The Wolves of Savernake (Domesday Series Book 1) Read online

  “The subtenants bite the hand that feeds them. Their word has no merit in a dispute of this kind. We hold that land from the king. No worthy voice contests that.”

  “Yes, it does,” said Gervase.

  “To whom does it belong?” asked Matthew.

  “Brother John.”

  There was mild consternation in the two chairs opposite him, but prior and subprior recovered with impressive speed. Baldwin sighed and gave an indulgent smile.

  “Brother John is very old.”

  “It is the reason I spoke at length to him.”

  “His memory is no longer sound.”

  “I found it as sharp as a razor,” said Gervase.

  “Brother John is close to death.”

  “That is why he values truth so highly.”

  “You misled him, I think.”

  “I merely asked him about his days as the abbey rent-collector. Before you and Abbot Serlo arrived. Ten minutes with Brother John were most revealing. His account was full of detail to support the counterclaim.”

  “Canon Hubert,” said the prior, turning rudely away from Gervase. “You will best understand our position here. An ancient monk is being asked to betray the house which has nurtured him. Brother John is a dying man who wastes away on his bed at the infirmary. His mind wanders and he does not always know what he says. Explain to your colleague here, if you will, that an obedientiary is not able to bear witness against his abbey. He would never be permitted to come into such a place as this to make a sworn statement.” He threw a disdainful glance at Gervase before he continued. “I appeal to you as a man of God. Insist on just practices here. We must set an example to the laity. Judge us if you must, but do so by fair means.”

  Canon Hubert ran a tongue over dry lips as he heard the plea. Much as he disliked the prior, he had to concede that there was some truth in what had been said, and he had his own reservations about Gervase’s methods of gathering evidence. Baldwin was encouraged. His plan to create a rift between the lay and clerical members of the commission was working. He tried to open that rift still further.

  “You have tested us in this hall, Canon Hubert, but you have done so with scrupulous fairness. We have no criticism to make of your conduct.” His eye moved to Gervase Bret and then on to Ralph Delchard. “But we have been treated with less respect by others. How has your young colleague sought to overthrow us? By means that are honest, open, and legal? No, Canon Hubert. He has gone behind our backs to speak with the youngest and the oldest members of our house. He has listened to the gossip of a novice and to the ramblings of a venerable monk. Traduce us, if you must. Bring down the full majesty of the law upon us, if you so desire. But do not insult us and the whole Benedictine order by calling the fledgling Brother Luke and the failing Brother John as your witnesses. They fit into no definition of justice.” He rose imperiously to his feet and addressed his final taunt to Gervase. “Where is your charter?”

  “We do not have it here,” admitted the other.

  “Call us back when you do,” said Baldwin with a polite sneer, gathering up the satchel of documents and handing it to Subprior Matthew. “We will then return with our written evidence. Your accusations are wild and hurtful, but they carry no substance. Without a charter, you have no case.”

  He nudged Matthew to his feet and they made to leave.

  Ralph bridled. “Who gave you permission to withdraw?”

  “God,” said Baldwin.

  He swept out with his subprior and left the commission in turmoil. Canon Hubert blamed Gervase and tried to lecture him on legal procedure. Ralph defended his friend and cursed all clergy. Even the laconic Brother Simon was drawn into the vicious argument, and it raged for a long time. Gervase eventually brought it to a halt by standing up and waving them into silence.

  “Our case is unanswerable,” he said quietly, “but it lacks one vital element. We need Alric’s charter. When that is in our hands, we may confound Prior Baldwin and his windy rhetoric. The charter is the key to it all.”

  “Yes,” agreed Ralph, “and it will not only light a fire under the abbey. Hugh de Brionne’s fat arse will burn, as well. He gained his two hides of that land unlawfully with the help of that insidious reeve, Saewold. I had testimony from the most impeccable source.”

  “I tremble to think how you obtained it,” said Hubert.

