The Abbot's Agreement: 7 (The Chronicles of Hugh De Singleton, Surgeon)

by Mel Starr

  Here was a new thought, and one worthy of investigation, although how I would go about it was unclear. John Whytyng had a key which would open the door to the north porch of the abbey church. This entrance to the church was beyond the abbey wall, and so allowed access to the village. Whether he had made the key or acquired it from another I could not know, and it probably did not matter. That the key was John’s I was certain, because of where it was found. Had the novice used it before, to slip away from the abbey in the night? It must be so, for some man, or men, expected him to be at the fishpond. Unless John had actually surprised poachers in the act of casting a net.

  Near to the east pond was a substantial house of three bays, its daub whitewashed, its roof well thatched, its barns well kept, its toft filled with hens.

  I sought Brother Gerleys and asked whose house adjoined the abbey to the east.

  “Simon… Simon atte Pond he is called. Eynsham Abbey’s reeve.”

  “It seems the house of a prosperous man. And nearby, across the road, is another grand house. Who lives there?”

  “The reeve has five yardlands of the abbey, and village folk in hallmote have chosen him reeve for many years. Across the way is the house of Sir Richard Cyne, lord of his manor at Eynsham.”

  If a man is chosen reeve by his neighbors for many years, it is generally because he allows no man to shirk the labor which is his obligation, but is fair when responsibilities for fields and forests and ditches and fences are assigned. No one wishes to be appointed more labor than he believes is his due; nor does he want his neighbor to escape his share of manor obligations. A reeve, like a bailiff, finds it easy to anger many folk and difficult to please most.

  The reeve’s dwelling lay but a hundred paces to the east of the abbey church. Hens retreated deeper into the toft as Arthur and I approached the house. When I rapped upon the substantial oaken door it opened almost immediately and a youth of perhaps twelve years peered through the opening. My first thought upon seeing the lad was that here is a boy about the proper age to make the smallest set of footprints I had seen a few hours earlier, less than a hundred paces from where I now stood.

  I glanced to his feet and saw that, like those of the novice Osbert, they had outgrown his slender form and were nearly as large as my own or Arthur’s. Whatever youth had stood upon the verge of the fishpond four or five days past, here was not the lad who did so.

  “I seek Simon atte Pond,” I said. “Is he at home?”

  “Nay, sir. Master is dealing with them what’s ditching out Swinford Road.”

  I knew Swinford Road well, having traveled it to Oxford many times, and once, also in company with Arthur, fleeing an attack as we galloped our beasts to Eynsham and the abbey, seeking sanctuary from men who sought to do us harm.

  “Master,” the lad had called the reeve. This is not uncommon. Since the great pestilence many who have escaped death now have tenancy of many yardlands and wealth enough to employ servants. Indeed, some knights and squires resent the prosperity of such men, who may not add “Sir” to their names even though they carry a heavy purse.

  We found the reeve and six of the abbey’s tenants at work but three hundred paces east of the village. At first I could not identify the reeve, for all seven men plied spades where I could see that water had gathered in the past, and was beginning to create a swamp which impinged upon the adjacent field. These laborers had yet several hundred paces of ditch to clear before the water which might accumulate in the place could flow freely to a small brook.

  One of the diggers looked up from his work, saw us approach, spoke a word, and as one the others rested upon their spades to watch us draw near. The fellows had likely been at this labor since shortly after dawn, and so were pleased for any diversion which would grant a moment of ease.

  Arthur and I had approached within a few paces of the ditchers when one man lifted his spade to a shoulder and spoke.

  “I give you good day. How may I serve you?”

  “I seek Simon atte Pond, reeve of Eynsham.”

  “You found ’im.”

  The autumn day was cool, but the reeve and those who worked with him had discarded their cotehardies and worked dressed only in kirtles and loose chauces. Yet even so lightly clad, the reeve passed the sleeve of his kirtle across his forehead to wipe away sweat as he spoke. I was prepared to like the fellow. Any reeve who will labor with the men he oversees is likely to be worthy of trust.

