The Sacred Stone

by The Medieval Murderers

  The steward was almost apoplectic with rage at the blacksmith’s defiance. Red in the face, he screamed at the man. ‘Have a care, Edwin Pace! Lord Walter will not stand for your insolence and pig-headed obstinacy and neither will I! You will take the course of common sense or it will go hard with you and your family in this manor!’

  The threat was undisguised, and after a few nudges from his fellows Edwin gave in, for he knew his own survival and that of his wife and children depended on the tolerance, if not goodwill, of the steward and, through him, Walter Lupus himself.

  There were catcalls from the crowd when after much shuffling and muttering the jury capitulated and shamefacedly agreed that the prisoner was guilty of the theft.

  Instantly, Simon translated that into the sentence. ‘Philip de Mora, you have been found guilty by a jury of your peers. The holy plate which you so sacrilegiously stole from our own house of God was worth many marks, far above the value of twelve pence that constitutes a felony. You will therefore be hanged at noon this day from the oak tree used for the purpose.’

  There was an outcry from the crowd, who began to surge forward, but Walter Lupus drew his sword, and the steward, bailiff and sergeant closed around him, brandishing heavy staffs and cudgels.

  ‘Get out of this bailey!’ roared the manor lord. ‘Clear the yard, damn you all!’

  Incensed as they were at this tyrannical behaviour of their masters, the villagers knew that they had no real redress, short of starting a peasants’ revolt, which would soon bring down the wrath of the sheriff and the King upon them and lead to far more necks being stretched on the gallows.

  Still shouting, cursing and protesting, they backed away through the gates, which Daniel ran to close securely, leaving Garth to hold the prisoner.

  Philip seemed bemused by the whole proceedings, standing with his head bowed, accepting the inevitable. The servants were chased away by the bailiff and in tears, Matilda and Gillota went back to their labours in the kitchen.

  ‘The stone has failed us,’ said Gillota miserably as they stood chopping vegetables to add to the cauldron of potage. ‘Perhaps it never worked anyway and Joan would have improved of her own accord.’

  Her mother wiped her eyes, her misery made more obvious by the onions she was peeling. ‘I’ll not give up yet . . . How long has he got, poor man?’

  Though telling the time was sheer guesswork, by the sun it was mid-morning, so noon could not be much more than an hour away.

  Some minutes later, with the connivance of the cook, Matilda crept out and looked into the bailey. Now that the crowd had dispersed, the gate was open again. Taking an empty leather bucket and reaping hook as camouflage, she went out unchallenged, as Garth and his fellow thug were keeping a strict guard on the condemned man in the stables.

  Matilda walked down the road from the manor house to where the track to Furzepark forked south of the village. Here was the notorious oak tree, large and gnarled, which had stood there since before the Normans arrived. The thickness of the massive trunk was so great that four men would be needed to touch hands around it. Fifteen feet above the ground, the first thick branch stuck out, from which the hangings took place. At one point a dozen feet out from the trunk, grooves rubbed in the bark by ropes were a sinister reminder of the number of men who had died there over the years.

  In this early autumn the leaves were already turning colour, but there was still a thick canopy of green and gold shielding the sky. No one was around yet, and quickly Matilda found the hole she remembered from her childhood days, about shoulder high in the rough bark. She recalled that birds used it for nesting and squirrels left nuts there, but now she quickly thrust the little stone into the crack and covered it with a handful of moss pulled from the other side of the tree. With a last glance to make sure she had not been observed, she hurried back to the manor after cutting some wayside herbs to put in her bucket.

  Meanwhile, Walter Lupus and his steward had again shrugged off Thomas de Peyne’s impassioned plea for mercy for the condemned man and his repeated request that the matter be sent to the justices in Exeter.

  Thomas was uncertain what Walter was thinking about this issue. He remained silent and just shook his head at all the priest’s supplications, but it was the steward who did all the talking, almost as if he had the manor lord under his thumb, instead of the other way around.

