Ariana Franklin - Grave Goods aka Relics of the Dead

Sir Richard consulted with his fellows. “Well, he’s a bit… well, my lord, his memory…”

Again Master Dickon stepped forward, waving a document. “My lord, if I might assist the court. I have here an affidavit from the abbess of Godstow in the county of Oxfordshire, a lady renowned for her piety and probity. She is elderly, my lord, though still keen in her wits, and could not make the journey to this court, for which she apologizes. Her affidavit has already been read to the jury, but if your lordship would care to peruse it.”

His lordship did. The document was passed up to him.

“Good God,” Adelia whispered. “Mother Edyve.” It was from her convent that Emma had been abducted. “How? Who?” Oxfordshire was a long way away; there hadn’t been time…

“The king,” Emma told her. “I thought you knew. The moment he received your report, he sent messengers galloping to search out that swine of a priest along with others to secure Mother Edyve’s affidavit. Apparently, Master Dickon says, Henry saw the chance of using this Morte d’Ancestor writ in my case. It’s his pride and joy; he and Lord De Luci spent sleepless nights shaping it, according to Master Dickon.”

So that was why Henry Plantagenet had winked at his clerk. A teasing mood. He’d known all along. Kept his precious writ up his sleeve…

“I’ll kill him,” Adelia said.

The Justiciar of England was reading. “Mother Edyve, abbess of Godstow, attests here that shortly after the supposed marriage, both bride and groom attended Christmas festivities at her abbey and that Lord Wolvercote in her hearing addressed the plaintiff’s mother as ’wife.’”

All strictly true as far as it went, but did it go far enough?

Adelia was gripping Emma’s arm as hard as Emma grasped hers.

De Luci raised his reptilian head. “I have to declare an interest in this matter. The abbess of Godstow is known to me.”

“A good woman, my lord?” Sir Richard asked.

“A very good woman.”

“Good enough for us, then.” Sir Richard looked at the nodding heads around him. “My lord, we are prepared to declare that the late Lord Wolvercote was legally married to the plaintiff’s mother and that Philip of Wolvercote is the legal issue of said marriage and, therefore, heir to the Wolvercote lands and appurtenances.”

Master Dickon uttered an unlawyerlike whoop. Adelia and Emma collapsed on each other. The new Lord Wolvercote looked up from his cat’s cradle, surprised by the noise. Dowager Wolvercote remained in her chair. Angrily, Master Thomas flung his cap on the ground, picked it up, put it back on, and began talking urgently to his client, who might have been deaf, a stone effigy.

“The writ’s two questions having been answered to the satisfaction of this jury,” De Luci went on, “this court grants immediate seisin of Wolvercote Manor to the plaintiff.” He rose.

The lovely contralto belled out across the field. “I recognize neither this court nor its judgment. You, De Luci, are a Plantagenet puppet.”

Over the crowd’s gasp, Master Thomas began pleading for his client to be given time to remove her chattels from the disputed manor.

But the Lord Chief Justiciar of England had gone.

Master Dickon came struggling through the press to Emma and Adelia. Emma turned and kissed him on both cheeks. Roetger came hauling himself to her; she kissed him, too, before running onto the field to pick up her son and hold him high. “We’ve won, Pippy Oh, you were so good.”

Master Dickon wiped the sweat off his brow. “Nasty moment or two there,” he said, “but the dowager saying she didn’t recognize the court did it for us. I knew we was home; judges don’t like that.”

“Is that it?” Adelia asked him. “Emma’s won? She can move into the manor?”

“Any time she likes,” the young man told her. “Better take bailiffs with her, of course. But no, that ain’t it. The dowager will appeal, for sure, contesting the marriage and the lad’s legitimacy. All to be seen to later. More work for us.” Master Dickon rubbed his hands in anticipation of the fees he’d earn.

“Then I don’t understand.”

“Don’t you, mistress?” Dickon flung out an arm in the direction of the field from which people were departing and where only the dowager sat, staring over the heads of her clustering lawyers as if they were midges. “No blood on that grass, is there? Lady ’Em didn’t have to use force to get her son’s rights, nor didn’t the dowager use force to defend what she thinks is hers. No battling. No wounds. Just a writ from the king. A temporary measure so’s the apparent heir can be in possession of his property while the arguments over it can be sorted out legally. To keep the peace, d’you see?”

“I see.”

“Barons don’t like it, of course-takes authority away from their courts and makes a common law available to everybody, but they ain’t prepared to go to war over it, Lord be thanked. Oooh, he’s a cunning old lawmaker is Henry.”

“Yes,” Adelia said, and then paused. “Master Dickon, could you provide me with pen and ink? I must write a letter to the king.”

ON THEIR WAY to view Pippy’s new property, Emma’s pure soprano soared into the blue sky accompanied by birdsong, her bard’s harp, her son’s tremolo, Roetger’s basso profundo, and the trot of their horses’ hooves.

“Come lasses and lads, take leave of your dads, and away to the maypole hie.”

Adelia swayed in her saddle to the tune while Millie, behind her, smiled at a jollity she couldn’t hear.

Emma broke off to lean over and touch her lover’s knee. “I didn’t consent to him, dearest, ever.”

Roetger took her hand and kissed it. “I know you did not, brave girl.”

“There ev’ry he has got him a she, and the minstrel’s standing by…

Emma broke off again. “So really, we have gained by an old priest’s lie.”

“That worries me not at all,” Roetger told her.

“God’s justice to womankind,” Adelia said.

“For Willy shall dance with Jane, and Stephen has got his Joan…”

And Rowley has got his Adelia, Adelia thought happily. Except that it doesn’t scan.

“To trip it, trip it, trip it, trip it, to trip it up and down.”

Coming toward them was a procession. Seeing it, Rhys laid his hand flat on the harp’s strings to quiet them. Everybody fell silent and pulled to the side of the road to let it go past as if it were a funeral.

The dowager sat easily and upright on a splendid bay, her eyes on the road ahead. Behind her came draft horses pulling two great carts piled with furniture, out of which stuck the scarlet and silver battle flags of Wolvercote. Behind those were straggled servants, some on horses, some on mules, some walking, driving cows and geese before them, all burdened with belongings, like refugees.

Which, Adelia supposed, they were. And she was sorry for all of them except the murderess in front.

Emma, however, rode out to meet her mother-in-law. “You could have stayed longer,” she said, quietly. “Where are you going?”

She might have been a piece of detritus dropped on the road. The dowager’s eyes didn’t flicker; her horse walked round the obstruction and continued on its way.

“Oh, dear,” Emma said, looking after it.

Rhys struck up again. “No ‘Oh, dear’ about it,” he said. “Sing again, lady.”

“Some walked and some did run, some loitered on the way. And bound themselves by kisses twelve, to meet next holiday.”

Adelia imagined the voices traveling joyously through the warm air to reach the ears of the woman who had just passed, and what agony they would cause her. Not enough recompense for six bodies that had once lain in a forest grave and were now buried decently in the Wells churchyard. But some.