A Hanging Offense, Chapters 29-31

Busted.

Chapter 29

    

     Cob leaned back into Joan’s embrace. Ned lay asleep at long last, the excitement of the afternoon and night having kept the boy as wound up as a top.

     The darkness of their home embraced them. Dark came as a relief to Cob, a comforting blanket of blindness, a respite from the decisions the others constantly thrust upon him.

     “You knew, didn’t you?” Joan asked. Her hand smoothed his hair. Her breasts moved him in time with her breathing. Her smell perfumed the air of their house, the safe dark, the quiet. “That Lee would back down.”

     “Any man will give ground if he sees himself lost.” Cob yawned. Joan adjusted beneath him as he stretched. “It doesn’t take a genius to see that.”

     His muzziness comforted him. The warm, domestic smells made him sleepy, gave him the hope of rest before another dawn of questions and crises. Even to think of them pushed him once again toward wakefulness, and he made himself forget. He drifted in the comfort of Joan’s embrace, the familiar sounds and smells of night.

     Some nameless time later, Joan shook him roughly.

     “Cob—wake!” She shook him again, harder. What was he being punished for? He pushed her away, but it was no good. She kept at him and he didn’t understand. Didn’t she know how tired he was?

     “Stand back, whore!” It was another voice. What was another man doing in their house. Didn’t he know it was the dead of night?

     Cob started the long climb toward wakefulness. He had only begun when sharp pain burned across his face. He was flung to hands and knees, off the bed, on the rushes on the floor, bleeding from a torn lip. His whole head throbbed. Someone was attacking.

     He rose to unsteady feet. The intruder was Perers—Richard Perers the knight whom he and Joan had bested. Cob roared and threw himself across the torch-lit room.

     Torches? he wondered, but had no time. Perers waited, ready, and sidestepped him. The blow of a weighted gauntlet struck Cob’s unprotected neck. He fell again, his arms and legs twitching and useless. Perers turned to Joan, who struggled in his grasp, cried out in protest and in pain as he stripped her of her shift and threw her down on the bed.

     Cob’s rage overcame his weakness. Though his limbs were numb and weak, he flung himself back toward Perers, but rough and heavy hands held him back with laughter and with ease. He could not defend Joan.

     Perers pulled down his breeches and thrust himself into Joan. She screamed, but Cob could not help. When Perers finished, he slapped Joan, hard, to silence her, pulled up his breeches and looked around the room.

     “Where is my sword?”

     Cob spat. Joan moaned on the bed. Ned picked that moment to whimper and caught the Perers’ attention.

     “Very well.” He cuffed Joan again and scooped up Ned. “Good looking boy.”

     Cob gave in. “It’s under the bed.”

     Perers tossed the boy back on his palette and retrieved his sword. “I ought to gut you like a fish, but Lee has other plans.”

     Joan was left weeping on the bed. Ned shrieked from his palette, afraid to move, too afraid to keep silent. Perers slapped the boy into silence. Hands tied a filthy piece of cloth over Cob’s mouth, and a length of rope went around his hands and ankles. The hands lifted him bodily and dragged him outside, where they threw him into a cart. His shoulder and head bumped hard against the side.

     Perers stared down at him, his face a shadow with only starlight behind him.

     “The wheel of fortune turns. Hours ago, you were the lord of Saint Alban’s. Now, you’re mine. Were it not for the mercy of Sir Walter atte Lee, you would be dead. He would have you hanging from a gibbet. I would settle for less.”

     Cob could make no answer. He noticed everything, instead. He was alone in the cart, whose walls were high enough to hide whatever was within. He could make no sound, could barely move. The ropes cut hard into his flesh; his hands and feet were already cold.

     Perers’ face disappeared. Orders were whispered harshly in the night. The cart jerked; Cob fetched up hard against the back wall, still halfway upside down. This, then, was how the revolt ended, by deceit and nighttime capture, with violence and rape.

     What must Joan be feeling? How was little Ned? Cob fought against his bonds, but they held against everything he could do. The noise of his struggle caught Perers’ notice. The cart stopped. The squire jumped into the cart. His feet landed square on Cob’s belly. A storm of kicks followed.

     Then, without warning, a hand reached over the tall side of the cart and took Perers by the scruff of the neck.

     “Who dares interfere—?”

     “I dare.” The voice of Sir William Croyser filled the night. “Who contests my right?”

     Cob, at the bottom of the cart, felt a last, surreptitious kick. He was able to twist and took the glancing blow in his thigh rather than the side. Perers climbed out of the cart. In a moment, a steady, jerking motion set in. A horse was pulling the cart and Cob up Holywell.

     A few turns and Cob was lost. The stars were no help; they kept twisting and turning, and he lost count of the cart’s turns, could not tell left from right for the pain in his belly and his ribs and his heart.

     Especially his heart, for Joan and Ned were lost now. He might have bargained with less effort with the abbot, and avoided all this fear. Joan might lie satiated rather than violated. His Ned might never have felt the squire’s hand smash across his face. He sent up a prayer for wife and child. God love the helpless.

     The cart slowed to a halt. Guards were left outside while Perers and some others went within. Cob heard grunts and cries of pain muffled through the walls of a house. Then a man was thrown into the cart and landed atop Cob. Both cried out in pain, through their gags. Both struggled alike to untangle themselves from each other. It would have been like one of the shows put on by the traveling players, save that the pain was real, the fear palpable.

     Finally, though, they sorted it out so that each of them could see the other. William Cadyndon propped himself in the opposite corner of the cart, his eyes wide with fear, his mouth covered with a gag.

     Then they were moving again, bouncing around as the cart bumped over the ruts in the streets. Now the cart’s movements threw them against each other as well as the walls. It stopped after a few minutes. Cob listened in darkness to another shouted exchange, another woman’s cries, another struggle between one man and an overwhelming number of others. Another bound and gagged man fell on top of the two already in the cart.

     John Barber coughed out blood and spittle around his gag. The sound was terrible. They must have struck him in the ribs, punctured a lung perhaps. He gurgled and swallowed and eventually the choking subsided. Cob and Cadyndon made him as comfortable as they could, but they had no use of their arms. They could only nudge him with their feet and shoulders into an upright posture, and position themselves on either side of their ally. The cart began moving before they had him properly propped up, and they had to start over three times before they had any success.

     There was no telling what time of night it might be. The streets were silent, save for the creaking of the cart’s wheels, the nicker of the horse pulling it, and the jangling of tack and the striking of hoof against the earth.

     They stopped. The back panel of the cart was lifted out. A door Cob well knew gaped open before him, the entrance to the abbey’s gate house, the gaol where he had been kept years before.

