by Mel Starr
“How far beyond Burford is Northleech?” I asked Lord Gilbert.
“Umm…twelve, perhaps fifteen miles.”
“Too much for Bruce in one day, I think.”
“Aye,” he agreed. “A halt at the inn in Burford would be called for.”
Two or three nights at vermin-infested village inns did not provoke joyous thoughts, but I could see no other way to discover the information I required.
“Sir Robert’s father is Sir Geoffrey Mallory,” Lord Gilbert continued. “When you see him, tell him I travel to Goodrich in a fortnight. I will bring with me the bodies so they may be buried there.”
“Lady Joan and Lady Petronilla will not relish the company on that journey,” I observed.
“Lady Joan,” Lord Gilbert observed with a frown, “did not relish Sir Robert’s company when he was alive, so I think his present state will cause little distress.”
“Oh…I thought…”
“You and most others, I suppose. I thought so as well…but she would not have him.”
“Your sister is a particular woman?” I asked.
“Hah! You are a tactful man when you choose to be, Master Hugh. I see I have chosen well for my bailiff. Yes, particular, that would describe Lady Joan. And, I am sorry to say, Sir Robert’s reputation preceded his suit.”
“What reputation had he?” I asked, for I knew nothing of the man but his death.
“It was said no man’s wife or daughter was safe within his reach.”
“But you would have married Joan to him,” I protested.
“Perhaps he would have changed. If Joan could not keep a man from wandering, no woman could,” he observed.
“I have heard it said that a woman marries a man believing he will change, but he does not, and a man marries a woman believing she will not change, but she does,” I remarked.
My words set Lord Gilbert to tugging at his chin again. “Hmm…well…yes, perhaps.”
“Now Sir John is a suitor?” I asked.
“Is, or was, I know not. I am not informed of recent developments. I have told my sister that she must soon choose. Her beauty will not last forever. I do not wish her to become my spinster responsibility.”
“So even such a one as Sir Robert was preferable to that fate?”
“He was, Master Hugh, he was.”
I saw a man, a youth, and a bundle of poles before my door when I returned to Galen House. The man I recognized as one of the woodcutters. My broken-headed patient had paid his debt with a great stack of arm-sized poles I no longer needed. But I knew someone who did. I directed the man to take as much of the wood as he could manage to Henry atte Bridge’s hut. I could send a valet from the castle for the rest. I was already beginning to like the idea of being bailiff, directing others to do work I wished done.
The youth at my door was a stranger to me, come to ask my assistance in some injury, I assumed. He asked if I was the surgeon, Master Hugh, so you may understand my error.
He introduced himself and stated his mission: he was Ralph, from Burford, and had a message from Edith Church. She had recent information I might find useful. I would, she had informed the boy, be happy to pay him for his effort to bring to me this news. I gave him three farthings, which did not cause him a surfeit of joy. I might soon be a prosperous man, but Lord Gilbert had not yet filled my purse. And I admit I have always found it difficult to abandon the frugal ways of my youth.
Early next day I prepared a half-dozen hempen drafts for Alice, who was at my door as the last tones of the Angelus bell faded. I was off to the castle yard for Bruce, so accompanied her on her way. She was voluble in her appreciation for the wood delivery, and passed to me her father’s gratitude, as well. I knew his injury was one for which my service could avail little, and did not expect to be recompensed in any way but appreciation.
I asked how her father did. She tried to feign optimism, but in the half-light of dawn I saw the tear on her cheek. She knew as well as I that her father would soon see God. He had lived many years. This end could not be unexpected. But the girl, I think, grieved for herself as much as for her father. He was, she said, a devout man, who had been diligent to teach her right from wrong and had urged her to live as a good Christian. His future was secure. Hers was not. I said a silent prayer for the child as I turned right into the castle yard and she went left to her father’s hut.
The morning was bitter. As I rode Bruce north a low sun gradually peered above leafless trees and illuminated branches glittering with frost. It was a beautiful morning to travel, or would have been had my feet and fingers not stung with cold.
