“Then take it from the river,” rejoined the man. “Scale the walls and enter by force.”
Ralph clicked his tongue. “Ladders could not be used from boats. They need firm foundation. Ropes could not be thrown to the roof. There is no place to get a purchase.” He pointed at the windows. “How would you get past those iron bars if you ever managed to reach them? No, my friend. Stones and boiling oil could be poured onto your boats and a man foolish enough to scale that wall would be exposed to attack from every window. You are no siege-master.”
“I would starve them out.”
“There is an easier way if you but look.”
The soldier studied the building with more attention to the detail of its construction. It was half-timbered but used solid brick where others settled for wattle and daub. Around each window was a protective square of sharp iron spikes. Its roof was thatched and might succumb to fire, but he sensed that Ralph had found an easier mode of entry. He turned back to his lord and shrugged his failure.
“Think of a real castle,” advised Ralph.
“This is but a well-defended mint.”
“Place a motte and bailey on the same spot. Raise your walls and reinforce them at their weakest points. Build your keep so that it uses the river as its moat, just like the mint. Now,” said Ralph with a knowing smirk, “what would you set over the river itself? What use would you make of this convenient water?”
The man realised and laughed coarsely. A garderobe or two would be built at the rear of the keep. The castle inhabitants would relieve themselves into the water below. If a concerted attack could not be made, one stealthy man might gain entrance through a garderobe under cover of darkness and find a means to open the main gate. The soldier grinned his admiration, but he had only learned how to take a mythical castle on that same spot. Ralph Delchard had discovered how to gain access to a royal mint.
“Take me across there now,” he said, “and go in under the building that I may gaze up at Eadmer’s recreation. Silver bullion may go into the place, but I warrant that a baser metal drops out.”
Their raucous laughter skimmed across the water.
“You have a visitor, Brother John. Will you receive him?”
“Gladly. Who is he that calls so early?”
“A young man from the king’s household.” Slight alarm showed. “I am summoned by his majesty?”
“No, brother. Your visitor only pays you his respects.”
“What is his name?”
“Gervase Bret.”
“Norman or Breton?”
“I vouch the fellow has more Saxon in him.”
“Show him to me.”
“Wait there, Brother John.”
A croak of a laugh. “God leaves with me no choice.”
Gervase Bret reached the abbey before Prime and gained entry through the gatehouse. Monastic architecture obeyed a set pattern, so he needed no direction to the infirmary range. It consisted of a hall, chapel, and kitchen and stood east of the cloister, so it was well away from the noise of the outer court to the west. Sick or ancient monks who could no longer meet the demands of claustral life were cared for here by the infirmarian and his assistant. Gervase had been a regular caller at the infirmary in Eltham Abbey and he knew that even monks of advancing years retained a vestigial discipline whenever possible. Confined to bed, they could still wake when the bell rang for Matins and join in each service of the day with gladsome hearts.
Brother John was such a faithful servant of the order. Approaching seventy and racked with disease, his old bones still rustled at the fixed hours of the day. He lay propped up on his bed, with a rough blanket over his meagre body. His face was gaunt and shrunken, but there was still a glimmer of light in his watery eyes. When he was shown into the hall by the padding infirmarian, Gervase Bret walked past the other patients and gave them each a respectful nod. He was then introduced to Brother John and offered a low stool. The infirmarian warned him that his visit must be short, so that the oldest occupant of the abbey was not tired by the effort of speech and concentration. Gervase was left alone with the remarkable Brother John, looking at the blue-veined skull, which still displayed a silver tonsure, and wondering how such a narrow head could hold in so many long years of prayer and meditation.
“Why did you come?” asked a reedy voice.
“Brother Luke talked of you,” said Gervase.
“Do I know Brother Luke?”
“He is one of the novices.”
“There was a Brother Luke here when I first joined the order,” recalled the old man. “The precentor, no less. He died the year that poor King Harold died.”
“After the Battle of Hastings?”
“Oh, no, young sir,” said John with a throaty chuckle. “I talk of King Harold who followed King Cnut and was himself then succeeded by King Harthacnut.”
“How long have you been a brother here?”
“Through six reigns. King William is my last.”
“Luke tells me that you hail from Burbage.”
“Brother Luke the Precentor?”
“The novice.”
“Burbage was my home until I found God.”
“You have seen many changes during all those reigns,” noted Gervase. “Has it vexed your soul?”
“Profoundly at times, but I have prayed for help.” The old man wheezed and brought a trembling hand up to his mouth as he coughed. “Who are you, young man? I see by your manner that you are no stranger to these walls.”
“I was a novice myself at Eltham Abbey.”
“Eltham!” Brother John pursed his lips in a weak smile. “I went to Eltham once with gifts from this abbey when it was first raised. The abbot received me himself. What was his name now … Abbot Waleran?”
“Abbot Maurilius,” corrected Gervase, knowing that his word was being tested. “He was still Father Abbot when I wore the cowl. You will also remember Prior Richard?”
“Indeed I do. He showed me much kindness.” He nodded his approval of his visitor’s credentials. “You come from Eltham, a place of blessed memory. How may I help you, my son? My strength is waning and you must ask before I doze off once again.”
