Lucifer's Harvest (The Chronicles of Hugh de Singleton, Surgeon)

by Mel Starr

  Sir John did not reply for some time. Perhaps he thought such a search unjust, or mayhap his aching ear drove other thoughts from his mind. But after a few minutes of silence he stood, somewhat unsteadily, and walked to the entrance of his tent. He stood in the opening and pointed to two tents twenty or so paces from his own. “John and another sleep in the tent with the blue banner,” he said. “Richard and Roger in the tent with the green flap at the entrance.”

  Sir John said no more, but stumbled to his bed and immediately reclined upon it, his head resting upon the pillow so that the afflicted ear pointed toward the heavens. This was surely the least distressing position for his ear, but also aided in keeping the syrup where it would best serve to reduce his pain.

  Would a man keep a stolen dagger in his chest? Where else would he keep it? Perhaps bury it in the earth under his tent? If ’twas in the bottom of a chest the dagger might also avoid detection if the chest was locked. And most such chests are. Mine is.

  Sir John could demand that his retainers open their chests to me for examination. But if I found no dagger in the chests belonging to de Boys, Wrawe, and Heryng, any other man who had done murder would be warned that I was searching and would remove Sir Simon’s dagger from his chest, if that was where it was, and any further search of such chests would be fruitless.

  Chests are similar and so are locks. I drew the key to my chest from my pouch, bid Arthur and Uctred follow, and hurried to the tent which John de Boys shared with some other. At the entrance I bid Uctred keep watch whilst Arthur and I entered.

  I told Arthur what we sought, and told him to examine the ground beneath us as I tried the chests. Nearly all of the English tents had been raised upon a grassy meadow. The vegetation was long since beaten down both inside and outside the tents, but enough sod remained that if any man had buried a dagger or shoes within his tent, the disturbed earth might indicate the place.

  I tried my key in the lock of one of the chests, not knowing which of the two belonged to John de Boys. After some poking and twisting I felt the key turn.

  The chest held clothing and a small sack of coins. I excavated its contents to the very bottom and found no shoes or dagger. But was this de Boys’ chest?

  Arthur concluded his examination of sod under the tent and watched as I unsuccessfully tried to turn the key in the second chest. I finally gave up the exercise and told Arthur that we would seek the chests in the other tent Sir John had identified.

  Once again Arthur went to examining the soil whilst I tried the locks. Both chests eventually yielded to me, but I found no dagger in either. One chest contained a pair of well-worn shoes. I doubted that Sir Simon would have possessed or worn shoes so shabby.

  Not all good ideas succeed, which may not mean that they were bad ideas. Unless the chest I was unable to open belonged to John de Boys and contained a dagger, the notion that I might discover a felon by probing the depths of three chests seemed a failure. I was not, however, ready to abandon the scheme. Perhaps there might be a way that I could discover the contents of the unopened chest. But what that might be I had no idea.

  Chapter 12

  Arthur, Uctred, and I departed Sir John’s tents and set out for the ridge overlooking the river and Limoges. We found the scene there much as we had left it an hour earlier, except that perhaps the smoke billowing from the shaft under the wall was thicker. Did this mean that the timbers of the shaft were burning more fiercely?

  I stood with three thousand others and watched the breeze wreathe Limoges’s wall with smoke. The French soldiers who had peered at their besiegers were absent from the section of wall above the burning shaft. Smoke no doubt burned their eyes. Or perhaps they did not wish to be atop a wall which might collapse at any moment.

  Most of my companions would have thoughts of battle and glory and victory, and the gentlemen and knights amongst them surely had thoughts of ransom as well.

  Not so with me. I could not rid my mind of the chest which I could not open. I considered and discarded several notions whereby a locked chest might be breached. All of these involved acts which would mar the chest. If I found Sir Simon’s dagger in it, the damage done in opening the chest would not matter, but if no dagger was there the chest’s owner would be outraged, and rightly so. And word would soon pass through Sir John’s tents that I was searching through men’s chests. If Sir Simon’s dagger was hid in any other chest it would immediately find another home.

