He awaited my answer in silence. I saw that his was not a rhetorical question. He expected an answer.
“I think there is no difference to God,” I said finally.
“You speak the truth. What did our Lord say about speaking ill of another?”
“Those who call their brother ‘fool’ are in danger of hellfire,” I replied.
“A punishment equal to that awarded murderers, regardless of what our brother Dante might say,” he added.
“So if Thomas is a guilty man, he will, unless he confess his sin to Christ before the morrow, see the torments of hell,” I reflected. “But if he be innocent, but brims with anger for me and others who destroy him, he will also die in sin?”
“I fear so. Unless he can forgive with a noose about his neck.”
“Then I have put him in an impossible position. His only escape to heaven may be that he is guilty and will confess it so.”
“Or,” Master John said softly, “to forgive you your error…if error it was.”
“Then I must visit him in the castle jail. Do you suggest it?”
“I think for your good, and the good of his soul, you must. But I would share a pint with you before you go this night.”
Master John went to a cupboard, opened it, and drew forth a pitcher which he shook resignedly. “I forgot ’twas empty,” he said.
When Master John got his mind into a book, either his own, or another’s, he overlooked sometimes both food and drink.
“There is an inn close by on Broad Street. We will go there,” he announced.
I asked Master John later, when this business was resolved, if God had a hand in his forgetting to purchase ale that day.
“I am what God made me, and what I have made with the material he provided. But, you ask, can God use my flaws, which he is in no way responsible for? They are my own burden. The answer must be ‘yes’, if we allow. God will use all we permit him to have. If we give him our weaknesses, he will use them as well as our strengths. The key is in giving them up…as I pray daily I may do.”
I resolved to make that prayer for myself. It is difficult to do, for such a prayer reminds a man that a weakness may, with effort, be cured, rather than only used, if God is granted permission to work the remedy. Most, I think, would rather escape the effort and hope that God is satisfied with them as they are.
The inn held a crowd of students from the nearby colleges. Those who took the time to look up from their ale recognized Master John and bowed in greeting. The place smelled of spilled ale, stale food, and unwashed bodies. It was much like the Stag and Hounds. The noisy gathering quieted some as we made our way through the throng to a bench along the opposite wall.
“Would you rather drink in peace?” he asked. “We might take a flagon back to Balliol.”
I shook my head “no.” The clamorous conversations and conviviality refreshed me for the call I must make on the morrow.
Over the din of contending voices I could occasionally pick out a word. The hanging scheduled for Saturday noon seemed a popular topic. Little did these students know it was me they might thank for their entertainment.
Master John finally caught the wench’s eye and asked for a gallon and two tankards. I withdrew my purse to pay, but he would not permit me. “You are my guest. Perhaps some day I shall take a day in the country; you may entertain me at Bampton.” I told him this would please me greatly, and meant it so.
Master John thanked the wench, which seemed not to startle her. He must, I thought, frequent the place often, for no one else in the room took notice of her to thank her for her labor. The only comment most made to her was to remark indecently on her condition, which, I could see as she approached with the ale, was advanced pregnancy.
The wench seemed to give as good as she received, although I could hear little of her rejoinders as she passed through the mob about her duties. She responded with saucy air, a shake of her chestnut curls, and a flash of dark and sparkling eyes. “Maggie,” one in the crowd named her within my hearing.
I do not remember Master John’s topic as we sat in the corner with our ale. Indeed, he did the talking, fleshing out a theological argument he wished to present to his students the next week. I listened, or pretended to. Mainly I thought of what I might say to Thomas Shilton while with dull eyes I observed the carefree students before me.
The wench plied her way busily from counter to tables, but I noted that she did so with a small limp. The strain of her pregnancy, I assumed. Meanwhile Master John rambled on, lost in a proposition.
I was sitting with elbows on my knees, occasionally raising tankard to lips, muttering occasional agreement to Master John’s points, when in a lull in the din I heard again a call for the wench’s service: “Maggie!”
“Maggie…” Margaret! A broken foot which “troubles her now and again.”
I sat up so abruptly that I smote the wall behind me with the back of my head. Master John peered at me across his tankard, hesitating in his conversation. He was puzzled, perhaps, that I should react so vigorously to his logic.
I turned to him: “Do you come here often?” I asked.
“Aye,” he answered. “’Tis closest to my rooms.”
“The lass; has she served here long?”
“Ah, since Whitsuntide, I think. They come and go. Find a husband and gone…although this girl,” he chuckled, “did not find one soon enough, I think.”
“You noticed her first about Whitsuntide, or shortly after?”
“Hmm…aye, about then. Why do you ask?”
I did not reply, but rose from the bench and pushed my way across the room. I called the girl’s name and asked if she would attend Master John and me when it was convenient. A few minutes later she approached. “More ale?” she asked.
Master John stared quizzically at me, and the girl likewise when I shook my head. I bade her be seated.
“I cannot,” she answered. “My master forbids me sitting with patrons. He wishes it known he operates a respectable house.”
“Certainly no one will make improper inference from sitting with Master John Wyclif?” I replied.
The girl looked down at the Master of Balliol, and he, as if to answer the question, slid away on the bench to make room for her. She looked at me once again, then sat warily between us.
“What’s this about then, if you need no more ale? ’Tis late for the kitchen, but I suppose somethin’ might be found.”
I decided to voice my suspicion plainly, with no prevarication.
“Margaret Smith, of Burford, your father, Alard, the smith, ages daily, before men’s eyes, because he has lost you.”
The wench’s hand flew to her mouth. She stood and protested my mistaken identification, but I knew from her startled eyes that I was right. So did Master John. She began to move from us, but he reached out a hand to her elbow and gently drew her back to the bench.
“Maggie,” he said, “this is Master Hugh de Singleton, surgeon in Bampton and now bailiff to Lord Gilbert Talbot. A body…that of a young woman was found at Bampton Castle these four weeks past. As you disappeared in spring, and no others from the place are missing, ’twas thought to be you.”
The girl turned from me to Master John and back again as he, then I, unfolded for her the tale of her disappearance and what came of it.
“And now,” I concluded, “you must come with me to the castle tomorrow to set Thomas Shilton free. On my miserable evidence, more than any other, he has been found guilty of your murder.”
Her hand went again to her lips.
“He is to hang Saturday morning. You have heard your customers speak of the hanging which is to come? It is of Thomas they speak. He will be pleased to see you.”
“I think not so,” Margaret whispered. “We quarreled badly when we parted.”
“Ah, yes. That night in the churchyard,” I remarked.
“Churchyard? Nay, t’were twixt the mill and the smithy…along t’river.”
“Well, nevertheless, he will be content. Your appearance means there will be no noose for him.”