The Wolves of Savernake

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.

“Tomorrow morning at ten.”

“We will miss Chapter.”

“That cannot be helped,” said Prior Baldwin. “I have spoken with Abbot Serlo and we have leave to go and face these royal commissioners.”

“Do we know their purpose, Prior Baldwin?”

Baldwin smirked. “We know it and we may refute it.”

“That gladdens my heart,” said Matthew, looking even more miserable than ever. “You talked with Brother Simon?”

“He talked with me.”

The subprior came as near to smiling as he had done in the past five years, but be changed his mind at the very last moment and commuted the smile to a lick of his lips. They were in the scriptorium, the library of the abbey, where patient men with gifted hands sat at their desks to produce the beautiful illuminated manuscripts which adorned the shelves or which went to other parts of the country as cherished gifts. Subprior Baldwin was more patient and gifted than any and his work served to guide all other. If the prior wished to find his assistant, he had merely to open the door of the scriptorium.

“There is another claim,” explained Baldwin.

“To which stretch of land?”

“The two hides we disputed with Hugh de Brionne.”

“But that argument is over and settled.”

“It is now, Matthew.”

“Where is this other claimant?”

“Under six feet of earth in the parish graveyard.”

“Alric Longdon?”

“He will trouble us no more.”

“Then why do the commissioners still call us?”

“A mere formality,” said Baldwin airily. “We may swinge them soundly for taking us away from our holy work and then send them on their way to Winchester once more.”

“What of my lord, Hugh de Brionne?”

“The great black wolf has been chased from the forest.”

“Will he contest that holding once more?”

“He may not. We have the charter to prove it is ours.”

The monks nodded in unison with easy satisfaction. The subprior still wore his mask of sorrow, but it was lit around the edges like a dark cloud with a silver trim. He lifted his hand above the parchment and let it work its magic once more.

They dined at Saewold’s house that afternoon. The town reeve had a comfortable dwelling on the edge of Bedwyn, with land at the front and rear to indicate his status and guarantee him privacy. They sat around a long oak table and feasted on beef, mutton, pork pies, ca-pon, fish, cheese, pastry, blancmange, and fruit tarts. Wine and milk were also served. There were even some oysters for those with a discerning palate.

Gervase Bret was quietly impressed with the house itself, noting its size and furnishings and plate. Canon Hubert confined his admiration to the repast, at first refusing each new dish that was offered, then deigning to find just one more tiny corner in his capacious stomach. Brother Simon was still tormented by his indiscretion in the cloister garth that morning and dared not eat a thing for fear that he would bring it up again out of sheer guilt.

Ralph Delchard saw nothing but Ediva. Struck by her charms at their earlier encounter, he could now study them at his leisure. She bore herself well at table, composed yet merry, and her conversation moved from the light to the serious with no loss of fluency. Ediva was an educated woman in a country where most of her sex were kept ignorant. Ralph began to lose his heart over a plate of oysters.

“You have always lived in Bedwyn?” he asked.

“No, my lord,” she said demurely, “I was born in Warminster and travelled with my father to France and Italy when I was younger.”

“You look well on your voyaging.”

“Would that I could journey so far afield again.”

“Lady, I sense adventure in your soul.”

She said nothing but conveyed a world of meaning with a gesture of her fine-skinned hands. The reeve still burbled.

“Have you concluded your deliberations for the day?” he said with an oleaginous smirk. “Is all well?”

“Yes,” said Brother Simon tamely.

“No,” overruled Canon Hubert.

“We have much more yet to do,” said Gervase.

“And will you call my lord, Alfred of Marlborough?”

Simon winced, Hubert rumbled, and Gervase gave a noncommittal shrug. Saewold knew more than they intended to let him know at this stage. A name which had only been spoken in the presence of Hugh de Brionne had now reached the ears of the town reeve. It made the commissioners treat their host with even more caution.

This obliging official who was so anxious to volunteer information could garner it with equal speed. He needed to be watched.

While Saewold went on to divert them with more local gossip, Gervase appraised the man again. The reeve had done well to secure his office and to hold on to it through twenty years of Norman rule.

Most Saxons who held positions of authority treated their overlords with a polite respect that masked their inevitable resentment. They obeyed and cooperated because they had no choice in the matter.

Saewold dealt successfully with the Normans by doing his best to become one of them. In speech and fashion, he followed his masters and referred condescendingly to his fellow Saxons as if they were an inferior civilisation who had been delivered from their near barbarity by the arrival of a cultural elite from across the Channel. Gervase Bret took the opposite point of view, steadfastly believing, on the evidence of his own experience and observation, that the rich heri-tage of the Anglo-Saxons was being debased by the cruder values of the invaders. Looking at Saewold now, he saw the man as a rather depressing hybrid who embodied the worst of both cultures. In the next generation or so, Saewolds would populate the whole country like a brood of monstrous children from the forced marriage between Saxon and Norman. Gervase was profoundly dejected. The reeve was the face of the future.

