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better I’m pleased! I came on this Crusade more to get away from her, than from any great desire to slaughter Saracens!’ Everyone in Exeter knew that the relationship between John and Matilda de Revelle was anything but a love match. Pushed into a marriage of convenience by their respective parents some fourteen years earlier, they lived in a state of smouldering antagonism. During that time, de Wolfe had spent less than a year living with her, managing to find a war somewhere in Ireland or across the Channel to give him a legitimate reason for his absence. It had also gained him a sizeable store of silver, which he added to his winnings and ransom money from his success at tournaments, all wisely invested in a joint wool-exporting enterprise with a prominent merchant friend in Exeter.
    â€˜Where is she living while you are away?’ asked Gwyn, in an innocent tone, though he well knew the answer.
    â€˜With her bloody brother, who she considers is only slightly less sanctified than Almighty God himself!’ growled de Wolfe, cynically. ‘She’s either at his house in North Street or up at his estate in Tiverton.’
    His brother-in-law was Sir Richard de Revelle, a wealthy knight with aspirations as a politician. He had estates in several counties in the West Country and had been sheriff of Somerset for a short time. John detested him even more than he disliked his own wife. De Revelle had carefully avoided joining the king in either his French wars or in taking the Cross for service in the Holy Land. De Wolfe strongly suspected him of being a covert supporter of Prince John’s intrigues to unseat the Lionheart from the throne, as he had been cultivating a close association with some of the canons of the cathedral, who were in favour of the prince as the new king.
    â€˜My wife wants me to buy a house in the city when I return,’ grumbled de Wolfe. ‘She was content for us to live with her cousin in Fore Street for the past few years, but managed to insinuate herself into her brother’s household when I left for Palestine. God knows how she gets on with his wife, the icy Eleanor, for they dislike each other intensely.’
    Gwyn nodded his shaggy head understandingly. ‘Thank Jesus I don’t have that sort of trouble. My good wife Agnes manages to survive on the loot I left her last time I was home, though she also keeps a cow, some fowls and a goat in our backyard to make a few more pennies.’ Gwyn rented a small cottage in the village of St Sidwell, just outside Exeter’s East Gate.
    Their discussion of family matters was ended by the gong which summoned them to their midday dinner. By now, a crewman had taken advantage of the calmer weather to light a charcoal brazier and as all the meat had long been eaten or gone rotten, fish was on the menu, bought from a small boat that came out to them from the islands. At least it was fresh, a great improvement on the dried stuff that came from casks in the hold. The last of the bread from Rhodes had gone mouldy but there was plenty of hard, unleavened biscuit. The fish were grilled on skewers over the brazier and a passable meal was handed around, washed down by either brackish water or the indifferent wine from Acre.
    The passage across the gap between Zathynkos and Ithaca took a couple of days, the erudite chaplain Anselm informing anyone who would listen that the latter island was the home of Odysseus, news which was lost on all his flock, none of whom had ever heard of
The Odyssey
.
    The king was becoming more impatient as time went on, urging the shipmaster and his High Admiral to push on with greater speed, something which the clumsy buss was incapable of doing. Richard was anxious for more up-to-date news of what his enemies were doing, both in their efforts to block his return home and what avaricious designs Philip Augustus now had on Normandy. Before leaving Acre, he had sent a fast galley to Messina to inform