by Mel Starr
The cloak was as warm as it was soft, and protected me well from the gale which swept from the Forest of Dean across our path. We arrived in Gloucester before nightfall and again sought shelter with the monks of St Peter’s Abbey. The abbot seemed displeased to provide bed and board for miscreants, but as Hamo and Walter were not yet judged guilty of a crime he swallowed his objection and remained true to the rules of his order.
This abbot would have seen us on our way next morning, but the wind howled down from the mountains of Wales – better a wind should do so than the Welsh, Sir John remarked – and snow spattered the cobbles of the monastery yard. Sir John and I were uneasy, so elected to remain within the monastery’s hospitable walls another day. We did not wish to be caught on the way in a great snow.
The next day dawned bright and cold, the snow of the previous day leaving but a dusting on our path. The mud of the road froze in the night, so the road was firm beneath the horses’ hooves. But it was cold. Sir John gazed often at me that day, snug in my cloak, before, as the sun sank beneath the bare trees at our backs, we reached Bampton and shelter.
Chapter 17
This tale has grown longer than I intended. My parchment is nearly consumed, and it will be many weeks before I can visit Oxford to replenish my supply. Your candle no doubt burns low and a warm bed calls. So I will conclude this account.
Hubert Shillside convened the coroner’s jury in the Church of St Beornwald on a bitterly cold first day of January. Twelve townsmen listened as Roger and I gave evidence. The juggler did not prevaricate, and needed no prodding from me to present a full report of all he knew. There was no reason he should not, for when the coroner questioned Hamo Tanner, the wrestler freely admitted his deed. His emotions came near the surface – remarkable in so sturdy a man – when he justified the revenge he had taken against his daughter’s slayer.
Nevertheless, the jury brought a charge of murder against Hamo and his son. Sir John and the grooms took Hamo to Oxford and the sheriff while I kept Roger with me at Bampton, where I could be certain he would not flee before we should be called to give witness at the trial.
Sir John returned two days later from his mission to the sheriff and reported that the king’s eyre would meet the next week. Sir Roger would send for me when a day was set for the trial. That week passed quickly, for there was much work on the manor for a new bailiff to learn.
Geoffrey Thirwall, the steward, arrived in Bampton two days before Twelfth Night. He searched diligently for some flaw in my work, or that of John, the reeve, but found only minor complaints to issue against us. Well, it is his business to root out that which is wrong and right it.
I was some worried that tenants and villeins might discover some defect in my labor and protest against me at hallmote. But none did. Perhaps because I had done so little on the estate that I had few opportunities to blunder. Given a full year before next hallmote, I was sure I could err often enough that some would find reason to complain of me.
Two days after Epiphany, Sir Roger sent a messenger to summon witnesses to the trials of Hamo and Walter Tanner. I was nearly as reluctant to attend as I had been for the trial of Thomas Shilton. In the days before Roger and I were summoned, I tried to think what I, had I been a father in Hamo’s place, would have done. I fear I would have acted no differently. This is not to say I justify the murder Hamo did. But any might be capable of the same crime in the circumstance.
I will say that I was not sorry when the jury made of my labors no consequence. The burghers of Oxford were mostly men who rose from the commons, and they understood Hamo’s remark that he did not trust gentlemen to do justice for him against one of their own. They brought a verdict of not guilty. As Sir Robert drew first, Walter and Hamo were justified in defending themselves.
The judge, Sir William Barnhill, was the same I had caused to interrupt his journey home two months earlier. He recognized me, I knew, when I was called to the stand to testify, for he glared at me through narrowed eyes all the while I spoke, as if to say, “You’d better have it right this time.”
When he dismissed jury and defendants, I watched to see how Hamo and Walter would receive Roger. I was too far away to hear their words, but they walked from the room in seemingly amicable conversation. Perhaps a good juggler was hard enough to find that Roger could be forgiven his disloyal truth.
