His face creased with pain as the boiling water seared his skin. Frantically he groped round the bottom of the pot, searching for the ring. A howl of anguish broke from his lips as it slipped through his hand. His tortured fingers scuttled after it in pursuit and—praise God!—closed upon it. He withdrew his hand and held the ring aloft.
“Aaaaaaah.” A fascinated moan passed through the crowd as they saw Hunald’s arm. Blisters and boils were already starting to form over the angry red surface of his skin.
“Ten days,” Gerold announced, “shall be the time of God’s judgment.”
There was a stir from the crowd, but it held no tone of protest. Everyone understood the law: if the wounds on Hunald’s hand and arm healed within ten days, his innocence was proved, and the cattle were his. If not, he was guilty of theft, and the cattle would be returned to their rightful owner, Abo.
Privately Gerold doubted the wounds would heal in so short a time. This was what he had intended, for he had little doubt that Hunald was guilty of the crime. And if Hunald’s wounds should happen to heal in the allotted time—well, the ordeal would make him think twice before stealing his neighbor’s cattle again. It was rough justice, but it was all the law provided, and it was far better than none. Lex dura, sed lex. The imperial statutes were the sole pillars supporting the rule of law in these disordered times; strike them flat, and who knew what wild winds would blow across the land, casting down weak and powerful alike.
“Call the next case, Frambert.”
“Aelfric accuses Fulrad of refusing to pay the lawful blood price.”
The case seemed straightforward enough. Fulrad’s son Tenbert, a boy of sixteen, had killed a young woman, one of Aelfric’s coloni. The crime itself was not in dispute, only the amount of the blood price. The laws regarding wergeld were detailed and specific for every person in the Empire, depending on rank, property holdings, age, and sex.
“It was her own fault,” said Tenbert, a tall, loose-jointed boy with mottled skin and a sullen expression. “She was only a colona; she should not have fought so hard against me.”
“He raped her,” Aelfric explained. “Came across her harvesting grapes in my vineyard and took a fancy to her. She was a pretty little thing of only twelve winters—still a child, really, and she didn’t understand. She thought he meant to harm her. When she wouldn’t submit willingly, he beat her senseless.” There was a long murmur from the crowd; Aelfric paused, content to let it register. “She died the next day, bruised and swollen and calling out for her mother.”
“You have no cause for complaint,” Fulrad, Tenbert’s father, broke in hotly. “Did I not pay the wergeld the next week—fifty gold solidi, a generous sum! And the girl only a common colona!”
“The girl is dead; she will not tend my vines again. And her mother, one of my best weavers, is gone woodly with grief and is of no use anymore. I demand the lawful wergeld—one hundred gold solidi.”
“An outrage!” Fulrad spread his arms wide in appeal. “Your Eminence, with what I have given him, Aelfric can purchase twenty fine milk cows—which everyone knows are worth far more than a wretched girl, her mother, and the loom combined!”
Gerold frowned. This bartering over blood price was repellent. The girl had been about the same age as Gerold’s daughter Dhuoda. The idea of this sullen, disagreeable youth forcing himself on her was grotesque. Such things happened all the time, of course—any colona who made it to the age of fourteen with her virtue intact was extraordinarily lucky, or ugly, or both. Gerold was not naive, he knew the way of the world, but he did not have to like it.
A huge leather-bound codex gold-stamped with the imperial seal rested on the table before him. In it were inscribed the ancient laws of the Empire, the Lex Salica, as well as the Lex Karolina, which included revisions and additions to the code of law issued by the Emperor Karolus. Gerold knew the law and had no need of the book. Nevertheless, he made solemn show of consulting it; its symbolic value would not be lost on the litigants, and the judgment he was about to render would require all of its authority.
“The Salic code is very clear on this point,” he said at last. “One hundred solidi is the lawful wergeld for a colona.”
Fulrad cursed aloud. Aelfric grinned.
“The girl was twelve years of age,” Gerold continued, “and had therefore reached her childbearing years. By law her blood price must be tripled to three hundred gold solidi.”
