A Trail of Ink

by Mel Starr

  We entered the shadowed shop and blinked in the dim interior. Caxton, behind his desk, looked up, saw me, and spoke a greeting. I thought I saw something of pleasure and relief in his eyes, but perhaps my vision was but obscured by the shadows.

  “Master Hugh,” Caxton greeted me as he rose from his bench. “I am pleased to see you again. I feared, with winter near upon us, you might not call again ’til May.”

  “I have business in Oxford,” I replied.

  “Always business, Master Hugh? Never pleasure?”

  “Ah, well, I had hoped to combine the two.”

  “Perhaps hope is not enough, Master Hugh. Perhaps you should be more businesslike in seeking pleasure.”

  I was well rebuked.

  “Business before pleasure. I have a list of books stolen from Master John Wyclif near a fortnight past.” I handed the summary to Caxton and he held it close before his nose to read. “Twenty-two books missing. Has any man wished to sell a volume from the list?”

  Caxton read the list carefully before he answered. “A sergeant asked the same ten days ago, but he had no list. A penniless scholar wished to sell a copy of Ovid’s Metamorphoses last week, but that is not on your list, and he has not returned. I think another stationer made better offer. But no… none of these have been offered. If so any are, I am to seek you straightaway, is this not so?”

  “Aye. Master John has asked my assistance, and Lord Gilbert has commissioned me to seek books and felons.”

  Arthur stood behind me, cap in hand, in the door of the shop, during this conversation. So it was that when Kate slipped past him she could not see into the dim interior of the building to see who it was who spoke to her father. Arthur is so constructed as to block a view quite well.

  Arthur’s place also obstructed my sight, so when Kate put her hand to mouth and blurted, “Master Hugh!” I was as startled as she. And she was but a dark shape in the door, the bright street and city wall behind her. But a pleasing shape.

  An awkward silence followed, finally broken when Caxton announced that he had business to attend to in the workroom. Arthur may not read words on a page, but he can read the times. He advised that he was off to the Stag and Hounds to see to the horses and disappeared through the shop door as Caxton vanished into his workroom.

  I managed to stammer a greeting and express pleasure that I should find Kate well. Perhaps that was an assumption, but she certainly appeared well.

  “I thought, after last week, you might not return,” she replied. “I am pleased to be wrong.”

  My wits were scrambled. This was not a new experience when in the presence of a comely maid. I managed to speak the wrong words. “I… uh, have business in Oxford… for Master John Wyclif.”

  Her countenance fell. “Oh. I thought, perhaps…”

  I saw my error and hurried to undo it. “I was pleased when this duty brought me to Oxford, for there is another matter here which calls for my attention.”

  “What are these two matters, Master Hugh?”

  “I seek a thief, and have designs to become one myself.”

  Kate had moved to stand beside the open shutter. My words puzzled her. Her eyebrows rose and forehead furrowed.

  “I will explain. Master John Wyclif, newly appointed warden of Canterbury Hall, has suffered a grievous loss. Twenty-two books of his were stolen from his chamber a fortnight ago while he was at supper.”

  “You think the thief may try to sell the stolen books?” she mused.

  “Aye. I have brought your father a record of the missing volumes. But none have been offered him for sale.”

  “And what of the other business which brings you to Oxford? You seek to become a thief? I am at a loss, Master Hugh.”

  “Aye, a thief. A thing may be stolen yet violate no law.”

  “You speak in riddles,” she pouted.

  “I will make me plain. I seek to steal a heart.”

  “Ah… you speak aright, Master Hugh. Against such a theft there is no law, although mayhap a lifetime of penalty result.”

  “Penalty?”

  “Indeed. Dare a man steal a maid’s heart, he will own an obligation his life long… although some husbands there may be who do not see it so.”

  “Perhaps some husbands see such an obligation as onerous, rather than a delight.”

  “So you seek such an obligation and think gaining it a joy?”

  “I do, and I would.”

  “Then the maid is to be congratulated, I think, should you succeed in this theft.”

