The Unquiet Bones

by Mel Starr

  That, I agreed, was probably true.

  Chapter 11

  I pointed Bruce toward home. He knew a stable and respite from the snow awaited him, so ploughed resolutely through the drifts.

  The spire of the Church of St Beornwald was invisible in the falling snow, but as I approached the town, well past the ninth hour, I heard, over the sighing wind, the slow steady tolling of a passing bell ringing from the tower. Someone in Bampton was dying this cold evening.

  Wilfred took Bruce when I entered the castle gatehouse and told me that Lord Gilbert wished to see me immediately upon my return. I walked across the castle yard, ankle deep now in mud and slush. John the Chamberlain set off to seek Lord Gilbert while I brushed snow from my threadbare cloak and stomped my boots clean. As I did so, feeling began to return to my frozen feet.

  “Ah…what news, Master Hugh?” Lord Gilbert hailed as he approached across the now-empty hall. He led me to the solar before I could answer and bid me warm myself at the fire. We sat before the blaze, and I related my discoveries to him.

  “You are no better informed of Sir Robert’s death than before your journey, then?”

  “No,” I agreed. “I fear not, but those who knew him think it likely his habits had much to do with his death.”

  “Well, no matter,” Lord Gilbert commented. “You have done well on the other business. I think we know what happened to the lass from Burford, and how she came to be here.”

  “You believe the testimony against Thomas Shilton strong enough to prosecute him?”

  “Do you not?” he replied, with one quizzically raised eyebrow. (It was this skill of his I was trying, with little success, to emulate. Perhaps it is a talent inbred only in the nobility.)

  “I see no other likely culprit,” I agreed, “yet I admit to misgivings.”

  “Why?” Lord Gilbert was not pulling at his chin. I thought this significant.

  “I have met the man. I said once before, you may remember, that he seems incapable of such a crime.”

  “What do you think me capable of, Hugh?”

  He caught me unready for such a question. I was silent.

  “I am a calm, reflective man, am I not? Most of the time?”

  I agreed that this was so.

  “But in battle, when my blood was hot, I have hewed men limb from limb with no regard. Is there a thing which raises a man’s blood more than battle?”

  “Jealousy, perhaps,” I answered.

  “Precisely,” he said, and smacked me on the knee. “You take my point readily.”

  “Then what is to be done?” I replied.

  “Your discoveries and the verdict of the coroner’s court must be presented to the sheriff at Oxford. I have delayed departure for Goodrich long enough. I will leave justice in your hands, Master Hugh. When the weather improves you must go to Oxford.

  “I will send Arthur and two others with you. An unaccompanied bailiff is more easily dismissed than a man who commands a retinue. I know Sir Roger.”

  I nodded understanding of what was expected of me. Indeed, distasteful as I found it to imagine Thomas Shilton performing the sheriff’s dance at the end of a rope, I saw no other course. Perhaps the jurors would decide our evidence flimsy and release the fellow.

  Then justice for Margaret Smith might not be done. But to hang the wrong man would give no peace to the girl’s spirit, either.

  I changed the subject. Through the castle walls and muffling snow the dismal ringing of the passing bell could yet be heard. I enquired of Lord Gilbert who was dying.

  “Some cotter in the Weald. I know him not. A tenant of the bishop.”

  “My patient,” I said. “I feared this would be the outcome.”

  “Of what does the man suffer?” Lord Gilbert inquired.

  “Old age, and a broken hip.”

  “Ah…well, either will suffice to end a man’s life.”

  “I must call on him on my way home,” I said.

  “Home? Oh, you speak of Galen House. Ha…this is now your home,” he exclaimed, sweeping his hand about him as he did so. “Galen House will be cold, but I will have a fire laid in your room here, and bread and meat provided.”

  “I will return shortly. I must visit Galen House for more of the draught I use to ease the man’s discomfort.”

  “You take this man’s death hard, I think,” he observed.

  “Perhaps. More so than some others.”

  “Why so? You admit little hope of saving one injured such as he, and so far past his prime.”