“I must tender my apologies,” said their host with an open-armed gesture. “Tomorrow I must ride to Salisbury on important business and may be absent for a few days. I will not be on hand to superin-tend you here, but I will leave a deputy who will answer for me and render what assistance you may require.”

“We are sorry to lose you,” lied Ralph convincingly, “but we will manage very well without you here.” His mind was on personal rather than royal affairs. “Your help and your hospitality have made our stay in Bedwyn much more pleasant and profitable than might otherwise be the case.”

“Indeed, indeed,” muttered Brother Simon.

“Yes,” decided Canon Hubert. He weighed the excellence of the food against the nuisance of the reeve’s zealous aid and came down in favour of the latter’s departure. “Should we need your advice again, we may send to Salisbury. In the meantime, commend me to my lord, the sheriff.”

“I will, Canon Hubert.”

The meal was over and they rose to leave. Gervase had noted with dismay the blossoming relationship at the other end of the table and he sought to interpose himself between Ralph and Ediva so that no further conference might take place between them. Ralph was forced to take proper notice of his host for the first time and it sparked off another memory. From beneath his mantle, he produced the coins he had salvaged from the stream in the forest and showed them to Saewold.

“Do you recognise these, sir?” he asked.

“I do,” said the reeve confidently. “Those coins were made here in Bedwyn. And recently, too, to judge by their shine. Few hands have soiled these. But they are ours.”

“Can you be so certain?”

“I would know the work of our moneyer anywhere.” He pointed to the markings on the face of the coin. “See here, my lord. This indicates where it was made and this is Eadmer’s signature.”

“Where is your mint?”

“Close by the church. It backs on to the river.”

“And your moneyer? What name did you call him?”

“Eadmer. A curious fellow but skilful at his trade.”

“I would meet with this Eadmer soon.”

“My man will guide you to him.”

“No, Husband,” said Ediva with a natural poise which took all hint of impropriety from the offer. “I will conduct my lord to the place at his leisure.”

Ralph Delchard smiled. He could kill two birds with one stone. It was arranged as easily as that.

“Father,” she implored, “I ask this but as a favour to me.”

“It may not be granted, child.”

“Would you deny a heart-felt plea?”

“It falls on deaf ears.”

“They are in distress and suffer dreadful pain.”

“Let the abbey look to them,” said Wulfgeat. “It is more suited to the relief of sorrow than my house.”

“Will you not show pity to a poor widow and child?”

“I pity them, Leofgifu, but I will not take them in.”

Wulfgeat was poring over his account book when his daughter came to see him, and the fact of her interruption was made more annoying by its nature. Leofgifu wished to bring the widow and son of the late Alric Longdon into their home so that she could sustain them through their mourning. Wulfgeat resisted the idea strongly. He was not unkind and was capable of an astonishing generosity at times, but he drew the line at helping the relatives of an enemy.

He was forthright. “I hated Alric,” he said.

“That is no reason to hate his wife and child.”

“They are tarred with his ignominy.”

“What harm have they ever done to you?”

“None at all,” he confessed, “but there was no need. Alric caused enough harm for all three of them. The rogue cheated me out of fifty marks and threatened to take me to court over another matter he thrust upon me.”

“Why, then, did you do business with such a man?”

“His price was cheap and his sacks full of good flour. If this miller had stuck to his mill, I would have no quarrel, but he grew avaricious and wanted more than his due.”

“Hilda had no part in this.”

“She profited by his foul deception.”

“Where is the profit in a dead husband?”

Leofgifu spoke with unexpected vehemence. She had always been a dutiful daughter who bowed herself to her father’s will, but here was something which even she could not accept without protest. Her father-like so many in the town of Bedwyn-may have loathed and distrusted Alric, but she hoped that loathing would not pursue him beyond the grave. Wulfgeat’s own bereavement should have taught him the value of tenderness and concern, for it was what now bonded father and daughter. Within the last year, her father had lost his wife and Leofgifu had lost both mother and husband. In returning to live at home, she found a softness and a vulnerability about Wulfgeat that she had never known before, and it had drawn them ever closer.

Adversity had deepened their love and understanding. It hurt her, therefore, when he was unable to show that same love and understanding now.

“Have you so soon forgotten?” she pressed.

“Peace, child. You touch on my pain.”

“It is shared by a wife and child,” she argued. “They have no one else to turn to at this time. The abbey has opened its doors, but a community of monks can never offer the special solace that a family can which welcomes them into its bosom.” She put her hands on his table and leaned down at him. “Let me be more plain, sir. Hilda needs the company of a woman. I can be of use in her travail.”