  “I trust she may always think so.”

  “But perhaps theft is unnecessary. Perhaps a heart may be given, and need not be stolen.”

  “’Twould surely be best, I think.”

  “And what progress have you made in these matters?”

  “Little, I fear. I have left a register of the stolen volumes with most of Oxford’s stationers. But there are two more since I was in attendance at Balliol College… and your father. So I must prepare two more lists.”

  “If the thief took the books for his own library, what then?” Kate asked.

  “This is a worry. Should none of the missing works appear at an Oxford stationer for sale, then I am at a loss. I will vex myself no more at present, and allow concern for the future to care for itself. Our Lord Christ said, ‘Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof.’”

  “And the heart you would steal… has this been chosen?” She could not hide a smile as she spoke.

  “Aye, it has. But I am not a practiced thief, and know little of how such robbery may be accomplished. I thought to walk the water meadow on the banks of the Cherwell to think on it. There is a path there, I have heard. Would you accompany me?”

  “I will, Master Hugh, does my father not need me.”

  Robert Caxton did not need his daughter for any pressing business, and I caught a glimpse of him peering out from his workroom door as Kate and I left the shop.

  We strolled east on Holywell Street to Longwall Street, past the Trinitarian Friars and St John’s Hospital, thence to the Cherwell and its fringe of willows at the East Bridge. The grass of the water meadow was short, cut for winter fodder and now but brown stubble. Across the meadow I could see, past the town wall, the wall of Canterbury Hall and the houses which stood before it. These structures lay upon rising ground, and so overlooked the town wall. To the west of Canterbury Hall the spires of St Frideswide’s Priory Church rose toward the heavens.

  My attention was drawn to the three houses abutting Canterbury Hall. Three men crawled about the roof of the center dwelling. The yarn-spinner would soon have a new roof.

  Kate followed my eyes and noted also the activity two hundred paces to the north. I had turned my gaze back to the sluggish stream. Moving water has always held attraction for me, whether the muddy Wyre, near my childhood home at Little Singleton, or Shill Brook, at Bampton. But Kate was yet observing the thatchers and so saw as one lost his grip near the peak of the roof, slid down the slope, and dropped from the eave to the ground. I heard her catch her breath as this mishap, unknown to me, unfolded before her eyes. I turned and saw her hand rise to her lips.

  “What has happened?”

  “A thatcher has fallen from that rooftop just now. I saw him drop. Come… your skills may be needed.”

  Kate grasped my arm and drew me in haste from the path and across the brown stubble of the meadow to the Southgate and thence up to St Frideswide’s Lane, leading east around the priory.

  The fallen thatcher had been lifted to a sitting posture when Kate and I reached him. His companions were attempting to discover the extent of his injury, but this was obvious. He clutched his left shoulder with his right hand and cried imprecations whenever his companions touched the offended spot. The thatcher, I guessed, had fallen upon his shoulder and broken his collarbone, or perhaps dislocated the shoulder, or maybe both.

  I had some experience with dislocated shoulders, having restored Bampton’s miller from such an injury, but ha
d never treated a broken collarbone. Indeed, little treatment is possible for such a hurt.

  As we came upon the fallen thatcher he was loudly berating the friend who had unwisely sought to examine the injury. His cries included utterances unsuited for a maid’s ears, but Kate did not blush. Rather, she pushed me toward the thatchers and spoke:

  “We saw your friend fall. This is Master Hugh de Singleton, a surgeon. Perhaps he may serve…”

  “A surgeon?” one repeated. “Aye, that we do need. Aymer, do you hear? The lad’s a surgeon. Fix you up in no time.”

  Aymer seemed unimpressed with this announcement and continued to groan and voice anathema against the roof which had tossed him to the ground.

  Aymer’s companions stood away from him and I knelt before him in their place. He quieted and peered at me, propped up now by his right hand upon the earth behind him.

  The fall had dropped the thatcher nearly before the cottage door. As I went to my knees to inspect the injury, I saw the yarn-spinner and his wife, attracted from the distaff by the commotion, observing the scene from the open door.

