And now Frevisse noted the woman standing close behind him, her hand laid on his forearm as she rose on her toes to whisper in his ear. Mary Woderove, surely. A small-boned, child-pretty woman whose head came hardly to her lover’s shoulder, though he was not over-tall, until she tiptoed. She looked all the younger for the black veil she wore in token of her widowhood instead of the married woman’s usual white one, but the veil seemed to be all she gave to her widowhood, Frevisse thought uncharitably, watching as Mary leaned nearer, pressing her breasts against Tom Hulcote’s back while she went on whispering to him, smiling up at him until as Simon Perryn gave word to the jurors for the court to start, Tom Hulcote frowned, shook his head, and urged her away with a small twitch of his arm. Mary whispered something else, still smiling, and drew back, leaving her lover with a dark flush reddening his face.
Along with word of where court would be and warning there might be trouble, Perryn had asked if another matter besides the Woderove holding could be seen to, too. Frevisse had sent back word it could and now settled to listen while Alson Bonde and Martin Fisher were called forward. There was a stirring through the crowd, with whispering between those who knew what it was about and those who did not, but it seemed that Perryn had dealt in the matter as he had purposed, because agreement on the lease between them was smoothly made and written into the court records, and a man who must be Alson’s son was waiting at the crowd’s fore-edge, to lay an arm around her shoulders when it was done and nod friendliwise to Martin Fisher, too, who nodded back the same, as Perryn said low in Frevisse’s ear, “The betrothal’s agreed on and everybody happy…”
He was interrupted by a bull-shouldered youth shoving out into the court’s open space, pulling an older man after him by a hard grip on his sleeve, and Perryn stood up and demanded, “Hamon? Walter? What is this?”
‘It’s him,“ the younger man said, jerking his head back at the other man. ”He won’t leave off bothering me. I want the court to tell him to leave off, he’s got no right.“
‘Walter?“ Perryn asked, not seeming greatly disturbed.
The older man twitched his sleeve from Hamon’s hold and answered, equally calm, “He’s on about how I’ve told him he’s to work for me, to pay back what he cost me on that surety.”
‘There was naught said about paying back!“ Hamon protested.
‘There was, while Father Edmund was writing out the agreement, and there were those heard you say it,“ Walter said.
‘But it weren’t in the agreement! I never signed naught that said I’d have to pay back!“
‘But you gave your word to it. Before witnesses,“ Walter said.
‘But I never swore…“ The younger man’s voice was rising.
‘Steady, Hamon,“ Perryn said.
Hamon tucked in his chin, like a bull baffled by baiting. “I never…” he stubbornly began again.
‘Hamon,“ Perryn said warningly.
Hamon dropped to sullen silence.
‘Now,“ Perryn said, ”we’ll tell Dame Frevisse what’s toward here, you both being priory villeins and in her rule.“
None so happy to hear that, Frevisse sat up straighter, to pay closer heed as Perryn detailed a loan made to Hamon by Jenet atte Forge-a broad woman in a yellow dress took a step forward from the women around Ada Bychurch to make curtsy to the court-with Walter Hopper here and Dick Blakeman-a narrow-framed man moved forward a step from the north wall, made a quick, awkward bow, and stepped hurriedly back beside a wide-hipped, sweet-faced woman holding a swaddled baby- as surety it be repaid, which it hadn’t been, and Walter had seen to Jenet atte Forge being satisfied with use of one of his cows in milk for the summer, in place of him and Dick paying outright money, which they did not have.
‘And now?“ Frevisse asked at Walter.
He bowed with more assurance than Dick Blakeman had and said to her, “Now I’ve been telling Hamon here that he owes me work until I’m paid back for paying off his debt.”
‘And I say I don’t! I never signed to any such thing and I’m off two days hence to work over Bloxham way where they’ll be paying me something and you say you won’t!“
‘I’m not going to pay you because you’re working to pay me back what you owe me,“ Walter said as if it were something he had already said more than a few times before.
‘I don’t owe you aught!“
‘Hamon,“ Perryn said, ”hush.“
Hamon hushed. Perryn looked to Frevisse who realized he was giving the problem over to her and gathered her wits to say to Walter, “You said there were witnesses heard him agree to pay you back.”
‘Aye.“
Perryn put up a hand, stopping Hamon from saying anything to that, and Frevisse asked of Walter, “Who?”
‘Father Edmund, for one.“
Frevisse looked to the priest.
He met her look. “It’s even as Walter says. He said to Hamon, ‘If I have to pay this in your place, you’ll work it out on my land for me, yes?’ And Hamon said, ‘Surely.’ ”
‘But I didn’t…“ Hamon started.
‘Hamon,“ Perryn said.
Hamon huffed and held quiet.
‘Who else?“ Frevisse asked.
Walter named two other men, one of them a juror, the other raising his hand from the far end of the nave to show he was there. To Frevisse’s question, they both agreed that Walter and Hamon had said what Father Edmund said they had said. “Walter even asked Hamon twice,” the juror said. “Twice he said it, and twice Hamon answered he would.”
Both the other man and Father Edmund agreed to that, and Frevisse looked to Hamon. He looked down at his feet. He was not as young as he had seemed to her at first sight, and she thought now it was not lack of years but lack of good sense that made his face so soft as she said with curbed impatience, “Well, Hamon? Three men besides Walter Hopper say they heard you say you’d work for him if you failed the debt. Have you answer to that?”
Hamon started to scuff his right foot at the floor without looking up. “I might have said it. I was that glad he was going surety for me, I’d likely have said anything. But I never signed…”
‘But you said it,“ Frevisse interrupted.
Hamon tucked his chin down more sullenly. “I said it,” he granted.
‘Before witnesses.“
‘Aye.“ Grudgingly.
‘Then it would seem to me it’s an agreement you must keep.“ From the side of her eye she saw by a small nod of Perryn’s head that he agreed with that. She looked to the jurors. ”Yes?“
They equally agreed, and while Father Edmund wrote it into the record, Walter clapped a hand on Hamon’s shoulder, saying, “There now. That’s done and it’ll be none so bad, you’ll see. Come on. I’ll stand you a drink when we’re done here,” drawing him away into the crowd.
Perryn turned to the jurors and said, “It’s Woderove’s holding we have to deal with now,” and if he regretted that as much as Frevisse did, he gave no sign of it. Ignoring both the jurors’ uneasy shifting on their bench and the ripple of talk and movement through the crowd, he looked to Father Edmund. “You have the records for it ready?”
Father Edmund laid a hand on the scrolls on the table in front of him. “Here.”
‘Then read them aloud, if you please, Father.“
Mary Woderove stepped forward past Tom Hulcote, into the space between jurors and crowd and said angrily at her brother, “You know full well what they say! Everyone knows. That the holding goes to the firstborn son and down the line of sons, and if there are no sons, then to the daughters. You know that and that Matthew and I had nobody, no sons or daughters either, and now you want to take what’s mine away from me because of it and everyone knows that, too!”