AHMM, December 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

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

  He nodded.

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

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

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

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

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

  * * * *

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

  "Why are you protecting them?” Aiken asked.

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

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

  Their answers were completely predictable.

  "They killed our brother!"

  "They were murderers! We all knew that."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "Why you scoundrel!” Aiken said.

  "We don't have to take this from you!” Brand growled.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "He hated that young scamp,” Brand added.

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

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

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

  "So are we finished here?” he asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  * * * *

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

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

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

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

  * * * *

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

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

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

  We approached the criminals’ house.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Both men frowned, considering this problem.

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

  "A confession?” both men exclaimed.

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

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

  "I think you are correct,” I agreed.

  "Then what should we do?"

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

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

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

  "Then they can talk with me beside you."

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

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

  The bailiff faltered in his conviction. “I don't know."

  "I'll tell you everything that happens,” I lied.

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

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

  * * * *

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

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

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

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

  "There are a couple of prospects: Garrick's brothers, your daughter's friend, Oswin."

  This suggestion stirred Anna to speech. “No!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "I don't want her to hear!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "And you were—"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Her mother only hugged her tighter.

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

  * * * *

  We hanged Peta two days later.

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

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

  Hanging a woman is a thousand times more terrible.

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

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

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

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