The Wolves of Savernake d-1 Read online

  The market was held in the middle of the town on the large, open triangular space at the bottom of the hill. It was a natural meeting place and allowed visitors to stream in from different directions. Had any of the angry men or the fearful women cared to walk fifty yards down the long, narrow street which followed the valley, they would have seen a more sacred transaction taking place. The man whose death was keeping the flames of debate crackling away was now having his soul offered up to heaven. In the tiny church that stood in the middle of a well-filled graveyard, Mass was being sung and prayers were being said for Alric Longdon.

  It was a small funeral. Father Edgar, the ancient and hobbling priest, took the service and struggled hard in his address to find kind words to say of the deceased. Apart from the widow, her stepson, and a younger woman who consoled both of them, there were three people from the town and two monks from the abbey. The Saxon church was no more than a stone-built porch, nave, and chancel which clutched each other for support against an ungodly universe and which were further bonded together by arcading which ran entirely round the building. Windows were small and splayed, floors were paved and cold, and the chancel arch with its simple motif cut into the stone was so low and narrow that Father Edgar was partially obscured from sight when he went up to the altar.

  The graveyard was sullied with the vulgar noise of the market, but the priest did his best to lend a frail dignity to the proceedings. Alric Longdon was lowered into the ground and the first handfuls of earth tossed down upon him. As the weeping Hilda almost swooned, the young woman moved in quickly to support her with a caring arm. The funeral was soon over and the mourners stood helplessly around the grave. Brother Luke had asked to attend and pay his last respects because he had been the person to find the corpse. Brother Peter had accompanied him and stayed him through the novice’s own turbulent emotions. When the youth recovered enough from the harrowing occasion to take stock of those around him, he saw for the first time the sad beauty of the dark-haired young woman who sustained widow and boy with such compassion. She was soberly dressed, but the fine material of her kirtle and gunna disclosed that she was of good family.

  Luke was entranced by the heart-shaped face with its silken complexion, its dark eyes, its long black eyelashes, and its full red lips.

  A feeling which had no place whatsoever on consecrated ground brushed against him like a cobweb.

  He huddled against his companion to ask his question.

  “Who is she, Brother Peter?”

  “That is Leofgifu,” said the sacristan.

  “She is a member of the miller’s family?”

  “No, she is here solely out of kindness. Leofgifu is a true Christian and a rare young woman.”

  “Where has she come from?”

  “She is the daughter of Wulfgeat.” His voice hardened. “Do not stare at her, Luke. It is unseemly. Lower your eyes and pray for the soul of Alric.”

  The novice obeyed, but Peter ignored his own injunction. While every other head in the churchyard was bowed down with grief, his remained only slightly tilted forward so that his eyes could watch and marvel at the tenderness of Leofgifu. Here was unselfishness made manifest and real concern for those in distress. Everyone hated the miller, yet she was somehow able to offer love and sympathy to the widow and her stepson. Brother Peter gazed at Leofgifu as if he were in the presence of a saint.

  The Warden of Savernake was thorough. When his huntsmen and foresters returned from a fruitless search, he sent them out again next day at first light. They scoured forest and field once more but found neither wolves nor traces of their depredations. Deer were seen in profusion, wild boar could be heard grunting in the undergrowth, and there was even a glimpse of a badger as it dived into its set, but the wolf which had killed Alric Longdon had fled. In the twelve hours since the body had been discovered, it could have run a very long way.

  As the disconsolate posse headed back to report their failure, they began to wonder whether a wolf had indeed been responsible. Other animals were considered, and the balance of opinion swung behind the notion of a mastiff. They were picking their way through woodland not far from where the attack had occurred when they finally sighted something. It was fifty yards away, across a clearing and half-hidden by gorse bushes, but they saw movement and sensed danger. The creature was too large to be a boar and too small to be a stag, but the brown hue of its fur could well be that of a wolf.

