The Unquiet Bones (11 page)

I asked how her father did. She tried to feign optimism, but in the half-light of dawn I saw the tear on her cheek. She knew as well as I that her father would soon see God. He had lived many years. This end could not be unexpected. But the girl, I think, grieved for herself as much as for her father. He was, she said, a devout man, who had been diligent to teach her right from wrong and had urged her to live as a good Christian. His future was secure. Hers was not. I said a silent prayer for the child as I turned right into the castle yard and she went left to her father’s hut.

The morning was bitter. As I rode Bruce north a low sun gradually peered above leafless trees and illuminated branches glittering with frost. It was a beautiful morning to travel, or would have been had my feet and fingers not stung with cold.

As I passed through Shilton I saw Thomas about his work in his father’s toft and gestured a greeting. He did not acknowledge my lifted hand, but stared impassively after me for a time, then went back to his employment, turning the earth with a wooden spade.

Edith was behind her house, feeding her chickens. She greeted me cheerily, and held out her left foot. “I kin walk near good as ever,” she proclaimed, and she confirmed this assertion by walking to me with a youthful stride which camouflaged her years. Her recovery was indeed remarkable, for but five days had passed since my work on her toe.

“The lad you sent yesterday said you had news for me.”

“Oh…aye. Best come inside,” she said, glancing about as if she feared an observer. She sat heavily on a stool and motioned me to take my place on a bench.

“Two days ago, Tuesday, it was, I was takin’ eggs to Emma, t’cooper’s wife. She lives out on Sheep Street. We had a talk, an’ as I was comin’ home I saw Matilda atte Water – she’s got a hovel an’ toft down t’river – widow, she is, an’ gone a bit strange.”

“Oh?”

“Aye. Talks to herself, like, an’ wanders about town day an’ night. Not so much in winter, mind, but beadle’s likely to find her on t’streets at midnight of a summer’s eve. I tell her she must not do so…folks’ll take her for a witch. But she’ll not listen.”

“How does she live?” I asked.

“Priest gives her poor money, an’ folks give her a loaf now an’ then. I give her an egg if I have to spare. An’ she grows turnips an’ cabbages in her toft, when t’river don’t flood it.”

I did not think I had been called from Bampton to learn of an eccentric widow’s late-night rambles. But I had learned that Edith would not be hurried. I had but to inject the occasional exclamation or question to keep her going.

“Matilda were babblin’ to herself as we passed. Barely stopped long enough to greet me. We’re of an age, y’see. Grew up together, had children together…lost husbands together.”

“And then?” I prompted, as Edith’s mind wandered back to lost days.

“Mostly she passes folks by these days. Won’t stop to talk. Goes on about her way, whatever that might be. But Tuesday she took me by the arm an’ stopped. Looked me right in the eye, she did, an’ said, ‘’Tisn’t right, young folks meetin’ like that, at midnight.’”

“‘Like what?’ I says.”

“‘In t’churchyard,’ she said. ‘We never met w’lads at night in t’churchyard when we was maids.’”

“I wondered at that,” Edith explained. “Who did she see in t’churchyard? I like to know as what’s in t’wind, so I asked her who ’twas in t’churchyard.”

“Who was it?” I thought I knew the answer.

“’Twas Margaret Smith.”

“But it was night. How did this woman know who was there in the dark?”

“Heard ’em over t’wall. Knew Margaret’s voice.”

“But could not see her?”

“Oh, she did. Said she crept through t’gate an’ seen Margaret in t’moonlight.”

“Who was she with?”

“Thomas Shilton.”

“Did your friend say when this meeting happened? It must have been some time in the past. Would she remember well from so long ago?”

“Aye. ’Twas ’bout Whitsuntide.”

“Where may I find your friend? I would speak to her of this.”

“I’ll take you. She’ll not welcome a stranger.”

Edith took me to the High Street, turned right a few paces to the river, then left the street before the bridge. We took an obscure path barely above the water. In spring flood it probably would not be. Edith led the way past a dilapidated wharf, then past the smithy across the river. I could hear from across the Windrush the rhythmic swing of Alard’s hammer. We were nearly even with the mill when I saw, rising from reeds and brush, a decaying hut. Wisps of smoke trailed from the peaks of the gable ends and wreathed about the frayed thatch of a roof which had seen no repair for many years.

