The Unquiet Bones hds-1

by Mel Starr

  I found a fallen limb and used it to scrape about in the leaves, but found nothing more. I saw on closer inspection that the cotehardie might be dirty, but it was not worn or frayed. Indeed, other than the filth, it seemed nearly new. Its owner would not have discarded it in these woods intentionally. I thought for a moment that I might clean it and use it for my own. This idea I dismissed immediately. The garment was far above my station. I would seem foolish to observers who knew me. Perhaps in London I might wear it — or even Oxford — and be thought a young lord. But in Bampton people would snicker behind their hands at my presumption. And sumptuary laws, though mostly ignored, forbid a man of my quality wearing such a garment. I resolved to show the cotehardie to Lord Gilbert. It had an unusual pattern. Perhaps he would know its owner. I slung the cotehardie across Bruce’s muscular withers, where it remained for the day, and continued my journey.

  The November sun was well up over Burford’s rooftops when I reached my patient’s cottage. The door swung open before I could find a convenient fencepost to which to tie Bruce.

  “I remembered the wine,” the woman said by way of greeting.

  I would have returned a salutation but did not know her name. I had been more interested in the information she could provide, and the condition of her toe, than the woman herself. I view this now as a flaw in my character, but it was a flaw I took steps to rectify when I understood it. I asked her name.

  “Edith, Edith Church…account of I live behind the churchyard.”

  “Well, Edith, I have brought my instruments. Shall we begin?”

  “Aye. Sooner the better. I’ve had no sleep for days for the ache in me toe.”

  I dragged her table out into the sunlight in the toft at the rear of her cottage. Neither of us desired spectators, which, if I performed the surgery at her front step, her shrieks would likely attract. I warned her that the procedure would be painful.

  Edith peered at me beneath narrowed brows. “I’ve borne seven children — four yet livin’ — naught you can do to me toe will teach me anything about affliction.”

  I could not argue with her logic, so got her on the table and went to my work. She was as good as her word. She stifled a groan or two, and twitched as I incised the offending toenail. That was all. I completed my work quickly, bathed the toe once more in wine, then helped the old woman to her feet.

  “Do not wear a tight shoe until you see all redness depart from the wound. This might be two or three weeks.”

  “Hah! Tight shoe? I’ve but one pair of shoes, tight or no. Will you dress it now?”

  I seem to make a habit of explaining my surgical philosophy to patients. It is usual practice, I know, to dress a wound or incision, so I am required to explain why, in most situations, I choose not to do so.

  “The wound may yield pus for a few days. Dab it clear, but do nothing to restrain the flow. If the pus turns clear and watery, and releases a putrid smell, send for me instantly.”

  “Why so?” she asked.

  “Because that will likely signify gangrene.”

  Edith put her hand to her mouth. “What’ll you do then?”

  “I must then amputate the toe…but I think that unlikely. Walk little, keep the wound clean of the filth of the streets, and raise the foot on a stool when you sit. I believe then all will be well.” So it was, for when Edith sent for me a few days later, it was not to discuss her toe.

  I helped Edith hobble into her cottage and sat her in what was clearly her accustomed bench before the fire. The house was once grander than now. It was built with a fireplace. I drew up a stool, lifted her foot to rest upon it, then placed the remaining bench before her.

  “Now my work is done. Yours begins. What have you learned?”

  “’Twasn’t easy, gettin’ round town w’me toe as ’twas.” She waited, seeming to expect some agreement from me that her share of our bargain had been most arduous. So I agreed.

  “Like I said, Margaret was never short of admirers. An’ she seemed to admire ’em right back. Folks I’ve talked to say as her Tom didn’t seem to mind over much. Told some as how ’twas a kind’a honor, bein’ chose by one as had as many choices as she’d want.”

  “So Thomas Shilton was not the jealous sort?”

  “Not regular. But they did have a quarrel, him an’ Margaret.”

  “I suppose most lovers do, once in a while,” I replied. “When was this quarrel?”

