The Ravens of Blackwater (Domesday Series Book 2)

by Edward Marston

  “They say that the Battle of Maldon lasted for fourteen days, but Tovild has been fighting it for fourteen years and more.” He smiled sadly. “Did you draw anything out of him?”

  “A stream of riddles.”

  “That is his way, I fear.”

  “I proved one thing for certain,” said Gervase. “He did witness the murder. Of that there can be no doubt.”

  “Why?”

  “He gave me this.” He took out the knife. “It was used to kill Guy FitzCorbucion then tossed into the water.”

  Oslac looked at the weapon with horrid fascination as if wanting to take it but fearing its taint if he did so.

  “Can you be sure that this is the murder weapon?”

  “I would swear it, Father Oslac.”

  “And Tovild found it for you?”

  “At the scene of the crime.”

  The priest grew wary. “Did he tell you who the killer was?” he asked. “Did he give you a name?”

  “No name, only another riddle.”

  “What was it?”

  “I cannot remember it all,” confessed Gervase, “and I am nowhere near solving it yet. There were some letters in it but I would need to rack my brain to tease each one out again. Tovild gabbled away at me, gave me the knife, and then vanished into thin air.”

  “He gave you the knife?”

  “From the place where it had been thrown. He had to lie on his chest and grope about in the mud.”

  “But he knew exactly where to look, it seems.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Oslac stared at him with a level gaze and Gervase realised what he was suggesting. It was a notion that had never crossed his mind and he was shocked that the priest would even consider it. Gervase dismissed it out of hand.

  “No, no,” he said. “Tovild is quite innocent.”

  “Then how could he lead you straight to the knife?”

  “He saw where it was tossed.”

  “Could he not have put it there himself?” said Oslac. “If a man wanted to get rid of a murder weapon, would he not cast it right out into the marshes? Yet you tell me that Tovild lay down on the ground and reached for it.”

  “That is true.”

  “It was in its hiding place.”

  “Then why give it to me at all?” asked Gervase. “If he was the killer, he would do everything to conceal the crime and not assist me in solving it. You said yourself that the man is completely harmless. Can you see that gnarled old warrior committing a murder?”

  “Frankly—no.”

  “Then put the whole idea aside.”

  “I fear that I cannot,” said Oslac tenaciously. “I love Tovild as much as I pity him. He is in the grip of some benign madness that makes him play the soldier. Tovild could never commit a murder because that needs sanity and a degree of premeditation.” He pointed to the knife. “But he could kill a man by accident in the heat of battle.”

  “By accident?”

  “You have seen the way he hacks the air with his sword and jabs at his unseen enemy with his spear.” Oslac shook his head slowly. “His very harmlessness may be the key to it all here. Guy would not have been troubled by his approach.”

  “But why should Tovild approach him?”

  “Because Guy came to laugh at him. Because Guy was there to taunt a ridiculous old man in rusty armour.” He developed the idea with a growing belief in its virtues. “That must have been it, Master Bret! Do you not see? Guy FitzCorbucion was trespassing. He was treading on the sacred battlefield where Tovild worships each day. It was sheer sacrilege. A young Norman Knight was goading a decrepit old Saxon. Is it not conceivable that Tovild lashed out at him? He has been killing imaginary invaders all these years, why should he not cut down a real one? Guy did not have time to defend himself because he was taken unawares.” Oslac was talking with great intensity now. “I viewed the body and it had been cruelly disfigured. Such mutilation happens in combat. We may smile at Tovild the Haunted because of his strange antics, but there is a lot of wanton violence in a man who fights a bitter foe every day of his life.”

  Gervase had to concede that it was within the bounds of possibility. He also saw that a murder committed in such a way would not be recognised by Tovild as a crime. It would be one more brave action in the eternal battle that he waged. Handing over the knife to Gervase was a circuitous way of boasting about his triumph. Somewhere in that final riddle Tovild might even have hidden a form of confession. It was all possible and yet Gervase could not somehow accept it. What really puzzled him was why Oslac was so ready to incriminate the old man. From the moment he saw the murder weapon, the priest had been speaking with a defensive urgency that Gervase had never heard before. He slipped the knife back into his belt and nodded.

