Nesta laid a hand on the purse of silver, hesitant about accepting it. ‘How can I repay you, Sir John?’ she murmured.
He gave her one of his rare smiles, his dour face lightening and momentarily making him a youth again. ‘Forget the “Sir”, Nesta! I’ve had six months living like a common mercenary, it will take a while for me to feel like a knight again!’
She beamed at him and he suddenly realized what an attractive woman she was. John was a great admirer of the fair sex, but as she was the wife of an old friend, he had genuinely never had any amorous or lascivious thoughts about Nesta. However, he had always enjoyed her vivacious company in the inn, especially as he could speak to her in Welsh. He looked with new appreciation at her heart-shaped face, the pert snub nose and the big hazel eyes. She was a small woman, with a tiny waist but a full, curvaceous bosom. Her auburn hair was her crowning glory, though now half-hidden under her linen cap.
She felt him gazing at her and blushed slightly. ‘I miss my dear Meredydd so much, John — but life must go on. I am so lucky to have you as a good friend.’
He gave her another of his lopsided grins. ‘Then you can also have me as a customer, for I must find somewhere to live for a while, since my wife has barred her door to me!’
Nesta looked at him aghast, until he explained that there was no room for him in her cousin’s house. ‘Until she makes me spend a chestful of gold and silver on buying somewhere in the city, I will have to find lodgings. I hope you can find me a bag of straw up in your loft, dear lady?’
She stared at him wide-eyed. ‘You would stay here, in a common alehouse?’
‘Indeed I would, it’s a palace compared to what I have endured these past few years. In fact, I would earnestly desire to collapse on to a mattress very shortly, for it’s been a long and strenuous day!’
Nesta sprang to her feet, bustling to take care of her tall, dark benefactor. ‘First you must eat, we’ll see what this new girl can provide for you. Then you’ll have no haybag upstairs, but a goose feather palliasse from my own room!’
Within minutes, a bowl of tasty rabbit stew was set before him, that Molly had been simmering in the cook shed, together with a wheaten loaf, cheese and a bowl of ripe plums. ‘We’ll do better than that tomorrow, when we have more notice,’ promised Nesta, standing with arms akimbo to watch him eat.
When he had finished, though it was still daylight, she led him up the wide ladder in the corner to the loft above. This extended right across the inn, a bare floor under the high roof, which was made of twisted hazel withies that supported the thatch. In one corner was a stout partition with a door, forming a small chamber for Nesta herself. Opposite were a few wattle screens forming open-ended cubicles for the better class of guest, who paid twopence a night for a blanket and a straw-filled sack to sleep on, plus food and drink. The common lodgers slept in the middle of the floor for a penny, with bread and ale.
Nesta fetched a blanket, a pillow and a soft mattress from her room, and settled John in one of the cubicles. ‘There’s no one else staying her tonight, so you’ll not be disturbed,’ she promised, as he sat gratefully on the edge of his bed to pull off his boots. ‘God bless you, John, may he keep you safe this night!’ she said fervently.
After sleeping like a log until dawn, de Wolfe had a breakfast of gruel, fried eggs, ham and coarse bread, before going up to the stables in St Martin’s Lane to fetch his hired horse. He had thought to call at Fore Street to tell Matilda that he would be away for a few days, visiting his family. Then he used the excuse to himself that she was still likely to be snoring at that early hour, as except when attending early church services, she was as fond of her bed as she was of food and drink.
The rounsey was a decent little horse and John felt quite at home on her as he rode down the steep approach to the West Gate. He waved to the porter on duty, who gave him a semi-military salute, another old soldier who recognized John de Wolfe. The news that Sir John was home from the Crusades had spread around Exeter within hours, and many people had acknowledged him as he rode through the streets, already bustling with townsfolk and merchants going about their daily business.
The marshy ground outside the walls, flooded when the river was in spate, looked much the same as he remembered it. The new stone bridge had been started in the year he left for Palestine, but the builder, Nicholas Gervase, had run out of money and only a few arches were completed. The old, shaky footbridge would not take a horse, so de Wolfe used the ford to cross the Exe, as the tide was low.
Once beyond the river, he carried on at a brisk trot, turning off a few miles further down the high road to Plymouth to take the southerly track that led to the coast, eight miles away. It was a pleasant summer morning, white clouds scudding high in a blue sky and he revelled in being back in a green country after years in the arid, dusty Levant. The road was narrow and rutted, but at least it was dry in this fine weather. The track ran down the western side of the Exe valley, past Powderham manor on the marshes of the estuary, with gentle hills to his right. He felt contented, but he missed the company of Gwyn jogging alongside him, as he had done for so many years. After a couple of hours’ riding, he stopped before reaching the sea at Dawlish, to let his mare drink at a stream and crop the grass amongst the bushes at the side of the road. He sat on a fallen tree to eat some of the bread and cheese that Nesta had given him for the journey, as he looked ahead to where he could see the houses of Dawlish in the distance. Also visible were a few tilted masts, belonging to ships that were beached there and these reminded him that Thorgils, the master of the cog that had brought him home, was probably already with his wife in the village.
With a sigh, John knew that this destroyed any hope of his calling on the beautiful Hilda, his earliest love and one who still held a powerful attraction for him. Hilda was the daughter of the manor reeve at the de Wolfe’s second manor at Holcombe and as teenagers, they had both lost their virginity together in a hayloft there. She was half a decade younger than John and it would have been impossible to contemplate a marriage between a Norman knight and the daughter of a servant, even though her father had been freed from his former bondage and made the reeve, responsible for organizing the daily work of the manor.
John had been fighting abroad for most of his adult life and, during his absence, Hilda had married Thorgils, a relatively rich mariner and owner of three ships. However, when John was home and her husband away, they had had many passionate reunions and were still very fond of each other — or so John hoped, as this three-year absence in the Holy Land was the longest period they had ever been apart. For all he knew, she might have had a couple of children by now, though Thorgils was getting old, almost twice her age.
He climbed back into the saddle and carried on, passing slowly through the village street in the hope that he might catch a glimpse of Hilda at the market stalls, but there was no sign of her.
John trotted on, the road now following the coast and he soon passed Holcombe, with its pleasant memories. He could have called there had time permitted, as Hilda’s parents, though they guessed at the past relationship between the young people, were still both faithful manor servants to the de Wolfe family.
Soon he came to the River Teign, which flowed down from Dartmoor, the last few miles being a wide tidal channel. Though some hours earlier, it had been low at the Exeter crossing, the tide was now flooding into the sandy entrance to the estuary, so John took the ferry across to the other side. For a halfpenny, the boatman took him and the horse on to the flat-bottomed craft and poled it across, slanting against the strong current. On the other side, it was but a short distance to Stoke-in-Teignhead, a manor hidden away in a small valley amongst the trees beyond the western bank.