I left Kate with an embrace and sought the Weald. To reach Maud atte Bridge’s hut I must cross Shill Brook. I have passed this way many times, but the flowing stream, any flowing stream, always seizes my eye. I stood upon the bridge, observing the clear water pass beneath the span. But this wool-gathering would achieve nothing. I turned from the pleasant scene to my disagreeable duty.
Maud’s oldest lad answered my knock upon her door. When Maud heard my voice she appeared behind the youth in the smoky gloom of her hovel. I had spent time drawing and heating water to help rid myself of stink and vermin. I did not wish to do so again, so bid Maud speak to me on the street before her hut. I was sure the place harbored more life than Maud and her children.
“You came to me a month past, sure that Thomas did not take his own life,” I began. The woman made no reply.
“You said he heard the hens disturbed — perhaps by a fox, so went to chase away the animal, and you did not see him alive again.”
“’At’s right.”
“And you said this happened the night of St George’s Day?”
“Aye. We was abed when Thomas ’eard the ruckus.”
“Are you sure this did not happen the night before St George’s Day as well?”
“Well, it did so then, aye. ’Twas two nights the hens was vexed. ’E was found dead after second time… day after St George’s Day. ’Ow’d you know that? Thomas come back first time. Said as how he’d run off a fox. ’At’s why he thought the beast come back next night.”
I was about to tell Maud there was no fox, at least not the first time her hens were troubled, but chose to hold my tongue. Maud was no adversary in the business, but her wagging tongue might reach a man who was.
I thanked Maud for her time and left her scratching her head before her hut. She was puzzled that I knew that Thomas had visited his toft twice, when she had not told me of the first event. She was not stupid. She would soon deduce that some other person knew of her disturbed hens, and this person had told me of it. She would want to know who this might be, assuming the man, for a man it would surely be upon the streets late at night, would know who had slain her husband. Indeed, the fellow might be the culprit. I expected her to call at Galen House before the day was done.
Kate believes that a man must have no secrets from his wife. Whether the opposite is true I know not. When I returned to Galen House she placed her needle and fabric upon our table and asked of Maud and of my visit.
I had told Kate little of John Kellet, so drew a bench aside her chair and related my conversation with the man. I told her of his nocturnal visit to atte Bridge’s toft the night before St George’s Day, and his claim to have seen the corpse suspended at Cow-Leys Corner before dawn as he departed Bampton.
“You believe he spoke true?” Kate asked when I had concluded the tale.
“Aye,” I replied reluctantly.
“Someone heard him, then,” she said. “Someone who plotted against atte Bridge heard, or learned of, John Kellet’s late visit and used the same deception to draw him from his house.”
“So it seems.”
“Was it then Arnulf Mannyng who slew Thomas? He lives in the Weald, but a few doors from Maud. He might have heard the hens from his house, and thought to see were his own fowls endangered. When he saw how readily atte Bridge might be drawn from his house, perhaps he decided to use the same deceit to get him into the dark of night.”
Kate’s solution was plausible, but hardly enough to accuse a man. If Arnulf was the felon I sought, I must find some evidence of it, for I had none.
“Perhaps,” I replied, “some other man Thomas atte Bridge had harmed, Peter Carpenter, mayhap, lay in wait in the dark near Thomas’s hut, seeking some way to draw him forth. While he hid, seeking vengeance, John Kellet appeared, rattling a stick upon the hen coop. When such a man saw how easily Thomas could be persuaded to leave his house, he worked the same ruse next night.”
Kate pursed her lips, perhaps unhappy that I had so swiftly dispensed with her conclusion. But Kate is not one to hold a grudge.
“You think whoso bothered the hens the second night knew of John Kellet doing so the first night, and decided to try the same trick?”
“Aye, upon that we agree. But who it was I cannot guess.”
“I wonder if there might be some way to draw the man out… or the men, as it seems two have done the murder?”
“Perhaps. I will think on it.”
“We will think on it,” Kate smiled, and returned to stitching a new cotehardie. The one she now wore would not serve by autumn, and Kate is a woman who plans ahead.
Edmund Smith, like most who labor at his trade, is a strapping fellow, broad-shouldered and with forearms as large around as the axles under Lady Petronilla’s cart. He is no friend. I caught him out a year past in dalliance with the baker’s wife, when he was caught up in the plot between Kellet and the two atte Bridge brothers. I had stopped the blackmail against Edmund, but also ended his dissolute behavior with the baker’s wife. For this he did not thank me.
Edmund’s forge is upon Bridge Street, near to the marketplace. After a dinner of pease pottage improved by the remains of yesterday’s capon, I set out to visit the smith. I knew of no recent conflict between Thomas atte Bridge and Edmund, but the smith seemed to me a man capable of nursing a grudge. He also seemed an impetuous sort. Would he nurse his wrath for a year before striking down a foe?
I found the forge cold. Edmund was not at his work this day. I set my feet once again to the Weald and found the smith at Emma’s hut, repairing the door. This door swung on hinges Edmund had made, then given to Henry atte Bridge to purchase his silence in the matter of the baker’s wife. Edmund looked over his shoulder as I approached, then bent again to his task.
“I am told congratulations are due,” I began.
“Why must you be told of it?” he replied sharply.
“I have been away a fortnight on Lord Gilbert’s business. Do you make your home here now?”
The smith had lived alone in a crude shed behind his forge.
“Aye. Can dwell where I like… I’m a free tenant, as you well know.”
“Surely, so long as the vicars of the Church of St Beornwald agree. Emma is tenant of the Bishop of Exeter, and whoso lives with her comes under their authority as his agents.”
“Emma needed a man about the place. Couldn’t pay ’er rent. Vicars don’t care does she wed or not, so long as the bishop gets ’is coin.”
“Hmmm. And now Maud is facing like misfortune.”
“We all got troubles. Maud’ll have to do as best she can. No concern of mine.”
“Did Thomas atte Bridge’s death please you?”
Edmund looked away from his work and studied my face. “I ’eard the talk, how some think ’e din’t hang hisself. No matter to me. Did ’e take ’is own life or did another do away with ’im, the town is well rid of ’im.”
I had been standing close enough to the smith that his odor was overwhelming. I doubt the fellow has bathed since I came to Bampton two years past. Whenever I was in his presence the stink was the same. Emma must surely have faced ruin to accept the fellow. I backed away a step to relieve my offended nostrils.
“What does Emma think of such gossip? I saw her in dispute with Maud some weeks past. Does Emma have opinion?”
“Ask ’er,” Edmund shrugged, and returned to his work.
“I will. Where may she be found?”
“In the toft.”
I found Emma and two of her children drawing weeds from a patch of cabbages and onions. She arose from her knees at my approach and brushed a wisp of graying hair back from her brow with the back of her wrist. When her children also looked up from their work she barked at them to continue. This they did with alacrity, glancing to me from the corner of an eye while they toiled.
“You have now a husband to lighten your labors,” I began.
The woman made no reply, as if my assertion was so foolish that no response was required. The stray locks once more dropped across her forehead and she again brushed them back under her hood, then stood with hands on hips and silently awaited what more I might say. A visit from a great lord’s bailiff often draws such a response from folk. Her stance, I think, was due to apprehension, and apprehension due to ignorance. She did not know why I had appeared in her toft, nor what I was about.