  “I will think on it,” he said, “but now I must go.”

  “One second more, please.”

  “They have sent for me. I am needed at Champeney Hall.”

  “You have not heard my tidings yet,” said Oslac. “You have at least made progress. I have only found setback.”

  “Setback?”

  “Wistan. He spent the night in my house.”

  “Was he discovered?”

  “Worse than that.”

  “What has happened?”

  “He has run away.”

  “When they are still out searching for him?” said Gervase in disbelief. “He might just as well give himself up to Hamo. What chance has an unarmed boy against all those soldiers?”

  “He is not unarmed,” said Oslac solemnly. “There was a sword at my house. Wistan took it along with a supply of food. The boy has plans.” He pointed to the knife thrust into Gervase's belt. “You have found a murder weapon—and I have lost one. Wistan wants revenge.”

  It was the last place that they would dream of looking for him. Northey Island had given him a temporary refuge but they had flushed him out with dogs in the end. No hounds would sniff him out here. For the first time since he had been a fugitive, Wistan felt supremely safe. Gervase Bret had shown him unexpected kindness and Oslac the Priest had even taken the boy into his own house, but neither man understood the imperatives that drove him on. What they had done was to create some time for him in which to find his bearings before he moved on elsewhere. Gervase had used a word that had had no real meaning for him before. Sanctuary. He had spoken of the church as offering sanctuary to the runaway boy. Wistan learned quickly. Oslac's house was a comfortable enough hiding place but there was only one building in the town that could provide true sanctuary and that was why he had made his way to Maldon Priory.

  When he thought of the priest, he felt both guilty and relieved. Oslac had taken a great risk in protecting the boy and had shared his own home with Wistan, but the hours he had spent there had troubled him as much as they had restored him. The priest had a wife and four children who lived happily together in the cosy humility of their little house. They drew him to them and gave freely of what they had. Wistan was washed, fed, dressed in clean apparel, and shown to a mattress under the eaves. Their love had revived him but their very togetherness had pushed him apart from them. He was sorry that he had to hurt them but he was also helping them by leaving. His presence there put them in danger and they would now be safe. Oslac had created a well-knit family but Wistan had nobody else now, and it underscored another difference between the two of them. The priest had a reason to live: The boy was ready to die. It gave him an inner strength, which would sustain him through his last few days on earth. All he had to do was to stay alive long enough to avenge his father's murder and then he would happily join him in the grave. That was the only kind of family reunion that was now open to him.

  Wistan had sneaked out of his bed in the night and stolen the sword and the food. Running to the priory in the dark, he had shinned up its wall and dropped into the garden. Shrubs and bushes ran along one side and there was thick cover for him. He was even sheltered from the worst of the rain. Wistan resolved to stay in his place
of sanctuary until nightfall, then make his way to Blackwater Hall to see if there was any hope of gaining access. In the meantime, he would lie low at the priory while the hunt still continued for him outside. He was in a most privileged position. He could watch.

  The first thing he noticed was the bell. It was chimed at regular intervals and its doleful clang called the holy sisters to the chapel for the sequence of offices. Wistan could hear faint voices raised in song but the Latin words were indecipherable. When the nuns eventually came out into the garden, he drew back into the burrow he had scooped out in the soft earth behind the bushes. They did not even throw a glance in his direction. He was thirty yards or so from the priory and his corner of the property held no interest for the women that morning. They were too busy with their appointed tasks.

  Wistan was enthralled. He had never even seen a nun before. When the priory was first erected, there had been a lot of crude jokes made about its occupants by the slaves on the demesne, and he had duly sniggered at things he only vaguely grasped. One leering peasant had even boasted what he would do to all eight women if he could spend a night at the convent. Wistan's experience of a night there was very different. Climbing into the place out of necessity, he found a haven of peace and was given a brief insight into a world that was utterly spellbinding.

