Mel Starr - Rest Not in Peace

Whole families were in the fields as we passed. Men swung long-handled scythes to cut hay close to the ground. Women and children followed to turn the hay so it would dry evenly. In other meadows, where the hay had been cut some days past, men were gathering it into great stacks. Many of these laborers watched our party pass upon the road, and some noticed that Sir Roger and I were garbed as gentlemen and tugged at a forelock as we passed.

The hall was prepared for dinner when we arrived at Bampton Castle. Lord Gilbert had expected Sir Roger’s arrival, so the meal this day featured many pleasing dishes: roasted partridges, cony in cevy, stewed pigeons, and boar in confit, amongst others.

Place was made at the high table for Sir Roger, and I, again, sat at the head of a side table. Sir Roger was seated beside Lady Margery, and throughout the meal she continued an uninterrupted conversation with the sheriff, turning from him occasionally to cast a baleful eye in my direction. I did not see the woman exchange even one word with Lord Gilbert, who sat also beside her.

To avoid Lady Margery’s hostile gaze I watched other diners. None seemed to have lost his appetite in the past twenty-four hours. Even the youthful squire who had picked at his pike a day earlier consumed his portion of the meal this day. Perhaps he preferred boar over pike.

’Twas well we dined before I took Sir Roger to Sir Henry’s corpse and not after, for in the warmth of June the corpse was beginning to bloat, and would in a few days stink, reducing even a stout sheriff’s hunger.

“Lady Margery believes you at fault in this business,” the sheriff said as we walked the corridor leading to Sir Henry’s chamber. “Lord Gilbert has told her what you found, and that murder was done. She scoffed at that, he said, and claims you seek to turn suspicion from your own malfeasance.”

“You will see soon enough,” I replied, and led Sir Roger past Walter and Uctred, who had been pressed into the melancholy duty of guarding the corpse in Arthur’s absence. For reasons I could not then explain, I wanted a Bampton Castle man at Sir Henry’s door as well as one of Sir Henry’s retainers.

Sir Henry lay as I had left him the day before, the dried clot of blood from his ear yet upon the pillow. I pointed to it.

“That is what I drew from Sir Henry’s ear.”

“I’m no surgeon,” Sir Roger said. “Is there no other explanation for such a wound?”

“I know of none. Even if he was taken with a fit in the night, I do not believe blood would issue from his ear.”

“What of the other ear? If a fit drew blood from one ear, seems likely it would be found in the other as well.”

“I did not look there, not after finding the injury done to this ear.”

“Look now.”

I did. Rigor mortis was beginning to fade, so ’twas no trouble to turn Sir Henry’s head upon the pillow. The light in this chamber, as I have written, was poor, but enough to show that no blood could be seen in the ear. Nevertheless I took the thin blade I had left in the chamber and probed as deeply as I could. I found no crusted blood there.

“Wouldn’t need to pierce a man’s head through both ears to slay him,” Sir Roger said when I withdrew the scalpel and held it up for him to see the clean blade. “Can you be certain such a thrust took his life?”

“Not without opening his skull, which I cannot do without Lady Margery’s permission.”

“Oh… aye. Would not the pain of such a stab cause a man to shriek, even if but for a moment, before he died?”

“Who can say? Perhaps he was silenced with a pillow over his mouth. Or perhaps my potion had to do with the business.”

“Your potion? I thought you said it could not harm a man.”

“I did, and I spoke true. But my thought is this: perhaps Sir Henry was given a larger dose of the pounded lettuce seeds than I advised. It might be that a greater amount could put a man so deeply asleep that he would not awaken when his head was turned and he felt the first prick of the weapon.”

“You think this possible?” the sheriff asked.

“It is outside my experience,” I replied. “But yes, I believe it possible. I would like to see the pouch I gave to Sir Henry, to see how much remains of the lettuce seeds.”

“You shall, and I will speak to Lady Margery. Can you open Sir Henry’s head to learn if a thrust through his ear did this, without disfiguring his visage before burial?”

“I can.”

Lady Margery would not permit me to open Sir Henry’s skull. This did not surprise me. The woman was convinced, or said she was, that my sleeping draught had taken her husband’s life and had no wish to be proven wrong.

“Said you wished to mutilate her poor husband to turn suspicion for the death from yourself to some other man,” Sir Roger said.

Lord Gilbert also attended this conversation. “I asked if she wished Sir Henry embalmed,” he said. “‘Who would do it?’ she asked. When I told her Master Hugh had the skill, she refused. Of course, it may be she would not pay your fee.”

“There is little reason to embalm a man who will await the last judgment in the churchyard,” I said. “A putrid corpse there will not torment a parish as might be if the corruption was entombed within the church and the seal lacking.”

“Lady Margery wishes to bury Sir Henry tomorrow,” Lord Gilbert said. “Is there any reason she should not?”

Sir Roger and I exchanged glances and waited for the other to speak. He did not, so I finally told Lord Gilbert that the corpse could tell us nothing more and that Lady Margery’s wishes should be granted.

Bampton has been without a carpenter since Peter Carpenter fled, but Edgar Haute, a groom in Lord Gilbert’s service, has shown some skill with saw, chisel, and drawknife, and so has been pressed into service when castle or village requires a man to build with wood.

Lord Gilbert sent Uctred to find Edgar and tell him that the coffin he was assigned to fashion would be needed Friday morning.

“Had Sir Henry enemies, you think?” Sir Roger asked.

Lord Gilbert chuckled and looked to me with one eyebrow raised. “Must be,” he said. “No friend would drive a bodkin through a man’s ear.”

“Oh, aye, just so,” Sir Roger replied.

The sheriff looked to me. “How do we go about finding the man? Whoso did this is clever. I’m a soldier. If an evil fellow must be brought to justice at sword’s point, I’m your man. But this…” Sir Roger waved a hand above the corpse. “This is work for a scholar.”

He said this while gazing fixedly at me. I turned to Lord Gilbert, seeking his aid in turning the task back to Sir Roger, but received no support.

“Master Hugh’s a scholar, is that not so, Hugh? And he’s been bailiff here long enough to ferret out felons in a wink. He’ll have the culprit in your hands within a fortnight.”

I wished for Lord Gilbert’s confidence. There is but one thing a scholar can be relied upon to do, and that is to disagree with other scholars. Discovering felons is not taught in the set books.

“What is to be done first?” Sir Roger asked, and thereby placed himself, the high sheriff of Oxford, under my command. I would have preferred it otherwise. Humility is a virtue, and one which I admire. I have never sought to rise above my station. St Augustine wrote that humility is the source of all virtue, and pride the root of all evil. Somewhere in Bampton there was that day a proud man, or woman, who had done murder. Likely there were in the castle that day many proud men, both gentle and commons, but only one, or perhaps two, had taken Sir Henry’s life.

“I would like to find the pouch of lettuce seed I gave to Sir Henry,” I replied, “to learn how much was put in his wine.”