She was far less interested in hearing of his arduous journey home, though she was patriotic enough to condemn the capture of a Crusading king by dirty foreigners from Germany. Matilda had been born in Devon, as had her parents and grandparents, but she firmly considered herself to be a true Norman, though she had only once set foot in Normandy, visiting distant relatives. To her, the English were an inferior race — and as for those locals who were remnants of the original Celtic peoples, especially the Cornish, to Matilda they were little better than savages. The fact that her husband had a half-Welsh mother had always been a thorn in her side.
His story told, he enquired what had befallen her whilst he was away. Amid the expected recriminations of leaving her alone and penniless — a blatant untruth, as her father had settled a comfortable sum upon her at his death — John gathered that she had alternated between living with her brother at his estates in Revelstoke and Tiverton and staying with her cousin in Exeter, where the attractions of both the cathedral and St Olave’s were greater than the boredom of the countryside.
‘So are you staying or are you disappearing again with that uncouth Cornishman to carouse on some distant campaign where you can drink and wench to your heart’s content?’ she demanded.
From long familiarity, John ignored her acidulous tongue and shook his head. ‘I’ve had a bellyful of wandering, good wife!’ he replied. ‘I’ve seen too much of foreign parts now, I need to enjoy the county of my birth for a while. I thought you wanted to settle in your own house at last?’
He went on to tell her of the profits that Hugh de Relaga had earned for him during his absence and the gains from the manors at Stoke and Holcombe. ‘Together with what I have in my treasure chest at my brother’s house, we are very well provided for, Matilda. I know you prefer the city, so why do we not purchase a house here?’
Even her ungracious nature could hardly turn this offer down and she celebrated this improvement in their relationship by fetching another flask of wine and discussing the merits and faults of various streets in Exeter. As an energetic social climber, she favoured the best areas, either up towards the North Gate or even better, between the cathedral and the east gate, where the wealthiest merchants lived.
Eventually, the wine got the better of her and she rose unsteadily and said she must take her usual afternoon rest. ‘But you cannot stay here now, John. I came to help my cousin, as she has a daughter here waiting for childbed in a few weeks’ time. I have to share a room with Edith, so you must go elsewhere until we find our own house.’
This was music to John’s ears, as he liked her cousin even less than Matilda herself and would be delighted to lodge elsewhere.
‘I must first go to my family in Stoke, I will stay with them for a while. But first I have business to settle with Hugh de Relaga, so will board at an inn for a few days. Meanwhile, while you are staying in Exeter, you can discover what dwellings are for sale or lease in the town.’
When he left Matilda, with a feeling of relief in spite of their fairly amicable reunion, he went up to Rougemont, the castle built soon after the Conquest by William the Bastard himself. An inner wall of the red sandstone that gave the fortress its name, carved off the upper corner of the Roman wall at the highest point of the city. Outside this was a much wider arc of wooden palisade mounted on an earthen bank, forming the outer ward where the garrison and their families lived in what was essentially a hutted village. The inner ward was guarded by a high gatehouse, its arched entrance having a drawbridge across a dry moat. Inside the inner ward were the keep, a small chapel and the barn-like Shire Hall which functioned as the court.
John strode up to the gatehouse and when challenged about his business by a young soldier who had obviously never heard of Black John, he gruffly demanded that Sergeant Gabriel be called.
The lad vanished into the guardroom inside the archway and a moment later, a grizzled man in a short belted tunic and breeches hurried out, a wide smile on his leathery face. ‘Blessed be to God Almighty, it is you, Sir John!’ He grasped him by both upper arms and shook him in an exuberance of delight.
‘Don’t say “I thought you must be dead,” for Christ’s sake!’ growled John, but his own wide grin showed his pleasure at seeing his old friend again. Years before they had served together in the North Country and he would trust Gabriel with his life. He rapidly gave him a summary of his doings these past three years, then asked if the castle constable was about. ‘We can sit together over a jar of ale and I’ll tell you more about my time with the king,’ he promised.
A few minutes later, they climbed the wooden stairs to the entrance to the keep, a squat tower which was built over the prison and storehouse, on the further side of the inner ward. Inside, most of the first floor was one large hall, with a few small chambers along one side. This was the meeting place where most of the official business of Devonshire was done, the hall often being crowded with soldiers, nobles, clerks and merchants, all seeking something from the officials who occupied the castle.
A firepit occupied the centre, but was unlit on this warm summer day. However, food was being carried in by servants from a kitchen hut at the back and ale was flowing as required from barrels in one corner. A few rough tables and benches occupied part of the hall and a number of men were eating and drinking at them amongst a babble of noise.
‘There he is, though his beard is greyer than when I last saw him!’ said de Wolfe, marching across to a table and clapping a hand on the shoulder of a very large man. Sir Ralph Morin looked like one of his Viking ancestors, with a nose as big as John’s and a forked beard that jutted out like the prow of a ship. As Gabriel had done, he went through the routine of surprise and delight when he saw who it was — and thankfully avoided telling John that he had expected him to be dead!
John and the sergeant sat down and a servant brought them quarts of ale, as de Wolfe once again went through a summary of the fateful voyage from Acre. Ralph listened avidly, as he was tiring of the inactivity of peaceful Devon, after years where he had campaigned as actively as John. Also like John, he was a devoted king’s man, being the military commander of the castle and its garrison. Rougemont was one of the two West Country fortresses to be held by the king, the other being Launceston in Cornwall — a wise precaution as it turned out.
‘So how did you and that great lump Gwyn get home after that treacherous seizing of King Richard?’ Ralph wanted to know.
‘We walked most of the bloody way!’ growled John. ‘Took us over six months. Neither of us had a word of German between us and that lad had been seized as well, so as we both spoke the language, we posed as Welsh mercenaries, cut off from our main company.’
Ralph Morin grinned, in spite of the seriousness of their plight. ‘Plenty of those knocking about in Europe,’ he said. ‘Did you meet any there?’
De Wolfe nodded ruefully. ‘We did indeed, and fought with them for a time in a dispute between two German princedoms. We had sold our horses after a month when our money ran low and walked into Bavaria where there was a local war going on. A company of ruffians from Powys took us on. Thank God they were not from Gwent, for we are of little use with a longbow.’
He described how they fought for one city alongside Brabantian and Provencal mercenaries against some other German princedom. ‘After ten weeks, we had collected enough loot to slip away and walk west again, eventually reaching the Low Countries.’