Chapter Twenty-One In which Crowner John takes confession


Crowner John dragged the chair used by the Bishop nearer to the altar of the Holy Cross and sat down to parley with the fugitive. He had been up virtually all night and was feeling the strain of dodging chain-maces and indulging in sword fights.

‘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.’

They sat in comfortable silence for a moment.

‘Can I come to see what happens at this abjuration affair tomorrow?’ she asked.

He gave one of his rare grins. ‘Why not? The rest of the town will be there, I’ll bet.’


At noon the next day, the cathedral bell boomed out its message to the town as a large crowd gathered in the Close. It was Wednesday, so there was no rival attraction at the gallows and several hundred of Exeter’s five thousand population were clustered around the West Front of the great building to see the entertainment.

Nesta was there and John had been surprised to receive Matilda’s announcement at their early meal that she intended to watch the proceedings too. He could not decide whether she wanted to be there from sheer curiosity or to see her own husband the centre of civic attention.

Though the de Bonnevilles were not well known in the city, coming from the distant lands at the other end of Dartmoor, the fact that a Norman gentleman was in such disgrace was an unusual attraction to pull in the crowds. It was a secular ceremony, even though the concept of sanctuary had religious origins, so the clergy were keeping a fairly low profile. The Bishop had decided to keep away but the Archdeacon and the Precentor stood in one of the doorways of the West End to keep a watch on the formalities.

The sheriff was also notable by his absence, the sergeant and a few men-at-arms the only token of the forces of law and order, apart from the coroner. John, with the abjurer, was the focal point of the ritual.

As the bell tolled midday, the Coroner led a drab figure out of the north tower and down the nave towards the cathedral doors. The great central oaken door was never opened except on high festivals or for the rare visitation of the Archbishop or the King, so one of the lesser flanking doors was used to allow them out into the daylight.

Gwyn of Polruan followed closely behind the fugitive, his face suggesting that he hoped de Bonneville would make a run for it as soon as they got outside the weaponless zone of the cathedral so that he could cut him in half with his sword. However, as Gervaise was shortly to be released alone on to the high road, there was little point in him escaping anywhere and Gwyn had to be content with a threatening attitude and an occasional prod in the back. Thomas de Peyne trailed along behind, carrying his bag of writing instruments.

Gervaise’s clothing had already been listed for sale, as the abjurer now wore a shapeless tube of hessian, the ragged hem of which came to his ankles. He was barefoot and his long curly hair had vanished – Gwyn had arbitrarily decreed that it be cut off – leaving an irregular stubble over his scalp, which looked worse than if it had been fully shaved. As far as John knew, there was nothing in the rules on abjuration that insisted on shearing the hair, but he was in no mood to deny Gwyn his last chance at humiliating the man.

As they lined up outside the door, there was a chorus of jeers from the crowd and a few rotten vegetables were thrown. As they were as likely to hit the officials as the villain, the sergeant roared at the culprits and smacked a few heads with his mailed hand; he was dressed up to show off for this occasion, in chain-mail hauberk to his knees and a round helmet with the usual nose-guard.

The shouts and catcalls died down and the coroner began the ceremony. Gwyn had dragooned a dozen men to be a jury and they stood in a double semi-circle behind John, to witness Gervaise’s confession. The two cathedral priests also joined the group.

‘On your knees before the King’s coroner,’ yelled Gwyn.

The wretched de Bonneville sank to the ground. His humiliation was all the greater for the contrast with his former station in life – good clothes, horses, money and aristocratic elevation above his fellow men.

‘You will now confess your crimes to me,’ grated John. ‘Unless it is full and genuine, your confession will be invalid.’

At this point the Precentor upstaged the Archdeacon by throwing in a further warning of eternal damnation. ‘And the mercy of the Church and perhaps your eventual absolution also depend on your contrition and truthfulness. Otherwise the fires of hell await you.’

Haltingly and reluctantly, de Bonneville came out with the story.

