The Noble Outlaw (43 page)

'You have pain, sir? Where is it, d'you say? In your chest and arm?' Gently, the experienced druggist coaxed some sense from Henry, at the same time calming him down, so that the purpling of his face and lips began to recede. Lustcote climbed to his feet and looked around the circle of faces. 'He has had a seizure of the heart and lungs, not a stroke of the brain,' he diagnosed. 'Too much exertion and frantic excitement in a man who should have eaten and drunk less these past few years.'

'What's to be done?' asked the sheriff anxiously. 'Will he live?'

Richard Lustcote pulled him further away, so as not to be discussing prognosis over the patient himself.

'He could die in the next five minutes - or live another twenty years,' he replied. 'Get him to a bed and leave him be in peace for a few hours. I will give him some tincture of poppy to quieten him down.' He groped in the capacious scrip on his belt, as he always carried a few basic medicaments for use in emergencies such as this.

As Henry was hurried away on a wooden stretcher by a couple of soldiers, the apothecary's pouch was put to good use again, as Joan de Arundell, concerned for her husband's injury, petitioned Lustcote to attend to the wounded arm. While this was being done, Henry de Furnekkis tried to get some order back into the disrupted proceedings. He conferred with the two justices who had come forward into the centre of the combat zone, then threw up his arms and yelled for attention, the tuneless trumpeter trying to help him with a ragged series of blasts.

When the hubbub had subsided sufficiently, the sheriff bawled out his announcement. 'By whatever means, an Act of God or the frailty of man, there is no doubt that Sir Nicholas de Arundell was the victor of that bout of arms. He has thus satisfied the first part of this wager of battle and in one hour will meet Sir Richard de Revelle to determine the final outcome.'

There was a murmuring from the crowd, some more catcalls and a few yells that it was unfair to match an injured man against a fresh opponent. Richard de Revelle, who with his cadaverous steward, had come up to the group in the centre, pushed his way through to the sheriff. 'I agree with those men,' he said earnestly. 'Surely we can delay this pointless business until he has recovered from his injury?'

De Furnellis glared at the dandified Richard. There was no love lost between the two men who had both been sheriff twice over.

'I would have thought you would have welcomed the chance to fight a wounded man, de Revelle. It's the only way you have a chance of winning.'

The fact that de Revelle had already considered this and weighed it against the chances of having the whole affair postponed or even abandoned, blunted the curtness of the answer that came to his lips - but Nicholas de Arundell broke in with a loud cry.

'No, sheriff, there's no need for an hour's delay! I have suffered nothing but a mere scratch and the disturbance has allowed me to get my breath back. Let us get on with the battle and settle it once and for all?

Again, de Furnellis went into a huddle with the king's justices, and John saw de Bohun shrug indifferently, while Walter seemed quite happy with de Arundell's proposal.

This time without the aid of the trumpeter, the sheriffs strident voice announced that the bout would continue at once, and all but the leading figures began to drift back to the ropes. Looking as if he was walking directly to the gallows, Richard de Revelle plodded back to his end, where his steward-squire, Geoffrey de Cottemore, and another servant took away his fine cloak and strapped him into his boiled leather jerkin and helmet.

The small shield and the sword were handed to him and he stood immobile for a moment, ashen-faced and numb of mind.

An educated man who loved learning and politics, he had never espoused the normal pursuits of most lords, fighting, gaming and hunting - though he was fond of womanising and embezzlement. Now to be thrust into an arena with a hardened Crusader who had spent years surviving on Dartmoor was the most frightening experience of his life, for he knew he had wronged the man and fully expected Nicholas to kill him. He felt frozen to the spot and it took a push in the back from his squire to get him advancing like an automaton towards the middle of the square.

'You have already taken your oath against sorcery,' said the sheriff. 'So after the priest has invoked the wisdom of God, you will begin to fight - if needs be, to the death.'

