In the middle of it, she and Mansur had been called to the abbey wall to demonstrate Eustace’s innocence to the bishop of Saint Albans and the twelve men with him-the jury that was to pass judgment on the tithing when they appeared at the assize. It was easier than she’d expected it to be; the jurors were all local countrymen familiar with traps and, though at first they looked askance at Mansur, had accepted the word of the bishop that the Arab was a royal investigator, an expert, with a warrant from the king to look into the matter of the Glastonbury fire-after all, King Henry, being a foreigner himself, was expected to be peculiar in his choice of servants.

“I’d hoped that the case would be dropped now that the abbey has withdrawn its accusation of Eustace,” Rowley had told Adelia, “but the fire was such a colossal event that the justices must pursue it. The tithing has been summoned to appear.”

In her turn, she had hoped that Rowley would be able to spend the night with her; she needed the comfort of his body not just for its own sake but to ward off the nightmares. However, he couldn’t be spared from his duties at the Wells assize and had ridden back to them with the jury in tow.

It was no help to her troubled state of mind as she rode along the forest road on this pleasant, sunny morning to find that pieces of human flesh, a leg here, a torso there, were hanging from the branches of trees lining the route.

Captain Bolt and his men had cleansed the forest thoroughly of Wolf’s remaining brigands and anyone else who had no explanation or license to justify being there. “Up before the verderers’ court, sentenced, and then chop-chop,” the captain said graphically.

“Do they have to be so… displayed?” Adelia asked.

“King’s orders,” Bolt said. “Make any other bug… brigand think twice afore doing likewise.”

And this, Adelia thought, is the king I considered civilized.

Well, he had been; he’d saved her life once when the Church would have condemned her; he could charm, make her laugh; he was introducing new and finer concepts into English law, but there was still an underlying savagery that marked him as a man of his time when she’d hoped for more.

He muddles me, she thought wearily. Shall I give him his dead Arthur? Or not?

Loggers were already cutting the trees back to the statutory bow’s length from the road so that the air rang with the thud of axes and smelled nicely of raw wood-except for an occasional whiff of putrefying flesh as the cavalcade passed a piece of it.

Behind the leading horses-some way behind because the presence of a king’s officer bothered them-rode the tithing on their donkeys and, in Captain Bolt’s opinion, considerably lowering the tone.

Alf had got his voice back. Adelia could hear his and the others’ comments as they rode-and hoped that the captain’s helmet kept them from his ears. They were attempting to identify the owners of the bloodied pieces.

“Reckon as that’s a bit of Scarry, Will?”

“Never. Scarry’s arms had black hair on ’em. Looks more like Abel’s. Abel had them sort of twisty fingers.”

“So he did.”

To Adelia’s regret, Gyltha had remained behind at the Pilgrim. Allie had been reluctant to part from her lurcher and, since the dog was canis non grata among the hunting fraternity to be expected in attendance at the assize, Gyltha had said she’d stay with the child. “Anyway, I seen enough of Wells, bor, that’s too noisy.”

“That’s not like you.” Gyltha loved excitement.

“Wait til you get there. Ain’t room to breathe.”

A female companion had been needed for propriety’s sake, so Millie’s services had been called in. How much the girl understood of the drawings with which Adelia had tried to indicate both the journey and its purpose, it was difficult to tell.

Gyltha had been right about Wells; the noise of its hubbub could be heard a mile off.

The traveling assize was a visitation to be dreaded, a new idea of King Henry II’s, so everyone had been told, to introduce in the goodness of time a common law throughout the land rather than the piecemeal and frequently prejudiced judgments by the local courts of sheriff, baron, and lords of the manor, which, while the assize was in situ, were as good as overridden.

Like the mills of God it ground slowly-it had been in Wells more than two weeks with no sign of finishing yet-and it ground extremely small, listening to appeals, plaints, and pleas; inquiring into the state of the county and the business of practically everybody in it; hearing accusations of murder, rape, theft, and robbery; even making sure that the smallest bakery and alehouse were giving fair and uniform measure.

It was certainly new to Somerset, which had dreaded it. The justices, great and awe-ful lords of thousands of acres, with their own castles in both England and Normandy, had to be accommodated, not to mention their servants and the hundreds of clerks necessary for their work. Where to put them?

The choice had fallen on Wells, the biggest town in the county.

And now, God have mercy on us, the king had come to see his terrible assize in action, even to sit on its benches. Where to put him?

At last the bishop of Wells had delivered up his palace to his royal master and gone to bed with a headache.

The streets were congested. Barred carts were still bringing in men and women from gaols in far-flung parts of the county to face their trials. Judges’ clerks were scurrying everywhere, summonses at the ready. Official ale tasters, staggering slightly, supped at inn doorways to make sure there wasn’t too much water mixed with the brew’s barley and yeast. Bakers stood by their ovens while their farthing loaves were tested for the standard weight. Hucksters with licenses carefully displayed shouted their wares. Jugglers, acrobats, and storytellers were taking the opportunity to entertain the crowds. Horses were being traded; so were marriageable young women. Many people had journeyed for miles to catch a glimpse of their king.

Captain Bolt and his men cleared a way through with the flat of their swords.

In a vast field outside the Bishop’s Palace, the itinerant justices-the earls, barons, and bishops whom Henry trusted to administer his laws-sat on benches in the shade of striped awnings, the accused, the witnesses, and juries in front of them. Executioners stood to their gallows beside tables holding blinding irons and axes.

Clattering over the bridge crossing the bishop’s moat, Captain Bolt’s cavalcade trotted through the rose-scented orderliness of the bishop’s gardens to draw up outside the grandeur of the Bishop’s Palace.

Mansur helped Adelia and Millie dismount and took the long basket out of the saddlebag. “Keep tight hold of it,” Adelia told him.

A groom took their horses but flinched at the sight of the tithing’s donkeys. “I ain’t putting them mokes in my stables.”

Captain Bolt produced a summons. “The bishop of Saint Albans wishes to see these men.”

“What, them?” The groom looked from the seal to the tithing, then to Mansur. “And him?”

“Just get on with it,” the captain said.

The exchange had to be repeated several times before they were allowed up the steps of the palace and into its entrance hall. They waited while the bishop of Saint Albans was fetched. The tithing used the time to wander around and stare at the hall’s decoration and ornaments, watched by the majordomo with the air of a man whose carpets were being trampled by a flock of muddy sheep.

“Look at that, Will.” Alf was staring at a particularly fine tapestry. “That’s Noah building the ark, ain’t it?”

“ Lot of needlework gone into that, Alf. Fetch all of ten shilling, I reckon,” Will said knowledgeably.

“Well, he ain’t going to get the ark built that way; he’s holding the adze all wrong.”

Rowley came striding toward them. In full mitered regalia, he looked imposing but tired. He bowed to Mansur. “What on earth have you got there?”