     Richard Perers appeared. He had his sword back. Satisfaction and pleasure were written large across his face. “Inside, Grindcob.”

     Cob nodded toward Barber. The gag still prevented him from speaking.

     Perers laid the sword point against Cob’s privates, through his tunic and hose. Cob froze into stillness. There would be no civility left here, then. No proper behavior, as man to man. Here, things were lord to serf, and he was the lesser of the two. Perers gestured toward the gaol house door and lifted the point of the blade. Cob stepped from the cart into deeper darkness. As he passed Perers, the knight clubbed him with the sword’s hilt, one hard blow to the back of the head. Pain sparkled and died in an instant. Cob went out like a candle’s flame.

     When he awoke, it was already light; the gaol was only a confused memory. Cob and the other two men were still trapped within the cart. His head ached like fire itself.

     The light that spilled down on them through leafy green trees was diffuse, as if there were a high thin layer of cloud. The sun would shine, but the air would be thick with moisture. Cob had no idea where they were.

     Perers and Croyser had officiated at their arrest, and both men were in the pay of the monastery. For all the bad feeling between Cob and the abbot, he couldn’t credit the thought that this act had been done at the prelate’s bidding. Over the course of the insurrection, they had arrived at a modus vivendi, where one did not interfere with the doings of the other. They instead consulted when their interests conflicted.

     This was treachery. The friends of the abbey feared to do their deeds by daylight.

     Finally, there was enough light to see more than a few leaves. Cob struggled to stand erect in the jostling cart.

     He knew the spot instantly. They were on the Hatfield Road, well out of Saint Alban’s. They must be headed for Hertford.

     A whole string of men-at-arms defended the single dray that held the three prisoners. Two or three-score troops at the least. Unwarranted pride surged through Cob. If he were captured, at the least he was deemed dangerous enough to guard well.

     “Down, lad.” Sir William Croyser rode up behind the cart and spoke in warning. “If Squire Richard Perers sees you peering about, he’ll lop your head off. He seeks an excuse to use his new-found sword on you.”

     Croyser aimed a gauntleted hand in Cob’s direction, one easily dodged, but Cob took the hint and let it land a glancing blow against his shoulder and fell back into the cart. Falling over was easy.

     Cadyndon stared at him with eyes full of questions, but the gags held; Cob could only grunt “Hertford” through the cloth. Only one reason could lead them to the shire’s main town—they would be put on trial.

     The cart’s slow progress made a hash of the journey. On horseback, a man could reach Hertford in a matter of hours. The company of soldiers and a jouncing dray took all morning.

     The three men could not even talk to pass the time. Cob’s head ached and throbbed where Perers had struck him. He had to piss, but knew better than to stand to stop the cart. Hands bound behind, he had no choice but to wet his breeches. Shame wound around him, but Cadyndon grunted and looked toward a spot on his own clothing. Cob smiled a thanks around his gag. He was desperately thirsty, as well, and his last meal was a distant memory.

     The cart thumped down the road to Hertford. A flat spot on the right rear wheel lent a regular bump to the uneven track. Barber was still unconscious, and Cadyndon, like Cob, unable to speak. Barber’s breath sounded wet. Cob worried for him, then thought again of their situation. Perhaps Barber was the better off. He might die on his own rather than face an inquisition from the privileged.

     Cob must have slept. The next thing he knew, the blunt end of a soldier’s pike prodded him in the belly. The back of the dray stood open. Blue sky overhead, a pair of trees, and the gaping maw of the gaol in Hertfordshire. Troops filled the gap between the cart and the door.

     “Bring him,” the soldier pointed his weapon at Barber, still unconscious.

     Cob and Cadyndon, with one thought between them, turned their backs and showed their bound hands to the soldier. This act caused a hurried conference and a call for advice.

     The cart shifted with the weight of another man. Hands took Cob’s and the cold steel of a knife slipped between them. In a trice, his hands were freed. His shoulders, released from the pressure, burned as if afire.

     “Bring him.” Croyser himself repeated the guard’s order. The abbey’s knight looked harried, nervous. “And don’t run. Hertford is under royal control. There’s no place for you to go.”

     Cob nodded and helped Cadyndon carry Barber across the threshold into the dank prison.

     Croyser led them into the darkness. Crumpled straw cushioned their footfalls. Barber was dead weight between them. A heavy wooden door crashed open against stone.

     “Inside,” he ordered.

     Cob and Cadyndon half-dragged, half-carried Barber through the opening. They laid him down so that he was propped sitting against the stone wall, an inner one that would hold warmth in the night. Cob tore off his gag.

     “Hertford?” Cob asked.

     “Yes,” Croyser said, “for the King’s Bench. Sir Walter atte Lee, as an officer of the King, has a judge thirsty for your blood, Cob. Make your peace.”

     And with that, Croyser was gone. The guard outside threw the massive door shut.

     Cadyndon unloosed his own gag. “That was the sound of doom, wasn’t it?” He rubbed his cheeks and worked his jaws. “Is there any water?”

     Cob knelt by Barber’s side. “I don’t know.” He worked at the bloody gag; the knot, stiffened with dried fluids, resisted his hands, which still tingled from being bound for so long. He was glad Barber could not feel the result of his clumsiness. Finally, the knot yielded. A gooey mass of stuff clung to the cloth; he wondered how Barber had managed to breathe with that in his mouth.

     Mid-day sunlight brightened the single window, high in the wall, out of reach, and spilled a weak glow down to the straw-strewn earthen floor. Cob held Barber’s head in his lap and cleaned his friend as well as he could. Cadyndon held a cup to Barber’s filthy lips.

     “He’ll be needing this,” Cadyndon said. “There’s a bucket by the door. Just the one.”

     The water woke Barber; he snatched at the cup and drained it in a draught, then coughed on his final swallow and brought it all up again.

     “Sorry.” His voice came out weak and raspy. His hands trembled. His eyes closed. “Couldn’t help myself.”

     Cadyndon refilled the cup and returned. This time John the Barber sipped carefully, slowly. He washed his mouth out and spat into the rushes. Cob wiped his face once more, then eased him down to the ground.

     It was down to the three of them now. Dickon was gone to the other side, and Cob should have taken it as a warning. Dickon was always good at knowing how things would turn out. Down to the three instigators, and they imprisoned, far from home. Had they stayed in the abbey’s gaol in the gate house, Joan might have organized a break out. But here in Hertford, where no rebels held sway, the three men were helpless.

