by Mel Starr
“I’m no murderer,” Edmund protested, and cast his eyes about as if seeking some unremembered place in his forge where he might hide. There was no escape, for Arthur and I blocked the entrance. Arthur does better at obstructing a door than do I, but together the smith would not get past us. And I yet held his hammer.
“No murderer? But a thief. If one, why not the other?”
Edmund’s shoulder slumped, and he leaned against his anvil as if likely to topple over without its support.
“He torments me, does Thomas.”
“Thomas atte Bridge?” I replied. I was confused. Atte Bridge was two months dead. How could he vex another?
“Aye,” the smith mumbled. “Comes in the night, when all others be sleepin’, an’ wakes me.”
“Why? What does he wish? To trouble the man who took his life from him?”
“Nay. I’m no murderer. ’E was plowin’ Emma’s furrow before ’e died. When I was to wed Emma she told me of it. Thomas was dead an’ gone then, and naught but Maud to protest did I seize the land what Thomas took.”
“Maud protested?”
“Aye. To me an’ Emma. Not to the vicars, ’cause she knew I was right an’ the land Thomas was takin’ was Emma’s.”
“Maud and Emma had words about this?”
“Aye, but not after we was wed. Didn’t argue with ’er, just took back what was Emma’s.”
“And now Thomas afflicts you in the night?”
“Aye. Tells me I’ll soon join ’im do I not give over them furrows ’e took from Emma.”
“You cast the guts of Arnulf Mannyng’s goat upon his grave.”
“Aye,” Edmund reluctantly agreed. “’Eard tell that’ll keep spirits in their grave.”
“Did it? Last night did Thomas afflict you again?”
The smith brightened. “Nay. Worked well, as folk do say.”
“Thomas did not rise from his grave to trouble you because you took his life?”
Edmund blanched again. “Nay. Never murdered no man.”
I believed him, and did I not I had no way to prove otherwise. But I would see justice done in the matter of Arnulf Mannyng’s goat.
“You will pay Arnulf a shilling for his goat.”
“A shilling?” Edmund complained. “Was worth no more than ten pence.”
“A thief cannot bid the value of his plunder. A shilling, and you will pay the debt before hallmote or I will have you up on charges. Then you will pay a fine to Lord Gilbert as well.”
The smith’s shoulders dropped again in submission. I had made no friend here, nor had I discovered a murderer, as I thought I might. Edmund Smith had been no friend before this day, so I was forfeit nothing, and whoso hung Thomas atte Bridge at Cow-Leys Corner was no more unknown to me than when the day began. I had discovered the theft of a goat, so I could boast of some small achievement.
Next day was Sunday. Kate was pleased to see, as we walked to the church past the site of Galen House, that Peter Carpenter had seen to clearing the place of burnt timbers and ash, and Gerard had supplied the first cart-load of elm timbers with which Peter and his crew might begin raising a new house. All that remained at the site was some blackened earth and my new brick chimney.
There was much work for me in the next days. I must see to the shearing of Lord Gilbert’s sheep and the sale of the wool, and it was time for the last plowing of Lord Gilbert’s fallow fields. Villeins who owed week-work I set to these tasks. This did not please them, as they had their own labors to complete, but such is the way of the world and my work. I must persuade folk to do things they would wish to avoid, whether this be laboring upon their lord’s demesne or suffering me to repair their injuries and wounds. Both oft require pain from those to whom I must direct my toil.
At least once each day I made time to observe Peter Carpenter’s progress. On Tuesday he brought another load of timbers from Alvescot, and late in the week two carts loaded with bricks came from the kiln at Witney. Two more cart-loads, Peter said, and Warin would have enough to build a second chimney and fill the spaces between the timbers he was raising.
I watched the carpenter wield his mallet and chisel to cut a tenon and rubbed my arm where Sir Simon had pierced me. To think that I had once considered that Peter might have delivered the blow with a chisel. There is no more amicable man in Bampton, I thought.
