Unhallowed Ground hds-4

by Mel Starr

  “Nay, ’e’s been at me since, but nothin’ I could prove to the vicars. Lost two lambs last year. Seen ’em born an’ two days later they was gone.”

  “Perhaps some beast carried them off?”

  “Perhaps. But no fox will take a lamb, be there an angry ewe about. An’ someone breaks into me barn at night. Things go missin’: harness for the oxen, an iron spade, such like.”

  “Is it possible some other did these thefts?”

  “It is, but I’m thinkin’ there will be no more, now Thomas atte Bridge lies in a grave at Cow-Leys Corner.”

  I agreed that cessation of these misfortunes would point to Thomas atte Bridge as the source, bid farewell to Philip and Amabil, and set out for Galen House. I had found another man pleased that Thomas atte Bridge lay in his grave. But did he put him there?

  Chapter 5

  I found Kate munching contentedly upon a maslin loaf and was pleased to see her do so.

  “Your appetite has returned?”

  “Some. Not in the morn, nor do I pine for roasted meat. But a piece of fish or a custard is pleasing, and this loaf suits me very well.”

  It had been three months and a few days since I met Kate, her father, and the wedding party at the porch of the Church of St Beornwald. There Father Thomas made us husband and wife, and I gave to Kate a golden ring set with an emerald, which I had purchased from a goldsmith on Oxford High Street. All know emeralds may ward off illness. I would have been better pleased to wed Kate sooner, but Holy Church forbids marriage during Advent and the twelve days of Christmas. Why this must be so I do not understand. The birth of the Lord Christ is cause for much joy and celebration, as is a wedding. The bishops surely have an answer to this, but there are none in Bampton or Oxford to ask.

  “The herbs you took to the sufferer in the Weald… will they ease him?”

  “As much as can be. I can diminish a man’s pain, but I cannot remove it wholly.”

  “And the man who attacked him, is he known?”

  “The son believes so: Thomas atte Bridge.”

  Kate was silent, chewing thoughtfully upon the last crust of her loaf. She swallowed and spoke.

  “There is no shortage of folk in Bampton and the Weald with cause to hate the man.”

  “True. Hubert Shillside would have faced him over Alice atte Bridge’s dower lands, did he yet live. Peter Carpenter’s daughter was ravished, and Arnulf Mannyng has suffered theft and the beating of his father at Thomas atte Bridge’s hands, so he believes.”

  “Three men with a grudge against atte Bridge,” Kate mused. “You think there are more?”

  “Likely so.”

  My apprehension was accurate, as I soon learned.

  Two days later I determined to travel to Alvescot where I might learn from Gerard the verderer the condition of Lord Gilbert’s forests now that winter was past. I did not expect to discover anything troubling. Gerard has served Lord Gilbert for many years and knows his business, although his sons and nephew do the work now under his guidance, crippled as he is since the blow to his skull.

  At the marshalsea I ordered Bruce saddled and made ready. I might have walked, but I am grown fond of the old horse which carries me about the countryside and I believe the beast enjoys escaping the stable.

  The way to Alvescot leads past Cow-Leys Corner. As I passed the tree where Thomas atte Bridge hung, my thoughts drifted from forest management to death. I had convinced myself that a journey to Alvescot was my duty, but was this so? Perhaps my travel was but an escape from confronting three men who had reason to murder Thomas atte Bridge. Indeed, if Hubert or Peter or Arnulf was guilty, I had no desire to know of it.

  Gerard lives with his wife and grown sons across the street from the Church of St Peter. I remembered the place well, for on a dark night a year past Thomas atte Bridge had lain in wait for me behind the church wall and clubbed me upon my skull when I peered through the lych gate. I did not know at the time who delivered the blow, or who it was I had followed from Bampton. Indeed, at the time and for some hours after I knew nothing at all.

  I found Gerard hobbling about in his toft, where were stored coppiced poles and a few beams cut from trees which had fallen in winter storms. There is little need, since the plague, for cutting timber for construction. Many houses lie empty; why build new? But should a tree fall, it is wise to hew it into beams and saw it into planks rather than allow it to rot upon the forest floor. I was pleased to see that Gerard, or his sons and nephew, had been active in this work. And coppiced poles will always find use: houses need new rafters when the old decay, fences must be maintained, and firewood and charcoal burning will consume what may remain.

