De Wolfe left the keep and strode across the inner ward of the castle, avoiding ox-wagons, ducks and geese, old men and small urchins, to reach the gatehouse, where he clattered up the stone stairs to his office. He was due for a session with Gwyn and the sad little clerk, to make sure that the rolls were up to date.
After an hour, they heard the cathedral bell tolling in the distance. John rose from his bench and took his mantle from the peg on the bare stone wall. ‘Time for Vespers,’ he grunted, with a rare wink at Gwyn, who grinned back, well aware that his master’s devotions were likely to be social rather than sacred.
De Wolfe strode through the back lanes of Exeter to reach the Bush Inn, avoiding High Street in case his wife was on one of her ceaseless perambulations to the church of St Olave. He skirted the noisome outer ward of Rougemont, where most of the castle garrison lived with their families and animals, then crossed Curre Street and Goldsmith Street to reach the inner side of the North Gate.
From here, he dived into the even meaner passages of Bretayne, the poorest area of the city, named after the original Britons who had been squeezed into this district when, centuries earlier, the Saxons had displaced the Celts. Pushing past cripples, beggars, urchins, pigs and goats in the filthy lanes that lay between tumbledown huts of wattle and thatch, he turned into Friernhay. At its end, he crossed Fore Street to a passage leading into Stepcote, the steep hill dropping down to the city wall.
Directly opposite was Idle Lane, named for the plot of wasteground on which the Bush Inn sat. Its stone walls were barely the height of a man, but a steeply pitched thatched roof gave it a spacious loft under the rafters, where Nesta had a small room to herself, letting the rest of the space as lodgings.
A few horses were tethered to a rail at the side as he walked past to reach the central front door. Stooping to pass under the low lintel, he went into the single drinking-room that occupied all the ground floor. The kitchen shed and brewhouse were in the yard behind the main building. It was dim and the smoke from the large hearth-pit against the left-hand wall stung his eyes. Even in mid-afternoon, several patrons were indulging in drink and business, before they went off for the early-evening meal. The buzz of conversation was broken by bursts of raucous laughter, mainly from a trio of harlots who were entertaining some out-of-town wool traders in one corner.
John’s favourite resting place was vacant, a rough table near the fire. Its bench was backed up against a wattle hurdle, which gave some protection from the draughts that blew in through the open eaves and the four small window openings. He scuffed across to the table through the straw on the earthen floor and pulled off his wolfskin mantle. As he dropped it on to the bench, a bent old man limped up and pulled his forelock. ‘How do, Cap’n? Ale or cider today?’ His toothless mouth leered a welcome at de Wolfe. The aged potman had lost part of a foot and one eye in the Irish wars and the white scar of his collapsed blind eyeball roved horribly as the other glinted cunningly at the coroner. ‘The missus is out the back, sir. With the new man.’
John looked at him sharply. He had come to recognise every nuance of the old man’s voice and knew that Edwin was hinting at something. ‘New man? What new man?’
The potman’s leer grew wider. ‘Why, Alan of Lyme, Cap’n. Didn’t you know about the young fellow?’ he asked, with false innocence.
De Wolfe made a gargling noise in his throat, his habitual defence against having to answer. ‘Get me a quart of ale, old man,’ he demanded brusquely.
Edwin stumped off and returned with a stone jar of ale filled from a barrel at the back of the room.
‘What’s this Alan doing here?’ grunted the coroner, his worried curiosity getting the better of him.
‘Why, the missus has employed him, of course. Finding the work a bit much for her, now that trade is getting so brisk.’
De Wolfe gargled again and waved Edwin away. But the decrepit potman hovered as de Wolfe put the mug to his lips. He looked furtively over his shoulder. ‘Perhaps not for me to say, Crowner,’ he hissed, in a conspiratorial whisper, ‘but if I was you, I’d tread careful with the missus. She’s been in a funny mood these past days. I think she may have it in for you a bit.’ His blind eye rolled repulsively as he tapped the side of his nose with a dirty forefinger then moved away, leaving de Wolfe more uneasy than ever.
He sat holding his pot and staring into the leaping flames of the log fire, his ears jarred by more shrieks of laughter from one of the whores in the corner. One of the tipsy woolmen had slid a hand down her bodice.
Though he had seen little of Nesta these past few weeks, he had been in here last Sunday for a short while. However, Matilda’s insistence that he go with her for one of his infrequent visits to church had prevented him having a session with the landlady up in the loft. She had said nothing about employing anyone then, though he recollected now that she had been less talkative than usual.
Edwin’s claim that business had become more onerous was doubtfuclass="underline" the Bush was certainly the most popular inn in the city, but it had been for many months, so he failed to see why Nesta should find the need suddenly for another helper, in addition to the potman, cook and two serving maids. Until a couple of years ago, her husband had run the tavern. He had been a good friend of John’s, a Welsh archer who had shared several campaigns with him. When his fighting days had ended, he had taken on the Bush, but within a year he was dead of a fever and John had helped Nesta finance the inn to keep it going.
Before long their business interests had ripened into mutual attraction, then passion, and though de Wolfe could not resist female temptation elsewhere, Nesta was his favourite, almost to the exclusion of all others. She was certainly in love with him and, flinty-natured though he was, he had grudgingly to admit that he was extraordinarily fond of her in return.
So what was this about a younger man on the premises? He looked covertly over his shoulder to the back of the room where Edwin had his barrels wedged up along a plank over leather drip buckets. Alongside them was the door to the backyard, over which the wide ladder ascended to the loft. As he peered through the smoke haze, he saw Nesta bustle in to be stopped by the crippled potman, who whispered in her ear and waved towards the hearth. The landlady’s head came up and her eyes met John’s across the room. He fancied he saw a slight tightening of her lips instead of her usual welcoming smile, and a tingle of apprehension caught at his throat. When facing a Saracen horde or a lance pointing at him on the tourney-field, John de Wolfe would hardly turn a hair, but the prospect of an angry or vindictive woman made him quail.
Nesta threaded her way across the room between stools and tables, her face devoid of expression. She dropped down on to the bench beside him, but instead of the usual pressure of her shoulder and thigh, a small but significant space remained between them. ‘You’ve come to see me at last, then?’
Unbidden, the cautionary words of some past comrade sprang into his head: ‘When your mistress begins to sound like your wife, it’s time to leave.’
‘God’s bones, woman, I’ve been so overwhelmed by duties these past few weeks, I’ve hardly had time to spit.’ He put an arm affectionately around her shoulders, and softened his tone. ‘Things will be easier now, though. A new coroner has been appointed for the north. He’s a fool, but it should lighten my load.’
Nesta still sat rigidly, but her face mellowed a little, into a doubtful pout. ‘I thought you had forsaken me, damn you! Twice I have seen you in three weeks — and neither occasion saw us abed together.’
‘You know how long I was up in Barnstaple and Lynmouth and Christ knows where else, Nesta. And now I have a killing on Dartmoor that kept me away all last night — and Crediton the night before that.’