by Mel Starr
Beyond the chapel, on a narrow path which led south, was another unoccupied dwelling. It was a hundred paces from the chapel, the only house built along the little-traveled lane. The priest who served this chapel lived in a small chamber built away from the porch. This placed the chapel between his quarters and the distant house. If a squalling infant was hid in the house he’d not be likely to hear it, or if he did, might assume the racket came from some house nearer the chapel in the opposite direction.
This house was not so decayed as the one with a fallen roof, but it was missing chunks of daub, the thatching was rotting and no doubt inhabited by legions of mice, and one of the gable vents was nearly plugged where a rafter pole had given way and allowed thatch to cover the opening.
I hobbled past the house and saw in the mud a curious thing. Fresh footprints turned from the path to disappear in the overgrown toft. The house had surely been uninhabited for many years, I think. All around it was grown up in weeds and thistles. These obscured the footprints a few paces from the path so I could not follow them to see if they led to the door.
I glanced to the house, turned back to the path, then looked to the house again. Across the door, fastened to the jambs, rested an iron bar. This bar was not designed to keep folk out of the house, for it was held in place on one side by an iron lock large as my hand. This bar was in place to keep someone in the house, and other folk out. The bar, hasp, and lock were worth more than what might be left in an empty plague house.
No man was near me on the path, nor woman, either. The closest soul was a housewife more than a hundred paces to the north who sat upon a bench before her door, enjoying a watery sun while she mended some article of clothing. She would not hear what I said.
In a loud whisper, without breaking my limping gait, I said, “Amice, if you are in this house, knock upon the door.”
I slowed my already slack pace to give the woman time to reply, was she in the house. I was past the toft, near to a broken-down fence, when I heard the soft reply.
I sat heavily upon a pile of coppiced poles which had once, perhaps, been an enclosure in which sheep were folded. With my head bent to the ground so no man might see my moving lips, I said, “’Tis Master Hugh. Knock again if you hear.”
This time the answering tap came immediately.
“If you are alone, knock once. If your children are there also, knock twice.”
Two gentle raps sounded upon the door. I was surprised that children could remain so silent.
“Are you well? Can you travel this night? Knock once if yes, twice if no.”
A single soft blow rattled the door upon its rusting hinges. I turned my face again to the ground and said, “An hour after night falls I will come for you. Be ready. Knock once if you understand.”
The answering knock was immediate, and straight after I heard her whisper through the door: “Men come in the night. I hear them walk about, sometimes rattling the door.”
I was warned. Releasing Amice Thatcher, now that I had found her, might prove troublesome.
Chapter 13
I did not wish to raise suspicion by retracing my steps through the town. Poor men may often be seen upon the roads, but they generally do not change their destination and return to some starting-place. I continued west, toward another village, West Hanney, until I came to a place where the road crossed a small stream. No man was about to see me, so I abandoned both the road and my limp and plunged through the forest northward, until I guessed I was beyond Sir Philip’s meadow. I turned then to the east, found the stone wall which edged the meadow, and soon came upon Arthur. He had heard my approach, and hid himself behind a large beech tree till he was sure who came his way.
I told him of my discovery, and we sat with our backs to the wall and plotted how we might free Amice Thatcher.
“No guards in the day?” Arthur asked.
“I saw none.”
“Sure of their prisoner.”
“Amice warned that a watchman is assigned in the night. We must approach the house with caution. The men who seized her in Abingdon must have known that Sir Philip held Sybil Montagu in his derelict hencoop. It gave them the notion to capture Amice and hold her in much the same way, for a kind of ransom.”
“Ransom bein’ she must tell ’em where the chapman found ’is loot?”
“Aye.”
We sat with our backs to the wall and consumed a cold supper of bread and cheese, waiting for darkness. Before the forest was obscured I told Arthur to join me in searching out some sturdy fallen tree limbs. Such were few, for villagers had recently scoured this wood seeking downed boughs for winter fuel.
“What we need these for?” Arthur asked, when we had found what we sought. “We got daggers.”
“They are not for a beadle, or a guard. If we see such fellows, we’ll try to avoid them.”
A nearly full moon would rise this night a short time after darkness came. I wished to have Amice Thatcher safely out of the village before its light would make our flight visible to an alert watcher. When we were well away from East Hanney, moonlight would be welcome.
Small as East Hanney was, it might have a beadle assigned to watch and warn, or we might run afoul of a man sent to patrol the path and toft around Amice’s jail. We must be cautious, or risk joining the woman and her children as captives.
We passed Bruce and the old palfrey as through the dark forest we sought the road. They whinnied softly, no doubt hungry and thirsty and curious as to why they were so often tethered in this place.
Occasional clouds obscured the stars, so we were able to enter the village in such darkness that, was there a beadle prowling the streets, he could not have seen us unless he was nearly upon us. He would have been more likely to hear us, so I urged Arthur to silence as we crept past the chapel and entered the path to the house where Amice Thatcher awaited us.
