Unhallowed Ground

by Mel Starr

“How did Shillside learn of this?”

  “The haberdasher in Witney is Shillside’s friend and brother-in-law to Alice’s aunt. He knew the terms of the dower.”

  “Why is Hubert Shillside concerned with the business?”

  “Because Will is smitten with Alice.”

  Kate was silent, considering this. “Now Thomas is dead there is only Maud to protest Alice regaining her mother’s dower.”

  “And Emma,” I added. “Shillside is confident the bishop’s hallmote will award the land to Alice.”

  Kate looked pensively past me, toward the fire, before she spoke again. “Would a man murder another for a half-yardland?” she said softly, to herself as much as to me. I had no answer, so spoke none.

  “Would not the bishop’s hallmote award Alice her due even was Thomas atte Bridge alive to protest?” Kate continued.

  “Mayhap. But now that he is gone the issue may be in less doubt. And did he live and lose the suit, he might take vengeance upon those who bested him. Such a man was he.”

  “Will you pursue this?”

  “I must. I would rather spend a month in Oxford Castle dungeon.”

  “Will you confront Shillside with your suspicion?”

  “Nay. If he is guilty it will be easier to discover so does he not know of my suspicion. If he is innocent I would not have him aware that I thought him capable of such a felony.”

  “You believe he is… capable of such a felony?”

  “Nay, but I have been wrong before.”

  “Surely there are others in Bampton and the Weald Thomas atte Bridge has wronged more grievously than Alice.”

  “No doubt, but men may respond differently to similar insults.”

  “And women also,” Kate agreed.

  The May Day revelers had gone to their dinners. Most were away from their beds before dawn, and now, with full stomachs, sought rest more than continued merrymaking. So Bampton was silent, and the scream, when it came, was audible although it came from Rosemary Lane, near two hundred paces away. Kate looked to me with a frown, and I returned the expression. Folk will not shriek so unless they are in great pain or anguish. I expected a summons, and work for either a surgeon or a bailiff.

  Kate and I yet held each other’s questioning gaze when there came a thumping upon the door of Galen House. But it was Kate’s presence requested, not mine. Eleanor, the cobbler’s wife, was come to fetch Kate. The carpenter’s daughter, Jane, was about to deliver her child. Kate had agreed to act God’s sib at the birth.

  I heard another distant screech through the open door. The sound gave wings to Kate’s feet. She ran off down Church View Street to her duty. Another scream echoed up the street as Kate disappeared ’round the corner of Rosemary Lane. Such distress in childbirth was not unknown to me, although, all praise to God, the birth of a babe is work for the midwife, not the surgeon.

  I continued to hear Jane’s shrieks, but soon after the evening Angelus Bell rang they faded and I supposed her travail over and the babe safely delivered. I was wrong.

  Near midnight I gave up waiting for Kate’s return and sought our bed. I expected to be disturbed in the night when she returned from her duty, but this was not so. When dawn glowed through the skin of our chamber window I was yet alone.

  I had broken my fast and was finishing a cup of ale when Kate burst through the door of Galen House. “Midwife wishes you to attend her. You are to bring your instruments,” Kate gasped.

  “What has happened?”

  “Nothing, and therein lies the trouble. Jane is near death. The babe is wrongly placed and Mistress Pecham cannot turn it.”

  Jane had struggled for many hours to deliver her child. She was surely exhausted, and no effort from her would produce the babe. It was likely she was doomed, but I would heed Katherine Pecham’s summons and see was there aught I might do for the lass or the babe.

  The midwife had done all she knew. Doors and windows of the carpenter’s house stood open, chests were open and all knots undone, this to open the womb. Galen, the great physician of many centuries past, did not write of these actions, and I distrust their potency. But such is commonly done, and if to no advantage, it can surely do no harm.

  Katherine Pecham has been midwife to Bampton for many years. The crone has seen many babes brought to the world and knows well whether success or misfortune is likely. She had sent word to Father Thomas to be ready at St Beornwald’s baptismal font, for if the babe did come forth it was sure to be feeble and must be baptized straight away. The godparents were notified also and awaited a summons. Mistress Pecham had done all needful things; all else was now in the hands of God. Or in my hands. I shuddered briefly at the thought. Kate, at my side, took note and grasped my arm.

