Mel Starr - The Unquiet Bones

“No. About the hay…Is that fellow,” I nodded toward the departing carter, “a villein of Lord Gilbert’s? I’ve not seen him before, I think.”

“Nay. He’s Sir Geoffrey Mallory’s man, from Northleech.”

“Must Lord Gilbert buy hay from Sir Geoffrey?”

“Aye, an’ oats as well. You’ll remember how’t rained so in t’spring? Hay an’ oats rotted in t’fields.”

I knew that harvests this year had been poor due to the cool, wet weather early in the season, but my occupation required of me little thought about agricultural vicissitudes. So long as I had patients who could pay my fees, I did not concern myself with crop yields. When the price of bread rose, then I gave attention to the harvest. In the past months this I had begun to do.

“Then Lord Gilbert is forced to buy fodder?”

“Aye. Well, not yet, like, but if he waits ’til winter price’ll go higher. Hill country over to Northleech drains better, so they wasn’t so bad off as us. Got enough an’ to sell.”

“So Lord Gilbert is buying now. Is this his first purchase?”

“Nay. See t’loft there?” I peered into the dim stable. The loft was filled with hay. “This’ll be fourth, fifth load.”

“All from Sir Geoffrey?”

“Nay. Got a load of oats from up north. One o’Earl Thomas Beauchamp’s tenants. Back in t’spring it was, just after Whitsuntide. Lord Gilbert saw trouble comin’, the hay bein’ so poorly an’ oats little better.”

Whitsuntide? A cartload of oats? My mind was unsettled for a moment, then I made the connection. Margaret’s lad.

“The oats; did Lord Gilbert send a man for the load?”

“Nay. A lad came with nine sacks. All his cart would carry.”

“Did you help him unload?”

“Nay. T’smith was here an’ we had horses to shoe. Lad said as how he’d take t’sacks to loft. Strong young fella. Didn’t need no help. Went right up t’ladder with ’em easy as you please.”

“You watched him unload?”

“Just the first sack…t’make sure he could manage. Farrier was workin’ on Lord Gilbert’s best dexter. He’s a mean ’un. Took me an’ Uctred to hold ’im.”

“Did the lad return to his home that night?”

“He stayed. Slept on t’straw there like this fella’ll do.” He nodded in the direction of the kitchen. “Left next mornin’ soon as light t’see t’road.”

“I shall need Bruce tomorrow,” I told him.

There seemed too many coincidences. The bones, their location, the missing girl, the sale of nine sacks of oats, and the timing. Perhaps that was all it was: coincidence. But to learn if that was so, I must return to Burford.

I walked from the castle with a warm sun at my back. I had no urgent need to return to Galen House, so I stood on the bridge over Shill Brook and watched the wheel of Lord Gilbert’s mill turn slowly.

What if Margaret and her beau had quarreled? What if the argument had become violent? What if, in a fit of rage, the youth struck and killed her? What if he then took her body to Bampton Castle under the oat sacks? Would he not risk discovery in unloading? Would a distressed young killer think of that? Why not dispose of the body in some forest between here and Burford? There were too many questions. Tomorrow I would return to Burford and seek answers to these riddles. Some of them, anyway.

Bruce seemed eager to take me on my journey, perhaps because I always rode him at an easy pace to spare my rump the unaccustomed abrasions. Or perhaps he grew bored staring at the walls of his stall.

As Bruce shambled along the path north to Shilton and Burford, I observed the countryside more closely than I had on my first journey. Lord Gilbert’s remark about unused, vacant land was accurate. There were many oxgangs of meadow now growing back to woodland. At several places the forest was coppiced, but not so regularly as it would have been before the plague. I saw few travelers on my way, although there might have been more in the summer. Certainly there were many places where a body might be hauled from the road into a wood or overgrown meadow and never seen again, until the beasts of the forest had rendered it nothing but bones moldering in the moss and bracken.

I wanted to speak to Alard again, but before I spoke to him I hoped to find the crone with the basket of turnips who had sent me to him. There were things I wished to know about Margaret Smith that Alard might not wish to tell me. And other things he might not know, considering the possible relationship between a man and his daughter.

I rode Bruce up and down the High Street and crosslanes of Burford until folk began to peer at me with furrowed brows as I passed them for the third or fourth time.

I tried to remember what the old woman was wearing, but it was nothing unusual enough to recall. A plain brown cloak and gray wimple, which might once have been white: the habit of every woman her age in every village in England.

I gave up my search, crossed the bridge over the Windrush, and reined Bruce to a stop before the smith’s hut. I saw no smoke from his chimney. To my shout there was no response. The town mill was but fifty or so paces upstream along a path which wound through the willows. I went there seeking news of the smith’s whereabouts.

“He’ll be at t’churchyard, won’t he,” the miller answered, “buryin’ his Margaret.”

I remembered seeing a small knot of people in the churchyard as I passed it — several times. Death and burial are common enough that I did not associate this interment with the bones I had puzzled over. I decided not to wait for the smith’s return, but mounted Bruce and made my way back across the river and up the sloping High Street. I turned Bruce east into Church Lane as mourners passed out of the gate. Alard led the procession. Near its end was the old woman I sought.

I dismounted and followed the old woman to her house, leading Bruce by the halter. The house was wattle and daub, like most in the town, and showed signs of neglect, as did its owner. The thatching of the roof was thin, and chunks of daub had fallen from the walls, exposing decaying wattles. A widow’s home, I thought.

I tied Bruce to a fencepost and approached the door. It opened before I could raise my hand to knock. The woman saw me standing before her and started back so violently that I feared she would fall.

“Oh — you’ve nearly made me drop me eggs!” she exclaimed.

The woman clung to a basket. From the rear of the decaying house I heard hens clucking. They were apparently a source of income, perhaps along with turnips her only source of cash.

“Forgive me. I had no wish to frighten you. Do you remember me?”

“Aye. You asked of Margaret, the smith’s girl, a few days back.”

“I did, although I did not know her name until you told me. I would ask a few more questions about her.”

“I promised these eggs to the vicar before noon. Father Geoffrey likes his eggs fresh.” The woman’s house was but three streets from the church and vicarage.

“Will you return when your errand is done?”

“Aye, straight away.”

“I’ll wait.”

The woman kept her word. I spent the time observing the house and street. It was a duplicate of hundreds I had seen across England, and France, too, in my travels there. The streets were similar, but the stories of the people inhabiting them all different. The crone; was she a widow? Never wed? Children? Grandchildren? Had she loved and laughed once? The crinkled skin about her eyes said “yes,” but the downturned corners of her mouth revealed sorrow in her life. As I mused, the wrinkled eyes and downcast mouth rounded the corner and limped toward me.

I had not noticed her hobble as she walked away. Now she returned shuffling, nearly halting each time her left foot struck the ground. When she came closer I could see a grimace, too, when her weight shifted to her left foot. Her condition aroused my medical curiosity.