Unhallowed Ground

by Mel Starr

  The reeds were dry. They rustled and crackled with each movement of the men who sat upon them. Arthur, however, understood that the plan was not to frighten the arsonist away, but to capture him. He sternly bade his companions to remain immobile. I left them there, alert and eager for complete darkness. This was sport, a rare game in the dullness of ordinary castle life when Lord Gilbert was in residence elsewhere.

  I climbed the stairs to our chamber, where Kate was already abed, but not asleep. She asked was all prepared and I assured her it was. I did not disrobe. If the grooms surprised a man in the toft I wished to be upon him quickly. I left open the chamber window, so I might hear plainly even a slight sound from the toft, and left my dagger upon a stand where I might seize it quickly.

  I slept fitfully, and when I lay awake I could sense that Kate was also alert. When the night was young I sometimes heard the rustle of reeds through the open window as one of my guards shifted his position, but soon even this sound ceased. Either Arthur and his companions had disciplined themselves to some fixed position or they had fallen to sleep. The thought did not bring me rest. Once in the night I heard a snore, but this was quickly silenced as a more wakeful watcher delivered an elbow to the sleeper’s ribs. I was reassured that at least one of the three, if not fully awake, at least slept as fitfully as Kate and I.

  When I saw dawn begin to lighten the east windows of our bedchamber I left the bed and stumbled down the darkened stairs. Uctred and the youth were awake and watching, while Arthur slept. When Uctred saw me leave Galen House he stood, stretched, and spoke: “No visitors this night. Arthur was that displeased. Took the first watch, ’e did. Said as how a man bent on mischief wouldn’t want to wait overlong to be about it. Likes a bit of a scrap, does Arthur.”

  This observation was true. Arthur is a good man to have standing by one’s side in a brawl. His enjoyment of such a contest is probably due to the fact that he is generally victorious. It is difficult to appreciate a fight if one is usually vanquished.

  Uctred’s words woke Arthur. He and Anketil stood, stretched, and brushed dust and bits of broken reed from their garments. As they did so Kate’s rooster left the hen coop, cocked a curious eye in our direction, then announced the dawn.

  No man had sought my life this night, and I thought Arthur and his cohorts might think they had been summoned to Galen House to spend a cold night on a fool’s errand. Not so. Arthur was apologetic that no felon had appeared, and voiced unwillingness to abandon the watch.

  “You’ll be wantin’ us again this night, I ’spect?” he said through a great yawn. “A man who’d trouble hisself to try an’ burn down another’s house don’t seem to me likely to give over the plan so easy.”

  Uctred and Anketil nodded in agreement, although the youth seemed less enthusiastic than his elders. He had probably not contemplated such a turn of affairs when he joined Lord Gilbert’s service. Most likely he envisioned a life of comfortable work in the castle, with a warm bed to greet him at close of day.

  It seemed to me that if I could apprehend the man who wished to burn Galen House, I would also find the man who had dragged Thomas atte Bridge to Cow-Leys Corner and suspended him there from an oak limb. Why else would any man be so driven to destroy me, my house, and Kate? I saw no reason to prowl the town seeking a murderer when it was possible, was I patient, the man would come to me. Perhaps not this night, as he had refrained from the attempt in the past night, but soon or late my prey would seek once again to halt my search for him and silence me. Then Arthur, Uctred, and Anketil would be ready.

  When I began the search for Thomas atte Bridge’s murderer I was dismayed to think I might discover the felon among friends. Then I hoped John Kellet was the guilty man, for he was no friend. Now I sought a man who had taken one life and would have destroyed two more to preserve his secret. The fellow might have been a friend in times past, but no more, and when I found who it was I would suffer no displeasure at his meeting a noose.

  I bid my three protectors good morn with the injunction that they were to return again at dusk to wait and watch. I spent the day trying to avoid moving my arm, which had become an angry red where Kate’s needlework bound the flesh together. Little pus issued from the wound, which some would consider an ill thing, but I hold with Henri de Mondeville that no pus from a wound is preferable even to laudable pus.

  Arthur, Uctred, and Anketil yawned the next four nights away, hidden in the dark aside the hen coop in my toft. No man disturbed their vigil. When dawn broke on Trinity Sunday I sent the grooms to the castle with an admission that the surveillance was a failure and they no longer needed to seek Galen House at dusk.