     Cob waited while Cadyndon wet his mouth. His own was as dry, both from the gag and from fear. The times were troubled, the crown and aristocracy frightened. Lee had had to resort to deception to take them.

     Cob pounded the earth with fury. He wanted to hurt himself, punish himself for his failure to take into account everything he might have. He had believed their cause victorious. The devil had tricked him by pride, by making him believe too easily in what he wanted to be true, and when Sir Walter atte Lee had thundered from Saint Alban’s with his fifty lances and his hundred and more archers, Cob was taken in as completely as if Sir Walter atte Lee were King Richard himself, and Cob the queen of the May.

     Then Cadyndon wrapped his powerful arms around Cob and prisoned them while Cob raged. He watched himself, as if from outside his own being. Cadyndon held his arms to his side, pinned him to the earth with his own weight, and suffered a thousand indignities while Cob’s rage ran.

     Cadyndon, the strange miller, who came from God knew where, was the one to contain him until the fury passed.

     “It’s my fault.” Cob would have beat the breast of the earth had Cadyndon’s arms allowed. “Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.”

     “Bullshit, Cob.” The arms tightened. “The culpa belongs to them.”

     But no matter how Cadyndon argued, Cob knew. He made himself calm down, to let the fit of fury pass, to convince Cadyndon that it was over and he was himself again.

     Himself—as if there were a self for him to be. The self he had believed in needed the revolt, and the revolt was ended in ignominy.

            

    

Chapter 30

    

     “Where are my troops?” Father Abbot shouted at the few monks who could be spared to meet in chapter. “Who has taken them away from me?”

     Thomas of Walsingham was one of those few not needed to patrol the whole grounds of the monastery against fire. The townfolk were incensed at a betrayal the monks had not known was happening.

     “My lord Lee,” Thomas said, “has done this thing, Father.”

     “Without my consent,” the abbot cried, “or my knowledge!” His face was livid. His limp had disappeared into his anger. He stalked back and forth across the chapter house while the few monks not outside watching for incendiarism were forced to sit still. “Where have they gone?”

     The door to the chapter house banged open. Dickon of Wallingford, the traitor, strode within, as if he had the right.

     “Hertford, my lord.” Dickon’s face was as inflamed as the abbot’s. “Your knights, at the instigation of Sir Walter, had the three leaders arrested in the night and carted off to trial early this morning. That is why you have no knights here, why your abbey stands defenseless.” He paused for breath, and to contain himself. No matter the danger, privilege had its power, and Dickon, like any other man, must respect it. “The people outside the walls do not yet know that all your troops are gone, but they soon will.” He did not speak the rest—what might happen once the lack was realized, but Thomas’ thoughts ran to it in an instant, and all the others, too.

     A crash and tinkle of glass broke through Thomas’ thoughts. A rock crashed against the opposite wall. A shoot of flame flew through the hole, bounced from the wall, and landed at Thomas’ feet. A clump of teasel, the flower used to comb wool, burned at the arrow’s head. The arrow was locally made; Thomas recognized the maker’s mark. It belonged to the commons.

     He crushed the burning flower with his foot, careful not to set his habit afire. A scrap of paper was wrapped around the arrow’s shaft. “This is too like the tales of Robin Hood,” Thomas muttered. He knelt to pick it up.

     “What does it say?” the abbot demanded.

     Thomas took a moment to untie the note. “The handwriting is execrable, your grace.”

     “If I had wanted a discourse on aesthetics, scribbler, I would have asked for one.”

     Thomas looked up at his superior. Father Abbot towered over him. “As you say, my lord.” He peered at the letters.

     ”Must I repeat myself?” the abbot demanded.

     “No, your grace.” Thomas smoothed the paper. “It demands the release of the three prisoners Grindcob, Barber, and Cadyndon. It threatens the destruction of the monastery and all its holdings, beginning here, by fire, and then all the dependent cells and properties.”

     The abbot blanched. Here was the threat they already faced, the threat that could be made real in an instant. Thomas held the proof in his hands, a piece of paper charred at the edges with the realized threat of burning. Black dust fell from his fingers.

     The great church itself and most of its buildings were stone, good Hertfordshire flint and ancient Roman brick, mined from the ruins of Verulamium, stone that had endured for centuries. It would not burn; but the furnishings within, the seats of the monks, the choir stalls, the wall hangings, the altar cloths, the vestments, the wooden ceiling itself—all would take to the flames as if born to the purpose, and every monk knew it. Fire was the great danger; hell itself was fire unquenchable. Once begun, it would rage out of human control until it finished, one way or another, like a mob.

     “I know this hand. It is like Cob’s.”

     “He is in gaol in Hertfordshire, thanks to Lee.” A smile wreathed Dickon’s face, a smile spiced with rue. “And I suppose the commons do now know. It’s only a question of time. If Cob were still here to lead them, they would have you all turned out of your habits and your beds before you knew it, without harming a hair of your head, Father Abbot. But Cob is not here to lead, and I fear the anger of the mob even more than you. There is none left to counsel soft words and soft actions, and none to hold the walls against the commons.”

     Father Abbot took Dickon’s words to heart. Horses remained in the abbey stables. No knights, however, remained to ride them, so it fell to those monks who might be listened to, who came of good families and who were known to the local aristocracy, to ride forth and seek their aid.

     Dickon was sent to the king. He had been seen there, on the rebel side. It would be the final proof of his changed heart to bring royal succor to the abbey.

     People were dispatched on their errands. Privilege rode hard for aid.

     “And I, your grace?” Thomas asked. “Where shall I go?”

     “To Hertford, to bring Grindcob back.” He took Thomas by the arm. The unaccustomed intimacy gave the monk a start, but then he found himself carrying much of the abbot’s weight. The strain was telling on the old man, but he refused to let it show.

     They did not have far to go. Once within the residence, the abbot released Thomas too quickly for politeness and hurried to a spot near his bed.

     “Turn away, Father Thomas.”

     “I—”

     “Are you as disobedient as your former protege?”

     Thomas obeyed. Obedience was the chief monastic virtue, a fact never overlooked by Father Abbot. Thomas stared at the wall. The tapestry thereon displayed an image of Saint Sebastian, pierced with a multitude of arrows, but still alive, still smiling in bliss. Some of the arrows near the edge had a frayed look about them, as if his martyrdom were somehow unraveling.

     ”You shall ride for Hertford immediately.”

     “Yes, your grace.” Thomas kept custody of his eyes. Sebastian kept suffering.

     “There, you will inform Sir Walter atte Lee, Master Richard Perers, and the judges where the three men are held prisoner, that the lord abbot of Saint Albans requires the release of William Grindcob. Their cooperation is required. Do you have it clearly?”

