But even the concerted efforts of four people could not dissuade her from her intent. Fired by a duty that grew out of a sense of guilt, Leofgifu stood her ground. They had no power to prevent her from seeing the body. Her voice became shrill as she reaffirmed her demands.
Monastic authority interceded in the dispute.
“What means this unseemly noise?” asked Prior Baldwin as he swooped down on them. “Peace, peace, good lady!”
Leofgifu was finally subdued. The sight of the prior and the sacristan had a calming effect on her and their words added further balm.
Ralph had no respect for monks, but he had to admire the practised way in which both Baldwin and Peter offered their condolences to the bereaved daughter. They were professionals in the service of death.
They knew exactly what to say and exactly how to say it. All of Leofgifu’s truculence disappeared and they talked her out of her purpose before she even had chance to state what it was.
Prior Baldwin’s tone had a distant condescension in it, but Brother Peter’s voice was soft and sincere. When he looked at Leofgifu, there was a world of sadness in his expression. He spoke as a monk, but she heard him as a friend. She could only respect Baldwin. It was Peter who inspired trust and who offered her real support. He told her that she was to call on him at any time if she needed spiritual sustenance or practical help of any kind, and she knew that it was no idle invitation. During her brief stay at the abbey, Hilda had been greatly buoyed up by the gentle assistance of the sacristan. Now it was Leofgifu who felt his natural generosity reaching out to her.
Something in his manner both rallied her and confused her, lifting her up from total despair and yet adding a new bewilderment to her situation. Leofgifu wanted his help but was somehow unable to grasp at it. Prior Baldwin tried to ease her on her way, but Peter detained her with further promises and advice. It was to the latter that she addressed her final question.
“Was he killed by a wolf?”
“We believe so.”
“May I see him?”
A kind pause. “We think not, Leofgifu.”
There was a sharp intake of breath, as if she was in great pain for a second, then she nodded her agreement. Prior Baldwin offered her accommodation at the abbey, but Leofgifu had no reason to be there any longer. Her mind had been slightly eased. Her father was forever beyond her now. Supported by Hilda, she turned towards the gate and went through it. Ralph Delchard collected his horse, then followed with Gervase Bret in order to lend assistance if needed, but Hilda was in control now. Having been helped through her own ordeal by Leofgifu, she could now return that loving kindness.
The men dropped back a little so that they could converse without being overheard by the two women ahead of them.
“What did you learn?” asked Gervase.
“He was killed on the same spot as Alric.”
“By a wolf?”
“By an animal of some kind.”
“What was Wulfgeat doing in such a place?”
“There is only one explanation,” decided Ralph. “He knew about the hiding place in the yew tree. Wulfgeat was Alric’s accomplice.”
“But they hated each other.”
“A mask to their true relationship.”
“No, Ralph,” said the other. “I talked with the miller’s widow and I could see that the hatred was genuine on both sides. Those men would not have worked together no matter what rewards were offered.
Look for some other reason that puts them both in the same part of Savernake when they died.”
“There is no other reason.”
“There must be.”
They walked in silence for a while and saw Hilda’s arm tighten around Leofgifu’s shoulders as the first tears of remorse began to flow. Ralph still felt that there was some collusion between miller and burgess, but Gervase pursued a different line of thought.
“Why did Wulfgeat visit that spot?” he resumed.
“To search for the chest.”
“If he had been Alric’s accomplice, he would have known that the chest was not there. All that the yew tree holds is a block of wood in a sack. Why go after that?”
“Why indeed?” conceded Ralph.
“Someone took him there.”
“Wulfgeat?”
“Someone showed him the way and led him to his death. He would not have gone to such a place unless he had expected to find something to his advantage-the money or the charter. That was the lure to get him there.”
“But who set it, Gervase?”
“I do not know as yet. Let us remember the moneyer.”
“Eadmer, the dwarf?”
“You thought you had spied a way into his mint.”
“Yes,” said Ralph sadly. “Until we rowed beneath his building and looked up into the throne where Eadmer sits. I guessed at a weak link in the chain of his defences, but I was wrong. The moneyer has too small a bottom for my device. No man would ever be able to crawl through that hole and up into the mint. His shoulders would be too wide.”
“No man, you say?”
“It is quite impossible.”
Gervase turned to face him with a quizzical smile.
“What about a boy?”
Cild lay curled up on the mattress in the tiny room he shared with his mother. He was still in a state of shock and his young mind was trying to make sense of what he had seen and what it all meant. His had been a harsh life so far and it had lacked all the pleasures of childhood, but there had been compensatory joys. In spite of a strict and punitive upbringing, he had loved his father deeply and relished those moments when he was taken into the latter’s confidence so that he could help to outwit rivals and enemies. Alric sowed corruption in his son at an early age to ensure that he had an ally in the ceaseless battle against an uncaring world. Women never understood the nature of such conflicts. Cild’s mother and his stepmother had, therefore, been kept ignorant of what their menfolk did outside the mill. It had bonded father and son together and it was that bond which now came to the boy’s aid. He reconstructed the progress of events once more in his fevered brain.
Wulfgeat had not been killed. When Cild looked down upon the prostrate body, he had seen his own father. It was Alric who was the victim of the wolf and his cruel and unnecessary death had ruined the futures of his son and of his second wife, putting an unbridge-able gap between them. Anger displaced fear as he reflected on the situation. Shock gave way to cold rancour. Wulfgeat had loathed his father and gloried in his downfall. He and his servant had broken into the mill to search it without permission. His only interest in Alric Longdon lay in finding the miller’s chest so that he could use the charter it contained for his own personal gain. Wulfgeat was no caring friend who took pity on the widow and her stepson. He was a greedy and selfish man who tried to exploit the death of his arch-enemy. Sympathy was wasted on such a person. He deserved to perish in the most violent way. One death answered another.
Cild had set his trap, but the burgess had met a deadlier foe than the snake in the flour sack. The boy should be grateful. He himself had survived and was free from all suspicion. The murder he had plotted did not, in fact, take place. Fate had contrived better than he himself. His father had indeed been avenged and Cild was now lying in the house of the man who had tormented him. That only served to complete the sense of triumph. Instead of being huddled into a frightened ball, he should be full of exultation. Cild had conquered Wulfgeat and taken possession of his home. The son of a mere miller had outfoxed one of the leading burgesses in the town of Bedwyn. It was a signal victory.
The boy slowly uncurled and let his arms and legs stretch right out with growing freedom. Then he began to laugh. It was not the normal happy chuckle of a boy of nine but the weird, uncanny, unsettling, high-pitched cackle of some demented creature of the forest. He was possessed. Caught up in the wildness of his cachinnation, Cild began to twitch and writhe about on the mattress like a poisonous snake that has just been liberated from its irksome prison inside a sack.