Deeds of Darkness

by Mel Starr

  “No need to do so if they wore black gowns. If no men come to me from the abbey on Wednesday, I’ll take it that the fellows wore black. Send word only if they wore layman’s garb. And, if the lass can remember, ask the colors of their cotehardies and caps.” Even as I said it I realized that these details might not have been the first thing on her mind. But we had to enquire.

  Wednesday, about noon, Ralph and Gaston rapped upon Galen House door. Their message from Abbot Gerleys was delivered by their presence, before they spoke. The men who attacked the lass near to Church Hanborough had not been clothed as scholars or monks or lay brothers.

  “Lass couldn’t recall much,” Gaston replied to my question about the garb of the assailants. “Said as one wore a blue cap, another a green cotehardie. Couldn’t remember much else, but they was beardless.”

  Even should the rogues be found, ’twould be difficult to grant the lass justice. Galen taught that a woman will not be found with child if she is ravished against her will. If she becomes pregnant that will be considered evidence that she gave consent. Of course, if a lass claims that she was assaulted but does not conceive, the man accused can protest that the woman lies, and who can know who speaks true? I wonder if the great physician of antiquity might have been mistaken?

  Kate had prepared a porre of peas and apple moyle for our dinner. ’Twas enough to feed us and two lay brothers. And we had three maslin loaves fresh that morn from the baker.

  “Abbot Gerleys told us,” Gaston said between mouthfuls of bread and pottage, “that you saw four men on the road near to the Windrush Bridge when you found your missing man, an’ they turned from you when you would have spoken to them.”

  “Aye. They hastened away when they saw me upon the bridge. When you left me upon the bridge that day to return to Eynsham did you meet others upon the road? Four others?”

  “Nay. Seems odd, though. Four men attacked the lass, an’ four men wished to keep away from you.”

  “Four against one,” Ralph said. “Why would four men fear one upon the road?”

  “Mayhap they saw my companions. The dead man’s son was there, and also a groom to Lord Gilbert Talbot.”

  “Ah… four against three. Men intent upon evil might seek better odds, I think,” Gaston said, then licked his lips noisily. Children are mimics. Bessie watched him do this, then did likewise, concluding the exercise with a satisfied grin. I glanced to Kate. Her lips were thin. She was displeased that a man of the abbey was providing such a poor example of manners to our daughter. There would be words, I thought, after the lay brothers’ departure.

  Ralph and Gaston were no more than ten paces from our door when I heard a wail from our chamber. John had awakened in his crib and was demanding to be fed. Kate hurried up the stairs and so I escaped censure for my guest’s misbehavior, calling after her that I had business at the castle.

  A bailiff can always find business at his lord’s residence, be it a simple manor house or a great lord’s castle. But upon this occasion I found duty to perform before I reached the castle.

  I had crossed the bridge over Shill Brook, passing the lane to the Weald, when I heard a man call my name. I glanced down the path and saw Father Thomas waving vigorously and heard him call out again. I halted my journey to the castle and waited for him to come puffing, red in the face, to me.

  “Ah, Master Hugh,” he wheezed. “You are well met. I have just come from Alain Gower,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at the row of houses lining the lane to the Weald.

  Alain is one of the more prosperous residents of the Weald, but as folk there are tenants of the Bishop of Exeter and not of my bailiwick I do not know the man well.

  “He was robbed last night,” Father Thomas continued. “Men slashed the skin of a window and entered silently, whilst he and Margery and their babes were asleep.”

  “Did Alain not awaken during the theft?”

  “Aye, he did. One of the brigands kicked a table in the dark. Alain sat up in his bed and received a blow across his pate. This awakened Margery, but she could do nothing.”

  “What was taken?” I asked.

  “Two pewter cups, a silver spoon given to Margery as a bridal gift, a glazed pot, and two candlesticks.”

  “Silver?”

  “Nay. Alain is prosperous, but not so that he can light his house with candles in silver candlesticks. Pewter.”

  “His is the largest house in the Weald, is it not?”

  “Aye. No doubt why the thieves made him their target. No sense risking a noose robbing the house of a poor man who will possess little worth stealing.

