by Mel Starr
The well had no wheel or crank, so the hempen rope had been tossed over the top of the well many times. Its fibers had frayed against the stones. I worried that it might not hold my weight, but if the old woman was in the well, she was yet living and moving about in response to my calls. How much longer could she survive, injured and plunged into cold water? Likely not long enough to last while Alfred went back to camp for a sturdier rope.
The stone lining of the well extended above ground barely to my knee. I sat upon it, feet dangling into the opening. I told Arthur and Alfred to keep a firm grip on the rope, then placed a foot in the bucket – which, unlike most objects in Couzeix, was well made and reasonably new – and told them to lower me into the well.
I kept one hand upon the rope and pushed away from the side of the well with the other. All the while I peered into the gloom beneath my feet and called encouragement to whoso might be under me.
For a fleeting moment I thought it likely that I had embarked upon a fool’s errand. But no, someone, or some thing, had moved in the depths of this well when I spoke into the opening.
My eyes became accustomed to the shadowy depths of the well and I realized that I must be near to the bottom.
“Easy, now,” I shouted to Arthur, whose head and shoulders darkened the circle of light above me.
The crone’s wimple was once white, I suppose, and had it been yet I might have seen it sooner – perhaps even from the top of the well. As it was, I saw it dimly in the shadowy light when the bucket and my foot were no more than an arm’s length above the woman’s head.
I pushed myself and the bucket from the side of the well just in time to prevent the bucket striking the old woman upon her head. She sat in water near to her shoulders. Her eyes stared blankly past me, open but unseeing. Beside her I saw the floating, bloated corpse of some furred creature – a goat, perhaps – which had been cast in to poison the water.
Had this been May rather than September the woman would likely have drowned, but a dry summer had decreased the water level in the well. I stepped from the bucket into water little more than waist deep.
The crone could not assist me in extricating her from the well. But would the hempen rope support the two of us as Arthur and Alfred drew us to the surface?
“What’ve you found?” Arthur shouted. “Rats, or the woman?”
“No rats,” I replied.
“She alive? Can you fetch ’er out?”
“Alive, yes, but perhaps not for long. I’ll fasten her to the rope, and tell you when to haul her up.”
The knot fastening rope to bail was wet and difficult to undo. But when it was loosened I shouted to Arthur to slacken the rope, then ran it about the old woman’s torso under her arms and knotted it in place.
“Haul away – but slowly,” I said to Arthur’s shadow in the circle of light at the well’s opening. Immediately I felt the rope grow taut. The woman groaned as the rope cut into her flesh. I would have spared her this discomfort, but could think of no other way to get her out of the well quickly.
“Got ’er,” I heard Arthur say, and saw the circle of daylight above me blocked for a moment.
“Rope’s comin’ back down,” Arthur said, and a moment later it splashed beside me. I retied the line to the bail, once again placed a foot in the bucket, and shouted for Arthur to haul away. He did so with such enthusiasm I feared that the rope might part. It held, and some moments later I crawled, dripping, over the wall of the well and stood looking down upon a frail, unmoving form.
“Run to the camp,” I said to Alfred, “and return with a litter. Make haste.”
He did, and as he trotted away I bent to peer into the crone’s face and spoke. “Who put you into the well?” I asked her in French. “Or did you tumble by mischance?”
The woman’s eyes had been closed, but when I spoke they opened and finally seemed to focus upon me.
“Hurts,” she whispered.
“What hurts?” Foolish question. After being dumped into a well she likely hurt everywhere.
“Me leg,” she said, and glanced toward her right foot.
I saw then why the woman was in pain. Her ankle was broken, the foot jutting at an abnormal angle from her lower leg. The drop into the well, I thought, had done this.
“I have physics which will dull your hurt,” I said. “But how did you come to be in the well?”
She was silent. Perhaps, I thought, she had swooned from the pain.
“Trois,” she finally whispered. “Three.” Try as I might, I could learn no more from her. She did not speak again.
