Edwin plied them with ale and then, as they ate grilled trout, beans and leeks, Nesta sat with them at the table. She listened with awe to their tales of exotic places like Winchester and London and about exalted persons like the Archbishop of Canterbury.
‘At least we know who the murdered fellow was,’ said John. ‘And we were right, he was a spy for the king’s government. As we expected, the Prince is still up to his tricks and though there’s supposed to be peace between him and the barons, no one in their right mind would trust him after his past record.’
He decided not to voice abroad their promised role as secret agents for the Chief Justiciar, as this might jeopardize any hope of learning things that they were not supposed to hear. However, John promised himself that he would tell Nesta when they were alone together, as he felt she could be trusted to keep it to herself. Also, with so many travellers passing through the Bush, she might overhear something useful. After eating, Gwyn decided to go home to his wife, who Nesta said had been down several times in the past two weeks to help clean up the inn and make sure that her protégée Molly was cooking satisfactorily. De Wolfe also thought he had better visit his wife, though less eagerly than his squire. The rain had stopped and the August evening was warm, so he left his damp cloak and walked up Smythen Street and across a side lane to come out in Fore Street, opposite the dwelling of Matilda’s cousin.
The expected baby was getting near to appearing in the world and the women of the household were too preoccupied to bother much with a mere man. Even though the childless Matilda had never seemed over-endowed with maternal feelings, she was also caught up in the general enthusiasm and gave John a perfunctory welcome. He kept out of the way for a time, skulking in a room as far away as possible from the birthing stool and lying-in bed.
Eventually Matilda came in and he gave her an abbreviated account of his trip. Predictably, the fact that he had had two meetings with the Head of the English Church and seemed almost on gossiping terms with him, fuelled Matilda’s fascination for anything ecclesiastical and gave her more ammunition to fire at her social rivals in the town.
‘Have you thought any more about seeking a house for us?’ he asked in a tone that would have better suited an enquiry about his own funeral arrangements.
‘I have heard of several in the city,’ she replied. ‘But none would have been good enough for us. You are a knight of the realm and we can’t live in some dreary dwelling more suited to a candle maker or apothecary.’
John decided to grasp the nettle and go along with her ambitions. Much as he liked staying in the Bush, especially with Nesta there, he knew that it could not be a long-term solution. ‘Andrew the farrier, where I stable my horse, told me today that one of the houses in St Martin’s Lane is vacant. The old lawyer who lived there has gone to Plympton to live with his daughter.’
Matilda’s square face showed even more interest than when he was talking about the Archbishop of Canterbury. ‘That was the house of Adam of Lyme,’ she replied. ‘It’s in a good position, I could walk to the cathedral from there in two minutes!’ The ease with which she could attend her endless devotions seemed a major criterion for her.
‘The farrier says that it is old and has been neglected by the occupant since his wife died five years ago,’ said John cautiously. ‘It would need a lot of work done on it.’
They agreed to go and inspect it as soon as John could discover who held the lease.
Leaving an unusually placid Matilda behind him, he went wearily back to the Bush and after a pleasant hour talking to Nesta between her attending to her other patrons, climbed the steps and fell gratefully on to his bed and was asleep inside five minutes.
Next day, he walked with Gwyn and the hound up to the Cathedral Close, the large area around the huge church of St Peter and St Paul, whose two great towers dominated the whole of Exeter. Building work was still going on, though it was now nearing completion, as the original Norman cathedral, built on the site of a small Saxon abbey, had been almost totally rebuilt during the past sixty years. The Close, which was an ecclesiastical enclave independent of the city authorities, was also the burial ground for all Exeter and the surrounding area. Only in exceptional circumstances could burials take place anywhere else, as the cathedral jealously guarded the fees that came from disposing of the dead.
One of these graves was that of the courier John had found on the river bank. He enquired of a sexton and was shown a heap of fresh earth near the north tower. The whole Close was more like an excavation site than a peaceful cemetery, with newly dug graves mixed with old ones covered with weeds. The place was ill-kept, piles of rubbish abounding and beggars, drunks and noisy urchins competing for space with a few goats and even a rooting pig.
They stood over the lonely heap of red Devon soil and John took out the signet ring and looked at it. ‘We know the poor fellow’s name now, it’s Roger Smale,’ said John. ‘I’ll ask the archdeacon to come and offer a prayer over the grave and say a Mass for him at one of the cathedral shrines.’
Ignoring the yells of children racing around with their mangy dogs and kicking balls of tied-up rags, the two men stood there for a moment, one each side of the mound. John, in his long grey tunic clinched around his waist with his sword-belt, stared pensively down, his black hair blowing in the breeze above his dark, hawklike face. His squire looked as immovable as an oak tree, broad-shouldered in his scuffed jerkin, the ginger hair and moustaches framing his big, ruddy features.
‘Are we going to seek his killers, Sir John?’ he rumbled.
‘He served the king as much as we did, in his way, Gwyn. So he deserves avenging, but where do we start looking?’
The Cornishman ran his hand through his tangled locks. ‘We have a name now — and we think he must have come down the river. I can’t really see him being washed up from the sea. So can we not ride up the Exe and the Yeo for a few miles and ask if anyone had seen him?’
They began walking slowly away before de Wolfe answered. ‘No harm done in that. We have little else to occupy us at the moment. We’ll try it tomorrow, though I have no great hope of success.’
John wanted to check on Bran in Andrew’s stables, so they crossed the northern corner of the Close to the little church of St Martin, which stood at the end of the lane bearing the same name.
‘I told my wife last night that this house was vacant — perhaps unwisely, for she seemed quite taken with the idea.’
He stopped outside a tall, narrow building, the first on the left side. Beyond it, set back a little, was a similar house, as there were only two in the alley. At each end were the backs of houses in either the Close or the High Street. Opposite was the farrier’s establishment between the rear of a tavern in the main street and another house in a lane alongside the church.
Gwyn looked at it critically. ‘A big old place for just two of you! Needs a lot of work done on it, too. Just look at that roof.’
Standing back, they looked up and saw that some of the thin wooden shingles of the steeply sloping roof were missing and others warped and cracked.
‘Good front door, though,’ said Gwyn, pointing at the stout boards of blackened oak, with rusty iron hinges and studded nails. Between the door and the farther end of the house, there was one window at chest level. It was firmly shuttered, and nothing else broke the high frontage of heavy oak frames which supported panels of cob, covered with discoloured whitewash.
‘The price should be lower, given the state it’s in,’ muttered John.
When they crossed to the stables, John asked the farrier if he knew who was offering the house for sale or rent.