The Noble Outlaw (5 page)

There was silence for a time, broken only by the slurping of hot soup and the noise of small bones being spat on the ground. When the last drops had been scraped from the bowls and the crusts finished, Peter Cuffe produced a small wineskin with a silver neck and stopper, another prize obtained by highway robbery. He passed it first to the man on the log, who drank deeply before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and passing the bag on to Philip Girard.

'That was good stuff, these Exeter merchants do themselves well,' exclaimed Sir Nicholas de Arundell. The dispossessed lord of Hempston Arundell was a powerfully built man of average height, with a strong, handsome face. His close-cropped fair hair was a legacy from his Saxon mother Henneburga, but the rest of him was pure Norman, the first Arundell having arrived with William the Bastard. He was thirty-three, but the hardships of the last decade showed in his face, making him look older than his years.

As the men stuffed the bowls back into their shoulder packs, Girard questioned their chief. 'Are we going back in this weather?' he growled. A former huntsman, he was tall, with a weathered face pitted with cowpox scars.

De Arundell rose to his feet, stooping under the damp brushwood of the ceiling. 'Let's get out before the weather gets worse,' he answered in his deep voice. 'If it snows more heavily, we'll never cross the moor. I'm not going to starve for days in this rat hole.'

While the others gathered their few belongings and as Robert stamped out the embers of the fire, Nicholas thought longingly of the house at Hempston, his manor near Totnes in the south of the county. Though he had not been able to live in it for almost five years, he wistfully recalled sitting out-snowy weather there in the comfort of his own hearth and with his wife Joan to keep him company. Now here he was slinking from hole to hole across a desolate landscape, like a fox seeking its den. True, this place was merely a convenient refuge on the moor, but even their more permanent quarters at Challacombe were hardly an attractive domicile. If any determined sweep were to be made by the law officers, they would even have to flee from that and seek one of their other hideouts, which were little better than this crude shanty.

Hauling his heavy woollen cloak around him and pulling up the hood, he slung his satchel over his shoulder and grabbed a heavy staff, the top weighted with iron bands to make it a formidable weapon. Leading the way past the outer wall, he emerged into the open and stretched upright, scanning the leaden sky. The snow had stopped for the moment, but a keen east wind was whipping up wraiths of white from the uneven moorland and the pinkish-grey horizon threatened a blizzard to come.

'We've less than five hours of daylight, so let's get going,' he commanded and set off towards the south, guided by landmarks that had become all too familiar these past three years. The grotesque outlines of the tors, irregular columns of granite standing against the skyline, together with upright stones set up by men long ago, marked the tracks that only sheep and moor men could recognise. In single file, the four men trudged steadily onward, thankful that the snow was only up to the insteps of their leather boots, which had been greased with hog fat to make them at least partly waterproof.

They marched in silence to conserve their breath.

Though they had ponies back at Challacombe, they seldom used them for relatively short expeditions: on foot they could drop to the ground and lie invisible when either setting an ambush for unwary travellers or hiding from more powerful forces. With almost ten miles to go from where they had come up on to the high moor from South Tawton, they loped along steadily, occasionally stumbling on rocks hidden under the snow and plodding laboriously when they had to climb out of the sudden steep valleys that small tributaries of the Dart and Teign rivers had hacked deep into the moor.

As the shortest day of the year was only a week away, daylight faded early, especially with such a heavily overcast sky. By the time they came into the final mile of their journey it was getting dark, and though for a while their silhouettes against the whiteness of the snow helped them to follow in Nicholas's footsteps, soon only their familiarity with the turns and twists of the sheep tracks kept them on the right path. Eventually they descended into a valley where a tiny glimmer of yellow light guided them the last few furlongs. Their approach was soon heralded by the deep barking of a pair of dogs.