  Few trees, Gerard said, had fallen in the winter past, and those which did I saw now before me hewn and sawn in Lord Gilbert’s wood-yard, drying under a crude shed. Deer were plentiful, Gerard reported, and when Lord Gilbert returned to Bampton at Lammastide he would find good hunting.

  While we spoke Richard and a youth I did not know entered the toft with a bundle of new-cut coppiced poles carried between the two on slings. The poles were placed to dry upon a rack already near full with the product of their labor.

  The day was grown warm. Richard wiped sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his cotehardie and eyed me with, I thought, some suspicion. I had caught out his brother poaching Lord Gilbert’s deer a year past, which would have been reason enough to end the family’s tenure as verderers to Lord Gilbert. This, as bailiff, I could have done, and there were some who aspired to the post who wondered that I did not. But Gerard had served Lord Gilbert well and, so far as I knew, so had Richard. Their worry would guarantee Walter’s future good behavior, so I thought. Nevertheless, my appearance in Alvescot now always drew apprehensive furrows across the family brows. This is not a bad thing. A man unsure of his position will work more diligently.

  I turned to leave Gerard, my duty complete, when the man spoke again.

  “Heard about Thomas atte Bridge hangin’ hisself,” he said.

  “So all believe,” I replied. My response caused Gerard to peer at me with puzzled expression. He understood, I think, that I did not include myself in the words I spoke. I had tried to keep disbelief from my voice. To dissemble is a competence much desired among bailiffs, I think. Perhaps one day I may achieve it.

  I stepped from behind Gerard’s house and saw two figures approaching with another load of coppiced beech poles slung between them. It was Walter, Gerard’s younger son, and another youth unknown to me, who turned with their burden into the yard. Walter saw me and averted his gaze, as well he might, poacher of Lord Gilbert’s deer as he once was.

  Here was another man with reason to dislike Thomas atte Bridge. With the aid of a scoundrel priest atte Bridge had learned of Walter’s poaching and blackmailed the verderer’s son for a portion of the venison he took. When Thomas was taken with the flesh he readily implicated Walter as his source, for which misdemeanor Walter was fined sixpence at hallmote. But for Thomas’s admission Walter might never have been found out.

  I watched as Walter and the youth dropped their poles beside the drying shed, and as I did Gerard and Richard stared at me, then Walter.

  “Your father,” I said to the perspiring Walter, “tells me deer are plentiful in Lord Gilbert’s forest.” I said this with head cocked to one side and a crooked grin warping my lips. I wished to put the man at ease. The ploy succeeded.

  “Aye,” he grinned. “Enough that Lord Gilbert’ll not miss a few… not that I’ll be takin’ any,” he declared. “Learned me lesson.”

  I had no doubt of that. I had seen Gerard, old and crippled as he was, strike Walter such a blow when he learned of his son’s transgression that the younger man had dropped to his knees in the road to the west of Bampton Castle. I wondered often what other discipline Gerard might have later applied. It might have been more severe than the punishment decreed at hallmote.

  “Whoso takes a deer now,” Richard observed, “may keep it to himself. He�
��ll not have to share with Thomas atte Bridge.”

  At the name, Walter looked away and spat upon the ground. But for Thomas, Walter might be enjoying a joint of venison yet this day. Was Walter’s arrest and fine enough to put thoughts of murder in his mind? Men have slain others for less. But a year had passed since Thomas and Walter were apprehended. Would Walter’s anger lay banked, like coals on a hearthstone, for a year? I did not know the fellow well enough to judge.

  I retrieved Bruce from the sapling where I had tied him, and where he had made a meal of the tender new leaves. His slow, plodding gait allowed much time for thought as we traveled through Lord Gilbert’s forest, past Cow-Leys Corner, to the castle. Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote that “three things are necessary for a man’s salvation: to know what he ought to believe, to know what he ought to desire, and to know what he ought to do.”

