“She did?” Adelia had heard nothing from Emma and Roetger since their departure for Wells; now here they were—Emma, at any rate—with a case, a writ, and a lawyer. “Not a trial by battle?”
“Mistress.” Dickon was pained. “That’s Dark Ages, that is. I don’t take on trials by battle, too chancy. This is a writ.”
A stripling with a clerk’s cap flapping about his ears was tugging at Master Dickon’s sleeve. “They’re a-coming, master.”
“Oops, oops. Better hurry. Judges are coming in.”
At a smart pace, they were made to follow the stripling, Adelia wondering if the boy’s mother knew her child was a lawyer’s clerk.
The case of Lord Philip of Wolvercote versus the dowager Lady Wolvercote, being of considerable local interest, had attracted nearly as large a crowd as a trial by battle; an usher had to clear the way through to what, in its way, was another arena. A scalloped awning sheltered the high dais of the judges at that moment taking their seats. On the grass before them, several yards apart but facing each other, had been set two ornamented chairs. Pippy, having bowed to the judges, was in one, his short legs dangling. In the other sat his grandmother.
A hand grasped Adelia’s arm. “I didn’t want to tell you until it was decided; it was to be a nice surprise if we won. And it’s been such a rush. But I’m so glad you’re here.” Emma’s eyes never left her son. “Look at him, he’s behaving beautifully. Isn’t he sweet?”
He was. But if this was a battle of sorts, the child looking happily around was outclassed by the woman opposite him; the dowager had all the dignity. With her pale, immobile face set round by its black wimple, she might have been a statue of contrasting marble. She also had more lawyers standing beside her, men who looked like lawyers in contrast to Master Dickon, now taking his place beside Pippy.
A voice spoke from the dais in the flat, thin timber of age that nevertheless traveled to the spectators and beyond. “Sheriff, has Philip of Wolvercote given you security for prosecuting his claim?”
“That’s Richard De Luci,” Emma breathed. “The Chief Justiciar himself. Oh, dear, this is so weighty. Should I be putting Pippy through it?”
The sheriff of Somerset, a florid, harassed-looking man in robes as scalloped as the awning over his separate bench, stood up. “He has, my lord.”
“And have you summoned by good summoners twelve free and lawful men from the neighborhood of Wolvercote Manor ready to declare on oath whether Lord Ralph of Wolvercote, father of the aforesaid Philip, was seized of his fee of the aforesaid manor on the day he died?”
“I have, my lord.” The sheriff waved toward a box nearby into which twelve men had been crammed like milk churns into a cart.
“Who speaks for them?”
One of the men extricated himself sufficiently to stand up. “I do, my lord. Richard de Mayne, knight, holding twelve virgates in the parish of Martlake. My land marches with Wolvercote’s on the north.”
“Have you and the others viewed the manor in this case?” The Chief Justiciar of England, like his voice, was thin. His head, which resembled a snake’s, moved slowly in the direction of his questions, giving the impression that it would strike at a lie like an adder at a frog.
“We have, my lord, and of our own knowledge we can say that Lord Wolvercote was receiving the rents and services. He died elsewhere, but we are in accord that he owned the manor at the time and that after his death his mother took possession of it, having previously occupied a dower house in the parish of Shepton.”
“That’s one answered,” Emma said. At Adelia’s look, she explained. “Two questions. Morte d’Ancestor asks just two questions. … I can’t stand this, I swear I’m going to faint.”
Suddenly a new voice, a contralto, floated across the field, as unimpassioned as De Luci’s but considerably more beautiful. “My son was unlawfully hanged for treason by the king you serve.”
The Justiciar’s head turned by inches toward the dowager’s chair. “My understanding is that your son was hanged for murder, madam, not treason. However, that matter is not in question here. Nor, as a woman, are you permitted to speak in this court. Address your remarks through your counselor.”
The intervention had caused a flurry among the lawyers surrounding the dowager’s chair, the eldest among them speaking urgently into her ear. He put a warning hand on her shoulder, but, with one white finger, the dowager flicked it away.
The Chief Justiciar hadn’t finished. “Master Thomas, your client has been summoned three times to attend before us, and only now has she appeared.”
“I do not recognize the authority of this court.” Again, the dowager’s voice rang out.
This time Master Thomas’s hand clamped on the woman’s shoulder and would not be removed. “My lord, my client begs your mercy. The procedure is new to her, as indeed it is to us all. Her age confuses her.”
There was a murmur of sympathy from the crowd; liked or not, the dowager was a woman of Somerset, a county that regarded even the adjoining Devonshire as a foreign land. “What you at?” somebody cried out, “comin’ down from Lunnon to bully that poor old soul.”
