‘You’re a big handsome man in his prime, John. You’re as strong as a horse and I can personally vouch that you rut like one! So shake off this “poor old man” nonsense, will you? It’s just your usual gloom after fighting with that old bitch you call wife.’
Nesta reached across and drank from his pot, while he slipped an arm around her and hugged her. ‘I don’t know where I’d be without you, sweet woman.’
Nesta smiled up at him, rather wistfully. ‘You’d be with one of your other sweet women, Sir Crowner. I’ve no illusions about your faithfulness, though I think you like me best – so I’ll settle for that, for it’s all I’m likely to get.’ She finished his ale and yelled at the one-eyed old soldier to bring a refill, then pointedly changed the subject. ‘Was that chicken to your liking, John? This new cook had some daft idea of stuffing its belly with bread and sage herbs.’
‘It was good, very good.’ He ran a finger across the table top and licked at the grease appreciatively. The Bush had not taken up the new fad for platters, but served the food on thick bread trenchers, direct onto the scrubbed boards, walling in the gravy with crusts.
Old Edwin limped across and banged a brimming quart pot in front of John. ‘Here ye are, Captain. Good health to you.’
He used the Coroner’s old military name. Although he had never served under him, he had a respectful admiration for John’s record as a soldier.
‘There’s another who doesn’t think you’re past it as a warrior,’ Nesta observed slyly, as Edwin shuffled across to the fire to load on more logs. ‘Come on, John, cheer up. Tell Nesta what’s on your mind.’
After six pints of ale he had to search for the root of his earlier despondency. He pulled Nesta closer to his side, so that his free hand could cup her breast, while he drank.
‘My wife suggests that I took this crowner’s appointment only as an excuse to escape her. But, damnation, it was she who encouraged it, to get a rung or two up the ladder of nobility.’
Nesta wriggled as his fingers played with her nipple. ‘Forget her for a moment, John. Tell me what you’ve been doing today to make you look as if you could drop off to sleep, even in the company of the prettiest woman in Devon.’
He bent his head down to the crown of her curls, his black locks mingling with the red. ‘We’ve been riding since dawn, out to Widecombe and back …’ He told her about the body in the brook and the probability that it was that of a Crusader.
Nesta took a drink from his pot. ‘Not bad ale, though I say it myself … Well, what about this Crusader? Was he young and handsome?’
John grinned, an uncommon lightening of his normally stern expression. ‘That’s all you flighty wenches think of, thank God!’ he chaffed her. ‘He might have been handsome once, but ten days or so dead takes the beauty out of any face.’
Nesta grimaced and pressed closer to his big body. ‘And who do you think killed him, Sir Crowner?’
John emptied his pot before answering, and Nesta signalled to old Edwin to bring another from the best barrel.
‘I don’t know. The cause of most deaths in a village – or town, for that matter – is plain. Drunken quarrels, violent robberies, strangled rapes, beaten wives … Everyone knows the culprit and the hue-and-cry is hardly needed to catch the felon. But this one …’ He fell silent as the old potman put a new jar in front of him.
Story-telling had taken John’s mind off fondling her, and Nesta pulled back his hand to her bosom in mock annoyance. ‘You think he’s a nobleman, you said?’ she asked.
‘He was certainly no common soldier. Good clothes, fine boots, belt and scabbard – mostly Levantine made. No doubt he’s come recently from Outremer.’
She looked up at his profile, his long jaw pink in the flames from the fire. ‘How did he reach the edge of Dartmoor? I’ve heard that Widecombe’s an outlandish place.’
Like most town-dwellers, to Nesta the countryside was a remote, alien place. She had hardly set foot outside Exeter in the five years since she had come from South Wales. Her late husband, a Welsh archer named Meredydd, had returned from fighting in Touraine with an unexpected bounty and some loot. He landed at Exmouth, took a fancy to the area and bought the Bush Inn, sending home to Gwent for his wife. Within a year, he was dead of the jaundice and Nesta had carried on alone – with unusual success for a widow.
John pondered her question. ‘He had marks of spurs on his boots, but even those had been stolen from him, along with everything else he possessed except his dagger. It was undoubtedly a robbery, probably by at least two attackers from the wounds he suffered.’
‘So, a simple robbery – but why would a Crusader be riding alone along the edge of Dartmoor?’ she persisted, partly to emphasise her interest in his doings and partly to keep his mind away from the spat with his wife.
‘Depends where he was headed – some people take the moor track to Tavistock and Plymouth instead of the longer road through the lowlands. Or he might have been going to some manor near Okehampton, or even further into North Cornwall. And we don’t know that he was alone. He may have had a companion or servant – also lying dead now in the forest.’
Nesta was becoming restive, but she sensed that her man needed to talk himself out of his mood.
‘You think it was outlaws that killed him?’
‘It seems most likely. The forest and moor abounds in fugitives. The two manor reeves each blamed the other, but I feel their sin is in trying to move the body from their land, rather than murder.’ He thought for a moment, his beetling brows coming down in thought. ‘A man called Nebba was there, too. Not a villager, he had been a soldier, I’ll swear. Two fingers missing.’
This struck a chord with the shapely innkeeper. ‘An archer, like my poor Meredydd! A barbaric custom, to cut off a man’s fingers with a knife.’
‘Not so bad as lopping off other parts, my girl,’ he grunted, giving her thigh a suggestive squeeze.
After a short silence, his chin dropped on to his chest and he raised his head with a jerk, startling the auburn head next to him.
‘Come, Sir Crowner, time you were in bed before you fall asleep across the table.’ Nesta pulled herself away from him and stood up. ‘You’ll stay here this night, John, in my bed – though by the look of you, there’ll be little action other than snoring. Come.’
She pulled him towards the wooden stair at the back, past the amused glances of the patrons and a chorus of ‘Good night, Sir John.’
As he lumbered up the steps behind her, John was vaguely uneasy. ‘I’ve not stayed a whole night with you before, Nesta.’
Holding a tallow candle high, she turned and grinned at him. ‘Afraid I’ll turn into a witch at midnight? You’ve spent many an afternoon and evening enjoying my hospitality, John.’
‘They’ll all know where I am,’ he muttered.
But Nesta scoffed, ‘It’s no secret in Exeter, not even from your wife. So don’t concern yourself, let her stew until the morning. She’ll not petition the Pope for an annulment and lose being Madam Coroner for the county of Devon!’
Chapter Four
In which the Crowner visits a lady, then a corpse
In spite of his lethargy, Crowner John roused himself sufficiently to give a creditable performance in the arms of his agile mistress before he rolled over and fell sound asleep for the rest of the night.
Some hours before dawn Nesta was awakened by an urgent tapping on the rough boards of the bedroom door. The upper part of the timber hostelry was built out over the yard, under which were the kitchen and a shanty for the two servants. It was divided by a partition into one small chamber, where Nesta lived, and a larger room in which four crude beds and some palliasses on the floor provided accommodation for guests at the inn. This night, no one was staying at the Bush, so Nesta knew that the tapping could not be one of the guests wanting to creep into her bed, as sometimes happened.