Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 53, No. 12, December 2008

Guilt by Gilbert M. Stack

I rode up the muddy track through a low ditch until I came to the main doors of Sir Gerald’s home in the village of Alving. It was a barely fortified wooden building — old enough to be recorded in Domesday Book — although it wasn’t found in those pages. The doors were neither great nor large, and with the light rain, no one seemed to have noticed I was coming. Not even the dogs barked or howled.

I banged upon the wood with my clenched fist. “Open in the name of King Henry!”

I had to wait several more moments before a serving girl answered me.

The household knew in general that I was coming. The king had circulated letters patent through all of his shires informing his people that royal justices were being sent to them. What was more, news traveled rapidly across the countryside and these folk had doubtless followed Lord William’s progress toward them. But this serving girl seemed neither to know who I was nor what to do with me.

“Go fetch your master, girl,” I ordered, using French because this was a Norman household. Without waiting for a reply, I stepped past her out of the rain.

The building was really quite small, no more than three or four rooms, and from the lack of numbers in what passed for its hall, I estimated very few inhabitants.

The two men by the hearth rose to their feet, a hound rising with them. “I am Sir Gerald,” the older of the two men announced.

“I am Edgar, in the service of Lord Justice William of Kent,” I informed him. “Lord William will arrive with an entourage of four by the evening meal. He will require lodging and food for his entire party. In the morning he will open the king’s court and dispense justice on your local malefactors. We have much to do and very little time.”

The muscles in Sir Gerald’s cheeks flexed. “I, I thought we would have more warning. This is all terribly new. The king’s demands quite—”

“The king’s demands are the king’s demands,” I interrupted him. “And you have had months to prepare for my lord’s arrival. Come now, Lord William can sleep in your room; his people here in this chamber. Now, have your juries been assembled? Have they investigated the crimes? We have little time, Sir Gerald. Have a servant see to my horse and summon your bailiff so we can begin.”

The man standing beside Sir Gerald stepped forward. He was Norman blond with a broken nose and was roughly ten years younger than the knight. “I am Sir Gerald’s bailiff. You may call me John.”

“Very good then,” I said. “Where then shall we begin, in the village?”

John looked to Sir Gerald, who nodded his consent. “If we must,” he agreed, then led the way back out into the misting rain.

The trail was slippery with mud and I had trouble keeping my footing as we wound our way down to the village green. “We have only one case of any importance,” the bailiff told me. “It’s a murder — a wife and daughter stabbed the husband-father.”

“Did you catch them?” I asked.

“Oh, yes, they didn’t try to run.”

I had to wait for him to pick his way across a particularly sodden piece of ground before he would resume his story. “The neighbors heard him call for help but there was nothing they could do. By the time they arrived he was bleeding out his life from half a dozen wounds.”

“They used a knife?” I asked. It was not the only implement that could be used to stab, but it was the most common one.

“A tiny little thing,” the bailiff agreed. “It’s a woman’s tool, used for cutting vegetables when they’re not cutting men.” He grinned as if he had made a great joke, and I smiled to keep him talking and cooperating.

“Which one did it?” I asked, “the mother or the daughter?”

“They both did,” the bailiff explained. “The mother stabbed him while the daughter held him back.”

It was fairly easy to visualize. The daughter could have pulled at the man from one direction while her mother slipped up beside him with the knife. In my experience, villagers were usually right about these things. They knew their neighbors well and were often intimately familiar with their private business.

“Did he say anything as he died?”

“Garrick? No, he was too far gone. But we really didn’t need him to name his attackers. They were standing right over top of him, covered in his blood.”

“Why did they do it?”

The bailiff shrugged. “Who knows? He wasn’t the best-loved man in Alving, but that isn’t a reason to murder him.”

“And the women?”

“Oh, they were liked well enough, I suppose. Well enough that people have fed them while we held them in gaol.”

The first small buildings loomed ahead and now looked neither sturdy nor welcoming. “And is the gaol in the village?”

“It’s their own house. We lock them in at night. It’s been most inconvenient. We’ve even had to post guards to make certain they stayed there and we didn’t get fined for letting them escape.”

“Well, it will just be a couple more days now,” I soothed the bailiff, “and then we can hang them, and matters here can return to the way they were before this happened.”

The bailiff nodded vigorously in agreement.

“Now I would like to take a look at the prisoners and I’d like to meet with the jury and the oath helpers, if any. It’s a rainy day, it shouldn’t be hard to round them all up.”

The bailiff nodded again, but with less enthusiasm. “Where do you want to meet them?”

“The biggest building you’ve got. It’s where we’ll hold the trial, too, if the sun doesn’t come out tomorrow.”

The bailiff scratched his head. “There really isn’t any place big enough for the trial unless we use the manor house. For now, I guess we can cram you and the jury into the headman’s house.”

“That will do for now,” I agreed. “Now, are there any more crimes for Lord William to pass judgment on?”

“No,” the bailiff answered. “Isn’t one murder enough?”

Lord William arrived with his retinue just before dark. I was back at Sir Gerald’s home to greet him. The preparations were barely adequate, especially for a man of my lord’s station, but we had endured worse since beginning this circuit.

I held the bridle of my lord’s horse while he dismounted. “Welcome to Alving, my lord.”

Lord William was a gruff man, but not above sharing the occasional pleasantry with his retainers. “Not as welcoming as I remember it,” he grumbled. “This miserable rain has soaked me thoroughly. I hope Corbin has kept the parchments dry.”