It had begun many months earlier when a soldier fresh from Outremer had brought the news to Peter Tavy that Hubert hoped to be home before long. ‘We had thought Hubert dead, either in Palestine or on the arduous journey,’ murmured his brother. ‘Many of those who took the Cross never returned home, so my expectations of being heir to my father’s honour had been accepted by all.’ His voice rose in almost petulant defiance. ‘I ran the manors, did all the business when my father was struck with the palsy, it was to have been mine by right. I had earned it through three years of Hubert’s absence.’

Gervaise, who had long resented his brother’s seniority and superior attitude, had seen his hopes of becoming his father’s heir diminish to almost nothing. The only vestige that remained was that Hubert would not survive the homeward journey, as more Crusaders fell prey to disease and other dangers of travel than to the weapons of the Mohammedans. He admitted now that he had often talked to Baldwyn, his squire and confidant, about this possibility. Somehow it developed into an open hope that some fatal accident might befall his elder brother, though there seemed little that they could do to foster the likelihood of this happening.

Then, by sheer chance, Baldwyn had been in Sampford Spiney some eight weeks ago, visiting a woman he knew there, when he heard that a man staying at the tavern was on his way home from the Holy Land. Anxious to know whether this traveller might have more recent news of Hubert de Bonneville, Baldwyn sought him out and was amazed to discover that this Aelfgar was actually his servant-cum-squire. He was on his way to Peter Tavy to announce that his master was in Southampton and would be home in about two weeks.

‘Baldwyn kept his identity secret from the man, then rode home and told me of what he had discovered,’ announced Gervaise, in a flat, hopeless voice.

After a few hours of agonising discussion, they had decided that Aelfgar could never be allowed to deliver his news to their manor. Although Sir Arnulph was incapable of understanding, Martyn, the cousins and all the manor inhabitants would know of Hubert’s imminent return and any plan to usurp him would be frustrated.

By now, Gervaise was purging himself of his misdeeds in an orgy of penitence. Still on his knees in the mud, with the jury and a sizeable part of the townsfolk of Exeter hanging on his every word, he carried on his confession, in a voice that varied from a dull monotone to cracked emotion. ‘We decided to kill Aelfgar and somehow prevent Hubert from coming home, which was far more difficult.’

Baldwyn knew that the Saxon was coming from Sampford Spiney the next day, after his horse had recovered from lameness. ‘I provided my squire with money and he soon found a rough outlaw begging on the rim of the forest above Tavistock who, for a couple of marks, was willing to help him dispatch the Saxon.’ There was an outraged murmur from the front rank of the crowd.

‘Baldwyn and the ruffian lay in wait for Aelfgar on the road out of Sampford Spiney. The two easily unhorsed him, stabbed him and Baldwyn cut his throat. They threw his body over his horse and took it to that nearby tor, where they hid it in a cleft.’

His voice rose suddenly in plaintive justification. ‘I had no part in it, I was miles away at our other manor. Baldwyn was keen to do this thing. Without me as lord of Peter Tavy, he would never have advancement under Hubert, who disliked him and would have put in his own man as seneschal.’

Crowner John bristled at this. ‘You miserable hog, don’t try to excuse yourself! It was you who gave the money for your man to hire another killer. All you can plead is cowardice, not innocence.’

Gervaise’s head dropped in shame, but he still attempted to excuse himself. ‘This was merely getting rid of some paltry bodyguard, something to delay the news of my brother’s return until we thought of another plan. We had no intention to kill Hubert. I thought perhaps I could arrange for him to be kidnapped and dumped in Ireland or Brittany, where some accident might still befall him.’

John gave him a push with the flat of his boot that sent him tumbling into the ordure on the ground. ‘You’re as big a liar as you are a villain! You meant Hubert’s death from the outset. No other way would grant you your father’s heritage. But then what happened?’

Gervaise used his crude cross to push himself up to a squatting position. He looked so abject in his misery that Nesta almost felt sorry for him, until she reminded herself of his mortal sin of fratricide.

‘That fool Baldwyn couldn’t resist stealing the man’s dagger. Then they took the Saxon’s horse into the wilds of the moor, stripped it of its harness and let it run wild to get rid of it,’ he mumbled.

