Fear in the Forest (31 page)

Most of these were the more serious offenders against the venison, to be remanded to the distant Forest Eyre. The majority of their sins seemed quite minor to de Wolfe, mainly poaching of coneys, squirrels and various birds. One had shot a fox that had harried his chickens and another was alleged to have killed a boar, though the body of the beast was never found and the man hotly denied the charge. Only one fellow was charged with hunting down a roe deer, as the skin and bones were found buried behind his cottage. All he had to look forward to was either mutilation, castration, blinding or hanging, so the more sensitive Thomas covertly crossed himself and prayed that he would perish in jail.

Two men were accused of failing to ‘law’ their dogs, which meant cutting off three claws from each forepaw to prevent them running after game. The only way to avoid this was to pay a heavy exemption fee, called ‘hound-geld’.

‘Bloody barbarians, all of them,’ snarled the dog-loving Gwyn under his breath, as Michael Crespin, a thickset middle-aged man with cropped blond hair and watery blue eyes, intoned the requirements for this mutilation, even down to the size of the block of wood, the two-inch chisel and the mallet. One of the accused pleaded that his dog was small enough to be exempt from lawing, and an argument developed between the foresters, the verderer and the man as to the criteria for exemption.

‘If a hound can crawl through a stirrup, it need not be lawed!’ claimed the man, indignant at being locked in a filthy gaol for three weeks on such an accusation.

Crespin gave the man a gratuitous blow on the shoulder. ‘You’re a liar, man. That bitch could not be passed through the five and three-quarter inches of a Malvern chase strap, which is the legal measure.’

‘Did you actually try the dog against that measure?’ asked Philip de Strete.

‘I had no need, sir. I could tell from experience that it would not pass.’

Gwyn again rumbled his resentment as this distortion of justice, but de Wolfe laid a restraining hand on his arm. The accused man was trying another stratagem.

‘If you will not believe that, then let me pay the hound-geld now. That dog is too small to hunt anything bigger than a rat, but I am willing to pay, rather than perish in that foul prison!’

The mention of money sent the foresters to the table to murmur with the verderer and, after some nodding of heads, de Strete scowled at the prisoner and gave him an option. ‘Five marks hound-geld or take your chance at the Eyre.’

The man winced and looked desperately into the crowd, where his wife, brothers and father were listening anxiously. After some worried consultation, they nodded and, without further ado, Crespin pushed the man towards the driver of the ox-cart, for him to release the irons on his wrists. Five marks was a fortune to a peasant, who would have to borrow hundreds of pennies from his relatives and probably go hungry for many months to come.

The coroner and his officer waited while the rest of the venison cases were dealt with by the arrogant forest officers, who took every chance to commute crimes for cash. One man was accused of ‘stable-stand’, being seen on a horse carrying a bow. Another was committed for a ‘bloody-hand’ offence, being found with bloodstaining on his breeches, though he loudly proclaimed that he had merely been killing one of his own geese, but had no witness to prove it. A similar situation involved a free man who was accused of both ‘back-bear’ and ‘dog-draw’, being seen carrying the carcass of a fox while walking in the forest with his dog. He insisted that he had found the fox dead with injuries inflicted from a wolf’s fangs and that, as his dog was properly lawed, it was quite legal. No notice was taken of his protestations, but he was allowed to be mainprised, a form of bail, on the payment of two pledges from his family, each of four marks.

As soon as these cases were finished, the Woodmote moved on to the larger number of offences against the vert. These were dealt with rapidly, and again it seemed to John that financial extortion was the main object. In many cases, guilt was declared with almost no evidence and with no chance for the accused to utter a word in his defence. The choice was usually offered of paying a fine or being committed to the Forest Eyre, even when the value of the transgression was patently over the threshold of four pence. When someone declined to pay the amercement, he was bound over with a much greater attachment fee, to ensure his appearance at the distant court, so in either event he was financially crippled either personally or after having to borrow from his family.

Though the system was no different in principle to that of the other courts, it was being applied with a ruthless and avaricious disregard for natural justice. Philip de Strete seemed only to be a figurehead in the proceedings, and appeared to accede to all the murmured advice from the two foresters.

