Without a Trace

by Mel Starr

  A man with a scythe is expected to mow an acre of hay in a day. As there were ten men at work in the hayfield – which measured little more than half a yardland in size – they had nearly completed when, at the ninth hour, I saw riders, two carts, and an elaborately painted wagon approach the castle from Cowleys Corner. Here, I thought, are Sir Aymer and Lady Philippa.

  A painted canvas stretched over hoops covered the wagon. As this had been a day of bright sun I assumed Lady Philippa traveled under the canvas so as to keep her complexion pale. Most gentlefolk think this a mark of beauty. And status. A tanned visage is the mark of a woman of the commons, who must labor in the sun. My Kate is usually tanned by Michaelmas. This does not diminish her beauty. Not to me. Why is it, I wonder, that the summer sun will cause skin to grow darker and hair to become lighter? Here is another question for my mystery bag, to be opened when the Lord Christ welcomes me to His kingdom. Surely He will know.

  When I first came to Bampton in Lord Gilbert’s employ I was surprised to learn of a practice I had not seen before. At the end of a day’s haying, men are permitted to take for their own as much of the lord’s hay as they can carry from the field upon their scythe. But they must not be over-greedy. If any hay falls before they carry it from the field, all they have piled upon their scythe is forfeit.

  I watched as the villeins stacked remarkable mounds of hay upon their scythes and carried the fodder away, then I left the hayfield and walked to Bampton Castle’s forecourt. Lord Gilbert’s visitors had but moments before passed under the portcullis and into the castle yard. Arthur and Uctred, two of Lord Gilbert’s grooms who had in the past been of service to me in seeking felons, were among the servants taking Sir Aymer’s beasts in hand as he, his squire, and a dozen or so grooms and valets dismounted.

  I had no business at the castle, no reason to greet Lord Gilbert’s guests, but I passed into the castle yard to admire Sir Aymer’s horse, a fine chestnut destrier. I was about to retrace my steps to the forecourt when I heard raised voices. I did not at first comprehend the words, but turned to see whence the din came, and heard Sir Aymer roar, “Empty, by heavens! Where is she? She entered the wagon this morn. Why is she not within now?”

  The knight addressed these shouted questions to an elderly wispy-haired man who had, until a moment earlier, been mounted upon the first of the three runcies which drew the wagon. The fellow was frail, and glanced from Sir Aymer to the wagon with an open mouth and startled expression.

  Lord Gilbert drew aside the canvas enclosing the rear of the wagon and as I watched he peered inside. The roads were dry. The wagon was closed front and back to keep out dust. When my employer withdrew his head his bluff features registered puzzlement. Apparently Sir Aymer’s wife – who else would travel in such a conveyance? – was not to be found.

  This disappearance soon set tongues wagging. Sir Aymer’s grooms and valets put their heads together, and Lord Gilbert’s servants did likewise. Meanwhile Lord Gilbert stood, arms akimbo, studying the wagon, and Sir Aymer continued to berate the dejected postilion rider.

  The curious spectacle caught my eye. I stood near the castle gatehouse to watch and listen. How could a lady disappear between Coleshill and Bampton, a distance of but nine miles? This question was about to be assigned to me, for as I watched Sir Aymer berate the wagon driver Lord Gilbert’s eye fell upon me. A moment later he beckoned vigorously and I approached him.

  “Here is a puzzle,” Lord Gilbert said over the clamor of competing voices pronouncing opinions regarding the vanished lady. “The Lady Philippa and her maid went into the wagon this morning at Coleshill, but are not within now. I fear some evil has befallen the lady.”

  Sir Aymer, meanwhile, left off castigating the hapless postilion and stalked to where Lord Gilbert and I stood. “My wife has been taken,” he concluded. “I and my men will ride back along the way we came to see if Lady Philippa may be found.”

  “I will join you,” Lord Gilbert said at once. Then, to me, “You come also, Hugh. Arthur! Uctred! Saddle my ambler and three palfreys! We four will accompany Sir Aymer.”

  Arthur and Uctred hurried to the stables to do Lord Gilbert’s bidding, while my employer hastened to his hall. He returned a moment later buckling a sword to his belt.

