Page 32 of Bold Angel
“Permission is granted,” Ral said, accepting as his merchet, or fee, three succulent young piglets, to be brought to the castle on their maturity. “Convey my good wishes to your daughter.”
“Aye, my lord. You have my most humble thanks.” The man backed out of the hall with a smile on his face. The old lord would have charged him much more.
“What next, Richard?”
“A tenant seeking grant of an inheritance. The villein Alfred has died. Osrig petitions for the land as his only living son.”
“The petition is granted. I’ll expect a heriot of one black-faced sheep. Father Burton?”
The sturdy little priest sat up straighter in his chair. In the case of an inheritance, the priest received payment as well. “I would prefer an oxen. Have you more than one, my son?”
“A sheep is the best I can offer you, Father. The oxen died last week.”
“A sheep then. Bless you, my son, and may God’s bounty be fruitful.”
More petitions were read and dispensed, then began cases of men who had broken the law.
Richard cleared his throat as he started to read from the parchment. “The merchant, Gervais, is accused of selling false relics,” he said of a middle-aged man, slightly stooped of shoulder, who stood in front of the dais gripping his brown felt hat in his hands. Richard filled in the details of the case and finished by stating, “The man has admitted his crime and now pleads for mercy.”
Ral turned to the priest. “Father Burton, I would ask your counsel in this.” In certain matters, it was wise to include the church. It represented a different, even higher authority, and lightened some of Ral’s burden.
The little priest assessed the man gravely, his bushy gray brows drawn together in a frown. “In this you have sinned against God, my son. Do you not know that you risk the loss of your soul?” Father Burton leaned forward. “To sell some poor wretch one of St. Martin’s ribs when in truth ’tis aught but the bone of an oxen—this is blasphemy of the highest degree.”
The priest looked at Ral. “Should this man not have admitted his crime, I would see him face an Ordeal By Water.” A hand and forearm plunged into boiling water, wrapped and sealed, then examined three days hence to prove a man’s guilt or innocence. Only a healed man would go free. Which, of course, never occurred.
The accused man paled, as the priest intended.
“Since you have acknowledged your sin,” he said, “it remains for you to repent. Then you must make satisfaction so that you might be absolved.” Again the priest looked to Ral. “My lord, I would suggest this man spend time in the pillory reflecting upon his crime. At week’s end, he should make restitution to those he has cheated and then report to me. There is work I would have him do in the name of the Lord.”
Ral nodded. “So it will be.” He motioned toward the brawny knight, Hugh, who acted as guard, and the tall knight stepped forward, his mail clad body clanking with the movement. Though the guilty man was marched from the hall in disgrace, considering what might have occurred, the little man’s step was almost lively.
Another hour progressed and for a moment, Ral’s attention strayed. In the shadows to his left, he caught a movement then the flash of forest green wool. For the first time, he realized Caryn remained in the hall, had been standing there for some time, watching the proceedings. It made the muscles of his neck grow tense, made his glance tend to wander in that direction. Hecaught her eyes more than once, saw they looked troubled, and wondered at her purpose.
He wondered if she judged him, even as he judged those brought before him.
“Richard?”
“Aye, my lord.” His steward gazed down at the parchment. “’Twould appear there are just three more.”
Ral nodded, thankful the day would soon end. A man who passed counterfeit coins, one of the gravest of crimes, was sentenced to the loss of a hand, as was an old thief who had stolen a poor man’s life savings. The law commanded that a thief lose covetous eyes or pilfering hands. Adulterers might lose a testicle, while a runaway villein could have his tongue or ears chopped off.
Ral’s title demanded he maintain strict rules of justice: a trip to the stocks, fines, floggings, imprisonment, brandings, amputations, even an occasional execution, though most times those were referred to the traveling royal courts. As a baron and Lord of Braxston Keep, it was his duty to uphold the law, yet there were times he wished someone besides himself might see it done.
Cases such as the one he tried now.
“The boy, Leofric, my lord, is accused of poaching in King William’s forest.”
In the north country, there was no Verderer’s Court to administer forest law and since William had granted Ral use of the lands, the task of protecting them fell to him.
“What say you, lad? Did you poach the king’s game?”
The boy looked ragged and dirty, a child of less than ten years with wind-chafed skin and fire-blackened, peat-smudged cheeks.
“’Twas aught but a hare, milord. Me mother took sick. She couldn’t hold aught on her stomach. She grew thin and there was no more food in the larder.”
“Where is your father?”
“Dead of a flux, milord, these two years past.”
