Without a Trace

by Mel Starr

  “That was Gaston Howes, was it not?” I said to Sir John.

  “Aye,” he smirked.

  “The man who ran across the road as we left your manor house… ’twas Osbert?” I said.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see him.”

  “How much of the three pounds’ ransom for Joan le Scrope did you demand?” I asked.

  “What? You accuse me of taking the child?”

  “Nay. I accuse you of profiting from the felony. ’Tis known that Howes and his band seized the lass, and that he is protected. As he resides in your manor and your cousin is a judge before whom he might stand were he charged with such a felony, you are his likely protector. You would not do so except you received a part of the loot.”

  “Bah! You accuse falsely. Gaston has two yardlands in his tenancy. Diligent, is Gaston. He need do no felonies to prosper.”

  “Most men do not need to do the felonies they undertake,” I replied. “Three pounds is a significant sum. So you, your cousin, and Howes will need time to collect the coins and repay Sir Thomas.”

  “What?”

  “Do not assume the guise of an injured man. Your guilt is known from here to Abingdon. Now, we will investigate this house and see what may be learned. Has Howes a wife?”

  “Aye.”

  “Smite the door and call to her.”

  Sir John did so. He struck the door three times and called out, “Avina… ’tis Sir John.”

  A moment later the door swung open upon iron hinges. A plump matron, questions in her eyes, stood in the doorway. Two children of perhaps five and eight years stood behind her, clutching the folds of her cotehardie. This garment was of fine wool and near new, not worn with age and use as might be expected of a tenant of a minor knight.

  “Where has your husband gone?” I said.

  “Gaston?”

  “Have you other husbands?”

  “I don’t know where ’e went. Osbert come to kitchen door an’ spoke somethin’. Next I knew Gaston was off.”

  “Where is he bound?”

  “I don’t know, do I? ’E said nothin’ to me.”

  “We will inspect your house,” I said, and pushed past the woman. She protested but I paid her no heed. I told Sir Jaket to keep watch over Sir John while I investigated the house, then I prowled through the place.

  The structure was much like other tenants’ homes. It had two bays: one for cooking and storage, the other for sleeping and shelter. There was a hearthstone in each bay, but the one in the sleeping bay was swept clean. No need for a blaze there in summer.

  Aside the bed was a crude chest, which I opened. It had no lock. Various items of clothing were folded in the chest and I plucked them out to learn what Howes and his wife had acquired. Avina looked on with a scowl. I seemed to have produced that expression often this day.

  Toward the bottom of the chest I saw a black garment. I drew it out. ’Twas a priest’s robe. I held it before the woman and asked how it was that such a garment might be found in her chest.

  “Milo give it to me… in ’is will. Two years past.”

  “Who is – was – Milo?”

  “Clerk to Father ’Enry at All Saints’ Church.”

  “All Saints’? In Didcot?”

  “Aye, that’s right.”

  “Why would a clerk leave you his robe?”

  “’E was me uncle.”

  I decided that upon returning to Didcot I would visit All Saints’ Church to learn from the priest if a clerk named Milo had died two years past. And even if the garment was fairly come by it might yet have been worn in the night upon Badbury Hill.

  Above the chest and bed was a loft. I saw two pallets upon the floor beside the bed, so assumed that the children of the house slept there. What was the loft for? No ladder was visible. I asked its whereabouts.

  “We don’t ’ave one,” the woman said.

  “You have no access to your own loft?”

  “Nay. Helen ain’t old enough to sleep up there alone.”

  I might have accepted this explanation and considered my search of the house at an end. But the thought nagged me that even if the oldest lass was not of an age to be left to sleep alone in a loft, some use would be found for the space.

  I closed the lid to the chest, dragged it under the lip of the loft, then tipped the chest on end. If I stood on the upended chest I could easily reach the loft, pull myself up, and swing a leg over the edge.

  So I did.

  Little light illuminated the loft. I saw nothing upon the rough boards; no chest, no bench, no pallet. It seemed the woman spoke true. The loft was unused.

