'So have you seen him since then, mistress?' asked John.
Joan looked warily at Gillian, who sighed and nodded.
'Yes, she has, just a couple of times. They met briefly at covert assignations, when he came secretly off the moor.' Her voice became more defiant. 'I doubt that is a crime, Crowner, as she gave him no aid whatsoever, for she has none to give.'
The two women said nothing about Nicholas's visit into Exeter, but John spotted an important void in their story.
'So you must be able to contact your husband, lady? Otherwise you would not have been able to set up these meetings?'
Joan flushed, as the conversation was leading into dangerous paths. 'It is difficult and complicated, sir. But he is my husband, we are still young, yet deprived of each other's rightful company, due to the greed of evil men.' Again Matilda did not react to this innuendo which included her brother. John nodded, accepting the truth of her words.
'I am concerned that as you claim that your husband cannot be personally involved in these murders and in the assault on my wife, then someone in his band of men might be. What have you to say to that?'
On safer ground, Joan considered the proposition.
'Truly, I cannot help you much, as I have no knowledge of how he lives on the moor, except that he says the hardships are barely tolerable. But certainly, men from the manor went into exile with him of their own account, not wishing to suffer serfdom to those who pillage other men's property. Some of those men may well be very aggrieved and desire to strike back at those who ruined their lives. But why would they wait almost three years?'
De Wolfe had no answer to this, but persisted with his questions. 'Is there any one man you might recall who was particularly angry at what happened at Hempston?'
Joan shook her head again. 'I knew Robert Hereward, of course. He was our steward and a kind, steady man. There was also Martin the manor reeve, but I don't recall much about all the others. I had little to do with the running of the manor, Robert Hereward saw to all that, especially after Nicholas was so gallant as to go off and take the Cross.'
She sounded bitter about this, her husband leaving for the Holy Land and leaving her to cope with his alleged death and then the sequestration of her home.
Matilda spoke for the first time Since she arrived. 'I was wrong to speak as I did this afternoon, dear Joan. I was distressed by what had happened to me and to discover that you were no widow, and that your husband was whom I assumed to be my assailant threw me into a unreasonable temper.' She patted the other woman's arm. 'I shall make confession and do penance for my impetuousness, never fear.'
De Wolfe gave one of his loud throat rumblings to halt the possible decline into sentimentality. 'What is to be done, that is the problem? I quite understand why you are firm in your defence of your husband, but you are hardly an unbiased witness.'
Gillian came back into the debate. 'There is nothing further we can tell you, Crowner. All the fault lies in those who took advantage of Nicholas's absence in Palestine to falsely take possession of his manor. That is where the answer lies, surely.'
Matilda turned to look across the room at her husband, having so rapidly moved from accuser to protector of her young friend.
'John, it occurs to me that the swine who accosted me might certainly have been from Hempston, but may have long left that place and be nothing at all to do with the men on Dartmoor.'
Gillian agreed with her. 'In fact, it seems more likely, as how else could these crimes have been committed within the city?'
She forbore to mention that Nicholas de Arundell had entered and left Exeter without any problem, and instead raised the subject of how to lift the fatal stigma of outlaw from him.
'We had already wondered if we could implore you to intercede for Nicholas with the king's council,' she said earnestly. At this, Joan stood up and passionately added her own pleas.
'Sir John, you are a man with a reputation for honesty and a sense of justice, which is more than can be said for so many in positions of authority. Is there nothing that can be done to obtain a pardon for him? Though surely pardon is the wrong word, for he did nothing wrong to deserve being outlawed for trying to defend our home against these pillagers.'
Matilda nodded vigorously, even though her own brother was implicitly being accused by Joan's words.
'John, you are well acquainted with the Chief Justiciar and even King Richard himself. Surely you can make some representations?' Even in this highly charged discussion, she could not resist dropping names to emphasise how well connected her husband was.
He cleared his throat again, cursing Matilda for pressing him too far. 'There is much to be discovered about all aspects of this. The events occurred before I was coroner, and before I can make any move I need to know exactly what went on in Hempston almost three years ago. There is no doubt that your husband and these men on the moor were properly decided exigent, as there are court records to that effect. Thus, legally, no law officer can approach them except to arrest them.'
They spoke together for some time longer, but John gained no more information. The wife was fiercely defensive of her husband, as was to be expected, but claimed that she knew virtually, nothing of his present circumstances or whereabouts on the moor. Neither could she suggest anyone from Hempston who might have homicidal tendencies.
Eventually, he prised Matilda away from her rapprochement with Joan de Arundell and they left, his wife making ardent invitations to both Joan and Gillian le Bret to visit her to discuss the matter further.
On the walk back through streets dimly lit by a hazy gibbous moon, Matilda repeated her repentance at having dealt so impetuously with Joan that afternoon and pressed John to do all he could to obtain a pardon for Joan's husband.
Almost in retaliation, John raised the matter of her brother. 'You realise that pursuing this will reflect badly upon Richard, to say nothing of that treacherous bastard Henry de la Pomeroy.' He could not see her face in the gloom, but he could imagine her lips tightening.
'Richard is my flesh and blood, John, but if this story is true, then he should be ashamed of himself. No doubt he was led astray by Pomeroy, but he should have restrained himself. My brother has always been greedy for wealth and power, but this time he has gone too far.' John wondered at her logic, which placed cheating a minor landowner out of his small manor as a worse crime than treachery and sedition in repeatedly supporting the rebellious attempts of Prince John to unseat their rightful king.
'This places me in a difficult position, Matilda,' he said gravely as they reached the corner of Martin's Lane. 'My duty as a law officer obliges me to apprehend all outlaws and either slay them or bring them to the gallows. Now I am being petitioned to seek a royal pardon for these men, yet I cannot approach them other than to arrest them.'
Matilda saw no problem in this. 'As you have no idea where they are, how can you even consider trying to arrest them? That does not affect your ability to seek some resolution of the scandal from Winchester or London.'
As they reached their door, she added grimly, 'When I next see Richard, I will speak my mind to him in no uncertain way. And I'll get the whole truth out of him about how he came to have a share of this Hempston place.'
'And I need to find out much more before I go hating off to the Chief Justiciar,' muttered her husband. 'What in hell this has to do with three murdered guild masters, I just do not know.'
* * *
By next morning it had warmed up considerably, but a depressing winter rain was falling from a grey sky, washing away the remnants of the snow. John went up to his bleak chamber in the castle gatehouse and chewed over the recent events with Gwyn and Thomas, who had just returned from his early duties in the cathedral.