  Hounds were released and spears held at the ready as the huntsmen goaded their horses in pursuit, beating a way through the undergrowth and fired up by the thrill of action. But it was all to no avail.

  The scent was lost and the trail went cold. Whatever they had been chasing in Savernake Forest had vanished into thin air. They were deeply annoyed and highly frustrated, but the news which they bore back to their master could sound at least one positive note: The animal had finally been seen.

  The mysterious killer still lurked in the forest.

  Chapter Four

  Hugh de Brionne was incensed when he received the summons to appear before the commissioners. It arrived at short notice and gave him no details as to its true implications. He was simply ordered to appear before the tribunal like a common criminal being hauled before a court of law. His anger first simmered, then boiled over. He was the lord of the manor of Chisbury and had extensive holdings in the rest of the shire as well as in other parts of the country. A man of his standing and temperament was at the beck and call of nobody. He tore up the summons, drank himself into a stupor, and staggered off to bed with his ire still undiminished. His wife was grateful when exhaustion finally got the better of his wild imprecations. Marriage to Hugh de Brionne had many pains for the gentle Lady Matilda.

  Her lord awoke next morning to recapture his spirit of rebellion and defy the command to appear. He was minded to send his sergeant-at-arms into Bedwyn to give the visitors a dusty answer, but another course of action soon commended itself. He would appear in person to have the pleasure of reviling them and letting them know the force and character of the man with whom they dealt so perempto-rily. Hugh de Brionne, therefore, kept them waiting an hour before he stormed into the shire hall with a dozen armed retainers at his back. The first sight which the commissioners had of this bellicose lord was thus rather intimidating.

  “I am Hugh de Brionne!” he announced, as if throwing down a gauntlet. “What have you to say to me?”

  They were too busy adjusting to the suddenness of his appearance to say anything at all. Legs apart, back straight, and jaw thrust out pugnaciously, he gave them a moment to view the full temper of the witness they had dared to call. Hugh de Brionne was a man of excep-tional height and powerful build, and fifty years had taken no toll on his vitality. A large and craggy face was centred around a prominent nose which kept two furious eyes apart to stop them from fighting each other. He was clean-shaven, but cheeks and chin bore scars of battle that were worn with blatant pride. The other mark of a warrior was more disturbing to behold. His right arm had been lopped off at the elbow and the stump was poking out of the sleeve of his tunic.

  Sheathed in leather to hide its full horror, it was nevertheless a startling deformity.

  He looked along the table from one to the other and made a swift assessment of them, finally settling his gaze on Ralph Delchard as the only person worthy of conversation.

  “What means this summons, sir!” he demanded.

  “I will answer when you are ready to be answered, my lord,” said Ralph. “And that is when your knights are sent about more lawful business. There is no place here for a show of force unless you wish to answer to the king.”

  Hugh de Brionne studied him until he was persuaded that Ralph was making no idle threats. The royal commissioner was as firm of voice as the glowering lord himself and possessed of just as much determination. A flick of the hand dismissed the military escort from the hall. Ralph Delchard nodded his approval and gestured to his own men, who stood against the back wall. Two of
them brought a large chair for the visitor and placed it directly in front of the table.

  After glaring at everyone in the room once more, Hugh de Brionne consented to sit down, throwing his mantle back over his shoulder to expose his family crest on the chest of his tunic.

  They were staring at the head of a large black wolf.

  Hugh snorted. “Why am I brought here?” he said.

  “Invited, not brought,” corrected Ralph. “You were good enough to furnish information for our predecessors who came to Bedwyn earlier in the year. Our task is to check some of those findings against new claims that have emerged.”

  “Claims against me!” growled Hugh. “They are false. I can justify every acre of land with a charter, every house and manor with a lawful grant. The man who tries to rob me of anything is a liar and a thief and I will settle the argument with steel before I concede.”

  “There is no claim against you,” said Ralph calmly. “We will take nothing and tax nothing. What we need to find out is whether or not we should give you more.”

