The Noble Outlaw (22 page)

What met him in his hall dashed his hopes, as he found his wife slumped in her chair, a linen kerchief pressed to her face. Her wimple was hanging awry and strands of her mousy hair were poking from beneath it.

'Matilda? Are you unwell? Shall I call Richard Lustcote for you?'

When she looked mournfully up at him, he saw that her eyes were reddened and tears welled from the lids.

'I am not ill, John. Just sick at heart.'

He crouched at the side of her chair as she haltingly told him everything that had happened. 'Her name was false, John, she deceived me!'

Privately, he thought it was only natural that the woman would not advertise the fact that she was the wife of a hunted outlaw, but he patted Matilda awkwardly on the shoulder. 'Never mind that, she no doubt wanted to spare you embarrassment,' he said instead. 'But this is a most extraordinary revelation. So she's not a de Whiteford from Somerset, but wife to Nick o' the Moor.'

Matilda sniffed back her tears and wiped her face with the linen cloth. 'She loudly denied that he had anything to do with my ordeal, John. She claimed that they had both been wronged by my brother. How can such a wicked, deceitful woman say such things, when she seemed at first to be such a nice, devout woman?'

De Wolfe groped for a stool and pulled it up to squat near his wife's chair. 'I have spoken to a number of people, including the sheriff - and today I have been down myself to Hempston and Berry Pomeroy. There may well be some truth in what she says, Matilda,' he added gently.

She glared at him with a return of her old antagonism. 'You too, John? You never miss a chance to defame Richard, do you?'

He held his temper in check with an effort. 'Come, Matilda, you cannot deceive yourself that your brother is a pillar of righteousness, after all the dangerous escapades that he has become embroiled in. What I say comes not from my mouth or my imagination - it is a fact that the Arundell manor was, shall we say, acquired by Richard and Henry de la Pomeroy in dubious circumstances. I am still not clear about the details; there are conflicting accounts, depending on who one speaks to.'
 

Matilda was not mollified by this. 'So who half killed me and spat the poison in my ear that it was revenge for Hempston, answer me that? Who could it have been but this Arundell knave or some hired assassin of his?'
 

Her husband had no answer for this and shook his head in frustration. 'I must get to the bottom of this, and quickly, before anyone else is killed. Where does this lady live? I must speak to her urgently.'

'Speak to her? Surely you mean seize her, arrest her, throw her into the cells at the castle. She is the wife of a condemned outlaw.'

John hauled himself from the stool and backed away to the other monk's seat, where Joan had sat that fateful afternoon.

'I cannot arrest her, Matilda, even if I saw some merit in doing so. It is not against the law to be married to a criminal, unless she gives him aid and succour. And as he is far away on Dartmoor, that hardly seems possible.'

'She lodges in Raden Lane with her cousin, Gillian le Bret - though after her vile deception, even that is open to question!'

John sensed that Matilda was torn between hating Joan de Arundell and trying to save her affection for her.

Her words seemed aimed at bolstering her outrage, but there was an undercurrent pleading for her to be proved wrong. John tried to placate her as much as possible.

'I truly cannot see a knight and a fellow Crusader stooping to attack a defenceless woman in the cathedral precincts at Christ Mass,' he said confidently. 'It would be against all the instincts of honour and chivalry.

Though I don't for a moment deny your recollection of that foul assault, it could have been another man, as when he was ejected from his manor, many other men went with him and have suffered ever since.'
 

The logic of this struck home, and Matilda began to grasp at the faint hope that her rift with Lady Joan was not irrevocable.

'Then you had better set about finding out, husband,' she said with a hint of her habitual grimness. 'Now being unmasked, she may leave the city and hide herself away somewhere.'

The same thought had occurred to John. 'She can go nowhere until the gates open at dawn. I'll confront her tonight - though after a day in the saddle, I'll first need some of Mary's victuals to fill my empty belly, even if it's only umble pie.'

An hour later, the coroner and his wife were standing outside the gate to the burgage plot in Raden Lane.

Matilda had insisted on accompanying him, saying that she was the one most concerned in this matter and that she was determined to see it resolved. Though often a surly, selfish person, she was lacking in neither intelligence nor fortitude, and nothing John could say would deter her from coming with him.

It was dark and cold, but the wind had dropped, reducing the chill considerably. Both wrapped in their mantles, they waited for someone to answer the loud rapping that John had made on the gate with the handle of his dagger. Eventually, footsteps were heard on the other side and the quavering voice of the elderly servant, Maurice, called out to ask who was there. No one readily opened their doors to unexpected callers in the dark of a winter's evening, but the authoritarian voice of the king's coroner persuaded Maurice to pull the bolts and lift the bar to allow them inside.

He led them into the main room where, lit by the fire and a number of tallow dips, they found Gillian le Bret standing protectively in front of Joan de Arundell, who like Matilda earlier had obviously been weeping.

'With what intent have you come, Sir John?' demanded Gillian stiffly. 'My Cousin has done no wrong. The mild deception about her name was to protect her from the gossips who abound in this city.'

'The lady need have no fear of me, Mistress le Bret. But those same gossips will no doubt have informed you that my wife here was grievously assaulted a few nights ago, and I have certain information that links that with the manor of Hempston. That is why I am here, to urgently seek information.'

Matilda stood stock still behind him, her eyes on Joan at the far side of the room. She said nothing, and John was unsure whether her attitude was hostile or forgiving.

For her part, the younger woman displayed only apprehension, as if she expected to be clapped into irons at any moment. Gillian seemed to have taken on the role of interlocutor in this matter.