“What, is the court mad?” Fulrad shouted.
“The sum,” Gerold continued equably, “is to be paid as follows: two hundred solidi to Aelfric, the girl’s lawful lord, and one hundred to her family.”
Now it was Aelfric’s turn to be outraged. “One hundred solidi to her family?” he said incredulously. “To coloni? I am lord of the land-holding; the girl’s wergeld is mine by rights!”
“Are you trying to ruin me?” Fulrad interrupted, too absorbed in his own problem to take pleasure in his enemy’s distress. “Three hundred solidi is almost the blood price of a warrior! Of a priest!” He moved aggressively toward the table where Gerold sat. “Even, perhaps”—the threat in his voice was unmistakable—“of a count?”
A short shriek of alarm came from the crowd as a dozen of Fulrad’s retainers pushed their way to the front. They were armed with swords, and they looked like men who knew how to use them.
Gerold’s men moved to counter them, their hands on their half-drawn swords. Gerold stayed them with a gesture of his hand.
“In the Emperor’s name”—Gerold’s voice rang out, steely as a knife blade—“judgment in this case has been rendered and received.” His cool indigo eyes stared Fulrad down. “Call the next case, Frambert.”
Frambert did not answer. He had slid out of his seat and was hiding under the table.
Several moments passed in tense silence, the restive, murmuring crowd utterly stilled.
Gerold sat back in his chair, giving every appearance of confidence and ease, but his right hand dangled carelessly above his sword, so close his fingertips brushed the cold steel.
Abruptly, with a muttered curse, Fulrad spun on his heel. Grabbing Tenbert roughly by the arm, he dragged him toward the door. Fulrad’s men followed, the crowd giving way before them. As they passed through the door, Fulrad struck Tenbert a hard blow to the head. The boy’s yelp of pain sounded through the hall, and the crowd exploded into raucous, tension-breaking laughter.
Gerold smiled grimly. If he knew anything about human nature, Tenbert was in for quite a beating. Perhaps it would teach him a lesson, perhaps not. Either way, it could no longer help the murdered girl. But her family would receive part of her wergeld. With it, they would be able to buy their freedom and build a better life for themselves, their remaining children, and their children’s children.
Gerold signaled his men; they resheathed their swords and withdrew to their positions behind the judicial table.
Frambert crawled out from under the table and reoccupied his seat with an air of ruffled dignity. His face was pale, and his voice shook as he read off the last case. “Ermoin, the miller, and his wife complain of their daughter, that she has willfully and against their express command taken a slave to husband.”
Again the crowd parted to let pass an elderly couple, gray haired, patrician, robed in fine cloth—testimony to Ermoin’s success in his trade. Behind them came a youth, dressed in the worn and tattered tunic of a slave, and finally a young woman, who entered with head modestly bowed.
“My lord.” Ermoin spoke without waiting to be addressed. “You see before you our daughter, Hildegarde, joy of our aging hearts, the sole surviving child of eight born to us. She has been tenderly reared, my lord—too tenderly, as we have learned to our grief. For she has repaid our loving kindness with willful disobedience and ingratitude.”
“What redress do you seek from this court?” Gerold asked.
“Why, the choice, my lord,” Ermoin said with surprise. “The spindle or the sword. She must choose, as the law re
quires.”
Gerold looked grave. In his career as missus he had presided over one other such case; he did not relish witnessing another.
“The law, as you say, provides for such a circumstance. But it seems harsh, especially for one who has been raised so—tenderly. Is there no other way?”
Ermoin took his meaning. The man price could be paid, the boy bought out of slavery and made a freedman.
“No, my lord.” He shook his head vehemently.
“Very well,” Gerold said resignedly. There was no way to avoid it—the girl’s parents knew the law and would insist on carrying out the ugly business to its conclusion.
“Bring a spindle,” Gerold commanded. “And Hunric”—he gestured to one of his men—“lend me your sword.” He would not use his own weapon; it had never yet bitten into undefended flesh, nor ever would while Gerold carried it.