“Stop here,” Edith commanded, and went forward alone a few steps. “Matilda…Tildy…S’me, Edith. Will you come out?” she bawled.

The sagging door opened a few inches and an unwashed face peered through the crack. “How ye be, Tildy? I’ve brought someone t’see you.”

“Don’t want to see none,” a thin, cracking voice replied.

“Tildy, Master Hugh’s a surgeon – a doctor. Thought he might help you with your back, you bein’ afflicted an’ all.”

The door opened a little wider, slowly. I stood silently behind Edith, afraid that at any movement of mine the door would shut and Matilda would flee my presence like a doe in the forest.

Edith motioned me to follow her. The bent form I could dimly see at the door retreated to the dark, smoky interior as we approached. It took some time for my eyes to become accustomed to both the gloom and the stinging haze. When I managed to blink my vision clear I saw that we would stand for this interview. The only piece of furniture, if that it could be called, was a low cot strewn with rags which served as bed and bench to the frail, twisted woman before me.

“Come here, Tildy. Let Master Hugh have a look at you.”

The woman did as she was bidden, all the while keeping a wary eye on me. She was bent over a stick which she propped before her to support the weight of an upper body warped to a nearly horizontal position. I had seen elderly folk bent like her before, most often old women. The cause eludes me, and physicians who have written of human ills do not remark on the condition. As I do not know the cause of the infirmity, I am unable to assist those afflicted. I told this to the women. They seemed neither surprised nor distressed, for truth be told, we who deal with human ills most often find ourselves incompetent to change the course of human faults. This the two women knew.

I waited for Edith to continue the conversation. An abrupt change of subject from Matilda’s ailment to nocturnal activities in the churchyard last spring would likely raise the guard of a woman whose guard was permanently aloft at the best of times. Edith did not disappoint me.

“Have ye been by t’churchyard these days?” Edith asked.

“Aye,” the bent woman replied. “Go there most every day an’ it’s not rain nor snow.”

“I think I would see you about more often,” Edith replied with some surprise in her tone.

“Oh, I go after curfew bell. Want to be alone, see…account of I talk to my Ralph, an’ if folks were about an’ heard, they’d think I was daft.”

Ralph, I assumed, was Matilda’s late husband, resting now in the churchyard until our Lord Jesus should call him forth.

“You see any more suitors with their maids there?” Edith asked calmly.

“Nay. An’ them as I saw wasn’t suitors. Quarrelin’, they was.”

“Lovers sometimes quarrel,” I said.

Matilda looked up at me from under her hunched posture, as if surprised I was yet present. “Aye. S’pose they do. Not like as them I heard, though.”

“Why do you say so?” I asked.

“There was to be no arrangement. ’At’s what the lad said. Sounds like no suitor to me.”

“You could hear their conversation?”

“Aye, mostly. They was whisperin’, but in a wrathful whisper.”

“What did the maid say then?” I asked.

“Oh, she were right distressed. Said over and again as how he’d promised care for ’er if she got with child. Said she’d make it hard for him.”

“And what did the lad reply?”

“Laughed, he did. Didn’t say nothin’ more, just laughed.”

“And that ended their conversation?”

“Nay. Margaret jumped up on a stump an’ said as she’d tell her father. Him bein’ a smith, she said, he could make a point to run through the lad’s black heart. An’ he’d do it too, did he know what the fellow’d promised.”

“And then?” I queried.

“The lad began to turn away, laughin’ yet, he was. He stopped an’ he told her she an’ her father’d both regret should she do such a thing. Then he walked away. I had to hide behind the wall. Margaret stayed, cryin’.”

“Did she stay long?”

“Don’t know. Went home. Couldn’t talk to Ralph with all that goin’ on.”

“No, I expect not. You are sure the girl was Margaret Smith?”

“Aye, saw her plain. Moon were shinin’ full on her face.”

“And the lad? You saw him, also?”

“Oh…were Thomas Shilton.”

“Then you saw him?”

“Not so clear, like Margaret, but were him. Tallish. Fair hair. I’d know him. I ought to, I birthed him.”

That caught me off guard, and I looked through the smoky haze of the hut at Edith. “Matilda was midwife to most ’round here twenty years an’ more ago,” she explained.

I turned back to Matilda. “You know that Margaret was murdered within a few days after you overheard that quarrel?”

