by Mel Starr
“Aye. I wished confirmation from Father Simon and Father Ralph that my path was a wise one.”
“Did they agree?”
“They did.”
“You must speak to them this day, without delay, and warn them to be silent. Else I am undone. Bampton may lose a bailiff and a surgeon and I may lose my life.”
“Surely not,” the vicar objected. “You are known and respected in the town.”
“I am an outsider, newly come to this place. When the commons are heated and a hanging is offered they will cheer the death of any man and consider him guilty, be he so or not. Remember Thomas Shilton? He was of this place, or near so. But when I found against him, wrongly, none rose to defend him. They were ready to jeer as he swung from the beam with purple face and swollen tongue.”
Father Thomas looked from the fire to the window to me. “It is near time for canonical hours. I will urge Simon and Ralph to silence.”
I left the vicarage with cluttered mind and burdened heart. By the time I reached the castle the mist had ceased, and when dinner was served in the hall I saw broken sunlight begin to penetrate the south windows. I cannot recall what was served that day. Other thoughts occupied my mind. When the meal was done I set out from the castle to seek a murderer, but found two. Eventually.
The afternoon sky above Oxfordshire cleared, and inhabitants of the town ventured out upon muddy streets. The cooper had opened his shutters and from his shop issued the smell of fresh-shaved wood and the regular cadence of his draw knife as he plied it against new staves. The sun appeared occasionally between banks of clouds, but not enough to dry the streets. My shoes were caked with mud before I passed the bishop’s new barn and found the place where Henry atte Bridge and I had rolled on the verge in our struggle.
I thought to retrace the path the searchers had followed into the wood, to see if any object or clue might have gone unnoticed. The seekers that day were watching for a man. Any other thing foreign to a forest might have gone unremarked. So I plunged into the undergrowth and was soon wet to the skin. The new foliage was dewy from the morning rain.
I found the place where Henry atte Bridge lay in death. ’Twas easy to do, for the searchers and then the coroner’s jury had beaten down the shrubs of the forest floor for many paces in a circle about the place where the corpse lay. I found a fallen branch and went round the spot, overturning the trampled leaves with the stick. I found nothing but what is common to a wet wood in April.
I enlarged my search and with the stick I turned over matted leaves and prodded at the vines and scrub between the place where Henry was found and the road. Shortly after the Bell of St Beornwald’s Church announced the ninth hour I found, midway between the road and the trampled ground, the shaft of an arrow.
This arrow was incomplete. There was no point affixed to the shaft. Where the point once was I could see a splintered end and the hole where a pin had held point to shaft. The arrow was clean and unmarked by the rot which soon overtakes wood in such a damp, shaded place. The arrow was carefully notched, and the goose feathers set into the shaft were skillfully split and placed.
I searched the forest for another hour, until shadows were long across the grove, but detected no other object there by the hand of man. The iron point of the arrow was not to be found.
There was no reason for an arrow to be in Lord Gilbert’s forest. Henry atte Bridge was struck down by a small dagger. I saw the wound. And the place was too close to the town for a poacher to feel safe taking one of Lord Gilbert’s deer. I discarded the stick as I pushed my way from the forest fringe to the road, and re-examined the arrow as I walked back to the castle.
Bampton had but one fletcher, and since the Treaty of Bretigny the town could not supply him with enough business to keep his children fed. What does a man need arrows for if he cannot discharge them at another? Some were needed for practice – which reminded me again that I needed to resume Sunday afternoon archery trials in the castle forecourt – but arrows loosed at targets may be retrieved and reused. So I did not expect Martin the fletcher to be at his craft when I approached his house on the Broad Street. He was not. His wife directed me to the south of town where, near Shill Brook, I found him finishing the seeding of a bean field.
