A Corpse at St Andrew's Chapel (4 page)

Kellet stared at the strand and, I thought, seemed ill at ease. He shifted from one foot to another before he made answer.

“Wold is grown in most every toft,” he commented. “’Twould make a color much like this. But no, I know of no one of this parish who owns a cotehardie or surcoat of this pale blue.”

“Should you see such a garment, call for me at the castle.”

“I will…I will, indeed. And I’ll keep me eye peeled for shoes, as well.”

I thanked him for this, and set off for the town and the injured miller.

The miller had not moved from his bench. I found him sagging against a beam, his eyes gratifyingly heavy. The hemp and willow had done their work. Although the bruise made by the wheel was now growing fiercely purple, the break in Andrew’s forearm was clean and simple to treat. I took several thin canes I had cut along Shill Brook and bound them tightly about the forearm when I was satisfied that it was straight. I directed the miller’s wife to bring a bowl of water from the pond. Into this I poured a pouch of quicklime. All that remained was to soak linen strips in the plaster and wind these about the canes and the miller’s arm until it was well encased. I continued the stiffened linen past the miller’s elbow, to provide as much support as possible for the business of putting his shoulder right.

While the plaster dried and hardened I explored the shoulder with my fingers to see how badly out of joint it was. I felt the ball of the miller’s upper arm, and pressed firmly through his fleshy shoulder to find the empty socket. When I had found both ball and socket I manipulated the arm gently to see what work I had before me to put these parts together. I was shocked when I heard a muffled “click” and felt the arm spring back to its place under my touch.

Andrew twitched and yelped in a brief moment of pain, then relaxed as I dropped my hands and stepped back.

“Ah…you warned me. I shall try not to jerk about so as you work. How…how long will you be at putting my shoulder right?”

“I am done,” I replied, with rather more pride than was meet.

“Done?” The miller’s eyes widened. He moved his shoulder experimentally. “But I thought…you warned me of great pain. ’Twas but a prick. The potion, it must have been strong, indeed.”

“Indeed,” I agreed.

The miller stretched his shoulder again. “’Tis a wondrous thing, how with but a shift of your fingers you set me right.”

I did not tell Andrew that I was as amazed as he at the ease with which his shoulder was made whole. If he chooses to believe my skill extraordinary and tells his customers – and that would be all who live on Lord Gilbert’s lands, villein or free – that Master Hugh is gifted at his work, must I be distressed?

I told the miller that I would call on him in a few days to see how he got on, and that before St Swithin’s Day I would remove the stiffened linen and splints.

The miller was known as a parsimonious man. He was known also, like most of his trade, for defrauding on return of flour if he could do so without detection. He asked my fee. I expected an argument, but he paid without rancor. He fished six pence from a small chest which stood on a dusty table under the single dusty window which lighted the dusty mill.

The evening sun was well down in the west when I left the mill and turned toward Mill Street. I was just in time to see John Kellet waddle across the bridge over Shill Brook. The priest’s tunic billowed before his belly like a sail full of wind. Immediately across the bridge, he turned and took the path to the cottages in the Weald. Something to do with one of the bishop’s tenants, I assumed, and made my way to the castle.

I had made no progress in finding Alan’s missing shoes. This vexed me, but no matter how I considered the situation, I could see no path leading to their discovery. Unless someone reported new footgear on another, Matilda was not likely to get her husband’s shoes back.

Next day was Good Friday, beginning the commemoration of our Lord’s death and resurrection. I decided on a bath, both to clean myself for the holy days and, while I soaked, to devise some way I might track the missing shoes.

The kitchen was busy preparing supper, but not too busy. Lord Gilbert was in residence at Pembroke Castle, keeping the peace in Wales. So the evening meal would be simple. I told the cook that I required six buckets of hot water, delivered to my chamber after the meal.

For supper this day there was parsley bread, a pea soup, and cabbage with marrow. This was not a meal which would have satisfied Lord Gilbert Talbot, who at Pembroke at this hour would likely be dining on such as venison and salmon, and enjoying a subtlety with each remove. But compared to the fare at the Stag and Hounds, on the High Street in Oxford, where I dined until Lord Gilbert brought me to Bampton, this repast was a feast.

