The Ravens of Blackwater

by Edward Marston

  Ralph Delchard took the column of horses off on the next stage of its journey. Riding beside him, Gervase talked of the cunning interrogation he had just witnessed.

  “Hubert was masterly.”

  “I refuse to believe that.”

  “He turned the abbess on like a tap and information poured out of her. It was a striking performance.”

  “Between Hubert and a woman! Never!”

  “We heard much praise of Maldon Priory.”

  “Spare me the details, Gervase.”

  “And much criticism of Hamo FitzCorbucion.”

  “Now, that is more interesting,” conceded Ralph. “We will have to call Hamo before us on many charges. What did the noble lady have to say on that disagreeable subject?”

  “Exactly what the documents tell us,” said Gervase as he patted the leather satchel, which was slung from the pommel of his saddle. “FitzCorbucion is a notorious land-grabber, feared by all and sundry, rejoicing in that fear. He is entirely without scruple and will fight over every inch of land and blade of grass we try to take from him.”

  “Then we must fight harder.”

  “Abbess Aelfgiva warned us to move with care.”

  Ralph was scornful. “We have a royal warrant to support us,” he said. “That means we can slap down any man in the land if he obstructs our purpose. The abbess may treat Hamo with caution but I will stand for none of his antics. I am not riding all this way to be thwarted by a robber baron.” He relaxed slightly and tossed a glance over his shoulder. “What did you think of the place?”

  “Barking Abbey? I was most impressed.”

  “So was the Conqueror,” said Ralph. “He stayed there until they had built enough of the Tower of London for him to be accommodated in the city. It is one of the reasons why he acknowledged all of the Abbey charters. Barking lost none of its holdings.”

  “Unlike Waltham.”

  “Yes, Gervase. Unlike Waltham.”

  Barking Abbey was one of the wealthiest of the nine English nunneries. Only Wilton and Shaftesbury had richer endowments and a larger annual income. The Conquest had inflicted little damage on these houses but the same could not be said for Waltham Abbey, which lay not far north of Barking. The college of secular canons was founded by King Harold and punished because of that association. Before he succeeded to the throne, Harold was Earl of Essex with over thirty manors in the county. William the Conqueror seized these, along with the estates formerly owned by Waltham Abbey, feeling that he had just cause to strip the latter of its bounty. Gervase Bret reminded his companion why.

  “King Harold was buried at Waltham,” he said.

  Ralph tensed. “Who?”

  “King Harold.”

  “Edward the Confessor was the last king of England.”

  “Apart from Harold Godwinesson.”

  “He was a usurper.”

  “Not if you are a Saxon.”

  “Do not provoke me, Gervase,” said Ralph wearily. “Only those who win battles are entitled to write about them. We did not defeat a lawful sovereign at Hastings: We killed an upstart earl with too little respect for Duke William's claim to the throne. Harold was hit by a Norman arrow and cut down by Norman swords. It was no more than he deserved.”

  “That is a matter of opinion.”

  “And a statement of fact.”

  “Whatever you may say, he ruled as King of England.”

  “Well, he was not buried with the honour due to a royal person,” said Ralph. “His mistress, Edith Swan-neck, had to scour the battlefield to find his mangled corpse. It was she who brought the bag of bones all the way back to Essex.”

  “This was King Harold's county,” said Gervase with quiet compassion. “It has suffered cruelly as a result.”

  “It will suffer even more when we get to Maldon!”

  As soon as he spoke the words, Ralph wished that he could call them back because they did not represent his true feelings. He was fiercely proud of the Norman achievement in England and determined to do all he could to enforce it, but that did not mean his view of the Saxon population was completely heartless. Gervase had caught him on the raw by reviving the eternal argument about Harold's right to be called the King of England. In fact, Ralph had some sympathy for the people of Essex. There was no shire in the realm where the hand of the Conqueror had fallen more heavily. They were riding through dispossessed territory.