  “Perhaps you will not mind ceasing your labor for a moment,” I said. “Abbot Thurstan has employed me to seek a murderer. I am Hugh de Singleton, bailiff to Lord Gilbert Talbot at Bampton.”

  The reeve bowed and tugged a forelock, a thing he likely was taught when young, although now his rank was near to my own and his worth perhaps as great.

  “Heard about the lad,” he said. News of death, especially one so attended with mystery and wickedness as that of John Whytyng, spreads through a small village as rapidly as the pestilence.

  “What have you heard?”

  “’E was found yesterday, most of ’is face peeled away by birds. Stabbed in the back, some do say.”

  “What do others say?”

  “Just stabbed.”

  “Did you know the novice?”

  “Nay. I have little to do with the monks.”

  “Did others of the village know the lad? Did any speak of him?”

  The reeve was strangely silent for a moment. “Some knew of ’im, I think. Monks keep to themselves. Lay brothers are about the village often enough, but not so much the monks or novices.”

  “Then how did some of the village know of John Whytyng, if monks and novices keep to themselves?”

  “Don’t know that many folk did know of ’im. I said I thought some in the village knew of ’im. That’s all.”

  “Your home is adjacent to the abbey fishpond.”

  “Aye. That’s how folk do call me.”

  “You are closer to the pond than any monk. Do you ever see folk, or hear them in the night, taking fish from the abbey ponds?”

  “What’s that to do with the novice bein’ slain?”

  “Perhaps nothing.”

  “That would be the bailiff’s worry, or the abbot’s; not mine.”

  “I am told that Eynsham’s bailiff is a venerable man and may, perhaps, be less alert than a younger man for miscreants in the village.”

  “That’s as may be, but poachin’ the abbey’s fish is the bailiff’s concern, or the abbot’s; not mine.”

  “You have not answered my question,” I said. “Do you awaken in the night and hear men prowling about the pond in the dark?”

  “Folks who’d be takin’ the abbey’s fish would be silent while about it.”

  “But a net thrown into the water would make a splash.”

  The reeve was silent for a moment, long enough for me to wonder if my first assessment of his character was in error. Perhaps he knew of villagers who dined upon the abbey’s fish, and had done so himself, and so intended to keep silence about the offense.

  “Folk be slayin’ pigs now. Most have no need to risk takin’ abbey fish,” the reeve finally said.

  “But when winter is past,” I said, “perhaps by Whitsuntide, when pork is gone, then you hear men at the pond?”

  “Aye,” he admitted. “But not now.”

  “When was the last time you heard men in the night and thought it likely they broke curfew to take abbey fish?”

  The reeve scratched at his beard as he considered the question. “Not since Lammastide… a fortnight after.”

  “But you neither heard nor saw any man near the pond at night last week?”

  “Last week? Nay.”

  The laborers had rested upon their spades during this conversation, listening intently, for any such talk of village gossip will excite attention. And perhaps among the ditchers was a man who had helped himself to an abbey pike at some time in the past.

  Arthur and I left the reeve and his workers to their labor and
retraced our steps along Swinford Road to the village. When we were out of earshot of the reeve Arthur spoke.

  “Never heard of a reeve what didn’t know everyone else’s business. An’ what’s a reeve doin’ with them as is ditchin’? That’s a hayward’s work, seems to me.”

  “Perhaps,” I said, thinking out loud, “the pestilence carried off the hayward, and the reeve has taken upon himself some of the bailiff’s duty, the bailiff being old and incompetent. Men will not say to a bailiff the same words they would to a reeve… even a bailiff who is but a reeve.”

  “Hmmm. Mayhap.”

  We were passing a field where wheat stubble, left standing after harvest, was being cut to mix with hay for winter fodder. Arthur’s attention was drawn to the women who were busy with scythes at this task, one of whom was a comely lass. She stood from her work to watch us pass, but at a sharp word from an older woman – her mother, perhaps – turned away and bent to her labor. Most matrons would prefer that their daughters not catch the eye of passing strangers.