The fletcher swung his dibble stick to his shoulder and studied me as I approached. I was careful to step between his planted rows, but my appearance did not seem to bring the man any pleasure for all my caution. The approach of a lord’s bailiff has generally that effect. Tenants and villeins know that if a reeve or bailiff seek them out it will concern some trouble which will require their assistance. So I was not surprised when the fletcher observed me across his field with narrowed, cautious eyes and lips drawn thin.
I held the broken arrow before me for the fletcher’s inspection and asked if the object was his work. His response was quick.
“Nay…not of mine.”
“You are certain?”
“Aye. ’Tis well made, but not my work. See here,” he took the arrow from my hand and held it up before my eyes, “the feathers be from a goose. A wild goose, I think. I use feathers from Lord Gilbert’s tame geese. The poulterer saves ’em for me. They be mostly white, not grey, as these.” He tapped the fletching. “But ’tis good work. I’d be proud to call it my own.”
I thanked the fletcher for his answer and saw relief soften the lines of his broad face. His mouth moved as if he would speak, but as quickly clamped shut. Much curiosity may bring distress, as the commons know. The man held his tongue.
Another question came to me as I turned to leave the bean field. “This arrow is well done, you say. Do you know the work?”
The fletcher took the shaft from me once again and studied it intently. I think he pondered the effect of his answer as well as the workmanship. After a close inspection he raised his eyes to mine.
“Nay…’tis not possible to tell. ’Tis much like the arrows foresters and yeomen make for their own use. ’Tis of alder, not ash, so ’twas made, I think, for practice. Ash would not have broken so.”
“A skillful yeoman?”
“Aye. Whoso made this has much practice. ’Tis nearly as good as mine. See how straight is the shaft.” He held the arrow to his eye and peered down its length. “And the fletching is neatly done. This arrow will fly true.”
A well-made arrow, broken, lying in the leaves of Lord Gilbert’s forest close by the town and near to the place a lifeless body was found. I puzzled over this as I left the fletcher to his bean field and made my way back to the town.
The sun was low over the rooftops and bright in my eyes as I walked down Bridge Street toward the mill and castle. Before I had reached the bridge over Shill Brook I determined to resume archery competition the next Sunday. I would, at that event, make close inspection of arrows loosed at the butts to see if any resembled the shaft in my hand. This resolution cleared my mind, as did the flowing waters of the brook. I stopped on the bridge to watch the stream flow below me. The world might be a baffling place, full of wonder and discouragement, but the brook flowed on unchanging and predictable. God’s constant in a mutable world. But for my growling stomach warning me that I might miss my supper, I would have remained longer at the bridge, enjoying the calming brook.
The weather had much improved this day. There was yet light when the evening meal was done, so while grooms dismounted tables and moved benches aside in the hall I walked the parapet. Circumnavigating Lord Gilbert’s castle would not find for me evidence of a murderer, but might provide time to order what I knew already – which was little enough.
The castle shadow stretched long to the east. Indeed, the mill was now shaded and the shadow of the southeast tower darkened Shill Brook and the bridge. Beyond the bridge I watched a figure approach. It was Hubert Shillside’s gangly son, all knees and elbows and splayed feet as he strode resolutely toward the castle. I paid him no mind, but continued my stroll to the northeast tower, then to the northwest. From that elevated corner I could look
south along the west wall and the gatehouse.
I saw there the Shillside youth again, lounging against a small tree some twenty paces from the portcullis. As I watched his attention was drawn to the gatehouse and he stood stiffly from the sapling.
The object of his attention slipped through the gatehouse door toward the darkness under the tree. Alice. I watched the two stand in shadowed conversation, then Alice turned back to the gatehouse. Wilfred was about to close the gate and drop the portcullis. She turned back to the youth for another word, then flitted from tree to castle and was gone from sight. I remained atop the northwest tower and watched the coroner’s boy lope happily back to Mill Street and off to the darkened town.
There were yet four days before Sunday to announce another season of archery competition. I told as many as I met, advised castle servants to do likewise, and for those few who could read I posted a notice at the door of St Beornwald’s Church.
