A Trail of Ink (7 page)

Historia Ecclesiastica: Bede

Arthur and I set off Monday morning to visit the stationers and booksellers of Oxford. Of such establishments there had been six when I was a lad at Balliol College. I assumed Caxton’s shop would make seven. I was wrong.

I determined to visit the other stationers first, as I hoped there might be other business to detain me at Caxton’s. I left the sixth list at a shop on the Northgate Street, and passed two other stationers new to me before Arthur and I arrived at Holywell Street before Caxton’s open shutters. I must copy two more lists.

We entered the shadowed shop and blinked in the dim interior. Caxton, behind his desk, looked up, saw me, and spoke a greeting. I thought I saw something of pleasure and relief in his eyes, but perhaps my vision was but obscured by the shadows.

“Master Hugh,” Caxton greeted me as he rose from his bench. “I am pleased to see you again. I feared, with winter near upon us, you might not call again ‘til May.”

“I have business in Oxford,” I replied.

“Always business, Master Hugh? Never pleasure?”

“Ah, well, I had hoped to combine the two.”

“Perhaps hope is not enough, Master Hugh. Perhaps you should be more businesslike in seeking pleasure.”

I was well rebuked.

“Business before pleasure. I have a list of books stolen from Master John Wyclif near a fortnight past.” I handed the summary to Caxton and he held it close before his nose to read. “Twenty-two books missing. Has any man wished to sell a volume from the list?”

Caxton read the list carefully before he answered. “A sergeant asked the same ten days ago, but he had no list. A penniless scholar wished to sell a copy of Ovid’s Metamorphoses last week, but that is not on your list, and he has not returned. I think another stationer made better offer. But no… none of these have been offered. If so any are, I am to seek you straightaway, is this not so?”

“Aye. Master John has asked my assistance, and Lord Gilbert has commissioned me to seek books and felons.”

Arthur stood behind me, cap in hand, in the door of the shop, during this conversation. So it was that when Kate slipped past him she could not see into the dim interior of the building to see who it was who spoke to her father. Arthur is so constructed as to block a view quite well.

Arthur’s place also obstructed my sight, so when Kate put her hand to mouth and blurted, “Master Hugh!” I was as startled as she. And she was but a dark shape in the door, the bright street and city wall behind her. But a pleasing shape.

An awkward silence followed, finally broken when Caxton announced that he had business to attend to in the workroom. Arthur may not read words on a page, but he can read the times. He advised that he was off to the Stag and Hounds to see to the horses and disappeared through the shop door as Caxton vanished into his workroom.

I managed to stammer a greeting and express pleasure that I should find Kate well. Perhaps that was an assumption, but she certainly appeared well.

“I thought, after last week, you might not return,” she replied. “I am pleased to be wrong.”

My wits were scrambled. This was not a new experience when in the presence of a comely maid. I managed to speak the wrong words. “I… uh, have business in Oxford… for Master John Wyclif.”

Her countenance fell. “Oh. I thought, perhaps…”

I saw my error and hurried to undo it. “I was pleased when this duty brought me to Oxford, for there is another matter here which calls for my attention.”

“What are these two matters, Master Hugh?”

“I seek a thief, and have designs to become one myself.”

Kate had moved to stand beside the open shutter. My words puzzled her. Her eyebrows rose and forehead furrowed.

“I will explain. Master John Wyclif, newly appointed warden of Canterbury Hall, has suffered a grievous loss. Twenty-two books of his were stolen from his chamber a fortnight ago while he was at supper.”

“You think the thief may try to sell the stolen books?” she mused.

“Aye. I have brought your father a record of the missing volumes. But none have been offered him for sale.”

“And what of the other business which brings you to Oxford? You seek to become a thief? I am at a loss, Master Hugh.”

“Aye, a thief. A thing may be stolen yet violate no law.”

“You speak in riddles,” she pouted.

“I will make me plain. I seek to steal a heart.”

“Ah… you speak aright, Master Hugh. Against such a theft there is no law, although mayhap a lifetime of penalty result.”

“Penalty?”

“Indeed. Dare a man steal a maid’s heart, he will own an obligation his life long… although some husbands there may be who do not see it so.”

“Perhaps some husbands see such an obligation as onerous, rather than a delight.”

“So you seek such an obligation and think gaining it a joy?”

“I do, and I would.”

“Then the maid is to be congratulated, I think, should you succeed in this theft.”

“I trust she may always think so.”

“But perhaps theft is unnecessary. Perhaps a heart may be given, and need not be stolen.”

“‘Twould surely be best, I think.”

“And what progress have you made in these matters?”

“Little, I fear. I have left a register of the stolen volumes with most of Oxford’s stationers. But there are two more since I was in attendance at Balliol College… and your father. So I must prepare two more lists.”

“If the thief took the books for his own library, what then?” Kate asked.

“This is a worry. Should none of the missing works appear at an Oxford stationer for sale, then I am at a loss. I will vex myself no more at present, and allow concern for the future to care for itself. Our Lord Christ said, `Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof.”’

“And the heart you would steal… has this been chosen?” She could not hide a smile as she spoke.

“Aye, it has. But I am not a practiced thief, and know little of how such robbery may be accomplished. I thought to walk the water meadow on the banks of the Cherwell to think on it. There is a path there, I have heard. Would you accompany me?”

“I will, Master Hugh, does my father not need me.