‘This is a damned disgrace!’ rumbled Gwyn. ‘I wonder how faithfully those clerks are allowed to record all these payments. I’ll wager the biggest portion goes into the officers’ purses every forty days.’

They waited a while longer, listening to a series of cases concerning the illegal cutting of branches of more than an inch thick, of the offence of ‘purpestre’, which was the building of a hut on the owner’s land without a fee; causing ‘waste’ by cutting down bushes; and illegal ‘assart’, the removal of stumps and roots to enlarge cultivated ground. A few were fined for wrongful ‘agistment’ – letting their livestock feed in the forest either without sufficient fee or during the current ‘fence month’, fifteen days either side of the feast of St John the Baptist, when the hinds were calving. John was interested to hear all these archaic regulations, some going back to the Saxon kings. He knew of some of them and decided not to mention to Gwyn that it was Edward the Confessor who had brought in the mutilation of forest dogs – not by lawing the claws, but by ‘hombling and hoxing’, cutting the sinews of the back legs so that they could hardly walk, let alone run.

As the cases were completed and the remaining prisoners were herded back to their cart and the rest of the crowd began to thin out, de Wolfe decided it was time for him to have words with the foresters.

With Gwyn close behind, he pushed himself from his pillar and thrust his way through the spectators to reach the front of the court.

Philip de Strete gaped up at them in surprise, then rose in reluctant greeting to a more senior law officer. The two foresters and their thuggish pages made no effort to be civil, but stood to one side, scowling at the coroner and his massive henchman.

‘What brings you here today, Sir John?’ asked the new verderer, anxiously. The sheriff’s description to him of the coroner’s personality suggested that his presence would not bring him joy.

‘I have some serious questions for these officers of yours, de Strete. And I think this is one case that has not been brought to your attention during today’s proceedings.’

Lupus and Crespin glowered at the coroner, well aware of what he meant.

‘Murder was done in the forest two days ago. Has your court no interest at all in recording that?’ he boomed. ‘Do you all still deny that such a major breach of the King’s peace does not come under the common law? And if you do, why have you not dealt with it yourself, as by default it must lie within
someone’s
jurisdiction?’

It was a neat trap, and the inexperienced, rather stupid verderer could only gape ineffectually at the coroner. ‘What murder is this?’ he managed to croak, after a moment.

‘Edward of Manaton – shot in the back with an arrow. An arrow that strongly resembles those used by your foresters – the same foresters who were seen passing through Manaton at about the time of the murder.’

De Strete jerked his head around to stare at his men. ‘Why wasn’t I told of this?’

William Lupus ignored him and spoke directly to de Wolfe.

‘It was no murder, Crowner,’ he said contemptuously. ‘It was a justifiable killing under forest law.’ His skull-like face was impassive as he tried to stare down the coroner.

‘But I should have been informed, William!’ bleated de Strete.

Lupus turned to him slowly and spoke with naked insolence in his voice.

‘You are new to the task, Verderer. Your court deals only with offences against venison and vert. We are not concerned with deaths.’

John de Wolfe exploded at this. ‘Ha! For once your corrupt tongue speaks some truth! Any sudden death is within the purview of the coroner – so don’t ever try to contradict me again.’

The forester flushed at de Wolfe’s scathing tone.

‘Not in the forest, Crowner, when the death is within our laws.’

Gwyn took a pace forward and thrust his big, red face towards Lupus.

‘Don’t talk such bloody nonsense, man! You can’t have it both ways.’

De Wolfe beckoned Thomas out of the small crowd of people who were now gathered around, their ears almost flapping at this diverting quarrel involving the officers they hated most.

‘Take note of what is said, clerk, and write it on your rolls when we are finished,’ he snapped.

William’s oafish page, Henry Smok, stepped to the side of his master.

‘You’re finished now, Crowner! Clear off, back to your city. You’ll never understand the ways of the forest.’

The pugnacious Gwyn moved to flatten the man, but John halted him with a gesture.

‘If by that you are suggesting that the King’s writ runs in Exeter but not here, then you could be arraigned for treason. Even your thick neck would stretch nicely at the end of a rope.’

