Steadily, looking straightly back at her, Perryn said, “If that’s the right of it, that the custom and law is for the Woderove holding to go by blood from heir to heir, and you say it is, then you say, too, that there being no heir by blood, the holding is in Lord Lovell’s hands for the while, yes?”
‘No!“ Mary cried. ”It naught matters what your foul custom says! The holding’s mine! Matthew meant for me to have it!“
Steadily, as if repeating a thing that he had said before and known he would have to say again to no better end, Perryn said with heavy patience, “If Matthew had, as he sometimes talked of doing, given up the holding to Lord Lovell and taken it back on lease and in the lease given reversion of the holding to you at his death, then, yes, the holding would be yours. But Matthew never did that, and so the holding is not yours.”
‘But it can be,“ Mary said sharply. ”It’s for you to say who has it. You’re the reeve. You can give it to me.“
‘I’m the reeve,“ Perryn agreed, ”but last say in this is Master Spencer’s, or else even Master Holt’s.“ Lord Lovell’s high steward.
‘But the first say is yours,“ Mary flung back, her pretty face all taut with anger, ”and they listen to you!“
‘And since they listen to me, I cannot say to them that you should have the holding, because the holding is too much for you to manage on your own.“
‘You gave Avice Millwarde her widow’s holding two years ago. Why not me now?“
‘Because Avice Millwarde can run a holding and everyone knows it. Everyone likewise knows that you could not.“
Mary took a step toward her brother and pointed an angry finger up toward his face. “What everybody knows is that I’m your sister and you hate me!”
Perryn looked down at her with no outward feeling, answering after a moment, “Are you going to let Father Edmund read the custom concerning the holding or not?”
Mary’s face worked, unlovely for the moment, toward answering that, but before she found it, Father Edmund said quietly from behind his table, “Mary.”
She jerked her head toward him, looking as ready to snap at him as at her brother.
Unheeding her anger, Father Edmund said with simple quietness, “Let things go on as you know they have to, Mary. All will be well, I promise you.”
Mary opened her mouth to say something. Father Edmund cocked his head at her, more in question than rebuke, and she seemed to think better of whatever she had been about to say, closed her mouth, made him a curt curtsy that pointedly ignored her brother, crossed her arms tightly across herself below her breasts, and bowed her head to stare at the floor in a fierce silence that gave up nothing except words.
Perryn looked near to telling her to step back among the onlookers, but Father Edmund warned him off that with a small shake of his head and, before anything else could happen, began to read from the scroll he had been holding partly unrolled this while. What he read said much the same as what had passed between Mary and her brother concerning the Woderove holding, and when Father Edmund had finished, Perryn looked to the jurors and asked, “Is that how you remember it being in time past?”
They agreed that it was.
‘Does anyone remember otherwise?“ he asked of the onlookers at large.
No one said they did.
‘Then the Woderove holding is in Lord Lovell’s hands, to be kept or given as is seen fit,“ Perryn said. ”Yes?“
The jurors nodded silent agreement, but Mary said sullenly at the floor, “Then you can give it to me.”
Ignoring he had heard her, though he must have, Perryn said, “Is there anyone here makes bid to have the holding?”
Tom Hulcote was stepping forward even as he said it, with an angry glance across to Gilbey Dunn. “I do. I bid for it at the terms Woderove held it and another workday to the lord into the bargain.” He put an arm around Mary’s shoulders. “And I’ll marry the widow with it for good measure.”
‘Is she willing to that?“ Perryn asked formally.
Mary jerked her head up. “Yes. Very willing. And you damnably well know it.”
Tom Hulcote tightened his arm around her, drawing her to him.
‘Is there any other offer?“ Perryn asked, not looking at Gilbey Dunn.
Gilbey took a measured pace forward, and when Perryn acknowledged him with a nod, said, bold with self-assurance, “I offer to take the holding on lease for twenty years, at six shillings a year, or whatever else may be agreed on between Lord Lovell’s steward and me.”
Mary Woderove swung out from Tom’s hold and around on Gilbey. “And what becomes of me if you take it all?” she demanded fiercely.
Gilbey turned a cold look on her. “You have a toft and some land, and he has something.” He made an equally cold look at Tom Hulcote. “Let you marry, if that’s what you want, and live as you can with what you have.”
Tom laid a hand on Mary’s shoulder. “I want better than that for her!”
‘Then you should be a better man,“ Gilbey said coldly back.
Tom made a threatening step forward. “I’m as good as you and likely better!”
‘Then pity you don’t show it,“ Gilbey returned, holding his ground, older than Tom by some not-few years but with no apparent doubt that he’d be his match if their quarrel came to more than words.
Mary shifted away from them, back toward the onlookers. Elena took a step forward-toward her husband or toward Tom Hulcote, Frevisse wondered-but before more happened, Perryn said, “That’s enough. From both of you. Think on you’re in the church.”
‘Let him think…“ Tom Hulcote began.
‘You’ll be fined if you keep on like this,“ Perryn warned.
‘Fined!“ Tom cried. ”You’d do it, too! Me but not him, because all you’re for is to keep the poor down and folk like him and you up, and don’t think we don’t know it! Them that has, keeps and always has, and now for bad measure you want to take what the rest of us have, too!“
There were answering grumbles and shifting among some of the onlookers. Father Henry eased away from the wall and in amongst the largest clot of them, beginning to lay hands weightily on various shoulders and saying things into various ears as Father Edmund rose to his feet behind the table to say in his clear, carrying priest’s voice, “Remember, all of you, where you are and what will come of violence done here.”
Tom Hulcote turned to him with suddenly a desperate plea instead of anger. “Help me in this,” he begged, and pointed at Gilbey. “He has land enough, more than enough. Tell him to let this bit go to someone as needs it!”
‘Tom, that isn’t where the issue lies,“ Father Edmund began.
‘It is!“ Tom’s anger flared up again. ”Tell him, priest- tell yourself, come to that-what’s said in the Bible about rich men and heaven! You’ve preached it often enough!“
‘Tom!“ Perryn warned sharply. ”Don’t make me have to judge against you!“
‘Judge against me?“ He swung toward Perryn now, voice rising. ”You’re the one who’d best watch out for judgment. You and him!“
He pointed viciously at Gilbey, and Frevisse stood up abruptly, rapping out with bridled anger, “Enough!”
She had been still long enough to be forgotten, and her suddenness brought heads around toward her and a brief, startled silence into which she said at Tom, “You’re the priory’s villein and my say has been asked in this matter on that account. My say is that angers are too high and hot now for decision to be made. By your reeve’s leave and yours-” with a nod to the jurors and in a quieter voice “-I say we should have a half hour’s pause before we finish.” Long enough to talk Tom Hulcote down and around, she hoped, and give Father Henry more chance at settling the other men.