  I would not quarrel with the scholar, but might not a man know what he ought to believe and desire and do, yet do that which he knows he should not? Saint Paul wrote that he did what he would not do, and did not do what he should. I felt great kinship with the apostle.

  I knew what I should believe, and I believed it. And I knew what I should desire, and I desired it. But I was not certain that I wanted to do what I ought to do. I could count four men who might wish to hasten Thomas atte Bridge’s passage to our Lord’s judgment. If Walter were the felon I sought, I would not be much displeased with the discovery, but if Hubert or Peter or Arnulf were the culprit, I did not wish to know. Or if I did know, I did not wish to act upon the knowledge. Would my hesitancy lay waste my salvation? I left Bruce to the marshalsea and walked towards my home with troubled spirit.

  However, my heart lifted when I saw the wisp of smoke rising from the chimney of Galen House. It was a symbol of my new status and contentment: a married man and home owner, with the right to build new as I saw fit.

  Two days before Christmas Lord Gilbert had sent John Chamberlain to fetch me. I had found my employer seated in the solar of Bampton Castle, behind a table, enjoying a brisk blaze which gave pleasing warmth to his back and the small room. A sheet of parchment lay before Lord Gilbert on the table. Upon the document I saw Lord Gilbert’s seal pressed in wax. He looked up from studying it when I entered.

  “Master Hugh… be seated, be seated.” He nodded to a chair aside his table. I obeyed.

  “There is a matter we must discuss regarding Galen House,” he began. “When you first came to Bampton your rent for Galen House was four shillings each year.”

  I nodded.

  “Then I made you bailiff and provided a chamber in the castle.”

  I nodded again.

  “Now you are to return to Galen House, as you have named it, this time with a bride.”

  “Will four shillings each year satisfy,” I asked, “as before?” Four shillings was a bargain for such a house. In Oxford such a dwelling might command twenty shillings or more.

  “Nay, Hugh. Four shillings will not do.”

  I am sure I appeared crestfallen at this announcement, wondering how much my rent might be increased. Lord Gilbert saw my dismay and quickly continued.

  “A man need pay no rent to occupy what is his.”

  I did not grasp his meaning. Lord Gilbert pushed the document before him across the table to me.

  “Geoffrey Thirwall has prepared this deed.” Thirwall is Lord Gilbert’s steward, but resides at Pembroke and rarely visits Bampton. “The document transfers Galen House to you and your heirs freehold. Do not seem so startled, Hugh. ’Tis my wedding gift to you and your bride.”

  This largesse overwhelmed me. I had never thought to own my own property; such a thing is reserved for gentlemen and wealthy burghers. I am neither. I was able to reply with but a stammered, “Much thanks, m’lord.”

  “Here,” he held forth the document. “Keep it in a secure chest, Hugh, so a century from now, when we are food for worms, your great-grandson may prove ownership to some rapacious heir of mine.” He laughed at his wit, but there was surely truth in the warning.

  Lord Gilbert next opened a small chest upon his table and drew from it a small pouch. This he also pushed across the table to me. “Take it,” he commanded.

  “Our bargain, two years past, was that you would serve me as bailiff for bed and board at the castle, and thirty-four shillings each year. You will soon feed yourself, and such a wage will not keep a wife and family. I have decided to increase your salary to fifty shillings each year. Here are sixteen shillings,” he nodded to the pouch, “to meet the shortage for this year. At the new year Geoffrey Thirwall will pay the new amount.”

  I left Lord Gilbert’s presence that day with much joy, and began to move my possessions from the castle to Galen House so as to make ready for Kate.

  Galen House was two stories, built of sturdy timbers, wattle and daub, with a well-thatched roof above. A chimney at the south end vented a fireplace in one room of the ground floor, which I had occupied when I lived there alone. However, once wed I required a more fitting bedchamber for my bride. With the deed stored securely and coins in my purse, I paid to have the chimney rebuilt in brick, with a second hearth in the room above, so that Kate and I might sleep warm in our bed.

  Now I looked ahead at that curl of smoke and knew that Kate was preparing our dinner — although if her appetite was as it had been in the last fortnight, she would likely consume little of it.

