The Noble Outlaw

Several other men were mentioned, including a thatcher, Walter Lovetrot, who had stabbed another man and then run off into the hills.

'What happened to these other men?' asked Gwyn.

Robert Hereward shrugged. 'God knows, but several who went said that they were going to walk to distant towns like Bristol and Southampton and try their luck at staying undetected. As long as they were not identified as outlaws, they could claim their freedom after a year and a day.'

'Why d'you say this blacksmith was a bad lot?' queried the coroner.

'He was a freeman who had come from somewhere a few years earlier and set up a forge in the village. Always protesting and complaining about something, he was a pain in the arse. Though he joined us in our fight and was outlawed with the rest of us, he never stopped whining about the loss of his forge. One day, he said he'd had enough and just walked away. He was one of those who said he was going to try to settle elsewhere, maybe in Brittany.'

John tried to get a description of him, but the result was so vague as to be useless. 'Just a man in his thirties with dark hair,' was the best he could extract from the gang. The same applied to Walter Lovetrot, the murderous thatcher, so de Wolfe turned to another matter.

'This man who died, you swear it was not a deliberate killing?' he demanded sternly.

Robert Hereward leaned forward again. 'It was a free-for-all fight, sir. They were hitting the hell out of us and we were flailing around in response. This fellow pulled a knife on me and I swung at him with a stave. I've done it before and caused nothing but a sore head. It was just unfortunate that he must have had a thin skull or some such.'

'And as this was more than two years ago, before the coroners were introduced, there would have been no inquest,' mused de Wolfe. 'Was the sheriff involved in this at all?'

Nicholas de Arundell shrugged his broad shoulders.

'Hard for us to know, Crowner, being tucked away up here in Dartmoor. But we never heard any more of it, so I think Pomeroy and de Revelle kept their heads well down over the whole affair, so as not to draw attention to their misdeeds.'

'The sheriff then would have been the one before Richard de Revelle — and guess who that was?' cut in Gwyn cynically. 'The Count of bloody Mortain himself.'

De Wolfe nodded. 'Quite so. Though Prince John never showed his face in the county all the years he was supposed to be sheriff, after William Brewer gave up in '79. He left all the work to his serjeants and bailiffs'.

Robert Hereward voiced his continued indignation. 'No wonder the outrage was never challenged. As sheriff, he was hardly likely to condemn what his treacherous supporters had done. De Revelle undoubtedly got the shrievalty handed on to him because of Prince John's patronage.'

'So the whole bloody affair was nicely sewn up between them,' sneered Gwyn. 'I doubt it ever came to the ears of the judges or the Justiciar, let alone the king himself.'

Nicholas sighed and motioned Gunilda to go around again with her jug. 'That's the whole story, Sir John,' he said. 'That's what I get for going off to the Crusades, losing my manor and my wife — and if I'm caught, my very life. To say nothing of my honour and reputation sacrificed in this injustice.'

'What's to be done about it, that's the thing?' said Martin Wimund. 'You are our last and only hope, Crowner.'

There was a tense silence, as all the hardened men looked at de Wolfe, who was turning the situation over in his mind.

'You have lived as fugitives up here on Dartmoor for almost three years, robbing travellers, poaching and stealing from honest men?' he asked harshly.

Nicholas glared at him, sudden suspicion showing on his face. 'What else should we do, starve or freeze to death? If it were not for those bastard swine de Revelle and de la Pomeroy, we would be hard-working, peaceful men, tending our acres down in Hempston.'

Robert Hereward's voice was vibrant with emotion: 'I killed a man without intent when he drew a blade on me during a melee, Crowner. I am more than willing to pay the price: I would give myself up to be hanged tomorrow if it would help these others — but it would be futile.' He thumped the table. 'But I swear by Mary, Mother of God and all the saints you wish to name, that we have never killed a single person these past two years. Yes, we have cut purses from fat priests and wealthy merchants — and we have stolen geese, sheep and the occasional deer for Gunilda to cook for our bellies. But that was for survival, nothing else.'

His voice shook with sincerity and John believed him.

Next morning the coroner and his companion were riding back through Dunsford as the bell in the village church tolled for the noon hour. They had spent the night in Challacombe with their outlaw hosts, lying wrapped in their own cloaks on a pile of dried bracken around the firepit. At dawn, after a meagre breakfast provided by Gunilda, Robert Hereward and Martin Wimund had escorted them back over the moor and left them within sight of Bovey.

'So what did you think of all that?' grunted the coroner after they had ridden in silence for a mile.

'Their tale rang very true, Crowner,' answered Gwyn.

'The whole sad story is typical of that bastard Richard de Revelle and that swine Henry de la Pomeroy. He's every bit as bad as his treacherous father, who may be dead, but I don't mind speaking ill of him!' John's face remained dour, and he remained silent for another few minutes as he assembled his thoughts.

'I too believe what those men told me, and I intend to seek justice for them,' he said finally. 'The stumbling block is that they are undoubtedly outlaws and criminals, having preyed on the population for a couple of years. Every one of their legion of thefts is a capital offence, and even if it were not so, just being outlaws earns them a hanging.'

'But none of that would have happened if it were not for the vile crime that those lords committed,' protested the Cornishman. 'They are victims of circumstance and deserve better than to be stranded on Dartmoor with every man's hand against them.'

'I agree with you,' replied the coroner. 'But though they slipped into becoming a gang of desperate men with little difficulty, finding a solution will be a great deal harder.'

'So what are you going to do about it?' boomed the ever-practical Gwyn.

John leaned back against the cantle of his saddle, easing his back which had stiffened during the ride. He was getting old and soft, he thought, not like the days when he could spend a week on a horse and think nothing of it. He dragged his mind back to the immediate problem.

'Henry de la Pomeroy seems to be the prime instigator of this plot, but my dearly beloved brother-in-law is also very much involved. He is the first person I must confront about this, though my wife has already given him a drubbing over it.'

'But remember, he's the one who is accusing Sir Nicholas of planting that murdered body in his school,' said Gwyn. 'Perhaps he's saying that just as a means of further blackening Arundell's name, as an extra safeguard for keeping him beyond the law.'

John nodded. 'De Revlele will no doubt remember the body, too, when I tackle him about Hempston.'

'You'll get short shrift from that slippery eel,' prophesied Gwyn. 'Whatever you say, he'll twist your words and try to put you in the wrong. But it's bloody daft to think that Nicholas and his men had anything to do with these guild killings.'

'Though the second murder was on the high road near Ashburton — a place that outlaws and footpads habitually haunt in order to attack travellers,' said de Wolfe, playing at devil's advocate himself to tease Gwyn.

'But if you get nowhere with de Revelle, what else can be done?'