Unhallowed Ground

by Mel Starr

  I had little stomach for business in what remained of the day, but busied myself at the castle so as to escape thoughts of recent black events. Next morn, after a loaf and ale, I bid Kate “Good day,” and set out again for the castle. I came upon Peter Carpenter as I passed Rosemary Lane. He had a bag of tools slung over a shoulder and was evidently called to exercise his carpentry skills. Some lives must continue even when others cease.

  “A fine day for labor,” I remarked, finding any other subject of conversation uncomfortable.

  “Aye. If I keep me hands busy I can keep me thoughts from Jane an’ what befell her. Father Thomas says hate is an evil thing. We are to love others. How can a man love one who ravished his daughter, her but a maid, an’ sent her to her death?”

  Choosing a contrary subject for conversation with one who is single-minded is not readily done.

  “The Lord Christ commands us to love our enemies,” I replied. “Even those who use us badly.”

  “Aye, so the priests say. Don’t say ’ow to do it, though, an’ they don’t have daughters to be despoiled… Well, there be some as do, I suppose.”

  “Where does your work take you this day? I will walk with you if it be toward the castle.”

  “In the Weald. Some man did hamsoken there while all were thought to be at mass. Broke down the door, an’ I’ve got to place a new door-post an’ set the hinges right.”

  “Who was attacked?”

  “Philip Mannyng.”

  “He is an aged man, is he not?”

  “Aye. Keeps to ’is bed most days. Amabil went off to church, an’ come home to find ’im beaten. Senseless, he was.”

  “Who did such a thing?”

  “Couldn’t say. Amabil asked, of course. He couldn’t remember. Whoso done it took a club to ’is head while ’e was sleepin’. Amabil said as ’e had great lumps on ’is skull an’ ’is nose broke.”

  “Did they complain to the vicars?”

  “Oh, aye. Father Simon come to see the damage an’ what could be done. Philip could recall nothing.”

  “Do Philip and Amabil have enemies in the Weald? They are the bishop’s tenants, so I know little of doings there.”

  “Don’t know much of what ’appens in the Weald meself, but never heard anything against ’em. Arnulf is wrathful an’ seeks whoso did it.”

  “Arnulf?”

  “Arnulf Mannyng, Philip’s son. Has a yardland of the bishop, an’ works ’is father’s lands.”

  I tried to fit a face to the name, but could not. Arnulf Mannyng had evidently done nothing to draw the attention of Lord Gilbert Talbot’s bailiff. Probably, like most men, he is content to live a quiet life with wife and children. A man much like Peter Carpenter, perhaps. An attack upon an aged and infirm parent might cause even a placid man to do injury to the assailant. Who would be most angry, I wondered – a man whose daughter was violated to her death, or one whose parent was attacked? I resolved to learn more.

  “I will walk with you to the Weald. Keeping the peace there is the vicars’ business, but I would know more of the matter.”

  Peter said no more, but a man would not need to be clairvoyant to guess my interest. Together we crossed the bridge over Shill Brook and turned to the lane leading to the Weald. Philip Mannyng’s house stood near the end of the narrow road. To reach it we passed the dwellings of Maud and Emma atte Bridge, two widows who now lived without beatings if also without a husband’s labor at field and hearth. I wondered what they thought of the exchange.

  A small, dirty face peered out of the open door of Emma’s hut, but otherwise the houses were silent. That is, until Peter and I had walked twenty paces or so past. Then, of a sudden, we heard feminine voices. Father Thomas, deaf as he is, might have heard them. Indeed, he might have heard them from Mill Street.

  The words were indistinct, but the shrieking came from behind the atte Bridge hovels. Peter peered at me from under questioning brows and we halted to better discover the source and meaning of the screeching. Across the lane I saw a woman look out from her open door, shake her head in disgust, then disappear about her work. Her reaction seemed token that such din was not uncommon in the Weald.

  Emma and Maud appeared in the space between their tofts to the rear of their houses as we watched. Maud was in retreat, Emma shaking an angry fist in her face. Emma’s oldest son, a strapping lad of fourteen years or so, advanced behind his mother to support her cause in the dispute. She appeared capable of defending her position unaided.