‘What happened to this outlaw and his Judas pieces of silver – or is that some other figment of your evil mind?’ snapped the coroner.

De Bonneville shook his head violently. ‘He was real enough – until Baldwyn killed him!’

John raised his arms in despair. Framed in his black cloak, he looked like a huge bat hovering over the culprit.

‘Mother of God, another corpse! Where will we find this one?’

Gervaise was anxious to shift the blame from himself. ‘It shows what manner of evil rogue Baldwyn was!’ he said, in a complete reversal of his former concern for his squire. ‘I knew nothing of it, but he told me later that he felt it wise to get rid of any witnesses.’

‘Where and when?’ demanded the coroner grimly.

The aspiring lord of Peter Tavy shrugged. ‘He never told me other than that he had caught the man unawares and run him through with his sword in some remote spot. He did say that there was no fear of the body being found, as he threw it down the shaft of an old tin mine.’

Gwyn of Polruan was outraged at this endless story of treacherous killings. ‘And I’ll gamble that your fine squire took back his blood money from the corpse’s purse before he dropped it down the hole, the swine!’

‘So how did you later find your brother, wretch?’ demanded John, who was getting angrier as the story unfolded.

The jurymen and those in the crowd who could hear what was being said, or had the proceedings relayed to them by those in front, were also growing restive. Hisses and jeers were frequent, in spite of the men-at-arms’ efforts to keep order. John felt that if he had thrown Gervaise to the mob, they would have torn him limb from limb or hanged him from the nearest tree.

De Bonneville, who now cowered on his knees close to the protection of the coroner, explained what had happened.

‘It was not I who killed my brother!’ he pleaded. ‘I never laid eyes on him. It was Baldwyn who went to Southampton just before the time that Aelfgar had claimed that Hubert would leave that port. He was the one who slew him, on the promise that I would give him advancement and wealth when I achieved my inheritance.’

John was disgusted with him. Violence was commonplace, but Gervaise’s cold-blooded plan to assassinate his own’s brother was outrageous. ‘You might as well have held the knife yourself, you evil worm!’ shouted John.

Gwyn came up to whisper something in his ear. The coroner turned back to look down scathingly at the craven figure in sackcloth. ‘The wounds on the body of your brother strongly suggested that he had two attackers … and you claim you were not there?’

Gervaise shook his head at the earth beneath his face. ‘Baldwyn again hired some outlaw to help him. First he went to Southampton and found such a fellow. The hired man had to seek out Hubert, as Baldwyn was well known to my brother. It was no problem tracing him, but then Baldwyn and his man waited until he left Southampton and covertly followed him.’

There was a sudden commotion at the back of the crowd. ‘Here’s someone who can vouch for that – the felon himself!’

Gervaise’s tale was interrupted by a shout from beyond the circle of onlookers. They parted to allow a man-at-arms push a way through for the constable of Rougemont.

Behind him came another soldier, shoving a bedraggled figure with chains on his wrists and ankles – a man with two fingers missing from his right hand.

After the hubbub had died down, Ralph Morin joined the inner group and stood alongside the coroner, his hands on his hips.

Nebba, for certainly it was he, was forced down alongside Gervaise to kneel in the mud, completing de Bonneville’s ignominy: the Norman aristocrat now had to share the same filthy ground as a base outlaw.

‘We found this creature by sheer chance, Crowner,’ related Morin conversationally. ‘Early this morning, he robbed a merchant of his purse just outside the North Gate and made a run for it. Unfortunately for him the trader’s own son saw him, raised the hue-and-cry among the other stall-holders and overtook him before he reached the woods beyond St David’s.’

The coroner reached down and grabbed the hair of the outlaw, jerking his head back so that he could look more closely at his defiant face. ‘You keep turning up in this matter, Nebba!’ he said. ‘Widecombe, Southampton … but I suspect that this will be your final appearance.’

Morin gave the former archer a kick in the ribs. ‘He was recognised as an outlaw by those who seized him this morning – some were for lopping off his wolf’s head on the spot and collecting the bounty money. But then he spun some tale about bargaining for his life with some information about Gervaise de Bonneville here so, from curiosity, I listened to his tale.’