  “He has a daughter. She will be orphaned.”

  “Has she no family to care for her?”

  “Half-brothers, but they resent their father’s second wife and her offspring, so will have no truck with the girl.”

  “Hmm.” Lord Gilbert went to pulling at his chin, which in this case I thought a good sign.

  “She’ll be the vicars’ responsibility. How old is the lass? It’ll be their charge to provide for a ward of the bishop’s manor.”

  “A child, m’lord. She is perhaps twelve or thirteen years, but very slight for her age, I think.”

  “Old enough to work in the scullery?”

  “Yes, I should say.”

  “Quick-witted? Obedient?” he asked.

  “She seems so. Devoted to her father and willing to do all to ease him.”

  “Then if the vicars will discharge her, and they surely will, as she’ll bring them no advantage, you can hire her as scullery maid…if you wish.”

  “I will tell her so this very evening. She frets of what will become of her. This news will ease her mind when she will be distraught enough that her father is leaving her.”

  I did not delay taking a draught to Henry atte Bridge by first visiting his bed empty-handed. Rather, I made my way directly to Galen House. It seemed cold and empty. Well, it was cold and empty, but I mean that it seemed already no longer my home. I wondered if it ever would be again. If it was, it would mean that I had failed at my new position. I resolved not to inhabit the place again, although memories of the house remained warm, if the house itself often was not.

  Alice answered my knock at the cottage door. It seemed to me I always visited the place in darkness, and once again was compelled to stand within the door, shaking snow from my feet and cloak, while I waited for my eyes to become accustomed to the shadows.

  This acclimation took less time than earlier visits, for a fire burned brightly on the hearth-stone, sending light to all corners of the hut. There was a measure of warmth, as well, and I could not help but observe the flames with some surprise.

  Alice saw the object of my gaze, and said, “Your wood, sir. Woodman said as ’twas you told him to bring it.”

  I remembered. Four days ago, had it been?

  “Father’s near gone. I thought to keep ’im warm.”

  “You have done well,” I told her. “Does he rest easy?”

  “Aye. But he’ll try to rise now an’ again. He conjures my mother, and would go to her.”

  “I have another draught. Help me raise him and we’ll see if he can take some of it.”

  Alice went to the far side of the bed and together we got her father vertical enough that he could take a few swallows. A brief light of reason flickered in his eyes as he tried to gulp the potion. I believe his wits were active enough that he remembered the relief it brought.

  “Has the vicar been here?” I asked the girl when our work was done.

  “Aye. Went to him this mornin’. I was sure father would not last ’til sixth hour.”

  “But he did,” I said. “Did Father Thomas offer Extreme Unction?”

  “Nay. Said as how father might live an’ what sorrow would then follow. I was to send for him if father took worse. I went to t’vicarage just before ninth hour to tell ’im father was failin’. He set t’curate to ringin’ t’passin’ bell, but he ain’t come yet. Will father live the night, Master Hugh?”

  I went back to the sleeping figure, now resting q
uietly, for the draught had done its work, and placed my ear against his chest. His breath came in shallow gasps. I feared briefly that the weight of my inclined head might stop it altogether. A thin rattle in the throat accompanied each choking breath.

  I shook my head. “No, I will not give you false hope. He wishes to go to your mother, you say?”

  The girl nodded, her throat too full for words.

  “God is merciful to those who love Him. He will grant this request soon. I will stay, if you wish it. When the time is near I will fetch Father Thomas or one of the others.”

  There was nothing to do but wait, and feed the fire. The curfew bell sounded, then the steady reverberation of the passing bell continued, louder now, for the snow had stopped, and the peal was unmuffled. The child sat cross-legged on the ground, gazing into the fire. I saw at intervals the reflection of a tear on her cheek and my heart was heavy for her grief. I sat on a stool across the flames and listened to her father breathe. I have learned that as a man’s breath weakens, it becomes more noisesome, like some men; the most clamorous are often least effective at their business.

