The Noble Outlaw (21 page)

'Have they been around here lately?'

The bailiff's small eyes roved around, surveilling his companions. 'Haven't seen much of them lately, have we, lads? Last time must have been three months back, when they came by night and stole half a dozen chickens and a couple of suckling pigs.'

'How do you know it was them?' asked Gwyn.

'They scratched a sign on the door of the tithe barn, like they did a couple of times before.'

'What sort of sign?' demanded John.

One of the older men pointed up at the wall above the door, where a crude shield had been painted on the timbers. Though faded and deliberately defaced, six white swallows on a black ground were still visible.

'They left that Arundell device on the barn door, cut with the point of a dagger. That one up there has been here since his father, old Roger, built the house.'

'The place is looking pretty shabby now,' observed Gwyn. 'Does no one care for it any longer?'
 

Ogerus shrugged. 'It's only the land that interests Sir Henry and Sir Richard. They share the income, but don't need the house. I live here most of the time, though I'm really bailiff of Berry Pomeroy. My lord has put me here as caretaker, to supervise the working of the fields.'

John decided they were wandering off the subject.

'Do you know of any among them who might descend to murdering?'

One of the others, the one who had pointed out the shield, broke in ahead of the bailiff, apparently anxious to defend the former lord.

'They get up to some thieving, that's for sure, but they have to live and only steal food or money. They've never killed anyone nor even grievously harmed a soul.'
 

Ogerus scowled at the man. 'I know where your sympathies lie, Alfred Gooch! You should have gone off and joined them. Didn't they kill that man from Berry when the first squabble started?'

'That was an accident,' mumbled Alfred, sitting down and shutting his mouth.

'And you can think of no one who might have a particular grudge against Sir Henry or Sir Richard?' persisted de Wolfe.

There were a few muffled sniggers. 'I can't say as to that, Crowner,' grunted the bailiff. 'It's not my place to relate tittle-tattle. But no doubt Arundell and all his tribe up on the moor would gladly see them both dead.'
 

John seized on part of what the man had said. 'Up on the moor. Where up on the moor might they be?' Again there were snorts and chuckles of derision from the others.

'Like bloody will-o'-the-wisps, they are,' said another fellow, who had a hunting horn at his belt. 'They got half a dozen places they can hide, and can flit from one to the other at the drop of a hat. Not that they're alone up there, there's plenty of outlaws besides them. Dartmoor is big enough to hide a couple of armies.'
 

Having no help on that score, de Wolfe turned to another aspect of his investigation. 'What exactly happened when Sir Nicholas was turned out of this place? I've heard different tales from different people.'
 

Alfred spoke up again, braving the bailiff's obvious displeasure. 'It was a bloody scandal, sir! First they threw out his wife with some yarn about him being dead in foreign parts, then when he shows up at that very door there, hale and hearty, he gets set upon and sent packing.'
 

Ogerus Coffin glared at him again. 'Watch your mouth, Alfred Gooch. That's not how it was at all.'

'I was there, for Christ's sake,' retorted Alfred, defiantly.

'And so was I - and got two broken ribs for my trouble,' shouted the bailiff. 'De Arundell set upon us, calling on some of the men who were here before we took over to join him. They killed Walter Frome and were only defeated when we sent to the castle for help.' There were some subdued grumbles of disagreement from a couple of the men, but they seemed afraid to defy their bailiff openly.

John decided he would only get a censored version of the truth from Ogerus Coffin and turned the discussion into questions about the geography of the manor and how men would get there from Dartmoor. It seemed that the obvious way would be to come down the Dart Valley, into which the little Hems stream joined only a mile away. The valley ran inland to reach Buckfast and, beyond it, Ponsworthy and Widecombe which were at the southern edge of the high moor.

'I reckon wherever they are, they keep mostly to the eastern part of the moor,' said another fellow. 'I doubt they dwell over towards Lydford or Tavistock way, for there are other big gangs of outlaws in that direction who wouldn't take kindly to too much competition.' Even this opinion was of little use in tracking down Nick o' the Moor, as the areas involved were still enormous, a rugged terrain of heathland, bogs, stony ground and tors, all subject to dense cloud, gales, horizontal rain and deep snow, according to the season.

When they had eaten and drunk the plain fare, de Wolfe decided that there was nothing more to be gained by staying. A final demand to the men to search their minds for anyone who might have a particular reason to want Pomeroy and de Revelle dead was met by shrugs and surly looks, without any helpful suggestions. Gwyn would have liked to take Alfred Gooch aside and have some quiet words with him, but the bailiff and the others gave him no chance to steer Alfred away from their company, and a few minutes later they turned their horses' heads towards Exeter, which they hoped to reach before dark.

As her husband was trotting his stallion homewards that afternoon, Matilda had another visitor, after several of her St Olave's friends had come and gone. Joan de Whiteford arrived bearing a gift of 'wardonys in syrup', a sweet concoction of preserved pears flavoured with cinnamon, ginger and saffron, prepared by her cousin's cook-maid.

'It is said to be very nutritious, Lady Matilda. It will help build you up after your awful ordeal,' she said virtuously. Matilda, whose solid body seemed in little need of rebuilding, thanked her effusively and glowed in the warmth of the friendship of this comely, cultured and altogether delightful young woman. John's wife, who seemed already restored to her normal health and spirits after the attack, sent Lucille scurrying out to the cookshed for some of Mary's sweet pastries and invited Joan to be seated in the other cowled chair before the good fire that was crackling in the wide hearth.

They spent a few minutes in polite conversation about Matilda's rapid recovery, the icy weather and the Holy Innocents' festivities in the cathedral the previous day.