The Saxon bowman, ever an optimist, cried out in his own defence, ‘This is hallowed ground, I claim sanctuary, just as I hear Sir Gervaise has done!’

Morin gave him another blow with his boot. ‘Sanctuary, be damned! My soldiers brought you here and my soldiers will take you out again. Now, tell the Crowner the same tale you spun to me, to see if he believes you.’

Nebba seemed fatalistically calm, compared to the nobleman alongside him in the dirt. He knew that he would hang soon, but a violent death was almost the inevitable end for a mercenary and an outlaw. The only doubt about it was when – rather than if – it would happen. His time had run out and that was that. Everyone has to die sometime.

The castle constable prodded him again with his toe. ‘You told me that you were the ruffian that Baldwyn of Beer hired in Southampton, eh?’

Nebba nodded, his matted hair bobbing over his dirty forehead. ‘He seemed to have an eye for a man who would do any task for a few marks. Found me in an inn, bought me some ale and offered me a job.’

‘I knew nothing of this!’ whimpered Gervaise. ‘I was many leagues away in my own manor.’

John and Morin ignored him. ‘What then? Did Baldwyn say, “Kill me a man for two marks”?’ asked John sarcastically.

‘I knew nothing of that to start with, I just had to wander around Southampton and find this Sir Hubert. The Welsh agent, Gruffydd, eventually pointed me in the right direction.’

Gwyn grunted in surprise. ‘He never told me that when I was talking to him!’

Nebba continued his story resignedly. ‘Baldwyn said we needed to follow him without being seen. He said nothing of slitting his gizzard at that stage, but I soon got the drift of his intentions.’ He grinned at a sudden recollection, in spite of the certain knowledge that within days he would be hanging by the neck. ‘I had to run for it even then, as I’d relieved a fat merchant of his purse to get some drinking money – the damned fool resisted, so I had to stick him between the ribs to get away. But I arranged to meet up with Baldwyn again next day in the forest near Lyndhurst.’

The rest of the unhappy tale was plain. The two assassins had tracked de Bonneville across Hampshire and Dorset. When their best opportunity came, on a bare moorside above Widecombe at dusk, they attacked Hubert together but, a seasoned fighter after his Crusading, he fought them off and raced down towards the village. ‘He nearly got away from us, blast him, but his horse put a foot in a rabbit hole and threw him off. We caught him up near Dunstone and continued the fight on foot.’

‘Two of you against one – a brave performance!’ John was cynical this morning.

‘He put up a good fight, I’ll say that,’ admitted Nebba, with some admiration. ‘Though I was never much good with a sword, I was brought up to use a long-bow.’

‘But you managed to stab him in the back, while that squire cut him in the arm from the front,’ snarled Gwyn, unable to conatin himself any longer.

Nebba’s silence was as good as an admission of guilt.

‘What about the mare, the one with the black-ringed eye?’ demanded the coroner.

Nebba sighed, as if realising that he could only be hanged once, so it made little odds what he confessed to now.

‘We dragged the body into some bushes near the hamlet of Dunstone and set his horse loose to wander away.’

‘If you left Hubert’s body in a thicket in Dunstone, how did it come to be found in a stream in Widecombe?’ John asked. Even as he spoke the words, he realised that his earlier suspicions about the Dunstone reeve were probably true and that the village had foisted the corpse on their neighbours to avoid trouble.

Gwyn of Polruan picked up on another matter. ‘If you turned that grey mare loose, how did it come to be sold to Ralph the reeve?’

Nebba shuffled his feet, his ankle chains clanking. ‘I didn’t trust that Baldwyn. One night he told me about the killing of that other fellow, that Aelfgar. Though he didn’t say outright, after a gallon of ale he made hints that he’d silenced the man for safety’s sake.’

‘So?’ grunted the Cornishman.

‘I didn’t turn my back to him for fear of getting it stabbed. I got him to pay me what he owed me, then slipped off back into the woods. I gave him time to clear off, then came back to find the mare.’

