Devil's Acre (2 page)

Chapter 2

THE JOURNEY BEGINS

Two
days. Well, that ruled out Normandy. On the nags we had in the abbey stables in those days we’d have been lucky to get as far as Colchester in two days never mind France. So somewhere closer then, somewhere in England - but where? I asked around among my brother monks, the ones most likely to have been taken into Samson’s confidence. But none of them seemed to know, not even Jocelin who followed Samson’s comings and goings like a hawk. If he didn’t know Samson’s plans then no-one did. I supposed I would just have to do as he said and wait to find out.

It was a cold and bright the morning we set off. The sky was clear and the sun was just beginning to peak over the top of the abbey walls. There had been a fall of snow the night before which had left a white blanket covering the ground to the depth of half a handbreadth. A group of half a dozen monks came to see us off. They asked for Samson’s blessing and sang the Te Deum as we rode out through the Sudbury gate. This is the gate that leads to the south, so if Normandy truly was our destination it would make sense for us to leave this way. But I wasn’t convinced and sure enough a mile out of town Samson turned his mule’s head to the west and soon we were heading away from the Channel ports.

‘I take it we are not going to see the king after all, father?’

‘Did I say we were?’

‘No, but the letter that arrived for you on Saint Agnes’ Day last - was that not from the king? It certainly held the king’s seal. It’s what everyone is thinking.’

‘That’s what comes of gossiping in dark corners. No Walter, I’m afraid this time your brother monks have miscalculated. I certainly didn’t say we were going to see the king.’

‘But neither did you deny it. Indeed
, everything you have done recently pointed to it. That letter. The signing of your Will. And this morning leaving through the Sudbury gate. Why would you do that unless you wanted to give the impression of a journey south? And yet here we are heading north. If one were suspicious one might suspect it was a deliberate ploy to mislead.’

‘We left through the south gate because the north gate is impassable at this time of year - everyone knows that. I settled my affairs because it was the sensible thing to do on any
long journey. I am not a young man. I could be called by the Almighty at any time. It is best to be prepared.’

‘Father, for someone approaching his eighth decade of life your health is remarkable. I as your doctor know this. You could live for another quarter century.’

‘And as for that letter,’ he continued undeterred, ‘it was indeed from the king. But its contents are no-one’s business except the king’s and his ministers.’ He gave me a sidelong glance. ‘As a matter of fact the letter was a summons from King John but it was not urgent. There, does that satisfy you?’

Not quite. I now knew where we were
not
going but I still did not know where we
were
going.

‘If it was my intention to deceive
I obviously failed for you were not deceived. How was that?’

I shrugged. ‘Simple observation. We have no bodyguard. No member of the king’s council would be so foolish as to cross the Channel without one, not in these dangerous times.’

He harrumphed. ‘Did anyone else arrive at this conclusion?’

‘I doubt it. Few of my brother monks have my taste for intrigue.
They think we are on our way to Normandy.’

‘Good
. That’s precisely what I want them to think.’

For the next hour we rode in silence each lost in his own thoughts. When Samson did speak again his mood had lightened:

‘Did I ever tell you about my very first trip abroad Walter?
It was many years ago now when I was still a young novice - much younger than you are now. Abbot Hugh sent me to Rome to petition the pope - some dispute over the ownership of the church at Woolpit, I forget the details now. My mission was to obtain a letter from the Holy Father in support of the abbey’s claim. There were two popes in Rome then: Pope Alexander and the emperor’s man, Octavian. Rome and the Empire were virtually at war over the matter. You speak of dangerous times now Walter. Then it was dangerous to travel especially for a clergyman especially in Italy. Imperial troops were everywhere. Anyone caught carrying letters to or from Pope Alexander was liable to imprisonment or worse. And, incidentally, I didn’t have a bodyguard that time either.’

‘Were you successful in your mission?’

‘Oh I managed to get my letter all right. But on the way back I was ambushed by some very rough fellows in the emperor’s pay. They searched my baggage but with the help of God and Saint Edmund I managed to conceal my letter and they did not find it. However, they did steal all my money and I had to beg my way back to England. It took me months. I wasn’t even sure I would make it.’

‘Clearly you did or you would not be here to tell the tale.’

‘Thanks be to God I did - but not in time to save Woolpit church. As a consequence Abbot Hugh exiled me to the priory of Saints Mary, Peter and Paul at Castle Acre in Norfolk.’

I looked at him in astonishment. ‘You were punished for being the victim of footpads? That seems a little perverse.’

‘It depends on your point of view. As far as Abbot Hugh was concerned I had been given a task to do and I had failed. As for being exiled to Acre - except that it kept me from my beloved Saint Edmund it was not so bad. There are worse places to be than Castle Acre.’

A thought suddenly came to me. ‘How long were you there?’

‘About eighteen months.’

‘Am I right in thinking Castle Acre is to the north of Bury?’

‘You are.’

‘And am I also right that it might be about a two-day ride from Bury at our current pace?’

He chuckled like a little child. ‘Well done Walter. I knew you’d get there in the end. That is indeed where we’re going - Castle Acre.’

