World Without End (34 page)

She felt happy at the prospect of seeing the little ones - Cath, Joanie, and Eric. She realized now how much she had missed them.

On the far side of the hundred-acre field, half-hidden in the trees at the edge of the forest, was her home. It was even smaller than the peasants' hovels, having only one room, which was shared with the cow at night. It was made of wattle and daub: tree branches stuck upright in the ground, with twigs interwoven basket-fashion, the gaps plugged with a sticky mixture of mud, straw, and cow dung. There was a hole in the thatched roof to let out the smoke of the fire in the middle of the earth floor. Such houses lasted only a few years then had to be rebuilt. It now seemed meaner than ever to Gwenda. She was determined not to spend her life in such a place, having babies every year or two, most of whom died for lack of food. She would not live like her mother. She would rather die.

When she was still a hundred yards from the house, she saw her father coming toward her. He was carrying a jug, probably going to buy ale from Peggy Perkins, Annet's mother, who was the village brewster. Pa always had money at this time of year, for there was plenty of work to be had in the fields.

At first he did not see her.

She studied his thin figure as he walked along the narrow gap between two field strips. He wore a long smock that came to his knees, a battered cap, and homemade sandals tied to his feet with straw. His gait managed to be both furtive and jaunty: he always looked like a nervous foreigner defiantly pretending to be at home. His eyes were set closely either side of a big nose, and he had a wide jaw with a knob of a chin, so that his face looked like a lumpy triangle: Gwenda knew that she resembled him in that. He glanced sidelong at the women he passed in the field, as if he did not want them to know he was observing them.

As he came close, he threw her one of his sneaky looks, up from under his lowered eyelids. He looked down instantly, then looked up again. She lifted her chin and stared back at him haughtily.

Astonishment spread across his face. 'You!' he said. 'What happened?'

'Sim Chapman wasn't a tinker, he was an outlaw.'

'And where is he now?'

'He's in hell, Pa. You'll meet him there.'

'Did you kill him?'

'No.' She had long ago decided to lie about this. 'God killed him. The bridge at Kingsbridge collapsed while Sim was crossing it. God punished him for his sin. Has he punished you yet?'

'God forgives good Christians.'

'Is that all you have to say to me? That God forgives good Christians?'

'How did you escape?'

'I used my wits.'

A crafty look came over his face. 'You're a good girl,' he said.

She stared at him suspiciously. 'What mischief are you planning now?'

'You're a good girl,' he repeated. 'Go in to your mother now. You shall have a cup of ale with your supper.' He walked on.

Gwenda frowned. Pa did not seem afraid of what Ma would say when she learned the truth. Perhaps he thought Gwenda would not tell her, out of shame. Well, he was wrong.

Cath and Joanie were outside the house, playing in the dirt. When they saw Gwenda, they jumped up and ran to her. Skip barked hysterically. Gwenda hugged her sisters, remembering how she had thought she would never see them again; and at that moment she was fiercely glad she had stuck a long knife into Alwyn's head.

She went inside. Ma was sitting on a stool, giving little Eric some milk, helping him hold the cup steady so that he did not spill any. She gave a cry of joy when she saw Gwenda. She put down the cup, stood up, and embraced her. Gwenda began to weep.

Once she had started crying, it was hard to stop. She cried because Sim had led her out of town on a rope, and because she had let Alwyn fuck her, and for all the people who had died when the bridge collapsed, and because Wulfric loved Annet.

When her sobs subsided enough for her to speak again, she said: 'Pa sold me, Ma. He sold me for a cow, and I had to go with outlaws.'

'That was wrong,' her mother said.

'It was worse than wrong! He's wicked, evil - he's a devil.'

Ma withdrew from the embrace. 'Don't say such things.'

'They're true!'

'He's your father.'

'A father doesn't sell his children like livestock. I have no father.'

'He's fed you for eighteen years.'

Gwenda stared uncomprehendingly. 'How can you be so hard? He sold me to outlaws!'

'And he got us a cow. So there's milk for Eric, even though my breasts have dried up. And you're here, aren't you?'

Gwenda was shocked. 'You're defending him!'