  “Some time past. In t’spring. A week or so before hocktide. Or maybe ’twas after hocktide. ’Bout then.”

  “What was this quarrel about — do you know?”

  “Another man,” Edith replied.

  “How did you learn of this?” I asked.

  “It was me friend, Muriel. Her husband’s a wool merchant, you know.” I didn’t, but I remembered hearing of the wool merchant’s daughter. “She was at the river, comin’ back from t’mill. Margaret an’ her Tom had spoke to her when she walked by the smithy. Reckon her pa wasn’t there, ’cause when Muriel got ’cross the bridge she heard ’em yellin’ at each other.”

  “Did she hear what was said?”

  “Muriel’s hearin’ ain’t good. She’s of an age for that.” The same age as Edith, I guessed.

  “She did hear Tom say as to how she was bein’ a fool. He said, ‘He’s a gentleman. He’ll not take up with the likes of you.’”

  “Some screechin’ from Margaret next, but nothin’ she could make out. Not for want of tryin’, I’d guess.” Edith grinned and put a finger beside her nose. “Muriel likes a good story.”

  “Then why did she not tell you of this before?”

  “Well…” Here Edith looked away for a moment. “I don’t get to see her much any more.”

  I waited. I thought the woman too needy for conversation not to tell me more.

  “Her man don’t like it. Wants to buy me eggs an’ cabbages himself. I can get more from others than from him. He’s tried to put the guild on me.”

  “The grocers’ guild? He’s a wool merchant.”

  “That kind stick together. They don’t like folks as horn into their business. Even widows with but four eggs a day to sell.”

  “Would Muriel speak to me about this?”

  “Oh, aye. You’ll not get her to stop. So long as Theobald, that’s her husband, ain’t about.”

  “He’s a hard man?” I guessed.

  “Flint. An’ a miser, as well.”

  “Where is Muriel likely to be at this hour?”

  “At home. Where she should be, anyway. House behind the shop. Her man’ll be countin’ his pennies at his business.”

  “Where is that?”

  “On t’High Street. First merchant you’ll see past Church Lane.”

  I thanked Edith for her discovery and led Bruce back to the High Street. I found the merchant, as Edith predicted, in his shop attending his accounts. I knew no way to assure myself that he was there than to enter and feign interest in a purchase. After a reasonable time spent fingering his wool, I headed south on the High Street, then led Bruce east, around behind the block of timbered, thatched shops.

  The merchant’s daughter answered the door. I understood then the miller’s conclusion. She was a plain girl, who had enjoyed a few too many of the offerings of her mother’s kitchen. She was not ugly, but she would attract little attention if standing near a beauty — which all assured me that Margaret, the smith’s daughter, was.

  The girl’s mother peered at me over her daughter’s shoulder, and invited me in when I mentioned Edith. Muriel asked about the surgery, and nodded approval when I announced likely success. I think she would have listened to a complete retelling of the procedure had I not diverted the flow of her conversation.

  I will spare you the particulars. She confirmed what she had told Edith, but had no more for me. It was clear from her glistening eyes and enthusiastic delivery that she wished she had. The daughter sat silent during the conversation; as quiet as her mother was voluble. I remember wondering at the
time if she would remain so as the years passed, or if there was some curious work of nature that loosened a woman’s tongue about the time of the birth of her second child. I decided not, as I have known talkative women not yet wed, and a few — a few, mind you — silent to old age.

  I managed to escape the wool merchant’s wife before the sun was over the church spire. I had two more visits to make this day: I must see the miller’s son, and ask Thomas Shilton about the gentleman who had attracted Margaret’s interest — and perhaps more.

  I found the miller’s lad assisting his father. One glance, and a few minutes’ conversation, went far to explain Margaret’s lack of interest in the young man as a suitor. He was shaped like the barrels which contained the flour the Earl’s mill produced. He ate well, I decided, from the largesse he skimmed from the tenants who brought their grain to the mill to be ground. I explained that, many months earlier, Margaret and Thomas Shilton had been seen — and heard — arguing on the mill-side bank of the River Windrush. Had he heard them?