Alfred and Uctred appeared carrying a litter. The woman remained senseless as we lifted her upon it, which was good, elsewise her broken ankle would have given her much pain. Half an hour later I opened the flap to my tent and Alfred and Uctred set the crone down gently. She was yet insensible, which condition I used to advantage, and went immediately to work straightening her broken ankle.
This was a waste. I had no sooner got the twisted ankle straight than the old woman heaved a sigh, as if some great weight had been lifted from her soul, and was still. I bent over her face, and pressed a finger to her neck. I felt no breath, nor could I find a pulse. Several hours in a cold well with a broken ankle had been too much for her aged body to endure.
Arthur had been peering over my shoulder as I straightened the woman’s ankle. “Gone,” he said. “Wonder what she meant when she said ‘Three’”?
“Perhaps three men put her into the well. If so, they will likely be the same fellows who dropped Sir Simon into it. Why else would a well come to mind as a place to be rid of her but that it had been already used for the same purpose?”
“Aye … but not very successfully,” Arthur said.
“That also puzzles me. Sir Simon was last seen just after sunset last night, so some man says, and was found in the well this morning but a few hours later … as if some man knew where to search for him. Sir John said he was seen in company with two others, which he claimed were you and me. We know that to be false. Perhaps the number is false also. Mayhap he was seen with three men.”
“Wonder where it was Sir Simon was seen – if he was, an’ the informer speaks true – an’ where ’e was goin’?”
“Was he on his way to Couzeix, I wonder,” I said. “And if so, why? There was nothing left in the village to attract him.”
“Nothin’ we know of,” Arthur replied. Here was a new thought. “An’ was ’e really with others, who seemed like us in the dark? Too great a riddle for me,” Arthur concluded and scratched his head.
“She sought refuge in the church,” I said. “Now she shall have it in the churchyard, till the Lord Christ returns.”
I left my tent and sought Father Bartram. Lord Gilbert was prepared for any unfavorable contingency, having both surgeon and priest in his retinue. The woman must be shriven, and besides, since one corpse had already been laid to my charge, I did not want another to be added. I briefly explained my need, and the priest readily followed me back to my tent and the dead woman.
After last rites there was nothing more to be done for the crone. I arranged with Father Bartram to bury the woman next morn. But what to do with the corpse until dawn? It was not fitting that she should be placed outside the tent overnight, and to do so would surely invite unfavorable comment from those who passed by. So I spent the night with a corpse and with Arthur’s snores. I did not sleep well.
We had no shroud in which to bury the woman. I thought that perhaps some cloth might remain in the church so sent Arthur to search the place. He returned empty-handed. Only a worn curtain across the Easter Sepulcher was there, he said, and he would not tear down such a sacred object for use as a burial shroud. The church had been stripped of everything else of slightest value. By whom, I wondered; Couzeix’s villagers, or pillaging bands from French or English armies?
The lych gate to Couzeix’s churchyard was decayed and near to collapse. Alfred and Uctred set litter and corpse upon the soil und
er the gate whilst Father Bartram folded his hands and prayed over the body. He spoke the words of Extreme Unction over the crone’s waxen face, anointed her with oil from his chrismatory, then stepped aside as Uctred and Alfred lifted the litter and followed me into the churchyard.
Father Bartram sprinkled holy water upon a likely place, and with Arthur, Uctred, and Alfred taking turns at the spade we soon had a grave open to receive the old woman. Arthur struck another corpse just as I was about to tell him that the grave was deep enough, so she will have a companion, or likely several, to bide with her till judgment day.
While Alfred, Arthur, and Uctred plied the spade, I considered how it could have been that the old woman was discovered in the church. Did some other man seek knowledge of Sir Simon’s death? Or did men – three, if that was what the crone meant by the word – search the church for anything of value which had not been hidden away or already stolen, and discover her rather than silver candlesticks?
