humdrum task in the house or garden; the whole day had gone to waste, and what had promised to be hours of magic were slipping by unused. I got out the car and drove to Tywardreath, the sight of the solid parish church a mockery to my mood. It had no right to be there in its present form. I wanted to sweep it away, leaving only the south aisle and the Priory chapel, see the Priory walls enclosing the churchyard. I drove aimiessly to the lay-by at the top of the hill beyond the Treesmill turning and parked, thinking that, if I waiked down the road and crossed the fields to the Gratten, memory of what I had once seen would fill the vacuum.
I stood by the car, reaching for a cigarette, but it had not touched my lips before a jolt shook me from head to foot, as though I had stepped on a live cable. There was no serene transition from present to past but a sensation of pain, with flashes before my eyes and thunder in my ears. This is it, I thought. I'm going to die. Then the flashes cleared, the thunder died away, and there was a mass of people lining the summit of the hill where I stood, crowding and pressing towards a building across the road. More people came from the direction of Tywardreath, men, women, children, some walking, some running. The building was the magnet, irregular in shape, with leaded windows, and what appeared to be a small chapel beside it. I had seen the village once before, at Martinmas, but that was from the green beyond the Priory walls. Now there were no booths, no travelling musicians, no slaughtered beasts. The air was crisp and cold, the ditches banked with frozen snow that had turned grey and hard from lying during weeks. Small puddles in the road had turned to craters of sheeted ice, and the ploughlands across the ditches were black with frost. Men, women and children alike were wrapped and hooded against the cold, their features sharp like the beaks of birds, and the mood I sensed was neither jocular nor gay but somehow predatory, the mob mood of people bent upon a spectacle that might turn sour. I drew nearer to the building, and saw that a covered chariot was drawn up by the chapel entrance, with servants standing by the horses' heads. I recognised the Champernoune coat-of-arms, and the servants too, while Roger himself stood within the chapel porch, his arms folded. The door of the main building was shut, but as I stood there watching it opened, and a man, better dressed than those lining the route, emerged with a companion. I knew them both, for I had seen them last on the night when Otto Bodrugan had urged them to join in his rebellion against the King: they were Julian Polpey and Henry Trefrengy. They came down the pathway, and threading their way through the crowd paused near to where I stood.
'God preserve me from a woman's spite,' said Polpey. 'Roger has held the office for ten years, and now to be dismissed without reason being given, and the stewardship handed to Phil Hornwynk—'
'Young William will reinstate him when he comes of age, no doubt of that,' replied Trefrengy. 'He has his father's sense of justice and fair play. But I could smell the change coming these past twelve months or more. The plain truth is that she lacks not only a husband but a man as well, and Roger has had his belly-full and will oblige no more.'
'He finds his oats elsewhere.' The last speaker, Geoffrey Lampetho from the valley, had shouldered his way through the crowd to join them. 'Rumour has it there's a woman under his roof. You should know, Trefrengy, being his neighbour.'
'I know nothing,' answered Trefrengy shortly. 'Roger keeps his counsel, I keep mine. In hard weather such as this wouldn't any Christian give shelter to a stranger on the road?'
Lampetho laughed, digging him with his elbow. 'Neatly said, but you can't deny it,' he said. 'Why else does my Lady Champernoune come here from Trelawn, disregarding the state of the roads, unless to snuff her out? I was in the geld-house here before you to pay my rents, and she sat in the inner room while Hornwynk collected. All the paint in the world couldn't hide the black look on her face: dismissing Roger from his stewardship won't see the end of it. Meantime, sport for the populace of another kind. Will you stay to watch the fun?'
Julian Polpey shook his head in disgust. 'Not I, he answered. Why should we in Tywardreath have some custom foisted upon us from elsewhere, making us barbarians? Lady Champernoune must be sick in mind to think of it. I'm for home.'
He turned and disappeared into the crowd, which was now thick not only upon the summit of the hill where the house and chapel stood, but half-way down the track to Treesmill. One and all wore this curious air of expectancy upon their faces, half-resentful, half-eager, and Geoffrey Lampetho, pointing this out to his companion, laughed again.
