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

by Mel Starr

  Next morn Arthur and I departed early for Bampton. Brother Gerleys, soon to be Abbot Gerleys, bid us “Fare well,” and assured me that the Bible Abbot Thurstan had promised would be completed by St. John’s Day.

  I found my Kate well, and Bessie also, residing yet in the castle. Kate had been unsure of my instructions and so decided to remain within stone walls, with valets and grooms about, rather than risk she knew not what at home. I believe she was pleased to leave the drafty stone pile and return to Galen House.

  Arthur and Agnes wished to wed, but could not. ’Twas Advent, when no marriages are permitted. But on Tuesday, the twenty-sixth day of December, they wed in the Church of St. Beornwald’s porch and took up residence in an empty chamber along the castle north wall. Lord Gilbert may find a more suitable place when he returns to Bampton.

  On January 8 my Kate gave birth to our second daughter. We named her Sybil, my mother’s name. She had promised a son and thought me disappointed. Kate knows me well, but she is mistaken. The lass was strong and hale, Kate and I are young. There will be opportunity yet for sons.

  The King’s Eyre met three days after Candlemas. Arthur, I, and Abbot Gerleys gave testimony. Squire Ralph, whose ribs seemed healed, was fined ten shillings and released. He knew ’twould be folly to seek to retain his place with Sir Richard, so did not return to Eynsham. I have heard that he now serves a knight near to Durham, where reivers come down from Scotland to steal cattle and coin, and men skilled with a sword may always find employment and perhaps, eventually, a knighthood.

  Sir Thomas was sentenced to hang for his murder of John Whytyng. Arthur, I, and Abbot Gerleys did not remain in Oxford to see the man upon a scaffold, but returned to Eynsham the same day. There I learned that, his other options now vanished, Simon atte Pond had granted Osbern Mallory permission to pay court to Maude. I suspect that she will be amenable to his suit. ’Twould mean no more raw and blistered hands from doing the monks’ laundry.

  I spent the spring of the year enjoying my Kate and Bessie and Sybil, and looking toward the day when I would own a Bible.

  The village of Eynsham has provided a walking tour of the locations associated with the medieval abbey. St. Leonard’s Church, located to the north of the abbey precincts, dates to the thirteenth century.

  The Brotherhood of the Free Spirit was not a monolithic belief. Some adherents were no more heretical than the Lollards, with whom they shared some opinions. Others of the Free Spirit, as described in The Abbot’s Agreement, were genuinely heretical. There is some evidence that the heresy did not completely disappear until the fifteenth century.

  Many readers have asked about medieval remains and tourist facilities in the Bampton area. St. Mary’s Church is little changed from the fourteenth century, when it was known as the Church of St. Beornwald. Visitors to Bampton will enjoy staying at Wheelgate House, a B&B in the center of the town.

  Village scenes in the popular television series Downton Abbey were filmed on Church View Street, and St. Mary’s Church appears in several episodes. Bampton also hosts a large Morris dancing festival on the Monday Bank Holiday in late May.

  I had told my Kate for several days that St. John’s Day should not be considered midsummer. Roger Bacon, the great scholar of an earlier century, and Robert Grosseteste before him, showed how the calendar has gone awry. Bacon told all who would listen that an extra day is added to the calendar every one hundred and thirty years or so, and so in the year of our Lord 1369 we are ten days displaced. Kate laughed.

  “What difference,” she asked, “even if ’tis so?”

  “Easter, and such moveable feasts,” I replied, “are out of joint. What of Lent? How does a man know when he may consume meat and when he may not, if the day of the Lord Christ’s crucifixion is ten days misplaced?”

  “Oh… aye.” But she was yet unconvinced, I think, so when men of Bampton began gathering wood for the Midsummer’s Eve fire I said no more. We would make merry with others of the town and castle, and celebrate the warm days of summer, regardless of the calendar. I have been wed three years and more. I know when to hold my peace.

  The great pile of fallen branches from Lord Gilbert Talbot’s forest was raised in a fallow field to the north of the Church of St. Beornwald. For three days fuel was added. I watched the pile grow each day, little suspecting that the daily increase would soon bring me much consternation.

