Epic Historial Collection (217 page)

As she had feared, she felt strange making love to him. The more she tried to put Ralph out of her mind, the more he intruded. Fortunately, Wulfric never noticed her mood. He made love to her with such enthusiasm and joy that it almost swamped her guilty conscience—but not quite.

And she had the consolation of knowing that he would inherit his family's lands after all. That made up for everything. She could not tell him this, of course, for then she would have needed to explain what had changed Ralph's mind. She had told him about her conversations with Philemon, Caris, and Merthin, and had given him a partial version of her encounter with Ralph, saying only that he had promised to reconsider. So Wulfric was hopeful, rather than triumphant.

“Come to the manor house, right away, both of you,” Nathan said, putting his wet head around the door.

Gwenda said: “What does the Lord Ralph want?”

“Will you refuse to go if the proposed topic of discussion fails to interest you?” Nathan said sarcastically. “Don't ask stupid questions, just come.”

She put a blanket over her head to walk to the big house. She still did not have a cloak. Wulfric had money, from the sale of his crops, and could have bought her a cloak, but he was saving for the heriot.

They hurried through the rain to the manor house. It was a small version of a nobleman's castle, having a great hall with a long dining table, plus a small upper story, called the solar, for the lord's private chamber. Now it bore the signs of a house occupied by men without wives: the walls were bare of tapestries, the straw on the floor gave up a pungent smell, the dogs snarled at the newcomers, and a mouse nibbled a crust on the sideboard.

Ralph sat at the head of the table. On his right was Alan, who gave Gwenda a smirk she did her best to ignore. A minute later, Nathan came in. Behind him followed fat, sly Perkin, rubbing his hands and bowing obsequiously, his hair so oily it looked like a leather skullcap. With Perkin was his new son-in-law, Billy Howard. Billy shot a triumphant glance at Wulfric: I've got your girl, he was thinking, and now I'm going to get your land. He had a shock coming.

Nathan sat on Ralph's left. The rest of them remained standing.

Gwenda had been looking forward to this moment. It was the reward for her sacrifice. She eagerly anticipated the expression on Wulfric's face when he learned that he had inherited after all. He would be overjoyed—and she would, too. Their future would be secure, or at least as secure as was possible in a world of unpredictable weather and oscillating grain prices.

Ralph said: “Three weeks ago, I said that Wulfric, son of Samuel, could not inherit his father's land because he's too young.” He spoke slowly and ponderously. He loves this, Gwenda thought: sitting at the head of the table, pronouncing judgment, everyone hanging on his words. “Wulfric has been working the land since then, while I have considered who should succeed old Samuel.” He paused, then said: “But I've come to doubt my rejection of Wulfric.”

Perkin started. He had been confident of success, and this shocked him.

Billy Howard said: “What's this? I thought Nate—” Then Perkin nudged him, and he shut up.

Gwenda could not restrain a smile of triumph.

Ralph said: “Despite his youth, Wulfric has shown himself capable.”

Perkin glared at Nathan. Gwenda guessed that Nathan had promised the land to Perkin. Perhaps the bribe had already been paid.

Nathan was just as shocked as Perkin. He stared openmouthed at Ralph for a moment, turned to Perkin with a baffled expression, then looked suspiciously at Gwenda.

Ralph added: “In this he has been well supported by Gwenda, whose strength and loyalty have impressed me.”

Nathan stared at her speculatively. She could tell what he was thinking. He realized she had intervened, and he was wondering how she had managed to change Ralph's mind. He might even be guessing the truth. She did not care if he did, so long as Wulfric remained ignorant.

Suddenly Nathan seemed to make a decision. He stood up and leaned his twisted torso across the table. He spoke to Ralph quietly. Gwenda could not hear what he said.

“Really?” Ralph said in a normal voice. “How much?”

Nathan turned to Perkin and murmured something to him.

Gwenda said: “Wait a minute! What's all this whispering?”

Perkin looked angry, but said reluctantly: “Yes, all right.”

“All right to what?” Gwenda said fearfully.

“Double?” said Nathan.

Perkin nodded.

Gwenda had a feeling of dread.

Nathan said aloud: “Perkin offers to pay double the normal heriot, which would be five pounds.”

Ralph said: “That makes a difference.”

Gwenda cried: “No!”

Wulfric spoke for the first time. “The heriot is laid down by custom, recorded in the manor rolls,” he said in his slow, boy-man voice. “It's not for negotiation.”

Nathan said quickly: “Heriots can change, though. They're not in the Domesday Book.”

Ralph said: “Are you two lawyers? If not, shut up. The heriot is two pounds and ten shillings. Any other money that changes hands is none of your business.”

Gwenda realized with horror that Ralph was on the point of reneging on their deal. She spoke in a low, accusing voice, slow but clear. “You made me a promise.”

“Why would I do something like that?” Ralph said.

It was the one question she could not answer. “Because I pleaded with you,” she replied feebly.

“And I said I would think again. But I made no promise.”

She was powerless to make him keep his word. She wanted to kill him. “Yes, you did!” she said.

“Lords don't bargain with peasants.”

She stared at him, lost for words. It had all been for nothing: the long walk to Kingsbridge, the humiliation of appearing naked in front of him and Alan, the shameful act she had performed on Ralph's bed. She had betrayed Wulfric, and he still would not inherit. She pointed a finger at Ralph and said bitterly: “God damn you to hell, Ralph Fitzgerald.”

He went pale. The curse of a genuinely wronged woman was known to be powerful. “Watch what you say,” he replied. “We have a punishment for a witch who casts spells.”

Gwenda drew back. No woman could take such a threat lightly. The accusation of witchcraft was easy to make and hard to refute. Still she could not resist saying: “Those who escape justice in this life will find it in the next.”