  Keys. They are some different from each other, yet similar, and do the same work. My key opened three of four locks. Was it possible that another key, slightly different from my own, might be enough unlike mine that it would open the fourth chest? Sir John would surely have a locked chest, and a key.

  I decided that an experiment with Sir John’s key would not require Arthur and Uctred to be present, so told them that they could remain, watching for a tumbling wall, whilst I returned to the camp.

  I hurried from the hill to Sir John’s tent and found him yet abed. But this time, when I entered his tent, he was not quite so obviously discomfited. Mayhap the syrup was doing its work.

  “That chest,” I said, pointing to his large, iron-bound oaken box. “Have you a lock and key for it?”

  The chest sat at the end of his bed and was turned so that I could not see if it was fitted with a lock.

  “Of course. What man of property would take a chest upon campaign which he could not secure?”

  “I need the key for a few minutes.”

  “What?” he replied with indignation. “You intend to pry into my possessions? You believe my son’s dagger to be within my chest, and that I had to do with his death?”

  “Nay. I wish to learn whether or not your key will open another chest.”

  “Whose?”

  “Within the tent with the blue banner are two chests. One I was able to open using the key to my own chest. Sir Simon’s dagger was not within. The other chest I could not open. Which of the chests belongs to John de Boys I know not, but would like to know if Sir Simon’s dagger might be hid in the chest I could not open.”

  Sir John reached for a pouch which dangled from a tent pole and produced from it a key. He handed it to me wordlessly. I noticed that he did not seem so unsteady as but two hours past.

  I walked quickly to John de Boys’ tent, glanced about to see if any man saw me, then entered it.

  I had no more success with Sir John’s key than I had with my own. The lock and chest were of quality, well made of the best oak and iron, using the newest methods of construction.

  “No success,” I said to Sir John as I returned his key.

  “I could demand of the owner that he open his chest to me,” Sir John said.

  “Would he do so? ’Twould be easy enough for him to claim that he had misplaced his key. A day later he will have found the key, but no dagger would be found in the chest, even if it may be there now.”

  “Oh … aye. Well, if he will not open the chest I could order it smashed open.”

  “’Tis well made, and expensive. If no dagger is found within, you would need to pay the man for his destroyed chest. He would likely require four or five shillings.”

  Sir John thought about this expense, then said, “Is there no other way? Perhaps a man could steal into the tent in the night, whilst they slept, and fetch the key.”

  “If he knew where it was kept,” I replied. “’Twould not be easy to find in the dark, even if one knew where to seek it. And in the day the fellow will have the key upon his person.”

  “Oh … aye,” Sir John muttered, and sat upon his bed. “You do believe my son slain by a friend?”

  “What is known points to such a conclusion, but which friend I cannot tell, nor can I think of a way to learn so, if I cannot discover his dagger in some other man’s possession.”

  A few minutes later, walking back to the ridge overlooking Limoges, a way to open the reluctant chest occurred to me. The hinges of most chests are held in place with rivets. I had heard
of screws, and how they work to join objects together, but had never seen such a device in use. Until today. As I walked the path and considered the frustrating chest, it came to me that the hinges were fixed to box and lid with screws. Rivets cannot be drawn from their position without destroying them, but from what I had heard of screws, they are infinitely reusable, and if withdrawn and replaced leave no sign that they have been tampered with.

  I turned in the path and hastened back to the blue-bannered tent.

  How does one withdraw a screw? This I asked myself as I bent over the chest. I saw that slots crossed the head of each screw, and that the heads were much like rivets or nails but for the slot. ’Twas the slots which had told that the fasteners were screws and not rivets or nails.

  I unsheathed my dagger and fitted the blade near the point into a slot in one of the screws. The screw resisted for a moment, then broke free. A few more turns with the dagger and I was able to complete drawing it from the chest with my fingers.

