Wulfric spoke for the first time. “The heriot is laid down by custom, recorded in the manor rolls,” he said in his slow, boy-man voice. “It’s not for negotiation.”
Nathan said quickly: “Heriots can change, though. They’re not in the Domesday Book.”
Ralph said: “Are you two lawyers? If not, shut up. The heriot is two pounds and ten shillings. Any other money that changes hands is none of your business.”
Gwenda realized with horror that Ralph was on the point of reneging on their deal. She spoke in a low, accusing voice, slow but clear. “You made me a promise.”
“Why would I do something like that?” Ralph said.
It was the one question she could not answer. “Because I pleaded with you,” she replied feebly.
“And I said I would think again. But I made no promise.”
She was powerless to make him keep his word. She wanted to kill him. “Yes, you did!” she said.
“Lords don’t bargain with peasants.”
She stared at him, lost for words. It had all been for nothing: the long walk to Kingsbridge, the humiliation of appearing naked in front of him and Alan, the shameful act she had performed on Ralph’s bed. She had betrayed Wulfric, and he still would not inherit. She pointed a finger at Ralph and said bitterly: “God damn you to hell, Ralph Fitzgerald.”
He went pale. The curse of a genuinely wronged woman was known to be powerful. “Watch what you say,” he replied. “We have a punishment for a witch who casts spells.”
Gwenda drew back. No woman could take such a threat lightly. The accusation of witchcraft was easy to make and hard to refute. Still she could not resist saying: “Those who escape justice in this life will find it in the next.”
Ralph ignored that and turned to Perkin. “Where is the money?”
Perkin had not got rich by telling people where he kept his cash. “I’ll letch it right away, lord,” he said.
Wulfric said: “Come on, Gwenda. There’s no mercy for us here.”
Gwenda fought back tears. Anger had been replaced by grief. They had lost the battle, after all they had done. She turned away, head lowered to hide her emotions.
Perkin said: “Wait, Wulfric. You need employment – and I need help. Work for me. I’ll pay you a penny a day.”
Wulfric flushed with the shame of being offered a job as a labourer on lands his family had owned.
Perkin added: “Gwenda, too. You’re both young and willing.”
He did not intend to be malicious, Gwenda saw. He was single-minded in the pursuit of his own interests, and he was eager to hire two strong young labourers to help him farm his amalgamated holding. He did not care, or perhaps did not even know, that for Wulfric this was the final humiliation.
Perkin said: “That’s a shilling a week between you. You’ll have plenty.”
Wulfric looked bitter. “Work for a wage, on lands that my family has owned for decades?” he said. “Never.” He turned away and left the house.
Gwenda followed, thinking: What are we going to do now?
29
Westminster Hall was huge, bigger than the inside of some cathedrals. It was dauntingly long and wide, and its distant ceiling was supported by a double row of tall pillars. It was the most important room in the Palace of Westminster.
Earl Roland was perfectly at home here, Godwyn thought resentfully. The earl and his son William swaggered about in their fashionable clothes, with one leg of their hose red and the other black. Every earl knew all the others, and most of the barons too, and they clapped their friends on the shoulders, mocked each other facetiously and hooted with laughter at their own humour. Godwyn wanted to remind them that the courts held in this room had the power to sentence any one of them to death, even if they were the nobility.
He and his entourage were quiet, speaking only to one another, and then in hushed tones. This was not out of reverence, he had to admit, but nervousness. Godwyn, Edmund and Caris were ill at ease here. None of them had been to London before. The only person they knew was Buenaventura Caroli, and he was out of town. They did not know their way around, their clothes looked old-fashioned, and the money they had brought – which they had thought would be plenty – was running out.
Edmund was not cowed by anything, and Caris seemed distracted – as if she had something more important on her mind, though it hardly seemed possible – but Godwyn was tormented by anxiety. He was a newly elected prior, challenging one of the greatest noblemen in the land. The issue was the future of the town. Without the bridge, Kingsbridge would die. The priory, currently the beating heart of one of England’s great cities, would dwindle to a lonely outpost in a small village, where a few monks did their devotions in the echoing emptiness of a crumbling cathedral. Godwyn had not fought to be prior only to see his prize turn to dust.
With so much at stake, he wanted to be in control of events, confident that he was cleverer than almost everyone else, as he was in Kingsbridge. But here he felt the opposite, and the insecurity drove him to distraction.
His consolation was Gregory Longfellow. A friend of Godwyn’s from university days, Gregory had a devious mind well suited to the law. The royal court was familiar to him. Aggressive and cocksure, he had guided Godwyn through the legal maze. He had presented the priory’s petition to Parliament, as he had presented many petitions before. It was not debated by Parliament, of course, but passed to the king’s council, which was overseen by the chancellor. The chancellor’s team of lawyers – all of them friends or acquaintances of Gregory’s – might have referred the matter to the king’s bench, the court that dealt with disputes in which the king had an interest; but, again as Gregory had foreseen, they had decided this was too petty to bother the king with, and had instead sent the case to the common bench, or court of common pleas.
All this had taken a full six weeks. It was late November, and the weather was getting colder. The building season was nearly over.
Today at last they stood before Sir Wilbert Wheatfield, an experienced judge who was said to be liked by the king. Sir Wilbert was the younger son of a northern baron. His elder brother had inherited the title and the estate, and Wilbert had trained as a priest, studied law, come to London and found favour at the royal court. His inclination would be to side with an earl against a monk, Gregory warned; but he would put the king’s interests ahead of all else.
The judge sat on a raised bench against the east wall of the palace, between windows that looked out on to the Green Yard and the River Thames. In front of him were two clerks at a long table. There were no seats for the litigants.
“Sir, the earl of Shiring has sent armed men to blockade the quarry owned by Kingsbridge Priory,” Gregory said as soon as Sir Wilbert looked at him. His voice quivered with simulated indignation. “The quarry, which is within the earldom, was granted to the priory by King Henry I some two hundred years ago. A copy of the charter has been lodged with the court.”
Sir Wilbert had a pink face and white hair, and looked handsome until he spoke, when he showed rotten teeth. “I have the charter before me,” he said.
Earl Roland spoke without waiting to be invited. “The monks were given the quarry so that they could build their cathedral,” he said, speaking in a bored-sounding drawl.
Gregory said quickly: “But the charter does not restrict their use of it to any one purpose.”
“Now they want to build a bridge,” Roland said.
“To replace the bridge that collapsed at Whitsun – a bridge that itself was built, many hundreds of years ago, with timber that was a gift of the king!” Gregory spoke as if he was outraged by the earl’s every word.
“They don’t need permission to rebuild a pre-existing bridge,” Sir Wilbert said briskly. “And the charter does say that the king wishes to encourage the building of the cathedral, but it does not say they have to relinquish their rights when the church is finished, nor that they are forbidden to use the stone for any other purpose.”