  The youth glanced over his shoulder at the mill wheel. Its labored groans were accompanied by the sluicing of water off the wheel. “Not likely to hear much, workin’ about the mill,” he replied. Nor had he seen the couple at any time during the early summer.

  The track leading back past the smithy to the bridge curved through thick gold and brown autumnal vegetation. The forge was invisible but for a wisp of smoke above the low trees. I heard Alard’s hammer ring but allowed Bruce to amble on toward the bridge. I decided I could learn no more on the north side of the river.

  The hamlet of Shilton is but two miles south of Burford on the road to Bampton. I had ridden Bruce through its single street often enough in the preceding days that I might be considered a regular visitor. Always before I had continued on my way, but not this time. I saw a woman at the village well and asked of Thomas. She pointed me toward a house at the south end of the village.

  “But you’ll not find ’im there,” she added. “He’s got the oxen for the day. He’ll be ploughin’ a furlong.”

  Villagers in a place like Shilton leased strips of land in several locations surrounding the town. Together these parcels might amount to perhaps thirty acres: a yardland. I led Bruce to the appointed home and knocked at the door.

  The house was one of the larger of its type in the hamlet. Like the rest, it was made of wattle and daub, with a thatched roof, but this one, unlike a few others in the village, was in good repair. At the rear, filling most of the toft, was a cultivated plot, now barren, which had evidently produced the year’s supply of carrots, cabbages, and turnips.

  A woman in a flour-dusted apron answered my knock and directed me with pointed finger over the small rise at the southwest corner of the hamlet where, she said, I would find her husband and son and the team of oxen the villagers owned collectively.

  I tied Bruce to a sapling and set off for the designated field. The ground was soft with recent rain, but not mud. Ideal for plowing. The two men looked my way as I crested the hill, but continued their work. The older man led the team, the younger held the plow expertly in the furrow. I met them at the end of the long, narrow field, where they would turn the team.

  The field they plowed had been fallow. Sheep droppings indicated the use to which it had been put for the past year. Now the manure was being turned into the soil to improve the wheat which would be planted there in a few days.

  “Are you Thomas?” I asked the younger man.

  “Aye…as is he.” He nodded toward his father.

  I introduced myself and my mission, and asked if he knew that Margaret, the smith’s daughter, had been buried in Burford churchyard the day before.

  “Aye.” His eyes dropped to the freshly turned earth at his feet. “Knew of it.”

  Thomas Shilton, the younger, was a large man, just grown to his full size, which was considerable. He was half a head taller than me, and heavier than Lord Gilbert. Twenty or so years of hard work and adequate food had produced a man of broad shoulders, strong arms and legs, and straight back. The stubble on his chin indicated that he was needing to shave more regularly now. His hair was fair, and matted in the wind which blew across the field.

  “I am told that, early in the summer, you argued with Margaret on the banks of the River Windrush.”

  “There, and other places,” he answered with a sardonic smile.

  “You argued with Margaret often?”

  “Aye. She were easy to dispute with.”

  “Yet you wished to marry her, I am told.”

  “I did,” he said softly.

  “She had some, uh, other qualities?”

  Tom smiled sheepishly, then said, “She forgot a dispute right readily.”

  “You argued about another man, I was told.”

  Tom seemed to think that, as I knew the source of their disagreement, my words required no comment. He stared at me, then studied the fresh earth at his feet once again.

  “Who was it that caused your discord?”

  “I do not know the man,” he replied with some heat.

  “How is it that Margaret could be…uh…associated with someone you would not know?”

  “He was not of this place.”

  “From where, then? Burford?”

  “Nay. She wouldn’t say. Farther, I think.”

  “It is rumored that he was a gentleman.”

  “So she said.”

  “Did she think a gentleman would take up with a smith’s daughter?” I asked.

