She shook Matilda and Gillota awake and soon they were sleepily eating the gruel and some bread smeared with pork dripping that was their breakfast. They slept in their working clothes, calf-length shifts of coarse cloth, clinched at the waist with a rope girdle, so they were ready to be off as soon as they had washed down their food with some small ale.
But as they moved barefoot to the door, it suddenly flew open and Adam the carter burst in.
‘There they are, the runaway serfs!’ he shouted triumphantly and stood aside as two rough-looking men entered and advanced on the women. Behind them came another, dark-haired man, dressed in a short tunic, breeches and riding boots, of a quality that marked him as being from a higher station in life.
‘Walter Lupus!’ screamed Gillota and ran to hide behind her mother. Aghast, Matilda shielded her with her body, but one of the men dragged her aside and began snapping rusty iron fetters on the girl’s wrists, while the other did the same to Matilda.
Wriggling and shouting, she began protesting at the top of her voice. ‘Why can you not leave us in peace? We are free, don’t you understand?’
The lord of Kentisbury pushed his way further into the room. ‘Be quiet, woman!’ he shouted. ‘You are absconders, do you understand? You’re going back where you belong.’
The manacles were attached to long chains, and the two ruffians, whom Lupus had obviously brought from Kentisbury, began dragging the two women out of the door, with Emma stumbling behind them, shouting for help at the top of her damaged voice.
By the time the disorderly procession had reached the gate, neighbours were beginning to congregate in the road outside.
‘What’s going on here?’ demanded the man from next door. ‘Who are you and what are doing to those women?
For answer, one of the roughs pushed him in the chest, making him fall against the fence.
‘Mind your tongue, fellow!’ bellowed Walter. ‘Then mind your own business, for this is none of yours.’
There was a growl of anger from the small crowd, which was growing as more villagers congregated at the house.
‘Leave our women alone. What right have you to invade our village?’ shouted the smith, who had always been very friendly to Matilda and her daughter.
Lupus raised a riding crop he carried and smacked the man across the face, raising a red weal across his cheek.
‘Keep a civil tongue in your head, man, or I’ll have it cut out!’ he snarled.
The crowd fell back a pace, alarmed at this early show of violence. They could see that this was a man of substance from his demeanour and quality of clothing — and some of them had seen the fine horse that was tied up outside Adam’s cottage.
‘Send for the bailiff — and the sergeant!’ screamed Emma from the yard. ‘They’ll know how to deal with these outlaws!’
Her damaged voice carried well enough for some of the neighbours to start running back towards the centre of the village, but Lupus ignored her and began striding up the track towards Adam’s house.
The two louts followed, dragging the woman and the girl behind them by their chains. Matilda thrashed and struggled, calling out all the time for Lupus to let them go, but Gillota just stumbled along sobbing, tears streaming from her eyes.
Adam followed behind, but he was jostled and abused by his fellow villagers, several of whom managed to get in a punch or kick against this traitor in their midst.
They reached Adam’s dwelling, a cottage with large yard and a thatched byre where he kept his oxen. He hurried ahead and pulled open the crude door to the shed, revealing a heap of soiled straw and a manger where he fed hay to his two beasts. They were tethered in the yard, so the byre was empty, and the two men Lupus had brought from Kentisbury dragged the women inside and pushed them roughly down on to the straw. One of them secured the loose chains to one of the roof supports with a rusty nail-spike, which he hammered in with a large stone.
‘That’ll keep you from wandering until we’re ready to leave!’ he jeered.
By the time Walter Lupus had inspected the chains, new arrivals had appeared in the yard. The bailiff, Ranulf de Forde, and the Sergeant of the Hundred, Osbert de Bosco, had been summoned by the villagers. The first administered the King’s properties in the area, and de Bosco was responsible to the sheriff for law and order in the part of the county centred on Shebbear.
‘What’s going on here?’ demanded the bailiff. ‘Why are these women being shackled like this?’
Walter was not disposed to being questioned in such a peremptory fashion by a bailiff. ‘It’s none of your concern. I would have thought you would be aware that I am the lord of Kentisbury. I am merely recapturing two serfs who ran away last year. It has taken me this long to discover where they were, thanks to your carter Adam. I had thought that they had run to a borough like Barnstaple.’
This was a reasonable assumption, as most absconding villeins made for a town, where, if they could evade recapture for a year and a day, they were entitled to their freedom.
The sergeant was not happy with the situation. ‘I feel it is not right for you to just ride into our village with your men and seize two of our women without a by your leave or any gesture of courtesy to us.’
Walter turned on him angrily. ‘Damn you and your courtesy, fellow! These are not “your women”, as you call them — they are my serfs and I need every person to help with the harvest. This is nothing to do with you or this miserable vill of Shebbear!’
His arrogance annoyed them, but they recognized that he probably had the ear of the sheriff or one of the Devon barons, so they were afraid to antagonize him.
‘What are you going to do with them?’ asked de Bosco in a more conciliatory tone.
‘They are going back to my manor in chains,’ snapped Lupus. ‘Your carter Adam, who told me of their whereabouts, is taking them back today. I am angry that you gave them shelter here, when it must have been obvious that they were fugitive serfs.’
‘They claim they were freed, sir,’ objected the bailiff.
Walter Lupus gave a laugh that was more like a derisive bark. ‘They would, wouldn’t they! Liars, both of them. The woman’s father was my father’s reeve, from a long line of villeins.’
He turned his back on the two officials and snapped a command at Adam, who was lurking in the byre, trying to keep away from his irate neighbours.
‘Give these women a bucket and something to eat before you leave. I shall expect you in Kentisbury tomorrow night.’
An ox-cart moved at the pace of a man’s walk and would take two days to cover the miles between the villages.
Walter left one of the guards he had brought in Adam’s yard, then he and the other man walked back to the church and rode away on their horses, leaving a disgruntled but powerless community behind.
Emma marched into the ox-byre, defying the lout who tried to prevent her. ‘Get out of my way, you heartless swine,’ she screeched. ‘I need to see my niece and her daughter.’
A few of the village men pushed into the yard and stood threateningly around the man. Though they dare not defy the lord of Kentisbury by rescuing the women, they had no scruples about harassing his servant.
Emma went into the shed and spent a few minutes trying to console Matilda and especially Gillota, who was devastated by this reversal of their fortunes.
‘You’ll have to go back, but we will do all we can to get you home again,’ Emma promised. ‘I will ask the bailiff, sergeant and our priest what can be done.’
She went back to their cottage and put the few spare garments that the women possessed into a cloth bag, together with some food for the journey and a purse with a few pennies, all she had to give. At Matilda’s pleading, she also added the strange stone that her niece kept under the end of her mattress.