  I heard, over the snapping of fresh wood on the fire, a sigh. The child was weeping again. “Do you mourn your father,” I asked, “or yourself?”

  The girl sniffled and rubbed a sleeve against her nose. If she was to work in the castle scullery, that behavior must be changed.

  “I know not,” she whispered. “I know my father will go to God, so it is unseemly to sorrow overmuch. But he has cared for me. Now I must make my path in the world and I know not how.”

  “Lord Gilbert,” I told her, “has made me bailiff of his manor here. There is work and a place for you at the castle kitchen, if you wish it and the vicars will release you.”

  This announcement did little to staunch her tears, but she raised her head and looked about rather than stare dimly into the coals, as had been her practice. Then a slight smile turned the corner of her lips, incongruous with the tears which continued to flow.

  “My brothers would storm, to see me live at t’castle. Told me yesterday, when father dies I am to leave this house…where I go they care not.”

  “Then they will not care that you find a place at the castle,” I said.

  “Oh, they’ll care ’bout that,” she explained. “They’d not care was I to perish, as how they meant. They’ll care was I to prosper.”

  “Shhh,” I said, and listened to Henry atte Bridge’s labored breathing. His chest was rising and falling more quickly. I rose from the stool. “It is time…I will fetch Father Thomas.”

  The sky had cleared while I sat gazing into the fire, waiting with Alice for death. The world was all white and silver, from the ground beneath my feet to the sky and stars and crescent moon above. I might have enjoyed a walk on such a night had my destination been other than it was, and my feet warmer.

  It took some time and much thumping at the vicarage door to rouse Father Thomas. He suffers the disease of the ears, which this night was a blessing, for the tolling of the passing bell just outside the vicarage did not much disturb his sleep.

  “Master Hugh! What is your need? I did not know of your return.”

  I explained the reason for my call, and the vicar went immediately about gathering the tools of this unhappy business: his surplice and stole, and the blessed sacrament. Rather than rouse his clerk from bed, he appointed me to attend him as server, so I led him to the Weald ringing a bell and carrying a lantern. As we passed the church I saw a face peer whitely from the porch and a few minutes later, as we turned from Mill Street into the Weald, the passing bell went silent. To the great relief, no doubt, of he who must ring it and his assistant, and the neighbors of the church.

  Henry atte Bridge was not conscious when we arrived at his hut, so could not confess his sins. This troubled Alice, but Father Thomas reassured her that the blessed sacrament would suffice for her father’s entry to the next world. He then pried open the man’s mouth, placed the wafer on his tongue, and clamped it shut. A prayer, and the business was done, which was well, for as the vicar stood, his task complete, Henry atte Bridge produced a great sigh and breathed no more.

  “Will you have a wake?” I asked Alice.

  “Nay. I’ve nothing to offer any. My brothers will not provide.”

  “Have you a shroud…or coffin?”

  “I bought a shroud. I’ve no one to carry ’im to churchyard, though.”

  “Your brothers will not do even this for their father?” I asked.

  “I will not ask them,” she replied.

  “You will not need to,” I told her. Midnight or not, I strode to the first of the brothers’ huts and pounded on the door until an angry face appeared. This visage was not, I suspect, any more inflamed than my own.

  I told the fellow in few words what I thought of his filial devotion, and in my remarks managed to insert announcement of my new authority as bailiff at Bampton Castle. He was a tenant, as was his father, of the Bishop of Exeter, but I knew he would prefer to be on good terms with Lord Gilbert’s bailiff. I ended my tirade by telling him what I expected of him and his brother when the new day dawned. He tugged at his forelock in acquiescence, and I turned and stalked back to the girl and the vicar. I had rather enjoyed telling the fellow what I thought of him, and what I required he do. This, I recognize, showed a lack of humility and is a sin. I enjoyed it, nevertheless, as I think did Father Thomas. It is the nature of sin to be pleasurable, else we would have less trouble avoiding it. The vicar grinned at me as I returned to Alice’s door. My words must have carried through the still night, which meant that other cotters in the Weald heard the scolding as well. This, I reasoned, was probably a good thing.

