“I can’t help that,” Edgar had said.

“He’s a bad man to have as an enemy.” Genuine fear was audible in Cuthbert’s tone: clearly he was terrified of the dean.

“I don’t doubt it.”

“And he comes from a powerful family. Ealdorman Wilwulf is his cousin.”

Edgar knew all that. Exasperated, he said: “You’re a man of God, Cuthbert. Can you stand silently by when murder is done?”

Cuthbert could, of course; he was weak. But he took offense at Edgar’s question. “I didn’t see any murder,” he had said peevishly, and he had walked away.

As the people were assembling, Father Deorwin spoke to the most important of them, especially the head men of each village. Edgar knew, from having attended previous hundred courts, that Deorwin was asking whether they had issues they needed to bring before the court, and making a mental list to communicate to Degbert.

Finally Degbert emerged from the priests’ house and sat in the chair.

In principle, what happened at a hundred court was that the people of the neighborhood reached a collective decision. In practice, the court was often presided over by a rich nobleman or a senior clergyman who might dominate proceedings. However, some degree of consensus was needed, because it was difficult for one side to compel the other. A nobleman could make life difficult for the peasants in a dozen different ways, but the peasants could simply refuse to obey him. There was no machinery for enforcing court decisions other than general consent. So court often involved a power struggle between two more or less equal forces, as when a sailor found that the wind was blowing his boat one way while the tide took it another.

Degbert announced that the court would first discuss the sharing of the ox team.

There was no rule that said he had the right to set the agenda. In some places the headman of the largest village would take that role. But Degbert had long ago seized the privilege.

The sharing of the ox team was a perennial issue. Dreng’s Ferry had no heavy ploughland, but the other four settlements had clay soil and shared a team of eight oxen, which had to be driven from one place to another during the winter ploughing season. The ideal time was when it got cold enough to stop the weeds growing and wet enough for the ground to have softened after the dryness of summer. But everyone wanted the ox team first, because villages that ploughed later might have to contend with drenched and slimy soil.

On this occasion the headman of Bathford, a wise old graybeard called Nothelm, had worked out a reasonable compromise, and Degbert, who had no interest in ploughing, made no objection.

Next Degbert invited Offa, the reeve of Mudeford, to speak. He had been ordered by Ealdorman Wilwulf to search—again—for the hideout of Ironface, who had had the temerity to rob Wilwulf’s bride-to-be. Offa was a big man of about thirty with a twisted nose, probably from some battle. He said: “I searched the south bank between here and Mudeford, and questioned everyone I met, even Saemar the smelly shepherd.” There was a chuckle from the crowd: everyone knew Sam. “We think Ironface must live on the south bank, because he always robs there, but I searched the north bank anyway. Same as always, there’s no trace of him.”