When Hilda was guided around to the subject of the abbey land, Wulfgeat took over the questioning.
“Your husband wrote to Winchester, you say?”
“That is what he told me, sir.”
“He had a charter?”
“That is what he told me, sir.”
“Where did he get this charter?”
“From my father, sir. In Queenhill.”
“That lies in Worcestershire,” explained Leofgifu.
“Yes, close to London,” said Wulfgeat. “I knew that Alric had to travel far to find himself a new wife.” He was about to add that no woman in the locality would have cared to look upon the miller as a suitor, but he suppressed the comment out of consideration and turned back to the widow. “This charter of which you speak. Did you see it with your own eyes?” Hilda nodded. “What did it contain?”
The woman look bewildered and appealed to Leofgifu with a gesture. Wulfgeat needed no translation. Hilda had seen the document, but that was all. She could not read. He picked his way more carefully through her half-remembered story. Alric had gone to Queenhill, talked at length with her father, then wooed and won her. Money and charter had been exchanged between the men, but all detail was kept from her. It was plain that her heart would not have chosen Alric as a husband, but she was obedient to her father. A simple girl saw life in simple terms.
“I loved my father. I respected his choice.”
Leofgifu shot Wulfgeat a rueful glance that made him sigh with regret. He concentrated on their visitor.
“Where is that charter now?”
“I do not know, sir.”
“Is it at the mill?”
“I do not know, sir.”
“Where did your husband keep his valuables?”
“We had none, sir.”
“His money, his accounts. Where are they locked?”
“I do not know, sir.”
Wulfgeat lowered his voice to a persuasive whisper. “
That document could help you,” he explained. “It may not bring your husband back, but it may offer compensation of another kind. Commissioners are in the town. They need to see that charter. Help to find it and we may all benefit.” He managed a smile. “Now, Hilda— where is it?”
“I do not know, sir.”
“You must have some idea.”
“I do not know, sir.”
“She is telling the truth, Father,” said Leofgifu. “She has been kept in ignorance of the affairs of men. Duty to her husband was all she knew. Do not press her.”
Wulfgeat nodded his disappointment. The significance of the charter was clear. Royal commissioners would not travel to Bedwyn unless they had good cause. Alric Longdon must somehow have convinced them that some gross abuse of rights had taken place, but only the charter could support him in his argument. It might still be at the mill, but Wulfgeat doubted it. Alric Longdon was known for being secretive. He would have hidden such an important article in a place where no one else could find it.
Leofgifu touched his shoulder to indicate that they should withdraw. Hilda was plainly tired and needed all the recuperation that sleep could bring. Wulfgeat made to leave. He thanked the woman for her help, then flicked a glance at the boy. Cild was watching him intently. It was eerie. Wulfgeat found himself looking straight into the eyes of Alric Longdon once again. There was bitterness and envy and hatred in the boy’s gaze, but there was something else as well. It was a sense of quiet triumph. His father’s death had snatched everything away from him except one last precious possession. It gave him a power that he never looked to have and it might be used to hurt.
Cild knew where the charter was.
Chapter Seven
NIGHT ENTICED NEW SOUNDS FROM SAVERNAKE FOREST. OWLS HOOTED FROM their perches, badgers snuffled in their dingles, and strutting wildcats screeched their furious messages at the moon. Deep in thick woodland, a rutting stag mounted its doe with noisy love-play. Other creatures came out to hear and swell the nocturnal discord. The whole forest was an echo chamber. Two pairs of heavy feet added to the mild uproar of the night as they scrunched over grass and twig and bracken. The verderers were returning to Bedwyn from their patrol on the northern margin. Poachers had been their quarry, but they had also searched yet again for the mystery wolf. Daylight and long staves made them brave enough to take on any beast that walked, but darkness ambushed their courage and left them fearful. When an anonymous yowl rose high above the cacophony, they lengthened their stride and quickened their pace. Savernake was no place in which to be caught at night. Other beings ruled its rough domain.
They came over a hill and saw light in the distant town to revive their spirit. If they skirted the wood and cut down towards the river, they would be home and safe in less than half an hour. It made them jocular and they discovered tongues that had been lost in the heart of the forest. Oak and elm rose up on their right with a reassuring solidity to provide a defensive wall against any dangers that might lurk in the undergrowth. Good ale and good wives awaited them in Bedwyn. A long day’s work would end in restful ease.
“Stay!”
“Why?”
“Listen!”
It was the bigger of the two men who heard it first and who made his companion halt. The latter grew impatient.
“I hear nothing.”
“Listen!”
“Let us get on.”
The bigger man hissed him into silence and pulled him close. They peered into the darkness of the trees, then ventured in a few yards. Both had their ears pricked and their staves at the ready, but they detected nothing untoward until they were about to move on once more. Then the voices of the night fell silent for a moment and a different sound came through, a long, loud, slow dragging noise, accompanied by a grunt of pain. Was it a wild boar dragging its prey? A wounded fox pulling itself along? Some larger beast lumbering blindly across the ground?
