by Mel Starr
It was a small house, as are all of those in the bury, so the woman had but a few steps to reach the door and open it from any corner of the place. She drew the door open a crack to see who was there, did not recognize me, and immediately slammed it shut again. The day was far gone, night was near, and honest folk would soon be off the streets.
I pounded upon the door again. I heard voices within, but some time passed before the door again opened. The threadmaker scowled through the opening this time, recognized me, and asked my business.
“It regards Amice Thatcher, Amabel Maunder, and the men who have harmed them.”
The fellow opened his door wider and motioned for me to enter. His wife had heard me speak, and said, “You know what’s become of Amice an’ Amabel?”
“Aye. Amabel recovers from her injuries at St. John’s Hospital. Amice was held captive, but has been freed and is now safe with her children in a town not far from here.”
“Captive?” the woman said. “Why’d someone take Amice captive?”
“To discover from her the location of a treasure.”
“Amice has treasure?”
“Nay, but the men who took her thought she knew where riches were buried. She does not,” I added hastily.
“Who did this?” the threadmaker asked. “An’ why do you interest yourself? You said when you was here before you was a friend. Didn’t know Amice an’ Amabel had such friends,” he said, inspecting the quality and cut of my cotehardie.
“The men who took Amice and beat Amabel murdered a man in seeking his treasure. I believe I know who did so, but need more proofs before the Sheriff will act.”
“You a friend of the dead man?”
“Nay. I am bailiff to Lord Gilbert Talbot, on his manor of Bampton, where the murdered man was found.”
“You need proofs, why do you come here?”
“I believe that there are, in the abbey, monks who may know something of the matter.”
“Monks? Then why seek us?”
I turned to the woman. “I followed you from the abbey just now. Are you a servant there?”
“Aye. Wash their clothes.”
This was as I hoped.
“The abbot is displeased with me,” I said, “so will not permit me to enter the abbey. I cannot question monks if I cannot gain entrance to the place.”
“What did you do to offend Abbot Peter?”
“I am also a surgeon. Without the abbot’s permission, I treated a monk who suffered from a fistula.”
“Brother Theodore? Him who goes about with a cloth over ’is face?”
“Aye.”
“You could help ’im? He’s one of the few in the abbey who’s decent to folk like me.”
“His fistula is cured, if all goes well. I need to gain entrance to the abbey to speak to Brother Theodore, but the abbot forbids it. I require assistance.”
“From us?” the woman asked.
“From you. Do you return to the abbey Monday?”
“Aye.”
“When you leave it, hide under your surcoat a habit you have washed. I will wear it to enter the monastery, and when it has served its purpose you may return it, none the wiser. For this service I will pay you two pence.”
The woman peered at her husband in the darkening room, caught some signal from him, and agreed. I arranged to visit the house on Monday at the same time of day to take possession of the robe and cowl.
Two days must pass before I could put my plot into action – time enough to consider whether it be foolish or not. Generally, the wisdom or folly of a deed does not become apparent till after its completion, and so it was that all of the next day no serious flaw in my plan came to me.
Late Monday afternoon the washer-woman appeared with the black robe and cowl, as she had agreed, and I gave her two pennies for her temporary theft. She would be required to wash the habit again, for what I intended would likely leave the garment with a muddy hem.
I thanked the woman, bundled the robe under my arm, and hurried to the New Inn, where, if I did not make haste, I would miss my supper. If any man in the place noted the black woolen fabric folded under my arm he was too busy spooning pottage to his lips to consider what it might be.
By the time I finished my pottage and loaf the night was full dark, and when I left the New Inn I heard the bell of the abbey church announce compline. I would have nearly six hours to accomplish my task before vigils, when the monks would awaken for the office.
The moon would rise later this night, so only starlight showed the way as I walked north past St. Nicholas’s Church, following the boundary wall of the abbey. I soon came to a path leading eastwards, where the precinct was bounded only by the abbey ditch. When I reached a likely place where I might cross the ditch I donned the robe and cowl, then sat with my back against a small tree to give the monks time to return from the church to their dormitory and fall to sleep.
