‘Well, do you?’
‘I am unworthy.’
‘In the eyes of God we all are,’ the Preacher replied tersely. ‘But the Church encourages the faithful to eat the sacred species. Why don’t you?’
‘I have answered that question. I will say no more.’
The Preacher stared at the villagers, walking slowly towards them, arms raised.
‘Belief in the Eucharist,’ he declared, ‘is the heart of our faith. Moreover, the prisoner talks about law. It is an ancient custom that a man can prove his innocence by partaking of the Body and Blood of Our Lord. In the time of King Edward the Confessor, the traitorous Earl Godwin, being offered the host, choked and died. I now appeal,’ his voice rose, ‘to Heaven!’
And, swinging on his heel, the Preacher strode into the sanctuary. He ignored the protests of Parson Osbert and the murmur from the villagers. He took down the pyx, placed it on the altar and genuflected. He opened it, took out the host and walked purposefully towards the prisoner.
‘Ecce Corpus Christi!’ he intoned.
The prisoner turned his head away.
‘Behold the Body of Christ!’ the Preacher repeated. He turned to John the bailiff. ‘Take some men, seize him, open his mouth!’
‘You cannot do this,’ the hermit protested. ‘It is against God’s law to force the host upon any man!’
‘He speaks the truth.’ Parson Osbert got to his feet, his hands hanging by his side. He had been rubbing his eyes until they were red-rimmed. ‘Enough is enough,’ he whispered to the Preacher. ‘If he will not partake, he shall not partake, that is the law of the Church. If you press him further it will be a blasphemous sacrilege.’
The Preacher glared down the church. The victory was his. He returned the host to the pyx and walked back into the nave. He stopped before the jurors.
‘How do you find him?’
‘Guilty.’
‘And you?’
‘Guilty.’
The other ten replied the same.
‘And how do you find him?’ he appealed to the congregation.
‘Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!’
The chant rose, echoing round the church. The Preacher clapped his hands.
‘And what sentence?’
‘Death by fire!’
The response came loud and clear, men stamping their feet as they repeated the words, relishing the sombre threat of their verdict.
Matthias felt cold, stricken to the heart. He could not believe what was happening. The Preacher, his lips curled in a sneer, turned towards the hermit.
‘Do you have anything to say?’
‘Yes.’ The hermit’s face was pale but he held himself upright, head erect. He walked towards the villagers. ‘You have condemned me without evidence. Let me remind you — yes, I came here eight years ago. And, since my first arrival to this moment, has not Sutton Courteny been spared? No soldiers, pillaging or burning? Your crops have been rich and plentiful? Your cattle grown fat?’
The villagers stared back.
‘Fulcher the blacksmith, are not your profits so great that you are planning to build a better house? And look to provide a good marriage dowry for your remaining daughters? Simon the reeve, do you not have plans to purchase more meadow land? Even Baron Sanguis is thinking of allowing you to be a partner in the profits from his sheep. John the bailiff, Fulke the tanner, Watkin the tiler, have not your businesses prospered? Joscelyn, your beer and ale is now sold as far afield as Stroud and Gloucester, is it not?’
The villagers heard him out. One or two of them were nodding, others stared narrow-eyed. They could not understand how the hermit knew so much about their affairs yet he spoke the truth. In the last eight years Sutton Courteny had prospered and become the envy of its neighbours. No war, no famine, no pestilence.
‘And you?’ The hermit spun on his heel and pointed to the scrivener. Matthias caught a look of venom in his friend’s eyes. ‘Are not your storerooms full of good hides? Do you not have a lucrative trade with the scriptorium at Tewkesbury Abbey?’
The hermit walked closer. The scrivener, quill raised, was fearful at how this man’s eyes seemed to search his very soul.
‘Plenty of money,’ the hermit declared in a loud whisper. ‘The joys of the tavern, the bodies of lithe young women thrashing beneath you.’ He wiped the spittle from the corner of his mouth. ‘But even that does not satisfy you!’
‘You have proved your own witchcraft,’ the Preacher intervened, fearful of the hold this man might have over the villagers.
‘No, sir. You have proved it!’
The Preacher refused to answer but shouted at the villagers, ‘Is there anyone here who will speak for him?’
A deathly silence.
‘I ask you now, before God, is there any man, woman or child who will speak for the prisoner?’
‘I will!’
The words were out of Matthias’ mouth before he could stop them. He was on his feet, walking forward. His father, wringing his hands, just shook his head. Matthias didn’t care. He didn’t like the Preacher. He felt sorry for the hermit — like when he and the other children gathered here in the church to study their hornbooks, would go out into the cemetery and play a game: ‘Who will play with him?’ ‘Or who will play with her?’ Matthias always felt sorry for the boy or girl left alone. It was no different now. He walked over and looked up at the hermit. His friend gazed back, the tears rolling down his cheeks.
‘Oh, Creatura bona atque parva!’ he whispered. ‘Brave little man!’
‘You are a child,’ the Preacher declared.
‘He was kind,’ Matthias replied. ‘He could hold doves and knows the names of flowers. He showed me young fox cubs, he caught a rabbit and roasted it.’
Matthias blushed at the laughter from the villagers.
‘It’s true! It’s true!’ he cried.
He stamped his foot and the Preacher, mimicking him, stamped his. The villagers burst into laughter. Matthias, face burning red, fled the church, across the cemetery and into his house. He ran up the stairs and burst into his mother’s room. She was lying on the small four-poster bed, face buried in the bolsters. He ran up, tugging at her hand.
‘Mother, they are going to take him out and burn him!’
Christina lifted her sleep-laden face from the bolsters. Matthias could see she had been crying.
‘It’s finished,’ she whispered. ‘There’s nothing you can do. May God help us all!’
She let his hand drop and fell back on the bolsters, staring at the blue and gold tester over the bed.
‘Did your father speak?’
‘Some.’ Matthias bit back the insults he felt. ‘It made no difference.’
He walked slowly out of the chamber, closing the door silently behind him, and went down the rickety stairs. He sat for a while poking the cold ash in the fireplace with a stick. From the cemetery came the shouts and cries of the villagers. The door opened and his father came down the passageway. Matthias did not look up. He sat jabbing at the ash, wishing it were the Preacher’s face.
‘They’ve put him in the death house,’ Parson Osbert said. ‘The Preacher and others are guarding him. They. .’ Parson Osbert licked his dry lips. ‘He says sentence must be carried out by dusk. Fulcher and the rest, they are piling brushwood around the bear-baiting post. You know,’ he continued in a matter-of-fact voice, ‘it’s near the gallows. Matthias?’
The boy kept jabbing at the ash. His father came and knelt beside him.
‘Matthias, why did you speak?’
His son turned to him. Parson Osbert had grown old that morning: cheeks sagging, eyes constantly blinking.
‘I don’t know,’ Matthias replied.
‘He wants to see us,’ his father continued. ‘He made that last request: to see me, you and Christina before he died.’
‘I thought he would.’
Parson Osbert whirled round. Christina stood in the doorway, a woollen coverlet round her shoulders.
‘I thought he would,’ she repeated.
‘Christina, are you well?’
The parson went across and pressed his wife’s hands: they were lifeless and cold like those of a corpse. Her face had an unhealthy pallor. Her hair, usually so lustrous, now hung lank and untidy.