journey and its purpose, it was difficult to tell.
Gyltha had been right about Wells; the noise of its hubbub could be heard a mile off.
The traveling assize was a visitation to be dreaded, a new idea of King Henry II’s, so everyone had been told, to introduce in the goodness of time a common law throughout the land rather than the piecemeal and frequently prejudiced judgments by the local courts of sheriff, baron, and lords of the manor, which, while the assize was in situ, were as good as overridden.
Like the mills of God it ground slowly-it had been in Wells more than two weeks with no sign of finishing yet-and it ground extremely small, listening to appeals, plaints, and pleas; inquiring into the state of the county and the business of practically everybody in it; hearing accusations of murder, rape, theft, and robbery; even making sure that the smallest bakery and alehouse were giving fair and uniform measure.
It was certainly new to Somerset, which had dreaded it. The justices, great and awe-ful lords of thousands of acres, with their own castles in both England and Normandy, had to be accommodated, not to mention their servants and the hundreds of clerks necessary for their work. Where to put them?
The choice had fallen on Wells, the biggest town in the county.
And now, God have mercy on us, the king had come to see his terrible assize in action, even to sit on its benches. Where to put him?
At last the bishop of Wells had delivered up his palace to his royal master and gone to bed with a headache.
The streets were congested. Barred carts were still bringing in men and women from gaols in far-flung parts of the county to face their trials. Judges’ clerks were scurrying everywhere, summonses at the ready. Official ale tasters, staggering slightly, supped at inn doorways to make sure there wasn’t too much water mixed with the brew’s barley and yeast. Bakers stood by their ovens while their farthing loaves were tested for the standard weight. Hucksters with licenses carefully displayed shouted their wares. Jugglers, acrobats, and storytellers were taking the opportunity to entertain the crowds. Horses were being traded; so were marriageable young women. Many people had journeyed for miles to catch a glimpse of their king.
Captain Bolt and his men cleared a way through with the flat of their swords.
In a vast field outside the Bishop’s Palace, the itinerant justices-the earls, barons, and bishops whom Henry trusted to administer his laws-sat on benches in the shade of striped awnings, the accused, the witnesses, and juries in front of them. Executioners stood to their gallows beside tables holding blinding irons and axes.
Clattering over the bridge crossing the bishop’s moat, Captain Bolt’s cavalcade trotted through the rose-scented orderliness of the bishop’s gardens to draw up outside the grandeur of the Bishop’s Palace.
Mansur helped Adelia and Millie dismount and took the long basket out of the saddlebag. “Keep tight hold of it,” Adelia told him.
A groom took their horses but flinched at the sight of the tithing’s donkeys. “I ain’t putting them mokes in my stables.”
Captain Bolt produced a summons. “The bishop of Saint Albans wishes to see these men.”
“What, them?” The groom looked from the seal to the tithing, then to Mansur. “And him?”
“Just get on with it,” the captain said.
The exchange had to be repeated several times before they were allowed up the steps of the palace and into its entrance hall. They waited while the bishop of Saint Albans was fetched. The tithing used the time to wander around and stare at the hall’s decoration and ornaments, watched by the majordomo with the air of a man whose carpets were being trampled by a flock of muddy sheep.
“Look at that, Will.” Alf was staring at a particularly fine tapestry. “That’s Noah building the ark, ain’t it?”
“ Lot of needlework gone into that, Alf. Fetch all of ten shilling, I reckon,” Will said knowledgeably.
“Well, he ain’t going to get the ark built that way; he’s holding the adze all wrong.”
Rowley came striding toward them. In full mitered regalia, he looked imposing but tired. He bowed to Mansur. “What on earth have you got there?”
“It is a basket for holding fishing rods,” Mansur answered truthfully, in Arabic. Other people were listening.
Rowley raised his eyebrows but accepted it. He bowed in Adelia’s direction and nodded at the tithing. “Come along.”
Captain Bolt said, “My lord, I got to present Mistress Adelia here to the king soon as possible.”
“The king is in conclave with the papal legate and will be for some time yet,” Rowley told him. “In the meantime, the lady must translate for my lord Mansur, should it be necessary. We shan’t be long.”
He led the way out and along a back path going to the field of judgments. It was like threading a way through hundreds of scattered bees. Juries, that innovation demanded by the king, buzzed their accounts to the judges of what they knew of the accused and the case. A woman was up for having badly beaten her neighbor for throwing mud at her washing on a clothesline…
“But we do reckon as there’s always been bad blood betwixt ’em,” the foreman was saying, “ Alice havin’ previous attacked Margaret over the matter of a milk jug. Both as bad as each other, we reckon…”
Adelia would have liked to linger to hear the judgment on Alice and Margaret, but Rowley was hurrying her.
Further on, a wretch was being ordered to leave the realm, the jury having declared that though he’d been acquitted of rape because his accuser couldn’t prove it, to their personal knowledge he was of bad character and a pest to all women.
Adelia found herself softening toward Henry Plantagenet. How much fairer it was to employ a jury rather than throwing people into ponds to see if God made them float (guilty) or sink (innocent)-a form of trial the king hoped to get rid of eventually.
She heard the judge say, “And his goods to be confiscated to the Crown.”
Well, yes, that too. Always the opportunist, Henry, when it came to money.
