The Tainted Coin (17 page)

M
y thoughts were troubled and my body pained as Lady Petronilla’s wagon bore me, Osbert, and Kate to Bampton. I had thought that riding an old dexter like Bruce was a jolting experience, especially if the beast was spurred to a gallop, but enduring a dozen miles atop Bruce was nothing compared to the jarring I felt through the straw pallet which Kate had arranged upon the wagon’s planks.

Osbert suffered also, but after a mile or two he gave up groaning each time a wheel encountered a rut and bore the experience silently. Or perhaps the pain caused him to fall insensible again.

Kate would not be content until I told her all. Relating the tale helped me to concentrate my mind on the matter of John Thrale and his coin, and disregard the rutted road.

When we crossed the Thames at Newbridge there was yet enough light to see the bare branches of trees reflecting darkly from the river, but all was darkness at Standlake. We heard the bell of the village church ring the Angelus as we passed.

Kate took my head and rested it in her lap, told me I must say no more, but rest, then stroked my hair until I was nearly fallen to sleep. Shortly before the ninth hour I heard the voices of our escort speak of Bampton. I was home.

I remember being lifted, upon my pallet, from the wagon and taken to our chamber off the Bampton Castle hall. Kate then offered a loaf, from which I managed a few mouthfuls, but I remember nothing more till I awoke next day well after dawn. Kate sat in a shaft of bright sunlight, and when she heard me shift upon our bed she rose from her bench and was at my side.

I asked of Osbert. Kate was unaware of his condition, but promised she would seek John Chamberlain and learn where he’d been placed and how he fared. While she did so she required of me that I eat from a fresh loaf of wheaten bread and drink from a cup of ale she left beside the bed. As Kate put her hand to the door I asked that she also seek Arthur. I had a task for the man.

Arthur and Kate returned together. I sent Arthur to Abingdon to retrieve my sack of instruments and herbs from the New Inn, and to inquire of the abbey hosteler of Sybil Montagu. The maid weighed upon my conscience. Sharp as her tongue was, she was alone and defenseless in Abingdon.

Osbert, Arthur said, was put to bed in his chamber in the lodgings range, where Cicily, Arthur’s wife, could attend him. I bid Arthur take two grooms with him to Abingdon, for he might be recognized and need assistance should he meet Sir Philip Rede or his men in Abingdon or upon the road. The fellow was not eager to leave Bampton again so soon, but grooms learn early to do as they are bid.

In my pharmacy I had a vial of the juice of adder’s tongue. Early each summer I walk the hedgerows and along the banks of Shill Brook seeking this fern. The oil from its leaves and roots makes a soothing and healing salve. When Arthur was on his way I asked Kate to seek the vial. When she found it I told her to mix a small portion of its contents with clean water from Shill Brook to the proportion of three parts water to one part oil of adder’s tongue, then take the ointment to Arthur’s wife and direct her to apply it to the wounds upon Osbert’s back.

I explained that the oil of adder’s tongue, thus applied, would cleanse and speed the healing of Osbert’s lacerations. Kate nodded, took a clean bowl from our cupboard, and promised to return with water from Shill Brook.

When she returned she mixed the two liquids in a flask, then approached our bed.

“This will aid poor Osbert?” she asked, holding the flask before her.

“Aye.”

“Then I will apply some to your wounds also.”

I tried to explain that adder’s tongue was most useful when employed to bathe ulcerated wounds which resist healing. I had kept my own injury under close inspection and was pleased to see that scabs had formed where the arrow entered my back, and where the point had protruded from the muscle under my arm. Some small drops of blood yet oozed from these wounds, but little pus, for which I was much relieved. Most physicians and surgeons hold that thick, white pus issued from a wound is a good thing, and thin, watery pus is to be feared. But I hold with de Mondeville that no pus at all from a wound is to be preferred.

Adder’s tongue is not so helpful when applied to a wound which is scabbed over, but if there was any use to its application to my wounds, Kate would hear of no reason to abstain from dosing me, back and front. Being an apt scholar, I had learned soon after we wed that when Kate was set upon her course I had best keep silent if I disagreed. Oddly enough, her determination in such matters often proved correct. I ceased my objection and allowed her to pull down the blanket and coat both entrance and exit wounds with the thin ointment.

