“Brother Luke!” scolded the prior.
“I beg … apology,” gulped the novice.
“This is most unseemly conduct.”
“It must have a reason,” said Abbot Serlo indulgently. “Do not rush, my son. Catch your breath and tell me what that reason is when you are able to recall it.”
The novice wrestled with his exhaustion and put enough air into his lungs to gabble out his news.
“Alric Longdon has been found in the forest. They are bringing him back now.”
Serlo was alarmed. “Is the miller injured?”
“How stands it, Brother Luke?” asked the prior eagerly.
The boy burst into tears at the misery of his tale.
“Alric Longdon is dead. He was killed by a wolf.”
They arrived in Bedwyn as the sky was beginning to darken. The long ride had been tiring, but it offered beauties of nature at every stage. They ascended the pleasant river valley of the Avon until they reached the small town of Pewsey, where they broke for refreshment. Climbing up onto a plateau that was marked by chalk hills which rose to a height of a thousand feet, they proceeded on their way until they came down into another fertile river valley. Villagers along the route were not pleased to see them. The sight of Norman soldiers always produced hatred and resentment. After twenty years of rule, King William and his men were still regarded by native Saxons as usurping foreigners.
There was another reason why the embassy was despised.
“God has punished them hard already,” explained Gervase Bret in tones of sympathy. “They are afraid that we have come to tax them even more.”
“We have,” said Ralph Delchard crisply.
“Last year, the harvest was ruined. This year, there have been famine and starvation. Wiltshire has not fared as badly as some shires, but mere are still many empty bellies here.” Gervase glanced over his shoulder at the portly Canon Hubert and lowered his voice. “A well-fed Norman prelate with soldiers at his back will not win friends among the hungry.”
“Hubert will not win friends anywhere!” said Ralph with a hearty laugh, then he leaned across to clap his friend on the back. “You talk like a Saxon. Remember your station and how you came to reach it, Gervase. If you are paid to crack the whip, do not feel sorry for the horse. His pain is not yours. Serve the king and earn his money honestly.”
“Why, so I do, Ralph.”
None of the Chancery clerks was more diligent in his work than Gervase Bret, but there were times when he was forcibly reminded of the fact that he was not a true-born Norman. His father had been a Breton mercenary who came to England to fight for King Edward against the Danes. His mother had been a Saxon girl from a village near London.
When the future of England was at stake, the mercenary put money before natural inclination and chose to serve in the invading army. He fought well at Hastings but was so badly wounded that he died soon after. Brought up by his mother but cherishing the memory of his father, Gervase thus had complex loyalties and they caused him many pangs of regret. Norman scholars had educated and elevated him, but he still shared a fellow-feeling for Saxons under the yoke.
“So this is Bedwyn!” said Ralph as they entered the town and searched for their lodging. “A goodly place.”
“The Lord be thanked!” said Canon Hubert, sighing. “We would have been here an hour ago if you had not taken us to that hellish pile of stones.”
“Know your enemy, Canon,” said Ralph jovially. “If that was the Devil back there on Salisbury Plain, stout Christians should have the courage to stare him in the face.”
“Do not mock the Church,” warned the other.
“Then do not invite mockery.”
They were into the main street now, a short but broad thorough-fare that climbed up the hill towards Savernake Forest. Rows of low, shapeless, half-timbered houses ran down either side of them, with glimpses of more dwellings, some of them mere hovels, in the occasional side-street. The cobbles were strewn with filth and the country smells were just as pungent here. Accommodation for the party had been prepared at the hunting lodge that was used by the king and his entourage, but Canon Hubert refused to stay under its roof.
He insisted on being taken to the abbey so that his reverend bones could lie on a more suitable and sacred bed. Abbot and monks had already retired for the night, but the Hospitaller was there to receive both Canon Hubert and Brother Simon and to conduct them to their quarters.
Having bestowed their cargo within the enclave, the others were free to leave, but Ralph Delchard first took the opportunity to chat with the porter at the gate. Such men saw everyone who came and went and knew all the gossip of the establishment. The death of the miller was the main item of news and the porter talked freely about it. He described how the man’s wife had raised the alarm when he failed to return at nightfall and how a search party had gone out at daybreak to comb the forest. It took hours to find the corpse in its watery grave. A novice from the abbey had first seen it. When he had summoned his fellows, he used his young legs to bring the sad tidings back to the abbot.
Ralph listened to it all with growing curiosity, but Gervase seemed not to be engaged by the story. As soon as the two of them left the gatehouse, however, the latter showed that he had heard every word and noted a significance that had escaped his colleague.
“Did you catch his name?” asked Gervase.
“Brother Porter?”
“The miller who was savaged by the wolf.”
“Why, yes,” said Ralph. “It was Alric Longdon.”
“Does that name not sound familiar to you?”
“No.”
“Think again.”
Ralph bridled slightly. “I do not consort with millers.”
“We should both have consorted with his one.”
“What say you?”
“Alric Longdon is the man who has drawn us to Bedwyn. He wrote letters to Winchester and made protest against the earlier survey.
This miller was a testy lawyer with claims that will cause a flutter in both abbey and town.”
“Longdon was a principal witness?”
“Witness and informer. His death is very convenient.”
Ralph considered the matter, then reached a decision.
“Even dead men can talk if you know how to listen,” he said. “We will converse with this miller tomorrow.”
Chapter Two
It was now over five and a half centuries since Benedict had founded the first of his monasteries in his native Italy and set down its rules in his own fair hand. His memory burned bright within Abbot Serlo, who saw to it that his own abbey lived a life of prayer, hard work, self-discipline, and good deeds, as enjoined by the father of their order. He liked to believe that St. Benedict-deigning to visit one of the houses that bore his name-would not be disappointed by what he saw in the community at Bedwyn. Abbot Serlo scoffed at those who argued that rules which were devised for the monks of Monte Cassino in the sixth century were based on assumptions of a warmer climate than existed in more northerly latitudes. He saw no reason to soften or adapt the strictness of the daily routine. Living together in this way, he was convinced, produced a more spiritual being than any which could emerge from the secular clergy. An abbey embodied the very perfection of Christian worship.
Nor was he excused by virtue of his eminence from the round of ceaseless self-denial and prayer. When the bell rang at two in the morning for Matins, he rose from his slumbers and went down to the church to join the shuffling obedientiaries. He remained in his place until Lauds and Prime had come and gone, then he watched the monks file out for a period of reading or meditation in the cloisters.