  “If there are felons about who stole the lady ’twill be well to be armed. Have you your dagger?”

  I touched the hilt of my weapon in reply.

  Sir Aymer, his squire, five of his grooms and valets, along with Lord Gilbert, Arthur, Uctred, and me clattered across the castle drawbridge a few moments later. We rode past Cowleys Corner, across Radcot Bridge, beyond Clanfield, out all the way to Faringdon, but we saw no trace of the missing lady, nor any sign that some felony had taken place along the road. Sir Aymer often called Lady Philippa’s name. Silence was the only reply.

  We occasionally saw men working late in the fields along the road, and once passed two travelers afoot. None of these had seen a lady and her maid. At Clanfield we questioned several folk. A woman of the village recalled seeing Sir Aymer and his party pass earlier in the day – Lady Philippa’s colorful wagon would be remembered. Since then, she said, only a cart and men afoot had traveled the road before her house.

  ’Twas near to Midsummer’s Eve, so we had ample light to inspect the road and verge. Nothing was amiss. Lady Philippa and the maid had vanished.

  Even on this longest day, the sun had set when we returned to Bampton Castle. For six hours we had sought Lady Philippa without success. But the search was not ended.

  As he dismounted, Lord Gilbert turned to me and spoke. “Hugh, I wish for you to discover what has befallen Lady Philippa. It may be that she was taken whilst upon my lands, near to Bampton. If so, I’ll not have a guest so ill-used. Come to the castle early tomorrow and we will consider what must be done.”

  Chapter 2

  Kate, the children, and my father-in-law were abed when I stumbled, exhausted, in the dark to Galen House. After much thumping upon the door I roused Caxton from his bed and he lifted the bar to admit me.

  I had also awakened Kate, and when I ascended the stairs to our chamber she insisted I tell her the reason for my tardy return. She had an opinion.

  “Either the lady was taken by felons, or she conspired in her own disappearance,” she said. “Either way, some man will be involved.”

  “Aye, a lady and her maid will not purpose to vanish into the country with no man to protect them… if they are willingly gone away.”

  “If men have stolen her,” Kate said, “Sir Aymer will soon receive a ransom demand.”

  “Aye, he will. But how could such fellows take two women from a wagon and not be seen or heard at the business?”

  “How could the lady have fled the wagon of her own will, with her maid, without being seen or heard?” Kate replied. “Either is unlikely.”

  “But one is necessarily true, else the Lord Christ took the women to Him. I do not know Lady Philippa, but it seems unlikely she would be so holy as to escape death.”

  Kate made no reply, but sank back to her pillow and soon her regular breathing indicated sleep. I, however, stared at the rafters and considered what I might do to bring Lady Philippa back to her husband. The wagon driver seemed most likely to know what may have happened along the road, yet he could shed but little light upon the matter – and for sufficient reasons. So I thought.

  I hurried to the castle as the morning Angelus Bell sounded, eager to set about solving this mystery. Sir Aymer was breaking his fast with Lord Gilbert when I arrived, and told me the postilion had made his bed for the night with Lord Gilbert’s grooms. I found the man rubbing sleep from his eyes, his back toward.

  Sir Aymer said the man’s name was John. I spoke the name and received no reply. Uctred was near, and spoke.

  “Deaf as a stump, that one. You’ll need to shout.”

  I did, but a third and even louder call was required before the man turned his head to me. He blinked his eyes and I saw they were white w
ith cataracts. I could deal with this malady, but had other, more pressing matters for my attention.

  I managed to make myself understood, and asked the fellow of what he had seen and heard as he guided Lady Philippa’s wagon to Bampton. I was not surprised to learn he had seen and heard nothing. “Three beasts hitched to wagon,” he said. “I was ridin’ first.” I would need information from someone who had not lost vision and hearing.

  The hoary fellow seemed genuinely grieved that his mistress had disappeared from under his nose and he could offer no help in finding her. I saw a tear upon his red, wrinkled cheek as I left him.

  “The rooks,” he croaked. I turned to the man. “Sir Aymer said sky was full of ’em. Hundreds of rooks. Evil sign, when rooks assemble. Evil.”