  Each hinge was held in place with three screws through the lid and three into the chest. I removed the six screws which fastened hinges to lid, carefully set the lid aside, and searched the depths of the chest. I found Sir Simon’s dagger wrapped in a linen kirtle and hid under cotehardies, chauces, tunics, and other apparel, and a fat purse full of silver coins. John de Boys came from a wealthy family.

  The discovery so occupied me that I did not hear the man approach his tent. And my back was to the opening as I knelt over the chest. The first I knew that another was within the tent was an enraged shout.

  “What are you doing with my chest?” John de Boys cried. I recognized him as the man who had brought payment for Sir Simon’s dagger, and who had accompanied Sir Simon on the evening at Leeds Castle when the knight had struck me. This same man had also found Sir Simon’s corpse in Couzeix’s well.

  My dagger lay upon the sod where I had placed it after loosening the last screw. I seized it and leaped to my feet, two daggers in hand. In my right hand I held Sir Simon’s dagger, in my left my own.

  De Boys, startled, had not yet drawn his own dagger, or his sword, which hung useless from his belt. He found himself unready, and facing a man with a blade in each hand. He backed slowly toward the tent opening.

  “Sir John,” de Boys shouted. “The murderer is caught, and is a thief as well.”

  “The murderer has been caught, true enough,” I said. “And we both now know who the felon is. Here is Sir Simon’s dagger, found in your chest. I know it well, as does Sir John, I’m sure.”

  “You placed it there, within my chest, to escape the consequences of your felony and shift blame to me.”

  “‘Go your own way, then. I am done with you.’ Ranulf heard these words spoken to Sir Simon the night that he was slain. Why would I say such a thing, when all men know I had as little to do with Sir Simon as possible?”

  De Boys seemed to deflate before my eyes, as a pig’s bladder inflated for sport pricked with a pin.

  “How is it you have Sir Simon’s dagger hid in your chest?” I asked.

  “F-found it,” he stammered.

  “Oh? Where? And why did you not tell Sir John of the discovery?”

  “Found it near that village, Couzeix, when we all went seeking for Simon.”

  “And told no one of your discovery? That does not seem credible. I suspect that Sir John will not believe such a tale.”

  “Didn’t tell Sir John … because I thought to sell the dagger. Worth three shillings, thereabouts.”

  I lifted his purse from the chest, jingling the coins within, then said, “A man possessing this purse needed another two or three shillings so badly that he would confiscate a murdered man’s property? Who would believe such a tale?

  “The lass saw you, you know,” I said. She could not, she had said, recognize Sir Simon’s murderer, for ’twas too dark, but de Boys did not know this.

  “Why did you slay him?” I asked. “Did you want the lass for yourself?”

  De Boys turned from me and faced the entry to his tent. I thought he was about to flee, but not so.

  “He was unfaithful,” de Boys said softly. “Over and over again. Said we’d always be together, but then he found that trollop in Couzeix.”

  “So you followed him there to slay him?”

  “Meant to slay the maid he went to meet, but he heard me and spoke so harshly I struck him instead when he rose to face me.”

  “You allowed the lass to run away?”

  “Couldn’t credit what I’d done. Just stood there while Simon kicked about in the straw and then lay still. The lass ran away while I was in a daze.”

  “When did you think of putting him in the well?”

  “Knew he’d be found if folk searched the village, and near naked as he was, there’d be questions. His chauces and braes were nearby, but I had not the heart to try to put them on him. Men might have seen us together that evening. Thought if he was in the well he’d not be found. Not soon, anyway. Dragged him to it, then broke a branch from a bush to sweep away the track of his heels in the dust.”

  “But next morn you found him in the well,” I said.

  “Couldn’t bear the thought of him being there.”

  “There was a bucket at the well. I found a bloodstain upon it. How so?”

  “Dunno. I tripped over something in the dark as I lifted Sir Simon to the lip of the well. Mayhap ’twas a bucket.”

  “What of Ranulf? Why did he accuse me of Sir Simon’s murder?”

