“You’ll be wantin’ us again this night, I ’spect?” he said through a great yawn. “A man who’d trouble hisself to try an’ burn down another’s house don’t seem to me likely to give over the plan so easy.”
Uctred and Anketil nodded in agreement, although the youth seemed less enthusiastic than his elders. He had probably not contemplated such a turn of affairs when he joined Lord Gilbert’s service. Most likely he envisioned a life of comfortable work in the castle, with a warm bed to greet him at close of day.
It seemed to me that if I could apprehend the man who wished to burn Galen House, I would also find the man who had dragged Thomas atte Bridge to Cow-Leys Corner and suspended him there from an oak limb. Why else would any man be so driven to destroy me, my house, and Kate? I saw no reason to prowl the town seeking a murderer when it was possible, was I patient, the man would come to me. Perhaps not this night, as he had refrained from the attempt in the past night, but soon or late my prey would seek once again to halt my search for him and silence me. Then Arthur, Uctred, and Anketil would be ready.
When I began the search for Thomas atte Bridge’s murderer I was dismayed to think I might discover the felon among friends. Then I hoped John Kellet was the guilty man, for he was no friend. Now I sought a man who had taken one life and would have destroyed two more to preserve his secret. The fellow might have been a friend in times past, but no more, and when I found who it was I would suffer no displeasure at his meeting a noose.
I bid my three protectors good morn with the injunction that they were to return again at dusk to wait and watch. I spent the day trying to avoid moving my arm, which had become an angry red where Kate’s needlework bound the flesh together. Little pus issued from the wound, which some would consider an ill thing, but I hold with Henri de Mondeville that no pus from a wound is preferable even to laudable pus.
Arthur, Uctred, and Anketil yawned the next four nights away, hidden in the dark aside the hen coop in my toft. No man disturbed their vigil. When dawn broke on Trinity Sunday I sent the grooms to the castle with an admission that the surveillance was a failure and they no longer needed to seek Galen House at dusk.
My arm no longer ached so fiercely, so this day I drank a morning cup of ale without the herbs. We took no loaf to break our fast, but after quenching a thirst prepared ourselves for the day.
As for Whitsuntide, white is the color for Trinity Sunday. Except for my kirtle I own no white garments, but Kate drew from her chest a long white cotehardie which she kept for such occasions. Dressed in my grey cotehardie and black chauces I felt a crow aside a swan. I was not alone. When the village was gathered at St Beornwald’s Church it was the womenfolk who were attired in honor of the occasion, in garments carefully preserved for such a holy day.
Kate had prepared let lardes for our dinner this day, and after we ate we joined others who gathered in the marketplace for mystery plays. That God has become three — Father, Son, and Holy Ghost — is surely a mystery. This mystery will be revealed when the Lord Christ returns, and perhaps the mysteries of who murdered Thomas atte Bridge and attempted to burn Galen House will be disclosed then as well. My progress at solving these two puzzles was so scant, any solution seemed likely hidden ’til the end of the age.
So while the players told the story of the Bible and God among men I fretted about my failures, standing at the fringe of the marketplace crowd. Kate noted my joyless demeanor and asked was my arm troubling me again. I shook my head, and I think then she understood my unease. She took my arm, my good left arm, and entwined her arm in mine. Thus we stood while the players concluded the account, a story all knew and had heard before, but ’tis useful to be reminded. Men forget the sacrifice the Lord Christ made in their behalf. Duty and worry and such cares as are common to all press upon folk, so they neglect their obligation to the Savior.
My own thought accused me, for while the players told their tale I considered felons and how I might find them out. I devised no answer, and took little joy in the players’ work. ’Twas a misspent afternoon.
Monday morn, after a maslin loaf and ale, I set out for the Weald and Maud atte Bridge’s hut. I dispensed with the sling this day, the ache in my arm being much reduced. I lingered at the bridge over Shill Brook. The flowing water is unchanging, whenever I halt in my business to observe it, yet the scene seems ever fresh. The brook is the same, but the water coursing ’neath the bridge is new. So it is with the realm. King and nobles and commons may change, but the kingdom endures. May it always be so.
Late spring is a thin season of the year for most tenants and villeins. Last year’s grain harvest is near gone, and the new crop two months from the scythe. Pigs slaughtered in the autumn have, by early June, usually been consumed by all folk but those uncommonly frugal of flesh in the pot in the winter past.
So I was not surprised when I found Maud tending a kettle of barley pottage upon her hearth. No scent of pork came from the pot. The thin gruel would be her family’s only meal for this day and many more like it, but for the occasional egg from her fowls. I felt some sorrow for the widow and her state. She lived now without beatings, but which, I wondered, was more trying — bruised ribs or an empty stomach? The woman looked up from her pot as my shadow darkened her doorway, open to the air and morning sun. She could see only my form, for the brightness behind me, but guessed who it was who called.
“’Ave you news of who slew my Thomas?” she asked as she stood from her smoky hearth.
“Nay. I know little more than when we past spoke. One thing I have question about, which brings me here this day. Did Thomas have business with any gentleman, or wealthy burgher… some bargain which may have gone bad?”
“Business with a gentleman?” Maud scoffed. “Why’d ’e be dealin’ with such like?”
“I have reason to believe whoso slew Thomas is a horseman.”
Maud’s hands had been upon her hips as she spoke. At this news they dropped to her side and I saw her eyes widen.
“A horseman? Thomas ’ad no truck with such folk. He’d nothin’ a gentleman would wish to buy, an’ no coin to purchase what a rich man might sell.”
Maud’s logic was excellent, but how else to explain the boot-print in my toft? The man who sought to end my investigation was no poor man. He rode a horse, and often enough that the stirrup had worn a groove into the sole of his boot.
“The man I seek may not be of great wealth,” I explained. “But he has the means to keep a horse.”
Maud was silent, her eyes narrowing in thought. “Two, three years past, I’d near forgot. Thomas an’ Henry had business with a knight of Cote. Lived in the manor house there.”
“What was this business?”
“Don’t know. Thomas din’t say. Kept things to hisself.”
“Was Thomas satisfied with his dealings with this knight?”
“Oh, aye. ’Eard ’im an’ Henry laughin’ ’bout it once.”
When men like Henry and Thomas atte Bridge find humor in business with another, it is sure the other man has suffered in the bargain. Cote is not a rich manor. An injured knight there might fit the pattern I saw developing.
I bid Maud good day, and left her at the door to her hovel. Two of her children had appeared as we spoke, and watched suspiciously from behind her skirt as I departed.
I was but a few paces along the path when the sound of a horse and cart behind me caused me to turn. Arnulf Mannyng approached. Sacks, perhaps full of surplus grain he was taking somewhere to sell, filled the cart. This left no room for the man, so he rode upon his beast upon a crude saddle. Leather straps hung down from this saddle, and from them simple iron bars were bent into stirrups. I waited at the side of the track for Mannyng to pass, and waved a greeting as he did so. When the man turned from me back to the road I stole a quick glance to his feet. His shoes had heels, to be sure, but they seemed to me no higher than need be, and surely Arnulf did not ride the horse so often as to wear grooves in the soles. Or did he?