A Corpse at St Andrew's Chapel (7 page)

The shoemaker had not ended his work yet this day. I heard a light tapping as I paused at his door before rapping my knuckles upon it. The tapping ceased immediately and moments later a face with a quizzical expression on it peered at me through the partly opened door. The cobbler had not, I think, been expecting either trade or a strange visitor.

I asked if he was the town shoemaker. His response was to glance with rolling eyes above my head at his sign, as if to signal my ignorance to some onlooker.

“Aye,” he finally said. The man looked down at my serviceable – although hardly new – footwear, then asked, “You need shoes?”

I explained that I needed not shoes but rather a few minutes of his time to inquire of a previous customer. This information did not seem to fill the man with joy, but he turned and nodded me into his shop.

To the right, behind the door, was the cobbler’s bench, set before a south window. On it I saw a pair of shoes much like those Henry atte Bridge wore. These shoes were nearly complete. I had interrupted the cobbler as he nailed the finished leather to the thick wooden soles. No doubt he wished me soon gone, so he could complete his work before the light faded from his window and his labor must, by statute, cease for the day. Indeed, I wished to conclude my business quickly also. I did not want to find myself on the road alone at night. Free companies have not been seen in this shire for many years – we are not so cursed as is France by these brigands – but ’tis well nevertheless for the man who travels alone to reach his destination before dark.

The shoes on the cobbler’s bench were so like those on Henry atte Bridge’s feet that I thought myself on a fool’s errand. Of course, they were like the shoes on the feet of most of the commons, but this thought did not register at the moment.

Along the wall beyond the bench was a shelf. On it I saw five pairs of shoes awaiting buyers. Three pairs were like the unfinished set awaiting completion on the bench. A fourth pair was more delicate, made of softer leather, and with leather soles. The fifth pair seemed much out of place. They were of fine leather, with the outlandishly long, curled toes now favored by nobles. Whoever wore these shoes would have to walk up stairs backwards and tie the toes to his calves or he would be forever tripping over them. I wondered who in this town would buy such shoes. Perhaps the Bishop of Winchester, or one of his minions.

“What is your price for shoes such as these?” I asked, nodding toward the pair on his bench.

The cobbler’s eyes narrowed as he tried to guess the reason for my question. “Six pence, for such as these.” He pointed to the bench. “As the law allows.”

I knew what the law allowed. The Statute of Laborers has been renewed twice in the decade since Parliament first saw fit to save us all from the avarice of those who eke out a living with their hands.

“Do you sell for less…if the shoes be old and worn?”

The cobbler gazed at me from under furrowed brows. “Why would I make shoes old and worn?”

“Shoes you might have made new, for one who then died. Do you buy and repair such shoes?”

The cobbler’s visage cleared. “Ah, I see. I might do, did any seek such of me.”

“You have not done this recently?”

“Nay. Oh, I repair worn shoes often enough. But not of the dead to sell again.”

“A fortnight and more ago did you not resell the shoes of a dead man?”

“Nay. I’ve sold but new for the past year an’ more.” The cobbler glanced at his shelf. “An’ not so many new, either.”

“A man…not of Witney; did such a one buy new shoes like those?” I pointed to his bench.

“A fortnight ago, you say?” The man’s brows narrowed again. “Why do you ask me of this?”

It was a fair question. “I am Hugh de Singleton, bailiff of Lord Gilbert Talbot’s manor at Bampton. There is a question of law…regarding ownership of shoes, which has recently arisen there. One says he has shoes purchased in Witney while here on the Bishop of Exeter’s business.”

“A fortnight ago? Nay, no man not of this town bought shoes of me then.”

“Of another? Is there another cobbler in the town?”

“Ha! Enough trade here to keep me an’ me family alive, no more.”

The cobbler was a thickset man, thick of neck, wrists and fingers. Thick in the belly as well. I thought his business not so thin as he professed. A man’s stomach often reflects his success in trade.

“Of this you are certain?” I pressed. “If a man from Bampton says he bought shoes of you in the days before Easter, you say he lies?”

“Aye…he does.”

I gave the man two farthings for his trouble, retrieved Bruce from the shrub where I had tied him, and set out for home. Meadows were quiet now. Birds sought roosts for the night, and the sun, casting long and twisted shadows across my way, provided little warmth.

