Ashes to Ashes

by Mel Starr

  “But why would Geoffrey slay his father’s bailiff? Had the man done something to anger him?”

  “If so, no man of Kencott has mentioned it. Perhaps I have not asked the proper questions.”

  As I lay abed that night some of the unasked questions occurred to me, and I was eager for dawn so that I might once again seek felons in Kencott.

  Arthur seemed in particularly good humor next day, humming to himself as we set out from Bampton Castle, past Cowley’s Corner and on toward Alvescot. When he did not explain his cheerfulness I asked. Travel and seeking felons has never affected me in such a way.

  “Agnes told me last night I’m to be a father… again.”

  Agnes is Arthur’s second wife, Cicily having died of plague more than a year past. Arthur’s son serves Lord Gilbert as page. I know little of his daughter but that she wed a tenant of Osney Abbey and lives near to Standlake.

  “I give you joy,” I said. “We must use more care than ever in seeking a murderer. We have now three small children between us which must not become orphans. A man who already faces a noose will not hold back from another murder or two.”

  “Aye,” Arthur said. “Can’t hang a man more’n once.”

  The Kencott church tower came into view and I told Arthur that we would seek the clerk there again. Walter would be at his duties at Sir John’s stables, and for the lad’s safety I did not want him to be seen talking to me. So I would wait until he completed his work at the stables and seek him at his father’s forge to ask of the bailiff’s horse.

  We tied the palfreys to the lych gate, entered the porch, and there met the priest. I had wished to avoid him, sensing that he would be reluctant to offer any information detrimental to his patron. But he would know the answer to my question, and perhaps knew of Lord Gilbert’s demand that my inquiries receive cooperation. I decided that boldness would serve best.

  “Ah, you are well met,” I said. “I give you good day.”

  “You have returned,” the priest said. This was obvious, and was spoken in an inhospitable tone.

  “Where is your clerk? I have some business at the church for which I require assistance… but you need not trouble yourself with the matter. Your clerk will be able to help me.”

  “What business is this?” the priest replied.

  “I intend to search through your documents chest.”

  “But that is locked against thieves and forgers.”

  “Get the key when you seek your clerk. Have him bring it. You need not trouble yourself further.”

  “What do you seek?”

  “If I find it, I will be sure to tell you,” I said.

  “I must know why you wish to explore my documents chest,” the priest insisted.

  “No,” I said, with my lips as thin as I could make them. “You do not need to know. You need to do as Lord Gilbert Talbot has required, and that is to offer whatever aid I seek.”

  The priest seemed ready to argue the point, then relented, shrugged, and said, “I will send Simon with the key.”

  When Arthur and I stood alone in the church he spoke. “What can you think to find in a chest which will tell of Randle or Henry?”

  “Nothing much of Henry. He had nothing to leave in a will. Randle, however, may be a different matter.”

  “Oh? You think the bailiff might have left enough property that some man was willing to slay him to get it? Can’t be many folk who’d inherit from a bachelor bailiff.”

  “Nay. Thomas Attewood said that Randle was high born. I’d like to know who left goods or lands to him rather than the other way ’round.”

  “Why? A man’d not be slain by an ancestor.”

  “Might be for an ancestor’s decision.”

  “Ah, a grandfather left ’im somethin’ that another wants.”

  “Something like that, perhaps.”

  The priest took his time in seeking and sending his clerk. ’Twas near to noon when the man appeared. In the meantime Arthur and I had found the documents chest under the tower and moved it under a window where, when the key arrived, we would be better able to sort through the deeds and wills and other chronicles stored there.

  The clerk came near, turned to glance at the door to the porch, then said, “Father Kendrick is displeased.”

  “I am grieved,” I said. “Have you the key to this chest?”

  “Aye. What is it you seek?”

  “I’m not sure. I hope to learn something of Randle Mainwaring.”

  “Ah. Let me guess. You believe the rumors of his lineage may be found true or false, and the discovery may add something to… to what? Bertran killed ’im for ’is horse. Didn’t ’e?”

