The Unquiet Bones (9 page)

The village seemed deserted, but was not. I saw a corner of oiled sheepskin lifted as we passed the first hut. The hamlet comprised but eight or ten occupied dwellings. Alvescot was, I saw, a village the plague had struck hard. There were as many dilapidated, unoccupied huts as those yet tenanted, and the church was in poor repair.

Gerard stopped our party before a domicile which showed signs of occupation and shouted for his son. Walter must have been at the door, for it opened immediately. I recognized the man who stepped out into the dying light as one who had brought Gerard to me and waited outside Galen House for the result of my work.

“The dagger you found in the woods,” Lord Gilbert said without introduction. “I would have it.”

Walter looked at Gerard, who shrugged, bit his lip, but remained silent.

“Well, go on, man…we know you have it,” Lord Gilbert growled.

“Yes, m’lord.” Walter bowed and retreated to the dim interior of his hut. I heard a brief conversation, and a woman’s muffled cry. There followed the sound of furnishings being moved about, then silence until Walter reappeared. He held a small, jeweled dagger before him in both hands. He lifted it to Lord Gilbert as if in prayer of supplication.

I did not wish to appear overly inquisitive, so restrained my impulse to peer over Lord Gilbert’s shoulder at the weapon. But as Bruce sidled forward a step or two, I caught a glimpse of the dagger as Lord Gilbert turned it in his hands. The blade was no more than eight inches long, but appeared sharp and well-kept. The hilt was gilded, and encrusted with jewels: not many, nor did they seem large, but gems on any such weapon pointed to ownership by a gentleman.

“’Tis not Sir Robert’s, I think,” Lord Gilbert decided as he turned the weapon in his hands. “Mediocre craftsmanship. And the stones are poor.”

He turned to Walter, who was rooted in place before Lord Gilbert’s horse, his hands yet lifted as if he expected to see the dagger replaced in them. That would not be, but Lord Gilbert was a fair man.

“I will have this,” he told the woodcutters. “There is too much puzzle about this business. This,” he held the dagger out to me and Sir John that we might have a better view, “must have to do with Sir Robert’s cotehardie, but what, no man can tell. But I will not rob you of your find,” he said as he turned back to Walter. “I will send my reeve with two shillings. A fair price, I think.”

Walter’s chin dropped. He had probably thought of no way to turn the dagger to ready cash. Lord Gilbert’s offer would both stun and please him. He stammered thanks for the offer. Lord Gilbert cut him off. “And I will pay well for any other articles you may find in that forest…so long as you register the place where it was found and seek me immediately.”

“Aye. We will surely do that, m’lord.” I thought that promise true enough. When word got through Alvescot of Lord Gilbert’s past and promised generosity, the entire able-bodied population of the hamlet would comb the forest for traces of Sir Robert and his squire.

Our small party approached Bampton Castle an hour later from the west road as the search party, wet and cold, straggled through the gatehouse. Some turned to observe our approach, their faces betraying exhaustion and failure. The muddy surface of the castle yard was beginning to freeze. But the snap in the air did not prevent castle inhabitants of all stations from gathering about the hungry search party. Lady Petronilla and Lady Joan were prominent among the crowd. To his wife’s question, Lord Gilbert produced the small dagger.

My eyes were attracted to movement as Lord Gilbert displayed the weapon, and I turned in the direction of the motion. It was Lady Joan who attracted my attention, not an unusual event in itself. Her hand had come up to cover an opened mouth. Her eyes were wide, visible in the flickering light of torches. I knew then, before she spoke, that she recognized the dagger.

A sharp intake of breath accompanied Lady Joan’s startled expression. I could not hear this from my perch atop Bruce on the fringe of the crowd, but many closer to her turned toward her, including Lord Gilbert.

“Do you know this?” he asked her.

Lady Joan moved toward her brother; the gathering parted to give her a path. “If there is a letter inscribed on the pommel, yes, I know it.”

Lord Gilbert bent down from his horse and put the dagger in her hand. She turned it to better see the rounded end of the pommel in the flickering of the nearest torch. There followed another brief gasp, which even I heard, for the throng had fallen silent.

“What letter is there?” Lord Gilbert asked quietly.