  Hugh de Brionne was soothed but far from quiescent. He remembered the first commissioners only too well. They had kept him sitting in that same shire hall for hours while they sniffed through his documents like a pack of dogs trying to find a rat. He rid himself of a few blunt opinions about those who had subjected his wealth to such close inspection.

  “Your predecessors were idiots,” he said roundly. “If they had respected my position and taken my word, they would have been given a precise account of my holdings in a tenth of the time. But they argued and accused, they pushed and they prodded until I all but reached for my sword to cut the delay in two.” His chest swelled and the wolf rippled. “I am too busy to waste time with lawyers’ quibbles. Those who hem me in should remember my value to the Conqueror. I fought by his side and lost an arm in his service.”

  Ralph bristled. “I, too, bore a sword that day and with such honour that I was shown favour by William, young though I was.” He indicated his neighbour at the table. “This is my dear friend and colleague Gervase Bret, whose father likewise joined the invasion of England under the duke’s banner. You merely lost an arm, my lord. Gervase lost a father.”

  “What’s past is past,” said Canon Hubert irritably. “We must not spend a morning fighting a battle that happened twenty years ago.

  Let us address the issue at hand.”

  “I have never liked churchmen,” said Hugh with measured contempt. “Let me deal with a soldier any day.”

  He turned to face Ralph once more, but it was Gervase who took the initiative. Looking up from a document, he spoke with a crisp authority that made the visitor blink.

  “Our task is plain, my lord,” he said. “We follow where others have led; we correct where mistakes have been made. We have power to change and a licence to punish any fraudulence or evasion.” He glanced at the document. “Here in Bedwyn, we have detected a serious irregularity.”

  “Too many Saxons,” sneered Hugh.

  “I talk of land that adjoins your holding upstream towards Chisbury on the north-west side. Two hides in all.”

  “I know it well.”

  “In the description of this town, as compiled by the earlier commissioners, that land belongs to Bedwyn Abbey.”

  “It is mine!” snapped Hugh.

  “You have disputed this case before.”

  “Yes!” protested the other. “Disputed and lost because those witless fools who sat behind that table just as you do now would not support my claim.”

  “The abbey had a charter.”

  “And so did I.”

  “Theirs countermanded yours.”

  “I went by custom and usage.”

  “Even there, they had a prior claim, my lord.”

  Hugh de Brionne roared. “Prior claim! That lying Prior Baldwin advanced their prior claim. He tied us all hand and foot with so much legal rope that we could not budge one inch. So part of my holding was gobbled up by the abbey.”

  “But they had use of that land,” noted Canon Hubert.

  “Word of mouth confirms it to be mine.”

  “It gave them rights.”

  “Indeed, my lord,” said Gervase. “Two hides amount to well past two hundred acres. That is enough land for three farms and other small holdings. Then there are two mills which sit on the river that runs directly through that land. All those subtenants pay their rent to the abbey and not to you.”

  “I am owed that money by a grasping abbot.”

  Canon Hubert bridled. “Abbot Serlo is a saint.”

  “I believe it well, sir. Of him and of his prior. Serlo has a belly big enough for a dozen saints, and that scheming Baldwin is the patron saint of robbers. Give him a legal wrangle and he will talk the pizzle off a Pope and make it dance around the room and sing Te Deum.”

  “My lord!” exclaimed Hubert with moral outrage.

  Ralph Delchard chuckled, Brother Simon hid his reddening face in some documents, and Gervase Bret afforded himself a smile of amusement. This Norman lord did not mince his words in the presence of the clergy. The black wolf was an apt symbol for Hugh de Brionne. He was a scavenger with sharp and deadly fangs. The abbey might have ousted him with argument, but it had earned itself an implacable enemy. If there was the faintest chance of revenge, he would take it.

  “Restore those lands to me,” he instructed. “Give me the rent that is due from the subtenants. Fine the abbey for its insolence and bury Prior Baldwin in a dung-heap so that men may know his character as they pass.”

  “I will not endure this!” wailed Canon Hubert.