  “The bailiff’s bones were found in the ashes of the St. John’s Day blaze in Bampton,” I reminded him. “Bertran did not try to sell Randle’s beast ’till Lammastide. Where did he keep the animal for that time? How did he feed it? Where would a poor villein get coin enough for oats? No man saw the horse grazing upon a meadow.”

  “Oh… aye. Well then, I will open the chest and you may seek what you will.”

  It seemed likely that the chest would hold many records of folk in Kencott. Reading so many documents would be an arduous task, for which Arthur could be of no help. The man cannot read. I hoped to press the clerk to assist the search.

  The clerk produced the key, a large iron fixture nearly the size of my palm, and inserted it into the lock. I believe this chest was rarely opened, for the lock did not turn readily, and when it finally did, the hinges squealed when the clerk raised the lid.

  Arthur and I had found the chest quite heavy, which did not surprise us much, as it was nearly as long as I am tall, and as wide and deep as my arm is long. But the weight of the chest was greater than the oak of which it was constructed and the iron with which it was bound. It was nearly full of parchment documents, many dark with age and the ink faded. I looked into the opening and felt like closing the lid upon what seemed an impossible task.

  “What do you wish for me to do?” the clerk asked.

  “There seems to be no order to the documents stored here,” I said, “but that the newest are on top and the oldest near the bottom. Take a bundle and sort through, seeking names of gentlemen of Kencott: deMeaux, and also Mainwaring.”

  “Mainwaring?”

  “If Randle was high born, there must be such a name somewhere in Kencott’s past.”

  “Oh, aye.”

  “What should I do?” Arthur asked.

  “Sit in the porch, enjoy the sun, and watch for who may pass the church. The priest is not pleased about this, and he may tell others of what we are doing, who will also be unhappy.”

  Arthur departed for the porch whilst the clerk and I bent to the chest, withdrew pages of Kencott’s past, and rapidly searched through them seeking recognizable names in introductions and preambles.

  After an hour of this my back was aching and my stomach growling. The clerk stood, walked to a window, and peered through it. When he saw my curious expression he said, “Sundial. I must ring for the noon Angelus.”

  He left for the base of the tower and a moment later I heard the church bell sound. When the clerk had completed this duty I told him to go to his dinner, sent Arthur to my palfrey to retrieve our sack of loaves and ale, and sat in the sun of the porch to ponder the misspent morning. I considered quitting what seemed a waste of time. Evidently the sounding of the church bell for the noon Angelus was but a formality in Kencott. The priest did not appear to officiate at the service, nor did any parishioners seek the church.

  After consuming my loaf I sent Arthur to water the palfreys at the roadside brook and returned to the church and the chest.

  I withdrew another bundle of rolled documents as thick as my forearm and began to sort through them, discarding one after another as I glanced at prologues and titles and headings. Near the bottom of this stack a document caught my eye, and rather than casting it aside I read the first lines.

  The document told of the death,
in February of 1342, of Amice deMeaux, widow of John deMeaux, who had predeceased his wife by nine years. Amice was the daughter and heiress, according to the certificate, of Sir Roger d’Oilly, lord of Kencott, who had died in 1309. Amice’s heir, the document said, was her son, John, born in 1324. This son would be the rotund Sir John whose manor Kencott now was.

  But most intriguing was a brief sentence in the last paragraph. Amice deMeaux had been twice a widow. Her first husband had died in 1321. His name was Sir Harold Mainwaring.

  The clerk returned from his dinner as I studied the document, and asked what so captured my attention.

  “Amice was a wealthy woman, I think,” the clerk said. “Heiress to a landed knight, and widow of another before she wed Sir John’s father. That’s how Sir John came to be lord of Kencott, then: through ’is mother an’ grandfather.”

  “Aye. But what of her marriage to her first husband, Sir Harold Mainwaring?”

  “Oh… Mainwaring. I wonder did she have children by that first husband?”

  “A worthy question. Do you know of any other man named Mainwaring hereabouts but for Randle?”

  “Nay. Never heard of the name but for the bailiff.”