  The party made good progress, breaking into a trot from time to time and increasing it to a canter when they came to suitable terrain. After a couple of hours, they paused to water the horses, stretch their legs, and empty their bladders. Then they were back in the saddle again. Another hour had passed before they heard the commotion ahead of them. At first they thought it was the sound of a hunt, pursuing deer or wild boar through the forest, but the scream of a young woman suddenly cut through this illusion. Ralph's sword was in his hand on the instant and he raised it aloft.

  “Follow me!” he commanded.

  He spurred his mount into action and his men galloped after him with their weapons drawn. Gervase Bret went with them and Canon Hubert was left behind with Brother Simon. The two of them kicked maximum speed out of their unwilling animals and wobbled off after the others. Ralph and his men thundered through the undergrowth as if they were in a cavalry charge, their harnesses jingling and the hooves of their destriers sending up such a flurry of earth that the ground was pitted for hundreds of yards. The noise ahead grew louder and the scream took on a new intensity. Snapping off branches and scattering leaves, the soldiers rode hell-for-leather towards the sounds of a brawl and the cries of distress.

  When they came out of the trees, they found themselves in a field that sloped gently away towards a coppice below. A dozen or more figures were engaged in a bitter struggle and the clang of steel rang out across the grass. In the very heart of the melee were two nuns, clinging for dear life to their horses and totally at the mercy of the violence that raged around them. Ralph Delchard assessed the problem at a glance. The visitors who had left Barking Abbey were the victims of an ambush. Instant rescue was needed to save their lives. Letting out a piercing battle cry, Ralph held his sword straight out like a lance and his men fanned out in a line behind him. Destriers bred for battle could finally show their paces. Men-at-arms who were trained for combat felt their blood race with excitement. The troop came hurtling down the slope like an avenging army.

  Down by the coppice, there was a break in the fighting. The attackers were burly men in nondescript armour and an array of helms. Their ambush had been successful. They had hacked one of the armed guards to the ground and wounded another so badly that he was hardly able to defend himself. But they had reckoned without interference, especially of so fearsome a nature, and they rightly judged that they would be no match for the posse of Norman knights now descending upon them from the trees. Their leader barked an order and they fled at once. Deprived of the chance to fight, Ralph vented his spleen by berating them for their cowardice. He and his men pursued them for half a mile but they had too big a start and too good a knowledge of the woodland to be overhauled. Ralph eventually called a halt and the sweating steeds dug their hooves deep into the ground.

  When the knights got back to the coppice, they found Gervase Bret kneeling over the fallen man and Brother Simon attending to the wounded rider. Canon Hubert was trying to comfort the two nuns who had dismounted from their horses and were holding on to each other. Ralph came up to be introduced to Prioress Mindred and Sister Tecla, both of whom were still shaking at their ordeal. The prioress was a tall woman in her fifties with a nobility of bearing that soon reasserted itself and skin as white and shiny as a bowl of melted wax. Pale blue eyes shone out of the glowing mask. Sister Tecla was a slim young woman of middle height with delicate hands that fluttered like anguished butterflies. Even the wimple could not fully conceal the haunted beauty of her little face.

  When Ralph gave her an admiring smile, she lowered her eyes in confusion. />
  “Who were they?” he asked.

  “We do not know,” said Mindred.

  “Were they hiding in the coppice?”

  “They took us unawares.”

  “What were they after?”

  “What every band of robbers is after,” said Hubert testily. “Money. Those villains had no respect for God. They were ready to lay violent hands upon two sacred ladies.”

  Ralph ignored him. “We arrived in the nick of time,” he said. “Did you carry anything of particular value?”

  “No, sir,” said the prioress. “Except for a few items we picked up at Barking Abbey.”

  “Items?”

  “A holy relic and a number of books.”

  “Such things are of priceless value,” noted Hubert.