As I passed through Shilton I saw Thomas about his work in his father’s toft and gestured a greeting. He did not acknowledge my lifted hand, but stared impassively after me for a time, then went back to his employment, turning the earth with a wooden spade.
Edith was behind her house, feeding her chickens. She greeted me cheerily, and held out her left foot. “I kin walk near good as ever,” she proclaimed, and she confirmed this assertion by walking to me with a youthful stride which camouflaged her years. Her recovery was indeed remarkable, for but five days had passed since my work on her toe.
“The lad you sent yesterday said you had news for me.”
“Oh…aye. Best come inside,” she said, glancing about as if she feared an observer. She sat heavily on a stool and motioned me to take my place on a bench.
“Two days ago, Tuesday, it was, I was takin’ eggs to Emma, t’cooper’s wife. She lives out on Sheep Street. We had a talk, an’ as I was comin’ home I saw Matilda atte Water – she’s got a hovel an’ toft down t’river – widow, she is, an’ gone a bit strange.”
“Oh?”
“Aye. Talks to herself, like, an’ wanders about town day an’ night. Not so much in winter, mind, but beadle’s likely to find her on t’streets at midnight of a summer’s eve. I tell her she must not do so…folks’ll take her for a witch. But she’ll not listen.”
“How does she live?” I asked.
“Priest gives her poor money, an’ folks give her a loaf now an’ then. I give her an egg if I have to spare. An’ she grows turnips an’ cabbages in her toft, when t’river don’t flood it.”
I did not think I had been called from Bampton to learn of an eccentric widow’s late-night rambles. But I had learned that Edith would not be hurried. I had but to inject the occasional exclamation or question to keep her going.
“Matilda were babblin’ to herself as we passed. Barely stopped long enough to greet me. We’re of an age, y’see. Grew up together, had children together…lost husbands together.”
“And then?” I prompted, as Edith’s mind wandered back to lost days.
“Mostly she passes folks by these days. Won’t stop to talk. Goes on about her way, whatever that might be. But Tuesday she took me by the arm an’ stopped. Looked me right in the eye, she did, an’ said, ‘’Tisn’t right, young folks meetin’ like that, at midnight.’”
“‘Like what?’ I says.”
“‘In t’churchyard,’ she said. ‘We never met w’lads at night in t’churchyard when we was maids.’”
“I wondered at that,” Edith explained. “Who did she see in t’churchyard? I like to know as what’s in t’wind, so I asked her who ’twas in t’churchyard.”
“Who was it?” I thought I knew the answer.
“’Twas Margaret Smith.”
“But it was night. How did this woman know who was there in the dark?”
“Heard ’em over t’wall. Knew Margaret’s voice.”
“But could not see her?”
“Oh, she did. Said she crept through t’gate an’ seen Margaret in t’moonlight.”
“Who was she with?”
“Thomas Shilton.”
“Did your friend say when this meeting happened? It must have been some time in the past. Would she remember well from so long ago?”
“Aye. ’Twas ’bout Whitsuntide.”
“Where may I find
your friend? I would speak to her of this.”
“I’ll take you. She’ll not welcome a stranger.”
Edith took me to the High Street, turned right a few paces to the river, then left the street before the bridge. We took an obscure path barely above the water. In spring flood it probably would not be. Edith led the way past a dilapidated wharf, then past the smithy across the river. I could hear from across the Windrush the rhythmic swing of Alard’s hammer. We were nearly even with the mill when I saw, rising from reeds and brush, a decaying hut. Wisps of smoke trailed from the peaks of the gable ends and wreathed about the frayed thatch of a roof which had seen no repair for many years.
“Stop here,” Edith commanded, and went forward alone a few steps. “Matilda…Tildy…S’me, Edith. Will you come out?” she bawled.
The sagging door opened a few inches and an unwashed face peered through the crack. “How ye be, Tildy? I’ve brought someone t’see you.”
