fell, numbed, to my knees. Just as the swirling of comets and stars seemed to cease they began again, accompanied by a sharp pain across my skull. The world went black.
Once again fashion saved me. The liripipe coiled about my head softened the blows. I awoke I know not how long after the two strokes laid me in the grass beside the porch. I heard the soft muttering of voices but had not at first enough wit to understand what they said. My head throbbed, but the cold, wet ground soon brought me to my senses. I heard John Kellet speak.
“You’ve killed ’im.”
“Aye…let’s hope,” another said. I did not know the voice.
“You’ll hang.”
“Maybe.”
“What’ll you do with ’im?” Kellet asked.
“What’ll I do with ’im? You’re in this business, too.”
“Aye…but I’ll not hang.”
The other man spat. “You’ll lose yer livin’.”
“Maybe. But Father Ralph’ll not see me starve. Send me to some monastery t’be a lay brother; maybe make me go on pilgrimage. Always wanted t’see Canterbury, anyway,” he chuckled.
“I’ll drag ’im to the wood there beyond the wall, an’ get a spade. I can have ’im buried and leaves strawed across grave afore dawn.”
“Best be sure ’e’s dead,” Kellet replied.
I held my breath as a dark form bent over me. I thought to use the dagger against the man, but was unsure if my condition would permit a quick and accurate thrust. The man’s stinking breath near caused me to choke but I smothered the impulse. A hand went roughly to my neck to seek a pulse. My right hand lay by my side. I made ready to seize the dagger, but the fellow knew not where to seek an artery and so a moment later stood and spoke to the priest.
“Ain’t breathin’. ’E’s dead. Whacked ’im ’cross the head hard enough. Shouldda hit ’im second time at Alvescot, when I had the chance.”
“Live an’ learn,” Kellet chuckled.
“’Ere…grab ’is feet an’ ’elp me get ’im over the wall.”
I was taken up, dragged across the wet grass of the chapel yard to the west wall, hoisted to the top, and dumped over into a pile of nettles. ’Twas my life depended on my silence, so I did not cry out. Had I done so the nettles would not have stung the less.
“I’m off then, for me spade,” a muted voice came from across the wall. “See you be here t’help when I return.”
I heard the chapel door creak open, then close. I must not be here when the man returned. At least, not alone.
I had walked this grove so often in the dark, I felt at home in it. I rose, head throbbing, to my knees and listened, should the fellow think better of his plan and return. The night was silent. So was I as I wobbled to my feet and staggered through the wood to the barley fields beyond.
A plan formed in my scrambled mind as I stumbled from the shadows of the trees into the moonlit field. I hastened straight west across the wet field. Was a man to study the field he would see my dark form against the barley. But I did not seek to travel the path for fear my attacker might also be on the track, returning with his shovel. And the barley field was the most direct route to Rosemary Lane and John Prudhomme.
I did not wish to rouse John’s neighbors from their beds, so rapped but gently on the beadle’s door. My effort was like much else in life: too little will not serve, and too much may cause unwanted consequence. I knocked several times upon the door, each time more firmly than the last, before I heard from beyond the planks a muttered oath, then a question: “Who disturbs the night?”
“’Tis Hugh…open your door. There is mischief about.”
John swung open the door in response and squinted at me.
“Clothe and arm yourself. Hurry. I will explain when we are off. And bring a length of rope, if you have it.”
The beadle did not question my charge, but disappeared into the blackness of his house. I heard him speak to his wife and stumble about in the dark. Then he reappeared, shod, cudgel in one hand and a coil of rope in the other.
I explained our mission as I led him across the barley strips. “’Tis Thomas atte Bridge,” John concluded when I had finished my tale.
“I could not see a face, nor identify the voice, but I think you speak true.”
“And he spoke of poaching?”
“Nay. But ’twas a rabbit filled his sack, I think.”
“But why give it to John Kellet?” the beadle puzzled.
“There is payment, or obligation, in this or I am mistaken. But what is owed and why I cannot guess.”
John walked on my right hand as we hastened across the field. This was fortunate, for when we were nearly to the grove at its eastern edge the moon, which had been briefly obscured, reappeared from behind a scudding cloud. In its light a movement caught my eye. I grasped the beadle’s arm, pulled him to the ground, and whispered, “Shhh.”
I pointed to the south, toward the path from town to chapel, and together we cautiously raised our heads above the barley stalks. Another cloud chose that moment to obscure the moon, but before it did we saw a figure hastening along the lane toward the chapel. The moonlight was not bright enough to see, but I was sure there was an implement thrown over the fellow’s shoulder. Such a tool might be a formidable weapon. I whispered a warning to John and bade him rise and follow me into the wood.
The clearing sky which followed the rain now began to thicken. Clouds hid the moon. It was well I had penetrated this grove in darkness many times, else I might have got turned round. But I found the west wall of the churchyard with no difficulty and drew John to his knees beside me behind the smooth skin of a beech.
“’Twas just there,” I pointed, “aside the wall, where they left me for dead.”
“Shall we await them here,” the beadle whispered, “or have them in the churchyard?”
“Here, I think. We will have the black wood behind us, and I should like to hear what they say when they find me gone. Perhaps we will learn more.”
We did.
We heard voices approach beyond the wall and shortly two shadowed forms appeared. I heard one warn the other of nettles, and after some indecision and prodding at the overgrown wall they found a place to their liking and clambered over. But not without a curse from a sting or two. It served John Kellet right. He should have taken better care of his chapel.
The two figures stood silent for a moment. I thought I could see their heads twisting as they examined the forest floor for the body they had left there. I could see this because the northeast sky was beginning to lighten with an early summer dawn.
“Where away was it you dropped him?” I heard Kellet ask.
“Here,” came the puzzled reply, “or nearabouts.”
“Well, it must be nearabouts. ’Tis not here…unless some beast,” Kellet chuckled, “has dragged him off already.”
“Ha,” the other replied. “The king should employ you for his jester. You go that way, an’ I’ll go t’other. ’E’s ’ere some’eres. Sing out when you find ’im.”
The two shadows separated, Kellet to the south, the other to the north. John and I waited behind the beech as the dim figures poked through the grove along the wall until both were lost to sight and all that could be known of their search was the sound of it.
Eventually even that evidence faded, but soon enough returned. Each man had reached an end to the wall, found nothing, and retraced his steps. I heard much consternation in Kellet’s voice when he spoke.
“I found no corpse…nor did you, I think. I heard nothing from you.”
“’E’s ’ere…got to be. ’Twas not three paces from this place where I shoved ’im over wall.”
The words spoke surety, but the tone of voice spoke incredulity. A thought occurred to me that if my disappearance was incredible, my reappearance might be also. I touched Prudhomme’s arm by way of warning,
