“Gone to Exeter, I think. Father Thomas said he was here but for two days, near a fortnight past.”
“About the time Thomas atte Bridge was found at Cow-Leys Corner. I think I must visit Father Simon.”
I found Father Simon at his vicarage, enjoying his dinner. The rotund priest has enjoyed many dinners, and employs a cook whose skills are reputed to rival those of the cook at Bampton Castle. A servant greeted me at the door and showed me to Father Simon, who was licking the last grease of a capon from his fingers.
“Good day, Master Hugh. Have you dined?”
I assured the priest that I had, and watched relief wash across his cherubic face. Some of the capon lay unconsumed upon a platter before him, reserved, perhaps, for his supper, and he worried he might be called upon to share it.
“You had a visitor some days past… John Kellet.”
“Aye. But he has completed his penance. You have no jurisdiction over him.”
The priest thought I yet harbored ill will toward Kellet, and would do the man mischief if I could. He was not far wrong.
“I do not seek him, but I would know when he was here. I did not see him upon the streets, nor did any other, I think, else I would have been informed.”
Father Simon glanced away for a moment, then spoke: “Kellet asked no one be told of his visit. Said he wanted only to see me, an’ thank me for taking care of him when he was but an orphan lad. Came one day, late it was, stayed with me two nights to rest from his journey, then set off for Exeter, where he is to serve the almoner.”
“When was this?”
The priest scratched at his wispy hair. “Why? ’Twas but a visit. You cannot forbid that, even be you Lord Gilbert’s bailiff.”
“Too late to forbid, but I have reason to know when it was Kellet slept under your roof.”
“Very well,” the vicar shrugged. “He came the day before St George’s Day, and set off for Exeter two days later.”
“He was in the town for St George’s Day? I did not see him in the marketplace.”
“Nay. Said he’d seen St George slay the dragon an’ rescue the fair maid many times.”
“Or perhaps he did not wish it known that he was about,” I asserted.
“Perhaps. He left Bampton under a black cloud, ’tis true. He spoke of his shame.”
“Shame! He slew a man. Was he not in holy orders, he would have hanged by the neck before the walls of Oxford Castle.”
“None saw him slay Henry atte Bridge. That felony is but your assertion.”
“You doubt he did so?”
The priest was silent. This was answer enough.
“He departed for Exeter and the Priory of St Nicholas on the twenty-fourth day of April?”
“Aye, he did. Before the Angelus Bell he was off.”
“You saw him away?”
“Nay. Don’t rise from my bed so gladly as when I was a young man. I have the disease of the bones.”
Surely the priest’s corpulent form also made rising from anything, chair or bed, an irksome task.
Kellet’s journey to Exeter would have taken him past Cow-Leys Corner. Did he see Thomas atte Bridge, his partner in villainy, dangling from the oak? Perhaps, if he set out very early, it was too dark to see the man. Or perhaps atte Bridge was not yet suspended from the tree. Or perhaps John Kellet had to do with Thomas atte Bridge’s place and condition that day?
If so, Kellet did not act alone. Thomas was not slung over some strong man’s shoulder and carried thence to Cow-Leys Corner. Two carried him, of this I was certain, and one dropped his feet.
“Didn’t know him when first he came to my door,” the priest continued. “Pilgrimage to Compostela took much flesh from his bones.”
John Kellet had grown fat from blackmailed venison. Did he resent Thomas atte Bridge’s loose tongue, which implicated the curate in the blackmail scheme? There were others in Bampton who had greater reason to hate the priest and his betrayal of the confessionaclass="underline" Edmund the smith, whose dalliance with the baker’s wife Thomas and his brother Henry before him learned of and used to extract items made upon Edmund’s forge as payment for their silence; and the miller, whose cheating with short return on corn brought to the mill atte Bridge also knew of and exploited. These two had greater reason than Kellet, I thought, to wish revenge upon Thomas atte Bridge. Was one of them at Thomas’s shoulders, and Kellet at the feet, in the tenebrous hours following St George’s Day?
“Wears a hair shirt now, too, does John,” Father Simon interrupted my thoughts. This was a startling revelation. The John Kellet I knew was concerned with little but his own comfort.
“You saw this?”
“Aye. Saw the hem of a sleeve hanging below his robe. I know your thoughts, Master Hugh. John Kellet is a different man, changed, as pilgrimage should do.”
“It should,” I agreed, “’though there be pilgrims who remain unchanged. I have known such men.”
“You suggest,” the vicar frowned, “that a saint cannot intercede for men with the Lord Christ?”
“I am sure He hears the prayers of all men.”
The priest harumphed grudging agreement as I stood from the bench to leave him. He heaved himself to his feet to honor my departure and it was then I noticed his belt. Why my eye should have been drawn to a mean cord wrapped about the fat priest I cannot say.
A plain hempen rope circled his ample belly twice. The ends of this belt fell to his knees, one length knotted three times for Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. A string of rosary beads was fastened to the cord; a cord much like that taken from the neck of Thomas atte Bridge. Priests whose purses permit fine woolen robes will often circle themselves with a mean belt to pretend simplicity and penury.
Father Simon saw me stare at the belt and peered down at it as well. The ends, dangling about his knees, were fresh-cut and unfrayed.
“Your belt is new,” I remarked.
“Aye, near so.”
A puzzled frown furrowed his forehead. Few men show interest in another man’s girdle, especially is it made of simple stuff like hempen cord.
“The cord used to drop the bucket in my well was worn. I purchased a length of rope; some I used for the well, and some for my belt,” Father Simon explained.
“Have you the length your belt was cut from?”
The request so startled the priest that he did not think to challenge such a question.
“Aye.”
“May I see it?”
“A length of rope? Surely a bailiff can afford his own belt, and of better stuff than hempen cord.”
“You speak true, but I seek a brief inspection. ’Tis much like the cord found about Thomas atte Bridge’s neck.”
“One hempen cord is much like another, and what remains of my purchase hangs in a shed in the toft.”
“May I see it?”
The priest shrugged and called his servant. When the man appeared he instructed him to seek the shed and return with the hempen cord hung there. The man disappeared through the rear door of the vicarage and a moment later I heard Father Simon’s hens clucking disapproval at the disturbance to their pecking.
The priest and I stood gazing at each other, awaiting the servant’s return. He was not prompt. Father Simon had begun to chew upon his lower lip in frustration and seemed about to turn to the door when it swung open and the servant reappeared. He carried no rope.
“Ain’t there,” the fellow said, and raised his empty hands palms up.
“Bah, ’twas hanging from a tree nail,” the vicar asserted, and set off for the toft.
“I know where it was,” the servant said. “Hung it there myself.”
I followed Father Simon into the toft. His servant shrugged and followed me. The vicar swung open the crude door to his shed, which was but half of his hen coop, and peered into the dim interior. He was evidently unable to trust his eyes, for he thrust his head forward, the better to see, and when this failed, entered the hut.
The priest appeared a moment later, anger darkening his brow. The servant’s face reflected complacent confirmation of his discovery and announcement.