  “I was about to seek you,” the priest continued. “Happy thing that you were passing this way.”

  I said nothing, but waited for Father Thomas to say what I had already guessed.

  “The Weald has no bailiff. We get by with but a reeve. The bishop has decided that, as St. Beornwald’s Church has three vicars, one of us can do the work of a bailiff. For collecting the bishop’s rents such an arrangement is satisfactory, but neither I nor Father Simon nor Father Ralph are suited for the work of apprehending felons.

  “And,” he continued, “as Lord Gilbert’s lands are greater and his tenants more numerous than the bishop’s, ’tis likely that the guilty are of your bailiwick.”

  “Hubert Shillside was of my bailiwick,” I said.

  “Aye. Have you found who slew him?”

  “Nay, and that work must consume my time – more so than stolen candlesticks.”

  “Indeed,” Father Thomas conceded. “But do not forget Alain and his loss.”

  I promised I would not, but I felt little interest in seeking a miscreant in the Weald. Then, as I crossed the moat and entered Bampton Castle, it occurred to me that the hamsoken made on homes in villages near Eynsham had now come to Bampton. Did four men assault Alain, I wondered? There was but one way to discover if ’twas so.

  Chapter 4

  “Don’t know… Dark, wasn’t it,” Alain said when I asked the number of his assailants.

  “And your head: did the blow leave you with a tender skull?”

  “Aye. ’Ad me nightcap on, so softened the blow a bit. Margery says I was laid senseless for near an hour.”

  I turned to the woman, a well-fed example of a prosperous tenant’s wife, and asked if she saw the thieves leave the Weald.

  “Aye. Went toward Mill Street, last I seen of ’em.”

  “Did they carry more loot than what they stole from you?”

  “Couldn’t tell. No moon.”

  “Was there enough light that you could see how many men fled from your house?”

  “More’n two, I’m sure.”

  “How were they clothed?”

  “Too dark to tell. All seems black on such a night.”

  “’Twas Walter Mapes an’ ’is lads,” Alain said.

  “You are sure of this? Did you recognize them? Did you tell Father Thomas of this?”

  “Nay. But they’ve set themselves against me since I accused Walter of stealin’ my furrow three years past at the bishop’s hallmote.”

  “You prevailed in the dispute?”

  “Aye.”

  “Did you tell Father Thomas of your suspicion?”

  “Nay. He’d do naught but ask Walter, an’ he’d deny ’twas so, an’ there’d be an end to my complaint.”

  “What do you intend?”

  “That’s the business of us in t’Weald. You’ve no reason to concern yourself, bein’ Lord Gilbert’s man.”

  Alain turned from me and I saw him grimace as he did so. His head caused him more grief than he wished known, I think.

  “I have physics which will dull your pain,” I said.

  “Nothin’ I can’t endure,” he said, turning to the window his intruders had sliced away. He did not wish any further conversation regardi
ng his loss, and when a victim of another man’s misdeeds maintains silence there is little a constable or bailiff can do to amend the matter.

  But Father Thomas should know of Alain’s accusation. Quarrels between neighbors may grow. Folk who know both parties to such a dispute will choose sides. There was already one cracked skull in the Weald. The vicars of St. Beornwald’s Church would not wish to learn of another.

  “Walter Mapes?” Father Thomas said when I told him of Alain’s accusation. “I can believe that of him. Wonder why Alain would speak of his suspicion to you but not to me?”

  “Because I have no authority over him. You do, and can forestall his revenge.”

  “Oh… aye. And this I must do, else the cycle of reprisal will continue.”

  “Walter did steal a furrow of Alain?”

  “Aye, he did. No doubt of it. Walter will steal anything he can.”

  “Alain claimed his attackers were Walter and his sons. How many lads has he?”

  “Five, and three maids. Odd thing about Walter and his wife. For all his misdemeanors the Lord Christ has blessed him with healthy children. Not one lost to the churchyard.”

  I considered Sybil, and thought here was another question for the Lord Christ when I saw Him beyond my grave.