“Don’t want to see none,” a thin, cracking voice replied.
“Tildy, Master Hugh’s a surgeon – a doctor. Thought he might help you with your back, you bein’ afflicted an’ all.”
The door opened a little wider, slowly. I stood silently behind Edith, afraid that at any movement of mine the door would shut and Matilda would flee my presence like a doe in the forest.
Edith motioned me to follow her. The bent form I could dimly see at the door retreated to the dark, smoky interior as we approached. It took some time for my eyes to become accustomed to both the gloom and the stinging haze. When I managed to blink my vision clear I saw that we would stand for this interview. The only piece of furniture, if that it could be called, was a low cot strewn with rags which served as bed and bench to the frail, twisted woman before me.
“Come here, Tildy. Let Master Hugh have a look at you.”
The woman did as she was bidden, all the while keeping a wary eye on me. She was bent over a stick which she propped before her to support the weight of an upper body warped to a nearly horizontal position. I had seen elderly folk bent like her before, most often old women. The cause eludes me, and physicians who have written of human ills do not remark on the condition. As I do not know the cause of the infirmity, I am unable to assist those afflicted. I told this to the women. They seemed neither surprised nor distressed, for truth be told, we who deal with human ills most often find ourselves incompetent to change the course of human faults. This the two women knew.
I waited for Edith to continue the conversation. An abrupt change of subject from Matilda’s ailment to nocturnal activities in the churchyard last spring would likely raise the guard of a woman whose guard was permanently aloft at the best of times. Edith did not disappoint me.
“Have ye been by t’churchyard these days?” Edith asked.
“Aye,” the bent woman replied. “Go there most every day an’ it’s not rain nor snow.”
“I think I would see you about more often,” Edith replied with some surprise in her tone.
“Oh, I go after curfew bell. Want to be alone, see…account of I talk to my Ralph, an’ if folks were about an’ heard, they’d think I was daft.”
Ralph, I assumed, was Matilda’s late husband, resting now in the churchyard until our Lord Jesus should call him forth.
“You see any more suitors with their maids there?” Edith asked calmly.
“Nay. An’ them as I saw wasn’t suitors. Quarrelin’, they was.”
“Lovers sometimes quarrel,” I said.
Matilda looked up at me from under her hunched posture, as if surprised I was yet present. “Aye. S’pose they do. Not like as them I heard, though.”
“Why do you say so?” I asked.
“There was to be no arrangement. ’At’s what the lad said. Sounds like no suitor to me.”
“You could hear their conversation?”
“Aye, mostly. They was whisperin’, but in a wrathful whisper.”
“What did the maid say then?” I asked.
“Oh, she were right distressed. Said over and again as how he’d promised care for ’er if she got with child. Said she’d make it hard for him.”
“And what did the lad reply?”
“Laughed, he did. Didn’t say nothin’ more, just laughed.”
“And that ended their conversation?”
“Nay. Margaret jumped up on a stump an’ said as she’d tell her father. Him bein’ a smith, she said, he could make a point to run through the lad’s black heart. An’ he’d do it too, did he know what the fellow’d promised.”
“And then?” I queried.
“The lad began to turn away, laughin’ yet, he was. He stopped an’ he told her she an’ her father’d both regret should she do such a thing. Then he walked away. I had to hide behind the wall. Margaret stayed, cryin’.”
“Did she stay long?”
“Don’t know. Went home. Couldn’t talk to Ralph with all that goin’ on.”
“No, I expect not. You are sure the girl was Margaret Smith?”
“Aye, saw her plain. Moon were shinin’ full on her face.”
“And the lad? You saw him, also?”
“Oh…were Thomas Shilton.”
“Then you saw him?”
“Not so clear, like Margaret, but were him. Tallish. Fair hair. I’d know him. I ought to, I birthed him.”
That caught me off guard, and I looked through the smoky haze of the hut at Edith. “Matilda was midwife to most ’round here twenty years an’ more ago,” she explained.
