A Trail of Ink (27 page)

I had intended to call upon the new sheriff, mention my employer, and learn could Lord Gilbert’s name bring me Sir Roger’s aid. Sir Jocelin Hawkwode and his companions hastened this visit. Perhaps God chose to contrive my call upon Sir Roger this day, and devised this method to get me to the castle. If so be, it succeeded remarkably well.

This was my third visit to the castle. I was learning my way about the place. I knew well where to find the sheriff’s chamber and set off for the hall with resolute steps. None challenged my passage. I gave appearance of knowing where I was going and seemed to have reason for going there. And a man wearing a fur coat on a cold day is thought to be of some means and therefore worthy of a warder’s deference.

The anteroom before Sir Roger’s chamber was already crowded with supplicants. I heard the hum of conversation while I was yet in the passage leading to the chamber. A dozen or more men and two women crowded the room. Many held documents in hand or rolled under an arm. A clerk, unknown to me, looked up from a table which guarded the door to the sheriff’s chamber. His visage spoke; words were unnecessary: “Another who seeks a post or favor from Sir Roger.”

The place before the clerk’s table was empty. Those in the hall had presented their petitions and now awaited Sir Roger’s will. The wait, I thought, might be long. I decided to see what Lord Gilbert Talbot’s name might do to speed my appeal.

“I am Hugh de Singleton, bailiff to Lord Gilbert Talbot at his manor of Bampton. Lord Gilbert and Sir Roger fought side by side at Poitiers.”

This information did not seem to impress the clerk. He shifted his gaze to admire his fingernails.

“Lord Gilbert has sent me to Oxford on a matter of some urgency,” I continued. This was not exactly true, but was not untrue, either. “Lord Gilbert would be much pleased should Sir Roger find occasion to assist in the difficulty. Perhaps you might inform Sir Roger of my presence and Lord Gilbert’s request.”

The clerk rolled his eyes but did as I asked. As bailiff to Lord Gilbert I have much authority in Bampton, and some even in Oxford. Though it is true in Oxford I must occasionally flee from miscreants who respect neither me nor my employer.

The clerk pushed open the heavy oaken door and I heard voices through the aperture. Sir Roger had a guest already. The clerk stood in the doorway and repeated my words nearly as I had spoken them. The fellow was practiced at relaying messages to his master.

When the clerk was silent I heard a chair scrape across the flags and a heartbeat later a round, florid face appeared beyond the clerk, peering at me through the open door from under a pair of the shaggiest eyebrows I have ever seen. On a bright day Sir Roger carries with him his own shade.

“Bailiff for Lord Gilbert, eh,” Sir Roger exclaimed, and pressed past his clerk through the doorway. “How does he? Is well, I hope. Enter… enter. How may I assist him?”

I did not hesitate. As I passed into the inner chamber I caught sight of envious glances from those who were before me seeking audience with Sir Roger. I felt guilty, but the emotion soon passed.

The sheriff’s previous caller stood before a table which occupied the center of the chamber. A chair rested upon the flags behind him, and another where Sir Roger must have sat, was placed across the table from the visitor.

I did not know the supplicant I had displaced, but it was clear from his behavior that he was unwilling to leave Sir Roger’s presence. The sheriff, however, seemed pleased for the interruption as opportunity to chase the fellow away.

“Be assured, Sir Thomas, that I will give the matter scrutiny.” This the sheriff said while placing a meaty hand upon the small of Sir Thomas’ back and firmly thrusting him toward the door. Sir Roger then nodded to his clerk, and the fellow pulled the door shut firmly before Sir Thomas could turn to protest his expulsion.

“Your name again?” Sir Roger asked.

“Hugh de Singleton.”

“And in Gilbert Talbot’s service at Bampton?”

Aye.

Sir Roger motioned to the empty chair, and when I sat he drew up the other chair across the table.

“Is Lord Gilbert well? And Lady Petronilla? I’ve not seen m’lord since…” Sir Roger went to stroking his graying beard, then continued. “Since Whitsuntide four years past. He was at Pembroke. When plague returned he thought it was well to be in a barren place. Offered sanctuary to me and Anne until the pestilence passed and ‘twas safe to return to Oxford.”

“He is well, and Lady Petronilla and Master Richard, also.”

“Excellent. Well, how may I serve Lord Gilbert?”