In anger at being forestalled, such louts might pitch an old woman into a well for sport. That she would be found in the same place where Sir Simon was found but a few hours earlier would be a great coincidence. Bailiffs do not believe in coincidence.
Another thought came to me. Perhaps we were followed when we first came to Couzeix. Or men lurking in the village saw us enter the church. We were within the building longer than would be necessary to see that it was stripped of anything valuable. Such men, when we departed the church, might have entered the place to learn why we were detained. If they were the same knaves who slew Sir Simon, they might have considered the crone a witness to their felony and chosen the well as a place to silence her.
Did such men believe that I had already questioned her? Did she tell them so? Was she now lowered into her grave because I was too witless to look about me that morning to learn if we were followed as we walked to Couzeix, or so trusting of my sense that the village was abandoned that I was not alert to others watching when I entered or quit the church?
Whilst these thoughts passed through my troubled mind Father Bartram spoke the final collect for forgiveness, and Alfred set to work filling the grave.
The old woman could not have lived much longer. All men and women must die. But that is no reason to hasten the event.
If two murders had been done in Couzeix, I could see then no way to discover within the village who were the felons or why the murders were done. I could guess, but I have learned that doing so may mislead a man. He becomes convinced of his conjecture and seeks only evidence which will confirm it.
I thought it probable that the felons I sought would be found in the English camp, not within, or even near to Couzeix. What men of England disliked Sir Simon enough to slay him? A man’s reputation may travel farther than he does, and Sir Simon’s was not so laudable as he might have wished. Many knights are disagreeable fellows, yet no man seeks to slay them.
A few days past Sir Simon had made enemies of some of Sir Henry Morley’s men. Would a man cheated at dice slay the man who had defrauded him? Some might. I decided to visit Sir Henry’s tents and ask how much Sir Simon had gained from his deceit.
Chapter 8
Pottage to break our fast, pottage for dinner, more pottage for supper. The only variety was that some was of peas, some of barley. A loaf and roasted meat would have been worth much, but such fare was not for the likes of archers, men-at-arms, and bailiffs. Nor even for surgeons.
What was most lamentable about my diet was that Prince John of Gaunt and his knights were encamped but a hundred or so paces to the west of we of Lord Gilbert’s company. Each morning but for fast days his cooks set flesh to roasting, and the breeze carried the scent to us as we ladled our meal from a common pot. A man will not linger long over a bowl of barley pottage to savor its goodness. I swallowed the glutinous meal, motioned to Arthur to follow, and set off through the sea of tents for Sir Henry Morley’s camp.
I saw a familiar face as I approached Sir Henry’s tents. Sir Charles de Burgh stood before Sir Henry’s pavilion in conversation with several others. Sir Charles is Lord Gilbert’s brother-in-law, having wed the beauteous Joan, Lord Gilbert’s sister. I had heard that he has a son of Lady Joan.
I had seen the knight once a few weeks before, on the road from Calais, when he called upon his brother-in-law. His appearance had changed since I last saw him some years past. When we first met he was clean-shaven, as many young men, but now wore a beard which, like my own, betrayed his departed youth with a few gray whiskers.
When I first met Sir Charles he had seemed to me an upright knight, honest in dealings with other men. I thought he might be a source of information of the brawl between Sir Simon and those of Sir Henry’s band. Perhaps he even took part in it.
Sir Charles saw me approach and recognized me. “Ah … Master Hugh. I give you good day.” He stepped away from his companions and approached me. “How may I serve you?”
“How does Lady Joan?” I began.
“She is well. I pray. She is with child, our second. I trust this business will be soon over and done with so that I may return to Banbury.”
“Does her wrist trouble her?”
Lady Joan, before she met Sir Charles, had been hunting with her brother and others whilst at Goodrich Castle, and was thrown from her horse when the beast refused a jump. Her wrist was broken in the fall, and I was sent for to deal with the injury. The fracture was grave, bone protruding from torn flesh and skin. When I first saw the injury I feared Lady Joan might lose her hand, amputation being required to prevent the wasting of the flesh, which calamity would spread to her arm and eventually take her life was the hand not removed. Such an amputation may also lead to death. I was much relieved when the fracture knitted well and the toxin faded.
