The groans were much louder this time, swelled by verbal protest and given real edge by the contemptuous laughter of Wulfgeat. So this was why Bedwyn had been singled out for a second visit. The commissioners had been empowered to impose more onerous taxes. When the first returns were searched by greedy eyes in the Treasury at Winchester, they were seen as ripe for further exploitation. Far too much was already squeezed out of Bedwyn in rent and tax. Additional burdens would break the back of some of its inhabitants. The disaffection built into a roar until Ralph quelled it by banging the table with his fist.
“Cease this noise!” he ordered. “We are commissioners by royal warrant and have the right to call whom we wish and when we wish to face interrogation.” His gaze shifted to Prior Baldwin, who was sitting serenely in front of him and remaining aloof from the general hubbub. “Tomorrow morning at ten o’clock, we begin our enquiry into the land of the Abbey of Bedwyn. Witnesses will appear to give evidence as directed.” Having discomfited the prior comprehensively, he beamed around the hall. “Our business is ended for the day. We thank you for your help and your indulgence.”
Benches grated as the gathering rose to disperse. Abbey lands were rich and extensive. It might take days to peruse all the relevant charters again. That gave other people a breathing space, and their discontent was tempered with relief as they muttered their way out of the hall. A cluster formed around Wulfgeat, who was clearly a spokesman for many in the town. His voice was still booming away mutinously as he led them out into the street.
Prior Baldwin waited for a modicum of calm to return before he directed his question at Ralph Delchard.
“Why must the abbey be called to account?” he said.
“That will become apparent tomorrow.”
“Am I to have no warning of what lies ahead?”
“It has been given.”
“The fact of your enquiry has been announced,” argued the prior pedantically, “but not its inherent nature. Is our land to be subject to new taxation?”
“Be patient until tomorrow.”
“What am I to tell Abbot Serlo?”
Ralph grinned. “The truth.”
Prior Baldwin fumed quietly and looked to Gervase for some elucidation. When none came, the prelate turned to the Church, but Canon Hubert was not ready to divulge anything further. The prior was put at a distinct disadvantage and that was not a position in which he often found himself. Brother Simon was his only hope. If he could catch him at an unguarded moment in the abbey, he might be able to worm some intelligence out of that wasted body. Summoning all of his dignity, he rose from his chair, with a sharp nudge, compelled Brother Matthew to join him, then delivered a parting boast.
“The abbey has nothing to hide.”
“Then it is not like any abbey that I have ever known!” said Ralph with a chortle. “They usually have secrets as dark as their black cowls.”
But Prior Baldwin and Subprior Matthew were already marching side by side down the hall to return to their home. All the papers had now been gathered up from the table and put back into their satchels. Brother Simon bore the largest, but Gervase kept a substantial number of documents himself. He needed to study them again before confronting the abbey delegation on the morrow. It was his knowledge of legalities that would be crucial in what promised to be a ferocious debate.
Ralph Delchard was about to lead the others out when he noticed a figure hovering inside the far door. He was a stout man of middle height, close to Ralph’s own age but with none of the latter’s vigour. Washing his hands nervously, he was trying to compose his features into a state somewhere between gravity and ingratiation. Clearly a person of some consequence, his rich tunic was covered by a mantle that was held at the shoulder by a gold brooch. His belt, too, was that of an affluent man and his cap was trimmed with fur. Ralph despised the gartered trousers of the old Saxons almost as much as their fondness for beards. The stranger had neither of these defects of his nation.
Seeing his opportunity, the man moved in to intercept Ralph. There was authority in his tone, but it was weakened by his over-eagerness to please.
“I am Saewold, the town reeve,” he said. “I was delayed with business or I would have been here to bid you a proper welcome to Bedwyn and to offer what help I may.”
Ralph introduced the others, then took the newcomer aside to weigh him up in private conference. Saewold had the fussiness of a man who likes to draw attention to the importance of his office and he used the name of the lord sheriff, Edward of Salisbury, with oily familiarity. Ralph did not warm to this over-helpful reeve but saw that he was a useful source of information. He therefore asked after Wulfgeat and his earlier impression of the man was confirmed. Wulfgeat was indeed a leading burgess and one with much influence in the town. The commissioners could look for trouble and dissension from that quarter. Though he praised the man’s many fine qualities, Saewold could not conceal his patent dislike of Wulfgeat. If any new taxes were levied, it would be the job of the reeve to collect them, and he knew that Wulfgeat would offer the most vociferous resistance.
About Alric Longdon he was also informative, mixing fact with anecdote to draw a portrait that was anything but attractive. The miller was widely disliked. Hard-working and successful at his trade, he was also mean-spirited and highly unsociable. He liked to browbeat people in argument and only the quality and low price of his flour saved him from losing his customers. When Saewold was into his stride, scattering local gossip like handfuls of seed, there was no holding him.
“Yet Alric could surprise us,” he said. “When his first poor wife died, we felt that no other woman would ever dare to share his bed, and yet he wed Hilda—as gentle a creature as you could wish to meet—within the year. What goodness did she see in such an ogre? What love could he inspire in such an angel?”