Brother Rufus came to repeat his call for the Almighty to see justice done, then he and the sheriff retreated, leaving the two men alone in the centre of the lonely field. De Arundell's arm was not nearly as good as he alleged, the lacerated tissues throbbing painfully under the tight bandage that the apothecary had applied. At least he had not lost much blood, so he was not weakened or shocked, and for now he was able to hold his sword in his right hand, though he was prepared to change and fight with the other if needs be.

As the two men circled each other, Gwyn and John de Wolfe watched anxiously from the side. 'Without that wound, there'd be no doubt, Crowner,' growled the Cornishman. 'I'd wager my last ha'penny on Nicholas. But he's tired after that run-around that Pomeroy gave him, apart from that strike on his sword arm.'
 

John had his eyes fixed on his brother-in-law. 'He's terrified, but all he's going to do is defend himself and hope that our man flags from exhaustion. I wonder if Nicholas intends to kill him?'

As he spoke, de Arundell - tired of slowly wheeling round his adversary - made a sudden lunge towards de Revelle, who jerked up his shield to take a swinging blow that almost knocked it from his arm. John saw a spasm of pain cross Nicholas's face as the impact radiated up his damaged arm and he was not surprised to see him back off and change his sword and shield to the opposite sides.

Richard de Revelle saw it also and attempting to seize his chance, ran in and struck several blows, all parried by Nicholas's shield. De Revelle tried again, then gave a squeal as the tip of de Arundell's sword slid beneath his guard and jabbed him on the wrist that held the buckler. Nicholas followed up without hesitation and kicked out at Richard's leg as he slammed his own shield against that of the other man. De Revelle staggered backwards and only just regained his balance, before his opponent was on him again, hacking left-handed against the shield, shredding the leather and splintering the underlying wood.

Abruptly, it was all over.

De Revelle suddenly dropped to his knees and sent his sword spinning across the dried mud of the bailey.

Throwing up his arms, one still inside the thong of his shield, he shrieked out the fateful word 'Craven!' Hovering over him, blood now oozing afresh from under his bandage, Nicholas stood with sword upraised.

For a long second, de Wolfe wondered if he was going to bring it down to cleave Richard's skull in half. Then he slowly lowered it and, with a contemptuous shove, put his foot against de Revelle's shoulder and rolled him over on to the cold earth.

In the Bush that night, the trial by battle was the talk at every table, not only at the landlady's place near the hearth. To have one defendant felled by a seizure and the other to make the most abject surrender at the hands of a wounded adversary was unique in everyone's memory.

'What I can't get over is Matilda's behaviour,' confessed de Wolfe, about to attack a trencher carrying a slab of fatty fried pork, with onions and beans around the sides.

'She marched on to the field amid the confusion and went up to her brother and slapped his face! Called him a spineless coward and said she never wanted to see him again.'

The tender-hearted Nesta sighed. 'Oh mercy, that's sad! She was always so proud of her brother when he was sheriff, though he was an evil fellow, as we all know to our cost. But I'm sorry she has been so disillusioned.'

'It will do me no good, though,' said John bitterly. 'The fact that she's fallen out with Richard will inevitably be laid at my door, as it always was in the past. Eventually she'll take delight in accusing me of being the one who got a pardon for Nicholas from the Justiciar and so led her brother into this situation with the royal judges.'

'I thought she was big friends with his wife and had broken with Richard for stealing his manor?' objected Gwyn, sitting opposite with a pig's knuckle and his third quart of ale.

'That won't stop her blaming me for his downfall. Women's minds aren't like ours, Gwyn, they can twist logic any way that suits them!' For that he suffered a sharp kick under the table from Nesta.

'If the world was run by women, it would be a much better and more peaceful place,' she announced tartly. 'All you beasts think of is war and killing and making life intolerable for ordinary folk.'