  Kate had tied green birch twigs above our door in honor of the summer, so when we departed Galen House at dusk to watch the lighting of the St. John’s Day fire I had to duck my head to avoid entangling my cap in the greenery.

  I am Hugh de Singleton, surgeon, and bailiff to Lord Gilbert Talbot at his manor of Bampton. I thought that Lord Gilbert might, with some of his knights, attend the Midsummer’s Eve blaze. The Lady Petronilla died a year past, when the great pestilence returned, and Lord Gilbert was much distressed. But when he returned to Bampton in the spring, after spending the winter at Goodrich Castle, I thought he seemed somewhat recovered from his great sorrow.

  Lord Gilbert did not attend, but several of his retainers – knights, gentlemen and their ladies, valets and grooms – did so. I am not much given to capering about like a pup chasing its tail, so stood aside and lifted my Bessie to my shoulder so that she could better see as others danced about and played the fool, aided in their efforts, no doubt, by great quantities of ale.

  Bessie had discovered speech, and exercised her vocabulary as the flames reached into the sky as high as the roof of Father Thomas’s vicarage, which stood a safe distance to the east. Kate held Sybil in her arms. The babe was but five months old, was unimpressed by anything inedible, and so slept through the shouts and singing and garish illumination.

  Bessie also soon became limp against my shoulder. The merry-making would continue without us. Kate and I returned to Galen House, put our daughters to bed, and fell to sleep with the raucous sound of celebration entering our chamber through the open window.

  I was breaking my fast next morning with a loaf and ale when I heard the church bell ring in a solemn cadence. The passing bell. The Angelus Bell had sounded an hour before. Someone in Bampton or the Weald had died in the night. At nearly the same moment a hammering upon Galen House door jolted me from my semi-comatose condition. The pounding ceased and a man shouted, “Master Hugh!” in a voice which might have awakened half the residents of Church View Street. It did awaken Sybil, who instantly realized that she was hungry and began to wail. Kate hastened to the stairs to deal with our daughter while I stumbled to the door to learn who was awake so early after such a night.

  Father Thomas’s clerk, Bertrand Pecock, stood before me, his fist ready to again strike against the Galen House door if I had not opened it.

  “Master Hugh, Father Thomas would have you attend him. There are bones.”

  “Bones?” I replied stupidly. I am not at my best until an hour or so has passed since Kate’s cockerel has announced the dawn.

  “Men gathering the ashes found them.”

  “Ashes?”

  “Aye… from the St. John’s Day fire. To spread upon a pea field. They came to the vicarage to tell Father Thomas. He has sent me to tell you of this foul discovery and to fetch the coroner.”

  “The bones are human?”

  “Aye. There is a skull. I have just come from the place.”

  In past years men would often pitch the bones of swine into a St. John’s Day fire so as to ward off sickness in cattle and men. ’Twas thought to do so would prevent aerial dragons from poisoning streams and ponds of a night with their foul froth. But I had not heard of this being done at Bampton since I came to the village. Of course, men might toss a few bones into the pile of wood as a precaution, I suppose, and none know of it. But human bones are a different matter.

  Kate descended the stairs from our chamber carrying Sybil, with Bessie holding tight to her mother’s cotehardie. I told my wife of the discovery and set off for the field while Bertrand hastened to tell Hubert Shill
side, Bampton’s coroner, of the bones, and request that he assemble his coroner’s jury.

  Father Thomas had notified Father Ralph and Father Simon of the discovery. The three vicars of the Church of St. Beornwald stood staring at the ash pile, their arms folded across their chests as if deep in thought. Who knows? Perhaps they were. But knowing Father Ralph, I doubt it so.

  Four villagers stood opposite the priests, leaning upon rakes and shovels. A wheelbarrow half filled with ashes stood beside the four.

  “Ah, you have come,” Father Thomas said. This was obvious to all, so I did not reply. As I drew near the ash pile I saw some white object gleam in the morning sun and crossed myself. Being forewarned, I knew what this must be.

