The weather was dry now, but had turned colder with the first hints of winter creeping into the November air. Gwyn was enveloped in a huge, tattered brown cloak that had seen service over half the known world. With his wild red hair poking from under a conical leather cap and the fiery whiskers half hiding his face, he looked like one of the mythical beasts often portrayed on the roof bosses of churches.
John was dressed in his usual black and grey uniform but today sported a light grey capuchin wound around his head, the end trailing over his shoulder. He turned in his saddle to look back through the gate. ‘Here he is, on that miserable mule of his. Maybe I should spend some of the next wealthy felon’s forfeit on a decent pony for him.’
The little clerk was forcing himself ineffectually between the crowds of peasants jostling through the narrow gate, jamming it with baskets, boxes and squawking live poultry. At last he broke free and trotted up to join them.
The trio set off westwards across the ford and past the buildings outside the protection of Exeter’s walls. The houses and shacks straggled on for a few hundred yards along the road that led away from the city towards the Cornish lands. The mud from the recent rains had now dried in the cold wind and the going was relatively good. Even Thomas’s much-maligned mule kept up a steady trot and they covered a better than average five miles each hour.
Although the woods and forests came to the road edge for much of the way, this lowland was fertile and villages were frequent. Soon, whenever there were gaps in the trees, the barer hill-tops of Dartmoor could be seen, some surmounted by tors, the strange outcrops of granite rock.
They passed the hamlets of Kennford, Little Bovey and Ashburton before they struck north-west to the flanks of the wilderness that, together with Exmoor, covered almost half of Devon.
Near Buckland, a somewhat apprehensive Thomas was detached from the group to make his way towards Widecombe, while Sir John and Gwyn continued towards Tavistock and Peter Tavy, almost on the border with Cornwall.
The most direct way was across the moor and along the bleak track between the hills and tors of the bare plateau. The higher slopes were either dotted with scrub or were bare grass, heather and rock.
The coroner and his guard rode silently for the most part. These two had journeyed together for thousands of miles over the years of their acquaintance and, both being of a taciturn nature, found little left to say, apart from the business of the day. Yet it was not a strained silence: it was a mutual acceptance of each other’s reserved personality. Though they were master and servant, their relationship was one of fraternal comradeship: John stated what needed to be done and Gwyn carried it out, usually without demur. Occasionally, the Cornishman would answer an order with a direct stare when John knew that discussion was needed of an alternative strategy. If the coroner persisted in his demand, Gwyn would carry it out to the letter, but with an almost palpable air of disapproval that usually caused John concern about the wisdom of his decision.
At noon, under the glint of weak autumn sunlight, they stopped on a patch of coarse grass and winberry bushes to have their meal, using a flat slab of lichen-covered rock as a table. From Gwyn’s saddlebag came a stone bottle of rough cider, which they passed from mouth to mouth, and a loaf of coarse horse-bread made from a mixture of grains. The coroner contributed a small crock of yellow butter and a lump of boiled ham, part of the provisions provided by Mary, as Matilda – never much concerned with domestic issues – was now indifferent to his welfare.
A long silence was broken as they sat on the mottled rock to eat and drink. Gwyn passed the cider bottle and wiped his moustache with the back of his hand. ‘I asked among my neighbours last night, some of them carters often in Tavistock. But about the de Bonnevilles they knew little, except that they held the manor of Peter Tavy from the de Redvers and rent some more pasture from the Abbey of Tavistock’.
John took a long swig of raw cider and set down the bottle on the stone. ‘I also inquired about them, in the Bush. Nesta seems to know every soul between Dorchester and Bodmin. It seems that the old lord Arnulf is in his seventieth year. He suffered an apoplexy some six months ago and now hovers between his bed and his grave.’
‘What of this son who may be your dead man?’
John cut a thick slice of ham with his dagger and looked at it contemplatively. ‘The sheriff said that the old man has three sons, two still at home to manage the estate – they have another large manor at Lamerton, as well as Peter Tavy.’
‘And the eldest?’ demanded Gwyn.
‘He went to Palestine two and a half years ago, taking the cross against his father’s wishes.’ He slipped the ham into his mouth and, through his chewing, continued, ‘Nothing else seems known of them, but that they are prosperous and keep out of trouble and the public eye.’
There seemed little else to say and, after finishing the food, the two men climbed aboard their horses and trotted off again across the deserted moor. The only persons they saw were shepherds tending the great flocks that were England’s economic strength, providing the wool that was virtually the only fabric used throughout Europe.
The clouds remained high and the mist held off until twilight. Before dark they dropped down from the moor into the broad valley of the Tavy. This marked the western edge of Dartmoor and separated it from the similar, though smaller, plateau of Bodmin moor in Cornwall. Their tired horses entered the little town of Tavistock and came to rest in the stables of the abbey, where John and his officer claimed the usual traveller’s one-night hospitality from the monks in return for a donation to their funds. After a simple but substantial meal in the guest-hall, John paid a courtesy call on the prior. The abbot was absent, which was usual among senior clerics, who spent far more time elsewhere on administration and politics than in religious duties in their own houses.
Prior Wulfstan was a benign, rather unworldly fat monk, with a vague manner and speech full of meaningless platitudes. He knew little about the de Bonnevilles, apart from their location and their prosperity. John was beginning to feel that the family was so ordinary as to be almost invisible in the social structure of the county.
After the meal, John went wearily to his hard pallet in a cubicle of the great dormitory and sank into a deep sleep, oblivious to the midnight perambulations of the monks to matins, and the bells and chanting of their nocturnal routine.
Both men and horses were refreshed when they saddled up after a simple breakfast and trotted out into the cold November mist. Peter Tavy was a couple of miles up the valley, spread across the slopes on the right that climbed back up to the moor.
‘Good land here. They must have a decent living, these de Bonnevilles,’ observed Gwyn, looking at the extensive new clearings in the river-bank woods. Turning off the main valley track that led to Okehampton, they took a well-beaten lane that slanted up the valley side. They passed a cowman with a fat herd, who told them that the manor house was another half-mile further on, and in a few minutes they entered a wide open space on the slope of the hillside. An oval earthen embankment, with a stout timber fence on top, stood inside a deep muddy ditch. It was a hundred and fifty yards in diameter, but the wooden walls were dilapidated, some stakes were missing and one section was cracked and blackened by fire. The drawbridge across the ditch in front of the only gate looked embedded in the earth and could not have been lifted for years.
The eyes of both visitors took it all in at a glance.
‘They seem to care little for defence – too many years of easy living,’ Gwyn grunted.
John looked at the few villagers passing by and had to agree: they looked plump and content. ‘I suppose there’s little fear of warfare here – unless you Cornish come rampaging across the Tamar and the Tavy.’