I had no wish to return to Bampton that evening in the dark, so returned to my inn for another night. I stayed this occasion at the Foxes’ Lair, a more substantial place than the Stag and Hounds, suitable to my rising position in the world. The soup and ale were thicker, as well as the beds, at the Foxes’ Lair.
I retrieved my old friend, Bruce, from the inn stable at dawn and set out across Castle Mill Stream Bridge. But not for Bampton. There was another question I must ask before I could be satisfied that I knew all there was of the events I had seen and probed since St Michael’s Day. At Eynsham I took the road to Witney and on to Burford. Bruce would have turned for Bampton at Eynsham; it took a strong hand on the reins to persuade him that we could not yet go home.
I guided Bruce down Burford High Street, to the bridge across the Windrush. Ice clogged the riverbanks. The cold current flowed only in the middle of the stream. I turned from the road to the path which led to the smith and the mill.
Smoke rose from Alard’s forge, and I heard once again the clang of his hammer as I approached. But ’twas not the smith I sought. My question was for his daughter. As I drew near the building Bruce neighed. He was heard between the strokes of the hammer, for the tolling of the blows ceased and Alard appeared in the opening door. Behind him, craning her head to see past his broad shoulders, I saw Margaret.
I thought – perhaps I hoped – that I might not find her there. Perhaps, I mused, Thomas Shilton would take her for wife yet, and I would need to seek her in Shilton village. But not so. She pressed past her father to greet me, her belly large beneath her surcoat, her time near come.
“Master Hugh,” she greeted me. “Who do you seek?”
“You. I have news, and a question,” I replied.
Alard peered beneath bushy eyebrows from Margaret to me, then grunted and returned to his work. I was pleased, for I wished Margaret to speak freely and thought my question might be too raw for her to wish to answer before her father.
I left Bruce tied to a willow, where he began to munch contentedly on the stems. I led Margaret along the river while I told her of Eleanor and Sir Robert, of Hamo and Walter and the trial. She shuddered when I told her of Sir Robert’s death.
“And now,” I said, “I wish one thing of you. I have a question…I believe I know the answer, but I desire confirmation. The night last spring, when you were heard quarreling in the churchyard late at night with a man thought to be Thomas Shilton: that man was Sir Robert Mallory, was it not?”
She hesitated, then nodded “yes.”
“Do others know of this?” I asked.
“Aye. Thomas would be told…but no other.”
“Your father?”
“Nay. He has not asked. I have not volunteered.”
“Your words, in the churchyard; did you believe Sir Robert would make place for you?”
“Aye,” she hesitated. “He promised…if I was got with child, to provide. He promised a life of ease, would I be ’is mistress.” Margaret spoke in a whisper, a tear in her voice if not yet on her cheek. Perhaps there were in her no more tears to shed for this misery.
“What of Thomas?” I asked.
“You said, ‘one question,’” she replied. “That is a second. But I will answer. If the child be a girl, he will have me and rear it as his own. He will forgive my foolishness. If it be a boy, he will not. He will have only his own son inherit his holding, not another man’s offspring.”
“You are content with this bargain?” I questioned.
“Aye,” she whispered. “I betrayed him for riches and place I thought I might win with my appearance. How can I begrudge his wish for an hei
r of his own?”
We turned from our way at the mill. The grinding wheel and stone made continued conversation difficult, and there was little more to say. We returned in silence to the forge, where the rhythmic clang of the hammer proclaimed her father still at work.
I wished her well, retrieved Bruce from the willow he had munched so far as he could reach, and set off for the Windrush bridge and home. It was near dark when I arrived at Bampton Castle. Wilfred had closed the gate, and had to leave his quarters to heave up the bar and shove the gates open to admit me. He said he was pleased to see me home again. This I doubt, as my arrival took him from his fire into a cold January night.
A week later an ironmonger called at Bampton Castle. His was a regular visit, for he supplied Lord Gilbert’s farrier and the town smith from the stock in his heavily weighted wagon. I asked if he supplied stock to Alard, the Burford smith. He did.
“How does he?” I asked. “And his daughter, is she well?”