Bruce is an old horse – he carried Lord Gilbert at Poitiers – and does not like to be hurried. So it was that darkness overtook me before I reached Bampton. And the sliver of new moon resting in the treetops did little to break the gathering gloom.

I was yet half a mile from town when the attack came. Bruce sensed it first, and ’twas well he did. I was drowsing upon his back when he twitched and shied to the left. This motion brought me back from the edge of sleep, yet I was not so alert that I could sense a blow coming or fend it off. But Bruce’s shudder threw off the assailant’s aim, so that the club he would have laid aside my skull struck a glancing blow on my right shoulder instead.

The blow unhorsed me and I landed in the mud upon my left shoulder. The next morning I awoke equally sore on each side. I wonder now that I had the presence of mind to immediately roll to the verge. Had I not, the next blow would have succeeded where the first failed.

I saw as I scrambled away from my attacker a silhouette against the darkening sky. This figure had a club raised in both hands and brought it down viciously on the place in the mud where I had toppled an instant earlier. As the ground was darker than the sky, I had the advantage of my foe. I could see but little of his form, but he could see none of me against the darkened earth. My brown cloak blended with the mire to make me, but for face and hands, invisible.

The cudgel which might have broken my head cracked and snapped when it struck the earth at my side. The odds were evened a bit.

A boy who grows to manhood with three older brothers, as I did, learns to defend himself in a scrap. Once, when I was twelve or perhaps thirteen, I became embroiled in a dispute with my next older brother. Nicholas was two years older, a stone heavier, and a hand taller. It was his height, I think, which caused a blow of mine to miss its mark, which was his chin, and strike instead his throat, upon his adam’s apple.

I learned two things from this misguided stroke. The first is that a man’s throat is a much softer target than his teeth. A blow against a foe’s neck will not result in split knuckles as will a fist against a man’s jaw.

And secondly, I learned that the adam’s apple is a tender part of human anatomy. No sooner had I struck my brother than he fell to his knees gagging and retching, both hands to his injured throat. He did not recover from this agony quickly. And all the while he gasped and suffered, I begged his forgiveness and pleaded mischance – which it was, although I admit that he had antagonized me so that at the moment I cocked my arm I intended to do him some harm. But not so much as I did.

This event returned to me as I scrambled to my feet. My attacker threw the broken remains of his cudgel at me, and missed, as he could not see me clearly. This was good, for although I saw his arm swing forward above me as I struggled to my feet, I could not see the broken club to duck as it whistled past my ear.

With a grunt of rage the man charged. I stepped back and allowed him to stumble into the darkened ditch at the edge of the road. Combat with my brothers came back to me again. As they were older and larger, it was always their goal to seize me in close struggle and wrestle me to their will. I learned to keep my distance and not be drawn into a grappling contest.

My attacker had fallen to his knees in the ditch, and was now below me. I was the one who was upright and silhouetted against the evening sky. So when the man charged at me again from the verge, on his knees, I did not see him coming until he was upon me.

His shoulder struck me in the hip and together we rolled in the muddy road. We came to a stop, with my assailant on top. I knew I was in trouble. Although I could not see either his face or form, I knew he must be heavier than me, for I am a slender man.

Bruce, as this battle raged, stood as he was when I was dislodged from his back. He had seen enough of combat to be unsurprised when the men about him fell into strife. The horse waited patiently for the outcome. But he did not like it when my foe and I rolled close behind him, panting and grunting. Bruce aimed a gentle kick from a massive rear hoof just as my mysterious attacker propped himself over my fallen form and bent to seize my throat. The kick struck the fellow on his back and sent him tumbling over my head into a roadside hedgerow as if he were some child’s discarded plaything.

I silently thanked Bruce for his aid and scrambled to my feet to prepare for another rush. It came, but not soon. I heard, from the brambles of the ditch, my assailant gasping for the breath Bruce’s blow had knocked from him. Had I my wits fully about me then, I would have mounted Bruce and sent him galloping for home. It is always easier to think later what should have been done in such moments. Usually what should have been done, and what was done, are different things. Rarely have I looked back on the calamitous events of my life and found my conduct at those times to be what I later determined it should have been. Surely I am not alone in this.

