by Mel Starr
By the same author
(in sequence)
The Unquiet Bones
A Corpse at St Andrew’s Chapel
A Trail of Ink
Unhallowed Ground
The Tainted Coin
Rest Not in Peace
Text copyright © 2010 Mel Starr
This edition copyright © 2013 Lion Hudson
The right of Mel Star to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published by Lion Fiction
an imprint of
Lion Hudson plc
Wilkinson House, Jordan Hill Road,
Oxford OX2 8DR, England
www.lionhudson.com/fiction
ISBN: 978-1-78264-085-1
e-ISBN: 978-1-78264-086-8
First edition 2010 by Monarch Books
Acknowledgments
Scripture quotations taken from the Authorized Version of the Bible (The King James Bible), the rights in which are vested in the Crown, are reproduced by permission of the Crown’s Patentee, Cambridge University Press.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Cover design by Emma De Banks
Cover image: iStockphoto.com/DNY59
For Fran and Larry
In the summer of 1990 my wife Susan and I discovered a lovely B&B in the village of Mavesyn Ridware. The proprietors, Tony and Lis Page, became friends. We visited them again in 2001, after they had moved to Bampton. I saw that the village would be an ideal setting for the tales I wished to write. Tony and Lis have been a wonderful resource for the history of Bampton. I owe them much.
When Dan Runyon, Professor of English at Spring Arbor University, learned that I was writing The Unquiet Bones, he invited me to speak to a fiction-writing class about the trials of a rookie writer. Dan sent some chapters to his friend Tony Collins. Thanks, Dan.
And many thanks to Tony Collins and the fine people of Lion Hudson for their willingness to publish an untried author.
Thanks go also to Spring Arbor University student Brian Leyder, who suggested the title for Master Hugh’s third chronicle.
Modern Oxford resembles the medieval city, but there have been many changes. Streets often bear different names than they did six hundred years ago. Dr John Blair, of Queen’s College, has been a great help in navigating the differences between the modern and the medieval. However, if the reader becomes lost in medieval Oxford’s narrow lanes the fault is mine, not Dr Blair’s.
Mel Starr
Angelus bell: Rung three times each day – dawn, noon, and dusk. Announced the times for the Angelus devotional.
Assart: Turning unused or “waste” land into cultivated farmland.
Bailiff: A lord’s chief manorial representative. He oversaw all operations, collected rents and fines, and enforced labor service. Not a popular fellow.
Banns: A formal announcement, made in the parish church for three consecutive Sundays, of intent to marry.
Braes: Medieval underpants.
Calefactory: The warming room in a monastery. Benedictines allowed the fire to be lit on 1 November. The more rigorous Cistercians had no calefactory.
Candlemas: 2 February. The day marked the purification of Mary. Women traditionally paraded to church carrying lighted candles. Tillage of fields resumed this day.
Canon: A priest of the secular clergy who lived under rules comparable to monastic orders. Did not usually minister to the commons.
Chauces: Tight-fitting trousers, often parti-colored (having different colors for each leg).
Claret: Yellowish or light-red wine from the Bordeaux region.
Coney: Rabbit.
Cordwainer: A dealer in leather and leather goods imported from Cordova, Spain.
Cresset: A bowl of oil with a floating wick used for lighting.
Curate: A clergyman who often served as an assistant to the rector of a parish.
Dexter: A war horse, larger than pack-horses and palfreys. Also called a destrier. Also the right-hand direction.
Dower: The groom’s financial contribution to marriage, designated for the bride’s support during marriage and possible widowhood.
Dowry: A gift from the bride’s family to the groom, intended for her support during marriage, and widowhood, should her husband predecease her.
Egg leaches: A very thick custard, often enriched with almonds, spices, and flour.
Farthing: One fourth of a penny. The smallest coin.
Free companies: At times of peace during the Hundred Years’ War, bands of unemployed knights would organize themselves and ravage the countryside. France especially suffered.
Galantyne: A sauce made with cinnamon, ginger, vinegar, and breadcrumbs.
Gathering: Eight leaves of parchment, made by folding the prepared hide three times.
Groom: A lower-ranking servant to a lord. Often a teenaged youth. Occasionally assistant to a valet. Ranked above a page.
Hallmote: The manorial court. Royal courts judged free tenants accused of murder or felony. Otherwise manor courts had jurisdiction over legal matters concerning villagers. Villeins accused of murder might also be tried in a manor court.
Kirtle: The basic medieval undershirt.
Lammas Day: 1 August, when thanks was given for a successful wheat harvest. From the Old English “loaf mass”.
Liripipe: A fashionably long tail attached to a man’s cap.
Lych gate: A roofed gate in the churchyard wall under which the deceased rested during the initial part of a burial service.
Mark: 13 shillings and 4 pence – 160 pence.
Marshalsea: The stable and associated accoutrements.
Martinmas: 11 November. The traditional date to slaughter animals for winter food.