  ‘You’re wasting your time, parson – and mine!’ snapped Simon. ‘Better if you employed it in shriving the man and getting his confession. Time is rapidly running out for him.’

  Despondently, Thomas took this advice and went to the stable to spend the last hour with Philip, who seemed dull and apathetic, hardly answering him. He made a mumbled confession, which did not ring true to the priest’s ears, though Philip firmly denied stealing the Eucharist plate.

  Soon, Garth came in to jerk on his fetters and pull him out to lead him down the road to the hanging tree, followed by Walter Lupus, Simon and the other officers and senior servants of the manor such as the bailiff, sergeant, huntsman, hound-handler and hawker. Thomas de Peyne walked alongside the alleged felon, talking earnestly to him and saying prayers for his soul, which seemed to fall on deaf ears. A few villagers were waiting at the gates, but the majority of the manor deliberately kept away. This was unusual in a hanging, as when a known criminal or outlaw was to be dispatched it became almost a festive occasion. Now, however, the absence of most of the village was intended as a mute protest against the tyrannical behaviour of the lord and especially his evil steward.

  By the time the dismal procession reached the large oak, Daniel had already gone ahead to throw a rope over the large branch and form a noose in one end, which hung down ominously at about head height. Where permanent gallows were erected, such as those in Exeter or Tavistock, the condemned were either made to climb a ladder and were then pushed off with a noose around their neck – or stood on an ox-cart, which was then driven away, leaving them dangling. Here the execution was performed more simply, by hauling them up until their feet left the ground.

  Without any delay, Philip was marched across to stand under the branch, which was as thick as a man’s waist where the rope ran over it.

  Thomas, his eyes moist with compassion, stood alongside the doomed soldier, continually intoning Latin prayers. Well back, Matilda and Gillota, with a handful of villagers, stood weeping as they watched the noose being placed over Philip’s head by Garth.

  Through her tears Matilda tried to concentrate her willpower on the winged stone, though she was beginning to despair of its powers. She felt Gillota doing the same and, with a surge of mental effort, they both urged the artefact to help them.

  ‘Get out of the way, Father!’ called Simon Mercator. ‘You’ve done all you can. Now let justice take its course.’

  Daniel and Garth went to the other side of the branch and grasped the free end of the long rope, taking up the slack until the noose was dragging Philip’s head erect. Simon moved towards the trio, holding his hand up in the air, ready to give the fatal signal.

  ‘Now, pull!’ he shouted, letting his hand fall. As Thomas made the sign of the cross in the air and despairingly chanted a last valediction, the two ruffians hauled on the rope together. Philip made a gargling noise as he was lifted from the ground by his neck.

  The next moment there was a creaking groan and then an ear-splitting crack as the sturdy branch tore away from the trunk of the great oak and thundered to the ground in a blizzard of dust and leaves. There were screams from Daniel and Garth as the falling branch swept them aside like dolls. Miraculously, Philip was untouched, rolling well clear with the rope still around his neck. The further end of the branch landed on Walter Lupus, the foliage and smaller branches flattening him to the ground, bruising and scratching much of his body.

  But it was Simon Mercator who fared worst, as he was standing midway between the two thugs and the manor lord. The half-ton of wood fell directly upon him, pinning him to the ground and breaking both
his legs.

  With much shouting and screaming, the onlookers ran towards the chaotic scene, though no one seemed in a hurry to tend to the steward. The bailiff and sergeant of the Hundred hastened to aid Walter Lupus, whose clothing was ripped and whose face and hands were bleeding from superficial wounds. He seemed to have been struck on the head, as though he was conscious he was groaning and unable to stand or speak.

  Gillota and Matilda raced to help Philip, who was on his hands and knees, tugging to get the rope from around his neck.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ asked Gillota, who was first to reach him.

  ‘No, but it was a miracle! I thought my last moment had come,’ he gasped. ‘What happened?’

  Thomas de Peyne put a helping arm around him as he staggered to his feet. ‘A miracle indeed!’ agreed the priest, still bemused by what had happened. He had suspected for some time that there was more to Matilda than met the eye, but as a devout Christian he had to eschew anything outside his faith, so he held his tongue for fear it might land her in serious trouble.

