Fear in the Forest (35 page)

‘This is John de Wolfe’s work, I’ll wager!’ he muttered to himself, letting the corpse fall back again. ‘But where in the Virgin’s name is he?’

He began yelling again, uncaring about concealing his presence, then began following the blood trail back in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, it virtually petered out just at the point where he had first seen it. A close search revealed a few spots ten yards away, but there were no visible tracks in the forest floor. Two deer trails crossed near by, which confused the issue, and in spite of many minutes casting about, he failed to find anything to help him locate the coroner.

He leaned against a big oak, to recover his wits. There was a dead outlaw back there and it was highly likely that John de Wolfe was responsible. But that by no means meant that the coroner was still around here – or that he was dead or injured. Had he taken off after the other outlaws?

Gwyn sighed and scratched his tangled hair in indecision. There was no way in which he could search the forest – it went for miles in various directions. For all he knew, de Wolfe might emerge somewhere else and either walk or borrow a horse to come back to the alehouse. But some sixth sense niggled at him to say that the situation was not that simple – so he must have help to look for his friend and master.

Having made a decision, he now hurried to carry it out. Still yelling John’s name at intervals, he strode back to the track and jogged down it to the main road. At the inn, he slapped a couple of pennies down before the cripple, telling him what had happened and to care for the hired horse until it was collected the next day. With a last admonition to keep a sharp lookout for the coroner, he spurred his big mare towards Exeter to get help.

Even pushing his strong mount as hard as he could, it took Gwyn almost three hours to reach Rougemont. The first person he saw when he clattered his steaming mare under the gatehouse arch was his drinking and gambling friend, the garrison sergeant.

‘Gabriel, the coroner’s gone missing!’

He poured the whole story into the sympathetic ear of the old soldier, who was another who thought highly of Black John.

‘But we don’t know for certain he’s in trouble, just because he saw off some bloody outlaw!’ Gabriel tried to be reassuring.

The coroner’s officer shook his head. ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this, friend. He wouldn’t have gone off for hours, leaving me and the horses without any word.’

‘So what do you think may have happened to him?’

‘With a dead man there, there’s no doubt he’s been in a fight. We must go to look for him. He may be lying wounded. It needs more than a few men to search that area. I couldn’t do it alone.’

Gabriel worriedly chewed his lip. ‘The bloody sheriff won’t be too keen on sending men-at-arms to look for John de Wolfe. He’d be glad to see the back of him.’

‘Surely his sister would give him hell if he refused!’ bellowed Gwyn.

‘Let’s find Ralph Morin. We can get some sense out of him.’

They found the castellan in the lower ward, inspecting some repairs to the palisade that topped the high earth bank of the outer defences.

He listened gravely to Gwyn’s urgent news and without hesitation agreed that a search party must be mustered without delay. To their great relief, Morin also said that Richard de Revelle had just gone on one of his duty trips to his manor at Tiverton, to spend Sunday with his wife.

‘So I’ll take it upon myself to assume that he would have been anxious to safeguard the well-being of his dear brother-in-law!’ he said sarcastically, a broad grin splitting his bearded face. ‘So let’s get a
posse
together, right now!’

Gabriel looked up at the sky which, though still blue, showed a sun leaning well over to the west. ‘By the time we get men mounted up and ride almost to Ashburton, there’ll be precious little daylight left.’

Gwyn, though he had already sat six hours in the saddle that day, was in no mood for delay. ‘Can’t be helped. The crowner may be bleeding to death somewhere. Let’s go!’

Such was their devotion to de Wolfe that the three men almost ran back to the inner bailey, where their horses were stabled. As they went, Gabriel and Ralph Morin yelled orders at some of the men-at-arms standing about, who in turn began running to knock up their fellows in the huts and lean-to buildings within the castle precinct. Before the three leaders returned on horseback, the outer ward was buzzing with activity, as a dozen soldiers took their mounts from the main stables and saddled up with the help of the ostlers and farriers.

