A Trail of Ink

by Mel Starr

  I wished to return to Oxford, but knew not which way to find the road which would take us there. I glanced about until I saw in the pale light of early dawn what seemed to be leaves stirred by footsteps and the track of heels dragged through the mould of the forest floor, then motioned Arthur to follow.

  “Keep silence,” I whispered. “Any other man about in this wood will mean us harm. We must hear them before they hear us.”

  Arthur nodded understanding, although I believe he would yet have wished a fight, and set off behind me as quietly as a man of his bulk might permit. I followed the leafy trail for near five hundred paces before a narrow clearing appeared. It was the place in the forest where, near a fortnight earlier, three mounted men had waited for Arthur and me to pass on the road, and where one of the fellows had left a tuft of green wool upon a thorn.

  I approached the road cautiously. I did not wish to meet Sir Simon coming from Oxford as we attempted to return. The sheriff’s son and his party would be mounted. We should hear them approach around any bend in the road before they would hear or see us afoot. So I hoped.

  And so it was. Near the third hour, when we had walked two miles or more, I heard several horses approaching beyond a wooded turn in the road. I looked to Arthur and as one we leaped from the road to clamber through an overgrown hedgerow. Beyond this pile of stones and brush was a meadow now grown up in weeds and thistles. The lord of this place had not enough tenants since the plague to see all his lands cultivated. Bad for the lord; good for me and Arthur. We were well able to hide ourselves before the riders came into view.

  From our place of concealment we peered through the bare branches of the hedgerow to see who came our way. It was indeed Sir Simon Trillowe, with two armed men riding on either side, one leading a riderless horse. These fellows did not appear pleased to leave a warm fireside this chill day, and Sir Simon’s mouth was drawn tight and a scowl rested upon his brow. Did he blame me for the necessity of his journey?

  I recognized Sir Simon’s companions. One was Sir William, who had accused me of stealing my own coat, the other wore a red beard.

  The red-bearded rider accompanying Sir Simon wore a green surcoat. It is possible to make many shades of green by mixing the blue of woad and the yellow of weld. The green this fellow wore was dark, like a new oak leaf in June. Much like the thread in my pouch. Arthur muttered a wrathful oath. “Thought that log did for ’im when ’e went into the river under ’is horse.”

  We watched the riders pass. They looked neither to the left nor to the right, and had they done so, Arthur and I would have been unnoticed. We wore brown and grey, filthy with the mud of the road and the dirt of the swineherd’s hut, and blended well with the rocks and vegetation of our place of concealment. When Sir Simon was well past and his horse no longer heard, I motioned to Arthur to follow and clambered over rocks and through underbrush to regain the road.

  “We must make haste,” I explained. “When Sir Simon finds the swineherd’s hut and his man bound there, he will cast about in the forest seeking us. But not for long. When we are not found he will hurry back to Oxford. We must be in the town before then. He will not attack us where others will see.”

  I hoped this prophecy to be true. Arthur seemed content with the prediction. We walked east with rapid steps and soon the bell tower of Oseney Abbey was in view.

  We hurried across Oseney Bridge and the Castle Mill Stream. I thought to seek Kate and explain my absence at mass this day and the final reading of the banns, but decided rather to return to Canterbury Hall. I wished to brush my garments, wash filth from my face, and seek evidence of our captors in the guest chamber while the event was fresh in my mind.

  Perhaps the Lord Christ guided my steps. As we turned from St Frideswide’s Lane I saw Kate, her father, and Master John standing before the gate to Canterbury Hall.

  Robert Caxton seemed agitated. He gestured vigorously as he spoke. Caxton and his daughter stood with their backs to our approach. It was Master John who saw us first.

  He pointed our way. Kate and her father turned, and immediately Kate took to her heels and fell upon me there in the street. I was some embarrassed, but her embrace drove discomfort from me.

  Much hurried conversation followed. Kate told me that she was at first angry that I had neglected attending mass. But her father convinced her I was not a one to do so without good reason. So after the mass they sought Master John. He went to the guest chamber and discovered that we were absent and the place left in much disarray. He had just told Kate of this, and his fear that something was amiss, when Arthur and I appeared around the corner from where they stood.

