Mel Starr - A Corpse at St Andrew's Chapel

I climbed one of these low mounds and sat, my back to the rising sun, to wait for the bells which would announce the next service. No sound but the soft piping of a bullfinch disturbed my reverie. The bird left his oaken perch at the edge of the churchyard and darted, a small orange and black comet, past the church tower and into the wood to the north of the churchyard. A bullfinch! I hoped this fellow had not many brothers hereabouts, for if so, they would soon be feasting on the buds of Lord Gilbert’s apple trees.

Beyond the wood where the bullfinch vanished I saw other birds. In the high, distant sky four buzzards circled in the calm morning air, black against the blue heavens.

St Beornwald’s bell jolted me from my wool-gathering and I joined the flow of worshippers making their way to the porch. The stone building was cold, so when Father Thomas concluded his sermon all present were pleased that they would soon be released to return to the sun, now well up above the town rooftops and making the church windows a blaze of color.

The vicars greeted parishioners at the porch as we filed eagerly from the building. Not that all were impatient to be released from their worship, although surely some were of such a mind. After a long winter a pleasant spring day is much welcome and not to be wasted.

As I walked the path from porch to churchyard I noticed Thomas de Bowlegh in conversation with a woman. Her back was to me, but Father Thomas’ features were visible, and creased with concern. His brow was furrowed, and his lips pursed. Then the woman, in great agitation, turned to point to the east and I saw it was Emma, the wife of Henry atte Bridge. Perhaps, I thought, he came home last night in ill humor and beat her to make up for his loss elsewhere. And now she complained to the Bishop of Exeter’s representative of her husband’s cruelty.

I walked on toward the castle and my dinner but had gone but a few paces down Church View Street when I heard my name called. Thomas de Bowlegh had ended his conversation in the churchyard and was now panting after me. “Master Hugh…a word,” the vicar puffed as he approached. “Henry atte Bridge…you know him?”

I nodded.

“Henry has disappeared. His wife came to me this morning after mass.”

“Is he a reliable man?” I asked. I thought I knew the answer to that question, but perhaps others saw the man differently than I.

The vicar hesitated. “No less than others. He’s not run off before, and does his week work for the bishop with no more prodding than most.”

“Ah, yes, the new tithe barn. I saw him at work on it yesterday as I passed.”

I saw a quizzical expression pass briefly across de Bowlegh’s face, so I explained my mission, the reason for it, and what I had learned. I also told him of the attack. I saw the vicar’s jaw grow tight and his lips draw into a thin line as I completed the tale.

“Think you he has fled…to escape judgment for his misdeeds?”

“What does his wife think?” I replied.

“Does she know of his transgression? She did not speak of such. But she wouldn’t, would she. No, she fears some harm has come to him.”

“Did she say why he was out past curfew?”

“He had returned from working on the new barn, then told his wife he was off to seek wood in the forest. ’Tis a right the common folk have on the bishop’s lands, as with Lord Gilbert’s estate, I think.”

I nodded, for I know well the ancient liberties. “And he did not return?” I asked, “even with the dawn?”

“Nay. The woman is anxious that he be found. She fears he has suffered some hurt and lays injured in the forest.”

“You wish me to search Lord Gilbert’s woodlands hereabouts?”

“Aye. He should not have been gathering wood on m’lord’s land, if gathering wood was his business, but such as he might seek where they will, rather than where they ought.”

“Did he tell his wife where he might seek wood?”

“Aye. Said as he’d seen many limbs down in the wood near where the tithe barn is new built.”

“And near where I was assailed last night,” I added.

“You think Henry atte Bridge the man who lay in wait for you?”

“What other man wishes me ill?”

“Perhaps ’twas a thief.”

“Perhaps. But as the miscreant plunged into the wood I heard him say to another, ‘He lives.’”

“Hmmm.” The priest pulled at his chin, an action which reminded me of Lord Gilbert Talbot, who does likewise when puzzled. “Perhaps we should begin our search at the place you were attacked. There may be a trail we might follow. Do you think your blow, or the horse’s kick, might have injured the fellow so he could not continue his flight…if ’twas Henry who did this thing?”

“I think he was not so badly harmed as that.”

And then the circling buzzards caught my eye again. They drifted on the wind north of the town, near where I had fought for my life the night before. I watched them silently, and as I did the vicar turned to see what so absorbed my attention.

We stared at the great birds, contemplating their possible significance. The vicar spoke first. “I will gather some clerks. Will you come and show us where we must begin our search? I think,” he sighed, “’twill not be far from where those buzzards now soar.”

“Aye…not far.”

Father Thomas and I returned to the church, where we found Simon Osbern and three clerks preparing for evensong. The priest explained our mission, tactfully omitting any word of the altercation wherein I had found myself.

“Master Hugh,” he asserted, “believes he may have seen a man in the north woods, near to the new barn…is that not so, Master Hugh?”

“Aye, though ’twas near dark. I can show you the place.”

The four men needed no urging to leave their duties and join the hunt. When a man has heard the beginning of such a tale he is not content until he knows the end of it.

I led our party north on the Broad Street, past the bishop’s new barn now standing completed to its frame and thatching. Truth to tell, I was not sure of the exact place along the road where I was waylaid. It was near dark, and I was not concerned at the time with the scenery.

I slowed my pace when we were well past the new barn. The others kept in step, the clerks behind as fitted their station, Thomas de Bowlegh and Simon Osbern at either hand. The priests’ gaze swung between me and the road. They studied me intently while I studied the path.

There had been few travelers on the road that day. No one was about his trade on a Sunday. So I followed the track of a well-shod horse as we made our way north. The animal had been going south, and not so long before. I was sure the horse was Bruce.

It was. We came upon a place where the horse had halted for some time. The drying mud of the road was patterned with the marks of the animal’s great hooves. At the side of the track I saw the verge disturbed where first I, then my attacker, had scrambled in the mire. I stopped.

“This is the place?” Father Thomas asked. “Whereabouts in the wood must we begin our search?”

I pointed to the grove, where the night before I had heard two men scrambling through the dark. Above my upraised finger the buzzards circled over the forest, a hundred paces west of the road. I glanced in their direction. Father Thomas followed my gaze and divined its meaning.

“Come,” he commanded, and plunged into the wood. Father Thomas, Simon Osbern, the clerks and I followed.

Father Thomas is a fine priest, but his skills are not related to either strength or endurance. In but a few moments the priest was winded and staggering from the exertion of pushing through brambles and fallen branches. He is not a young man. After a few stumbles over ground ivy and limbs he tired, so that when his foot caught the next tendril he fell heavily. This did him no great harm. The forest floor was deep in rotting leaves.