I wondered who it was that she quarreled with in the churchyard. I was certain it was the father of her child.
Margaret Smith’s hair was dark, and flecked with red where candle or fire reflected from it. What sorrow and trouble might I have avoided had I thought just once to ask any who knew her a thing so simple as the color of her hair? The trace of hair clinging to the skull now buried in Burford churchyard was fair. And the broken bone misled me. I resolved that I would make no such foolish omission again should my duties as bailiff ever again present such an opportunity for error.
And I would need to do this work again. Lord Gilbert would not, I knew, permit me to accept failure. My task was not half done, as he had thought, but was now beginning over again. There was the corpse of a girl to identify afresh.
I should have been pleased with my discovery. I was, in that a man I suspected of both guilt and innocence, depending on my mood, was forever proved innocent of murder. But I could not sleep that night for reviewing my past errors and plotting how they might not be repeated.
We bid Margaret farewell after I extracted from her a promise that, when I called in the morning, she would be waiting and would willingly accompany me to the castle. Master John and I parted at the gate to Balliol College. He saw my distress and left me with advice I hope to follow.
“Do not fail to seek justice because you might find flaws in your work. You will recognize them soon enough. If not, others will discover them for you, and willingly, or I mistake my fellow man.”
“Is imperfect justice better than no justice?” I asked.
“It must be, else there would be no justice at all. Justice is the work of men, who are imperfect. You must not be content with less than your best work, whether it be in surgery or seeking malefactors. But when you have done your best, put the conclusion of the matter in God’s hands and rest content.”
“I did not do my best in the matter of Thomas Shilton.”
“No; I agree. But I think you will not be inclined to such an error again. Good night, Hugh. Seek me again when you are next in Oxford. I would learn more of these mysteries you must resolve.”
Next morning Arthur and I escorted Margaret Smith through the muddy streets of Oxford as terce rang from the priory church of St Frideswide. We passed the marketplace as we approached the castle. There a troop of jugglers and acrobats, with two musicians accompanying, were preparing to begin their entertainments.
Arthur slowed his pace as we passed the outskirts of the throng gathered to watch the performers on their small wooden stage.
“These were at Bampton in t’spring,” Arthur remarked. “I remember them well. Watch the juggler, he will toss four daggers in the air and keep them aloft without injury to himself.”
Margaret and I stopped in obedience to Arthur’s command. It was as he said. The juggler was indeed skillful.
“There are others, also,” Arthur advised, “jugglers, and a knife thrower, and a wrestler who is never defeated, and a contortionist. She can twist herself into the most fantastic coils.”
The wrestler and contortionist might be entertaining, but Margaret and I had a more immediate duty.
“You may remain, Arthur. There is no obligation for you at the castle, as there is for us. We will seek you here when our task is done.”
Sir Roger, as was his custom, did not wish to see me, but I protested with his clerk until the sheriff deigned to permit me entry to his chamber.
“I have,” I told him, “a girl waiting in your outer rooms who is thought to be dead.” That arrested his attention. “We convicted her killer yesterday, and you have been commanded to hang him tomorrow.”
“Thomas Shilton?” Sir Roger said incredulously.
“The same. He has been accused of the death of one who is alive. I found her last night serving at an inn near Balliol College.”
“But you had a corpse,” he spluttered. “You gave evidence. You specifically mentioned a broken bone, I remember.”
“I did. And the lass waiting in your outer room had such a break in her foot long ago. This sorry business is my doing. Now it must be undone.”
“You are certain of the wench you found?”
“See for yourself.” I nodded toward the entrance. “She stands beyond your door.”
The sheriff drew his bulky frame from a creaking chair and followed my gaze to his chamber door. He cracked it and peered through for a moment, then yanked it open and strode into the outer room.
Margaret stood, downcast before Sir Roger, feeling his imposing gaze upon her. Sir Roger in his prime must have been a formidable man; even now I would prefer to have him on my side in a fight rather than against me.
“You are Margaret Smith of Burford?” he rumbled. Even if she were not, she would have wished with every bone in her body that she was.
“Aye, sir…I am,” she whispered.
“You have caused me considerable trouble. I sent men ranging across the shire to arrest a man thought to have taken your life. Master Hugh, here, has diligently sought justice for you. All thought you murdered. A man awaits death tomorrow for the deed.”
Margaret blanched. “You will set him free?” she asked in quaking voice.
“Sir William must do that. The judge who passed sentence.”
“Will you seek him straight away to do so?” Margaret pleaded.
“He is a king’s itinerant justice. Yesterday this term of the king’s eyre ended its work in Oxford. Today he is to return to London.”
“What,” I asked, “will you do if he cannot be found to reverse his judgment? Surely you will not carry out the sentence?”
I cannot tell whether or not he would have done, but Margaret surely thought so. She began to weep as the sheriff spoke.
“I have a duty to the law,” he said, “and must perform it, unless the law itself requires other.”
Margaret produced a great wail and sank to the flagging at his feet. Her words were muffled but through her sobs came a plea that the sheriff do all in his power to see justice done and the verdict overturned. This business was not going at all well. I had thought the matter a simple one; produce Margaret, allow her to tell the sheriff her tale, see Thomas Shilton freed and off to his home, then set off with Arthur for Bampton before the sixth hour. The law, I discovered, was more ponderous than that.
With a few sharp commands Sir Roger sent a sergeant to fetch Sir William — if he was yet at his lodging in the castle. If his party was gone, the sergeant was to take a troop of men to overtake him on the road to London and return him to Oxford. “A matter of life and death,” the judge was to be told if he was reluctant to return.
Margaret and I waited, she sniffling, I tapping one foot, then the other, against the stone flagging of the clerk’s chamber. It was nearly the sixth hour when the sergeant reappeared, breathless, to tell the clerk that Sir William had been overtaken near Wheatley, persuaded with some difficulty to return, and was at that moment dismounting his horse in the castle yard.
I walked to a window which gave a view over the castle yard. Sir William was striding to the castle entrance accompanied by two grooms and his clerk. His face and manner both indicated a dark mood. Understandable, I thought, for a man who expected to sleep in his own bed on Saturday night and was now prevented from doing so.
The judge disappeared from my view. Moments later heavy footfalls in the outer passage warned of his arrival. The door opened abruptly and banged against the wall. Margaret jumped.
“What’s this about, then?” Sir William demanded of the clerk. This minion seemed overjoyed that he would not be required to answer the question. He bowed and announced that Sir Roger would explain all. Then, with a disparaging glance at Margaret and me, he opened the door to Sir Roger’s chamber and announced Sir William’s arrival.
If the sheriff was awed by the judge’s dudgeon, he covered it well. He invited Sir William to his chamber, closed the door behind him, and left me, Margaret, and the clerk gazing at each other. The clerk did most of his gazing at Margaret, who, in spite of her condition, was well worth the occasional glance.