‘So you’ll not give yourself up to me or the sheriff?’ he began conversationally.
The man from Peter Tavy pressed back into his niche and shook his head again. ‘Never! I might as well hang myself now from that window.’ He gestured dramatically at the centre bar of a small opening above them.
‘Save us a lot of trouble and expense if you did,’ grunted Gwyn. ‘I’ll willingly supply you with a rope.’
John leaned forward to the man in the corner. ‘You’d better understand well the situation regarding sanctuary. You’ve managed to evade arrest by getting in here. The fact that you ran away and sought refuge will be damning evidence against you when the matter comes to trial – which, I assure you, will be before the King’s judges, not the sheriff’s court.’
De Bonneville seemed to recover some of his former defiance now that the sheriff and the episcopal contingent had left. ‘Don’t try to tell me that flight means guilt, Crowner! The level of justice in this land means that many an innocent man takes to his heels to escape false accusation.’
John wasn’t disposed to argue with him. ‘That’s as maybe, the court will decide that. In any event, you managed to reach sanctuary.’ He fixed the younger man with a steely eye, not concerned to hide his contempt for a killer and a coward. ‘Sanctuary gives you forty days’ respite in here, understand?’ Gervaise crouched transfixed, like a rat mesmerised by a snake. ‘At the end of that time, your food and water ceases, the place is sealed up and you either come out or you die in here.’ He stabbed a finger towards de Bonneville. ‘Anyone helping you after those forty days are up is himself liable for summary execution, so don’t expect any aid.’
Gwyn couldn’t resist adding a brick to the burden. ‘And if you come out after the forty days, anyone is entitled to slay you on the spot – preferably by beheading.’
‘Apart from the formality of a short inquest on the spot,’ added the coroner, anxious to maintain his stake in the process. ‘And my legal obligation to take the severed head to the castle gaol.’
John de Alecon, who as Archdeacon had a little more compassion than the two fighting men, threw a lifeline to the cringing Gervaise. ‘But there is an alternative, as the Crowner will no doubt tell you.’
John settled back in the chair, his black-clad arms folded across his chest. With some reluctance, he spelled out the way in which Gervaise could evade justice, if he so wished. ‘You can abjure the realm of England, leaving these shores never to return during the reign of King Richard. You will forfeit all your property, even down to the clothing you now wear.’
The Archdeacon chipped in again. ‘Of course, your inheritance of Peter Tavy will be lost to you. If you had already been confirmed in it by the King, then the honour would have been forfeit to the Crown.’ His lean, ascetic face was as earnest as that of a schoolmaster instilling lessons into his pupils. ‘As it is, you cannot in natural justice benefit materially from the fruits of murder, so it was not yours in the first place.’
De Alecon has a good grip on secular as well as canon law, John thought.
‘But as you are not so confirmed, then I presume that Martyn will become the new lord of Peter Tavy, as long as he can keep his cousins at arm’s length. But that is no concern of ours.’
Gervaise had listened to all this with mixed emotions. The catalogue of his lost possessions, even down to his undershirt, was offset by the prospect of not swinging from a gibbet. Of course, he knew of the principle of abjuration of the realm but, like most folk, had never before needed to go into the details.
‘I will abjure!’ he exclaimed eagerly. ‘What do I have to do?’
John set out the procedure for this cumbersome sequel to sanctuary. ‘First, you must confess your guilt to me before a jury, in a form which I will tell you.’
‘But I am innocent!’
‘Then you cannot abjure. You can surrender now or you can step out of the door and be killed – or you can rot in here after the forty days expire. The choice is yours.’
Gervaise began to shake with a mixture of fear and fatigue. ‘There is no choice, it seems,’ he muttered in anguish.
John went on relentlessly, ‘You will cast off your own clothing, which will be confiscated and sold. You will be given an ungirdled garment of crude sackcloth and you will be given rough-hewn wood from which you must construct a cross with your own hands.’
Here John de Alecon added, ‘De Bonneville, the cross must be held before you in your hands every inch of the way when you leave here to show people that you are a felon and a sinner, who has been granted mercy by the Holy Church.’
John picked up his official version, which he was obliged to relate to every would-be abjurer. ‘You will tell passers-by what you are on your journey, the direction and length of which will be decided by me.’
He paused for a moment. ‘Do you still wish to abjure or will you surrender?’
De Bonneville had no doubts: the alternative was execution, with or without a trial.
‘I will abjure – as soon as it can be arranged.’
The ritual was to take place the next day, as soon as a jury could be summoned, a sackcloth robe sewn and two pieces of rough wood found in the refuse lying around the cathedral Close for Gervaise to lash together to make a crude cross.
Later that day, after he had examined an alleged rape and another non-fatal assault, John walked wearily down to the the Bush in the twilight, before going home to Matilda and his dinner. It was too early for the inn to be busy, so Nesta sat with him behind the same wattle screen that had concealed the eavesdroppers from the Peter Tavy conspirators. ‘Looks as if the fellow will escape retribution, after all.’ John glowered as he sat with one hand on the comforting plumpness of the innkeeper’s thigh.
The auburn-haired woman seemed relieved. ‘Then I’m glad there’ll be no need for us to appear as witnesses before the court. Especially as people would snigger at the coroner’s mistress being so deeply involved. And it would do your relations with your wife no good at all, Sir Crowner!’ As usual, she saw the sensible and practical side.
Old Edwin came across with refills for their mugs. He looked ten years younger after the stimulation of his part in the previous night’s excitement. ‘You settled that fellow properly, Captain,’ he wheezed gleefully. ‘I’d a’ come out myself with the firewood axe to help you, if I’d known it was going on so near.’ He stumped away, chortling to himself, as Nesta leaned closer to John, both enjoying the warmth of the log fire before them.
‘This abjuration – where does he have to go?’ she asked.
‘Depends where I choose to send him. I’ve heard that some coroners – for there were a few in some counties even before September – are perverse enough to make them walk the length of the country.’
‘And what are you going to do?’ she persisted.
‘I’ve not made my mind up yet. But the further they have to travel, the greater the chance that they get killed on the way.’
‘I thought you’d be happy to see his throat slit,’ she said.
John blew a long sigh through his beard. ‘I hate to see him escape the noose, but the law is the law. Few abjurers arrive at their destination – many throw away their cross around the first bend in the road and vanish into the forest to become an outlaw. And many others are set upon by the families of their victims in revenge.’
‘Are they allowed to do that?’ she asked, sipping his ale.
‘Not if the abjurer sticks to the road as he is instructed. But who’s to say what happens once they are out of sight? In the Palatine of Durham, I’m told the Bishop sends an escort to see the man safe out of his territory – but I can’t imagine our dear sheriff going to that trouble or expense.’