I had fallen to my knees. From this position I could see my assailant’s shadowy form crouching to deliver another blow. But when Kate shouted from the window he looked up to her, hesitated, then turned and ran from the toft and disappeared beyond Galen House toward Church View Street.
I put my left hand to my right arm and felt there something warm and wet. I was stabbed. My arm was not the target, I think. My attacker had aimed to put a blade into my back, but when I turned to re-enter Galen House he did not see clearly the movement for the blackness of the place and so plunged the knife into my arm. I did not know who this assailant might be, but I knew who it was not.
As I stood in the dark, stupefied by pain and the sudden attack, Kate burst through the door. She cast about for a moment, then found my white kirtle in the shadows of the toft. The garment had helped my assailant find me as well. She spoke as she approached.
“Was a fox here? Did you frighten it away?”
“Nay. I am stabbed in the arm,” I replied. “You spoke true. Whoso murdered Thomas atte Bridge wished to end my pursuit.”
Kate took my left arm in her hands while I clutched my right. Together we entered Galen House. “What must I do?” she asked.
“Light a cresset… no, two. We must see how badly I am pierced, and you must have light to stitch me whole.”
“Me?”
“Aye. I cannot do the work with but one hand, and you are skilled with needle and thread.”
Kate found and lit two cressets from coals yet smoldering upon our hearth and set them upon our table. With Kate’s assistance I removed my kirtle. The garment was rent and blood-stained, so could be little more damaged. I inspected my wound, then pressed the kirtle against the cut to staunch the flow of blood. ’Twas then I saw that the blade had passed through my arm, leaving a wound to be sutured on both sides, and made a small puncture between two ribs as well. No knife for use at table made the wound, for such a blade would not be long enough to enter my ribs. Whoso attacked me had driven a large dagger home with much force. I think I was not intended to survive the cut, and had it been delivered against my back, I surely would not have. Not for the first time I questioned the wisdom of accepting Lord Gilbert’s offer to become his bailiff. What some men will do for money.
I wrapped the blood-soaked kirtle about my arm while Kate went to fetch my instruments box. I should like to have bathed the wound in wine, but there was none in Galen House. Wine could be had at the castle, but the gate was closed and portcullis down at this hour. Much shouting and pounding upon the gate would be required to rouse Wilfred. I felt in no fit condition to walk there, and would not send Kate. My assailant had evaded the beadle’s watch to enter my toft at such an hour, and might yet be upon the streets. Kate must sew me up as she found me.
Kate returned with the box, opened it, and found needle and silken thread. Threading the needle was small challenge for Kate, even in the dim flame of a cresset, but I thought I saw her hand quiver slightly as she drew the silk through the needle’s eye.
With my left hand I pressed the sides of the wound together, then set Kate to her work. She may have trembled while preparing needle and thread, but when she plied the needle upon the wound she was all fierce determination and her hand was steady. I saw in the light of the cressets Kate’s brow furrowed and her lips drawn tight in concentration. I wished as small a scar as possible, so instructed Kate to make many tiny stitches. She nodded silently and bent to the work. Twelve stitches later she had closed the larger of the lacerations upon my arm. I dabbed a few remaining drops of blood from the wound, then raised my arm so that she might repeat the process upon the wound under my arm. As this injury was smaller, and would be invisible to most folk, I told her five stitches would suit. The work was soon completed.
There remained but the small gash across my ribs, where the point of my assailant’s dagger had blessedly stopped short after puncturing my arm. Kate closed the wound with three small stitches, brushed a stray wisp of hair from her forehead, and raised her eyes to mine.
“I know,” I admitted. “You warned that the visitor might not be a fox.”
“You think it was he who slew Thomas atte Bridge?” she asked.
“Who else have I angered recently? I think Sir Simon Trillowe is snoring in his bed in Oxford at this hour, and I know of no other who holds a grudge against me.”
The cressets provided little light, but I thought I saw Kate blush as I spoke. Sir Simon had sought Kate’s favor, and lost, which defeat he had taken badly and plotted to do me much harm for interfering with his suit.
“Could you see who it might have been?”
“Nay, but I know who it was not.”
Kate peered at me from under raised brows, awaiting an explanation.
“Hubert Shillside is left-handed. The man who came upon me in the toft held his dagger in his right hand. He would have driven it into my back, but I turned as he swung, intending to return to the house and my bed. This he did not see for the darkness, but my kirtle was white and so he had a fair target for his stroke.”
“If the man is the same who murdered Thomas atte Bridge,” Kate mused, “then Shillside is innocent of the death.”
“Just so. I must take care he never learns I once considered him.”
“He was determined that you see atte Bridge’s death as a suicide. Was he guilty that would be a sign… that he wished to turn you from a path which might lead to him.”
“Well, he was not, and my heart is eased.”
I yet held the torn and bloody kirtle in my hand. The hour was now well past midnight, and I shivered from the cold and the realization that, but for good fortune or the hand of God, Kate might now be a widow. She saw me quiver, took my left arm and pressed it close to her cheek. I felt a dampness there. Kate had begun to cry. She was strong when duty required it of her, but now the crisis was past and her mind could wander through the event and other potential outcomes, she yielded to the emotions which came upon her.
My assailant’s dagger, as I believed, had glanced from the bone of my upper arm as it passed through to my ribs. The ache I first felt grew to a pain which throbbed fiercely. Kate sensed this, I think, and drew her damp cheek from my shoulder.
“You have herbs and potions for others when they are hurt,” she said. “I will pour a cup of ale and you must take a dose of your own remedy.”
I searched through my instruments chest in the dim light of the cressets and found pouches of pounded hemp seed, ground seed of lettuce, and willow bark. When Kate returned to the table with a cup of ale I poured a large measure from each pouch into the brew and drank it. De Mondeville, whose teaching I follow, taught that wounds heal best when left dry and uncovered, with no ointment applied, but in my chest I had a vial of oil of St John’s Wort, which can dull pain and help cleanse a wound in the absence of wine. This oil I applied to my cuts.
When in the past I had prepared such a concoction for patients who had done themselves some injury, or upon whom I worked some surgery, I had assured them the potion would alleviate some of their distress. Perhaps I lied. Kate and I climbed the stairs to our bed, where I lay through the remainder of the night, unable to sleep and reviewing in my mind the attack. Kate’s rooster announced the dawn but had no need to awaken me. Nor Kate. Each time I turned in our bed she peered at me closely. I assured her twice that an arm wound was not likely to send me to meet the Lord Christ, but I would have been more certain of this had I been able to bathe the cuts in wine before Kate worked the needle upon them.
When the Angelus Bell rang from the tower of St Beornwald’s Church I left my bed. If I could find no rest in the night it was sure I would find little in the day.