  Kate had prepared a Lombardy custard with wheaten bread and cheese. I was pleased to see her take a good portion for herself. Her appetite seemed much improved.

  “How does Lord Gilbert’s forest land?” she asked as we ate.

  I told her of my conversation with Gerard, and Walter’s response when I spoke Thomas atte Bridge’s name.

  “Another man with cause to strike down atte Bridge?” Kate mused.

  “Aye. But for Thomas, his poaching might not have been found out.”

  “Oh, I near forgot,” Kate exclaimed. “While you were about Lord Gilbert’s business I went to purchase loaves from the baker and met Father Thomas upon Church Street. He told me to tell you that John Kellet has completed his penance and is now attached to St Nicholas’s Priory, in Exeter, where he assists the almoner.”

  Kate saw distaste disfigure my face, as if her custard was made of rotten eggs.

  “Is Kellet the priest you told me of, who betrayed the confessional and sent Thomas atte Bridge and his brother to blackmail those who confessed at St Andrew’s Chapel?”

  “Aye, the very man. He put an arrow in Henry’s back when he thought their felony might be discovered. For this sin he lost his place and for penance was sent on pilgrimage to Compostela.”

  “A long journey,” Kate observed.

  “And dangerous. I had wished some calamity might strike him on the road. He will not show his face again in Bampton, I think.”

  “But he has.”

  I looked up from my meal in some surprise, which Kate saw. She continued: “He visited Father Simon.”

  “Ah… Father Simon took him in when he was a lad. Parents both dead.”

  “That is how he became curate at St Andrew’s Chapel?”

  “Aye. And betrayed his place.”

  “Father Thomas said he is a changed man.”

  “Pilgrimage and privation may alter a man’s outlook. We may hope in Kellet’s case ’tis so. I wonder I did not see Kellet upon the street. Is he yet about, or gone to Exeter?”

  “Gone to Exeter, I think. Father Thomas said he was here but for two days, near a fortnight past.”

  “About the time Thomas atte Bridge was found at Cow-Leys Corner. I think I must visit Father Simon.”

  I found Father Simon at his vicarage, enjoying his dinner. The rotund priest has enjoyed many dinners, and employs a cook whose skills are reputed to rival those of the cook at Bampton Castle. A servant greeted me at the door and showed me to Father Simon, who was licking the last grease of a capon from his fingers.

  “Good day, Master Hugh. Hav
e you dined?”

  I assured the priest that I had, and watched relief wash across his cherubic face. Some of the capon lay unconsumed upon a platter before him, reserved, perhaps, for his supper, and he worried he might be called upon to share it.

  “You had a visitor some days past… John Kellet.”

  “Aye. But he has completed his penance. You have no jurisdiction over him.”

  The priest thought I yet harbored ill will toward Kellet, and would do the man mischief if I could. He was not far wrong.

  “I do not seek him, but I would know when he was here. I did not see him upon the streets, nor did any other, I think, else I would have been informed.”

  Father Simon glanced away for a moment, then spoke: “Kellet asked no one be told of his visit. Said he wanted only to see me, an’ thank me for taking care of him when he was but an orphan lad. Came one day, late it was, stayed with me two nights to rest from his journey, then set off for Exeter, where he is to serve the almoner.”

  “When was this?”

  The priest scratched at his wispy hair. “Why? ’Twas but a visit. You cannot forbid that, even be you Lord Gilbert’s bailiff.”

  “Too late to forbid, but I have reason to know when it was Kellet slept under your roof.”

  “Very well,” the vicar shrugged. “He came the day before St George’s Day, and set off for Exeter two days later.”

  “He was in the town for St George’s Day? I did not see him in the marketplace.”

  “Nay. Said he’d seen St George slay the dragon an’ rescue the fair maid many times.”

  “Or perhaps he did not wish it known that he was about,” I asserted.

  “Perhaps. He left Bampton under a black cloud, ’tis true. He spoke of his shame.”

  “Shame! He slew a man. Was he not in holy orders, he would have hanged by the neck before the walls of Oxford Castle.”

  “None saw him slay Henry atte Bridge. That felony is but your assertion.”

  “You doubt he did so?”

  The priest was silent. This was answer enough.