'God hates you Jews, Aaron,' Henry said. 'You killed His son.'
Aaron closed his eyes, waiting.
'And God hates me.'
Aaron opened his eyes.
The king's voice rose in a wail that filled the gallery like a despairing trumpet. 'Sweet God, forgive this remorseful and unhappy king. Thou knowest how Thomas Becket did oppose me in all things so that in my rage I called for his death. Peccavi, peccavi, for certain knights did mistake my anger and ride to kill him, thinking to please me, for which abomination You in Your righteousness have turned Your face from me. I am a worm, me culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa. I crawl beneath Your anger while Archbishop Thomas is received into Your glory and sitteth on the right hand of Your gracious son, Jesus Christ.'
Faces turned. Quills were poised in mid-account, abacuses stilled.
Henry stopped beating his breast. He said conversationally: 'And if I am not mistaken, the Lord will find him as big a pain in the arse as I did.' He leaned over, put a finger gently beneath Aaron of Lincoln's lower jaw and raised it. 'The moment that those bastards chopped Becket down, I became vulnerable. The Church seeks revenge: it wants my liver, hot and smoking, it wants recompense and must have it; and one of the things it wants, has always wanted, is the expulsion of you Jews from Christendom.'
The beach was nothing more tham a narrow strip of pale sand scattered liberally with stones. The cliffs' shadows hung over the place, so that they descended into a lingering twilight. Colan's boat was still there, overturned on the sand, looking as if it had washed up lost and empty.
Morgaine stepped around the forlorn object, all her attention on the sea. The waves rushed and roared, splashing their foam onto the rocks. Gulls and terns wheeled overhead, taking advantage of the clear morning for fishing. Morgaine stood as an onyx counterpoint to this mercurial world. The very stones seemed ephemeral compared to her. They could be shifted and changed by wind or sea, but not even the raging gale could move Morgaine.
She raised her arms. Her cloak fell back and her billowing sleeves slipped down to reveal her strong brown arms. Colan's throat tightened strangely at the sight of her smooth flesh. He wondered if he should turn away. But in the next moment, Morgaine began to sing, and all thought of movement drained away from him. Her voice was like no other. It soared to meet the birds overhead. It dived straight to the centre of his soul. He could not understand a word of her song, and yet it pulled at him so strongly he thought for a moment he would be dragged down to his knees. It called out across the ocean, and he knew that if that call had been for him, not only would he have understood, but he would have obeyed whatever command it contained with tears of joy in his eyes.
When the magnificent song ended, sorrow stabbed Colan. Perhaps he cried aloud. He could not be sure. All he knew was that Morgaine lowered her arms. At her feet the eternally restless sea had gone absolutely still.
From these unnatural waters, the morverch arose.
Gwenda's family was not prosperous. Her father had no land at all, and hired himself out as a labourer to anyone who would pay him. There was always work in the summer but, after the harvest was gathered in and the weather began to turn cold, the family often went hungry.
That was why Gwenda had to steal.
She imagined being caught: a strong hand grabbing her arm, holding her in an unbreakable grip while she wriggled helplessly; a deep, cruel voice saying, 'Well, well, a little thief'; the pain and humiliation of a whipping; and then, worst of all, the agony and loss as her hand was chopped off.
Her father had suffered this punishment. At the end of his left arm was a hideous wrinkled stump. He managed well with one hand – he could use a shovel, saddle a horse and even make a net to catch birds – but all the same he was always the last labourer to be hired in the spring, and the first to be laid off in the autumn. He could never leave the village and seek work elsewhere, because the amputation marked him as a thief, so that people would refuse to hire him. When travelling, he tied a stuffed glove to the stump, to avoid being shunned by every stranger he met, but that did not fool people for long ...
