by Mel Starr
“Nay,” she finally spoke. “Workin’ on the bishop’s new tithe barn.”
I knew of that project. The Bishop of Exeter, in a fit of abundance, had ordered his old tithe barn at Bampton demolished and a new and greater structure raised in its place.
Beams had been hewed over the winter, and now the framework was rising on the bishop’s land north of the town. I remember Master John Wyclif speaking of a passage in the Gospel of St Luke where our Lord spoke to his disciples about a wealthy man who pulled down an old barn and built a greater one, but died before he could enjoy the wealth he had stored there. I tactfully avoided mentioning this scripture when discussing the new barn with Thomas de Bowlegh, whose duty it is to oversee construction for the bishop.
Master John, I think, would not be so considerate, for I often heard him condemn prelates for their venality. The criticism of an Oxford master, however, is of little consequence to those in Avignon.
I told the woman I would return in the evening to speak to her husband and made my way around the house to return to the castle. As I passed the gable end a gust of wind brought the scent of roasting meat to my nostrils. I looked up to the gable vent. Wisps of smoke, common enough from such a hut, drifted from the opening.
At the front of the house, out of sight of the toft, I stopped at a window and tested the oiled skin which covered the opening. I found a loose corner and lifted it to peer inside.
The hut was dark and my eyes were accustomed to the bright afternoon sun. But eventually I saw in the smoky interior a small child turning a spit over the central hearth. A low fire glowed there on the stones, and an occasional drop of fat from the haunch on the spit sizzled on the coals. The child stared blankly back at me as he turned the spit. I dropped the skin and, guiltily, I confess, hastened to the path and back to Mill Street.
Perhaps, I thought, it was mutton the child was turning. But where would a quarter-yardlander – well, half-yardlander if he now possessed his father’s meager estate – get a roast of mutton? I believed I knew the smell of roasting mutton, and this was not it. And the haunch on the spit was large, larger than a sheep, more closely the size of a deer. A small deer, perhaps, but yet larger than any ewe or even a ram. I knew where a joint of venison would come from: poaching.
From the appearance of Henry atte Bridge’s wife and children, they had eaten well for many months. Most cotters would think themselves fortunate to feed their children an egg, much less a joint. Even if the roast was not venison, I wondered where he got it. As he was the bishop’s tenant, it was not my business to ask, unless the slaughtered animal belonged to Lord Gilbert’s demesne or to one of his tenants in my bailiwick.
I told the cook to keep a supper warm for me, then made my way back to the Weald as the sun dipped behind the leafless oaks and beeches in Lord Gilbert’s wood to the west of the town.
Tendrils of smoke still drifted from the gable vent as I approached Henry atte Bridge’s hut, but I could detect no scent of roasted meat for the family supper. Henry must have been forewarned that I would call, for the door opened before I could rap a second time on it. The man stared at me with unconcealed hostility. I had dealt firmly with the fellow at the time of his father’s death eighteen months before, berating him for his lack of filial observance. He had not forgotten.
The man stood squarely in the door, silent, as if daring me to either speak or enter. I looked from his scowling brow to his feet. He wore wooden-soled shoes with softly tanned leather binding them to his feet. I inspected his footgear for a long moment, then returned my gaze to his face. He blinked. I saw alarm in his eyes, but the look passed quickly.
“You was ’ere t’day seekin’ me,” he challenged. “’Ere I am…what d’you want o’me?”
I decided to brazen my way through the interview, so pushed past him through the door as I said, “I wish to discuss your shoes.”
The interior of the hut was now near dark, lit only by the coals glowing on the hearth and the fading light of the setting sun which managed to penetrate the window skins.
Soon the embers would be covered and the family would retire to bed. As I entered the hut Henry’s wife and three children looked up at me from the table, spoons in hand. Before them sat bowls of pottage. I peered through the smoke into the corners of the darkening dwelling. My eyes could find no roasted meat. But my nose detected yet the faint scent of…what, venison?
I turned to Henry atte Bridge, who stood silent, silhouetted in the door. “Have you owned those shoes long?”
