I did not tell Andrew that I was as amazed as he at the ease with which his shoulder was made whole. If he chooses to believe my skill extraordinary and tells his customers — and that would be all who live on Lord Gilbert’s lands, villein or free — that Master Hugh is gifted at his work, must I be distressed?
I told the miller that I would call on him in a few days to see how he got on, and that before St Swithin’s Day I would remove the stiffened linen and splints.
The miller was known as a parsimonious man. He was known also, like most of his trade, for defrauding on return of flour if he could do so without detection. He asked my fee. I expected an argument, but he paid without rancor. He fished six pence from a small chest which stood on a dusty table under the single dusty window which lighted the dusty mill.
The evening sun was well down in the west when I left the mill and turned toward Mill Street. I was just in time to see John Kellet waddle across the bridge over Shill Brook. The priest’s tunic billowed before his belly like a sail full of wind. Immediately across the bridge, he turned and took the path to the cottages in the Weald. Something to do with one of the bishop’s tenants, I assumed, and made my way to the castle.
I had made no progress in finding Alan’s missing shoes. This vexed me, but no matter how I considered the situation, I could see no path leading to their discovery. Unless someone reported new footgear on another, Matilda was not likely to get her husband’s shoes back.
Next day was Good Friday, beginning the commemoration of our Lord’s death and resurrection. I decided on a bath, both to clean myself for the holy days and, while I soaked, to devise some way I might track the missing shoes.
The kitchen was busy preparing supper, but not too busy. Lord Gilbert was in residence at Pembroke Castle, keeping the peace in Wales. So the evening meal would be simple. I told the cook that I required six buckets of hot water, delivered to my chamber after the meal.
For supper this day there was parsley bread, a pea soup, and cabbage with marrow. This was not a meal which would have satisfied Lord Gilbert Talbot, who at Pembroke at this hour would likely be dining on such as venison and salmon, and enjoying a subtlety with each remove. But compared to the fare at the Stag and Hounds, on the High Street in Oxford, where I dined until Lord Gilbert brought me to Bampton, this repast was a feast.
When the simple meal was done I returned to my chamber — which did not take long, as the room opened on to the great hall. I busied myself with knives, scalpels and sharpening stone from my implements box until a light rapping sounded on my door. I opened it to see the child Alice atte Bridge standing before me, a bucket in each hand. “Hot water, sir,” she smiled, and curtsied.
As she did so some of the water slopped out of the buckets to the flagging. Two buckets full of water were a significant weight for her slender shoulders. “Sorry, sir. I’ll bring somethin’ t’mop it up.”
“Never mind. It’ll dry. Just pour the water in the barrel and fetch four more buckets.”
Alice dumped the water, glanced briefly at my instruments where I had spread them on my table, then scurried off for more. A year and a half had passed since I first met the girl. She had come to me seeking help for her father. He had slipped on icy cobbles and broken a hip. I could do nothing for him but administer potions which would relieve his pain and ease him to the next world.
The child had two half-brothers who would have despoiled her of anything she possessed from her father, could they have done so. But at her father’s death I advised her to remove all goods from the hut she shared with her father and take them to the castle. She was put to work in the scullery. Apparently this labor agreed with her. She was no longer the scrawny waif I had aided. She was taller, and no longer looked to be constructed of splinters and coppiced beech poles. I noted as she brought the next buckets that there were now pleasing bulges under her plain cotehardie. These curves were set off remarkably well by the simple belt she wore about her waist, a part of her which remained gratifyingly slender.
When she had delivered the last of the hot water and had curtsied her way out — no one having told her that she need not curtsy to a mere bailiff — I bolted the door, stripped off my clothing, and submerged so much of myself as was possible into the cask. This cask the carpenter had sawn in half for me.
I scrubbed myself clean with a much-shrunken woolen cloth which I keep for the purpose. I had had no bath since Ash Wednesday, which was more recent than most, as I am one of the few foolish enough to risk illness by bathing in winter. So it was pleasant to renew acquaintance with hot water and soak in the barrel until the water cooled. But I admit that no insight occurred while I squatted immersed in my barrel. Alan the beadle’s shoes were as lost after my bath as before.
I went from barrel to bed, taking time only to dry myself. I thought I should fall to sleep quickly; I had a full stomach and was warmed from my bath. But slumber would not come. I might as well have attended Alan’s wake, and sat with the corpse all night.
I reviewed the day and its events. The monotony of repetition did not quiet my mind. When I saw the glow of the waning paschal moon in my window, I rose from my bed, dressed, and quietly left my chamber. The porter’s assistant slumbered at the gatehouse. His duty was to keep watch over the castle through the night, but there was peace in the land and few brigands would dare Bampton Castle. His duty was tedious and conducive to slumber.
I coughed and scuffed my feet until my approach roused him. I did not wish the derelict watchman to awaken and find a shadowy stranger atop the castle wall. I bid the fellow “good evening” and climbed the gatehouse steps to the parapet.
I circled the castle wall indolently, stopping often to gaze through the merlons over the sleeping village to the east, and Lord Gilbert’s fields and forest to the west. Most of the village slept. Occasionally from the town I heard voices. Someone at Alan’s wake, I think, had too much ale and could be heard from Catte Street.
This echo of distant voices caused me at first to ignore another sound which came faintly to my ears. I know not how long I may have heard the howls before the indistinct sound finally registered in my mind. Off to the east, beyond St Andrew’s Chapel, I heard a yapping and howling soft in the distance.
I made my way to the tower at the southeast corner of the castle wall. This seemed to be the closest point to the direction from which the sound came. There was silence for a time, then the howls began again. As I listened the origin of the keening seemed to move to the south of the town, until after an hour or so of intermittent howls and silence, the source seemed to move directly south of the Weald. And then I heard it no more.
I had never before heard a wolf howl, but it seemed to me I had done so this night. Tomorrow, Good Friday or not, I would need to track and dispatch the animal which made these howls in the night. I did not know if this was the beast which slew Alan, but it seemed to me a reasonable suspicion. Perhaps Alan, as his wife had guessed, in his patrol had heard the wolf while Bampton slept and followed the sound to investigate. This would explain why he was found away from the town. But it would not explain his absent shoes.
I returned to my bed and slept fitfully until I heard in the distance the Angelus Bell sound from the tower of the Church of St Beornwald. I desired to organize a party immediately to seek out the wolf, but at the third hour Alan the beadle would be buried. I would not show disrespect to the dead by taking away those who would mourn and walk in his procession.
Chapter 3
I broke my fast with half a loaf of good maslin and a pint of ale, then made my way to Catte Street. Because of my position I would be among the chief mourners and, with Hubert Shillside, John Holcutt, Matilda, and a few other small burghers, would lead the procession to the church.
I was surprised to see that Matilda had provided a coffin. Most of the tenant class rest on their bier encased only in a black linen shroud. Alan’s brother and three others from the town took their places at the poles. When Thomas de Bowlegh arrived to lead the procession, they lifted the coffin and we in the cortege fell in behind the priest.
Matilda and most of the others began wailing in grief as the coffin left the ground, but I walked silently beside Hubert Shillside as we passed from Catte Street to the High Street and turned right up the Broad Street. As the procession entered Church Street I spoke: “I heard the beast last night,” I whispered.
“Beast?” Shillside questioned.
“Aye. The wolf which may have slain poor Alan. Sleep escaped me, so I rose to walk the castle parapet.
