[Mediaeval Mystery 06] - Cast the First Stone Page 3

  Alys ran her eye over the benches as they filled. She recognised most of the men, even though she didn’t know all their names: the labourers, the carpenter with half a dozen of his many sons, the miller, the reeve. But a few were strangers, presumably men from outlying farms.

  Rosa was staring at one of them, so Alys took the opportunity to ask who it was. A heartfelt sigh accompanied the answer. ‘That’s Aelfrith.’

  Alys looked more closely. The young man was tall, straight and well-muscled, with dark curly hair, a short, well-kept beard and a handsome face. Rosa wasn’t the only girl gazing at him dreamily as he greeted the men around him; Alys smiled to herself.

  When all were assembled Ivo made his entrance, flanked by two guards from the castle who took up position behind and to either side of his chair. Alys heard Cecily’s sharp intake of breath and looked enquiringly at her.

  ‘Let’s just say that Godric never had to do that.’

  Alys watched the bailiff as he in turn observed the villagers. His gaze swept over them – counting? Marking absences? – but lingered on some of the younger and prettier girls in a manner Alys didn’t quite like.

  Further questions to Cecily were forestalled by the start of proceedings; evidently no other person from the castle was expected. Alys was a little disappointed not to see the young knight who was standing in for Sir Geoffrey; she hadn’t met him before but Edwin spoke of him warmly, and she knew that he was also a friend of the two knights who had saved her life during that dreadful day back at home – back in Lincoln – in the spring. Still, there would be plenty to interest her even without his presence. She turned with the other women to watch in silence, although she was observing them as much as she was the main event.

  The first few items seemed to be routine, and did not arouse more than a passing interest from those around her. A woman had sold ale that wasn’t fresh; a boy had caught a rabbit with the wrong sort of snare. They were fined, the coins placed on Father Ignatius’s table, and business moved on swiftly.

  The first darker tone came when Ivo called forward Gyrth, accusing him of dereliction of his duty and damage to the earl’s property. The swineherd didn’t know how to answer, and stood bemused and blank-faced in the middle of the open space until both his father and the reeve came to stand beside him.

  The father took off his hat and twisted it in his hands. ‘If you please, sir, he didn’t mean no harm. He’s always been simple, but he’s a good boy.’

  Ivo was not impressed. ‘A good boy wouldn’t let a whole herd of pigs run riot through the village, causing damage and danger.’

  The father looked like he was trying to frame a reply, but the reeve was quicker, speaking in a tone that was perhaps a shade more belligerent than it needed to be. ‘And what damage was that? The only garden trampled was Osmund’s own,’ – he gestured to Gyrth’s father – ‘and when we caught the pigs and counted them they were all accounted for.’

  Ivo was not to be drawn, and he replied smoothly. ‘Osmund’s garden? He is unfree, so that land belongs to the lord earl. As does the fence around the churchyard, which I have just examined and found to be damaged.’

  There was a murmur of discontent at this, as all knew that only a single wattle panel had been knocked awry.

  ‘Please, I’ll mend the church fence myself.’ This from Osmund. ‘And I’ll sort out the garden and we’ll still pay the same rent and tithes that we owe, even if there’s less to harvest.’

  Most of the jury were nodding their heads, and an unidentified voice noted that this sounded fair. Ivo looked inclined to argue, but Father Ignatius put down his pen and stood. ‘On behalf of the Church, I accept this offer,’ he declared.

  Alys had never really spoken properly to the priest, seeing him as part of the background of the village, but now she looked at him sharply. That was clever. He might have no official authority but he was a clergyman and thus – however humbly – represented the might of an institution that Ivo wasn’t prepared to take on. He nodded grudging assent, Osmund and Gyrth made good their escape from the centre of the open space, and the court moved on.

  But Ivo wasn’t pleased, and there was an edge to his voice as he made his next announcement. It was the seemingly inconsequential information that the site of the large autumn trading fair would be moved from one field to another. Alys was surprised to find not just murmurs but actual cries of dissent, with an undercurrent of real anger.

  Cecily saw her confusion. ‘It’s the dung.’ She smiled. ‘I suppose there’s no reason for you to know. When the fair comes, there are lots of horses and oxen, and the droppings they leave are good for the ground; once the fair leaves, it can just be dug in. But he wants to move it from a village field to one owned by the lord earl so that we won’t benefit.’

  Alys watched as the reeve argued animatedly that this was against local custom and practice, but Ivo was sitting with folded arms and shaking his head with an expression so smug that she was sure he knew something. To her consternation she saw that a number of villagers were looking at Edwin, some of the men urging him openly to do something. He too was shaking his head, but with a much more pained expression, and he stayed where he was.

  The priest had no grounds to intervene this time, the matter being nothing to do with the Church, and so the reeve’s lone arguments were batted away, and then silenced completely as Ivo held up a document covered in close writing, which he said was the original charter allowing the fair to be held. ‘And there is nothing in it that stipulates which field; only that it shall be held outside the castle on the manor of Conisbrough. So if I – on behalf of the lord earl – decide to move it, I can.’