“Brother Luke told me …”
“The precentor?”
“The novice.”
“Oh, yes. Of course. The novice.”
“He says you know this stretch of country well. If I wish to hear the history of this part of the shire, you are the person who can best advise me.”
“Use me in any way you may.”
“You must be well acquainted with abbey lands.”
“Bless my soul!” said Brother John, and he went off into such a paroxysm of coughing that Gervase had to pass him a cup of water and hold him up so that he could drink it. The fit finally subsided. “I am sorry, but you made me laugh.”
“If that was laughter, I will not provoke it again,” said Gervase with sympathy. “Wherein lies the humour?”
“Ask Brother Luke.”
“The novice?”
“The precentor. He would have told you.”
“But he has been dead these forty years or more.”
“He saw my mettle and urged my appointment.” The old man crooked a finger to beckon him closer. “I was born near Burbage and given the name of Brungar. That is no fit title for a Benedictine monk. Brother Brungar murders the mouth, so I took the name of John.” He smiled wistfully at the memory. “My father was a sokeman with many rights. I was brought up on the land. I am withered now, but I was a lusty fellow then and chosen by the precentor because of that.”
“Chosen, Brother John?”
“You talked of abbey lands.”
“You worked a plough upon them?”
“No, young sir,” replied the other. “I am no Brother Thaddeus who beats the oxen to drive them forward. My furrows went through the purses of our tenants. I was the rent-collector for this abbey.”
Gervase seized on this stroke of luck and plied him with many questi
ons. The rent-collector for the abbey visited every patch of land that housed a subtenant. He knew the size of every holding and could put an accurate figure on its value. Boundaries had changed repeatedly, but Brother John had taken it all in his stride. Six reigns accustom a man to violent alteration. He was philosophical in his reminiscences.
“Who paid the rent for those two hides?” said Gervase.
“It was not owned by the abbey.”
“Can you be certain, Brother John?”
“As certain as I am about anything,” returned the other with mild offence. “I collected rents for almost forty years on abbey lands. Those two hides were held directly from the king by Heregod.”
“Heregod?”
“The father of Alric the Miller.”
“Directly from the king?”
“For services rendered.” The monk shook his head. “I know not what they were, but King Edward showed his gratitude and Heregod held that land. He used it to grow his own corn for the mill. And I will tell you something else.” Gervase was again motioned closer. “It was not two hides but four. King Edward was a man of generous temper.”
“How did they abbey secure the holdings?”
Brother John paused. Happy to wander through his past with his rent-collector’s bag slung round his shoulder, he was now more cautious. The abbey had been his life and he did not wish to show disloyalty. The blue-veined skull was wrinkled with doubt and hesitation. He had said enough. Gervase tried to prompt him over the last important details.
“I will not ask you more,” he said, “but let me put a case to you. That land was held by Alric’s father thirty years ago. The abbey now takes rent from it and disputes that income with Hugh de Brionne. How did this come about? I hazard a guess. Say nothing, Brother John, for I would not put you in that position. Simply hear me out.…”
Gervase spoke quietly and concisely, piecing together all the evidence he had so far gathered, then adding what his keen intelligence told him. The old monk did not need to say a word. His rheumy eyes began to run so freely that his visitor was given all the confirmation he needed. He thanked Brother John for his help and stood up to take his leave.
“You should have stayed in Eltham Abbey,” said John. “The order always has need of a sharp brain.”
“I was called elsewhere.”
“That was Eltham’s loss.”
“Good-bye, Brother John.…”
“Give my regards to Brother Luke.”
“The novice?”
“The precentor.…”
Wulfgeat reasoned long and hard with Hilda, but he could not get her to understand the importance of it all. She was still too dazed by the heady passage of events. A week ago, she had been the dutiful wife of a miller and had hopes of bearing his child before another summer came around. Now she was bereft of everything and saddled with a stepson for whom she had learned to care but whom she could never truly love. When Hilda was still reeling from the shock of her husband’s death, Prior Baldwin had come to offer her solace and walked away with the key to the mill. Now Wulfgeat was asking her to prise the whereabouts of the charter from her stepson, but she refused to believe that the boy knew anything, and he himself denied it flatly. Failing with this first, rushed approach, Wulfgeat was now soliciting permission to visit her home to look around for himself. Hilda was frightened and bemused.
“What must I do, Leofgifu?’ she asked.
“Nothing you do not wish.”
“Your father presses me too hard.”
“I will speak to him to let you both alone.”
“Yet this is his house,” said Hilda. “He has rights.”
“I brought you here and I will tend your needs. Tell me what they are and I will guard you against all anxiety.”
“You have been very kind.”
“I know what it is to lose a husband.”
“And to marry one who has not touched your heart?”
Leofgifu bit her lip. “That, too, Hilda.…”
“Could I hear the story?” Her friend looked around guiltily. “Cild is not here. I let him out to walk. He is a fretful boy penned up in one room. He will come to no harm.”
“You trust him, then?”
