Edward Marston - The Wolves of Savernake

Canon Hubert blamed Gervase and tried to lecture him on legal procedure. Ralph defended his friend and cursed all clergy. Even the laconic Brother Simon was drawn into the vicious argument, and it raged for a long time. Gervase eventually brought it to a halt by standing up and waving them into silence.

“Our case is unanswerable,” he said quietly, “but it lacks one vital element. We need Alric’s charter. When that is in our hands, we may confound Prior Baldwin and his windy rhetoric. The charter is the key to it all.”

“Yes,” agreed Ralph, “and it will not only light a fire under the abbey. Hugh de Brionne’s fat arse will burn, as well. He gained his two hides of that land unlawfully with the help of that insidious reeve, Saewold. I had testimony from the most impeccable source.”

“I tremble to think how you obtained it,” said Hubert.

“The charter will corroborate all that I learned during my researches.”

Ralph pushed his chair back from the table. “We must suspend our deliberations until we have found it.”

“If it exists,” wondered Brother Simon meekly.

“It exists right enough,” said Gervase confidently. “And I will not return to this hall until I have tracked it down and verified its contents. Be of good cheer. That charter is out there waiting for us.

Somewhere …”

Living alone in such an isolated place, Emma was free from the tensions and upheavals that characterised life in the towns and villages all around her. She set her own pace and fulfilled her needs in ways of her own choosing. Whenever she was given an insight into the communal experience, she quickly withdrew in disgust to the sanctuary of her mean hovel. Emma could preserve a tattered self-respect there.

Events in Bedwyn had spilled over into her private world, putting her in mortal danger, and only the courage of a Norman lord had saved her and her dog. It made her even more wary of straying too close to her fellow human beings. A woman who aroused great caution in others had now developed more elaborate safeguards herself.

When she was summoned to the cottage, therefore, she approached it with the utmost care, sending her dog on ahead to scout for possible dangers. Because the dwelling was only half a mile from Bedwyn, she kept glancing nervously at the town itself, as if fearing a second attack. But none came and her dog scented no peril. Emma walked slowly towards the cottage, her senses still alert. An ugly, thickset man in his thirties opened the door to give her a gruff welcome. He was a villein on the estate, a peasant who gave service to his lord in return for the humble abode and the patch of cultivable land on which he and his family subsisted. His words drew her into the cottage, but his eyes were full of dread. It had clearly not been his idea to summon the Witch of Crofton and he suffered her presence reluctantly.

Emma saw the sick child at once, lying on a crude mattress in considerable discomfort. The anxious mother sat beside her and bathed her daughter’s fevered brow with brackish water from a wooden pail.

Like her husband, she was fearful of their visitor, but she had called her as a last resort. Nobody else could revive the poor child whose fever had worsened day by day. Too weak to cry out, the little girl yet registered great alarm when she saw the strange figure moving towards her and she clutched at her mother with pathetic urgency.

Both parents tried to soothe the child before handing her over to the ministrations of Emma.

The visitor made her diagnosis within seconds. The patient had a high fever and her face was covered in red blotches. A dry throat was producing a hoarse cough and her condition showed that she had been unable to keep food down for some days. The girl was slowly fading away. When the parents had subdued their daughter, Emma moved swiftly to confirm what her eyes had already told her. Big, coarse hands were surprisingly tender as they felt brow and throat and arms. Dirty fingers were delicate as they parted the child’s lips so that Emma could peer into the mouth.

“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?”