Thursday of that week was May Day and as always it was celebrated with joy and foolishness. I heard castle residents awake and about before dawn, and before the third hour these youth, Alice atte Bridge among them, returned to the castle laden with blossoms from flowering trees and green sprigs of hawthorn – but without the flowers, for all know it courts misfortune to bring the blossom of the holy thorn into a house.
They erected a maypole before the castle gatehouse and maidens of the town danced around it. Alice, in grace and comeliness, put the others to shame. No doubt Will Shillside thought the same.
On Saturday I purchased a cask of fresh ale from the baker’s wife and drew from the castle storeroom three targets used the previous year. From the castle strongbox, which in the absence of Lord Gilbert I kept in my chamber, I took five silver pennies for prizes and was ready for the competition.
There is joy in resuming a pleasurable activity which one has been compelled to abandon. Add to that sentiment the delights of a warm spring afternoon and you will understand why the resumption of archery competition was a success – for all of Bampton but me.
Men stood contemplating the butts with bow in one hand and a mug of Lord Gilbert’s ale in the other. One might think these fellows would become most accurate as the afternoon wore on and practice brought back skills grown stale over the winter. But not so. Most loosed their best arrows in early practice, before I announced the competition. ’Twas much ale, I think, which rattled their aim.
Women and children stood along the castle wall where they could cheer or heckle the archers as they chose. The sun warmed the stones and soon small children lay dozing at the base of the wall while their mothers, losing interest in the volleys of arrows, knotted together to discuss events of the winter past, both real and imagined.
Older children – but for the boys who neared the age when they also might possess a bow – also lost interest and were soon chasing each other and being caught with joyous shrieks. ’Twas a good day to be alive.
I had dual motives in resuming archery competition. Should war with France resume, I did not wish King Edward to find Lord Gilbert negligent in the training of his archers. And I wanted to find arrows like the broken one I had found in the wood.
I succeeded; to such effect that the success did my investigation no good at all. Most of those who loosed arrows at the butts possessed arrows like the one I found. Grey feathers from wild geese fletched half and more of the shafts I saw that day. And those seemed as well made as the found arrow which Martin the fletcher had so praised. I think that skill in making arrows is not so rare a knack as the fletcher led me to believe. Any one of a dozen and more men at the competition might have made or loosed the arrow I found. I could see no way of determining what, if anything, that man might have to do with the death of Henry atte Bridge.
Alice atte Bridge was among those who watched the archers, when her duties in the castle kitchen were done. She took a place along the castle wall among the other women, but as she was of the castle, not the town, and unmarried, she had little discourse with her companions.
Soon, however, one of the competitors walked near her and the two were promptly lost in conversation. Will Shillside was old enough to pull a man’s bow, and for the first time in his life took part in the practice. I do not remember him showing any great skill. This is to be expected. Surely many years and thousands of arrows are necessary for proficiency.
His competence with a bow might be in doubt, but as he leaned upon it he seemed more the man than the boy he was without it. Alice appeared to note the transformation as well, for her eyes were bright and her conversation animated. Will found this diversion more interesting than the competition, for I did not see him again take his place at the mark. Why this conversation should trouble me I cannot tell, for I knew the girl, howso winsome she was becoming, was beneath my station. No bailiff could wed a scullery maid and expect his lord to retain him in his position. Odd; when Lord Gilbert first approached me about the position I did not want to be bailiff of Bampton Manor. Now that I am bailiff I do not want to lose the post.
The ale was gone and the last arrows of the competition loosed when the Angelus Bell rang from St Beornwald’s tower across the town. I awarded the prizes to the winners; the best was Gerard the forester’s son, Richard, from Alvescot, who put five of six arrows firmly in the center of the butt from 200 paces. I think if this youth desires Lord Gilbert’s venison as a greater reward for his skill he will have it, and perhaps he already has.
I slept well that night, to my surprise. I feared I would lay in my bed and think of corpses and arrows, or perhaps Alice atte Bridge. But my thoughts proved amenable to slumber and I awoke the next morning much refreshed in body and spirit.
