The Anchoress of Shere, page 12
Marda was cold, frightened and sickened by the stale smell of urine and vomit. For a fleeting second she thought of death: I would prefer suicide to suffering in this hell on earth. Then she became angry at such a thought. Damn you, whatever you are, I will survive, I will sort this out and get myself out of here. If I think like a victim, she told herself, I will become a victim. Her defiance, too, was only a passing impulse. She felt so weak, so vulnerable. She wanted to stay alive, and to stay sane.
Part of keeping sane was keeping time. It seemed that she’d been his captive for many hours, but she wasn’t sure how many. If only he hadn’t taken her watch. She also wondered where she was. How can it happen, she asked herself, that you have no idea which part of the country you are in?
Then, suddenly, the noise of the outer door. The footsteps. The sliding of the grille, the light. That face, the power in it. The voice, its innate sense of command.
“I hope you will do what I suggest this time,” he said sternly. Clearly pleased with himself, he stood back and held up a large round canister for Marda to see. “I have brought you a portable lavatory. It’s what they use in caravans, I believe. I have also brought you some cleaning materials and a rubbish bag so that you can tidy your…your room. To give you the toilet, I need to unlock your door. If we are to avoid unpleasantness, you will have to do as I ask. I am going to pass you through a pair of handcuffs. Please attach one manacle to your left wrist and the other to the small metal loop at the end of your bench. I am not going to harm you. I had a very alarming experience with one of the other ladies here who caught me off guard. This will not happen again.”
More degradation, thought Marda. “Please don’t expect me to handcuff myself,” she beseeched him. “Can’t you see I’m cold and sick and frightened. How could I attack you? You’re twice my size.”
“Here are the handcuffs,” he said, undeterred. “Please do what I say.”
Marda knew she could not stand the indignity of defecating on the tiny bit of floor space. Reluctantly, she took the cuffs, found the small loop on the bench and clamped one manacle to it, then encircled her left wrist with the cold metal of the other. Once Duval was sure she was secured, he unlocked the door and stepped in. The metal toilet was dumped on the floor, without ceremony. Marda, shivering in her bra and pants, handcuffed to a bench, could not have presented a more pitiful tableau.
Pity did not seem to be part of Duval’s psychological make-up, however. He merely wrinkled his noise in distaste and said, “You’d better clean this room up. It doesn’t smell very healthy in here. I’ll return in fifteen minutes or so. If it’s clean, I shall provide you with some clothing. I do appreciate that you may be cold.”
He left the cell, locking the door behind him, then through the grille he offered her the key to the handcuffs. She could only just reach with her right hand. After she had undone the cuffs, he asked her to return them, with the key, through the opening. “This procedure we will observe carefully-until I can trust you. As I said, I shall be back in fifteen minutes. It would be to your advantage to make good use of this time by cleaning up.”
He sounded like a headmaster, thought Marda.
Duval soon returned. The handcuff procedure was repeated and he removed the broom and cleaning bucket. Then he produced a shapeless black garment which he laid on the bench a few inches from Marda’s bare thighs, goosepimpled with fear and cold. He did not touch her and he avoided her eyes. Quickly, he locked the door and handed her the key again through the grille. After undoing the manacles, she dutifully placed them in his cupped hand protruding through the grille.
“That is something for you to wear,” he said pointing. “Please, it’s warm, put it on.”
Marda examined the coarse black wool.
“What’s this?” she said, trying her best to humour him. “It looks like something someone graduated in.”
“You have not graduated yet, Marda,” said Duval, no amusement in his voice. “This is a garment that novice nuns must wear in the order of Saint Benedict.”
“Am I in the cellar of a convent?” Marda asked quickly, thinking he had given her a clue.
“No,” said Duval coldly. “Any more questions?”
“Have you got something that I can wear underneath this?” She fingered the heavy cloth. “It will be very rough and itchy next to my bare skin.”
