’Twas then I heard it, howling.”
“A wolf?”
“Perhaps. I know little of wolves but that they are said to howl of a moonlit night. ’Twas no hound, of this I feel certain.”
“Where away?”
“To the east at first, beyond St Andrew’s Chapel. Then, as the hour grew late, it moved to the south beyond the Weald.”
“Think you Alan heard it while we slept, and died following the sound?”
“I suspect it. But I would have his shoes. A wolf may have taken his life, but ’twas a man took his shoes.”
“Aye,” the coroner agreed, and we fell into a companionable silence for the remainder of the walk to the church.
Our conversation was not overheard by any other in the procession for the lamentation which accompanied our steps. Matilda and her sisters and cousins wailed loudly. Others in the procession behind them added to the din. The clamor did not subside until the bearers lowered the coffin at the lych gate.
Father Thomas is a good priest, and sends a man to meet God with dignity, even a bit of elegance — which some might think more than Alan’s station required. But if a poor man cannot receive consideration while on his bier, I know not where he may find it.
The bearers lifted the coffin again and took it to the church. Father Thomas spoke the Mourning Office in a clear, strong voice, then removed his chausable. A cloud of incense floated over poor Alan as the vicar swung the censor. He sprinkled holy water on the body, then began our Lord’s prayer, which all followed. There were the usual prayers of forgiveness and deliverance from judgment, then the bier was lifted once again and all followed it out through the porch to the churchyard.
Father Thomas led us to a shaded corner near the wall, made the sign of the cross, and sprinkled holy water on the gravesite. The gravediggers, who had remained well back in the cortege, now came forward and set their spades to work at the chosen earth. The priest read psalms while these two were at their work.
When the grave was ready Alan’s brother lifted the coffin lid and he and the other bearers drew Alan in his shroud from the coffin and lowered him into the grave. As I suspected, Matilda could not afford to bury her husband in a coffin, but wished to show respect for her mate, so had rented a box from the carpenter — who stood in the group of mourners and watched as the gravediggers filled in the hole while Father Thomas spoke the final collect for forgiveness.
As the last dirt was shoveled on to the grave I caught a movement from the corner of my eye. Richard Hatcher, one of Lord Gilbert’s tenants, was motioning to John Holcutt from the churchyard wall. I gave no more attention to this, but went to offer sympathy to the widow. Matilda stood silent, staring at the fresh earth, her child clinging to her skirts, as the group of mourners began to break apart.
I do not now recall what I said to her. ’Twas probably trite. I thought to say to her that a funeral is not a time when the living mourn the dead, but rather a time when the dying remember those who are now alive in Christ, if their faith was whole.
Perhaps I should have spoken these words but I was uncertain how she would receive them. I may say this to her at some later time. I have learned that it is easier to say later what one should have said before, than to unsay what should not have been said at all.
Some may accuse me of forgetting purgatory. I have not. While a student at Oxford I rented from another scholar a Gospel of St John and copied it. These pages I have read many times, so that I remember many of the passages. Jesus said of himself, “Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.”
If our Lord has made a man free, how can he then be imprisoned in purgatory? And how is a man made free? The scriptures speak plainly: through faith in Christ, the Son of God, who takes away the sins of the world. If Christ has taken away Alan’s sins, why must he be punished for them in purgatory?
I will again be accused of listening overmuch to Master John Wyclif, who has taught similar views. And purgatory has been a part of church tradition for many centuries. But again, I hold with Master Wyclif that a tradition must be supported by scripture to be valid. I find no place for purgatory in holy writ. But I am no smasher of temple idols, howso they might need to be toppled. Let others challenge the bishops; I wish only to heal men’s broken bodies. Perhaps I am a coward.
Alan the beadle left no funds with which his widow might endow an oratory where monks could pray him out of purgatory. When it comes Lord Gilbert’s time to die, Petronilla will certainly furnish a chapel in some monastery where prayers will be said for his soul forever. Will Lord Gilbert win release from purgatory before Alan? Our Lord said ’twas easier for a camel to pass through the needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter heaven. Then what of purgatory and endowed chapels and perpetual prayers? Although Lord Gilbert is generous to the poor, it seems to me his soul would be the better if he gave more to them now, while he yet lives, and less to the monks when he is dead. If he gives enough to the poor, he might not need to give even a penny to the monks.
Well, these are matters for theologians and scholars. My mind was arrested and returned to the churchyard when John Holcutt tapped me on the shoulder and brought me from my musing.
“Richard Hatcher,” he said, “has found a dead lamb this morning.”
There is nothing unusual about a dead lamb in springtime, but something in the reeve’s tone told me that, in this case, there was. I turned to John as he spoke.
“Dead an’ half eaten, ’twas. Throat tore out an’ guts spread about…what wasn’t ate up. You think ’twas the beast which attacked Alan?” John asked.
“I know of no other cause,” I admitted. “And late last night I walked the castle wall and heard some beast howl. We must seek Father Thomas’ absolution, for I think we must forsake our Good Friday obligations and hunt the beast while its track may be found.”
I sent the reeve to the castle to organize the hunt while I sought the vicar. I found him in the church, preparing for the Good Friday mass which would soon begin. Father Thomas scurried from images to crucifix, adjusting veils and seeing to the good order of his church. Townsmen and villeins were beginning to arrive. Most wore the grey and brown cotehardies they donned every day, but those who could afford it wore black, or sometimes yellow, to honor the day.
I awaited the vicar at the Easter Sepulcher, where shortly the unveiled cross would be placed for the allotted time, to be withdrawn with much rejoicing Easter morn. Some churches have a small room reserved for this rite, but at the Church of St Beornwald a niche in the chancel wall, boarded up with thick oak planks, serves this duty.
Satisfied that all was in readiness, Thomas withdrew from the niche to find me standing behind him. “Ah… Master Hugh. You startle me.”
I apologized, and explained the need which would draw a dozen of us from the mass this day. A marauding beast is a serious matter, and the priest knew it. The loss of a lamb was bad enough. What of the calves new born which would soon be put out with their mothers in the meadows and fallow land? Father Thomas gave his blessing to our pursuit, and I made my way out through the porch as others entered.
Shillside had got wind of the chase and was at the castle with his son, William, a reedy lad of seventeen years, who was twitching with enthusiasm. John and Richard had gathered several more villeins and tenants and the fewterer, with two old hounds Lord Gilbert had left behind in his kennel at Bampton when he removed to Pembroke before St Crispin’s Day last autumn.
We followed Richard Hatcher to the meadow. Crows and circling buzzards had already taken note of the carcass. The field was west of the town. I had heard no beast howl from that quarter, but I know little of wolves. Perhaps, I thought, they are silent when at the hunt.
The early spring grass was not grown long enough to be beaten down, so no path leading to or from the lamb was visible. And while the sod was soft from spring rains, it was not so pliant as to leave behind the track of a wolf or any other creature.
The castle fewterer brought the hounds to the slain lamb and led them around it in a circle. The dogs sniffed bemusedly at the lamb and the turf around it.
“’Tis odd,” the fewterer muttered. “They seem not interested. When Squire was young,” he motioned toward the white and black hound, “he’d a’ been off in a flash…an’ Tawny, too, though she was never the hunter as Squire was.”
