Unhallowed Ground

by Mel Starr

  I turned to leave Gerard, my duty complete, when the man spoke again.

  “Heard about Thomas atte Bridge hangin’ hisself,” he said.

  “So all believe,” I replied. My response caused Gerard to peer at me with puzzled expression. He understood, I think, that I did not include myself in the words I spoke. I had tried to keep disbelief from my voice. To dissemble is a competence much desired among bailiffs, I think. Perhaps one day I may achieve it.

  I stepped from behind Gerard’s house and saw two figures approaching with another load of coppiced beech poles slung between them. It was Walter, Gerard’s younger son, and another youth unknown to me, who turned with their burden into the yard. Walter saw me and averted his gaze, as well he might, poacher of Lord Gilbert’s deer as he once was.

  Here was another man with reason to dislike Thomas atte Bridge. With the aid of a scoundrel priest atte Bridge had learned of Walter’s poaching and blackmailed the verderer’s son for a portion of the venison he took. When Thomas was taken with the flesh he readily implicated Walter as his source, for which misdemeanor Walter was fined sixpence at hallmote. But for Thomas’s admission Walter might never have been found out.

  I watched as Walter and the youth dropped their poles beside the drying shed, and as I did Gerard and Richard stared at me, then Walter.

  “Your father,” I said to the perspiring Walter, “tells me deer are plentiful in Lord Gilbert’s forest.” I said this with head cocked to one side and a crooked grin warping my lips. I wished to put the man at ease. The ploy succeeded.

  “Aye,” he grinned. “Enough that Lord Gilbert’ll not miss a few… not that I’ll be takin’ any,” he declared. “Learned me lesson.”

  I had no doubt of that. I had seen Gerard, old and crippled as he was, strike Walter such a blow when he learned of his son’s transgression that the younger man had dropped to his knees in the road to the west of Bampton Castle. I wondered often what other discipline Gerard might have later applied. It might have been more severe than the punishment decreed at hallmote.

  “Whoso takes a deer now,” Richard observed, “may keep it to himself. He’ll not have to share with Thomas atte Bridge.”

  At the name, Walter looked away and spat upon the ground. But for Thomas, Walter might be enjoying a joint of venison yet this day. Was Walter’s arrest and fine enough to put thoughts of murder in his mind? Men have slain others for less. But a year had passed since Thomas and Walter were apprehended. Would Walter’s anger lay banked, like coals on a hearthstone, for a year? I did not know the fellow well enough to judge.

  I retrieved Bruce from the sapling where I had tied him, and where he had made a meal of the tender new leaves. His slow, plodding gait allowed much time for thought as we traveled through Lord Gilbert’s forest, past Cow-Leys Corner, to the castle. Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote that “three things are necessary for a man’s salvation: to know what he ought to believe, to know what he ought to desire, and to know what he ought to do.”

  I would not quarrel with the scholar, but might not a man know what he ought to believe and desire and do, yet do that which he knows he should not? Saint Paul wrote that he did what he would not do, and did not do what he should. I felt great kinship with the apostle.

  I knew what I should believe, and I believed it. And I knew what I should desire, and I desired it. But I was not certain that I wanted to do what I ought to do. I could count four men who might wish to hasten Thomas atte Bridge’s passage to our Lord’s judgment. If Walter were the felon I sought, I would not be much displeased with the discovery, but if Hubert or Peter or Arnulf were the culprit, I did not wish to know. Or if I did know, I did not wish to act upon the knowledge. Would my hesitancy lay waste my salvation? I left Bruce to the marshalsea and walked towards my home with troubled spirit.

  However, my heart lifted when I saw the wisp of smoke rising from the chimney of Galen House. It was a symbol of my new status and contentment: a married man and home owner, with the right to build new as I saw fit.

  Two days before Christmas Lord Gilbert had sent John Chamberlain to fetch me. I had found my employer seated in the solar of Bampton Castle, behind a table, enjoying a brisk blaze which gave pleasing warmth to his back and the small room. A sheet of parchment lay before Lord Gilbert on the table. Upon the document I saw Lord Gilbert’s seal pressed in wax. He looked up from studying it when I entered.