“You say he had few friends,” noted Ralph, “but did the miller have any real enemies?”
“Dozens. I tell you this,” said Saewold confidingly, “if that wolf had not killed Alric Longdon then, sooner or later someone else would have done so.”
Ralph terminated the conversation by turning to join his companions, but the reeve would not be shaken off so easily. He stood in front of all four of them and opened his arms in a gesture of welcome.
“It would please me greatly if you would consent to dine with me tomorrow. My wife and I would be delighted to offer you the hospitality of our humble abode.”
Ralph thanked him on behalf of the others and was about to frame an excuse that would liberate them from a meal at the table of this garrulous official when he became aware of another figure entering the hall. She was a woman of such luminous beauty that even Canon Hubert was taken aback. She was no longer young, a few years beyond thirty perhaps, but she had a mature loveliness that made her oval face shine. Moving with the grace of a dancer, she came to stand beside Saewold with a quiet dignity that identified her at once as his wife. Ralph was mesmerized. She wore a blue kirtle of some fine material beneath a short-sleeved gunna of a darker shade of blue. A gold-braided belt encircled a slim waist, then hung down to one side of her hips. Her long fair hair was held by a gold fillet and cascaded down from her wimple to rest on her right shoulder and brush a full breast. Her shoes were buckled at the ankles. The wife of the town reeve of Bedwyn was dressed like the lady of a Saxon earl.
Saewold presented her to the four commissioners.
“This is my wife, Ediva,” he said proudly.
She acknowledged each of them in turn with a soft and confident smile, but she held Ralph’s gaze marginally longer and all barriers of language, custom, and degree between them dissolved in an instant. In her brilliant green eyes, he saw something which his colleagues would never dare to look for and which her husband would never recognise for what it was. When Ralph’s interest quickened, she let him see that she was pleased.
He countermanded his original decision.
“Dear lady,” he said with a gallant half-bow, “your hu
sband has kindly invited us to dine with you tomorrow. We are delighted to accept that invitation.”
“Thank you, my lord,” she replied. “I wait upon you.”
Ralph Delchard felt that a bargain had been sealed.
Chapter Three
BROTHER LUKE WAS A FRESH-FACED YOUTH WHOSE RELIGIOUS ARDOUR WAS AT LAST beginning to hear the vague whispers of doubt as he approached the end of his yearlong novitiate. He was tall and angular, with a gawkiness that had not yet been cured by the sombre pace of monastic life. Though he wore the cowl willingly, it still looked like a garment he had just tried on that minute rather than a home in which he had taken up permanent and unquestioning residence. He was alert and well educated but reticent in the presence of strangers. Ralph Delchard left it to Gervase Bret to set up a dialogue with their guide.
“How long have you been a novice, Brother Luke?”
“Ten months, master.”
“It was your own choice to enter the abbey?”
“Mine and that of my parents,” said Luke. “They entered me as a postulant and look to see me a brother of the order soon. I hope I will not disappoint them.”
“There is surely no chance of that?”
The youth shook his head without conviction and lapsed back into silence. All three of them were entering Savernake Forest, tracing the same path along the river that Alric Longdon had taken on that fateful evening. Abbot Serlo had given Brother Luke permission to take the two commissioners to the scene of the miller’s death, and the novice obeyed without demur. Gervase tried to reach the youth with other subjects of conversation, but his replies were laconic and the exchanges soon dried up. Ralph Delchard threw in a piece of information that jolted Luke out of his reserve.
“Gervase almost took the cowl,” he said jovially. “The monks thought they had won his heart and mind for God, but he learned that there is more to life than prayer and fasting.”
“Is this so?” asked the novice with interest.
“It is only part of the truth, Luke,” said Gervase.
“You entered a Benedictine house?”
“The Abbey of St Peter, at Eltham. It was founded by King William himself not long after Battle Abbey was raised. Both abbot and monks were from Normandy, but they soon mastered our tongue.”
Luke was surprised. “You are a Saxon?”
“Half Saxon, half Breton,” explained Ralph. “But we rescued him from misery by turning him into a Norman.”
Gervase enlarged on the jocular comment. “My father was killed at Hastings; my mother and her family had limited means. The abbey was very close and the monks were very friendly. At eight, I was being schooled by them. At ten, I was allowed to spend whole days within the enclave. At twelve, I became a kind of servant and got my learning in place of wages.”
“An abbey is an education for life,” said Luke solemnly as he quoted the master of the novices. “All that there is to know may be gleaned from within the cloister.”
Ralph’s mocking laugh disagreed, but he said nothing.
Luke was intrigued. “But how did you come to rise so high in the king’s service?”
“By listening and learning,” said Gervase. “Eltham is close to London. Travellers of all types and all nations sought our hospitality. I helped to prepare their beds. They all had tales to tell, sometimes in languages that were so strange on the ear that I barely understood a word at first. But I was a patient student. If you know Latin, you may pick up Italian without too much confusion. If you speak Breton—and my father had instructed me in his tongue when I was a tiny child—you will be able to master Norman French and even stray close to Welsh, for there are Celtic echoes in Breton.”
“Did you become a novice at the abbey?”
