As he walked across the peaceful compound, he heard footsteps behind him. Turning, he found the figure of a tall, gaunt nun following him. It was Dame Madge, the expert in midwifery and women’s ailments, who was the hospitaller in charge of the small infirmary at St Katherine’s. John had the greatest respect for both her expertise and her strong but ever helpful character. She had been of great assistance to him in several cases involving ravishment and miscarriage.
They greeted each other civilly — any observer might have been reminded of two large rooks in a field, both being tall, bony, slightly hunched and dressed in black.
‘I have met your wife here, Sir John. I am sorry for the discord that has arisen between you.’
‘And I, Sister!’ he admitted ruefully. ‘I fear all the fault is on my side.’
‘It was ever thus in the world, Crowner. Men are at the root of most evils — but God made them that way, so who are we to dispute it?’
‘Matilda stoutly refuses to see me or speak to me. I have no idea how this will resolve itself.’
Dame Madge tut-tutted under her breath. ‘You have wounded her deeply, sir. She is a devout woman and may well decide she has found peace here. But I will talk to her again and see if she will at least speak to you, even if it is only to recriminate with you for the last time.’
She raised her hand and made the sign of the Cross.
‘May God be with you, Sir John.’
Turning, she glided away across the compound like a ship under sail.
Later that afternoon, the parish priest of Manaton was ambling along on his pony back towards the village, on the track that came from Bovey Tracey. He had been to visit the sick wife of an agister, a minor forest officer who regulated the pasture in the forest, collecting the dues from those who sent their pigs to feed on acorns and beech nuts and their sheep and cattle to the lush grass of the large clearings. His wife was in the last stages of phthisis, emaciated and coughing blood, though she was barely twenty-five years of age. The priest knew that the next time he visited it would be to administer the last rites if he arrived in time — or to shrive her corpse if he did not. The husband, a good man who loved his wife, sat with her day and night — it was as well that he had little work for the coming month, as for two weeks each side of Midsummer Day, called the ‘fence month’, agistment was forbidden by forest law, as it was the time for the hinds to give birth and no disturbances were allowed.
Father Amicus was reflecting on the mysteries of birth and death, wondering what the young wife would find on the other side, when the last breaths of her diseased lungs finally ceased. His pony lumbered slowly along, needing no directions to take it to the sweet summer grass in the vicar’s meadow behind the churchyard. Suddenly, the beast stopped dead and tossed its head with a worried neigh, agitated by something at the side of the road. Woken from his sleepy reverie, the father looked down and saw a very real manifestation of the death he had been contemplating. In the long grass and flowery weeds at the side of the dusty track, face up, lay a man, one whom the priest recognised at first glance. He saw that it was Edward, a villein who lived in a mean hut at the extreme eastern end of the straggling village — in fact, little more than a few hundred paces away.
Clambering from his pony, Father Amicus hurried across to the verge, but he could have taken his time, as the man was undoubtedly dead. He wore a short tunic of worn brown wool, darned in several places and ominously stained with blood in both armpits. His legs were bare and crude home-made sandals covered his calloused feet. Cropped yellow hair marked him as a Saxon, and the priest knew him as an unfree man of about thirty-five who worked in the fields five days a week for the manor-lord. His lips were turned back in a rictus of agony, revealing a few blackened teeth, and his open blue eyes were already clouding over with the veil of death.
Murmuring some words in Latin as a makeshift requiem, Father Amicus pulled at a stiff arm to look under the body. A dead coney, as stiff as the man himself, hung by a string from his belt, but, far more ominous, the bent shaft of an arrow was embedded in his back, blood soaking all the surrounding area of clothing.
Gently letting the body sink back to the ground, the priest looked behind it and saw a track of flattened vegetation running back into the trees, only a few yards away. It looked as if the victim had staggered or crawled out of the forest to the road’s edge, before finally collapsing.
Father Amicus wiped his bloody hand on the long grass and stood up, staring down at the corpse, undecided as to what he should do next.
He could hoist it on to the saddle of his pony and take it back to the village, but after his recent experiences with the coroner he knew that it should be left where it was. In addition, his experiences with the foresters strongly suggested that John de Wolfe should be involved from the start, if justice was to be done.
But how could he leave Edward’s body lying at the edge of the forest, prey to stray dogs, rats and even the few wolves that were still hereabouts? It was not seemly, with the man’s cot only just along the track. As he stood there worrying, it seemed as if Providence was for once on his side, for coming towards him from the direction of Manaton was a flock of sheep, being driven by a man with a dog — and behind them was a figure on a horse. The shepherd was Joel, one of his parishioners, moving part of the manor flock to a new pasture half a mile down the road. As they came nearer, he saw with relief that the rider was Matthew Juvenis, the manor bailiff. A moment later, bleating sheep were swirling around him, but after one look at the cadaver Joel sent the dog on ahead, the intelligent animal being quite capable of driving the flock to its destination without human help.
Dismounting, the bailiff hurried to join the shepherd and the priest, who told them in a short sentence what he had found. Matthew also pulled the corpse on to its side and they looked at the missile lodged in the back. The head was deep in the flesh, but the shaft was still complete. The green wood had snapped when the victim fell on it, but not parted completely, and bedraggled feathers still formed the flight.
‘Poor fellow. His wife will be greatly anguished,’ commiserated the shepherd. ‘They have four children to feed.’
‘He was well known for poaching,’ said the bailiff. ‘But he didn’t deserve this, just for a rabbit.’ He pointed to the smaller corpse.
‘Who could have done this?’ asked the priest, sadly.
‘Either those bloody outlaws — or the foresters,’ declared Joel.
Matthew Juvenis shook his head. ‘I doubt it’s Winter’s gang — or even any stray wolf’s head. This was one of the poorest men in the village, with hardly a penny to his name. He had to take a few coney and the odd partridge to keep his family from starving. What robber is going to waste an arrow on him?’
The shepherd agreed. ‘Now I come to look at it, that’s too good an arrow for an outlaw. That’s a real fletcher’s shaft — the sort a forester would have!’
The bailiff let the corpse drop back to the now bloody ground.
‘What are we coming to, Father?’ he asked bitterly. ‘We’ve all lived here the whole of our lives, yet never known a time like this. Is there no end to it?’
No one had an answer for him, and with a sigh Matthew turned to more practical matters. ‘We must tell the crowner about this. He’s the only one we can trust to do right by poor Edward,’ he said, echoing the priest’s thoughts. ‘I was riding to Lustleigh, but now I must go straight on to Exeter and fetch John de Wolfe.’