'He's all I've got, Gwenda. He's not a prince. He's not even a peasant. He's a landless laborer. But he's done everything he can for this family for almost twenty-five years. He worked when he could and thieved when he had to. He kept you alive, and your brother, and with a fair wind he'll do the same for Cath and Joanie and Eric. Whatever his faults, we'd be worse off without him. So don't you call him a devil.'

Gwenda was struck dumb. She had hardly got used to the idea that her father had betrayed her. Now she had to face the fact that her mother was as bad. She felt disoriented. It was like when the bridge had moved under her feet: she could hardly understand what was happening to her.

Her father came into the house carrying the jug of ale. He seemed not to notice the atmosphere. He took three wooden cups from the shelf over the fireplace. 'Now, then,' he said cheerfully. 'Let's drink to the return of our big girl.'

Gwenda was hungry and thirsty after walking all day. She took the cup and drank deeply. But she knew her father in this mood. 'What are you planning?' she said.

'Well, now,' he said. 'It's the Shiring Fair next week, isn't it?'

'So what?'

'Well...we could do it again.'

She could hardly believe what she was hearing. 'Do what again?'

'I sell you, you go with the buyer, then you escape and come home. You're none the worse.'

'None the worse?'

'And we've got a cow worth twelve shillings! Why, it takes me near half a year of laboring to earn twelve shillings.'

'And after that? What then?'

'Well, there's other fairs - Winchester, Gloucester, I don't know how many.' He refilled her cup from the ale jug. 'Why - this could be better than the year you stole Sir Gerald's purse!'

She did not drink. There was a bitter taste in her mouth, as if she had eaten something corrupt. She thought of arguing with him. Harsh words came to her lips, angry accusations, curses - but she did not speak them. The way she felt was beyond rage. What was the point of having a row? She could never trust her father again. And because Ma refused to be disloyal to him, Gwenda could not trust her either.

'What am I to do?' she said aloud, but she did not want an answer from anyone in the room: the question was to herself. In this family she had become a commodity, to be sold at city fairs. If she was not prepared to accept that, what could she do?

She could leave.

She realized with a shock that this house was no longer a home to her. The blow shook the foundations of her existence. She had lived here since before she could remember. Now she did not feel safe here. She had to get out.

Not next week, she realized; not even tomorrow morning - she had to go now.

She had nowhere to go, but that made no difference. To stay here, and eat the bread her father put on the table, would be to yield to his authority. She would be accepting his evaluation of her, as a commodity to be sold. She was sorry she had drunk the first cup of ale. Her only chance was to reject him immediately and get out from under his roof.

Gwenda looked at her mother. 'You're wrong,' she said. 'He is a devil. And the old stories are right: when you make a bargain with the devil, you end up paying more than you thought.'

Ma looked away.

Gwenda stood up. The refilled cup was still in her hand. She tipped it, pouring the ale on the floor. Skip immediately started to lick it up.

Her father said angrily: 'I paid a farthing for this jug of ale!'

'Good-bye,' said Gwenda, and she walked out.

18

On the following Sunday, Gwenda attended the court hearing that would decide the fate of the man she loved.

The manorial court was held in the church after the service. It was the forum in which the village took collective action. Some of the questions it addressed were disputes - arguments over field boundaries, accusations of theft or rape, quarrels about debts - but more often it made pragmatic decisions, such as when to begin plowing with the communal eight-ox team.

In theory, the lord of the manor sat in judgment over his serfs. But Norman law - brought to England by invaders from France almost three centuries earlier - compelled lords to follow the customs of their predecessors; and in order to find out what those customs were, they had to formally consult twelve men of good standing in the village - a jury. So, in practice, the proceedings often became a negotiation between lord and villagers.

On this particular Sunday, Wigleigh had no lord. Sir Stephen had been killed in the collapse of the bridge. Gwenda had brought this news to the village. She also reported that Earl Roland, who had the task of appointing Stephen's replacement, had been gravely injured. On the day before she left Kingsbridge, the earl had recovered consciousness for the first time - but he had woken into a fever so violent that he was unable to speak a coherent sentence. So there was no prospect of a new lord of Wigleigh yet.