  Father Thomas, his work temporarily complete, went out into the snow to the vicarage. I would have stayed to sit up with the girl but she would not hear of it. “I will wash him and stitch him in his shroud. You can do naught for him in death.” She did not add, although she might have, that I had done little for him in life, either.

  The funeral was set for the sixth hour. I determined to attend: the man had been my charge, and I was eager to learn if Alice’s cantankerous brothers accepted my authority.

  Late next morning, after a maslin loaf and a pint of ale, I walked out the castle gate, and a few steps later turned from Mill Street to the Weald. Fifty yards down the path I saw mourners preparing for the procession to the church. Henry atte Bridge lay on the ground before his hut, his body sewn into a crude homespun hempen shroud. The plant and its seeds, I mused, had eased the man from this life, and would accompany his bones to the next.

  As I approached two men lifted the body to a crude bier: two rough planks supported at either end by two short poles. Two more men stood silently, ready to assist the others at the ends of these shafts. One I recognized as the brother who had received my wrath twelve hours before. He studied the overflowing banks of Shill Brook intently, refusing to meet my eyes.

  Alice stood behind the bier, her head high, and as she saw me turn into the lane I thought I saw the flicker of a smile – no, a smirk – cross her lips. Behind her stood Thomas de Bowlegh’s curate and a cortege of mourners, including what must have been the brothers’ wives and children. The assembly, for a cotter’s funeral, was quite acceptable.

  I stood away from the lane as the four bearers bent to their burden, then set off for the church. They had, I realized, been waiting for me, on whose orders I know not. I found myself, after Alice, in the position of chief mourner. I dropped in beside her as the bier passed and silently, but for the deceased’s frolicking grandchildren, we traveled up Church View Street to the Church of St Beornwald.

  The procession stopped at the lych gate for prayers, then entered the church through the porch, and Henry on his planks was laid at the entrance to the chancel. Thomas de Bowlegh said the mass, and preached a brief sermon. This met the approval of most, standing about in the nave on cold feet as we were, but I think Alice was peeved that her father could draw no
more from the vicar than a few sentences about the brevity and uncertainty of life.

  The grave-diggers had troublesome work until they chopped through the topmost layer of frozen soil, but we eventually got Henry atte Bridge laid properly away, his bones joining the hundreds, perhaps thousands, who went before, each generation raising the level of the churchyard a few more inches above the surrounding soil.

  In scattered groups the mourners departed. It was time to speak to Thomas de Bowlegh about the child. I asked first what heriot he would demand of her and the brothers.

  “They have little enough,” the vicar answered. “A good hen, or perhaps a sheep, will be all I shall get from them.”

  “And what will you do with the child? Her older brother inherits, little as that may be.”

  “She must be put out to work…somewhere. I have servants enough.”

  “I will employ her at the castle, if that suits you,” I replied.

  The vicar was, as I suspected he might be, pleased to have the matter so neatly resolved. He wrung my hand enthusiastically.

  Alice observed this conversation from the gate in the churchyard wall, far enough away that she could not hear our words, but close enough that she could read my face as I turned from the vicar and advanced to her place. Tears yet found their way from her eyes, but she smiled through them. “He will release me?” she asked.

  “Aye. Now run to your home and gather your possessions, everything you can carry, whether it be yours or your father’s. Your brothers will gather their wits soon enough and collect all. You must do so first. Take your goods to the castle straight away. Do not hesitate. Once your chattels are within the castle, your brothers may chafe, but that will gain them nothing. Run, now!”

  She did, her feet throwing up fountains of snow as she sped past Galen House and disappeared around the curve of Church View.

  I made my own somewhat slower way back to the castle, with more gravity, I hoped, and once there found Cicily and told her to prepare a place for Alice atte Bridge. There! I complimented myself, you have discharged your Christian duty to an orphan, and may now turn with single mind to the business of Thomas Shilton and Sir Robert Mallory.