  “’Tis what I asked her,” he replied, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

  “And what did she answer?”

  “She laughed. Said as how I might find out.”

  “How did you learn of this other fellow?”

  “I’d been pressin’ her to have the bans read. She wouldn’t agree. Back about St George’s day she changed her mind. Said as we’d have the bans read soon…but by hocktide she’d turned cold again. Perhaps I pressed her overmuch. She told me I wasn’t the only man as wanted her. I knew that. But I told her she’d not do better than me. I’ll have my father’s yardland, an’ the Earl’s reeve has promised another soon’s I can pay the fine an’ the lease.”

  “What did she reply to that?”

  “Laughed at me. Said as how some men had many yardlands.”

  “So you thought by that she meant a gentleman?”

  “Not just then. I said as how I knew no one who had more than three yardlands. A man can’t work more’n that. She said as how some men needn’t work their own lands; have others do it for ’em.”

  “That’s when you decided she spoke of a gentleman?”

  “Aye. I told her she was a fool.” He looked away, across the unplowed portion of the field, and watched a flight of geese as it appeared over the bare-limbed oaks of the forest beyond. “That were a mistake,” he sighed.

  “How so?”

  “Margaret didn’t like to be told there was aught she couldn’t do.”

  “Is that when the shouting began?”

  “Shouting?” he questioned, brows furrowed like the field behind him.

  “You were heard across the river.”

  He smiled to himself once again. “Margaret could make herself heard some distance when she wished it.”

  “When did you last see Margaret?”

  “That were t’last time. She yelled somethin’ ’bout a gentleman always keeps his promise, an’ went off up t’riverbank to the smithy.”

  “You didn’t follow?”

  “Nay. I knew Margaret well enough to know I’d best be on my way. She’d cool in a few days an’ see more clearly. So I did think.”

  “But she disappeared before you saw her again?”

  “Aye. Near two months.”

  “She was last seen the same day you took a cart of oats to Lord Gilbert Talbot, in Bampton.”

  “Aye. Returned next day. Found her father at t’door.”

  “’At’s right,” the father joined in. H
e had been standing silent beside the oxen during my conversation with his son. “Alard thought as how she’d run off w’Tom, ’specially as Tom wasn’t about. I tried to tell ’im where Tom’d gone.”

  “You heard nothing of her after?”

  “Not ’til Alard came through t’village on his way to Bampton t’bring her home. He told us you’d found her murdered.”

  “Yes. Her state allows no other conclusion.”

  “What state was that, then?” Tom asked through pursed lips.

  I told him only that her body had been found and gave evidence of murder. The youth looked down at his feet again — and large specimens they were, too.

  “Had Margaret spoken to you of any enemies? Did she fear anyone?”

  “Nay. She had disagreements from time to time. No enemies. None in Bampton, anyway.”

  “You had an argument with her and later you went to Bampton.”

  Tom’s jaw dropped. I could see that the thought that he might be suspected in Margaret’s death had never occurred to him. Either that, or he was shocked and frightened that his guilt had been found out. He protested innocence, and his father vouched for his truthfulness. The youth spoke of his reasons for desiring Margaret for a wife, among which were her health, her likely fecundity, her reputation for hard work won at her father’s forge, and even her appearance. He did not mention love, but such emotion is trivial compared to the important issues of survival, work, and heirs.

  I left the two men staring at my back as I climbed the hill back to town and Bruce. Thomas Shilton seemed to me the most likely suspect in this unhappy death, yet he seemed incapable of such a deed, and the fondness he felt for Margaret was revealed in his voice, his manner, and the empty expression in his eyes.

  I do not know how to read a face or posture. The things hidden behind a man’s eyes remain a mystery to me. I have been trained to deal with visible wounds, not the invisible.

  The wind had risen during the day, and now propelled thick gray clouds from the northern horizon. I wrapped my cloak about me as the wind blew Bruce and me toward home. Bare trees swayed in the gale, dancers rooted to one place, in graceful motion nonetheless.