Murky Waters: The Adventures of Wulfbertie, #2

By Amanita Peridot Festoon

The abbey walls are surrounded by vikings and saxons and other marauders.  And wild beasts.  And now the waters are rising and the city is flooding.  The ancient foundations of the buildings shift and the tower tilts.  And then the bloody flux infects the citizens of Glewcaster.  We need a hero, preferably with a big heart.  Wulfbertie is a hero.  When he's not too busy. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tilebury Books
• Release date: Apr 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223777014

Amanita Peridot Festoon

Amanita is a seventeen-hundred year old Geo-architectural Fungiphile and harpsichordist.   Throughout her long life Amanita travelled widely in all the known lands of the globe (and some unknown ones). Along the way she recorded the interesting stories of people she met. One of those people was Wulfbertie.  Amanita met Wulfbertie when he was an old man living in the Palace at King's Holm, Glewcaster. He remembered all the events of his youth with crystal clarity and Amanita wrote them down for posterity.

Book preview

CHAPTER  I  -  WULFBERTIE'S VIGIL

Take that, you scar-faced scoundrel!  Begone, you menacing marauder!

Wulfbert of Dean was engaged in a stormy skirmish with a hundred phantom foes.  In one hand he brandished a broken bread knife.  In the other a wooden plate to block the enemy's sword.

Avast, ye pirates!  Oh, no, that is for battles on the river.  Turn tail, you dastardly ... erm ... demons.

Bertie spent all his free time on guard duty on top of the church tower, scanning the horizon for invaders and practising his warmanship.  You could not trust the enemy to stay in their hideouts just because the weather was dank and foul, no matter what the Brothers said.

Another attacker crept up behind him.  He turned and cried, "Forsooth!  Aha!" and disarmed a vicious Viking of his fearsome warhammer.

The Great Bell, stabbed by his bread knife, gave a satisfactory 'Bing'!

Busy with his imaginary battle in the late afternoon rain, Wulfbertie nearly missed the arrival of the spy.

A sound at St Visitus Gate caught his ear.  Wulfbertie peered over the railing and watched as old blind Brother Porter unbolted the door and let a stranger into the abbey.  The man left a lumpy sack in the porter's lodge and picked his way across the puddles of the outer court.  He glanced around the monastery before knocking on the door of the abbot's lodgings.  He looked up at the church tower and tilted his head sideways.

Wulfbertie ducked down.  He must not be seen by the saboteur.  When he cautiously raised his head again, the man was looking straight at him.  He was small and dressed in a baggy brown tunic and leggings, and a cloak, with a big floppy hat.  He had a pointed black beard which made his face look long and thin.

Wulfbertie could swear that the stranger sneered at him, before disappearing into Abba's office.

Ooh, said Wulfbertie.  That must be the new master stone-cutter mason from the Condiment.  Abba has been waiting for him since mid-winter.  I must tell Uncle Eddlinbert straight away.

Wulfbertie tucked his dagger and shield under a loose board.  He took a last look around his defensible domain.  All was quiet in the hills to the east, in the town to the south, and across the river in the Fforest of Deneae, as far as Wulfbertie could see through the murk of the rain.

To the north, where the River Sseverne curved around the town, were the marshes.  The only movement there was a small boy and a dog playing by the water-side, near a ramshackle shack built inside the ruins of the Roman mausoleum.

'Ralf has befriended that nasty ungrateful dog,' thought Wulfbertie.  'I wish I had a dog.'

The boy, Ralf, was an orphan, who spent last summer and autumn thieving to stay alive.  He now lived with an old woman, Mistress Trug.  She had appeared in town a few years ago, and built herself a shelter in the Roman ruins.  She had lived alone until Ralf joined her after the mid-winter Viking attack.

Ralf caught fish and sold them in the market while Trug gathered herbs and peddled them door to door.  Sometimes she helped women with their babies.

Many people called her a witch, because she looked so strange and brewed medicines from roots and berries.  They called her Trug because of the basket she used to peddle her wares, which was called a trug.

There were rumours that Trug was a widow, a survivor of the tribal wars in Wales.  When her family was killed she had drifted from town to town until she found a place she liked.  Nobody knew if it was true.  She never spoke, except in the Olden Tyme Tongue.  Many townsfolk knew the language, for their grandparents had spoken it.

It was a sad story and Mistress Trug was to be pitied.  But Wulfbertie kept his distance from her.  He was not sure she was completely harmless.  Just last week, lightning had ripped open the sky and killed a cow in the meadow near her hut. 

Ralf, however, seemed happy enough living with her.

In the precincts of the abbey, Wulfbertie caught sight of a monkish figure slowly plodding around the stews, up to his ankles in mud.  This was the novice, Lavio.  Lavio was to take his final vows soon to become a true monk.  He seemed quite miserable about it.