I should have insisted then
and there that we turn around and return to Bury immediately. After all, no-one knew where we were or how to get hold of us - Samson had made sure of that. If we got into trouble we would be entirely alone. It was highly irresponsible to risk the person of the abbot of Bury - not to mention also his physician - in this way. By the Rule of Saint Benedict I had good grounds to declare him reckless and thus overrule him despite my oath of unquestioning obedience. But Samson had judged me well. My natural curiosity was aroused as no doubt he had calculated. If we turned back now I would never know the answer. So I pulled my hood up around my ears and spurred my mule after him. I was still shivering but no longer sure if it was from the cold or from anticipation of what was to come.

Chapter
3

SAMSON
OF TOTTINGTON

‘Goodness
me, master, what’s all this?’

‘What does it look like
, Gilbert?’

‘It looks like you’ve stolen an entire month’s supply of the abbey’s parchment. I’ll be getting complaints from the scriptorium that they have nothing to write on. What are you doing with it all?’

‘If you must know, I’m writing a biography.’

‘Of whom?’

‘Samson of Tottington. You’ve heard of him of course.’

‘The name rings a bell. Wasn’t he a monk here at one time?’

‘Ignorant child!
Abbot
Samson was abbot here forty years ago. How can you not have heard of him? His legacy is all around you. He was responsible for much of the abbey as you see it today.’

‘Such as?’

‘The choir in the abbey church for a start. He rebuilt that. He also gave us the two octagonal towers at the west end of the abbey church as well as the bell tower. In the town he built schools, hospitals, even an aqueduct. His capacity for building was legendary. I can’t believe you’ve never heard his name. His bones lie beneath the floor of the chapterhouse. You walk over him every day of your life, for heaven’s sake.’

‘I rarely get a chance to go in to chapter these days, master. I’m always here in the infirmary taking care of my charges. I don’t get much time to read histories either.’

‘You may read mine in due course - that’s if I’m ever left in peace to get on with it.’

‘I look forward to it. Well now, what are we to do with all this
writing material? It’s an awful lot of parchment, not to mention the ink. I wouldn’t want you spilling it over your bed. These sheets are a gift from a generous benefactress and made from the very finest Flemish cambric.’

‘I won’t spill any ink, Gilbert. Do you think I’m a child?’

‘Well, we’ll see. You may keep it for now. But do please be careful what you do with it.’

Never heard of Abbot Samson? What do they teach in that novice school these days? That’s the trouble with the modern generation, no sense of history. Samson of Tottington wasn’t just any abbot; he was this abbey’s greatest abbot. As well as providing us with all that new masonry he all but saved this abbey - literally - at a time when our debts threatened to overwhelm us. His financial acumen was second to none. “T
o each who has will be given and from him who has nothing, even that will be taken away.
”
 
I’ll quote that at young Gilbert next time I see him.

Of course, there’s more to a man than his abilities. There’s his moral character, too. That I feel less qualified to comment upon.
Indeed, I had great cause to question his moral rigour in the course of the days that followed as you will discover as you read on in these notes. Besides, these aspects of the man have been covered far more eloquently than I ever could by my dear friend and fellow monk, Jocelin of Brackland. What I can say is that Samson was nobody’s fool. Indeed, his intellect shone plainly for anyone to see - a fact I can best illustrate by recounting a discussion we had on the afternoon of that first day:

It has long been accepted by learned thinkers as far back as Aristotle that the Earth is a sphere despite what experience and commonsense tells us. I have not seen convincing proof of this - indeed, I do not see how “proof” of such a thing can be demonstrated. However, I am willing to concede it is so since so many great minds insist that it is. But flat or round Samson had at least to agree that the Earth is at the centre of the universe and not, as Aristarchus of Samos would have it, the sun at the centre with the Earth spinning around
it
.

‘If the Earth was constantly moving,’ I told him confidently, ‘then everything upon it would fly off - like shit off a shovel.’

To demonstrate the point I threw the apple I was eating high into the air and caught it as it fell back down again. ‘You see? If we were truly in motion I could not have caught the apple for while it was in the air the Earth would have moved on and the apple would have landed behind me -
ergo,
the Earth must be static,’ and I took a decisive bite out my apple confident that I had won the point.

Samson thought about this for a moment. Then he said, ‘Give me your apple.’

By now there wasn’t much more than the core left but I gave it to him anyway. First he merely repeated my action of throwing it in the air a few times and catching it again. But then he did something extraordinary. He suddenly dug his heels hard into the flanks of his mule making the startled creature bolt forward while continuing to throw the apple core up into the air. I thought for a moment that he’d lost his senses. He certainly made a comical spectacle wobbling along the road like a fat child on a hobby-horse. When he got a hundred feet away he turned round and did the same thing coming back.

‘There,’ he said, red-faced and breathless. ‘Did you see? The apple followed me all the way along the road. It did not fall behind me
even though I was moving.’

‘Of course it did,’ I retorted. ‘You deliberately threw it ahead of you so that it couldn’t fall behind.’ But I was no longer certain of my ground. As for Samson, he merely handed me back my apple-core with a knowing grin. Furious, I threw the revolting thing in the dust.