     “Yes, your grace.”

     “You may turn, now.” The abbot held a purse in his hand. There had been nothing, before. “Take this with you, in case of need. It contains five hundred pounds in gold. Tell no one you have it.”

     Thomas took the leather purse. Its weight pulled his hand down toward the earth. He had never held so much money before. It was enough to build a church, and not a small one.

     The abbot smiled. “Your face gives you away, Brother Thomas. Hide the purse beneath your habit. More than once, before I was abbot, I was sent with that same purse out into the world. The secret is that no one know you have it.”

     What other, greater surprises might be hidden within the abbot’s bed chamber, Thomas wondered. Five hundred pounds, in gold coin. Salvation itself might live here, or its opposite. He thought of the temptations faced by the abbot, and shivered at the risk to the man’s soul. Tonight, wherever he was, he would pray for his prelate, who took more on his shoulders than any of his monks knew.

     “Now, ride, Thomas.” The abbot waved a blessing over him.

     Thomas bowed his way out of the chamber. He must find a secret spot to hide the money beneath his clothing, not an easy task in the abbey, where few had privacy. Father Abbot had warned him to tell no one.

     The dormitory was no good. Although it was supposedly empty during the day, anyone might walk in to retrieve a forgotten item or to steal a daylight nap. Too many people might see him walk down to the mill and wonder at his going. Archdeacon Roger would be likely to be in the scriptorium, and would take far too much interest in Thomas’ doings there, especially any which required solitude.

     The great church was the only place left. Between services, it was the least likely place for a monk to be found. And most were on alert for danger from the outside. The church held niches aplenty where he might steal a secret moment to secure the fortune given him by the abbot.

     He slipped through the parlor, where the mill stones had been uprooted. Bits of mortar and stone littered the uneven earth. Thomas had to pick his way carefully. Here, the abbot met the world. The rebels had disgraced him where he should seem most powerful.

     He left the parlor. From the south aisle, the church opened out empty before him. The great nave swept from the western entrance on his left to the rood screen and crossing on his right. Paintings of the Crucifixion and scenes from saints’ lives colored the whitewashed columns, competing for attention with the rainbow of light that spilled from stained and painted windows high in the walls.

     The rebels would level it all, make no mistake. Men just like them had butchered Sudbury, the archbishop. Power and privilege built such splendor. The rebels would abase privilege, corrupt power, because privilege and power kept them in subservience; it was the way of the world. Thomas had certain sympathies with their point of view. He would not take well to serfdom, having been educated to better purpose. But they—even Cob—would tear the whole edifice of civilized life down.

     A thought struck him. Why did the abbot not help him hide the purse while in his chamber, where no eyes pried? Surely, Father Abbot would not wish his temporary wealth to be discovered. No good end would be served, save that the three taken to Hertford would hang.

     Perhaps the abbot was merely pained and thus forgetful. He must have some charity toward the old man who entrusted him with so much money.

     Thomas had been right about the great church. It echoed with emptiness, the one place in the entire town where no one thought to go. He knelt at Alban’s shrine, crossed himself and prayed, and while he prayed for the success of his assignment he tied the heavy purse to a cincture under his habit, doubling the knot to ensure its security. Alban and Christ, protect my embassy to Hertford, and help me bring Cob back whole and safe. He tested the knot and repeated the prayer twice more for luck. A trip to the kitchen found him food for the journey. A trip to the stables found him a mount.

     There could be no secrecy, save what his absence could cause. If Thomas spoke to no one, no one would know. They might guess, but no more. He took to horse, rode out the great gate without so much as a by-your-leave, and took the road to Hertford.

     The weather turned on him, of course. A thick, foggy drizzle softened the road to mud and slowed him. His horse’s hooves clogged with muck. His habit, warm enough and more for a soft summer day, enfolded him in chill and damp. The purse of gold pounded against the bare skin under his habit with every movement the horse made. The leather which had once seemed so soft now abraded his tender belly-skin.

     But his thoughts skittered ahead, to Hertford, where Cob waited, all ignorant of Thomas’ errand, for salvation from the noose. He would buy all of them free if he could. The horse slowed, and Thomas kicked its flanks, shouted at the beast to hurry; time was short.

     Both were fully winded when the walls of Hertford came into view. Thomas had to waste precious moments at the city gates; everyone was on edge about the rebellion. Revolt had not broken out in Hertford, he found, but the town knew of events in London and Saint Alban’s. The town fathers were determined that they not be repeated here. It took the best of an hour for Thomas to gain admittance past the extra men-at-arms stationed at the gates.

     But one of those was Croyser, who, rounding a corner, saw Thomas and vouched for him as a true and trusted monk of the great abbey.

     “Where are they?” Thomas demanded of the knight.

     “Before the court, even now.”

     “Lead me there.”

     Croyser hesitated, then straightened his shoulders. “I have been somewhat out of favor, brother Thomas. Master Perers has gained the trust of Sir Walter, which is why he is within and I patrol the walls.” He smiled through his beard. “This might be fun.”

     Croyser took Thomas through the busy Hertford market. This was a true city, unlike tiny Saint Alban’s. The people here were different from those of Saint Alban’s. Hertford was a free town, not in the thrall of a feudal master. Its citizens governed themselves—at least the wealthier ones. Nothing, of course, could give the poor a say in the affairs of the council. A throng surrounded the town hall. Croyser shouldered through them like a dull knife through soft butter, turning the merchants and peddlers and customers and hangers-on to one side or the other with practiced pleasure, and Thomas followed like the knife’s hilt.

     He caught snatches of talk as they slid through the crowd.

     “—above themselves, those—”

     “—a hanging tonight, here’s my hand on it—”

     “—the fault of the monks, I say—”

     The last voice fell silent as Thomas, garbed in robe of the black monks, followed Croyser. He could not tell which of the many faces owned the voice.

     In truth, perhaps the monks did have a share of responsibility for the revolt, at least in Saint Alban’s. Perhaps, if the commons, including Cob, had been placated with more voice in their affairs—but no, for when had they not chafed under the rule of the monastery, going back fifty, seventy, a hundred years? Thomas was the one to know, he, keeper of the chronicle.

     He had read in it. And now, he must write in it, so that someone far down the stream of time might understand. The commons might rebel again and again. Other challenges to the abbey’s right would arise, challenges he might not even conceive. How the world turned and changed, how quickly what had seemed immutable might reverse itself, as he was now to try to reverse the arrest and trial of the men taken from their beds in the dark of night.