“G,” Lady Joan replied. “This is Geoffrey’s dagger. Sir Robert’s squire. I saw him crudely pick his teeth with it at table,” she replied with some distaste.

“Then we have discovered foul work this day,” Lord Gilbert muttered. He glanced across the heads separating us and spoke: “Master Hugh…attend me in the morning. We have much to consider.”

I
gave Bruce over to the marshalsea and made my way through dark, frozen, rutted streets to Galen House. As I approached my door I saw, silhouetted against the whiteness of the snow, what first appeared to be a pile of rags. I nearly stumbled over it, for there was no moon this night and the heap was nearly invisible. But as I approached the bundle moved, and from the folds a slight figure stood to greet me.

“You be the surgeon…Master Hugh?” the now-animate rag-bag said.

“I am. But you have the better of me. Who are you?”

“Alice, sir.”

“And why are you at my door in the dark? Curfew bell will sound soon.”

“I’ve come for you. It’s me father. He slipped on t’ice this mornin’ an’ cannot rise. I am sent to fetch you.”

“Well, come in for now while I assemble some instruments. How long have you awaited me?”

“Since mid-day, sir.”

“Then, here, take this loaf while I am about my work.”

The girl gnawed hungrily at the maslin loaf. I could not remember having seen her before, which I thought strange, for there were few young people of her age or younger in the town. Not for nothing was the return of pestilence two years past called the “Children’s Plague.”

“Where is your father?” I asked as I pulled tight the drawstring of my bag.

“At Weald. He has a quarter yardland of the Dean of Exeter.”

That explained why she was unknown to me; her father was a tenant of the Bishop, not Lord Gilbert. A quarter yardland would keep a family alive, with perhaps a small surplus to sell, if it was a small family, and if the land was fertile. “Is your mother attending him?” I asked.

“Got no mum…she died o’ plague when I was newborn.”

The girl recited her family history as we made our way back across Shill Brook, past the entrance to the castle, where all seemed quiet now, then turned left down a narrow track to a group of small huts. She was, I learned, the only child of her father’s second marriage, he having lost two wives. She had two older half-brothers. Two of the huts at Weald belonged to them.

The girl opened the door to her hut and led me inside, announcing to the dark interior the tardy appearance of the town surgeon as she did so.

I could see nothing. There was little enough starlight outside the door. None of that came through the oilskin window or the open door. I asked for light, and after a time of rummaging about in the dark, the girl produced a cresset and lit it from a coal which glowed dully on the hearthstone.

The hut was smoky from the nearly exhausted fire, so the flame from the cresset did not at first illuminate the patient. But I detected the sound of his labored breathing from a dark corner. A haze of stale wood-smoke enveloped everything in the hut. I could not see above, but it was my impression that the thatching of the roof must have begun to collapse over the gable wind-holes, so that fumes had nowhere to go and so filled the small room. I knew I would reek of smoldering fire for hours after this visit.

Alice put sticks on the fire as I made my way, coughing, to the bed. Blessings on the man who invented the fireplace.

I was surprised to see how old the girl’s father was. The pain of his injury surely added lines to his face, but even considering that, he was a man of sixty years at least. I asked what had befallen him and learned that it was he I had seen carrying a sack of hides to the tanner across Shill Brook that very morning. Though but half a day earlier, the event seemed in my mind to have occurred a lifetime ago. His name, he said, was Henry; Henry atte Bridge.

He had fallen, he said, on icy cobbles before the tanner’s shop. He had gone there with three hides: he had butchered a boar and two aged sheep of his small flock. He was taking the skins to the tanner when he fell under the load. He could not stand on his leg. The tanner and his apprentice helped him home, where he had awaited me in his bed. I feared a broken leg. No, that was not my greatest fear; a broken leg might mend. I feared a broken hip.

I drew the blankets from the man and went to probing his right hip, where he indicated the greatest pain was located. It took little prodding before I was certain of my diagnosis. A broken hip. I saw no gain to prevarication, so I told him plainly of the nature of his injury.

“As I feared,” he said softly. He coughed twice in the smoke, then spoke again. “I’m finished, then.”

“Perhaps not. But I will not deceive you. Even young men, hurt in summer, do not easily rise from an injury such as yours.”