'Sick in mind, maybe, but it salves her conscience to have another widow act as scapegoat, and sweetens Quadragessima for us. There's nothing a mob likes more than witnessing public penance.' He turned his head, like the rest, towards the valley, and Henry Trefrengy edged forward past the Champernoune servants to the chapel entrance where Roger stood, while I followed close behind.
'I'm sorry for what has happened,' he said. 'No gratitude, no recompense. Ten years of your life wasted, gone for nothing.'
'Not wasted, answered Roger briefly. William will come of age in June and marry. His mother will lose her influence, and the monk as well. You know the Bishop of Exeter has expelled him finally, and he must return to the Abbey at Angers, where he should have gone a year ago?'
'God be praised!' exclaimed Trefrengy. 'The Priory stinks because of him, the parish too. Look at the people yonder…' Roger stared over Trefrengy's head at the gaping crowd. 'I may have acted hard as steward, but to make sport of Rob Rosgof's widow was more than I could stomach,' he said. 'I stood against it, and this was another reason for my dismissal. The monk is responsible for all of this, to satisfy my lady's vanity and lust.'
The entrance to the chapel darkened, and the small, slight figure of Jean de Meral appeared in the open doorway. He put his hand on Roger's shoulder.
'You used not to be so squeamish once,' he said. 'Have you forgotten those evenings in the Priory cellars, and in your own as well? I taught you more than philosophy, my friend, on those occasions.'
'Take your hand off me,' replied Roger curtly. 'I parted company with you and your brethren when you let young Henry Bodrugan die under the Priory roof; and could have saved him.'
The monk smiled. 'And now, to show sympathy with the dead, you harbour an adulterous wife under your own?' he asked. 'We are all hypocrites, my friend. I warn you, my lady knows your wayfarer's identity, and it is partly on her account that she is here in Tywardreath. She has certain proposals to put before the Lady Isolda when this business with Rosgof's widow has been settled.'
'Which business, please God, will be struck from the manor records in years to come, and rebound upon your head instead, to your everlasting shame,' said Trefrengy.
'You forget', murmured the monk, 'I am a bird of passage, and in a few days time shall have spread my wings for France.'
There was a sudden stir amongst the crowd, and a man appeared at the door of the adjoining building, which Lampetho had named the geld-house. Stout, florid-faced, he held a document in his hand. Beside him, wrapped in a cloak from head to foot, was Joanna Champernoune. The man, whom I took to be the new steward Hornwynk, advanced to address the crowd, unrolling the document in his hand.
'Good people of Tywardreath,' he proclaimed, 'whether freeman, customary tenant or serf, those of you who pay rent to the manor court have done so here today at the geldhouse. And since this manor of Tywardreath was once held by the Lady Isolda Cardinham of Cardinham, who sold it to our late lord's grandfather, it has been decided to introduce here a practice established in the manor of Cardinham since the Conquest.' He paused a moment, the better to impress his words upon his listeners. 'The practice being', he continued, 'that any widow of a customary tenant, holding lands through her late husband, who has deviated from the path of chastity, shall either forfeit her lands or make due penance for their recovery before the lord of the manor and the steward of the manor court. Today before the Lady Joanna Champernoune, representing the lord of the manor William, a minor, and myself, Philip Hornwynk, steward, Mary, widow of Robert Rosgof, must make such penance if she desires the restoration of her lands.'
A murmur rose from the crowd, a strange blend of excitement and curiosity, and a sudden sound of shouting came from the road leading down to Treesmill.
'She'll never face them,' said Trefrengy. 'Mary Rosgof has a son at home who would rather surrender his farmland ten times over than have his mother shamed.'
'You are mistaken,' answered the monk. 'He knows her shame will prove his gain in six months time, when she is brought to bed of a bastard child, and he can turn both out of doors and keep the lands himself.'
'Then you've persuaded him,' said Roger, 'and lined his purse in so doing.'
The shouting and the cries increased, and as the people pressed forward I saw a procession ascend the hill from Treesmill, lumbering towards us at a jog-trot. Two lads raced ahead, brandishing whips, and behind them