     For Croyser had bulled through all the crowd, past the armed guards at the door, into the chamber where a certain judge, robed in the livery of the king, the white hart on his breast, stared down from the bench at three chained and filthy men.

     “I sentence each of you to be hanged by the neck, then taken down while still living, and drawn; to be shown your beating heart; and to be quartered, that you be utterly and completely removed from this earthly life. May God have—”

     “Wait!” Thomas pushed past Croyser now. He was no lawyer, but the realm of words belonged to him more than to any pleader. His voice was strong, his purpose pure.

     The judge stared down at him with wide eyes, eyes like a serpent’s, cold and inhuman.

     “Who is this?” he demanded of the air.

     “Father Thomas of Walsingham, precentor of the abbey of Saint Alban.” Croyser’s voice boomed through the chamber. Thomas turned. Croyser’s face held no smile in this company, but his eyes twinkled with amusement.

     An expectant silence shoved all other sounds from the room. The judge leaned forward to peer at Thomas.

     “What is it, exactly, that you do here, Father Thomas?”

     Thomas looked around the chamber. Cob stared in rich confusion. Cadyndon, the second prisoner, knotted his brow at the interruption. Barber, his head stained with dried blood, barely stood. Cob kept a steadying hand on him.

     The men-at-arms held the hilts of their sheathed weapons, uncertain as to what was about to take place, but knowing that something was out of kilter.

     “Father Thomas, need I repeat my question?” The judge hissed like a snake on the sibilants.

     Thomas knew him, then, for the king’s justiciar himself, and understood the device of the white hart. This was the king’s own Robert Trysilian, serpens prudentiae, the serpent of wisdom, the chiefest agent of the king’s justice in all of England.

     They had never met, but none who kept abreast of events in court and country could be unaware of the notorious judge’s existence. Trysilian was one of the favorites in the young king’s young regime, a product of the regency, of the old men who ruled while young Richard reigned—just the sort of judge those old aristocrats, who dreamed of glory gone, would have to make things return to the way they once were under Edward.

     Trysilian had risen from the station of a Cornish justice of the peace to the apex of judicial rank as the king’s chief judge. That he was here in Hertford’s town hall, ready to pass sentence on the three conspirators from Saint Alban’s, meant that more was afoot than even Thomas’s abbot knew.

     “Father Thomas-s-s…” The s’s whistled in the judge’s mouth. Some defect made him sound thus.

     Thomas hurried to answer. “My lord, the abbot of Saint Alban’s, wishes these three men released into his custody. He believes that their presence is needed to calm the populace, which threatens the abbey if these men are harmed.”

     “Extortion, is that their game?” Trysilian hissed.

     “Call it what you will, my lord justice,” Thomas answered, “the monks and servants of the abbey must be on guard day and night for fear of fire thrown into the abbey. None have slept within since these men were taken. The abbot believes that if they were to speak, the people’s anger might be eased, and the brothers might live without the fear of arson.”

     Trysilian nodded his skull-like head. “Call Sir Walter in.”

     A guard left to obey. Thomas glanced at Croyser, who shrugged. No one could guess what might happen.

     Walter atte Lee burst through the same door that had let Thomas in.

     “What am I told?” he demanded. “That the prisoners I labored hard to take, without civil upset, are to be returned? I forbid it!”

     Trysilian poked a long, skeletal finger at Lee. “It does not lie within your power to allow or forbid, Sir Walter. These words bring you near contempt of the King’s justice.”

     And of his justiciar, Thomas thought, but kept the notion to himself. It heartened him, though, to see that Trysilian was no tool in the hands of the knights. The judge had his own independence. Thomas’s mission seemed slightly more likely to succeed.

     “My lord Justice,” Lee said, “these men were taken with great danger and no little guile. They are the leaders of the rebellion in and around Saint Alban’s—you know who they are, what they have done.”

     “My lord the abbot says, through his emissary here, that he cannot sleep for lack of these men. It seems a weak reason, but he would not have sent for them had he not wanted them.”

     “There is another reason, my lord.” Thomas waited for permission to speak. Trysilian nodded.

     “The arrest was made by the knights and squires of the abbey, not by Sir Walter’s men. He and his troops had already—how may I say, without giving offense?—departed the area when once surrounded by the rebels. He left orders for the arrest, which was performed as he commanded. But now, the town is left defenseless, since near all the men-at-arms of Saint Alban’s are here in Hertford, at Sir Walter’s orders.”

     A smile like a corpse’s grin spread across Trysilian’s face. “He has you, there, Walter. What, exactly were you thinking?”

     Lee stood speechless.

     “Never mind,” Trysilian continued. He turned to Thomas. “What guarantee do you give that these men shall still be available for trial, should I release them in your custody.”

     It was time for the grand gesture. Thomas reached under his habit and struggled for an embarrassing moment with the doubled knot he had made. The thongs fought him.

     “Knife,” he whispered to Croyser.

     The knight handed him his dagger. A glance at the bench showed Trysilian peering at him with a frown of impatience. Thomas cut the strings and removed the leather purse. The gold heavy in his hands, he lifted it to the bench for Trysilian’s inspection.

     “The abbot himself stands bail for the prisoners.”

     Trysilian opened the purse and poked the coins within with a long, thin, bony finger. “Three hundred pounds in gold is a worthy surety.”

     It was five hundred, but Thomas kept his mouth shut tightly. It made no difference to him who profited, so that he could save Cob.

            

    

Chapter 31

    

     Sir William Croyser, once Cob’s release was consummated, took charge of their return. Perers and the others wanted the trial—and intended executions—to proceed according to the plan they had worked out with Lee, but the judge had listened to the abbot’s purse more than to the proponents of doom.

     Croyser understood the abbot’s fears. He took it upon himself, Thomas saw, to gather a double handful of loyal troop—men of the abbey, all of them—to serve as escort to the party of rebels. Speed counted.

     But before they arrived, Thomas had the task of convincing Cob to do what was wanted. The commons were in a mood to burn the abbey, the town, and anyone who stood in their way. John Byker and William Eccleshall had filled the void left by Cob’s capture and Dickon’s treachery. They whipped the people’s resentments with the lashes of remembered injustices, the scourge of present weakness.

     Thomas explained to Cob. Barber was too weak to travel, and Cadyndon had been left behind to stay with him.

     They were on the road back to Saint Alban’s.

     “You owe your freedom to the abbot,” Thomas said.

     “What freedom is that?” Cob’s eyes traversed the men-at-arms who surrounded them on the road. “Will you let me go once I have spoken?”