“What is to be done?” He coughed again.

In Paris I read of an Italian physician who believed he could improve the recovery of his patients with such injuries by raising the head of the victim’s bed. For, especially in winter, a man who cannot rise from his bed will soon die as his lungs fill with fluid. It was this physician’s belief – I cannot recall his name – that elevating the head might retard injury to the lungs common to a supine position.

I made a poultice of pulped root of comfrey, packed it about the injured limb, then wrapped it in woolen strips. The break was too high, as are most fractures of the hip, to apply a splint. Comfrey is thought to speed healing of broken bones when applied so. In this case I had doubts, but felt no harm in trying. And it gave the man hope that something could be done for him. I am convinced that hope is a curative in the ill and injured, for I have seen those severely wounded recover when they should not have, because they thought they would. And I have seen those ill, but capable of recovery, pass to the next world because they were persuaded they would not recover.

I asked the girl for ale, but she had none. I wished to make a draught to ease her father’s pain. I did not bother to ask for wine; in a house that has no ale there will be no wine.

I excused myself, walked the frozen streets back to Galen House, and armed myself with a flagon of ale. It was weak stuff, sold before the village taster had approved it. But for what I intended, it would serve. Alan the beadle accosted me on my return to the Weald cottage, but bid me farewell when in the star-lit gloom he recognized me and learned of my business.

Into the ale I mixed the ground seeds and root of hemp. This concoction would relieve pain and induce sleep. I told Alice that in the morning she must find men who would lift the head of her father’s bed, and showed her how high it should be raised. There was nothing more to be done. I promised to return the following evening with another potion, then stumbled home through the cold and dark to an equally cold bed. For all my desire to find a wife to warm it for me, I had made little progress to that end.

The Angelus bell woke me before dawn, but I lay in bed until light streaked my windows. Lord Gilbert had bid me attend him, so shortly after dawn I made my way to the castle. His chamberlain escorted me to the solar, where Lord Gilbert, his wife, Lady Joan, and the guest were seated about a blazing fireplace. I felt warm for the first time in several weeks.

Lord Gilbert bid me be seated. I did so in some embarrassment, for my apparel was plain, and not in the best repair. I noted the hem of my cloak torn out, as it had been for many days, and it seemed to me that Lady Joan’s eyes fell also on the offending seam.

“I would hear your opinion of this business. What do you make of it, Master Hugh? Have you reflected on this matter since we parted last night?”

My thoughts had indeed been swimming through the various interpretations which could be assigned to finding a cotehardie and dagger together in a forest.

“M’lord, I have thought of little else. As the cotehardie and dagger were found some distance from the road, it seems to me likely that Sir Robert and his squire were drawn there as they passed by. Perhaps a call for assistance took them from the road. But someone, I think, wished them away from the path…to a place where what was to happen could not be seen by a traveler.”

Lord Gilbert pulled at his chin and nodded agreement. “The cotehardie?” he asked.

“When Sir Robert saw that he had been lured to an ambush, perhaps he threw off the cotehardie, to preserve it, or to escape the restrictions to movement and his own defense that such a close-fitting garment would cause.

“I think the fight went badly. The squire lost his sword, else he would not have been reduced to defending himself with but a small dagger. In time, even this was lost.”

“And the fight was over,” Lord Gilbert growled. “What then?”

“Death, m’lord.”

“But why? You may rob a man without killing him.”

“I think this was no robbery. It is as you said. A man may be robbed on the road, not in a forest, if enough strength is presented to him so that he will not challenge his state. It is my belief that Sir Robert’s death was desired.”

“And the squire?”

“A witness, to be done away with?” I returned his question with another.

“Then we have three murders to resolve. What has become of my estate?”

I did not approve of the “we” of his remark. I thought Lord Gilbert’s assignment to seek out one murderer enough. But I admit my curiosity was aroused, and before I could think of grounds to object, Lady Joan spoke.

“What do you suggest be done, Master Hugh?” she asked softly.

I could not ignore the lady. No man could, but that is a matter best addressed another time. And indeed, I had given the matter some thought.

“Lord Gilbert, you have hounds.” It was a statement, not a question. “I think they might serve a useful purpose in this business.”