  Jane sat upon the birthing chair, near senseless from her vain exertions. The morning was cool, but sweat stood upon her brow and upper lip. As I watched a God’s sib wiped her forehead with a cooling cloth. This caused the lass to raise her head and soon another ineffectual spasm racked her body. She cried out, but weakly. When the convulsion was done she lay back against the chair, more spent than before.

  “The babe is placed wrong,” Mistress Pecham whispered. “I have tried all I know to turn it, but have no success. I will make another attempt. If I fail the lass will likely perish. You must stand ready to take the babe does Jane die. I have felt the babe move. It lives, and may yet survive even if Jane does not.”

  My study of surgery in Paris did not include instruction in childbirth. Such things are best left to women. Students were, however, taught to open the womb with a blade so as to take the babe when the mother was dead or it was sure she soon would be so. A doctor of surgery at the University of Paris told me that he knew of such a surgery where both mother and babe survived. If so, this was the only such occurrence I have heard of. I have doubts.

  Mistress Pecham attended to Jane, pressing her swollen belly to see could she not shift the babe. The midwife was soon sweating as heavily as Jane, but to no effect which I could see. I felt much regret that I would likely soon be called upon to release the babe with a scalpel. Kate saw my black mood and gripped my arm as if to steady me for the sorry work to come.

  Mistress Pecham peered up at me, ceased her struggle, and shook her head in wordless despair. Kate looked to me with a plea in her eyes. I bid Kate follow and went to help the midwife to her feet. She was weary, and wobbled unsteadily as she stood.

  “You must take the child,” she whispered. “The lass is too young and small to allow the babe to pass, misplaced as it is.”

  “If I open her womb Jane will surely die. Is there no other hope?”

  “Nay,” the woman shook her head. “I have seen such misplaced babes before. If I cannot turn them, and the mother be so weakened as Jane, all is lost. I sent for Father Thomas at dawn. Jane has been shriven.”

  I looked to Kate. She and the other God’s sibs stared back at me. I saw reproach in some eyes, as if I and my gender were responsible for the dread which infected the carpenter’s house.

  “I am hesitant to do this. I have no experience in such surgery.”

  “I know that if you open Jane’s womb she will die,” Mistress Pecham said softly, brushing a wisp of graying hair from her brow with the back of her wrist. “But if you will not, she and the babe will both perish.”

  Kate again took my arm. “Mistress Pecham speaks true. You must balance a certainty with the possible.” She pressed my arm with both hands, as if to stiffen my courage.

  I made no reply to these pleas for some minutes. Jane’s pale face occupied my attention and thoughts. Her eyes were closed, her breathing shallow. I knew the midwife spoke true; Jane was likely soon to see the Lord Christ, yet I could not move from my place. It was as if my heels had taken root in the soil beneath the rushes.

  “How long has she, think you?” I asked Mistress Pecham.

  The woman shrugged, pursed her lips, then replied softly so Jane, was she sensible, might not hear. “She will be gone by t
he ninth hour, I think.”

  It was not yet the third hour of the day. “If, by the ninth hour,” I replied, “she is yet unable to deliver the child, I will take it with the blade. Keep close watch on her. If she perish before then I must take the babe instantly. Are you certain it lives?”

  “I felt it move when I last tried to shift it. I cannot say if it lives now.”

  A bed lay beside the birthing stool, and a small table stood near it. I laid upon this table the instruments I would need if called upon to open Jane’s womb.

  Peter Carpenter, with his wife and other children, awaited birth or death in the other of the two chambers of his house. As I placed my instruments I saw his haggard face at the door. He looked from me to Kate to Mistress Pecham and the God’s sibs, saw despair writ on our faces, and disappeared.

  Kate and the midwife sat upon a bench in a corner of the chamber to await the conclusion of the sad business. Once Jane cried out weakly as travail came again upon her. Both her agony and her cries soon ended.