‘And sold it to the village reeve,’ finished John. ‘Well, I’ll see you at the hanging tree.’

He jerked his head at Ralph Morin, who gestured to his men-at-arms to take Nebba back to the castle. Undoubtedly the next time he emerged it would would be for a one-way trip to the gallows. The gap in the crowd fused together after he had clanked mournfully away and attention was once more focused on the sorry figure of the abjurer, still kneeling in the mud.

Gervaise seemed to have run out of confessions and John began his own part of the ritual. ‘You are a killer and a liar, and have enough felony on you to be hanged a dozen times over. But I have to accept your confession, as it seems to fit the sorry facts. Now you will take the oath of abjuration.’

He turned to the motley collection of townsfolk behind him. ‘You, the jury, will witness everything that is said here.’

The Archdeacon came forward with a copy of the Gospels from the cathedral and the kneeling penitent put his right hand on the cover. John de Alecon took care to keep the valuable book well away from the mire.

Gwyn bellowed for silence and John then spoke the words of the oath, making Gervaise repeat them after every line.

‘This hear thou, Sir John de Wolfe, that I, Gervaise de Bonneville of Peter Tavy in the county of Devon, am an instigator and conspirator in the murder of Aelfgar of Totnes and my own brother, Hubert de Bonneville. And because I have done such evils in this land, I do swear on this Holy Book, that I will leave and abjure the realm of England and never return without the express permission of our lord Richard, King of England or his heirs.’

Gervaise stumbled over the words many times and his voice dropped to become inaudible now and then, but the coroner remorselessly made him repeat any faulty passages.

‘I shall hasten by the direct road towards the port which you have allotted me and I will not leave the King’s highway under pain of arrest or execution. I will not stay at one place more than one night and I will diligently seek for a passage across the sea as soon as I arrive. I will tarry there only one flood and ebb, if I can have such passage. If I cannot secure such passage, I will go every day into the sea up to my knees, as a token of my desire to cross. And if I cannot secure such passage within forty days, I will put myself again within a church … and if I fail in all this, then let peril be my lot.’

Satisfied with this, John then told the felon to rise and lifted the right hand that clutched the rough cross high into the air. It was merely two sticks, one as tall as Gervaise, the other a two-foot cross-bar, which the abjurer had been made to bind together with some rough twine. Then he was given a pair of crude wooden-soled shoes and the time to send him on his way had finally come.

The crowd were still growling at him and a stone, thrown with unerring aim by an urchin, hit him on the side of the head, causing blood to trickle down between the ragged clumps of shorn hair. John grasped him by the shoulders and turned him to face away from the cathedral.

‘You will walk from here bare-headed to Plymouth to seek a ship to France or Brittany. You have been given sufficient of the contents of your purse to pay for a passage and to keep you alive for a number of days. You have two days and two nights to get to Plymouth on foot, which should be ample. Remember, you must abide strictly by the terms of your oath. If you fail, by staying more than one night in any place or by straying an inch off the highway, people are entitled to treat you as the wolf and behead you. And if you ever set foot in England again, you will be outlawed and your wolf’s head forfeit to any man who can lift a sword.’ The coroner gave him a token push. ‘Now go!’

The Archdeacon and the Precentor chanted, ‘May God have mercy on your soul,’ and made the sign of the cross in the air, feverishly mimicked by Thomas de Peyne, who had been writing energetically on his roll draped over a large stone left by the masons.

To the jeers and abuse of the crowd, Gervaise jerked forward and began to walk towards the exit of the Cathedral Close, which led to the West Gate, the river and the road to Plymouth.

The sergeant and his men beat a path for him through the hostile crowd and a man-at-arms walked alongside the abjurer to make sure that at least he got out of the city in one piece.

The coroner stood watching, with Gwyn and the Archdeacon at his side. ‘There he goes! It seems unjust that he kills two or three men and walks away, while a child who steals a jug is hanged.’ John was bitter and philosophical at the same time.

‘What about that man who was made to suffer the Ordeal?’ enquired John de Alecon. ‘It seems that he was unjustly accused.’

