by Mel Starr
Another look passed between Geoffrey and Jaket. The youth shrugged. “Then I may come the sooner to my inheritance,” he smiled.
“Perhaps. But if your father lives another day – and unless some man slips a blade between his ribs, he surely will – Lord Gilbert and his knights will be here seeking me. He will turn his wrath against your father. Upon whom do you think your father will turn his anger?”
The time for words had ended. I fell silent and allowed Geoffrey and Jaket to consider their situation. The two men moved out of hearing and whispered, their faces close together. I did not need to hear to know that they discussed their options. These were few.
The day had been long and I was hungry. I thought of the loaves in the sack across my palfrey’s rump, and the ale in the flask carried by Arthur’s beast. If we were not soon released from the dovecote my growling stomach might be heard through the open door.
Geoffrey held his palms up and ended the conversation with Jaket. I saw Jaket scowl. Whatever Geoffrey had decided did not meet with his companion’s approval.
The grooms who blocked the dovecote door stepped back when Geoffrey came near. He stopped but one step from the door and said, “You may go… and take Walter and Simon with you. They are no longer welcome in Kencott.”
“Your father may have an opinion about that,” I said.
“And do not return tomorrow to treat my father’s scalp.”
“Sir John will have an opinion about that, as well.”
“He is abed, and not here to know what has been said and done. He will be abed tomorrow, also, but I will not. If you approach Kencott on the morrow you will discover how unwelcome you are. Now go, and take Walter and Simon with you.”
We five cautiously departed the dovecote, Arthur, Uctred, and me with axes at the ready. Our apprehension was unfounded. No man attempted to interfere with our departure. Perhaps they were pleased to see Walter and Simon gone from both dovecote and village.
Silently we crossed the field and manor yard, mounted our palfreys, and made for the smith’s forge. Walter rode behind me, the clerk behind Uctred. Arthur’s palfrey had work enough with only him mounted.
The stink of the dovecote and the dried bird droppings was intense upon Walter and Simon. And upon me also, due to my tumble into the pile of droppings. But this would have to be borne for a few hours. At Bampton Castle Walter and Simon might bathe away the stench and find clean clothes. I could do likewise at Galen House. What they now wore should be burned.
“Will we take Walter an’ Simon from Kencott, as Geoffrey demanded?” Arthur asked.
He said this with a peevish tone to his voice, as if he’d rather do battle with his axe than acquiesce to Geoffrey’s command.
“Aye, for now. We will visit the forge and the clerk’s house, explain why Walter and Simon must accompany us, and then make for Bampton.”
These things we did, and shared the loaves and ale after we left the clerk’s housekeeper weeping in the doorway.
By the time we had reached Alvescot I had heard Walter’s and Simon’s tales. Geoffrey had paid Walter extra to arrive early at the stables and take a bucket of oats to a runcie confined in a crude paddock in the wood. He was to water the beast also, and make certain that the horse had not broken down any part of the enclosure. He did not know whose the beast was, but the duty stopped when Bertran Muth was found in Burford with the bailiff’s beast.
Then two days past Walter had entered the stable, expecting nothing but a normal morning, when a sack was dropped over his head. Men silently trussed his arms and legs tight, then carried him off. He knew not where he was taken at first, but when he heard cooing and the flapping of wings he knew he was in the dovecote. The sack was lifted from his head, but light in the dovecote was dim, and a cloth was instantly wrapped tight about his eyes so he saw nothing of his captors. Then a wadded cloth was stuffed into his mouth and another strip was tied so as to keep the lad from spitting out the gag.
Next day the clerk was treated in the same manner. “I heard you speak to Sir John’s servants,” Hode said, “and thrashed about hoping you would hear.”
“Ah, that’s what drove the doves away from the dovecote in fright,” I said.
“Were you given to drink?” Arthur asked.
“Aye. Our legs were freed, and the gags were taken from our mouths each night. But the blindfold remained and our arms were never freed. We were given water and a loaf and warned that if we cried out no man could hear us and we would be beaten. We were allowed to relieve ourselves on the far side of the dovecote. When I asked what our captors intended, one said we would be held until you no longer came to Kencott asking of Randle Mainwaring.”