  “The charter will corroborate all that I learned during my researches.” Ralph pushed his chair back from the table. “We must suspend our deliberations until we have found it.”

  “If it exists,” wondered Brother Simon meekly.

  “It exists right enough,” said Gervase confidently. “And I will not return to this hall until I have tracked it down and verified its contents. Be of good cheer. That charter is out there waiting for us. Somewhere …”

  Living alone in such an isolated place, Emma was free from the tensions and upheavals that characterised life in the towns and villages all around her. She set her own pace and fulfilled her needs in ways of her own choosing. Whenever she was given an insight into the communal experience, she quickly withdrew in disgust to the sanctuary of her mean hovel. Emma could preserve a tattered self-respect there. Events in Bedwyn had spilled over into her private world, putting her in mortal danger, and only the courage of a Norman lord had saved her and her dog. It made her even more wary of straying too close to her fellow human beings. A woman who aroused great caution in others had now developed more elaborate safeguards herself.

  When she was summoned to the cottage, therefore, she approached it with the utmost care, sending her dog on ahead to scout for possible dangers. Because the dwelling was only half a mile from Bedwyn, she kept glancing nervously at the town itself, as if fearing a second attack. But none came and her dog scented no peril. Emma walked slowly towards the cottage, her senses still alert. An ugly, thickset man in his thirties opened the door to give her a gruff welcome. He was a villein on the estate, a peasant who gave service to his lord in return for the humble abode and the patch of cultivable land on which he and his family subsisted. His words drew her into the cottage, but his eyes were full of dread. It had clearly not been his idea to summon the Witch of Crofton and he suffered her presence reluctantly.

  Emma saw the sick child at once, lying on a crude mattress in considerable discomfort. The anxious mother sat beside her and bathed her daughter’s fevered brow with brackish water from a wooden pail. Like her husband, she was fearful of their visitor, but she had called her as a last resort. Nobody else could revive the poor child whose fever had worsened day by day. Too weak to cry out, the little girl yet registered great alarm when she saw the strange figure moving towards her and she clutched at her mother with pathetic urgency. Both parents tried to soothe the child before handing her over to the ministrations of Emma.

  The visitor made her diagnosis within seconds. The patient had a high fever and her face was covered in red blotches. A dry throat was producing a hoarse cough and her condition showed that she had been unable to keep food down for some days. The girl was slowly fading away. When the parents had subdued their daughter, Emma moved swiftly to confirm what her eyes had already told her. Big, coarse hands were surprisingly tender as they felt brow and throat and arms. Dirty fingers were delicate as they parted the child’s lips so that Emma could peer into the mouth.

  “You called me just in time,” she concluded.

  “Did we?” said the mother.

  “She will live.”

  “Thank God!”

  Emma rummaged in her bag to bring out a handful of tiny stone bottles. She selected two and put the others away. She held up the smaller of the vessels.

  “Give her two drops of this in a cup of water every four hours. Sit with her and bathe her as you have been doing. The fever should break by morning.” She displayed the other bottle. “This contains an ointment for her face. Apply it gently every six hours. It will take the sting from those red blotches and they will vanish within a few days.”
r />   She held out the bottles, but husband and wife hesitated as if suspecting witchcraft. How could they trust Emma? The potions might indeed help to cure their ailing daughter, but they might equally turn her into a black cat or set her hair alight or kill her on the spot. Emma of Crofton saw their dismay and moved to counter it.

  “Give her the medicine,” she said, “or she will die.”

  The mother made the decision and nodded vigorously. Her husband agreed and crossed to an earthenware pot, into which he thrust a hand. When Emma was given two silver coins, she gazed down in amazement at their sparkling newness. She had seen money like this before.

  “It is ours to spend,” said the man defensively. “And there is no better way to use it than to save our child. It was a gift from heaven. Someone left it outside our door.”

