‘Which one do we do first, sir?’ whined the gaoler, hardened by years of service into a callous indifference to the suffering he witnessed or inflicted almost every day.
Richard de Revelle flicked a bored finger towards the older workman. ‘To save my time, take him. He’ll break far faster.’ Babbling with fear, Alfred fell to the ground, in attempted supplication to the sheriff, who pointedly turned his back on the man as the soldiers dragged him across to an alcove on the further wall.
‘It’s obvious that poor Godfrey Fitzosbern’s denial of this ravishment was true, so it must be one of these knaves,’ he declaimed to John.
His brother-in-law scowled at the lack of logic in Richard’s words. ‘Why “poor” Godfrey, all of a sudden?’ he demanded. ‘He confessed to conspiring to a fatal miscarriage.’
The sheriff clucked his tongue reprovingly. ‘Is that such a crime, eh? Who of us can honestly deny a little adultery now and then? Not you for sure, John. And what might you do if your pretty innkeeper got with child – or that comely merchant’s wife down in Dawlish?’
The coroner’s face darkened at this: although his liaison with Nesta was almost public property, he thought that he had been more discreet about his occasional dalliance with Hilda down at the coast. How the hell did Richard know of it? Though John could easily even up the score, as only last month he had caught the sheriff in bed with a whore.
The screaming behind them reached a crescendo and they turned to watch Alfred being laid out for the peine forte et dure. This took place in a shallow bay in the stone wall, arched over by vaulting. The alcove was about eight feet wide and a stout hook was embedded just above floor level into the supporting pillar at each end.
The men-at-arms held the victim on the ground, wriggling like an eel, while Stigand managed to bend himself enough to drop the ankle shackles over one hook. With much puffing and blowing, he then hooked the wrist chains over the other, so that Alfred was stretched across the mouth of the alcove, lying on his back. The party of observers moved slowly up to the weeping, wailing and terrified man, and stood looking down at him dispassionately.
Privately John thought this process a piece of useless witchcraft, like the Ordeal, but it was approved by Church and State alike. The fact that confessions extracted under the duress of exquisite pain were as often false as they were true seemed no hindrance to their effectiveness in improving the conviction rate.
Richard de Revelle took a step nearer, the hem of his long green tunic almost brushing the craftsman’s chest.
The priest from the cathedral chanted something incomprehensible under his breath and made the sign of the Cross in the air. Thomas de Peyne followed suit, three times in rapid succession, almost dropping his precious writing bag into the mud.
‘Alfred, son of Osulf, do you confess to the carnal assault and defilement of Christina Rifford?’ asked the sheriff, almost conversationally.
The man stopped his tumble of beseeching, pleading words long enough to deny it. ‘No, sir, of course not, sir! I never so much as touched the good lady, as God is my judge!’
‘He’s not your judge here, my man. I am your judge today.’
Both the canon and the Coroner looked sharply at Richard, for different reasons. He was claiming precedence over both the Almighty and the Royal Justices, but they decided to stay silent.
‘I did nothing, sir. How can I confess to something that never happened?’ Alfred’s voice cracked with hysterical fear, but the sheriff stepped back and motioned for the soldiers to commence.
At the foot of each green-slimed pillar lay a pile of thick metal plates, roughly rectangular in shape and red with rust.
‘If you persist in your innocence, then we must jog your memory,’ said de Revelle, nodding at Ralph Morin, whose opinion of this process was similar to John’s. Many fighting men were uneasy with these cold-blooded antics in hidden dungeons. However, he had no choice but to motion to one of his soldiers, who bent and lifted one of the iron slabs, weighing about fifteen pounds.
‘Place the first one on his breast,’ commanded the sheriff. The plate was lowered on to Alfred’s chest, resting from his collarbones down to his belly. Though uncomfortable, there was no perceptible effect and the older man kept up his noisy protestations of innocence and his entreaties for mercy.
‘Another!’ ordered de Revelle, and the other man-at-arms moved to obey.
‘If this fellow confesses, what will you do with the other?’ asked John, with a trace of sarcasm.
‘Give him the same treatment, of course,’ snapped the sheriff. ‘No doubt they were both in it together.’
When the second iron was lowered on to his chest, the skinny Saxon gasped and his exhortations stopped as he made the effort to breathe against the weight of thirty pounds pressing down on his breastbone. As the third slab was balanced on the others, he became dark in the face and his lips had a bluish tinge as he wheezily tried to get air into his lungs.
Stigand, his drooping belly hanging down over his wide belt, stood with hands on hips, watching the process with an expert eye. ‘This one will not last a quarter of the hour, sheriff,’ he said critically. ‘He’s skinny and his ribs will crack under the next plate, mark my words.’
Ralph Morin held up his hand to stop the next slab being laid. ‘Best get him to confess while he’s still conscious or you’ll just have a corpse and nothing to write on the crowner’s rolls,’ he advised.
Richard stood at the head of the failing Alfred. ‘Well, man? Are you ready to confess?’
Spots of blood were breaking out in the whites of the man’s eyes and his purplish tongue was swelling between blackening lips. Unable to speak for lack of breath, he nodded feebly.
Triumphantly, the sheriff turned to his brother-in-law. ‘See? He admits it! This method is far better than all your snooping and poking about with your poxy parchments, John.’
There was a sudden jangling of chains behind them as a scuffle began between the remaining guard and Garth, who was as massively built as Ralph Morin.
They swung round to see the younger smith dragging the man-at-arms towards the alcove. The other soldiers ran to seize him, but he shouted, ‘Let the old man up! He did nothing. It was me! Let my friend go – it was me, I tell you.’ His big face was deadly pale, as pale as it would be at the end of the rope that he must know would now be his inevitable fate.
The faces of the onlookers reflected their varying reactions to this sudden development. The sheriff wore a self-satisfied smirk, the coroner seemed unconvinced and Stigand looked disappointed.
‘Do you know what you’re saying, boy?’ John rasped. ‘You are not just moved by pity for your fellow worker?’
Garth’s expression was now impassive and resigned. ‘It was me all right. That girl preyed on my mind ever since she came to the master’s shop some weeks past.’
‘So how did it come about, then?’ demanded John, still not sure of the truth of the younger man’s confession.
‘The young woman left our shop just before we closed. I was burned up with desire for her, so I followed her to the cathedral. At first I had no intent to have my way with her, only to look at her from a distance, to see that face, those full lips. But the way her hips swayed, the curve of her breast – I lost my senses. When she left through the little side door, I followed – and outside, in the darkness, my wits gave way altogether …’
The passion in his voice as he relived those moments, convinced John, but as Alfred seemed now on the verge of death, the constable interrupted to send one of his men to displace the iron plates, while they settled this new twist in the story.
‘So were you in it as well, you evil swine? I suppose this Alfred took his turn with the poor girl, eh? They’re both in it, didn’t I say as much, John?’ cried Richard de Revelle, self-satisfaction oozing from every pore.