As we entered this narrow, overgrown lane, the cloud which had covered the village drifted on, and the rising moon to the east provided increased visibility. I motioned to Arthur to follow, and we hugged the chapel wall till we reached the western end of the structure. From that place to the house there was no cover.
I strained to see if any watchman was near, but such effort was useless. If a man was near, he probably sat with his back to a wall or a tree, hidden in the shadows. Unless he moved or coughed we would never know of his presence.
We stood silently against the chapel wall, and in the stillness of the night I heard a sound which should not have been there. Arthur heard also, and plucked at my sleeve. A man snored softly somewhere near. A nearby house, with a torn window, might account for such a low rumble, but there was no house close, yawning window or not. A guard, asleep and failing his duty, was somewhere near.
So long as we heard him snoring we could be sure we were undiscovered, unless two men were posted here, and one remained alert while the other dozed. That was a risk we must take. Soon the moon would lift above bare branches and the door to Amice’s prison would be illuminated as if with a torch. We must act or flee.
If we reached the house undetected the barred door would become our next obstacle. That was why I wanted branches from the forest floor. I hoped that the wood of the jamb was decayed enough that, when two poles were used together, we might lever the bolts from the wood.
“Don’t see nuthin’,” Arthur whispered after we had spent several minutes staring into darkness toward the abandoned house. “Where do you suppose that fellow is?”
“See the tree across the lane from the house?”
Arthur nodded.
“He sleeps propped against its roots, I think.”
I whispered to Arthur my plan to use the downed branches to pry the bar and hasp from the door jamb.
“What if it don’t work?”
“The house is much decayed. A plague house, from many years past, I believe. Daub has broken away from the wattles in many places. If we cannot force the door we will go to the rear of the house, find some pl
ace where wattles are open, and pull them away. If need be, we can cut through with our daggers.”
I touched Arthur upon his arm and we crept from the protection of the chapel’s shadow. I expected with each step to hear a loud challenge from an alerted watchman.
We reached the door unobserved and unheard. In the silence of the night I heard the watchman’s steady snores. I whispered through the door to Amice that we had arrived.
“We are ready,” came the reply.
I sent Arthur to the path to watch and be ready should our business awaken the sleeping sentry. Then I held one pole against the door just below the iron bar and near the hasp. The other limb I fitted over the first pole and under the bar, which was just far enough out from the door that the branch would slide beneath it.
The house was surely untenanted for many years, but the jamb was not so decayed as I had hoped. I pried so forcefully against the iron bar that the branch I used for the purpose cracked under the strain. It was more rotted than the jamb.
The sound of the pry-bar snapping seemed loud as a thunderclap. I stopped all movement and listened to hear if the watchman would awaken. He spluttered, and seemed to shift his position, but a few heartbeats later his regular breathing resumed. The breaking branch had not awakened him. Yet.
I dropped the useless pole as Arthur appeared at my elbow. “What was that?” he whispered.
I told him, bid him follow, and together we hastened to the gable end of the house and sat low against the wall, watching and listening, to learn if the sentry might awaken.
The moon was now risen nearly above the bare topmost branches of the trees. We could no longer work at opening the door. Any man who stood there in the moonlight would be seen from a hundred paces away.
I motioned again to Arthur, stood, and crept to the rear of the house. I whispered to Arthur that he should remain at the corner of the house, watching for the guard, who might yet awaken, while I sought some place on this western, shadowed side of the house where daub might have fallen from the wattles.
There was a door here, also, but if the front door was barred, surely the rear would be, so I had given little thought to breaching the opening. I went to the door first, however, and saw there two planks nailed across the door. No man would silently pry them from the opening.
There were several places at the rear of the house where over the years rain, lashed by a west wind, had caused daub to crumble and fall free of the house. I selected one of the larger of these perforations, inserted my dagger at one end, and began quietly to cut through the wattles. It was but a matter of a few minutes and I had cut through a length of wattles nearly as high as my arm is long. The thin twigs were decayed from contact with rain, and pulled free of the interior daub more readily than I had expected.
This work I did as silently as possible, but Amice heard me, of course, and when I had drawn the wattles free of the gap and pushed the daub inside the house away, she whispered a warning from within the hole.
“’Tis you, Master Hugh? Be on guard. I heard a man circle the house not an hour past.”
Amice had no sooner spoken than Arthur was at my elbow. “That guard woke up,” he whispered.
If the fellow approached the house and inspected the door closely he would see the poles, one broken, which I had used in a failed attempt to force the door. If he walked behind the house he might see the hole I had punctured in the wall.
I thought briefly we might crawl into the house and hide there, hoping this sentinel would see neither the poles nor the opening in the wall. This notion I quickly abandoned. If he saw either the poles or the hole and raised the alarm, we would be trapped in the house with Amice and her children.
Five or six paces behind the house was a thicket where perhaps a tenant had at one time built a hutch. This had collapsed over time, and a clump of bushes had grown up amid the ruins. This vegetation was the only shelter I could see in the toft. I grasped Arthur’s arm and ran toward it. We were briefly visible in the moonlight as we ducked from the shadow of the house to the thicket. If the approaching watchman was alert he might see us, and as we hid in the foliage I expected him to cry out. He did not.