  “Master Hugh… be seated, be seated.” He nodded to a chair aside his table. I obeyed.

  “There is a matter we must discuss regarding Galen House,” he began. “When you first came to Bampton your rent for Galen House was four shillings each year.”

  I nodded.

  “Then I made you bailiff and provided a chamber in the castle.”

  I nodded again.

  “Now you are to return to Galen House, as you have named it, this time with a bride.”

  “Will four shillings each year satisfy,” I asked, “as before?” Four shillings was a bargain for such a house. In Oxford such a dwelling might command twenty shillings or more.

  “Nay, Hugh. Four shillings will not do.”

  I am sure I appeared crestfallen at this announcement, wondering how much my rent might be increased. Lord Gilbert saw my dismay and quickly continued.

  “A man need pay no rent to occupy what is his.”

  I did not grasp his meaning. Lord Gilbert pushed the document before him across the table to me.

  “Geoffrey Thirwall has prepared this deed.” Thirwall is Lord Gilbert’s steward, but resides at Pembroke and rarely visits Bampton. “The document transfers Galen House to you and your heirs freehold. Do not seem so startled, Hugh. ’Tis my wedding gift to you and your bride.”

  This largesse overwhelmed me. I had never thought to own my own property; such a thing is reserved for gentlemen and wealthy burghers. I am neither. I was able to reply with but a stammered, “Much thanks, m’lord.”

  “Here,” he held forth the document. “Keep it in a secure chest, Hugh, so a century from now, when we are food for worms, your great-grandson may prove ownership to some rapacious heir of mine.” He laughed at his wit, but there was surely truth in the warning.

  Lord Gilbert next opened a small chest upon his table and drew from it a small pouch. This he also pushed across the table to me. “Take it,” he commanded.

  “Our bargain, two years past, was that you would serve me as bailiff for bed and board at the castle, and thirty-four shillings each year. You will soon feed yourself, and such a wage will not keep a wife and family. I have decided to increase your salary to fifty shillings each year. Here are sixteen shillings,” he nodded to the pouch, “to meet the shortage for this year. At the new year Geoffrey Thirwall will pay the new amount.”

  I left Lord Gilbert’s presence that day with much joy, and began to move my possessions from the castle to Galen House so as to make ready for Kate.

  Galen House was two stories, built of sturdy timbers, wattle and daub, with a well-thatched roof above. A chimney at the south end vented a fireplace in one room of the ground floor, which I had occupied when I lived there alone. However, once wed I required a more fitting bedchamber for my bride. With the deed stored securely and coins in my purse, I paid to have the chimney rebuilt in brick, with a second hearth in the room above, so that Kate and I might sleep warm in our bed.

  Now I looked ahead at that curl of smoke and knew that Kate was preparing our dinner – although if her appetite was as it had been in the last fortnight, she would likely consume little of it.

  Kate had prepared a Lombardy custard with wheaten bread and cheese. I was pleased to see her take a good portion for herself. Her appetite seemed much improved.

  “How does Lord Gilbert’s forest land?” she asked as we ate.

  I told her of my conversation with Gerard, and Walter’s response when I spoke Thomas atte Bridge’s name.

  “Another man with cause to strike down atte Bridge?” Kate mused.

  “Aye. B
ut for Thomas, his poaching might not have been found out.”

  “Oh, I near forgot,” Kate exclaimed. “While you were about Lord Gilbert’s business I went to purchase loaves from the baker and met Father Thomas upon Church Street. He told me to tell you that John Kellet has completed his penance and is now attached to St Nicholas’s Priory, in Exeter, where he assists the almoner.”

  Kate saw distaste disfigure my face, as if her custard was made of rotten eggs.

  “Is Kellet the priest you told me of, who betrayed the confessional and sent Thomas atte Bridge and his brother to blackmail those who confessed at St Andrew’s Chapel?”

  “Aye, the very man. He put an arrow in Henry’s back when he thought their felony might be discovered. For this sin he lost his place and for penance was sent on pilgrimage to Compostela.”

