The Abbot's Agreement: 7 (The Chronicles of Hugh De Singleton, Surgeon)

by Mel Starr

  “Mayhap he went into the water to escape the man who attacked ’im,” Arthur said.

  “That also,” I agreed.

  There are two fishponds at Eynsham Abbey, one to the west, the other to the east of abbey precincts. Monks, or more likely lay brothers and abbey villeins, had created these a century past by diverting the flow of a small brook. The ponds are not large, but the abbey is a small house so there are few monks to feed.

  Since it was closest to the guest house, we circled the west pond first. I sought some sign of struggle; broken reeds, perhaps, or footprints in the mud where earth and water meet, where no man would be likely to tread. I found nothing.

  The east pond is past the monks’ dormitory and near to where the brook now flows. Beyond the brook is a wood, which extends to the south and west as far as the place where birds discovered John Whytyng’s corpse.

  It was on the far side of the east pond, where bare oak and beech limbs cast interlacing shadows to the edge of the pond, that I saw the broken reeds. As I saw them I heard Arthur say, “When did it last rain?”

  “What?”

  “Rain,” he said. “Was it Wednesday last week?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Look there… footprints in the mud. Too dry an’ crusty for a man to leave footprints now.”

  The broken reeds had so caught my attention that I had overlooked the footprints in the mud which Arthur saw. And they were not deep. My gaze followed Arthur’s extended arm and I saw that the footprints led to the place on the bank of the pond where I had noticed the broken reeds. I put an arm out to stop Arthur, who was intent upon standing over the footprints for a better view.

  “Stay back,” I said. “We must not trample upon this place. There may be something to learn from these marks.”

  Arthur drew back as if a viper had appeared among the reeds. We stood where grass covered the bank. The footprints he had found extended only through a narrow, muddy section of the bank between the grass and the reeds.

  I approached the footprints cautiously. It seemed to me at first glance that two people had left the marks. One set was large, nearly as large as my own shoes would leave behind should I step in such a place. The other footprints were small, made by a youth, I thought, or perhaps a woman.

  John Whytyng was buried, so there was no way to learn how large the lad’s feet might have been. But he was nearly a full-grown man. Surely too large to have left behind the smaller of the footprints. Perhaps these marks were made by a father and son poaching fish from the abbey ponds, and had nothing to do with the death of a novice. I spoke so to Arthur, who nodded a silent assent.

  Where the reeds were broken I saw the larger set of footprints slide down the bank toward the water, as if the maker had lost his footing and slipped into the pond. I was near to concluding that my supposition of poachers was the likely explanation for the footprints and broken reeds when I noticed that the larger set of footprints seemed of slightly different sizes, as if before me were the marks of three trespassers on abbey property, not two.

  I knelt beside the reed bed and broke off a dried shoot. From this I snapped another length of reed until I had a segment the length of the largest muddy print. I then placed the reed over the other footprints. Just as I had supposed, the larger prints were not of the same size! What I had thought were the footprints of one man and a youth were in fact the marks of two men and a lad. It was the maker of the smaller of the large footprints who had lost his footing and carved a sliding path through the mud of the bank and into the pond.

  Three poachers? A father, older son, and child, all seeking fish from the abbey’s pond? This seemed likely, and I was about to turn from the place and resume circumnavigation of the pond when I saw the boot.

  I did not know the object to be a boot when I first saw it. Light from a watery sun cast a beam through the branches of the trees which bordered the brook and pond, and in the shaft of sunlight I saw something illuminated just below the surface of the water about two paces from the bank. Arthur had watched silently as I measured footprints with the broken reed, and now followed my puzzled gaze. He also saw the submerged object.

  “What d’you suppose that is?” he said.

  By the time he asked the question I had decided that the object was a shoe. Perhaps the poacher’s lad had lost it, sucked from his feet by the mire, when he slipped into the pond.

  “’Tis a shoe, I think. Let’s find a downed limb in that wood and see if we can drag it to shore.”

