Crowner's Quest

by Bernard Knight

  The hunters assembled soon after dawn, none having to travel more than a dozen miles to reach Totnes. As many of the participants had their own squires, the company amounted to more than thirty men, and after eating and drinking, the already raucous throng set off from the castle bailey into the dense woods that rose on each side of the valley. There was no set route or organisation: the hunters dispersed into the forests and scrubland as they wished, some in small groups, others in pairs or with their squires. All had their own hounds running alongside, darting hither and thither, looking for the scent of deer or boar. Most hunters carried a long-bow and a supply of arrows, though a few relied only on lances.

  Within minutes, the yelling and horn-blowing around the castle subsided, though occasionally the gatekeeper could still hear a distant blast or the yelp of a hound up on the hillsides. The weather had improved slightly and the wind was not so keen in the deep vale of the Dart, though there was still frost on the ground to keep the mud at bay.

  Deprived of his son, William Fitzhamon had brought with him one of his reeves, a man called Ansgot, renowned for his prowess with the bow. His lord suspected him of being an accomplished poacher, but as long as he did not practise on Fitzhamon’s own land, he was not bothered – if the fellow wanted to risk a hangman’s noose elsewhere, that was his business.

  With the Saxon close behind him, Fitzhamon cantered away from the castle with the rest of the crowd, but gradually they all diverged and when well into the trees, the two were alone. Ansgot had with him a pair of large hounds, loping along one each side, but so far they had shown no sign of raising a quarry.

  Fitzhamon pushed ahead, along the east bank of the river, then splashed across and started to climb the other side of the valley. Although he knew more than half of the other hunters, who were either acquaintances or neighbours, he deliberately kept away from the distant sounds of the pack, preferring to hunt alone. Soon one of the hounds shot off to the right and, nose to the ground, vanished into the trees.

  ‘He’s taken a scent, master,’ called Ansgot, and for five minutes or so, they pushed their way through thickening forest to keep the hounds in sight – the other had chased away to join its companion. Then the reeve called again, shouting urgently at his master’s back. Impatiently, Fitzhamon reined in his horse and looked over his shoulder. Ansgot had stopped and was dismounting to feel his horse’s back leg.

  Cursing, he trotted back to his servant to see what was wrong.

  ‘He’s lame. I thought there was something wrong a while back, master.’ The reeve picked up the animal’s hoof and held it between his thighs, the better to examine the lower leg. ‘There’s a cut here, in the fetlock,’ he exclaimed. ‘What bastard would do this to a fine mare?’

  His master, anxious to follow the hounds, looked down impatiently from his saddle. ‘Was she sound when you left home?’

  ‘Yes, sir. This is a fresh wound. It must have been done when we ate at the castle. While you went to the hall, we serving-men were fed in the kitchens. The horses were left tied up in the bailey.’

  Fitzhamon sighed in exasperation. ‘Then you’ll have to walk her back to the castle. I’ll see you there when the day’s sport is finished.’ He wheeled his horse around and hurried after the hounds, who were whimpering at the edge of the small clearing, anxious to follow their scent. Cursing, Ansgot began the long trek back, leading his lame mare by a rein.

  While the nobles of south Devon were crashing through the forest in search of their quarry, a second meeting was taking place in the Archdeacon’s house in Exeter. Once again, the late-morning meals usually enjoyed by the clergy were being postponed by the need to devise a plan of action.

  ‘I gave Thomas’s false document to Giles Fulford late last night,’ muttered Eric Langton. ‘He wanted to know where I had obtained it so I told him I found it among de Hane’s papers in the archives.’

  ‘Did he accept it as genuine, do you think?’ demanded John de Wolfe.

  ‘I’m sure he did. The greed showed on his face and he was in no frame of mind to question it.’

  Thomas allowed himself a congratulatory smirk. He was proud of his forgery, which he had laboured over the previous evening. On a piece of vellum torn from an old hymnal, he had penned long-winded instructions to an imaginary site where the treasure was buried, using old ink he found in a stone bottle in the cathedral library. He had diluted this with dirty water from the yard outside, rapidly dried it over a candle flame, then rubbed and creased it until it looked genuinely old.