  But as I turned to drop down to the upended chest I noticed an anomaly. The end wall of the loft seemed closer to its edge than the end wall of the ground floor below. And there was no vent visible under the eave whereby smoke from the hearthstone might escape the dwelling. I cast my eyes in the other direction and saw there a vent at the other end of the room. But with only one vent hole there would be no cross-draft to expel the smoke. Such an arrangement made no sense. Unless the hearthstone in this bay was never used. And it was swept clean.

  I turned from the lip of the loft and approached the end wall. As I came close I saw a door, which in the dark had escaped me when I first set foot in the loft. This door was short, so that it could only be passed in a crouch, and was barred. On the outside. What might be beyond the door which must not be allowed to escape? Lady Philippa? Milicent? If so, why did they not cry out when they heard voices below? There are herbs which will stupefy. I use them when I must cause pain in surgery. Given enough of a dose in a cup of ale, women might sleep through the Lord Christ’s return.

  I lifted the plank which barred the door and pulled it open. I hoped to see a woman, or two, asleep upon a pallet. I was disappointed. But there was a ragged pallet upon the boards. This I could see, but little more. I needed a cresset.

  I returned to the edge of the loft and called down to Avina that I required a cresset. The woman seemed reluctant to comply. She looked to Sir John as if he might countermand my request. Likely she had heard me remove the board which barred the door and knew what dark place I wished to illuminate.

  “A cresset, or a candle, please,” I said again. Sir John said nothing. I saw him shrug his shoulders. Perhaps he knew nothing of the loft and so saw no danger in exposing it to the light. Unlikely.

  The woman passed through the doorway to her kitchen and out of my sight. She returned a moment later with a cresset, which Sir Jaket took from her and, standing upon the chest, handed to me.

  A single flame will not bathe a dark closet in light. But some light is better than none at all. The threadbare pallet I had seen dimly was thinly stuffed with straw. No feathers for whoso had slept here.

  I held the flame to the walls and rafters, seeking I knew not what. In one corner of this tiny chamber I saw a chipped ceramic pot. As my nostrils came close I identified its purpose, although what contents remained were dried. No one had recently put the vessel to use.

  At the peak of the roof was a place where a vent hole had been plugged. The beams and rafters about this closed opening were dark with years of soot. So when the light from the cresset flame fell upon the marks engraved in the soot they stood out clearly.

  Pale scratches in the grimy rafter resolved themselves into rough letters when I brought the flame near. “Joan,” they spelled, in an unskilled hand. The name was likely worked into the soot with a fingernail, so ’twas no wonder the work seemed crude.

  Here the lass Joan le Scrope had been confined while her captors awaited payment of her ransom. Why did the lass not cry out for aid? She might have heard folk passing her prison on the street. Mayhap she had been threatened to keep silence. Or she was carried to the house blindfolded so she knew not that she was in a place where others might hear her screams.

  I know of herbs which may dull the senses and produce a somnolent state. Perhaps Gaston knew of these also. Was Joan le Scrope given a dose of crush
ed hemp seeds in her ale? Or did she clamor to no avail, Gaston’s neighbors unhearing or intimidated to silence? Did Howes beat his wife? Mayhap if villagers who lived near heard the lass screeching, they thought ’twas some domestic discord with which they would prefer not to become embroiled.

  If the same men had seized Lady Philippa, then where was the lady? Had she been held here, then moved to some other place? Or was she never confined in this place? I moved the cresset about, seeking another name cut into the soot. I found nothing.

  I was about to depart the closet when from below I heard a shout, the sound of a scuffle, and then silence. I dove through the chamber’s tiny door and snuffed out the cresset. At the edge of the loft I looked down into the room below and saw only Avina Howes. Sir John and Sir Jaket were gone, the door open. I heard from a distance the sound of running feet.