     “At least these are Saint Alban’s men, and not the soldiers that belong to the judge.”

     Cob rubbed his neck and grinned. “He was ready enough to hang us, I’ll admit. When is Richard coming?”

     “The King?” Thomas asked.

     “The very one.”

     Thomas did not know. New rumor flew ‘round Saint Alban’s town and church more quickly than the old one might be spoken.

     “It does not matter, Cob. You must do as the abbot asks. It’s worth your life not to.”

     Thomas pleaded, but this was a new version of his old protégé, this Cob loosed from gaol, from the headsman’s axe.

     “What is my life worth—three hundred pounds to Trysilian, five hundred to Father Abbot?” He grinned, the old grin, but more like a death’s head now. “I’m only a means to an end for both of them, Thomas. A tool to be used then thrown away. Father Abbot wants me to quell the opposition. You were always wrong, you know, to think that one or two men who led the people were at fault. Rebellion lives just under the surface, all the time. Revolt is like the roots of the field crops. You take the fruits of growth with no thought for the root. And when the fruit is gone, the root still lives.”

     He closed his mouth and would say no more. Thomas tried, but could get nothing out of him.

    

*

    

     Cob kept his mouth shut with good reason. He bore no illusions about his ultimate fate. The authorities had him now and could never let him go.

     It was a relief, of sorts, to be arrested. The rebellion would fail now that they had been taken, not because it depended on its leaders, but because the aristocrats were now awake and frightened. Cob had overestimated them in his hope for a bloodless change. He had thought them as human as the commons.

     Death came to every man, in its own time and for its own reasons. At least he would have some good deeds to speak for him before the throne. He would have truth, so long as he was a true man. There would be pain to get through, but on this earth, nothing lasted forever, and his pain would not be the worst ever suffered. It was more important to be faithful.

     The day was particularly fine, and Cob’s awareness of how little time he had left shortened the journey. The horse’s back was broad and stretched his thighs to aching. It was Monday in the octave of the feast of Saint John the Baptist, he whom Herod had beheaded. A little time had gone too quickly since the start of the revolt. His hope had been so strong, too strong to give up, though he was caught. What he told Thomas, who rode silent at his side, watching him for any sign of the old, easy way between them, what he told the old teacher was true. Nothing could be done to stop the commons. Only delay was possible, and only force of arms could manage that.

     Monday in the eight days following the feast of John the Baptist—only twelve days since Corpus Christ, and so much changed and changed again. A brief season of freedom for the commons of Cob’s beloved town, a brief season of truth for the monks. Soon, they would put everything back the way, they said, it had always been.

     But they lied. If God were true, then from the beginning one man had not lived to labor for another. It had not always been the way it was now.

     Saint Alban’s came upon them suddenly, as it always did riding in from the east. The abbey’s spire glowered over the south end of town. From the east, though, the track went over hills and through valleys deep enough to hide the steeple, through forest verdant enough to call Eden to mind. When Adam delved, and Eva span…

     Then they were there, and the hope of the soldiers to slip into town secretly was dashed against the rocks of the commons’ knowledge. Awareness spread through the people as the dye used by Cob’s brother, Henry, penetrated wool, as if the sheer act of knowing passed the knowledge on to the next thread, the next man.

     He had not seen whose eyes first glimpsed them, but from the time they passed Home Wood eyes were on them. People stood in Hatfield Road as it climbed and descended, more and more of them along the way, until, by the time they reached Cock Lane and Saint Peter’s Street, they could no more make headway.

     The commons could have given Cob no greater welcome than this. The whole market place, all of wide Saint Peter’s Street, from the parish church at the north to the tiny town square at the south was packed with people. The soldiers, led by Croyser, shifted nervously on frightened horses, and closed on both Cob and Thomas.

     Cob found individuals in the mob. John Byker carried an unlighted torch, his rat face itself alight with unaccustomed hope. John Eccleshall shouldered a yew bow and a quiver full of newly-fletched arrows. All around the small band of soldiers who accompanied Cob and Thomas, the people waited in arms—swords, rakes, axes—those two-edged bipennae with which they’d lifted up the millstones from the abbot’s parlor. One great, hulking serf from Barnet, whose name Cob did not know, stood like Death himself, his cloak and hose black with mud, his scythe couched against his hip like a knight’s lance.

     Around him, the twenty troops loosened their swords in their scabbards. Sir William Croyser set his jaw, narrowed his eyes, and grated them over the throng, seeking his best chance.

     Thomas of Walsingham took hold of Cob’s arm. Fear etched his face. He opened his mouth to speak, but Cob forestalled him

     “A few swords can not stop them, Thomas. We might win this battle.”

     “At what cost?”

     “The cost of our lives, Thomas, which we will most certainly give up in any case.”

     The disturbance that moved through the crowd closed on the confrontation. It traveled jerkily, having to move sideways a step for each step forward. People moved out of its way, crowding into their neighbors and pushing them more tightly against each other.

     Then it came close enough to see. Cob stood in the stirrups of his mount.

     Joan, with Ned on her hip and Henry, his brother from London, whose sideways gait caused the strange motion, at her side.

     They kept coming until they stood before the horsemen.

     Cob thrilled with hope. They were so close, so surrounded by the common’s power. The men-at-arms around him were more at risk than he. The people outnumbered them far and away, and it seemed that they might at last win through.

     “The abbot sent me, husband.” Joan’s voice rang out above the hubbub of the crowd. “He bids you settle us down, send us back to our fields and workshops. In exchange, he grants your life.”

     Cob tried to read her voice, her face, her bearing, even the way she propped their son on her hip. Time stopped. He could send the people home, but what would be the point? No matter what they did, the king would come and take revenge. It was already afoot.

     Cob was already condemned, out of the mouth of Trysilian himself, the king’s chief justice. He was bailed, not released, and he doubted the ability of the abbot to change Trysilian’s mind.

     But Joan, dark Joan, stood before him, bearing Ned, and he would miss their long life to come together. Dark Joan, whose strength he always loved the best of all, whose heat had warmed many a winter’s night—she must be left behind, with small, blond Ned.

     There was no counsel he could take. No advisor now. He looked out upon the upturned faces, beyond the thin rank of men-at-arms. John Dene, the widowed painter, stared back, his eyes empty. Byker, and the other firebrands. All the folk he had known through his days watched to see what he would do.

     The weight of their eyes bore him up, even Joan’s.

     “He offers me what, this abbot?” Cob asked.

     Joan opened her mouth, but Henry answered in her stead. “Your life.” He had ever been the more practical of the two of them, elder by a half a score of years.