  I told them of our capture and escape, and the part Sir Simon Trillowe had played in the affair.

  “We must speak more of this,” Master John declared, “but not here in the street. Women are not welcome at Canterbury Hall, for monks reside here, but ’tis in my power to make exception. We will withdraw to my chamber and discuss this matter.”

  The cook rang the bell for dinner as Master John shut his chamber door behind us. I saw Arthur’s eyes widen in alarm. I suspect he worried that our discourse was so important that we must not interrupt it even for a meal. Not so.

  Master John looked up from his table when he heard the bell. “An empty stomach,” he opined, “will not help to resolve this matter.” Then, looking to Kate, he added, “None but the porter saw your entrance here, I think, but it would be unwise to set you at table in the hall. You must remain here while we go to our meal. I will bring a loaf and a bowl for you when we return.”

  Kate did not seem pleased with this announcement but knew better than to challenge convention. Those who do may occasionally succeed, but often bear scars for the achievement.

  The pottage this day was thick with peas and beans, flavored with an occasional bit of pork. I was fortunate in finding a sizeable chunk of meat in my bowl. Arthur saw this, and gazed reproachfully at me. His bowl, I think, did not reward him with much flesh.

  The bread was warm, a maslin loaf of wheat and rye, and the ale was near fresh. It was good to be alive – dirty but alive. Especially as there were men about who plotted it would not be so.

  After the meal Master John commanded the cook to take a bowl of pottage, a loaf, and a cup of ale to his chamber. If this order surprised the cook he gave no sign. He was prompt. We had but closed the door to Master John’s chamber behind us when the cook rapped upon it with Kate’s dinner in hand. Master John set Kate at his table and she began to eat while we sat facing one another upon benches to begin discussion of the matter at hand.

  “Think you Sir Simon was behind this abduction?” Master John began.

  “There can be no doubt,” I agreed.

  “Would a man kill another for a maid?” Caxton wondered aloud.

  “’Twas not for Kate he did this… not for Kate alone,” I replied. “He is a vain man, and his pride is sorely wounded for Kate’s dismissing his suit. But there is another matter which drives him as well, I think. He wishes information of me, so our captors said. And they spoke of Robert Salley’s corpse discovered. Salley had naught to do with Kate, nor would Sir Simon need instruction from me to court a lass.”

  “This business is to do with my books, then,” Master John declared. “I little thought when I asked your help in the matter that the undertaking might risk your life.”

  “But what can Sir Simon have to do with your books?” Kate asked between bites of maslin loaf.

  “’Tis a mystery,” I agreed. “Robert Salley was not known to Sir Simon, else Salley’s friends would have mentioned it. And how did he come by one of the stolen books? Did Sir Simon have to do with the theft? And what did Sir Simon and our assailants have to do with Salley’s death? They were certainly involved, else why speak of his discovered corpse as a troublesome thing?”

  “Think carefully, Master Hugh,” Wyclif urged. “Is there no other reason Sir Simon might wish you ill? Have you never encountered him before this business? Perhaps
when a student at Balliol College you ran afoul of him.”

  “Or a companion?” Caxton added.

  “May hap, but I think not. I was not a contentious sort. I remember no great disagreements. When the St Scholastica Day riots erupted in the town, I fled. Some scholars thought me a coward,” I confessed.

  “We will receive no assistance at the castle, this is sure,” Wyclif asserted.

  “Aye. It would be foolish to complain to the sheriff of his son. And what proof of his crimes have I but seeing him on the road and hearing our captors speak of his wishes?”

  “Perhaps Lord Gilbert might confront the sheriff,” Caxton suggested. “He spoke severely to Sir Simon when you were falsely accused of stealing your own coat.”

  “He would do so,” I agreed, “but how could his intercession find stolen books or tell us who took poor Salley’s life?”

  “There may be one whose authority could do what even Lord Gilbert’s may not,” Master John suggested.