  “You struck the ground upon your shoulder?” I asked.

  “Aye,” he grimaced. “’Eard somethin’ pop, like, when I hit. Don’t remember nothin’ else ’til the lads sat me up.”

  “Can you move the fingers of your left hand?”

  Aymer looked to his hand, wiggled the fingers, and seemed astonished that they functioned well.

  “What did I do to meself?”

  “I believe you have broken your collarbone, and perhaps suffered a dislocated shoulder as well. I must conduct an examination to be certain.”

  “Can you do aught for me?”

  “Aye… when I have learned the nature of your injury.”

  “Best have at it then.”

  I took the thatcher’s left wrist in my hands and squeezed. He made no response. I moved the pressure up his arm to the elbow. Still he made no complaint.

  “You have broken no bone below the elbow,” I told him.

  I then pressed firmly upon his bicep. The fellow winced. “You feel pain there?” I asked.

  “Nay, not in me arm. But when you pulled on me arm, me shoulder hurt.”

  “’Tis as I thought. But I must make one more test to see did you dislocate your shoulder. This may distress you some.”

  I took the man’s shoulder joint between the fingers of both hands and pressed to see was the joint as God made it. Aymer drew in his breath sharply, but made no other complaint. It was his good fortune I needed to make no other examination. The shoulder was not out of joint.

  “’Tis my belief,” I said as I stood to my feet, “that you have broken your collarbone and this is your only injury. Such a fracture can heal, but you may do no work until Christmastide. Your shoulder must be held immobile for many weeks.”

  Aymer frowned, and peered up at me with concern and question in his eyes. “’Ow do I do me work?”

  “You do not… until Christmastide.”

  Aymer looked up to his cohorts. They stared back silently. No offer of aid was made. From Michaelmas to Christmas must surely be the busy season for a thatcher, when folk renew their roofs for winter with reeds cut at end of summer.

  I turned to the yarn-spinner, observing from his door, and asked him to draw a bench to his door where I might set my patient. I had had enough of kneeling in the mud to inspect the injury.

  A bench was provided, and the two undamaged thatchers assisted Aymer to it. But for his tender shoulder the fellow seemed whole enough and did not wince as he was helped from the mud to the bench.

  I asked the yarn-spinner for a length of cloth. It need not be linen or wool. A cheap hempen fabric would suit. While the man entered his cottage to seek out such a fragment I left my patient, with assurance that I would soon return to set his fracture aright, and with Kate at my side walked ’round the Canterbury Hall wall to the entrance gate.

  Kate was required to await my return outside the gate at the porter’s hut. No women are permitted in Canterbury Hall’s precincts so that the monks there remain unsullied by their presence. Some monks seem well sullied even without females at hand. But it is true, the sight of Kate might well cause a man to reconsider his vows.

  I went to the guest chamber and from my box I drew two pouches. One contained the dried and pulverized seeds and root of hemp, the other dried, pounded lettuce. I returned forthwith to Kate, who surely felt out of place standing unaccompanied before the gate to Canterbury Hall. There were women of Grope Lane who stood so near Balliol College when I was a student. I did not wish Kate to be associated with their employment.

  Together we hurried down Schidyard Street to the yarn-spinner’s cottage. My patient sat where I left him. The yarn-spinner stood behind with a length of brown hempen fabric. I asked the man for a cup of ale. He frowned at this added expense for his roof, but grudgingly entered his cottage and returned a moment later with what appeared to be a cup of well-watered ale. Watered or not, it would serve.

  I emptied part of both pouches, hemp and lettuce, into the cup and stirred the mix with a splinter of broken reed from the thatchers’ work. This I gave Aymer to drink.

  “This potion will dull the pain when I must prod your shoulder to see the bones set firm against one another,” I explained.

  Aymer took the cup with his good hand and, watered though it was, drank the potion down with approval, and a belch when he had drained the cup.

