‘How far is the next village?’ asked Golde.
‘Too far,’ said Ralph, glancing up at the swirling clouds. ‘We are going to get wet, I fear. Thoroughly and horribly wet.’
‘Is there nowhere to shelter?’
‘None that I see, my love.’
The first rumble of thunder set off a flurry of neighing among the horses. Their eyes rolled in alarm and their ears twitched apprehensively. When forked lightning suddenly ripped open the sky and caught them in the devastating brilliance of its glare, the animals were even more disturbed. Two bucked violently, a third tried to bolt and all had to be brought under control by their riders.
There were nineteen in the party. Behind Ralph and Golde were Gervase Bret, Maurice Pagnal, a new commissioner, and Brother Columbanus, their scribe. Ten of Ralph’s knights rode in pairs with four from Maurice’s personal retinue bringing up the rear. The escort was there to provide safety on the journey to Oxford and visible testament to the importance of the visitors once they reached it, but the soldiers had no wish to ride into the town like so many drowned men on horseback. When Ralph increased his speed, they responded willingly.
There were no first warning drops of rain. The deluge was instantaneous. Stinging sheets of water fell out of the heavens, drenching them within seconds and turning the track over which they rode into a squelching quagmire. They splashed their way on until a stand of trees came into view. There was some cover under the branches but danger, too, from the lightning as it dazzled murderously again directly overhead. Spurning the dubious protection of the trees, Ralph took them round a bend and down a gentle slope.
It was only then that hope beckoned.
The hamlet nestled in a hollow less than a quarter of a mile away.
It was only a small cluster of mean houses but it held a promise of welcome hospitality to the travellers at that moment. With their spirits lifted, they quickened their pace even more and tried to ignore the driving rain and the capricious wind which had sprung up to torment them. Shelter was their sole concern. Relief was at hand.
As they got closer to the hamlet, however, they realised that it was a cruel illusion. Glimpsed through the downpour, it had looked like a dry haven in the midst of a roaring tempest. They now saw that it was a crumbling ruin, long deserted by its inhabitants and inconsiderately left to fend for itself against the depredations of time and sustained assaults from inclement weather.
Golde sighed with disappointment and resigned herself to a continued soaking but Ralph spied some comfort. Bringing the bedraggled column to a halt, he took a quick inventory of the settlement.
Thatch on the hovels had perished or been burned but there was still a vestigial roof over the small barn, and, though many walls had started to tumble, enough remained to provide a modicum of defence against the storm.
Ralph barked a series of peremptory orders and jabbed at the buildings with his finger. Riders dismounted, horses were tethered, cover was sought. An arm around her shoulders, Ralph conducted Golde into the barn. When they were joined by Gervase and the grumbling Maurice, there was barely enough of the roof left to shield them all. Brother Columbanus stood in the open a few yards away with a benign smile of acceptance on his cherubic features. His tonsure glistened and raindrops ran freely from his nose, chin and ears.
‘Come in under the roof,’ invited Gervase.
‘I am happy enough where I am,’ said the monk.
‘You will be soaked to the skin.’
‘It will refresh me, Gervase. Rain is a gift from God and He does not mean us to flee from it in terror. It is something to be savoured.’ He turned his face upward. ‘We should offer a prayer of thanks for this blessing.’
‘The fellow is mad!’ exclaimed Ralph.
‘Or downright stupid,’ said Maurice. ‘Look at the fool!’
‘Come over here, Brother Columbanus,’ urged Golde, moving closer to the barn wall. ‘We have made room for you.’
‘There is no need,’ the monk assured her, closing his eyes as the water cascaded off his face. ‘This rain brings joy. It will enrich the soil and stimulate new growth. It is all part of Nature’s pattern. Even the thunder and lightning are sent by God for a purpose.’
‘Yes,’ said Ralph. ‘To frighten the horses.’
‘To signal His displeasure, my lord. We should take note of God’s rebuke and strive to mend our ways.’
‘We would rather strive to keep dry.’
‘And so must you,’ added Gervase.
Darting out into the rain, he took the monk by the arm and pulled him back under the roof. Brother Columbanus did not resist. He was a short, stocky man in his thirties with an unassailable buoyancy.
While others might complain about the setbacks on their journey, Columbanus somehow managed to view them in a kindly and uncensorious light. Gervase liked him but Ralph was irritated by the monk’s unrelenting optimism.
The other new member of the commission took a more sceptical view of the world. Maurice Pagnal looked out at the storm and shook his head in bewilderment.
‘What on earth am I doing here?’ he wondered.
‘Serving the King,’ said Ralph.
‘How can I serve anyone in weather such as this?’
‘You are grown soft, Maurice. Have you so soon forgotten? We came to this country as soldiers, ready to fight in wind, rain, sleet or snow to achieve victory over our enemies. When did we let the weather get the upper hand over us?’
‘Never, Ralph,’ said the other with a chuckle. ‘I recall a time in Yorkshire when we battled in a hailstorm. But my soldiering did not end here in England like yours. I saw service in Sicily and beyond. A helm and hauberk are rough companions in the baking heat. The sun roasted us like chickens on a spit.’
Maurice Pagnal was a grizzled warrior, a wiry man with a craggy face, who had spent most of his adult life in one army or another and had finally retired to his honour in Dorset. He had been asked to join the commissioners when Canon Hubert, their appointed colleague, was indisposed and, for all his protests, Maurice was a willing member of a team sent out to enforce the King’s writ. Ralph found his cheerful gruffness infinitely preferable to the pomposity of the canon but Gervase was reserving his judgement on their new fellow. Maurice was a little too rough-hewn for him.
Deprived of the pleasure of attacking them on the open road, the storm intensified its fury, rattling the rafters with a fierce wind and blowing the rain vengefully in at them. Thunder and lightning tortured the horses afresh, and they grew ever more restless. Dispersed throughout the hovels, the soldiers found what cover they could. The hamlet was a poor refuge but it saved them from the worst of the wild afternoon.
Ralph moved his head to avoid a drip through the roof.
‘What a dreadful place in which to lodge!’ he said.
‘I fear that you must take some blame for that,’ observed Gervase softly.
‘Me?’
‘Indirectly.’
‘I have never been near this God-forsaken spot before.’
‘I think you have, Ralph,’ said Gervase. ‘Did you not tell me that Duke William led his invading army west along the Thames and crossed the river at Wallingford?’
‘Why, so we did,’ recalled Maurice. ‘Cutting down everyone who stood in our way. Laying waste. You and I were comrades-in-arms, Ralph. We did our share of destruction.’
‘Perhaps we did,’ admitted Ralph, uneasy about a topic of conversation which would unsettle his Saxon wife. ‘But I do not see why we should drag up such memories now. That is all in the distant past.’
‘Not to us,’ said Golde quietly.
Gervase took in the hamlet with a sweep of his arm.
‘Here stands the evidence. Wallingford is no more than a mile or two away. This place must have been raided and its inhabitants killed or driven out. We shall find many such places in Oxfordshire, I believe.’