Both Smok and Philip de Strete paled at the pure menace in the coroner’s words, for it was obvious that he meant what he said. But now he reverted to the original business.

‘You admit then, William Lupus, that you killed Edward of Manaton?’

The forester’s impassive face moved to look briefly at Crespin.

‘I admit nothing. It matters not who actually put the arrow into the poacher. It’s a forester’s duty, whoever bent the bow.’

The audience was hushed as de Wolfe faced Crespin.

‘Then it was you who murdered the man?’

‘Murdered be damned!’ blustered the other forester. ‘I’ll not say who shot this poacher. But the law allows us to stop any fugitive offending against the venison by whatever force is necessary. During the hue and cry, or if the offender will not stop when escaping, we are at liberty to kill.’

Philip de Strete nodded vigorously in his officer’s defence. ‘That’s quite right, Crowner. As a new officer, I have been studying the forest laws most assiduously and what Michael Crespin says is correct.’

William Lupus brought his harsh voice back into the argument.

‘This miserable thief had set traps all around the clearing. We had known him as a poacher for years, but this time we caught him in the act, with a coney on his belt and a bow in his hand. I called on him to stop, but he ran, so an arrow was quite properly put into him.’

De Wolfe noted that they had carefully avoided naming the person who shot the fatal shaft. Crespin had regained his confidence after the support from the verderer and Lupus. ‘Yes, though I thought he was only winged. He gave a great yell and ran on into the trees. It was not worth us chasing him, so we pulled out his traps and left.’

‘Not worth your chasing him?’ snarled the coroner. ‘You had no concern that he might be wounded or dying – as indeed he was?’

Lupus shrugged. ‘Why should we care?’ he answered callously. ‘If we had caught him, we would either have cut his throat as the
coup de grâce
, or if we brought him out he would have hanged for carrying a bow.’

John, in spite of the endless atrocities he had seen – and even been part of – during his years of campaigning, was angry at this cold-blooded contempt for life shown in what should have been the peaceful English countryside.

‘Whether your casual killing was justified is not for you to decide,’ he snapped. ‘I have already attached you to attend the next Shire Court in Exeter to have your actions examined.’

Lupus sneered, and even the two pages grinned at this threat.

‘The Sheriff’s Court? He won’t want me there, that I can tell you now, Crowner. You’re wasting your time, for we’re not coming.’

‘Then I’m also attaching you to attend the next visit of the King’s judges as Commissioners, in a month or two. You’ll not get out of this, for if you fail to appear you’ll be declared outlaw and can go to join your friend Robert Winter and his gang.’

Even this threat failed to make any impression on the forest officers, for they continued to smirk complacently at de Wolfe. ‘And who is going to get us to the court, Crowner? We deny your powers in this. The forest laws were set in place long before your recent office was even thought of!’

‘You’ll attend or suffer the consequences!’ snarled de Wolfe, now becoming increasingly outraged by the contempt with which these men viewed the King’s Court.

‘Are you coming to take us to Exeter yourself?’ gibed Crespin. ‘Or will you send the sheriff to arrest us?’ All four men, the foresters and their pages, guffawed as if this was the best joke they’d heard that month.

‘Or maybe the Lionheart will come back from France with his army to take us!’ cackled Henry Smok, emboldened by his masters’ attitude.

De Wolfe smothered his rage as best he could and glared at the grinning faces.

‘For once in your life, Smok, you may have got near the truth,’ he snapped. ‘I doubt your sovereign lord will come in person, but after this I’ll see to it that Winchester and London attend to this problem. Not all of Richard’s army is in France, remember!’

He turned on his heel and, motioning his officer and clerk to follow him, he stormed out of the market, coldly determined to find a radical solution to the fear in the forests.

In the city that evening, John decided that it was pointless going to Polsloe again, merely to be turned away once more. He reasoned that if and when Matilda wanted to speak to him he would soon know about it. Instead he decided to go to the Bush some hours after returning from Moretonhampstead, spending the time until then with his friend Ralph Morin, the constable of Rougemont. De Wolfe wanted to sound him out about the possibility of taking some of the garrison’s men-at-arms to arrest the foresters and clean out Robert Winter’s outlaw camp.