The Ravens of Blackwater

by Edward Marston

  “There can be nobody else for me.” Gilbert was scornful. “Then you must resign yourself to bachelorhood for you will never marry her,” he said. “Even if I died tomorrow— even if one obstacle were removed—they would still not let you anywhere near Matilda.”

  “We will see.” He glanced away. “I have to go, Father.”

  “Give her up now! Stop torturing yourself!”

  Miles Champeney saw the futility of further argument. They had been over the same ground a hundred times and it always produced the same barren harvest. He tugged on the reins to pull the horse's head around, then set off across the yard. Gilbert took a few steps after him.

  “Will you be at table with us this evening?” he called.

  “No, Father.”

  “But we have guests. They expect entertainment.”

  His son did not even answer. The duty of playing host to the visitors from Winchester was irksome to him when his mind was elsewhere. Gilbert watched him ride away for a few minutes, then went disconsolately back into the house. The rift with Miles was like an open wound that festered. What troubled him most was that he could see no means of healing it. He was in an impossible dilemma. Gilbert Champeney was a doting father who would do anything to help his son except the one thing that was being requested of him. An affable and gregarious man was being asked to ally himself with the only family in Maldon whom he loathed.

  Miles rode on. His father had many endearing virtues but they counted for nothing now. The son had priorities that had turned the man he most loved and respected into a stubborn opponent. Miles had reasoned with his father and even pleaded with him, but all to no avail. At a time when he most needed moral support and practical help, he was totally isolated. His mother echoed her husband in all things and was far too weak and vague to make up her own mind. She hated to see the dissent between the two men but there was nothing she could do to alleviate it, let alone to bring about any kind of reconciliation. Miles was on his own and that put him into the exact position that Matilda herself occupied. It was a further bond between them. Both were imprisoned within the hostile attitudes of their respective families. Matilda's predicament seemed to be the worse of the two, because her father had never loved her enough to take a serious interest in her, but the mild and doting Gilbert Champeney could be just as uncompromising as Hamo FitzCorbucion.

  After riding towards the town, he kept his horse at a steady canter and swung off towards a wooded embankment. He twisted in the saddle to make sure that nobody was following, then scanned the landscape on both sides. Distant figures were scything yellow corn. Children were engaged in scaring birds with yells and missiles. Animals grazed. When Miles was convinced that he was unobserved, he went into the trees and brought his horse to a halt. Dismounting at once, he tethered the animal to a hawthorn bush and walked on foot to the top of the embankment. Foliage was thicker here and concealment total. He leaned against an ash and waited.

  Miles was patient but, when the first hour had passed by, he began to get restive. He went back to check his horse, which was still happily chomping the grass in the shade of the trees. He climbed up the gradient again to resume his vigil beside the ash, but another half hour brought him no relief and anxiety set in, deepened, as more time passed, by a profound sense of helplessness. There was simply nothing that he could do. It was infuriating. Another half hour drifted away. He was about to abandon his long wait when he heard the thud of approaching hooves. Miles took out his sword and prepared to defend himself. Hoping for a friend, he could just as easily get an enemy from the same source. Only when he saw the man's face did he relax. It was the servant who had been used as an emissary before and he was riding the same roan. Furtive and scared, the man brought the horse towards him at walking pace.

  Miles rushed eagerly up to him and held out a hand. The servant pulled a letter from inside his tunic and passed it to him. Breaking the seal, Miles opened the missive and read it with a mixture of excitement and fear. Matilda's love for him was unchanged but a more immediate shadow now hung over their romance. A marriage had been arranged by her father. Having buried a dead son in Maldon that morning, Hamo was now planning to bury a daughter alive in Coutances. Her letter ended with a plea to her beloved and his reply needed no consideration. He looked up at the man and nodded firmly. The servant pulled the roan in a half circle and picked a way swiftly through the trees. He had no wish to linger and run the risk of being seen with Miles Champeney. Loyal to his mistress, he was all too aware of what might happen to him if his role as an intermediary were discovered. All he was now carrying back to Black-water Hall was an oral message and that put him in less danger.