When I had nearly fallen to sleep myself, cold as the night was, I felt sure that the monks were snoring in their beds. I took off my shoes and tied them about my neck, raised the hem of the borrowed habit, and stepped into the dark water. My chauces would be soaked, but there was no helping that.
The ditch was deeper than I had expected and the muddy bed slippery. I was in above my knees before I could change my course and splash toward the bank inside the abbey wall.
I clambered up the bank and shook out the habit. An orchard occupies the north-east corner of the abbey grounds. I made for the nearest apple tree. There I sat, shivering from the effect of the cold water, and drew on my shoes. I waited there in the darkened orchard and watched as the waning moon began to appear through bare tree limbs to the east. After a time, when no man cried out a challenge, I felt ready to put my plan into effect.
My first step from the sheltering tree fell upon something soft, and when my foot slipped from the object I nearly turned an ankle. I thought at first I had trod upon some large, fallen, rotting apple. But not so. Apples do not have fur; dead cats do. Perhaps this feline had been pursuing rats when death overtook it. The discovery startled me, but my mind often works in curious ways, and I thought of a use for the animal. I picked it up by the tail and crept from one tree to another toward the infirmary.
From the infirmary I walked past the reredorter, feeling safe there. If any man saw me he would think a brother about some nocturnal relief. I had drawn the cowl over my head, the shadow would obscure my face, and the cat was grey and not likely to be seen dangling close by my leg.
After I passed between the reredorter and the dormitory, however, I needed to be more careful, for I was entering a space where no monk should be after compline, with or without a dead cat.
My goal was the guest house, and the hosteler’s chamber there. To reach the guest house my path lay past the abbot’s kitchen. There was a narrow entry between the kitchen and the guest hall which led toward the cloister. I ducked into the shadows of this entry and found the door to the kitchen. It was not locked. I entered, and when my eyes became accustomed to the gloom, found a large iron pot which hung over a cold hearth. I dropped the cat into m’lord abbot’s cook pot. With luck the cook would not soon discover it.
The door to the guest hall was just across the entryway from the abbot’s kitchen. I prayed that the hinges would not squeal and gently opened the door. The hinges were silent.
Brother Theodore’s small cell lay just inside the entrance. I rapped knuckles upon his door firmly enough, I hoped, to awaken him, but not so loudly that other sleepers nearby would be roused from their slumber.
The hosteler was not easily aroused, but eventually I heard the latch of his door lifted. His chamber had a narrow window of glass, so I saw his shape in the open door, and the dim moonlight allowed him to see a man standing before him. But there was not so much light that he knew me.
“’Tis Master Hugh,” I whispered.
“You? Hugh? But… m’lord abbot has banished you.”
“Aye. Which is why you m
ust bid me enter your chamber and close the door, that we may speak privily.”
“Oh, uh, aye. Enter.”
The hosteler closed the door behind me and I saw him approach a small table where there appeared to be an open book and a cresset.
“No light,” I said.
“Why have you come? The fistula is well. You need not have troubled yourself. I have little pain from the surgery. How did you enter? Whose robe is that?”
I had questions for the hosteler, but thought I would be more likely to learn from him what I sought if I answered his questions first. I told him all, except how I came by the habit – and the matter of the dead cat – for I did not wish to bring trouble to the threadmaker’s wife should her part in this become known.
“I have told you how I came here,” I said, “and now I will tell why. The woman I brought to the hospital nearly a fortnight past, Amice Thatcher, was sent from the hospital. She was told that her children disturbed those who were ill. That same night two men took her and her children, as I feared might happen.”
“Why did they do so?”
“A chapman of the town and she were to wed, but he was found near Bampton, beaten so badly that he soon died. I investigated his death and learned that the man had found treasure – ancient coins of silver, and jewels and golden objects.”
