I could, however, help Alice. I found a place for the child at the castle, free of the hatred and jealousy of her brothers. Henry and Thomas seized all of their father’s few possessions after his death. Alice escaped to the castle with what she might carry, no more. Her father’s hut now mouldered, derelict, in the Weald, beside the houses of Emma and Maud, the widows of Henry and Thomas.
I followed the merrymakers to the Broad Street and Cheapside, where they busied themselves raising a maypole at the marketplace. I found Hubert Shillside there, observing the youth of Bampton with a proud smile upon his face.
“Will is well chosen,” I congratulated him. “And the lass also. Her father has a yardland of the bishop, does he not?”
“Aye. She has two brothers.”
With four words the haberdasher had told me neither he, nor Will, I assumed, was interested in the maid. The lass might bring coin and some possessions to her marriage, but the land would stay with the older brother. And should he die, another heir was in place.
“Bampton has several comely maids.”
“Hmmm. ’Tis so. But most will bring little to their husbands. You did well with Kate… a house in Oxford.”
“Aye, but measured against her other virtues the house is of scant value.”
“Hah. So you say now. When you are wed some years such a dowry will loom larger. Beauty does not last, houses and lands will.”
“Perhaps.”
Shillside must know of his son’s attraction to Alice atte Bridge and be displeased. I thought to bait him on the matter. “Will seems more interested these days in pleasing his eye than his purse,” I laughed.
Shillside peered at me and frowned.
“I have seen him in company with a comely maid who will bring nothing to her husband but herself.”
“Ah,” the haberdasher smiled. “You speak of Alice atte Bridge. ’Tis true… Will is smitten with the lass. But she is not so poor as all think.”
This was a surprise to me. When three years past I sent her to the castle I thought she owned nothing. Indeed, Alice believed so as well.
Shillside saw my astonishment and continued. “Alice’s mother, Isabel, was second wife to the elder Henry atte Bridge, as you know. Isabel’s dowry from her first husband was a half-yardland in the Weald. When she died, an’ then Henry, the land came to Alice.”
“Alice did not speak of this.”
“She was but a child… perhaps she knew nothing of it.”
“Isabel had no children of her first husband?”
“None,” Shillside smiled.
“Henry and Thomas atte Bridge claimed their father’s lands when he died.”
“Aye, so they did. But not all of it was theirs to have.”
“How did you learn this?”
“Isabel’s sister is wed to William Walle. His brother Randall is haberdasher in Witney. We do business.”
“Does Alice know?”
“Aye, she does.”
“And the vicars of St Beornwald? Disputes in the Weald are their bailiwick. Do they know of this?”
“Aye. The matter is to be brought before hallmote.”
“Thomas atte Bridge will not attend to defend his taking.”
“Nay,” Shillside smiled again. “Alice will gain her due, I’ve no doubt.”
“And her husband, whoso that may be, will add a half-yardland and pasture rights to his holdings.”
“Just so. Alice will not stand in the church porch so penniless as many would think of a scullery maid.”
“Did Thomas atte Bridge know of Alice’s suit to regain her mother’s dowry lands?”
“Aye, he did. And was ready to dispute the matter, but I think Maud will not refuse Alice her due as Thomas would.”
“’Tis convenient, then, for Alice and whoso she may wed, that Thomas hanged himself at Cow-Leys Corner.”
“Aye, it is so.”
Revelry continued that fine spring day but I felt no wish to join it. My Kate was unwell, and distasteful images flashed through my mind. As I retreated to Galen House I saw in my mind’s eye Hubert Shillside prowling about in Thomas atte Bridge’s toft, intentionally disturbing his hens. I saw atte Bridge stumble from his hut to investigate the uproar, and saw Shillside swing a cudgel to deliver a blow to the back of Thomas’s head. I saw Thomas catch a glimpse of movement in the darkened toft, and turn so that Shillside’s blow caught him in the face, upon his mouth.
I envisioned Shillside and his son binding Thomas by the wrists, leaving a strand of hempen cord upon atte Bridge’s frayed sleeve, then taking him by shoulders and heels to carry him off to Cow-Leys Corner. I imagined the lad losing grip of Thomas’s heels, allowing them to drag briefly in the mud. I saw the youth sneaking in to atte Bridge’s hut some days earlier to make off with the stool, which would prove then to all that Thomas atte Bridge took his own life.
These images caused me much distress, for Hubert Shillside was my friend.
I entered Galen House in somber mood. What I found there did little, at first, to improve my dour outlook. Kate heard me enter and left our bed, where she had withdrawn. She was half-way down the stairs, coming to greet me, when she grew light-headed and fell. It was my good fortune that I heard her descending, so was at the foot of the steps when she stumbled. I caught her before she could do harm to herself, and carried her to a bench.
Kate came quickly to her senses, although I admit I did not. I took a cup of water from the ewer upon our cup board and splashed it into her face. She spluttered and protested and demanded I cease, which I did.
Kate dried her face with her apron, then began to giggle. I thought my wife had come unhinged. I found no humor in the scene. I sat beside her upon the bench to comfort her, and put an arm about her shoulder to support her should she again swoon. I did not wish to apply my surgical skills to repair her broken scalp should she fall back upon the flags.
“You are unwell,” I said. “I will take you to bed, where you may rest.”
“I have just come from there,” she said. “I rose when I heard you enter, and did so too quickly. ’Tis why I became giddy on the stairs.”
“You have not been well for many days.”
“I am very well, or would be did you not dash cold water in my face. My illness is but what is common to women.”
I am a surgeon, not a physician, and in surgical training I had learned nothing of swooning being customary female behavior. I said so.
“I will be quite well in a fortnight, or perhaps a little longer,” she assured me. “This sickness which now afflicts me will pass, as it does with all womankind who are with child.”
Chapter 3
Kate’s announcement caused me to forget for a time what I had learned from Hubert Shillside. When thoughts of his conversation returned I attempted to excuse the knowledge. What had the fellow told me? Only that Alice atte Bridge might inherit a smallholding from her deceased mother.
I might wish ignorance of the matter but this was not given to me. I knew of Will’s interest in Alice. I knew of the haberdasher’s desires for his son. And now I knew of a reason Thomas atte Bridge might die at the hands of another. The thought brought bile to my throat.
Kate saw that my joy at her disclosure had faded, along with my appetite for dinner. She mistook my anxiety.
“I will soon be well, Hugh. I do not fear bearing a child… since Eve women have borne babes.”
She did not say that her mother died in childbirth, and the babe with her, when Kate was but a wee lass, and so I did not speak of it either. But surely such apprehension must occasionally cloud her thoughts. Now that I knew of her condition such dark reflections would, I knew, come unbidden to me.
“Should our child be a boy,” she continued, “shall we name him for his father?”