  Miles ran back to his horse and leapt into the saddle. The words of the letter had burned themselves into his brain like a hot brand. Matilda was to be married to a man in Coutances. If that were allowed to happen, he would never see her again and he was prepared to go to any lengths to prevent it. As his horse took him off in the direction of the town, his mind sizzled with pain and confusion. He was so caught up in his thoughts that he did not see the man who arose from his hiding place in the undergrowth to stretch his aching limbs and curse the amount of time he had been forced to lie there. It had been an ordeal but it had brought its reward and the soldier would earn the gratitude of his master. He crept away to the brake where he had concealed his own horse and mounted.

  Another message made its way back to Blackwater Hall.

  The shire hall had a much smaller number of witnesses that morning but they brought much louder complaints. Norman landholders had not been spared by Hamo FitzCorbucion out of any sense of comradeship. He stole property and livestock from them with the same easy contempt that he showed to the Saxon subtenants. His main technique was to seize the outliers or berewics, those outlying portions of land that were separate from a manor but taxed with it rather than as a detached holding. Bordars, cottars and other peasants who served one lord had suddenly been given a more demanding master. Slaves who had gone to sleep under the aegis of one Norman baron awoke to find that they were now under the heel of another. Slowly but inexorably, Hamo FitzCorbucion had completely redrawn the map of Maldon and its environs. Those now in the hall had protested strongly to him but he was powerful enough to ignore them and they were now in the humiliating position of paying taxes on land that someone else had annexed for his own advantage.

  “Was this land granted to you by King William?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Were you given a charter?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Did it bear the royal seal?”

  “It did, my lord.”

  “And can you produce that same charter now?”

  “No, my lord.”

  “It has been mislaid?” “Destroyed,” said the man ruefully. “When I took it to Blackwater Hall to wave under his nose, he grabbed the charter from my hand and held it over a flame. I could do nothing to stop him.”

  “Were there witnesses to this alleged crime?”

  “My two sons, who sit with me here.”

  Ralph Delchard called both of the young men to substantiate their father's claim under oath and they did so. It was only one of a number of documents that Hamo FitzCorbucion had burned, stolen, torn into pieces, thrown into the river or—in one case—scrunched up into a ball to force down the throat of the minor baron who had dared to show it to him. Ralph was much more attuned to the minds and hearts of the witnesses. They were Norman soldiers of his own ilk— two from his native Lisieux—and they had earned their property in Essex and elsewhere by service in the army of the Conqueror, only to have it taken from them in slices by the avaricious Hamo.

  Gervase Bret examined what documentary evidence could be pro- duced and attested to its authenticity. Canon Hubert put more searching questions to the witnesses and disentangled the legitimate claims of pillaged landholders from the deep envy that they were bound to feel towards someone who was more powerful and wealthy than they. More than
one of them was using the occasion to pay off old scores against Hamo, which had nothing to do with any annexation of property. They were treated to some wordy vituperation from Hubert for wasting the time of the commissioners with matters that did not come within their jurisdiction.

  What did emerge was precisely what they expected when they first studied the returns for Essex in the Treasury at Winchester. There had been massive theft of property over a lengthy period. Disguised in all manner of ingenious ways, it had finally been brought into the light of day in its full horror. The rapacious Hamo FitzCorbucion was the undoubted victor in the Battle of Maldon.

  “As I predicted,” boomed Hubert “Good against evil.”

  “It is not quite as clear-cut as that,” said Gervase.

  “No,” added Ralph. “Hamo may be evil but these barons we have just examined are by no means entirely good. Some of them would have done what he did if they could have got away with it. As it is, we have uncovered a few abuses of which they themselves were guilty.”

  “Seventeen,” said Brother Simon, leafing through the parchments on which he had set down the details. “Seventeen clear instances of illegal seizure of land. These men were not all saints.”