A crowd of wives, children and off-duty members of the garrison came to gawk at the urgent preparations and cheered as the troop trotted briskly through the outer gate. As they hurried through the city, scattering the crowds in the High Street and Fore Street, the Exeter rumour mill started in full swing. In these peaceful times in the West of England, the sight of what looked like a war party of soldiers racing out of the city gave rise to all manner of speculation, from a French invasion to a new rebellion by Prince John! It was only when a couple of pedlars, who had been selling trinkets to wives in Rougemont, came out of the castle with the news that the King’s coroner was missing, probably wounded and quite possibly killed, that the rumour took on a new twist, spreading like wildfire throughout the city.

With the sense of urgency that Gwyn had engendered, the posse made good time to the alehouse on the Ashburton road. In the cooler part of the day, they trotted and occasionally cantered the fifteen miles from the city and arrived there when there was still some of the evening left, it being now early July. They stopped at the tavern for the troop to water their horses, while Gwyn went with the constable and sergeant to see whether the landlord had any news of de Wolfe.

The twisted man leaned on his stick and shook his head. ‘Not a sign of anyone asking for you, sirs.’

‘Where does that track lead to, the one just down the road?’ demanded Gwyn.

‘Nowhere now. It used to go to a woodward’s dwelling, but it caught fire and he died in the flames, some ten years ago.’

‘What’s beyond it, in the other direction?’ asked Ralph Morin.

‘Just trees, your honour. Miles of them, till you come out towards Halshanger Common, up on the moor. Not that anyone would want to go through there, unless you had armed men like your party. Riddled with outlaws it is, these days.’

The horses attended to, they rode on quickly to the lane and turned in off the road. Gwyn had considered dismounting and walking up, but thinking that even minutes might be precious he led the posse along the mile of track on horseback, now careless of any noise. The troops were told to keep their eyes open for anything to be seen on either side, though the low sun and dense bushes along the path made this difficult. The men were not in full battle array and wore only round helmets and leather jerkins, rather than their mail hauberks. Some wore swords, others had pikes and there were two bowmen, though this was meant to be a rescue mission rather than a fighting force.

Soon the clearing was visible ahead and Gwyn reined in his mare to point off to the left. ‘That’s where the dead man is, a couple of hundred paces away and just in from the edge of the trees.’

Everyone dismounted and lashed their reins to the nearest sapling, then Gabriel took three men and fanned out in the direction that the coroner’s officer had indicated. Morin led the way into the clearing and headed for the other side with three of his soldiers, while Gwyn struck off with the rest on the other side of the path, a direction in which he had not searched earlier. For a few minutes there was a general rustling of leaves and snapping of twigs as fifteen men searched the forest. Then a loud shout came from the left, which Gwyn recognised as Gabriel’s voice. He was calling the Cornishman’s name, so he went back to the path and dived into the darkening wood on the other side.

‘I’m coming! Have you found him?’ He was almost afraid to ask, in case the sergeant had stumbled upon John de Wolfe’s body.

Gabriel directed him by shouting and, as he approached, he called a question. ‘I thought you said this corpse had been stabbed through the belly and groin?’

As Gwyn stumbled up to Gabriel and another man-at-arms, the sergeant said, ‘This fellow’s had a sword stuck into the side of his chest, man.’

As he looked down, Gwyn’s bushy eyebrows rose an inch up his forehead.

‘That’s not him! That’s another one!’

This was a much smaller, younger fellow, with brown hair and a thin beard. His hessian tunic was saturated with blood all down his right side, clotting into the leaves beneath him.

‘The coroner’s been having a field day, if he saw this one off as well!’ observed Gabriel. A yell from another soldier announced that the first outlaw that Gwyn had come across had also been found, a hundred yards away.

‘To hell with these two,’ growled Gwyn. ‘Where’s the coroner, that’s all that concerns me.’

The search went on as the light began to fade. Ralph and his men tramped about the far side of the clearing and worked their way around to where the corpses lay, meeting up with Gabriel’s party, without finding anything. Constantly, the men called de Wolfe’s name without success. Gwyn went back to the other side of the path and combed the area with his soldiers. Eventually, as dusk fell, they all gravitated despondently to where the horses were tethered, tired and anxious.