He spoke fondly of his daughter’s child. Jane’s babe, he said, was strong. He was placed with the cooper’s wife, who had a babe of her own to nurse. Peter seemed not to wish to speak more of the child, which I understood, considering how the infant had come to be. The part of the babe that was Jane would be loved; the part that was Thomas atte Bridge would be despised. It would have been easier, I think, for Peter and his wife to have accepted a lass. I hoped, for the sake of the child, that as he grew he would resemble his mother in character rather than his father.
By St Botolf’s Day Peter had erected scaffolds and with his assistants and apprentice was at work raising posts and beams for the upper story of the new Galen House. Beneath the poles and planks of the scaffolding Warin was at work with mortar and trowel, filling in the walls with layers of red-brown bricks. I found myself drawn to Church View Street several times each day, to monitor progress and watch as craftsmen put together a fine house from wood and clay.
Chapter 15
One afternoon I stood in the toft watching Peter and his apprentice hoist a beam from ground to scaffold. This timber was heavy, hewn square, six paces or more long, and thick through as a large man’s hand from fingers to wrist. The weight of two men and the beam proved too much for one of the poles supporting the scaffold. It bent under the weight. I saw it begin to bow and shouted to the men to look to their safety. They did so, but not before the pole snapped. Three poles yet supported the scaffold, and Peter and the apprentice seized two of these and so were spared a fall which might have required my services to repair their injuries. They had released the beam when I cried a warning. It thudded to the earth, doing no harm.
Peter clambered down from his perch, thanked me for advising him of danger, scratched his head while he inspected the fractured pole, then set to work raising another so the scaffold might be made whole and he might continue his work.
I watched as Peter selected a solid pole from the stack Gerard had delivered for rafters and set it in place of the splintered shaft. When it was in place he instructed his apprentice, a slender youth whose wiry form was more suited to the work, to mount the scaffold and secure the plank to the new post with a length of hempen cord wrapped thickly about both pole and plank.
Hempen cord. I was not pleased with the thought which then came to me. It had not occurred to me that a carpenter might have use for hempen cord.
My enthusiasm for observing the rebuilding of Galen House withered with this discovery. I left the site and walked slowly to the castle, considering the import, or coincidence, of what I had learned. I was distressed at what it might portend, but could not allow the revelation to pass unexplained.
I kept my own counsel for the next hours, but as dusk darkened the window of our chamber I told Kate what I had seen.
“Many craftsmen may find need of rope in their work,” she advised. “You said such cord was common.”
“Aye, I did, but a common thing in the hands of a man wronged by another may be put to uncommon purpose.”
“You believe the carpenter capable of such cunning, doing murder made to seem suicide?”
“Do you think me capable of such a thing?”
“Nay,” Kate replied with some heat. “Why do you ask?”
“I am not a father… not yet,” I added, responding to Kate’s smile. “But when I think of the injury Thomas atte Bridge did to Peter, and consider what vengeance I might seek should our babe be a lass, and some felon deal with her as Thomas did with Jane, then I am no longer certain of Peter’s peaceable nature.”
“You could slay a man who did harm to a daughter?”
“If n
o other penalty seemed in store for the man.”
“You believe all men be of such a mind?”
“I do.”
“What will you do?”
“I will go to our bed. Mayhap a new day will offer new counsel.”
It did not. Sleep was elusive. It came reluctantly and departed eagerly. I arose from our bed in a sour mood, which Kate saw and so busied herself about our chamber wordlessly. A kitchen servant brought a loaf and pot of ale, and when I had broken my fast I felt ready to face my duty. I made ready to depart the castle and Kate finally spoke.
“What will you do?”
“I intend to seek first Father Simon. I have two questions for him which will go some way to resolving this business, I think.”
“I pray you succeed,” she replied.
“Best pray I do not,” I answered wryly.
Father Simon’s clerk responded to my knock on the vicarage door and admitted me to the house. The rotund priest soon appeared, puzzled, I think, by my early appearance and black visage.
“Good day, Master Hugh. How may I serve you?”
