“Ask Brother Luke.”
“The novice?”
“The precentor. He would have told you.”
“But he has been dead these forty years or more.”
“He saw my mettle and urged my appointment.” The old man crooked a finger to beckon him closer. “I was born near Burbage and given the name of Brungar. That is no fit title for a Benedictine monk. Brother Brungar murders the mouth, so I took the name of John.” He smiled wistfully at the memory. “My father was a sokeman with many rights.
I was brought up on the land. I am withered now, but I was a lusty fellow then and chosen by the precentor because of that.”
“Chosen, Brother John?”
“You talked of abbey lands.”
“You worked a plough upon them?”
“No, young sir,” replied the other. “I am no Brother Thaddeus who beats the oxen to drive them forward. My furrows went through the purses of our tenants. I was the rent-collector for this abbey.”
Gervase seized on this stroke of luck and plied him with many questions. The rent-collector for the abbey visited every patch of land that housed a subtenant. He knew the size of every holding and could put an accurate figure on its value. Boundaries had changed repeatedly, but Brother John had taken it all in his stride. Six reigns accustom a man to violent alteration. He was philosophical in his reminiscences.
“Who paid the rent for those two hides?” said Gervase.
“It was not owned by the abbey.”
“Can you be certain, Brother John?”
“As certain as I am about anything,” returned the other with mild offence. “I collected rents for almost forty years on abbey lands. Those two hides were held directly from the king by Heregod.”
“Heregod?”
“The father of Alric the Miller.”
“Directly from the king?”
“For services rendered.” The monk shook his head. “I know not what they were, but King Edward showed his gratitude and Heregod held that land. He used it to grow his own corn for the mill. And I will tell you something else.” Gervase was again motioned closer. “It was not two hides but four. King Edward was a man of generous temper.”
“How did they abbey secure the holdings?”
Brother John paused. Happy to wander through his past with his rent-collector’s bag slung round his shoulder, he was now more cautious. The abbey had been his life and he did not wish to show disloyalty. The blue-veined skull was wrinkled with doubt and hesitation. He had said enough. Gervase tried to prompt him over the last important details.
“I will not ask you more,” he said, “but let me put a case to you. That land was held by Alric’s father thirty years ago. The abbey now takes rent from it and disputes that income with Hugh de Brionne. How did this come about? I hazard a guess. Say nothing, Brother John, for I would not put you in that position. Simply hear me out.…”
Gervase spoke quietly and concisely, piecing together all the evidence he had so far gathered, then adding what his keen intelligence told him. The old monk did not need to say a word. His rheumy eyes began to run so freely that his visitor was given all the confirma-tion he needed. He thanked Brother John for his help and stood up to take his leave.
“You should have stayed in Eltham Abbey,” said John. “The order always has need of a sharp brain.”
“I was called elsewhere.”
“That was Eltham’s loss.”
“Good-bye, Brother John.…”
“Give my regards to Brother Luke.”
“The novice?”
“The precentor.…”
Wulfgeat reasoned long and hard with Hilda, but he could not get her to understand the importance of it all. She was still too dazed by the heady passage of events. A week ago, she had been the dutiful wife of a miller and had hopes of bearing his child before another summer came around. Now she was bereft of everything and saddled with a stepson for whom she had learned to care but whom she could never truly love. When Hilda was still reeling from the shock of her husband’s death, Prior Baldwin had come to offer her solace and walked away with the key to the mill. Now Wulfgeat was asking her to prise the whereabouts of the charter from her stepson, but she refused to believe that the boy knew anything, and he himself denied it flatly. Failing with this first, rushed approach, Wulfgeat was now soliciting permission to visit her home to look around for himself.
Hilda was frightened and bemused.
“What must I do, Leofgifu?’ she asked.
“Nothing you do not wish.”
“Your father presses me too hard.”
“I will speak to him to let you both alone.”
“Yet this is his house,” said Hilda. “He has rights.”
“I brought you here and I will tend your needs. Tell me what they are and I will guard you against all anxiety.”
“You have been very kind.”
“I know what it is to lose a husband.”
“And to marry one who has not touched your heart?”
Leofgifu bit her lip. “That, too, Hilda.…”
“Could I hear the story?” Her friend looked around guiltily. “Cild is not here. I let him out to walk. He is a fretful boy penned up in one room. He will come to no harm.”
“You trust him, then?”
“I have to trust Cild. He is all I have.” She took Leofgifu by both hands and held them tightly. “Tell me about your husband. Show me that I am not the only one….”
When persuasion failed, it was time to resort to more desperate action.
Wulfgeat was an honourable man with a law-abiding attitude, but the pressure of circumstance can turn a saint to sin and misdemeanour.
Since he could get no key to the mill, he resolved to enter it by other means and took a trusted servant with him along the river. They were grateful that the mill stood in such a secluded spot. Nobody could see them about their stealthy work.
“Shall I break down the door?” asked the servant.
“Find some other way if you can.”
“This lock will be hard to force.”
“Try a window or the roof.”
“Leave it to me, sir.”
The servant was young and nimble. He went quickly round mill and house to look for modes of entry. The one he chose was at the very top of the building, a small window that was slightly ajar but too far from the ground to invite the interest of a passing thief.
“How will you reach it?” asked Wulfgeat.
“I think I have a way.”
“You’ll sprout a pair of wings?”
“I’ll use the miller’s wheel.”
It was a tricky ascent. The huge slats of the wheel were soft with age and slippery with years of accumulated slime, but the servant got a firm grip and pulled himself slowly up towards his target. It took him several minutes before he balanced on top of the wheel and reached for the sill of the window. Hauling himself up, he nudged the window fully open, then slithered straight inside. Wulfgeat rushed to the back door to be let in as it was unbolted.
They were thorough. Wulfgeat did not expect to find the charter, but he hoped the mill might have some clues as to its whereabouts.
The place was cramped and airless and he was retching as soon as he went through the door. The musty atmosphere in which the miller lived attacked their lungs and they held hands to their mouths until they had got used to it. Room by little room, they searched diligently for any letters or maps or written evidence. None could be found and it drove them on to a more frantic search, but it was still to no avail.
An hour later, they gave up.
Wulfgeat left the mill and waited while the servant locked the door from within and then climbed upstairs to the window to leave by the same route as he had entered. There was no charter inside the mill and not even the slightest hint that such document existed. Wulfgeat was beginning to feel ashamed. They had rifled a dead man’s house.
He could justify his behaviour to himself only by remembering the great significance of the charter. It would cause enormous upset to the abbey and to a Norman lord, and it would bring untold benefit to the distressed widow. On behalf of all Saxons who had been dispossessed of land, himself among them, Wulfgeat had to track it down.