Some moments of bustle and commotion ensued while a spindle was procured from a nearby house.
The girl looked up as it was carried in. Her father spoke sharply to her, and she quickly dropped her eyes. But in that brief moment, Gerold got a glimpse of her face. She was exquisite—huge carnelian eyes islanded in a sea of milky skin, a fine, delicate brow, sweetly curving lips. Gerold could understand her parents’ fury: with such a face the girl might have captured the heart of a great lord, even a nobleman, and bettered her family’s fortunes.
Gerold placed one hand on the spindle; with his other he raised the sword. “If Hildegarde chooses the sword,” Gerold said loudly so all might hear, “then her husband, the slave Romuald, will immediately die by it. If she chooses the spindle, then she herself will become a slave.”
It was a terrible choice. Once Gerold had witnessed a different girl, not so lovely but just as young, face the same alternatives. That one had chosen the sword and stood by while the man she loved was slain with it before her eyes. Yet what else could she have done? Who would willingly choose vile debasement, not only for herself but for her children, and all future generations of her line?
The girl stood silent and unmoving. She had not reacted with so much as a quiver when Gerold had explained the trial.
“Do you understand the significance of the choice you must make?” Gerold asked her gently.
“She does, my lord,” said Ermoin, tightening his grip on his daughter’s arm. “She knows exactly what to do.”
Gerold could well imagine it. The girl’s cooperation had doubtless been secured by means of dire threats and curses, perhaps even blows.
The guards flanking the young man took hold of his arms to prevent any struggle to escape. He eyed them scornfully. He had an interesting face—a low, common brow crowned with a thatch of coarse hair, but intelligent eyes, a well-formed jaw, and a fine, strong nose; he looked to have some of the old Roman blood.
He might be a slave, but he had courage. Gerold signaled the guards to stand off.
“Come, child,” Gerold said to the girl. “It is time.”
Her father whispered something in her ear. She nodded, and he loosed his grip on her arm and pushed her forward.
She raised her head and looked at the young man. The undisguised love that shone in her eyes took Gerold aback.
“No!” The girl’s father tried to stop her, but it was too late. With her gaze fixed on her husband, she unhesitatingly approached the spindle, sat down, and started to spin.
RIDING home to Villaris the next day, Gerold thought about what had happened. The girl had sacrificed everything—her family, her fortune, even her freedom. The love he had seen in her face fired his imagination and moved him in ways he did not entirely understand. All he knew, with a conviction that swept everything else aside, was that he wanted it—that purity and intensity of emotion that made all else seem pale and meaningless. It was not too late for him; surely it was not too late. He was only thirty-one—no longer young, perhaps, but still in the prime of his years.
He had never loved his wife, Richild, nor had she ever made any pretense of loving him. She would not, he knew, sacrifice so much as a single jeweled hair comb for him. Theirs had been a carefully negotiated marriage of fortunes and families. This was quite as things should be, and until recently Gerold had looked for no more. When, following Dhuoda’s birth, Richild had announced that she wanted no more children, he had acceded to her wishes with no sense of loss. He had had no difficulty finding willing partners to share pleasures away from the marital bed.
But now, because of Joan, all that was changed. He pictured her in his mind, her fine, white-gold hair circling her face, her wise, gray-green eyes belying her years. His longing for her, stronger even than desire, tugged at his heart. He had never known anyone like her. Her probing intelligence, her willingness to challenge and question ideas the rest of the world accepted as unshakable truths, filled him with awe. He could talk to her as he could talk to no one else. He could trust her with anything, even his life.
It would be easy enough to make her his mistress—their last encounter at the riverbank had left no doubt about that. Uncharacteristically, he had held back, wanting something more, though he had not, at the time, known what.
Now he knew.
I want her as my wife.
It would be difficult, and no doubt costly, to free himself from Richild, but that did not matter.
Joan will be my wife, if she will have me.
With this resolve came a sense of peace. Gerold breathed deeply, reveling in the rich, exciting smells of the spring forest, feeling happier and more alive than he had for years.