  Tenants and villeins in the Weald are the Bishop of Exeter’s concern. I had no wish to place myself between two angry women, especially as the dispute was not my bailiwick. Peter seemed to think likewise. He looked at me, shrugged, and we set off again for Philip Mannyng’s house. We could yet hear Maud and Emma when we stood before Mannyng’s broken door.

  Amabil Mannyng opened the fractured door to Peter’s call. The old woman was bent with age, an affliction of her sex common to those who have seen many years pass. She had expected Peter, but was surprised to see me.

  “You’ve come to mend me door, then?” she asked, speaking to Peter, but examining me.

  “Aye, an’ do you know Master Hugh? ’E’s bailiff to Lord Gilbert.”

  “Seen ’im about. Heard ’e patched Gerard’s head.”

  Gerard is Lord Gilbert’s verderer. Two years past he had the misfortune to stand where an oak his sons were felling might swat him with a plunging limb. His skull was badly cracked. I repaired the injury, but he walks now with a limp, which I suspect will always be so.

  “Your man lies ill in his bed, I am told.”

  “Aye. Since Candlemas ’e’s been low.”

  “And near a fortnight past someone beset him in his bed?” I added.

  “They did.”

  “Perhaps I might see him. I have herbs which can comfort afflicted folk.”

  “Was going to call for you when I found ’im, but Philip wouldn’t have it. Said he’d heal well enough, an’ if not was ready to see God. ‘No use payin’ the surgeon,’ he said. My Philip’s always been tight with a penny.”

  I left Peter to inspect the splintered door and followed Amabil into the dim interior of the house. The woman’s aged husband lay upon his bed, his form so shrunken with age and illness and abuse, he seemed but an assemblage of coppiced poles beneath the bed coverings. I found myself in agreement with the old man’s prophecy: he was near to seeing the Lord Christ.

  Philip heard our conversation and approach and turned in his bed to see who disturbed his slumber. A purple bruise, beginning to turn green and yellow, stretched from his forehead to cheek. A gash across his scalp, which I might have closed with needle and silk thread, bore a thick scab. Philip would, did he live, bear a wide scar where the blow caught him. His nose was swollen, purple, and bent.

  A bench sat near the bed. I drew it to Philip’s side and introduced myself.

  “Know who you are,” he wheezed. “Seen you about the town.”

  “I am told you lay abed a Sunday and were attacked while your wife was at mass.”

  “Aye. My time is short… know that well enough.”

  “Who was it tried to hasten your passing?”

  “Dunno. Kicked in the door. That’s what woke me. I don’t see so well any more. All I remember is a fellow raisin’ a club over me. Next I knew, ’twas Sunday eve an’ Amabil and Arnulf was bendin’ over me.”

  “Door was barred,” Amabil added. “Arnulf thought it best. Philip can rise from ’is bed when needful, an’ could unbar the door when I returned.”

  “Have you been in dispute with any man that you must bar the door?”

  “Nay,” Philip managed a chuckle. “I’m near seventy years old. Too old to quarrel with any man.”

  “Why, then, would a man wait ’til you were alone, then attack you?”

  Philip shook his head weakly, and sighed. The effort seemed to pain him, for he closed his eyes and grimaced.

  “Most folk in the Weald know Phil
ip is afflicted,” Amabil said. “It’s no secret ’e’s seldom from ’is bed.”

  “And none holds a grudge against him?”

  “Nay. My Philip was always a peaceful man.”

  Then why, I wondered, bar the door while Philip was abed alone?

  “I have preparations which will ease his pain. I will return at the sixth hour. ’Tis too late to mend the cut on his scalp, or do aught for his nose, but I can allay his hurt.”

  I left Peter Carpenter at work on the broken door and jamb and sought Kate and my dinner. When I returned to Philip Mannyng’s house Peter was near finished repairing the splintered door. I had with me a pouch of herbs: pounded lettuce seeds to help the man sleep, and hemp seeds and leaves to reduce the pain of his broken nose. I brought also the crushed root and leaves of comfrey, to make a poultice for Philip’s bruised face. Such a preparation should have been applied straight away after the injury was discovered, but perhaps the comfrey might do the man some good even yet.