  Gervase Bret was stung repeatedly by angry questions that buzzed around his brain like wasps whose nest has been disturbed. What creature had killed Alric Longdon? Where was the miller’s hoard? Who had been his accomplice in producing counterfeit coinage? Why had Wulfgeat been attacked, as well? What hope had drawn him to the blasted yew and how had he persuaded a surly boy to take him there? Where was the charter which would link and explain all these strange happenings? In what way did Bedwyn Abbey fit into the scheme of things? Who stood most to gain from the turn of events?

  Where was the real wolf of Savernake?

  As he rode alone through the streets of Bedwyn, he shook his head to escape the assault, but the questions buzzed on in his mind. Relief would come only when he found the answers, and they lay at his destination. Wulfgeat’s house held all the secrets. The widow of the miller and the daughter of the burgess had been plunged into misery and could not even begin to see beyond it at this stage. But they had also inherited a dark truth about their respective menfolk and Gervase had somehow to identify the corruption that had bonded the two victims together. Cild was also living at the house with guilt too heavy for any boy to contain forever. Two grieving women and a boy of nine would be unwilling partners in his investigation. Gervase would have to tread stealthily.

  He reached the house, dismounted, and knocked on the door. A servant admitted him, then took charge of his horse. Gervase was left alone in the room where he and Leofgifu had had such a long and soulful conversation. It seemed bleak and empty now. Wulfgeat had a personality that spread right through his home, but it had suddenly vanished. The house itself was in mourning for its master.

  The door opened and Hilda took a step into the room.

  “Leofgifu thanks you for your concern,” she said.

  “I did not wish to disturb her,” apologised Gervase. “I simply came to see if there was anything at all that I could do to ease her suffering at this time.”

  “I will tell her that.”

  “She may contact me at the hunting lodge.”

  “I will tell her that as well.”

  “Thank you, Hilda.” He looked upwards. “How is she now?”

  “Deeply upset.”

  “They were cruel tidings.”

  “You were with Leofgifu when she heard,” said the other. “She was grateful. You helped her.”

  “I did what I could in her hour of need.”

  “It mattered.”

  Hilda was now hovering uncertainly and wanting him to leave. It was too much to expect that Leofgifu might receive him and confide in him about her father, but he had hoped for something positive from the visit. He tried a new gambit.

  “Has Cild recovered yet?” he asked.

  “Cild?”

  “From his illness.”

  “He is well enough,” she muttered.

  “But he collapsed on the floor yesterday.”

  “He had been out in foul weather.”

  “A hardy young boy like Cild would not be troubled by wind or rain. That lad could walk through a blizzard without fear. Yet he fainted before us. He went down on this floor as if he had been struck.” He moved closer to her. “Are you sure that your son has not been sick, Hilda?”

  She was noncommittal. “He is well enough now.”

  “Did he say where he had been?”

  “To the mill.”

  “Is that why he took the key?”

  “Yes.”

  “Without asking your permission?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did that make you angry?”

  She took time to think it over. “Yes, it did.”

  “Will you punish him?”

  “I do not know.”

  “What would your husband have done?”

  Hilda winced. “He would have beaten Cild.”

  “Why did the boy go to the mill?”

  “He would not say.”

  “Did you ask him?”

  “He would not say,” she repeated helplessly.

  Hilda was still trying to cope with her own distress and yet she was sharing the sorrow of another woman as well. The effort had drained her to the limit. It would be callous to press her any further and Gervase pulled back. She and Leofgifu were in no fit state to face his enquiries. He could best show his consideration by leaving them alone at this trying time. Mumbling a farewell, he moved to the door.

  “Wait,” she said. “I have something for you.”

  “For me?”

  She crossed to place a strip of iron in his hand. Gervase looked down and his spirits revived at once. Hilda could not tell him anything, but her gesture was eloquent. He was now holding the key to Alric Longdon’s mill.