I turned back to Matilda. “You know that Margaret was murdered within a few days after you overheard that quarrel?”
“I do now. Didn’t ’til Edith told me. Folks don’t tell me much, an’ I don’t ask, ’cept to be left alone. Thought were odd, though.”
“What was odd?” I asked.
“After that night I didn’t see her at the smithy ’cross the river like I would most days.”
I thanked the women for their assistance and paid each a penny. Matilda had probably not seen more than two farthings together for many years, but I was feeling charitable. I chided myself later for giving away my new-found wealth before I possessed it, but the expression on Matilda’s wizened features made the expenditure worthwhile.
I decided on another visit to Thomas Shilton on my return, but first I must find shelter at the inn and press on to Northleech.
I found the inn. I also found coarse bread, gristly meat, watered ale, and vermin. I did not find sleep, for it was my lot to share a room with two men who snored through the night like dogs worrying a bone left over from supper.
Chapter 10
Bruce and I ambled into Northleech next day before noon. Sir Geoffrey Mallory heard the news of his son’s death with equanimity. He had three other sons, so the loss of one affected him less, perhaps, than a father with but one heir. And he had had five months to prepare himself for the news that his missing offspring might be dead.
I told him that Lord Gilbert would bring Sir Robert’s body in his train. Sir Geoffrey nodded, then asked the question I was expecting. “What was the manner of his death?”
I explained, tactfully, what I had learned of Sir Robert’s demise, and what Lord Gilbert and I speculated about the event. “Did he,” I concluded, “have enemies who might wish him dead?”
Sir Geoffrey chuckled. I was not prepared for this response, although Lord Gilbert’s appraisal of Sir Robert’s habits should have readied me. I waited for an explanation; certainly he would know such was expected. He did.
“Robert had many friends. He had a winning way about him. But enemies as well. Many husbands ’tween here and London, I expect, would be pleased to see him come to harm. And some fathers, too.”
“Sir Robert was fond of the ladies?” I asked.
“He was that,” the man chuckled. “I warned him he might play court to the wrong maid some day. What son listens to his father? Especially on the subject of women?”
“You think his…uh…pursuit of a lad
y might have led to his death?”
“’Twould be my guess. But she wouldn’t need to be a lady.”
I asked for a list of angry fathers or cuckolded husbands, but Sir Geoffrey fell silent. He would not name any his son might have offended. “I cautioned him,” was all he would say. I could get no more from the man. He thought he knew what had happened to his son, and why, and seemed to hold no great grudge against any who had acted against him.
I found the inn at Northleech and settled myself for another long and noisy night. I admit that the table at this inn was better than at Burford, so that my lack of sleep could not be charged to an offended stomach.
I set out for Burford and home at dawn next morning. As Bruce sauntered across the empty marketplace past the church, I noticed the vicar about some morning errand. A question or two could do no harm, I decided.
I reined Bruce to a halt and addressed the man from across the churchyard as he was about to disappear into the porch. He arrested his progress and waited for me under the arch as I tied Bruce to the gate and approached.
I introduced myself as the surgeon from Bampton, uncertain whether my new position as bailiff would generate more consideration than my other occupation. The vicar was tall and angular and well wrapped against the cold. He peered at me from both sides of a truly impressive nose, which he held aloft in such a manner as to indicate that surgeons weighed little on his scale. I should have proclaimed myself bailiff.
I asked if he knew Sir Robert. He nodded. A man of few words. I asked if I could seek information about the man from him. He nodded again, and shrugged his shoulders as if to say, “If you must.”
I pointed to the stone benches lining either side of the porch and suggested we sit. He swept his cloak about him and did so. Silently. I sat opposite him and immediately felt the cold of the stone penetrate my clothing. Well, at least we were out of the wind.
The vicar produced another nod as I announced the discovery of Sir Robert’s body. This man, I thought, must be a popular priest. I could not imagine his sermons lasting more than a few minutes.