  My arm no longer ached so fiercely, so this day I drank a morning cup of ale without the herbs. We took no loaf to break our fast, but after quenching a thirst prepared ourselves for the day.

  As for Whitsuntide, white is the color for Trinity Sunday. Except for my kirtle I own no white garments, but Kate drew from her chest a long white cotehardie which she kept for such occasions. Dressed in my grey cotehardie and black chauces I felt a crow aside a swan. I was not alone. When the village was gathered at St Beornwald’s Church it was the womenfolk who were attired in honor of the occasion, in garments carefully preserved for such a holy day.

  Kate had prepared let lardes for our dinner this day, and after we ate we joined others who gathered in the marketplace for mystery plays. That God has become three – Father, Son, and Holy Ghost – is surely a mystery. This mystery will be revealed when the Lord Christ returns, and perhaps the mysteries of who murdered Thomas atte Bridge and attempted to burn Galen House will be disclosed then as well. My progress at solving these two puzzles was so scant, any solution seemed likely hidden ’til the end of the age.

  So while the players told the story of the Bible and God among men I fretted about my failures, standing at the fringe of the marketplace crowd. Kate noted my joyless demeanor and asked was my arm troubling me again. I shook my head, and I think then she understood my unease. She took my arm, my good left arm, and entwined her arm in mine. Thus we stood while the players concluded the account, a story all knew and had heard before, but ’tis useful to be reminded. Men forget the sacrifice the Lord Christ made in their behalf. Duty and worry and such cares as are common to all press upon folk, so they neglect their obligation to the Savior.

  My own thought accused me, for while the players told their tale I considered felons and how I might find them out. I devised no answer, and took little joy in the players’ work. ’Twas a misspent afternoon.

  Monday morn, after a maslin loaf and ale, I set out for the Weald and Maud atte Bridge’s hut. I dispensed with the sling this day, the ache in my arm being much reduced. I lingered at the bridge over Shill Brook. The flowing water is unchanging, whenever I halt in my business to observe it, yet the scene seems ever fresh. The brook is the same, but the water coursing ’neath the bridge is new. So it is with the realm. King and nobles and commons may change, but the kingdom endures. May it always be so.

  Late spring is a thin season of the year for most tenants and villeins. Last year’s grain harvest is near gone, and the new crop two months from the scythe. Pigs slaughtered in the autumn have, by early June, usually been consumed by all folk but those uncommonly frugal of flesh in the pot in the winter past.

  So I was not surprised when I found Maud tending a kettle of barley pottage upon her hearth. No scent of pork came from the pot. The thin gruel would be her family’s only meal for this day and many more like it, but for the occasional egg from her fowls. I felt some sorrow for the widow and her state. She lived now without beatings, but which, I wondered, was more trying – bruised ribs or an empty stomach? The woman looked up from her pot as my shadow darkened her doorway, open to the air and morning sun. She could see only my form, for the brightness behind me, but guessed who it was who called.

  “’Ave you news of who slew my Thomas?” she asked as she stood from her smoky hearth.

  “Nay. I know
little more than when we past spoke. One thing I have question about, which brings me here this day. Did Thomas have business with any gentleman, or wealthy burgher… some bargain which may have gone bad?”

  “Business with a gentleman?” Maud scoffed. “Why’d ’e be dealin’ with such like?”

  “I have reason to believe whoso slew Thomas is a horseman.”

  Maud’s hands had been upon her hips as she spoke. At this news they dropped to her side and I saw her eyes widen.

  “A horseman? Thomas ’ad no truck with such folk. He’d nothin’ a gentleman would wish to buy, an’ no coin to purchase what a rich man might sell.”

  Maud’s logic was excellent, but how else to explain the boot-print in my toft? The man who sought to end my investigation was no poor man. He rode a horse, and often enough that the stirrup had worn a groove into the sole of his boot.

  “The man I seek may not be of great wealth,” I explained. “But he has the means to keep a horse.”

  Maud was silent, her eyes narrowing in thought. “Two, three years past, I’d near forgot. Thomas an’ Henry had business with a knight of Cote. Lived in the manor house there.”