Stifling the urge to run, they communicated with a glance and knew their duty. With a concerted yell, they used their staves to thresh the undergrowth as they stumbled towards the sound. The grunt became a strange, high-pitched cry and the bushes ahead of them shook violently. All they could see in the moonlight was a sight so weird and unexpected that they refused to believe it.
“A sheep?” said one.
“It cannot be.”
“A goat?”
“Not here in the forest.”
“Was it, then, a pig?”
“A pig does not have fleece.”
“What did we see?”
“Who knows?” said the other. “The wolf of Savernake?”
Whatever the creature had been, it had been frightened away, and that gave them some comfort. The bigger man used his stave to prod his way forward, then almost tripped over a large object on the ground. He regained his balance, then looked down. It was a rock, a big, smooth piece of sandstone which had been towed across the floor of the forest with such effort that it had left a channel gouged in the earth behind it. No wolf could pull a boulder such as that. Only a bear would cope. Wooden staves would not hold off such an animal. If it attacked, their chances would be slim.
A loud and unexplained roar came from the distance.
They took to their heels and ran all the way home.
Gervase Bret and Ralph Delchard had much to discuss that night as they compared their findings and speculated afresh. Both were pleased with their researches. Gervase felt quite at home within the confines of the abbey walls and Ralph had found his natural milieu of strife and action at Crofton. The one could look forward to a talk with an ancient monk, while the other could dream of more intimate conference with the wife of the town reeve. Before they retired for the night, Ralph first yawned, then rehearsed their findings.
“This miller was a hoarder of forged coins,” he said reflectively. “He hid them in a chest within that yew tree. When he took a fresh haul to put it with the rest, he was attacked by wolf or dog or some such sharp-toothed cur. His treasure was removed. When a
nd by whom?”
“Know that and we know where to find the charter.”
“Find the charter and we set the abbey in a turmoil.”
“No,” said Gervase, “it already has turmoil enough beneath that placid surface. Monks are men and all men have their failings.”
“Start again with the miller,” suggested Ralph. “His widow may know of the coins as well as of the charter.”
“I think not. A man as close as Alric Longdon would not take a woman into his confidence. He married her for other reasons and they have been man and wife too short a time to grow together. Queenhill is a lengthy ride to find himself a bride. He needed a charter to make him go so far afield. The silver may have helped to buy the girl.” Gervase shook his head. “No, his widow will know little. We must not expect too much from her. The miller worked alone.”
“I disagree, Gervase.” Another yawn surfaced. “My bed calls me, so I will not delay. I say but this. The dead man was no forger. Those brutish hands could shift great sacks of flour but not take on the subtle task of minting silver coins. That needs Eadmer’s skill. You see my mind?”
“He has an accomplice. Who stole the hoard himself.”
“We shall see, we shall see.” He winked a farewell and rolled towards the staircase. “In the morning.”
“Will the widow be called before us?”
Ralph turned. “One of us will speak privily with her.”
“You?”
“A quieter voice will get more from her. Good night.”
“God bless!”
While Ralph hauled himself upstairs, Gervase went back to the satchel of documents on the table and took them out. He studied one by the light of the candle and ran his finger along the neat calligraphy. Ralph Delchard had a practised eye that could weigh up a man at a glance, but Gervase worked by other means. He could read between the lines of a charter and extract its hidden secrets. The parchment before him was the one from the abbey, which claimed rights to the disputed holding of two hides. Couched in legal terms, it was so clear and persuasive that his predecessors waved it through as a binding document, but he had serious doubts. As soon as he had handled it, he felt a vague unease that was well founded. When Gervase stamped the charter a forgery, Prior Baldwin and Subprior Matthew protested so long and so vigorously that he knew his instinct was right, but that instinct now had to be buttressed with proof so that deception could be both rectified and punished.
He took two other charters from the satchel and laid them beside the first. All were from Bedwyn, all were dated the same, and all were allegedly the work of the same scribe. Gervase went through each one with painstaking care to catch the trick of the man’s quill and the hint of his character. It was a steady hand that flowed fast and smooth without losing definition, but there were quirks to be discerned. His head went from one to the other as he compared each detail of the scribe’s handiwork. Something was wrong with the abbey charter, but he could not yet tell what it was. He scrutinised the parchments for almost two hours before he got his proof. It was worth a chuckle of triumph. Prior Baldwin and Subprior Matthew would rant and rave once more, but he now had the full measure of them. One tiny squiggle of ink had left the pair of them impaled upon the point of a quill.
Gervase was still smiling as he fell asleep in bed.
Word of the latest sighting in the forest had permeated the whole town by early morning. Verderers were men who knew the native denizens by sight, sound, and smell, but they could not place the creature they had glimpsed in the dark. Their report sent new tremors through the community and produced a fresh crop of breathless invention. Most people inclined to the idea of a bear that had escaped captivity and returned to the wild, but they could not account for the absence of any spoor. When the verderers and others went back at first light to the scene of their unnerving encounter, the stone had gone completely and left no further indentations in the ground. A scattering of red flakes suggested that the creature had smashed it into smaller and more manageable lumps before carrying them off. Hounds picked up a scent, but it died when they reached a stream.
