At this point, there was an interjection from Brother Gilbert, who whispered treacherously into the ear of the archdeacon with every sign of satisfaction.
Ah, the grandmother was not married, never had been, possibly the progenitor of illegitimate children. The boy was likely a bastard, then, of no degree whatsoever: “The law does not recognize him.”
So Ulf, like Mansur, was banished to the kitchen that lay behind the refectory, with Gyltha’s hand over his mouth to stop him from shouting out, both of them listening on the other side of the open hatch from which a smell of bacon and broth came to mingle with that of the rich, rain-dampened ermine lining the judges’ cloaks, while Rabbi Gotsce, also in the kitchen, translated into English for them proceedings that were being held in Latin.
The court had been scandalized by his very presence.
“You would bring a Jew before us, Prior Geoffrey?”
“My lords, the Jews of this town have been grossly maligned. It can be shown that Sir Joscelin was one of their chief debtors, and it was part of his wickedness to see them accused of murder and their tallies burned.”
“Has the Jew evidence of this?”
“The tallies were destroyed, my lord, as I said. But surely the rabbi is entitled to…”
“The law does not recognize him.”
The law didn’t recognize, either, that a nun whose purity of soul shone in her face could do what Adelia had said she had done.
Her prioress spoke for her…
“Like Saint Radegund, our beloved foundress, Sister Veronica was born in Thuringia,” she said. “But her father, a merchant, settled in Poitiers, where she was offered to the convent at the age of three and sent to England while still a child, though one whose devotion to God and His Holy Mother was in evidence then and has been ever since.”
Prioress Joan had tempered her voice; her rein-callused hands were in her sleeves; she was every inch the superior of a well-ordered house of God. “My lords, I stand for this nun’s modesty and temperance and her devotion to the Lord-many a time when the other nuns were at recreation, Sister Veronica has been on her knees beside our blessed little saint, Peter of Trumpington.”
There was a muffled squeak from the kitchen.
“Whom she lured to his death,” Adelia said.
“Hold your tongue, woman,” the archdeacon told her.
The prioress turned on Adelia, finger pointing, her voice a hunting horn. “Judge, my lords. Judge between that, a slandering viper, and here, this exemplar of saintliness.”
It was a pity that the dress Gyltha had brought her from Old Benjamin’s was the one Adelia had worn to the Grantchester feast, too low in the bodice and too high in color to compare well with the nuns’ sleekly sober black and white. A pity, too, that in her joyous fluster over Ulf’s return, Gyltha had forgotten to bring a veil or cap and that, therefore, Adelia, whose previous cap lay somewhere under Wandlebury Hill, was as bareheaded as a harlot.
No one except Prior Geoffrey spoke for her.
Not Sir Rowley Picot; he wasn’t there.
The Archdeacon of Canterbury rose to his feet, which were still in slippers. He was a tiny old man, full of energy. “Let us expedite this matter, my lords, that we may return to our beds and, should we find it has been raised out of malice”-the face he turned on Adelia was that of a malevolent monkey-“let those responsible be sent to the whipping post. Now, then…”
One by one, the bricks on which Adelia had built her case were examined and discarded.
The word of an eel-selling bastard minor to condemn a bride of Christ?
The good sister’s familiarity with the river? But who was not familiar with boatmanship in this waterlogged town?
Laudanum? Was it not generally available at any apothecary’s?
Spending the occasional night away from her convent? Well…
For the first time, the young man called Hubert Walter raised his voice, and his head from his note-taking: “Perhaps that does call for explanation, my lord. It is…unusual.”
“If I may speak, your lordships.” Prioress Joan stepped forward again. “Taking supplies to our anchorites is an act of charity that exhausts Sister Veronica’s strength-see how frail she is. Accordingly, I have allowed her permission to spend such nights in rest and contemplation with one of our lady eremites before returning to the convent.”
“Laudable, laudable.” The eyes of the judges rested appreciatively on Sister Veronica’s willow-wand figure.
Which lady eremite, Adelia wondered, and why should she not be hauled before this court to be asked how many nights she and the frail Veronica have spent in contemplation?
None, I’ll warrant.
But it was useless; the anchorite, being an anchorite, would not come. Demanding that she attend could only confirm Adelia’s stridency as opposed to Veronica’s respectful silence.
Where are you, Rowley? I cannot stand here alone. Rowley, they’re going to let her go.
The dismemberment went on. Who had seen Simon of Naples die? Had not the inquest confirmed that the Jew drowned accidentally?
The walls of the great room were closing in. A bailiff studied the manacles he carried as if to judge them small enough for Adelia’s wrists. Above her head, the gargoyles gibbered in glee and the eyes of the judges stripped the skin off her.
Now the archdeacon was questioning her motive in going to Wandlebury Hill at all. “What led her to that infamous place, my lords? How did she know what went on there? Can we not assume that it was she who was in league with the devil of Grantchester, and not the holy sister she accuses-whose only crime, it seems, was to follow her out of concern for her safety?”
Prior Geoffrey opened his mouth but was forestalled by the clerk Hubert Walter, still amused. “I think we must accept, my lords, that all four children died before this female set foot in England. We may at least acquit her of their murder.”
“Really?” The archdeacon was disappointed. “Nevertheless, we have proved her a slanderer and, by her own statement, she had knowledge of the pit and its circumstances. I find that curious, my lords. I find it suspicious.”
“So do I.” The Bishop of Norwich broke in, yawning. “Take the damned female to the whipping post and be done with it.”
“Is that the verdict of you all?”
It was.
Adelia shouted, not for herself but for Cambridgeshire’s children. “Don’t let her go, I beg you. She can kill again.”
The judges weren’t listening, not looking at her-their attention had been claimed by somebody who’d entered the refectory from the kitchen, where he’d taken himself a bowl of bacon broth and was now eating it.
He blinked at the assembly. “A trial, is it?”
Adelia waited for this plainly dressed man in leather to be blasted back to where he came from. A couple of boar hounds had slouched in with him-a hunter, then, who’d wandered here by mistake.
But the lord judges were standing. Were bowing. Were remaining on their feet.
Henry Plantagenet, King of England, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, Count of Anjou, hoisted himself up on the refectory table, letting his legs dangle, and looked around. “Well?”
“Not a trial, my lord.” The Bishop of Norwich was as awake and fluttering as a lark now. “A convocation, merely a preliminary inquiry into the matter of the town’s murdered children. The killer has been identified, but that”-he pointed in the direction of Adelia-“that female has brought an accusation of complicity against this nun of Saint Radegund.”
“Ah, yes,” the king said, pleasantly, “I thought our lords spiritual were somewhat overrepresented. Where’s De Luci? De Glanville? The lords temporal?”