‘It is good to meet someone who does!’ said Ralph.
‘You draw clear lines, my lord. You clarify who holds what where.
Once you have pronounced, nobody can lay false claims to my land any more. That is why I welcome this inquiry.’
‘Even if we find against you?’ probed Hubert.
‘That is out of the question.’
‘Why?’
‘I will show you, Canon Hubert.’
‘Why did you not show the first commissioners?’
‘Unhappily, I was not in a position to do so when they first visited the shire,’ said Hamelin easily. ‘I was visiting Normandy to deal with a problem concerning my estates there. My reeve spoke on my behalf before your predecessors but he lacked conviction, I am told. That is why I replaced him on my return and why I come before you in person this time. To eliminate even the slightest possibility of error.’
‘Do you fear we will make an error?’ probed Ralph.
‘The first commissioners did.’
‘How?’
‘By having insufficient evidence set before them.’
‘What new evidence do you have to add?’
‘First, peruse this,’ advised Hamelin, rising to give Ralph the charter which he held in his hand. ‘You will recognise the hand and seal of King William and note that I am granted fifteen hides in the Westbury Hundred. Much of the land which abuts mine is held directly by the King himself so I have one neighbour with whom I am on very friendly terms.’
Ralph skimmed through the charter then handed it to Gervase, who, having read it more carefully, passed it on to Canon Hubert.
When Gervase looked back at them, Hamelin, seated once more, was smiling complacently and Emma was looking earnestly at the commissioners.
‘Is any more proof than that required?’ she asked softly.
‘I fear that it is, my lady,’ said Gervase.
‘Why, Master Bret?’
‘Because the document is not as specific as it might be. Fifteen hides are indeed granted to your husband but it is not clear that they include the eight hides formerly given to Strang the Dane.’
‘It is clear to us.’
‘But not to Strang himself.’
‘What irks him most,’ said Ralph, taking over, ‘is that some of this land lies close to the Severn, down which his boats sail with cargoes of iron ore. Among other things, Strang has the right to mine ore in the Forest of Dean.’ His eyes flicked to Hamelin.
‘The loss of those hides in Westbury have caused him great inconvenience. He has to transport the ore a longer distance over land, adding to his costs.’
‘That is not my concern, my lord,’ said Hamelin.
‘But it is the consequence of your annexation of the land.’
‘It was not annexation. I merely took what is mine.’
‘Which, according to Strang, amounted to rather more than the twenty hides to which this document refers.’
‘That is palpably untrue,’ said Emma with feeling. ‘Go to Westbury yourselves and you will surely find as much.’
‘We would rather determine this matter here, my lady,’ said Hubert as he finished studying the charter. ‘We do not have unlimited time at our disposal and cannot ride around the county to measure hides and count the heads of those who work on them.’
‘Then tell us this,’ requested Hamelin. ‘Apart from Strang, has anyone else in Westbury raised objections against me?’
‘Querengar and Abraham the Priest.’
‘I discount them. Neither actually holds property in the hundred. Both merely claim to do so. Of those that do — the King excepted, of course — which have spoken against me? Go further afield, Canon Hubert. Name me anyone in the Berkeley or Bledisloe Hundreds who accuses me of seizing their land.’
Hubert gave a shrug. ‘I cannot, my lord.’
‘Does that not say something in my favour?’
‘It might indicate that people are too afraid to challenge you.’
‘Why should they be afraid of my husband?’ asked Emma with apparent surprise. ‘He is the most amenable of men. Talk to any of his sub-tenants and they will tell you the same.’
‘I’m sure that they will,’ commented Gervase quietly.
‘Let us go back to the charter,’ decreed Ralph, reclaiming it from Hubert. ‘Perhaps you can tell us the circumstances in which the King saw fit to grant you such valuable holdings, my lord.’
‘Certainly,’ said Hamelin of Lisieux.
And he delivered his speech with ringing confidence.
It took Elaf a little while to find his friend. When he finally did so, he was alarmed to see the expression of utter dejection on Kenelm’s face. The mettlesome boy who had led him on so many exploits was now hiding in the abbey garden, wrestling with his guilt and contemplating a bleak future in the Benedictine Order.
When Elaf touched him on the shoulder, Kenelm let out a gasp and jerked involuntarily away.
‘It’s only me,’ Elaf reassured him. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I wanted to be alone.’
‘Why?’
‘To do some thinking.’
‘About what happened to Brother Nicholas?’
‘What else, Elaf?’
‘It preys on my mind as well.’
‘It is gnawing its way through my brain,’ confessed Kenelm, turning to face him with hollow eyes. ‘There is no respite.
Whatever I am doing, it is there, nibbling away like a rat inside my skull.’
‘Brother Owl says that we must seek help through prayer.’
‘How can I pray when my mind torments me?’
‘I have managed to do so,’ argued Elaf, ‘and I was the one who actually touched Brother Nicholas that night. The very thought makes me shiver afresh but I am learning to banish the thought.’
‘That is because you have less to banish than me.’
‘Less?’
‘Yes,’ said Kenelm, his face ashen with dismay. ‘The shock of finding the dead body is all that you have to chill your heart. I have a deeper source of guilt, Elaf, one that will not be so easily forgotten.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I did something unpardonable.’
‘When?’
‘When we were sent into church by Brother Owl to pray for the safe return of Brother Nicholas. I didn’t only wish that he would never come back. I prayed,’ he admitted, chewing his lip, ‘I actually beseeched God to kill Brother Nicholas.’
Elaf was shaken. ‘Is this true?’
‘To my eternal shame, it is.’
‘Kenelm!’
‘Now do you see why I am in such despair? I prayed for his death, Elaf. I willed his murder.’
‘But you didn’t.’
‘I did. I’m responsible for it.’
‘How can that be? You had nothing to do with it.’
‘I feel that I did.’
‘No, Kenelm.’
‘And I can see no way to atone.’
‘There’s no need for atonement.’
‘Isn’t there?’ said the other vehemently. ‘When I’m an accomplice in his murder? I wished him dead and God answered my prayer. I feel as if I slit his throat with my own hands.’
‘That’s ridiculous!’
‘Not to me.’
‘Then you have learned nothing since you became a novice here,’
chided Elaf. ‘God is bountiful. He responds to pleas for help, guidance and forgiveness. God is the supreme giver of life. He would never take it away in an act of foul murder simply because someone prayed for that to happen. God is not so cruel, Kenelm.’
‘But I am.’
‘You do yourself a wrong here.’
‘That is my punishment.’
‘An undeserved punishment.’
‘I see it differently.’ He looked furtively around him. ‘This place oppresses me more and more each day. I will never be content within its walls while the ghost of Brother Nicholas stalks the abbey.’
‘What else can you do?’
‘Leave.’
‘That’s impossible.’
‘Is it? Don’t you remember what he told us, the man who came to question us with Canon Hubert?’
‘Gervase Bret?’
‘Yes,’ said Kenelm. ‘He was once a novice at Eltham Abbey but he left at the end of his novitiate. He decide that the Order was too strict a place in which to spend the rest of his life. He was very honest about it and I must be equally honest.’