“I have to trust Cild. He is all I have.” She took Leofgifu by both hands and held them tightly. “Tell me about your husband. Show me that I am not the only one….”
When persuasion failed, it was time to resort to more desperate action. Wulfgeat was an honourable man with a law-abiding attitude, but the pressure of circumstance can turn a saint to sin and misdemeanour. Since he could get no key to the mill, he resolved to enter it by other means and took a trusted servant with him along the river. They were grateful that the mill stood in such a secluded spot. Nobody could see them about their stealthy work.
“Shall I break down the door?” asked the servant.
“Find some other way if you can.”
“This lock will be hard to force.”
“Try a window or the roof.”
“Leave it to me, sir.”
The servant was young and nimble. He went quickly round mill and house to look for modes of entry. The one he chose was at the very top of the building, a small window that was slightly ajar but too far from the ground to invite the interest of a passing thief.
“How will you reach it?” asked Wulfgeat.
“I think I have a way.”
“You’ll sprout a pair of wings?”
“I’ll use the miller’s wheel.”
It was a tricky ascent. The huge slats of the wheel were soft with age and slippery with years of accumulated slime, but the servant got a firm grip and pulled himself slowly up towards his target. It took him several minutes before he balanced on top of the wheel and reached for the sill of the window. Hauling himself up, he nudged the window fully open, then slithered straight inside. Wulfgeat rushed to the back door to be let in as it was unbolted.
They were thorough. Wulfgeat did not expect to find the charter, but he hoped the mill might have some clues as to its whereabouts. The place was cramped and airless and he was retching as soon as he went through the door. The musty atmosphere in which the miller lived attacked their lungs and they held hands to their mouths until they had got used to it. Room by little room, they searched diligently for any letters or maps or written evidence. None could be found and it drove them on to a more frantic search, but it was still to no avail. An hour later, they gave up.
Wulfgeat left the mill and waited while the servant locked the door from within and then climbed upstairs to the window to leave by the same route as he had entered. There was no charter inside the mill and not even the slightest hint that such document existed. Wulfgeat was beginning to feel ashamed. They had rifled a dead man’s house. He could justify his behaviour to himself only by remembering the great significance of the charter. It would cause enormous upset to the abbey and to a Norman lord, and it would bring untold benefit to the distressed widow. On behalf of all Saxons who had been dispossessed of land, himself among them, Wulfgeat had to track it down.
“Let us go,” he decided.
“Shall I search around the vicinity?”
“There is no point. Alric was too wily. His hiding place might be a mile or more away.” He looked up. “Did you leave the window as we found it?”
“Yes. And each room in the house.”
“Hilda will never guess that we have been here.”
Wulfgeat led the way back along the path. They had gone fifty yards before there was a splashing noise in the river and a figure came to the surface beside the mill-wheel. He had been there throughout their visit and watched them every time he came up for air. Looking sadly up at the home they had violated, he made a grisly promise to himself and to his father, then he turned to push himself off from the wheel. He swam powerfully across the river and climbed out on the opposite bank, trotting naked along it until he found the brake where he had left his clothes.
Cild was glad that he h
ad followed Wulfgeat all the way from the house. He now loathed him more than ever. Help from such a man was no help at all. Wulfgeat had taken them into his home but not to offer consolation. He plainly resented them and he had driven the boy’s stepmother to tears by the force of his questioning. Being under the roof of such a man was an insult to his dead father. Cild knew his duty. He had to avenge that stinging insult and repay the other countless acts of malice which Wulfgeat had committed against his father. He had much to brood upon as he headed back towards the town.
The abbey delegation had been called to the shire hall that morning at ten o’clock, but it was Hugh de Brionne, lord of the manor of Chisbury, who first came striding through the door. He brought no escort of knights this time, but his entry still caused a mild sensation. Marching up to the table where the four commissioners sat, he snarled a greeting and flung down a parcel of documents in front of them with such contemptuous force that he sent a dozen other charters flapping in the air like startled doves. Brother Simon tried to pluck them to his breast in midflight, while Canon Hubert issued an astringent rebuke. Gervase Bret immediately undid the ribbon which held the new submission together and unrolled its yellowing contents. Ralph Delchard remained calmly authoritative.
“Respect is due to royal officers,” he warned. “The writ of King William runs here in Bedwyn. He has a low opinion of lords who seek to flout him.”
“Read my charters,” insisted Hugh. “Discharge me from this enquiry and let me go about my business.”
“What is the hurry?” said Ralph.
“Matters of greater weight require my presence.”
“Nothing can outweigh the substance of our findings here. You are a soldier and understand a soldier’s needs. William has to muster an army to repel a promised invasion from the Danes. He needs a precise inventory of the holdings of his feudal lords, including your good self. When he can see exactly what lands his vassals have, he can raise his revenue accordingly.”
Hugh stamped a foot. “Give me no lectures on war. I know how armies march. The king is entitled to his levy, but it must be fairly taken and not forced unequally upon us. But this enquiry—this Domesday Book of yours—has a second and a larger purpose.”
The Wolves of Savernake Page 13