‘As I recall, the Crown made a good brew,’ said Gwyn, already salivating at the thought of his first quart of Devon ale since sailing with the Crusading fleet from Dartmouth over three years earlier. Soon they sat in the summer sunshine on a bench outside the tavern, getting used to the feeling of solid ground under their feet after two weeks at sea. It was strange to be back in familiar surroundings and de Wolfe rapidly felt as if he had never been away.
‘What will you do now, Sir John? Your wife can have no idea that you are back.’ Gwyn lifted his pot and drank most of a pint without drawing breath.
‘She probably thinks — or hopes — that I am long dead,’ growled the knight. ‘I’ll stay at the Bush until I discover where she’s living. I doubt her brother — and certainly his wife — would have put up with her for all this time.’ She had gone there three years ago, when they had given up their rented house near the East Gate.
Gwyn finished his ale and stretched his legs luxuriously. ‘What about horses? We need to get up to Exeter, unless you fancy a long walk.’
John signalled the alewife for another jug, while they waited for some food. ‘I’ll hire a couple of rounseys from the stables up the street. I’ll leave yours with Andrew the farrier in St Martin’s Lane. He can bring it back here sometime. You won’t need one at home, will you?’
Gwyn shook his head emphatically. ‘I left my old mare with Sergeant Gabriel at the castle stables. I’m going to spend a week or two pestering my wife and playing with the boys, if they can remember who I am!’ he said happily. ‘Then I’ll go up to Rougemont every day for a game of chance with Gabriel and his merry men. I don’t need a damned horse for that. But how are you going to manage?’
John filled their pottery mugs from the new jug. ‘I left both Bran and Brutus down with my family at Stoke,’ he said. ‘I’ll ride down there tomorrow on the hired horse and fetch Bran back to be stabled with Andrew.’
Bran was a destrier, a large stallion and former warhorse that John had won from an opponent defeated in a tournament some years ago, while Brutus was a hound of uncertain breed that he had had since a pup. Both were getting on in years, but he was very attached to them both.
‘Can you and your wife not stay with your family down at Stoke?’ asked Gwyn.
De Wolfe grimaced at the thought. ‘Holy Mary, that would be asking for trouble! She can’t stand my mother or my sister. To her, they are Welsh savages — and they are not too keen on her, with her airs and graces.’
The landlady brought them bowls of leek soup, followed by a scrubbed board carrying two large mutton shanks in onion gravy, with boiled parsnips and cabbage. These occupied them for a good few minutes and made them feel that at last they were back in civilization.
‘I wonder where Sir Baldwin and William de L’Etang are now?’ mused Gwyn, after squeezing gravy from his magnificent moustache. ‘And the High Admiral and Philip the clerk, too?’
John picked meat from between his teeth with a splinter from the board. ‘They’ll have been ransomed by now, I’ll wager. The priest Anselm will have been freed rapidly, no doubt. The Pope would have called down the wrath of God on anyone who kidnapped a man in Holy Orders.’
They both carefully avoided mentioning the Lionheart, as their failure to protect him from the Mayor of Vienna still weighed heavily on their hearts. They had heard almost nothing of him since that fateful day when the last they saw of their king was him being hustled off in Erdberg as a prisoner. During their arduous six-month journey across Europe, all they had heard was that he was a captive somewhere and that negotiations were going on to try to release him for a huge ransom.
Shaking off their recurring concerns, they finished the food, then walked to the livery stable beyond the church. Here John hired a pair of docile geldings, promising to return them within a few days. The proprietor looked rather askance at the worn and shabby clothing they wore, until John told him who he was and explained that they were returning Crusaders. The man was now effusive in his praise for them and refused to accept any deposit for the safe return of his steeds. De Wolfe knew that the news would be all over Topsham within the hour and probably would have reached Exeter almost as soon as themselves.
‘It’s shameful news that the king is now cast into prison in Germany!’ said the farrier. ‘No one knows where he is, but that bastard Emperor Henry is said to have bought him from the Austrians!’
Without disclosing their part in the affair, John pressed him for more details, but he knew nothing more than the rumours that took months to percolate to Devon from across the Channel. On the short jog to the city, he discussed this scant information with Gwyn, but hoped to get better news from his old friend and business partner, Hugh de Relaga — or from Ralph Morin, the constable of Rougemont. As the castellan of a royal castle, Ralph was a king’s officer and had good contacts in Winchester and London.
They trotted up the country road alongside the river and when they came within sight of the great twin towers of the cathedral rising above the city wall, John enquired about Gwyn’s intentions for the future.
‘I don’t know what’s in store for me, good friend,’ said de Wolfe. ‘We’re both getting too old in the bones to go off campaigning for much longer. But I’ll not see you and your family go short of anything, you can depend on it.’
Gwyn nodded appreciatively. ‘We can both still wield a sword or a mace if needs be, but I agree we’ve seen enough of foreign parts for a while. Don’t worry about me, I’ve got a few bits of silver tucked away for a rainy day.’
De Wolfe frowned at the memory of the king’s liberality to them. ‘That money he shared out with us in Istria lasted us well, thank Christ. It kept us fed all the way to Antwerp. Without it, we’d have starved, unless we’d turned to highway robbery!’
His squire grinned. ‘But it was not enough to buy us new clothes, eh? No wonder that farrier back there looked a bit dubious until he discovered who you were!’
De Wolfe, never a smart dresser at the best of times, looked very down-at-heel in the black cloak he had worn since Dubrovnik. Travel-worn, mud-stained at the hem and torn in several places, it covered a limp calf-length tunic of grey serge, stained with old sweat under the armpits. His boots were just about serviceable, but looked as if they were more than ready for the rubbish midden. John had lost his pilgrim’s hat long ago and now wore a simple coif, a cloth helmet of grey linen, tied with laces under his bearded chin. He could imagine, with some grim delight, what Matilda would say if she saw him now, with her snobbish insistence on keeping up appearances. Gwyn still wore his indestructible leather jerkin, but the knees had worn through on his worsted breeches and one buttock sported a large patch sewn on by a sympathetic alewife in Saxony.
When they reached Exeter’s South Gate, both men felt as if their arduous journey was over at last. They passed under the arch into crowded Southgate Street, lined with booths and stalls fronting the houses and shops, most selling cloth and clothing in this lower end. Higher up, the slaughtermen were swilling away the blood and entrails from the street, following the daily public massacre of animals that supplied the butchers’ stalls that led up to the central crossroads of Carfoix.
Turning right into the High Street, John rode the few yards up to the new Guildhall, where Gwyn left him to carry on to the East Gate and out into St Sidwells, where he would surprise his wife and children with his sudden appearance. Hitching the rounsey to a rail, John went into the Guildhall, recently rebuilt in stone as Exeter was thriving on its burgeoning trade in wool and tin. Though most of the houses were still timber, the new prosperity was evident in the masonry buildings springing up. The hall was crowded with people carrying on their business, buying, selling and making deals of all sorts. At the far end, several doors opened into rooms where the guilds and city administrators held court and in one of these, John sought his friend, Hugh de Relaga. He was one of the two portreeves, the leaders of the city council, as Exeter had not yet followed the new continental fashion of electing mayors.