Fear in the Forest by Bernard Knight Read Free Book Online Page B

burgesses and manor-lords, pushing for invitations to feasts and receptions at every opportunity. It was largely at her instigation that her husband had accepted the coroner’s post the previous year, with Matilda nagging her reluctant brother to support John’s bid. But the violent demise of Humphrey le Bonde struck no chord with her and the only faint interest was that Richard de Revelle would be the one who would recommend his successor for election by the freeholders in his County Court.
    Their desultory conversation was interrupted by Mary coming in from the kitchen-shed with their supper. The main meal was dinner in the late morning, but the pangs of night starvation were kept at bay by slices of cold pork on a thick trencher of stale bread, with side dishes of fried onions and boiled cabbage. Fresh bread and hard cheese filled up any remaining empty spaces in their stomachs, washed down with ale and cider.
    They moved to the long oak table, where the steady champing of Matilda’s jaws removed the strain of devising any further talk, though her husband also acquitted himself well with the food, after a day in the saddle. By the time they had finished and the cook-maid came to take away the remains, it was growing dark in the hall. The one small window-opening, covered in varnished linen, looked out onto the narrow lane lined with high buildings, which was in shadow even when the open cathedral precinct was still well lit. Matilda abruptly pushed back her stool and announced that she was going up to the solar, where her maid Lucille could prepare her for bed.
    John, following a well-used pattern, said that he would have some more ale, then take Brutus for a walk. They both knew where the hound was likely to take him, but only a tightening of her lips betrayed her feelings as she stamped off through the outer passage to reach the back yard and the stairs to her upper room.
    At about the same time as the coroner of Devon was whistling for his dog, twenty miles farther west in the county, a Cistercian monk was sitting across a table from a horse trader. They were in the large guest house of Buckfast Abbey, in a small room adjacent to the refectory reserved for feeding travellers who sought lodging for the night during the journey from Exeter to Plymouth. Across the large walled courtyard with its two gatehouses was the abbey church with the cloisters and other monastic buildings alongside.
    However, Stephen Cruch, the dealer in horses, was no casual visitor to the abbey, as he often spent a night there on business. The austere Cistercians were famed for their prowess in agriculture and animal husbandry. The monks and lay brothers of Buckfast not only kept large flocks of sheep for their wool and meat, but bred both sheep and horses for sale. Richard Cruch had a standing contract as an agent for moving on their horseflesh and frequently came to negotiate with the abbey on behalf of buyers from all over the West Country and beyond.
    His contact was Father Edmund Treipas, who conducted most of the trade with the outside world. Though an ordained priest as well as a monk, Father Edmund was a down-to-earth businessman, which was undoubtedly why he was also the abbey’s cellarer, responsible for all the provisions needed by the large establishment. In both roles, that of sales manager and storekeeper, he was unique in the enclosed community of Grey Monks, in that he frequently journeyed abroad, visiting Plymouth, Exeter and even Southampton on the abbot’s business.
    These two unlikely acquaintances now sat head to head across the table, with a flask of mead between them, for Buckfast was famous for its honey. Edmund Treipas held a short roll of parchment, on which were the details of a batch of horses to be taken away the following morning to a buyer in Plymouth, who would ship them across the Channel for resale in Brittany. The priest had been going through the list of thirty beasts, noting whether they were stallions,