  Canon Hubert sniffed. “Compared to the lord of the manor of Blackwater, they were holy angels. We must keep everything in proportion.” The witnesses had departed and the four men were alone in the shire hall. It had been another gruelling session but they had worked well together to extract all the detail they needed. The complexities of land tenure in and around Maldon were now clearly established.

  They could prosecute their case against Hamo FitzCorbucion.

  Canon Hubert looked forward to the encounter.

  “Call him before us tomorrow,” he said. “We will give him an opportunity to answer these charges before we bring him face to face with his accusers.”

  “What if he will not come?” asked Brother Simon.

  “We will compel him,” said Ralph.

  “But he has scores of knights at his command.”

  “A royal warrant gives us power over any subject.”

  “Perhaps we should delay,” said Simon meekly. “It may be untender of us to call him so soon. Blackwater Hall is a house of mourning.”

  Ralph was scornful. “Thanks to Hamo, this town is full of houses of mourning. He has killed off property rights in every part of the borough. Summon him before us. We will only be trespassing upon the grief of a man who has caused widespread anguish himself.”

  “I agree,” said Canon Hubert. “Your anxiety is wholly misplaced, Brother Simon.”

  “It is not anxiety,” said Gervase. “It is respect for the dead and Brother Simon is right to remind us of our duty here. Hamo FitzCorbucion buried his son this morning and you wish to haul him before us tomorrow. Give him another day at least to come to terms with his loss.”

  “What about the losses he inflicted on others?” said Ralph. “He paid them no respect.”

  “Indeed, not,” replied Gervase, “and we must call him to account. But we cannot do that until we have fully mastered all the new evidence we have collected and I would value another day to prepare our case. There is much to study here. If we spare him tomorrow, we show him an indulgence that he may appreciate and give ourselves time to become so familiar with the fine detail of our argument that it will be quite unanswerable.”

  “That is sound reasoning,” conceded Hubert.

  “I endorse every word,” said Brother Simon.

  Ralph was still keen to press ahead on the following day but he caught Gervase's eye and read the message in it. The delay was not principally for the benefit of a bereaved father at all, nor was it being suggested because it would create valuable time in which the commissioners could assimilate the mass of evidence which had been gathered. Gervase wanted an opportunity to pursue the investigation into the death of Guy FitzCorbucion because he felt it was in some way intertwined with their visit to Maldon. Only when they solved a murder would they be in a position to deal properly with the lord of the manor of Blackwater.

  “Gervase counsels well,” said Ralph. “We will resume the day after tomorrow. That will content Simon and I daresay that Hubert will not object to an extra day in the tender care of the cook at Champeney Hall. He will think it the best possible reason for staying our hand.”

  “The thought never entered my mind!” said Hubert.

  The meeting broke up good-humouredly. Canon Hubert and Brother Simon left with part of the escort while Ralph Delchard and Gervase Bret compared their experiences that morning. Gervase told him about his encounter with Tovild the Haunted and how certain he was that the man had some vital information locked away in his distracted mind if only they could find a way to release it. Ralph talked about the visit to the priory and his feeling that the silver chalice might in some way have provoked the ambush.

  “There is only one problem,” he admitted.

  “What is that, Ralph?”

  “Why should Prioress Mindred have been carrying it in one of her leather pouches? When she went to Barking Abbey, the chalice would have stayed at the priory.”

  “There is a certain way to find out.”

  “How?”

  “I will ask Oslac the Priest,” said Gervase. “He celebrates Mass at the priory and will know what chalice he used during the absence of the two travellers. I need to speak with him about Tovild again and I will raise this other matter with him as well.”

  “Do so straightway,” urged Ralph. “In the meantime, I will acquaint myself with the sheriff of this blighted county. The town reeve tells me that Peter de Valognes was due to ride in with his men this afternoon. The sheriff may be able to solve this mystery.”

  “The murder of Guy FitzCorbucion?”