Ralph ignored that and turned to Perkin. “Where is the money?”

Perkin had not got rich by telling people where he kept his cash. “I'll fetch it right away, lord,” he said.

Wulfric said: “Come on, Gwenda. There's no mercy for us here.”

Gwenda fought back tears. Anger had been replaced by grief. They had lost the battle, after all they had done. She turned away, head lowered to hide her emotions.

Perkin said: “Wait, Wulfric. You need employment—and I need help. Work for me. I'll pay you a penny a day.”

Wulfric flushed with the shame of being offered a job as a laborer on lands his family had owned.

Perkin added: “Gwenda, too. You're both young and willing.”

He did not intend to be malicious, Gwenda saw. He was single-minded in the pursuit of his own interests, and he was eager to hire two strong young laborers to help him farm his amalgamated holding. He did not care, or perhaps did not even know, that for Wulfric this was the final humiliation.

Perkin said: “That's a shilling a week between you. You'll have plenty.”

Wulfric looked bitter. “Work for a wage, on lands that my family has owned for decades?” he said. “Never.” He turned away and left the house.

Gwenda followed, thinking: What are we going to do now?

29

W
estminster Hall was huge, bigger than the inside of some cathedrals.

It was dauntingly long and wide, and its distant ceiling was supported by a double row of tall pillars. It was the most important room in the Palace of Westminster.

Earl Roland was perfectly at home here, Godwyn thought resentfully. The earl and his son William swaggered about in their fashionable clothes, with one leg of their hose red and the other black. Every earl knew all the others, and most of the barons too, and they clapped their friends on the shoulders, mocked each other facetiously, and hooted with laughter at their own humor. Godwyn wanted to remind them that the courts held in this room had the power to sentence any one of them to death, even if they were the nobility.

He and his entourage were quiet, speaking only to one another, and then in hushed tones. This was not out of reverence, he had to admit, but nervousness. Godwyn, Edmund, and Caris were ill at ease here. None of them had been to London before. The only person they knew was Buonaventura Caroli, and he was out of town. They did not know their way around, their clothes looked old-fashioned, and the money they had brought—which they had thought would be plenty—was running out.

Edmund was not cowed by anything, and Caris seemed distracted—as if she had something more important on her mind, though it hardly seemed possible—but Godwyn was tormented by anxiety. He was a newly elected prior, challenging one of the greatest noblemen in the land. The issue was the future of the town. Without the bridge, Kingsbridge would die. The priory, currently the beating heart of one of England's great cities, would dwindle to a lonely outpost in a small village, where a few monks did their devotions in the echoing emptiness of a crumbling cathedral. Godwyn had not fought to be prior only to see his prize turn to dust.

With so much at stake, he wanted to be in control of events, confident that he was cleverer than almost everyone else, as he was in Kingsbridge. But here he felt the opposite, and the insecurity drove him to distraction.

His consolation was Gregory Longfellow. A friend of Godwyn's from university days, Gregory had a devious mind well suited to the law. The royal court was familiar to him. Aggressive and cocksure, he had guided Godwyn through the legal maze. He had presented the priory's petition to Parliament, as he had presented many petitions before. It was not debated by Parliament, of course, but passed to the king's council, which was overseen by the chancellor. The chancellor's team of lawyers—all of them friends or acquaintances of Gregory's—might have referred the matter to the king's bench, the court that dealt with disputes in which the king had an interest; but, again as Gregory had foreseen, they had decided this was too petty to bother the king with, and had instead sent the case to the common bench, or court of common pleas.

All this had taken a full six weeks. It was late November, and the weather was getting colder. The building season was nearly over.

Today at last they stood before Sir Wilbert Wheatfield, an experienced judge who was said to be liked by the king. Sir Wilbert was the younger son of a northern baron. His elder brother had inherited the title and the estate, and Wilbert had trained as a priest, studied law, come to London, and found favor at the royal court. His inclination would be to side with an earl against a monk, Gregory warned; but he would put the king's interests ahead of all else.

The judge sat on a raised bench against the east wall of the palace, between windows that looked out onto the Green Yard and the River Thames. In front of him were two clerks at a long table. There were no seats for the litigants.

“Sir, the earl of Shiring has sent armed men to blockade the quarry owned by Kingsbridge Priory,” Gregory said as soon as Sir Wilbert looked at him. His voice quivered with simulated indignation. “The quarry, which is within the earldom, was granted to the priory by King Henry I some two hundred years ago. A copy of the charter has been lodged with the court.”

Sir Wilbert had a pink face and white hair, and looked handsome until he spoke, when he showed rotten teeth. “I have the charter before me,” he said.

Earl Roland spoke without waiting to be invited. “The monks were given the quarry so that they could build their cathedral,” he said, speaking in a bored-sounding drawl.

Gregory said quickly: “But the charter does not restrict their use of it to any one purpose.”

“Now they want to build a bridge,” Roland said.

“To replace the bridge that collapsed at Whitsun—a bridge that itself was built, many hundreds of years ago, with timber that was a gift of the king!” Gregory spoke as if he was outraged by the earl's every word.

“They don't need permission to rebuild a preexisting bridge,” Sir Wilbert said briskly. “And the charter does say that the king wishes to encourage the building of the cathedral, but it does not say they have to relinquish their rights when the church is finished, nor that they are forbidden to use the stone for any other purpose.”

Godwyn was heartened. The judge seemed to have seen the priory's side of the argument immediately.

Gregory made a spreading gesture with his hands, palms up, as if the judge had said something blindingly obvious. “And, indeed, sir, that has been the understanding of priors of Kingsbridge and earls of Shiring for three centuries.”