It was St George’s Day, ten days after Easter, before life in Bampton resumed its normal routine. I called for hallmote to meet that day. Lord Gilbert’s tenants and villeins selected John Prudhomme to replace Alan. John held a half-yardland of Lord Gilbert, and seemed not to fear his new duties. As there had been no wolf’s howl heard for nearly a fortnight, why should he?
I awoke from my slumber next morning itching from bites I had received while at my rest. Hallmote had met in the great hall the previous day, and some tenant or villein had brought with him to the assembly some unwanted guests. As my chamber opened directly off the hall, and in the night I was the nearest warm body available, the pests sought me out.
In my chest there remained several bundles of fleabane I had gathered the previous summer. I took a bundle and broke the dried stems, leaves and faded flowers to small bits. These I placed in an earthen bowl, along with a coal from my faded fire. Then I closed the door and retreated to the hall.
Shortly after I was gratified to see a wisp of smoke curl from under my door. Satisfied that the fleabane was smoldering well, I was about to seek the kitchen for a loaf when Alice atte Bridge appeared at the buttery and saw my smoking door.
“Oh, sir!” she yelped, and turned to run for aid.
With some difficulty I arrested her flight. She returned to the hall, gazing suspiciously at the fumes now pouring copiously from under my door. I thought some explanation in order.
“’Tis fleabane. I was visited in the night, and am now driving off my callers.”
Alice peered at me, uncomprehending.
“Fleas,” I explained. “Some unwashed villein introduced them into the hall yesterday. They found a home in my chamber last night.”
“Oh, sir…may I have some?”
“Fleas?”
“Nay, sir. Of them I have plenty. I sleep in a closet off the scullery, and they vex me now an’ then.”
“I have more fleabane, but ’tis in the chamber and I must not disturb the fumes while they do their work. Return at the ninth hour and I will give you some.”
“Thank you, sir.” The girl curtsied and ran gracefully off down the passage past the buttery door. I watched her scurry away. It was a rewarding experience. But I immediately felt sheepish for permitting my thoughts to wander so, with Alice but a child of fifteen years or so. Well, some tenant or servant to Lord Gilbert would have a fine wife in a few more years.
I left my chamber to the smoke and set off to find breakfast. I warned the servants at the kitchen to take no notice of the vapors rising into the great hall from under my door, then went to my daily rounds.
John Holcutt was busy seeing to the marling of a field and needed no advice on the matter from me. I walked to the meadow where the lamb was slain, but found only a few wisps of wool where the animal had lain. It was Richard Hatcher’s lamb. Doubtless what remained of it had become his dinner.
I was returning to the castle for my own dinner when the sound of shouting and agitated voices reached me across the meadow. Above the distant cacophony I heard my name. What now, I wondered? Life in Bampton was returning to its settled, peaceful ways after Alan the beadle’s death. I wished for no interruption of that tranquility.
I trotted across the meadow and walked rapidly down Mill Street past the castle toward town and the din. As I crossed the bridge over Shill Brook I saw a crowd milling before the blacksmith’s shop, where Church View Street entered Bridge Street. Some in the throng saw me approach and I was immediately hailed and urged to make haste. I did.
The knot of onlookers parted as I approached and in their shadow I saw a man lying in the street in a great pool of blood. One hand twitched at his side, the other was clasped to his neck. Between the fingers clutching his throat blood flowed in a copious stream. I knelt in the dirt and saw the man’s eyes follow me as I examined the wound under his fingers. Something, or someone, had slashed through the great vein. He had only minutes to live unless I could staunch the flow of blood.
“A cloth,” I shouted. “A clean cloth — quickly!”
A housewife in the crowd presented her apron. It was flour-dusted but clean enough. I pried the fellow’s hand from his wound and pressed the folded cloth tight against the gash.
I required my instruments, but could not leave my patient to fetch them. From the corner of my eye I saw a youth who had won a footrace last autumn at Michaelmas. I called to him.
“Run to the castle and fetch my instruments.” The youth gazed at me blankly. “Find Alice, the scullery maid. She knows the box where they are kept. My chamber will be clouded with smoke…pay that no mind. Run! Be off!”
The mob parted and the youth sprinted away toward the castle. I returned my attention to the pale form at my knees. Blood seeped from under the folded apron, but not so profusely as before.
“Who is this?” I asked. “What befell him?”
A dozen voices related the news. I could make no sense of their words. By shouting louder than they I managed to quiet my informers. I searched for a face I knew and saw Hubert Shillside’s adolescent son. He was a stolid youth, and perhaps lacked imagination. But in this matter I did not seek invention, but fact.
“William…what has happened here?”
The crowd was restive, and one or two would have answered for the youth, but I silenced them and bid the lad continue.
“There was an argument…many heard.” Heads nodded in agreement. “Philip accused Edmund of something.”
Then it was that I recognized the bloody figure over whom I knelt: Philip, the town baker. And standing before his forge, his arms pinioned to his side, was Edmund, the smith. The smith’s eyes were wide in fright, or amazement, at what he had done. He made no move to escape the grasp of those who clutched his arms.
“Philip picked up Edmund’s hammer, as he’d laid it down when the dispute began,” William continued. “But he swung wide, not bein’ accustomed to swingin’ hammers. Edmund swung back with a piece of hot iron in his tongs. Philip ducked but the edge caught ’im by the throat…an’ there he lays.”
“What was their dispute about?” I asked.
“Dunno,” William offered. “Wasn’t close enough t’hear plain. Just saw when Philip swung the hammer.”
The matter in dispute was of little importance at the moment. I did not press the matter, but rather concerned myself with Philip’s seeping neck. The man began to moan, but in his mouth I saw no blood. I was relieved. If the stroke had penetrated his throat he must die, for the bleeding would continue no matter what I did for his external wound.
I kept the sopping apron pressed close against the laceration and wondered when the runner would return with my instruments. The lad arrived soon enough, and I saw from the corner of my eye the mob part to allow him through. Alice had followed, and pressed in behind him.
I called for a bystander to take my place at the wound while I readied the instruments I would need. The crowd hesitated, and in that moment Alice knelt at my side. “Wha…what must I do?” she stammered.
“Keep this cloth pressed tight against the wound until I tell you to release it. Then be ready to apply it again should I need it.”
She nodded understanding and did not hesitate but took the red, sodden apron in both hands and forced it against the cut.
I opened my kit and prepared needle and thread. As I worked I asked the curious who hovered above me for an egg. A crone lurched wordlessly off down the High Street in response.
I would have liked to repair the torn vein first but knew of no way to do that without releasing a great flow of blood once again. So with needle and thread in my right hand, I held my left above the wound and told Alice to release the apron.
When she did, blood flowed again from the torn flesh, but not so much as before. A clot was beginning to form at the edge of the cut.
I gripped the lips of the wound with the fingers of my left hand. As I did so Philip groaned and twisted in pain. I spoke rather more sharply than I ought, I fear, and told him to be still, else I could not patch his cut. I should be more generous in such situations, but sometimes I lack sympathy for those who need my care because of their own foolishness. Certainly if Philip had not first picked up the hammer he would not now be producing a stream of blood
