Deeds of Darkness

by Mel Starr

  Edmund is a common enough name. Not so common as Thomas or John, but there are surely many Edmunds about Oxford. Nevertheless, the only Edmund of whom I had knowledge residing between Bampton and Oxford, where felonies were become common of late, was Edmund Harcourt. He is young. Would the master of a band of thieves choose him to stand guard whilst the others did their villainy – perhaps because of his callow years?

  ’Twas surely too dark on that moonless night men entered Alain Gower’s house for him to see if one of them wore a green cotehardie. And the malefactors would not think their felony had been observed by stealth – they’d expect discovery to give rise to loud indignation. Here was an advantage I must devise some way to exploit.

  But Alain Gower’s loss was not of my bailiwick. I must seek the men who slew Hubert Shillside. Did the felons who entered Alain’s house not content themselves with thievery, but also slay those from whom they stole goods? If apprehended, the punishment is the same. A man will find himself at the end of a hempen noose doing the sheriff’s dance for either crime. Why not, then, slay your victim, as the penalty will be no greater than if the man be allowed his life? And a dead man can say nothing of his assailants to lead to their apprehension. Hubert Shillside told me only that his murderers had a blade to slash free his purse, and had broken it in his ribs. Since every man owns a dagger, Shillside’s corpse proclaimed little of material value.

  A wisp of green wool, however, of yellowish tint – that might tell much, if only it could be found.

  I pondered upon these things as I trudged home to Galen House. Kate thought my business that afternoon only that of Bampton Manor, so when I told her of meeting Walter Mapes’ son she stopped her work and desired of me to tell all that the lad said, only turning her attention from me to stir a pot of pease pottage which simmered upon the embers and would soon be our supper.

  “The lad is not much like his father, then,” she commented, “if he appreciates all your toil for his father – and that despite the injury the old scoundrel meant to work on your person.”

  “Perhaps he follows his mother’s character,” I said, “or his thrashings when he was younger have driven from him all admiration he may ever have held for his father. He’s been used ill. Mayhap if he can do his father a bad turn it brings some satisfaction – recompense for what he’s suffered at Walter’s hands.”

  “A man may create a son like himself, or unlike,” my father-in-law chipped in. “But few men know how to do so. I have lived long enough to see good men set an example of probity for their sons, yet watch as some sons abandon the path they were taught. And sometimes, rarely, I have seen scoundrels whose sons have grown to useful manhood.”

  “Walter Mapes’ lad must be such a one,” Kate said. “The youth has seen how despised his father is and wishes not to be considered the same.”

  “Yet,” Caxton said, “’tis more likely that a good man will have sons of whom he can be proud than the other way round.”

  “The men who injured Alain Gower and stole from him – do you think,” Kate asked, “these may be the same who have done other felonies hereabouts, and may have slain Hubert Shillside?”

  “This would be a convenience was it so,” I replied. “Solve one villainy and solve them all. I wish my work could be so simple.”

  “Perhaps it is,” Kate said thoughtfully. “Mayhap you have but one mystery to uncover, rather than many.”

  “This may be the truth of it,” I agreed. “There are matters in common to the felonies which have happened betwixt here and Oxford. Four men, occasionally three, are seen to be involved. But sometimes they wear scholars’ gowns and sometimes they wear the dress of young gentlemen.”

  “Which may mean only that they have wit enough to seek to brush dust over their tracks,” Caxton pointed out. “Which, then, is truth? Are the felons scholars who adopt the clothing of young gentlemen, or are they young gentlemen who don the garb of scholars?”

  “Mayhap they are both,” Kate said. “Scholars are most often young gentlemen.”

  “And both scholars and young gentlemen are oft in need of funds,” Caxton added.

  “All men need money,” I said. “I have never known a man, no matter how wealthy, who did not desire a few more shillings.”

  “Or pounds,” Kate said. “Even the king has need of greater wealth.”

  “Indeed,” Caxton agreed. “How can he regain lost lands in France, or protect that which he has, without more coin?”