  “The remedy will take effect in an hour or so. I will have you wait upon the bench, your back to the cottage wall. Your friends may be about their work while you rest here. I will be about my business and return when ’tis time to see to the injury.”

  I saw one of the thatchers turn and grin toward the other. If the fellow deduced my business, it was no concern to me. I offered my arm to Kate and we set off down the muddy path to St Fridewide’s Lane, Fish Street, the water meadow, and the path along the Cherwell.

  “Will the thatcher’s shoulder mend?” Kate asked as we stumbled across the stubble.

  “Aye, does he do as he is told and leave his work so the fracture will heal.”

  “So ’tis a break, then?”

  “I cannot be sure ’til I feel my way across his shoulder.”

  “And this examination will be painful?”

  “Aye. But the hemp and lettuce potion will diminish the hurt. Some.”

  We regained the path, and reversed our direction, walking in silence for a time along the stream, ducking under the occasional low-hanging willow branch.

  “The theft you intend… when will you strike?” Kate asked.

  “Soon, I think. Time lost in such a venture may never be reclaimed, and I have squandered much already.”

  We came to the end of the path, where the Cherwell flows under the East Bridge, and turned to walk back through the Eastgate to the town and my patient.

  “There is time,” I said, “to return you to your father before I see to the thatcher. Or, if you wish, you may accompany me while I see to him and we will return to Holywell Street after.”

  “I will remain with you. I think my father had no pressing work for me this day.”

  It was as I expected. When I put my fingers to Aymer’s collarbone I felt the fractured ends move under my touch. And the shoulder was swelling, turning red and purple beneath the skin. Aymer gasped as the broken bones grated against each other. I have used hemp and lettuce before, with good result. God provides much for men to ease their suffering in this world. But he has provided nothing which will end all suffering. So Aymer’s pain was less than might have been, but was real enough. Pain is God’s way of telling us not to do some things again. Surely Aymer, when he is next upon a roof, will take more care.

  The break was clean, so far as my probing fingers could discover. I placed the fractured ends of the broken collarbone together so well as I could, which was not difficult, as the bone is but beneath the skin in that place. I also had in my pouch a vial of
oil of rue, mixed with oil of ginger root. This concoction I rubbed gently about the thatcher’s swelling shoulder. Both rue and ginger relieve pain, but rue must not be applied alone or blisters will rise where it touches the skin, and the cure becomes worse than the complaint.

  When I had the bones in place I set Aymer’s arm across his stomach and made a sling from the hempen home-spun the yarn-spinner had produced. I supported Aymer’s arm in the sling, tied it behind his neck, and pronounced the work complete.

  “You must take care to keep your arm in the sling ’til St Stephen’s Day. You may then return to your work, but take care, even so. Where the bone has knit it will be weak for many months even after the sling may be discarded.”

  “’Til when?”

  “You should be near good as new by Candlemas.”

  The thatcher shrugged, and winced, as his injury taught him that he must in future express himself in another way.

  “’Ow much do I owe ye?” he asked, rising tentatively from his bench.

  This thatcher was not a wealthy man. His chauces were torn from close contact with the reeds and stained, and his cotehardie was faded and threadbare. “Ha’penny for the potion, and a farthing to the yarn-spinner for his ale and hempen cloth.”

  It was now past noon, and my growling stomach reminded me of the time. I waited while the thatcher explored his purse for coins, and when he had done and placed a ha’penny in my hand I offered my arm to Kate and we set off for Holywell Street and her father’s shop.

  “I fear this morning’s distraction will cause your father concern.”

  “He will understand, when he learns the cause of our delay. After all, it was your skills gave him relief for the wound which troubled his back.”

  “He may be concerned for his dinner.”

  “There is a capon in the pot, which I set to stewing this morning. What of your dinner, Master Hugh?”

  “I will return to Canterbury Hall.”

  “It may be that the scholars there will have taken their meal already.”

  “The cook will find something for me, I think.”

  “The capon is fat. You shall dine with father and me.”