  I leaped from loft to chest, discarded the cresset, and ran through the open door. Fifty or so paces to the southeast I saw Sir Jaket in pursuit of Sir John. Sir Jaket is a youthful knight, risen from squire but two years past. Sir John is much older. But perhaps no wiser. ’Tis foolish for an older knight, carrying a well-developed paunch, to think he may outrun a slender youth. I set off at a run after the two knights but had taken no more than four or five strides when I saw Sir Jaket overtake his quarry and tackle him.

  The men rolled in the dirt of the road, and when their motion ceased ’twas Sir Jaket uppermost, his hands encircling Sir John’s throat.

  I shouted for Sir Jaket to spare his adversary. I don’t much care if felons are slain while about their nefarious practices, but a dead man could tell me nothing of Joan le Scrope, Gaston Howes, or Lady Philippa Molyns.

  Desperation might cause a man to thoughtlessly flee. Where did Sir John believe he could go where he might escape me, Lord Gilbert, and the consequences of his felonies? Thoughtless deeds can no more be undone than thoughtless words unsaid.

  While Sir John had rolled in the dust of the road with Sir Jaket, his purse had come loose from his belt and spilled some of its contents. I gathered the purse and the coins which had escaped from it and examined the money. Sir John, tight in Sir Jaket’s grasp, looked on while I studied the coins. I found none that were marred. If Gaston Howes or some other of Sir John’s men had collected Lady Philippa’s ransom, he had not yet received his portion of the loot. Or it was safely hidden in some secure place in his manor house.

  With Sir Jaket grasping one arm and I the other we hoisted Sir John to his feet and hauled him back to his manor house, where his retainers and Lord Gilbert’s men stood yet, facing each other, waiting. Was Sir John embarrassed to be so unceremoniously dragged through the street of his own manor? I hoped so. May the Lord Christ forgive my uncharitable thought.

  I had in mind to question the knight closely as to where Gaston Howes might be found, but though the might be discomfited enough that the interrogation be best done privily.

  “Take Sir John to his hall,” I said to Sir Jaket. Then, to his men and Lord Gilbert’s I said, “Remain here… but for Arthur.” I nodded in the direction of the open door and Arthur followed me, Sir John, and Sir Jaket into the hall.

  Arthur knows well the part he is to play in such encounters. He folded his thick arms, scowled, and gave indication that he would enjoy tearing Sir John limb from limb. Perhaps he would, and ’twas no artifice.

  I pointed to a bench and bade Sir John sit. His expression told that he resented being instructed in his own house as to what he must do. But he understood that Lord Gilbert, my protector, was greater than his cousin judge. And a quick glance to Sir Jaket’s hand upon the hilt of his sword, and Arthur’s frown, persuaded the man that he should do as required. His attitude had greatly altered in the past hour.

  “Sir Aymer told me that his father and yours were at Crécy. He said they had differing views of the battle and became enemies. Did you take Sir Aymer’s wife as revenge against the son of your father’s enemy?”

  “My father’s enemy – not mine,” Sir John muttered.

  “Where will I now find Gaston Howes?” I said. “I know he held Joan le Scrope in his loft. If Lady Philippa Molyns was also held there, she is no longer. Mayhap I’ll find her where he has gone.”

  “He did not take the lady,” Sir John said.

  “Who did? Another of your retainers?”

  “Nay.”

  “When I find Howes, I will know if you speak true. He will learn from Osbert why I am here, and likely will seek the lady, perhaps to move her to some more secure place. Where he is, Lady Philippa may also be.”

  “Last I saw, he was running to the wood beyond the hayfield. You saw him too.”

  “Aye. But he’d not keep a lady in a wood, nor would he remain there himself. When he seized the lass he had others with him. Now he is likely with one or more of them, and perhaps Lady Philippa also. Who are those who travel with him when he works his felonies? There will not be many, I think. He must share his loot with you and your cousin. He’d not wish to divide it in too many ways. Perhaps when you foolishly ran from Sir Jaket you intended to join Howes where he now is.”

  Sir John considered this, probably pondering how little he might say yet satisfy my question. Sir Jakef’s sword and Arthur’s folded arms again worked here to good effect. He understood that he was caught out in felonies and likely wondered how he could deflect guilt from himself to others. And deflect consequences, as well.

