The Noble Outlaw

by Bernard Knight

  'We can shut this door and leave the deceased here until my inquest,' announced de Wolfe, indicating the rickety collection of planks that hung on rusted hinges. 'Then you can carry on with your lessons in the house undisturbed for the time being.'

  'When will that be?' quavered the master, his morose features looking even more depressed.

  'Certainly not today; we first need to make some effort to discover who he was,' snapped the coroner. 'My officer and clerk will make some enquiries around the city and then I will probably call a jury together either tomorrow or Wednesday.'

  He stared down at the twisted figure on the ground. 'At least we should do our best to put a name to him and avoid burying him in an unmarked grave, though I doubt we'll ever know how he died.'

  For once, Sir John was soon to be proved wrong.

  The coroner and his two assistants were in John's chamber in the gatehouse of Rouge mont, Exeter's castle built in the northern angle of the ancient town walls. It was a bleak room high in the narrow tower, a draughty cell with two unglazed window slits looking down over the city, as Rougemont itself was at the highest point of the tilted plateau that rose from the River Exe.

  De Wolfe sat at a rough trestle table, which together with a bench and a couple of milking stools, was all the furniture in the room. Thomas de Peyne sat on one of these stools at the end of the table, copying out documents on to rolls of parchment, while Gwyn perched in his habitual place on one of the stone windowsills.

  There was a metallic clatter from the table, as de Wolfe played with something on the boards in front of him. Thomas stared at the rusted object, a crudely shaped nail about the length of his little finger. One end was sharply pointed, the other fashioned into an irregular head.

  After laying the corpse down in the old forge, the coroner and his officer had decided to make a closer examination in the hope of finding something to explain the death. Though they stripped the shrivelled body to examine every inch of its surface, they found no wounds at all until Gwyn looked at the back of the neck. Here skin and muscle had been lost so that some of the bones of the spine were exposed. Stained yellowish-brown by dust and dirt, they seemed unremarkable until Gwyn's sharp eyes noticed a darker brown nodule nestling between two vertebrae. Unable to remove it with his fingers, watched by the others he used the point of his dagger to lever at this alien lump, before drawing out a full three inches of metal that had been jammed between the bones. Now, as it rested on the table, John poked at it pensively with his forefinger.

  'When men fall from a warhorse or a hayrick and break their backs, even when they survive, they often lose all feeling and motion in the legs - sometimes even arms as well,' he ruminated. 'So whatever is contained in the spine must be mightily important - and having this nail stuck through it must be a devilishly dangerous matter.'

  Gwyn stroked his red moustaches, which hung down to his collarbones. 'When I worked as a slaughterman in the Shambles years ago, the poleaxe sometimes missed the back of the head and hit the beast high on the neck - but they seemed to drop dead just as effectively.' The sensitive Thomas winced and Gwyn, who could never resist baiting his little friend, turned the screw. 'Inside the neck was a thick white cord, joined to the brain. Very tasty it was, dropped in a stew with some turnips and onions.'

  As the clerk blanched at the thought, de Wolfe picked up the nail and turned it in his fingers. 'This hammered through that white cord would kill, I have no doubt. If not immediately, then within a short time, as those who break their backs never survive for long.'

  'Could it be an accident, Sir John?' asked Thomas, his mild nature hoping as always for an innocent outcome.

  Gwyn laughed raucously. 'Accident? How the hell could he get an iron nail three inches deep into the back of his neck by accident? You'll be saying next it was suicide.'

  'He could have fallen backwards, on to a plank that had a projecting nail,' hazarded the clerk stubbornly. 'So where's the plank? It's not still nailed to the back of his neck, is it?' jeered the Cornishman.

  De Wolfe sighed and held up a hand to halt their bickering. 'He ended up hidden in that loft, so someone must have put him there. No, this is murder, but until we discover who the fellow might be, I don't see how I am even going to start finding his killer.'

  Their clerk still worried' away at the problem. 'Why should a man stay still while another hammers a nail into his neck?' he demanded.