     “What life is that?” Cob asked. “The life I had before all this began?” He opened his arms to include all the throng gathered in the market. “Or the life of last week, when we were all free?”

     “He did not say,” Henry admitted.

     It was an odd debate to conduct with a thousand listeners. This strange and public intimacy made Cob faintly squeamish, but it was a fair price to pay for the knowledge that so many cared so much about his fate.

     “Husband—“ Joan tried to speak, but words failed her, a first, in Cob’s memory. He thought he knew her mind. Ever before him was truth and faith. Truth and faith were what made her love him and he her. Truth and faith were what led him to rebellion, and what would carry him whole out of this world. Should he recant his part in the rebellion, then all he had hoped and spoken would turn to dusty lies, like the dust in Thomas’s scriptorium.

     Yet another came to plead with him. Dickon came riding a horse of his own, letting its massive bulk shoulder through the unwilling crowd. He dressed like a gentleman, like the burgess he was, in the gold and azure shades of the abbey of Saint Alban’s.

     “Are you a liveried man now, Dickon?” Cob let his gaze travel up and down the merchant. Dickon’s eyes met his. Truth and faith fought against each other in them. The contradictions of the revolt had broken Dickon, made him into a creature of others rather than his own man.

     Dickon did not at first answer. His eyes were all on Cob. They begged, without words, so that Cob had to turn away from them. But he could not refuse Dickon, could not pretend the man did not exist. Unwilling, he turned back. Dickon broke his silence.

     “You have a chance, Cob.” There was still pride in Dickon’s voice. “The abbot will speak for you, if you call for an end. There is none other that the people will listen to.”

     “You wear their colors now. How am I to trust your words?”

     The blush of anger reddened Dickon’s face. “Am I not the same man who went with you to face the King in Smithfield? Am I not the same man who rode back here with the charter from the King himself?”

     “I don’t know who you are any longer,” Cob said. “I know that you left us.”

     “Neither you nor I would burn the town!” Dickon cried. He flung out an arm that seemed to include the whole throng of people, but somehow ended up pointed towards Byker, Eccleshall, Dene, and the other malcontents.

     “Perhaps,” Cob answered, “burning is what’s needed.”

     “Is it William Grindcob who says this?”

     “It is William Grindcob, the prisoner and the condemned, who says this,” Cob threw back. “At every step, the abbot and the nobles have said one thing, and done another. They will deny ever having agreed to the charters they signed in our seeing. They want nothing more than to go backward in time to when all this never happened, when the serfs and servants danced to their tune and never had a thought of their own, a time that never happened.”

     Cob spoke the thoughts as quickly as they came into his head. Half—no, all—of their problems came from keeping silence, of never speaking truth for fear of power.

     He looked down from his horse at Joan and Ned, their upturned faces open and fearful. He looked across at Thomas the monk, still horsed himself, nervous of what was to come, then to Dickon, ridiculous in the monastery’s livery.

     “Why are you wearing that clothing?”

     “To show a change of heart.”

     Why did the crowd not tear him from his horse? Cob looked into their faces, and saw doubt and fear and some who wanted him silenced. Blue and gold dotted the throng of people, the wearers together in small clusters, unafraid to mingle with the others. While he had been gone, a change had taken place. It could not have happened so quickly, though, within the space of a day.

     He had misunderstood the people. Some would still go with him, wherever he wanted to lead, but not all, perhaps fewer than half. Was it all no more than a fantasy of his, this dream of a new world where all was held in common?

     “What do you want of me?” he asked.

     “It lies in your hands, a peaceful end to this fight, or trials and hangings.”

     Cob held his out his hands. They had been unbound only enough to let him hold the reins. Rope still encircled his wrists. “My hands are not my own.”

     All he need do was lie, and his life was his own again. The long, dark passage out of life yawned before him. A pain, and then—something—heaven, hell, or purgatory. The people disappeared from view, all of them. Cob alone sat astride a horse and faced a crossroad. One lane was called Truth, the other Falsehood.

     They would want him to confess which others had been involved. He must needs give up their names and take them by the hand and lead them to the gallows, in figure and truth, if not in fact.

     He shook his head so that his brains rattled. Was this what Christ had felt in the garden? He drank in a chestful of air, laden with summer’s rank fertility, the horse’s sweat, the people’s breath. It was sweet, delicious.

     He stared down Falsehood Lane. The way was wide and straight, the track well-traveled, marked by many others’ feet. Ale-houses and taverns marked the way. In the deep distance, he caught a glimpse of Joan and Ned, both older, with another child, a girl, the image of her mother. He stood by them, fat with wealth, self-satisfied, dressed in the ermine of a burgess. People nodded to him, tugged forelocks. He saw himself invited to the abbot’s table in the refectory, watched the servants bring the meal up step by step, with chants ringing around them, accepted the bows and acts of obsequy due his rank and station.

     He shouted to that Cob, who, he knew, did not even use their old nickname, but called himself William, like a conqueror, when all he had become was an old liar, a traitor who lived on the blood of those whom he had betrayed, himself the most of all.

     Cob wrenched his gaze to the street labeled Truthfulness. The narrow path grew rank with weeds. Aside from the path itself, there was no sign another had ever passed that way—no track, no foot print. It twisted and turned, and there was no seeing down the track to what destination lay at the end of the journey. He heard a faint cry of agony, in a voice that might have been Joan’s, but Truthfulness gave him nothing back but the knowledge that he had been faithful. It was a fool’s bargain, so he took it. He shook his head, and his vision cleared. Again he was back in the market place.

     “Cob—you must decide.” Thomas was at his side, the monk who for all those years had been fatherlike to him.

     Cob nodded his answer. “I’m sorry, Father. My road was chosen for me long ago.”

     Thomas bit his lip, an old man’s grimace. He was still in the world, Cob realized, although older and a man of God, whose eyes shimmered with tears.

     Cob looked down to Joan and Ned. They came nearest to stopping him, but not near enough. He would have to leave them, too. He lifted his hand to his lips and blew a kiss down on them. Joan might not understand, but that could not be helped. He was further and further away from them and all the others every instant. He felt light, as if the breeze could blow him away, into the unknown, where he belonged. He had never been good at belonging in the everyday. Always, something other had tempted him away, some vision of an other, better world. Now he could go find it. Only one act remained to be performed, and he would be free.

     He raised himself again in his stirrups, so that everyone who wanted to could see him and hear him.

     “Fellow citizens,” he said, and he could sense the reaction of those nearest him as they realized the tenor of what he would say, “a tiny bit of freedom has relieved you from long years of oppression.”