When Kate returned from the lodging range she reported that Osbert was alert but in much pain. I bade her return to Cicily with a pouch of pounded hemp and lettuce seeds to add to ale. This mix was a favorite of mine for reducing pain and bringing sleep, and when Kate learned of it she demanded I drink some of the mixture myself. She did not need to argue this time.

I slept through dinner, which, when I awoke, surprised me, for the hall is just the other side of the door to my chamber, and dinner in Bampton Castle is not generally a quiet affair.

Another surprise, and a pleasant one, was that I awoke hungry. The wounds were yet painful, and when I breathed deeply or tried to turn in my bed I was reminded of them anew. But I have observed that when an injured man recovers his appetite he is likely to regain his health.

I did not wish to rise from my bed and eat supper in the hall, so Kate brought my meal upon a tray. The first remove was farced capon, a dish I dearly love, and apples in compost. Perhaps I ate too much of these, for when Kate returned with the second remove upon her tray, a game pie and cabbage with marrow and cyueles, a few bites of game pie was all I could manage. I saw concern in Kate’s eyes, for she knows I am rarely so discomfited that I cannot consume my share and more of a meal. Of the third remove I know nothing, for I begged to be excused from any more nourishment from Lord Gilbert’s table, asked only for another cup of ale with crushed hemp and lettuce seeds, and under the influence of these herbs and a too-full stomach soon fell to sleep again. The last I remember of the day is Kate drawing her stool close beside the bed to watch over me. I was unhappy that I was the cause of Kate’s distress, but reflected that I would be even more melancholy if there was no one to sit with me and mourn my infirmity.

Next day I felt well enough to rise from my bed. After a loaf and cheese I went, with Kate nervously attending every step, to the lodgings range to see how Osbert fared. He did not fare well.

His lesions were many and much pus and blood yet drained from them. The fellow was alert, no longer insensible from the thrashing he had endured, which is not to say he no longer suffered.

I asked Osbert how he fell into Sir Philip’s hands.

“Men come on me when I was past Frilford. They was afoot. I’d’ve made for a hedgerow if I’d heard horses comin’. I was enjoyin’ the walk, wool-gatherin’, like, an’ they come into the road before me afore I could take notice an’ hide. When I seen ’em begin to run I knew whose men they must be, though they was too far away to recognize faces. ’Twas John, Adam, an’ Martyn. Thought they was my friends. I ran into the fields, but Martyn cut me off. Fleet of foot, is Martyn. Sir Philip promised three pence to any man who could take me.”

Osbert lay upon his belly, an arm drawn up upon which he pillowed his head. It caused me some discomfort to bend over him to inspect his lacerated back, and this he noticed.

“’Ow’d you get me free?” he asked. “Last I remember, they’d tied me to a post an’ was layin’ on with the lash.”

“I will tell you all when you are recovered. Your back needs attention, else it will not heal properly.”

I told Osbert and Cicily that I would return shortly with instruments and salves, then with Kate ever at my elbow lest I grow faint, I returned to our chamber.

Some of my instruments I had taken to Abingdon, but what I needed to deal with Osbert’s back I had in the castle. From my supply of herbs I took a flask of ointment I had made by boiling leaves of moneywort in the juice of wild pears. This salve is of my own devising, as moneywort serves well for old wounds, and pear juice is useful for new. I decided a year past to try the two combined. Osbert provided my first opportunity to see how the two might serve when mixed together, for under most circumstances I apply no ointment to any wound.

Flayed skin lay in tattered ribbons upon Osbert’s back. I drew down the blanket covering him and hardly knew where to begin. I must first cleanse the lacerations of caked blood and pus, so sent Cicily to the buttery for half a ewer of wine. While she was away I used tweezers and a tiny scalpel to tease away detached skin. This did not trouble Osbert much, for the skin had been peeled from his back and was no longer sensitive. But when my scalpel touched living flesh he gasped and the muscles of his back quivered. I prepared another draught of ale with a strong dose of crushed hemp seeds for the fellow to drink. The work I must do would cause him some pain.