He turned toward the house and saw Sir Gerald waiting for him at the doorway.

“Sir Gerald,” my lord said, “it’s been a good many years. I hope you have a fire going and good food on the table.”

The fire my lord would find. The food, unfortunately, looked barely passable.

Sir Gerald bowed at the appropriate angle to show his deference to the king’s official. “I’m afraid this visit won’t be as enjoyable as your last one, Lord William,” the knight said. “We were celebrating Michaelmas then, as I recall. There’s no feast planned on this occasion.”

“No feast?” my lord asked. “Ah well, you can change that. I won’t go back and report to King Henry that his justices did not receive proper hospitality. But as for Michaelmas,” he added with a grin, “those were the days, weren’t they?”

“We were younger then, Lord William,” Sir Gerald agreed.

“With far more time for having fun,” my lord said. “Now everywhere I journey, work and unpleasantness await me.”

“You have risen high,” the knight replied, with what might have been a tinge of jealousy. “Won’t you come inside?”

Lord William nodded his consent and a servant opened the main door for them.

The meal, as I have noted earlier, was meager, and Lord William was not hesitant about informing Sir Gerald of his disappointment.

“This will not do!” he insisted. “My people and I cannot perform our duties on such scanty provisions. Make no mistake, Sir Gerald, at breakfast and at all future meals, you will do better, or I will have my man, Edgar, here, do better for you.”

Sir Gerald glowered at Lord William’s threat. “There was very little time—”

“I will not hear it!” Lord William insisted, smacking the palm of his hand down on the table to emphasize his point. “You will do better!”

Sir Gerald swallowed his next comment and then tried another tack. “I am just a poor knight—”

Lord William cut him off again. “You will do better!”

Sir Gerald ceased to try and voice his protests, but his eyes clearly showed how bitterly he resented my lord’s imposition.

“Now, Edgar,” Lord William continued, turning toward me in a manner that suggested he was excluding Sir Gerald from the conversation. “What dark crimes await me in the village tomorrow?”

“Just one, my lord,” I informed him, still noting the resentment on Sir Gerald’s face. “It’s a murder.”

“A murder?” Lord William repeated with some gusto. “Well, that’s something interesting, at least.” He shifted his attention back to the knight. “Nothing else, Gerald? No property disputes or thefts to occupy me?”

Sir Gerald bristled under the implied suggestion that he was suppressing crimes from the notice of the king. “It’s a small village. They’re mostly good people.”

Lord William harrumphed at that notion. We’d seen more than our share of the dregs of the kingdom. It affected our outlook on the rest of the peasants.

“At least it should be over quickly then,” Lord William said. “Is the jury assembled? The oath helpers?”

“All is in readiness, my lord,” I assured him.

“That sounds well,” he said. “What do you say to that, Sir Gerald? We will have the trial tomorrow and hang the criminal the day after. You’ll be rid of us the day after that.”

“As you say, Lord William,” Sir Gerald replied.

The sun was out the next day. By midday the ground would likely be dry, but I couldn’t delay the trial that long. I was up before dawn to eat some watery gruel and drag John the bailiff back down to the village as soon as the sun appeared over the horizon.

“We’ll hold the trial out of doors,” I told him, “here on the green. Lord William will sit here under this tree with his scribe and servants behind him. You’ll need to find a chair for him — make it big and sturdy. That one he sat in at table last night will do.

“The scribe will also need a chair, although he carries his own writing board. I presume Sir Gerald will also wish to attend. His chair should be set halfway back from Lord William’s to emphasize my lord’s station and office. But it should still be close enough that Lord William can turn to speak to him. He may pretend to consult with Sir Gerald as a sign of the king’s respect.”

The bailiff took in these instructions without comment or expression. I kept right on explaining what needed to happen.

“The jury will stand over there to my lord’s right. The accused will stand directly before him some ten paces away. Part of our duty is to make certain that they don’t lunge forward and touch my lord, either in violence or in begging for forgiveness.

“We will want your village priest to say a prayer for justice and the king’s health before we begin. Tomorrow, of course, we will want him to walk beside the women as we take them to the gallows, praying loudly for the salvation of their souls.”

The bailiff shuddered ever so slightly at the callous way in which I had said this. I felt a moment of sympathy for him. “Have you had many hangings here?” I asked him.

“No,” he answered quietly.

“Well, let me tell you what to expect,” I said. “Today, the villagers will turn out to watch the trial. They’ll probably start out quiet and respectful, but later it is likely they’ll turn raucous and rowdy, especially if the trial lasts a long while. I assume that both victim and killer have a lot of family in the village?”

The bailiff nodded as I knew he would. Everyone was pretty much related to everyone else in a small village. “Well, we’ll have to be prepared for trouble. Wear your sword. It looks bad if we let a mob kill the murderers before we can hang them, or worse, if we let them hurt Lord William or Sir Gerald.”

“Does that happen often?” the bailiff asked. “The crowd getting violent, I mean.”

“No,” I told him truthfully, “it doesn’t. Mostly they will see this trial as a spectacle — a wonderful chance for unusual entertainment. And tomorrow will be worse. They may even come in from other villages. After all, how often do you see two women hang?”

The bailiff shuddered again.

“It’s a fallen world,” I reminded him. “We each can only do the best we can.”

Lord William and Sir Gerald rode into town on their horses. They made a fine procession of it with Corbin the scribe, the two man servants, and the members of Sir Gerald’s household coming up behind them.