“It is usually worn by nuns without an undergown, so that is how you will wear it. It is not worn for pleasure. You have a choice. Wear it or not. It depends on how cold you get.”
Marda’s eyes narrowed and she gritted her teeth, but she did not say anything. And she was very cold, embarrassed at being in just her underclothes and still in shock; so she pulled the heavy black garment over her head and shuddered with the roughness. She stood stiffly, to try to keep the coarse gown away from her skin.
She still would not give in. “If you won’t give me back my own shoes, may I ask whether there are witches’ shoes to match this outfit?” she enquired sarcastically.
“Normally stout black boots, with extended laces, are worn with dark leggings,” answered Duval with pedantic dignity. “I am sure something similar can be provided. What size shoe do you take?”
“Size…five,” Marda replied guardedly.
Duval thought a moment. “I think one of the other girls has shoes that size. I will check.”
Marda seized on this. “May I meet the ‘other girls,’ Michael?”
He smiled coldly and said, “Why not? As I told you, until I trust you, you will have to use these handcuffs.” He handed them through the grille. “This time you will cuff both your hands together.”
Reluctantly, and with difficulty, Marda did so. Duval opened the cell door and led her blinking into the light of the corridor. Her heart leapt and she even attempted to laugh: “This is not a good way to meet people. A barefoot nun in handcuffs.”
Duval did not smile.
Once her eyes had accustomed themselves to the direct light, Marda saw that she was in the middle of a long hallway. Three doors-all with the same grilles-stood on either side. A total of six cells. In front of her was a short wooden staircase leading to a trapdoor. At the other end of the passage stood a large, well-lit crucifix attached to the stone wall.
“Is this a church?” she asked when she noticed the crucifix.
“In a way, yes,” said Duval uncomfortably. Marda’s eyes swept her newly enlarged world.
“Are you really a priest?” she dared to ask.
Duval looked at her sharply, then tried to dismiss her with a feeble laugh. “So many questions, young lady. You said you wanted to meet the other girls. Are you sure?”
Marda was suddenly uneasy at his tone. “Well,” she said carefully, “I heard you speaking to other people. You spoke to Denise, and Dorothy, and some others. So I wondered about them. One gets a little short of company down here.” She tried to shrug her shoulders, one of her mannerisms, but realised that the loose black shroud she was wearing tended to drown out such subtle gestures.
“All right, Marda.” Duval’s shrug was more obvious. He banged on the nearest door with the side of his fist. “This is Denise’s room. I met her-let me think-about five years ago.”
Marda’s face froze: “She has been in there for five years?”
Duval met her stricken eyes, five inches below his. “Yes.”
“Why are you doing this to her? Please let me see her…” Marda stopped herself. “Why isn’t anyone answering? Have you gagged them? Or are they all well trained?” Marda tried to suppress her panic with a touch of mock sarcasm.
Duval knocked again on the door. “Denise, may we come in to see you?” He called out: “Speak up, my dear, I can’t hear you. Ah, she has always been difficult,” he said almost fondly. “Here, Marda, let me presume to open the door without her permission. Then I shall introduce you.” Duval pulled out a ring of keys from his trousers and fiddled with the lock.
Marda wondered what Denise would look like after four years in his care, and tried to steel herself to stay calm, whatever she found. As Duval opened the door, an unpleasant smell burst upon her nostrils and she could not prevent herself from stepping back.
“Denise,” said Duval, amused. “Never good at housekeeping, I’m afraid. Rather spoiled young lady.” He opened the door wide and stepped into the cell.
“Denise,” he said expansively, “say hello to Marda. Marda, this is Denise.”
Duval gestured to Marda to follow him.
Marda did so, screamed and collapsed to the floor.