  How, indeed?

  John took that moment to let out a lusty wail. I take his volume at such times as a good omen. It seems to me unlikely that an infant who can make known his demands for a meal with such a racket could be unhealthy.

  A soft rain began as we consumed our supper. There would be no sitting upon a bench in the toft, observing the sun dropping beyond Lord Gilbert’s forest, this evening.

  So for a while we played at Nine Man Morris, taking turns. One must sit idly by, for only two can play. We tired of the game and chatted of this and that, then my father-in-law asked would I read to them. “From what?” said I, for now the prized copy of RHETORIC was a second time stolen, I had no books in the house except my herbals and Henri de Mondeville’s treatise on surgery. Interesting to me, but hardly made to enthrall a party on a summer’s evening.

  “Read us from the Bible then,” said Kate’s father. “The ’pistles are a comfort, and the doings of St. Paul sometimes exciting – the man who fell out of the window while the apostle was preaching, or the time the great man himself escaped his captors bundled in a laundry basket, or the time an angel let the Christians out of prison, or –”

  I interrupted to suggest he might like to pick a passage himself, but he shook his head, “Nay. You know I have no Latin. Well, enough to pick out some of the meaning from a saying painted on the wall in church, but not to read it out. Kate neither. Find one of your favorite bits and let’s hear that.”

  So I opened the book on the table under the window, to catch the last of the light, picking out a passage I knew well enough to run my finger along the words and render them in our mother tongue as I went.

  “Let it be from the beginning of Paul’s epistle to the Romans, then,” I said. I cannot boast that it flowed so smooth as I’d have liked, but well enough to take the meaning of it. And when the chamber grew too dark to see the words, I lighted the cressets and read the second and third chapters as well. Caxton seemed discomfited when I had done.

  “Who, then, will see heaven, if it be as the apostle has written?” he said. “I have not the wealth to free myself from purgatory for a thousand years or more.” Glancing to Kate, he observed, “Nor have you, no matter how you might grieve to think of me a prisoner in that awful place.”

  He sat looking crestfallen, his shoulders sagging. Give him a hearty dinner or a vile intruder, a patch to dig or a wall to mend, and Robert Caxton will rise to the challenge. But this? Try what you might and still be so mired in sin that death opened a gate to purgatory – it defeated him, I could see that.

  “Well,” I ventured cautiously, “I think there may be more to it. A little hope, a little grace, a chink of light for such as we.”

  “How so?” he asked, his voice still dull and sad. “What’s to help us? Sooner or later death comes, and then the reckoning.”

  I cleared my throat. I had to tread carefully here. Heresy is a serious thing. “We are all sinful,” I ventured cautiously. “Every one. But, look you, the Lord Christ has made a way to escape the penalty of our wickedness. It is written, it’s set down. He died for the sins for which we deserved the punishment. We have but to put our trust in Him, and we are freed – so long as we seek to sin no more, of course – from the penalty due us.”

  “Aye.” Caxton shifted restlessly, waving his hand in dismissal of my proffered hope. “This I know. So holy mother church teaches. Yet what of the pain of purgatory? It
makes me sick to think of it. And there can be no men so holy they will escape its torments.”

  “Surely.” I did not wish to say more. It could be dangerous if the wrong men got wind of it. I know this because I once spoke too freely upon the subject. The bishops frown upon any discussion of purgatory. Unless such a place exists, why pay the church for prayers? Why buy indulgences and pardons? The clergy would be thinner men without our fear of purgatory.

  I glanced toward Kate from the corner of my eye, at her face so thoughtful and serious as she considered these things. My Kate. How could such a virtuous wife be yet sinful in the Lord Christ’s eyes? Yet it must be so, else the Scriptures lie. I do not know how this can be. I admit I do not understand the ways of God. His thoughts and the words of Holy Writ are too deep for me. But how should I wonder at this, I who have trouble understanding the ways of other men, made like me? If I can’t understand why Walter Mapes would black his wife’s eye when he’s in his cups and a sour mood falls on him, how can I expect to measure the mind of God?