The bailiff and I were waiting for them together with the whole of the village from the youngest bawling infant to a blind old grandmother. We did not have to force open a path through the crowd. The peasants were good folk — well behaved — and they readily backed away from the horses to make room for their betters.

I caught the bridle of my lord’s horse and held it while he dismounted before passing the animal on to one of the man servants. John the Bailiff followed my lead with Sir Gerald and his horse.

Among the duties I handle for my lord, by far the worst is acting as his executioner.

Father Stefan, the village priest, came forward and blessed both men in Latin so garbled I could make no sense of it, but Lord William accepted the blessing as his due before seating himself with the same aplomb with which King Henry mounted his throne.

“Father,” Lord William said, “your blessing on these proceedings please. Ask the Lord to guide us to justice as we hold this trial today.”

Father Stefan smiled. This time he spoke in English and it was immediately clear that he planned to pray for a very long time.

“Father in heaven,” he began, his voice rolling across the green. “We have gathered here today to weigh the guilt of two women who have sinned against this community.”

My lord was very patient with the man — but then he usually was when it came to priests. He sat quietly in his chair and used the opportunity to examine the crowd. He paid particular attention to the group of jurors. The accused, of course, were not yet present. The bailiff had set two members of Sir Gerald’s household to wait out of sight until my lord sent for them.

The priest finally concluded his prayer and returned his gaze to Lord William and Sir Gerald.

“Thank you, Father Stefan,” Lord William said. “And now, Sir Gerald, I would like to meet the jury.”

Sir Gerald gestured to his bailiff, who stepped up beside the group of jurors. “Step forward, state your name to the lord, and step back,” he told them.

I had warned them that they would have to do this when I met with them the day before. I was never certain if the warning was a kindness or not. They all looked very nervous.

The first man stepped forward. Like the others, he was dressed in his festival best. “Hodge, my lord,” he said, before awkwardly stepping back in line.

“Brett, my lord,” the second man said, then realized he was still standing in the group. He stepped forward and repeated himself. For the first time this morning, the crowd snickered.

My lord watched these men closely as they declared themselves to him, studying their faces with care. For all that the outcome of the trial was a foregone conclusion, Lord William took his responsibilities very seriously. The jurors caught a sense of the true earnestness of the situation from him and stepped back impressed with the graveness of their responsibility.

When the last man had introduced himself, my lord addressed a question to the bailiff. “Are all of these men farmers?”

“Yes, my lord,” the bailiff answered. His voice came out swallowed, much softer than I think he had intended, but with Lord William speaking, no one thought to laugh.

Lord William rose to his feet and addressed the crowd. “Good people of Alving, we are gathered today to perform one of the most solemn responsibilities we Christians ever face. A great wrong has been committed — a sin against God, our king, ourselves and Garrick, the deceased. Our king has charged us to identify the ones who killed him and punish their bodies for their crime that their immortal souls might still find a chance of salvation.”

Not a whisper reverberated within that crowd. I had felt certain that at least one or two would call out the accused names when my lord mentioned the murders, but I was wrong. Lord William held them spellbound, listening intently to his every word.

“Our great king has charged the fine men of this jury to investigate this crime. They have already gone among you seeking a full understanding of what has happened. Today they will report to me their findings, call witnesses if they have them, and summon oath helpers if need be to swear to the character of those involved.

“Next we will allow the accused to speak and explain if they can where the jury has gone wrong.”

Heads were shaking now, rejecting the very idea that the accused mother and daughter were not responsible for the crime.

“They, too,” Lord William continued, “will have the chance to summon oath helpers on their behalf. But when all is said and done,” my lord’s voice boomed anew, “the responsibility for determining the verdict in this trial is mine! Mine to judge. And mine to render. And whether you agree with my verdict or not, whether you love these accused women or hate them, you will accept my verdict, for justice will have been done!”

Lord William let his steely gaze sweep the crowd once more, cowing these lowly villagers with the intensity of his glare. Then he stepped back to his chair and sat down. “Bailiff, call the prisoners.”

The bailiff found his voice, shouting out his order at the top of his lungs. “Bring the prisoners!”

The crowd turned in excitement to see the women approach, but I turned my attention away from them. I had learned long ago that these were the moments that things went wrong. These were the moments — when attention was all focused in one direction — that evil crept in from behind. And while I didn’t really believe I’d find an assassin with a knife, I had long ago trained myself to look for the unexpected problem.

So for that reason, I was positioned to see my lord’s eyes as the prisoners were escorted through the crowd. They were solemn and serious, then suddenly tight with concern.

I twisted back to face the prisoners, wondering what had happened but could see nothing at all out of the ordinary. Most of the crowd was silent, knowing full well that these two women were condemned. Others jeered or hissed at them, including, I was sad to see, two members of the jury. But none of this was out of the ordinary. In fact, Alving was calmer facing its accused than many of the places we had visited.

I turned back to my lord, but his face was calm again, with only a slight tightening at the corner of his eyes to hint that something still concerned him. I might have been the only person present who could read that sign, but read it I did.

I returned my attention to the soon-to-be condemned. I had met them both the day before and there was nothing at all unusual about them. Peta, the mother, must have been pretty in her youth. She was dark as our shared Saxon roots, except that gray now streaked her hair. She looked much older than I judged her to be, but life was hard for all in these times. She would have been born early in King Stephen’s reign, when anarchy ruled and armies fought back and forth across the land. The years since might have been more peaceful, but from the look of the village and Sir Gerald’s manor, Alving had not been prospering.

