Mel Starr - A Corpse at St Andrew's Chapel

If my quarry the night before was poaching Lord Gilbert’s coneys, it seemed to me likely that he would be at the business this night also, visiting his snares before some fox might rob him of his catch. As I had slept the day through and my head was yet knobby and sore I thought it probable that I would lay sleepless in my bed. I might as well spend a sleepless night watching the road for a poacher. Who, I assumed, was he who had whacked me across the head.

I roused Wilfred from his bed, and when he had opened the gate and raised the portcullis I made my way to Mill Street. The slender moon would rise even later this night, so I walked in darkness between fields of oats and peas.

My way became even more obscure, the night around me even blacker, when I came to the edge of the forest. If a man followed me this night I should never see him, even did he carry a pale sack over a shoulder. But there was advantage in this. I wore a dark cotehardie and grey chauces. I would also be invisible.

I crept carefully to the side of the road and felt before me as a blind man for obstacles which might trip me. I had no wish to fall on my bruised head. Only a few feet from the road I found a stump. Against the black background of the wood I could not be seen though I was but three or four paces from the verge. A man in the road would be nearly invisible to me, as well, but my advantage was my silence. A poacher, no matter how dark the night or hushed his step, could be heard as he approached. I would be silent upon my stump.

The waning moon rose over the town well past midnight. From my perch on the rotting stump I had a clear view of Mill Street from the castle until it entered the forest. In the darkness of the wood I was sure I was yet invisible. This lunar advantage gave me great satisfaction, but it was the only satisfaction I would have that night. Sitting on a cold, jagged stump provided little gratification and the only living thing I saw was an owl which swooped soundlessly from a tree to capture a mouse at the edge of a field of oats adjacent to the forest. Well, I think it was a mouse.

I watched the sky behind St Beornwald’s spire lighten for the second day in a row. It is pleasing to watch a new day begin, to hear birds twitter as they awaken and begin the business of seeking sustenance. Of course, it is also pleasing to lay in a warm bed in the coldest part of the night, as dawn glows golden in the east. This dawn would have been more profitably spent in bed.

I rose from the stump, stretched my stiffened limbs, and set off for the castle and breakfast. Smoke ascended from the kitchen oven into the still morning air, and a warm loaf awaited me there. As this day was also Ember Day the loaf would not be wheaten, but coarse maslin of barley and rye. I took the loaf and a mug of ale to my chamber and pondered my ignorance while I ate.

The catalog of things I did not know seemed to grow more rapidly than the list of things I did know. Why did Henry atte Bridge kill Alan the beadle, if indeed he did?

Why was Henry struck down in the forest, and who did the deed? Why did John Kellet receive blows from Edmund Smith, and why was the smith so sure the priest would not complain of him? Who struck me down in the Alvescot churchyard? And was the assailant the same man I saw walking the road in the dark? If so, was he indeed a poacher, or did some other interest put him on the road at midnight?

I decided to cease my nocturnal ways, but I wished for some eyes to be alert should a man with a pale sack make another late appearance on Mill Street. I left the castle and walked to Rosemary Lane and the house of John Prudhomme. I found it convenient to walk slowly. A rapid pace caused my head to throb at every step. For all his late-night obligation to see the streets clear, Prudhomme was awake and bright when he answered my knock on his door. I told him of sighting a man with a sack late at night on Mill Street, and of my failed attempt to apprehend this poacher. I charged him to be vigilant in his duty and to report to me any man out past curfew, whether he carried a sack or not.

John pledged that he would do so, and seemed wounded that a miscreant had escaped him. But I assured the new beadle that I attached no blame to him. The poacher, if such he was, had waited past midnight to be sure that even the beadle had entered his house and shut the door behind him.

“You think the fellow may set snares in other places?” John asked. “Perhaps while you lay in wait for him to the west he inspected traps some other place. To the north, along the road to Burford, there is much wasteland growing up from meadow. A good place for coneys, I think.”

“Aye, and in truth Lord Gilbert will not miss a few, be they taken to the west or the north. But ’tis my duty, and yours also, to apprehend a poacher if I can. He who would snare a coney today may grow bold and take a deer tomorrow.”

“I will attend this duty tonight,” the beadle promised.

“Be watchful,” I warned him. “I trailed the man to Alvescot, where he — or some other, I cannot know — lay in wait for me behind the churchyard wall. When I investigated a sound I heard from the lych gate I was thumped across my head for my curiosity.” I rubbed the swollen side of my skull. Gently. “The blow left me sleeping the night away at the base of the churchyard wall, and I will have a headache for another day or two. See that you are more wary than I.”

John peered quizzically at the side of my head. And then at the other. “I see the lump the fellow left you…but there is another, on t’other side.”

“Aye,” I muttered. I did not wish to tell him how I came to be so balanced. Rather, I tugged my hood down to obscure my misshapen skull, bid John good day, and set off for the castle.

Three days later, a Tuesday morning, John Prudhomme asked for me at the castle gatehouse. Wilfred came to fetch me as I swallowed the last of my morning loaf. The beadle waited at the gate with, I thought, some impatience. His eyes darted from the castle forecourt to the gatehouse to the meadow beyond Mill Street. And he shifted from one foot to the other as I approached, as if he stood on Edmund’s coals.

When Wilfred told me who it was that sought me, my first thought was that John had discovered who it was who had taken to the roads at night and smitten me across the head. This was not so, but he did indeed have news of the business.

The beadle tilted his head as I drew near in a gesture that requested me to follow. He then turned and walked slowly from the gatehouse toward Mill Street. I caught up to him halfway between the street and gatehouse.

“You have news, John?”

“Aye,” he said without breaking stride.

Whatever he wished me to know, he wanted it known to no other. The beadle eventually stopped and turned to face me well away from any ears on either the street or at the castle gatehouse.

“I watched the street, like you wanted. Saw nothin’. But last night, I was ’bout to end my rounds an’ come as far as the bridge when I saw somethin’ movin’ in the Weald. Not my business, what goes on there, ’course, but it caught me eye, see.”

I nodded as Prudhomme interrupted his tale to peer about for any who might stroll close enough to overhear his words. Whatever tale he wished to tell, it was for me alone. I said nothing and waited for him to continue.

“’Twas like you said ’twould be,” John said when he was satisfied that we were unobserved and unheard. After all, should any be watching, why would they be surprised that the beadle should be in conversation with the bailiff? Unless they thought themselves the subject of the discussion. I took John’s arm and propelled him toward the gatehouse.

“We will continue this conversation in my chamber,” I said. Perhaps I was overly cautious. A blow on the head will do that to a man.