Free The Noble Outlaw by Bernard Knight

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    'You asked where is this Matthew Morcok?' he finished. 'Possibly still in the old forge, just up the street. I want you to come there an hour after dawn tomorrow and see if you can identify him for me. He's in bad shape, but you might still be able to recognise him.'
    Taking the hint, Gwyn ushered Walter to a stool on the other side of the firepit, where a glowing pile of logs threw out a comforting heat. Motioning to one of the serving wenches to fetch the leatherworker another quart, Gwyn went back to his master's table and sat where Waiter had been, opposite de Wolfe and the fair Nesta, who had her arm through that of her lover.
    'What d'you think of that tale, then?' he demanded of them.
    John had just told Nesta the gist of Pole's story, while Edwin eavesdropped shamelessly. The old one-eyed servant, standing at the end of the table with a brace of empty jugs in his hands, took it upon himself to answer.
    'I remember that old man from Priest Street, the one with the shaking palsy. He used to shuffle up this way now and then, I always was afeared that he would pitch forwards on to his nose, poor fellow. But I've not clapped my eye on him for many a month.' As if to illustrate this, he rolled the sunken, white orb of his horrible dead eye in its deformed socket, the legacy of a spear thrust during the Battle of Wexford.
    'Well, we should know in the morning, if this man Pole can make anything of the features of the corpse,' observed John, gently massaging Nesta's shapely thigh under the table. 'Richard de Revelle has got some crazy notion that he was planted there by a Dartmoor outlaw just to discredit his bloody school.'
    'What outlaw would that be, John?' asked Nesta, sliding her fingers over his.
    'Another landless knight, I suppose. There are so many about these days. Since the Crusade ended, many warriors, mostly second sons without an inheritance, find themselves without either a war to fight or a manor to farm, so they take to armed robbery.' He paused to lift his pot with his free hand and take a long swallow, before continuing. 'This fellow is from some Cornish family. Maybe you know of them Gwyn, coming from those parts. He's Nicholas de Arundell, according to my dear brother-in-law. I vaguely recall the name, but our paths never crossed in Palestine.'
    'It's a well-known family in Cornwall,' replied his officer. 'Been there since the Conquest, for William the Bastard handed out many parcels of land to the Arundells, all over the West Country.'
    The potman, a champion nosy-parker well able to rival the inquisitive Thomas de Peyne, still hovered with his empty mugs, reluctant to leave without adding to the discussion.
    'I know something of this outlaw fellow Nicholas,' he said. 'Some call him Nick o’ the Moor and many have a lot of sympathy with him.'
    John was willing to listen to Edwin, as the old man often had useful snippets of information. Endlessly passing amongst the patrons of the Bush, distributing ale and collecting pots, he heard all kinds of conversations from men who travelled to Exeter from all over England and beyond.
    Resting his pottery mugs on the end of the trestle, Edwin leaned forward and in a lowered voice, as if what he had to say was confidential, he told them what he knew about Nick o' the Moor.
    'Gwyn's right about him being from this big Cornish family, but he inherited a small manor in Devon from his father. Somewhere near Totnes it is, I forget the actual name, but it's nigh to Berry Pomeroy.'
    The coroner nodded, as this was what Richard de Revelle had told him. 'Hempston Arundell, that's the manor,' he grunted as Edwin went on with his story.
    'Seems he had not long taken over the place after his father's death, when he was persuaded to take the Cross, back in 'eighty-nine. Doesn't get back for a few years and then finds that he has been declared dead and his manor confiscated by the Count of Mortain, who puts Pomeroy and de Revelle in his place.'
    De Wolfe groaned. 'It's no