Mel Starr - Rest Not in Peace

“Do you and Lady Margery’s other servants agree?”

Isobel blushed. “Aye,” she agreed.

“Do Sir Geoffrey and Lady Margery seek each other in dalliance?”

The maid blushed again. “Not since Sir Henry was found dead.”

“But before, they were oft together?”

“Not often.”

“Sir Henry was in debt; did you know that?”

“Aye. M’lady spoke of it, an’ we who serve her haven’t had silk or even linen or wool for new gowns this past year and more.”

“Sir Geoffrey might have left Sir Henry’s service and attached himself to a more prosperous knight. Did lady Margery ever speak of him doing so?”

“Aye, both him and Sir John.”

“How long past did she speak of these things? Does she talk of it often?”

“Aye. Says what kind of knight has no retainers to serve him? Soon he’ll have no squires, nor pages, either.”

“Do Lady Margery and Lady Anne quarrel?”

Silence once again followed the question, which was answer enough. Isobel, I think, was considering how much she might say. Enough to satisfy my curiosity, perhaps, but no more.

“Not often. Sir Henry wed Lady Margery soon after Lady Goscelyna perished. Lady Anne thought it unseemly haste.”

“Not often, you say. What does that mean? Once each week? Once a fortnight? Every day?”

“Well, not quarrels, really. Disagreements, more likely.”

“So, then, how often did they disagree?”

Silence again, and when Isobel did finally speak she replied so softly I barely heard. “Near every day,” she said.

“What are these disagreements about?”

“Everything; gowns, how Lady Anne conducts herself, what man may be chosen as Lady Anne’s husband. If Lady Anne wished to light a fire in her chamber Lady Margery would tell her ’twas warm enough.”

Two of these subjects seemed ripe for controversy with little explanation necessary, but how a fire or Lady Anne’s conduct could cause dissention required some further comment. I asked.

“Lady Anne is comely, as you, being a man, well know,” Isobel replied. “She’s sometimes not so modest as might be expected of a lass of her station.”

“Leads men on, does she?”

“Doesn’t mean to, I don’t think. It’s just her way. But Lady Margery thinks so. And between you and me, Lady Margery’s not the beauty she once was. She resents Lady Anne, I think.”

“I have heard that Lady Anne is fond of one of Sir Henry’s squires. Is that another matter of contention between Lady Anne and Lady Margery?”

“Aye… but more like between Lady Anne and her father. Lady Margery only cared if Lady Anne was to wed a wealthy knight who could bring wealth to Sir Henry. She’d be pleased if Lady Anne did wed, and be gone. Of course, did she wed but a squire she’d have no place to go. Probably expect to stay under her father’s roof… except she’s got no father now, and so maybe no roof, either.”

“No roof? Why do you say so?”

“Lady Margery weeps. I hear her in the night. Sir Henry’s lands must be sold to satisfy his debts. What’s left, if anything, is to be divided between Lady Margery and Lady Anne. Won’t be much.”

“She weeps for her poverty more than for the loss of her husband?”

“Aye,” Isobel said softly. “What knight will wed a penniless widow? A comely face is no match for houses and lands, and Lady Margery will not have the last an’ is losing the first.”

“Has Lady Margery known of Sir Henry’s empty purse for long?”

“Nay, don’t think so. They were wed three years past. She’d inherited a house and business in Coventry from her first husband, but his will said was she to take another husband the house was to go to his younger brother.”

“Lady Margery’s father was a cordwainer, I have heard. What business did her husband pursue?”

“A grocer,” Isobel replied.

“She had no children of her first husband?”

“One. A lad. They was wed for little more than a year when plague returned an’ the babe perished, along with her husband.”

It was well that I was nearly finished with the interview, for in the distance I heard agitated voices. Isobel looked up to me as if she expected me to explain the shouting, but the clamor was too far away to be understood.

Any such uproar within Bampton Castle walls is likely to be my business, as a bailiff’s duty is to keep the peace upon his lord’s manor. I dismissed Isobel and hastened through the echoing hall to the heavy door which opened from hall to castle yard. When I pushed it open I heard more clearly the tumult coming from near the marshalsea.

The din increased as I approached, and not simply because I drew near to the scene of the disorder. When I rounded the corner of the marshalsea I saw a crowd of castle folk gathered about some event which caused their animated attention. From the opposite side of the castle yard I saw Lord Gilbert and Sir Roger appear at the top of the stairs which led from the yard to the solar and Lord Gilbert’s private chambers. I saw my employer scowl and hasten down the steps. Soon his voice was added to the uproar.

Lord Gilbert and I approached the shouting crowd from opposite sides. I had at the time no sense of what had caused this noisy mob, but Lord Gilbert had looked down upon the throng from an elevated position at the head of the stairs and so knew the source of the tumult. Two men fought, their daggers unsheathed, the blades glinting in the afternoon sun.

Lord Gilbert and Sir Roger pushed through the mob from one side, and I did the same from the other. We met in the midst of the conflict. With a roar Lord Gilbert commanded the combatants to cease their brawl. When they saw who it was who moved between them they did so, breathing heavily from their exertions.

It was William Willoughby and Sir John who had so disturbed the peace of the castle. I saw blood issuing from the squire’s nose, and Sir John’s fine grey cotehardie was slashed and a crimson stain was seeping between the fingers of his left hand which he had pressed against the edges of the cut.

Sir Roger seized the squire’s dagger and Lord Gilbert snatched Sir John’s. “What means this unseemly contest?” he bawled.

“The knave struck me,” Squire William said. As if to prove his assertion drops of blood fell from his nose to the dirt of the castle yard.

Lord Gilbert turned to Sir John and said, “Why did you do so?”

The knight opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came forth. He swayed upon his feet, collapsed to his knees, his eyes rolled back, and he fell face first into the dust, arms outstretched before him. He had evidently received a perilous cut.

I stepped to the fallen knight, turned him to his back, and inspected his wound. It bled freely. The thrust seemed deep, but I could not know this for certain without a closer inspection. A shadow fell across Sir John as Lord Gilbert knelt opposite me.

“Is he dead?” he asked.

“Nay. He breathes, but mayhap ’tis mortal. He must be carried to a table where I can see how severely he is hurt.”

From the corner of my eye I saw Arthur. I motioned to him to approach and when he did I told him to take Sir John’s shoulders whilst I grasped his feet. Together we lifted the insensible knight from the mud and carried him to the hall. This was not an easy task, for Sir John was not a small man. He was a near twin in size to Lord Gilbert, and surely weighed fourteen stone or more.

Uctred was nearby as well, and I shouted for him to hasten ahead and set up a table under a window. He did so, closely followed by two other grooms who had, moments before, been stunned into inaction but now saw a way to make themselves useful.