  I instructed Amabil to measure a portion of the herbs into a cup of ale three times each day for her husband to drink, and was ready to depart when Arnulf Mannyng entered the house. He did not notice my presence at first. The house was dim and the man was intent upon his injured father. He strode to Philip’s bed and sat upon the bench I had recently vacated.

  Arnulf Mannyng was as sturdy as his father was frail. In shadow against the window he appeared much like Arthur; not so tall as me but weighing thirteen stone or more. Arnulf is a prosperous tenant of the Bishop of Exeter. Since the plague much land lies waste for want of men to plow and seed and harvest. Mannyng had added a yardland to the property of his father which he had assumed a year past when the old man was no longer able to work. Rumor had it that Arnulf had paid but six shillings gersom for the vacant holding, which included a tumble-down hut the man now used as a barn for his three cows and two oxen.

  I stood silent in a corner while Amabil tended the fire and Arnulf spoke to his father. It was not my intent to pry into family business, but I was there and could not avoid the conversation.

  Arnulf began by asking his father how he did, which needed no reply, for any man could see he was likely to soon see the Lord Christ, unless there be a purgatory, which I am come to doubt. Perhaps I should not write so, but I think it unlikely a bishop will ever read these words of mine, or trouble himself with a heretical surgeon should he do so.

  The son’s next words brought me to quick attention. “I told you last week you’ll need worry no more of bein’ attacked again,” he assured the old man. “Not as Thomas atte Bridge was found hangin’ from a tree at Cow-Leys Corner.”

  “Amabil told me also,” Philip whispered. “Little good his death’ll do me now.”

  While his father spoke Arnulf shifted on his bench to observe his mother. She had placed a pot upon the coals. Arnulf had but to raise his eyes from the pot to see me standing between door and window.

  “You have a guest,” he said harshly.

  “’Tis Master Hugh, him as is Lord Gilbert’s bailiff. He has brought herbs to ease your father’s suffering.”

  “Ah… well then,” his voice softened, “we are in your debt.”

  “Mixed with ale, the herbs will bring some release from pain and aid your father’s sleep. And comfrey made into a paste will speed healing of his bruised face.”

  “What is owed for this?”

  “Tuppence.”

  Arnulf fished about in his pouch and brought forth the coins. He stood and delivered them to my hand without another word. It was I who spoke.

  “Did Thomas atte Bridge deal the blows to your father?”

  “Aye, so I believe.”

  “Why would he do so?”

  “Because he was too much the coward to attack me.”

  “He had reason to dislike you?”

  “So he thought.”

  “Was his thinking flawed?”

  “Nay… I suppose not.”

  “You did harm to Thomas?”

  “In a way. We both sought a yardland of the bishop. I offered a better price. ’Twas land vacant near two years since John Rugg died with all his family when plague returned.”

  “Thomas resented losing the property?”

  “Aye. He offered but three shillings gersom to Father Thomas.”

  “I’m surprised he could afford even that.”

  “Said as how I’d enough land an’ was takin’ food from ’is table.”

  “But all this was near two years in the past, was it not?”

  “Aye, ’bout that.”

  “Atte Bridge waited two years to vent his anger?”

  “Nay, ’e’s been at me since, but nothin’ I could prove to the vicars. Lost two lambs last year. Seen ’em born an’ two days later they was gone.”

  “Perhaps some beast carried them off?”

  “Perhaps. But no fox will take a lamb, be there an angry ewe about. An’ someone breaks into me barn at night. Things go missin’: harness for the oxen, an iron spade, such like.”

  “Is it possible some other did these thefts?”

  “It is, but I’m thinkin’ there will be no more, now Thomas atte Bridge lies in a grave at Cow-Leys Corner.”

  I agreed that cessation of these misfortunes would point to Thomas atte Bridge as the source, bid farewell to Philip and Amabil, and set out for Galen House. I had found another man pleased that Thomas atte Bridge lay in his grave. But did he put him there?

  Chapter 5

  I found Kate munching contentedly upon a maslin loaf and was pleased to see her do so.

  “Your appetite has returned?”

  “Some. Not in the morn, nor do I pine for roasted meat. But a piece of fish or a custard is pleasing, and this loaf suits me very well.”