“And what might that be?” he queried.

“I would take the keeper and two of your best hounds, and two grooms, perhaps Arthur and Uctred, and allow the hounds to search where yesterday we found nothing. I will take the cotehardie; there may yet be some scent upon it a hound could trace.”

“You would have the hounds search for a grave, then?” Lord Gilbert asked.

“Yes. We must also have shovels.”

“Reasonable. Murderers would not bury their prey in a churchyard.”

I stood to leave and carry out my task, but Lady Joan spoke before I could turn. “Master Hugh, you need a seamstress to repair your cloak,” she remarked, pointing to the undone hem.

“Indeed,” Lord Gilbert agreed. “Master Hugh needs care. We must see that he is kept in good repair, body and soul.” Then turning to me: “You need a wife, Hugh…and there are other compensations than keeping one’s garments mended.” He chuckled, and from the corner of my eye I saw Lady Petronilla blush faintly.

“You keep me too busy seeking felons. I have no time to seek a wife.”

Lord Gilbert laughed again. “There are females about. Many in Oxford of a certainty, who might seek you if you but gave sign you might be found.”

This was news to me. I paid little attention to town gossip, but apparently Lord Gilbert, or his wife, was party to local chatter.

“Shall I wear a notice on my back?”

“That would not be necessary.” Lady Petronilla found voice, looked up from her embroidery, and entered the conversation. “A well-directed smile at the appropriate moment will suffice. You seem so sober and businesslike.”

“M’lord sets me to sober tasks,” I replied.

“I do,” Lord Gilbert agreed. “And for that I am sorry. But I have no other to assign to the work. I will send John to the fewterer, and assign Arthur and Uctred to accompany you for the day.”

“And I,” Lady Joan declared, “will find needle and thread and mend your cloak while John carries out his business. Then you will not catch your foot and stumble in your search.”

The guest, Sir John, who had been a silent listener to our conversation, frowned slightly at Lady Joan’s offer. Then I understood his presence. Another prospective suitor for Lord Gilbert’s sister. I am no keen observer of the human condition, but it seemed to me that, if Sir John was indeed wooing the fair Joan, his suit was not going so well as he might wish.

Lady Joan left the solar for the tools she needed, returned, and demanded my cloak. She was expert with needle and thread, well-practiced in embroidery from her youth, no doubt, and had the hem like new in little time. When she finished her task she rose, held out the cloak, and bade me put it on. She held out the sleeves and settled the cloak on my shoulders with a pat of her delicate fingers. I felt my skin burn through the layers of wool as she adjusted the fit, and my heart burned as she smiled.

“There; we must not have our surgeon going about disheveled. That would reflect badly on us.”

The hounds were confused. A hunt would employ the entire pack, not just the two. Still, they were eager to be off, straining at the leash. Forgive me for feeling superior as we set off; I was mounted on Bruce, the others walked.

The old horse was becoming accustomed to the route. He followed the proper turns, took Church View north past St Beornwald’s Church, and even turned from the road to the tree where he had been tied the day before.

Uctred and Arthur had participated in the previous day’s hunt, so required no explanation of our purpose. I told the fewterer of our previous discoveries, placed the cotehardie before the dogs, and then set off behind them as the keeper put them to their work. Arthur and Uctred followed, shovels over their shoulders.

A weak sun, barely penetrating a hazy, foggy sky, warmed and softened the snow. The dogs ranged far; the keeper was required to call them in often. An hour passed with no signal from the hounds that they had found a scent. I propped myself in the sun against an elm which fringed the coppiced woods, and was near to dozing while standing when from near a hundred paces away, through the forest, I heard first one, then the other, of the hounds bawl out. Over the excited din I heard the keeper shout. Arthur and Uctred followed me as I plunged into the coppicing.

The fewterer had leashed and quieted the hounds when we arrived. The dogs were stiff and alert, their attention focused on a small clearing which they had penetrated in their search. A dense fence of coppiced saplings surrounded this opening, so that to enter we had to pull ourselves through the enclosing scrub. The hem of my cloak caught on a shoot and tore, but not at the place Lady Joan had mended. I resolved to fix the tear myself before Lady Joan might see it and wonder at my careless ways.