THEY were very near home. A low-lying cloud hung heavily in the air, obscuring Gerold’s view of Villaris. Joan was there, waiting for him. Impatient, he urged Pistis into a canter.
An unpleasant scent filled the air, penetrating his senses.
Smoke.
The cloud over Villaris was smoke.
Then they were all riding recklessly through the forest at an open run, unmindful of the branches tearing at their hair and their clothes. They emerged into the clearing and reined in sharply, staring in bewilderment.
Villaris was gone.
Beneath the cloud of slowly spiraling smoke, a blackened pile of rubble and ash was all that remained of the home they had left only two weeks before.
“Joan!” Gerold shouted. “Dhuoda! Richild!” Had they escaped, or were they dead, buried beneath the smoldering heap of debris?
His men were on their knees in the middle of the heap, searching for anything recognizable—a scrap of clothing, a ring, a headpiece. Some of them wept openly as they tore at the rubble, fearful that any moment they would find what they were seeking.
Off to one side, under a pile of blackened beams, Gerold saw something that made his heart sink.
It was a foot. A human foot.
He ran over and began pulling off the beams, clawing at them with his hands till they bled, though he did not know it. Gradually, the body underneath was revealed. It was a man’s body, so badly burned that the features were scarcely recognizable, but from the amulet around the neck Gerold knew that it was Andulf, one of the guards. In his right hand was a sword. Gerold bent to take it up, but the dead man’s hand followed, refusing to loose its grip. The heat of the fire had melted the handle, fusing flesh and iron into one.
Andulf had died fighting. But whom? Or what? Gerold surveyed the landscape with a soldier’s practiced eye. There was no sign of any encampment, no weapons or materials left behind to lend a clue to what had happened. The surrounding forest lay motionless in the bright spring afternoon.
“My lord!” His men had found the bodies of two more guards. Like Andulf, they had died fighting, their weapons still in their hands. The discovery fueled a renewed search, but it was fruitless. There was no sign of anyone else.
Where are they all? They had left over two score people behind in Villaris—they couldn’t all have vanished, without even a trace of bone or blood.
Gerold’s heart pounded with a wild hope. Joan was alive, she
must be alive. Perhaps she was nearby, hiding in the forest with the others who were missing—or perhaps they had fled to the town!
He mounted Pistis in a single leap, calling to his men. They rode into town at a gallop, slowing only when they reached the vacant, deserted streets.
Quietly, Gerold and his men scattered, reconnoitering, into the long row of silent houses. Gerold took Worad and Amalwin and rode on to the cathedral. The heavy oaken doors hung crookedly open on broken hinges. Warily they dismounted and approached, swords in hand. Climbing the steps, Gerold stumbled on something slippery. A pool of darkening blood lay atop the well-worn wood, fed by a slow, steady trickle from the other side of the door.
Gerold stepped inside.
For one merciful moment, the darkness of the interior obscured his sight. Then his vision cleared.
Behind him, Amalwin began to retch. Gerold felt his own gorge rise, but he swallowed hard, mastering himself. He covered his mouth and nose with his sleeve and moved forward into the nave of the church. It was difficult to avoid stepping on the densely sprawled bodies. He heard Worad and Amalwin cursing, heard the sound of his own rapid, shallow breath. He continued as in a dream, picking his way among the ghastly human debris, searching.
Near the high altar, he came across the members of his household. There was Wala, the chaplain, and Wido, the steward. Irminon, the chambermaid, lay nearby, her lifeless arms still cradling her dead babe. There was a howl from Worad, her husband, as he spied them. He fell to his knees and clasped them, pressed his hands to their wounds, smearing himself with their blood.
Gerold turned away. His eyes fell upon a familiar gleam of emerald and silver. Richild’s tiara. She lay on her back beside it, her black hair spread across her body like a shroud. He picked up the tiara and went to replace it in her hair. At his touch Richild’s head twisted grotesquely, then slowly rolled away from her body.
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