The landlady of the inn snuggled closer into his armpit, her copper hair flowing over his chest, wide green eyes looking up at the stern profile of his long face. ‘How do you intend getting him out of the country, then?’
‘Thomas has ridden on ahead with him and I will see if we can find a ship in Bideford or nearby that can take him to Wales or Ireland.’
‘What if he is seen by any of the others who are hunting him?’
‘I must try to keep them apart, but they have never seen him without the Templar profusion of whiskers, so hopefully he would not be recognised.’
‘Could you not have found him a passage more easily from the ports around here – Topsham or Brixham?’
Perhaps his mind was too relaxed by the pleasant sensation of wallowing in a warm bed alongside a naked woman, but in this unguarded moment he made a serious slip. ‘I had thought of it. Maybe Thorgils the Boatman in Dawlish would have taken him off, but he only sails back to France, which is the last place that Bernardus wants to be.’
He felt Nesta stiffen against him. Though at the time of his foolishly heroic battle on the tourney field in January, Nesta and Hilda, wife of Thorgils, had come together in common concern for his life, they still looked upon each other as rivals for his affection and his body. True, Nesta was fairly confident that she had priority in terms of being cherished by him, but she well knew that the willowy blonde could easily seduce him into a quick tumble whenever the opportunity presented, and she could not suppress the jealousy that welled up within her at the mention of Dawlish.
De Wolfe cursed his own insensitivity and pulled her to him, as if to squeeze her back into his body, but Nesta lay inert and distant. Perversely and against his will, the image of Hilda crept into his mind. He had not spoken to her since the day he had broken his leg and had not lain with her since just after Christ Mass, but now a picture of her supple body and beautiful face flooded unbidden into his mind’s eye. He had known her since she was a child and they had been sporadic lovers since she was fifteen, but as the daughter of one of his father’s manor-reeves, she could never have been his wife.
With a groan of frustration, he screwed up his eyes to blot out the vision, and rolled on his side and clutched Nesta in an almost violent spasm. He kissed her eyes, neck and mouth in a desperate attack and felt her suddenly melt against him, returning his kisses and pressing herself to him with an urgency that told him the present battle was won.
They were too satiated to make love again and remained hugged together without speaking for a long time, John revelling in the feel of her body touching his from lips to breast to belly to thigh. In an effort to banish the hovering image of Hilda, he forced himself to think of Matilda, and in the way that a mind wanders in that sleepy dreamland after love-making, he recalled the early days of their marriage, sixteen years before. It had been a loveless match engineered by his father, who saw the advantages for his son of an attachment to the wealthy de Revelle family. Matilda had never relished her nuptial obligations and their night-time relations had soon wilted, especially as de Wolfe spent ten months of the year away on some fighting campaign.
Since he had given up being a professional warrior a year or two before, their enforced cohabitation had not seen any revival of passion. His mind’s eye now saw her again at their midday meal, drinking red wine as if it was ale, and recalled with some shame that the last time they had attempted to make love had been when she was drunk many months ago. The episode was a dismal failure and ended in bitter recrimination from his wife and a resolve on his part never to repeat the fiasco.
Now that Nesta had recovered from her dark mood, her natural curiosity revived and she asked him about the Templars’ involvement with the mission to Lundy next day.
‘Their excuse is that they wish to test William de Marisco’s will in keeping their Order from his island,’ explained John. ‘But I suspect that they don’t trust me over de Blanchefort and wish to keep me in their sight.’
‘And they’re right, you crafty man!’ she teased. ‘But have you any real hope of making progress with this lord of Lundy?’
De Wolfe scowled at the roof. ‘Almost none, from what I hear of him. There’s no doubt that he runs a nest of pirates from his island fiefdom, but whether it was one of his ships that slew most of the crew of the vessel that was wrecked near Ilfracombe, I cannot tell.’
‘What made our dear sheriff agree to this expedition, then? He’s not usually one to put himself at risk.’
‘He has a reverence for the Templars, for some reason. I suspect he thinks that by ingratiating himself with them, he may advance his own ambitions. They are so powerful a force in this and every other land. Even King Richard is partial to them, so maybe de Revelle hopes that by showing them assistance, he can gain favour with the king after his fall from grace at the New Year.’
She slid a hand on to his stomach and stroked small circles with her fingers. ‘Why should you be involved in this, John? It sounds a hazardous mission and not one that involves a crowner’s interest.’
‘It does, you know. There was a wreck, which is my business, and there was a slain corpse there, as well as a good history of the killing of the rest of the crew. That alone makes it my concern.’
He pulled his arm from under Nesta as his fingers were becoming numb, and continued his lecture. ‘Although there’s been no time to inform the king’s justices and get a reply, any coroner can be sent a special commission from the Justiciar or the royal judges to become involved in almost any aspect of the law or administration. I’m sure that if the Curia Regis knew of a revival of piracy in the Severn Sea and that Lundy may be its nest, they would demand some action such as we propose tomorrow.’
Nesta’s voice was sleepy. ‘What’s this Curia Regis you talk about?’
‘The king’s court – the nobles about him who give him advice and counsel. Now that he’s in France, in practice the Chancellor and the Chief Justiciar run the country, but the major barons and the archbishops also have a say in what goes on.’
But Nesta had slipped into slumber, and before long, he had joined her, their heads together on the pillow.
The next morning, John de Wolfe recaptured some of the excitement of former days when he rode up to Rougemont and saw the preparations for their journey to the north of the county. He felt a surge of the anticipation of battle, when he rode Odin through the gateway to the inner ward and saw well over a score of armoured soldiers jostling with their mounts. The smell of many horses and the clatter of harness, shields and swords brought back nostalgic memories of a dozen campaigns.
He watched as Ralph Morin and Sergeant Gabriel harried their men-at-arms into a column. They were all in battle array, with chain-mail hauberks and round basin-like helmets with long nose-guards. Each man had a rectangular iron plate slung across his breast with leather thongs, to protect his heart from a lance thrust, and each had a long oval shield slung on his saddle-bow. As they were mounted for a long ride, they did not carry lances or pikes like foot-soldiers, but every man had either a heavy sword or a battle-axe.
Standing apart from the troops were the three Templar knights, not yet mounted but resplendent in their own armour, with long hauberks slit at front and back to sit astride their horses and polished metal-link aventails hanging from their helmet brims to protect their necks. Each had a huge sword hanging from a leather baldric, and over their armour they wore their white or black surcoats with the scarlet cross of the Order on the chest. Their sergeants waited attentively in a group behind them, holding the bridles of the beautiful palfreys. They were dressed in brown surcoats over similar armour, battle-axes or spiked maces hanging from their saddles.