The more status you held, the more influence your word carried. Judgment was made based on personal worth. 'I stand up for my brother and his son, lord.' 'And who supports your claim?' Sigberht's grip on his sword never loosened.Ī round, squat man stepped clear of the press, wringing a wool cap in his hands. The tanner, his tunic smeared and reeking of dung-the perfume of his trade-addressed my father. Pinpricks of light flickered from oil lamps suspended from the ceiling, and iron candle trees, scattered about the large open hall, sputtered in the constant drafts. There were no windows, and shadows were deep. The rest hovered over the crowd, filling the spaces between the large beams overhead. A hole cut into the roof allowed some of the smoke to escape. The central hearth, a long, narrow trough dug into the packed-dirt floor, burned bright, filling the hall with smoke and heat. Slaves scurried about with clay pitchers filled with mead, and the drink flowed into waiting bone horns.

'Your daughter needs a tighter leash, lord,' someone yelled from the back of the hall, and was rewarded with a round of laughter.

'If anyone should be punished, it should be the tanner, not his son,' I said. 'Peace, you two.' My father's tone was light, but the warning loomed heavy between us. 'Apparently, nor is it a place for justice or common sense.' 'Surely Avelynn would be better suited to the weaving shed,' he hissed. My father sat in the lord's chair high upon the raised dais, his eyes hooded beneath waves of honey-blond hair, his face unreadable. I put down my quill and rose, the hem of my dress brushing the freshly laid rushes underfoot. I had been silent, beyond the occasional grumble of dissent, and duly recorded each case and its judgment, but this last quarrel broke my tolerance. Almost everyone from the village was present, spectators and claimants alike crammed into my father's timber hall. Sigberht, my father's reeve, was on hand to marshal out punishment. Only eleven summers old, he should have been out chasing chickens or helping his mother collect firewood for the coming winter.Ĭouncil was held once a year, and petitioners had been coming and going all day long, pleading their cases to my father, the Earl of Somerset. The boy's face waxed ashen, his hands kneading the front of his threadbare tunic. Sigberht gripped the hilt of his sword, and my heart quickened.

Avelynn by Marissa Campbell