“I do now. Didn’t ’til Edith told me. Folks don’t tell me much, an’ I don’t ask, ’cept to be left alone. Thought were odd, though.”

“What was odd?” I asked.

“After that night I didn’t see her at the smithy ’cross the river like I would most days.”

I thanked the women for their assistance and paid each a penny. Matilda had probably not seen more than two farthings together for many years, but I was feeling charitable. I chided myself later for giving away my new-found wealth before I possessed it, but the expression on Matilda’s wizened features made the expenditure worthwhile.

I decided on another visit to Thomas Shilton on my return, but first I must find shelter at the inn and press on to Northleech.

I found the inn. I also found coarse bread, gristly meat, watered ale, and vermin. I did not find sleep, for it was my lot to share a room with two men who snored through the night like dogs worrying a bone left over from supper.

B
ruce and I ambled into Northleech next day before noon. Sir Geoffrey Mallory heard the news of his son’s death with equanimity. He had three other sons, so the loss of one affected him less, perhaps, than a father with but one heir. And he had had five months to prepare himself for the news that his missing offspring might be dead.

I told him that Lord Gilbert would bring Sir Robert’s body in his train. Sir Geoffrey nodded, then asked the question I was expecting. “What was the manner of his death?”

I explained, tactfully, what I had learned of Sir Robert’s demise, and what Lord Gilbert and I speculated about the event. “Did he,” I concluded, “have enemies who might wish him dead?”

Sir Geoffrey chuckled. I was not prepared for this response, although Lord Gilbert’s appraisal of Sir Robert’s habits should have readied me. I waited for an explanation; certainly he would know such was expected. He did.

“Robert had many friends. He had a winning way about him. But enemies as well. Many husbands ’tween here and London, I expect, would be pleased to see him come to harm. And some fathers, too.”

“Sir Robert was fond of the ladies?” I asked.

“He was that,” the man chuckled. “I warned him he might play court to the wrong maid some day. What son listens to his father? Especially on the subject of women?”

“You think his…uh…pursuit of a lady might have led to his death?”

“’Twould be my guess. But she wouldn’t need to be a lady.”

I asked for a list of angry fathers or cuckolded husbands, but Sir Geoffrey fell silent. He would not name any his son might have offended. “I cautioned him,” was all he would say. I could get no more from the man. He thought he knew what had happened to his son, and why, and seemed to hold no great grudge against any who had acted against him.

I found the inn at Northleech and settled myself for another long and noisy night. I admit that the table at this inn was better than at Burford, so that my lack of sleep could not be charged to an offended stomach.

I set out for Burford and home at dawn next morning. As Bruce sauntered across the empty marketplace past the church, I noticed the vicar about some morning errand. A question or two could do no harm, I decided.

I reined Bruce to a halt and addressed the man from across the churchyard as he was about to disappear into the porch. He arrested his progress and waited for me under the arch as I tied Bruce to the gate and approached.

I introduced myself as the surgeon from Bampton, uncertain whether my new position as bailiff would generate more consideration than my other occupation. The vicar was tall and angular and well wrapped against the cold. He peered at me from both sides of a truly impressive nose, which he held aloft in such a manner as to indicate that surgeons weighed little on his scale. I should have proclaimed myself bailiff.

I asked if he knew Sir Robert. He nodded. A man of few words. I asked if I could seek information about the man from him. He nodded again, and shrugged his shoulders as if to say, “If you must.”

I pointed to the stone benches lining either side of the porch and suggested we sit. He swept his cloak about him and did so. Silently. I sat opposite him and immediately felt the cold of the stone penetrate my clothing. Well, at least we were out of the wind.

The vicar produced another nod as I announced the discovery of Sir Robert’s body. This man, I thought, must be a popular priest. I could not imagine his sermons lasting more than a few minutes.

“Can you think of anyone who would harbor enough ill will to lie in ambush and kill Sir Robert?” I asked.

“I can.” The man could speak.

“Can you name them?”

“No.”

“The confessional?”

“Aye.”

“I have learned that Sir Robert could be…a difficult man for some to like.”

“And easy for some to hate,” the vicar replied in a somber tone.

“Then you are not surprised to learn that he was murdered?”

“More surprised the attempt was not made long ago.” The man was growing almost voluble.

