“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.”

There were several like Godric during the day, and Wynstan gave each the same treatment. If peasants were allowed to skip payments, they would all show up on quarter days with empty hands and sad stories.

Wynstan was also collecting rents for Wilwulf, and beside him Ithamar was carefully keeping the two sets of accounts separate. Wynstan took a modest rake-off from Wilf’s money. The bishop was keenly aware that his wealth and power were magnified by his relationship to the ealdorman, and he was not going to endanger that relationship.