A Trail of Ink (28 page)

“No matter. We’ll have them all to the castle and sort this out. Bring ‘em along,” he directed the warder.

We returned to the street through the house, passing the quaking servant who stood where Sir Roger had left him. Half-way from house to castle I saw Arthur approach, striding from around the Church of St Peter-le-Bailey. I had been so occupied with events that it had not occurred to me that he was tardy returning from his mission to return Kate to Holywell Street.

Arthur glanced from me to Sir Jocelin as he approached. It was clear from his manner that something vexed him. The others continued toward the castle gatehouse while I stopped to greet Arthur.

“You have Sir Jocelin, I see. That the new sheriff?”

“Aye. Sir Roger was eager to favor Lord Gilbert’s bailiff.”

“Sorry I was delayed. Couldn’t be helped,” Arthur growled. “Kate an’ me got to ‘er father’s shop an’ who was marchin’ down Holywell Street but Sir Simon an’ a squire. New fella’, never seen ‘im before. Sir Simon give us a vile look an’ says to Kate, `Takin up with a bailiff is not low enough for you, eh? Is this churl your new love? I’ll next see you on Grope Lane, no doubt.”’

My rage was instant. Arthur saw and grasped my arm. “No need to seek ‘im,” he said, and held out his right hand before me. The knuckles were split and lightly caked with drying blood. ‘E’ll be more careful of ‘ow ‘e speaks of a lass henceforth.”

“Kate is safe?”

“Aye. Delivered to her father.”

“And Sir Simon?”

“Well, I don’t know as he’s in best of health. Last I seen, ‘e was walkin’ Holywell Street toward the Augustinian Friars Hall.”

“Seeking medical care, was he?” I smiled.

“Aye. ‘At would be my guess,” Arthur grinned in return. “I told ‘im I knew of a competent surgeon who could mend ‘is lip. Paid no heed.”

Beyond Arthur, where the road through the Westgate circles south of the castle and crosses the Castle Mill Stream, I saw four horsemen appear. Three wore the same livery of blue and black as Arthur. The lord at their head was too far away to identify but I knew it must be my employer.

Arthur followed my gaze and together we awaited the arrival of Lord Gilbert. I was surprised to see him. It is his custom to remove to Goodrich Castle for Christmas and the winter, and this he does by Martinmas or thereabouts, before the roads turn to mire and winter cold is upon the land.

“Hugh,” he called out when he saw who awaited him before the castle gatehouse. “You are well met.”

The unexpected nature of Lord Gilbert’s appearance must have been reflected on my face. He swung down from his mount and explained. “Word has reached Bampton of Sir Roger replacing Sir John as sheriff. Sir Roger is an old friend. I thought to offer congratulations, and see how does your pursuit of thieves proceed.”

“You have just missed Sir Roger, m’lord. He has three miscreants in hand we wish to examine regarding Master John’s stolen books and other untoward events.”

“We?” Lord Gilbert questioned. “You have met Sir Roger?”

“Aye.”

“But you’ve found no books, I think.”

“One, m’lord.”

“One?” Lord Gilbert raised an eyebrow.

“It was in the possession of a penniless scholar who was then found dead in the Cherwell… but not drowned, murdered.” The eyebrow lifted higher.

“And Kate? How does your lass?”

“She is well, m’lord.”

“‘Tis past time I should be at Goodrich,” he explained, “but I delay so as to learn of the recovery of Master Wyclif’s books. And Lady Petronilla will not remove to Goodrich until she has seen you wed.”

“I am sorry to interfere with your plans, m’lord. I wish to be wed soon, but I am obligated to Master John.”

“Well, Sir Roger will be of more aid to you than Sir John, I think. He is in the castle, you say?”

“Aye. With a man I wish to question.”

“Let us seek him out, then.”

Lord Gilbert strode toward the gatehouse, leaving his horse to be led by a groom. I followed close behind, with Arthur a pace behind me.

Oxford Castle has been enlarged and restored many times. Its passageways are many and crooked and a man might easily lose his way. But not Lord Gilbert; he marched straight to the sheriff’s chamber.

Sir Jocelin Hawkwode’s henchmen stood beside the clerk’s table in the antechamber. The warder stood alert near them, and two sergeants guarded the passageway door. A few supplicants remained in the room, but most had abandoned their pleas for the day. Sir Roger was not in view.

The clerk recognized me and saw that my companion was a gentleman of rank. He leaped to his feet. Not because of me.