'That's not always so, though I admit there's some truth in it,' conceded John. 'Take today, Nicholas was magnanimous over his success. He could have spitted Richard on his sword or, being the victor, demanded that he be hanged - but he let him off.'

Thomas, who was hunched at the end of the table, eager to hear all the gossip, shook his head. 'That's not strictly true, Crowner, according to the traditions of 'wager of battle'.'

'Go on then, tell me, fount of all legal knowledge,' challenged John, the events of the day making him good-natured this evening.

'Yes, he could legitimately have slain him any time during the battle, but once he shouted 'craven', his life should be spared, but he would be declared outlaw.'

'Ha! There's natural justice for you,' jeered Gwyn.

'Let the punishment fit the crime. I wonder how he would fare, alone on Dartmoor?'

'But it didn't, did it?' pointed out Nesta. 'He walked away free, without hardly a scratch upon him.'

'The bastard's got a charmed life,' complained Gwyn. 'How many times is it now that he's been caught out in treason, embezzlement and theft, yet manages to slither back to his comfortable manor and a life of ease?'
 

John had to agree that his officer's analysis was very near the mark. 'But it will cost him dear this time, and I feel he'll keep his head well down for a very long while to come.'

'How will it cost him?' demanded Nesta, and waited for John to explain what had happened that morning.

'When de Revelle submitted, the sheriff and the two justices hurried over to see what should be done.

Nicholas at once announced that he wanted no retribution against either of his adversaries, other than full restitution of himself, his family and his men in Hempston Arundell and a sworn promise that they would never again interfere in his manor. But as part of this settlement, he wanted full compensation for all that had been taken from there during the time that de la Pomeroy and de Revelle had annexed it - all the freeholders' rents, the sales of crops, animals and wool that would have been earned by him had he been in occupancy during that period.'

Thomas's little eyes opened wide. 'That would come to a hefty sum. Can they calculate what is owed to him?'

'All the manor accounts and tallies are there, it seems. The justices, when they agreed to de Arundell's suggestion, gave the sheriff orders to have all the records seized and pored over by clerks familiar with such things - at the expense of Pomeroy and de Revelle. They have two months in which to pay up or they will be hauled back before the court, assuming Henry lives through this.'

'The shock of paying all that money may well give him another seizure,' said Gwyn with some glee.

They continued the gossiping until there was nothing left to be said about the day's excitement. Thomas slid out of the tavern, bent on visiting the cathedral for some silent prayer, and Gwyn rolled off to the castle to play dice with Sergeant Gabriel and his soldiery, diplomatically leaving his master alone with his mistress. They soon found themselves up in her little chamber in the loft and John discovered that the tensions and stresses of the day had done nothing to dampen his ardour when they made love on the wide feather mattress on the floor.

Afterwards, in the dreamy relaxation that followed, the coroner lay on his back staring up at the dark recesses of the spider-haunted roof trusses, just visible in the light from a single candle. With his arm around Nesta's shoulders, he became contemplative about the events of past weeks.

'Most of my problems have gone, thank God,' he reflected with satisfaction. 'I had begun to despair of even finding a common thread between those guildsmen killings, let alone finding the identity of the actual killer.

And now my campaign to get justice for the Arundells has at last succeeded, though it was a finely run thing at the end.'

The auburn-haired landlady nestled closer to his body as they lay under the heavy sheepskins. She could see their breath steaming in the cold air, but even naked as they were, it was warm beneath the covers.

'So what remains to disturb your peace of mind, Sir Crowner?' she asked teasingly.

'Very little - there are hardly any inquests outstanding and Thomas's rolls are up to date for presentation to the next Eyre.' He suddenly scowled up into the gloom.

'Except of course, we have not yet found Geoffrey Trove, and that bastard who assaulted my wife may already have left Devon or even England itself.'

Some time later, afraid that her lover was falling asleep, Nesta prodded him with her elbow.

'Up you get, my man. You can't stay here all night, your dear wife will need your company after such a distressing day.'