  Gervase resumed control. “The situation stands thus. You claim the land. The abbey had use of it and a charter to enforce that use.

  But there is now a third voice with a legitimate interest in those fertile acres. And that might disqualify both you and Prior Baldwin.”

  “Who is this rogue?”

  “We may not say as yet,” explained Gervase, “but he has a charter which may make both yours and that of the abbey as light and insubstantial as air. This is no idle claim, my lord. It is supported by Alfred of Marlborough.”

  Hugh de Brionne stiffened. Alfred was an important figure in the shire, with holdings even greater than his own. In wealth and reputation, he exceeded Hugh by far and the jealous lord of Chisbury could not wear this indignity. He and Alfred of Marlborough were wary rivals. If a new claim had such weight behind it, then it was threatening indeed.

  “Why did this claimant not emerge before?” he asked.

  “He lacked the charter to uphold his right.”

  “He has it now?”

  “We will come to that,” said Ralph Delchard, taking the reins once more. “We summoned you by way of courtesy to acquaint you with this news. Bring your charter to us again and we will set it against this new claim. And try them both once more against the abbey’s right and title.”

  Hugh de Brionne remonstrated afresh, but it was only token bluster. The name of Alfred of Marlborough had sounded a warning note.

  He needed to consult with his steward and to make private enquiry of this counter-claim. Rising to his feet, he adjusted his cap and straightened his mantle. The clasp at its corner was a gold-embossed wolf that jogged a memory behind the table.

  “You have, I believe,” said Ralph, “hunting privileges in Savernake Forest.”

  “Why, so I do. Twice a month I ride.” He curled a lip derisively. “I rid the forest of vermin. I may kill as many monks and novices as I can find, but only the king can hunt down a wily fox of a prior or a great fat bear of an abbot.”

  “Heresy!” shouted Canon Hubert.

  “God made me the way I am.”

  “My question is this,” said Ralph, unruffled. “Do you possess some mastiffs who have not been lawed?”

  Hugh was evasive. “My animals are my concern.”

  “Do any of them have the freedom of Savernake?”

  “My dogs have keepers who know their occupation
.”

  “I have hunting dogs myself,” said Ralph. “If they are bred for the chase, they may sometimes chase of their own free will. Let such a creature off the leash and he may kill or maim as viciously as any wolf.”

  “That is true,” admitted Hugh. “We have had such a case in our pack before now. When a dog runs amok, I order my men to put it down. There is no place for madness in the kennels of Hugh de Brionne.”

  He strode away to the door, then paused as he was struck by a final malignant thought. It produced a leer.

  “This new claimant of yours,” he said. “Tell him that I will happily cede the land to him if it will serve to spite the abbey. I’d willingly lose two further hides and half another arm to see that sheep-faced villain of a prior put in his place.”

  His laughter was like the howl of a wolf.

  Monks were human. Though they aspired to the condition of sainthood, they could reach it only by the mundane paths of their pedes-trian abilities. An abbey could not exist simply as a metaphor for God’s purpose. It was a living organism. It had to be fed and watered, clothed and bedded, maintained and improved. An obedientiary might, therefore, have to till fields, cook meals, brew ale, clean plates, fetch rushes, supply hot water, shave heads, provide cowls, change bedding, ring bells, or rehearse the choir to the right sweetness of pitch. Whatever skills a man brought into the enclave were welcomed and employed.

  There was labour for all arms and work for all minds. No talents were wasted at Bedwyn Abbey.

  Brother Peter still bent over his bench to produce fine silverware.

  Brother Thaddeus still handled a plough with the rough-handed zeal he had shown when he was a farmer. Brother Thomas still sewed and embroidered like the tailor he had once been. And Brother Luke, the robust young novice, still toiled in the bakehouse as his father had taught him. Even when monks were promoted within the house, they found it hard to let their old lives slip entirely away.

  “We have been summoned, Matthew.”

  “When?” asked the lugubrious subprior.