“Not long,” he bristled. “A fortnight.”
“They seem of fine workmanship. Did you buy them of Adam, the cobbler?”
“Nay…he wants too much. Bought ’em in Witney.”
“Witney? Surely a long way to walk to purchase shoes. And the price is controlled…unless the cobbler at Witney is selling at a lower price in violation of the law.”
“They was used,” atte Bridge growled. “Fella bought ’em died. ’Is wife sold ’em back to the cobbler.”
“Oh. And how did you learn of this bargain?”
“Father Thomas sent me an’ two others to Witney with a cart an’ team to get beams for the new tithe barn.”
“And you took enough money on this journey to buy shoes?”
“They was cheap, I tol’ you.”
“Aye, so you did…from a dead man’s feet. How much did you pay for these, uh, used shoes?”
“Thruppence.”
“A bargain, indeed, as they appear little worn.”
Henry made no answer, but stood sullenly, outlined in the door. No doubt he would have liked to throw me bodily out of his house, and was certainly strong enough to do so, as I am of slender build and Henry was short and thickset. There are advantages as well as trials to serving as bailiff to a powerful lord.
I wrinkled my nose and tested the air. “You have enjoyed a joint for your first remove,” I asserted.
“Ha…where would I find meat this time of year? The hog me an’ me brother butchered last autumn is gone, but for a fletch o’ bacon.”
“Hmm. My nose misleads me, then,” I shrugged.
Henry atte Bridge made no answer but to fold his arms and glare. I looked over my shoulder at his wife and children. They sat frozen on a bench, spoons of cooling pottage hovering between bowl and lips.
He was lying about the roasted meat, although I could gain little by pressing him on the matter. Was he lying about his shoes also? I thought it likely. And whereas I had no way to prove his deceit about the mutton or venison or whatever it was his lad had been turning on the spit, I could discover the truth of his shoes. I had but to travel to Witney.
The sun was well down behind the western forest when I returned to Bampton Castle and the gatehouse. The cool spring evening was without a breeze, and the sky, bright blue and cloudless as the afternoon wore on, was now black in the east and a faint golden gray through the leafless trees to the west. Brilliant stars speckled the night, like flecks of snow on a parson’s robe.
Alice was waiting for me in the great hall, sitting on the cold flags, her back against the wall. She must have guessed what I was about that evening, but spoke instead of fleabane. She rose, sleepy-eyed, as I approached. It was this movement which told me she was there, for the hall, lit only by a single cresset, was so dark I did not see her sitting near my chamber door.
“Please, sir…you said this mornin’ as I might ’ave some of the flower what drives fleas away?”
“Ah, yes…you may. I will prepare some of the herb. In exchange you go to the kitchen and get me some supper. I told the cook to keep a meal ready for my return.”
“Thank you, sir.” The girl curtsied and scuttled off toward the buttery door, becoming invisible in that shadowed part of the hall.
My chamber still held the scent of burned fleabane. I hoped that the stink would be more objectionable to vermin than to me. If so, I should sleep unmolested this night. I gathered the remainder of the fleabane from my chest and broke a handful into
the bowl I had left smoldering on my floor that morning. I spread another handful of broken stems, leaves and purple flowers across my mattress. I was left with but little of the herb should fleas reappear before summer brought another harvest of the tiny flowers. I resolved this summer to gather more than in the past. Just in case.
Alice returned with my supper – cold mutton, cheese, and a loaf of fine wheat bread.
Mutton is not my favorite dish when served hot. Cold, it leaves a thick coating of grease on the tongue to mark its passage. The bread and cheese did little to scour the taste away.
I gave Alice the bowl of fleabane and instructed her in its use: burn half, then strew the other half on her mattress. She should wait, I told her, until the morrow, so that the fumes might have the day to permeate the closet where she slept.
The girl took the bowl, curtsied again, and turned with the fleabane pressed to her breast as if I had given her a pouch of silver pennies. Well, when one is assaulted by fleas, their elimination might be worth a sack of pennies to him who could afford it.