“Rarely,” Sir Charles said. “Occasionally on cold, damp winter days she suffers from an ache.”
“Will you walk with me?” I asked Sir Charles. I preferred that his friends not hear my questions nor his answers. When we had gone twenty or so paces from his companions I spoke.
“Before we departed Bordeaux some of Sir Henry’s men quarreled with Sir Simon Trillowe. Some dispute about dicing, I have heard.”
“Dispute?” Sir Charles laughed. “You might call it that. A few bloodied noses and bruised heads. Good training for what may come. Is this about Sir Simon’s death?”
“Aye. You’ve heard?”
“’Tis all through the camp. Hell itself will be defiled when Sir Simon arrives there. Tumbled into a well and drowned, some say. Drunk, perhaps. Others say an enemy may have slain him.”
“Is this enemy named?”
“Aye.” Sir Charles hesitated. “You are suspect. Do you know that this felony, if it so be, is spoken against you?”
“I do. Sir John went to Lord Gilbert and Prince Edward to denounce me.”
“Yet you walk free. They do not believe the accusation?”
“Nay. I gave them good reasons to doubt it. But now I am assigned to discover what did happen to Sir Simon – mischance or murder.”
“What have you learned?”
“Very little, but murder seems likely.”
“And so you have come to Sir Henry’s tents to seek those who brawled with Sir Simon and whoso was cheated at dice.”
“Aye. Do you know the men?”
“I do. I am one of them. Not one of those cheated. I have given up dicing and gambling at Lady Joan’s request.”
Lady Joan’s plea could make most men give up any vice.
“But when I saw two of my squires were set upon I joined the fray. ’Twasn’t much of a fight. Sir Simon’s men seemed unwilling to support him, knowing he was in the wrong. We vanquished the lot of them without having to draw a blade,” he grinned.
“Were your knuckles sore after?”
Sir Charles looked to the back of his right hand. “No lasting injury,” he said.
“Did Sir Simon return his gains?”
“Nay. Fled whilst the scrap was at its height,
so I’m told. I was too engaged at the time to notice. Left his squires and grooms to defend his honor – a futile task – whilst he absconded with his booty. We’ve gained little plunder from the French since we set out from Calais, so Sir Simon decided to enrich himself by cheating his companions.”
“How much was lost before his knavery was found out?”
“Four and six, so I was told.”
Would a man slay another for four shillings and sixpence stolen from him? Men have done murder for less, I think.
“The greatest loss was to Edwin, my squire. You wish to speak to him of it? I’m certain he would not slay a man, but you will want to assure yourself of that rather than rely upon my word.”
Sir Charles turned, motioned for me and Arthur to follow, and returned to the group of men with whom he had been in conversation when I first encountered him.
“Edwin,” he said. “Here is Master Hugh de Singleton, bailiff to Lord Gilbert Talbot at Bampton. He wishes some words with you.”
A dark-haired, slender youth of perhaps eighteen years looked to me. The lad was likely upon his first campaign, for he seemed callow at first glance. And at second glance. Edwin was some years from being fully grown. He stood no taller than my shoulder and could have weighed little more than eight stone. If he slew Sir Simon to avenge his loss he would, I thought, have required assistance, for Sir Simon was not a small man.
“W-what is it you wish of me?” the youth stammered.
“You lost at dice to Sir Simon Trillowe two weeks past?”
“Aye. Never knew a die could be weighted so as to fall as desired.”
“Cunning men will use their wits to defraud the unwary,” I replied.
The squire sucked upon his upper lip and nodded agreement. “I’ll not be so duped again,” he said.
“Sir Simon is dead, perhaps slain,” I said.
I saw the lad’s face fall and his eyes widen. Perhaps the implication of my words and my presence occurred to him.