Anna, the daughter, was a different story. She too had been damaged by the cares of the world, but those hardships had not yet destroyed her beauty. Almost blue eyes stared out behind a tangle of auburn hair, suggesting that Sir Gerald, or his father, had spent a few enjoyable hours with the mother. It was not an uncommon occurrence between a lord and his peasants.

“You stand accused,” Lord William began with no hint that anything was troubling him, “of murdering the good man, Garrick, your husband and father.”

“He wasn’t that good,” the older woman muttered.

“Keep your mouth shut, murderer!” someone shouted from the crowd.

“That is advice,” Lord William continued, “that you would all do well to follow. I am a justice of King Henry and this is his court. Show respect and keep silent unless I speak to you.”

Wisely, none of the peasants sought to challenge my lord’s words. He continued, but instead of asking the prisoners if they pled guilty or innocent, he turned to face the jury. “Bailiff, have the jury present its evidence.”

The bailiff pointed to the man who had first introduced himself. “Hodge, present your evidence.”

The man stepped forward more timidly this time, the weight of his responsibility bearing down upon him. “If it pleases your lordship, we have all questioned the people involved and agree that Peta and Anna killed Garrick.”

“I’m sure you did,” my lord said, his voice even more gruff than usual, “but what I want to know is how you know this. Bring forth your witnesses, and let them tell their tales.”

This procedure was a little bit out of the ordinary. Normally, in the interests of time, my lord had the jury narrate events and then asked the witnesses to affirm or deny the parts they knew about. It was the way I had prepared the jury for, and Hodge now turned to me in confusion as to what to do.

I shrugged.

“The witnesses, man,” Lord William said. He made no attempt to conceal his irritation at the delay.

“Yes, my lord, but... she’s a woman.”

“So are the defendants, in case you haven’t noticed,” my lord said. “Does this woman have a husband or father or grown son to stand by her side?”

“Of course, my lord,” Hodge turned and gestured to one of the men in the jury, who stepped forward and called out, “Teale.”

A woman about the age of the older defendant stepped forward and stood beside the man who called her.

“Just tell us what happened,” my lord prompted her.

“I was working on the evening meal,” she began. There was no hesitancy in her voice. She, at least, was not cowed by my lord’s presence and the formal proceedings. “It was early still, and I didn’t expect Edan or my sons back from the fields for quite a while yet. Then I heard screams — a man’s screams — crying out for help from Garrick’s house. So I ran next door and raised the hue and cry when I saw what had happened.”

“And what was that?” my lord asked.

Teale shuddered as if in horror of the memory, but I could see by the expression on her face that she relished the opportunity to retell her story in such a public setting.

“They were all three covered in blood,” she said, “Garrick, Peta, and Anna. Peta held the knife in her hands. Garrick wasn’t quite dead yet, but I didn’t try to save him lest they turn on me. I just backed away and raised the hue and cry and waited for the village to arrive and help me.”

And that was just about everything the village knew about what had happened to Garrick. My lord heard several more witnesses — much of the village in fact, but they added very little to that original testimony. When the others arrived the mother and daughter were sitting over Garrick’s dead body. Both women were crying. Both were soaked in the dead man’s blood. Peta still held the knife.

The first attempt to question them was interrupted by Garrick’s two brothers, who beat both women senseless with their fists. It was probably something of a miracle that they hadn’t killed the women then and there and saved the need for this trial.

My lord, however, did not appear satisfied with this testimony. A thin sheen of perspiration brightened his forehead, which suggested... what? I was troubled that I couldn’t be certain. Was he concentrating? Fevered? Worried?

“And no one can offer me a reason for this crime?” Lord William asked.

“Lord William,” Sir Gerald spoke up from beside him. “I don’t understand the difficulty. Surely it is clear these women murdered my villager.”

My lord turned to face the knight, eyes glowering at the interruption. “It certainly appears that way, Sir Gerald. But I am entrusted to administer the king’s justice, and I am troubled that this jury provides me neither a confession nor a witness to the crime. Why would this woman stab her husband? Why would this girl help kill her father?”

“Because they hated him!” someone shouted from the crowd.

There was a general murmur of approval at these words.

“Now we are getting somewhere,” my lord announced. “Why would these two women hate Garrick?”

This triggered another series of mostly worthless anonymous comments.

“Because they’re evil!”

“Women don’t need an excuse!”

“The devil works through women!”

When the crowd had quieted, the bailiff stepped forward. “If it pleases your lordship, Garrick was always known to be a bit freer with his fists at home than are most men in this village.”

“Ahhhhh,” my lord said, “so Garrick liked to hit his womenfolk, did he?”

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” one of the jurors shouted. His face was bright red with fury. “Sometimes you have to hit your women to keep them in line.”

Several of the village men nodded in agreement. The law supported them as well. Short of killing, there was very little a man could not do to his wife or children. Of course, the wife’s brothers might take an informal interest long before it came to that, but Peta didn’t appear to have any brothers living in the village. Her relations were all more distant — and apparently less interested in her and her daughter’s welfare.

“Indeed?” Lord William asked, giving the clear impression that he had never found it necessary to hit his own wife. “But I think we might all agree that, necessary discipline or not, regular beatings might be the cause of some resentment.”

“It doesn’t mean she had cause to stab him,” the juror insisted.

“Indeed?” Lord William asked again. “Do you mean to say that if one of your neighbors were to soundly thrash you, you would not feel justified in using a knife to defend yourself?”

“Well, of course I—”

The juror stopped talking and glared at Lord William.