‘God knows where he is!’ exploded Morin, his forked beard jutting like the prow of a ship. ‘We must have covered almost a square mile all around that clearing – but he could be five miles away.’

‘It’ll be pitch dark in half an hour. There’s little more we can do until morning,’ said Gabriel, mournfully. He was almost as devoted to de Wolfe as was Gwyn and the thought of him dying alone in some deserted forest was hard to bear.

Slowly and uneasily, the party went back along the track. This time they walked in single file, leading their steeds by the reins. In the near twilight, they still peered hopefully to either side and continued to call the coroner through cupped hands. Now even the birds were silent and only the rustle of the wind in the tree-tops answered them.

When they reached the road, a gloom deeper than the dusk settled upon them as they were forced to acknowledge their failure.

‘At least we didn’t find him dead or wounded.’ Ralph Morin tried to lift the mood, which was affecting even the youngest of the garrison guard, as all of them knew something of John de Wolfe’s past military reputation. As they walked up the road towards the inn, intent on some getting some food and ale inside them, Sergeant Gabriel voiced their concerns. ‘Now what do we do?’

Gwyn looked at the castle constable. ‘I don’t know what you intend, but I’m going back in there at first light – and I’m not leaving until I’ve found him, dead or alive!’

Morin grunted his agreement. ‘We’ll stay with you for most of the day, but I’ll have to take the men back before de Revelle returns. He’ll go crazy if he discovers that I’ve been away that long with some of the best of the garrison – especially if it was because of John de Wolfe!’

In an oppressive silence of defeat, they trudged up the road towards the alehouse.

In Exeter, the Saturday evening drinkers wandered from one tavern to another, the rumour about the coroner being embellished every time it was repeated. The same was happening around the market stalls and the trinket booths along the main street, where good-wives and their sisters gossiped incessantly about everything under the summer sun.

The tale grew from Sir John being lost in the forest to his having been abducted by Barbary pirates – and from his being kidnapped by Prince John to his having been beheaded by outlaws. Whatever version was related, the basic truth undoubtedly seemed to be that something very serious had happened to Black John. He was well known to virtually every one of the few thousand citizens of Exeter, and even if many were somewhat wary of the stern-visaged law officer, they all respected his reputation for even-handed honesty, uncommon amongst officials in authority. It did not take long for the rumours to reach Idle Lane.

A somewhat inebriated butcher, who had been thrown out of the White Hart for trying to pass a clipped coin, rolled into the Bush as the cathedral bell was tolling for Compline. He slumped down at a table and waved at Edwin for some ale. Across the room he noticed three acquaintances drinking near the window opening.

‘Heard the news, boys?’ he called across, his voice slightly slurred, but still piercing. ‘Our crowner’s been killed. The whole garrison rode in full armour this afternoon, to avenge him!’

There was a sudden silence in the taproom, immediately shattered by a crash as a pair of quart jugs full of cider exploded on the floor at the back of the room. Pandemonium broke out as Nesta slumped to the floor amongst half a gallon of drink and shattered pottery. As one of her maids, Edwin and a couple of customers rushed to her aid, another drinker cuffed the butcher’s ears for his insensitivity.

Another unlikely patron also hurried to Nesta’s side, as Thomas had just entered the inn. He had been worried about the Welsh woman all afternoon, since he had brought her back from her sorrowful escapade on the river-bank. As there had been no sign of Gwyn or de Wolfe for many hours, he had moped about the coroner’s chamber, too distracted to do much writing. Eventually he had gone to his lodging and then to a service in the cathedral, missing the dramatic return of Gwyn and the hurried departure of the posse from Rougemont. Not until a few minutes earlier had he heard the rumours about the coroner that were flashing about the city, which sent him hurrying down to the inn, fearful of the effect of the news upon Nesta in her present vulnerable state.

He was too late by a minute, but joined the throng clustered solicitously around the fallen landlady. One of them happened to be Adam Russell, the apothecary, who pushed his way through to where one of the serving maids was pillowing Nesta’s head on her apron.

‘She’s fainted, but she looks terrible,’ said the girl.