The pastries arrived, but Joan declined the offer of wine, as befitted a sober, abstemious widow. Matilda had tried on several occasions to winkle out more detail about Joan's previous life, such as where exactly in Somerset she had lived and how her late husband had died, but she had seemed somewhat evasive, which increased Matilda's curiosity all the more. She tried again now, with little more success, and eventually decided that grief was causing the younger woman to suppress her memories of her former life.

Though the rest of the hall was as cold as a church crypt, the blazing fire overheated their fronts, and the wooden wraparound seats with the arched cowls above kept off much of the pervasive chill. The radiance of the logs, which had driven Brutus back a few feet, encouraged the two ladies to open their pelisses, the lined overgarments they wore on top of their kirtles. Joan had arrived with a heavy hooded mantle as an outer garment, which Mary had draped across the table, and Matilda noticed that it and Joan's pelisse, though of excellent quality, were worn from much laundering and had some patching and darning here and there. It was clear that she was in straightened circumstances compared to her previous life as the lady of a manor, and the older woman's heart went out to her new friend. She even toyed with the idea of subterfuges to improve Joan's wardrobe without appearing to be offering charity.

The warmth of their companionship was evident, the talk moving on to their mutual acquaintances in the congregations of St Olave's and the cathedral: Joan's cousin, Gillian le Bret, seemed to have already introduced her to a considerable number of people in the city.

Their amiable talk went on for almost an hour until disaster struck. On her previous visits, Matilda had not told Joan all the details of her frightening experience, but now that the event was fading a little, she felt able to relate what had actually happened.

'The devil who assaulted me so cruelly said that he had killed three times already and that my brother Richard and another would also pay the price for Hempston!' Matilda said this in a tone of high drama, not noticing the sudden effect the single word had on her friend.

Joan went white and she almost gaped at Matilda.

'Hempston? Did you say Hempston? Surely that cannot be true,' she uttered in an intense whisper.

'It was indeed - some manor down near Totnes, so my husband says,' continued Matilda, blithely unaware of the fuse she was lighting. 'It seems that a rogue knight was expelled from there several years ago and now heads a band of moorland outlaws. Now he is embarking on a murderous crusade against those he claims wronged him. He attacked me so that I might convey his threats to his intended victims!'

Joan stood up so suddenly that the chair grated against the flagstones with a squeal that startled Brutus from his dozing. She stood and stared down at Matilda as if the lady of the house had suddenly grown horns and forked tail.

'That is impossible, mistress! Why are you making such a monstrous accusation?'

Matilda gaped up at her for a moment, then her mouth snapped shut like a steel trap. This was her house, and she was not going to be spoken to in that fashion.

'Watch your tongue, young lady. That is hardly a courteous thing to say!' She was torn between astonishment and annoyance.

'What you allege cannot be true!' blurted out Joan, shaking with emotion. Then she seemed to crumple and flopped back into the chair to bury her face in her hands. 'I have not been entirely frank with you, Lady Matilda,' she sobbed through her fingers. 'I am not who I say I am!'

By now the lady of the house was bewildered. She stared at the woman weeping in her hall, wondering for a moment who was going mad, the visitor or herself.

'Explain yourself, for heaven's sake!' she demanded.

Joan raised her face, tears streaming down her cheeks.

'You have been so kind to me, and I repay you thus, Matilda,' she gulped. 'My name really is Joan and I am the wife of a Crusader and a knight - but his name is not de Whiteford, it is Sir Nicholas de Arundell, of Hempston Arundell.'

Matilda rose slowly from her chair, her face suffused with anger. 'You are the wife of the devil who attacked me? How dare you come to this house, woman?'

'He did not attack you, madam,' screamed Joan. 'He would never do such a thing, he is an honourable man and was many miles away that night.'

'Get out of my house, damn you!' thundered the coroner's wife. 'If it was not your man in person, then it was some villain sent by him to carry out his vile deeds.'

She advanced on the hapless woman, who left her chair and backed away towards the door, her hands held out in supplication.

'I swear Nicholas is innocent, we were deprived of our manor and our life together by unscrupulous men, your brother being one of them.'

This was hardly the right thing to say in the circumstances and caused Matilda, her rage clouding her common sense, to become even more incensed. She bore down on the near-hysterical Joan, who turned tail and scurried to the door, sobbing as she fumbled with the latch. A moment later, there was a thud as the heavy street door swung shut behind her.

Matilda was left standing in the middle of the flagged floor, her anger subsiding as quickly as it had arisen.

She looked around and saw that Joan's cloak was still thrown across the table, the younger woman having run out into the icy weather with only her pelisse to shelter her. Matilda picked up the cloak and sadly put her cheek to it, already deeply regretting the irremediable loss of such a special friend. She was still not able to get her mind around the extraordinary claim that Joan had made, but instinctively she knew it to be true. Unusually for her, she vehemently wished that John was here now, so that he could explain what all this meant and reassure her that her friend had merely had a temporary fit of aberration, though she knew that this was wishful thinking.

Her dazed mind was suddenly interrupted by Mary appearing at the inner door.

'Is everything all right, mistress?' she asked concernedly, looking around the empty hall. 'I thought I heard shouting. Has your guest gone?' Matilda, who was usually brusque with the cook-maid, slowly shook her head and replied quietly, 'There's nothing amiss, girl. And, yes, the lady has gone.' When Mary had left, Matilda sank back into her chair, still clutching the mantle, and stared into the fire. 'Oh God, what's happening?' she murmured to the Almighty.

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De Wolfe and his officer reached Exeter just as the gates were closing at dusk, and Gwyn went straight up to Rougemont to eat, drink and play dice with the men-at-arms for the rest of the evening. John made his way back to Martin's Lane and, after seeing Odin settled in the stables opposite his house, went home in mellow anticipation of at last getting warm before a good fire, with a jug of mulled wine and the pleasure of Mary's cooking.