“It’s not the same thing!” a villager shouted. Clearly the majority of the village men agreed with him. And so did the law.

“Indeed it is not,” Lord William said, “but it is instructive nonetheless. Here is my problem. We have a dead man. Two women of his family are found over the body, soaked in his blood and holding the presumed murder weapon. Yet no one saw the actual stabbing, and the women were beaten into silence before they could tell what they knew of the crime.

“I am not satisfied. If they killed Garrick I might expect them to be found over the body. But if they discovered him stabbed and bleeding to death I would expect to find them there too.”

“They were holding the bloody knife,” Hodge exclaimed.

“But is that because they stabbed him with it or because they pulled the killing weapon out of their husband and father’s back?”

The villagers were astounded, but no more so than I was. We had hung men on less testimony than we had against these women. Yet here Lord William was not only casting doubt on the evidence, he was handing the women a line of defense.

“They were found standing over the body,” Hodge reiterated.

“And only they appear to know how they came to be there,” my lord said.

“Why don’t you ask them?” Sir Gerald intervened.

“Indeed,” my lord said. “Why don’t we?”

He turned to face the two accused women. “So what do you have to say for yourselves?”

They looked at each other for a moment and then the mother stepped forward. “It is as you say, my lord. We found Garrick bleeding to death and tried to help him.”

“Oh, of course!”

Sir Gerald spat out the words in disgust, but I almost didn’t hear them for the village had erupted in outrage, and one of the dead man’s brothers leapt forward to strike the accused wife.

I intervened.

I didn’t draw my sword, although perhaps I should have done so. Instead I charged forward and rammed the palm of my stiffened left arm hard into the man’s collarbone.

He spun about, missing the women with his fist and opening himself to a blow of my own. It drove him back into the crowd and left me standing between the women and the villagers.

Their surprise at my actions began to turn to anger, but Lord William preempted any further action on their part.

“Enough!” he shouted. He was out of his chair, his face alive with rage. “With each act and every word you convince me that something is wrong here. Sir Gerald, I am most disappointed in the efforts of this jury.”

Sir Gerald was on his feet as well. “Disappointed? There’s nothing wrong with this jury’s investigation. Find the women guilty and be done with it!”

“I will not be rushed to judgment!” Lord William shouted. “I will conduct my own investigation if I must!”

“Your own investigation?” Sir Gerald sputtered. “You don’t have the power—”

“I am King Henry’s justice of the peace. I have all the power I need!”

“The king will hear—”

“The king will approve!” Lord William insisted.

He turned his back on Sir Gerald and faced the villagers. “Go back to your homes,” he said. “My man Edgar will be around to talk to many of you. Answer his questions or face my wrath!”

The people sullenly stood their ground, staring back at my lord and me.

“Edgar,” my lord said. “Walk with me. We have a mystery to resolve and I will have the solution.”

“I don’t understand what’s disturbing you, my lord,” I confessed. I didn’t like to admit this inadequacy. Lord William could be quite hard on men who failed him. But in this case I would certainly fail if I couldn’t follow my lord’s reasoning.

“Just find me another murderer,” he said. There was a hint of weariness in his voice that did not seem to fit with the man who had just raged against Sir Gerald and the village. Where was the certainty that the jury was wrong? Where was the passion that drove him to stand up for justice?

“I believe the jury has found the murderer,” I told him quietly. “It found two of them, in fact.”

“It cannot be them,” Lord William insisted.

“My Lord, I don’t mean to be difficult, but will you explain to me why not? It is true that no one saw them stab Garrick, but is it reasonable to think that someone else committed the crime?”

Lord William turned to face me squarely and clasped me firmly by both shoulders. “It must be someone else, Edgar. Do you understand me? Find me another murderer for this crime.”

“I—” I began to repeat that I did not understand, but suddenly I believed that I did. “Of course, my Lord,” I assured him. “You can leave everything to me.”

I left him on the edge of the wood and immediately began to trek back to the village, wishing only to know why Lord William wished to have an innocent man die to save these two women.

John the Bailiff was waiting for me at the end of the green, falling into step beside me as I strode toward the village houses. “Did Lord William explain the weakness in the jury’s evidence?” he asked.

John was going to be a problem for me. How much of a problem remained to be seen.

“My lord William is not in the habit of explaining himself to me,” I told the bailiff. “He gives instructions and I carry them out.”

“And your instructions are?” John asked.

There was no way that I could tell him my actual orders. “To satisfy him as to whether or not the actual murderers have been caught.”

“And why doesn’t he think that Anna and Peta are the killers?” John asked, making no attempt to conceal his intense frustration.

“I don’t know,” I confessed. “My lord did not share that with me. Perhaps he is not actually certain that the women did not commit the deed. From my perspective, it does not matter. My lord has instructed me to reinvestigate the case.”

John was not satisfied with my answer, but I cut off his next question with one of my own. “Did Sir Gerald tell you to stay with me while I do this?”

He nodded.

That might be a big problem for me, but it didn’t have to be. “Are you going to let me ask my questions, or are you planning to interfere with me at each step of the way?”

“I want to understand why Lord William doesn’t just hang the women,” John said.

“Hanging is very permanent,” I told him. “What harm is there in taking one more day to make certain of their guilt?”

“I just don’t understand why he thinks they’re innocent,” John told me.

“Perhaps after we speak with your villagers we will both know the answer to that.”

