Edward Marston - The Wolves of Savernake

“That wound needs dressing, lady. Let us go inside….”

While a meeting was taking place between an outcast Saxon woman and a Norman lord, an even more unlikely encounter occurred at Wulfgeat’s house. He consented to meet and talk to Hilda, widow of the deceased miller and thus his natural enemy. Her grief was quite disarming. As soon as he walked into the little room, he realised that she posed no threat and harboured no hostility. Hilda was curled up into a ball of misery in the corner, clutching her stepson for support and trying to make sense of what had happened to them both. She was so pathetically grateful to him for extending the hospitality of his home that he felt embarrassed he had not been courteous enough to welcome her before.

Leofgifu was with him and her gentle presence was a balm to the guests. Where her father might have disturbed Hilda with the urgency of his questions, Leofgifu was a model of patience and tact. She took time to get the woman talking before she let Wulfgeat join the conversation. When she had married the miller, Hilda had indeed been beautiful, but her charms had been buried along with her husband.

Her face was now so white, pinched, and fraught that she looked fifteen years older. Wulfgeat’s compassion rose, but he found it dry up when he turned to the boy, only nine but the image of his father. Cild was a hardy child whose young muscles were already used to work and strain. He not only had Alric’s pallor and bovine ugliness, but there was the same sullen stare in the eyes. Cild could already nurse resentment with the slow intensity of an adult.

When Hilda was guided around to the subject of the abbey land, Wulfgeat took over the questioning.

“Your husband wrote to Winchester, you say?”

“That is what he told me, sir.”

“He had a charter?”

“That is what he told me, sir.”

“Where did he get this charter?”

“From my father, sir. In Queenhill.”

“That lies in Worcestershire,” explained Leofgifu.

“Yes, close to London,” said Wulfgeat. “I knew that Alric had to travel far to find himself a new wife.” He was about to add that no woman in the locality would have cared to look upon the miller as a suitor, but he suppressed the comment out of consideration and turned back to the widow. “This charter of which you speak. Did you see it with your own eyes?” Hilda nodded. “What did it contain?”

The woman look bewildered and appealed to Leofgifu with a gesture.

Wulfgeat needed no translation. Hilda had seen the document, but that was all. She could not read. He picked his way more carefully through her half-remembered story. Alric had gone to Queenhill, talked at length with her father, then wooed and won her. Money and charter had been exchanged between the men, but all detail was kept from her. It was plain that her heart would not have chosen Alric as a husband, but she was obedient to her father. A simple girl saw life in simple terms.

“I loved my father. I respected his choice.”

Leofgifu shot Wulfgeat a rueful glance that made him sigh with regret. He concentrated on their visitor.

“Where is that charter now?”

“I do not know, sir.”

“Is it at the mill?”

“I do not know, sir.”

“Where did your husband keep his valuables?”

“We had none, sir.”

“His money, his accounts. Where are they locked?”

“I do not know, sir.”

Wulfgeat lowered his voice to a persuasive whisper.

“That document could help you,” he explained. “It may not bring your husband back, but it may offer compensation of another kind.

Commissioners are in the town. They need to see that charter. Help to find it and we may all benefit.” He managed a smile. “Now, Hilda-

where is it?”

“I do not know, sir.”

“You must have some idea.”

“I do not know, sir.”

“She is telling the truth, Father,” said Leofgifu. “She has been kept in ignorance of the affairs of men. Duty to her husband was all she knew. Do not press her.”

Wulfgeat nodded his disappointment. The significance of the charter was clear. Royal commissioners would not travel to Bedwyn unless they had good cause. Alric Longdon must somehow have convinced them that some gross abuse of rights had taken place, but only the charter could support him in his argument. It might still be at the mill, but Wulfgeat doubted it. Alric Longdon was known for being secretive. He would have hidden such an important article in a place where no one else could find it.

Leofgifu touched his shoulder to indicate that they should withdraw. Hilda was plainly tired and needed all the recuperation that sleep could bring. Wulfgeat made to leave. He thanked the woman for her help, then flicked a glance at the boy. Cild was watching him intently. It was eerie. Wulfgeat found himself looking straight into the eyes of Alric Longdon once again. There was bitterness and envy and hatred in the boy’s gaze, but there was something else as well. It was a sense of quiet triumph. His father’s death had snatched everything away from him except one last precious possession. It gave him a power that he never looked to have and it might be used to hurt.

Cild knew where the charter was.

Night enticed new sounds from Savernake Forest. Owls hooted from their perches, badgers snuffled in their dingles, and strutting wildcats screeched their furious messages at the moon. Deep in thick woodland, a rutting stag mounted its doe with noisy love-play. Other creatures came out to hear and swell the nocturnal discord. The whole forest was an echo chamber. Two pairs of heavy feet added to the mild uproar of the night as they scrunched over grass and twig and bracken. The verderers were returning to Bedwyn from their patrol on the northern margin. Poachers had been their quarry, but they had also searched yet again for the mystery wolf. Daylight and long staves made them brave enough to take on any beast that walked, but darkness ambushed their courage and left them fearful. When an anonymous yowl rose high above the cacophony, they lengthened their stride and quickened their pace. Savernake was no place in which to be caught at night. Other beings ruled its rough domain.

They came over a hill and saw light in the distant town to revive their spirit. If they skirted the wood and cut down towards the river, they would be home and safe in less than half an hour. It made them jocular and they discovered tongues that had been lost in the heart of the forest. Oak and elm rose up on their right with a reassuring solidity to provide a defensive wall against any dangers that might lurk in the undergrowth. Good ale and good wives awaited them in Bedwyn. A long day’s work would end in restful ease.

“Stay!”

“Why?”

“Listen!”

It was the bigger of the two men who heard it first and who made his companion halt. The latter grew impatient.

“I hear nothing.”

“Listen!”

“Let us get on.”

The bigger man hissed him into silence and pulled him close.

They peered into the darkness of the trees, then ventured in a few yards. Both had their ears pricked and their staves at the ready, but they detected nothing untoward until they were about to move on once more. Then the voices of the night fell silent for a moment and a different sound came through, a long, loud, slow dragging noise, accompanied by a grunt of pain. Was it a wild boar dragging its prey? A wounded fox pulling itself along? Some larger beast lumbering blindly across the ground?

Stifling the urge to run, they communicated with a glance and knew their duty. With a concerted yell, they used their staves to thresh the undergrowth as they stumbled towards the sound. The grunt became a strange, high-pitched cry and the bushes ahead of them shook violently. All they could see in the moonlight was a sight so weird and unexpected that they refused to believe it.