The Precentor naturally took an opposite view. ‘It proves the efficacy of the ritual. As he survived the scalding, it proved his innocence.’

‘He damned near died,’ John snapped. ‘Only his strong constitution saved him. Let’s hope the ministrations of the holy sisters will make him fit again.’

Thomas de Boterellis had no answer to this and kept a sulky silence when the Archdeacon expressed the hope that Alan Fitzhai would find it in his heart to forgive the sheriff for his actions.

The crowd dispersed and, though a few youths and idiots had followed de Bonneville to the gate, the mass hatred seemed to have faded as readily as it had come.

Yet John was still uneasy about the abjurer, as he disappeared into the distance. ‘I keep thinking about the Palatine of Durham and the way they shepherd their exiles,’ he said to Gwyn.

The Cornishman was unimpressed. ‘Good riddance, I say. If someone wants to take a swing at him with a battleaxe or broadsword, then good luck to them.’

His bloodthirsty sentiments were interrupted by Matilda who had left a conversation with another woman spectator and was approaching John. Gwyn melted away, there being mutual dislike between them. John noticed that Nesta, too, had diplomatically vanished.

‘You seem to have done something right for a change, husband,’ said Matilda. In spite of her two-edged words, the tone was not critical, and John sensed that she was pleased with him for once.

‘I hated seeing that evil young man get away so easily, but sanctuary and abjuration have long been our custom,’ he said.

His wife failed to think that Gervaise had suffered too lightly. ‘He’s lost everything, hasn’t he? Pride, position, possessions and inheritance.’

All these losses would be worse than death to Matilda, thought her husband. ‘Abjurers have a strange way of coming back, lady,’ he forecast gloomily. ‘Even if – God forbid – King Richard were to die, it’s not clear whether the exile only lasts for his reign. And many an abjurer has slipped back quietly into the country after all the fuss has died down.’

‘That’s no concern of yours, John. You did your duty well and that’s all that can be asked of you.’

As they walked slowly towards St Martin’s Lane, he still had a nagging concern about his responsibility to the ragged abjurer, now plodding to Plymouth to find a shipmaster willing to take him to France.

At least John was content that his contempt for the man had not allowed him to be vindictive in his choice of port. Yet the anger of the crowd, short-lived though it seemed, made him wonder if de Bonneville would see Plymouth alive.

He found that, during his reverie, they had arrived outside their house and his wife was speaking to him. ‘Are you going to eat now or this evening? Mary can make something if you’re hungry.’

Matilda’s concern for his well-being was a novelty and John was surprised at how he welcomed it. Not because he had discovered any new-found affection for her, but as a relief from the usual sparring and fighting. However, he had other things on his mind. He came to a sudden decision. ‘No, but I’ll come in to change my cloak and get my riding boots.’

As he pulled on his travelling outfit and hung his baldric across his shoulder to carry his sword, Matilda wanted to know where he was going. ‘To follow our abjurer – I want to see that he at least gets well away from the city alive.’

Leaving her on the doorstep, shaking her head in a resigned lack of understanding of the man who shared her life and her bed, the coroner hurried across to the stables and helped the farrier to saddle up Bran, his huge stallion.

He trotted away towards the West Gate, more than an hour after Gervaise had trudged off in a welter of abuse.


Eager to put as much distance between himself and Exeter as possible, still fresh and not yet footsore, de Bonneville had covered quite a distance in that hour. He was already well into the trees towards Alphington when John, now walking his horse quietly, saw him in the distance.

The Plymouth road was moist after a shower during the night, but not too deeply rutted in mud. It was deserted apart from the bedraggled figure in brown sackcloth, who held the cross before his chest like some talisman to ward off evil, even though, as far as the coroner was concerned, he was the epitome of evil himself. John kept pace with him at a considerable distance, so that Gervaise remained unaware of his presence. Now that he was out of sight, as he thought, of the law officers who had ruined his life, the man from Peter Tavy was turning over in his mind all the options. Should he throw away his cross and step into the trees to become an outlaw? There seemed little point in doing that here, so the next option was to walk on until he came near Tavistock and his manor. But what could he do there? By that time, the news of his disgrace would have reached his home.