“I remember – you told me of this. He was murdered for this wealth?”
“For the location of the find, I think. He would not tell, even when they beat him insensible.”
“Where is this hoard?”
“No man knows, nor woman, either. But the men who murdered the chapman thought he might have told Amice where it was hid.”
“Ah, I see. Because they were to wed.”
“Aye. And somehow they knew of it.”
“So now they have her, until she tells what she does not know?”
“Nay, she is freed, and now safe in Bampton.”
“Saints be praised.”
“She was held in an abandoned plague house in East Hanney.”
“Are her captors brought to justice?”
“Not yet?”
“Who are they?”
“I believe they are squires to Sir John Trillowe.”
“Him who was Sheriff of Oxford two years past?”
“Aye. Your abbot is Peter of Hanney.”
“He is, from West Hanney.”
“But the villages are small, and close together. Men in one place would know those who lived in the other.”
“Surely.”
“Does the abbot receive guests from the villages, old friends who call when they visit Abingdon?”
“Aye. Many brothers are from towns nearby, and m’lord abbot is lenient in allowing visits from family and friends. I am from Lyford, not far from West Hanney.”
“Did you know Abbot Peter before you came here?”
“Knew his father and older brothers. I’m nearly twenty years older than m’lord abbot.”
“If you were reared near West Hanney, and knew folk from the village, do you know some of the abbot’s visitors?”
“Aye, some.”
“The day Amice Thatcher was sent away, or the day before, did the abbot entertain guests?”
“Aye, he did, one.”
“Did you know the man?”
“Oh, aye, Sir Simon’s easy to remember, with his ear standing away from his head as it does.”
“Did Sir Simon stay long at the abbey?”
“Don’t know. He doesn’t stay in the guest range. Stays in the abbot’s private rooms.”
“Did Abbot Peter have other visitors with Sir Simon that day?”
“Not that I saw… You said the men who slew the chapman are squires to Sir John Trillowe?”
“Aye.”
“And when Sir John’s son visited the abbey, next day the abbot sends Amice Thatcher away.”
The hosteler saw the direction of my thoughts. “Aye,” I replied. “Sent out to fend for herself, where men might seize her to seek treasure.”
Brother Theodore was silent.
“Sir Simon is Sir John’s youngest son,” I said. “He’ll inherit little.”
“So if there was treasure to be had, he’d be as eager as two penniless squires to grab a share,” Brother Theodore said.
“Those are my thoughts.”
“If Sir Simon is in league with those who murdered the chapman, how will you prove it?”
“I do not know. What I have so far learned might hang a man if he was but a tenant or yeoman, but no King’s Eyre would send a gentleman to the gallows on what evidence I have.”
“Perhaps it might.”
“How so?” I asked.
“M’lord abbot is not popular in Abingdon. Indeed, we brothers take care not to walk alone upon the town streets if we must leave abbey precincts. A jury of Abingdon men might be eager to convict a friend of Abbot Peter.”
“But the Eyre meets in Oxford.”
“Oh, aye, where Sir John and Sir Simon will have friends, and there will be men who have no interest in anything but a bribe.”
“Just so.”
“Well, I have told all I know. You must make of it what you can. I wish you well.”
“Much thanks for your help.”
“’Tis I who must thank you. You said that your fee for treating my fistula would be three shillings. I have no coin, no possessions. Abbot Peter must award the fee.”
“He will not do so,” I said.
“I fear not. He’ll use as excuse that I did not seek his permission for your work.”
“It may be nearing time for vigils. I should be away before the office.”
Brother Theodore stood from his bench when I rose from mine and bade me Godspeed, and when I had departed his cell closed the door softly behind me. I cautiously moved from the guest house to the entry, tossed the cowl over my head, and walked brazenly past the abbot’s kitchen toward the reredorter and infirmary. If any man saw me I wanted to appear as a man about his lawful business, not some skulking culprit trying to avoid discovery.
