A Trail of Ink (32 page)

I saw then how it might be. Shillside drew his coroner’s jury to the verge and they discussed the matter. Occasionally one or more of the group would look to the corpse, which now twisted slowly on the hemp. A breeze was rising.

Father Thomas, Father Simon, and Father Ralph, vicars of the Church of St. Beornwald, arrived as the jury ended its deliberations. The vicars looked upon the corpse and crossed themselves. Those who yet milled about Cow-Ley’s Corner vied with each other to tell what the priests could see; a man was dead, hanging by a cord from the limb of a tree. More than this no man knew. If there was more to know, there were those who preferred ignorance.

Hubert Shillside approached me and the priests and announced the decision of the coroner’s jury. Thomas atte Bridge took his own life, chosing to do so at a place where it was well-known that suicides of past years were buried. The stool was proof: Maud had identified it as belonging to their house.

The vicars looked on gravely while Shillside explained this conclusion. The stool and rope, he declared, would be deodand. What use King Edward might make of them he did not say.

Thomas atte Bridge was tenant of the Bishop of Exeter, but was found dead on lands of Lord Gilbert Talbot. The priests and coroner’s jury looked to me for direction. Lord Gilbert was in residence at Goodrich Castle. As bailiff of Bampton Manor disposal of the corpse was now my bailiwick. My suspicions remained, but it seemed I was alone in my doubts. Other than Kate.

I saw Arthur standing at the fringe of onlookers and motioned him to approach. While he threaded his way through the crowd I spoke to Father Thomas.

“Will you allow burial in the churchyard?”

The vicar shook his head. Father Simon and Father Ralph pursed their lips and frowned in agreement. “A man who takes his own life cannot seek confession and absolution,” Father Thomas explained. He had no need to do so. I knew the observances well. “He dies in his sins, unshriven. He cannot rest in hallowed ground.”

Arthur had served me and Master John Wyclif well in the matter of Master John’s stolen books. Now I found another duty for the sturdy fellow. I sent him to the castle to seek another groom and two spades.

There was no point in prolonging the matter. Shillside asked if the corpse might be cut down and I nodded assent. It was but the work of a moment for another of the bishop’s tenants to mount the stool and slice through the rope. Thomas’s remains crumpled to a heap at the fellow’s feet. I told the man to unwind the cord from about the limb while he was on his perch. I knelt by the corpse and did the same to the cord which encircled atte Bridge’s abraded neck. I then straightened the fellow out on the verge. He was beginning to stiffen in death and it would be best to put him in his grave unbent.

I knelt to straighten atte Bridge’s head and while I did I looked into his staring, bulging eyes and gaping mouth. I see them yet on nights when sleep eludes me. The face was purple and bloated, so I nearly missed the swelling on atte Bridge’s upper lip. There was a red bulge there. And just beneath the mark I saw in his open mouth a tooth bent back.

I reached a finger past the dead man’s lips and pressed upon the bent tooth. It yielded freely. I pulled gently upon the tooth and nearly drew it from the mouth. Thomas atte Bridge had recently been in a fight and had received a robust blow. I was not surprised to learn of this. I knew Thomas atte Bridge. I would congratulate the man who served him with a fattened lip and broken tooth.

But did this discovery have to do with Thomas atte Bridge’s death, suicide or not? Who could know? Perhaps only the man who delivered the blow.

Arthur returned with an assistant and set to work digging a grave at the base of the wall which enclosed Lord Gilbert’s pasture. Cows chewed thoughtfully on spring grass and watched the work while their calves gamboled about. An onlooker urged Arthur to make the grave deep so the dead man might not easily rise to afflict those whose business takes them past Cow-Ley’s Corner. Arthur did not seem pleased with the admonition.

Kate left me while the grave was yet unfinished. She wished to set a capon roasting for our dinner and was already tardy at the task. Her business served to remind me how hungry I was. Some might lose appetite after staring a hanged man in the face. I am not such a one, especially if the face be that of Thomas atte Bridge.

Hubert Shillside approached as Arthur and his assistant shoveled the last of the earth upon the burial mound. “One less troublemaker to vex the town, eh?” he said.

“He’ll not be missed,” I agreed. “But by Maud.”

“Hah. Them of the Weald say as how he beat her regular like. She’ll not be grieved to have that end.”

“Aye, perhaps, but he provided for his family. Who will do so now?”

“There be widowers about who’ll be pleased to add her lands to their holdings.”

“A quarter-yardland? And four children to come with the bargain? I think Maud will find few suitors.”

“Hmmm. Well, she will have to make do. Perhaps the oldest boy can do a man’s work.”

“Perhaps.”

The throng of onlookers had begun to melt away when atte Bridge’s corpse was lowered to the grave. These folks chattered noisily about the death and burial as they departed for the town. They did not seem afflicted with sorrow, but rather behaved as if a weight was lifted from their shoulders. Did Thomas atte Bridge guess this would be the response to his death would he have lived as he did, at enmity with all men, or would he have amended his ways?

The coroner and I were among the last to leave Cow-Ley’s Corner. In my hand I carried the hempen rope, now sliced in two, which ended Thomas atte Bridge’s life. We walked behind the vicars. I was silent while Shillside spoke of the weather, new-sown crops, and other topics of a pleasant spring day. When he found no ready response from me he grew silent, then as we reached the castle he turned and spoke again.

“The man is surely dead of his own hand, Hugh. You must not seek a felon where none is. And even was atte Bridge slain there is no man in Bampton sorry for it. He was an evil fellow we are well rid of.”