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takes the beauty out of any face.’
    Nesta grimaced and pressed closer to his big body.
    ‘And who do you think killed him, Sir Crowner?’
    John emptied his pot before answering, and Nesta signalled to old Edwin to bring another from the best barrel.
    ‘I don’t know. The cause of most deaths in a village - or town, for that matter - is plain. Drunken quarrels, violent robberies, strangled rapes, beaten wives …
    Everyone knows the culprit and the hue-and-cry is hardly needed to catch the felon. But this one He fell silent as the old potman put a new jar in front of him.
    Story-telling had taken John’s mind off fondling her, and Nesta pulled back his hand to her bosom in mock annoyance. ‘You think he’s a nobleman, you said?’
    she asked.
    ‘He was certainly no common soldier. Good clothes, fine boots, belt and scabbard - mostly Levantine made.
    No doubt he’s come recently from Outremer.’ She looked up at his profile, his long jaw pink in the flames from the fire.
    ‘How did he reach the edge of Dartmoor? I’ve heard that Widecombe’s an outlandish place.’
    Like most town-dwellers, to Nesta the countryside was a remote, alien place. She had hardly set foot outside Exeter in the five years since she had come from South Wales. Her late husband, a Welsh archer named Meredydd, had returned from fighting in Touraine with an unexpected bounty and some loot.
    He landed at Exmouth, took a fancy to the area and bought the Bush Inn, sending home to Gwent for his wife. Within a year, he was dead of the jaundice and Nesta had carried on alone - with unusual success for a widow.
    John pondered her question. ‘He had marks of spurs on his boots, but even those had been stolen from him, along with everything else he possessed except his dagger. It was undoubtedly a robbery, probably by at least two attackers from the wounds he suffered.’
    ‘So, a simple robbery - but why would a Crusader be riding alone along the edge of Dartmoor?’ she persisted, partly to emphasise her interest in his doings and partly to keep his mind away from the spat with his wife.
    ‘Depends where he was headed - some people take the moor track to Tavistock and Plymouth instead of the longer road through the lowlands. Or he might have been going to some manor near Okehampton, or even further into North Cornwall. And we don’t know that he was alone. He may have had a companion or servant - also lying dead now in the forest.’
    Nesta was becoming restive, but she sensed that her man needed to talk himself out of his mood.
    ‘You think it was outlaws that killed him?’
    ‘It seems most likely. The forest and moor abounds in fugitives. The two manor reeves each blamed the other, but I feel their sin is in trying to move the body from their land, rather than murder.’ He thought for a moment, his beetling brows coming down in thought.
    ‘A man called Nebba was there, too. Not a villager, he had been a soldier, I’ll swear. Two fingers missing.’
    This struck a chord with the shapely innkeeper. ‘An archer, like my poor Meredydd! A barbaric custom, to cut off a man’s fingers with a knife.’
    ‘Not so bad as lopping off other parts, my girl,’ he grunted, giving her thigh a suggestive squeeze.
    After a short silence, his chin dropped on to his chest and he raised his head with a jerk, startling the auburn head next to him.
    ‘Come, Sir Crowner, time you were in bed before you fall asleep across the table.’ Nesta pulled herself away from him and stood up. ‘You’ll stay here this night, John, in my bed - though by the look of you, there’ll be little action other than snoring. Come.’
    She pulled him towards the wooden stair at the back, past the amused glances of the patrons and a chorus of ‘Good night, Sir John.’
    As he lumbered up the steps behind her, John was vaguely uneasy. ‘I’ve not stayed a whole night with you before, Nesta.’
    Holding a tallow candle high, she turned and grinned at him. ‘Afraid I’ll