The villagers clapped when he returned to his place. Others were called to give evidence. They named Gilbert time and again, telling how, in the village tavern, he had bitterly attacked the Pastoureaux for taking Marina from him, how he had missed her and how, on one memorable occasion, he had boldly asserted that she would never leave Hunstanton.

Corbett could see Gurney's unease deepen as other witnesses began to hint that Gunhilda, Gilbert's mother, now described as a well-known witch, had tried to help her son. Perhaps she was also the perpetrator, the blasphemer who had been pillaging graves in the village churchyard?

'The use of dead men's skulls and bones,' one reedy-voiced villager intoned, 'is well known to the Masters of the Gibbet and to the night hags!'

Father Augustine was then called. 'I cannot say,' he replied to a question from Gurney, 'whether Gunhilda or her son were responsible for robbing the graves. It has been going on for the last year and seems to have neither rhyme nor reason.'

'Why do you say that?' Corbett asked.

'Because the graves that are pillaged are never recent ones but often decades old. Nothing remains except a few bones.'

'And has anything been taken?' Corbett asked.

'To my knowledge, nothing.'

The church began to grow dark as the day died. Gurney gave a pithy summary of what had been said. The jury retired, but came back a short while afterwards. They trooped in behind their reeve, Robert, who looked, as Ranulf whispered to Corbett, as important as a cockerel on a dung heap.

'You have a verdict?'

'We have, my lord. We find that Marina, daughter of Fulke the tanner, was murdered by Gilbert with the connivance and support of his mother Gunhilda. We demand that they both be arrested to stand trial for their lives.'

Gurney held up his hand. 'They will be arrested,' he promised. He looked warningly down the table, then at the other villagers clustered in the nave, who were murmuring threateningly amongst themselves. 'They are to have a fair trial,' he said firmly. 'They must be given a fair trial.'