“Sir Roger is within,” he explained. “Who shall I say… ?”

“Gilbert Talbot,” Lord Gilbert said, loudly enough that his words surely penetrated to the inner chamber, for the door was ajar. “Tell the knave I’ve come to see for myself if the King’s judgment be so clouded as to put him in this place.”

The door swung open and Sir Roger’s bulky form filled the doorway. “The King,” he replied, “could not decide whether to punish my many transgressions by clapping me in the tower or by assigning me to this post.”

Slapping of shoulders and backs accompanied this banter. It was clear Lord Gilbert and Sir Roger were friends. Enemies would not speak so to each other.

“I wondered,” Sir Roger said, turning to me, “where you’d got to. You wish to question Sir Jocelin?”

“Aye. And it would be well if you and Lord Gilbert attend the inquiry. A bailiff alone might not pry from a man what a scowling sheriff and baron might, even did they speak no word.”

Sir Roger motioned Lord Gilbert and me into his chamber and closed the door. Sir Jocelin sat at the table, but sprang to his feet when Lord Gilbert entered. All semblance of bluster was gone from Hawkwode’s features and manner. Here is a man, I thought, who finds himself in trouble he had not anticipated. When in the past I found it necessary to interrogate such men, I discovered it was often best to keep silent so much as possible, and allow invention to loosen their tongues. A man of ripe imagination who thinks on potential punishment due him will often say more than he would otherwise intend, hoping thereby to escape judgment.

Lord Gilbert and Sir Roger should, due to their rank, have led the interrogation. But as they were unacquainted with many particulars they sat in chairs to one side and discharged the work I had hoped of them. They glared menacingly at Sir Jocelin. I watched him chew upon his lower lip in response.

The sheriff had left his chair, across the table from Hawkwode, vacant. He peered at me from under those magnificent brows and nodded toward it. I sat, and took some moments to arrange my coat. Let the scoundrel wait and worry.

“A fortnight past you were toppled into the Thames,” I reminded him. “Surely your fine surcoat is much shrunken for the wet.”

“Neither I nor my surcoat have been in the Thames,” he protested.

“Hmmm. Perhaps another red-bearded gentleman with green surcoat haunts the road to Eynsham. Did Sir Simon pay you well to accompany him Sunday, or did you travel the Eynsham Road with him for friendship?”

“I have not traveled to Eynsham.”

“I expect not. The first time I saw you on the road your journey halted at Swinford. Three days ago you traveled only so far as a swineherd’s hut in the forest. So you speak true… you have not been to Eynsham. Now, answer fairly: was it for coin or friendship you aided Sir Simon Trillowe?”

Hawkwode glanced beyond me to Sir Roger and Lord Gilbert but found no solace there. “Answer!” the sheriff growled.

“For friendship,” Sir Jocelin sighed in defeat. He had apparently decided to behave wisely, as men may do when they see no alternatives.

“Were you of those who came over the wall of Canterbury Hall and seized me and Lord Gilbert’s groom?”

“Nay. Knew nothing of that ‘til Sir Simon told of the business Sunday morn.”

“And what did he tell?”

Hawkwode again looked about the chamber, as if some way of escape previously unseen might appear. I said no more, but awaited a response. When he saw there was no avoiding the question, Hawkwode muttered a reply.

“Said I was to accompany him and Sir William Folville. We were to put a fright to you, he said.”

” ?” W y.

“Sir Simon wished you gone from Oxford. That’s why we pursued you on the road to Eynsham.”

“When my man dunked you in the river,” Lord Gilbert chuckled.

“Aye,” Sir Jocelin grimaced.

“To what purpose was I to be frightened away?”

Again Sir Jocelin was silent. So were we all, awaiting his understanding that he had no choice but to answer.

“There is a lass… Sir Simon would have.”

“Kate Caxton?”

“Aye. The stationer’s lass.”

“And for a maid he would threaten harm to my bailiff?” Lord Gilbert scowled.

“What of Robert Salley?” I asked.

“Who?”

“A poor scholar, murdered and found floating in the Cherwell.”

“I know of no Robert Salley.”

“Perhaps you have forgotten. I will refresh your memory. The lad tried to sell a book, Sentences. ‘Twas one stolen from Master John Wyclif. Then he was discovered dead in the river. The book he had hidden with a cordwainer, for others also sought it. When I was assailed Saturday eve the attackers said I was not to be found as Salley was. So if Sir Simon knew where I was to be found on Sunday, he knew also who it was took me there in the night and who slew Robert Salley. And whatever he told you, he told my captors I was not to be seen again.”