  'Maybe he was asleep - or dead drunk,' suggested Gwyn.

  'Or he could have been drugged,' added de Wolfe. 'Syrup of poppy or some other stupefying herb. He might even have been given a buffet on the head, hard enough to make him lose his wits for a while. We would find no trace of that, given the state of him now.'

  The coroner hauled himself up from his bench and made for the doorway, an arch in the rough stone wall. It had been draped with ragged hessian in an attempt to reduce the draughts that whistled up the narrow spiral stairs from the guardroom two floors below.

  'I'm going over to see the sheriff, for this death is odd enough to tell him about. Gwyn, you get out into the town and see if you can pick up news about anyone gone missing in the last few months or so. And Thomas, you do the same over in the cathedral Close. Your priestly friends are the biggest gossips in the city.'

  De Wolfe clattered down the stairs and came out into another bare chamber, where two soldiers were playing at dice on an upturned barrel. A third man-at-arms shivered on guard duty outside, just within the archway that led out to the drawbridge over a deep dry ditch that separated the outer ward of the castle from the inner bailey. Inside the latter, walls of red sandstone enclosed an area containing three buildings, the tiny garrison chapel of St Mary, the plain stone box of the Shire Hall, and, straight ahead across the inner ward, the two-storeyed keep where the sheriff had his quarters.

  The snow had petered out before it settled and under John's feet was hardened mud, churned by the horses, oxen, cartwheels and innumerable boots that had crossed the bailey to reach not only the keep, but the many sheds and wooden buildings that lined the walls. Some were barracks for the men-at-arms, others store-houses and stables, a few huts even housed wives and families of the soldiers, though most of these lived in the larger outer bailey, which was almost a village in itself. John climbed the wooden steps to the entrance of the keep, the main hall being ten feet above ground for purposes of defence. Beneath it was the undercroft, a semi-basement which housed the castle gaol.

  Inside the large hall, the chill December day was tempered by a blazing fire in a hearth-pit and the body heat of scores of men, some sitting at trestles, others standing in groups, the rest milling about as they tried to get their varied business done. Merchants, clerks, stewards, a few knights and men-at-arms were talking, shouting, eating and drinking in what was probably the busiest place in Exeter.

  John pushed his way through them and made for a side door on the left, where a soldier in a leather jerkin and round iron helmet stood guard outside the sheriffs chamber. At the sight of the king's coroner, the man jerked upright and smacked the butt of his spear on to the flagged floor in salute. All the men-at-arms knew and respected Sir John de Wolfe as a seasoned warrior, a former Crusader and veteran of a dozen campaigns in Ireland and France. From the colour of his hair and stubbled cheeks, as well as his preference for dark clothing, he had become known as Black John among the troops, a name that had often been matched by his moods - though fair and just, he was not a man to be trifled with.

  De Wolfe gave the man a nod and opened the heavy oaken door. Inside, the Sheriff of Devon, Henry de Furnellis, was suffering the persistent attentions of his chief clerk, who loaded more parchments on to Henry's already cluttered table. Like John, Henry could neither read nor write, and his clerks had to read every document to him and take down replies as dictation.

  De Furnellis looked On the coroner's arrival as welcome relief and waved the clerk Elphin away, reaching for a wineskin and a couple of pottery cups. De Wolfe sat down in a lea
ther-backed chair opposite Henry and gratefully accepted a cup of good Loire red.

  The sheriff was an elderly man, almost sixty, and had a heavy face like that of a mournful bloodhound. An old soldier like John, he had been given the shrievalty of Devon as a reward for his faithful service to the king. In fact, he had been given it twice, as almost two years ago the previous sheriff, Richard de Revelle, had been ejected from office almost as soon as he was appointed, suspected of sympathy for the rebellion of Prince John, Count of Mortain, against his brother Richard Coeur de Lion, whilst the latter was imprisoned in Germany.

