The Ravens of Blackwater (Domesday Series Book 2)

by Edward Marston

  These thoughts steered him around to a question.

  “Tell me, Gervase,” he said. “What first gave you the idea that Sister Gunnhild might be the killer?”

  “Canon Hubert.”

  “He suggested it?”

  “No,” said Gervase, “but he did start that argument we had over crime and punishment. Hubert seemed to have a soft spot for mutilation, even though he was indignant when I pointed out that he shared the same attitude as King Cnut.”

  “Well?”

  “Sister Gunnhild was a Dane.”

  “And old enough to have lived under Cnut's reign.”

  “I remembered the mutilation of Guy FitzCorbucion.”

  “That's something I choose to forget!”

  “Why should someone castrate him?” said Gervase. “You thought it might be a vengeful husband whose wife had been seduced by Guy, but I wondered if it might not be something else. Cnut enforced his legal code rigorously, and when he died, its spirit lived on. Especially among the Danish communities that remained here. Gunnhild was the victim of those laws. They cut her ears off.”

  “The punishment for adultery.”

  “She was fortunate not to lose her nose as well,” said Gervase. “You can understand why she wanted to hide her disfigurement. Even Prioress Mindred knew nothing about it until she discovered Gunnhild taking a bath one night. The truth finally came out. The prioress confided it to me.”

  “That fat old woman committed adultery? Never!”

  “She was young and thin once, Ralph,” he said, “and was even betrothed. Then a trusted neighbour came to see her and forced himself upon her. He was a married man. They were caught in the act. The man fled but Gunnhild was left behind to face me judgement of her elders. Nobody believed her when she told the truth, not even the man to whom she was betrothed. He spurned her along with all the others. She had committed adultery, it was said, and they mutilated her. Where else could she turn but to a convent?”

  “No wonder she hated men so much!” observed Ralph.

  “She inflicted the punishment on Guy FitzCorbucion that she felt the man who defiled her should have suffered. She saw herself and Sister Tecla as fellow victims of lust.”

  “Yes,” said Ralph soulfully. “I sometimes think that you Saxons are primitive enough but the Danes could be barbaric.”

  “Hamo was both,” reminded Gervase, “and he was Norman.”

  Ralph conceded the point with a grin then swung around in the saddle to take a valedictory look at Maldon. The hill was no more than a distant mound on the horizon now and it aroused a welter of memories for him. One dominated.

  “I was thinking of Humphrey Goldenbollocks.”

  “At least, you know the truth about him now.”

  “I wish that I had not asked,” said Ralph bitterly. “I was much happier believing that his overweening desire had earned him the name of Aureis testiculi.”

  Gervase smirked. “In a sense, it did.”

  “Before I was told, I envied the man. Not any more.”

  “Does it not make you want to keep bees?”

  “I'll never eat honey again as long as I live!” vowed Ralph. “A man is entitled to his pleasures, is he not? All that Humphrey did was to take a fair fat wench into the long grass on a summer's afternoon. I have done the same myself a score of times but I will be more careful in the future.”

  “You do not have beehives, Ralph.”

  “That was his undoing. They resented him stealing their honey. The bees did all the work and Humphrey came along to take the fruits of their labour.” Ralph gave a shudder as he recounted the tale, which Gilbert Champeney had told him. “When they found him lying naked in the grass, they took their revenge. Did they attack his arms, his legs, or his back? Did they concentrate their venom on his bare buttocks? No! They stung the poor fellow where it would hurt most. No wonder he was dubbed Aureis testiculi. By the time the bees had finished with him, his bollocks were as big and golden as two oranges.” He gave a groan of sympathy. “What a grotesque punishment!”

  “Do not mention it to Canon Hubert,” joked Gervase, “or he will incorporate it into his own legal code. It sounds painful enough to have great appeal for him.”

  “Testicular torture! The monastic ideal.”

  They shared a laugh, then kicked their horses into a gentle canter. Maldon was behind them but other assignments awaited in Winchester. So did Alys. Gervase was lifted by the thought that he would see her again before too long. Ralph was still having wistful longings about Sister Tecla. Brother Simon was meditating on a passage from the Gospels. Canon Hubert was speculating on the quality of his next meal. The men-at-arms were chatting happily.

  A lone raven came out of the sky ahead of them and landed right in their path. It put its head to one side and peered at them impudently. They cantered towards it. The bird soon repented of its audacity and flapped its wings noisily before flying out of their way and into the trees.

  They liked to think that it had recognised them.