Maslin: Bread made with a mixture of grains, commonly wheat with barley or rye.
Matins: The first of the day’s eight canonical hours (services). Also called Lauds.
Nones: The fifth canonical office, sung at the ninth hour of the day (about 3 p.m.).
Oyer et terminer: To hear and determine.
Palfrey: A gentle horse with a comfortable gait.
Pannage: A fee paid to the lord for permission to allow pigs to forage in an autumn forest.
Pottage: Anything cooked in one pot, from the meanest oatmeal to a savory stew.
Prebend: A subsistence allowance granted to a clergyman by a parish church.
Sacrist: A monastic official responsible for the upkeep of the church and vestments, and time-keeping.
St Catherine’s Day: 25 November. St Catherine was the most popular female saint of medieval Europe. Processions were held in her honor on her feast day.
St Stephen’s Day: 26 December.
Set books: The standard texts used by medieval university students.
Solar: A small private room, more easily heated than the great hall, where lords often preferred to spend time in winter. Usually on an upper floor.
Subtlety: An elaborate dessert, often more for show than consumption.
Terce: The canonical office (service) at 9 a.m.
Toft: Land surrounding a house, in the medieval period often used for growing vegetables.
Valet: A high-ranking servant to a lord – a chamberlain, for example.
Vigils: The night office, celebrated at midnight. When it was completed, Benedictines went back to bed. Cistercians stayed up for the new day.
Villein: A non-free peasant. He
could not leave his land or service to his lord, or sell animals without permission. But if he could escape his manor for a year and a day, he would be free.
Whiffletree: A pivoted swinging bar to which the traces of a harness are fastened and by which a cart is drawn.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Afterword
I had never seen Master John Wyclif so afflicted. He was rarely found at such a loss when in disputation with other masters. He told me later, when I had returned them to him, that it was as onerous to plunder a bachelor scholar’s books as it would be to steal another man’s wife. I had, at the time, no way to assess the accuracy of that opinion, for I had no wife and few books.
But I had come to Oxford on that October day, Monday, the twentieth, in the year of our Lord 1365, to see what progress I might make to remedy my solitary estate. I left my horse at the stable behind the Stag and Hounds and went straightaway to Robert Caxton’s shop, where the stationer’s comely daughter, Kate, helped attract business from the bachelor scholars, masters, clerks, and lawyers who infest Oxford like fleas on a hound.
My pretended reason to visit Caxton’s shop was to purchase a gathering of parchment and a fresh pot of ink. I needed these to conclude my record of the deaths of Alan the beadle and of Henry atte Bridge. Alan’s corpse was found, three days before Good Friday, near to St Andrew’s Chapel, to the east of Bampton. And Henry, who it was who slew Alan, was found in a wood to the north of the town. As bailiff of Bampton Castle it was my business to sort out these murders, which I did, but not before I was attacked on the road returning from Witney and twice clubbed about the head in nocturnal churchyards. Had I known such assaults lay in my future, I might have rejected Lord Gilbert Talbot’s offer to serve as his bailiff at Bampton Castle and remained but Hugh the surgeon, of Oxford High Street.
Kate promised to prepare a fresh pot of ink, which I might have next day, and when she quit the shop to continue her duties in the workroom I spoke to her father. Robert Caxton surely knew the effect Kate had upon young men. He displayed no surprise when I asked leave to court his daughter.
I had feared raised eyebrows at best, and perhaps a refusal. I am but a surgeon and a bailiff. Surgeons own little prestige in Oxford, full of physicians as it is, and few honest men wish to see a daughter wed to a bailiff. There were surely sons of wealthy Oxford burghers, and young masters of the law, set on a path to wealth, who had eyes for the comely Kate. But Caxton nodded agreement when I requested his permission to pay court to his daughter. Perhaps my earlier service to mend his wounded back helped my suit.
I left the stationer’s shop with both joy and apprehension. The joy you will understand, or would had you seen Kate and spent time in her presence. I was apprehensive because next day I must begin a thing for which I had no training and in which I had little experience. While at Balliol College I was too much absorbed in my set books to concern myself with the proper way to impress a lass, and none of those volumes dealt with the subject. Certainly the study of logic avoided the topic. Since then my duties as surgeon and bailiff allowed small opportunity to practice discourse with a maiden. And there are few females of my age and station in Bampton.
I made my way from Caxton’s shop on Holywell Street to Catte Street and thence to the gate of Canterbury Hall, on Schidyard Street. As I walked I composed speeches in my mind with which I might impress Kate Caxton. I had forgotten most of these inventions by next day. This was just as well.
Master John Wyclif, former Master of Balliol College and my teacher there, was newly appointed Warden of Canterbury Hall. Several months earlier, frustrated at my inability to discover who had slain Alan the beadle and Henry atte Bridge, I had called upon Master John to lament my ignorance and seek his wisdom. He provided encouragement, and an empty chamber in the Hall where I might stay the night, safe from the snores and vermin at the Stag and Hounds.