When the simple meal was done I returned to my chamber – which did not take long, as the room opened on to the great hall. I busied myself with knives, scalpels and sharpening stone from my implements box until a light rapping sounded on my door. I opened it to see the child Alice atte Bridge standing before me, a bucket in each hand. “Hot water, sir,” she smiled, and curtsied.

As she did so some of the water slopped out of the buckets to the flagging. Two buckets full of water were a significant weight for her slender shoulders. “Sorry, sir. I’ll bring somethin’ t’mop it up.”

“Never mind. It’ll dry. Just pour the water in the barrel and fetch four more buckets.”

Alice dumped the water, glanced briefly at my instruments where I had spread them on my table, then scurried off for more. A year and a half had passed since I first met the girl. She had come to me seeking help for her father. He had slipped on icy cobbles and broken a hip. I could do nothing for him but administer potions which would relieve his pain and ease him to the next world.

The child had two half-brothers who would have despoiled her of anything she possessed from her father, could they have done so. But at her father’s death I advised her to remove all goods from the hut she shared with her father and take them to the castle. She was put to work in the scullery. Apparently this labor agreed with her. She was no longer the scrawny waif I had aided. She was taller, and no longer looked to be constructed of splinters and coppiced beech poles. I noted as she brought the next buckets that there were now pleasing bulges under her plain cotehardie. These curves were set off remarkably well by the simple belt she wore about her waist, a part of her which remained gratifyingly slender.

When she had delivered the last of the hot water and had curtsied her way out – no one having told her that she need not curtsy to a mere bailiff – I bolted the door, stripped off my clothing, and submerged so much of myself as was possible into the cask. This cask the carpenter had sawn in half for me.

I scrubbed myself clean with a much-shrunken woolen cloth which I keep for the purpose. I had had no bath since Ash Wednesday, which was more recent than most, as I am one of the few foolish enough to risk illness by bathing in winter. So it was pleasant to renew acquaintance with hot water and soak in the barrel until the water cooled. But I admit that no insight occurred while I squatted immersed in my barrel. Alan the beadle’s shoes were as lost after my bath as before.

I went from barrel to bed, taking time only to dry myself. I thought I should fall to sleep quickly; I had a full stomach and was warmed from my bath. But slumber would not come. I might as well have attended Alan’s wake, and sat with the corpse all night.

I reviewed the day and its events. The monotony of repetition did not quiet my mind. When I saw the glow of the waning paschal moon in my window, I rose from my bed, dressed, and quietly left my chamber. The porter’s assistant slumbered at the gatehouse. His duty was to keep watch over the castle through the night, but there was peace in the land and few brigands would dare Bampton Castle. His duty was tedious and conducive to slumber.

I coughed and scuffed my feet until my approach roused him. I did not wish the derelict watchman to awaken and find a shadowy stranger atop the castle wall. I bid the fellow “good evening” and climbed the gatehouse steps to the parapet.

I circled the castle wall indolently, stopping often to gaze through the merlons over the sleeping village to the east, and Lord Gilbert’s fields and forest to the west. Most of the village slept. Occasionally from the town I heard voices. Someone at Alan’s wake, I think, had too much ale and could be heard from Catte Street.

This echo of distant voices caused me at first to ignore another sound which came faintly to my ears. I know not how long I may have heard the howls before the indistinct sound finally registered in my mind. Off to the east, beyond St Andrew’s Chapel, I heard a yapping and howling soft in the distance.

I made my way to the tower at the southeast corner of the castle wall. This seemed to be the closest point to the direction from which the sound came. There was silence for a time, then the howls began again. As I listened the origin of the keening seemed to move to the south of the town, until after an hour or so of intermittent howls and silence, the source seemed to move directly south of the Weald. And then I heard it no more.

I had never before heard a wolf howl, but it seemed to me I had done so this night. Tomorrow, Good Friday or not, I would need to track and dispatch the animal which made these howls in the night. I did not know if this was the beast which slew Alan, but it seemed to me a reasonable suspicion. Perhaps Alan, as his wife had guessed, in his patrol had heard the wolf while Bampton slept and followed the sound to investigate. This would explain why he was found away from the town. But it would not explain his absent shoes.