  ‘And you say Fulford will go to Dunsford to make the search tomorrow?’ confirmed the coroner.

  The scar-faced vicar nodded gloomily. ‘He will be there at noon, he said. He was riding off somewhere at crack of dawn today, but will be back at Dunsford tomorrow.’

  ‘And he accepted that you must be there also?’ asked John de Alencon.

  The vicar sighed. ‘Yes, sir, to my peril. In fact he gave me back the parchment. He said it was no use to him without me to read it. I am to meet him just outside the village at midday.’

  ‘Did he say who will be with him?’ demanded the coroner.

  ‘I tried to discover that, Crowner, but he told me to mind my own business. He’s not a man you can ask twice.’

  John turned to his officer. ‘We will get there well before him and conceal ourselves somewhere within sight. Thomas is not needed. He can continue to look for this real document.’

  The clerk had mixed feelings about this. A self-admitted coward, he was happy to avoid any violent confrontation, but he would have liked to witness the climax of the affair, preferably from a safe distance.

  ‘Archdeacon, we may take the two men you mentioned from these houses to add strength to our arms?’ asked de Wolfe.

  The ecclesiastical John nodded, though his lean face looked worried. ‘I hope no harm will come to them. As cathedral servants, they do not expect to act as warriors.’

  ‘Look upon it as them policing the safety of the canons, John. This all stems from the murder of one of your brothers.’

  This satisfied de Alencon’s conscience and he looked hard at Eric Langton. ‘If you conduct yourself well in this, it will go in your favour when you are judged by the Bishop. He returns tomorrow night and will have to be informed at once of all these unfortunate happenings during his absence.’ His grey eyes strayed to Roger de Limesi, who tried to look both virtuous and contrite.

  ‘How long did it take you to ride to Dunsford?’ the coroner snapped at the vicar.

  ‘My poor nag is broken in the wind and she can move at little more than a walk. But on your steeds you could reach the village in just over an hour – it is but seven miles away.’

  The coroner arranged for Gwyn to make sure that the cathedral servants were well mounted and armed, and to meet himself and his officer at the ford beyond the West Gate three hours before noon the following day. Then the meeting broke up, but the Archdeacon took John aside as the rest were leaving. ‘Why are you avoiding the sheriff’s participation in this?’ he asked.

  De Wolfe replied, in a low voice so that the others would not overhear, ‘There is something going on that I do not understand yet. This man Fulford – and, I suspect, his master de Braose – keeps appearing in various places, yet de Revelle seems reluctant even to question them. That is partly why I hope to catch at least one of them red-handed tomorrow. Then the sheriff can hardly avoid taking some official notice.’

  The two Johns eyed each other steadily and each felt sure their thoughts were similar. ‘Are the old troubles starting up again?’ asked the priest cryptically.

  The coroner sighed. ‘I have no proof, but my guts tell me that something is brewing. Let’s just watch and wait, old friend.’

  Henri de Nonant’s breakfast, though lavish in quality and especially quantity, did not last the hungry hunters many hours. Chasing around the countryside, even on horseback, was an effective way for large, muscular men to use up energy – and when their quarry was nearby,
they would dismount and chase on foot with their long-bows, working up both a sweat and an appetite. By noon, they were making their way back to Totnes, their throats dry from shouting and horn-blowing, their stomachs rumbling with hunger. In dribs and drabs, the score and a half men came back into the castle bailey, a few with deer draped across their squire’s saddle-bows and one or two with dead foxes. The sport had not been too good – most of the animals of the upper Dart valley had had the sense to keep out of range of the hunters and their hounds.

  Once again, the lord of this honour had laid on plenty of food and drink, and soon the hall was resounding with noisy chatter, coarse laughter and the sounds of eating, drinking and belching. De Nonant was acting the perfect host, going from group to group, slapping backs, making jokes and listening to the interminable exaggerations of the hunters about the one that got away.