  Only two other men present could read, and the reeve was looking from one to the other. The priest made a helpless gesture and went back to his writing, pressing so hard that he splattered the ink and had to stop to blot it. All Edwin could do was nod, his face now even more distressed, to indicate that the charter – which he must have looked at himself at some time in the past – was genuine and that the bailiff had the right to do what he was doing.

  The matter was thus passed, but the mood in the court was heated as Ivo moved on to the last item of business. Alys was forewarned that something serious was about to happen by the way he looked at his two guards before he spoke, and they grasped their spears more firmly. And the blow, when it fell, was a heavy one.

  All the villagers, began Ivo, were obliged to have their grain ground into flour at the lord earl’s mill, and to pay a fee for doing so. This was met with acceptance and nods, for all knew it. Some of the women around Alys started to look relieved. Was he just about to haul someone up for having a hand-mill? Alys could tell from his face that he wasn’t.

  The bailiff’s voice carried across the green. ‘Until now, the lord earl has given gracious permission for the bread to be baked in an oven used communally by the village. But with times being hard and he being burdened with many expenses due to the late war, he now decrees that, as soon as it shall be built, an oven belonging to him shall henceforward be used, and that a fee shall be payable for each loaf baked therein.’

  There was a slight pause while everyone worked their way through the deliberately formal language, and then there was uproar. Bread! He wanted to charge a fee on bread! It was the great staple of life, with the poorer among the population eating little else. How could he possibly …?

  Angry words were being exchanged, with the reeve and a couple of others even taking a few steps towards Ivo. He was having none of it, standing and moving briskly off with his armed guards even as he declared the court closed.

  Nobody else dispersed; the green was a sea of shouting, gesticulating men, with women joining them too now that the official business was over. Everyone had something to say; everyone had someone to complain to. The reeve, the priest and Edwin were all surrounded, and Alys’s alarm grew as she saw that some of those around Edwin seemed to be enraged with him rather than with Ivo. ‘You should have said something
!’ and ‘Your father would never have stood for this!’ were just two of the accusations she caught, as she tried to fight her way through the crowd. She had no idea what she would do when she reached him; she only knew that she had to stand by his side.

  Edwin himself was saying something that looked like it was meant to be placatory, but this only seemed to inflame some of the men more. Now he was moving, trying to walk away, but he was surrounded and being jostled. One shove even made him trip, and she began to feel fear as she fought her way towards him.

  ‘Stop that right now!’

  The voice was the priest’s. There was a pause, a few shame-faced looks, and then people started to fall back a little. Alys again mentally reassessed his status and authority in the village. If there was going to be trouble, he would be an ally worth having.

  Father Ignatius made his way to the centre of the group. ‘Edwin and I will discuss the legal matters in detail and see if there is anything to be done. In the meantime, the court is over and there is work to be done, so I suggest you all get to it and cool your heads for a while.’

  He led Edwin through the press as they stepped back. But although nobody shoved Edwin again, there were many dark looks cast his way, and somebody – Alys couldn’t make out who – even murmured the word ‘coward’ under his breath. She was glad when he reached her, and she walked on his other side away from the village green and the angry people upon it.

  Many thoughts had gone through Edwin’s head as the court progressed. It was odd, to start with, to be viewing it from this angle: he’d been his father’s scribe and assistant since he was twelve, and had never sat on the jury itself. If he’d had the leisure, he might have appreciated the sensation of not having to scrawl to keep up with the cases, not needing to sharpen a quill constantly, not ending up covered in ink and with an aching hand. But events had precluded any such relaxation. What was Ivo thinking? Not just to announce what he had, but in the way he had done it. Did he honestly not care that he was antagonising the whole village, or that this was just going to make his own life more difficult and unpleasant in the months and years to come?

  He’d been relieved when Father Ignatius and the reeve had managed to sort out the situation with Gyrth. A charitable interpretation would be that Ivo simply didn’t know him, and that he would be more lenient next time, but Edwin wasn’t sure. The moving of the fair site was petty and mean, but unfortunately Edwin had read that charter several times and he knew that Ivo had the absolute right in law to decide exactly where it should be held. He also knew that people had been looking at him to make a stand, but what was the point? Any appeal was bound to lose, so better to save his efforts. The bread, though – that was another matter entirely. He wasn’t sure of the legal position there, as such a thing had never even been considered before, but it could cause great hardship.

  The subject occupied him as he followed the priest, oblivious to anything else going on around him. They reached the cottage, and Edwin offered Father Ignatius the chair and took a place on the bench against the wall, holding out his hand to Alys as she hovered. She sat next to him and they both looked expectantly at their guest.

  Edwin had known Father Ignatius all his life, and this was as near as he’d ever seen him to being angry.

  He was virtually spluttering. ‘“I am the bread of life,” says the Lord. And bread means life. How many will suffer if this comes to pass? How many will go hungry?’

  Alys spoke. ‘Is there anything that can be done?’

  Edwin had to admit he didn’t know. ‘I’d have to check. But Sir Roger wouldn’t be familiar with the details either – I’ll have to wait until Sir Geoffrey gets back and ask him.’