  “Perhaps ’tis his wife who merits the Savior’s favor,” I said.

  “May be. She has suffered enough as Walter’s wife without enduring the loss of babes. As for his sons, oldest is twenty, perhaps. He’s named Walter, also. Then Thomas, eighteen, I’d guess, an’ Janyn would be sixteen, thereabouts. Other two sons would be too young for hamsoken.”

  The four men I saw from the Windrush Bridge stood too far away to identify, but three of them could surely have been lads just growing to manhood. Did they know who it was that signaled to them, and fear that if I came close enough I would recognize them as from the Weald? How would Walter Mapes get the black gowns of scholars, or monks’ habits? And did Hubert Shillside speak to the wrong man about traveling to Oxford, so that talk of his journey spread to the Weald?

  If so, could the murder and robbery of Hubert Shillside be tied to the thefts about Eynsham? Would Walter Mapes travel so far to do such felonies? I decided to seek the fellow and discover what I might.

  I learned little. Mapes’ house is mean and proclaims poverty from every beam and stalk of moldy thatching. Three small children, a lass and two lads, worked in the toft with crude hoes, chopping out weeds to ready the plot for a late planting of onions and cabbages and such. They peered mistrustfully at my approach, prepared to run to the hovel if I seemed a threat.

  “Ain’t ’ere,” an emaciated woman said when a rap upon her doorpost brought her to the light. “Be plantin’ dredge in yon field.”

  The woman pointed over my shoulder. Beyond the house and barn which occupied the opposite side of the lane I saw three figures, sacks slung across their backs, strewing seed upon a new-plowed strip. I bid the woman “Good day,” crossed the lane, and approached the planters.

  I recognized the oldest of the three as one I had seen about Bampton, and assumed him to be the elder Walter. So he was. He ceased his labor as I came near and awaited my explanation for interrupting his work.

  “Good day. I am Lord Gilbert’s bailiff, Hugh de Singleton.”

  “I know who you are,” Walter replied. “What does Lord Gilbert’s bailiff want w’me?”

  “Father Thomas asked me to seek who has done hamsoken to Alain Gower.”

  Walter turned from me and spat upon the ground. The two younger men – his sons, I assumed – looked from me to their father with dull-eyed expressions. Hamsoken in their neighborhood seemed to arouse no interest in them. Perhaps they had not robbed Alain Gower of his possessions. I saw no guilt in their eyes. They could surely have little anxiety that the same misfortune might occur to their own household. One glance at the exterior of the house would tell a man ’twas unlikely there would be anything inside worth the risk of a noose.

  “Someone has stolen goods of Alain? He has enough to spare,” Walter said. “Won’t miss the loss. Did Alain send you to me?”

  “You dislike him, I am told.”

  The man pursed his lips. “So do most folk in the Weald.”

  “Why so?” I asked.

  “Got more lands of the bishop than most. Near two yardlands. Hires servants. Thinks ’is shillings makes ’im a better man than us with less coin.”

  “You stole a furrow of him.”

  “So the priests said. Wouldn’t ’ave missed it, even if I had.”

  Who, I wondered, was most disliked in the Weald? Would it be the honest man whose wealth was greater than others’, and was therefore envied, or the poor man all knew was a thief?

  I had no answer. Whilst I thought on it Walter reached into his sack, turned away, and continued casting seed upon the fresh-turned earth. His lads did likewise.

  Walter glanced back over his shoulder, saw that I was not leaving the field, and spoke again. “We of the Weald don’t need Lord Gilbert’s bailiff meddlin’ in our affairs. We deal with our own troubles.”

  This was what Alain Gower had said. I foresaw much discord in the Weald if the inhabitants picked sides in a disagreement between Alain and Walter. And likely such conflict would spill over to embrace Lord Gilbert’s lands and tenants, whereupon I would be called to end a conflict I had no authority to halt as it began.