  “Bertrand will fetch the coroner,” the vicar continued, “but I think Hubert will need your advice.”

  I did not ask what advice Father Thomas thought I might supply. Surgeons do deal with bones, but when called to do so the bones are generally clothed with flesh. Shillside and his coroner’s jury would put their heads together, cluck over some fellow’s misfortune, then leave the matter to me. ’Tis what bailiffs are to do; find and punish miscreants. I knew this when I accepted Lord Gilbert Talbot’s offer to serve him at his Bampton manor. Good and decent folk prefer to have little to do with a bailiff. So also felons. Most bailiffs have few friends.

  I walked slowly about the pile of blackened ashes and felt yet some warmth from what had been six or so hours before a great conflagration. The men scooping the ashes had come early to the work, to gather them before others might think to do so. But they had ceased their labor when they found the skull. This was clear, for the rounded cranium was yet half-buried, eye sockets peering blankly at me from an upturned face. Well, it was a face at one time.

  I saw a few other bones protruding from the ashes; enough that I was convinced that whoso was consumed in the flames went into the fire whole. But to discover if this was truly so I would need to sweep away the ashes and learn what bones were here and how they lay. I would await Hubert Shillside and his jury for that. And the ashes would cool while I waited.

  Bampton’s coroner did not soon appear. Most of his jurymen had attended the St. John’s Day fire the night before, drunk too much ale, and cavorted about the blaze ’till near dawn, so they would likely have to be roused from sleep to attend to their duty. A sour-looking band of fellows eventually shuffled into view beyond the church.

  When they had approached close enough to see the skull, one and all crossed themselves, then bent low to better examine the reason for being called from their beds.

  I stood aside as Shillside collected the jury after each had circled the ash pile. I could have predicted their decision. There was, they decided, no reason to raise the hue and cry, as they could not know if a felony had been done, and even if ’twas so, there was no evidence to follow which might lead to a murderer. A man, or perhaps a woman, was dead. The coroner’s jury could discover nothing more. They would leave further investigation to me. So said Hubert Shillside as his jury departed to seek their homes and break their fast.

  Before the coroner left the place I drew him to where the three vicars of the Church of St. Beornwald stood. I asked the four men if any man or woman had gone missing from Bampton or the Weald in the past few days. They shrugged, glanced toward one another, and shook their heads.

  “Perhaps some fellow had too much ale last night, before he came to the fire, and danced too close,” Father Simon suggested.

  “Odd that no one would see him fall into the flames,” Father Thomas said. “Most of the village was here, and in the light of the blaze he would surely have been seen.”

  “Would’ve cried out, too,” Shillside said. “No man burns in silence, I think.”

  “Or woman, either,” I added.

  “What will you do with the bones?” Father Ralph asked. “We should bury them in the churchyard, but must not do so ’till we know that the dead man was baptized.”

  “And was not a suicide,” Father Simon said.

  Were there any corpses to be found in England unbaptized, and therefore ineligible to be interred in hallowed ground? I thought not. And I could think of a dozen more acceptable ways to take one’s life than to dive into the flames of a St. John’s Day fire.

  The vicars and coroner fell silent, staring at me. They wanted to know who had died, and whether or not he had perished in Bampton’s Midsummer’s Eve blaze. I needed to know how the man, or woman, had died, and, if possible, where. If the four men gazing at me expected me to provide answers to these questions, I had best begin the search.

  The first thing must be to gather all of the bones. Mayhap there would be the mark of a blade across a rib to tell how death came.

  But I had no wish to go down on hands and knees in the still-warm ashes to inspect bones. I turned to the men who had found the bones, and instructed them to sift carefully through the ashes, and place all bones into their wheelbarrow.

  These fellows were not pleased to be assigned the task, but knew that their lord’s bailiff could make life disagreeable if they balked.

  Unpleasant tasks are best accomplished quickly, and so after a moment of hesitation Lord Gilbert’s tenants emptied the ashes from their partly filled wheelbarrow and set to work with spades and rakes to uncover bones. I was required to caution them several times to use less haste and more care. The vicars and Hubert Shillside watched from across the ash pile as the stack of bones in the wheelbarrow grew.

