Edmund Smith, and why was the smith so sure the priest would not complain of him? Who struck me down in the Alvescot churchyard? And was the assailant the same man I saw walking the road in the dark? If so, was he indeed a poacher, or did some other interest put him on the road at midnight?
I decided to cease my nocturnal ways, but I wished for some eyes to be alert should a man with a pale sack make another late appearance on Mill Street. I left the castle and walked to Rosemary Lane and the house of John Prudhomme. I found it convenient to walk slowly. A rapid pace caused my head to throb at every step. For all his late-night obligation to see the streets clear, Prudhomme was awake and bright when he answered my knock on his door. I told him of sighting a man with a sack late at night on Mill Street, and of my failed attempt to apprehend this poacher. I charged him to be vigilant in his duty and to report to me any man out past curfew, whether he carried a sack or not.
John pledged that he would do so, and seemed wounded that a miscreant had escaped him. But I assured the new beadle that I attached no blame to him. The poacher, if such he was, had waited past midnight to be sure that even the beadle had entered his house and shut the door behind him.
“You think the fellow may set snares in other places?” John asked. “Perhaps while you lay in wait for him to the west he inspected traps some other place. To the north, along the road to Burford, there is much wasteland growing up from meadow. A good place for coneys, I think.”
“Aye, and in truth Lord Gilbert will not miss a few, be they taken to the west or the north. But ’tis my duty, and yours also, to apprehend a poacher if I can. He who would snare a coney today may grow bold and take a deer tomorrow.”
“I will attend this duty tonight,” the beadle promised.
“Be watchful,” I warned him. “I trailed the man to Alvescot, where he — or some other, I cannot know — lay in wait for me behind the churchyard wall. When I investigated a sound I heard from the lych gate I was thumped across my head for my curiosity.” I rubbed the swollen side of my skull. Gently. “The blow left me sleeping the night away at the base of the churchyard wall, and I will have a headache for another day or two. See that you are more wary than I.”
John peered quizzically at the side of my head. And then at the other. “I see the lump the fellow left you…but there is another, on t’other side.”
“Aye,” I muttered. I did not wish to tell him how I came to be so balanced. Rather, I tugged my hood down to obscure my misshapen skull, bid John good day, and set off for the castle.
Three days later, a Tuesday morning, John Prudhomme asked for me at the castle gatehouse. Wilfred came to fetch me as I swallowed the last of my morning loaf. The beadle waited at the gate with, I thought, some impatience. His eyes darted from the castle forecourt to the gatehouse to the meadow beyond Mill Street. And he shifted from one foot to the other as I approached, as if he stood on Edmund’s coals.
When Wilfred told me who it was that sought me, my first thought was that John had discovered who it was who had taken to the roads at night and smitten me across the head. This was not so, but he did indeed have news of the business.
The beadle tilted his head as I drew near in a gesture that requested me to follow. He then turned and walked slowly from the gatehouse toward Mill Street. I caught up to him halfway between the street and gatehouse.
“You have news, John?”
“Aye,” he said without breaking stride.
Whatever he wished me to know, he wanted it known to no other. The beadle eventually stopped and turned to face me well away from any ears on either the street or at the castle gatehouse.
“I watched the street, like you wanted. Saw nothin’. But last night, I was ’bout to end my rounds an’ come as far as the bridge when I saw somethin’ movin’ in the Weald. Not my business, what goes on there, ’course, but it caught me eye, see.”
I nodded as Prudhomme interrupted his tale to peer about for any who might stroll close enough to overhear his words. Whatever tale he wished to tell, it was for me alone. I said nothing and waited for him to continue.
“’Twas like you said ’twould be,” John said when he was satisfied that we were unobserved and unheard. After all, should any be watching, why would they be surprised that the beadle should be in conversation with the bailiff? Unless they thought themselves the subject of the discussion. I took John’s arm and propelled him toward the gatehouse.
“We will continue this conversation in my chamber,” I said. Perhaps I was overly cautious. A blow on the head will do that to a man.
When the door latched behind us John continued his tale. “I seen somethin’ light in the moonlight. Was well past midnight an’ the moon is past last quarter, but I seen the sack you said t’watch for. ’Course I din’t know then ’twas a sack. Just saw somethin’ movin’.”
“In the Weald, you say?”
“Aye. But while I watched whoso was carryin’ the sack moved across the meadow an’ into Lord Gilbert’s wood.”
“They avoided the road?”
“Aye, they did.”
That might explain why I saw no man while I lay in wait all night at the edge of the wood. If this poacher had ventured to do more of his work that night, and if he avoided the road, he would have entered the forest south of where I sat in wait on the stump.
“Can you show me the place where you saw the fellow enter the forest?”
“Close, like…’twas too dark to see for sure.”
“What then? Did the fellow eventually come out to the road?”
“Nay. Least, not so far as I could tell. I went west on Mill Street’s far as the wood. Saw nor heard nothin’. Dark in the wood, nights, now w’the leaves full out an’ all.”
“You do not know who it was who cut ’cross the meadow and made for the forest?”
“Nay.”
“And that is why you are so apprehensive to tell me of this?”
“Aye. Was the fellow to see us or hear me speak, he might think I knew of him an’ his business.”
“And one beadle is dead these past three months for probing some nocturnal matter.”
“Eh?”
“At night…Alan died at night.”
“Oh, aye.”
“Well, I do not blame you for your worry. I will look into the matter myself. How far south of Mill Street did the man enter the wood?”
The beadle scratched his head and looked to the ceiling beams before he spoke. “More’n a hundred paces… perhaps even 200, but no more’n that.”
“Very well. Be off home, then. I will wait ’til afternoon to visit the wood, so if any man saw us in conversation he will have lost interest when I do not immediately seek a sign in meadow or wood.”
Chapter 14
The sun was dropping toward the treetops to the west of the castle when I decided I must wait no longer to investigate the beadle’s discovery. I had found much other business to occupy me after dinner. When I consider this now I understand that it was fear of being knocked again on the head which caused me to hesitate, not any desire for stealth. Had you received the blow I took at Alvescot Church, you would be cautious also.
My eyes fell upon the ash pole which had been dropped against my skull as I left my chamber. I had propped it in a corner after it fell against me. Perhaps the staff might this time serve to defend me and so make amends for its previous usage. I took the cudgel with me and set out for the gatehouse.
I watched carefully, when I reached Mill Street, to see if any man observed me set off to the west toward the wood. Two men walked from the mill and turned east to cross Shill Brook. They paid me no heed. In the Weald I saw Emma atte Bridge at work in her toft. If she saw me she gave no sign.