“Oh, aye,” he replied. “An’ Alard’s a grandfather. Margaret had a babe four days past. A fine, healthy little lass, too, she is.”
Afterword
The Unquiet Bones is a work of fiction. But some of the characters in the tale were real people. The Lord of Bampton Castle in the 1360s was indeed Gilbert Talbot, and his wife was Petronilla. Alas, he had no sister named Joan.
John Wyclif was real, as was his service as Master of Balliol College. Only scholars will know the small liberty I have taken with the dates of his career there. Roger de Cottesford was High Sheriff of Oxford from 1362 to 1365. Thomas de Bowlegh was one of three vicars assigned to the Church of St Beornwald in the mid-fourteenth century. All other characters and the events portrayed are fictional.
Bampton Castle was enlarged in the early fourteenth century by Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke. It was for several centuries one of the largest castles in England in terms of area surrounded by the curtain wall. By the mid-seventeenth century it was largely in ruins. All that remains in 2008 is a part of the west gatehouse and a ten-meter length of the curtain wall, now incorporated into a farm called Ham Court.
Lady Petronilla’s enameled jewel box may be seen in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The Church of St Beornwald was renamed in the sixteenth century and since then has been called the Church of St Mary the Virgin. It is essentially unchanged since the thirteenth century, except in name.
Time has not been kind to the old church. Time is hardly ever kind to anything. The town is currently attempting to raise £390,000 to replace the roof. The need is urgent, as the safety of the current roof – and therefore the entire church – cannot be assured after 2009. As of February 2008, £170,000 has been raised. £220,000 more is needed to prevent the church from closing permanently. Contributions to this project will be gratefully accepted. Checks should be made out to “Bampton CCC Church Roof Appeal” and sent to Mr Chris Ruck, Oban House, Bridge Street, Bampton, Oxon, OX18 2HA. To see photos of this wonderful medieval church visit the author’s website: www.melstarr.net
Schoolcraft, MI
July 2008
An extract from the second chronicle of
Hugh de Singleton, surgeon
Chapter 1
I awoke at dawn on the ninth day of April, 1365. Unlike French Malmsey, the day did not improve with age.
There have been many days when I have awoken at dawn but have remembered not the circumstances three weeks hence. I remember this day not because of when I awoke, but why, and what I was compelled to do after. Odd, is it not, how one extraordinary event will burn even the mundane surrounding it into a man’s memory.
I have seen other memorable days in my twenty-five years. I recall the day my brother Henry died of plague. I was a child, but I remember well Father Aymer administering extreme unction. Father Aymer wore a spice bag about his neck to protect him from the malady. It did not, and he also succumbed within a fortnight. I can see the pouch yet, in my mind’s eye, swinging from the priest’s neck on a hempen cord as he bent over my stricken brother.
I remember clearly the day in 1361 when William of Garstang died. William and I and two others shared a room on St Michael’s Street, Oxford, while we studied at Baliol College. I comforted William as the returning plague covered his body with erupting buboes. For my small service he gave me, with his last breaths, his three books. One of two these volumes was Surgery by Henry de Mondeville. How William came by this book I know not. But I see now in this gift the hand of God, for I read de Mondeville’s work and changed my vocation.
Was it then God’s will that William die a miserable death so that I might find God’s vision for my life? This I cannot accept, for I saw William’s body covered with oozing pustules. I will not believe such a death is God’s choice for any man. Here I must admit a disagreement with Master Wyclif, who believes that all is foreordained. But out of evil God may draw good, as I believe He did when he introduced me to the practice of surgery. Perhaps the good I have done with my skills balances the torment William suffered in his death. But not for William.
I remember well the day I met Lord Gilbert Talbot. I stitched him up after his leg was opened by a kick from a groom’s horse on Oxford High Street. This needlework opened my life to service to Lord Gilbert and the townsmen of Bampton, and brought me also the post of bailiff on Lord Gilbert’s manor at Bampton.