  Silence followed this remark. Kate looked up from her pottage, spoon midway between bowl and lips. None who heard his words could imagine who Master John thought of greater authority than a peer of the realm. He enlightened us.

  “Duke John thinks well of me. I was born on his lands in Yorkshire. Does the sheriff protect his son, Duke John would intervene, I think. ’Twould be best to know first, however, before confronting the sheriff.”

  “How can we know this?” I asked.

  “You might take a letter.”

  “To the Duke?”

  “Aye. He has been my patron since I came to Oxford as a youth. He will not turn away a man who brings to him a supplication from me.”

  “Where may he be found? He has lands and castles in the north and in France.”

  “He will not be at Pontefract in November,” Wyclif advised. “No man would reside there for the winter when he might enjoy the Savoy.”

  “The sheriff will not be pleased to know we have brought Duke John against his son,” Caxton observed. “He is a spiteful man, ’tis said.”

  “We can hardly make of him more an enemy than he is already… or soon will be when he learns what his son has been about and how he’s been thwarted.”

  “He is not popular in the town,” Kate added. “He is likely to levy a fine upon a shopkeeper for the smallest offence. Father heard from a silversmith of Fish Street that there are plans to complain of Sir John to the King.”

  “Travelling to Westminster might serve two ends,” Master John advised. “You may seek Duke John’s service, and you will be well away from Sir Simon, who may not wish to abandon his pursuit of you.”

  So the conclusion of our discussion: on the morrow Arthur and I would set off for Westminster. Master John would write a letter this night which I would carry to John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, third son of King Edward III. I was apprehensive of this journey. I had never met a Duke.

  Monday dawn brought news; some good, some bad. Flakes of snow blew across the Canterbury Hall yard. I clutched my fur coat – our assailants had not stolen it – tight about me and made for the kitchen where I hoped to find loaves warm from the oven to fortify me and Arthur for our journey.

  I saw the porter leave his post at the gatehouse as I crossed to the kitchen. He walked hurriedly to Master John’s chamber and thumped firmly upon the door. I gave this event no thought and entered the kitchen.

  The kitchen was warm and I was tempted to linger. But this would not get me to Wallingford, where I proposed that Arthur and I would seek an inn for the night. I tucked two loaves under an arm and departed the kitchen in time to see Master John turn from the porter, with whom he had evidently been in conversation. The scholar did not glance my way. He walked swiftly across the yard, approached the guest chamber, and was about to pound upon the door when I greeted him.

  Master John spun on his heels. When he saw it was me who spoke his countenance broke into a smile.

  “Ah, Master Hugh… there is good news this day.”

  “What?” I grumbled, glancing at the sky and the occasional flake of snow dropping from low clouds. “Arthur and I will begin our journey with a snowy wind at our backs rather than in our faces?” I am occasionally given to sarcasm. This a flaw I recognize but have not yet mastered. And the wind was indeed from the northwest.

  “Nay, Hugh. You need not set out today. Perhaps not tomorrow or next day, either.” Master John noted my puzzled expression and quickly continued. “Sir John Trillowe is replaced as sheriff. Roger de Elmerugg has been appointed the post. The town is abuzz with the news.”

  I remembered Sir Roger. He was sheriff for a time some years before. I could recall no complaints against him; no more so than any man assigned to keep the peace and enforce the King’s law. Sir Roger is not, I think, a man of great wealth. When Roger de Cottesford replaced him three years past all suspected it was because de Cottesford offered King Edward more for the post. If de Elmerugg was now again ensconced in the castle, it was unlikely he outbid Sir John for the office. Perhaps the burghers of Oxford had made good their threat to complain to the King of Trillowe’s high-handed and pecuniary governance.

  I understood Master John’s smile. “Sir Simon no longer has the castle to protect him should an investigation of these matters come close to him.”

  “Just so,” Wyclif agreed. “He is yet a danger to you, I think, but not so worrisome as before.”

  “Indeed,” I smiled. “’Tis he who has cause to fret now. I have heard Lord Gilbert speak well of Sir Roger. They fought side by side at Poitiers.”