“Oh?” That one-word question had worked well with Matilda atte Water; I decided to try it with the vicar of Northleech. It was not quite so successful with him, but worked well enough that I resolved to use it more often in the future.

“What have you to do with this matter?” the vicar asked, without malice. He was simply curious. I explained once again the commission Lord Gilbert Talbot had settled on me.

“Murderers must be found out,” the vicar said softly when I had finished my report.

“Even those who attack evil men?” I asked.

“Even those,” he sighed. “It is for God to judge the deeds of men, evil or good.”

“Then we would not prosecute Sir Robert’s killer,” I responded.

The vicar smiled thinly. “You have studied the trivium, I see. You pose an interesting riddle. We must have law, else men would fall on each other like beasts; some men, at least.”

“They would,” I agreed.

“So the king must do God’s work to enforce justice among men. It is his right and duty. So holy scripture tells us.”

It was my turn to nod agreement.

“But men must not take justice to their own hands,” he continued.

“What if a king will not do justly?”

The vicar was silent for a moment. “You pose another engaging question,” he said, finally. “Is a king who behaves badly nevertheless due homage as king? To say otherwise is to assert that God has made a mistake in placing such a sovereign.”

“Does God make kings,” I challenged, “or do previous kings and queens?”

“God knows all,” the vicar replied, speaking so softly that I could barely hear him over the wind whistling through the porch entrance.

“He does,” I agreed. “Does that make him responsible for all, even the deeds of bad kings, or bishops, or any other who may break his laws?”

The vicar’s eyebrows raised at that remark, but he was not deterred. “Job would say, no.”

“True. We must not blame God when men do wickedness in violation of his law.”

It was the vicar’s turn to nod agreement. It was warming to find harmony in such a cold place. “What does God require?” the vicar asked. He answered his own question: “To do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God,” he quoted from the prophet. This vicar was no illiterate priest, as were some.

“Micah,” I said.

His eyebrows lifted again. Above that nose, it was an impressive feat. “You know the scriptures?” he asked.

I explained that I had studied at Oxford. I generally avoid mentioning that, fearing resentment from village priests, most of whom had studied nowhere but at the feet of some other equally untutored priest. This vicar sighed, and remarked that he would have liked to complete a term or two at university. He was envious, but not jealous.

This philosopher’s discussion was entertaining, but not productive. I am suspicious of philosophers. There is nothing so foolish that, allowing his thoughts freedom, some philosopher has not said. I directed the discussion back to Sir Robert’s untimely end.

“Sir Geoffrey gave me to believe that Sir Robert made enemies through his, uh, unwanted attention to ladies.”

“They were not all ladies, and the attention was often welcome.”

It was my turn again to nod knowingly. Distant witnesses might have thought us two ravens pecking at the ground. When the vicar did not continue, I followed.

“He paid court to wenches?”

“He did.”

“From his father’s manor?”

“Aye.”

“But you will not tell me who?”

“I cannot. My pledge at the confessional screen…”

It was my turn again to nod. “Such maids, I concluded, were foolish to think his court was anything but dalliance.”

“They were,” he sighed, “but a wench may believe a foolish promise if he who makes it be convincing.”

“Sir Robert could be convincing?”

It was the vicar’s turn to nod.

“Did he promise marriage to a wench?”

“Nay, not that I know…but promised a lass he’d set her up in comfort as mistress.”

“And is her father a man to take action?”

“Dead of plague, two years ago.”

“A brother, then?” I wondered aloud.

“All younger, just lads. Probably know nothing but they have a nephew.”

“Does Sir Geoffrey know of this grandchild?”

The vicar’s turn to nod. “Worst of it is, he demanded leirwite and childwite from the lass. Sixpence, he required of her.”

“And he knew the father.”

“I’m sure of it.”

“Does the child thrive?”

“He survives. Sixpence, from them who had not two farthings to rub together.” The man sighed heavily at the injustices of the world.

The conversation continued, but I learned nothing more of Sir Robert. I bid the vicar farewell with the wish that we might meet again, and set Bruce toward home on the Oxford – Gloucester road. I could hear behind me in the distance the vicar ringing the noon Angelus bell, the sound carrying a mile or more on the gale blowing against my back.

It was near dark when I returned to the inn at Burford. I saw Bruce put to the stable and oats, then availed myself of bed and board, although not in that order.