  When the lass lay still and silent again Mistress Pecham rose from the bench and approached the birthing stool. She stood silently, watching Jane. The midwife suddenly bent low over the lass. She studied her intently, then crossed herself, rose, and turned to me.

  “Quickly, Master Hugh… Jane is gone.”

  I leaped to her side and saw it was so; Jane’s shallow breathing had stopped. I picked up the lass from the birthing stool, set her upon the bed, drew the gown from her bloated belly, and with one hurried motion drew a blade from one side of her abdomen to the other. It was the work of but a few heartbeats to enlarge and deepen this opening until I saw beneath my scalpel the womb and the pattern of a tiny foot where it should not have been, pressed against the membrane. With less speed and more care I opened the womb. When I did so I saw the babe’s foot twitch, as if pleased to be freed of its fleshly embrace.

  A moment later I drew the babe from the womb and turned to Katherine Pecham. The midwife stood ready with a clean linen cloth to receive the child. It was a lad. I severed the cord and turned back to Jane, although there was nothing to be done for her. As I looked upon her still, bloodied form I heard a weak wail, then gasps from the God’s sibs. The babe drew breath, and lived, at least for now.

  I turned back to observe Mistress Pecham at her work. She first opened the babe’s nostrils and purged them of bile, then bathed the infant in warm water. When this was done she anointed the babe with oil of acorns and wrapped it in bands of soft linen.

  The cobbler’s wife took the babe from her and with her husband, who had waited without all the while, hastened to the church. There Thomas de Bowlegh would unwrap the babe and immerse him in the font so that, should the infant perish, his soul would find its way to paradise. This is a shocking way to welcome a babe to the world, but perhaps, given the sorrows all men must endure, it is well to introduce the trials of life to the young, so to harden them for adversities sure to come.

  Peter Carpenter and his wife sat together in the home’s other chamber, drained of life and emotion. Two younger children, a lad of twelve years or thereabouts, and a lass a few years younger, peered up wide-eyed at me and Kate as we entered the chamber. A few embers glowed upon the hearth. Peter stood and spoke as we entered.

  “Will the babe live?”

  “The Lord Christ only knows,” I replied. “Mistress Pecham believes him sound, if weak. She is practiced in such matters.”

  “But Jane is gone, for the babe to live?”

  “Aye. When Mistress Pecham saw that Jane was dead she called for me to take the babe.”

  “Then for this, much thanks. Does he live, we may remember the mother by the son.”

  The carpenter’s lips drew tightly together. He turned to his wife: “Sent her to an early grave, the wretch!”

  I thought it was of the lad who had lain with his daughter that he spoke. “Who is that?” I asked.

  “You’ll get no leirwite for Lord Gilbert from the knave.”

  “Will you not name the lad?”

  “Oh, I’ll name the rogue. Won’t do you nor me nor Jane any good.”

  “Who, then?”

  “Thomas atte Bridge… him as hanged hisself. An’ well he did, too.”

  “Jane named him as the father of her child?” I said, somewhat incredulously. I searched my mind for some memory of Thomas atte Bridge and could summon no feature of the man likely to appeal to a comely maid.

  “’E come on her sudden, like, last summer. She were in the forest beyond the Weald, pickin’ blackberries. She tried to cry out, but ’e beat her an’ throttled her an’ had ’is way with her. Knew somethin’ was amiss when she come home… eyes goin’ to black an’ weepin’ an’ no berries.”

  “Jane told you what happened?”

  “Aye.”

  “Why did you not seek me and charge the scoundrel?”

  “Jane begged me not. Atte Bridge said to her if she told, ’e’d do worse to her, an’ take revenge upon her family, too.”

  I had experience enough of Thomas atte Bridge to know his words no idle threat.

  “But when you saw Jane was with child, why then did you not seek justice?”

  “Bah. What justice is there for a maid when such befalls her? An’ even did hallmote find against Thomas, ’e’d soon seek us to take vengeance.”

  Peter spoke true. Atte Bridge nursed his grudges well. And the carpenter knew also of the prescript, which Galen wrote many centuries past, that a woman will not conceive except she be a willing partner. A lass who is with child cannot therefore accuse a man of rape, and if she does not bear a child any accusation is but the maid’s word against the man’s. Who would believe her but perhaps her father? I wonder if Galen might have been wrong about this. Surely Jane Carpenter did not willingly lie with Thomas atte Bridge.

