With a wry grin at Cruch’s abject terror, the coroner set off for home and bed.
The interview with the sheriff next morning, which Ralph Morin had been anticipating with such delight, came fully up to his expectations. He marched into de Revelle’s chamber behind the coroner, a forbidding figure in his long mailed hauberk, wearing a round iron helmet and a sword dangling from his hip, as if ready to do battle that very moment.
De Wolfe’s armament was less obvious, but even more potent. He carried three rolls of parchment, from which dangled the red seals of both the Chief Justiciar and one of the lesser seals of King Richard, which had been entrusted to Hubert Walter during the monarch’s absence abroad.
John threw these down on to the sheriff’s desk with a flourish. Though he could not read them himself, he knew every word by heart, thanks to Thomas’s translation.
‘Read those first, before you even open your mouth to protest!’ he snarled to his brother-in-law, a more literate man than himself. The coroner’s triumphant tone stifled Richard’s tirade before it began and he rapidly scanned through the unambiguous Commissions that the Justiciar had issued. His appreciative audience watched the sheriff’s narrow face tighten with horror, indignation and finally anger as the import of the documents sank in.
‘This is intolerable — outrageous!’ he fumed, as he threw the rolls back across the table towards John. ‘I am the supreme authority in this county. You can’t usurp the shrievalty with something penned on a piece of parchment!’
De Wolfe leered at him, delighted at this further opportunity to pay Richard back for all the sneers and slights he had inflicted in the past — especially his spitefulness in telling Matilda of Nesta’s pregnancy.
‘That smacks of outright treason, brother-in-law!’ he responded. ‘See those seals? They are those of your king and the man to whom he has entrusted his kingdom. The king who, misguided as he may have been, made you sheriff. Are you now saying you dispute those orders or intend to disobey them?’
De Revelle’s mouth opened and closed like that of a stranded fish, as his face flushed like a beetroot. He was desperate to protest, but afraid that any rash words would brand him openly as a rebel or traitor. The coroner went through the main provisions of the Commission, ticking off the points on his fingers. When he came to the matter of the Wardenship, he took particular delight in demolishing de Revelle’s ambitions.
‘You are specifically excluded from putting yourself forward as Warden of the Forests, in the unlikely event of Nicholas de Bosco giving up that office. And unless you tread very carefully indeed, Richard, you may well be deprived of the office you now hold. It was only thanks to our sovereign’s good nature — some would say folly — that he failed to crack down on all the supporters of John’s rebellion.’
It was a fact that when the Lionheart had been released from his incarceration in Germany he had been extraordinarily lenient with those who had plotted to steal his throne in his absence — he even forgave the ringleader, his brother John, and restored many of his possessions.
The sheriff began some stuttering condemnation of this latest humiliation, but his past record of flirting with the rebels left him too vulnerable to make any effective argument against John’s new-found supremacy.
‘We are going to march against these outlaws and bring these forester friends of yours to account,’ declared the coroner. ‘And I doubt that your verderer protégé Philip le Strete will have his appointment ratified when the matter next comes before the County Court!’
At that moment the door burst open and Guy Ferrars and his son strode in, ignoring the attempts of the guard on the door to announce them.
‘You’ve told him already, then?’ barked the irascible baron. ‘We arrived from Portsmouth last night. The foot soldiers should be here by this evening.’
Richard de Revelle, his nerves now twanging like a bow-string, stared at the new arrivals as if they had come from the moon.
‘What soldiers? What are you talking about?’
‘I’d not got around to that yet, Richard,’ snapped de Wolfe. ‘You explain, Ralph — they’re your troops.’
The castle constable gleefully told the sheriff that he had been put in command of a company of men-at-arms destined for the King’s army, to flush out the outlaws and other undesirables from the most troublesome part of the forest.
‘This is intolerable!’ gibbered de Revelle. ‘I am sheriff and they should be placed under my control. So don’t expect me to cooperate with you. I want nothing to do with this madness.’
‘You won’t be asked to take part, Richard,’ growled de Wolfe. ‘In fact, as Commissioner, I won’t have you anywhere near this operation. I don’t trust you.’
De Revelle ranted and raved for a few more minutes, being repeatedly rebuffed by the others. Finally, an irate Guy Ferrars leaned over his table and thrust his face close to that of the sheriff.
‘Listen, de Revelle! You’re lucky to be allowed to sit safely in this chamber while better men go off to clear up the chaos you helped to foment. But I tell you, though the friends you have among certain barons and churchmen may have protected you so far, your time is fast running out!’
He drew back and stalked to the door, his son and the coroner following him. As he jerked it open, Ferrars made one last threat.
‘I shall devote myself to getting rid of you as sheriff of this county. We need someone trustworthy, like Henry de Furnellis, to sit there in your place!’
After his visitors had stormed out, Richard de Revelle picked up a pottery ink bottle from his table and with a scream of ill temper hurled it at the opposite wall. The missile exploded and black fluid ran down the stones like blood leaking from his wounded heart.
The men-at-arms from Portsmouth spent the next two days resting from their long march and getting their equipment ready for the fray on Monday. During this time, the coroner was called out to a fatal accident in the small town of Crediton, where a wall around a cattle pound had collapsed on top of a wood-turner, crushing him under a pile of stones. The wall had been declared unsafe beforehand by many of the local people, and John attached the manor bailiff to the next Eyre, to appear to answer a charge of negligence. He did this with poorly hidden satisfaction, as the manor was one of many belonging to Bishop Marshal. He would have to pay any fine and compensation, which was likely to be substantial, as the turner was a craftsman with a wife and five children to support. John was sorry that he could not have declared the wall a deodand, as it was the instrument of death, but the value of a heap of stones confiscated on behalf of the widow was negligible.
This episode took much of the day, as he held the inquest as soon as he had inspected the scene and the corpse, so it was early evening before he made his daily visit to Nesta at Polsloe Priory. She still had a slight fever, but Dame Madge seemed satisfied that it had not become worse.
John sat by her bed and regaled her with a monologue about the day’s events and the sheriff’s discomfiture at having his authority usurped by his brother-in-law. His mistress listened quietly, holding his hand in hers, until he came to speak of the campaign planned against the outlaws in two days’ time.
Then she struggled more upright on her bed and turned a pale and anxious face towards him.
‘Be careful, John, please! For God’s sake, don’t risk your life again. You were nearly killed by them but a few days ago!’
She sank back, even the effort to rise exhausting her. He gave a lopsided grin, meant to be reassuring.
‘Don’t fret, there’ll be almost a hundred others there too — a few knights and scores of men-at-arms, as well as Ferrars, de Courcy and their men.’
Nesta looked up at him, fearful of losing him after all that she had gone through lately. ‘All the men in England can’t stop a stray arrow striking you, John!’ she whispered.