I returned to my bed and slept fitfully until I heard in the distance the Angelus Bell sound from the tower of the Church of St Beornwald. I desired to organize a party immediately to seek out the wolf, but at the third hour Alan the beadle would be buried. I would not show disrespect to the dead by taking away those who would mourn and walk in his procession.

I
broke my fast with half a loaf of good maslin and a pint of ale, then made my way to Catte Street. Because of my position I would be among the chief mourners and, with Hubert Shillside, John Holcutt, Matilda, and a few other small burghers, would lead the procession to the church.

I was surprised to see that Matilda had provided a coffin. Most of the tenant class rest on their bier encased only in a black linen shroud. Alan’s brother and three others from the town took their places at the poles. When Thomas de Bowlegh arrived to lead the procession, they lifted the coffin and we in the cortege fell in behind the priest.

Matilda and most of the others began wailing in grief as the coffin left the ground, but I walked silently beside Hubert Shillside as we passed from Catte Street to the High Street and turned right up the Broad Street. As the procession entered Church Street I spoke: “I heard the beast last night,” I whispered.

“Beast?” Shillside questioned.

“Aye. The wolf which may have slain poor Alan. Sleep escaped me, so I rose to walk the castle parapet. ’Twas then I heard it, howling.”

“A wolf?”

“Perhaps. I know little of wolves but that they are said to howl of a moonlit night. ’Twas no hound, of this I feel certain.”

“Where away?”

“To the east at first, beyond St Andrew’s Chapel. Then, as the hour grew late, it moved to the south beyond the Weald.”

“Think you Alan heard it while we slept, and died following the sound?”

“I suspect it. But I would have his shoes. A wolf may have taken his life, but ’twas a man took his shoes.”

“Aye,” the coroner agreed, and we fell into a companionable silence for the remainder of the walk to the church.

Our conversation was not overheard by any other in the procession for the lamentation which accompanied our steps. Matilda and her sisters and cousins wailed loudly. Others in the procession behind them added to the din. The clamor did not subside until the bearers lowered the coffin at the lych gate.

Father Thomas is a good priest, and sends a man to meet God with dignity, even a bit of elegance – which some might think more than Alan’s station required. But if a poor man cannot receive consideration while on his bier, I know not where he may find it.

The bearers lifted the coffin again and took it to the church. Father Thomas spoke the Mourning Office in a clear, strong voice, then removed his chausable. A cloud of incense floated over poor Alan as the vicar swung the censor. He sprinkled holy water on the body, then began our Lord’s prayer, which all followed. There were the usual prayers of forgiveness and deliverance from judgment, then the bier was lifted once again and all followed it out through the porch to the churchyard.

Father Thomas led us to a shaded corner near the wall, made the sign of the cross, and sprinkled holy water on the gravesite. The gravediggers, who had remained well back in the cortege, now came forward and set their spades to work at the chosen earth. The priest read psalms while these two were at their work.

When the grave was ready Alan’s brother lifted the coffin lid and he and the other bearers drew Alan in his shroud from the coffin and lowered him into the grave. As I suspected, Matilda could not afford to bury her husband in a coffin, but wished to show respect for her mate, so had rented a box from the carpenter – who stood in the group of mourners and watched as the gravediggers filled in the hole while Father Thomas spoke the final collect for forgiveness.

As the last dirt was shoveled on to the grave I caught a movement from the corner of my eye. Richard Hatcher, one of Lord Gilbert’s tenants, was motioning to John Holcutt from the churchyard wall. I gave no more attention to this, but went to offer sympathy to the widow. Matilda stood silent, staring at the fresh earth, her child clinging to her skirts, as the group of mourners began to break apart.

I do not now recall what I said to her. ’Twas probably trite. I thought to say to her that a funeral is not a time when the living mourn the dead, but rather a time when the dying remember those who are now alive in Christ, if their faith was whole.

Perhaps I should have spoken these words but I was uncertain how she would receive them. I may say this to her at some later time. I have learned that it is easier to say later what one should have said before, than to unsay what should not have been said at all.