“Two questions, then I will depart and trouble you with the business of Thomas atte Bridge no more.”
“Atte Bridge? I’ve heard nothing of that matter for many weeks. Thought you’d given up pursuit of a felon an’ laid the death to suicide.”
“I gave up quest for a murderer several times. But each time I did so some new matter arose to restore my interest. I never thought Thomas did away with himself, nor do I now.”
“And you seek me now because some new evidence presents itself?”
“Aye. The hempen cord your clerk purchased to fashion your new belt, whence did it come?”
“Many in the town grow hemp, soak the stems in Shill Brook, and wind the fibers into rope,” the priest replied.
“This is so, but not all hempen cord sold in Bampton is missing a length which matches the span of rope used to hang a man.”
Father Simon made no reply, hoping, I think, that I would give over my questions and depart. I did not.
“Peter Carpenter,” he said finally. “But you should not assume the carpenter guilty of such a felony. Others may have known the unused cord was in my shed and snipped off a length.”
“Did Peter know you kept the unused coil in the shed?”
“Don’t know. Robert made the purchase of Peter. You might ask him.”
“I may. I have another question for you. Does Peter confess his sins to you, and seek absolution, or does he confess to Father Thomas or Father Ralph?”
“You know I cannot reveal what is said in confession,” Father Simon said indignantly.
“I do not ask you to do so. I ask only if Peter confessed to you, or to another.”
“I cannot say,” the vicar said firmly, and folded his arms across his belly as if punctuating his denial.
“Very well,” I replied. “Your answer is helpful.”
The priest’s brows lifted at this, but I saw no need to enlighten him. He had told me a valuable thing but knew not he had done so.
Had Peter Carpenter confessed to Father Thomas or Father Ralph, Father Simon would, I think, have had no reluctance to tell me he had not heard of the man’s sins. Since he refused to answer when I asked, I was sure it was Father Simon who had heard Peter’s confession. If this was a confession of murder, the knowledge would explain why he tried to deflect my suspicion from John Kellet and save me a fruitless journey to Exeter.
Or perhaps he feared that I might construe some evidence against Kellet which would see the man punished again, this time for a thing he did not do, and of which Father Simon knew him to be innocent.
I walked north from the vicarage, past the bishop’s new tithe barn, and watched as John Prudhomme directed the folding of new-shorn sheep on to demesne lands. He saw me and waved cheerily, but I had no heart for gladsome reply.
All I suspected might be coincidence. I hoped it was so, but I was not satisfied with uncertainty. I wandered the town until dinner, considering and disposing of methods whereby I might find truth, and above all fearing what knowledge of the truth might cost me, the town, and Peter Carpenter.
Kate saw my solemn demeanor at dinner and divined the cause. She did not ask of me what I had learned from Father Simon, but guessed it was unsettling. When we were alone in our chamber she asked of me what news, and I told her.
“The priest speaks true that many folk cultivate hemp and flax for rope and flaxen yarn,” she said. “Some have plenty and enough to sell.”
“But do they sell a length of cord which matches the rope found about Thomas atte Bridge’s neck, when joined together with the cord coiled in Father Simon’s shed?”
“Why would Peter seek cord in Father Simon’s shed if he had of his own enough to sell?”
“There has been little employment for carpenters since the plague,” I reasoned. “Perhaps he needed money and sold unneeded possessions to find it.”
“Mayhap,” Kate mused, “but he has rope now, you say, to fasten scaffold together.”
“And he has fifteen shillings I gave him as early payment, so he might hire laborers and begin the work. Enough cord to build his scaffold would cost little more than a penny.”
“How will you discover if Peter hanged Thomas at Cow-Leys Corner,” she asked, “and what will you do if it be so?”
“I do not yet know… on both counts.”
I could not stay away from Church View Street, no matter who it was who assembled my new home. I left Kate stitching a new kirtle for her enlarging form and set out.
Peter, his apprentice, and two laborers had nearly completed setting posts and beams for the upper story. One worker, a poor cotter whose family was large and whose lands were few, was at work fitting wattles between posts. Warin had nearly completed brickwork upon the ground floor and would soon set to work upon the second chimney.