  It had been three months and a few days since I met Kate, her father, and the wedding party at the porch of the Church of St Beornwald. There Father Thomas made us husband and wife, and I gave to Kate a golden ring set with an emerald, which I had purchased from a goldsmith on Oxford High Street. All know emeralds may ward off illness. I would have been better pleased to wed Kate sooner, but Holy Church forbids marriage during Advent and the twelve days of Christmas. Why this must be so I do not understand. The birth of the Lord Christ is cause for much joy and celebration, as is a wedding. The bishops surely have an answer to this, but there are none in Bampton or Oxford to ask.

  “The herbs you took to the sufferer in the Weald… will they ease him?”

  “As much as can be. I can diminish a man’s pain, but I cannot remove it wholly.”

  “And the man who attacked him, is he known?”

  “The son believes so: Thomas atte Bridge.”

  Kate was silent, chewing thoughtfully upon the last crust of her loaf. She swallowed and spoke.

  “There is no shortage of folk in Bampton and the Weald with cause to hate the man.”

  “True. Hubert Shillside would have faced him over Alice atte Bridge’s dower lands, did he yet live. Peter Carpenter’s daughter was ravished, and Arnulf Mannyng has suffered theft and the beating of his father at Thomas atte Bridge’s hands, so he believes.”

  “Three men with a grudge against atte Bridge,” Kate mused. “You think there are more?”

  “Likely so.”

  My apprehension was accurate, as I soon learned.

  Two days later I determined to travel to Alvescot where I might learn from Gerard the verderer the condition of Lord Gilbert’s forests now that winter was past. I did not expect to discover anything troubling. Gerard has served Lord Gilbert for many years and knows his business, although his sons and nephew do the work now under his guidance, crippled as he is since the blow to his skull.

  At the marshalsea I ordered Bruce saddled and made ready. I might have walked, but I am grown fond of the old horse which carries me about the countryside and I believe the beast enjoys escaping the stable.

  The way to Alvescot leads past Cow-Leys Corner. As I passed the tree where Thomas atte
Bridge hung, my thoughts drifted from forest management to death. I had convinced myself that a journey to Alvescot was my duty, but was this so? Perhaps my travel was but an escape from confronting three men who had reason to murder Thomas atte Bridge. Indeed, if Hubert or Peter or Arnulf was guilty, I had no desire to know of it.

  Gerard lives with his wife and grown sons across the street from the Church of St Peter. I remembered the place well, for on a dark night a year past Thomas atte Bridge had lain in wait for me behind the church wall and clubbed me upon my skull when I peered through the lych gate. I did not know at the time who delivered the blow, or who it was I had followed from Bampton. Indeed, at the time and for some hours after I knew nothing at all.

  I found Gerard hobbling about in his toft, where were stored coppiced poles and a few beams cut from trees which had fallen in winter storms. There is little need, since the plague, for cutting timber for construction. Many houses lie empty; why build new? But should a tree fall, it is wise to hew it into beams and saw it into planks rather than allow it to rot upon the forest floor. I was pleased to see that Gerard, or his sons and nephew, had been active in this work. And coppiced poles will always find use: houses need new rafters when the old decay, fences must be maintained, and firewood and charcoal burning will consume what may remain.

  Few trees, Gerard said, had fallen in the winter past, and those which did I saw now before me hewn and sawn in Lord Gilbert’s wood-yard, drying under a crude shed. Deer were plentiful, Gerard reported, and when Lord Gilbert returned to Bampton at Lammastide he would find good hunting.

  While we spoke Richard and a youth I did not know entered the toft with a bundle of new-cut coppiced poles carried between the two on slings. The poles were placed to dry upon a rack already near full with the product of their labor.

  The day was grown warm. Richard wiped sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his cotehardie and eyed me with, I thought, some suspicion. I had caught out his brother poaching Lord Gilbert’s deer a year past, which would have been reason enough to end the family’s tenure as verderers to Lord Gilbert. This, as bailiff, I could have done, and there were some who aspired to the post who wondered that I did not. But Gerard had served Lord Gilbert well and, so far as I knew, so had Richard. Their worry would guarantee Walter’s future good behavior, so I thought. Nevertheless, my appearance in Alvescot now always drew apprehensive furrows across the family brows. This is not a bad thing. A man unsure of his position will work more diligently.