Edward Marston - The Wolves of Savernake

Brother Thaddeus might have been threshing corn. He took an uncomplicated joy in his handiwork and built up a steady rhythm with his searing strokes. The body beneath him was now inflamed with horror and streaked with blood. By shifting his feet and altering his angle, Thaddeus could spread his misery across a wider area. He was a careful ploughman who dug his furrows straight and deep.

Only when the whole of the torso was thoroughly flayed did the hideous ordeal come to an end.

“Enough,” said Abbot Serlo.

“Yes, Father Abbot,” said Thaddeus with muted dismay.

“You have discharged your duty well.” He stood up and walked across to the prostrate figure which was still heaving and twitching on the bench. “God bless you, my son.”

Brother Peter was too exhausted to reply, but he felt no bitterness at his punishment. If abbot or monk could have seen his face at that moment, they would have been amazed, because it was covered with a beatific smile. With aching slowness, Peter stretched his arms wide so that he resembled the enamel figure of Christ on his own crucifix.

An imaginary crown of thorns encircled his throbbing head. He was wounded beyond endurance and yet he was strangely content.

His sins had now been expiated.

Ralph Delchard knew the value of letting a romance find its own pace.

Hasty wooing could frighten a lady away and a protracted period of courtship could mean that desire waned long before its object was achieved. Wide experience of women had given him an intuition that rarely failed him and it was now encouraging him to believe that Ediva, wife of the town reeve, did not wish to waste too much time on the preliminaries. Her husband was away, she was alone, and Ralph was in the town of Bedwyn for only one week in his entire life. This combination of factors dictated a certain speed. Ralph was delighted with this state of affairs.

“What kind of man is this moneyer?” he asked.

“Meet him and judge, my lord,” she said.

“Your husband called him a curious fellow. In what way does this curiosity show itself?”

Ediva smiled. “I would not spoil the surprise.”

“This moneyer is a freak?” guessed Ralph. “He has two heads, three arms, and four legs? What monster awaits us?”

“Eadmer is no monster,” she promised. “Be patient.”

They were walking past the church on their way to the mint. She was wearing a russet gown and mantle in the style of a Norman lady and the white wimple set off the sculptured beauty of her features.

When Ralph Delchard first arrived in England, he had little time for Saxon women and Saxon ways, but twenty years had revised his opinion dramatically. His own wife had been from Coutances and was without compare in his memory, but the finer points of an English lady could now impress themselves very forcibly upon him.

Ediva was more than lovely. She was stately and subdued, a woman of quality and intelligence who knew when to speak and exactly what to say. He felt drawn to her more strongly by the second.

Ediva was a married woman who needed to maintain her respect-ability. To accompany a stranger through the town would have been unthinkable, but the presence of a female companion gave it the necessary decorum. Two of Ralph’s men marched in their wake to reinforce the sense of decency. Knowing their master of old, they realised what was actually afoot and their eyes glinted either side of their iron nasals. They were practised in their roles.

“This is the place,” said Ediva at length.

“Thank you, lady. Will you enter with me?”

“I will wait for you here, my lord.”

“But I would prefer your company within,” said Ralph as he raised a roguish eyebrow. “This curious fellow may scare me, and your protection would be gratefully received.”

She pondered. “Very well,” she consented.

The woman moved to follow her, but Ediva stopped her with a gesture. The first part of Ralph’s stratagem had worked. He had separated the two of them. The companion was now left alone with the two soldiers, and all three seemed happy with the potentialities of that situation. Even before he had reached the door and knocked, Ralph could hear the other woman laughing as his men began to joke with her.

A servant opened the door and conducted them within. They came to a smaller, stouter door that was studded with iron and clad with metal strips. Its lock would have done justice to a dungeon with a large key was needed to turn it from within when the servant pounded on the door. Ralph had sent word of his visit so that the moneyer would be there to receive him. The heavy door swung open on smooth hinges.

Ralph Delchard stared into an empty room.

“Where, in God’s name, is the fellow?”

“He stands before you, my lord.”

“Where?”

He looked down and stammered his apologies. Eadmer was curious indeed, a short, bent, wizened creature of fifty or more with a bearded face that sported a reddening nose and a pair of tiny, watchful eyes.

A mere six inches in height saved Eadmer from being regarded as a dwarf. He was used to his deficiencies and made light of them. When introductions had been made, he brought the newcomers into his mint and slammed the door. As well as turning the key in the lock, he pushed home two solid bolts, then hooked a chain tightly across the door. A battering ram would have been needed to gain admission.

Ralph was impressed. “You keep the mint secure.”

“I would lose my license else.”

“And your money, good sir.”

“Thieves lurk everywhere these days,” said Eadmer. “A man may not be too careful with his property or his coin.”

“I know it well.”

Ralph placed himself where he could take inventory of the room and its other security arrangements. It was long but narrow and the ceiling was designed more for a person of Eadmer’s stature than of his own. He had to bend his head beneath the low central beam as he looked around. All of the moneyer’s equipment was there. His bench was pitted by long use and his dies stood ready in their tray. Hammers and other tools hung from racks on the wall. Two braziers were smouldering quietly in a corner. Moulds and tongs stood close by. Boxes and sacks which were obviously full did not disclose their contents.

Two windows admitted light, but it was severely restricted by the thick iron bars that ran vertically down them. Ralph took a step closer to peer out and saw that the building hung over the river itself. Supported on wooden props, it stood fifteen feet above the waterline.

Eadmer had his own moat.

“I congratulate you,” said Ralph, then turned to the other door on the far side of the room. It was even more barricaded than the first.

“What lies behind there?”

Eadmer gave a hesitant grin. “Money!”

“You stand over the river like a mill,” observed his guest. “While they grind out flour, you produce coin.”

The moneyer let out an unexpected peal of laughter. It gave Ralph a moment to weigh their diminutive host. Gnarled and comical he might be, but Eadmer was a man of undoubted standing and wealth.

Moneyers worked by royal license and played a fundamental part in the whole structure of royal finance. Their dies were issued centrally in London and they were entitled to keep six silver pennies from every pound that they struck in their respective mints. An industrious man could thus, literally, make a lot of money and further augment it by lending it out at interest. To this end, the more successful moneyers in the larger cities were already developing close and mutually beneficial relationships with goldsmiths. Eadmer was a nugget in himself.

“You work here alone?” said Ralph.