We waited and watched and soon heard the fellow talking to himself as he circled the house. He appeared around the corner of the dwelling, clutching the broken pole. His words were indistinct, but what I could hear seemed to question the discovery of the broken branch and how it came to be at the door of the house.
A few more steps and the fellow would be aside the break I had carved in the wall. I waited to see what he would do if he found it, having no way to prevent the discovery.
When he came to the breach he fell silent for a moment, laid the pole aside, and knelt to peer into the black interior of the house.
“What’s ’ere?” he said, speaking again to himself. Then louder, “You, in there… you there?”
He did not wait for an answer, but crawled into the hole. He was halfway through when I heard a muffled thud and saw the fellow cease moving and lie flat.
“Come,” I said to Arthur, and ran for the house.
The watchman lay still and silent in the hole. I grasped his heels and pulled him from the opening. He was as peaceful as a corpse, and stank, and I wondered what had befallen him. I learned soon enough.
“Master Hugh?” Amice whispered.
“Aye. Send your children out, quickly, then follow.”
The two children crawled from the house and Amice followed. “What happened to him?” I asked, looking to the watchman.
Amice stood and whispered an explanation. “They left an iron pot in the house, for want of a privy. I hit ’im with it.”
The watchman began to stir. Even a stroke across the head from an iron pot will not put a man to sleep forever. Well, it might if Arthur delivered the blow, but not if a frail woman did so.
The man must be prevented from giving alarm. Arthur carried the hempen cord. I bound the guard’s wrists tight behind him, and his ankles I tied to his wrists. Alfred’s surcoat was threadbare and easily torn. I ripped a sleeve from the garment, stuffed a fragment into the guard’s mouth, then tied the remainder tightly about his mouth. I told Arthur to take the man’s shoulders while I grasped his knees, then I bid Amice and her children follow.
We carried the sentry to the chapel. I hoped the door would be unbarred, and so it was. We deposited the man upon the flags, shut the door behind us, and fled the town. If the fellow was not soon able to free himself from his bonds, or shout for help with a mouth full of tattered wool, we would be able to escape at least as far as Marcham, where the church might again become a refuge.
The sleeping watchman was not a slender fellow. Carrying him had caused my wounds to ache, but there was no time to seek relief.
The moon illuminated the forest where Bruce and the palfrey awaited. Arthur lifted the children to the palfrey, one before him and one clinging to his back, and I drew Amice up to Bruce’s rump, there to cling to me behind the saddle. Her perch was precarious and I breathed a prayer that I would not need to spur Bruce to a gallop. The woman could never retain her seat if I did so.
A mile north of East Hanney the road crosses a brook upon a narrow stone bridge. As we approached Bruce sensed the water and I realized that our beasts were thirsty. We dismounted, led them from the road to a place where the bank sloped gently to the water, and allowed them to drink their fill. They were surely hungry, as well, but I could do nothing about that.
We remounted and rode on toward Marcham. As we did I learned from Amice what had happened to her since she and her children were taken.
“Infirmarer said the children was makin’ too much noise, disturbin’ them as was ill… that’s why we was thrown out of the hospital,” she said. “But they wasn’t troublesome. I made sure we was no bother to anyone. He said as how someone complained to the abbot, an’ the abbot told ’im we must go.”
“When you were taken from your house, what then?”
“’T
was as you said. Them as took us wanted to know where John found coins an’ jewels an’ such. Told ’em I knew not. Didn’t believe me.”
“You’ve been in that plague house since?”
“Aye, most of the time. Told me we’d be set free when I named the place where the treasure was hid. How could I do that? I don’t know. Second night we was held, little Tom begun to weep, an’ the watchman heard. Spoke through the door for me to quiet ’im. I tried, but ’e was right fearful… place was so dark at night, an’ we was hungry. Next day them what took us come again, asked if I was ready to tell ’em where John’s treasure was. I couldn’t, so one stayed with the children while the other took me across a field and into a wood. Feared what ’e was about, but I went. Feared what would ’appen to Tom an’ Randal did I not. We come to a pit dug in the forest, covered over with branches. The man said we’d be put there if I couldn’t keep the children quiet. Told ’im I could do that was they not so hungry.”
“But you were not harmed?”
“Nay. I told the children what would become of us if they were not silent. They’re old enough to understand bein’ put in a pit is worse’n bein’ prisoner in a house… even an old house what leaks when it rains.”
The moon lighted our way to Marcham, and when we entered the village I considered once again seeking shelter in the church. But Arthur and I had done so already, so pursuers might seek us there, even if it was squires to Sir John Trillowe and not Sir Philip Rede who followed this time. And I did not relish sleeping again upon a cold stone floor.
We instead drew the horses to a halt before the vicarage. Father Maurice had expressed disdain for Sir Philip. Perhaps he held similar views of Sir John. So I hoped.
’Twas near midnight, so I was required to pound vigorously upon the vicarage door for some time before the clerk opened to us. He was in a foul mood, as I might be if awakened and drawn from my bed on a cold autumn night.