Gwyn gave the man a hefty push in the chest, which made him howl, as his arm was dangling uselessly by his side. ‘Are you spinning us some bloody yarn?’ growled the Cornishman. ‘It sounds like a pack of lies. Who would pay for such a killing?’
Arnulf cringed as Gwyn raised his fist again. ‘It’s the truth, I tell you. On my dear mother’s grave, I swear it! Walter was told a few days before that this man would be travelling alone down from Crediton and we were to lie in wait for him and slay him. He described him as a fair-headed fellow, riding a big strawberry roan.’
‘So who ordered it and what happened to any documents you found?’ demanded John. ‘How did he know how to meet your leader, this bastard Walter you speak of?’
‘I don’t know, it was privy to Walter and this young man who ordered it. Walter got a bag of silver, that I do recollect, for he gave the rest of us each five pence as our share, though it was Walter himself as cut his throat. We just grabbed him off his horse and threw his body into the river.’
‘So who was this young man you speak of, you cold-blooded swine?’ persisted John, glowering at the self-confessed murderer’s accomplice.
Arnulf sagged, seeing any hope of earning himself a reprieve fading. ‘Some smart fellow, looked like a knight’s squire. He met Walter at some arranged place on the road, but I know that Walter had seen him before in Crediton. Though an outlaw like the rest of us, he was always sloping off into town.’
‘Do you know this squire’s name or where he was from?’ shouted Gwyn, thrusting his ferocious face towards the man.
‘Never heard his name, but I did catch that he had to take these bits of written parchment back to Berry when he came again to see if Walter had carried out his task.’
‘Berry? You mean Pomeroy’s castle near Totnes?’ snapped John, alert now that names were being named.
Arnulf tried to shrug, but his shoulder was too painful. ‘I don’t know, it was no concern of mine. I got my few pence, that’s all I cared about.’
More questions drew nothing useful and the doomed man was dragged off by Stigand to spend the short remainder of his miserable life in a rat-infested cell with a slate slab as a bed and leather bucket for his ablutions.
John and Gwyn went up to the floor above and sought out Ralph Morin, who was eating and drinking to fortify himself after their escapade at the forest’s edge. John told him of what Arnulf had said and the castellan whistled through his beard at its significance.
‘So now you’ve got something you can tell Hubert Walter! If that squire was from Berry, then it incriminates Henry de la Pomeroy, which is no great surprise.’
The de la Pomeroys were a widespread dynasty named after their apple orchards in Normandy, whose early members had come over to fight with William of Falaise at the Battle of Hastings and as a reward, had vast tracts of land given them in several parts of England. The present lord in the south-west was Henry, whose main residence was at Berry Pomeroy Castle, twenty miles south-west of Exeter. He was known to be a keen supporter of the Count of Mortain and had fortified the island of St Michael’s Mount at the extreme end of Cornwall, to act as one of the prince’s strongholds.
‘The Justiciar will already be well aware of Henry’s partiality to John,’ observed de Wolfe. ‘But for him to slay a king’s servant and steal his dispatches must surely be a new development, suggesting that the prince is contemplating open revolt again.’
The constable agreed and said that he would get an urgent report drafted by his clerk and send it to Hubert Walter by a herald who was due to return to Winchester in the next few days.
‘What about this Walter Hamelin, who was the actual killer, according to that piece of scum down below?’ asked Gwyn.
John rasped a finger over his black stubble. ‘Yes, he deserves a rope around his neck, too. That Arnulf says he visits Crediton openly, so maybe one of these days we can spare a few hours to flush him out!’
The murder of Roger Smale preyed on John’s mind, especially now that they knew the name of his killer, as well as a strong suspicion that it was done at the behest of Prince John.
He thought about it during that night as he lay in bed, with Matilda snoring a few feet away under the heavy coverlet. What was the point of hanging little rogues, when those higher in the chain went unpunished? Hubert Walter had asked him to keep his ear to the ground in the West Country, but when something happened, there was no one in authority to take any action. John turned over restlessly and decided that Roger Smale must not rot away unavenged under his mound of damp earth outside the cathedral.
Next morning, he went back to the undercroft at Rougemont and ordered Stigand to let him into the cells. Grumbling at being interrupted while frying his breakfast of eggs and bread on a skillet over the branding brazier, the gaoler opened the outer gate for him and went back to his crude cooking. The half-dozen rusty cages inside the prison area were empty apart from Arnulf’s and John strode down to glare in at the solitary occupant. The outlaw was sitting dejectedly on the slate slab that served as his bed, his feet in the sodden, filthy straw that covered the floor, watching a pair of rats squabbling over some refuse in the corner. It was dark, cold and stinking and although John was hardened to misery, he felt that a man’s last days in a condemned cell need not be as cruel as this.
The man looked up listlessly as he became aware of someone outside his cell. ‘What do you want now?’ he rasped. ‘Have you come to gloat over me?’
De Wolfe folded his arms and stared at the prisoner. ‘I need some more information about this man you spoke of, this Walter Hamelin.’
This seemed to spur Arnulf out of his apathy and he scowled angrily at the tall man in the long grey tunic, a broadsword slung at his waist. ‘Why should I? What’s in it for me? You’re going to gibbet me whatever happens.’
‘Listen to me! Only God knows when the justices will come to try you, it may be months yet,’ growled John. ‘Do you want to stay as filthy as this for all that time?’ He gestured at the dirty pan of drinking water, in which floated soiled straw and rat droppings — and at the slop bucket, overturned under the slate slab.
‘What choice do I have?’ snarled Arnulf. ‘I’d like to kill myself, but there’s no way of managing that in here.’
‘Tell me what I want to know and I’ll get that evil bastard out there to give you clean straw and a blanket. I’ll even bribe the swine to get you some food that would at least be fit for dogs.’
The outlaw looked suspiciously at his visitor, then decided that he had nothing to lose and possibly something to gain. ‘What do you want to know?’ he muttered.
‘Where can I find this Walter? I need to talk to him, to discover who wanted Roger Smale killed — and why?’ snapped de Wolfe.
‘Talk to him? You mean kill him, I suppose,’ sneered Arnulf.
‘That would be up to the justices — unless he tried to kill me first, when I would certainly slay him!’ said John calmly.
‘You’d have your work cut out! Walter’s never been bested by anyone yet.’
John became impatient with this verbal fencing. ‘You said that though outlawed, he sometimes went back into town. D’you mean Crediton?’
‘Yes, most often. Though he has been into Moretonhampstead and Tiverton, even came once here to Exeter.’ The man was almost boastful about his former leader’s boldness.
‘Why does his risk that?’ demanded John.
The man leered up at him. ‘Walter’s fond of a tavern — and even fonder of a woman now and then. And he does a bit of business, selling venison and other game we poached from the forest. There’s little risk, with no sheriff’s men to bother him. If the town bailiff or the forest officers get too nosy, he either bribes them or makes a run for it.’
John thought about this for a moment. ‘How often does he go there? Does he have a favourite tavern in Crediton?’