He had seen no sign of Martyn, who must have forsaken him in loathing. He had not even come to see him in sanctuary and had been conspicuously absent at the abjuration ceremony that morning. Martyn had worshipped Gervaise and would never forgive him for what he had done. Return to Peter Tavy seemed pointless, as his only real ally, Baldwyn, was dead. The cousins were waiting like carrion crows to pick up what they could of the inheritance and this affair could be nothing but a delight to them. Now they had only the weak, malleable Martyn to deal with, the brother who should have taken holy orders, rather than the sword.

As he marched along with his crude cross, the clogs were starting to chafe his heels and toes and Gervaise realised that the fifty miles to Plymouth were not going to be the easy march he had first imagined, but he resigned himself to taking ship from there to France. He had distant relatives in Normandy, and as long as they had no news of his disgrace, he could start to rebuild his life – anything was better than dangling by the neck on the end of a rope.

He trudged on for another hour, past the village of Kennford, where several children and some dogs came to jeer and bark at him. A few carters’ wagons passed him in the other direction, the drivers ignoring him.

He was still oblivious of John, a quarter of a mile behind him, Bran’s hoofs muffled in the soft slime.

On a long curve of track, where the forest came right to the edge of the road, he was suddenly aware of a noise in the tall trees on his right, but he could see nothing. Feeling naked without a sword or even a cudgel, he was wary of attack, but the crackling stopped and he carried on, though the hairs on his neck had risen in tense apprehension.

John was thinking of giving up his impromptu escort duty and returning home – he began to wonder why he had wasted his time in the first place. The curve in the track had taken the abjurer out of sight but when he came round the bend the situation had dramatically changed.

The cross was lying in the road and two men, dressed in rough clothes little better than rags, were attacking the man in the long sackcloth robe. One ruffian was using a piece of branch as a crude club and the other was pulling at the abjurer’s arm, trying to drag him off the road into the trees. The unarmed Gervaise was putting up a vigorous fight for his life, punching and kicking as he yelled at the top of his voice, but the outlaw with the branch was putting in repeated blows at de Bonneville’s shoulder and arm, slowly driving him off the road as his accomplice hauled him from the other side.

John spurred his great horse into a gallop and shot down the road, rapidly closing the gap between him and the struggling trio. The heavy thump of the warhorse’s hoofs and his own bellowing froze the tableau ahead. All three men stopped fighting and looked open-mouthed at the apparition bearing down on them.

With a yell of fear, the two ruffians let go of Gervaise, who fell to the ground. They ran for their lives into the trees and by the time that John’s stallion pounded up to the stricken abjurer they had vanished as if they had never existed.

John stared for a long moment into the tree-line where the men had disappeared, then slid from his horse and hoisted Gervaise to his feet. The man was bruised and bleeding down the right side of his face and had deep scratches on his neck and arm. ‘Are you badly hurt?’ asked John, immediately feeling the incongruity of concern for the health of a man whom he would gladly have hanged a couple of hours earlier.

De Bonneville staggered to his feet, gingerly touched his injuries with his good hand and examined the blood on his fingers. He winced as he moved his neck and right arm, but said he was free of any serious damage.

John walked a few yards and picked up the cross, which he gave back to Gervaise. ‘Then walk on, as you are bidden by your oath.’

The man groaned, but turned and began to limp again down the centre of the track. One blow of the cudgel had caught him on the thigh and his heels were now rubbed raw by the clogs.

John put a foot in a stirrup and hoisted himself on to Bran’s back. He walked slowly behind de Bonneville and, after a few hundred yards, said, ‘Chudleigh is the next village. You can stop there this night and recover. I’ll give you an extra day and a night travelling time to Plymouth, in the circumstances.’

They carried on for a few more minutes until the coroner spoke again. ‘I’ll see you safe to that village. After that, you’re on your own, for better or worse.’

Later, John never understood why he was so reluctant to tell Gervaise that when he had looked into the trees back there, he had seen Martyn de Bonneville waiting, a naked sword in his hand.

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