He noticed Wigbert speaking to Den quietly. Wilwulf saw the interaction and said: “Is everything ready for the punishment?”

Den said reluctantly: “Yes, ealdorman.”

Wilwulf stood up. Surrounded by his men-at-arms he walked through the crowd to the center of the square. The magnates followed him.

A tall stake stood in the middle of the square for occasions such as this. While everyone had been looking at Wilwulf on his seat and listening to the arguments, poor Cuthbert had been stripped naked and roped to the stake so tightly that he could not move any part of his body, not even his head. Everyone gathered around him to watch. The townspeople jostled to see better.

Wigbert produced a large pair of shears, blades gleaming from recent sharpening. A murmur rose up from the crowd. Looking at the faces of his neighbors, Aldred saw with disgust that many of them were avid for blood.

Sheriff Den said: “Go ahead and carry out the ealdorman’s sentence.”

The purpose of this punishment was not to kill the wrongdoer, but to doom him to life as merely half a man. Wigbert manipulated the shears so that the twin blades could close on Cuthbert’s testicular sack without removing his penis.

Cuthbert was moaning, praying, and weeping all at the same time.

Aldred felt ill.

Wigbert cut off Cuthbert’s testicles with one decisive motion. Cuthbert screamed, and blood ran down his legs.

A dog appeared from nowhere, snatched up the testicles in his jaws, and fled; and the crowd roared with laughter.

Wigbert put down the bloodstained shears. Standing in front of Cuthbert he put his hands on the priest’s temples, touched the eyelids with his thumbs, and then, with another practiced motion, thrust his thumbs deep into the eyes. Cuthbert screamed again, and the fluid from his burst eyeballs dribbled down his cheeks.

Wigbert undid the ropes binding Cuthbert to the stake, and Cuthbert fell to the ground.

Aldred caught sight of Wynstan’s face. The bishop was standing next to Wilwulf, and both were staring at the bleeding man on the ground.

Wynstan was smiling.

CHAPTER 24

December 998

nly once before in Aldred’s life had he felt utterly defeated, humiliated, and despondent about the future. That had been when he was a novice at Glastonbury and had been caught kissing Leofric in the herb garden. Until then he had been the star among the youngsters: best at reading, writing, singing, and memorizing the Bible. Suddenly his weakness became the subject of every conversation, discussed even in chapter. Instead of talking in admiring tones of his bright future, people asked one another what was to be done with a boy so depraved. He had felt like a horse that could not be ridden or a dog that bit its master. He had wanted only to crawl into a hole and sleep for a hundred years.

And now that feeling was back. All the promise he had shown as armarius of Shiring, all the talk of his becoming abbot one day, had come to nothing. His ambitions—the school, the library, the world-class scriptorium—were now mere daydreams. He had been exiled to the remote hamlet of Dreng’s Ferry and put in charge of a penniless priory, and this would be the end of the story of his life.