Michael Jecks - No Law in the Land

‘Edith?’ Simon put a hand out to her and smiled. ‘Are you all right now?’

She gave a weak smile in return, but the anxiety was still in her eyes. ‘That man, I saw him, Father. He was one from the castle, wasn’t he? I remember him.’

‘You’ll never have to worry about him again,’ Simon rasped, and was about to return to the church, but her hand caught him and held him back.

‘ No ! Please, Father, as you love me, don’t do it!’

‘What? After what he and his friends were going to do to you?’

‘They did nothing to me, though. Not yet. But if you go in there and kill him, they’ll have changed you, Father. I couldn’t bear that. Please, don’t go in.’

Simon was about to draw away, but Baldwin was still at his side, and the knight sighed. ‘Simon, I know that this may seem foolish, but I agree with her. There are good reasons for avenging your child, I know, and you will probably think me the worst of advisers, but the fact is, it will not help you to kill this man. Nor will it make the experience any better for your daughter.’

‘Father, if you kill him, it will make me feel responsible for his death, and I don’t want that. I saw you fight once before, you remember? Against Wattere. And yet if he had not tried to rescue me, I might not be here now.’

‘He tried to rescue you?’ Simon said.

‘He came to my room and gave me a knife, and then he created the fire to distract the others so that I could try to get free. It was the merest bad luck that Osbert came to find me and all but cut poor Wattere in half when he found him there.’

‘This is avenging others too, Edith,’ Simon said.

‘No, Father. It isn’t. And I wouldn’t have his blood on my conscience. Not now, of all times.’

She rested a hand on her belly as she spoke, and as he glanced at her uncomprehendingly, she gave him a weak smile.

‘Dear God, child! My little girl … You mean you’re …’

‘With child, yes.’

Simon grinned, then gaped, and then in swift succession a frown, a slightly gormless smile, and a pale, fretful expression passed over his features. ‘You must need to sit, Edith. Please, come with me, and we’ll find a chamber that is comfortable. You must tell me all about it.’

‘Really, Father? I would have thought you knew enough, with two children.’

‘I didn’t … Dear Mother of God, this is marvellous! Wait until we see your mother,’ Simon said as he led her across the grounds towards Agnes’s house.

Sir Richard grunted to himself. ‘So, what of this fellow, then?’

‘Leave him a while,’ Baldwin said. ‘There is no hurry.’

Mark heard something, and shot a look inside the church. The priest was hurrying out. ‘Preposterous! He says you gave him the crucifix, Brother Mark. Did you say that he could have it?’

‘Of course not! I merely left it there.’ Mark could not add the words ‘by accident’.

Sir Richard squared his shoulders. ‘In that case, Father James, I think he has broken the terms of his sanctuary. I have the right to bring him out immediately.’

‘I would beg that you leave him,’ Father James insisted. ‘I will not have blood spilled in my church. It is unnecessary.’

‘You mean you don’t want to have the church reconsecrated?’ Sir Richard chuckled. ‘We’ll bring him outside, never you fear, Father.’

‘That was not my meaning, as well you must know,’ the priest said angrily. ‘In Christ’s name, I merely seek to save a soul.’

‘You wish to save him, you tell him to come out here and agree to abjure the realm,’ Mark said quickly. ‘There is no need to kill him. Let him abjure.’

Reluctantly the coroner agreed to the compromise, and Osbert came out with a shuffling gait, as though appreciating that this truly was his last opportunity.

Sir Richard stared at him. ‘I don’t suppose that this will have the slightest impact on your conduct, man, but you have agreed to exile. You will abjure the realm, taking the route I give you, carrying a cross to demonstrate your penitence, wearing only the meanest of hair shirt and simple robes, and you will go by the fastest route to the nearest port, which is …’ He hesitated and stared at Baldwin.

It was Roger who answered. ‘Send him to Plymouth or Dartmouth, Coroner. They’ll serve.’

‘Right, then. Dartmouth it is. You will go there across Dartmoor, from Oakhampton, straight down to the port, and when you get there you will do all in your power to find a ship to take you away from the king’s lands. All you own and possess is forfeit to the crown for your crimes. Do you accept these terms?’

‘Yes. All right,’ Osbert said.

‘Good. Because if you fail in any particular, you will be declared outlaw and can be hunted to death by any man. If you fail to do your utmost to obey my commands, I will set the wolf’s head upon you, man, and you will die. Personally I hope you do turn outlaw, so that I can hunt you down myself. You will not be permitted to abjure a second time.’

Second Saturday before the Feast of St Martin in Winter *

Near Crockern Tor

In the mistiness, Osbert winced as the rain sheeted into his face. In this weather, his thin shirt and coat appeared no more substantial than a single thickness of linen in the face of the onslaught that was being hurled at him. Without his hat, the rain was like fine gravel thrown in his face. The weight of the cross on his shoulder, the proof of his penitence and the protection of his body from any who might choose to attack, for it signified that he was defended by the Church, was a dull and constant ache. The edge stuck into his shoulder, rubbing it raw beneath his shirt and setting up a savage anguish that would not cease. He had never seen so massive a cross for an abjurer, and he felt sure that it was evidence of the coroner’s loathing of him. Sir Richard must have ordered it to be made so. If he could, Osbert would enjoy visiting some of this on Sir Richard in return. He hated to leave a debt unpaid.

For all the pain at his face and shoulders, it was his feet that hurt the most. They were shredded by stepping on rocks and furze. But there was no help for it. Abjurers were fortunate to be allowed to keep shirts and coats — but none could keep boots or hats. These essentials were taken away for the king. He must, Osbert reckoned, have an insatiable appetite for such clothing, since he took all from every abjurer.

He was near a vast lump of rock that stood resting on three others to form a roofed shelter, in which two ponies stood. They could attempt to dispute his right to take some rest there, but if they were to do so, they would learn quickly that a man in desperate need was not to be trifled with. And he had a large baulk of timber on his shoulder that could easily act as a weapon.

It was a good enough place, he felt, to sleep the night. There was nowhere to seek companionship on the moors here. The lands to the south where he must travel to find his way to the port would all be as open and foully rainswept as this, and another resting place would be hard to find.

He hunkered down, chewing a little of the dry bread that the vill had provided him. It was stale and full of cinders and burned grains, much like the peasant breads he had eaten as a child, and the crunchiness and the taste of charcoal were like a reminder of his youth. It was quite good to experience them. But when he got to France — damn the souls of the men here who’d sent him away — he would only eat white bread. And there, so it was said, the weather was always summer. It would be warmer than here in the miserable wastes of Dartmoor, anyway. But anywhere would be, he told himself, glancing about the landscape with a curl to his lips.