De Luci ignored the shout. “And now, Sir Richard …”
“Dear God, here it comes.” Emma’s grip on Adelia’s arm became painful. “The second question.”
“… can you attest that the plaintiff is the heir to Lord Ralph of Wolvercote?”
There was a shifting among the jurors in the box.
The dowager’s lawyer stepped forward. “My lord, my client rejects that he is. She will swear on oath that there was never a marriage between the plaintiff’s mother and her son and that accordingly, the plaintiff is an impostor or a bastard or both.”
The crowd turned its attention to the little boy in the chair. Impervious to what was going on, he was beginning to be bored and had taken a piece of string from his sleeve and was playing cat’s cradle with it.
Emma’s and Adelia’s eyes met, agonized.
The dowager was right in essence; if a bride had to give consent, as according to the law she must, then Emma had never been married.
Abducted by Wolvercote, who wanted her fortune, from the Oxfordshire convent where she was being educated, her abductor’s hand had been placed over her mouth as she struggled to say “No” to the priest bribed to pronounce them married.
In effect, Pippy was the illegitimate child of rape.
Here was Master Dickon’s turn, and he stepped forward. He was enjoying the moment, and it was noticeable to Adelia that he was also softening his London speech. “My lord, we have produced a witness before the jury and a sworn statement from an unimpeachable source that there was indeed a marriage and that my client was subsequently born nine months later.”
“Has such a witness and such a statement been produced?” De Luci asked the jury.
Sir Richard was wriggling. “Well, they have, my lord, but we’d be glad to hear them again, to see what you think.”
“It is not what I think, it is what must be proved to you. However, we will allow a repetition.”
Master Dickon’s stripling dashed into the crowd and came back lugging a little old man in the long tunic of a priest.
Dickon introduced him to the judges. “This is Father Simeon, my lord, a priest of Oxford who will attest that he conducted a ceremony of marriage between the late Lord Wolvercote and Emma, daughter to Master Bloat, a vintner of Abingdon.”
“Mother of God, I can’t bear to look at him,” Emma whispered. “He was there; he said the words.” The memory made her retch.
In Wolvercote’s effort to secure Emma’s fortune for himself, Father Simeon had been just what he wanted, one of the Church’s derelicts who, having lost any cure or parish of his own, begged his bread at the tables of the charitable, and gave his blessing to anybody who’d buy it with a pot of ale. His tunic was filthy, his tonsure almost obscured by stubble, and he shook, with nerves or old age or drink, possibly all three.
Where had
Master Dickon managed to find him? Adelia wondered. And was it worthwhile? The man was hardly a credible witness.
However, Father Simeon was producing a document as tattered as himself, proving that in the distant past he had been properly ordained.
“He’ll have to maintain that the marriage was legal,” Adelia reassured Emma, “or he’ll admit that he presided over an unlawful ceremony.”
“But will they take his word? Will they want papers? I don’t remember any certificate—I doubt that old pig can even write.”
Since some of the jury couldn’t read, the proof of Father Simeon’s priesthood had to be read out to them and then passed up to the judge.
The crowd listened with intent; nearly as good as trial by battle, this was.
At a nod from De Luci, Master Dickon began questioning his witness. On the feast of Saint Vintula in the year of Our Lord 1172 had Father Simeon solemnized a marriage between Ralph, Lord of Wolvercote, and Emma Bloat?
The priest’s shakes became more pronounced, and he was ordered to speak up. “Yes, yes,” he managed. “Yes, I did. Lord Wolvercote … yes, I remember perfectly, he asked me to marry them, and I did.”
“And was the marriage solemnized according to the law of the land?”
“Yes, it was. I’m sure it was, perfectly.”
Master Dickon nodded to the judge and handed over his witness to interrogation by the more formidable Master Thomas.
Was Emma Bloat’s father there to give his daughter away? If not, why not? Had all the solemnities been legally performed? Had a declaration been posted on the church door? Why had Lady Wolvercote not been informed of her son’s marriage?
“It was very snowy, you see,” Father Simeon pleaded. “I do remember that, very snowy. People couldn’t get through the drifts, I myself … Yes, I’m sure I put a notice on the door, but the snow, yes, I’m sure I did … but the snow, you see.”
“Were there witnesses?” demanded Master Thomas—he used the Latin: testes adfuerunt.
Father Simeon was floored. “What?” he asked.
Adelia groaned.
With a graceful outstretching of his arms, Master Thomas appealed to the judge. “Is this the man we are supposed to believe?”
De Luci brought his head round to the jury. “Do you believe him?”
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.
They saw the quiver in the sky, like a heat haze over Wolvercote Manor, long before they reached it. By the time they had urged their horses into a canter and gained the gates, the quiver had been replaced by black smoke.