I had business on the manor next day, so could not start for Witney until the morning’s work was done. John Holcutt was to oversee the planting of dredge on one of Lord Gilbert’s fields and I wished to observe the planting of peas on another of the demesne fields. If peas are planted too closely together, rather than increase the yield per acre, the plants will choke each other and produce a poor crop. But if the peas be planted too sparsely, weeds will spring up and produce the same untoward result.
I set the planters to work with their dibble sticks, and instructed them to sow at three bushels per acre, no more and no less. I waited until the work was well begun, then made my way back to the castle for my dinner. I had told the marshalsea to have Bruce ready at noon. The old horse knew he was to travel, saddled and bridled as he was, and was stamping and blowing with impatience when I reached the stables. I did not make the beast wait.
At the north edge of Bampton I passed the place where the bishop’s men were erecting his new barn. Eager for a break from their work, they leaned on their tools and watched as Bruce ambled past. Among the upturned faces was that of Henry atte Bridge. When he was certain I looked his way he spat upon the ground, then returned to cutting a mortise with hammer and chisel.
Aside from Henry atte Bridge and his salivary salutation, I quite enjoyed the ride through sunlit, spring countryside. Low shrubs and plants on the forest floor were popping into greenery. Taller trees had yet few leaves, so the road was not shaded and Bruce and I were warmed with the sun at our backs. Meadows along the way bustled with life. Jackdaws and wrens chirped and flitted about, seeking seeds and the early hatch of unwary insects.
I had ridden this way before. Less than a mile from town I passed the coppiced wood where, eighteen months past, I had watched as pigs, rooting for acorns, uncovered a blue cotehardie. The discovery of that garment led to the identification of bones found in Lord Gilbert’s castle cesspit, and eventually revealed a killer. Now I had another body, and a blue thread taken from it. I began to dislike the color blue.
A few hundred paces beyond the coppiced wood where the pigs and I made our discovery the road split, the left fork leading to Shilton and Burford. Bruce knew that way, and would have followed it had I not pulled on the reins to guide him to the right.
Two miles later we crested the hill southwest of Witney and dropped down into the valley of the Windrush.
I pointed Bruce down the High Street, past the impressive spire of St Mary’s Church, to the Buttercross at the market square. The square was busy of a Saturday, even though Thursday was market day in the town. I was about to ask a scurrying citizen for the location of the cobbler’s shop when I saw on the north side of the market square a house with a shoe painted on a wooden plank which swung from a beam above the door.
The shoemaker had not ended his work yet this day. I heard a light tapping as I paused at his door before rapping my knuckles upon it. The tapping ceased immediately and moments later a face with a quizzical expression on it peered at me through the partly opened door. The cobbler had not, I think, been expecting either trade or a strange visitor.
I asked if he was the town shoemaker. His response was to glance with rolling eyes above my head at his sign, as if to signal my ignorance to some onlooker.
“Aye,” he finally said. The man looked down at my serviceable – although hardly new – footwear, then asked, “You need shoes?”
I explained that I needed not shoes but rather a few minutes of his time to inquire of a previous customer. This information did not seem to fill the man with joy, but he turned and nodded me into his shop.
To the right, behind the door, was the cobbler’s bench, set before a south window. On it I saw a pair of shoes much like those Henry atte Bridge wore. These shoes were nearly complete. I had interrupted the cobbler as he nailed the finished leather to the thick wooden soles. No doubt he wished me soon gone, so he could complete his work before the light faded from his window and his labor must, by statute, cease for the day. Indeed, I wished to conclude my business quickly also. I did not want to find myself on the road alone at night. Free companies have not been seen in this shire for many years – we are not so cursed as is France by these brigands – but ’tis well nevertheless for the man who travels alone to reach his destination before dark.
The shoes on the cobbler’s bench were so like those on Henry atte Bridge’s feet that I thought myself on a fool’s errand. Of course, they were like the shoes on the feet of most of the commons, but this thought did not register at the moment.