     Croyser smacked a mailed fist into his gauntlet. Thomas breathed a quiet “Oh, no.” Joan bowed her head. Henry smiled up at him. But Cob’s thoughts were not on their reactions, but on telling the truth.

     “Stand firm,” he called to the people, “stand firm while you can still stand at all.” He waited for his words to be relayed to those at the far end of the throng. The people looked up at him in puzzlement, unsure what he meant.

     “Do not fear my punishment.” He had their full attention. Ambiguity made for strange speech-making. “If I am killed, count me happy to end my life as a martyr to freedom. Do now as you would have done if I had been beheaded at Hertford yesterday, for nothing would have stopped me seeing the end of my life, if the abbot had not recalled his soldiers in time. They accused me of many crimes, and had a judge on their side, who was thirsty for my blood.”

     Croyser shouted a command—“Close up!” The men-at-arms must have been instructed beforehand, for without a moment’s delay, one bumped his horse against Cob’s and snatched the reins from Cobs’ bound hands. Croyser and two others formed the sharp end of a wedge, while the rest formed on either side.

              Croyser shouted again—“Forward!” All the troops spurred their mounts. The soldier holding the reins pulled Cob’s horse with him. Cob jerked and nearly fell backwards. He caught at the horse’s mane and levered himself upright. Before the flying wedge people scattered, taken by surprise, fearful of the sharp, clattering hooves of the monastery’s horses. The troops and Cob passed the Moot Hall, and broke into the open. Croyser led them through the wide area where the market was held; they turned right, then left, until they reached the open green at Romeland. They gathered speed and made for the gatehouse. Cob must keep his mount or fall beneath the horses’ hooves now. They swept through the open gate. An alert pair of grooms swung the great gate closed before the commons could catch them up. The iron hinges screeched as rust fell from them. The doors had stood open for the past week.

     The whole company wheeled in the courtyard amid a great clatter of hooves and metal, shouts of triumph and hurried orders from Sir William Croyser. Clods of dirt flew from the horses’ feet and pelted everyone within range. The knights were jubilant in their first triumph against the commons.

     But Croyser’s first orders were to wall Cob up again within the abbey’s gaol in the gate house. Cob let himself be taken from horseback to the beaten ground, then half-dragged, half-carried out of the daylight by two young squires.

     The cell was not unlike a monk’s study, save that it lacked both light and books. And a desk, and bed. A mound of moldy straw in the southwest corner, which would be warmest come nightfall. A single window high above a man’s head, even beyond the stretch of his arms, let a shriveled shaft of light in to strike the flinty wall opposite. Even on a summer afternoon, the stone was dank with dew.

     Cob knew this prison well. Here, he had waited years ago for the judgment of the abbot when he had attacked those two monks sent to measure the town’s encroachments against the abbey’s property. His rebellion had begun then.

     And here, he supposed, it ended. They would never let him go, now. If the commons had heart, they would free him, as he had freed the others—was it only a week before?

     Cob listened. The crowd he had left behind in the market place had not followed. Romeland had been near to empty when they rode through it. From the orders he’d heard shouted about, the men-at-arms guarded the abbey gate house. The monks were afraid no longer. They had exercised their power and gotten away with it. He was the living proof.

     He paced the length and breadth of his cell, the smallest room in the gate house, in the western tower. Only two paces west and east, seven north and south, carried him all the way around the perimeter.

     Worse, he could see nothing but the four walls that enclosed him and the weak light overhead. Cob knew himself a man for free movement as well as free thinking. He’d never told old Thomas, but the monkish vow of stability would have been as troublesome to him as the vow of obedience. Chastity, of course, was out of the question once he’d found Joan. Cob was never meant to be under another’s control, but here he was, locked up once more by the monks, and not likely to escape.

     He gauged the day’s passage by the color of the small light from the window—now near to vespers, he imagined. Evening meal-time. No one had come for him, and that suggested no one would, despite the commons’ cheers for his bold speech.

     The thin light faded. A rat hissed at him when he stretched out on the stinking straw. He swatted at it. No light, no book, no company. He drifted in memory and failed hopes.

     A key scratched in the lock. Instantly, Cob stood, alert, on guard. The door swung silently open—the gaol’s door hinges were the best greased in the whole town.

     A shadow stood in the opening, lighted from behind by the torch of a soldier. A monk.

     “I thought you might need something to eat.” Thomas advanced into the tiny cell. Cob backed up against the northern wall to let him in. The small space forced an intimacy on the two men that Cob did not want. Thomas had been instrumental in his imprisonment here; he had also saved Cob’s life in Hertford. It was more complicated than he wanted things to be.

     Cob had not spoken. Thomas held out the bowl. Steam still seeped from the trencher. “Capon, in a stew. From the refectory. Not, I hasten to add, from the abbot’s table.”

     Salty and thick with fat, the aroma reached past Cob’s anger and fear, straight into his belly. Without his willing, his hands accepted the gift.

     “No spoon, I’m afraid. Sir William wouldn’t allow it. And I am to watch you eat, and carry out the bowl and show it to him. ‘He won’t die while I’ve got him,’ Sir William said. ‘Not for any reason.’”

     With fingers filled with stew, Cob froze into immobility. “Croyser thinks, does he, that I would harm myself?”

     “No, no,” Thomas hastened to answer, “I’m sure he doesn’t. But as the man placed in charge of your confinement, now, he feels a certain responsibility. It’s understandable.”

     Cob threw the stew, trencher, bowl, and all, against the flint wall. Fury rose in him. Thomas flinched.

     “No, it’s not ‘understandable.’ None of this is understandable. It’s sin, and you’re as guilty of it as the next man.”

     Thomas had recovered his composure. “Am I?”

     “You cooperate in it. You are chaplain to the condemned.” Cob already regretted flinging his supper away, but his anger was mounted on him now and he let it ride at full gallop. “Here, you try to comfort me, someone you care about, but when the time comes for them to hang me—and it will come—you will stand nearby and chant psalms while they do it, and redeem their consciences for my death, make it comfortable to them. And not just my death, but the deaths of all the others.”

     “As I did for Harold Bluefield.”

     “That was different.” Shame raced up Cob’s backbone, a thrill of heat and guilt that stoked the flame of this anger. “Jesus Christ—he was a child killer!”

     “And still, he had an immortal soul, was made by God, like you.” Thomas had the courage, apparently, of a dozen men. He stood with untroubled equanimity in the face of Cob’s fury.

     “What in God’s name do you want?” Cob shouted.

     “I want to save your soul, my son.”

A Hanging Offense by Alan David Justice is licensed under a 

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