  “What was this business?”

  “Don’t know. Thomas din’t say. Kept things to hisself.”

  “Was Thomas satisfied with his dealings with this knight?”

  “Oh, aye. ’Eard ’im an’ Henry laughin’ ’bout it once.”

  When men like Henry and Thomas atte Bridge find humor in business with another, it is sure the other man has suffered in the bargain. Cote is not a rich manor. An injured knight there might fit the pattern I saw developing.

  I bid Maud good day, and left her at the door to her hovel. Two of her children had appeared as we spoke, and watched suspiciously from behind her skirt as I departed.

  I was but a few paces along the path when the sound of a horse and cart behind me caused me to turn. Arnulf Mannyng approached. Sacks, perhaps full of surplus grain he was taking somewhere to sell, filled the cart. This left no room for the man, so he rode upon his beast upon a crude saddle. Leather straps hung down from this saddle, and from them simple iron bars were bent into stirrups. I waited at the side of the track for Mannyng to pass, and waved a greeting as he did so. When the man turned from me back to the road I stole a quick glance to his feet. His shoes had heels, to be sure, but they seemed to me no higher than need be, and surely Arnulf did not ride the horse so often as to wear grooves in the soles. Or did he?

  Cote is little more than a mile to the east of Bampton. I decided I would this day call on Sir Reynald Homersly, knight of the Manor of Cote. I knew little of the man but his name, but as Cote was too humble to support more than one manor, Sir Reynald must be the occupant of the manor house there.

  At the castle I sought Arthur and Uctred and told them that, after their dinner, they would accompany me to Cote. I might have had a groom of the marshalsea prepare Bruce and two palfreys, but the distance to Cote is small, and I was uncertain how my wounded arm would receive Bruce’s ponderous gait. I required Arthur and Uctred to arm themselves with daggers. Was Sir Reynald the man who pierced me, he might be displeased to see me before his door. Arthur and Uctred, in Lord Gilbert Talbot’s blue-and-black livery, daggers at their belts, might temper his discontent.

  I might have enjoyed a pleasant stroll through the late spring countryside but for some worry about my reception in Cote. We were the object of turned heads, as strangers usually are, when we passed through Aston.

  Old manor houses now are often torn down and replaced with new, but not so at Cote. Sir Reynald’s home was but a larger reflection of Galen House. It was built of timbers, wattle and daub, with a well-thatched roof. The house did possess two chimneys. A wisp of smoke drifted from one which vented the kitchen hearth.

  Few folk were about, which was no surprise, as there are few folk in Cote to be anywhere. The village was much reduced when plague struck seventeen years past, and again when the pestilence returned five years ago.

  Arthur and Uctred stood respectfully a few paces behind me, caps in hand, as I rapped my knuckles upon the manor house door. A moment later the door opened to the music of ungreased hinges, and an elderly female servant stared dumbly through the opening at me.

  “Is Sir Reynald at home? I am Hugh de Singleton, a neighbor… bailiff to Lord Gilbert Talbot in Bampton.”

  The woman seemed to hesitate, then replied, “Aye. ’E be ’ome, as always. I’ll see can ’e speak with you.” The stout woman left us at the door and disappeared into the dark interior. She was not well trained in the art of receiving guests. Perhaps her normal duties lay elsewhere, or the house was unaccustomed to receiving visitors.

  A few moments later I understood what the woman meant when she said “as always”. I was shown into a room at the rear of the house, where a man sat propped in a chair. One leg extended straight out upon a cushion, covered with a wrap, as the chamber was on the north side of the house and cool. The fellow looked to be of some forty or fifty years, although age can be difficult to determine with the ill and maimed. A woman of similar age sat upon a bench near the chair, and stood when the old servant ushered me into the room.

  “You seek my husband,” she asked, and looked to the pale form propped in the chair.

  If this was the man who murdered Thomas atte Bridge and attempted to burn Galen House, he had surely suffered a sudden illness and rapid decline.

  “Aye, what illness has overcome Sir Reynald?”

  “Injury, not illness. My husband was riding about the manor, seeing to plowing and such, when a hare startled his horse. The beast threw him. He broke a leg, and was in much distress.”