“Then visit her at the abbey.”

“Invite her here.”

“I am the master of this house and I refuse.”

“Then I will no longer stay beside you.”

Wulfgeat was shocked. “Leofgifu!”

“I have been obedient in all else, Father, even when my heart counselled against it. But this time, I will not submit to your rule.” She straightened her back and lifted her chin to show her firmness of purpose. “Hilda and the boy beg for help. If you will not give it, I will find a way on my own.”

“You would leave your home?”

“If I find such cruelty here, I will.”

“Leofgifu …”

“My mind is set. They need our Christian charity.”

Wulfgeat was deeply troubled. He got up from his seat and came around the table to offer his arms, but she pulled away. His daughter’s intensity was so uncharacteristic that it took him unawares and he was unable to cope with it. He moved about the room and fingered his beard as he searched for a compromise which would content her yet leave his feelings in the matter quite unchanged. He came to a halt.

“We will give them money,” he suggested.

“They need love not alms.”

“But we will pay for their lodging, Leofgifu.”

“They have lodging enough,” she pointed out. “If that were all their need, they could stay at the abbey or return to the mill itself. It is not just a room that they require. It is a woman who comprehends their misery and who can make that room a place of comfort.”

They faced each other across a widening gap. Both feared the horror of separation, yet neither could find the way to prevent it. Wulfgeat made a last attempt at exerting his paternal authority.

“They will not come and you will not leave,” he said.

“I am not at your command.”

“A daughter must be subject to her father.”

“I am subject to no man,” she insisted, her eyes blazing. “When you gave me to my husband, you gave him the right that you now urge. I served him like a loving wife and grieve for him still. But I will not give allegiance to you or any man on earth.” She spun on her heel. “I will make arrangements to quit your house today.”

“Stay!” he appealed. “I need you here beside me.”

“Others have a stronger claim.”

“Hold there, Leofgifu!”

She had opened the door, but the anguish in his voice made her stop and turn. He looked as fierce and unyielding as ever, but there were tears in his eyes. Leofgifu met his gaze without flinching.

Throughout her life, she had asked so little of him that she felt entitled to make this one demand even if it tore them both apart. Imperceptibly, his coldness began to thaw.

“How long would they stay?” he murmured.

“As long as they find it necessary.”

“I would not wish to see them myself.”

“Nor will you,” she promised. “The house is large and they will need small space. I’ll keep them close by me. Your presence would distress them only the more.”

“I despised that man!”

“Do not punish them for his offence.”

Wulfgeat wandered around the room once more and punched a fist into the palm of the other hand. A man whose command had ruled his house for decades could not easily receive an order himself, but then he had never been challenged from such an unprecedented quarter.

“You may fetch them both here, Leofgifu.”

“Thank you, Father!” She ran to him to bestow a kiss.

“They are your responsibility,” he warned. “I will pay to feed them and house them, but you must supply all else.”

“Indeed I shall.”

“They may come here tomorrow.”

“Why delay?” she said, pressing home her triumph. “I will hurry to the abbey now and secure their release. They will be here within the hour.”

She flitted out of the room before he could stop her. Wulfgeat heaved a sigh. His own wife would never have stood up to him the way that his daughter had just done. He had to respect her for that. It was ironic. Wulfgeat was rightly feared by all in Bedwyn for his iron will and a fierce Saxon pride that would not even moderate itself in the presence of his Norman rulers. Few would dare to cross him in argument and fewer still live to boast that they had bested him. Yet he now lay completely routed and the person who had accomplished the feat was no fellow-burgess who could roar even louder than he. It was the mildest young woman in the town and the only thing in life that he still truly loved.

Brother Thaddeus did not spend all his time chained to one of the abbey ploughs or fetching in the harvest. His strong muscles were put to other service in Bedwyn Abbey. As he strolled into Savernake Forest that evening, it was this secondary employment that was on his mind. A brawny man of middle height, he had a big, shapeless, weather-beaten face that seemed at odds with the careful tonsure above it. As he stumped through the undergrowth on huge and undis-criminating feet, he sang snatches of the Mass to himself and looked about him. He reached a grove of birch trees but rejected them on sight. They had the soft downy twigs that were hopeless for his purpose. He snapped a branch off idly and cast it to the ground. It had too much mercy in it.

Other twigs cracked nearby and he paused to listen. He was being watched. By what or by whom, he did not know, but he sensed at once that he was under surveillance. Stopping as casually as he could, he picked up the fallen branch and pretended to examine it while trying to work out exactly where the sound had originated. When he was confident of direction, he tapped the branch gently against a tree, then turned without warning to fling it with venom at the watching creature. His aim was close enough. There was a scramble in the bushes and the sound of flight. Thaddeus pulled the sharp knife from his scrip and thundered after the noise, but all he managed to see was a flash of matted brown hair as it scuttled into oblivion.