I told Sir Roger of Master John’s stolen books, my arrest for stealing my own coat, and the attack on the road to Eynsham. I spoke of the death of Robert Salley and the recovery of Sentences. I related how assailants had come over the Canterbury Hall wall and carried me and Arthur to the forest. I told of Sir Simon Trillowe’s name spoken, and Robert Salley’s corpse mentioned, and recounted our escape and watching from a hedgerow as Sir Simon passed by. And then I spoke of a red-bearded knight who wore a green surcoat, and who but moments before had chased me to the castle - Sir Jocelin Hawkwode.

I saw Sir Roger’s lip curl in distaste, as if he had taken a sip of costly Rhenish wine and found it gone to vinegar. I thought this a signal that he knew Sir Jocelin and, was I patient, I might discover his opinion of the knight.

“A hyena who will follow any lion,” Sir Roger scoffed.

“I have hopes this is so,” I replied. “What Sir Simon may have to do with Master John’s stolen books I cannot guess. But I hope that Sir Jocelin might know, and be willing to say if pressed. Sir Simon and his father have no longer the authority to control or protect him. Why then would he protect them at his own peril?”

“Sir Jocelin will bluster like a champion when he feels power behind him,” Sir Roger agreed, “but when the wind turns he’ll bend, I think. Let us see.”

Sir Roger lifted his surcoat from a hook on the wall and motioned me toward the door. When it opened all eyes in the clerk’s anteroom turned to us, and several there who were seated stood to their feet. The sheriff turned to his harried clerk. “Urgent matters demand attention,” he said loudly, so all could hear. “My return is uncertain.”

A warder stood guard in the passage outside the clerk’s chamber. Sir Roger directed the fellow to collect six sergeants and report to the gatehouse immediately. This command the sheriff barked in a tone which sent the man scurrying without a backward glance.

I followed Sir Roger down a stairway and thence to the castle forecourt. The warder and six armed men were but moments behind us in reaching the gatehouse. It would be unwise, the warder surely realized, to displease the new sheriff.

Two of the men who followed the warder were those who had appeared along the Cherwell five days past when I pulled poor Salley from the river. If they recognized me they made no sign. It is surely useful for a man to appear enigmatic when his overlord is supplanted.

It is but a few paces from the castle to Hawkwode’s house. Sir Roger sent three men to the small toft behind the place to apprehend any who might depart the house there; the others accompanied us to the door, where Sir Roger, without hesitation, banged loudly with the pommel of his dagger.

Someone saw us approach, for the door swung open but a heartbeat after Sir Roger ceased pounding upon it. A servant, quite ragged in appearance, stood at the open door. Sir Roger did not wait for his greeting.

“Sir Jocelin Hawkwode,” he bellowed. “Inform him his presence is required.”

“Uh, Sir Jocelin is not within, m’lord.”

“Oh? Where has he gone?”

“I know not, m’lord.”

“When did he leave?”

“Yestere’en, m’lord.”

You lie,” Sir Roger bawled, and pushed past the quaking servant. I and the warder and three sergeants followed.

“Search the place,” Sir Roger directed. He then turned to the servant, who gave every appearance of a man whose knees were about to fail him. The man had backed against a wall for support, else I think he must surely have collapsed.

“Where is he? Speak, man, or there will be a cell for you in yon castle.”

I am uncertain if the man did not wish to speak, or could not. His mouth worked, but no sound came forth. Sir Roger stepped closer to the servant, his arms akimbo, those great eyebrows furrowed to trenches plowed across his forehead. In similar place I might have shuddered a bit myself.

“Well?” Sir Roger spoke softly now, but there was menace in his voice. The silent servant swallowed and pointed to the stairs.

Sir Roger turned abruptly from the shaken man and strode to the stairway. I followed, and drew my dagger from its sheath. Preparation could do no harm.

A passage led the length of the dwelling from the top of the stairs. The sheriff had just set a thundering boot in this corridor when much shouting came from the toff behind the house. I ducked through a nearby door and crossed the room to a window which opened to the rear of the house. Ten paces or so behind the house was a small stable. Between house and stable was a yard of bare, muddy earth. A tangle of arms and legs were intertwined there in the muck. It was not readily apparent how many cursing, shouting men were engaged in the conflict, but it was sure that the sheriff’s men there had apprehended some who wished to depart the precinct unobserved.

