disputes over crops and livestock, seeking consent for marriages and inheritance affairs, as well as minor offences like drunkenness, fighting, domestic disputes, short measures, poor ale and the like. Today it was a special court called by Simon Mercator on behalf of his lord Walter Lupus, though as usual the steward conducted the proceedings. Unusually, Walter sat on a bench to one side of him, together with Thomas, the parish priest, with the bailiff and sergeant standing behind them.
Normally, the court was held in an empty barn, but after the recent good harvest these were all full, so it was convened in the yard in front of the manor house itself. A chair and a couple of benches were brought out of the hall and placed below the entrance steps, the jury of twelve men being ranged before them. A large crowd of villagers had left their work in the fields and had pushed through the gate to stand in the stockade behind the jury.
Though legally all the men in the manor over twelve years of age were supposed to attend the court, usually only those who had any business there as jury or witnesses were obliged to turn up. Today was different, and a restive, truculent crowd came to see what was going on.
The jury were reluctant to take part, as though the steward was not supposed to act as a judge, the verdict being left to the jury, in practice this was often ignored, and there was a strong suspicion that this would be the state of affairs today.
As Matilda and Gillota were already in the compound, they had little difficulty in sidling around to the edge of the crowd, as close to Philip as they could get, when he was dragged out by Garth on the end of a chain attached to his fetters — probably the same ones by which they had been hauled back from Shebbear. The former soldier was dishevelled and gaunt from his night in a stable without food or water, and Matilda’s heart went out to him. She had retrieved the stone early that morning and now had it safely in the cloth pouch on her girdle, but she could detect no vibrations from it at all, much to her chagrin.
Simon Mercator stood up from his chair and yelled at the crowd to be silent, a task he had to repeat several times before the villagers grudgingly obeyed him. He knew that strong feelings and resentment were rife, from the obvious attitude of both the freemen and the villeins and from the visit of Thomas de Peyne earlier that morning.
The priest had come to see Walter Lupus, not the steward, but Simon pushed himself into the meeting in the hall and Walter had not denied him.
‘I am extremely unhappy about your determination to try this man Philip in such an arbitrary way,’ said the canon firmly. ‘I have had long experience of the legal system in this county and know that such a grave accusation should be placed before the King’s judges or his Commissioners of Gaol Delivery.’
He was a such a small man that it was difficult for him to assert himself adequately in front of these powerful men, but he was adamant about Philip’s right to be tried in Exeter before an experienced and independent tribunal. As he had expected, neither man was impressed by his demands.
‘With respect, parson, this is none of your business, whatever you may have done in the past,’ sneered Simon. ‘The issue is so simple that it should be dealt with summarily, as my lord Walter is quite entitled to do. We must make an example of such blatant thieving, to prevent anyone getting the idea that such a crime may be repeated with impunity.’
Walter Lupus, silent until now, nodded gravely. ‘A manor lord has a responsibility to his tenants to safeguard their lives and property,’ he said ponderously. ‘I am surprised that you think fit to object, considering that such a valuable and venerated object such as your Communion plate was the thing stolen by this man.’
‘You have already judged him, then?’ retorted Thomas bitterly. ‘I thought that was the function of the jury and that until they offer their verdict a man is considered innocent?’
‘You are too naive, father,’ brayed Simon. ‘Of course the damned fellow is guilty — the facts speak for themselves! No jury can think otherwise — and if they do, I will put them back on the right road!’
And so it proved within a very short time. The steward had Philip dragged in front of him by Garth and Daniel, who stood one at each side, pulling on his chains, while he harangued the prisoner and the jury.
‘We need waste no time over this!’ he shouted. ‘The sacred platter was found to be missing, this felon cannot account for his whereabouts at the time, and most damning of all, a search soon discovered it hidden in the thatch of his own house. There is no need for any more evidence!’ He glared at the discomfited line of men who formed the jury.
‘The verdict is yours, but you can have no other answer than to declare him guilty!’
However, Simon Mercator was not to have it all his own way. The blacksmith, daring to contradict the man who had his livelihood in the palm of his hand, stood forward to object.
‘Steward, we need time to discuss this! Not to beat about the bush, the whole village knows that this man was in bad odour with you. To be fair to him, you should not be trying him here yourself. The matter should be heard in Barnstaple or even Exeter.’
A few yards away, Matilda heard the brave words and her heart leaped with hope — but when she gripped her pouch, she felt nothing from the stone hidden there.
The steward was almost apoplectic with rage at the blacksmith’s defiance. Red in the face, he screamed at the man. ‘Have a care, Edwin Pace! Lord Walter will not stand for your insolence and pig-headed obstinacy and neither will I! You will take the course of common sense or it will go hard with you and your family in this manor!’
The threat was undisguised, and after a few nudges from his fellows Edwin gave in, for he knew his own survival and that of his wife and children depended on the tolerance, if not goodwill, of the steward and, through him, Walter Lupus himself.
There were catcalls from the crowd when after much shuffling and muttering the jury capitulated and shamefacedly agreed that the prisoner was guilty of the theft.
Instantly, Simon translated that into the sentence. ‘Philip de Mora, you have been found guilty by a jury of your peers. The holy plate which you so sacrilegiously stole from our own house of God was worth many marks, far above the value of twelve pence that constitutes a felony. You will therefore be hanged at noon this day from the oak tree used for the purpose.’
There was an outcry from the crowd, who began to surge forward, but Walter Lupus drew his sword, and the steward, bailiff and sergeant closed around him, brandishing heavy staffs and cudgels.
‘Get out of this bailey!’ roared the manor lord. ‘Clear the yard, damn you all!’
Incensed as they were at this tyrannical behaviour of their masters, the villagers knew that they had no real redress, short of starting a peasants’ revolt, which would soon bring down the wrath of the sheriff and the King upon them and lead to far more necks being stretched on the gallows.
Still shouting, cursing and protesting, they backed away through the gates, which Daniel ran to close securely, leaving Garth to hold the prisoner.
Philip seemed bemused by the whole proceedings, standing with his head bowed, accepting the inevitable. The servants were chased away by the bailiff and in tears, Matilda and Gillota went back to their labours in the kitchen.
‘The stone has failed us,’ said Gillota miserably as they stood chopping vegetables to add to the cauldron of potage. ‘Perhaps it never worked anyway and Joan would have improved of her own accord.’
Her mother wiped her eyes, her misery made more obvious by the onions she was peeling. ‘I’ll not give up yet… How long has he got, poor man?’
Though telling the time was sheer guesswork, by the sun it was mid-morning, so noon could not be much more than an hour away.
Some minutes later, with the connivance of the cook, Matilda crept out and looked into the bailey. Now that the crowd had dispersed, the gate was open again. Taking an empty leather bucket and reaping hook as camouflage, she went out unchallenged, as Garth and his fellow thug were keeping a strict guard on the condemned man in the stables.
Matilda walked down the road from the manor house to where the track to Furzepark forked south of the village. Here was the notorious oak tree, large and gnarled, which had stood there since before the Normans arrived. The thickness of the massive trunk was so great that four men would be needed to touch hands around it. Fifteen feet above the ground, the first thick branch stuck out, from which the hangings took place. At one point a dozen feet out from the trunk, grooves rubbed in the bark by ropes were a sinister reminder of the number of men who had died there over the years.
In this early autumn the leaves were already turning colour, but there was still a thick canopy of green and