Some may accuse me of forgetting purgatory. I have not. While a student at Oxford I rented from another scholar a Gospel of St John and copied it. These pages I have read many times, so that I remember many of the passages. Jesus said of himself, “Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.”

If our Lord has made a man free, how can he then be imprisoned in purgatory? And how is a man made free? The scriptures speak plainly: through faith in Christ, the Son of God, who takes away the sins of the world. If Christ has taken away Alan’s sins, why must he be punished for them in purgatory?

I will again be accused of listening overmuch to Master John Wyclif, who has taught similar views. And purgatory has been a part of church tradition for many centuries. But again, I hold with Master Wyclif that a tradition must be supported by scripture to be valid. I find no place for purgatory in holy writ. But I am no smasher of temple idols, howso they might need to be toppled. Let others challenge the bishops; I wish only to heal men’s broken bodies. Perhaps I am a coward.

Alan the beadle left no funds with which his widow might endow an oratory where monks could pray him out of purgatory. When it comes Lord Gilbert’s time to die, Petronilla will certainly furnish a chapel in some monastery where prayers will be said for his soul forever. Will Lord Gilbert win release from purgatory before Alan? Our Lord said ’twas easier for a camel to pass through the needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter heaven. Then what of purgatory and endowed chapels and perpetual prayers? Although Lord Gilbert is generous to the poor, it seems to me his soul would be the better if he gave more to them now, while he yet lives, and less to the monks when he is dead. If he gives enough to the poor, he might not need to give even a penny to the monks.

Well, these are matters for theologians and scholars. My mind was arrested and returned to the churchyard when John Holcutt tapped me on the shoulder and brought me from my musing.

“Richard Hatcher,” he said, “has found a dead lamb this morning.”

There is nothing unusual about a dead lamb in springtime, but something in the reeve’s tone told me that, in this case, there was. I turned to John as he spoke.

“Dead an’ half eaten, ’twas. Throat tore out an’ guts spread about…what wasn’t ate up. You think ’twas the beast which attacked Alan?” John asked.

“I know of no other cause,” I admitted. “And late last night I walked the castle wall and heard some beast howl. We must seek Father Thomas’ absolution, for I think we must forsake our Good Friday obligations and hunt the beast while its track may be found.”

I sent the reeve to the castle to organize the hunt while I sought the vicar. I found him in the church, preparing for the Good Friday mass which would soon begin. Father Thomas scurried from images to crucifix, adjusting veils and seeing to the good order of his church. Townsmen and villeins were beginning to arrive. Most wore the grey and brown cotehardies they donned every day, but those who could afford it wore black, or sometimes yellow, to honor the day.

I awaited the vicar at the Easter Sepulcher, where shortly the unveiled cross would be placed for the allotted time, to be withdrawn with much rejoicing Easter morn. Some churches have a small room reserved for this rite, but at the Church of St Beornwald a niche in the chancel wall, boarded up with thick oak planks, serves this duty.

Satisfied that all was in readiness, Thomas withdrew from the niche to find me standing behind him. “Ah…Master Hugh. You startle me.”

I apologized, and explained the need which would draw a dozen of us from the mass this day. A marauding beast is a serious matter, and the priest knew it. The loss of a lamb was bad enough. What of the calves new born which would soon be put out with their mothers in the meadows and fallow land? Father Thomas gave his blessing to our pursuit, and I made my way out through the porch as others entered.

Shillside had got wind of the chase and was at the castle with his son, William, a reedy lad of seventeen years, who was twitching with enthusiasm. John and Richard had gathered several more villeins and tenants and the fewterer, with two old hounds Lord Gilbert had left behind in his kennel at Bampton when he removed to Pembroke before St Crispin’s Day last autumn.

We followed Richard Hatcher to the meadow. Crows and circling buzzards had already taken note of the carcass. The field was west of the town. I had heard no beast howl from that quarter, but I know little of wolves. Perhaps, I thought, they are silent when at the hunt.

The early spring grass was not grown long enough to be beaten down, so no path leading to or from the lamb was visible. And while the sod was soft from spring rains, it was not so pliant as to leave behind the track of a wolf or any other creature.

