Mel Starr - Unhallowed Ground

“Arnulf?”

“Arnulf Mannyng, Philip’s son. Has a yardland of the bishop, an’ works ’is father’s lands.”

I tried to fit a face to the name, but could not. Arnulf Mannyng had evidently done nothing to draw the attention of Lord Gilbert Talbot’s bailiff. Probably, like most men, he is content to live a quiet life with wife and children. A man much like Peter Carpenter, perhaps. An attack upon an aged and infirm parent might cause even a placid man to do injury to the assailant. Who would be most angry, I wondered — a man whose daughter was violated to her death, or one whose parent was attacked? I resolved to learn more.

“I will walk with you to the Weald. Keeping the peace there is the vicars’ business, but I would know more of the matter.”

Peter said no more, but a man would not need to be clairvoyant to guess my interest. Together we crossed the bridge over Shill Brook and turned to the lane leading to the Weald. Philip Mannyng’s house stood near the end of the narrow road. To reach it we passed the dwellings of Maud and Emma atte Bridge, two widows who now lived without beatings if also without a husband’s labor at field and hearth. I wondered what they thought of the exchange.

A small, dirty face peered out of the open door of Emma’s hut, but otherwise the houses were silent. That is, until Peter and I had walked twenty paces or so past. Then, of a sudden, we heard feminine voices. Father Thomas, deaf as he is, might have heard them. Indeed, he might have heard them from Mill Street.

The words were indistinct, but the shrieking came from behind the atte Bridge hovels. Peter peered at me from under questioning brows and we halted to better discover the source and meaning of the screeching. Across the lane I saw a woman look out from her open door, shake her head in disgust, then disappear about her work. Her reaction seemed token that such din was not uncommon in the Weald.

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.