  My father-in-law yet held fast to his course of making his bed on the pallet beneath the boarded window. I could see the only way I would convince him to return to his chamber was to visit the glazier in Witney and engage the man to repair the shattered panes and twisted lead. And apprehend the rascals that threatened our household peace. I resolved at least to see the glazier the very next day, having no path toward the discovery of Hubert Shillside’s slayers emerging clear before me. Although, to be sure, I must investigate Walter’s lad’s report that one of Alain Gower’s assailants was named Edmund. With delicacy, mind. Nothing ham-fisted or over-hasty. I needed to think carefully on the matter.

  Because of the expense, I had installed but two glass windows in Galen House when the home was constructed: one in the kitchen and one in the hall. The others were of oiled skins, as were those in most homes. Even Lord Gilbert has glass windows in only his solar and one wall of the hall. Light may enter a chamber through oiled parchment or linen, but Kate loves the light we get from a glass window and to be able to see into the toft, even if the view is somewhat distorted. So I determined to bear the expense and see the glass restored.

  I’d heard of no attacks upon the road to Witney so I did not seek Arthur or Uctred to accompany me when, bright and early next morn, I sought a palfrey at the castle marshalsea and set off for Witney. The town is but five or so miles north of Bampton. I expected to seek the glazier, complete my business, and return to Galen House in time for a late dinner by the sixth hour.

  The journey to Witney proved uneventful, which any traveler would find agreeable. I believe few folk in Witney can afford the glazier’s work, for he promised he could attend to my shattered window the next day. Six diamond-shaped panes were cracked and broken. The man assured me he had glass enough on hand to repair the breach, and lead also. A shilling and three pence the repair would cost me. A small price for a happy wife who would once again be able to gaze at the world beyond her henhouse from her kitchen window.

  The road between Bampton and Witney wends for the most part through fertile fields and meadows where contented sheep crop the new grass, and oats and barley and peas are planted. Only occasionally does the way enter a wood.

  It was at one such place on my return where, from the corner of my eye, some motion uncommon to a forest caught my attention. I thought at first I had surprised a hart or hind. Not so.

  Two men suddenly appeared in the road before me, brandishing daggers. I drew my palfrey’s reins sharply to spin the beast about, and as I did so two other armed men appeared upon the road whence I had come.

  Then an odd thing occurred. One of the men who had appeared in the road before me took flight and disappeared into the wood from whence he came. As there were now two men blocking a retreat to Witney, but only one obstructing my path to Bampton, I spurred my palfrey and guided the beast directly toward the remaining brigand. I had no intention of halting to ask the fellow what it was he wanted of me. He was not waving a dagger before my nose to stop me and inquire after my health.

  The palfrey reacted to my spurs with a satisfying leap. The single thief before me took notice of this bound, hesitated but for a moment, then dove for the verge to avoid the charging horse. It occurred to me as we – man and beast – swept past the fellow that he wore a green cotehardie with perhaps more weld than woad. I was not about to stop my galloping beast to learn if somewhere the garment had a frayed place where a wisp of wool had been torn away. I doubted not that it was so.

  None of the men who wished to waylay me were mounted, or if they had been they had concealed their beasts in the wood, so even a slow-footed palfrey could easily outpace these pursuers on foot.

  After a mile or so I slowed the laboring animal and, as the immediate danger had passed, began to consider the event. Most puzzling was the disappearance of one of the two felons who had sought to block my way forward. Had he not retreated back into the wood I might not have been able to make good an escape. Whilst I directed my beast at one man the other might have slashed my leg, or the flank of the palfrey, as I passed.