  Lord Gilbert and Sir Aymer had retired to the solar to discuss matters privily. I found them with heads together, trying explanations for Lady Philippa’s disappearance, discounting one possibility after another.

  “Have you learned anything from John… anything more than I, which was little enough?” Sir Aymer asked when I entered the solar. “Told me last eve he’d not seen or heard anything untoward. Of course, he’d not likely do either.”

  “The carter’s vision is clouded and he suffers the disease of the ears,” I replied. “He will be of little help in finding your wife, I fear.”

  “True enough. John served my father before me, and my grandfather before him. I’ll not turn him out, and even if I would Lady Philippa would not hear of it. I thought he’d do no harm, riding postilion, with so many other eyes and ears in our party. Normally I’d have a younger man as wagoner, but he’s been taken ill.”

  “Where were you and your other servants placed as you traveled?” I asked.

  “I rode ahead, with Giles and most of my men.”

  “Giles?”

  “My squire.”

  “Did any man ride behind the wagon?”

  “Aye. Much of the time Maurice and Brom rode with the wagon.”

  “Much of the time? When did they not?”

  “There is a hill leading to Faringdon, and another leaving Clanfield. The runcies on Lady Philippa’s wagon had a struggle. The wagon fell behind for a time.”

  “Have you spoken to the grooms about this?” I asked.

  “Aye. Said this morning they were with the wagon all the journey but for the hills near to Faringdon and Clanfield.”

  “Then that is where your wife was taken,” Lord Gilbert said. “One of those places.”

  “Likely. But why did she not cry out? Maurice and Brom would have heard her, even if John could not. They had not gone that far ahead of the wagon, I think.”

  I wondered why the grooms had ridden on ahead of the slowed wagon. Why not hold back?

  “We will begin this day’s search at Clanfield,” I said, “if this meets with your approval. Mayhap, if Lady Philippa or her maid struggled with those who seized her, there will be some sign. I wish your grooms had spoken of this yesterday, when we passed the place in our search. The trail, if there is one, would have been fresh.”

  If Maurice and Brom had been assigned to remain with Lady Philippa on the journey, had not done so, and feared Sir Aymer’s wrath, there would be reason enough for them to hold their tongues.

  “I intend to return to Coleshill,” Sir Aymer said. “If felons have my wife they will soon demand a ransom for her return. They will expect me to be there, not here.”

  “We will accompany you as far as Clanfield,” Lord Gilbert said, bidding me to ready the horses. “Do you wish your servants and squire to accompany you to Coleshill, or remain here to assist in the search?”

  Sir Aymer considered the question. I spoke.

  “I would like the grooms Maurice and Brom to remain at Bampton. Perhaps your squire also. They may assist in the search, and if we find a lady they may tell me if ’tis Lady Philippa or not. I would not know your wife. And should we find her she will need escort back to Coleshill.”

  Sir Aymer shrugged. “As you wish. They’ll do no good in Coleshill, waiting.”

  Lord Gilbert’s solar may be entered from within the castle or without. The door to the castle yard leads to stone steps which descend to the ground. I departed the solar through this door, and as I closed it behind me looked out over the castle yard to a sea of upturned faces. Sir Aymer’s servants and Lord Gilbert’s grooms and valets gazed up at me. They knew decisions were being made within the solar and wondered what these might be.

  Again I told Arthur and Uctred to see to the preparation of horses, then found Maurice, Brom, and Giles and told them that after this day’s search they would return to Bampton – unless Lady Philippa was found – while Sir Aymer and his other servants returned to Coleshill.

  John, the postilion, accompanied the search this day. I was unsure what he could offer to the quest, but seated him upon Lord Gilbert’s gentlest runcie and brought him along.

  We wasted no time calling for Lady Philippa or examining the verge, but hastened to the hill east of Clanfield, beyond Black Bourton Brook. ’Tis not much of a hill, traveling in either direction, but enough that three beasts would struggle to lift a heavy wagon to the summit.