  Eynsham Abbey’s tenants had thoroughly gleaned the wood of downed branches for their winter fuel. Nothing thicker than my little finger nor longer than my forearm was to be found. I was not fond of the idea of wading into the cold water to retrieve the shoe. I might have required Arthur to do it, and he would have, without protest, but rather than demand this of him I sent him to the abbey stables for a rake.

  “And tell the lay brother who keeps the stable to tie a horseshoe to the rake to weight it, so it will sink and we may use it to fetch the shoe from its place.”

  I had heard the sacrist ring the smaller bell to call the monks to prime while Arthur and I began to search the east pond. Now, as he returned with the rake, the bell rang for terce.

  I took the rake from Arthur and thrust it into the pond. A moment later I drew a boot to the bank – for boot it was, and no shoe. Another thing not common to a fishpond was also entangled with the tines: a small pouch.

  The sack was made of black woolen cloth, much like the fabric from which Benedictines stitch their habits. It was closed with a length of hempen cord so thin it might better be called string. This twine was tied tight to close the pouch, and inside the sodden bag I felt some oddly shaped object.

  Because the cord was soaked it had swollen and was difficult to loosen. When the knot eventually came free and I was able to open the sack, I drew from it a crude key. Arthur, who had picked up the boot, peered at the key and spoke. He voiced my own question.

  “What lock does that key work, you think? An’ why is it found here? An’ look at this boot. No poacher ever wore such a boot.”

  I transferred my attention to the boot, and Arthur held it before me as to emphasize his appraisal. He spoke true. The boot was of finest-quality leather, well sewn, and it had not been long in the pond, for it showed no sign of decay. On one side of the boot was a small rip in the leather, which had been carefully stitched closed.

  Water had issued from John Whytyng’s lips when he lay upon his bier. I had found him shoeless at the fringe of the abbey’s wood. Here in the abbey fishpond was a boot, and sign that some man had slipped into the water. Had he drowned here, and been drawn from the pond by those whose footprints were also visible upon the muddy bank?

  John Whytyng had been stabbed. Was it here that the attack took place? Did the novice plunge into the pond to escape? Was he so near death from the wounds that he could not save himself, and filled his lungs with water as he tried to breathe?

  If this was so, who stood upon this bank and watched Whytyng die? Did the same man, or men, or man and boy, pull him from the pond and set him down where the birds and I found him? Why do so? Surely his corpse would have been quickly found if he remained in the pond, but sooner or later he would be found where he was left, at the fringe of the wood. Why leave him there? Why not hide the corpse where it would not be found, if it was to be moved from the fishpond?

  Here were many questions and no answers. I was not even sure that John Whytyng had met his death here among the broken reeds at the edge of the pond.

  While these thoughts occupied my mind Arthur studied the boot, then bent to the dried mud to compare it to the prints there. ’Twas a match to the footprints of him who had slipped from bank to pond.

  I told Arthur of my thoughts, and the questions this discovery had raised in my mind.

  “If the folks what did away with the lad murdered ’im here, an’ ’e tried to escape, where did they draw ’im from the water?”

&
nbsp; Arthur’s point was well taken. ’Twas plain to see the long, sliding path of a foot as it entered the pond, but no place was there any sign that some man had been dragged dead from the water.

  “Let’s seek some other place where such a thing might have happened,” I said.

  We walked north no more than five paces when we saw more broken reeds. “Here is the place,” I said. “See how the rushes are laying broken toward the bank, rather than toward the water. Something was drawn from the pond here, not toward it.”

  Grass here covered the bank, so that no footprints were to be seen. But I had no doubt that the large and small footprints left in the mud five paces away would also be found here but for the sod.

  One shoe, or boot, looks much like another, unless it is made for some gentleman of great wealth. Nevertheless, I thought it possible that John Whytyng’s companions might recognize the sodden boot we had found in the pond because of the tear. If indeed it had belonged to Whytyng. I took the boot from Arthur and he followed as I led the way to the novices’ chamber, where I thought they had likely returned after terce.