  Was the fellow a coward? Did he recognize me and fear that I might know him also? If so, he and his companions had only to slay me to protect his identity, which, if they were the same felons who had waylaid Hubert Shillside, they seemed willing to do. Mayhap murder was a measure that the thief was unwilling to countenance. But whom did I know who might be a brigand, and where would I have associated with such a man? Walter Mapes, perhaps? More likely he was home abed, nursing his wounds. Would the son of a landed knight do felonies in his father’s shire? I began to believe it so.

  Such thoughts wandered through my mind as the palfrey carried me to Bampton. Kate worries too much. ’Tis, I believe, a feature of her gender. So I resolved that I would not speak to her or her father of this escape.

  Chapter 17

  Kate had prepared leach Lombard for our dinner. I did not need to pretend delight in the meal, for such fare is a favorite of mine. I have many favorite meals. Indeed, whatever Kate prepares seems to become another favorite. Mayhap I have an unsophisticated palate. Or perhaps Kate is skilled at cookery. What difference does it make?

  After my dinner I sought Will Shillside. Alice told me he was hoeing weeds from a field of peas, and where I might find him.

  The sun was warm this day and Will had doffed his cotehardie, working in kirtle only, sweat beading his lip and forehead. He seemed pleased to briefly rest from his labor when he saw me approach.

  “I give you good day, Master Hugh,” the youth said. But there was no warmth in his words. He resented, I knew, my lack of progress in discovering who had slain his father. I could not blame him. I was a disappointment to myself.

  “Do you travel soon to Oxford to restore your supply of pins and buckles and such, or will you abandon your father’s business?”

  “Aye. I must do so soon, but Alice is fretful lest what befell my father might also come to me.”

  “Tell me of your plans before you undertake the journey.”

  “You believe it will be dangerous? You agree with Alice?”

  “If you travel alone, aye, ’twill be perilous. But you need not make the journey alone.”

  “Who would accompany me?”

  “I, Arthur, Uctred.”

  “Just to see that no harm comes to me you would do so?”

  “Not for that reason only. I am considering laying a trap, if you are willing. Such a ruse will be dangerous, true enough, but I can see no way to seize the men who attacked your father but to take them in the act of a felony.”

  “Must Alice know of this?”

  “Nay. Only that you travel to Oxford to renew your merchandise and that you will journey with three others. But she must tell no one else that you will have companions. You must impress on her that she is to speak of only your traveling, not we who will travel with you. No ma
n knows whether or not the men who slew your father knew beforehand of his plans. If the men who attacked your father are of Bampton or the Weald, or some man of Bampton told others of your father’s travel, then Alice’s words may help bait the trap.”

  “She will wonder why she may not speak of you who will accompany me. If I tell her ’tis a trap being set she will worry even though there will be four of us upon the road.”

  “Calm her fear in whatever way you think best. But do not permit her to speak of we who journey with you. Now, on another, but related, matter, when your father did business in Oxford did he often go there by way of Stanton Harcourt?”

  “Always. There is no haberdasher in that village, so Sir Thomas and his tenants would place orders for goods when father passed through on his way to Oxford. He would deliver the stuff upon his return. ’Twas profitable business for him, and I will continue it.”

  So Hubert Shillside was well known in Stanton Harcourt. If he had recognized one or more of his assailants as from the village, the rogues might have realized that they could be identified and chose then to add murder to robbery.

  One of the felons who did hamsoken to Alain Gower was named Edmund. Edmund Harcourt would profit from the death of his older brother. He would know and be known by Hubert Shillside because of the haberdasher’s regular visits to Stanton Harcourt. And he would know me, and know that I would recognize him, if some band of thieves with which he associated should attempt to rob me upon the road. He was the son of a knight. Did other men know that it was the son of a landowning knight of a nearby village who robbed them? Were these victims then silenced so that Edmund could not be identified?

  No band of thieves could have discovered I would travel to Witney this day. I had only decided to do so in the night. They hid in the wood, ready to pounce upon any man who appeared. Is this why sometimes only three men attacked their victim? Did Edmund know whom it was the miscreants were about to confront on some occasions, and absent himself to avoid recognition by the victim?