Peter Carpenter glanced down from his perch above me on the scaffold, acknowledged my presence with a nod, then returned to his labor. The man had wife, children, and now grandchild to provide for. What poverty would come to them if I found Peter had indeed slain Thomas atte Bridge? But what guilt would I incur against my soul did I learn of a certainty of Peter’s guilt and allow the crime to go unpunished? Or was it a crime? Perhaps it was justice, wrongly discharged.
I felt drawn to the hempen cords which bound the scaffold together. Without considering why I did so, I drifted close to the framework and unthinkingly fingered a length of the brown cord, as if touch could tell me whence it came and what it knew.
The hemp remained silent. From the base of the scaffold I raised my eyes again to the place where Peter and his apprentice were driving home a tree nail to fix a beam in place. Peter swung his mallet a last time, wiped sweat from his brow, and glanced down through the lattice of the scaffold to see me examining the hempen cord and studying him.
Some unaccountable recognition flickered between us. I knew then from the look in his eyes what Peter had done, and he saw that I knew. He stared at me, sighed heavily, then turned back to his work.
Peter’s oldest child, now Jane was gone, was a lad of twelve or so years. I saw then how Thomas atte Bridge might have met his end.
I suspect Peter was lurking about Thomas’s hut, seeking how he might avenge his daughter, when he saw in the moonlight John Kellet enter atte Bridge’s toft and harry the hens roosting there. He saw Thomas respond to the troubled hens, watched as Kellet and atte Bridge spoke, and perhaps was close by to hear what was said.
Next eve, when all was dark and quiet in the Weald, Peter and his lad tried the same ruse, disturbing Thomas’s hens until the noise once more drew him to his toft. Perhaps atte Bridge expected to find John Kellet there again. But instead Thomas saw a shadow approach and from out of the dark came a blow which laid him insensible in the mud.
Peter then bound atte Bridge’s wrists and ankles, and perhaps crammed a wad of fabric in his mouth should he wake from the blow. Then wit
h his lad Peter carried his victim from the Weald toward Cow-Leys Corner. Mayhap Thomas regained his senses while carried thus, and struggled, so that the child lost grip on his ankles and there were then two grooves made in the road; these ruts Kate and I found next morn, and also mud from the road on the back of the doomed man’s heels. Perchance Peter delivered another blow to quiet Thomas before continuing to Cow-Leys Corner.
But what of the stool? How would Peter have come by that object? He traveled the Weald to appraise Philip Mannyng’s shattered door. Perhaps as he passed he saw Maud sitting at her door, working at some task in the sun, and later made off with the stool she sat upon when she left it. Might he have even then had use in mind for it? Who can know?
Peter, the apprentice, and the laborers continued their work, stretching wattles between posts to make ready for the plaster. I lost interest in the business and departed the toft. As I set foot on Church View Street I saw and heard a large cart approach, drawn by two horses. I stopped to see what this conveyance was about and watched as a man atop its load pulled upon the traces and halted his beasts before Galen House.
“Where’s the carpenter?” he asked.
“He is at the rear of the house, framing wattles.”
“Peter requires these tiles an’ here they are. Not ready yet for ’em, I see,” the tiler said with a glance at the empty sky where ridgepole and rafters should soon be placed.
“Need another load anyway. We’ll just leave this lot in the toft an’ return next week with more. Wat,” he called to his apprentice, “lead the ’orses ’round back an’ stack the tiles. I’ll be there shortly. Good worker,” the tiler said to me, with a nod to his apprentice, “but bull-headed.”
“So long as he lays a roof which keeps me dry, his disposition is of no concern.”
“He’ll do that well enough. I’ll see to it. Got to return to Witney, so best help the lad.”
The tiler touched his cap with a finger and hastened off in the track of his cart. I set off for the castle, where I hoped a few circles of the parapet would clear my mind and set me toward my duty, when I decided where my duty lay.