The castle fewterer brought the hounds to the slain lamb and led them around it in a circle. The dogs sniffed bemusedly at the lamb and the turf around it.

“’Tis odd,” the fewterer muttered. “They seem not interested. When Squire was young,” he motioned toward the white and black hound, “he’d a’ been off in a flash…an’ Tawny, too, though she was never the hunter as Squire was.”

He led the hounds in a circle once again, larger this time, and noted a place where both animals took some time snuffling about the meadow grass. When the circle was completed, with no other sign that the dogs had found an interesting trail, he returned to the spot, unleashed them, and ordered them off on the scent.

The hounds obeyed with scant enthusiasm. “Squire be ten years old,” the fewterer remarked, as if to excuse the animal’s lack of zeal.

The hounds followed their noses to the edge of the fallow ground, then turned south along a hedgerow which separated the meadow from a newly plowed field to the east. The dogs followed this barrier, with the hunting party close behind, to the edge of a wood. No coppicing had been done in this grove, so there was little to hinder the advance of our company. Ancient trees so blotted the summer sun here that little vegetation grew on the forest floor.

We kept the hounds in view readily enough, for they proceeded at a leisurely pace, though there was little undergrowth to impede them. Two archers in the party notched arrows, unwilling to be caught unready should a wolf suddenly appear from behind an oak. They need not have been so cautious.

The forest gave way to meadow again, and we entered bright sunlight on the Bishop of Exeter’s lands. We followed the hounds to another hedgerow, beyond which was a field that the bishop’s villeins had newly plowed.

The track then turned north, as the hounds followed the wall. I began to wonder if the beast we trailed was old, or injured, that it did not leap a hedgerow or fence to continue its path, but instead went round.

We had come near to the place where the beast would have been when I heard it last in the night. But the track seemed wrong. Unless the hounds were backtracking, following the path the animal made as it sought a meal, rather than the trail it left after it slew the lamb.

The track plunged once again into the forest, and we followed until, 200 paces beyond, the wood ended on the banks of Shill Brook, a quarter-mile downstream from Mill Street Bridge.

“This is a waste,” I told the fewterer. “The dogs are backtracking. We go where the beast was, not where it now is.”

“’Twas the only scent the hounds found,” he replied defensively. “An’, even if ’tis so, we may come upon the beast’s lair, where it lays in the day before seeking prey at night.”

I agreed that might be so, knowing little of wolfish habits, and predicted that when we waded across the brook, the hounds would soon turn east. I must cease making prophetic statements. They seem usually to be wrong. When we crossed the stream, the track did not lead east. It led nowhere.

We splashed across to the north side of the brook (for here it flowed east, having turned from its southerly path through the town) and waited for the hounds to find the scent. They could not.

After much fruitless trotting about, their noses pressed to the ground, the fewterer called them to us. “Strange they cannot recover the trail. Squire can’t see so well in ’is old age, I think, but I never see ’im lose a scent.”

“Perhaps,” I suggested, “the animal passed through the brook for a few paces. If we follow downstream the dogs may find their way again.”

The fewterer leashed his hounds and led them along the north bank of the stream. Occasionally they frightened a trout from under the bank, but they gave no sign that they had recovered the scent.

We followed the brook for 200 paces or more, until the fewterer pulled at the leashes and turned to me. “Mayhap the beast left the brook on the other bank. If we find no track here we might return on the other side.”

I agreed, but was not ready to do so yet. We fought our way through brambles and undergrowth until we were nearly to Aston. The party did not complain, but as we continued east they more and more often peered at me with questioning eyes.

Perhaps the wolf had been this far east when I first heard it howl, but if so the dogs had found no trace of its presence. I spoke the words all were eager to hear, and we waded back across the brook to retrace our steps on the south bank.

The hounds seemed to enjoy this sport. They occasionally flushed a rabbit or a hedgehog. But when we arrived back where the trail had emerged from the wood to cross, as we thought, the brook, they had found no spoor to interest them. We had been three hours at our work, and were nearly back where we began.

The only course remaining was to seek the track upstream, toward the town. I directed that the hounds be separated, one dog on either side of the brook. As we set out I heard the bell from the Church of St Beornwald ring the ninth hour.