Mel Starr - Rest Not in Peace

“Put that man in the dungeon,” Lord Gilbert said to John Chamberlain, who had also appeared. He pointed toward Squire William. “We will deal with him later.”

Sir Roger and Lord Gilbert followed Arthur and me and our burden through the great oaken door and into the hall. Once past the door I heard the clatter of trestles and boards as Uctred and his companions hastily erected a table. Someone would later need to scrub bloodstains from the planks, and from the flags, also, for Sir John bled freely, crimson drops falling even upon my shoes.

No sooner had the knight been laid upon the table than he blinked and tried to lift his head. He had regained his wits.

I told him to be still, drew my dagger, and slashed at his cotehardie and kirtle until I had cleared the clothing away from the wound. What I saw gave me some hope for the man’s life. The cut was as long as my hand. Such a laceration is generally the result of a slashing stroke rather than a thrust. The wound bled much, but was not, I thought, so deep as I had feared. A smaller puncture could be the result of a stabbing blow, which might seem at first of less consequence. But if such a wound penetrated to some vital organ the knight would surely die. William’s blade had cut deeply enough that I saw two ribs through the blood and flesh, but the bone had prevented the stroke from doing harm to any vital organ.

I had no instruments at the castle with which to deal with this injury. I grasped the fragment of kirtle I had cut away from the wound and pressed it firmly against the cut to stop, so much as was possible, the flow of blood. This seemed effective. I told Arthur to hold the linen in place whilst I ran to Galen House for instruments with which I might close the wound. I also requested of Lord Gilbert that wine and a basin of hot water be brought to the hall, to cleanse the wound. I then hastened from the hall.

I was longer in returning to the castle than I would have been three or four years past. This sluggishness is Kate’s doing. I have enjoyed too many coney pies and egg leeches since we wed. When I lived alone and made my dinner of bread, cheese, ale, and an occasional roasted capon I was more fleet of foot.

I hesitated at my home only long enough to blurt out the news to Kate and throw instruments into a sack. By the time I crashed through the doors into Bampton Castle Hall I was breathless and unfit for any surgery. Lord Gilbert saw my state and offered a cup of wine from the ewer the butler had provided.

I drank from the proffered cup whilst I regained my breath, and inspected the knight’s wound. Someone had provided a new cloth. The rag which I had left with Arthur lay red-stained beneath the trestles, and he was pressing a new, larger piece of fabric against the cut.

Sir John lay quietly during this inspection, but when he saw me produce a needle and spool of silken thread from my sack he spoke.

“Am I a dead man?”

“Mayhap. There is no way to know ’til a day or two passes. If you are yet alive come Tuesday, or Wednesday, I think then you will live. But Lord Gilbert’s chaplain should remain close by to shrive you.”

In my absence another table had been erected, and upon it I saw one of Lord Gilbert’s napkins, missing a fragment which now stopped Sir John’s blood from gushing from his wound. I ripped a length from the napkin, soaked it in wine, and wiped the wound as Arthur lifted the blood-soaked cloth. What good this might do I cannot tell, but it has always seemed to me that if a wound might heal better after being stitched and then bathed in wine, then to wash a cut with wine before any surgery or work with needle and thread might also help a wound to heal.

Squire William had already made the first cut, so ’twas too late to test the theory fully, but I poured more wine into the empty cup, then poured this directly into Sir John’s cut. He gasped, and clenched his hands into fists, but was otherwise still.

I cut a length of silken thread as long as my arm and began to stitch Sir John’s wound closed. The day was near done, and light from the window above my head was growing dim. The day had been sunny and warm. So as I bent over my patient, the better to see what I was about, drops of sweat beaded upon my lip and forehead and I was required to wipe the perspiration away with what remained of Lord Gilbert’s napkin, else I would have dripped sweat upon the knight’s wound.

The cut was in a place where others would be unlikely to see it, but I was careful to do fine work so that should the man live, his scar would be thin and faint. Perhaps, I thought, should he marry, his bride will appreciate my competence.

Twenty stitches closed the wound. A few tiny drops of blood yet oozed from the cut. These I wiped away with an unstained corner of the cloth Arthur had used to staunch the flow, then I soaked another scrap of napery in wine and once more washed the wound.

I could do no more. Whether the knight lived or died was now in God’s hands, not mine.

I stood away from Sir John, washed blood from my hands in the basin, wiped sweat from my brow again, and placed my hands behind my back to stretch my complaining muscles.

“Will he live?” Lord Gilbert asked. He, Sir Roger, Arthur, Uctred, and several others had watched as I sewed Sir John back together, but so intent was I on the task that I had taken no notice of spectators.

“God knows. If the cut is not deep, he will survive, I think. But if the blade went under his ribs, which I think it did not do, he will likely die soon.”

“What caused this row, I wonder,” Sir Roger said.

“Sir John is not in fit condition to be asked,” I said. “If he is alive tomorrow we may inquire of him then. Meanwhile, you might send a sergeant to bring Squire William from the dungeon to the solar and we may examine him to hear his account of the business.”

“After supper,” Lord Gilbert said. I glanced toward the screens passage and saw there the scowling face of Thomas Attewell, Lord Gilbert’s cook at Bampton Castle, peering into the hall. He had prepared a meal and if ’twas not eaten soon it would grow cold.

Uctred and another groom were assigned to bring a pallet to the hall and transport Sir John to his chamber. I told the knight I would visit him in the morning and saw him nod in understanding.

I had no interest in dining this evening at Lord Gilbert’s table. So when he asked me to remain I declined, told him I would return shortly to seek information from William, and made my way to Galen House and a simple supper in the peace and quiet of my own family.

“You believe this fight is connected to Sir Henry’s death?” Kate asked as we consumed a maslin loaf. “Or is it but a coincidence?”

“Bailiffs do not believe in coincidence.”

“Ah… then one or both of the fellows knows of Sir Henry’s murderer, and the other…”

“The other knows, or believes that he knows,” I completed her thought.

“And the squire is now in the castle dungeon?”

“Aye. Nothing like a dungeon to concentrate a man’s mind upon his sins.”

“And give him time to devise a tale which will turn guilt to the other fellow and ascribe innocence to himself.”

“Aye, that also. Which is why I am to return to the castle this hour and with Lord Gilbert and Sir Roger question the squire about the brawl. If he does not have the night to invent his excuses we may more readily get the truth from him.”

The sun rested just above the treetops of Lord Gilbert’s forest to the west of the castle when I re-entered the gatehouse. I went directly to the solar, for supper was over and done and grooms were disassembling tables and benches. This was Sunday eve, so there would be no entertainment, no musicians or jongleurs. Lord Gilbert does not think such frivolity meet for the Sabbath.