Gervase Bret still felt it was consecrated ground.
“We are in a temple,” he said simply. “An ancient temple. But who built it, Ralph? And why?”
“That is not my question, Gervase. I ask only- how?”
“How?”
“These sarsens are sandstone,” said Ralph, pointing to the uprights. “They come from the Marlborough Downs some twenty miles north at least. What hands could lift such boulders? What beasts could drag them all the way here?”
“And that bluestone,” observed Gervase. “It varies in colour. I have seen nothing like it before.”
“They say there are mountains of that hue in Wales. And how far distant is that? It would take a week to bring back a bag of pebbles from that wilderness. To drag just one of these bluestones would take a lifetime.” He turned to look up at the six figures on the distant ridge and picked out the one on the donkey. “Canon Hubert may be right.
The Devil may have been the stonemason here.”
“No,” said his friend. “I feel a power here, but it is not unfriendly.
It carries a blessing.”
“Then let it wish us God-speed!” Ralph’s mood changed abruptly.
“There is no more time to linger. We must collect the others and ride north towards Bedwyn. They expect us.”
Expectation did not put a smile on the face of the town. Rather did it spread doubt, suspicion, and quiet panic. The commissioners had already visited Bedwyn once and subjected it to such a rigorous examination that its citizens felt they were facing the Last Judgement itself. Here, as throughout the whole realm, the investigation which had been decreed by King William probed so remorselessly into what everyone owned, for how long they had owned it, and from whom they had first acquired it, that it took on the character of the final reckoning. The Conqueror himself might call it a description of all England, but the name which was muttered with cold irony in the shires was the Domesday Book.
Bedwyn was a prosperous community with well over seven hundred inhabitants living in or close to the town. Its verdant meadow was strung along the water-fed valley floor and its crops usually flourished even in periods of drought. Trades thrived and commerce was developing. Situated close to the northern border of the old kingdom of Wessex, it had been sufficiently important in Saxon times to be chosen as the site for a royal mint. Savernake Forest enveloped it on three sides, but that brought advantage as well as setback. Bedwyn was an attractive town in which to live until the dark shadow of the Domesday Book fell across it.
“When will they arrive?”
“This evening, Father Abbot.”
“How long will they stay?”
“Until they have concluded their business.”
“What is its nature?”
“We do not know.”
“Why did they choose Bedwyn?”
“We can but guess, Father Abbot.”
“Where else have they visited?”
“This town is the sole object of their journey.”
Abbot Serlo sighed. He did not like this disturbing news. A man who heard angels sing whenever he knelt to pray did not want the sound of discord in his ears. Advanced in years and destined for sainthood, Abbot Serlo and his life of piety would so soon be recorded in the celestial ledger and they needed no overzealous clerk to set them down once more in its earthly counterpart. Serlo was a big man of generous proportions with an unforced holiness. He had a kind, round face and a high forehead, but his most arresting feature was a pair of eyes that seemed to start out of their sockets like two eggs about to leave matching ovipositors. Whatever he had seen on the road to his personal Damascus, it had clearly made a deep and lasting impression.
“Prior Baldwin …”
“Yes, Father Abbot?”
“I have need of your help.”
“It is always at your disposal.”
“Meet with the commissioners.”
“I will know their purpose as soon as I may.”
“Inform them that I have important duties here in the abbey and not much time left in which to fulfil them. I hope to survive for another year- Deo volente- and there is much that will be left unattempted.”
“You have been a beacon to us all, Father Abbot.”
“I think that I have done my duty.”
“It has been a mission, accomplished with Christian love and dedication. Bedwyn Abbey will forever be in your debt. Such service can never be repaid in human coinage. Your reward awaits you in heaven.”
Prior Baldwin bowed gently. A tall, spare, ascetic man, he was ten years younger than Abbot Serlo and several stone lighter. Both of them had been plucked from the Abbey of Caen at the express wish of the Conqueror. The Battle of Hastings had not just replaced a Saxon king with a Duke of Normandy. It had given England a new nobility and a new church. In 1066, there had been thirty-five independent Benedictine houses in the country, all with Saxon abbots and Saxon monks. William steadily supplanted the higher reaches of the monastic and the secular clergy with Norman prelates. Abbot Serlo was amongst the first to be translated to his new ministry because his predecessor, Abbot Godric, always an impulsive man, had rashly answered King Harold’s call to arms and been cut down at Hastings in the first charge.
Serlo was a wise choice for Bedwyn Abbey. His high learning and his administrative skills soon won the respect of his house. He not only rebuilt the abbey church, he kindled a new spirit of devotion among his obedientiaries. Other foundations were less fortunate in their new abbots. Turold from Fecamp was a combative soldier of God who subjected the monks at Malmesbury, then at Peterborough, to a regime of military harshness. Abbot Thurstan of Glastonbury had been a contemporary of Serlo at Caen, but he brought nothing like the same moral probity to bear on his actions. So cruelly and tyrannically did Thurstan treat his poor monks that he provoked a scandal. The community over which Serlo presided could make no such complaint.
Their abbot was universally honoured and loved.
“I have had my victories, modest though they be,” said Abbot Serlo,
“but I know my limitations. My work is God’s work. I would be spared interruption.”
“And so you shall, Father Abbot.”
“You know how to be politic, Prior Baldwin. Tell them what has to be told. Show them what has to be shown.”
“I will represent you in this matter.”
“My faith in you is unquestioning.”
“You flatter my poor abilities.”
“I have appreciated them these thirty years,” said Abbot Serlo, leaning forward to turn the full beam of his protruding eyes upon the prior.
“Give them only what they ask. Send them quickly on their way. We want no more taxes to cripple our house and its good offices.”
Prior Baldwin bowed again and turned to leave the abbot’s lodging.
The audience was over and he had been given the instructions he sought. His shrewd and agile mind had dealt with the first commissioners. A second visitation posed no problems for someone so well versed in his duties and so well informed about every aspect of the monastic income. He remembered a last question and turned once more to face the startling blue eyes, but the words never even formed in his mouth. Before he could even begin to raise the matter of the cellarer’s accounts, there was a thunderous knocking on the door and it was flung wide open without invitation. A young novice came hurtling into the room and slid to a halt before his abbot. The boy’s anxious face was positively glistening with sweat and his breathing was laboured. Evidently, he had run very far and very fast and his bare ankles were spattered with mud.