Other days return to my mind with less pleasure. I will not soon forget Christmas Day 1363, and the feast that day at Lord Gilbert’s Goodrich Castle hall. I had traveled there from Bampton to attend Lord Gilbert’s sister, the Lady Joan. The fair Joan had broken a wrist in a fall from a horse. I was summoned to set the break. It was foolish of me to think I might win this lady, but love has hoped more foolishness than that. A few days before Christmas a guest, Sir Charles de Burgh, arrived at Goodrich. Lord Gilbert invited him knowing well he might be a thief. Indeed, he stole Lady Joan’s heart. Between the second and third removes of the Christmas feast he stood and, for all in the hall to see, offered Lady Joan a clove-studded pear. She took the fruit and with a smile delicately drew a clove from the pear with her teeth. They married in September, a few days before Michaelmas, last year.
I digress. I awoke at dawn to thumping on my chamber door. I blinked sleep from my eyes, crawled from my bed, and stumbled to the door. I opened it as Wilfred the porter was about to rap on it again.
“It’s Alan…the beadle. He’s found.”
Alan had left his home to seek those who would violate curfew two days earlier. He never returned. His young wife came to me in alarm the morning of the next day. I sent John Holcutt, the reeve, to gather a party of searchers, but they found no trace of the man. John was not pleased to lose a day of work from six men. Plowing of fallow fields was not yet finished. Before I retired on Wednesday evening, John sought me out and begged not to resume the search the next day. I agreed. If Alan could not be found with the entire town aware of his absence, another day of poking into haymows and barns seemed likely also to be fruitless. It was not necessary.
“Has he come home?” I asked.
“Nay. An’ not likely to, but on a hurdle.”
“He’s dead?”
“Aye.”
“Where was he found?”
“Aside the way near to St Andrew’s Chapel.”
It was no wonder the searchers had not found him. St Andrew’s Chapel was near half a mile to the east. What, I wondered, drew him away from the town on his duties?
“Hubert Shillside has been told. He would have you accompany him to the place.”
“Send word I will see him straight away.”
I suppose I was suspicious already that this death was not natural. I believe it to be a character flaw if a man be too mistrustful. But there are occasions in my professions – surgery and bailiff – when it is good to doubt a first impression. Alan was not yet thirty years old. He had a half-yardland of Lord Gilbert Talbot and was so well thought of that despite his youth, Lord Gilbert’s tenant
s had at hallmote chosen him beadle these three years. He worked diligently, and bragged all winter that his four acres of oats had brought him nearly five bushels for every bushel of seed. A remarkable accomplishment, for his land was no better than any other surrounding Bampton. This success brought also some envy, I think, and perhaps there were wives who contrasted his achievement to the work of their husbands. But this, I thought, was no reason to kill a man.
I suppose a man may have enemies which even his friends know not of. I did consider Alan a friend, as did most others of the town. On my walk from Bampton Castle to Hubert Shillside’s shop and house on Church View Street, I persuaded myself that this must be a natural death. Of course, when a corpse is found in open country, the hue and cry must be raised even if the body be stiff and cold. So Hubert, the town coroner, and I, bailiff and surgeon, must do our work.
Alan was found but a few minutes from the town. Down Rosemary Lane to the High Street, then left on Bushey Row to the path to St Andrew’s Chapel. We saw – Hubert and I, and John Holcutt, who came also – where the body lay while we were yet far off. As we passed the last house on the lane east from Bampton to the chapel, we saw a group of men standing in the track at a place where last year’s fallow was being plowed for spring planting. They saw us approach, and stepped back respectfully as we reached them.
A hedgerow had grown up among rocks between the lane and the field. New leaves of pale green decorated stalks of nettles, thistles and wild roses. Had the foliage matured for another fortnight Alan might have gone undiscovered. But two plowmen, getting an early start on their day’s labor, found the corpse as they turned the oxen at the end of their first furrow. It had been barely light enough to see the white foot protruding from the hedgerow. The plowman who goaded the team saw it as he prodded the lead beasts to turn.