“In the fullness of time.”
“For how long did you stay?”
“Six months or more.”
“What made you leave?” asked Luke with keen interest.
“Gervase must tell you another time, lad,” intervened Ralph as they came to a fork in the river. “You spoke of a stream to the left. Is this the place?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Lead on. We follow hard on your heels.”
Luke began the uphill climb, with the others behind him. Ralph winked knowingly to Gervase. They had not only made a friend inside the abbey, they had chosen one untutored in the arts of debate and prevarication of which monks like Prior Baldwin were so patently masters. The novice was a useful ally. By the same token, he would not lose at all by their acquaintance. He had evidently been drawn to Gervase when the latter’s history was recounted, and there was clear affinity between them. Brother Luke was experiencing the kinds of anxieties and misgivings that had afflicted Gervase himself in a similar position. There would be more talk between the two of them in private.
“It is not far now,” said the pathfinder.
“You are a true forester,” praised Ralph.
“The stream goes below ground here, but we will find it again a little higher up.”
It was early evening and the sun was still slanting its rays down through the trees. Birdsong surrounded them and the cheerful buzz of insects swelled the effortless music of the forest. There were other, louder, unexplained noises in the middle distance, but they did not delay the little trio. At length, they reached the ruined yew and looked upon the bank where Brother Luke had first found the dead body of the miller.
“It was here,” he said, pointing an index finger.
“Be more precise, lad,” said Ralph. “Which way did he lie? Where were his body, his feet, his head?”
“He was on his back, my lord, and his head was in the stream. I will show you if you wish.”
“I do, Luke.”
The youth needed no more encouragement. He lay on the ground beside the stream and adjusted himself so that he was hanging over it. Stretching out too far, he lost his balance and fell backwards, submerging head and shoulders in the water. Ralph gave a hearty laugh, but Gervase dived forward to grab the novice by the folds of his cowl and pull him back up onto the bank. Sodden and spluttering, Brother Luke was not distressed by the mishap.
“That was how I found him, sirs,” he explained. “Even as I was then. On this bank and in that stream.”
Ralph became serious and moved him aside. Taking up the same position, he looked all around him and saw the bushes to the side of the yew. A wolf concealed in those could launch a surprise attack, but its coat might leave some memory of its passage through the brambles. Ralph instituted a careful search and quickly found what he expected.
“Fur,” he said triumphantly. “Our wolf lurked here and leapt upon the miller to push him backwards. This much seems certain. But there are still two larger questions.”
“What are they?” asked Gervase.
“Wolves kill for food or when they are threatened. That heavy body in the mortuary chapel would have made a good meal for a hungry wolf and its family. Why did it take only one bite of its supper?”
“Perhaps it was disturbed,” suggested Gervase.
“In as quiet and lonely a spot as this?”
“Another wolf may have disputed the carcass. They may have chased each other away. Foresters may have been on patrol. Their scent would be caught well before they came to this exact place.”
Ralph was back among the brambles again, finding another piece of fur and holding it to his nose to sniff. He located a third tuft and repeated the process.
“It smells like a wolf,” he said, “and, then again, it does not. I wonder if we are naming the wrong animal as the murderer. A mad dog would kill for the sake of it and leave a victim to bleed to death.” He crouched behind the bushes, then jumped up by way of demonstration. “If it sprang up high enough and hard enough, it could knock him flat, then sink its fangs into him.”
“You forget something, my lord,” said Luke diffidently.
“What is that?”
“Those marks upon his chest.”
“Fro
nt paws would leave such grim reminders.”
“Not in Savernake,” continued the novice. “Forest law is strict. All dogs in and around Bedwyn are lawed. They must have three claws removed from each of their front paws so that they may not bring down game.”
“Even hunting dogs?” said Ralph.
“Only a few escape the rigour of this law.”
“And who would own such mastiffs, excepting the Warden of Savernake himself? This is a royal forest, but the king cannot ride here often. Who else has hunting privileges?”
“None but the lord of Chisbury.”
Gervase was curious. “Hugh de Brionne?”
“The same. He keeps a pack of hounds.”
Ralph and Gervase exchanged a meaningful glance. When the problem of the abbey lands came before them on the next day, Hugh de Brionne would be called as a principal witness. They had so far liked nothing that they had heard of the domineering lord, and the fact that one of his mastiffs might possibly have killed an innocent man did not endear him to them any the more. Ralph put his first question aside and turned to the other, but he did not wish to ask it in the presence of Brother Luke. When the novice got back to the abbey, he would be catechised by the prior about his walk in Savernake Forest. Ralph did not wish the abbey to be party to all his researches.
“Walk further on, Gervase,” he said casually. “If wolf or dog came down this way, find the route by which it left. It would seek cover in its flight. See if you can choose its direction.”
Gervase understood that he was being asked to get Luke out of the way and did so with such natural ease that the youth did not suspect for a moment why he was being taken farther up the hill by way of a ruse. To help in the search for clues gave the novice a sense of excitement, but it paled beside the chance of being able to question Gervase further about his release from his vows in Eltham Abbey.
The Wolves of Savernake Page 4