  They actually worked. Saxon noblewomen, who had always had servants on hand in the past to perform any chores, were now doing those same chores themselves without any sense of shame. They brought wooden buckets and filled them from the well, they set up a line between two posts and hung up their washing, they even picked up tools to labour in the garden. Wistan was moved. He had watched his own mother engaged in constant toil in their tiny hovel, but they were slaves on the estate of a Norman lord and drudgery was the lot of such women. The holy sisters had been exempted by social position from such mundane work, yet they were doing it with apparent readiness. Wistan could not have been more surprised if he had seen Matilda FitzCorbucion felling a tree or hauling in fishing nets from the river. Ladies did not do such things.

  The silence also intrigued him. They worked together but they did not speak, communicating instead with nods and smiles and gestures. One of them let out a suppressed giggle from time to time but she was instantly subdued by the warning finger of the stoutest of the nuns, a solid woman with her face almost completely obscured by her wimple. Another feature of the community struck the boy. They liked each other. There was the most extraordinary sense of union between them as if they really were sisters in one happy family. Even the stout nun was loved and cherished in the pervading atmosphere of shared joy. Wistan picked out the prioress as soon as she appeared because the gracious figure inspired such affection and obedience in the others.

  Entranced by it all, he watched as the stout nun went back into the priory once more. The chapel bell began to chime and the holy sisters immediately abandoned their work and filed in through the door. One of them lingered for a moment as if unsure whether to stay or to follow, torn between conflicting loyalties and needs. She was a young nun whose grace of movement had already caught his eye and whose sweet smile rarely left her face. Wistan wondered why she was hesitating, then he gasped in dismay as she began to walk straight towards him. He had been seen. The holy sister was heading in his direction with a look of quiet determination on her face, as if she was prepared to grab the intruder for daring to trespass on the enclave.

  His first impulse was to run but he saw the danger in that. If he was to be caught, he would far sooner face a nun with Christian benevolence than a search party with weapons. Wistan crouched down in his burrow and waited for her to part the bushes and accost him. But discovery did not come. A few yards short of his refuge, the young woman came to a halt, knelt down on the ground, and then lowered herself forward so that she could kiss the earth. He was totally mystified. There was such an aura of respect and devotion about her that he felt completely humbled. Sitting back on her haunches, she looked upwards and began to chant something to herself. She did not remain there for long. The prioress glided out of the building as if knowing exactly where to find the errant member of her little community.

  “Sister Tecla!” she called gently.

  The nun was too caught up in her ritual to hear.

  “Sister Tecla!”

  A note of command was injected this time and it earned a prompt response. Sister Tecla rose quickly to her feet and flitted across the grass towards the prioress before following her meekly into the building without a word of protest.

  Brother Simon worked with the cheerful frenzy of a man who had at last discovered his true mission in life. Everything now depended on him and it was such a unique situation for the unassuming monk to be in that he savoured every moment of it. On the rare occasions when he paused to take a sip of water or to sharpen his quill with a deft knife, he offered a silent prayer of thanks to God for calling on him at last to render a service of such magnitude. Brother Simon was in an ecstasy of true humility. He sat behind the table on which so many succulent dishes had been set out for their delectation. It was now covered in writs, charters, and tenurial contracts, in grants and bequests, in lists of names and inventories of possessions. The gaunt monk was gorging himself with ruinous self-indulgence on a banquet of the finest parchment.

  Ralph Delchard was still not satisfied with progress.

  “Make him work faster, Hubert,” he urged.

  “Calligraphy is a painstaking art, my lord,” said Canon Hubert. “If you hasten the pen, you end up with scribble. Brother Simon is already working much more quickly than he would normally do. Only a steady hand will suggest authenticity.”

  “Crack the whip over him at least.”

  “He is a holy brother,” said Hubert, “and not a galley slave who is lashed to his oars. You speed up his pace at your peril.” He adjusted his paunch in disapproval. “I will not urge him on. I still have the most serious reservations about this whole enterprise.”