The howling wind did not keep me awake long, but before I fell to sleep I heard, over the snoring of my companions, the hiss of snow driven against the shutters. Next day the snow was so fierce that I determined to spend the day with my thoughts, beside the fire. Bruce was tired from three days of travel and needed rest as well.

Snow continued the second day, but not so severe. One day of idleness might serve a worthwhile purpose; two days would not. Although it was Sunday, I decided to continue my journey. I directed a hearty feeding for Bruce, and ate well of the landlord’s unsavory table myself. I lodged a loaf under my cloak for midday, and pointed Bruce south up the hill and into the drifted road leading to Shilton and Bampton.

I saw no living soul, nor beast nor fowl, on the way to Shilton. The road lay unmarred before me. But Bruce was stout and rested, and broke the way with little strain.

Shilton lay buried, roofs white under their load of snow. Smoke wafting from under cottage eves and tracks in the snow where inhabitants had ventured out to the church, or to care for livestock or poultry, indicated that there was life under the white blanket. The house I sought had such footprints at its door. I knocked, and was admitted.

“Who…ah, it is the surgeon of Bampton. Caught in the storm? Where did you spend the night? Come in.”

I answered the older man’s questions, then turned toward a corner of the room where I saw Thomas at a table, spoon in hand and a bowl of pottage before him. “I would speak to you again of Margaret Smith,” I said.

The youth shrugged. My request seemed not to trouble him, but he took no more of his meal.

“Perhaps you will accompany me?” I asked, and motioned toward the door. “’Tis no day to be out,” he replied. “You may speak here.” He looked at his parents as he spoke. His meaning was clear: “I have nothing to hide.” But I knew now he did.

“You know of Matilda atte Water, of Burford?” I asked.

“Aye.”

“She prowls about at night, as you may know,” I told them. “Mad as a March hare,” the mother interjected.

“She goes to the churchyard, to speak to her husband. Early summer she went one evening, late, after curfew bell, and found two lovers quarreling behind the churchyard wall.”

I waited, but this information brought no comment from Thomas Shilton. So I pressed on.

“Matilda says ’twas you and Margaret.”

“She is weak in the head,” Thomas said evenly, and went back to his cooling bowl of pottage.

Between mouthfuls he spoke again. “Margaret and I quarreled on t’riverbank, as you well know. I never disputed with her in t’churchyard…or any other place but t’river.”

“Matilda knows you well?” I asked.

“Aye,” his mother entered the conversation again. “She were midwife to many hereabouts, ’till she went soft in t’head. No one’ll have her now, nor for ten years past an’ more.”

“She knows you well, so you say, and says so herself.”

“How could she see who was in t’churchyard at night?” Thomas challenged.

“’Twas near full moon. What did you promise Margaret?”

“Promise?” The youth was surprised, or acted so.

“Matilda overheard Margaret protesting your broken promise – to care for her if she was got with child.”

“With child?” I saw Thomas’ mouth drop, and he laid down the spoon. “I promised Margaret nothing. We – that is, I – assumed I need make no promise.”

“Oh?” (This was fast becoming my favorite word.)

“I supposed she knew, so I made no promise.”

“Knew what?”

“That when she decided, we should wed.”

“Had you asked her?” The light was dim, for the commons will not burn a lamp or candle when daylight, no matter how thin, gives light, but I thought I saw him redden at the question.

“Aye…well…not like askin’, actually.”

“Then how, actually?”

“Oh, we’d talk about how many children we’d have. What I could do with another yardland; perhaps rise to gentry someday.”

I understood why such conversations might lead a man to think the question of marriage had been answered. “You said that when you quarreled at the river she spoke of a gentleman keeping his promise.” I added.

“Aye, she did. When was I supposed to have had this dispute in t’churchyard?”

“About Whitsuntide. Matilda does not remember exactly.”

Thomas smiled. “She remembers what did not happen, and cannot remember what did.”

“You insist you were not there?”

“Yes,” he answered with more vehemence than I had yet seen from him. “It may have been Margaret in dispute with a man, but the man was not me.”

“He was broad-shouldered and fair, like you. Are there others Margaret knew well who fit such a description?”

“Walter, the hayward’s lad,” said the father.

Thomas chuckled softly. I turned to him with raised eyebrows. “All the lads knew Margaret, but you’re askin’, did Margaret know him?” Thomas commented.

“Well, did she?” I asked.