The Statue Read online

  The Statue

  The service had just finished when tragedy struck. Cwen, wife of Daegberht the Blacksmith, had risen from the pew and was making her way towards the church’s entrance when a large wooden statue of the Virgin Mary fell from the roodloft, striking the blacksmith’s wife upon the head and right shoulder.

  Leofric – who had until that moment been softly strumming the harp that was beside the pulpit – stopped abruptly as the hundred-strong congregation hurriedly gathered around the fallen woman.

  ‘She still breathes – look, she still breathes!’ cried Daegberht, his expression agonized. But in truth it was clear to him, as it was to everyone else, that his wife’s injuries were cear-wund – mortal. Even as they watched, Cwen took one last, shuddering breath and then lay quite still, her eyes fixed wide even as they now saw nothing.

  For a few moments everyone was silent, the only sound the spluttering torches that were the windowless church’s sole source of light. Daegberht stared up at the rood, a great wooden crucifix, above which only one statue now remained – that of Saint John.

  ‘Why?’ – the blacksmith’s lips formed the word although his voice gave it no sound; he was struck dumb by sheer grief and utter incomprehension. His wife, who’d given birth to three fine children and who’d survived the deadly fever of the previous autumn – his wife had been slain by a statue?

  The following day, feeling utterly numb, Daegberht went to see Selwyn the shire-reeve. Selwyn had not been at yesterday’s service, although he had by now, like everyone within the village of Hawarden, heard about the death of Cwen.

  Seated within his hut, Selwyn bid Daegberht enter, expressed his condolences to the blacksmith, and then waited to hear what it was the man wanted.

  Daegberht’s voice was toneless as he spoke:

  ‘I wish for the statue of Virgin Mary to be charged with morthdaed,’ he declared, his shoulders slumped and his eyes fixed on the wooden table as he sat facing the shire-reeve.

  Selwyn’s expression momentarily registered his surprise, and playing for time in which to think he refastened the belt that held his tunic about his body. Unlike the blacksmith’s own drab brown tunic, Selwyn’s was dyed a luxuriant purple, something that indicated his high status within the village.

  It was true that these were troubled times, thought the shire-reeve abstractly. Just this year King Edmund had been slain, stabbed by the outlaw Leofa at Pucklechurch. Succession of the throne to Edmund’s brother Edred had by no means been assured but still it had taken place, and now everyone within England waited to see how Edred would fare against the Vikings, as well as the troublesome Picts in the far North. For Edred had yet to prove himself in battle – the only true way of deciding a king’s worth…

  Taking renewed notice of the blacksmith’s ashen appearance, Selwyn dragged his mind back to the matter at hand. Yes, it certainly was true that these were troubled times – but to try a statue of the Virgin Mary for murder? Was that justice, or merely madness?

  ‘Daegberht the Smith,’ said the shire-reeve severely, sitting up straight in his chair and staring hard at the widower. ‘You come here wanting justice for your wife, and that is understandable – and yet who can say why the statue of the Blessed Virgin behaved in the way that she did?’

  ‘I don’t… I don’t understand,’ murmured Daegberht, his hands bearing testimony to the fact that he had, before coming here, dug a grave for his wife.

  ‘Had your wife of late behaved in a way that was unseemly to God?’ demanded Selwyn. ‘Had you or she harboured thoughts that would have merited such a punishment?’

  ‘No!’ bellowed the blacksmith, bringing his soil-black fist down hard on the table. ‘By the Lord, no!’

  ‘Daegberht the Smith,’ said Selwyn sternly, ‘control your temper.’

  With an effort, the blacksmith remembered where he was and who he was talking to. The shire-reeve enforced the King’s laws here in Hawarden; it would not do to behave in such a manner in front of him.

  ‘I apologize,’ said Daegberht quietly, retreating back into himself. There would not be justice for his wife, he realized. The shire-reeve would never dare to put a religious statue on trial, no matter what foul crime it had committed…

  ‘My wife was a good and gentle person,’ said the blacksmith, as he prepared to leave. ‘She did not deserve to die like that.’

  ‘Pray remain seated,’ said the shire-reeve, his keen grey eyes distant as he thought. ‘I require a moment or two in which to make a decision.’

  Realising that his hopes for a trial weren’t going to be dashed as easily as that, at least, the blacksmith stayed very still and waited.

  Selwyn believed Daegberht when he said that his wife had done nothing that might have been deemed unseemly to God. For Selwyn knew that the blacksmith’s wife had been a humble and pious person; a fine, child-bearing creature who’d lived her life according to the bible.

  Selwyn had merely asked the question to see whether the blacksmith showed any trace of a lie or furtive guilt: a hand brought suddenly to the mouth; a quick flickering of the eyes. The shire-reeve was expert at spotting such signs, and of acting upon them accordingly.

  But, as Selwyn had expected, the blacksmith had been adamant in his denial…

  Something suddenly occurred to Selwyn – a case of mistaken identity? For it was true that here in Hawarden there was another Daegberht, for which reason the man sat facing him had added to his name ‘the blacksmith’, or sometimes just on occasion ‘Smith’.

  The other Daegberht liked to drink, and his wife was undoubtedly a wanton slut. For had she not, just the previous summer, been caught in a compromising position with Wynnstan the miller’s son in a hayrick…?

  Selwyn quickly dismissed this thought as being lunacy. Mistaken identity was not the case here!