We began with Garrick’s brothers, Aiken and Brand. Both were large and imposing men. Both bore influence with their neighbors. Both had been named to the jury which investigated their brother’s death. Neither man wanted to speak to me or the bailiff.

“Why are you protecting them?” Aiken asked.

“Why not hang them and be done with it?” Brand added.

“Why did you beat them senseless instead of letting your neighbors question them?” I countered.

Their answers were completely predictable.

“They killed our brother!”

“They were murderers! We all knew that.”

Yes, in my heart of hearts, I felt quite certain that we did know. If Garrick was half as volatile as his brothers appeared to be, it was easy to imagine what kind of horror life would have been like in his household. Usually the other villagers could act as a restraint on a husband’s violence, but with two brothers just like him to help intimidate the neighbors, they clearly had not done so.

I doubted that there was anything to learn here, but I knew I had to try. “Where were you when your brother was murdered?”

The two men did not immediately recognize this for the potential accusation it was, but John the Bailiff did. He stiffened perceptibly and drew in his breath in a hiss.

“We were out in the fields with our neighbors,” Aiken said.

“We had no idea Garrick needed our help,” Brand added.

“And did you fight with him very often?” I asked.

This time the implication was so blatant that the two brothers could not fail to see it. Their red faces darkened further and Aiken balled his fists.

“Why you scoundrel!” Aiken said.

“We don’t have to take this from you!” Brand growled.

I poked him in the chest with my forefinger, purposely goading the man. He was a bully, plain and simple. He wouldn’t understand diplomacy, just the threat of violence. “Yes, you do!” I told him. “You will stand here and answer every question I put to you and if you are so stupid as to strike me, Lord William will break you and your brother with fines right after I break every bone in your two worthless bodies.”

John the Bailiff deserved praise. He didn’t agree with what I was doing, but he stepped up to my assistance just the same. “Aiken, Brand, you back off and get control of your tempers. I won’t have you make Sir Gerald look bad by frustrating this investigation.”

“But Bailiff,” Aiken protested, “he’s saying Brand and I killed Garrick.”

“He’s said no such thing,” John corrected him, “but after this nonsense, he must be thinking it. You damned fools, I know you were in those fields when it happened and you’ve got me wondering if you could have slipped away and gone after your brother.”

“You know it?” I asked, disappointed if it was true.

“Yes, I know it,” he said. “I wasn’t there myself, but I talked to all the villagers afterwards. You guessed right. Garrick and his brothers fought all the time they weren’t making trouble for someone else, but just about everyone agrees that they didn’t follow after Garrick when he left early to go home. And neither did young Oswin, the fellow who’s sweet on Anna.”

“Anna had a young man courting her?” I asked.

“Indeed she did,” John said. “They were working their way toward an understanding.”

“Garrick would never have stood for it,” Aiken said.

“He hated that young scamp,” Brand added.

This development took me by surprise. Rather than help prove the women innocent, it seemed to offer further motive to confirm their guilt. I couldn’t quite mask the puzzlement from my face.

John saw it and smiled. “They really are guilty, you know.”

I decided it would be wise to prove to him that it was not my task to push the blame for the crime on other shoulders. I wanted to keep him helping me. “It certainly looks that way,” I agreed. “And if I can prove it to my lord’s satisfaction, then they will surely swing.”

“So are we finished here?” he asked.

“Not quite,” I replied, before turning back to the brothers of the dead man. “If everyone was working in the fields, why had your brother gone home?”

“He liked to check on his women,” Aiken said.

“Women get into all sorts of trouble if you don’t keep a close eye on them,” Brand added.

I glanced back to John to see if I had understood them correctly. His embarrassed shrug told me that I had.

“So your brother liked to leave the fields during the day to go beat his wife and daughter.”

Aiken laughed. “That wife of his was a wild one — even before Garrick married her. And the daughter was looking to be just like her mother. Hell’s fire, the village still talks about the way Peta went walking with that Norman knight when she was already betrothed to Garrick. It would make him so mad. He swore he’d never give her the chance to embarrass him again.”

I thought about that for a moment, moving the various pieces of the murder about in my mind. I had a question now for John, but I didn’t want these brothers to hear it. “That’s all I want to know,” I told John. “We can go now.”

He turned to leave with me, but I couldn’t help lingering at the door. “You know, murdering your brother was a crime and someone will hang for it, but I can’t help but think this village is far better off now that he’s gone.”

“Garrick was the worst of them,” John confided. “Aiken and Brand have been far easier to control without him.”

“Tell me more about Garrick,” I suggested. “I don’t even know what he looked like. Was he dark and hairy like his brothers, or fair like his daughter?”

John missed the implication in my words. “Oh he was dark enough. The whole family is.”

I now thought I understood my lord’s concern, but I didn’t know if I could find him a scapegoat acceptable to Sir Gerald and these villagers.

To record it briefly, we talked to just about everyone in the village and learned nothing further of substantial use to me. The men, almost without fail, were in the fields when Garrick left and no one remembered anyone following after him. Oswin, the young man interested in Anna, was there in the fields with the rest of them. What was worse, he was a likable young fellow. I might be able to twist things around to fit him for the noose like Lord William wanted, but it would not sit well with the villagers, or with my own conscience, for that matter.

No strangers had been seen that day so we could not push the crimes on foreign shoulders. In truth, I firmly believed the women had committed the deed, and while I might sympathize with them and my lord William, I could not see any way to save both of them.

Yet therein was the answer to my problem. I could not see a way to save both of them, but might it not be possible to save one? But which woman would my lord prefer to live? The fancy of his youth or the daughter he had never dreamt he had? And even if I guessed correctly, would John help or hinder what I was about to try?