  “A long journey,” Kate observed.

  “And dangerous. I had wished some calamity might strike him on the road. He will not show his face again in Bampton, I think.”

  “But he has.”

  I looked up from my meal in some surprise, which Kate saw. She continued: “He visited Father Simon.”

  “Ah… Father Simon took him in when he was a lad. Parents both dead.”

  “That is how he became curate at St Andrew’s Chapel?”

  “Aye. And betrayed his place.”

  “Father Thomas said he is a changed man.”

  “Pilgrimage and privation may alter a man’s outlook. We may hope in Kellet’s case ’tis so. I wonder I did not see Kellet upon the street. Is he yet about, or gone to Exeter?”

  “Gone to Exeter, I think. Father Thomas said he was here but for two days, near a fortnight past.”

  “About the time Thomas atte Bridge was found at Cow-Leys Corner. I think I must visit Father Simon.”

  I found Father Simon at his vicarage, enjoying his dinner. The rotund priest has enjoyed many dinners, and employs a cook whose skills are reputed to rival those of the cook at Bampton Castle. A servant greeted me at the door and showed me to Father Simon, who was licking the last grease of a capon from his fingers.

  “Good day, Master Hugh. Have you dined?”

  I assured the priest that I had, and watched relief wash across his cherubic face. Some of the capon lay unconsumed upon a platter before him, reserved, perhaps, for his supper, and he worried he might be called upon to share it.

  “You had a visitor some days past… John Kellet.”

  “Aye. But he has completed his penance. You have no jurisdiction over him.”

  The priest thought I yet harbored ill will toward Kellet, and would do the man mischief if I could. He was not far wrong.

  “I do not seek him, but I would know when he was here. I did not see him upon the streets, nor did any other, I think, else I would have been informed.”

  Father Simon glanced away for a moment, then spoke: “Kellet asked no one be told of his visit. Said he wanted only to see me, an’ thank me for taking care of him when he was but an orphan lad. Came one day, late it was, stayed with me two nights to rest from his journey, then set off for Exeter, where he is to serve the almoner.”

  “When was this?”

  The priest scratched at his wispy hair. “Why? ’Twas but a visit. You cannot forbid that, even be you Lord Gilbert’s bailiff.”

  “Too late to forbid, but I have reason to know when it was Kellet slept under your roof.”

  “Very well,” the vicar shrugged. “He came the day before St George’s Day, and set off for Exeter two days later.”

  “He was in the town for St George’s Day? I did not see him in the marketplace.”

  “Nay. Said he’d seen St George slay the dragon an’ rescue the fair maid many times.”

  “Or perhaps he did not wish it known that he was about,” I asserted.

  “Perhaps. He left Bampton under a black cloud, ’tis true. He spoke of his shame.”

  “Shame! He slew a man. Was he not in holy orders, he would have hanged by the neck before the walls of Oxford Castle.”

  “None saw him slay Henry atte Bridge. That felony is but your assertion.”

  “You doubt he did so?”

  The priest was silent. This was answer enough.

  “He departed for Exeter and the Priory of St Nicholas on the twenty-fourth day of April?”

  “Aye, he did. Before the Angelus Bell he was off.”

  “You saw him away?”

  “Nay. Don’t rise from my bed so gladly as when I was a young man. I have the disease of the bones.”

  Surely the priest’s corpulent form also made rising from anything, chair or bed, an irksome task.

  Kellet’s journey to Exeter would have taken him past Cow-Leys Corner. Did he see Thomas atte Bridge, his partner in villainy, dangling from the oak? Perhaps, if he set out very early, it was too dark to see the man. Or perhaps atte Bridge was not yet suspended from the tree. Or perhaps John Kellet had to do with Thomas atte Bridge’s place and condition that day?

  If so, Kellet did not act alone. Thomas was not slung over some strong man’s shoulder and carried thence to Cow-Leys Corner. Two carried him, of this I was certain, and one dropped his feet.

  “Didn’t know him when first he came to my door,” the priest continued. “Pilgrimage to Compostela took much flesh from his bones.”