  Brother Gerleys led his charges into the chamber as we approached. The three looked up as Arthur and I followed them through the door, and as one their eyes went to the boot I held out before me. I saw Henry Fuller’s mouth drop open and his eyes widen when he saw what was in my hand.

  The lad drew in his breath sharply, so that Brother Gerleys and Osbert turned from me to Henry.

  “This,” I said, “was found in the east fishpond. Do you recognize it?”

  Henry’s mouth opened and closed like a fish drawn from the pond and tossed upon the bank. He finally found words.

  “’Tis John’s,” he gulped. Osbert nodded agreement.

  “How can you be sure?” I asked.

  The novice pointed to the boot. “See there, where a tear has been repaired. I watched John stitch the rip not a fortnight past. We’d been set to work cutting rushes to replace those covering the floor of the refectory. John swung his scythe and the point went through his boot. Angry about it, he was. His father’d bought them for him before he came to us, just after St. John’s Day.”

  “Abbot Thurstan allowed him to keep them,” Brother Gerleys said.

  Osbert pointed to his feet. “Henry and I wear shoes… nothing so fine as John’s boots.”

  Brother Gerleys also looked to his own feet, and I saw below his habit and trousers a pair of well-worn shoes which would do little to warm his feet in the months to come. John Whytyng’s father must be a man of influence for his son to be permitted to keep such fine boots.

  “John was stabbed,” Brother Gerleys said. “How came his boot to be in the fishpond, and where is the other?”

  “You told me yesterday that water issued from John Whytyng’s mouth,” I said. Brother Gerleys nodded. “’Tis my belief that he was pierced while standing upon the bank of the pond. There are footprints in the mud which reveal that three souls, one small and perhaps but a child, were there at one time some days past, before the mud dried.

  “One of these plunged a dagger into the novice’s back three times. I believe he fell into the water, or leaped there to escape his assailant, and in the water he died.”

  “His other boot, then, is somewhere in the pond?” Brother Gerleys asked.

  “No doubt.”

  I handed the boot to the novice-master, then withdrew the crude bag and key from my own pouch.

  “This also came from the pond when I used a rake to draw the boot to shore. Was it John’s?”

  Brother Gerleys and the novices studied the pouch and key and shook their heads.

  “What novice would need a key?” Brother Gerleys said. “Monks own nothing and so have no need of keys to lock away possessions; nor novices, either.”

  “What locks are found in the abbey?” I asked.

  The novice-master absent-mindedly scratched his chin, where several days’ stubble was flowering into what would become a beard if a razor was not soon applied.

  “Explorators have keys to the church and cloister, of course. Brother Gerald has a key to the guest house. And Abbot Thurstan and Prior Philip have keys.”

  “Are there no other locks?” I asked. “What of the gatehouse?”

  “Oh, aye. Nearly forgot. Stephen Porter will have a key, although I think the gatehouse is seldom locked. Has not been so since I’ve been here. The explorators lock the church each night, so no man can enter and make off with the silver candlesticks and other altar pieces. Only the door to the night stairs has no lock, so brothers may enter for vigils.”

  “You were about to begin lessons,” I said. “We will detain you no longer.”

  I nodded to Arthur to follow and we left the novices and walked through the empty refectory, thence past the kitchen garden to our lodging in the guest house.

  “What now?” Arthur asked.

  “I would like to find the lock this key will open.”

  We went first to the gatehouse, where Stephen, a lay brother, greeted us pleasantly. I showed him the crude key, and he pursed his lips, then turned to a small chest upon a shelf in his chamber and drew from it an ancient key. One glance showed that this key in no way resembled the key we had fished from the pond. Nevertheless I asked to try the mysterious key in the gatehouse lock. It did not turn.

  “Odd sort of key,” the porter observed as I twisted the key unsuccessfully in the lock. This was so. Rather than iron, the key was made of pewter. It was therefore soft, so that it bent somewhat when I tried to turn it in the gatehouse lock. Whatever lock this key was made to undo must open readily, for the key was too pliable to work an old, rusted lock.

