“Aye…well, not nothin’, like.”
“Oh?”
“I thought, was I a better husband Margery might lose interest in Edmund.”
“This was not so?”
“Nay.” He spat the word. “The more I looked to please her, the more she scorned me. I should have beat her…but I thought that would drive her from me. I see now she thinks me weak.”
“You will not beat her now?”
The baker studied the forest again before he answered. “She knows I must think of it. She told me while I lay in bed with my wound that Edmund would defend her and do worse to me should I raise my hand to her.”
I was in no way competent to advise any man regarding his wife. We stood silent for a moment, poking toes into the mud, then the baker spoke again. “What will you do?”
I hesitated. Neither Oxford nor Paris had trained me to deal with such a puzzle. But as we faced each other in the road a plan took shape in my mind.
“Return to your wife, and tell her I know all. Tell her that if she sees Edmund again I will fine him for leirwite and raise his rent so high he must leave Bampton. The castle smith can meet town needs ’til another smith be found. Say nothing more to her. If she rants and storms, just smile and go about your business.”
“And if she sneaks away to Edmund again?”
“You must tell me straight away.”
The baker turned to go, and as he walked away it seemed to me his back was straighter, his shoulders firmer, his head higher. Well, I thought, ’twill be diverting to see how Margery takes the news.
It was my purpose to go straight to Edmund’s forge and make demands of him for his future behavior. But as I watched Philip stride away the rotund figure of John Kellet approached down the path from St Andrew’s Chapel.
As the priest neared I saw his eyes flick from me to the departing baker and back. His brow seemed creased in worry but when he was close enough to speak he greeted me warmly and his visage cleared.
“Good day, Master Hugh.”
Kellet stopped in the path as he greeted me. No doubt he was puzzled as to why the baker and I had enjoyed a conversation while standing in the road far from either the castle or the bakery. I felt no necessity to enlighten him.
“Good day.”
The fat priest glanced again over my shoulder at the departing baker, peered at the sky, then spoke again. “A good day for a man to be free of his labors.”
“Aye; any day will serve for that purpose.”
“Hah…truly.”
I did not intend to startle the fellow, but my next words surely did. Why, I did not then know. “Your skill at archery is great, for one who must see little practice.”
Kellet’s hands, folded across his belly, twitched, and his head jerked as if he had been slapped. Quickly as these motions appeared, they were gone. But I wondered why complimenting his talent would cause the priest to react so. Perhaps he worried that word of his exhibition had reached the vicars of St Beornwald’s Church and put his position in jeopardy.
“’Tis not meet for one who has a vocation to disport himself with arms, so Father Ralph has said.”
“There are bishops,” I reminded him, “who mount chargers and go to war.”
“Aye, well enough for bishops,” Kellet grimaced.
“But you must obey Father Ralph or lose your living, eh?”
“Aye,” the priest sighed.
During this brief conversation Kellet’s eyes continued to dart from me to Philip’s retreating back. I wondered what the priest found so compelling about the baker. My next thought provided the answer: the confessional.
I turned and stared in the direction of Kellet’s gaze. Philip was at the moment disappearing past the curve of the High Street toward his shop. “A sad tale, that,” I sighed, and watched intently from the corner of my eye to see if my words brought a response from the priest.
“The baker?” Kellet asked. “Is he ill? Does his business go badly?”
If the priest dissembled, he did so skillfully. I detected no hint that he knew of Philip’s true adversity. Perhaps the baker and his wife confessed their sins at St Beornwald’s confessional and Kellet knew nothing.
“Nay. ’Tis another matter vexes him.”
The priest stared at me, and looked perplexed when I explained no more but rather turned to make my way back to the castle. My stomach told me ’twas near time for dinner. As Kellet was headed in the same direction he fell in beside me and was my companion until we came to Broad Street. There he turned aside to the blacksmith’s forge. We parted with wordless gestures.
It had been my intention to visit Edmund myself, but I had no wish to wait my turn to speak to him. I could just as well return after dinner. And perhaps my demands of the smith might seem more reasonable to him did I voice them on a full stomach.
Shill Brook beckoned to me as I crossed it on the bridge. I stopped and leaned over the rail to watch the flowing stream. No trout appeared this time. Without the attraction of a fish my eyes turned back to the town where I saw in the distance John Kellet and Edmund the smith in close conversation.
Something about their posture convinced me that the discussion was antagonistic. I lost interest in the brook and watched the two men. The smith stood with his left side to me, so I did not see him cock his right fist or deliver the blow. But the result was plain enough, even from 200 paces distant.
The priest grasped at his belly and dropped to his knees, then fell forward into the dirt, face first, his hands grasping at his stomach. As I watched Kellet tried to lift his face from the road, but no sooner got to his knees than Edmund dropped his strong right fist on the back of the priest’s skull and he fell headlong again.
Kellet rolled about in the dirt and mud of the road, which, given his shape, was not difficult for him to do. Edmund stood immobile over him as Kellet alternately clawed at the ground and grabbed at his gut. The priest’s thrashing about gradually subsided to more measured motions and he rose again to hands and knees. He remained, swaying, in this position for some time, as if he expected Edmund to thump him across the skull again.
Another blow did not fall. Instead the smith looked up the High Street as if to see if his blows were observed. He saw me gazing dumbly from the bridge, shrugged, and disappeared into the smithy, leaving John Kellet to stagger to his feet.
The priest lurched to a vertical position, then brushed briefly at his robe and stumbled off down the High Street to the east and his chapel. I had two subjects now to discuss with the smith. It would not be a pleasant interview. My gut was tense, whether from hunger or sympathy for the priest and the blow which dropped him, I know not. I turned from the bridge and walked to the castle and my meal.
I do not remember much about the dinner which followed. My mind was busy with other things. I ate slowly, I remember, as if enjoying a last meal. But when all others who dined at Lord Gilbert Talbot’s expense were sated and gone, and the valets drummed their fingers against the stones on which they leaned, I could hesitate no longer. I left the table.
I approached Edmund’s forge with much apprehension. I wondered what issue between the smith and John Kellet had caused Edmund to strike the priest, and whether my questions might provoke a similar result. I prayed that the smith would remember my office and restrain himself from attacking Lord Gilbert’s bailiff. He did, barely.
The smith, like others in the town and kingdom, did not work this day. His fire was banked. No smoke issued from his chimney. I found him in the dim interior of the smithy, shoving a maslin loaf into his mouth with grimy fingers. Across his broad forehead and cheeks the streaks which the sweat of his dancing had washed clean were yet visible. He looked up at me from his bench, but said nothing and continued to munch his loaf.
“You had a disagreement with John Kellet this day,” I said by way of greeting.
Edmund continued to chew, and through a mouthful of bread replied, “Not a disagreement, exactly.”
“Oh? What then was it, exactly, which I witnessed?”
The smith tore off another chunk of bread, stuffed it into his mouth, and only then answered my question. “More an understandin’, like.”
“What is it then that you and Father John now understand?”