  But outside, one man was not so cheerful and became more worried as time went by. Those who were not landowners or their squires were fed in the kitchens, a dozen or so men, usually far better hunters than their masters. Among them was Ansgot, whose eyes kept turning to the gateway in the bailey as he waited for his master to return. He began to question the others as to whether they had seen Sir William Fitzhamon after he himself had had to return with his lame mare. He was met with shaken heads and blank expressions – some of them wouldn’t have recognised Fitzhamon. Eventually, Ansgot left his food and climbed the wooden stairs to the entrance to the hall. He put his head in at the door and looked for de Nonant’s steward. After a while he managed to attract his attention – the older man was supervising the servants taking food, ale and wine around to the hunters.

  ‘Is my master here, Sir William Fitzhamon?’ He wondered if, in some unlikely way, he had arrived unseen.

  The steward shook his head. ‘Not in here, brother. I haven’t seen him since breakfast.’

  The bailiff became more worried than ever, for although his lord was a stern, unbending man, he was not feared or disliked. He was always fair with his people, both freemen and villeins. His wife, too, was a good woman, who did her best to help the more unfortunate of the villagers, especially sick children. He had no desire to see Fitzhamon lying injured in the forest, perhaps gored by a maddened wild boar. Ansgot went back to the kitchen and spoke to a few men he knew, reeves and falconers from other villages. Two left their pots of ale and cider, and went out with him to look for his master. He borrowed a sound horse and the three men rode quietly away over the drawbridge and down through the town into the woods. The Saxon led the way along the path he had taken that morning, before his horse went lame, then continued on to the river, which was the way Fitzhamon had said he was going. At the other side of the small ford, the three men separated and went off at parallel routes, a few hundred paces apart.

  Ansgot was now alone and carried on for the better part of a mile before he heard urgent blasts of a horn to his right, followed by the plaintive baying of hounds. The man on his left came crashing through the undergrowth to respond to the summons and Ansgot joined him. The three were soon together again, and Fitzhamon’s two hounds bounded to the familiar figure of the reeve.

  The falconer slung his horn back over his shoulder and slid from his horse to approach something hidden by a clump of withered ferns covered in hoar-frost, with trees on every side.

  ‘It’s Fitzhamon, Ansgot. And he’s dead.’

  Matilda was in a half-way mood, as John described it to Nesta later that evening. She was not raving at him or throwing shoes, as she sometimes did, but was distant and sullen, replying to his attempts at conversation with polite disdain, not using two words where one would curtly suffice. Thankfully, she managed enough speech to tell him that she was going to one of her interminable services at the small church of St Olave, at the top of Fore Street.

  They had already eaten their evening meal, boiled belly of pork with cabbage and onions. The supper was a silent, strained affair, but Mary gave de Wolfe a broad wink every time she passed behind Matilda to show that she was sympathising with him. As soon as she had cleared the debris of the bread trenchers and spilt gravy from the scrubbed boards of the table, John retired to the fireside with another quart of cider, whilst his wife marched up to the solar for Lucille to dress her for church. Her maid was a refugee from the Vexin, north of the lower Seine, which Prince John had lost to Philip of France while the Lionheart was imprisoned in Germany.

  When mistress and maid had left for St Olave’s, the coroner lost no time in leaving for the Bush, giving Mary a crushing hug and kiss of thanks on the way out.

  In the tavern in Idle Lane, business was quieter than it had been on his last visit. His customary bench was empty and, after a few words with a couple of acquaintances on his way across, he sat down and waited for Edwin to bring over a jar of ale. As the old soldier slid it on to the table, he failed to make his usual salutation, but rolled his one good eye towards the back of the room and made a grimace that de Wolfe took as some sort of warning. Puzzled, the coroner took a few mouthfuls and waited for Nesta to appear, but after five minutes there was still no sign of her. He turned around and saw the Welsh woman standing at the door that led to the kitchens. She had been looking across at him, but as soon as their eyes met she turned abruptly and vanished through the door.

  Edwin passed him, collecting empty tankards from the tables. ‘You’re in the shite, Cap’n. You want to keep your legs crossed for a bit,’ he muttered conspiratorially.

  It dawned on John what had happened. ‘How in hell did she find out?’ he muttered to the old pot-man.