Earlier, Bertie had watched as Lavio emerged from the office of Abbot Pacific.  Lavio normally looked very pleased with himself, but recently he had changed.  He was not walking with his normal perky stride or even speaking in capitals like he used to do.  Lavio had become moody and distant and whenever Bertie tried to talk to him, he turned away or made a hurtful remark.

'He probably has another headache,' thought Bertie.  Lavio had a lot of headaches because of the large scar he had been given when he had forgotten his past. 

Then Bertie had another thought, 'I hope he is not catching the plague.  Then I might have to do the laundry.'

Wulfbertie took off his sandals.  They were too big and dangerous to wear on the stairs.  Brother Yestyn, the Chamberlain, had, with many a grumble, made a very large pocket in the front of Wulfbertie's new habit.  This pocket was a good place to store all his necessary items, plus useless ones like sandals.

He descended the steps and headed for the Librarium.  Uncle Eddlinbert might still be there, even though the light was fading fast.

+  +  +

Wulfbertie rapped lightly on the Librarium door.  Brother Libro was tetchy and tended to shout if Wulfbertie went straight in, so it was best not to make too much noise.

There was no answer.  Bertie knocked more loudly.  The Brothers might be too busy to hear him knocking so he opened the door and peeped inside.  Today, in spite of the large windows, the room was gloomy.  Anyone working here would have to use a candle.  He could see no light, so the men must have gone already to the warming room.

Candles were rationed, which made it difficult to do much work at this time of year.  It was the strictest of Libro's rules that no-one must leave a burning candle in the empty Librarium.  This was to prevent the scrolls going up blazing in a 'ferno.

Lack of candles was one of the reasons school lessons had been cancelled.  Another was that the roof of the schoolroom was leaking.  The major reason, however, was that Brother Xerxes, the monastery magister, was in the 'farmery with a nervous breakdown. 

Xerxes kept mumbling Latin poetry and shouting, Numbskull!  at anyone who passed by, so Bertie was pleased he had given up teaching.  He was not cut out for training young minds.

Wulfbertie took a deep sniff.  The Librarium was an intriguing place.  It held the peculiar odours of dust and ink and parchment.  Libro was always moving the old scrolls around to air them and to prevent mould growing on them.  This gave the room a muddled look and its odd smell.

Dumped in one corner of the room were many large burlap bags full of documents.  There were wills, deeds,  records of loans, and legal agreements going back as far as the ancient times when the Romans had built the town.  Some were brought from the town archives in the clerk's office.  Others came from country homes and small monasteries.  They had all been brought to the abbey at Glewcaster for safekeeping.

Uncle Eddlinbert spent much of his time sorting the documents.  Sometimes Uncle would tell Bertie about the odd things he learned and the stories he could work out from them.  As a special treat he would show Wulfbertie the brightly coloured seals which noblemen used on their documents.  The most exciting ones were attached to treaties between warring tribes.

Wulfbertie heard all about temptation in church, and this was where he felt his own temptation most strongly.  He desperately wanted to poke into one of the sacks and discover some terrible mystery that not even Eddlinbert could unravel.

However, he decided to be a Wulf-Man whose virtues rose to heaven, and folded his arms across his chest to stop his fingers from mystery-seeking.

On Uncle Eddlinbert's desk were pots of ink and sand.  There were goose feathers and a sharp knife and a very fine quill pen.  Uncle always made his own pens.  He took great care of them.

Wulfbertie sat on Brother Libro's stool.  He tried out his Librarium voice.  How did Libro sound?  Low and breathy, and always annoyed.

Ahem!  The scroll you requested will not be available until you have washed your hands.

He spotted a roll of binding tape and continued.  Repair of manuscripts is prohivifly expensive.  He could not get his voice to echo like Libro's did.

The door at the far end of the Librarium led to the Scriptorium, where the best light was and the most learned monks spent their time copying old manuscripts.  Wulfbertie had entered the Scriptorium only once and been speedily turfed out again.

He peeked around the door and gasped.  There was a light in the Scriptorium.  Perhaps someone was still working and had heard him trying out his Brother Libro voice.  It might be subPrior Riggor who was working on his 'Counts.'

No-one shouted, so Wulfbertie crept into the room.  If a candle had been left burning, he, the head-strong, hand-fast, heart-pure, and house-loyal Wulfbert of Deene, would be the one to save the Scriptorium and all the scrolls from devastation by fiery confragation.

The room was empty.  The light he had seen was a reflection of the last rays of the weak sun glinting off a bottle of glue on a shelf.

There was a tall stack of parchments on the table where the subPrior worked.  Riggor was very particular about re-using documents.  He made Bertie soak old parchments in caustic water to remove the writing