  If Walter had indeed robbed Alain, the stolen items would likely be found somewhere within Walter’s house or dilapidated barn. I returned to Father Thomas and voiced to him my fear of a conflict in the bishop’s demesne. I suggested that he, Father Simon, and Father Ralph and their clerks descend unannounced upon Walter Mapes’ house and seek there for Alain Gower’s stolen property. If the goods were found Alain’s accusation would be proved and his possessions returned to him. If the stolen items were not in Walter’s possession, what then? Would that be proof that he was not the thief, or only that he was skilled at concealing his wrongdoing?

  Father Thomas took my advice. I returned to Galen House, found my Kate had forgotten her pique at the unmannerly lay brother, and less than an hour later I saw through a window the three priests and their clerks hastening down Church View Street toward the Weald.

  Shortly before dark I heard a rapping on Galen House door and opened it to find Father Thomas. A search of Walter Mapes’ property, he said, found nothing matching any description of Alain Gower’s stolen possessions. Alain was told this, but seemed unconvinced, so was also warned against vengeance. The vicar seemed unsure the admonition would be heeded.

  When Bessie and John were put to bed Kate and I sat before the embers of our dying fire and discussed the matters vexing me: how to discover who had robbed and slain Hubert Shillside; whether or not his death had to do with other felonies committed near to Eynsham; if those who did hamsoken in the Weald might be the same scoundrels causing distress and death a few miles to the east; and if Walter Mapes might have known of Shillside’s journey to Oxford with a heavy purse hung from his belt.

  Discussing irksome matters with Kate often opens my mind, but not so this evening. No overlooked clue came to me, no insight where before there had been obscurity.

  Next morn I went early to the castle, found Arthur, and told him to prepare two palfreys. We would return to the Windrush Bridge, I said, and seek information of folk from Hardwick and Stanton Harcourt of black-garbed men they might have seen.

  As monks are not commonly allowed to leave their monastery the men I saw would not likely have been black-robed Benedictines. Lay brothers may travel, and Oxford scholars are occasionally upon the roads.

  If scholars from Oxford or lay brothers had approached that day, where was it they were going? The destination must not have been important, as they turned and fled quickly when they saw me. Or perhaps the destination was important, but not so much as safety. What was
it, then, about my appearance which caused the four to feel imperiled? Were they innocent travelers fearful of an unknown man standing in their path, or felons fearful of discovery? Fear surely had something to do with their withdrawal.

  The great plague and its return has much reduced Hardwick. Half the houses are empty, roofs fallen in, and daub dropping away from rotting wattles. Even in such a stricken place men and women who have survived must plow and plant if they wish to live until plague or some other malady may return to take them also to the churchyard.

  The manor house looked equally neglected. When I rapped on the door it rattled loosely upon its hinges. If the village had ever supported a smith it no longer did. The hinges proclaimed it so.

  A servant lad of ten or so years answered my knock on the insubstantial door and in response to my question directed me to the rear of the toft. There I found the lord of the manor directing two men in the repair of his dovecote. The doves, of course, had fled, and were no doubt at the moment pecking at the grains of corn his tenants had recently sown. ’Tis no wonder tenants and villeins have no love for such fowl.

  But for his directions to his workers and their obedience I might not have identified the lord from his men. All three wore simple brown cotehardies and their chauces were of the meanest sort; no fine linen here.

  The three stopped their work as Arthur and I approached, and eyed us warily. Arthur’s approach will do that to other men, even if he is smiling and of benign countenance. I am a slender fellow and even Kate’s egg leaches and roasted capons have added but little flesh to my bones. So my appearance does not cause apprehension in most men. Arthur, on the other hand, is assembled like a tun set upon two beech stumps. His frown will cause most men to seek ways to avoid him, and even when his expression is benevolent strangers seem eager to keep from his company. This feature has proven helpful in past encounters with men who might otherwise have tried to escape the consequences of their felonies.

  I greeted the three fellows, asking after any black-robed men seen in the vicinity. The men looked to each other, shook their heads, and denied seeing such persons near to Hardwick. I detected no guile in their eyes or words, and a brief examination of the village told why ’twas likely no thieves had been observed in the place. Hardwick’s appearance shouted that here would be no valuable loot. Even the church, standing alone at the north end of the village, told of poverty. Folk of Hardwick would more likely be thieves than thieved upon.