The coroner stared after them, until they vanished around a bend in the track. ‘I wonder what it was he almost told me,’ he mused.
The inquest that followed was a simple, hurried affair. Gwyn rounded up the two Loventor men who had accompanied the outlaw pack that had attacked the woodcutters. The surviving outlaws had vanished: no forest-dweller was going to risk being in the proximity of the King’s coroner if he wanted to keep his head on his shoulders.
As Thomas was not there to pen a record on to his rolls, de Wolfe had to remember the few relevant facts so that he could relay them to the clerk when they got back to Exeter. With a handful of village men as a jury, the coroner rapidly recounted the circumstances of the killings. Though there was obviously no way to ‘present Englishry’ on a pair of nameless outlaws, he was reluctant to amerce the village with a murdrum fine, salving his legal conscience with the excuse that as the men were legally non-existent, it did not matter from what race they came.
Within ten minutes, the circle of uncomprehending men standing around the corpses had been told by the coroner to bring in a verdict of murder by persons unknown. They were allowed then to shuffle away, reluctantly going back to their tedious labours after this unusual diversion from the endless drudgery of village routine.
‘I had thought to name Giles Fulford as one of the killers,’ said John to his officer, ‘but there’s no proof other than the word of a villager – and little good it would do anyway. But we must keep a closer eye on Master Fulford when we get back to Exeter.’
It was gone noon when they left Loventor, and although they could have got back to Exeter before curfew closed the gates, de Wolfe took the opportunity to visit his family. Though they travelled through lonely countryside, along narrow tracks well suited to ambush, the two old fighting companions felt no threat from wayside brigands. John’s steed patently advertised the fact that he was a warrior, for Bran was a giant of a horse, his size and hairy feet proclaiming him for a destrier, a warhorse used to carrying the weight of arms and armour. As for Gwyn, it was the man rather than the brown mare that would have given any footpad cause to hesitate. The wild, hairy giant, with his leather cuirass, shoulders protected with metal plates, had a ferocious look that strongly suggested he would be quite happy to use the huge sword hanging from one saddle-peg or the hand-axe swinging from the other.
An hour and a half took them the nine miles from Loventor, through Kinkerswell to Stoke-in-Teignhead, a well-ordered village with a neat manor house, nestling in a green valley a mile or so from the sea. The house was solidly built in stone, one of the last acts of his father, Simon de Wolfe, before he went off to the Irish wars where he was killed. Years of peace had allowed the defences of the house to be relaxed, and though there was a wooden stockade around the yard, its drawbridge had not been raised for as long as John could remember. They clattered across it to be greeted with genuine pleasure by the servants, some of whom had known John since he was a child. Gwyn was also a favourite, as he had been there many times. Both serving-wenches and the men enjoyed his boisterous good humour, which gave the lie to his wild looks. He went off to the kitchens to pinch the cook-maids’ bottoms and be fed until he could eat no more, while de Wolfe went in to his family.
The steward, an old Saxon called Alsi, met him on the stairs from the yard, beaming his pleasure at the visit. ‘Your brother is at Holcombe today, Master John, but your mother and sister are up in the solar.’
The rest of the day was spent in eating, drinking and gossiping around a roaring fire in the hall. His mother, Enyd de Wolfe, was a sprightly, still attractive woman of sixty-three, with auburn hair, which now, however, contained some silver threads. Small and dainty, her vivacity made everyone love her, from the lowest servant to her three children. The eldest was William, today at their other manor a few miles north along the coast at Holcombe, near Dawlish. He was two years older than John, but looked much like him – tall, dark and lean, like their father. But William’s nature was different: he had no interest in travel, fighting or foreign wars. His passions were farming, sheep-rearing and running the two manors. When their father had died, he had inherited the estate, but equal shares of the income came to Enyd and the two other children, the third being Evelyn. She was the baby, now thirty-four, an amiable, gossipy woman. Evelyn had wished to become a nun, but after her father’s death, Enyd had asked her to stay at home and help run the household.
This cold evening, they delighted in fussing over John, extracting all the news and Exeter gossip that they could get from him – even that concerning Matilda, whom they disliked as much as she disliked them. Privately, Enyd always regretted her son’s marriage into the de Revelle family, which had been engineered by his father as a socially advantageous move that would enable John to become a county notable. However, Simon had not foreseen his own early death – nor that John would spend two decades away from Devon at the wars, mainly to keep away from his unpleasant wife. That his mother was Celtic, with a Welsh mother and a Cornish father, was anathema to Matilda, to whom anyone less than full-blooded Norman was on a par with the animal kingdom.
Eventually, almost dizzy from too much food, wine and chatter, de Wolfe stumbled off to a mattress stuffed with goose feathers set out for him at the side of the hearth and slept as well as Gwyn, who had a blanket thrown over a pile of hay in the warmth of the kitchen hut.
In the morning, the twenty-eighth day of December, after a huge breakfast, they left Stoke and rode gently up to the mouth of the Teign. At low tide they waded their horses across the narrow river where it passed the sand-bar to reach the sea. On the other side, John led the way up the coast track, then turned slightly inland to reach the village of Holcombe. Here he found his brother supervising the building of a barn, part of which was to store the wool from an increased flock of sheep that helped to sustain de Wolfe’s income.
William came down a crude ladder to greet his brother, and the two men embraced warmly. ‘I couldn’t pass by without giving you my wishes for a prosperous New Year, brother!’ exclaimed John. ‘Especially as my own prosperity depends so much on your efforts.’
They talked for a while about the manors and the wool trade, which was the economic strength of England. Gwyn watched from a polite distance, marvelling again at the similarity in the appearance of the brothers, and in the difference between their personalities. After family talk had been exhausted, William asked about the coroner’s work, which seemed to fascinate him. De Wolfe related his current problems, then asked if his brother knew anything of Giles Fulford and Jocelin de Braose, but William had never heard of them.
Gwyn waited patiently for half an hour until the two men had had their say. Then, after mutual slaps on the back, de Wolfe climbed aboard his great horse and they set off again northwards. It was not yet mid-morning as they cantered along the coastal track towards Dawlish, a few miles further on. They could have reached Exeter by early afternoon, but from past experience Gwyn suspected that they would just make the city gates as they were closing at dusk.
Fishermen’s huts along the beach indicated that they were in Dawlish, though the centre of the village was a little inland, up a small creek where boats were beached on the banks. John slowed Bran to a walk as he turned up the path alongside the little river and seemed to be staring intently at them as if seeking a particular vessel. Then he prodded the stallion into a trot and moved up the track to where a number of houses, both wooden and stone, formed the nucleus of the hamlet. He reined up outside a new dwelling, built of grey stone with two round arches facing the road, enclosing a sheltered arcade in the Breton style. He turned in his saddle to speak to his officer. ‘Gwyn, I have a call to make, so find yourself the alehouse and have some food and drink. I’ll see you later.’