“I am Hugh de Singleton, bailiff to Lord Gilbert Talbot on his manor at Bampton, and also a surgeon.”
“Master Hugh can fix you up proper, like,” Arthur said. “Ah, well, then, I thank you. Most folk don’t care much what befalls an old woman.”
Under the woman’s cap I found a small laceration in her scalp. The cap and her braided hair had cushioned the blow. The wound required no stitches, and although there was caked blood in her hair, a scab now stopped any further flow.
“Them rogues break her ribs?” Arthur asked.
“Aye. Two, I think.”
“What’ll be done with her? Can she care for herself with two broke ribs?”
“Nay. She must be bound tight, and have care for many weeks. Return to St. John’s Hospital. Seek the infirmarer and tell him of what has happened here. Ask for two lay brothers to come for… what is your name?”
“Amabel. Amabel Maunder.”
“Have them bring a pallet. Amabel is too abused to walk, even with aid.”
Arthur departed for the hospital while I remained with my patient. I considered leaving her for a short while and seeking the New Inn, where I had left my instruments, but thought better of it. Nothing I had brought from Bampton would help Amabel Maunder, and the infirmarer at St. John’s Hospital would have linen, which could be wound tight about the old woman’s ribs to ease her pain while the bones knit, and herbs to dull the ache.
’Tis but a few paces from St. John’s Hospital to the bury, so Arthur returned with the lay brothers and a pallet in a short time. I saw Amabel received at the hospital, and made provision with the infirmarer and a sister to have her ribs bound, and for ale laced with the ground seeds of hemp to be provided her twice each day. There was nothing else to be done for Amabel, but I did promise the woman that I would return to her house, tell her neighbors of her plight, and ask them to keep watch over her house and scant possessions.
So it was that Arthur and I returned to the bury and met John Mashon. As we approached Amabel’s hut I heard from the toft next door a rhythmic thumping. I rapped upon the door of this house, but there was no response. The pounding in the toft covered the sound of my fist against the planks.
Arthur followed as I walked around the house to the toft. There I found a man flailing away upon a length of wet flax. He was preparing to make thread. The fellow was absorbed in his work, so did not notice our approach until we were nearly upon him. He stepped back in alarm when he did see us, and raised his flail before him as if to defend himself. Perhaps in the bury such readiness is needful.
“Amabel Maunder, your neighbor, was attacked last night,” I said quickly, and stopped in my place so to cause the man no further worry. “Did you see or hear anything?”
“Amabel? She’s got naught worth stealin’, and does no man harm.”
“She was not assailed for either of those reasons. She saw men lurking about Amice Thatcher’s house, and when they knew she saw, they knocked her down and kicked her. She has two broken ribs and a lump upon her head. I have taken her to St. John’s Hospital.”
“You have? Who are you?”
“A friend to Amice and Amabel. What do you know of last night and Amabel’s attackers?”
The man shook his head. “Heard somethin’ in the street, but it’s not healthful to meddle in other folk’s business.”
“Especially in the dark of night,” I agreed. “Did you hear any words which might tell who did this thing?”
The thread-maker hesitated. Perhaps he feared retribution. I assured him that I would hold his information secret. His furrowed brow did not relax. I think he set little store by my pledge, but after warring with himself, and considering what had befallen his inoffensive neighbor, he finally spoke.
“All was silent, see, else I wouldn’t ’ave heard.”
“Silent?”
“After the ruckus. ’Eard a screech, and voices, then all went still.”
“Amabel yelped when kicked,” I offered.
“Aye. They kicked ’er head, too?”
“They did. Then put her in her house, thinking she was dead, or near so.”
“Wasn’t right away after, but before I could fall to sleep I ’eard men speak, quiet like. Me wife slept through all, and the children, too. ‘We best be off,’ one said, ‘else we’ll not get back to East Hanney before day.’”
“Men love darkness rather than light,” holy writ says, “because their deeds are evil.”
Whoso had ransacked Amice Thatcher’s house, and dealt so perfidiously with Amabel Maunder, did not want anyone to know they had been upon Abingdon’s streets, so chose the night to work their malice. But where, I wondered, was East Hanney?
I had heard of the place before. The abbot was Peter of Hanney. The village must be near, for men to come from there to Abingdon and return in one night.
Arthur and I returned to the New Inn for our dinner, and while I consumed a meal of stewed capon I considered what I must do next. John Thrale’s find of coins and jewelry seemed to me likely to be hid in the forest where was found his cart and horse. Would his assailants come to the same conclusion?
Perhaps not, for they did not know of the coin Thrale had kept hidden in his cheek while they beat him. Without knowledge of the coin the men who sought his cache might look elsewhere for it, and the coins and jewels might remain where they had been hidden and safe for a thousand years.
But Amice Thatcher was not safe. I could not be sure where she was taken, but if the men who overturned her house and abused Amabel Maunder were of East Hanney, it seemed likely they had taken her and her children there. I must find the place and free the woman before some harm might come to her. If harm had not already come.
I am from Lancashire, having come to Oxford as a student at Balliol College. I know little of Oxfordshire, but I thought Arthur might know of East Hanney. He did not.
The abbey hosteler would know of the place. His abbot came from there, and, if asked, might keep my inquiry to himself. If foul deeds occurred at East Hanney, it would be well that those who did such wickedness did not know of my interest in the place.
Arthur and I hastened to the abbey after our dinner, and the porter’s assistant, when asked, went in search of Brother Theodore. The monk soon appeared with his linen bandage pressed close to his cheek, a questioning look to his features. I would not yet be permitted to deal with his fistula. He, no doubt, wondered what other business I wished with him.
“Good day, brother,” I greeted him. “Your abbot is called Peter of Hanney, is this not so?”
“Aye.”
“Where is Hanney? Is it near?”
“Aye, not far. Four miles… perhaps five.”
“Can you direct me to the place?”
“Aye. Go west on Ock Street, pass through Marcham, then take a road to the left. But if you seek the abbot, he will be here. He seldom returns to Hanney.”
“’Tis not him I seek, but two others.”
Brother Theodore’s brow furrowed. He did not ask, but I guessed his thoughts.
“I do not seek them as surgeon, but as bailiff. The woman I brought here three days past… she is missing. Two men of East Hanney, so I believe, have carried her and her children off.”
“Are these the thieves you spoke of, who did murder and were a threat to the woman?”
“Aye, the same.”
“There are two Hanneys, East and West.”
“From which does your abbot come?”
“West.”
“No matter. An abbot is not likely to have dealings with such men as took Amice Thatcher.”
At the New Inn Arthur and I made ready Bruce and the old palfrey, and shortly after the sixth hour we set off down Ock Street toward Marcham. The misty morning had become a cloudy afternoon, but dry. Wet or not, men were busy in the fields and forest as we passed by. Beechnuts and acorns littered the forest floor, and swineherds watched as their pigs sought the nuts. Final plowing of fallow fields was completed, and these fields were now being planted to wheat and rye. Small boys ranged through these newly sown fields, heaving clods at birds who would have the seed before it could be covered.