  The carpenter is a large man, his movements ever slow and measured. I had never seen the man hurried in walk or work. His temperament matched his manner. A frown seemed never to cross his face, until this day.

  I am a peaceful man. How might I change, sixteen years hence, does Kate bear me a daughter and the lass be set upon by some miscreant like Thomas atte Bridge? Because Jane conceived no court would indict atte Bridge for rape. Galen had said it could not be so. The carpenter’s shop would have many planks of proper size to deliver a blow across a man’s skull. And Peter is strong enough that a stroke from him might render a man senseless. Senseless long enough to haul his body from the Weald to Cow-Leys Corner?

  Did Peter’s wife assist, or his lad? Perhaps she or he carried atte Bridge’s feet, and briefly dropped them in the muddy road when the burden grew heavy.

  Peter Carpenter, like Hubert Shillside, is a friend. What if I were to discover that one of these indeed murdered Thomas atte Bridge? The mournful thought occupied my mind as Kate and I walked Church View Street to Galen House. On our way we met Martyn the cobbler and Eleanor hurrying from the church. Eleanor carried a pale bundle in her arms. The babe was properly baptized and the outcome now in God’s hands.

  Not entirely. How would the babe’s life be altered did I discover that his grandfather had slain his father? I did not wish to think longer of the matter. But it is sure that when a man tries to dismiss a thought it will fix itself in his mind.

  The day was far gone when Kate and I returned to Galen House. We ate a cold supper of capon and barley loaf and went silently to our bed. I found no rest, and heard Kate’s steady breathing for much of the night before I fell to sleep some time shortly before Kate’s rooster announced the new day.

  Neither Kate nor I had appetite to break our fast. She set ale and a wheaten loaf before me. But I could manage only a small portion of the loaf. I am not usually so afflicted. Hunger can overwhelm my darkest moods, most of the time.

  “Will you seek the carpenter’s house this day,” she asked, “to learn if the babe lives?”

  “Aye.”

  “What fine must they pay?”

  “Six pence f
or leirwite, another six for childwite is common.”

  “Common? You say so, but your manner says other.”

  I motioned Kate to our bench, placed more wood upon the fire, for it was a chill morn, then sat beside her and told her of Peter Carpenter’s disclosure.

  Kate’s lips grew thin as I related the tale, and although the blaze upon our hearth grew warm I sensed a chill come over Kate.

  “So a bailiff would make Peter Carpenter pay for the injury done his daughter?”

  “Some would, to keep their position. Great lords are always in want. Most would have a shilling from even a pauper could they get it.”

  “Is Lord Gilbert Talbot such a man?”

  “He will not turn profit away, but I think he would see unfairness in this matter.”

  “Think you so?” Kate replied with raised brows.

  “He will not return from Pembroke ’til Lammastide. Perhaps he need not know.”

  “Or by Lammastide we may know the truth of Thomas atte Bridge’s death.”

  She said “we” again. I wished no discord this day, so did not contest the word. I was not long practiced at being a husband, but I am a ready scholar.

  Chapter 4

  Next day I found Peter sitting upon the same bench where I had left him. I asked for news of the babe.

  “He lives,” he replied, “but cries weakly and does not take the breast of the wet nurse strongly.”

  As he spoke a curate and four others darkened the door of the carpenter’s house. They had come to bear Jane to the churchyard.

  Jane had been already wrapped in her burial shroud and placed in a coffin. Peter would not see his daughter await the return of the Lord Christ in only a black winding sheet. The curate’s companions carried the coffin from house to street, and I joined the procession which made its way up Church View Street. Kate heard the wailing as we approached and followed as the mourners passed Galen House.

  The bearers set Jane down in the lych gate, where Father Thomas awaited the procession. Before the sixth hour mass was said, the grave diggers had completed their work, and Jane Carpenter was awaiting the resurrection of the dead in St Beornwald’s churchyard.