I saw Hawkwode swallow, his adam’s apple working vigorously. Perhaps he spoke true and knew not that when he accompanied Sir Simon to the swineherd’s hut it was to do murder. Perhaps, but perhaps not. Mayhap his unease was due to discovery, not ignorance.

“If ‘twas not you came over the wall of Canterbury Hall, who did so?” I continued.

Hawkwode rested his elbows on the table and dropped his head to his hands. He did not speak, but Sir Roger did.

“‘Tis near time for dinner,” he said to Lord Gilbert. “You and your man shall join me. This fellow may remain here and ponder his sins and how he may escape punishment for them.”

The castle board was an improvement over the fare at Canterbury Hall. The ewerer presented water for washing hands from a brass ewer of cunning workmanship. And though it was a fast day no pottage was served.

The first remove was of eels baked in spices and pike in galantine. The second remove featured roasted halibut and salmon in syrup, a favorite of mine. For the third remove the castle cook provided roasted sea bass, perch in jelly, and fried mussels. A subtlety of spiced baked pears and apples ended the repast. After such a meal I might have preferred a nap, but Sir Jocelin awaited us in the sheriff’s chamber, hungry and, I prayed, subdued.

Hawkwode’s companions, watched by the warder and two sergeants - who would consume cold fish for their trouble - were seated as they were when we departed the anteroom for dinner. If they were distressed for missing their meal, their bored expressions provided no clue.

Sir Jocelin was also as we left him. I had thought we might find him at the window, but not so. Perhaps he had already visited the opening and found nothing in the castle yard worthy of his attention.

I took my place at the table and Lord Gilbert and Sir Roger again sat behind me. Sir Roger produced an appreciative belch, a response to a good meal. The implication, I think, was not lost on Hawkwode. Did he not provide satisfactory replies to my questions, his future meals might also be in the castle, but composed of stale maslin, cold pottage, and foul water.

“You have had time to consider your position,” I reminded Sir Jocelin. “Before we went to our dinner I asked who it was who came over the wall and took me to the forest if it was not you.”

“I knew them not,” he muttered. “Lads from Eynsham were sent for.”

“From Eynsham?” Lord Gilbert exclaimed.

“Sir Simon sent for the fellows?” I asked. “For the purpose?”

“Aye. He sent for them some days past, as well.”

“You saw these men?”

“Aye.”

“And ‘twas a week past, thereabouts, you did so?”

“Aye,” he agreed softly.

A thought occurred to me and it arrived with a vision of a large man, armed with a club, accompanied by a smaller companion, on the road near Swinford.

“Was one of these fellows of great size?”

Aye.

“His name?”

“Odo Grindecobbe.”

Climbing over the wall of Canterbury Hall was a thing this fellow had done twice, I thought. I remembered the thatcher’s broken ladder. No wonder a thong broke, was the ladder used by a man the size of Grindecobbe.

But what had Sir Simon to do with thieves? Surely when Grindecobbe clambered over the wall twice, he did so for two different reasons, which I could not see related.

“Did Sir Simon speak of recovering a book from Robert Salley?”

“He didn’t speak a name, not that I heard. An’ didn’t name a book. Just said the fellows from Eynsham was to seek a scholar and recover something that was given to him.”

Something that was given to him? Did this mean that Salley had not stolen Master John’s books, or been any part of the theft? If so, it was as I thought. And if so, who gave him one of the books, and why? Might a relative have done so? This trail led in two ways, one to Eynsham, the other to Sir Simon.

“What did Sir Simon say when you arrived Sunday at the swineherd’s hut and found it empty but for the guard?”

“He was in a rage. Said they’d botched the job twice.”

? “They?”

“Whoever it was he sent to Canterbury Hall… Grindecobbe and the others.”

“Did he speak of the first blunder?”

Nay.

Sir Jocelin might not have known of Grindecobbe’s first mistake, but I did. He, and perhaps some companions, had murdered Robert Salley but not obscured the deed well enough. Did Salley die because he would not give up Sentences, or to silence him? Hawkwode did not know, so it would do no good to press him about it.

“The first error Grindecobbe made was to leave Robert Salley where his corpse might be found and his manner of death discovered. Sir Simon surely commanded the scholar’s death did he not surrender Master Wyclif’s book. We must next visit Sir Simon,” I said to Sir Roger, “and learn what he knows. Perhaps he will give different witness than we have now heard.”