  Gervase Bret went off like a hound that has finally picked up the trail. Reclaiming his horse at once, he mounted swiftly and cantered off to the hunting lodge to collect Ralph Delchard. They were soon riding side by side in the direction of the river. The mill looked grimmer and more derelict than ever now, its silent wheel still buffeted by water but no longer able to grind out its rough music. The two friends tethered their horses and used the key to let themselves into the premises. Both coughed as they entered the musty atmosphere and they recoiled from the cheerless interior of the miller’s home. They split up to begin their search and went through every part of the building, but they found no more than Prior Baldwin or Wulfgeat had done. Alric had writing materials with his account books, but there was no royal charter. Nor were there any further caches of silver coins. The miller kept his valuables in Savernake Forest.

  “Let us look outside,” said Gervase at length.

  “For what?”

  “Fresh air at least.”

  Ralph coughed aloud. “I need that most of all.” He led the way to the door. “Just look at this pigsty, Gervase. Why ever did a respectable woman like Hilda share it with him?”

  “She had no choice in the matter.”

  They came out of the mill and inhaled lungfuls of air before locking the door behind them. Then they began to walk around the immediate vicinity. Gervase soon found exactly what he had expected. He smacked the wooden box with the flat of his hand.

  “Here is it, Ralph. The adder’s home.”

  “God in heaven!” exclaimed the other. “What sort of boy would keep a poisonous snake for a pet?”

  “The son of a man like Alric Longdon.”

  “I had a mouse at his age.”

  “You had something more important than that.”

  “Did I?”

  “A proper childhood.”

  They resumed their search, and it was Ralph’s turn to make a discovery. He pointed excitedly up into a tree.

  “Do you see it, Gervase?”

  “It is only a rope.”

  “But it has a hook at the top.”

  “Only to make it easier to secure it to the bough.”

  “This is where he practised,” said Ralph. “I know it!”

  “Did you never swing on a rope as a boy?”

  “Not in this way.”

  “What is so unusual about it?”

  “This, Gervase.”

  Ralph took the rope and looped it up before snapping it quickly i
n his hand. He stepped back as the hook dislodged itself from the bough and fell to the ground. Ralph grabbed it once more and moved to another tree. Aiming at a branch that stood out almost horizontally, he chuckled with glee as the hook settled firmly into place. He tested the rope then held it tight, inching his way upward with his hands as his feet made slow progress up the trunk itself. Ralph was soon ten feet from the ground and laughing his approval. Gervase now understood the purpose of the demonstration.

  “The latrine at the mint!”

  “Eadmer’s seat of meditation.”

  “That is how the boy was taught to climb up it.”

  “I must visit the little moneyer again,” said Ralph before dropping heavily to the ground. “He assures me that nothing was stolen from his mint, but Cild did not go up that foul channel simply to view the dwarf’s workplace. He was sent for a purpose.” He punched his friend’s chest. “Come with me, Gervase. Your brain is more acute than mine and you will enjoy meeting Eadmer.”

  “I have business elsewhere, Ralph.”

  “With whom?”

  “A friend.”

  He took hold of the rope and jerked it hard so that the hook was lifted off its branch and sent hurtling to the ground. Gathering it up, he coiled the rope carefully, then brandished it in front of him.

  “I may need this,” he said.

  Piety is its own best advertisement, and Abbot Serlo merely had to appear in the abbey church for his godliness to inspire all around him. He inhabited a higher world but was never patronizing to those of lower station; he was devout but never sanctimonious. The obedientiaries were adoring sons of their Father Abbot. Prior Baldwin could exert a powerful influence, as well. When he appeared at Vespers, he was in a mood of blithe religiosity and the monks read its meaning and rejoiced. The battle had evidently been won. On their behalf, the prior had defended the abbey against the depredations of the commissioners and the day had been his. It put a heartiness into the choral work and mellifluous sound filled the nave before soaring straight up to heaven. Bedwyn Abbey was indeed blessed. Abbot and prior were striking individuals with complementary virtues that served the house superbly well. The combination of holiness from the one and hard bargaining from the other made them invincible.