  No novice should possess a key, but this key was not made by some skillful smith. What it was made for I could not tell, nor could I be sure that the pouch it was found in belonged to John Whytyng.

  We went next to the west entrance to the church, entered the nave, and found a lock hanging from a hasp used to fasten closed the doors in the night. I pushed the lock closed, then tried the key and was again unsuccessful, although as I twisted the key it seemed to me that this well-kept lock nearly yielded to the pressure. The explorators would wonder how the lock came to be closed when they made their rounds this night.

  I led Arthur through the dim nave, past the choir, to the north porch. There another lock hung upon another hasp, ready to be fastened when night came. I pushed the lock closed, inserted the key, and turned it. The well-oiled lock opened readily.

  “I think,” Arthur said, “that when John Whytyng rose in the night ’twas not to meditate in the cloister.”

  “If this was indeed his key,” I said.

  “Whose else? But how did he lose it in the pond?”

  “I’ve thought on that,” I replied. “I believe one of the strokes of the dagger must have cut the cord which bound the pouch to him. Perhaps he concealed the pouch under his habit, so that the other novices could not see it. When he went into the pond the key and pouch fell free.”

  “Oh,” Arthur said thoughtfully. “But where would a novice get such a thing?”

  “Made it. See how crude it is.”

  “Of what, an’ how?”

  “’Tis near time for dinner. We will seek answers to those questions later.”

  Our dinner came from the abbot’s kitchen, and since ’twas not a fast day we enjoyed roasted pork, with wheaten loaves and a pottage of dried cherries from the abbey orchard.

  The abbey kitchen, or the abbot’s kitchen, would be the most likely place for a novice to find some pewter object which might be fashioned into a key. Basins and kettles made of such stuff are common. I thought that perhaps some pot might have gone missing recently.

  The abbot’s cook insisted that all of his vessels were accounted for, but the abbey kitchener had, since Michaelmas, been missing a large pewter spoon. If the utensil was large enough a key the size of the one in my pouch might have been hammered and chiseled from it. I asked, and the kitchener placed both of h
is hands together to indicate the size of the missing ladle. Large enough for the key within my pouch.

  But how could a novice make a key which would fit the lock to the church’s north porch? Keys are similar, ’tis true, but the failure of the pewter key to open either the gatehouse lock or the lock to the west doors of the nave was evidence that even small differences may make a great mismatch. Perhaps John made several keys from the stolen spoon, ’till he happened upon one which succeeded.

  Or perhaps the key and its pouch had nothing to do with John Whytyng and his death. If so, finding the key alongside the novice’s boot was a great coincidence. Bailiffs do not believe in coincidences.

  “I been thinkin’ about them footprints,” Arthur said. “There was three novices, now but two, an’ three sets of footprints where we found the boot. Henry is a strapping lad, but Osbert is puny. Mayhap all three was on the bank of the fishpond together, Henry’s bein’ the big footprints an’ Osbert’s the little.”

  “I think not,” I replied. Arthur’s expression was somewhere between crestfallen and doubtful. “I wondered that very thing. Have you seen a pup grow to become a hound?” I did not wait for Arthur’s reply. “Their paws are often full-grown while the dog is but half-grown. So it is with Osbert. Next time you see him, examine his shoes. They are as large as Henry’s though he weighs hardly half as much.”

  “So who made them other footprints? Village folk poachin’ the abbey fish, likely?”

  “It may be so. But as I think on it, I have doubts. Would a man slay another for a few fish? If John unwittingly approached poachers he would not have thought to be silent, not expecting to meet any such folk there in the night – although he may have intended to meet someone there, whereas the poachers would surely have been alert to discovery. They’d have seen or heard the novice approach, and retreated to the wood to avoid being found out.”

  “If the novice did plan to meet someone there by the fishpond,” Arthur said, “mayhap when ’e got there the folk what was there wasn’t who ’e expected.”