'My cousin knows nothing of this, but we can swear, by any means you desire, that her husband had no part in any attack upon the good lady.'

'How would you know that, lady, if her husband is many miles away and has no contact with his wife?' asked John in a reasonable tone.

Joan spoke up, more firmly and resolutely than the coroner had expected.

'I know my husband, Sir John. He is a fine man, honourable and fair. He was a Crusader like yourself, but his absence in the service of our king has brought us nothing but ruin and despair.'

She broke down in tears, and Matilda, undergoing a rapid reversal of mood, lumbered forward to put a consoling arm around Joan's shoulders and to press her head against her own bosom.

Gillian and John looked at the pair and then at each other.

'There seems to have been a miraculous reconciliation,' murmured the elder cousin. 'We had better be seated and talk this through.'

They arranged themselves on a padded settle near the firepit and on a wooden chair and a stool, Joan now linking her arm through Matilda's. Alternately smiling and blinking back tears, Joan told how she had been callously told of the death of her husband and then been evicted from Hempston by de la Pomeroy and de Revelle, on the claim that the manor had escheated to Prince John.

John looked covertly at his wife when her brother's name was given, but apart from a tightening of her lips, she made no comment.

'I know little of what happened when Nicholas Came back to Hempston, as I was far away down at the tip of Cornwall. In fact, I knew nothing of his return from the dead for some months, until he got word to my kinsmen down there, through some carters.'

'So have you seen him since then, mistress?' asked John.

Joan looked warily at Gillian, who sighed and nodded.

'Yes, she has, just a couple of times. They met briefly at covert assignations, when he came secretly off the moor.' Her voice became more defiant. 'I doubt that is a crime, Crowner, as she gave him no aid whatsoever, for she has none to give.'

The two women said nothing about Nicholas's visit into Exeter, but John spotted an important void in their story.

'So you must be able to contact your husband, lady? Otherwise you would not have been able to set up these meetings?'

Joan flushed, as the conversation was leading into dangerous paths. 'It is difficult and complicated, sir. But he is my husband, we are still young, yet deprived of each other's rightful company, due to the greed of evil men.' Again Matilda did not react to this innuendo which included her brother. John nodded, accepting the truth of her words.

'I am concerned that as you claim that your husband cannot be personally involved in these murders and in the assault on my wife, then someone in his band of men might be. What have you to say to that?'
 

On safer ground, Joan considered the proposition.

'Truly, I cannot help you much, as I have no knowledge of how he lives on the moor, except that he says the hardships are barely tolerable. But certainly, men from the manor went into exile with him of their own account, not wishing to suffer serfdom to those who pillage other men's property. Some of those men may well be very aggrieved and desire to strike back at those who ruined their lives. But why would they wait almost three years?'
 

De Wolfe had no answer to this, but persisted with his questions. 'Is there any one man you might recall who was particularly angry at what happened at Hempston?'
 

Joan shook her head again. 'I knew Robert Hereward, of course. He was our steward and a kind, steady man. There was also Martin the manor reeve, but I don't recall much about all the others. I had little to do with the running of the manor, Robert Hereward saw to all that, especially after Nicholas was so gallant as to go off and take the Cross.'

She sounded bitter about this, her husband leaving for the Holy Land and leaving her to cope with his alleged death and then the sequestration of her home.

Matilda spoke for the first time Since she arrived. 'I was wrong to speak as I did this afternoon, dear Joan. I was distressed by what had happened to me and to discover that you were no widow, and that your husband was whom I assumed to be my assailant threw me into a unreasonable temper.' She patted the other woman's arm. 'I shall make confession and do penance for my impetuousness, never fear.'

De Wolfe gave one of his loud throat rumblings to halt the possible decline into sentimentality. 'What is to be done, that is the problem? I quite understand why you are firm in your defence of your husband, but you are hardly an unbiased witness.'

Gillian came back into the debate. 'There is nothing further we can tell you, Crowner. All the fault lies in those who took advantage of Nicholas's absence in Palestine to falsely take possession of his manor. That is where the answer lies, surely.'

Matilda turned to look across the room at her husband, having so rapidly moved from accuser to protector of her young friend.

'John, it occurs to me that the swine who accosted me might certainly have been from Hempston, but may have long left that place and be nothing at all to do with the men on Dartmoor.'

Gillian agreed with her. 'In fact, it seems more likely, as how else could these crimes have been committed within the city?'

She forbore to mention that Nicholas de Arundell had entered and left Exeter without any problem, and instead raised the subject of how to lift the fatal stigma of outlaw from him.

'We had already wondered if we could implore you to intercede for Nicholas with the king's council,' she said earnestly. At this, Joan stood up and passionately added her own pleas.

'Sir John, you are a man with a reputation for honesty and a sense of justice, which is more than can be said for so many in positions of authority. Is there nothing that can be done to obtain a pardon for him? Though surely pardon is the wrong word, for he did nothing wrong to deserve being outlawed for trying to defend our home against these pillagers.'

Matilda nodded vigorously, even though her own brother was implicitly being accused by Joan's words.

'John, you are well acquainted with the Chief Justiciar and even King Richard himself. Surely you can make some representations?' Even in this highly charged discussion, she could not resist dropping names to emphasise how well connected her husband was.

He cleared his throat again, cursing Matilda for pressing him too far. 'There is much to be discovered about all aspects of this. The events occurred before I was coroner, and before I can make any move I need to know exactly what went on in Hempston almost three years ago. There is no doubt that your husband and these men on the moor were properly decided exigent, as there are court records to that effect. Thus, legally, no law officer can approach them except to arrest them.'