  “Paid him three pence to tell Sir John ’twas you. Knew you an’ Sir Simon were enemies.”

  De Boys turned from the entrance to his tent and sat upon his pallet. “I knew, when you came nosing about, that ’twas likely you would find me out.”

  The man seemed almost relieved that this was so. He had incriminated himself with little prodding from me, as if he found solace in no longer bearing the burden of his sins alone.

  “I am a dead man,” he said, “and my family is ruined. When men learn of why I slew Sir Simon they will laugh at my name. They’ll make sport of my brothers. My father will be disgraced.

  “I will hang, I know. ’Tis my father’s shame which troubles me. I deserve what will come. He does not, nor my mother. My guilt is not theirs.”

  This was so, but reputation is not always based upon wise judgment – it is rather a product of men’s prejudice. What men might think of John de Boys should not color their opinion of his family, but likely would.

  “There will be a battle soon,” I said. “Why did you return to your tent?”

  “For my basinet,” he replied. “Others are also making ready. The wall will soon collapse.”

  This was likely so. From outside the tent I heard voices where but a short time ago there was only silence. Men were making final preparations for battle, gathering weapons and armor.

  “Will you tell Sir John of my guilt soon?”

  “Aye … I will see justice done. Your sins have found you out. But mayhap there is a way to do justice for Sir Simon which will not abase your father. I care little for your reputation. Your perversion is repugnant to me. But your father should not bear the consequence of your sin.”

  De Boys had been sitting upon his bed, staring at his feet. My words caused him to look up.

  “You intended to retrieve your basinet and return, ready to fight if the wall tumbled?”

  De Boys nodded.

  “If you plunge through the rubble of the fallen wall, in the van, you will be in a dangerous situation. It may be that you will be slain in the combat. Your father and mother will be grieved at this loss, I’m sure, but others will honor your father as a man whose son died a heroic death.”

  I said no more, but watched de Boys as his emotions played out across his face. He knew that he would soon die. I had given him a choice as to how death would meet him.

  “If I die in battle you will not tell Sir John of my guilt?”

  “I will tell him only that he may rest easy; that j
ustice has been done.”

  “What if he demands to know how this could be so?”

  “I serve Lord Gilbert Talbot. Sir John cannot demand a thing from me if Lord Gilbert disallows it.”

  De Boys said no more, but reached for his basinet, adjusted his tunic where it had become wrinkled against his armor, took a last look at me and his open chest, then bent to depart his tent.

  “You cannot escape death,” I reminded him. “No man can do so. But you may escape sin. To those who confess their wickedness the Lord Christ is merciful, though men are not. The Lord Christ judges a man, I think, not by where he has been, but by where he is going – the way he faces.”

  De Boys stopped at the entrance to his tent, as if considering this thought, then strode away. What he thought of my words I could not tell.

  I wondered if he would go to the scene of future combat and accept my suggestion, or seek his horse and flee. I looked through the tent entrance and watched as de Boys walked up the muddy path which led to the ridge overlooking Limoges, where he would join the assembled warriors awaiting a fallen wall. I followed.

  Night came upon us and the mine under the wall glowed, yet the stones did not fall. Some men drifted away, to seek slumber in their tents. Most remained, unwilling to miss seeing a city wall topple – if, indeed, the wall would accommodate our wishes and do so.

  It did, but I was among those who sought Morpheus and returned to my pallet about midnight. Near to dawn I heard a great roar, a thunder of collapsing stone and shouting men, and knew, even in my somnolent condition, what the uproar must mean.

  Dr. Blackwater, Prince Edward’s physician, had prepared a tent where, when battle commenced, the wounded would be taken. I hurried there with a pouch of instruments and another of physics useful in the treatment of wounds. The physician was at his tent already, awaiting custom, and a moment later we were joined by another surgeon, Thomas Calne, whose name I had heard but whom I had not met. He served Sir Walter Cressy, and seemed well prepared and businesslike.