  The lass, or some other in the wheatfield, had caught another eye as well. A few paces beyond the west edge of the field, and on the opposite side of the road, was a large house, well thatched, surrounded by many barns and outbuildings; the residence of Eynsham’s lord, Sir Richard Cyne. A man stood at an upper window, which was open to the chill November breeze. Why it would be so was plain. The fellow stared over our heads toward the women cutting wheat stubble.

  Arthur saw me turn to look to my right and followed my gaze. As he did so the man at the window noticed us passing and withdrew. A moment later an arm appeared and drew the window closed. Arthur chuckled.

  “Wanted a better look at yon lass than he’d ’ave through the ripples of window glass, eh?”

  I agreed that this might be so.

  The sun lay low in the southwest, and it would soon be night. I had learned what I could this day, although this was little enough. A mighty castle may, however, be brought down by the incessant pounding of a trebuchet.

  We passed the west entrance to the abbey church, entered the door to the west range of the cloister, and found the door to the abbot’s lodging open. Nones had ended but a short while past. I saw the abbot, head in hands, seated at his desk and bent over an open book. I thought at first that he was deep in study and contemplation, but when I politely coughed to announce our presence at his door, the old monk started as if pricked.

  Abbot Thurstan looked up from his book, blinked away the effects of his slumber, and recognized who it was who darkened his door.

  “Ah, Master Hugh. What news?” He pointed to a chair and bench. “Be seated… be seated, and tell me what you have learned this day.”

  I did. I had learned little enough, so the recitation did not take long. The day’s events had raised as many questions as answers. I tried some of the questions on the abbot.

  “Who are the abbey explorators?”

  “Prior Philip and Brother Eustace see to locking the abbey doors at night,” he replied.

  “How old is Sir Richard Cyne?”

  “Sir Richard?” The old abbot stammered at this abrupt change of subject, then continued. “Not so old as me… few men are. Has two grown sons. Wife died when plague came twenty years past. Lost a daughter then, also.”

  I glanced toward Arthur and he smiled knowingly in return. ’Twas a stout young man we had seen standing at the upper window of Sir Richard’s house. One of the sons, surely, but knowledge of this would do us no good in discovering the felon who murdered John Whytyng.

  Monks have no supper when days grow short, but visitors in the guest house are fed from the abbot’s kitchen. So when Arthur and I entered our lodging the lay brother assigned to attend us told us that he would soon return with our meal. ’Twas but a simple pease pottage, but flavored with a few bits of pork, and with a maslin loaf the supper was most satisfactory. I could not say the same for the abbey’s ale. The monk in charge of brewing the abbey’s ale was ill chosen. Perhaps this is by Abbot Thurstan’s design. A man seldom finds himself in trouble for drinking too little ale, and no monk of Eynsham Abbey was likely to imbibe too much of the foul stuff Arthur and I found in the ewer.

  Night comes quickly in the days past Martinmas. The feeble light of a cresset gave illumination to our guest chamber. Was I at home in Bampton, I would light another cresset and read from one of my books, perhaps the gospel of St. John. Next year I might read from my own Bible. But I was not in Galen House, I had no book, the night was chill, and so I was about to surrender to the darkness and seek my bed when it occurred to me that on such a night, when darkness came early to Eynsham, was John Whytyng slain. If poachers were to blame, might they not seek the abbey fishpond again? No man knew of what Arthur and I had found beside the fishpond but for Brother Gerleys, Abbot Thurstan, and the novices.

  I told Arthur of my plan. “That reeve,” he replied, “said folk was most likely to take fish from abbey ponds come Whitsuntide, but days is long then. A man would need to wait ’till near the middle of the night, else he’d be seen. Not so after Martinmas.”

  The abbey church bell had just rung for compline when Arthur and I left the guest house. We walked silently, hesitantly, past the southern end of the dormitory. I did not much fear discovery. The monks would all be in their choir stalls. Our progress was slow because we had only the light of stars to guide us, the moon not yet being risen. If some men were seeking the abbey’s fish I wanted to be upon them before they could hear us approach.