  De Furnellis had temporarily taken over the post, but a few months later de Revelle was reinstated as a result of the political influence of Exeter's Bishop Marshal, himself a Prince John sympathiser. However, a year later, he was again ejected from office, mainly because of de Wolfe's exposure of his corrupt behaviour, and once again de Furnellis had been recruited to fill the gap.

  After a few pleasantries and mutual complaints about the icy weather, John told the sheriff about the discovery of the body in Smythen Street.

  'I've no idea who the man might be, Henry,' he finished. 'He wore garments of a decent quality, so is unlikely to be some beggar who crawled in there for shelter.'

  'And who would want to slay a beggar with a nail in the back of the neck?' agreed de Furnellis. He was a shrewd man, experienced in the ways of the world, though the fire had gone out of his belly as the years passed by. He had accepted the post of sheriff reluctantly, out of duty to his king, but hoped that he was only looked on as a stopgap and could go back to retirement as soon as possible.

  'Have you any recollection of someone having gone missing in the city this past year?' asked John, hopefully. The sheriff had a manor a few miles out in the country, but lived most of the time in a town house on Curre Street, so might have heard some local gossip.

  He scratched his bristly jowls thoughtfully. 'Folk are always vanishing, John, usually for reasons of their own. This is no village, where all men belong to a frankpledge and their neighbours know every time they cough or fart. In towns, men conveniently slip away because of debt or to escape from a shrewish wife - or run off with a pretty mistress.'

  De Wolfe knew that the bluff older man was not making personal remarks, though either of the last two reasons could have applied to himself. 'But no particular disappearance comes to your mind?' persisted the coroner.

  Henry shook his head dolefully. 'Sorry, John, no one of sufficient importance to be reported to me, anyway. Unless they are arrested or appealed for some crime, our citizens try to give me a wide berth. If they are dead, they come to your notice!'

  After a few more minutes, the chief clerk began to get impatient and glare accusingly at his master for neglecting yet another armful of documents, so de Wolfe finished his wine and took his leave.

  'You do what you think fit, John. You have more experience in tracking down corpses than me,' was Henry's parting shot as the coroner went to the door. Typically, the sheriff was content to leave any investigating to de Wolfe, though as the king's representative in the county, enforcing law and order was his responsibility.

  Outside the keep, snowflakes were being whirled about by a keen east wind. John pulled his mottled wolf skin cloak tighter about him as he loped across the inner bailey and made for the gatehouse. Instead of going up to his dismal chamber, he carried on through the arch, through the outer ward and down Castle Hill to the high street. It was not far off midday, according to the cathedral bell ringing for Nones, so dinner was next on the agenda. He made his way back to his house in Martin's Lane, a short alley which joined High Street to the cathedral Close.

  Pushing open the door of the narrow timber building, he wondered which would prove to be more frosty, the weather or his wife's welcome.

  CHAPTER TWO

  In which a knight of the realm crosses Dartmoor

  At that moment, about sixteen miles west of the city, a group of men were huddled under a turf roof in what was virtually a hole in the ground. Like the king's coroner, they were waiting for their midday meal, though theirs was to come from a blackened iron pot that sat on three stones set over a small fire.

  'What have you got in there for us, Robert?' demanded a burly young man whose nose and cheeks were reddened by the cold. He had a shock of bright ginger hair poking from under the pointed hood of his leather jerkin.

  'A rabbit and a cock pheasant. And lucky to get those in this weather,' grunted their cook for the day, a gaunt fellow of part-Saxon blood. He stirred the small cauldron with a length of twig pulled from the roof, swilling round the onions and chopped turnips that simmered in the salted water.

  'And bloody awful weather it is, especially for the likes of us,' grumbled a third man, clutching his soiled but expensive worsted cloak more tightly around his shoulders. Philip Girard had taken it last month from a fat monk he had waylaid on the Plymouth road, reckoning that it would be of greater benefit to him on Dartmoor than to the owner sitting in the warming room of Buckfast Abbey.