  “Only to us,” she said, then afforded herself a gentle smile. “What we carry is some of the precious earth taken from the spot where St. Oswald was killed in battle against the heathen. It is the merest handful, but its power saved us from harm. It brought you to our rescue.”

  Four guards had escorted the nuns, lightly armed Saxons who were overwhelmed by the surprise attack. The man on the ground was unconscious and severely injured, but Gervase was confident that he would live. Brother Simon was already binding the gashed arm of the other man to stem the flow of blood. It was important to get the wounded to a place where they could be given proper treatment and the nuns clearly had no enthusiasm for much further travel that day. Ralph announced that they would head for the nearest village and one of the Saxon guards named the place.

  “We will spend the night there,” said Ralph, “and give you the opportunity to recover from this vile assault. You need have no more worries about safe conduct to Maldon.”

  “We are deeply obliged to you,” said Mindred.

  “And to St. Oswald,” added Hubert.

  “Will you stay long in Maldon?” she asked.

  “Unhappily, no,” said Ralph, flicking a wistful glance at the demure Sister Tecla. “We are royal commissioners on urgent business. When we have banged a few heads together, we must be on our way. There is nothing, alas, that will delay us in the town of Maldon.”

  As the royal commissioners proceeded with their charges, a boat nosed its way slowly into the shallows of the River Blackwater near Maldon. After one more pull on the oars, the man hauled them into the craft and let it drift through the thickening reeds and the lapping water. When he hit something solid, he thought he had reached the bank but he turned round to find himself still several yards away from dry land. Something else had stopped the boat, a piece of driftwood perhaps or some other obstruction that had floated into his path. He clambered up to the prow of the boat and peered into the gloom, using one of the oars to prod about in the water until he encountered what felt like a solid object. It was nothing of the kind. When he pressed down hard, it sank briefly into the mud of the River Blackwater, then shot back to the surface and bobbed there defiantly. He was petrified. Lying on the water in front of him, hideously disfigured and staring up with sightless eyes, was the half-naked body of a man.

  Chapter Two

  PROGRESS WAS SLOW. ONE OF THE WOUNDED MEN WAS ABLE TO SIT ON HIS MOUNT but the other remained unconscious so they had to build a crude framework of branches interlaced with osiers. Its raised end was slung by ropes from the unconscious man's horse and he was dragged along on the makeshift bed. They had been able to do little more for him than stem the bleeding from his assorted injuries and it was important not to aggravate his condition by trying to press on too fast. But a slight increase in speed was possible when they left the meandering woodland track to join a firmer and straighter thoroughfare. It was the old Roman road between Colchester and London, one of the many that radiated out from the city in the northeast of Essex, which the legions had chosen as their capital.

  An hour or so brought them to Shenfield, but it was no more than a straggle of small houses and did not really answer their needs in any way. The party rested there while word was sent to the village of Hutton, a couple of miles to the east, for the local priest. He eventually arrived on his ancient grey mare and at once revealed his medical skills by examining, treating, and redressing the wounds. The priest strongly advised that both injured men stay in Shenfield until they recovered more fully. Ralph Delchard accepted this counsel and left another of the Saxon bodyguards to watch over the two casualties. Now able to move at a swifter pace, the travellers were keen to use the last few hours of daylight to reach a place that could accommodate all of them in reasonable comfort.

  Ralph stayed at the head of the column this time. On the journey to Shenfield, he rode beside Sister Tecla in the hopes of drawing her into conversation, but the trials of the ambush and her own natural reserve meant that he got no more than an occasional nod or a shake of the head from her. Gervase Bret rode beside him, having taken advantage of the lengthy stop to consult the documents he carried in his voluminous satchel.

  “Shenfield is held by a subtenant from Count Eustace of Boulogne,” he said. “Like whole areas of this shire.”

  “Count Eustace always was a greedy pig,” said Ralph.

  “He owns about eighty manors in Essex.”

  “Do they include Hutton?”

  “No, they do not. Hutton belongs to St. Martin's.”