  “If Gaston took the lady Philippa he did so without my knowledge,” Sir John finally said.

  “So when he and his band seized Joan le Scrope it was with your knowledge?”

  “Thomas le Scrope will not miss three pounds,” the man replied.

  “Who are you to decide how much money another man might miss? But you speak true. When you and Gaston and your cousin the judge have repaid Sir Thomas, he will no longer miss his three pounds.

  “Now, once more, where has Gaston likely fled with your man Osbert? How many have banded together with him? What are their names, and where will I find them?”

  Silence was my only answer. I began to understand why. Sir John was lord of Coscote but the manor’s ruler was Gaston Howes. Sir John was the intermediary between Howes and a judge of the King’s Eyre. Sir Thomas le Scrape’s barns might burn if he sought to punish Howes for taking his daughter. Sir John’s barns may burn if he were to tell me what I asked. But a man held in Oxford Castle dungeon will burn no other’s barns.

  “When I find Gaston I will take him and his companions in felony to the Sheriff of Oxford,” I said. “You will hear no more of him until you learn that the King’s Eyre has sent him to a scaffold.”

  “Do not underestimate Gaston,” Sir John said.

  “Your cousin, should he be called to Gaston’s case, will be pleased to silence him. As for you and Sir William, you should be pleased to escape with but repayment of Sir Thomas’s pounds.”

  Another period of silence followed. Options. Sir John considered his. I had tried to make one seem more profitable to him than others. If he agreed and told me where I might find Howes, I thought it possible I might also find Lady Philippa.

  “Gaston will likely seek Thomas Mowrey or Randall Attewell.”

  “Where do these fellows reside? Here, in Coscote?”

  “Nay. Southbourne.”

  “Who is lord of the manor there?”

  “’Tis a possession of Godstow Abbey.”

  I knew of Godstow Abbey, although I’d never visited the place. ’Tis at the north edge of Oxford, a place where women of noble and gentle families escape the cares of this world and prepare for the next. Would the abbess allow felons to reside in her holding? When a student at Balliol College I had heard rumors that Godstow Abbey was strapped for funds, the sisters there, most from prosperous families, being accustomed to living beyond their means. Did Gaston and Thomas and Randall have the protection of an abbess as well as a judge of the King’s Eyre?

  “And how far from Coscote is Southbourne?” I asked.
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  “A mile, perhaps a little more.”

  If Gaston and Osbert were fit they would already be at the village. Then it would take but a few minutes to move Lady Philippa to some more secure place. But why secrete her in Southbourne when Joan le Scrope had been successfully hidden here, in Coscote?

  And the lass was released when her father paid the ransom. Why, then, continue to hold Lady Philippa when her ransom was paid? Had the felons argued about the lady’s value to her husband, some demanding that more coin be required of Sir Aymer?

  “Which is the road to Southbourne?” I asked.

  Sir John pointed to the east. “Come,” I said to Sir Jaket and Arthur. “We must make haste.” Then, to Sir John, I said, “If you all of a sudden remember information which will lead me to Lady Philippa, Lord Gilbert and the Sheriff of Oxford might be persuaded to reduce any penalties they at first consider for your perfidy. But not the three pounds.”

  We hurried from the house. I called to Sir Ralph, Sir Humphrey, and the others of our cohort to mount their beasts and follow. Moments later the hooves of eleven horses raised a cloud of dust as we set off at a gallop for Southbourne.

  There is no village in the realm untouched by plague. Nearly half the houses of Southbourne were between disrepair and collapse. As the village had been small even before the dying, it was now near to disappearing completely. But the place would have a reeve, if no bailiff. The man would likely inhabit the most prosperous house, and would know where I could find Thomas and Randall. I scanned the single street, selected a house little better than the others but featuring a well-tended vegetable garden in the toft, and dismounted before it. My companions did likewise. I approached the door and rapped upon it. If anyone was within I expected a prompt reply, as they would have heard the thunder of our beasts as we galloped into the village.