The cobbler’s eyes narrowed as he tried to guess the reason for my question. “Six pence, for such as these.” He pointed to the bench. “As the law allows.”
I knew what the law allowed. The Statute of Laborers has been renewed twice in the decade since Parliament first saw fit to save us all from the avarice of those who eke out a living with their hands.
“Do you sell for less…if the shoes be old and worn?”
The cobbler gazed at me from under furrowed brows. “Why would I make shoes old and worn?”
“Shoes you might have made new, for one who then died. Do you buy and repair such shoes?”
The cobbler’s visage cleared. “Ah, I see. I might do, did any seek such of me.”
“You have not done this recently?”
“Nay. Oh, I repair worn shoes often enough. But not of the dead to sell again.”
“A fortnight and more ago did you not resell the shoes of a dead man?”
“Nay. I’ve sold but new for the past year an’ more.” The cobbler glanced at his shelf. “An’ not so many new, either.”
“A man…not of Witney; did such a one buy new shoes like those?” I pointed to his bench.
“A fortnight ago, you say?” The man’s brows narrowed again. “Why do you ask me of this?”
It was a fair question. “I am Hugh de Singleton, bailiff of Lord Gilbert Talbot’s manor at Bampton. There is a question of law…regarding ownership of shoes, which has recently arisen there. One says he has shoes purchased in Witney while here on the Bishop of Exeter’s business.”
“A fortnight ago? Nay, no man not of this town bought shoes of me then.”
“Of another? Is there another cobbler in the town?”
“Ha! Enough trade here to keep me an’ me family alive, no more.”
The cobbler was a thickset man, thick of neck, wrists and fingers. Thick in the belly as well. I thought his business not so thin as he professed. A man’s stomach often reflects his success in trade.
“Of this you are certain?” I pressed. “If a man from Bampton says he bought shoes of you in the days before Easter, you say he lies?”
“Aye…he does.”
I gave the man two farthings for his trouble, retrieved Bruce from the shrub where I had tied him, and set out for home. Meadows were quiet now. Birds sought roosts for the night, and the sun, casting long and twisted shadows across my way, provided little warmth.
Bruce is an old horse — he carried Lord Gilbert at Poitiers — and does not like to be hurried. So it was that darkness overtook me before I reached Bampton. And the sliver of new moon resting in the treetops did little to break the gathering gloom.
I was yet half a mile from town when the attack came. Bruce sensed it first, and ’twas well he did. I was drowsing upon his back when he twitched and shied to the left. This motion brought me back from the edge of sleep, yet I was not so alert that I could sense a blow coming or fend it off. But Bruce’s shudder threw off the assailant’s aim, so that the club he would have laid aside my skull struck a glancing blow on my right shoulder instead.
The blow unhorsed me and I landed in the mud upon my left shoulder. The next morning I awoke equally sore on each side. I wonder now that I had the presence of mind to immediately roll to the verge. Had I not, the next blow would have succeeded where the first failed.
I saw as I scrambled away from my attacker a silhouette against the darkening sky. This figure had a club raised in both hands and brought it down viciously on the place in the mud where I had toppled an instant earlier. As the ground was darker than the sky, I had the advantage of my foe. I could see but little of his form, but he could see none of me against the darkened earth. My brown cloak blended with the mire to make me, but for face and hands, invisible.
The cudgel which might have broken my head cracked and snapped when it struck the earth at my side. The odds were evened a bit.
A boy who grows to manhood with three older brothers, as I did, learns to defend himself in a scrap. Once, when I was twelve or perhaps thirteen, I became embroiled in a dispute with my next older brother. Nicholas was two years older, a stone heavier, and a hand taller. It was his height, I think, which caused a blow of mine to miss its mark, which was his chin, and strike instead his throat, upon his adam’s apple.
I learned two things from this misguided stroke. The first is that a man’s throat is a much softer target than his teeth. A blow against a foe’s neck will not result in split knuckles as will a fist against a man’s jaw.
And secondly, I learned that the adam’s apple is a tender part of human anatomy. No sooner had I struck my brother than he fell to his knees gagging and retching, both hands to his injured throat. He did not recover from this agony quickly. And all the while he gasped and suffered, I begged his forgiveness and pleaded mischance — which it was, although I admit that he had antagonized me so that at the moment I cocked my arm I intended to do him some harm. But not so much as I did.
This event returned to me as I scrambled to my feet. My attacker threw the broken remains of his cudgel at me, and missed, as he could not see me clearly. This was good, for although I saw his arm swing forward above me as I struggled to my feet, I could not see the broken club to duck as it whistled past my ear.
With a grunt of rage the man charged. I stepped back and allowed him to stumble into the darkened ditch at the edge of the road. Combat with my brothers came back to me again. As they were older and larger, it was always their goal to seize me in close struggle and wrestle me to their will. I learned to keep my distance and not be drawn into a grappling contest.
My attacker had fallen to his knees in the ditch, and was now below me. I was the one who was upright and silhouetted against the evening sky. So when the man charged at me again from the verge, on his knees, I did not see him coming until he was upon me.
His shoulder struck me in the hip and together we rolled in the muddy road. We came to a stop, with my assailant on top. I knew I was in trouble. Although I could not see either his face or form, I knew he must be heavier than me, for I am a slender man.
Bruce, as this battle raged, stood as he was when I was dislodged from his back. He had seen enough of combat to be unsurprised when the men about him fell into strife. The horse waited patiently for the outcome. But he did not like it when my foe and I rolled close behind him, panting and grunting. Bruce aimed a gentle kick from a massive rear hoof just as my mysterious attacker propped himself over my fallen form and bent to seize my throat. The kick struck the fellow on his back and sent him tumbling over my head into a roadside hedgerow as if he were some child’s discarded plaything.
I silently thanked Bruce for his aid and scrambled to my feet to prepare for another rush. It came, but not soon. I heard, from the brambles of the ditch, my assailant gasping for the breath Bruce’s blow had knocked from him. Had I my wits fully about me then, I would have mounted Bruce and sent him galloping for home. It is always easier to think later what should have been done in such moments. Usually what should have been done, and what was done, are different things. Rarely have I looked back on the calamitous events of my life and found my conduct at those times to be what I later determined it should have been. Surely I am not alone in this.
I girded myself for the fellow’s next attack, which I assumed would come when he could gather his wits. Come it did, although had he any wits he would not have plotted this attack at all. So I waited. But not, perhaps, for returning wits.
This time I thought to crouch low so as to hide my shape in the shadows of the forest across the road. I watched as the dim form slowly extricated itself from the brambles of the verge, stood, and cast about seeking me. At last the man’s face settled in my direction and with a howl of fury he threw himself at me.
I stepped to my left, the better to position my right fist. It was too dark for my assailant to see this movement clearly, so he plunged ahead where he thought I was. His face, which I could not recognize in the brief moments it was dimly visible, was a pale orb reflecting the nearly vanished twilight. For as he lunged he faced the west, and I, toward the east.
I cocked my arm, clenched my fist, and when he drew near I aimed a blow to strike just below that waxen visage. I put all my inadequate weight behind the stroke. As the man was lurching toward me, the combined effect was of some consequence. And as I hoped, my fist caught him just below the chin, directly upon his adam’s apple.
He fell, bellowing, to his knees, tried to stand, then dropped to the mud again. This, combined with the direction of his final lunge toward me, brought him again close to Bruce’s hindquarters. The animal seemed not to