I girded myself for the fellow’s next attack, which I assumed would come when he could gather his wits. Come it did, although had he any wits he would not have plotted this attack at all. So I waited. But not, perhaps, for returning wits.

This time I thought to crouch low so as to hide my shape in the shadows of the forest across the road. I watched as the dim form slowly extricated itself from the brambles of the verge, stood, and cast about seeking me. At last the man’s face settled in my direction and with a howl of fury he threw himself at me.

I stepped to my left, the better to position my right fist. It was too dark for my assailant to see this movement clearly, so he plunged ahead where he thought I was. His face, which I could not recognize in the brief moments it was dimly visible, was a pale orb reflecting the nearly vanished twilight. For as he lunged he faced the west, and I, toward the east.

I cocked my arm, clenched my fist, and when he drew near I aimed a blow to strike just below that waxen visage. I put all my inadequate weight behind the stroke. As the man was lurching toward me, the combined effect was of some consequence. And as I hoped, my fist caught him just below the chin, directly upon his adam’s apple.

He fell, bellowing, to his knees, tried to stand, then dropped to the mud again. This, combined with the direction of his final lunge toward me, brought him again close to Bruce’s hindquarters. The animal seemed not to mind men’s quarrels overmuch, so long as they did not include him. But when it seemed the disputes might embrace him as well, he did what any worried horse might do.

This kick was, I think, delivered with more force than the first, as if Bruce wished to say, “I warned you…now pay the price.”

It was too dark to see where the kick landed, but I heard it well enough, and I heard the wind go out of my foe like air forced from a blacksmith’s bellows. I heard him roll, gasping and choking once again, to the darkened hedgerow. I could see nothing of him there, but there was much to hear. The fellow tossed himself about and groaned in agony, so that had I been a hundred paces from the place I could have heard him clearly. Someone, perhaps closer than that, did hear this thrashing and moaning. Perhaps they thought the sufferer was me. I am sure they hoped ’twas so.

Again I had opportunity to mount Bruce and be off, but again I did not. Perhaps it was curiosity which fastened me to the spot. I wondered what might come next, when I should have rather escaped, for when the man recovered from his hurt I might learn a thing I did not wish to know.

But I was fortunate. The scuffling and retching by the hedgerow ceased, replaced by deep and labored breathing. I sensed, rather than saw, that my attacker was risen to his feet, and braced myself for another charge. It did not come.

Instead I heard the man’s uneven footfalls as he stumbled through the mud and into the forest which bounded the western edge of the road. I heard him plunge into the wood, then above the crackle of breaking twigs and crushed leaves I heard a voice. ’Twas barely more than a whisper, due to stealth, or perhaps the blow I gave his throat. I know not which. And because he created such a racket as he dove into the copse I did not hear clearly all that was said. But three words I heard well enough to not mistake them: “Begone…he lives.”

It was me spoken of, I am sure. And no sooner had these words come to me from the woods than I heard other feet making hasty departure, stumbling over the winter’s fallen branches not yet gleaned for firewood.

Then the forest grew quickly silent and I was left standing alone in the darkened road. There had been two who awaited me this night, but only one saw fit to attack. Why was this so? Two might have overpowered me. Perhaps they thought that one assailant was enough. My slender physique would not strike fear in the heart of a sturdily made man. Whatever the reason, but one had fallen upon me and with Bruce’s aid he had been driven off. I felt fortunate. The words hissed from the forest but a moment before came back to me. “He lives.” It was clear to me that I was not attacked for my purse. I was intended to die in the mud of the road.

I thought I knew who my assailant was, and why he wished me dead. But to kill a man because of a pair of shoes? Who would do such a thing? Perhaps, I reflected, there is more to this matter than shoes.

Such thoughts occupied my mind as I stretched my aching shoulders, climbed to Bruce’s broad back, and settled myself for the last half-mile to Bampton and the castle. Certainly Henry atte Bridge despised me for interfering in his life. I had demanded his presence and homage at his father’s funeral. I had helped his half-sister escape with what few possessions she could gather from her father’s hut. I had discovered his falsity about his shoes. He could not know this yet, but perhaps suspected it, for he saw me ride north earlier that day.