“You called me just in time,” she concluded.
“Did we?” said the mother.
“She will live.”
“Thank God!”
Emma rummaged in her bag to bring out a handful of tiny stone bottles. She selected two and put the others away. She held up the smaller of the vessels.
“Give her two drops of this in a cup of water every four hours. Sit with her and bathe her as you have been doing. The fever should break by morning.” She displayed the other bottle. “This contains an ointment for her face. Apply it gently every six hours. It will take the sting from those red blotches and they will vanish within a few days.”
She held out the bottles, but husband and wife hesitated as if suspecting witchcraft. How could they trust Emma? The potions might indeed help to cure their ailing daughter, but they might equally turn her into a black cat or set her hair alight or kill her on the spot.
Emma of Crofton saw their dismay and moved to counter it.
“Give her the medicine,” she said, “or she will die.”
The mother made the decision and nodded vigorously. Her husband agreed and crossed to an earthenware pot, into which he thrust a hand. When Emma was given two silver coins, she gazed down in amazement at their sparkling newness. She had seen money like this before.
“It is ours to spend,” said the man defensively. “And there is no better way to use it than to save our child. It was a gift from heaven.
Someone left it outside our door.”
Gervase Bret was stung repeatedly by angry questions that buzzed around his brain like wasps whose nest has been disturbed. What creature had killed Alric Longdon? Where was the miller’s hoard?
Who had been his accomplice in producing counterfeit coinage? Why had Wulfgeat been attacked, as well? What hope had drawn him to the blasted yew and how had he persuaded a surly boy to take him there? Where was the charter which would link and explain all these strange happenings? In what way did Bedwyn Abbey fit into the scheme of things? Who stood most to gain from the turn of events?
Where was the real wolf of Savernake?
As he rode alone through the streets of Bedwyn, he shook his head to escape the assault, but the questions buzzed on in his mind. Relief would come only when he found the answers, and they lay at his destination. Wulfgeat’s house held all the secrets. The widow of the miller and the daughter of the burgess had been plunged into misery and could not even begin to see beyond it at this stage. But they had also inherited a dark truth about their respective menfolk and Gervase had somehow to identify the corruption that had bonded the two victims together. Cild was also living at the house with guilt too heavy for any boy to contain forever. Two grieving women and a boy of nine would be unwilling partners in his investigation. Gervase would have to tread stealthily.
He reached the house, dismounted, and knocked on the door. A servant admitted him, then took charge of his horse. Gervase was left alone in the room where he and Leofgifu had had such a long and soulful conversation. It seemed bleak and empty now. Wulfgeat had a personality that spread right through his home, but it had suddenly vanished. The house itself was in mourning for its master.
The door opened and Hilda took a step into the room.
“Leofgifu thanks you for your concern,” she said.
“I did not wish to disturb her,” apologised Gervase. “I simply came to see if there was anything at all that I could do to ease her suffering at this time.”
“I will tell her that.”
“She may contact me at the hunting lodge.”
“I will tell her that as well.”
“Thank you, Hilda.” He looked upwards. “How is she now?”
“Deeply upset.”
“They were cruel tidings.”
“You were with Leofgifu when she heard,” said the other. “She was grateful. You helped her.”
“I did what I could in her hour of need.”
“It mattered.”
Hilda was now hovering uncertainly and wanting him to leave. It was too much to expect that Leofgifu might receive him and confide in him about her father, but he had hoped for something positive from the visit. He tried a new gambit.
“Has Cild recovered yet?” he asked.
“Cild?”
“From his illness.”
“He is well enough,” she muttered.
“But he collapsed on the floor yesterday.”
“He had been out in foul weather.”
“A hardy young boy like Cild would not be troubled by wind or rain.
That lad could walk through a blizzard without fear. Yet he fainted before us. He went down on this floor as if he had been struck.” He moved closer to her. “Are you sure that your son has not been sick, Hilda?”
She was noncommittal. “He is well enough now.”
“Did he say where he had been?”
“To the mill.”
“Is that why he took the key?”
“Yes.”
“Without asking your permission?”
“Yes.”
“Did that make you angry?”
She took time to think it over. “Yes, it did.”
“Will you punish him?”
“I do not know.”
“What would your husband have done?”
Hilda winced. “He would have beaten Cild.”
“Why did the boy go to the mill?”
“He would not say.”
“Did you ask him?”
“He would not say,” she repeated helplessly.
Hilda was still trying to cope with her own distress and yet she was sharing the sorrow of another woman as well. The effort had drained her to the limit. It would be callous to press her any further and Gervase pulled back. She and Leofgifu were in no fit state to face his enquiries. He could best show his consideration by leaving them alone at this trying time. Mumbling a farewell, he moved to the door.
“Wait,” she said. “I have something for you.”
“For me?”
She crossed to place a strip of iron in his hand. Gervase looked down and his spirits revived at once. Hilda could not tell him anything, but her gesture was eloquent. He was now holding the key to Alric Longdon’s mill.
Gervase Bret went off like a hound that has finally picked up the trail. Reclaiming his horse at once, he mounted swiftly and cantered off to the hunting lodge to collect Ralph Delchard. They were soon riding side by side in the direction of the river. The mill looked grimmer and more derelict than ever now, its silent wheel still buf-feted by water but no longer able to grind out its rough music. The two friends tethered their horses and used the key to let themselves into the premises. Both coughed as they entered the musty atmosphere and they recoiled from the cheerless interior of the miller’s home. They split up to begin their search and went through every part of the building, but they found no more than Prior Baldwin or Wulfgeat had done. Alric had writing materials with his account books, but there was no royal charter. Nor were there any further caches of silver coins. The miller kept his valuables in Savernake Forest.
“Let us look outside,” said Gervase at length.
“For what?”
“Fresh air at least.”
Ralph coughed aloud. “I need that most of all.” He led the way to the door. “Just look at this pigsty, Gervase. Why ever did a respectable woman like Hilda share it with him?”
“She had no choice in the matter.”
They came out of the mill and inhaled lungfuls of air before locking the door behind them. Then they began to walk around the immediate vicinity. Gervase soon found exactly what he had expected. He smacked the wooden box with the flat of his hand.
“Here is it, Ralph. The adder’s home.”