Emma and Maud appeared in the space between their tofts to the rear of their houses as we watched. Maud was in retreat, Emma shaking an angry fist in her face. Emma’s oldest son, a strapping lad of fourteen years or so, advanced behind his mother to support her cause in the dispute. She appeared capable of defending her position unaided.
Tenants and villeins in the Weald are the Bishop of Exeter’s concern. I had no wish to place myself between two angry women, especially as the dispute was not my bailiwick. Peter seemed to think likewise. He looked at me, shrugged, and we set off again for Philip Mannyng’s house. We could yet hear Maud and Emma when we stood before Mannyng’s broken door.
Amabil Mannyng opened the fractured door to Peter’s call. The old woman was bent with age, an affliction of her sex common to those who have seen many years pass. She had expected Peter, but was surprised to see me.
“You’ve come to mend me door, then?” she asked, speaking to Peter, but examining me.
“Aye, an’ do you know Master Hugh? ’E’s bailiff to Lord Gilbert.”
“Seen ’im about. Heard ’e patched Gerard’s head.”
Gerard is Lord Gilbert’s verderer. Two years past he had the misfortune to stand where an oak his sons were felling might swat him with a plunging limb. His skull was badly cracked. I repaired the injury, but he walks now with a limp, which I suspect will always be so.
“Your man lies ill in his bed, I am told.”
“Aye. Since Candlemas ’e’s been low.”
“And near a fortnight past someone beset him in his bed?” I added.
“They did.”
“Perhaps I might see him. I have herbs which can comfort afflicted folk.”
“Was going to call for you when I found ’im, but Philip wouldn’t have it. Said he’d heal well enough, an’ if not was ready to see God. ‘No use payin’ the surgeon,’ he said. My Philip’s always been tight with a penny.”
I left Peter to inspect the splintered door and followed Amabil into the dim interior of the house. The woman’s aged husband lay upon his bed, his form so shrunken with age and illness and abuse, he seemed but an assemblage of coppiced poles beneath the bed coverings. I found myself in agreement with the old man’s prophecy: he was near to seeing the Lord Christ.
Philip heard our conversation and approach and turned in his bed to see who disturbed his slumber. A purple bruise, beginning to turn green and yellow, stretched from his forehead to cheek. A gash across his scalp, which I might have closed with needle and silk thread, bore a thick scab. Philip would, did he live, bear a wide scar where the blow caught him. His nose was swollen, purple, and bent.
A bench sat near the bed. I drew it to Philip’s side and introduced myself.
“Know who you are,” he wheezed. “Seen you about the town.”
“I am told you lay abed a Sunday and were attacked while your wife was at mass.”
“Aye. My time is short… know that well enough.”
“Who was it tried to hasten your passing?”
“Dunno. Kicked in the door. That’s what woke me. I don’t see so well any more. All I remember is a fellow raisin’ a club over me. Next I knew, ’twas Sunday eve an’ Amabil and Arnulf was bendin’ over me.”
“Door was barred,” Amabil added. “Arnulf thought it best. Philip can rise from ’is bed when needful, an’ could unbar the door when I returned.”
“Have you been in dispute with any man that you must bar the door?”
“Nay,” Philip managed a chuckle. “I’m near seventy years old. Too old to quarrel with any man.”
“Why, then, would a man wait ’til you were alone, then attack you?”
Philip shook his head weakly, and sighed. The effort seemed to pain him, for he closed his eyes and grimaced.
“Most folk in the Weald know Philip is afflicted,” Amabil said. “It’s no secret ’e’s seldom from ’is bed.”
“And none holds a grudge against him?”
“Nay. My Philip was always a peaceful man.”
Then why, I wondered, bar the door while Philip was abed alone?
“I have preparations which will ease his pain. I will return at the sixth hour. ’Tis too late to mend the cut on his scalp, or do aught for his nose, but I can allay his hurt.”
I left Peter Carpenter at work on the broken door and jamb and sought Kate and my dinner. When I returned to Philip Mannyng’s house Peter was near finished repairing the splintered door. I had with me a pouch of herbs: pounded lettuce seeds to help the man sleep, and hemp seeds and leaves to reduce the pain of his broken nose. I brought also the crushed root and leaves of comfrey, to make a poultice for Philip’s bruised face. Such a preparation should have been applied straight away after the injury was discovered, but perhaps the comfrey might do the man some good even yet.
I instructed Amabil to measure a portion of the herbs into a cup of ale three times each day for her husband to drink, and was ready to depart when Arnulf Mannyng entered the house. He did not notice my presence at first. The house was dim and the man was intent upon his injured father. He strode to Philip’s bed and sat upon the bench I had recently vacated.
Arnulf Mannyng was as sturdy as his father was frail. In shadow against the window he appeared much like Arthur; not so tall as me but weighing thirteen stone or more. Arnulf is a prosperous tenant of the Bishop of Exeter. Since the plague much land lies waste for want of men to plow and seed and harvest. Mannyng had added a yardland to the property of his father which he had assumed a year past when the old man was no longer able to work. Rumor had it that Arnulf had paid but six shillings gersom for the vacant holding, which included a tumble-down hut the man now used as a barn for his three cows and two oxen.
I stood silent in a corner while Amabil tended the fire and Arnulf spoke to his father. It was not my intent to pry into family business, but I was there and could not avoid the conversation.
Arnulf began by asking his father how he did, which needed no reply, for any man could see he was likely to soon see the Lord Christ, unless there be a purgatory, which I am come to doubt. Perhaps I should not write so, but I think it unlikely a bishop will ever read these words of mine, or trouble himself with a heretical surgeon should he do so.
The son’s next words brought me to quick attention. “I told you last week you’ll need worry no more of bein’ attacked again,” he assured the old man. “Not as Thomas atte Bridge was found hangin’ from a tree at Cow-Leys Corner.”
“Amabil told me also,” Philip whispered. “Little good his death’ll do me now.”
While his father spoke Arnulf shifted on his bench to observe his mother. She had placed a pot upon the coals. Arnulf had but to raise his eyes from the pot to see me standing between door and window.
“You have a guest,” he said harshly.
“’Tis Master Hugh, him as is Lord Gilbert’s bailiff. He has brought herbs to ease your father’s suffering.”
“Ah… well then,” his voice softened, “we are in your debt.”
“Mixed with ale, the herbs will bring some release from pain and aid your father’s sleep. And comfrey made into a paste will speed healing of his bruised face.”
“What is owed for this?”
“Tuppence.”
Arnulf fished about in his pouch and brought forth the coins. He stood and delivered them to my hand without another word. It was I who spoke.
“Did Thomas atte Bridge deal the blows to your father?”
“Aye, so I believe.”
“Why would he do so?”
“Because he was too much the coward to attack me.”
“He had reason to dislike you?”
“So he thought.”
“Was his thinking flawed?”
“Nay… I suppose not.”
“You did harm to Thomas?”
“In a way. We both sought a yardland of the bishop. I offered a better price. ’Twas land vacant near two years since John Rugg died with all his family when plague returned.”
“Thomas resented losing the property?”