  ‘A carter from Dawlish came in this morning. He started talking about warhorses and the fool let drop that yesterday he had seen your Bran tied up outside the house of Thorgils the Boatman. Mistress Nesta was not amused!’

  Never one to shirk a confrontation, he got up and pushed his way through the stools and benches to the back, followed by knowing glances and nudged ribs among the patrons, most of whom seemed to know exactly what was the problem.

  He bent his head to go out into the cold darkness of the yard behind the inn. As well as the usual stables, privy and wash-house, there were two kitchen huts, each throwing out red light from their cooking fires. Silhouetted in the doorway of one was the trim form of Nesta, standing motionless. He strode over and grabbed her around the waist, pulling her into the gloom of the yard.

  She jerked away, but let his hands remain on her, leaning back to stare up at him in the flickering light. ‘You bastard!’ she said. The light was just sufficient for him to see the glint of a tear in each eye.

  He sighed and pulled her against his chest. Again she resisted, but the strength of his arms was overpowering and she suddenly relaxed against him. ‘I’m sorry, John. I can’t help it.’

  He rocked her from side to side, ignoring the serving-girls, who were peeping from inside the kitchen door. ‘I’m the one who should be sorry, love,’ he said contritely, ‘but you know what I’m like, you’ve known it from the start.’

  The redhead sniffed, rubbing her face against his tunic. ‘I get jealous, now and then. It’s stupid, I’ve got no claim on you, John.’

  He bent to kiss the top of the linen cap that covered her auburn curls. ‘You are the one I love best, Nesta,’ he said in Welsh. ‘The one I always come to, my best friend as well as lover.’ She slipped her arms around him in the darkness, but said nothing. ‘The others are just a passing dalliance, Nesta. A rare adventure that I can never resist when the chance arises. I admit, Hilda is a girl from my youth, I like her very much but she knows I’m a leaf in the wind that passes her door now and then and blows away as quickly. It’s not like that with you.’

  She raised her face and managed a smile. ‘You’re a lecherous old ram, Black John.’ She used the name by which he was known on campaigns and the battlefield, told her by Edwin, who was proud of de Wolfe’s military reputation. She moved away and took him by the hand, drawing him back to the lighted door of the inn. ‘You’re a disgrace,
John, but I’ll have to put up with you, I suppose. I’m going to see the blacksmith tomorrow, to see if he can forge me a chastity-belt for you!’

  ‘He’ll need to stock up on iron, then, to make one to fit me, woman!’

  Now all smiles, they went hand in hand into the taproom and, for a moment, John feared that the assembled patrons, who had been watching the back door, would break into a round of applause. After another quart of best ale, and some beef and bread taken before the fire, the reconciled pair climbed the wide ladder in the corner to the upper floor, where they spent a hour in Nesta’s bed, partitioned off from the common lodgings where pallets or bundles of straw accommodated the guests of the Bush Inn.

  At around midnight, Devon’s coroner crept up to the solar in his house in Martin’s Lane to slip under the blankets and furs at one edge of their bed and listen to the snores of Matilda on the other.

  The next morning, the ambush party set out from Exeter. Eric Langton went out of the city at the same time but, as he had claimed, his slow nag would get to Dunsford well after the others. De Wolfe wanted to be in place before Giles Fulford arrived, to get the best vantage-point to see what he did.

  Dunsford was almost directly west of Exeter, on the road to the stannary town of Chagford, where tin-mining was carried on right under the edge of Dartmoor. Dunsford was in fertile farming land, which climbed up and down small steep valleys, with woodland and forest breaking it up into many separate manors and villages. The coroner’s party consisted of Gwyn and the two servants from Canons’ Row, the stocky young groom David and another powerful Saxon called Wichin. Decent horses had been allotted to them by John de Alencon from among the pick of the stables in the Close, and Gwyn had seen to it that they were armed with thick staves and daggers. The only swords were with John and his officer, clanking at the sides of their saddles. The coroner wore a round metal helmet with a nose-guard over an aventail of chain-mail that tucked under the collar of the thick leather cuirass that he wore under his cloak, but he had no other body armour, feeling that a full mail hauberk was too much for the arrest of a couple of adventurers.