  “Take another bundle of documents and seek the name Mainwaring.”

  An hour later, near to the bottom of the chest, the clerk found what we sought. “Here,” he said triumphantly. “This parchment says that Harold Mainwaring died upon the fourth day of November in 1321, leaving his wife, Amice, and son, Roger.”

  The clerk handed me the document and I studied it closely. Roger, according to this record, had been born in 1320 and was but a year old when his father died.

  “’Tis no will,” I said. “Only a record of the man’s death.”

  In such circumstance the law requires that a man’s possessions be left one-third to his wife and two-thirds to his son. But ’twas Amice who had inherited Kencott, not her first husband, Harold. How, then, did the law apply? Was Harold Mainwaring’s will gone missing?

  Here was startling news. When Amice deMeaux died, her heir was her son, John deMeaux. But before she wed a second time her heir would have been a Roger Mainwaring. Was this man Randle’s father? Was this the tangle men spoke of when they said that Randle Mainwaring was high born?

  By the ninth hour we had emptied the chest. No more of Kencott’s records could be found bearing the name Mainwaring. I replaced the documents, as much as possible, in the chest in the order in which they were removed but for the parchments which bore the names of Amice deMeaux and Sir Harold Mainwaring. These I placed atop the other documents, so that if I wished to consult them again they would be at hand.

  I closed the lid and the clerk produced the key from his pouch and locked the chest. The day had not been misspent, as I had at first feared when I looked into the opened chest. I had learned many things. But how this knowledge might serve to identify and convict a felon was yet unclear.

  ’Twas near the time when Walter Smith would be set free of his duties at the stables. I thanked the clerk for his aid, bid him “Good day,” and with Arthur set out for the smith’s forge.

  I told Arthur of the discovery of the names deMeaux and Mainwaring, and asked if any man had shown overmuch interest in the church while passing by upon the road.

  “Nay, not many folk about. Most is in the fields, either doin’ Sir John’s boon work or harvestin’ their own crops. Saw but three men pass all the while you was in the church, an’ they paid little attention but to look at our beasts tied to the lych gate.”

  Walter had not arrived yet at his father’s forge when Arthur and I greeted the smith. The fellow glanced to the sun, then the shadow of the tree near to the forge, and said, “Be ’ere soon. Sir John don’t usually keep ’im past time.”

  Someone did. An hour and more passed, the smith looking up from his hammer and anvil every few minutes to peer down the road, then, when his son was not in view, he would again gaze at the sun and the shadow of the tree as it lengthened across the road.

  Arthur and I had sat ourselves beneath the tree to await the lad’s appearance. I became nearly as apprehensive as the smith when the shadow of St. George’s Church tower reached the forge, yet there was no sign of the child.

  The smith removed his apron, set down his hammer and the hinge he was making, then said, “I’m off to the manor ’ouse. See what’s keepin’ Walter. Mayhap he got kicked, or bit.”

  “If so, return and tell me of it. I am a surgeon,” I said, “and can help the lad.”

  I might have traveled with the smith, I suppose, but thought for the smith’s sake ’twould be best for the man not to be seen in my company. As it happened, my concern was well founded, if too late.

  The hour grew late, although the sun was yet high enough above the trees that we should have light to travel back to Bampton. I was loath to depart Kencott ’till Walter was found. I was uneasy about the alteration of the lad’s schedule and what it might portend.

  A quarter of an hour later, no more, the smith came into view, running. This was no good sign. The man was built like Arthur. Running is for men like me, fashioned like a beech sapling, rather than for men like Arthur and Edwin, who are assembled like wine casks.

  “Gone,” the smith gasped as he stumbled to a stop before us.

  “Who? Walter?”

  “Aye,” he said. “Sir John said he’d not come to work today. I asked them as work in the stables. No one there’s seen ’im all day. Thought ’e was ’ome, sick abed, the other lads said.”

  “How many pages does Sir John employ in his stables?” I asked.

  “Three. I told the others ’e went off to the manor house this morn, as always. But they said ’e’d never come near. Sir John is sendin’ ’is lads an’ some others out to seek ’im. Ain’t like Walter to do this.”