  Our party dismounted at the top of the rise, tied the horses to saplings, and left John and another of Sir Aymer’s grooms to watch them. Sir Aymer assigned me, with Arthur, Uctred, and Brom, to walk the verge on one side of the road while he and Lord Gilbert with Maurice, the squire, and three of his servants examined the other.

  There had been no rain for several days, for which the haymakers were pleased, but this meant the road was firm and dusty. No mud gave away footprints, or cart tracks in some place they should not have been.

  Our two parties descended to the village, finding nothing along the way to suggest some felony had taken place. ’Twas not until we had returned partway that I saw the threads.

  A bramble bush bordered the road, and beside it a narrow opening which might once have been a path into the forest but was now mostly overgrown. Upon a thorn, at about waist height, I saw dark tendrils dangling. They were so few that I at first thought ’twas the filaments of a spider’s web I saw. But spiders do not weave webs of dark blue wool.

  I called out to Sir Aymer and as he approached I asked Brom what color cotehardie his mistress had worn the day before.

  “Blue… dark blue,” he said, then glanced to the threads.

  Sir Aymer pushed the groom aside the better to see what I held. He grasped the woolen threads and held them against the palm of his hand.

  “Where was this found?” he demanded.

  I pointed to the bramble bush. “Just there.”

  Lord Gilbert had followed Sir Aymer across the road. He peered over the knight’s shoulder, then followed my pointing finger to the bush.

  “Are these threads the color Lady Philippa wore yesterday?” I asked.

  “They are so few ’tis difficult to say,” Sir Aymer said. “She did wear blue.”

  Lord Gilbert, observing that the place where I found the wisps seemed to be the overgrown entrance to a woodland trail, looked carefully at the thorny opening.

  “Some time past, men, or perhaps foxes, have crossed the road here and entered the wood… or departed from it. ’Tis hardly a path, but let us follow and see where it might lead. Watch the thorns and nettles!”

  Lord Gilbert plunged into the clinging briars. My employer is a man who, when he determines to do a thing, proceeds to do it, regardless of nettles or thorns. Sir Aymer, Giles, and I followed in the path he trod down for us, Arthur, Uctred, and Sir Aymer’s servants behind.

  Ten or so paces from the road the trees grew thicker, their shadows reducing the sunlight available to low-growing foliage, so that our passage was less entangled. But the path, if that was what we followed, also became less evident. If feet had trod this way only hours before, there seemed no evidence of it. Last year’s oak leaves lay dry and undisturbed upon the forest floor.

  Nearly undisturbed.


  Clanfield’s residents had picked the forest clean of fallen limbs last autumn for firewood, as was their right. The only branches littering the ground were those which had dropped in spring storms a few months past and had not yet been claimed. One of these boughs, nearly as thick through as my leg and three or so paces long, lay just to the right of Lord Gilbert’s chosen path. I glanced to the limb as we passed and saw a thing foreign to a forest floor.

  A golden brooch lay beside a mound of leaves. No sunlight penetrated the wood to gleam from the object and catch my eye. ’Twas mere happenstance that I saw the brooch as I passed. Or was it? If the Lord Christ sometimes involves Himself in the affairs of men, as the Scriptures attest, then perhaps it was He who sent my gaze to the brooch.

  “Wait,” I cautioned, and kneeled in the leaves to examine the brooch. A locking pin at the back of the ornament was yet closed upon a small patch of the blue wool which had evidently torn free with the brooch. An arm’s length away a small pile of leaves indicated where someone had perhaps tripped over the fallen branch and stumbled to their knees. Could such a tumble cause the brooch to pull free of its wearer?

  Sir Aymer and Lord Gilbert turned to the place where I kneeled, and approached. “What is there?” Lord Gilbert said. “What have you found?”

  I held the brooch before Sir Aymer. “Did Lady Philippa wear this?” I asked. I knew no maid would wear such a bauble.

  “I gave it to her when we wed,” the knight said.

  “She tripped over this fallen limb,” I said, “and the brooch ripped away. So I believe. Perhaps she or her captors were in haste and did not notice that the brooch had torn loose.”

  “But I do not understand why she did not cry out when men pulled her from the wagon,” Lord Gilbert said. “Someone would have heard, even though the carter hears nothing.”