If I displayed the rope, and asked if any owned the length it was cut from, word would soon find its way through Bampton and the Weald. Was Thomas murdered, as I believed, a guilty man would surely then hide any remnant. I decided to forego questioning neighbors in the Weald.
Kate was right. I fell readily to sleep that eve, and the next, but awoke two days later well before the Angelus Bell. In the pale light of early dawn, Kate’s steady breathing beside me, I pondered the slashed ends of hempen rope. In my bed, before even Kate’s rooster discharged his duty, it came to me where I might seek a fragment of rope like that which brought death to Thomas atte Bridge. Did I find nothing, I would know no less than I now did, but if I found a length of hempen cord it would go far to confirming my suspicions.
I rose from my bed, descended the stairs, and prodded coals on the hearth to life. I sat on a bench and fed sticks to the growing blaze until the room was warmed. Kate appeared soon after. She produced from our cup board a maslin loaf and cup of ale for me, but declined to break her fast. She complained of an uneasy stomach.
I told her then of my plan to search for a short length of rope. Kate, for all her unease, would not consider remaining behind at Galen House. So when the sun was high enough to allow inspection of even a shadowy forest we set out for Cow-Leys Corner.
But six months past Kate had searched with me outside the wall of Canterbury Hall, in Oxford, for a broken thong. She had found the bit of leather, and now she prowled with me through the wood to the north of the road, seeking a length of hempen cord. She found it.
The rope segment was as long as my arm. It lay upon a compost of rotting leaves and broken twigs, its color blending with the forest floor. Kate knew what I sought, but not why. She held the length of hemp above her head and shouted success while I was kicking through fallen, rotting leaves twenty or so paces from where the cord lay.
“What means this?” she asked when I took the rope from her to inspect it.
“Stand here,” I replied, “where you found it.”
I walked to stand under the limb where Thomas atte Bridge hung in death. I wound the cord to a ball in my hand, then threw it toward Kate. The hemp uncoiled in flight and fell at her feet, or near so, perhaps one pace beyond where she stood watching, puzzled by this exercise.
“I found a small abrasion on Thomas atte Bridge’s wrist,” I explained, “as if perhaps his hands were tied before he died.”
“Then Maud speaks true, and your suspicion is valid; her husband did not take his own life.”
“I fear so.”
“Fear?”
“Aye. Many will resent me seeking the murderer of one like Thomas atte Bridge from among their friends.”
“But you will do so?”
“Aye,” I sighed. “Some man tied Thomas by the neck to that oak, then threw away the cord he used to bind his wrists. ’Twas two men, I think. The man who carried his feet dropped them, hence the mud upon atte Bridge’s heels and the grooves in the road yonder.”
“Did they bind his feet also?”
“Nay, I think not. The tracks in the road are a hand’s breadth and more apart.”
“Did he not struggle and cry out?”
“He could not, I think.”
“Why so?”
“I found a great welt upon his lip when he was cut down. Beneath it a tooth was broken. Maud knew nothing of these injuries. He was knocked senseless, I think, then brought here and hanged so all would believe him a suicide.”
“You told no one of his injury?”
“Nay, and I will not, I think.”
“Not even Hubert Shillside?”
“The coroner is convinced that Thomas did away with himself… or is convinced that is what should be so and is what all men must think.”
“He will be of no assistance to us, then.”
“Us?”
“A wife’s duty is to be always at her husband’s side. And I found the rope,” Kate laughed.
“It is your duty to feed me, which now interests me most.”
“I have a leg of lamb ready to roast,” Kate replied. “After dinner we must consider how to find a murderer.”
“Such a discovery will require some effort. The man who did this planned well.”
“But he did not consider the mud,” Kate rejoined, “and he should not have cast aside that length of cord.”
“Aye. No felon considers all the ways his crime might go awry. We have found two misjudgments already. There may be more to discover.”
We returned to Galen House past fields where men worked with dibble sticks, poking holes into the newly turned earth to plant peas and beans. Kate set to work upon our dinner, and shortly after Peter the Carpenter knocked upon our door. He had taken a gouge out of his wrist with a chisel and required my service. It was a serious wound and bled greatly. I stitched him, bathed the wound in wine from the castle buttery, and collected tuppence. I follow the practice of Henri de Mondeville, who taught that such injuries heal best when uncovered, left open to the air. I instructed Peter to keep the wound free of dirt but placed no salve or wrapping upon it. He seemed skeptical of this treatment, but I assured him good success was sure to follow, and that I would remove the stitches in a fortnight.
There was another matter I must soon raise with Peter. His daughter was heavy with child, and unwed. It was my duty to levy fines for leirwite and childwite. I resolved to await the birth. If the babe did not live I would levy leirwite only.
The leg of lamb sizzled on a spit over the coals, but Kate was not to be found. Odd, I thought, that she would not attend the spit to keep our dinner from singeing. Grease dripped to the coals and sputtered there. The smell of roasting meat caused my stomach to growl with anticipation.
Then I heard, through the open door, Kate retching in the toft behind Galen House. She had taken no loaf to break her fast, and now seemed unlikely to enjoy her dinner. I was much concerned, but when we sat to our meal Kate assured me that her belly was much improved and I was pleased to see her take a portion of lamb and wheaten loaf.
Four days later was May Day. Youth of the town were out of their beds before dawn, gathering hawthorn boughs and wildflowers from the forests of Lord Gilbert and the Bishop of Exeter. Indeed, many, as is the custom, spent the night gamboling in forest and meadow, bringing in the May. Garlands of greenery decorated windows and doors before the third hour of the day. Hubert Shillside’s son, Will, was chosen Lord of the May. His lady was a lass of the Weald whose father held a yardland of the bishop. Kate and I watched as the couple was paraded down Church View Street with singing and laughter. I would have joined the procession, but Kate was again unwell and I did not wish to celebrate the May and its carefree joy while she was afflicted so.
Hubert Shillside also observed the revelers. He watched with pride as Will, crowned with a circlet of bluebells, led marchers past his shop. The lad was becoming a man, no longer an assemblage of knees, elbows, and overgrown feet. His form was growing to fill the gaps between those adolescent enlargements.
Walking close behind the Lord and Lady of the May I saw Alice atte Bridge. She was subdued, and I knew why. No castle scullery maid would be chosen Lady of the May, no matter her comeliness. I had seen Will Shillside giving attention to Alice in the past, but this day the maid from the Weald supplanted her.
Hubert Shillside was Bampton town’s haberdasher. He would want his son courting a lass who might bring a substantial dowry to the marriage. He had probably already had conversation with fathers of suitable maids in the town, and perhaps from Witney and Burford as well. The lass walking beside Will would have suited Shillside, but Alice, for all her beauty, would not.
Alice was half-sister to Thomas atte Bridge. Her father, a widower, had remarried late in life and Alice was the only offspring of that union. Near three years past the old man slipped on icy cobbles and broke his hip. I could do nothing for him but ease his pain as he made his way to the next world.