It did not take him long to figure out the answer.

He did not want to be a fisherman. Nor a farmer. When he had dreamed about the life ahead of him, he had never envisaged that his great achievement would be a fish trap. He felt like one of the eels, swimming round and round in the basket and always missing the narrow way out.

He knew he had a gift. Some men could fight, and some could recite a poem that went on for hours, and some could steer a ship by the stars. Edgar’s gift had to do with shapes, and something about numbers; and somewhere in there was an intuitive grasp of weights and stress, pressure and tension, and the twisting strain for which there was no word.

There had been a time when he had not realized he was exceptional in this way, and he had caused offense sometimes, especially with older men, by saying things such as: “Isn’t that obvious?”

He just saw certain things. He had imagined the excess rain running off the field into his ditch, and down the ditch into the river; and his vision had come true.

And he could do more. He had built a Viking boat and a stone brewhouse and a drainage ditch, but that was only the start. His gift had to be used for greater things. He knew that, the way he had known that the fish would get caught in the trap.

It was his destiny.

CHAPTER 21

    September 998

ldred was playing a dangerous game: trying to bring down a bishop. All bishops were powerful, but Wynstan was also ruthless and brutal. Abbot Osmund was right to be scared of him. To offend him was to put your head into the mouth of a lion.

But Christians had to do that sort of thing.

The more Aldred thought about it, the more sure he was that the man to prosecute Wynstan was Sheriff Den. First, the sheriff was the king’s representative, and forgery was an offense against the king, whose duty it was to keep the currency sound. Second, the sheriff and his men formed a power group that rivaled Wilwulf and his brothers: each restrained the other, which caused animosity on both sides. Aldred was sure Den hated Wilf. Third, the successful prosecution of a high-ranking forger would be a personal triumph for the sheriff. It would please the king, who would surely reward Den handsomely.

Aldred spoke to Den after Mass on Sunday. He made it look casual, just two of the important men of the town exchanging courtesies: he was keen to avoid the appearance of conspiracy. Smiling amiably, he said quietly: “I need to speak to you privately. May I call at your compound tomorrow?”

Den’s eyes widened in surprise. He had an alert intelligence, and no doubt he could guess that this was no merely social request. “Of course,” he replied, in the same tone of polite small talk. “A pleasure.”

“In the afternoon, if that suits you.” That was the time when the monks’ religious duties were light.

“Certainly.”

“And the fewer people who know, the better.”

“I understand.”

Next day Aldred slipped out of the abbey after the midday meal, when the townspeople were sleepily digesting their mutton and ale, and few people were on the streets to notice him. Now that he was about to tell the sheriff everything, he began to worry about what reaction he would get. Would Den have the nerve to go up against the mighty Wynstan?

He found Den alone in his great hall, using a handheld whetstone to sharpen a favorite sword. Aldred began his story with his first visit to Dreng’s Ferry: the unfriendliness of the inhabitants, the decadent atmosphere at the minster, and his instinct that there was a guilty secret there. Den looked intrigued by Wynstan’s quarterly visits, and the gifts he brought; then he was amused at the idea of Aldred sending someone to follow Wynstan around the pleasure houses of Combe. But when Aldred began on the weighing of coins, Den put down his sword and the stone, listening avidly.

“Clearly Wynstan and Degbert go to Combe to spend some of their forgeries and change others for genuine money in a large town where there is lots of commerce and the counterfeits are unlikely to be noticed.”

Den nodded. “That makes sense. Pennies move from one person to another quickly in a town.”

“But the coins must be produced in Dreng’s Ferry. To make perfect copies of the dies used in the royal mints requires the skill of a jeweler—and there is a jeweler in the minster at Dreng’s Ferry. His name is Cuthbert.”

Den was both appalled and eager. He seemed genuinely shocked by the enormity of the crime. “A bishop!” he said in an excited whisper. “Counterfeiting the king’s currency!” But he was also thrilled. “If I expose this crime, King Ethelred will never forget my name!”

When he had calmed down Aldred got him to focus on just how they would pounce.

“We need to catch them at it,” Den said. “I need to see the materials, the tools, the process. I need to see the false money being manufactured.”

“I think that can be arranged,” said Aldred, sounding more confident than he felt. “They do it at regular times, always a few days after the quarter day. Wynstan collects his rents, takes genuine money to Dreng’s Ferry, and there turns it into twice as many counterfeit coins.”

“It’s diabolical. But for us to catch them, they mustn’t be forewarned.” Den became thoughtful. “I would have to leave Shiring before Wynstan, so that he wouldn’t get the idea he was being followed. I’d need a pretext: I could pretend we’re going to search for Ironface in, say, the woods around Bathford.”

“Good idea. I heard a report of goats being stolen there a few weeks ago.”

“Then we would have to hide out in the forest near Dreng’s Ferry, well away from the road. However, we would need someone to tell us when Wynstan arrives at the minster.”

“I can arrange that. I have an ally in the village.”

“Trustworthy?”

“He already knows everything. It’s Edgar the builder.”

“Good choice. He helped the lady Ragna in Outhenham. Young, but smart. He would have to alert us as soon as they begin making the coins. Do you think he would do that?”

“Yes.”

“I believe we have the beginnings of a plan. But I need to think this over carefully. We’ll talk more later.”

“Whenever you like, sheriff.”

* * *

On Michaelmas, the twenty-ninth day of September, Bishop Wynstan sat in his residence at Shiring, receiving his rents.

Wealth poured into his treasury all day long, giving him a pleasure that was every bit as good as sex. The head men of nearby villages appeared in the morning, driving livestock, steering loaded carts, and carrying bags and chests of silver pennies. Tribute from more distant places within Shiring arrived in the afternoon. Wynstan as bishop was also lord of villages in other shires, and their payments would arrive over the next day or two. He tallied it all as carefully as a hungry peasant counted the baby chicks in the henhouse. He liked the silver pennies best of all, for he could take them to Dreng’s Ferry where they would miraculously be doubled.

The headman of Meddock was twelve pence short. The defaulter was Godric, the son of the priest, who had come to explain. “My lord bishop, I beg your gracious mercy,” said Godric.

“Never mind that, where’s my money?” said Wynstan.

“The rain has been terrible, before and after Midsummer. I have a wife and two children, and I don’t know how I’m going to feed them this winter.”

This was not like last year’s calamity at Combe, where everyone in town had been impoverished. Wynstan said: “Everyone else in Meddock has paid their dues.”

“My land is on a west-facing slope, and my crops were washed out. I will pay you double next year.”

“No, you won’t, you’ll tell me another story.”

“I swear it.”

“If I accepted oaths instead of rents, I’d be poor and you’d be rich.”

“Then what am I to do?”

“Borrow.”

“I asked my father, the priest, but he doesn’t have the money.”

“If your own father has refused you, why should I help you?”

“Then what can I do?”

“Get the money somehow. If you can’t borrow it, sell yourself and your family into slavery.”

“Would you take us as slaves, my lord?”

“Is your family here?”

Godric pointed. A woman and two children were waiting anxiously in the background.

Wynstan said: “Your wife is too old to be worth much, and your children are too small. I won’t take any of you. Try someone else. Widow Ymma, the furrier, is rich.”

“My lord—”

“Get out of my sight. Headman, if Godric hasn’t paid by the end of today, find another peasant for the west-sloping land. And make sure the new man understands the need for drainage furrows. This is the west of England, for heaven’s sake—it rains here.”