  “The name of Humphrey Aureis testiculi. ” Ralph led the way to the door. “If I lived in Maldon, I would fear for my manhood,” he said. “It is a town of extremes. Humphrey may have goldenbollocks but poor Guy has none at all. Ask the priest if he can explain that as well.”

  There were six of them. When Gervase Bret walked through the churchyard, they gave him a raucous welcome. The most recent occupant of the consecrated ground had already acquired some feathered tenants. Six ravens stood on the grave of Guy FitzCorbucion and kept vigil. They were not there to peck or scavenge but simply to honour one of their own. Three more flew in to join them on the mound of fresh earth and others circled in the air. Gervase was reminded of his last glimpse of the Tower of London. Like the birds he had seen on that occasion, these ravens were disturbingly at home.

  The church was open but it seemed to be empty. A smell of incense hung in the air. He closed the door behind him and genuflected towards the altar before walking down the nave and into the chancel. He tapped on the door to the vestry but there was no reply and the door was locked. The priest was evidently not in the little Saxon church and Gervase decided he might well have returned to Blackwater Hall with the mourners to offer what consolation he could. After a last glance around, he went back down the narrow aisle towards the exit and was about to leave when he heard the noise from the mortuary. It was the shuffle of leather on the stone paving. Oslac the Priest was there, after all.

  The door to the mortuary was at the rear of the nave and Gervase knocked politely. When there was no answer, he used a bunched fist instead of his knuckles but there was still no invitation to enter. Gervase tried the door and it swung back to reveal the dank chamber where the dead of Maldon were laid out to await burial. The candles had been extinguished and the window slits admitted such meagre light that the place was in almost complete shadow. The mortuary seemed empty, but Gervase was certain that he had heard movement so he went down the steps and into the tiny chapel. Guy FitzCorbucion had quit his lodging that morning but his odour still lingered to offend the nostrils.

  There were four stone slabs on which to lay out the dead of Maldon and three were bare. But the slab that Guy had briefly occupied now had a new corpse
. The body was covered by a shroud. He walked around it in reverential silence until he noticed something that made the cadaver highly unusual. Its feet were poking out an inch or two from beneath the linen and they had rough leather shoes on them. Gervase recalled the noise he had heard. Moving to the other end of the slab, he took the edge of the shroud between his fingers and peeled it gingerly back.

  The result was startling. As soon as the tousled head came into view, the body came back to life and leapt at him. A knife flashed in the gloom but he was ready for it and seized the wrist in a firm grip, twisting the blade away from him, then forced the arm down so that it struck the side of the slab. There was a yell of pain and the knife dropped to the floor. Gervase grappled with him but his adversary had a surge of power and threw him off. Snatching his weapon, he was about to lunge at Gervase once more but the latter had realised who he must be and held up his palms in a conciliatory gesture.

  “Calm down, Wistan,” he said gently. “I am a friend.”

  The boy was unappeased. “Out of my way,” he grunted.

  “If you wish,” said Gervase, standing aside to let him leave. “But you will only be running back into danger out there. Sanctuary lies here. Oslac the Priest will help.”

  Wistan edged his way towards the door with his knife brandished and Gervase made no effort to stop him. The boy had second thoughts. He was bedraggled. The torn woollen tunic had been soaked during Wistan's second nocturnal swim in the River Blackwater and it had still not dried out. He had made his way to the Church of All Souls' under cover of darkness and hid among the churchyard yews while the burial service took place, waiting until they had all left before he gained the relative safety of the mortuary. His hair was unkempt, his arms and legs scuffed, his face hunted.

  “Who are you?” he said.

  “I told you, I am a friend. My name is Gervase.”

  “You know me?”

  “Oslac the Priest spoke of you,” said Gervase, trying to soothe him. “You are Wistan, son of Algar. Your father was most cruelly treated. He lies in the cemetery outside. I know little beyond that, Wistan, but I know the most important thing about you.”