest laws deal only with matters of vert and venison.’
‘You had no Royal Commission when you summoned them, de Wolfe,’ snarled the sheriff, opening his mouth for the first time.
‘I needed no special commission to attach witnesses for an inquest,’ said the coroner, testily. ‘That power was granted by the Crown in Article Twenty of the General Eyre held in Kent last September.’
He turned back to Lupus. ‘You and your accomplices have perpetrated a reign of terror and extortion in that bailiwick of the forest of Devon. You have closed forges, forced alehouses to take your own product, destroyed a tannery and caused the deaths of at least three people.’