Along the wall beyond the bench was a shelf. On it I saw five pairs of shoes awaiting buyers. Three pairs were like the unfinished set awaiting completion on the bench. A fourth pair was more delicate, made of softer leather, and with leather soles. The fifth pair seemed much out of place. They were of fine leather, with the outlandishly long, curled toes now favored by nobles. Whoever wore these shoes would have to walk up stairs backwards and tie the toes to his calves or he would be forever tripping over them. I wondered who in this town would buy such shoes. Perhaps the Bishop of Winchester, or one of his minions.
“What is your price for shoes such as these?” I asked, nodding toward the pair on his bench.
The cobbler’s eyes narrowed as he tried to guess the reason for my question. “Six pence, for such as these.” He pointed to the bench. “As the law allows.”
I knew what the law allowed. The Statute of Laborers has been renewed twice in the decade since Parliament first saw fit to save us all from the avarice of those who eke out a living with their hands.
“Do you sell for less…if the shoes be old and worn?”
The cobbler gazed at me from under furrowed brows. “Why would I make shoes old and worn?”
“Shoes you might have made new, for one who then died. Do you buy and repair such shoes?”
The cobbler’s visage cleared. “Ah, I see. I might do, did any seek such of me.”
“You have not done this recently?”
“Nay. Oh, I repair worn shoes often enough. But not of the dead to sell again.”
“A fortnight and more ago did you not resell the shoes of a dead man?”
“Nay. I’ve sold but new for the past year an’ more.” The cobbler glanced at his shelf. “An’ not so many new, either.”
“A man…not of Witney; did such a one buy new shoes like those?” I pointed to his bench.
“A fortnight ago, you say?” The man’s brows narrowed again. “Why do you ask me of this?”
It was a fair question. “I am Hugh de Singleton, bailiff of Lord Gilbert Talbot’s manor at Bampton. There is a question of law…regarding ownership of shoes, which has recently arisen there. One says he has shoes purchased in Witney while here on the Bishop of Exeter’s business.”
“A fortnight ago? Nay, no man not of this town bought shoes of me then.”
“Of another? Is there another cobbler in the town?”
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��Ha! Enough trade here to keep me an’ me family alive, no more.”
The cobbler was a thickset man, thick of neck, wrists and fingers. Thick in the belly as well. I thought his business not so thin as he professed. A man’s stomach often reflects his success in trade.
“Of this you are certain?” I pressed. “If a man from Bampton says he bought shoes of you in the days before Easter, you say he lies?”
“Aye…he does.”
I gave the man two farthings for his trouble, retrieved Bruce from the shrub where I had tied him, and set out for home. Meadows were quiet now. Birds sought roosts for the night, and the sun, casting long and twisted shadows across my way, provided little warmth.
Bruce is an old horse – he carried Lord Gilbert at Poitiers – and does not like to be hurried. So it was that darkness overtook me before I reached Bampton. And the sliver of new moon resting in the treetops did little to break the gathering gloom.
I was yet half a mile from town when the attack came. Bruce sensed it first, and ’twas well he did. I was drowsing upon his back when he twitched and shied to the left. This motion brought me back from the edge of sleep, yet I was not so alert that I could sense a blow coming or fend it off. But Bruce’s shudder threw off the assailant’s aim, so that the club he would have laid aside my skull struck a glancing blow on my right shoulder instead.
The blow unhorsed me and I landed in the mud upon my left shoulder. The next morning I awoke equally sore on each side. I wonder now that I had the presence of mind to immediately roll to the verge. Had I not, the next blow would have succeeded where the first failed.
I saw as I scrambled away from my attacker a silhouette against the darkening sky. This figure had a club raised in both hands and brought it down viciously on the place in the mud where I had toppled an instant earlier. As the ground was darker than the sky, I had the advantage of my foe. I could see but little of his form, but he could see none of me against the darkened earth. My brown cloak blended with the mire to make me, but for face and hands, invisible.
The cudgel which might have broken my head cracked and snapped when it struck the earth at my side. The odds were evened a bit.