The scent was lost and the trail went cold. Whatever they had been chasing in Savernake Forest had vanished into thin air. They were deeply annoyed and highly frustrated, but the news which they bore back to their master could sound at least one positive note: The animal had finally been seen.
The mysterious killer still lurked in the forest.
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.”