  'Thank God we've got a better place than this to go home to,' grunted Peter Cuffe, the ginger-haired youth. 'Though some living rough on the moor have not even a burrow as good as this one, poor sods.'

  He looked around their shelter, which was formed by a couple of drystone walls built at right angles to an overhanging rocky bank. The walls narrowed to an opening, outside which was another barrier of moorstones to stop the wind, rain and snow from beating directly into the den. The whole was roofed over with untrimmed branches supporting grassy turfs. From a distance of a few score yards, the whole place was virtually invisible, blending in with the uneven terrain of the moor, especially now that everything was covered with a powdering of snow. Long ago, it had been a shelter for the tinners who used to work a nearby stream, but it had been abandoned as the lode was exhausted. Last year, their gang had repaired the crumbling walls and put a new roof across them, providing another hideout to add to the others they had concealed across the central part of Dartmoor.

  'Isn't that damned broth ready yet?' demanded the fourth member of the group, who had been squatting on a log at the back of the cavelike shelter. He had an air of authority which marked him out as the leader and though his clothing was plain, it was of a better quality than the jumble of garments that the others wore.

  'It'll do, sir. At least it'll be something hot to pour down our gullets,' replied Robert Hereward. There was a general shuffling around as each of them groped in his small pack and drew out a wooden bowl and horn spoon. The cook had a stale loaf which he broke into quarters and handed round; then he dipped the bowls into the pot and speared some meat and bones into each with his knife.

  He passed the first bowl to their leader, then they crouched again around the fire, as the shelter was too low for anyone to stand up.

  'This is all we'll get until we reach Challacombe,' warned Hereward. 'God willing, Gunilda will have something better for us when we get back.'

  There was silence for a time, broken only by the slurping of hot soup and the noise of small bones being spat on the ground. When the last drops had been scraped from the bowls and the crusts finished, Peter Cuffe produced a small wineskin with a silver neck and stopper, another prize obtained by highway robbery. He passed it first to the man on the log, who drank deeply before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and passing the bag on to Philip Girard.

  'That was good stuff, these Exeter merchants do themselves well,' exclaimed Sir Nicholas de Arundell. The dispossessed lord of Hempston Arundell was a powerfully built man of average height, with a strong, handsome face. His close-cropped fair hair was a legacy from his Saxon mother Henneburga, but the rest of him was pure Norman, the first Arundell having arrived with William the Bastard. He was thirty-three, but the hardships of the last decade showed in his face, making him look older than his years.

  As the men stuffed the bowls back into their shoulder packs, Girard questioned their chief. 'Are we going back in this
weather?' he growled. A former huntsman, he was tall, with a weathered face pitted with cowpox scars.

  De Arundell rose to his feet, stooping under the damp brushwood of the ceiling. 'Let's get out before the weather gets worse,' he answered in his deep voice. 'If it snows more heavily, we'll never cross the moor. I'm not going to starve for days in this rat hole.'

  While the others gathered their few belongings and as Robert stamped out the embers of the fire, Nicholas thought longingly of the house at Hempston, his manor near Totnes in the south of the county. Though he had not been able to live in it for almost five years, he wistfully recalled sitting out-snowy weather there in the comfort of his own hearth and with his wife Joan to keep him company. Now here he was slinking from hole to hole across a desolate landscape, like a fox seeking its den. True, this place was merely a convenient refuge on the moor, but even their more permanent quarters at Challacombe were hardly an attractive domicile. If any determined sweep were to be made by the law officers, they would even have to flee from that and seek one of their other hideouts, which were little better than this crude shanty.

  Hauling his heavy woollen cloak around him and pulling up the hood, he slung his satchel over his shoulder and grabbed a heavy staff, the top weighted with iron bands to make it a formidable weapon. Leading the way past the outer wall, he emerged into the open and stretched upright, scanning the leaden sky. The snow had stopped for the moment, but a keen east wind was whipping up wraiths of white from the uneven moorland and the pinkish-grey horizon threatened a blizzard to come.