It caused me some discomfort also, to bend over Osbert as I must. Kate had accompanied me again, being unwilling to believe my protest that my strength was much increased. She saw me wince as I bent to the work, and dragged a stool to the bed so I might sit closer to my task and have less reason to bend to it.

Cicily soon returned with the wine and I gently flushed coagulated blood, shredded fragments of skin, and layers of pus from Osbert’s wounds. The flesh of his back convulsed as he felt the sting of the wine, but he bore the pain without crying out.

When I had cleaned his back as well as could be I stitched two of the lacerations which were deeper and wider than the others, then dipped a clean fragment of linen cloth into the ointment of pears and moneywort and daubed it thickly upon Osbert’s wounds.

De Mondeville taught that wounds heal more readily when left open to the air, rather than wrapped tight in bandages. Since my year of study in Paris I have practiced this method of his, and found good success. Most folk find this new procedure suspect, and when I told Cicily that she must leave Osbert’s back exposed till the ointment was dry, then cover him lightly only with a blanket to keep him warm, she frowned at the instruction.

I took dinner in the hall, and when the meal was done was about to seek our chamber and rest when John Chamberlain approached. Lord Gilbert, he said, would see me in the solar.

My wounds pained me, and where the arrow had pierced my back I felt a renewed flow of blood. Bending over Osbert had broken open the puncture. Kate would not be pleased to see another kirtle stained. But when a great lord calls, a man must answer, especially so if the lord is his employer and has given him a house in the town freehold.

Kate appeared with Bessie in her arms. I had not seen the child for many days, and felt a pang that I had neglected her. I vowed that when Lord Gilbert was done with me I would atone for my negligence.

I found Lord Gilbert in the solar, enjoying a blaze in the fireplace which warmed his back. He bade me sit, and asked of my health.

“My wound troubles me some,” I said, “but I am likely to survive.”

“Good. The villein that you attend, when will his wounds be healed so that he may be returned?”

“Returned? To the lord who abused him so?”

“Abuse or not, Sir Philip is his lord and he must be sent back. Since plague far too many of his station have fled their manors. Such must be stopped.”

“If he is sent to Sir Philip it will mean his certain death.”

“A lord has such warrant over disobedient villeins.”

“What crime did the man commit worthy of death?” I asked.

“He fled his lord and manor,” Lord Gilbert frowned.

“Because of me. If he is sent back to East Hanney and to his death, you make me complicit.”

“Why so?”

“He was assigned to guard a maid who had been stolen from her father and held for ransom. Arthur and I approached Sir Philip’s manor after dark, seeking another woman we thought might be held there, and released the lass. Osbert feared Sir Philip would deal severely with him for being surprised in the night and allowing the maid to be freed.”

“So you carried him away as well as the lass?”

“What was I to do? Leave him to die at the hands of a wicked lord?”

“Wicked Sir Philip may be, but he was the man’s lord.”

“May be? He took a knight’s daughter and kept her for ransom. Because Osbert failed to assist this felony, he must now die?”

“Perhaps Sir Philip would not have destroyed the fellow.”

“He was doing so when Arthur and I freed him.”

“Ah, but that was for running away, not for failing to properly guard his prisoner.”

“You believe Sir Philip would have dealt more leniently with Osbert for allowing his captive, for whom he was demanding fifty pounds, to escape?”

“Whether Sir Philip is lenient or not is his business, not yours… or mine. The man was his villein and his to command.”

“He commanded him to aid him in a felony. Must a man obey his lord and violate the laws of God and the King?”

“It is for his lord to decide obedience to the King, and a priest to determine what is due God.”

“If you send Osbert back to Sir Philip, he will slay the man, and if the past days are a measure, he’ll seek some ghastly way to do it.”

“I cannot control what another knight does upon his own manor. I must do what law requires and send the fellow back. The man must be returned to Sir Philip as soon as he is recovered from his wounds.”

“When he will receive fresh ones. You may as well pack him upon a cart and send him back now.”

Lord Gilbert grimaced involuntarily, for he had seen the bloody flesh of Osbert’s back. He pounded a fist upon his table to punctuate his next words. “I will not permit my bailiff to aid a villein who would flee his lord, and there’s an end to the matter. When the fellow is strong enough he will be returned. See to it.”

“I cannot,” I said.