“Did you recognize Geoffrey’s voice, or the reeve’s, when men spoke to you?”
“Nay. Neither Geoffrey nor Jaket, but some of Sir John’s pages and grooms were among the men who held us.”
“You knew their voices?”
“Aye.”
“This may be of use to us,” I said.
“Surprised they didn’t slay ’em,” Arthur said.
“One spoke of it,” the clerk said, “but another said they were told there had been enough killing and there would be no more unless it proved necessary.”
My stitches began to itch again when we rode through the wood wherein I was attacked. But no men tried to block our way, Geoffrey and Jaket and their minions being pleased to see us away from Kencott and having no mind to interrupt our journey to Bampton.
I took Walter and Simon straight to the castle. The first man I saw after passing under the portcullis was John Chamberlain. I dismounted, told him briefly of matters in Kencott, and asked that he see to preparation of a chamber for Walter and Simon.
“Will they be Lord Gilbert’s guests for many days?” he asked.
“A night or two, I think… I hope. No more.”
I am an optimistic sort of man.
I found Lord Gilbert with his guests in the solar, having only just returned from hunting, and readying themselves for supper. I saw Lord Gilbert wrinkle his nose as I drew near, so I kept my distance while I spoke. My employer knows my moods, and after a brief glance at my face guessed that much was amiss. He asked what was troubling me and I told him.
Before a valet announced that supper was ready in the hall Lord Gilbert had organized an expedition to Kencott for the next morning. Peace with France meant that Lord Gilbert’s guests were bored, hunting being less stimulating than combat, and were, to a man, eager to set off on the morrow with swords buckled about their waists.
I was eager as well, but not to return to Kencott. Rather I was keen to return to Galen House and my family. They were not so ardent to see me, however.
It was the smell. Bessie ran to me when I entered my house, then skidded to a stop when an arm’s length away and peered at me strangely. My own nose had become inured to the odor of aging bird droppings. Not so Kate and Bessie’s.
Kate followed Bessie, managed a weak kiss, then drew away in disgust. “What causes this awful stink?” she said. “Lord Gilbert’s goats are not so rank.”
I laughed and chased Kate to the rear of Galen House where I caught her and held her in close embrace. Bessie laughed and clapped her hands to see such sport.
“Nay,” Kate squealed. “Let me go ’till you have washed away that abominable smell.”
I did so.
My bowl of pottage I consumed in the toft. Kate would not have me in the house. I cannot blame her. Walter rode behind me from Kencott to Bampton, so I well understood her disgust.
I set three kettles filled with water near the fire and waited in the toft for the water to warm while Kate put Bessie and Sybil into their beds. From a corner of an unused chamber in Galen House I dragged my bathing barrel close to the fire. This was a wine cask sawn in half, reinforced with an extra band of iron about the top. When I last traveled to Oxford Kate requested that I return with, among other items, two cakes of Castile soap. Spanish soap is not so hars
h as that made from ashes and lard, Kate says. At four pence a cake it should not be.
I poured the kettles of warm water into my bath barrel, disrobed, and with the Castile soap scrubbed away the scent of dovecote. Kate reappeared as I was concluding my ablutions and grinned.
“What is funny?” I demanded. “Have you never seen a wine cask sawn in half before?”
“Of course. Do all surgeons bathe as regularly as you?”
“They do if they have recently toppled into the manure of a dovecote, else their wives will have nothing to do with them.”
Kate lifted the cake of soap to her nostrils, sniffed, and said, “Much better. You will not have to sleep this night with the hens.”
I dried myself with a length of linen cloth, donned fresh kirtle, braes, chauces, and cotehardie, and felt once again presentable. The day was near done, but enough light remained in the western sky that I drew a bench to our toft and Kate and I sat there until the stars glimmered and Kate’s head rested upon my shoulder.