  “There will be less trouble to dig to the truth now,” Wyclif agreed. “How will you be about it?”

  “I must give the matter some thought. This is too great an opportunity to spoil with foolish measures.”

  “Aye. Prudence and forethought. Virtues Oxford scholars generally neglect. How did you acquire them, Hugh?”

  “You will recall when hasty judgment nearly led me to see Thomas Shilton hanged for a murder neither he nor any man committed?”

  “Aye, I remember well… the lass all thought was dead was a wench in a tavern just off the Canditch.

  “Very well,” he continued. “I will abide your caution. But set yourself in my place. There now seems a door open for measures which may see my books returned to me. Can you grasp my impatience?”

  I could. Many scholars did not accumulate twenty books in a lifetime of study and collection. Even while he spoke, thoughts jostled about in my mind of deeds which might resolve the matter to Master John’s satisfaction. Since our escape from the swineherd’s hut and our encounter with Sir Simon and his cohorts, an image of a horseman wearing a green surcoat had much engaged my mind. Perhaps, could the fellow be discovered, he might be persuaded to tell what he knew of Sir Simon’s business. Yesterday this would not have been so, but now Sir Simon could not demand loyalty from others and threaten the castle dungeon did he not receive it. I spoke of this to Master John.

  “Will you seek aid of Sir Roger?” Wyclif asked. “He is no friend of Sir John, ’tis said.”

  “He may be minded to help us, but I think today he will be visited by many supplicants. By evening he will be pleased to be rid of them, and will likely recall little of their petitions. Better to wait a day or two to call on him. Arthur and I will observe Oxford’s streets, seeking a man with a reddish beard who fends off the cold with a green surcoat.”

  Arthur was privy to this conversation. I gave him one of the cooling loaves and we discussed this new state of affairs while we broke our fast.

  Arthur munched thoughtfully for a moment, then said, “What if the fellow owns two surcoats? One for ridin’, like, an’ another for town?”

  Arthur may be no scholar, but neither is he a fool. “We will search for a red beard. We must hope the fellow has not both shaved and changed his coat. We will divide the town, I think. You walk about the castle, up to Rewley Abbey and the Carmelite Friars, then back to St Ebbe’s. I will go about from St Frideswide’
s to the Canditch, then east to the Cherwell.”

  “Best stop at Caxton’s shop,” Arthur grinned, “and see that the fellow has not called there for ink or parchment.”

  “I will do so,” I laughed, and slapped Arthur across the back. We had been through much in the last fortnight and I was grown fond of the man.

  I walked with Arthur down St Frideswide’s Lane, then left him at Fish Street, where he continued west on Pennyfarthing Street toward the castle. Folk were just beginning to venture out upon their business and shopkeepers were opening shutters. I saw more than one cast a frowning glance to the clouds. The occasional snowflake fell on upturned cheeks.

  Any man who could might wish to keep to his bed on such a morning. Certainly a young gentleman, did his father leave him sufficient funds, would look with disfavor upon any venture which called him out of doors early this day. I did not expect to see many young knights on the streets, wearing green surcoat or otherwise. I did not.

  I walked a circle, from the Northgate to Holywell Street, thence to Longwall Street and the Trinitarian Friars. From there I turned right and strolled west on St John’s Street until I was once again before the gate to Canterbury Hall.

  The sacrist of St Frideswide’s Priory rang the bell for terce as I stood before the gate, contemplating which way I might next go. There are streets and alleys in Oxford where searching for a gentleman would be like seeking salmon in a well. I set off for the High Street, then circled north on School Street and once again back to the Northgate. I found nothing but a blister upon my heel for the morning’s stroll.

  Arthur was prompt for dinner. Some things in this life are unchangeable. After bowls of pottage, this day flavored with fragments of mutton do I not mistake me, we set off again to search for our quarry.

  But first I sought Kate. She was employed in the workroom when I entered the shop, and was eager to learn more of Sir John Trillowe’s dismissal. I told her what I knew, which was little more than her father had already learned from gossip among the merchants who sought custom on the Holywell Street and Canditch.