The Clerkenwell Tales, Peter Ackroyd [sight word readers txt] 📗

wooden staff tipped with horn at either end, and he stood behind the Bar in his appointed place. This was God’s world. Three courts were being conducted simultaneously in the Great Hall. The court of the king’s bench sat at the dais in the south end of the hall, close to the court of chancery, while the court of common pleas met against the west wall. So at once Miles was surrounded by the familiar mist of voices variously rising and falling, calling and pleading, chattering and whispering.

“Furthermore I marvel that you have not come to the point.” The judge on the king’s bench was addressing a barrister.

“The point, sir, is like a quintain. Hard to hit.”

The judge acknowledged Miles’s bow before continuing in the same peremptory manner. “No more. That dance is done.” The barrister then whispered to him, to which the judge replied, “God forbid that it should so follow. As David says in the psalms, Omnis homo mendax. Every man is a liar.”

“You will quote David, will you?” Miles murmured under his breath.

The sergeant-at-law did not admire this judge, who was now shouting to the prisoner at the other end of the Bar. “It is lex talionis! Like for like! I am not contented with you, I promise you!”

Miles turned to his man of law, who was standing on his right side. “The learned judge will soon be finished with his prey. Bring on our witnesses in all haste, Martin.”

Miles Vavasour was putting the case against the apprentice of St. John’s Street, Janekin, for murdrum voluntarium with odii meditatione, or wilful homicide of one Radulf Strago, merchant, done in contemplation of hatred. Janekin was also accused of unlawful marriage – a marriage conscientia mala – under the second Statute of Westminster. It was alleged by Miles that Janekin had conceived a violent affection for Anne Strago, the wife of the wealthy merchant to whom he had been indentured; in the throes of his passion he had determined to use arsenic upon her husband, the said Strago. Since he had lived with his master in St. John’s Street, it was not difficult for him to administer the poison; a bag of arsenic had indeed been found concealed in his private chest. It was then charged that he had prevailed upon the said Anne to marry him – which was, as Miles Vavasour put it, no better than rape and abduction under a feigned name. Anne Strago was subsequently questioned in the house, where she accused Janekin of the several crimes for which he was being tried. She confessed that she had suspected poison, when her husband had complained of a “wambling” in the stomach and a “whipping” in the bowels, but had been too afraid of Janekin to pursue the matter any further. Janekin denied all knowledge of the killing, however, and insisted that Anne Strago had come willingly to his bed even before the death of Strago; he claimed that she had fabricated these charges in order to conceal her own scandalous conduct in consorting with him. He said that he did not know who had murdered the merchant. He offered to do trial by battle, to prove his innocence, but the request was denied; he was not of the right estate.

Martin had been closely observing the judge in this case who, in his scarlet robe and cap of gold silk, seemed to him like some figure who had stepped out of a stained-glass window. He had already become acquainted with the rituals of the court. He had learned law French in order to read the year books and had studied the abridgements as well as the register of writs; he had proceeded from apprentice to inner barrister, but he would not be allowed to practise law for another five years. He possessed a good court hand, however, and Miles Vavasour employed him to complete the appropriate writs and conduct his general business. For Martin, it offered a very practical education in which he learned what no law book could have taught him. He learned that both judge and sergeant believed that any juror who followed his conscience was surrendering to the voice of God; yet a jury which acquitted a prisoner was deemed to be responsible for his future good conduct. In addition anyone found guilty by a jury, who was later proved to be innocent, could bring an action of conspiracy against its members. Cases were heard in groups of three or four at a time, but an individual prisoner might pay to have more jurors assembled if he felt that they might help his cause. If a thief were convicted, the stolen goods were given to the crown; if he were acquitted, he kept them. There were very few cases when restitution was made to the victim of a crime; that is why there were many private bargains struck between the accuser and the accused, so that the former would not give evidence if the latter would restore some of the stolen property.

Martin had been despatched by Miles Vavasour to find two of his most significant witnesses. The beadle of the ward of Farringdon Without, and the overseer of the parish of West Smithfield, were waiting for the man of law by a pillar that was reserved for witnesses and was known as “the tree of truth.” He took off his cap and saluted them. “We have the letter,” the beadle of Farringdon Without told Martin. “It was found in the merchant’s house.”

“Very good. This will please Sir Miles somewhat.” He looked back at the court, and saw Janekin being brought to the Bar. “We must run, not walk,” he said. “The case begins.”

Janekin had been consigned to Newgate, and he looked as if he had contracted the gaol fever; he stank terribly, and Vavasour kept a scented cloth to his nose. The floor of Westminster Hall was covered with rushes containing sweet herbs, to curb the odours of the prisoners, but nothing could