  Having made his decision, the shire-reeve spoke:

  ‘Daegberht the blacksmith, I shall hear your case in exactly one week’s time, at noon in the usual place.’

  The blacksmith started with surprise – as soon as that? And a special trial for just this one case? Usually a number of defendants were tried one after the other, in the field that was close to the church. Only in extreme bad weather did proceedings take place indoors, within the largest hut in the village.

  ‘Thank you, sir, thank you,’ said Daegberht, rising to his feet.

  ‘You may go now,’ said the shire-reeve, transferring his attention to a parchment that lay on the table before him.

  Most of Hawarden gathered for Monday’s trial. The shire-reeve sat at a table in the field, beside him a scribe who would record everything that was said and done. For while Selwyn could read and write himself, he could not be expected to administer justice as well as keep a record of all that took place.

  Most of the cases the shire-reeve heard were between neighbours, petty disputes over land, animals or something of the sort that could quickly be settled by means of a small fine – were such a thing deemed warranted.

  Other, more serious cases such as wegreaf – highway robbery – could (if the defendant was adamant that he was innocent of all charges brought) be judged by trial of ordeal, where the man might with his hand have to retrieve a stone from a kettle filled with boiling water, or carry a red-hot iron bar a certain number of feet.

  In either case, the injured hand was bandaged and then examined three days later. If it was obviously healing, then the defendant was deemed innocent and the charge (or charges) dropped. But if the hand remained festering or infected, clearly not healing, then the defendant had been abandoned by God and was thus judged guilty.

  Today, it fell upon Daegberht to open the proceedings, given that it was he who had brought the case before the court.

  ‘By the Lord,’ said the
blacksmith, stood before the table where the shire-reeve and the scribe were sat, ‘let it be known that I accuse this statue’ – here he pointed at the wooden effigy that had been brought from the church – ‘with malicious and deliberate forethought, of having caused the death of my wife.’

  A murmur passed through the assembled villagers, before the shire-reeve quietened them with a sign. For it had been noted that Daegberht had claimed premeditation; those charged only with leod or manslaughter could, with extenuating circumstances or just good fortune, escape a death sentence with the maiming of a limb, or even just a fine.

  Now that the accusation had been given, those gathered awaited to see if a miracle would take place. Would the statue of the Virgin Mary give an athi – the customary oath sworn by the defendant who pleaded not guilty?

  By the Lord, I am guiltless both of deed and instigation of the crime with which … charges me.

  This, when accompanied by an oath-helper’s declaration – By the Lord, the oath is pure and not false that … swore – was usually sufficient for the defendant to be judged not guilty.

  Hawarden was, like most villages, reasonably small, and through a complicated web of relations, oaths and promises its residents were usually aware of their neighbours’ most intimate business.

  Thus was it difficult (indeed almost impossible) for a truly guilty person to find someone who was prepared to act as an oath-helper, especially for those – like the statue of the Virgin Mary – who’d been caught red-handed in the act of which they were accused.

  The statue said nothing to defend itself.

  ‘Let it be recorded that the defendant has failed to answer the charge brought,’ said the shire-reeve, the scribe scribbling down the words beside him.

  The passing of justice now would be swift, for the failure to answer a charge was construed as an automatic admittance of guilt – except, of course, for those who were dumb.

  There was a brief silence as Selwyn considered the sentence he should give. There were no jails or prisons, either before the trial or after (a person awaiting trial who fled was merely deemed an outlaw, a price accordingly being put on their head). Thus the punishment was always death, amputation of a hand or foot, or a fine, to be carried out there and then. (In the case that a person found guilty was unable to pay the fine, then he or she was made a slave, to work until such time as they had paid off the value of the fine. This frequently took years.)

  ‘By the Lord,’ said the shire-reeve, ‘I find this statue guilty of murder. The sentence shall be that it shall be bound and cast into the river, there to meet death by drowning.’

  Two burly farmers who commonly carried out the shire-reeve’s harsher punishments now stepped forward, one carrying a heavy coil of rope. The heavy wooden statue was tied around its arms and legs, in the usual manner, and with an effort carried the short distance to the riverbank.

  Only some of the crowd followed, as many were unhappy with the verdict. Was it not blasphemy to try a statue of the Virgin Mary for murder, no matter how many people had seen the act occur with their own eyes?

  Even to observe the statue being dragged into the river might be to bring eternal damnation upon one’s soul, considered those who walked resolutely away, while the more daring (and those who considered that the statue was receiving a fitting punishment) proceeded down to the river.

  The statue did not scream, beg for mercy or attempt to thrash around as it was dragged into the water, but still the remainder of the crowd stood watching in subdued silence as the two farmers waded back onto dry land, panting with the effort that had been required to carry out the sentence.

  The blacksmith walked away, accompanied by his three children, satisfied that justice had been done.

  But just a month later, as winter approached, he suddenly sickened and died. There was then over the course of three days a great flood – and what should appear on the morning of the fourth day, washed up on the riverbank, but the very statue of the Virgin Mary itself?

  The shire-reeve and the two farmers – who had after all been instrumental in consigning the statue to its drowning death – by now trembled with fear. Following the advice of Cuthbert, the church’s ancient priest (whose advice not to put the statue on trial Selwyn had arrogantly refused), they fasted for three days in penance and then had a special mass held for them, in which they begged God, Mary and all the blessed saints in Heaven for forgiveness.

  The statue itself was cleaned, polished and with due reverence restored to its place on the roodloft, just several feet away from the statue of Saint John.

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