Kate was drowsy, but I was not. Later, in our bed, I reviewed events of the past days and planned for the morrow. I made a list in my mind of instruments and herbs I must take to deal with Sir John’s abscessed scalp. I thought of three dead men and who might have slain two of them. I thought of enfeoffment and fires and documents consumed in a blaze. I considered Geoffrey’s threat that I would discover how unwelcome I was in Kencott should I return.
I thought I knew why Randle Mainwaring, Bertran Muth, and Henry Thryng had died. But how to prove it?
Some time before Kate’s rooster announced the dawn a scheme whereby I might prove the who and why of the bones in the St. John’s Day fire came to me. The plan entailed some danger, and for some time I lay considering why I might risk more stitches, or worse, to uncover felonies in Kencott. ’Twas not my bailiwick, after all.
Because, I decided, I am, for good or ill, a stubborn man. And I dislike murderers who leave the result of their felony in Bampton.
I had said nothing the night before of returning to Kencott, but Kate knows me and was not surprised that I intended to do so.
“Be careful, husband,” she whispered at the door as I set off with a sack of instruments and herbs thrown over my shoulder.
“A dozen men will accompany me to Kencott today. What harm can come to a man so well defended?”
I did not speak to Kate of my plan, else she might have replied. But even though I would seek some danger this day, I walked to Bampton Castle with some joy in my heart. I saw, if my scheme prospered, a conclusion to matters this day, and an end to journeys to Kencott. So my joy was due not to ease or riches or the praise of my employer, but to doing something worthwhile and seeing it near an end.
Lord Gilbert was in the castle hall, breaking his fast with cheese and a loaf with those knights, squires, and grooms who would accompany us to Kencott. When he rose from the table I drew him aside and outlined the scheme by which I hoped to sniff out proof that Geoffrey deMeaux was guilty of three murders.
“Arthur, Uctred, and I will ride ahead of you by half a mile or so. If Geoffrey lies in wait, as I believe he will, for he is a worried man, he will sooner try to attack three men than a dozen. And he expects no more than we three.”
“You wish him to make an attempt on your life?”
“Aye. If he appears we will turn and gallop back to you, shouting for aid, so you must keep close enough to hear.”
“But why take such a risk? If we succeed in taking Geoffrey, he will not slip a noose about his own neck by admitting to three murders.”
“Aye, he will not. But the pages and grooms with him might be persuaded to tell of what they know if they believe their punishment for attacking me – and you, if it comes to that – might be the less. There is a groom who wears a mended shoe that I believe can be persuaded to speak.”
“You think Geoffrey deMeaux did not slay the Kencott bailiff alone?”
“Could one man have brought the corpse to Bampton in the night and hid it in the makings of the St. John’s Day blaze? I believe he had help… perhaps the Kencott reeve who is now bailiff had to do with the business.”
“One man?” Lord Gilbert said. “Nay, not likely. So you believe whoever aided Geoffrey in moving a dead man from Kencott to Bampton will also be with him today?”
“Aye. ’Twould be a man he trusts. And when the fellow is threatened with a noose for what he might attempt to do this day, his tongue may be loosened.”
“To save his neck,” Lord Gilbert laughed. “Very well. We shall ride to Kencott, as you suggest. What if no man, Geoffrey or any other, attempts to do you harm upon the road?”
“I shall need to think of another scheme,” I shrugged.
And so we set off for Kencott: me, Lord Gilbert, five knights, six grooms, and Simon the clerk. Walter Smith we left in Bampton.
The knights enjoying Lord Gilbert’s hospitality were pleased to be hunting something more hazardous than a stag, jesting with one another as schoolboys set free from their studies to play.
At Cowley’s Corner Lord Gilbert raised his hand and all halted but for Arthur, Uctred, and me. Whilst we rode from the castle Lord Gilbert had explained my plot, so all understood this separation.
I expected that the attack, if it came, would be at some place where a wood came close to the road so as to camouflage the approach. There was no better place than the wood near to Alvescot where I had been scarred for life. I thought now of the place as being the site where retribution might be mine, and was some disappointed when we passed the grove and no men appeared.
Arthur must have entertained the same notion. “Thought for sure Geoffrey’d set upon us here, if he’s of a mind to do so.” He sounded disappointed.