  By now, more people had appeared, streaming down from the centre of the village, having heard the commotion. They stood and marvelled at the huge fallen branch. Several went behind the mass of foliage that lay on the ground and dragged out Daniel, who had a broken arm, and Garth, who was unconscious from a blow on the head. Then they attended to the steward, as the bailiff and sergeant were still fussing over Walter Lupus. The branch was across Simon’s legs, and it took eight men to shift it off him.

  ‘He’ll never walk again without sticks,’ said the blacksmith, the strongest man there when it came to lifting trees. ‘If he survives this, he’ll be no use as a steward or anything else. Maybe it’s God’s retribution!’

  The injured men were propped against the bole of the great oak until it was decided how to move them, and together with some of the villagers Philip and Thomas stared up above them at the yellow-white scar where the branch had come away from the trunk.

  ‘It doesn’t look rotten, so why did it fall?’ asked Philip. He was thankful yet mystified at being snatched from the brink of death.

  ‘No rot there. The wood’s as healthy as me!’ declared the village wheelwright, an expert in anything to do with timber. ‘A little tug on a rope wouldn’t snap that! You should have been able to swing a pair of oxen from that branch.’

  Matilda, now openly clinging to Philip’s arm, gave her daughter a look of triumph, and in return Gillota gave her a nod of secret delight.

  ‘I can hear the stone singing from here,’ she whispered.

  A month later Emma’s cottage in Shebbear had a visitor. A docile pony arrived at the gate and an elderly man in a priest’s cassock under his black cloak gingerly slid from the saddle.

  ‘Father Thomas!’ cried Gillota in delight as she rose from her weeding to greet him. Inside the toft, he was regaled with food and drink, as he was introduced to Emma, who had recovered almost completely from her earlier stroke. Matilda and Gillota sat at his feet as he told her his news.

  ‘I’ve finished my penance in Kentisbury at last,’ he said. ‘The bishop found someone who was willing to live there permanently, so I’m on my way back to Exeter but came out of my way to see you, as I have news.’

  ‘We have news, too, Father Thomas,’ said Matilda proudly. ‘I am soon to be wedded to Philip and live here. That will make me and Gillota free women again, against any challenge!’

  The canon smiled roguishly. ‘I am delighted to hear it, Matilda – but as to becoming free by that route, there is no need, for you are already free!’

  He explained that, as he had promised some time ago, he had searched the county court records in Exeter for any evidence of a document of manumission for Matilda’s father. He found nothing, but by chance had spoken to a parish priest in Exeter who remembered witnessing such a document from Kentisbury when he was in Barnstaple several years before, though he could not recall the name of the freed man. The next time Thomas was in Barnstaple, he called on the chaplain of St Peter’s Church who, searched the archives and produced the parchment which confirmed that Matthew Lupus had indeed given Roger Merland his freedom!

  Matilda threw her arms around Thomas’s neck and gave him a very un-ecclesiastical hug of delight.

  ‘That means we needn’t have run away again, if only we’d known!’ she exclaimed.

  After the chaos and confusion of the miracle at the hanging tree, Philip had hustled Matilda and Gillota away before Walter Lupus or any of the surviving officials could recover their wits. Abandoning his house, he had set off with them for Shebbear that day, and after three days’ walking they had arrived at Emma’s croft, who welcomed them with open arms. Reunited not only with their aunt, but with their cow, pigs, cat and dog, they settled back into the life they had enjoyed for almost a year until Walter had kidnapped them.

  Philip worked their croft with them and was negotiating to rent several acres more from the bailiff, having some money put by after his military service. For decorum’s sake, he was lodging with a family at the other end of the village until the wedding. Gillota was delighted to have him as a stepfather and teased her mother that he had only proposed to her because she was carrying the stone in her pouch at the time!

  Before Thomas left to return to the city, Matilda asked him a question that had been worrying her ever since their second escape from Kentisbury.