  “In London?”

  “In Sussex.”

  “Battle Abbey?”

  “The same.”

  “Good!” said Ralph. “In my view, that is the only kind of monastic foundation that has any real purpose. Battle Abbey was raised to mark a Norman victory. The rest of the religious houses that litter this country are full of eunuchs like Brother Simon who like to hear the sound of their own high voices singing Mass.” He turned to Gervase. “And what of this village we ride to now?”

  “Mountnessing?”

  “Count Eustace or Battle Abbey?”

  “Neither,” said Gervase. “I checked the returns made by the first commissioners. Mountnessing is held in lordship by Ranulf, brother of Ilger. The manor runs to nine hides, which is well over a thousand acres. Then there's a further two hides and more held from Ranulf by William of Bosc.”

  “It lies to the northeast, they told us.”

  “We shall soon have to leave this road and head off into the woodland again.” Gervase glanced warily around. “I hope that there is no second ambush awaiting us.”

  “Those cowards would not dare to attack us!” asserted Ralph. “We could have cut them to ribbons. They only fight when the odds are in their favour.”

  “This county is full of outlaws.”

  “Outlaws?”

  “Yes,” said Gervase sadly. “Dispossessed men who've had everything taken from them except their urge to fight back. Before the Conquest, they had lands to work and homes in which to raise families. Now they lead lives of servility.”

  “You sound as if you pity the wretches.”

  “I find it hard to blame some of them.”

  “Saxons are losers, Gervase. Never forget that. If they had invaded Normandy and destroyed us in battle, you would shed no tears then for those whose lands were confiscated. In any case,” he said blithely, “did not these same hairy Englishmen whom you count among your forebears once invade this country and take it from the Romans who had themselves seized it by force from the Britons? Might is right. Pity has no place in the breast of a conquering army.”

  “And what about mercy?”

  “I'd show none to rogues who ambush ladies.”

  “No more would I, Ralph,” said Gervase. “They deserve to be caught and punished for that outrage. What I say is that I do have some sympathy for those who are driven into the wilderness and forced to live as outlaws.”

  “But these were not outlaws.”

  “How do you know?”

  “The way they rode, the fashion in which they fought.”

  “I took them for Saxons by their apparel.”

  “You were intended to, Gervase.”
>
  “What do you mean?”

  “Those were not renegades who preyed on passing travellers,” explained Ralph. “They were trained soldiers who knew how to lay an ambush. When their captain gave the command, they beat an ordered retreat. No, do not feel sorry for any fellow-Saxons, my friend. They were Normans.”

  “Can you be sure?”

  “I'd stake my finest horse on it.”

  “A roving band of soldiers?”

  “No, Gervase. Knights from a lord's retinue. Sent for the express purpose of launching that attack. They might disguise themselves as Saxons but their breeding showed through. Norman warriors?”

  “From where?”

  “That is what we must find out.”

  “Why ambush two nuns and their escort?”

  “Answer the first question and the second will answer itself.” Ralph glanced over his shoulder at the two women who rode further back in the cavalcade. “One thing that I do know, Gervase. Those men were not robbers. If all they wanted was booty, they would simply have set their ambush and grabbed the two sumpter horses before riding off. But they showed no interest at all in the baggage.”

  “What, then, were they after?”

  “The two ladies. When we came out of the wood, they were trying to overpower the escort in order to get to Prioress Mindred and Sister Tecla.” He gave a chuckle. “Given the choice, I'd have taken Sister Tecla myself. She could keep any man warm on a long, cold night.”

  Gervase was puzzled. “The ladies were the target?”

  “They or something that they carried.”

  “But they are holy nuns—they have nothing.”

  “Look more closely, Gervase,” suggested Ralph. “Sister Tecla may have nothing except an aura of sanctity about her but those leather pouches that sit astride Prioress Mindred's palfrey are bulging. With what?”

  “Gifts from Barking Abbey. Books and a holy relic.”