Mel Starr - The Unquiet Bones

He turned to Lady Joan, bowed, and presented the fruit to her. She smiled, took the pear, lifted it to her mouth, and with her teeth extracted a clove. The laughter and applause thundered to a climax. Lord Gilbert was particularly enthusiastic. I feigned delight and clapped loudly with the others. What else could I do? I knew then that I would soon wear the willow.

My mind drifted back to the vision of Father Aymer bending over my dying brother, his spice bag swaying out from his chest as he spoke the words of extreme unction. The smell of cloves within the bag had permeated the air then, and I caught a whiff of the pungent odor as the pear was placed on the high table before the smiling couple. The smell of cloves has since reminded me of loss and I like not a dish prepared with this seasoning.

The third remove seemed not so tasty as the first two; perhaps I had eaten enough and lost my appetite. There was fruit in comfit, partridge, glazed meat apples, rabbits, and the piece de resistance, the roasted boar. So great was this beast that four grooms were required to bring it from the kitchen. Even when all had eaten their fill, there would be plenty to distribute to the poor this day. The subtlety was a glazed copy of Goodrich castle, made of gingerbread.

For the last remove, by which time I was unable to consume more than a few bites, there were glazed eggs, doves, custard and marrow tarts, a quiche with currants and dates, and for the last subtlety a pie, which when opened revealed four and twenty blackbirds molded of dates, apples, and honey. This was for the high table; there was also a cherry pottage for the others in the hall.

It was well past the ninth hour when the final remove was taken away and the table cleared. Torches were lighted and fixed to the walls to assist the dying afternoon sun.

The first entertainers were a group of mummers from Walford and Coughton, who portrayed St George, the slain dragon, and the villainous Turk with amateurish enthusiasm. Then came the wrestler’s troupe. The jugglers amazed all, as did the knife-thrower and the contortionist. The wrestler did not voice a challenge this day, but directed his entourage from the side of the great hall. As at Oxford three weeks before, the contortionist finished the program. I thought she seemed a little more capable, supple and smooth in her manipulations, than a month before.

It was the twelfth hour, and time for the Mass of the Divine Word, when the girl completed her last pose — to the accompaniment of more booming applause and shouts of approval.

When mass was done, the gentlefolk repaired to the solar for games and conversation, and though I am but of the middling sort, Lord Gilbert invited me to join them. He was, I think, feeling especially expansive after what he had seen between the second and third removes. Because I had observed the same scene, I had no great desire to attend the group. I wished rather to speak to the bull-necked wrestler.

I found him in the marshalsea, attending his horses, requesting they be made ready at dawn of the morrow. One of the beasts, I have noted, was an uncommonly fine animal, large and strong. A dexter, certainly, suitable for a knight more than a troupe of itinerant jugglers and acrobats.

“You are off to another engagement, then?” I asked.

The wrestler turned to peer at me through the dim light provided by the two cressets which lit the stables through the night.

I introduced myself as Lord Gilbert’s surgeon — not his bailiff — as I wanted no hint of my purpose to put the fellow on his guard. One did not labor long at his business without learning to be on guard. And I was not bailiff at Goodrich, anyway.

“Not an engagement, like…not like as this. We’re off to Gloucester, an’ maybe Bristol. Set up in t’marketplace an’ the town’ll allow.”

“Do some not permit?”

“Oh, aye…there’s some. But we had success at Gloucester last year. Never tried Bristol, but there’ll be money to be made there, I think.”

“Sailors will challenge you.”

“I trust so,” he grinned.

“Some will be stout lads,” I remarked.

“All the better. Better odds when t’others take bets.”

“You’ve a new girl…since you were at Bampton at Whitsuntide.”

The wrestler’s demeanor changed, as I knew it would. “Aye,” was all he replied.

“I was not in Bampton then. I saw you first at Oxford a month ago. The new girl, she performs amazing feats.”

“Aye, she does well.”

“But not so good as the other girl, I am told.”

“No, not yet, but she learns. By summer she will do as well…for a few years.”

“A few years?” I questioned.

“Aye. No wench lasts long at her trade. They become women and can no longer bend as when they were but children.”

“The other girl; I was told she was your daughter.”

The wrestler was silent for a moment, turned to inspect his horse, then replied, “Aye…she was.”

“And she ran off with a lad you wished her not to marry?”

The wrestler’s eyes narrowed. He hesitated again. “That’s so. You know much about me and mine.”

“Local gossip,” I shrugged. “Have you news of your daughter since that day?”

“Nay. Perhaps one day she will find me.”

“But you travel about. How will she do that?”

It was his turn to shrug. “She’ll find a way.”

“When you left Bampton, at Whitsuntide, where did you travel next?”

He turned to inspect a harness, then said, “Can’t recall…’twas six months and more past.”

“Did you travel the north road, perhaps to Witney?”

“Might have done. We played at Witney, I think. Did not do well there, so went on directly…went to Banbury. Did well there.”

“Did you find a new contortionist soon?”

“Nay. ’Twas a month an’ more afore we found Agnes.”

“How old is the girl?”

“She knows not…fourteen, perhaps fifteen.”

“How old was your daughter…when she ran off?”

He turned back to me, his voice softer. “Seventeen, she was…an’ a mind of her own.”

“On your way from Bampton, the day you left for the north, did you notice along the road any sign of conflict…of a fight?”

I watched carefully for any sign that the question was uncomfortable for him, and was rewarded. I saw, in the light from the cressets, his back stiffen and the muscles of his jaw go tight.

“Nay. Saw nothin’ like that. Why do you ask?”

“A gentleman’s cotehardie, and a dagger, were found along the track north from Bampton some months ago. The look of things seemed to betoken a struggle, in which the cotehardie was discarded and the dagger lost.”

“Nay. Saw no fight, or hint of one,” he said, and to end the conversation he turned to the harness and began to rub tallow into the leather.

As I left the stable I passed an occupied stall from which came a muffled whinny and a stamping of hoofs. I peered through the dark over the half-door and saw two large eyes looking back at me from either side of a white blaze which ran from between the animal’s ears to its nose. It was the great horse I had seen from Lady Joan’s window when the wrestler’s troupe arrived on Christmas Eve.

As I studied the beast the wrestler passed me on his way to the castle yard and his tent.

“A fine animal,” I commented.

“Aye, he is that. Too fine for me, you think?” The wrestler seemed agitated at my observation and I looked about to see if any were near enough to hear, should I need help. And if the man took offense at my words and decided to attack, I would certainly need help. I tried to soothe him.

“Not at all…I…I think you and your cohorts are much skilled at what you do. You must reap great rewards. Enough to buy a fine animal such as this.”