I had entered the orchard when from the church tower I heard the sacrist ring the bell for vigils. I hid behind the trunk of one of the larger apple trees till I was sure that the monks had assembled in the church. When I heard the sound of the office carrying over the still night air I felt safe in removing my shoes and stepping into the ditch to escape the abbey in the same manner I had entered.
I slept that night in Bruce’s stall, cold and wet, or more precisely, wet and cold, since I was cold because I was wet, not wet because I was cold. I piled clean straw in a corner of the stall, burrowed into it, and wrapped the black woolen habit about me to ward off the chill. Sometime in the night I briefly awoke, and, as if in a dream, a scheme to ensnare John Thrale’s murderers came to me.
Next morn I returned the soiled habit to the threadmaker’s wife, purchased a loaf from the baker, retrieved my sack of instruments from the New Inn, and set out for Oxford. Bruce is not a beast to be hurried, but we crossed the Thames at Southbridge and passed through the New Gate well before midday.
My destination was the castle, and a conversation with Sir Roger de Elmerugg. The Sheriff is an old friend to Lord Gilbert, and I intended to present him with the facts of John Thrale’s death and Amice Thatcher’s abduction, then propose to him a plan whereby the felons might indict themselves.
I am well acquainted with Oxford Castle, even its dungeon, having spent some days there falsely accused of stealing my own fur coat. Thoughts of the coat reminded me that I would be more comfortable this day was I wearing it, and that it was nearly the season to remove it from storage in my chest and place it again in service.
I left Bruce in the castle forecourt, found my way to the Sheriff’s anteroom, and asked the clerk if Sir Roger was in. The clerk remembered me as Lord Gilbert Talbot’s man and immediately rose from behind his desk to crack open the door behind him and announce me. The anteroom was empty of supplicants, which surprised m
e, as the Sheriff is generally besieged by those who seek his favor.
Sir Roger possesses the most impressive eyebrows of any man I know. He invited me into his chamber, asked my business, and as I told him the tale of John Thrale, Amice Thatcher, and Sybil Montagu he scowled till his eyebrows became a single bristling appendage.
“Those squires are surely guilty of murder,” Sir Roger said when I had completed the tale. “But Sir John will prevent their punishment, unless you find more proof against them.”
“I thought as much, and have devised a plan.”
“’Tis near time for dinner. Tell me of it whilst we dine.”
Sir Roger keeps a good table. His cook presented the Sheriff and his guests with a first remove of aloes of lamb, pomme dorryce, and parsley bread with honey butter. For the second remove there was a fruit-and-salmon pie, herb fritters, and cabbage with marrow. For the third remove we enjoyed a pottage of eggs, capon farced, and a cherry pottage. I must remember, when my business requires me again to call upon Sir Roger, to do so at the dinner hour.
I told the Sheriff of my scheme while we consumed the meal, and he agreed with but a few modifications. Immediately after dinner I sought Bruce, hoisted my overfed self to the saddle, and set out over Bookbinder’s Bridge and past Osney Abbey for Bampton. I arrived at Galen House as the evening Angelus Bell rang from the Church of St. Beornwald, dismissed the grooms who watched there, and sent them to the castle with Bruce.
Whether or not my scheme to seize two murderers succeeded depended upon Amice Thatcher. After a supper of pease pottage she put her children to bed, and I drew benches near the fire to explain what was needed of her, if the squires who slew John Thrale and seized her were to be impeached for the felonies. She was at first reluctant, as would be the cheese if asked if it wished to be placed in a trap for rats, for the plot would place her in some peril. But when I assured her that her children would be safe in Bampton, and sergeants from Oxford Castle as well as grooms from Bampton Castle would see to her protection, she agreed.
This was with some hesitation, but as she considered how the villains had robbed her of a secure future, she became more agreeable to the role she must play. Snares, to be successful, must be baited.