My breakfast was a loaf warm from the castle oven and a pint of ale. I consumed this in my chamber while I pondered what I might do to discover the murderer of a man no one liked. If a likeable man be done to death, his killer will surely be one less admired, and so those who suspect him of the deed have little hesitation to tell of what they know. But when a man held in low regard is slain, the mortal stroke is likely to come from one held in greater esteem than the victim. Who, then, will inform the bailiff and send a friend to the gallows? I swallowed the last of my ale, spit out the dregs, and wished myself free of the task.
A knock on my chamber door drew me from these black thoughts. The porter’s assistant was there with a message. An elderly widow of the town wished to speak to me. I followed him to the gatehouse where I found the woman waiting, bent over her stick. She was known to me. She complained of an ache in her shoulders and indeed she suffered much from the disease of the bones. I had treated her for this malady several times but not, I fear, with much success.
“Ah…Master Hugh,” she greeted me from under her bent brow.
“Good morning, Sarah. Are you well?” A foolish question. Who seeks the surgeon when they are well?
“Nay. ’Tis me shoulders again. I’m terrible distressed. Do ye have more of the oil such as you gave me at Candlemas?”
“Did the oil help?”
“Oh, aye, it did. But ’tis gone for a fortnight.”
I told her to wait at the gatehouse and I returned to my chamber. The oil Sarah sought was produced from bay leaves and monk’s hood, and when rubbed vigorously upon a bruise or aching joint will relieve the hurt. I was startled to see how little of the oil remained in my pharmacy. I poured it all into a vial, stopped the vessel with a wooden plug, and carried it to the sufferer.
I gave Sarah the vial with strict instructions that, after rubbing the oil on her aching shoulders, she must not touch her hand to her lips until all trace of the oil was washed clean of her fingers.
The widow accepted my remedy, fished in her purse for the farthing fee, then tottered off toward Mill Street clutching the vial to her shrunken breast. I knew what I must now do this day, and the thought pleased me, for while I gathered bay leaves and the root of monk’s hood I would not have to consider the murder of Henry atte Bridge.
Had I dis
covered my shortage a month sooner, I would have had an easier time gathering more bay leaves. Sweet laurel is green all winter through and easily identified in a bleak winter wood. But now all the low plants were bursting out in color, from fragile pale yellow-green to darker hues of full summer. These herbs, many having uses of their own, disguised the plant I sought. But some months before I had discovered a thick patch of sweet laurel at the fringe of the wood behind St Andrew’s Chapel, very near the place where the coroner and I had found the beadle’s cudgel. I threw a sack across my shoulder and set off for the chapel.
My route took me past the place where, nearly four weeks before, the plowman found Alan’s corpse. ’Twas well the man was found when he was, for now the place was dense with new growth of nettles and hawthorn. A body lying there now would not be found until autumn.
The wood behind St Andrew’s Chapel was thick with sweet laurel, as on my previous visit. I filled my sack with leaves and had yet enough time to seek the monk’s hood to complete the physic.
I had seen what I thought to be monk’s hood when following the hounds as we tracked the beast which must have attacked Alan and howled in the night. The patch lay south of Shill Brook where the stream turned east toward Aston. I crossed a fallow field to the brook, waded it at a shallow place where the water flowed swiftly over a gravel bed, then set off to the west where I remembered the monk’s hood to be.
It was too early for the purple flowers to be in bloom, so I had to search carefully for the narrow, multi-pointed leaves before I found what I sought. I dug up several plants, washed the roots free of dirt in the brook, then placed them in the bag with the bay leaves.
I was careful as I returned to the castle not to put my fingers to my mouth. The root of monk’s hood is a powerful poison. I do not know if the small amount of the oil from the root left on my fingers could cause death, but have no desire to discover so in experiment. Monk’s hood is like many good things God has given to man. Used wrongly, it becomes a curse.