The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd [86]
There had been few opportunities in the last weeks to enjoy this pleasure. His work in the granges had changed all that. But he had managed to do so one warm May afternoon and he was sitting quietly with his hood up – the monk’s sign that he does not want to be disturbed – rather idly reading a life of St Wilfrid, when his reverie was interrupted by a novice hurrying round the cloister and calling softly: ‘Brother Adam! Come quickly. Salvation is here. And everyone’s going to see.’
Naturally, therefore, Adam arose at once. ‘Salvation’, as the ignorant novice had rather sweetly called it, was Salvata, the abbey’s ship, a squat, square-rigged vessel in frequent use. After leaving the Beaulieu estuary her first port of call was nearby; at the head of the great inlet from the Solent water, which ran up the eastern side of the Forest, a flourishing little port had grown up in the last few centuries, known as Southampton. By its quay the Beaulieu monks had their own house to store the wool clip that was to be exported. Later, the returning Salvata would pick up all kinds of goods at Southampton, including the French wine the abbot’s guests enjoyed. From Southampton she might proceed along the coast to the county of Kent and thence across the English Channel. Or she might continue round, into the Thames estuary, to London or more likely up England’s eastern coast as far as the port of Yarmouth, where she would collect a large cargo of salted herrings for the abbey. Salvata’s return to the jetty below the abbey was always a source of excitement.
Sure enough, by the time Brother Adam arrived, most of the community at the abbey – over fifty monks and about forty lay brothers – had gathered to watch, and the prior, who loved this kind of thing, was calling out unnecessary orders: ‘Steady. Watch that mooring rope.’
Adam observed the scene with affection. There were times, it had to be admitted, when even the most devout of the monks became almost like children.
The cargo was salted herrings. As soon as the gangplank was in place, they all seemed to want to roll out one of the barrels.
‘Two to each cask,’ the prior called out. ‘Roll them up to the store.’
Twenty barrels were already on their way up. The monks were joking to each other; there was a festive atmosphere about the place, and Brother Adam was just about to return to the peace of his cloister when he noticed the ship’s master go over to the prior and say something. He saw the man point downstream and John of Grockleton start violently.
Then the shouting began.
If there was one thing in the world that would put Grockleton in a rage it was an attack on the abbey’s earthly rights. He had invested his life in protecting them. Among these many rights were those over the fishing on the Beaulieu river. ‘Villainy!’ he shouted. ‘Sacrilege.’ The monks rolling their barrels stopped and turned. ‘Brother Mark,’ the prior called, ‘Brother Benedict …’ He started pointing at one brother after another. ‘Fetch the skiff. Come with me.’
One did not need inspiration to guess what had happened. A party of men had been seen fishing – openly casting nets from a boat – further down the river. Worse, one of them was a merchant from Southampton, where the burgesses had stoutly maintained that they, too, had fishing rights, older than the abbey’s, on the river. This was just the kind of battle, Grockleton believed, that God had intended him to fight.
It is not every day that God calls those who have forsworn all worldly delights to the excitement of the chase. In, it seemed, the twinkling of an eye, a skiff containing three monks was skimming downstream while two parties, each of a dozen monks and lay brothers, were hurrying down the river banks. Leading the one down the western bank, his staff in his hand, his bent back causing him to lean forward like an attacking goose, was Grockleton. Brother Adam attached himself, unasked, to his party.
They kept up a remarkable pace. Using his staff as though it were an extra leg, the prior punted himself forward so