  “He has never run off before, as lads will sometimes do?” I asked. “’Tis a warm day. Is there a deeper place in yon brook where a boy might splash about on a warm day?”

  “Nay. Walter’s never shirked ’is tasks before… an’ the brook’s too shallow to drown in. No place more’n ankle deep.”

  “Men of Sir John’s household are seeking Walter?” I asked.

  “Aye. Come back to tell you an’ ’is mother, an’ now I’m goin’ with others to search for ’im.”

  “Has the lad some hidden places where he and other boys of the village like to conceal themselves from their parents?”

  “Likely. Lads’ll do such things. But I don’t know where they’d be.”

  “Other youths might. You should seek them and learn of where a lad might go if he wished to escape the supervision of his parents for an hour or two.”

  “I will do so. ’E’ll get a good hidin’ when I find ’im, if that’s what ’e’s done.”

  I sincerely hoped that Walter was going to receive that hiding, and in the near future. If he did not, it would mean that his absence from the stables this day was no misbehavior of his own but the work of some other man. Or men.

  Chapter 13

  “What shall we do?” Arthur said as Edwin hurried off toward the manor house to join the search for his son. “We could search with Sir John’s men for an hour an’ yet be to Bampton before dark.”

  “I think not. We do not know the hidden places near the village where lads might go, and I do not want to be seen too often with the smith. Many folk do not want us here, but due to Lord Gilbert’s visit they can do nothing to prevent our casting about for evidence of a felony.”

  “We hope they can do nothing,” Arthur said with a wry grin.

  “Aye. But no man promised Lord Gilbert to do no harm to the smith, or to the clerk, and if they are thought to be in league with us some evil may befall them.”

  “Or Walter,” Arthur said.

  “Aye, or Walter. And if this has happened, you and me searching for the lad will be fruitless. He will be hidden away in some place where neither we nor any other men will find him.”

  “If Sir
John’s men is seekin’ him, they’ll know where others ’ave looked, an’ Sir John an’ Jaket an’ Geoffrey’ll know where the lad could be hid so no man will find ’im. You reckon Walter’s alive?”

  This was a worry I was unwilling to speak. If the child was dead, his death would be upon my hands, for those who wished to silence him would only do so to prevent me learning more of what the lad knew. I wished to find another of the stableboys to ask of the bailiff’s horse, but if I did, would that youth also go missing?

  I was much conflicted. My heart told me that Arthur and I should follow Edwin and join the search for Walter. My head said that this would be unwise and of no value, perhaps might even be harmful.

  I followed my head and told Arthur we would return to Bampton for the night, then come again to Kencott in the morning to learn if Walter had been found.

  Kate thought that Arthur and I should have joined the search for Walter. I had told her of the day while consuming a supper of stewed capon, and when I was done, with both tale and capon, she rendered her verdict. Kate has a soft heart for those in peril, which is fitting for a woman, so long as soft heart is not found with a soft head as well.

  When I explained the danger which might come to those in Kencott who were seen too often with me, Kate reluctantly agreed that it may have been wise to leave the search for Walter to village residents. Kate might be soft-hearted, but she is also practical.

  I was eager to return to Kencott, so when Kate’s rooster announced the dawn I hurriedly donned cotehardie and cap, broke my fast with a loaf and cheese, then hastened to the castle.

  Arthur was ready with two palfreys. With a sack of loaves and ale over my beast’s rump for our dinner, we spurred our horses to quicken their pace and entered Kencott but an hour later. I went straight to the smith’s forge. It was cold. Edwin had not begun his day’s work. This was not a good sign.

  The smith and his wife lived in a house behind his forge. I went to the door and pounded upon it, fearing what I would discover.

  A woman, red of eye and with puffy cheeks, opened to my knock. Here, I thought, was Walter’s mother. Behind the woman I saw two small children of perhaps nine and five years of age. The older of the two looked up expectantly at me, and I understood that the child knew of his brother’s disappearance. Even the youngest child, a lass, seemed fearful.