When she regained consciousness in the dark of her cell, Marda thought for a joyous second that she was in her bedroom in Woking. She remembered her big brown teddy with the torn ear. That memory could not keep the horror at bay, and the most awful image she had seen in her short life came back. She saw again the light flooding into the cell. A quick movement in the corner: a rat had been sitting on the bench, and had scampered into some dark hole when the door opened. Then the light had fallen on Denise. Her ankles had been tied to the base of the bench. She had no clothes. Her hair had grown so long it fell over her face and down towards her waist. She was gripping a wooden crucifix with both skeletal hands. Hands that had been frozen in death for over four years.
VIII. The Trial
Marda, after what she thought must be three days, begged God to free her from her tomb, or end her life mercifully soon. Traumatised, almost unable to speak, she was barely able to consume the dry toast and tepid drinks that Duval brought every day. But, after eating the food, she became immensely hungry. He hardly bothered to speak to her, let alone, in his perverse way, try to console her.
Most of the time she shook uncontrollably. For hours she would curl herself into a ball, rocking back and forth on her haunches, muttering to herself. Random flashes of memory coursed through her brain, and songs came into her tormented mind, snatches of old nursery rhymes, modern pop, Gilbert and Sullivan. Scraps of force-fed school poetry jumped from hidden corners of her brain. Sometimes she thought obsessively of food and devised ever more complex recipes for dinner parties she would hold when she was free. She could not sleep, could not take refuge in dreams or nightmares. She imagined herself stranded in a huge circular tank, the sides of which were impossibly high, and where there were no handholds, just a smooth, shiny metal surface. Water kept flooding into the tank, and she could survive only as long as her strength held out to keep swimming, knowing all the time that she wasn’t going to escape and that eventually she would drown. After an interminable time, her panic became a rage, first against him and then turned against herself. What had she done to deserve such treatment? She felt like an animal. Waves of nausea swept over her, then feelings of abasement, of self-loathing, as she smelt her unwashed body, the reek intensified by the pungent aroma of abject fear.
Marda thought that he was probably mad, and now she knew without doubt that he was also a killer. The image of Denise’s skeleton constantly marched through her mind.
After the initial shock subsided, she found that she was detaching herself from her body, becoming two people, the one frightened, childlike and compliant, the other a mature adult observing the deteriorating habits of this helpless woman-child. She clung to a certainty that she would be released soon, but should her inevitable freedom be delayed, she knew-without understanding why-that her best chance of psychological survival would be to hang on with all her reason to her own personality and not be broken by captivity. Let the woman-child disintegrate; the real Marda would become stronger. Let him see the weaker woman, the one he wanted to control. She would play-act for him, but her inner core had to be safeguarded. When she was free, she would still be Marda Stewart. No one and nothing else. Until she was free again she must separate these two parts of her, these two personalities. She had to separate her reason from her fear. It was the only way to keep alive, to stay sane…yet she threatened her own sanity by continuously asking herself whether Duval’s other victims had attempted the same strategy-and failed.
September 1331
Christine left the audience with the bishop with fear in her heart, and yet hope that justice would be done. She feared excommunication and an eternity in Hell, but the fires of vengeance burned almost as fiercely. Christine was made to wait in the convent for two weeks.
She was anxious about being summoned to the court which the bishop had explained would take place in the Sheriff’s Court in Guldenford castle. The petty court met every three weeks, she was told, but the Assizes were a very special event, where the King’s travelling judges heard serious cases of crime. She dreaded, but steeled herself for, the confrontation with Sir Richard. The bishop’s advocates visited her three times in the convent to rehearse her words. “What can I speak but the truth?” she kept saying, but she decided that lawyers did not understand truth.
They explained that her testimony about her lord’s lewd behaviour was only a small part of the bishop’s indictment, which was principally concerned with Sir Richard’s theft of properties to which the Church lay claim. Despite the turmoil of the civil war, the rule still stood: no alienation of Church land without royal licence. True, the tyrant Edward II had, with his allies, despoiled much of the land of his opponents, including the fiefs of the clerics who had supported the insurrectionary barons, but the new king needed to restore his alliance with the Pope. The young king’s position after his father’s forced abdication and mysterious death was still tenuous. In sum, Edward III, the new king, needed the Church if he was to keep his throne.