  A tear appeared at the corner of the woman’s eye as she completed the tale. I turned to Sir Reynald and asked when this mishap had occurred.

  “Four days past Easter,” he replied.

  The man had been confined to bed and chair more than a fortnight before Thomas atte Bridge died, and surely had not run from Galen House a week past.

  Arthur, standing behind me in the door from the corridor, then spoke: “Master Hugh be a surgeon. Deals with broke legs and such.”

  “I’ve heard so,” Sir Reynald replied.

  “Was a physician or surgeon brought to set the break?”

  “Aye. The herbalist at Eynsham Abbey came. Put reeds about my leg and tied them tight, then set all in plaster. Said I was not to walk about ’til June.”

  “Does the break pain you?”

  “For a fortnight it was troublesome, but no longer. Did you call from Bampton to ask of my leg?”

  “Nay. There is a matter in Bampton which requires sorting out, and I thought you might assist me.”

  “I know little of matters in Bampton. I have troubles enough here in Cote.”

  “Did you, two or three years past, have business with Henry and Thomas atte Bridge?”

  I saw Sir Reynald’s lip curl as I spoke the names. I needed no further answer, but received such anyway.

  “Aye. Scoundrels. Cote has suffered much from plague. When it first struck I was a young man. I watched my family perish, and most of the village also. I alone remained of my father’s house, so I became lord of Cote Manor when I was but twenty-four.

  “We had no priest to shrive the dead. Father Oswald was among the first to perish. Four years passed before the bishop found another vicar. Then five years ago plague visited us again. Mostly children of the village it was who died this time. Amecia,” he looked at his wife, “and I lost our youngest son. But Cote lost also some adults, so that now I have few tenants and much land lies fallow.

  “So three years past, it was, I hired Henry and Thomas to plow on demesne land. They were to give me three weeks in February and March. But after a few days at their labor they asked for their wages and came no more. Said they could not spare more time from their own holdings. Next day a calf was missing from the barn.”

  “You believe they took it?”

  “Aye. Couldn’t pr
ove so. They came in the night, knowing the lay of the place, and made off with the calf, so I believe. Cote has no beadle. Since plague none has been needed.”

  “Did you inquire in Bampton and Aston about the stolen beast?”

  “Aye. None saw them with it. ’Tis my belief they took it to Witney or Eynsham or Brize Norton or some such place an’ sold it.”

  “They will not trouble you more,” I replied.

  “I heard that Henry’s dead. What of Thomas?”

  “Dead also. Found hanging from an oak at Cow-Leys Corner, to the west of Bampton.”

  “Hanging? Did the scoundrel take his own life?”

  “So some believe.”

  “But not you, eh? Else why would you seek knowledge of me, who was injured by the knave? When was he found?”

  “The day after St George’s Day.”

  “I’m not sorry the rogue is dead,” Sir Reynald admitted, “but you can see I’m not the man who slew him, though if some fellow did do away with the rascal, I wish him well.”

  There was no reason to inspect the knight’s riding boots. He could not have murdered Thomas atte Bridge, nor could he have run from my toft a week past. I apologized for disturbing the peace of Sir Reynald’s home.

  “’Twas no imposition,” he smiled. “You brought me a good report.”

  “That Thomas atte Bridge is dead?”

  “Just so. When I am able next week to rise from this chair I will have double reason to rejoice.”

  Arthur and Uctred heard the conversation from their place in the passageway which divided the house. As we left the place Arthur offered an opinion, a thing he was never reluctant to do. “Seems lots of folks had reason to wish ill upon Thomas atte Bridge, an’ if they didn’t do ’im harm they’re not regretful someone else did.”

  To solve the puzzle of who murdered Thomas atte Bridge I needed to eliminate men from suspicion for the deed until but one possible felon remained. Instead I was discovering more folk Thomas had wronged. How many more such men might I find?

  I thought on this as we three retraced our steps through Aston and back to Bampton. The day was far spent when we entered the town. I released Arthur and Uctred, saw them off to the castle, and walked through quiet streets to Galen House. I had departed the town with high hopes four hours earlier; now I was again frustrated in my pursuit of a murderer. And my arm ached.