Panting with his exertions, he stopped to recover his breath and to wonder what it was that he had seen. He recalled the dead body he had helped to carry in from the forest and guessed at some connection with this phantom animal. His lumbering pursuit brought one consolation. He was now standing beside another birch and one more fitted to his needs. Thaddeus grinned, the knife slashed, and he gathered up a handful of the harsh, rough twigs. He took a great swipe at the trunk itself and left it scarred with the power of his arm.

Brother Thaddeus was happy. When he got back to the abbey, he would be fully equipped to administer correction to any wrongdoers.

It was a pleasing way to serve God.

Gervase Bret still occasionally felt that lust for solitude which had drawn him to the monastic life in his youth, though not always from the same promptings. Time alone meant time to think of his beloved Alys back in Winchester and to rehearse the speech with which he would next greet her. He missed her more each time mat they were parted, but the king’s work had to be done and that meant constant travel away from the Treasury. Domesday Book was a prodigious un-dertaking and the commissioners who had visited the various circuits had been as rigorous in their researches as they could, but the very speed of their enquiry told against them, for their returns were full of minor errors, strange inconsistencies, deliberate lies, patent malpractices, and clear evidence of criminal behaviour. Gervase Bret and his colleagues would be months on the road before their work of detection and arrest was fully completed. Alys would have to pine for him in Winchester.

Time alone also meant time away from Ralph Delchard. The close-ness of their friendship became an aggravation whenever Ralph found a new woman to court and conquer. Apart from scandalising the faithful Gervase, it drew attention to the exigencies in his own romance and increased his sense of yearning. If he could do nothing to stop Ralph’s pursuit of Ediva, the wife of the town reeve, he would not encourage it by letting his friend talk interminably about his carnal ambitions.

On this issue, if on no other, they neither thought nor acted as one.

Gervase mixed seclusion with curiosity. Instead of walking aimlessly near the hunting lodge, he headed for the river and strolled along its bank towards the disputed land which had brought them down on Bedwyn. It was a most pleasant walk in the warm evening air and his eyes remained alert to take in every change and beauty of the landscape. His mind, however, shifted to other things. Bidding farewell to Alys, his thoughts turned back to the bizarre experience on Salisbury Plain when he had looked on Stonehenge for the first time. It affected his whole perception of himself and the world in which he lived and he was exercised by the notion, if not the certainty, that the circle of stones on the plain was the work of an intelligence and a faith that went back thousands of years to the dawn of time. He was still trying to divine its mysteries and to pluck some meaning from its fractured magnificence when he saw the mill.

He knew that it had belonged to Alric Longdon, because its wheel had been stopped. It was a low, squat, ramshackle construction, with the cottage leaning against it for support like a child clutching the skirts of its mother. Yet it was well situated to catch the best of the current and its wheel gained further advantage from a primitive sluice-gate which had been installed a little farther upstream. In times of drought, when the river level dropped, the gate could be partially closed to restrict the channel and quicken the surge. Alric Longdon was an astute miller who knew how to exploit nature to the full. His sluice-gate was the only one in Bedwyn because his rivals were deterred from following his example by the heavy cost of the enterprise.

Gervase Bret was mesmerised. What had made a lovely young woman like Hilda share her life with an unpopular man in the deafening roar of his mill? How had the ugly creature he had seen in the mortuary chapel met and married such a wife? What did they talk about in the isolation of their home? How did they pass their days and spend their nights? These and other questions crowded into his mind, to be expelled at once and replaced by a much more immediate query: Who was this?

For the mill was not as neglected and uninhabited as it appeared.

Someone was at the window. The figure disappeared from view, then emerged again from the door. He turned to slam it shut and lock it with a key, testing it to make sure that it was sound. The key vanished into the man’s scrip and his tonsured head vanished into his hood. With swift and sandalled feet, he hurried off in the direction of the abbey and was soon blending with the shadow of the trees.

Gervase watched it all with surprised interest. There was something about the man’s manner which suggested defeat and annoyance, as if he had entered the building in search of an object which he never found. While Gervase could only speculate on his purpose, he was certain of his identity. He had met this man before. Gervase was too far away to recognise the face but close enough to observe the stance and gait of the visitor. Those years spent in Eltham Abbey had taught him how to distinguish monk from monk even when they were hooded and bowed. Each man moved in a different way, knelt in a different way, and prayed in a different way. This tall and long-striding prelate declared himself as clearly as if he had yelled out his own name.

It was Prior Baldwin.