We approached the criminals’ house.

Garrick’s brothers wouldn’t like this. They stood to inherit their brother’s land if both women hung for killing him. But the rest of the village? Would they be satisfied with a single death?

Hodge, the foreman of the jury, stood outside Garrick’s house, keeping the women inside. I didn’t want him listening to my conversation with the women, nor John either, for that matter.

“Bailiff,” I said, turning to him, carefully in earshot of the foreman. “I’m convinced the jury was correct in its conclusion, but I don’t yet have the evidence to satisfy Lord William.”

Both men visibly relaxed at my words. “There’s just no one else who could have done it,” John said.

The juror was shifting uncertainly from foot to foot, wondering if it was proper for him to enter the conversation. I waved him over. I would need his help in this as well if I were to be successful.

“This is very good news,” Hodge told me. “I’m pleased we could convince you.”

“I am convinced,” I repeated for their benefit, “but I’m not certain my lord will be.”

Both men frowned, considering this problem.

I helped them along with their thinking. “What I’d like to bring Lord William is a confession.”

“A confession?” both men exclaimed.

“Yes, it would be difficult, to say the least, for my lord to deny these wo-men’s guilt if we could get them to confess it to him.”

The juror nodded solemnly, but the bailiff’s thoughts were already grappling with the practical problems in obtaining said confession. “I doubt,” he said, “that Lord William would find it overly convincing if the women were beaten into confessing.”

“I think you are correct,” I agreed.

“Then what should we do?”

“I’d like to talk to them again,” I said, “but this time I’d like it to be just them and me.”

John the Bailiff shook his head. “Sir Gerald’s instructions to me were quite clear.”

“Just hear me out and tell me what you think. Lord William is the only man who has ever questioned that these women killed Garrick. I am his man, charged in effect, with proving them innocent. They may talk to me.”

“Then they can talk with me beside you.”

“I think that lessens our chances,” I said. I dug my heels in on this point because I had no other argument. If John was as mulish as I, then both women would likely die.

Hodge, the juror, came unexpectedly to my assistance. “What harm can it do, Bailiff? He’s already said he agrees with us. We can go and stand by that tree stump over there and let him convince the women that this is their last chance at eternal salvation. If they die unshriven...” Hodge cringed and left the sentence unfinished.

The bailiff faltered in his conviction. “I don’t know.”

“I’ll tell you everything that happens,” I lied.

“It will only be for a little bit,” the juror said. He began to lead the bailiff to the tree stump.

I went up to the door, unbarred it, and stepped inside.

The two women, Peta and Anna, sat despondently around a small table as they had when I first visited them. The daughter glanced up in fear as I entered, but the mother was either less anxious or more resigned to her fate.

I crossed the room and joined them at the table, sitting on a low stool that had probably once been Garrick’s seat. Neither spoke, which surprised me. Most prisoners who expected to be condemned babbled forth prayers and pleas and promises. These women’s silence was unnatural and must have been driven, nay, beaten into them over the years.

I cleared my throat. “I have spent the day trying to find a man to take this murder conviction for you.”

“But you did not succeed,” Peta said quietly.

“There are a couple of prospects: Garrick’s brothers, your daughter’s friend, Oswin.”

This suggestion stirred Anna to speech. “No!”

“No,” I agreed. “I doubt that I could even convince Lord William of their guilt, and he seems to want to believe that you did not do this.”

They looked at me expectantly, correctly assuming I had not come here to tell them I had failed.

I took a deep breath. “I may, may, have a way to save one of you. But I will need some help from you before I am certain of it.”

My words increased the fear in the daughter’s eyes and brought hope to the mother’s, but neither ventured to speak.

“I need to know what happened,” I prompted, looking directly at the mother, hoping against hope that the woman would confide in me.

Peta swallowed her fears and licked her lips nervously. “It was as the lord said. We—”

“No,” I interrupted. I did not believe she would tell me the truth about the murder, and it would serve my lord’s purpose if she never told it.

I clarified my request, nodding in the daughter’s direction. “I mean that I need to know about her.”

The mother looked puzzled for a moment, then her eyes widened. “No! I don’t want to talk about that!”

“Mama?” Anna tried to interrupt, but Peta did not stop protesting.

“I don’t want her to hear!”

“Mama?” she tried again, tears welling in her eyes. “I know, Mama, it doesn’t matter.”

“You know?” Peta asked, apparently more horrified by this revelation than the thought of her coming death. But then, she had had months to prepare herself for her coming execution, and this was a secret she had clearly thought to take to her grave.

“You know?” she asked again. “How could you know?”

Anna got up, rushed around the small table, and threw her arms about Peta. “I’ve always known,” she told her. “It’s better this way. I don’t want to belong to him.”

I waited patiently as they cried, anxious only that John and Hodge might sneak back to the door to spy on what was happening.

When the women had calmed somewhat I started to question Peta again. I needed to be certain I was right in my assumptions or my lord might reject my solution to his instructions. “So how did it happen?”

“It is so hard to even think about now,” Peta told me. “I don’t think I can talk about it.”

“If you don’t,” I reminded her, “both you and Anna will hang.”

Peta sniffed. “I was so young. Garrick and I were speaking of marriage. He was different in those days — kinder and much less angry. Then the army rode through town and camped a while. One young knight paid a lot of attention to me. I was very pretty then and we went walking. I didn’t plan for more to happen, but he was so insistent, and then the army left...”

