Tom smiled sheepishly, then said, “She forgot a dispute right readily.”
“You argued about another man, I was told.”
Tom seemed to think that, as I knew the source of their disagreement, my words required no comment. He stared at me, then studied the fresh earth at his feet once again.
“Who was it that caused your discord?”
“I do not know the man,” he replied with some heat.
“How is it that Margaret could be…uh…associated with someone you would not know?”
“He was not of this place.”
“From where, then? Burford?”
“Nay. She wouldn’t say. Farther, I think.”
“It is rumored that he was a gentleman.”
“So she said.”
“Did she think a gentleman would take up with a smith’s daughter?” I asked.
“’Tis what I asked her,” he replied, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
“And what did she answer?”
“She laughed. Said as how I might find out.”
“How did you learn of this other fellow?”
“I’d been pressin’ her to have the bans read. She wouldn’t agree. Back about St George’s day she changed her mind. Said as we’d have the bans read soon…but by hocktide she’d turned cold again. Perhaps I pressed her overmuch. She told me I wasn’t the only man as wanted her. I knew that. But I told her she’d not do better than me. I’ll have my father’s yardland, an’ the Earl’s reeve has promised another soon’s I can pay the fine an’ the lease.”
“What did she reply to that?”
“Laughed at me. Said as how some men had many yardlands.”
“So you thought by that she meant a gentleman?”
“Not just then. I said as how I knew no one who had more than three yardlands. A man can’t work more’n that. She said as how some men needn’t work their own lands; have others do it for ’em.”
“That’s when you decided she spoke of a gentleman?”
“Aye. I told her she was a fool.” He looked away, across the unplowed portion of the field, and watched a flight of geese as it appeared over the bare-limbed oaks of the forest beyond. “That were a mistake,” he sighed.
“How so?”
“Margaret didn’t like to be told there was aught she couldn’t do.”
“Is that when the shouting began?”
“Shouting?” he questioned, brows furrowed like the field behind him.
“You were heard across the river.”
He smiled to himself once again. “Margaret could make herself heard some distance when she wished it.”
“When did you last see Margaret?”
“That were t’last time. She yelled somethin’ ’bout a gentleman always keeps his promise, an’ went off up t’riverbank to the smithy.”
“You didn’t follow?”
“Nay. I knew Margaret well enough to know I’d best be on my way. She’d cool in a few days an’ see more clearly. So I did think.”
“But she disappeared before you saw her again?”
“Aye. Near two months.”
“She was last seen the same day you took a cart of oats to Lord Gilbert Talbot, in Bampton.”
“Aye. Returned next day. Found her father at t’door.”
“’At’s right,” the father joined in. He had been standing silent beside the oxen during my conversation with his son. “Alard thought as how she’d run off w’Tom, ’specially as Tom wasn’t about. I tried to tell ’im where Tom’d gone.”
“You heard nothing of her after?”
“Not ’til Alard came through t’village on his way to Bampton t’bring her home. He told us you’d found her murdered.”
“Yes. Her state allows no other conclusion.”
“What state was that, then?” Tom asked through pursed lips.
I told him only that her body had been found and gave evidence of murder. The youth looked down at his feet again — and large specimens they were, too.
“Had Margaret spoken to you of any enemies? Did she fear anyone?”
“Nay. She had disagreements from time to time. No enemies. None in Bampton, anyway.”
“You had an argument with her and later you went to Bampton.”
Tom’s jaw dropped. I could see that the thought that he might be suspected in Margaret’s death had never occurred to him. Either that, or he was shocked and frightened that his guilt had been found out. He protested innocence, and his father vouched for his truthfulness. The youth spoke of his reasons for desiring Margaret for a wife, among which were her health, her likely fecundity, her reputation for hard work won at her father’s forge, and even her appearance. He did not mention love, but such emotion is trivial compared to the important issues of survival, work, and heirs.
I left the two men staring at my back as I climbed the hill back to town and Bruce. Thomas Shilton seemed to me the most likely suspect in this unhappy death, yet he seemed incapable of such a deed, and the fondness he felt for Margaret was revealed in his voice, his manner, and the empty expression in his eyes.
I do not know how to read a face or posture. The things hidden behind a man’s eyes remain a mystery to me. I have been trained to deal with visible wounds, not the invisible.
The wind had risen during the day, and now propelled thick gray clouds from the northern horizon. I wrapped my cloak about me as the wind blew Bruce and me toward home. Bare trees swayed in the gale, dancers rooted to one place, in graceful motion nonetheless.
I passed the woods where, earlier in the day, I had found the cotehardie. I wished to be home, out of the blast, and safe from the sleet or snow I thought likely before morning. But my curiosity was too strong. I had yet an hour before darkness. I tied Bruce to a sapling while he gazed at me with a wounded expression. He wished to be home and out of the storm as much as I. Cotehardie in hand, I penetrated the underbrush. It took a few minutes of casting about before I found the place where the cotehardie had lain.
The wind was quiet here, its gusts broken by the forest. As I studied the ground, and kicked through the leaves searching for more clothing, I heard from the distance a dull thud. Then, a few seconds later, another.
It was difficult to tell, with the wind and dense vegetation, from which direction the sounds came. And when I determined the source, it was not an easy matter to work my way through the undergrowth and coppiced saplings toward the sound.
I came to a place where the coppiced trees thinned to an older growth of forest just as a final thud brought the sound of a falling tree crashing through the branches of its still-standing neighbors. I had heard the sound of an axe laid against a tree — woodcutters were at their trade.
I followed the sound of axes lopping limbs from the fallen tree and found three men at work in the gloom of a gathering twilight. One of the three was conspicuous for the white cap he wore, which marked him from his companions in the dim light. It was the man whose skull I had repaired, who I had told to remain in bed for a week, and to do no toil for a month. Here, but seven days later, he was at his labors.
One of the three took that moment to rest on his axe — no doubt they had been employed at their task all day — and saw me approach. He spoke to his fellows and they ceased their labor to observe me as I picked my way through limbs cast off from trees felled earlier. My patient seemed to recognize me first — not that he could have remembered the time he spent in my surgery — and he spoke as I neared the group.
“You’ve come for your t’uppence, then?” he asked.
“No. You’ve a week before I want to see the wound and change the wrapping. You were to remain in bed until tomorrow. This,” I looked past them to the fallen oak, “could kill you. Your condition is brittle, and will remain
