Abbot Reginald’s message came to him with curt good sense.
“Feed them, and be rid of them.”
So Waleran and his men had their paunches filled, because Reginald of Battle was a man of discretion and desired to keep his lands untainted. There were sundry inconveniences that clung even to the right of sanctuary and such high prerogatives. Reginald of Brecon was a smooth and astute man, a fine farmer, and keen as any Lombard. He would have no neighbour’s sparks from over the hedge setting fire to his own hayrick. If fools quarrelled, he could pray for both parties, and hold up the Cross benignantly, provided no one came trampling his crops.
In those days Dom Silvius was almoner at the Abbey, a quiet, sharp-faced, gliding mortal, very devout yet very shrewd. Men said that Dom Silvius loved his “house” better than he loved his soul. Never was a mouse more quick to scent out peas. He knew the ploughlands in every manor, every hog in every wood, how much salt each pan should yield, the value of the timber and the underwood, the measure of the corn ground at the mills, the honey each hive yielded, the number of fish that might be taken from the stews. The Abbey’s charter, and each and every several bequest might have been written on Dom Silvius’s brain. He was ever on the alert, ever contriving, and such a man was to be encouraged. His brethren loved him, for he was not miserly towards the “girdle,” and their pittances were bettered by Dom Silvius’s briskness. What did it matter if a monk meddled with more than concerned him, provided the buildings were in good repair, and his brethren had red wine to warm their bellies.
Dom Silvius’s ears were always open. He was a quiet man who did not frighten folk, but he learnt their secrets, and he often touched their money. Few lawyers could have snatched a grant from under the almoner’s cold, white fingers. He was a man of foresight, and of some imagination. Property to him was not merely a matter of so many plough teams and so many hides, pannage for hogs, and grindings at the mill. The Church held all charters in the land of the Spirit; she could take toll from the lay folk, and make them pay for using her road to heaven.
The very day that Waleran rode through Battle, Dom Silvius walked with folded arms and bowed head into the Abbot’s parlour. He stood meekly within the door, his face full of a smooth humility, his eyes fixed upon the rushes.
Abbot Reginald trusted greatly in this monk. The man was ever courteous and debonair, never turbulent or facetious, always inspired for the “glory” of his “house.”
“The blessing of the day, Brother. What business lies between us?”
Dom Silvius lifted his eyes for the first time to his superior’s face.
“If I repeat myself, Father, my importunity is an earnest failing. It concerns the Red Saint for whom Olivia of Goldspur built a cell.”