When I left him those months earlier he enjoined me to call when I was next in Oxford and tell him of the resolution of these mysteries. At the time of his request I was not sure there ever would be a resolution to the business.
But there was, and so I sought Master John to tell him of it, and seek again his charity and an empty cell for the night. The porter recognized me, and sent me to Master John’s chamber. I expected to find him bent over a book, as was his usual posture when I called. But not so. He opened the door to my knock, recognized me, and blurted, “Master Hugh… they’ve stolen my books.”
The greeting startled me. I peered over the scholar’s shoulder as if I expected to see the miscreants and the plundered volumes. I saw Master John’s table, and a cupboard where his books were kept. Both were bare. He turned to follow my gaze.
“Gone,” he whispered. “All of them.”
“Who?” I asked stupidly. Had Master John known that, he would have set after the thieves and recovered the books. Or sent the sheriff to do so.
“I know not,” Wyclif replied. “I went to my supper three days past. When I returned the books were gone… even the volume I left open on my table.”
Master John is not a wealthy man. He has the living of Fillingham, and the prebend of Aust, but these provide a thin subsistence for an Oxford master of arts at work on a degree in theology. The loss of books accumulated in a life of study would be a blow to any scholar, rich or poor.
“The porter saw no stranger enter or leave the Hall while we supped,” Wyclif continued. “I went next day to the sheriff, but Sir John has other matters to mind.”
“Sir John?”
“Aye. Roger de Cottesford is replaced. The new high sheriff is Sir John Trillowe.”
“He offered no aid?”
“He sent a sergeant ’round to the stationers in the town, to see did any man come to them with books he offered to sell. Two I borrowed from Nicholas de Redyng. He will grieve to learn they are lost.”
“And the stationers… they have been offered no books?”
“None of mine missing. And Sir John has no interest, I think, in pursuing my loss further.”
The colleges have always wished to rule themselves, free of interference from the town and its government. No doubt the sheriff was minded to allow Canterbury Hall the freedom to apprehend its own thief, without his aid or interference.
“How many?”
“My books? Twenty… and the two borrowed.”
I performed some mental arithmetic. Master John read my thoughts.
“The books I borrowed from Master Nicholas… one was Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica, worth near thirty shillings. One of mine was of paper, a cheap-set book, but the others were of parchment and well bound.”
“Your loss is great, then. Twenty pounds or more.”
“Aye,” Wyclif sighed. “Four were of my own devising. Some might say they were worth little. But the others… Aristotle, Grossteste, Boethius, all gone.”
Master John sighed again, and gazed about his chamber as if the stolen books were but misplaced, and with closer inspection of dark corners might yet be discovered.
“I am pleased to see you,” Master John continued. “I had thought to send for you.”
“For me?”
“Aye. I have hope that you will seek my stolen books and see them returned to me.”
“Me? Surely the sheriff…”
“Sir John is not interested in any crime for which the solution will not bring him a handsome fine. Rumor is he paid King Edward sixty pounds for the office. He will be about recouping his investment, not seeking stolen books.
“And you are skilled at solving mysteries,” Wyclif continued. “You found who ’twas in
Lord Gilbert’s cesspit, and unless I mistake me, you know by now who killed your beadle and the fellow found slain in the forest. Well, do you not?”
“Aye. It was as I thought. Henry atte Bridge, found dead in the wood, slew Alan the beadle. Alan had followed him during the night as Henry took a haunch of venison poached from Lord Gilbert’s forest, to the curate at St Andrew’s Chapel.”
“Venison? To a priest?”
“Aye… a long story.”
“I have nothing but time, and no books with which to fill it. Tell me.”
So I told Master John of the scandal of the betrayed confessional of the priest at St Andrew’s Chapel. And of the blackmail he plotted with Henry atte Bridge – and Henry’s brother, Thomas – of those who confessed to poaching, adultery, and cheating at their business.
“I came to Oxford this day to buy more ink and parchment so I may write of these felonies while details remain fresh in my memory.”
“And what stationer receives your custom?”
“Robert Caxton. It was you who sent me first to Caxton’s shop. You knew I would find more there than books, ink, and parchment.”
“I did? Yes, I remember now telling you of the new stationer, come from Cambridge with his daughter… ah, that is your meaning. I am slow of wit these days. I think of nothing but my books.”
“You did not guess I might be interested in the stationer’s daughter?”
“Nay,” Wyclif grimaced. “I surprise myself for my lack of perception. You are a young man with two good eyes. The stationer’s daughter…”
“Kate,” I said.
“Aye, Kate is a winsome lass.”
“She is. And this day I have gained her father’s permission to seek her as my wife.”
Master John’s doleful expression brightened. The corners of his mouth and eyes lifted into a grin. “I congratulate you, Hugh.”
“Do not be too quick to do so. I must woo and win her, and I fear for my ability.”