Robert Caxton did not need his daughter for any pressing business, and I caught a glimpse of him peering out from his workroom door as Kate and I left the shop.

We strolled east on Holywell Street to Longwall Street, past the Trinitarian Friars and St John’s Hospital, thence to the Cherwell and its fringe of willows at the East Bridge. The grass of the water meadow was short, cut for winter fodder and now but brown stubble. Across the meadow I could see, past the town wall, the wall of Canterbury Hall and the houses which stood before it. These structures lay upon rising ground, and so overlooked the town wall. To the west of Canterbury Hall the spires of St Frideswide’s Priory Church rose toward the heavens.

My attention was drawn to the three houses abutting Canterbury Hall. Three men crawled about the roof of the center dwelling. The yarnspinner would soon have a new roof.

Kate followed my eyes and noted also the activity two hundred paces to the north. I had turned my gaze back to the sluggish stream. Moving water has always held attraction for me, whether the muddy Wyre, near my childhood home at Little Singleton, or Shill Brook, at Bampton. But Kate was yet observing the thatchers and so saw as one lost his grip near the peak of the roof, slid down the slope, and dropped from the eave to the ground. I heard her catch her breath as this mishap, unknown to me, unfolded before her eyes. I turned and saw her hand rise to her lips.

“What has happened?”

“A thatcher has fallen from that rooftop just now. I saw him drop. Come… your skills may be needed.”

Kate grasped my arm and drew me in haste from the path and across the brown stubble of the meadow to the Southgate and thence up to St Frideswide’s Lane, leading east around the priory.

The fallen thatcher had been lifted to a sitting posture when Kate and I reached him. His companions were attempting to discover the extent of his injury, but this was obvious. He clutched his left shoulder with his right hand and cried imprecations whenever his companions touched the offended spot. The thatcher, I guessed, had fallen upon his shoulder and broken his collarbone, or perhaps dislocated the shoulder, or maybe both.

I had some experience with dislocated shoulders, having restored Bampton’s miller from such an injury, but had never treated a broken collarbone. Indeed, little treatment is possible for such a hurt.

As we came upon the fallen thatcher he was loudly berating the friend who had unwisely sought to examine the injury. His cries included utterances unsuited for a maid’s ears, but Kate did not blush. Rather, she pushed me toward the thatchers and spoke:

“We saw your friend fall. This is Master Hugh de Singleton, a surgeon. Perhaps he may serve…”

“A surgeon?” one repeated. “Aye, that we do need. Aymer, do you hear? The lad’s a surgeon. Fix you up in no time.”

Aymer seemed unimpressed with this announcement and continued to groan and voice anathema against the roof which had tossed him to the ground.

Aymer’s companions stood away from him and I knelt before him in their place. He quieted and peered at me, propped up now by his right hand upon the earth behind him.

The fall had dropped the thatcher nearly before the cottage door. As I went to my knees to inspect the injury, I saw the yarnspinner and his wife, attracted from the distaff by the commotion, observing the scene from the open door.

“You struck the ground upon your shoulder?” I asked.

“Aye,” he grimaced. “‘Eard somethin’ pop, like, when I hit. Don’t remember nothin’ else ‘til the lads sat me up.”

“Can you move the fingers of your left hand?”

Aymer looked to his hand, wiggled the fingers, and seemed astonished that they functioned well.

“What did I do to meself?”

“I believe you have broken your collarbone, and perhaps suffered a dislocated shoulder as well. I must conduct an examination to be certain.”

“Can you do aught for me?”

“Aye… when I have learned the nature of your injury.”

“Best have at it then.”

I took the thatcher’s left wrist in my hands and squeezed. He made no response. I moved the pressure up his arm to the elbow. Still he made no complaint.

“You have broken no bone below the elbow,” I told him.

I then pressed firmly upon his bicep. The fellow winced. “You feel pain there?” I asked.

“Nay, not in me arm. But when you pulled on me arm, me shoulder hurt.”

“‘Tis as I thought. But I must make one more test to see did you dislocate your shoulder. This may distress you some.

I took the man’s shoulder joint between the fingers of both hands and pressed to see was the joint as God made it. Aymer drew in his breath sharply, but made no other complaint. It was his good fortune I needed to make no other examination. The shoulder was not out of joint.

“‘Tis my belief,” I said as I stood to my feet, “that you have broken your collarbone and this is your only injury. Such a fracture can heal, but you may do no work until Christmastide. Your shoulder must be held immobile for many weeks.”

Aymer frowned, and peered up at me with concern and question in his eyes. “Ow do I do me work?”

“You do not… until Christmastide.”

Aymer looked up to his cohorts. They stared back silently. No offer of aid was made. From Michaelmas to Christmas must surely be the busy season for a thatcher, when folk renew their roofs for winter with reeds cut at end of summer.

I turned to the yarnspinner, observing from his door, and asked him to draw a bench to his door where I might set my patient. I had had enough of kneeling in the mud to inspect the injury.

A bench was provided, and the two undamaged thatchers assisted Aymer to it. But for his tender shoulder the fellow seemed whole enough and did not wince as he was helped from the mud to the bench.

I asked the yarnspinner for a length of cloth. It need not be linen or wool. A cheap hempen fabric would suit. While the man entered his cottage to seek out such a fragment I left my patient, with assurance that I would soon return to set his fracture aright, and with Kate at my side walked ‘round the Canterbury Hall wall to the entrance gate.