  ‘Is Philip still in danger from the law? He was still under sentence of death when that branch fell.’

  The little priest shook his head. ‘I think you can rest easy on that score. That evil steward is crippled for life. He lives in his nephew’s house – your house, really – and I doubt he’ll ever walk again. Walter Lupus seems subdued since then and has got himself a new steward, an older man who seems to have plenty of sense and tolerance. The villagers know well enough what the real truth was, and I have spoken to the sheriff about it, so if, God forbid, the matter should ever be raised again, it will go before the justices in Exeter, who will undoubtedly condemn what happened in Kentisbury.’

  He would dearly like to have asked Matilda about the small stone he had seen her covertly take out of the hole in that oak tree and slip into her pouch when she thought no one was looking – but he decided to let sleeping dogs lie, though he noticed that it now sat in a place of honour on a shelf over the door lintel.

  A little later, as he rode sedately out of Shebbear on his way home, he passed the great rock lying outside the church. He knew of the legend and of the pagan ceremony of turning it each year and hastily averted his Christian eyes.

  ‘There are too many strange stones in this part of Devon – sacred and profane!’ he muttered, crossing himself as he passed and reciting St Patrick’s Shield under his breath until he was out of the village.

  Historical note

  This story, including the names of the main characters and the places involved, is based on an actual case recorded in the rolls of the Crown Pleas of the Devon Eyre of 1238, the forerunner of the later Assizes and now Crown Courts. Though the later part of the story is fictitious, the records show that Matilda Claper’s complaint brought Walter Lupus before the King’s justices at Exeter Castle in June 1238 and that after initial denials he admitted that he had brought her back to Kentisbury in chains and that she was free. He was found guilty and fined twenty shillings.

  The Devil’s Stone does lie outside the church in Shebbear and is turned by the villagers to the accompaniment of the church bells at eight o’clock in the evening on each 5 November, though this has nothing to do with Guy Fawkes!

  Act Three

  Norwich, May 1241, the Jewish month of Sivan, 5001 CE

  The old merchant twisted around in the saddle of his horse and glanced back uneasily down the narrow street. He couldn’t see the Black Friar behind him, but with such a throng of riders and travellers all eager to crowd into Norwich before dark, it was hard to be sure that the tall, hunched stranger was not lurking somewhere in the shadows. Jacob
raked his fingers through his long white beard and tried to ignore the tightening band of pain gripping his chest. He told himself that he was imagining things. There were a hundred reasons why a man might journey from Exeter to Norwich. The Black Friar wasn’t following him: why should he? What business would a friar have with a Jew? It was mere coincidence that they had travelled the same roads.

  And yet the old man still felt a prickle of fear, for each night on the journey he had turned aside to seek lodgings with Jewish families in the towns along the way, but somehow, the next morning, the cowled figure on the grey gelding always appeared on the road behind him, creeping after Jacob like his own shadow. And however slowly or rapidly Jacob had ridden, the mounted friar always kept pace with him, never overtaking him. Was that nothing more than chance? Whatever it was, the merchant knew he would not feel safe until he was inside his own house with the door stoutly barred.

  On any other day Jacob would have been carefully watching each person in the crowd for signs of mischief; you didn’t reach seventy years and five without learning to keep a sharp lookout for cutpurses and thieves. But on this particular evening the old man was too preoccupied with searching for the friar to notice that someone else was taking a keen interest in his progress through the busy streets. Three youths, slouching in the shadow of the tower by Nedham Gate, had signalled to each other as soon as they spotted Jacob entering the city, and as the merchant rode past them they peeled themselves off the wall and began to weave through the crowd behind him.

  In his younger days Jacob had always felt a sense of relief as soon as he was within the walls of Norwich under the protection of the royal castle guards. Jews were after all chattels of the King, and though there had been riots against them from time to time, forcing them to flee to the castle for protection, for the most part Gentiles dared not risk attacking the Jewish merchants, for to do so would be robbing the King himself and the penalties for that were enough to make even the battle-hardened shudder.