This was not an unusual circumstance. Lords were frequently away: at war, in Parliament, fighting lawsuits, or just attending on their earl or the king. Earl Roland always appointed a deputy, usually one of his sons - but, in this case, he had not been able to do so. In the absence of an overlord, the bailiff had to manage the landholding as best he could.

The job of a bailiff or reeve was, in theory, to carry out the lord's decisions, but this inevitably gave him a degree of power over his fellows. Exactly how much power depended on the lord's personal preference: some held tight control, others were lax. Sir Stephen had kept a loose rein, but Earl Roland was notoriously strict.

Nate Reeve had been bailiff to Sir Stephen and to Sir Henry before him, and would presumably be bailiff to whoever came next. He was a hunchback, a small, bent figure, thin and energetic. He was shrewd and greedy, careful to make the most of his limited power by demanding bribes from the villagers at every opportunity.

Gwenda disliked Nate. It was not his greed she objected to: all bailiffs had that vice. But Nate was a man twisted by resentment as much as by his physical defect. His father had been bailiff to the earl of Shiring, but Nate had not inherited that grand position, and he blamed his hump for the fact that he had ended up in the small village of Wigleigh. He seemed to hate all young, strong, handsome people. In his leisure hours he liked to drink wine with Perkin, Annet's father - who always paid for the liquor.

The question before the court today was what to do about Wulfric's family's land.

It was a large holding. Peasants were not all equal, and they did not have equal lands. The standard was a virgate, which was thirty acres in this part of England. In theory a virgate was the area of land one man could farm, and normally yielded enough to feed one family. However, most Wigleigh peasants had a half virgate, fifteen acres, or thereabouts. They were obliged to find additional means of support for their families: netting birds in the woods, trapping fish in the stream that ran through Brookfield, making belts or sandals from cheap leather offcuts, weaving cloth from yarn for Kingsbridge merchants, or poaching the king's deer in the forest. A few had more than a virgate. Perkin had a hundred acres, and Wulfric's father, Samuel, had had ninety. Such wealthy peasants needed help to farm their land, either from their sons and other relatives, or from hired laborers such as Gwenda's father.

When a serf died, his land might be inherited by his widow, his sons, or a married daughter. In any event, the handover had to be licensed by the lord, and a stiff tax, called a heriot, was due. In normal circumstances Samuel's land would automatically have been inherited by his two sons, and there would have been no need for a court hearing. They would have clubbed together to pay the heriot, then either divided up the land or farmed it together, and made some arrangement for their mother. But one of Samuel's sons had died with him, which complicated matters.

Every adult in the village attended the court, in general. Gwenda had a particular interest today. Wulfric's future would be decided, and the fact that he planned to spend that future with another woman did not dampen Gwenda's concern. Perhaps she should have wished him a miserable life with Annet, she sometimes thought; but she could not. She wanted him to be happy.

When the service was over, a large wooden chair and two benches were brought in from the manor house. Nate took the chair and the jurymen sat on the benches. Everyone else stood.

Wulfric spoke simply. 'My father held ninety acres of the lord of Wigleigh,' he said. 'Fifty acres were held by his father before him, and forty by his uncle who died ten years ago. As my mother is dead, and so is my brother, and I have no sisters, I am the sole heir.'

'How old are you?' said Nate.

'Sixteen years.'

'You can't even call yourself a man yet.'

It seemed Nate was going to make things difficult. Gwenda knew why. He wanted a bribe. But Wulfric had no money.

'Years aren't everything,' Wulfric said. 'I'm taller and stronger than most grown men.'

Aaron Appletree, one of the jurors, said: 'David Johns inherited from his father when he was eighteen.'

Nate said: 'Eighteen isn't sixteen. I don't recall an instance where a sixteen-year-old was allowed to inherit.'

David Johns was not a juror, and he was standing next to Gwenda. 'I didn't have no ninety acres, neither,' he said, and there was a ripple of laughter. David had a half virgate, like most of them.

Another juror spoke. 'Ninety acres is too much for one man, let alone a boy. Why, it was farmed by three until now.' The speaker was Billy Howard, a man in his middle twenties who had wooed Annet unsuccessfully - which might be why he wanted to side with Nate in putting obstacles in Wulfric's way. 'I've got forty acres, and I have to hire laborers at harvest time.'