In this case, the simplest solution for monarch and clergy was the death of one man by an arraignment for treason.
Sir Richard, although he had sympathised with the rebels, had carefully managed to avoid the fate of many knights and nobles who had fought the old king. He had not been exiled, nor had he forfeited lands, but the bishop was determined to regain for the Church the lands that Sir Richard had disseised and taken for himself. The knight would suffer, the bishop would prosper with the new archbishop’s backing, and Christine was a mere pawn. She knew this, but she would play her part.
Nothing was said by Christine’s guardian, the abbess, about excommunication. Instead, she decked out the anchoress in a new habit so that she would represent the Church in best holy orders-to impress the judges.
When the day came, the abbess accompanied her in a small open wagon drawn by two bay mares and driven by a male servant of the abbey. This was the first time Christine had travelled in such style, and it only added to her nervousness.
The dining hall of the castle had been transformed into a court room. On the high table sat three judges, with an elaborate canopy erected above their heads to emphasise their rank. Two had travelled from Canterbury and one from Winchester, carrying the writs with the king’s great seal. Beside the judges sat the Bishop of Hereford, to advise on the laws of the Church. On benches along the side of the hall, local noblemen were arrayed; commoners, of course, were not allowed to sit in judgement on a knight.
This was English justice witnessed by Sir Richard’s peers, but his fate was to be decided by high politics, not by law or natural justice, although justice it would be to Sir Richard’s too numerous enemies. His attempts to play both sides in the civil war had succeeded for a while. Wisely, he had been in France during the climactic battle of Boroughbridge when the king’s opponents had been defeated. He did not suffer in the first wave of massive recriminations, but he had not tempered his land hunger sufficiently. The bishop had bided his time, and now the last of Sir Richard’s allies at the royal court had been removed.
The judges sat for three days while Sir Richard’s alleged crimes were carefully recited. The lawyers debated the significance of the deeds of the lands claimed by the Bishop of Winchester, while the last day was reserved for the destruction of the knight’s position as dutiful custodian of the laws of the realm.
Sir Richard’s tenants were paraded, and they confirmed that his enforcement of forest law was unduly harsh. The Charter of the Forest had been binding on countrymen for a century, but Sir Richard had claimed to be acting for the king, they said. Two men had been unjustly hanged for killing a deer; another man-Wat Smith-had suffered the loss of both his hands for carrying a longbow near a roe deer; a villager had been blinded, said the witnesses, for merely disturbing a royal deer. The prosecution then built up its case on cows and sheep and stolen acres. Commoners could not sit in judgement, but witnesses they could be: dyers, weavers and fullers chastised the crusader with pretty lies and practised truths. In short, Sir Richard had undeniably breached local custom and law.
The hall resounded to the phrase “Quasi veteri more Anglicano,” according to the old English custom. Two best beasts, not the traditional one, had been taken by the lord for heriot, death duty. Sir Richard had denied access to common land. Armed men had been levied for more than sixty days for the Scottish wars. And so it went on: Sir Richard’s aggrieved bonded men came from the Welsh Marches, from his lands in Surrey and Kent. Occasionally men spoke well of their lord, especially those who had fought by his side, but complimentary words were silenced by the bishop’s lawyers. Sir Richard’s own learned advocates, sniffing the changes in the political climate, fell silent too.
Two hundred men, knights and nobles, filled the smoky hall; no woman spoke to the court until Christine was led in. The prosecution thundered that the lord’s right of prima nocte was not acceptable in the settled lands of England, although it was admitted that it was not uncommon in the conquered parts of the Celtic territories.
Christine was asked to stand before the high table, with the bishop’s chief lawyer by her side. He read out a brief description of who she was and whence she came.
The judge in the centre of the high table spoke first, although Christine could not understand his curious Latinised French. In English she said, “My lord, I do not comprehend your words for I am unlearned in such affairs.”