Adelia was followed by Millie, whose darting eyes were taking in what her ears could not. They reached their destination, an ash tree under which a judge on a dais was bad-temperedly flicking a fly whisk in front of his sweating face. Four men were being brought out of a nearby very crowded pound, which held the day’s accused-Adelia assumed they were the remainder of Eustace’s tithing who’d been kept in custody.
A tonsured clerk sat by the judge at a lower table, a high pile of scrolls in front of him.
Will, Alf, Toki, Ollie, and the tithing member whose name Adelia had learned was Jesse were pushed alongside their fellows by an usher with the dimensions of a Goliath.
The clerk picked up one of the scrolls. “My lord, this is a frankpledge case wherein the abbot of Glastonbury accused a certain Eustace of Glastonbury belonging to this tithing before you of having started the great fire…”
The judge glared at the tithing. “I expect he did, the monster. They all look like arsonists to me.”
“Yes, my lord, but…”
“And those rogues there kept me waiting.” The judge pointed at Will’s group. “That’s an offense in itself.”
“Yes, my lord, but the charge has been withdrawn.”
“Withdrawn?” It was the bark of a vixen robbed of her whelps.
“Both the abbot of Glastonbury and Eustace being dead, my lord, and…”
The judge’s choler abated slightly. “Good man, Abbot Sigward. Met him at Winchester one Easter. Saintly man.” He gathered himself. “But because accuser and accused are dead doesn’t mean Eustace didn’t do it, nor that these rogues should be let off their pledges for him.”
“Apparently he didn’t do it, my lord.”
“He didn’t? How do we know? Did anybody see him not doing it? The fire was a tragedy; somebody’s got to pay for it.”
“Yes, my lord, but…”
Rowley stepped forward. “I represent the abbey in this case, my lord. Its monks are still in mourning for their abbot and cannot appear. On their behalf, the charge is withdrawn.”
The judge got up and bowed. “My lord bishop.”
“My lord.” Rowley bowed back. “It has been proved that Eustace was innocent of the fire…”
“Who by?” The judge was refusing to let go of his prey.
“It was started by one of the monks accidentally.” Rowley produced a document from a pocket attached to the gold cord around his waist. “This is the deposition by a Brother Titus…”
“Taking the blame out of Christian charity, no doubt. You sure this Eustace didn’t have a hand in it?”
The clerk intervened, beckoning to twelve men who’d been standing by. “My lord, to make sure, a jury was summoned and has been to the abbey to see the proof of Eustace’s innocence…” The usher gestured to twelve men who’d been waiting nervously nearby.
In the judge’s opinion, they didn’t rate much higher than the tithing, being of the same class. “Summoned by good summoners, were they?”
“Excellent, my lord, and have been to view both the abbey fire and the evidence.”
“There was evidence, then?”
The jury foreman stepped out. “My lord, that dark gentleman there showed us and explained… It was all to do with fingers an’ a trap, very clever it was…”
The judge had turned his attention to Mansur. “A Saracen? And what’s that he’s holding? Some outlandish weapon?”
The foreman pressed on. “Course, the lady had to tell us what he was saying, her bein’ able to jabber the same language as what he does…”
“Speaks Arabic, does she?” The judge’s eyes rested on Adelia. “Probably no more Christian than he is. And they’re witnesses?”
“My lord,” the bishop of Saint Albans said, “the lord Mansur is used by the king as his special investigator…”
“Where does he find them?” the judge asked the sky. And then, “I don’t care if he’s used by the Angel Gabriel. It’s up to the jury here. If they’re satisfied…”
“We are, my lord. Eustace di’n’t do it.”
“Oh, very well.” But the judge was still looking for a loophole. “However, gentlemen of the jury, can you vouch for the good character of this tithing?”
There was a dreadful pause. Toki’s hand went under his tunic and he began scratching like a dog sent mad by fleas.
“We ain’t sure as how they’ve been a-livin’ since their homes was burnt down,” the foreman said cautiously, “but nothin’s known against ’em, not really known like. An’ Will of Glastonbury, that one there, he’s a prize baker.”
The judge sighed. “Then they are quit.” His clerk handed him a scroll and he scribbled a signature on it. “We are obliged to the bishop of Saint Albans for his attendance. Call the next case.”
The next case, a man whose feet were hobbled, was being lifted out of the pound by the usher to face the judge. A new panel of jurors shuffled into the shade of the tree.
The tithing stood where it was for a moment, bemused, before Will stepped forward and proffered a grimy hand to the judge. “Very obliged, my lord.” The usher pushed him away.
Alf was running after the foreman of the departing jury, trying to kiss him.
Will doffed his cap to the bishop, grunted at Mansur and Adelia, and slouched off.
“That’s all the thanks you get,” Rowley said. It was the first time he’d spoken to Adelia today; he’d barely looked at her.
Affectionately, she watched the tithing disappear into the crowd. “A jury,” she said. “King Henry, for these men, for all who are on trial, I thank you.”
“The greatest lawgiver since Solomon,” Rowley said, and then winked. “Mind you, it’s lucrative. But better all the fines and confiscated goods in Henry’s pocket than anyone else’s.”
A clerk was trying for the bishop’s attention. “My lord, you are listed to sit on the Lord of Newcastle’s case. If you’d follow me…”
With a wave of his hand, Rowley was gone.