'Gunilda's set that old lantern outside for us, God bless her,' said Robert Hereward. Following a stony stream downwards, they passed through some bare trees to reach an opening in a low boundary wall and came into a tiny settlement of half a dozen stone huts, most of them derelict. The light had been placed on a boulder outside one which still had its roof of reed thatch. Daylight would have shown that this was tattered and rotting, but still held down against the gales by ropes slung over the top with heavy stones hanging on their ends. A door of rough planks was thrust open as they approached, and two wolf-like hounds rushed out, then cringed along the ground towards them, tails wagging. Behind them, outlined against a dim glow from a fire inside, was the figure of a tall woman, a sack around her shoulders to act as a shawl.

'I wondered if you would get here or stay the night at the Cosdon shelter,' she said in greeting, her voice deep and harsh. Gunilda Hemforde was a formidable widow of about fifty, of extremely ugly appearance. Her deeply lined face was like leather, her greying hair was sparse and patchy, and the few teeth she had left were blackened stumps. Gunilda was a widow because she had killed her husband with an axe when she found him on their bed with her younger sister. Rather than face inevitable hanging, she had taken to the moor two years ago, later being declared by the shire court to be a 'waif', this being the female equivalent of an outlaw. Now she kept house for the dozen men of the Arundell gang at their main hideout in the deserted village of Challacombe.

The woman stood aside to let the four weary travellers enter. Each greeted her warmly, for she made life more bearable for them by her simple ministrations.

'Rest yourselves and I'll bring your meat directly,' she promised, going to the other end of the single, square room where she had a table for preparing food. The men slumped gratefully onto piles of dried ferns set back from the circle of stones that enclosed the firepit in the centre of the hut. Three other men were already there and the conversation centred around the day's activities.

'We had very little luck,' observed Philip Girard. 'Two days lurking about the Okehampton road and almost nothing to show for it.'

'An Exeter burgess who carried no more than thirty pence in his purse and a flask of wine on his saddle bow! ' added Peter Cuffe, in disgust. 'And we had to chase off a hulking great servant waving a sword to get even those.'

Nicholas de Arundell pulled off his boots and held his feet towards the fire, steam soon coming off his damp hose. 'Any news of Martin and the others?' he asked. The remaining five men had gone south three days before to try their luck along the high road that ran between Plymouth and Exeter. There was some headshaking and grunting, then Gunilda replied from where she was hacking a large loaf into chunks as if it was her late husband's head.

'By the sky today, I reckon the snow was worse down that way, so perhaps they've holed up in the cave near Dunscombe.'

The outlaw band lived partly by armed robbery, especially during the winter months when there were few other sources of income. However, crime was not their only means of survival. Sometimes, they got casual work with the tinners, as the headmen of the teams often wanted extra labour when regular workers fell ill or were injured. At haymaking or harvest time, some village reeves would turn a blind eye to the employment of a stranger, and payment in kind, a goose or a small sack of corn, would be added to Gunilda's store of provisions.

Tonight, their supper came from poaching, a deer that Philip Girard had shot with a crossbow the previous week in the park of a manor near Widecombe. Thanks to the icy weather, it had hung outside the hut in good condition, providing venison for many days, and now Gunilda had used the last of it in another stew, eked out with winter cabbage and stored carrots and turnips.

They ate their food from a motley collection of tin, pewter and wooden bowls at a long table with benches on each side, luxurious surroundings compared with their refuge holes dotted over the moor. A couple of tallow dips, cord wicks floating in a dish of animal fat, provided the only light apart from that of the fire, but it was sufficient to dispel the gloom as they washed down the food with pottery mugs of ale and cider brewed by their grim housekeeper.

As they drank, they talked, the topics ranging from the best wood for making quarterstaffs to the usual nostalgia for homes and families from whom they were for ever banned, at least in theory. This last theme was pursued by their leader, to the concern of some of the others.

'I've made my mind up, I'm going into the city this week,' announced Nicholas.

This obviously worried Robert Hereward, who in their former life had been de Arundell's steward. 'Sir, I well know how badly you wish to see your good lady, but is it wise to put your head into the lion's mouth?'

