‘Yes!’ she said defiantly. ‘The man was horrible to me. Boio cared. The reeve goaded him about me. That was why Boio got angry.’ There was another pause. ‘He did not go looking for the man. The reeve came here to attack him. He only defended himself.’ A sudden fear engulfed her and made her shake all over. ‘You will not turn him over to the lord Henry, will you?
Please! Please!’
‘No,’ said Gervase gently, ‘I think that he has already suffered enough for what he did. He was imprisoned and tortured before he escaped. Then he was hounded across the county like a wild animal before he threw himself on the mercy of the abbey.’ He stood up. ‘He is safe from us, Asmoth. Boio has suffered the worst punishment of all.’
‘What is that?’
‘Being forced to leave you.’
The girl smiled. In the half-light, she looked almost beautiful.
It was an incongruous gathering. An old man, a donkey, a dwarf, a performing bear and a Saxon thegn were there to wave their farewells. Boio mounted the horse which Thorkell had brought for him and took the letter which the latter handed over.
‘Show it to my kinsman,’ instructed the old man. ‘He will take care of you. Ride hard along the Fosse Way and you will reach him well before midnight. Rest there but leave before dawn tomorrow. My kinsman will teach you the next stage of your journey.’
‘Thank you, my lord. And thanks to all of you.’
‘Huna deserves most of the thanks,’ said the dwarf. ‘It was he who devised the way to get you out of the abbey. I am sorry that you had to pretend to be my bear. You made Ursa very jealous.’
‘Waste no more time!’ urged Thorkell. ‘Be off!’
He slapped the rump of the horse and it trotted off in the darkness. Boio was on his way to freedom. The men relaxed, the donkey brayed and the bear gave a yawn. Right of sanctuary was no longer needed.
‘The wonder of it is,’ said Thorkell, turning to Huna, ‘that you saw me when you came out of the abbey earlier.’
‘Boio had talked so much about you, my lord. I recognised you at once by his description. There are not many thegns of your standing left.’
‘Two of us in the whole realm.’
‘I wish there were more overlords like you.’
‘Yes,’ said the dwarf. ‘You came here to help Boio.’
‘That was why I was so delighted when Huna took me aside. I came to help Boio and you two had already contrived his escape.
There could not have been a happier coincidence.’
‘It was an accident which heaven provided,’ said Huna.
‘It was another miracle,’ declared the dwarf.
‘Yes,’ agreed the old man. ‘One day, I will tell you how I did it.’
Epilogue
The dispute which they had expected to take longest to resolve was settled in the shortest time. Events outside the shire hall simplified the decision taken within it. Instead of having to listen to the competing claims of three people, the commissioners only sat in judgement on two. Locked in a castle dungeon, Adam Reynard had to forego his participation in the legal battle over coveted holdings, preoccupied as he was with a legal battle to escape a hideous punishment for poaching. What also speeded up the process for the tribunal was that they were already well acquainted with the two contenders before them and were thus able to anticipate their lines of argument. Robert de Limesey was in direct contention with Thorkell of Warwick. It was another confrontation between Church and State as a Norman bishop tried to oust a Saxon thegn from land which he had owned and occupied for several decades.
There was another paradox. The man on whom the bishop relied to help him most gave him least assistance. Indeed, it was Archdeacon Theobald, chafing at the idleness imposed on him by the suspension of the commissioners’ work, who brought most passion to the shire hall when the sessions there resumed. He showed due respect for the bishop’s eminence but very little for his claim.
‘In essence it has almost no legal basis at all,’ he said.
‘That is not true, Archdeacon Theobald,’ replied Robert with condescension, as if cuffing an errant chorister. ‘Our charter lays before you to attest the legitimacy of our claim but it not only rests on a legal right. We also have a moral right to that land.’
‘I see no moral right in this charter.’
‘Read between the lines.’
‘I prefer to read the lines themselves, my lord bishop,’ said Theobald with crushing firmness, ‘and they fail to convince me that you have any right — legal or moral — to be here at all.’
‘That is a monstrous suggestion!’
‘I do not make it lightly.’
Robert de Limesey was shocked. During his conversation with Gervase Bret at the abbey, he thought he had secured a firm promise that the property would certainly be his but he was now being run ragged by a troublesome archdeacon. In desperation he turned to Gervase.
‘I appeal to you, Master Bret.’
‘My thoughts coincide with those of my colleague,’ said Gervase.
‘But you said that you would look kindly upon my claim.’
‘In the circumstances, we have looked very kindly upon it, my lord bishop. Now that I have had time to examine the document you have offered us, I can see how flimsy a claim you really have.
It was kindness even to consider it.’
‘In brief,’ said Theobald, ‘your charter is worthless.’
The bishop rose to his feet as if about to excommunicate the whole tribunal but he was restrained by the anxious Brother Reginald, who plucked at his sleeve like a child trying to get the attention of its mother. Robert contented himself with a few trenchant opinions about the incompetence of the tribunal, glared at Gervase as if he could see thirty pieces of silver in his hand, then stormed out with his mitre wobbling. Ralph Delchard burst into uncontrollable laughter.
‘That was wonderful, Theobald!’ he said, patting him on the back. ‘You ought to be given a bishopric yourself.’
‘I fear that I have just ruined any hopes I may have had of advancement in the Church,’ said the other modestly. ‘Robert de Limesey is a powerful man. He will find ways to obstruct my future path.’
‘Then you deserve even more praise,’ added Ralph. ‘Attacking a man whom you knew was in a position to retaliate. But why on earth did he turn up here in full vestments? We came to haggle over land, not to celebrate Mass.’
Theobald smiled. ‘The bishop finds the two synonymous.’
‘I have some sympathy for him,’ said Gervase. ‘I led him astray.’
‘You gave him no commitment at all,’ recalled Ralph. ‘I was there. All you did was to let him think that he was a more subtle advocate than you. Robert de Limesey has learned the truth now.
It will not leave him with fond memories of Warwick.’
‘No, my lord,’ said Brother Benedict. ‘I fear that he has still not recovered from what happened at the abbey. The bishop must have had a profound shock when he discovered that Boio was no longer there.’
‘Yes,’ said Ralph, shaking with mirth. ‘When I arrested Philippe Trouville and took him back to Coventry, I arrived to find the bishop standing outside the abbey in the pouring rain and ordering the lord Henry to leave. He delivered the most stirring rhetoric about right of sanctuary and said that nobody would take the blacksmith out of the abbey while he was there to protect him.
He had no idea that the bird had already flown!’
‘I wonder where he went,’ mused Benedict.
‘No matter,’ said Gervase. ‘He is safe.’
‘Praise be to God!’
They gathered up their things and made their way back to the castle, having first given instructions to Ednoth the Reeve to send word to Thorkell that his land was now intact. Theobald and Benedict walked ahead. Ralph and Gervase strolled behind them.
‘Theobald was masterly,’ said Ralph.
‘Do not forget Benedict,’ said Gervase. ‘He too has been a huge asset to us as our scribe. We have been fortunate in both men.