“And you were—”

“I had to marry Garrick,” she interrupted me. “It wasn’t until after Anna was born that he really began to suspect. It got worse after that. He was always angry and very jealous.”

It was somewhat worse than I had feared, and I found myself very disappointed in my lord. Not so much disappointed over his dalliance, but over his ignorance that he had ruined three separate lives for a night of pleasure. One man had died as a result of it, and now at least one more woman would hang. But these feelings of disappointment would not keep me from my duty.

“You know what you have to do?” I asked Peta.

Anna’s mother closed her eyes. Her voice trembled when she answered me. “Tell me.”

“You have to confess to murdering your husband and make a heroine of your daughter as she tried to protect him.”

“No!” the girl screamed. She was about to shout more, but I was around the table and clamping my hand hard over her mouth. “Silence, you fool!” I hissed. “Do you want both of you to hang?”

She struggled against me for a time, but her mother threw her arms about her and stroked her hair until she calmed.

John the Bailiff and Hodge did not enter the house to investigate the brief commotion.

“I killed him,” the daughter hissed the moment I removed my hand. “He wouldn’t let me marry Oswin and escape him.”

“I guessed as much,” I admitted, “but the truth does not help us. If you tell that story I believe my lord will hang you both. Unless I am mistaken, you are his true interest here.”

“He’d let my mother die?” Anna asked. Her whole body trembled with resurging anger. “Then I hate him too!”

I ignored her outburst. “If you confess,” I told Peta, “then Anna lives, inherits all of your property, and marries young Oswin. She has a chance at the decent life you were denied.”

“And will Lord William recognize her as his daughter?” she asked.

“I would not expect that,” I said. “I think he will go away from here after the trial and never return again.”

Peta did not consider long. “I love you, Anna,” she said. “You have long been the only light in my life. I can die happy and hope for salvation knowing that you will live.”

“No!” Anna protested, new tears pouring from her eyes. “How can I live knowing you died for my crime?”

Her mother only hugged her tighter.

“What do you want me to say?” she asked me.

We hanged Peta two days later.

She wept on her way to the gallows and so did her daughter and a very large number of villagers. The sun was unforgivingly bright, sparing no one — especially me — any of the details of the poor woman’s plight.

Among the vast hosts of duties I handle for my lord, by far the worst is acting as his executioner. I earn a full shilling for each death, but I have yet to meet a man, no matter how grievous his sins, that I felt happy to hang. It’s not clean like a death in battle, and it sets hard against my soul.

Hanging a woman is a thousand times more terrible.

It’s not that I object to the penalty, only to the knowledge that if God will not forgive these criminals’ sins it is my cold hands that are sending them straight to hell.

Peta’s death was far worse for me than most. It wasn’t that I thought her innocent. Whatever Anna had tried to say, whatever Peta confessed before the court, I knew in my heart that she had helped her daughter once the attack had begun.

No, what stuck in my heart was my lord’s role in this crime. One thoughtless night and he had ruined Peta’s life. Where the Normans came, destruction followed. My great-grandfather had stood beside King Harold at Stamford Bridge and died with him at Hastings. And here I served the grandsons of the men who killed him and continued to witness their poison spreading across our land.

We had no proper gallows to break Peta’s neck, so I helped her step up onto a stool and fit the rope down over her head. Father Stefan made the sign of the cross on her forehead. He had already absolved her of her sins. A few more moments of pain and fear and she would be on her way to heaven.

Peta’s eyes were wide with terror as I lifted the hood to cover her head.

“Anna will live,” I whispered. It was the only kindness I could think to offer her.

Peta gasped and shuddered as the cloth slid over her face.

“Mama!” Anna screamed.

John the Bailiff grabbed hold of her and held her back. He had already been named her guardian and he had promised me he would let her marry Oswin when a decent interval had passed.

That was the only good thing to come out of our visit. The village and Sir Gerald had breathed a sigh of relief at Peta’s confession. One death more than satisfied their sense of justice. Only Garrick’s brothers had protested letting Anna live, and I trusted John would keep those two in check.

I looked to Lord William and he nodded. His face was an expressionless mask; I had no idea what he might be thinking. Was he remembering a few pleasant hours spent fifteen years ago? Was he relieved his daughter would not join her mother in death? Was he sad that he could not save both of them? I had served my lord for years, but answers to these questions were beyond my knowledge of him.

I looked to Lord William and he nodded curtly. I made the sign of the cross and kicked the stool out from beneath Peta. She fell heavily, the rope cutting off her cry but failing to break her neck. Her bound hands twisted terribly in a futile effort to reach the strangling cord.

Poor Anna screamed again, as did several of the children.

Others in the village freely wept.

Peta hung struggling, swinging, twisting, gurgling in a most ghastly fashion until the strength finally left her body and her spirit ebbed.

When her bladder finally voided, I knew she was truly dead. We left her hanging on the green — a terrible warning to all who would break the king’s peace of the consequence of their action.

Lord William placed a hand on my shoulder, and it took all of my force of will to smother the impulse to shake it off.

His voice was a single notch above a whisper. “Thank you,” he said.

The gesture was so unusual that I turned to face him.

The expressionless mask on Lord William’s face was still mostly intact, but there was just a hint of emotion peeking out from beneath it, a tightness in the crow’s feet to either side of his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I replied, leaving it to him to decide what it was that I regretted.

We never spoke of Alving again.

Copyright ©2008 Gilbert M. Stack