  “Why?” said Ralph.

  “You are encouraging Brother Simon to act as a forger.”

  “Perhaps that's why he is enjoying it so much.”

  “He is being led astray from the straight and narrow.”

  “A small crime is justified by a heinous one.”

  “That is unsound theology,” argued Hubert. “And I do not accept that forgery is a small crime. Brother Simon may be selling his soul at that table.”

  “No,” said Ralph. “He is saving Miles Champeney.”

  Canon Hubert's opposition was voiced rather than felt. Although he was obliged to register a token objection, he knew that they were taking the only option that presented itself. Hamo FitzCorbucion was stooping to the most disgraceful act of blackmail in order to gain the upper hand over the royal commissioners, and so a slight dip from their high standard of moral probity was perhaps permissible. Although he would never confess it openly, Hubert was entering into the spirit of the deception as willingly as any of them.

  “One more is finished,” announced the drooping monk.

  “Give it to me, Brother Simon.”

  “Yes, Canon Hubert. It concerns four hides on Osea.”

  “Let me see.”

  Hubert combed the document for errors of detail and instances of erratic handwriting. None appeared. He dried the ink by shaking sand over it, then laid the paper out on the floor. Brother Simon winced as his beautiful penmanship was subjected to the full weight of Canon Hubert's dirty sandals. When the latter reclaimed the document from the floor, it was scuffed and discoloured. He threw an explanation at his wounded colleague.

  “This charter must look as if it is twenty years old.”

  “Of course, Canon Hubert.”

  “I have added wear and tear to your excellent work.”

  “Thank you,” said Simon, brightening at the compliment. “I will continue with renewed zeal.” He reached out for the next document and read through it. Panic seized him. “Oh, no! My hand rebels at this! I cannot
write these words!”

  “What is the problem?” said Ralph.

  “The name of this subtenant, my lord.”

  “Where?” He looked over his shoulder to read a name which called for a shout of celebration. “It's Humphrey!”

  “My quill would moult if I used it on such vileness!”

  “Why?” asked Hubert. “What is the fellow's name?”

  Ralph handed him the document. “See for yourself,” he invited. “There he hangs—Humphrey Aureis testiculi!”

  Canon Hubert reddened. “It is a dreadful mistake!”

  “Perhaps they are silver and not gold,” said Ralph.

  “Do not force me to copy those words,” begged Simon. “I will serve you in any way I can but I will not lend my pen to such sinful usage.”

  “It is a mistake,” insisted Hubert, flipping through the Latin alternatives in his mind. “Yes, I have it. Change that ‘t’ to an ‘r’ then alter the ‘i’ and what do you have?”

  “Humphrey Goldenbollocks!” announced Ralph.

  “My lord!” said Brother Simon in scandalised horror.

  “Humphrey Goldenropes,” corrected Hubert primly.

  “Ropes!” Ralph spluttered. “Golden—ropes!”

  “Resticula—a thin rope or cord.”

  Ralph guffawed. “Humphrey is even more remarkable than I thought if he has golden ropes where his testicles ought to be.” He passed another document to the monk. “Forget this one. It belongs to me. You copy the next one instead.”

  Brother Simon croaked his gratitude and attacked the less offensive Latin of the next charter. The outraged canon was still vainly trying to cover Humphrey's shame with the fig leaf of an alternative translation when Gervase Bret came striding into the room to ask why he had been summoned back to Champeney Hall. Ralph took him by the arm and led him off to a chamber where they could talk in private.

  “Whatever is Brother Simon doing in there, Ralph?”

  “Breaking the law.”

  “In what way?”

  “He is feeding the ravens at Blackwater Hall.”

  Ralph explained the situation and the action he had taken to meet it. Gervase was alarmed at the development but in total agreement with the response. While anxious to help their host, however, he was disappointed to hear that Gilbert Champeney might actually have robbed his guests.