Sir Roger crashed back down the stairway. I thought to follow, but reconsidered. I peered again through the glass window at the fight below me. The contest was nearly done, the sheriff’s men in the toft being now supported by the arrival of the others who had accompanied us to the front door. Two young gentlemen were being pulled roughly from the mud to their feet. Neither of them wore green or possessed a red beard.

I returned to the corridor and opened doors to other chambers until I found a room with an open window, from which the two apprehended in the toft had dropped moments before. Along one wall was a large, iron-bound chest, heavily carved. I entered the room, muttered an expression of disappointment, then slammed the door to the passageway shut while I remained, silent, in the chamber.

I had not long to wait. I soon saw movement. The lid of the chest raised a finger-width. Someone inside the chest was peering through the slit to learn was he alone in the chamber. Pressed against the wall, aside the chest, I was near invisible to whoever it was hiding there. Well, I knew who it was.

A great urge to startle the fellow came upon me. I waited until the lid was raised as high as my hand is wide, then plunged both hands down upon it, all of my insubstantial weight behind the stroke. The lid crashed down and a heartbeat later I heard a muffled yelp. This was most gratifying.

My dagger was yet in my hand. I held it at the ready and lifted the lid. Sir Jocelin Hawkwode lay curled in the chest, sucking upon a finger. The unlucky digit had apparently been caught between lid and chest when I banged down the cover. I felt no remorse. This may be a sin. I must ask Master John.

I believe Hawkwode did not at first know who stood over him with drawn dagger. He cursed me, not an easy thing to do with a wounded finger between his lips, then scrambled from the chest.

“You!” he exclaimed when vertical. He knew then who had brought the sheriff to his door.

“Aye, Hugh de Singleton, friend to Master John Wyclif and bailiff to Lord Gilbert Talbot. The same Lord Gilbert who is friend to Sir Roger de Elmerugg, newly appointed sheriff of Oxford and who, unless I mistake me, is about to return to the house from the toft, seeking you.,,

Sir Jocelin remembered his disheveled condition and left off nursing his hurt finger long enough to straighten his cotehardie and smooth his cap. A green surcoat was not part of his dress, but I was sure it would be discovered somewhere in the place. It was.

I heard a door slam below me. Moments later Sir Roger bellowed up the stairway, “Hugh, where are you?”

I motioned to Sir Jocelin, intending him to precede me through the door and down the stairs. He had another plan. He spun around, ducked past my dagger, which I was slow to raise, and dove for the open window.

The man was quick on his feet, but so am I. As he went through the window I discarded my dagger and leaped to arrest his flight. I caught one heel with both hands as he straddled the window frame. Momentum caused his body to continue its path out the window while my grip held one foot in place. I braced a knee against the window sill and held tight to Sir Jocelin’s ankle. One man had escaped me through a window. I was determined that another would not. A moment later the knight dangled, kicking and squalling, from the window, suspended a dozen feet or so above the mud of the toft.

Sir Jocelin’s cries brought Sir Roger back to the toff. He looked up to find the source of the tumult and beheld Hawkwode, heels over head, suspended from a window. Above the bawling Sir Jocelin the sheriff saw me, my hands clenched tight about the fellow’s ankle. This task would have offered Arthur little challenge, but my grip was not so sure, and I was near to letting the fellow fall.

This was too much for Sir Roger. He stared openmouthed for a moment, then laughed. This became a roaring guffaw. The sheriff slapped his thighs with glee and soon the warder and sergeants were also snickering. Even Sir Jocelin’s friends saw humor in the spectacle and grinned.

Sir Roger soon recovered his composure, took stock of the situation, and shouted advice. “Drop him,” he suggested. It is always best to obey authorities. I did. And in truth I could hold the man no longer.

Sir Jocelin landed upon his head in the mud of the toff. Two of the sheriff’s men were immediately upon him, but their restraint was unnecessary. The fellow was in no mood or condition to attempt escape.

I left the window and hastened to the toft. Hawkwode was on his feet when I arrived. The warder and sergeants were yet grinning at his head-first arrival there.

“This is the fellow?” Sir Roger asked.

“Aye.”

“The others?” he asked as he glanced to Sir Jocelin’s companions. “Were they a part of this business?”

“I do not recognize them, but it may be so.”