Ralph Delchard and Gervase Bret led the cavalcade. It was a bright day and the open road beckoned. They were moving at a rising trot through sporadic woodland.
“Our stay was much longer than we anticipated,” said Ralph. “But our efforts were very worthwhile. If it had not been for us, Hamo’s reign of terror would still be continuing.”
“Yes,” said Gervase. “Jocelyn will be a much more amenable lord of the manor now that we have cut him and his demesne right down to size. His sister will profit as well.”
“How so?”
“The marriage in Coutances will be called off,” he predicted. “When it was arranged, she was the daughter of the mighty Hamo and brought a rich dowry. That situation has been altered dramatically. Her elected husband will think twice before allying his family to that of the FitzCorbucions now.”
“Miles Champeney may yet come into favour, then.”
“In time, Ralph. In time. My guess is that Jocelyn will warm to the idea eventually. Now that his wings have been clipped, he needs friends in Maldon.”
“Gilbert will soon mellow as well, I think.”
Matilda FitzCorbucion’s escape from her house had not led to the idyllic reunion she had hoped. Miles Champeney had been delighted to see her and immediately saddled up his horse to ride off with her, but the news of her father’s death arrived before they could depart. It changed everything. Overcome with remorse, she went back to Blackwater Hall. It was her father’s domineering personality that had held the whole demesne together and that quickly became clear, even to Jocelyn. He would never exercise the power or the influence of Hamo and he would need all his energies to administer a demoralised estate. Jocelyn and his sister had reasons to hate each other but they were reconciled by the adverse circumstances. By the same token, Gilbert and his son came to a deeper level of understanding. With the death of his rival, Gilbert was able to take a slightly more accommodating view of the FitzCorbucion family. Miles, too, had learned the importance of blood ties. As the son of a prominent lord, he would now have something to offer Matilda. Hard reality had made a romantic elopement impossible but the passage of time would bring the lovers ineluctably together.
“Did you see who else was waving us off?” said Ralph.
“Wistan.”
“Gilbert has taken the lad under his own wing.” “There is no place for him at Blackwater now.”
“Wistan had the courage to take on Hamo in single combat,” recalled Ralph. “The boy is lucky to be alive. He has Tovild the Haunted to thank for that.”
“And his own father, Ralph.” “His father?”
“Wistan was named after a brave warrior who fought in the Battle of Maldon.” He smiled wryly. “That was what brought Tovild to his aid. If the lad had been called Ralph or Gervase, he would now be lying dead in his grave.”
“Too true.”
“He will now have a kinder lord to serve.”
“Yes!” said Ralph with mock horror. “Gilbert is half-Saxon.” “There is nothing wrong with that,” said Gervase.
Ralph started to rhapsodize about the virtues of Sister Tecla and to wonder if he could not have rescued her from the strictures of convent life. Cold fact then intruded. Hers was indeed a sad condition but Maldon Priory would be a more secure and loving environment for her now that its darker element had been purged. He could never offer her the peace and spiritual companionship that she needed to help her to recover from all she endured. Whatever his faults, she had loved Guy FitzCorbucion once and cherished the gift that he had given her. His murder was a blow to her. The fact that it had been committed by one of her holy sisters was even more devastating.
These thoughts steered him around to a question.
“Tell me, Gervase,” he said. “What first gave you the idea that Sister
Gunnhild might be the killer?” “Canon Hubert.”
“He suggested it?”
“No,” said Gervase, “but he did start that argument we had over crime and punishment. Hubert seemed to have a soft spot for mutilation, even though he was indignant when I pointed out that he shared the same attitude as King Cnut.”
“Well?”
“Sister Gunnhild was a Dane.”
“And old enough to have lived under Cnut’s reign.” “I remembered the mutilation of Guy FitzCorbucion.” “That’s something I choose to forget!”
“Why should someone castrate him?” said Gervase. “You thought it might be a vengeful husband whose wife had been seduced by Guy, but I wondered if it might not be something else. Cnut enforced his legal code rigorously, and when he died, its spirit lived on. Especially among the Danish communities that remained here. Gunnhild was the victim of those laws. They cut her ears off.”
“The punishment for adultery.”
“She was fortunate not to lose her nose as well,” said Gervase. “You can understand why she wanted to hide her disfigurement. Even Prioress Mindred knew nothing about it until she discovered Gunnhild taking a bath one night. The truth finally came out. The prioress confided it to me.”
“That fat old woman committed adultery? Never!”
“She was young and thin once, Ralph,” he said, “and was even betrothed. Then a trusted neighbour came to see her and forced himself upon her. He was a married man. They were caught in the act. The man fled but Gunnhild was left behind to face me judgement of her elders. Nobody believed her when she told the truth, not even the man to whom she was betrothed. He spurned her along with all the others. She had committed adultery, it was said, and they mutilated her. Where else could she turn but to a convent?”
“No wonder she hated men so much!” observed Ralph.
“She inflicted the punishment on Guy FitzCorbucion that she felt the man who defiled her should have suffered. She saw herself and Sister Tecla as fellow victims of lust.”
“Yes,” said Ralph soulfully. “I sometimes think that you Saxons are primitive enough but the Danes could be barbaric.”
“Hamo was both,” reminded Gervase, “and he was Norman.”
Ralph conceded the point with a grin then swung around in the saddle to take a valedictory look at Maldon. The hill was no more than a distant mound on the horizon now and it aroused a welter of memories for him. One dominated.
“I was thinking of Humphrey Goldenbollocks.” “At least, you know the truth about him now.”
“I wish that I had not asked,” said Ralph bitterly. “I was much happier believing that his overweening desire had earned him the name of Aureis testiculi.”
Gervase smirked. “In a sense, it did.”
“Before I was told, I envied the man. Not any more.” “Does it not make you want to keep bees?”
“I’ll never eat honey again as long as I live!” vowed Ralph. “A man is entitled to his pleasures, is he not? All that Humphrey did was to take a fair fat wench into the long grass on a summer’s afternoon. I have done the same myself a score of times but I will be more careful in the future.”
“You do not have beehives, Ralph.”
“That was his undoing. They resented him stealing their honey. The bees did all the work and Humphrey came along to take the fruits of their labour.” Ralph gave a shudder as he recounted the tale, which Gilbert Champeney had told him. “When they found him lying naked in the grass, they took their revenge. Did they attack his arms, his legs, or his back? Did they concentrate their venom on his bare but-tocks? No! They stung the poor fellow where it would hurt most. No wonder he was dubbed Aureis testiculi. By the time the bees had finished with him, his bollocks were as big and golden as two oranges.” He gave a groan of sympathy. “What a grotesque punishment!”
“Do not mention it to Canon Hubert,” joked Gervase, “or he will incorporate it into his own legal code. It sounds painful enough to have great appeal for him.”
“Testicular torture! The monastic ideal.”
They shared a laugh, then kicked their horses into a gentle canter. Maldon was behind them but other assignments awaited in Winchester.