The latest discovery did not exonerate Emma and her dog. Some still believed she had caused the miller’s death and a few were even heard to argue that the witch had transformed her familiar into a bear so that it could forage in the woodland. Why the bear should be shifting a boulder of sandstone in the darkness was not explained and the more just townsfolk came round to the view that Emma might not, after all, be culpable. They still argued that the dog should be caught and destroyed on the grounds that it was a danger to others, and the evidence of the traveller who had accosted Emma was repeated time and again. His version of events had been carefully shaped to present himself as an innocent victim rather than as a red-blooded man who was driven by an impulse of abstract lust.
The link between catastrophe and the commissioners was further strengthened. Since the visitors arrived, Bedwyn had been plagued with tragedy and mishap, and Ralph Delchard’s heroics in Crofton on the previous night had exacerbated the general animosity. If they could rid themselves of the Norman interlopers, it was thought, they would regain the safety of their streets and the contented rhythm of their lives. Ralph Delchard symbolised the horrors of the Conquest. It was his name that was spat with contempt in the marketplace.
Ralph was blithely unaware of his growing notoriety.
“Row me downstream,” he said.
“But we could ride there much faster, my lord.”
“I wish to take to the water.”
“I am no boatman,” admitted the man. “Your legs would take you quicker than my arms.”
“There is no hurry. Row on.”
The river was no distance from the hunting lodge and they could see the boat that was moored to a post. Ralph commandeered it and ordered one of his knights to strike off downstream towards the mill of Alric Longdon and beyond. He sat in the stern and trailed a lazy hand in the water while the other man struggled to come to terms with oars. There was more splashing than forward movement, but at least they moved in the right direction. When they reached the middle of the river, the current helped to speed them up.
Ralph studied the sluice-gate that lay ahead and saw its function at once. The miller was clever and far-sighted, though he had probably met the expense of construction from a hoard of forged money. Unwitting carpenters who had sunk the mighty timbers in the water to take the weight of the gate itself would have spent their silver long ago and put the counterfeit coins into circulation. The fact that they had not yet been detected was proof of their quality. Eadmer provided the currency for Bedwyn. His mint was controlled by the warden of the exchange, who sold him his bullion, then received back the newly struck coins to check them with meticulous care. Only if they were up to standard would they be released for public use. Nothing which left Eadmer’s expert hands was ever rejected.
“Slow down,” ordered Ralph.
“We are being swept along, my lord.”
“Dip your oars and hold them still.”
“Yes, my lord.”
He experimented a few times and finally got a small measure of success. The boat slowed a little and allowed Ralph to take a more leisurely view of the mill that they were about to pass. It was a suitable habitat for Alric Longdon. The ugly shape of the building, the neglect of its exterior, the relentless power of its now-silent wheel, and its isolated position on the river all defined the character and person of the man. He lived on the very fringe of Bedwyn, like a scavenger who skulks in his lair until a prey approaches. As they floated past its massive bulk, Ralph looked up and felt a shiver of distaste. This was no fit home for a family. It was a place of work that had been battered by half a century of constant usage, a cold prison which forced hard labour upon its inmates for the whole of their lives. Happiness had never penetrated its stout walls. It was a monument to the miller’s meanness of spirit. Ralph was glad to drift on by.
“How much farther, my lord?” asked the oar
sman.
“Row me back to Winchester.”
“My arms are aching already.”
“When they fall off, I will take my turn.”
“It is no joke, my lord.”
“No,” agreed Ralph, then burst into laughter. “Pull on your oars again. Take me towards the church.”
The man made the fatal mistake of looking over his shoulder, and the small craft went out of control and all but turned in a circle. It took minutes to right it again and to row it along a straighter course. Ralph Delchard sat back and surveyed the scene with growing admiration. Bedwyn had a pastoral setting of undeniable loveliness and it was hard to believe that the air of serenity it now exuded was hiding a cauldron of rage and dissension. When the church finally climbed into view, he told his man to ship the oars and let the boat drift into the bank. They had come to the end of their voyage.
“Where are we?” asked the man, now panting freely.
“About to lay a siege.”
“A siege, my lord?”
“Of that.”
The boat thudded into the bank and the man grabbed at an overhanging branch to steady it. He was then able to look across the river to the object of Ralph’s curiosity.
“You saw the mint but yesterday,” he complained.
“Only from the inside.”
“My lord?”
“There is a castle. How do we take it?”
The soldier recovered his humour. Fighting was his trade. He was on firm ground now and entered willingly into the game with his master.
“Storm it from the front.”
“It is too well fortified.”
“Approach from the sides.”
“Both have solid walls with tiny windows,” said Ralph. “You would be picked off with arrows by an enemy that you never even saw.”
The Wolves of Savernake (Domesday Series Book 1) Page 12