There was one other place, near to Kencott, where a wood came close to the road. Beyond that lay fields, and then the village. We could not be surprised by horsemen coming at us across harvested fields, so when we came near the copse I warned Uctred and Arthur to be alert, then turned in my saddle to see if Lord Gilbert and his company were in view.
They were, having just then ridden past a bend in the road. If we needed to turn our beasts and spur them back along the road Lord Gilbert would not need to hear our cries for aid. He would see us galloping headlong toward him. I thought it likely that Geoffrey would believe our flight a natural result of fear, and not look beyond the haunches of our fleeing beasts to see others thundering up to do combat. So it was.
The copse which sheltered Sir John’s son, bailiff, pages and grooms was small – the road entered and was through to the other side in less than two hundred paces. Half a mile beyond lay the village of Kencott.
Trees grew so close to the road that men hidden amongst them could not see behind us along the road. So when Arthur, Uctred, and I came into view Lord Gilbert and the others were veiled from our attackers’ sight. Of course, this meant also that we could have little warning of our assailants’ approach until they were nearly upon us.
A wise man once said that he who fears God need not fear any man. That may be so, but I suspect the fellow had never had half a dozen mounted men brandishing daggers plunge toward him.
We three yanked upon the reins of our palfreys, got them turned about, and spurred the frightened beasts into flight. The shouting men close behind so alarmed the horses that the spurs might not have been necessary, but this was no time to take chances. My scheme seemed at for moment to be succeeding, but I admit to some trepidation about the final outcome of the matter.
Much confusion followed, so the melee remains tangled in my mind. Our assailants were but a few paces behind, and gaining upon us, when we met Lord Gilbert’s band. I dared not draw my palfrey to a halt, nor did Arthur or Uctred, for fear of receiving a blade in the back, so we swept through our rescuers, we three going east, Lord Gilbert’s eleven galloping west.
I would like to have seen the faces of our attackers as the nostrils of eleven charging horses replaced the haunches of our fleeing beasts.
/>
Once safely past Lord Gilbert, his knights and grooms, I pulled hard upon my palfrey’s reins and the misused beast skidded to a halt. Arthur and Uctred did likewise, and from the corner of my eye I saw Arthur spur his beast back along the road to join the brawl now thirty or so paces distant.
It was over before Arthur could strike a blow, which disappointed him, I think. Swords conquer daggers when the two are tried against each other. There were six attackers: Geoffrey, Jaket, and four of Sir John’s servants. Two of these lay wounded in the road, three stood surrounded by Lord Gilbert’s knightly companions, and another galloped away toward Kencott, having escaped the brief combat. Two of Lord Gilbert’s grooms, Roger and Fulk, spurred their beasts after the fleeing man.
The escapee was a servant. Both Geoffrey and Jaket were within a circle of knights with drawn swords and grooms with daggers. Geoffrey stood, along with two servants, but Jaket was one of the assailants who lay bleeding in the road.
I dismounted, handed my beast’s reins to Uctred, and hurried to the wounded men. I came first to the injured groom, who had raised himself to a sitting position and had his left hand pressed tight to his right forearm so as to staunch a flow of blood. This was mostly unsuccessful. Blood oozed between his fingers. I had silken thread and needle with me, their use being necessary to the surgery I intended to work on Sir John’s pate. I could stitch this man’s wound closed there in the road, although if the King’s Eyre decided to hang the man for this felony, my skills would be wasted.
I next knelt over Jaket, who had made no attempt to rise. When I saw his wound I understood why. He had been stabbed in his gut.
Men who have been in battle and seen wounds know when a sword thrust will be fatal. Jaket’s eyes told me that he knew his life would end in the dust of this road. He knew other things as well, and it was this other knowledge I hoped to pry from him before death took him.
“Ride to Kencott,” I said to Arthur, “and fetch the priest. Take Simon with you. Jaket must be shriven.”
I watched Jaket’s eyes as I spoke, but they registered no surprise at my words. More evidence that he knew death was near.
