Leaving Gwyn and Thomas with the soldiers, the coroner and the two marshals followed the baron and the Constable into the guardroom alongside the portcullis and then through a door, unlocked for them by one of the clerks. This led into the base of the tower, which had walls at least ten feet thick. The lower chamber at ground level was empty, but had a planked floor in which there was a central trapdoor.
‘Naturally, the guardroom is manned by at least four men at all times,’ explained de Longby. ‘No one can get in here without authorisation — then there are those to contend with!’ He pointed to a pair of massive padlocks, securing two iron bars hinged across the trapdoor. Matthew snapped his fingers at his other clerk, who came forward with a ring carrying two large keys, with which he opened the locks and threw back the bars with a clang.
Ranulf touched William Aubrey’s arm and motioned him forward to help the clerk raise the heavy trapdoor by means of two iron rings. With an effort, they lifted it to one side, just as the Constable gave a piercing blast on a whistle. Immediately, the sergeant-at-arms came in with four men, two carrying a wooden ladder, the other horn lanterns. Under the direction of their sergeant, the ladder was lowered into the hole and the two lantern men clambered down. John went to the edge of the trap and peered into a bare undercroft, a dank and forbidding pit, with a damp earthen floor, well below ground level.
The other soldiers had ropes, which they lowered through the opening and amid much shouting of orders, first one, then another large chest was hauled up and placed on the wooden floor. They were of similar size, about four feet long, but one was of darker oak and had three iron bands around it, as opposed to the two on the second chest. Each had two massive metal hasps with padlocks on each.
‘The darker box contains the coin, the other one is a mixture of precious objects,’ declared de la Pole. He gestured briskly at one of his clerks, who proffered another roll of parchment, with three different seals of red wax dangling from it by red tape.
‘This is an inventory made yesterday by myself and two other officials of the Exchequer, signed with our marks and our seals.’
He handed the roll to John. ‘Now it’s your problem, sir! When you deliver this roll to the Constable of the Great Tower and the Treasury officials there, they will recheck the contents of the chests with this manifest. I hope for your sake that they agree!’
He said this with a hint of malice, as if he relished the thought of there being some fatal discrepancy.
Ranulf looked puzzled. ‘I assumed that we were taking the chests to Westminster?’ he said to de la Pole. The Exchequer official shook his head. ‘Not this time, the treasure is urgently needed in Rouen, so it will go to the nearest place for shipment from the port of London. So make sure it gets there safely!’
‘What about the keys?’ said John gruffly, anxious to get away from this insolent fellow. For answer, Matthew turned again to his senior clerk and held out his hand. The subdued cleric scrabbled in the scrip on his belt and produced two more pairs of steel keys, each pair on a ring.
‘These are for the locks on both chests,’ he snapped. ‘Normally, they are separated and one is held by myself, the other by another member of the Exchequer. I presume the same will happen in London, but that’s their affair!’
As John took the large and slightly rusty keys, de la Pole offered one last barbed comment.
‘They are now your responsibility, de Wolfe! Let them out of your sight at your peril!’
With that, he sailed from the chamber, his two clerks hurrying after him like a pair of chastened hounds at their master’s heels.
As de Wolfe had forecast, their journey back was painfully slow. Though the two chests were heavy, the pair of horses had no difficulty in pulling the cart, especially as the road was free from the mud that could bog the wheels down in thick mire. But the beasts could do no better than a steady walking pace, and on the first day they covered a bare sixteen miles along the London road. This took them as far as Alton, where the soldiers commandeered a tithe barn to sleep in, while the three knights and Thomas battened upon the local manor-lord for hospitality. He was not all that pleased to see them, but with ill-grace gave them a meal and let them sleep on some straw mattresses in his hall.
Next day they set out earlier and rode until late so that they could reach Guildford again, where the castle was obliged to accommodate the official procession. The third day was a disappointment, as although Ranulf had hoped to get as far as Kingston, they did not even make it as far as Esher. One of the wheel-hubs cracked and they came to a halt in the middle of a forest. This failure was a well-known problem and they carried a spare wheel lashed to the tailboard, but it meant almost two hours’ delay. The men-at-arms had to cut down a sapling from the adjacent woods and use it to lever up the heavy cart. Then stones and fallen wood had to be collected and used to prop up the wagon, so that the errant wheel could be removed and replaced with the spare.
That part of Surrey was covered by dense forest and villages were few and far between. By late evening, everyone was tired and fractious, so when they reached a small hamlet, John and his companions decided they had travelled far enough.
‘God’s guts! Where can we sleep here?’ demanded Gwyn, looking around at the dozen mean huts that made up the settlement. There was no manor house, but it had a tiny church, a primitive structure of wattle-and-daub with a vestigial bell tower at one end of the tattered thatched roof. Inside the churchyard was a hut that presumably did service as the priest’s dwelling.
‘Go and see what your holy colleague can suggest,’ said de Wolfe to Thomas, as the weary men and wearier horses stopped on the road outside. The little clerk trotted off and soon came back with a wizened man, dressed in a short smock and cross-gartered breeches. Though he looked like a hedger or a ditcher, Thomas presented him as the parish priest, proven by his shaven scalp.
‘Father Aedan says that you are welcome to use his church to shelter in overnight.’
The bent old man, his remaining hair showing enough blond strands to mark him as a Saxon, had a surprisingly sweet smile.
‘There are no palliasses, but it is a warm night and no doubt your soldiers are used to sleeping on the floor,’ he said, exposing toothless gums behind his sunken lips. ‘For you gentlemen, maybe you would prefer the luxury of a pile of hay in the barn on the other side of the church.’
John muttered his thanks, but Ranulf, who had a smoother tongue than the bluff coroner, was more fulsome in his appreciation.
‘That is a very Christian gesture, father! We are tired and hungry, having been on the king’s business these past three days.’
‘I can do little about your hunger, sir, this is a poor and insignificant village. There is an alehouse, but I doubt the widow who runs it could provide for more than a score of men.’
In spite of the priest’s misgivings, after leaving William Aubrey to organise the guarding of the wagon and the settlement of the men-at-arms, de Wolfe and Ranulf walked a little further down the track to seek the alehouse.
‘This really is a dismal village,’ said Ranulf, looking around in the gathering dusk at the few shacks spread along the road. Most were built of cob, a mixture of lime, dung and bracken, spread on wattle panels. One or two were dry-walled stone, but none had more than one room. All were steeply thatched, the state of the straw or reeds varying from fairly new to green disintegration, some with actual grass or weeds growing on their roofs. The alehouse proved to be almost indistinguishable from the other crofts, though a little longer from end to crumbling end. The tattered bush hanging over the door was the universal sign of a tavern and the two knights bent their heads to enter.