Michael Jecks - The Outlaws of Ennor

‘David, I … my wife is with that stranger.’

The reeve studied him carefully, then peered up towards the shore where Isok pointed. ‘She’s a good woman, Isok. You know that.’

‘Of course I know that. But she still wants to shame me in front of all.’

David set his head to one side. ‘You can’t blame her, man! You won’t give her a decent stab with your pork sword.’

‘I can’t ! I can’t do what a husband should,’ Isok mumbled. ‘I just can’t do it.’

‘But why, man?’ David asked with incredulity. This was a wonder to him. ‘I don’t know of any man who could stop himself from fondling and adoring her. She’s lovely, your wife. Why can’t you just-’

‘It doesn’t work,’ Isok told him. His shame was just that: his manhood failed him when he needed it. ‘I can’t.’

‘There are others who will want to try their luck, you know.’

‘I know. And she will want them to,’ Isok added bitterly.

‘But you can do nothing?’

‘No.’

‘The Prior has asked me whether there is any hope. You know that Tedia has requested that the Bishop’s court investigate you? She wants a man to hear her case and decide whether you should be divorced.’

‘I know that!’ Isok burst out. He wanted to grab David by his smart tunic and pound his face until his own mother wouldn’t recognise him. ‘But what,’ he asked, as his anger subsided and his self-pity rose to envelop him once more, ‘would you have me do? I can’t splint it! All I can do is to kill any man who attempts to get close to her, and that’s no good to me or to her.’

He felt as though his heart would break. There was no time during their marriage that he hadn’t loved her. His lack of stiffness was not from lack of love. He adored her. It was merely that he couldn’t do anything about it. It was a curse which had been laid upon him. Surely there was no other explanation.

‘You could try that,’ David said loftily. ‘But if I learned you had committed murder, I would have to catch you.’

‘Perhaps I have already,’ Isok said. ‘I know I have in my heart.’

‘What do you mean?’ David asked suspiciously. A terrible thought sprang into his mind. ‘Have you killed a man? Have you? ’

‘If I had, it would be because he had tried to cuckold me.’

‘Isok, how could a man cuckold you? You have your woman to have and hold, but you refuse her. It’s no secret, man! She has let it be known, and so have you! If Tedia seeks the attention and companionship of another man, it’s not her fault.’

‘You mean it is mine?’

‘Can’t you … think lewd thoughts, or imagine another woman you’d prefer, or …’ David was at a loss. ‘Just think of whatever might work for you.’

‘I can’t,’ Isok said despairingly. ‘I’ve tried, God knows.’

‘Then you must grow used to being divorced and the butt of jokes,’ David said uncompromisingly.

The patch of beach to which Thomas brought Simon was broad and clean, curving gently from rocks on the right-hand side to a low sandy promontory on the left. There were maybe fifteen men waiting there when Simon and Thomas arrived. Fifteen peasant men and a few women, all inhabitants of Ennor, and all thus serfs to Ranulph, standing by a man’s body which had been dragged down from the grassy dune where it had lain.

Simon groaned. It was ever the way. As soon as a body was found, people would go and gawp at the damned thing, generally trampling any bits and pieces which might point to the killer. There could be marks in the sand which could identify the man responsible, little indications which only a man who had learned how to investigate could see. Baldwin had taught him that; Baldwin believed that even when a man was dead, there were often clues as to who might have killed him and why left about his corpse, if only one took the time to search for them.

Baldwin was gone, though, he thought dully. He must grow used to this emptiness where his friend had once been. Wrapped up in memories of the past, he turned from the corpse and audience, and stared out to sea.

‘Why have you brought me here?’ he asked.

Thomas sniffed with amusement. ‘You are a stranger. Maybe that means you can assist with the investigation into this man’s death.’

‘You mean, I may have seen him here and killed him, or know of someone else doing the same?’ Simon scoffed. ‘It’s ridiculous! I know nothing about this man.’

There was a beach on the next island, and he watched some people walking about it. Somehow the feeling of loss grew more acute as he stood there observing them, until he was brought back to the present by a hoarse bellow.

‘Set it here!’

Thomas was pointing imperiously at a patch of level sand, and as Simon watched, three bitter-looking men arrived, heavily laden. One was carrying a large chair, a second two trestles, and the third a table-top. Under Thomas’s instructions these three set about creating a desk area for the Sergeant. They put the table-top over the trestles, then placed the chair behind it. Ignoring their sulky mien, Thomas sat in the chair. It promptly sank into the sand, back legs deeper than the front, tilting madly.

‘Get me up!’ he shrieked, his arms waving, legs in the air.

Simon grinned, despite himself; it took an effort of will not to laugh aloud. Looking at the men watching, though, his smile soon faded and died. Not a man present saw any humour in Thomas’s predicament. The jurors stood grim and stolid as their Sergeant lost all dignity and screamed in rage. This showed Simon just how deeply Thomas was detested by the islanders among whom he lived.

Two men-at-arms from the castle eventually walked forward, one hauling Thomas up while the other shifted the chair. Soon Thomas was on his feet again, but this time he left the chair and stood at the table, red-faced, setting out parchment, reeds and ink. He had just finished when there was a sudden hush.

‘Where are the jurors, then?’

Simon glanced up to see a large, bluff man in a clean white tunic approach. He moved with a surprising speed for his bulk, while the skinnier figure of another man scurried in his wake like a small boat bobbing behind a cog under full sail. Although Simon didn’t know it, this last fellow was Walerand.

Interestingly, though, Simon sensed that the people present did not dislike this newcomer so much as Thomas. They were still, and there were signs that they deferred to him, but Simon gained the impression that there was respect for this man, rather than the hatred they felt for Thomas.

‘Sir, they are all here and ready,’ Thomas said obsequiously, and Simon correctly guessed that the man in white was the Lord of the Manor.

‘Good. Stand over there, Walerand. Got your inks ready, Sergeant?’

Thomas nodded as he prepared a roll of parchment and knelt not far from the body, his reed dipped in a little flask.

‘Right, then, as Coroner of this benighted isle, I call on you all to give us your names. Who was First Finder?’

‘I was.’

‘Record that, Thomas. The finder was Walerand. To whom did you speak?’

‘Hamadus and Oderic.’

‘Fine!’

Simon watched sombrely as Ranulph declared the amercements, the sums each must pay to guarantee their appearance in court when the case was discussed. Ranulph seemed very happy with the fact of the men called, and the amercements were quite high, to the bailiff’s mind.

‘Let’s look at the poor bugger’s body, then,’ Ranulph declared. ‘Come on, men, clear a way for me. Right — you and you. Strip him.’

Walerand and another man stepped forward and began removing the clothes from the corpse. Simon disliked the pulling about of bodies, but at least it was a distraction. He felt as though he might go mad if he were to dwell on Baldwin’s death any longer.