  Only a few minutes were required to discover and retrieve the bones. The men continued the work, however, finding nothing more, until I bade them desist. I assigned one fellow to follow me to Galen House with the wheelbarrow and told the others to watch for any bones they might have missed when they continued the work of recovering ashes for use upon their fields.

  When Kate agreed to wed a bailiff she did not consider, I think, that her husband would use her table to inspect a skeleton. Marriage may bring many surprises.

  I told Roger, for so the villager who accompanied me with the wheelbarrow of bones was named, to take his burden to the toft behind Galen House. Kate looked up from a pot in which she was preparing our dinner, and her mouth dropped open in surprise as I propped open the door to the toft and began to drag our table through it.

  “There is better light in the toft,” I explained.

  “For what?” she asked.

  “Examining bones… human bones.”

  Kate’s hand rose to her mouth. “On my table?”

  “They have been through last night’s fire,” I said.

  “You will place roasted flesh upon our table?”

  “Nay. There is little flesh. Nearly all has been consumed. Bones remain. No man knows who it was that was in the blaze. I hope to discover some mark upon the bones which will tell who has died, and how.”

  “Oh. You believe murder may have been done?”

  “I have considered why a man, or woman, should be in a Midsummer’s Eve fire. Would they place themselves there? I cannot believe it so. Then why would some other lodge a corpse there? The only explanation I can imagine is that the person who did so thought the flames would consume all, flesh and bones, and so hide an unnatural death.”

  Kate’s hens scattered as I dragged the table from the door and Osbern set his wheelbarrow beside it. In a few minutes I had emptied the wheelbarrow, heaped the ash-covered bones upon the table, and set Osbern free to return to his work at the ash pile. Bessie, I believe, understood something of the nature of the business her father was about, for she stood in the doorway with her mother, clutching Kate’s cotehardie and staring wide-eyed at the pile of bones. Kate soon tired of watching me scratch my head and returned to her pot.

  I intended to assemble the bones as they would have been a few days past when they held some man upright. As I did so I discovered that most of the small bones of feet and hands were missing. Either they had been consumed in the fire or were overlooked when the tenants recovered the larger bones
from the ash pile.

  Several years past, when I was new-come to Bampton, I had stood in my toft over a table like this covered with bones. Those had been found in the castle cesspit, and in pursuit of a felon I had nearly sent an innocent man to the gallows. I breathed a silent prayer that the Lord Christ would turn me from error if I blundered so again.

  When I had arranged the bones properly I began my inspection with the skull, and here the examination might have ended. Behind the right ear was a concave fracture. A few small fragments of the skull were missing, and those that remained showed a depression deeper than the width of my thumb. There was no indication of the injury beginning to knit. The victim had surely died soon after the blow was delivered which made this dent. The stroke had killed him, or rendered him senseless so that a blade could be used to end his life, perhaps with a slash to the throat, or a thrust into his heart.

  I studied the remainder of the bones, but found no other marks upon them. I did not search these for a cause of death. I believed I had found that. I hoped to discover some anomaly which would help to identify the corpse. A broken arm, perhaps, which had healed, so that some friend or relative of a missing man who knew of a past injury might tell me whose bones lay upon my table.

  I turned the skull and examined the teeth. Only one was missing, and the others had few flaws. Here, I thought, was the skull of a young man. I took a femur from the table and held it aside my leg. I am somewhat taller than most men, so did not expect the bone to match mine in length, but was surprised how short the femur was when compared to my own. ’Twas perhaps a woman, I thought, who burned in the fire, or a very short man. How to know?

  I puzzled over this as I stood over the bones, and remembered a lecture from my year as a student of surgery at the University of Paris. The instructor had placed before his students two pelvic bones: one male, one female. That of the man appeared larger. Then he placed before us a plaster imitation of the skull of a newborn infant, and showed how a babe’s head would pass through the female pelvis, but would not do so through the opening in a man’s pelvis, even though the male pelvis seemed the greater.