I breathed a huge sigh of relief and began praying fervently, saying over and over again, Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
This must be the reason why the lord’s men seemed so unconcerned with me. The rider who hastened away from Goda’s house had sought out Edild and she, bless her, had backed me up without hesitation. I knew I had some explaining to do and I guessed she was none too pleased with me. But she had supported my story. At that terrifying moment, that was all I could think of.
The relief that coursed through me was short-lived for just then they brought forward Sibert. Tall though he may be, he is slim and lightly built and I could not think it really needed two heavy-handed guards to hold him. It seemed that the two different companies of manor officials had each provided their roughest, toughest guard and one stood on Sibert’s right and the other on his left. Sibert looked petrified.
The man who had questioned me in Goda’s house now stepped up on to a large wooden box that some helpful villager must have provided. He said in a loud voice, ‘An accusation of theft has been made against the young man Sibert of Aelf Fen, here before you. He has just been brought from the house of his mother and his uncle’ — I stared round frantically and there were Froya and Hrype at the back of the crowd, Froya tugging and twisting anxiously at her white linen apron, her face as pale as her light blonde hair, and Hrype scowling thunderously — ‘and he will now be searched.’
They must already have searched the cottage, I thought wildly, not that it would have taken long to rummage through the family’s few belongings in their one-roomed house. Clever Sibert, not to have hidden the crown in so obvious a place! I wondered where he had put it. Perhaps he had thought up a suitable place on our long march home — he’d passed enough time in silence to have come up with several likely spots, and-
They had dragged him out in the open where everyone could see and they were starting to pull off his clothes. He cried out in protest and started to struggle, and one of the guards hit him quite hard on the jaw. I heard a gasp and then a moan from Froya. His tunic was lifted over his head and two of the guards felt it carefully to see if anything was hidden in its folds. Someone made him lift his feet, one after the other, and they drew off his boots. Then one of the guards who had been holding him untied the drawstring around his narrow waist and his baggy breeches fell to the ground and bunched around his ankles.
Sibert stood there naked but for a leather bag that hung over his flat belly, fastened on a thin strap around his hips. In his shame he hung his head. I wished I had looked away sooner, for as I screwed my eyes shut I could still see him. His face, throat and lower arms were sunburned, dark against the pale flesh normally covered by his garments, and his body looked frail, the ribs and the collarbones very prominent. His legs were long, the sinews straight and wiry. His penis, shrivelled with his fear, hung limp beneath its thatch of fair hair.
I kept my eyes shut while silently I sent him the strongest support I could muster. If he looked up and saw me, I thought, he would see that at least one villager was not staring at him in his humiliation and-
Oh, but what was I thinking of!
I was almost weeping with sympathy for my friend because he stood stripped and shamed in front of the whole village. But that was nothing. For, obsessed and driven young man that I now knew him to be, he had not hidden the crown at all.
Perhaps he tried. Perhaps he got out to whatever place he had selected for its concealment and then when the moment came, discovered he was unable to tear himself away from it.
The little experience I had had of the crown told me that its power was such that it was more than capable of such a feat.
However it had happened, the fact remained that Sibert stood before those who had come looking for what he and I had stolen and he was carrying it — wearing it, almost — in its leather bag around his body.
I had to look.
One of the guards had unfastened the bag and was on the point of untying the thongs to see what was within. Then the burly man stepped forward and took it rather roughly from the guard’s hands. Only a man as big and powerful as he would risk that, I thought, for the guard was very broad and bore the signs of more than one fight on his coarse features. For an instant he stared at the burly man through narrowed slits of eyes, then he stepped back.
The burly man thrust his hand into the bag. He must have known full well what was in there, for the shape was unmistakable. He paused, and I saw a cruel smile twist his thin lips. Then he extracted his hand and held the crown high above his head.
There was no need for words and he said nothing. The guards closed in around Sibert as if they feared that, faced with incontrovertible truth of his guilt, he might think he had nothing to lose and try to make a run for it. I could have told them they were wrong; Sibert, I realized, was in a state that verged on total collapse and only the guards holding his arms stopped him from slumping to the ground.
Then I realized something strange. The burly man was not the only one who was suddenly mute; nobody else was speaking either. And Sibert’s guards were ashen-faced.
The little group made up of Sibert, his guards, the lord’s men and the burly man formed the centre of the crowd and they were closest to the crown. But as the burly man continued to hold it high in the air, it was as if a wave of its power broke over the rest of us. Some seemed impervious, continuing to stare blankly at the drama unfolding before them. Some — Hrype, Edild, my sister Elfritha — went so white that they looked deadly sick and I knew I must look the same. My knees shook and it was all that I could do to keep standing. There was a rushing sound in my ears and my skin felt as if it had been blasted by hot air. I wanted very much to throw up.
The invisible wave passed.
The burly man must have recovered for suddenly he was shouting in a loud, confident voice, ‘Here is the object that was stolen from me and that I now reclaim!’
Stolen from me.
I knew then who he was.
I fixed my eyes on him, using all my puny, fledgling power in an attempt to make him look at me. He did, and for the first time I stared into the glittering black eyes of the man I knew to be Baudouin de la Flèche.
It is not yours, I said silently as our gazes met. It was hidden centuries ago by men who were not of your blood. Even the feeble excuse that it lay hidden on what for a time was your land no longer applies for Drakelow is no longer yours.
I don’t know if he knew what I was thinking. Probably not, but it made me feel better to be doing something.
He stared at me blank-eyed for a moment. Then he gave a very horrible smile.
He held up his hand and at once the agitated hiss of muttered comments that had broken out among the villagers ceased. ‘Sibert of Aelf Fen here is guilty of theft,’ he stated forcefully. I saw one of the lord’s men step forward as if to protest, to say, perhaps, that Sibert would have to be put on trial to determine his guilt, but Baudouin de la Flèche ignored him. ‘The proof of his theft was found on his body and all here present saw it!’ He looked round as if daring us to challenge him. Nobody did.
‘There is more,’ he said, still staring round and now speaking in a low, dramatic tone that carried right to the back of the crowd. He spun round to face Sibert. Then, his face working with the violent emotion that tore through him, he shouted, ‘This young man is a murderer! He killed my nephew and he will hang!’