  John Kellet had grown fat from blackmailed venison. Did he resent Thomas atte Bridge’s loose tongue, which implicated the curate in the blackmail scheme? There were others in Bampton who had greater reason to hate the priest and his betrayal of the confessional: Edmund the smith, whose dalliance with the baker’s wife Thomas and his brother Henry before him learned of and used to extract items made upon Edmund’s forge as payment for their silence; and the miller, whose cheating with short return on corn brought to the mill atte Bridge also knew of and exploited. These two had greater reason than Kellet, I thought, to wish revenge upon Thomas atte Bridge. Was one of them at Thomas’s shoulders, and Kellet at the feet, in the tenebrous hours following St George’s Day?

  “Wears a hair shirt now, too, does John,” Father Simon interrupted my thoughts. This was a startling revelation. The John Kellet I knew was concerned with little but his own comfort.

  “You saw this?”

  “Aye. Saw the hem of a sleeve hanging below his robe. I know your thoughts, Master Hugh. John Kellet is a different man, changed, as pilgrimage should do.”

  “It should,” I agreed, “’though there be pilgrims who remain unchanged. I have known such men.”

  “You suggest,” the vicar frowned, “that a saint cannot intercede for men with the Lord Christ?”

  “I am sure He hears the prayers of all men.”

  The priest harumphed grudging agreement as I stood from the bench to leave him. He heaved himself to his feet to honor my departure and it was then I noticed his belt. Why my eye should have been drawn to a mean cord wrapped about the fat priest I cannot say.

  A plain hempen rope circled his ample belly twice. The ends of this belt fell to his knees, one length knotted three times for Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. A string of rosary beads was fastened to the cord; a cord much like that taken from the neck of Thomas atte Bridge. Priests whose purses permit fine woolen robes will often circle themselves with a mean belt to pretend simplicity and penury.

  Father Simon saw me stare at the belt and peered down at it as well. The ends, dangling about his knees, were fresh-cut and unfrayed.

  “Your belt is new,” I remarked.

  “Aye, near so.”

  A puzzled frown furrowed his forehead. Few men show interest in another man’s girdle, especially is it made of simple stuff like hempen cord.

  “The cord used to drop the bucket in my well was worn. I purchased a length of rope; some I used for the well, and some for my belt,” Father Simon explained.

  “Have you the length your belt was cut from?”

  The request so startled the priest that he did not think to challenge such a question.

  �
�Aye.”

  “May I see it?”

  “A length of rope? Surely a bailiff can afford his own belt, and of better stuff than hempen cord.”

  “You speak true, but I seek a brief inspection. ’Tis much like the cord found about Thomas atte Bridge’s neck.”

  “One hempen cord is much like another, and what remains of my purchase hangs in a shed in the toft.”

  “May I see it?”

  The priest shrugged and called his servant. When the man appeared he instructed him to seek the shed and return with the hempen cord hung there. The man disappeared through the rear door of the vicarage and a moment later I heard Father Simon’s hens clucking disapproval at the disturbance to their pecking.

  The priest and I stood gazing at each other, awaiting the servant’s return. He was not prompt. Father Simon had begun to chew upon his lower lip in frustration and seemed about to turn to the door when it swung open and the servant reappeared. He carried no rope.

  “Ain’t there,” the fellow said, and raised his empty hands palms up.

  “Bah, ’twas hanging from a tree nail,” the vicar asserted, and set off for the toft.

  “I know where it was,” the servant said. “Hung it there myself.”

  I followed Father Simon into the toft. His servant shrugged and followed me. The vicar swung open the crude door to his shed, which was but half of his hen coop, and peered into the dim interior. He was evidently unable to trust his eyes, for he thrust his head forward, the better to see, and when this failed, entered the hut.

  The priest appeared a moment later, anger darkening his brow. The servant’s face reflected complacent confirmation of his discovery and announcement.

  “’Twas there at Hocktide. I cut my new belt a few days after Easter, when the old belt frayed and finally broke where I keep my rosary. Some thief has made off with the remnant.”