“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 monu-ment to the miller’s meanness of spirit. Ralph was glad to drift on by.
“How much farther, my lord?” asked the oarsman.
“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.