  I found the pond, saw the stars reflected in its mirror-like surface, and together Arthur and I followed the bank until we were near the place where we had found the novice’s boot.

  I whispered to Arthur that we should seat ourselves against the base of a beech tree which grew nearby at the verge of the wood. It seemed to me that if poachers wished to take abbey fish at this season they would do so soon after compline, while the monks slept, and before they awoke for vigils. What man would willingly forsake a warm bed in this season if he could complete his mischief and return to his home before the coldest part of the night?

  I was required twice to put an elbow into Arthur’s ribs before the new moon rose over the wood behind us. The man’s snoring would frighten off a host of poachers. If Abbot Thurstan would build a hut at the edge of the pond, and hire Arthur to sleep there, he would never lose another fish.

  We remained in shadow, but the pond was now faintly illuminated. If I were a poacher I would have come and gone by this time. Arthur agreed. “A man would have to be witless to cast a net into the pond now,” he whispered. I agreed, told him we would return to the guest house, and stood from my seat at the base of the old beech tree. This was not so easily accomplished as when I was a youth. Muscles had grown stiff with cold and inactivity. Arthur also stood slowly, then stretched. I heard a joint pop somewhere in his back. If his snoring did not chase poachers away, his stretching might.

  We returned to the guest house more rapidly than we had left it. The cresset in our chamber had gone out, but there was enough moonlight through a south window that I found my bed without stubbing a toe.

  Since monks do not break their fast, neither Abbot Thurstan nor his kitchener remembered to provide us with a loaf when the new day dawned. Very well. Some ancient Greek whose words I remember from my studies at Baliol College wrote that a man thinks most clearly when his stomach is empty. When he is well fed he becomes somnolent and neither his body nor his wit performs well. If this is so, I knew many scholars while at Oxford who might profitably have restricted their diet.

  The lay brother provided us with ewer, basin, water, and towel, and after washing, Arthur said, “What now?”

  I had asked myself the same question before I fell to sleep the night before, and was prepared with an answer.

  “John Whytyng was likely slain where we found his boot and pouch yesterday. We know that the key found in the pouch fits the lock used to secure the north porch to the church, and was perhaps made f
rom a missing ladle. We may assume, I think, that the novice used the key to leave the abbey in the night. Whether or not he had done so many times, or but once, we do not know. Nor do we know if he made the key himself or had some other man make it.”

  “Might be useful to know that,” Arthur said.

  “Aye. We must keep the question in mind. But this morning I intend to walk a path between the pond and the place where we found Whytyng’s corpse. There may be some sign of how the novice was carried from the one place to the other, and Brother Gerleys said there is a boar’s head somewhere near where John was found. I would like to know if birds have found it yet, and if so, what damage they have done to it.”

  I had hoped, even expected, to find some track in the fallen leaves at the edge of the forest where a low stone wall divided woodland from meadow, which might show how the novice had been dragged from the pond to where Arthur, I, and the birds had found him. I found no such marks. Perhaps the last of autumn’s falling leaves covered the trail, or two men – one with small feet – had carried the corpse. Or perhaps the murderer had dragged the novice through the fallow field most of the way, where there are no leaves to disturb. I walked part of the way through this meadow, seeking some sign that grass had been disturbed, but if it had once been crushed down, it had sprung back up and grazing sheep had obliterated any sign.

  To my sinister side, as I walked the meadow, I saw birds perched upon an oak where woodland and meadow met near the stone wall. Occasionally two or three would descend to the ground where there was likely a boar’s head for them to feast upon.

  I thought it unlikely that a murderer would haul a corpse through an open meadow, where even on a moonless night a man with good vision might see the deed. So after visiting the place where the novice’s corpse had lain I returned to the abbey, skirting the wall at the verge of the woodland. After forty or so paces I came near the birds and found what had attracted them. The hog’s eyes were gone, but most of the flesh was not yet devoured.

  Arthur looked upon the boar’s head with distaste. Most of the time he is eager to see pork before him, but not in such a fashion as this.