  Father Ignatius was tapping one ink-stained finger on the table. ‘But it doesn’t take long to build an oven, surely – this may well have been pushed through by the time he returns. And I foresee suffering for the poorest.’

  Edwin sighed. ‘Yes. But Ivo has charge of all the charters and parchments now – I’d have to beg him to let me see them.’

  ‘If we have to humble ourselves to help, my son, then we must do it with a good heart. When he has had time to reflect, I will speak to him – not legally, but in the name of God and charity. Maybe –’

  They were interrupted by a knock at the door. Alys got up to open it, and Edwin knew who it was before she showed him in, for Aelfrith had a startlingly deep voice. Alys was looking him up and down as he came in, and Edwin tried to recollect whether she’d ever met him before.

  Aelfrith nodded at Edwin but addressed the priest. ‘If you please, Father, it’s my mother, she’s taken bad again. Will you come?’

  Father Ignatius hauled himself to his feet. ‘Of course. Edwin, we’ll discuss this further and ask the Lord for guidance. Alys, I bid you good day. Come, Aelfrith, and we’ll stop at the church to collect the oil.’ He continued as they went out. ‘We can pray for your mother on the way. Take comfort that …’

  Alys shut the door behind them and came to sit close to him again. She always carried with her a fragrance of flowers, even at this time of year.

  ‘I was worried about you out there,’ she said.

  He shrugged. ‘It wasn’t pleasant, but it’s fine. I’ve known these people all my life.’

  ‘But couldn’t you see how angry they were?’

  ‘Of course they were, but not with me. It was about the bread.’

  ‘I’m not so sure.’

  He was surprised. ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘The way they were shouting at you and pushing you. That came after the announcement about the bread, but it started earlier, when they were talking about moving the fair. Why didn’t you say something?’

  ‘There would have been no point. The charter is clear.’

  ‘Yes, but they didn’t know that. What they saw was you not standing up for them, as though you couldn’t be bothered, as though you sided with the bailiff. That’s what made them angry.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘It’s not what you did, it’s what’s they believe you did. That’s what they’ll remember.’

  ‘How do you know so much about it when you haven’t known them long?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can just see it, that’s all. Can’t you? Or perhaps it’s because I’ve spent my whole life working in a shop – you get to know about people. I could always tell who was going to buy and who wasn’t, before they even opened their mouths.’ There was a pause before she spoke again. ‘So, that young man. Aelfrith.’

  Edwin was taken aback by the abrupt change of subject. ‘What about him?’

  ‘Tell me about him.’

  ‘He has a farm about three miles away. Father Ignatius will earn his dinner by the time he’s been out there and back on these roads.’

  ‘No, I mean tell me about him. Is he married?’

  ‘No, he isn’t, and – but you’re married to me!’

  She laughed. ‘Oh, Edwin, of course I am. And I love you. I wasn’t asking on my own behalf.’ She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. ‘So do carry on. I’ll tell you why later.’

  ‘All right. No, he’s not married, and not likely to be while his mother is still alive. She absolutely rules the place, I don’t know how he puts up with it, and there’s no girl willing to risk being her daughter-in-law for years on end.’

  ‘But she’s ill?’

  ‘Ha. She’s been convinced she’s dying for years now. She sends for Father Ignatius at least twice a month to give her the last rites, and he, bless him, goes along with it. She never comes here – he has to walk out to their farm every time. Then he comes back, she doesn’t die, and it all starts again.’

  ‘And let me guess – every time he goes, there’s a queue of girls waiting to hear the news when he gets back?’

  ‘Now you come to put it like that, yes, although I hadn’t thought of it before. Now tell me why you want to know.’

  ‘No particular reason. I just wonder who might be put at the front of the queue.’


  Edwin had no idea what she was talking about, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. ‘Anyway, we shouldn’t be sat here chattering in the middle of the day. I’d better get up to the castle.’

  ‘And I need to go and collect the flour from the mill.’ She made a face. ‘Then I’d better make some dough and get it baked in the village oven while I still can.’

  He hastened to reassure her. ‘If it comes to it, we’ll be able to pay the fees. I earn more even than my father did. And we’ve got those coins as well, remember.’

  ‘I know. But others won’t. Anyway, next time you happen to know that Aelfrith is coming into the village, why don’t you ask him to eat with us here?’

  ‘Yes, of course, if you like.’ Confused again by her insistence about the man, and with a tiny finger of suspicion poking into the corner of his mind, he went out.

  The wind was picking up as he reached the castle, hitting him with particular force as it funnelled through the inner gatehouse. The men were at their dinner, minus Sir Roger, and Edwin wondered if he dared have a word with the knight about the situation when he returned.

  Ivo was sitting by himself at one end of the table, and Edwin hesitated on his way to the keep. Perhaps he should have a quiet word here, while he could, away from the villagers and their rising tempers. It wasn’t a conversation he could look forward to, but Alys’s words and the priest’s had convinced him that he should at least try. He took a seat on the bench next to the bailiff.