His master shook his head, Hereward recognising the obstinate look that appeared on his weathered face. 'Not only do I wish to see my wife, but I need to talk to her about our situation,' he grated. His voice shook with anger. 'I'm damned if I'm to stay an outlaw for the rest of my life, especially when those bastards de Revelle and Pomeroy are at the root of it all!'

There was a growl of agreement from the others. 'But can you get into Exeter and stay there unrecognised?' persisted Peter Cuffe doubtfully.

'Getting in is no problem, I'll wait outside the West Gate at dawn and push in with the press of people entering for the market. With a wide pilgrim's hat and a few badges sewn on an old cloak, the porters'll not look twice at me.'

'And when you're in, what then?' persisted Robert Hereward, anxious for the safety of his hot-headed leader, as the penalty for discovery would be a summary hanging or beheading.

'Lady Joan is lodging there with a cousin, using a different name. No one knows of the connection between her and a noble outlaw, so she's quite safe. She's supposed to be on a pilgrimage to pray for her sister's health at the shrine of Saint Radegund in the cathedral.'

'And you'll be sheltered by them?' asked Peter dubiously.

'Yes, almost no one knows me in Exeter,' said Nicholas confidently. 'We're Cornish people, even though I inherited a Devon estate.'

He waved his mug at Gunilda for a refill and she plodded over with an earthenware pitcher of cider. 'I just hope you don't stay too long, that's all,' she growled fiercely. 'Every day makes the risk greater for you.' He shook his head as she poured the murky liquid.

'A day or two at the most. Then I'll be back here with some sort of notion of what to do next. My wife has sharp wits and talking to her will settle my mind.'

The old woman went round the circle of men, topping up their pots. 'Then may God and his Blessed Mother protect you, for if you were caught, this gang of numbskulls would perish without your guidance.'

That evening a biting east wind was whistling down the narrow tunnel of Martin's Lane as Sir John de Wolfe loped towards his house, the second of two dwellings in the short alley. Opposite was the side wall of an inn on the corner of High Street, next to a livery stables, where the coroner stabled his old warhorse Odin. The house was tall and narrow, being timber-built with a roof of wooden shingles. It had an almost blank front, with a single unglazed window at ground level, covered with heavy shutters. The only other opening was the front door of blackened oak with studded metal hinges. This led into a small vestibule, with a passage around to the backyard at one end. At the other, a door led into the hall, a high gloomy chamber which occupied all the interior of the building, though a solar had been added on upstairs at the back.

John entered the vestibule, thankful to be out of the wind, though it was still freezing inside. He took off his wolfskin cloak and sank on to a bench, wearily pulling off his boots in favour of house shoes. Going into the hall, he passed between the wooden screens that attempted to block the worst of the draughts, then advanced on the hearth, which was his pride and joy. Most houses still had a central firepit, the smoke having to rise to the roof and find its way out under the eaves, leaving a great deal behind to smart the eyes and irritate the throat. Several years before, copying from a house he had seen in Normandy, he had had a stone wall built at the back of the hall to support a conical chimney that passed through the roof and took the smoke from the hearth beneath. Together with the stone-flagged floor, which his wife had insisted upon as being a cut above the usual rush-strewn beaten earth, it made his house one of the most up-to-date in the city, about which Matilda could boast to her snobbish cronies at St Olave's Church.

She was sitting by the fire now, waiting for their serving woman Mary to bring in supper, another innovation, as most people were content with a single large dinner at noon.

'My brother is calling upon me tomorrow, John,' she snapped, without a word of greeting. 'I trust that you can manage to be civil to him for once.'

Considering that he had saved the man's life less than a month ago, de Wolfe thought this less than gracious, but Matilda was woefully short of grace. He rapidly scanned a mental list of possible excuses not to be at home for Richard de Revelle and hoped for a murder or a rape in the morning to keep him away.