The Unquiet Bones (14 page)

“Is imperfect justice better than no justice?” I asked.

“It must be, else there would be no justice at all. Justice is the work of men, who are imperfect. You must not be content with less than your best work, whether it be in surgery or seeking malefactors. But when you have done your best, put the conclusion of the matter in God’s hands and rest content.”

“I did not do my best in the matter of Thomas Shilton.”

“No; I agree. But I think you will not be inclined to such an error again. Good night, Hugh. Seek me again when you are next in Oxford. I would learn more of these mysteries you must resolve.”

Next morning Arthur and I escorted Margaret Smith through the muddy streets of Oxford as terce rang from the priory church of St Frideswide. We passed the marketplace as we approached the castle. There a troop of jugglers and acrobats, with two musicians accompanying, were preparing to begin their entertainments.

Arthur slowed his pace as we passed the outskirts of the throng gathered to watch the performers on their small wooden stage.

“These were at Bampton in t’spring,” Arthur remarked. “I remember them well. Watch the juggler, he will toss four daggers in the air and keep them aloft without injury to himself.”

Margaret and I stopped in obedience to Arthur’s command. It was as he said. The juggler was indeed skillful.

“There are others, also,” Arthur advised, “jugglers, and a knife thrower, and a wrestler who is never defeated, and a contortionist. She can twist herself into the most fantastic coils.”

The wrestler and contortionist might be entertaining, but Margaret and I had a more immediate duty.

“You may remain, Arthur. There is no obligation for you at the castle, as there is for us. We will seek you here when our task is done.”

Sir Roger, as was his custom, did not wish to see me, but I protested with his clerk until the sheriff deigned to permit me entry to his chamber.

“I have,” I told him, “a girl waiting in your outer rooms who is thought to be dead.” That arrested his attention. “We convicted her killer yesterday, and you have been commanded to hang him tomorrow.”

“Thomas Shilton?” Sir Roger said incredulously.

“The same. He has been accused of the death of one who is alive. I found her last night serving at an inn near Balliol College.”

“But you had a corpse,” he spluttered. “You gave evidence. You specifically mentioned a broken bone, I remember.”

“I did. And the lass waiting in your outer room had such a break in her foot long ago. This sorry business is my doing. Now it must be undone.”

“You are certain of the wench you found?”

“See for yourself.” I nodded toward the entrance. “She stands beyond your door.”

The sheriff drew his bulky frame from a creaking chair and followed my gaze to his chamber door. He cracked it and peered through for a moment, then yanked it open and strode into the outer room.

Margaret stood, downcast before Sir Roger, feeling his imposing gaze upon her. Sir Roger in his prime must have been a formidable man; even now I would prefer to have him on my side in a fight rather than against me.

“You are Margaret Smith of Burford?” he rumbled. Even if she were not, she would have wished with every bone in her body that she was.

“Aye, sir…I am,” she whispered.

“You have caused me considerable trouble. I sent men ranging across the shire to arrest a man thought to have taken your life. Master Hugh, here, has diligently sought justice for you. All thought you murdered. A man awaits death tomorrow for the deed.”

Margaret blanched. “You will set him free?” she asked in quaking voice.

“Sir William must do that. The judge who passed sentence.”

“Will you seek him straight away to do so?” Margaret pleaded.

“He is a king’s itinerant justice. Yesterday this term of the king’s eyre ended its work in Oxford. Today he is to return to London.”

“What,” I asked, “will you do if he cannot be found to reverse his judgment? Surely you will not carry out the sentence?”

I cannot tell whether or not he would have done, but Margaret surely thought so. She began to weep as the sheriff spoke.

“I have a duty to the law,” he said, “and must perform it, unless the law itself requires other.”

Margaret produced a great wail and sank to the flagging at his feet. Her words were muffled but through her sobs came a plea that the sheriff do all in his power to see justice done and the verdict overturned. This business was not going at all well. I had thought the matter a simple one; produce Margaret, allow her to tell the sheriff her tale, see Thomas Shilton freed and off to his home, then set off with Arthur for Bampton before the sixth hour. The law, I discovered, was more ponderous than that.

With a few sharp commands Sir Roger sent a sergeant to fetch Sir William – if he was yet at his lodging in the castle. If his party was gone, the sergeant was to take a troop of men to overtake him on the road to London and return him to Oxford. “A matter of life and death,” the judge was to be told if he was reluctant to return.

Margaret and I waited, she sniffling, I tapping one foot, then the other, against the stone flagging of the clerk’s chamber. It was nearly the sixth hour when the sergeant reappeared, breathless, to tell the clerk that Sir William had been overtaken near Wheatley, persuaded with some difficulty to return, and was at that moment dismounting his horse in the castle yard.

I walked to a window which gave a view over the castle yard. Sir William was striding to the castle entrance accompanied by two grooms and his clerk. His face and manner both indicated a dark mood. Understandable, I thought, for a man who expected to sleep in his own bed on Saturday night and was now prevented from doing so.

The judge disappeared from my view. Moments later heavy footfalls in the outer passage warned of his arrival. The door opened abruptly and banged against the wall. Margaret jumped.

“What’s this about, then?” Sir William demanded of the clerk. This minion seemed overjoyed that he would not be required to answer the question. He bowed and announced that Sir Roger would explain all. Then, with a disparaging glance at Margaret and me, he opened the door to Sir Roger’s chamber and announced Sir William’s arrival.

If the sheriff was awed by the judge’s dudgeon, he covered it well. He invited Sir William to his chamber, closed the door behind him, and left me, Margaret, and the clerk gazing at each other. The clerk did most of his gazing at Margaret, who, in spite of her condition, was well worth the occasional glance.

The door to Sir Roger’s room was heavy, but I could plainly hear voices in strident conversation behind it. But one of the voices was strident at first, then gradually both were.

The clerk resumed his seat behind a desk, trying to act engaged and unconcerned about the encounter behind the door. Margaret and I remained standing at the window.

The door to the sheriff’s chamber opened abruptly and crashed against the wall. The clerk leaped to his feet so abruptly that he rapped a knee smartly against his table. His muffled curse was submerged under Sir William’s loud demand.

“Where is this girl, then?”

I should have thought that was obvious. Margaret stepped forward a pace in answer.

“So you have caused this confusion, eh?”

“’Twas not my intention, m’lord.”

“Whether or not, I will not see home tomorrow eve.”

“I am sorry.”

“Sorry won’t get me to London. Seven weeks I’ve been on King Edward’s business. Why did you run off and send a youth near to the gallows?”

“I did not want to bring shame to my father,” Margaret whispered. Sir William looked down at her belly.

“Ah. You thought he would be better pleased if he thought you were dead, rather than making of him a grandfather before he had a son-in-law? Is that how ’tis?”

The answer to that question, I thought, was that Margaret had fled Burford without thinking at all. Margaret made no reply, but her spirit was returning, for she refused to drop her eyes in some admission of guilt.

“Well,” Sir William lifted a document before her, “this business has vexed me, but I’ll not see a man hang because some daft wench has fled hearth and home.”

He laid the document on the clerk’s desk. “A pen,” he demanded.

The clerk produced the article and a pot of ink from a shelf behind him. Sir William wrote a sentence on the sheet, then signed his name at the bottom with a flourish.

“There…set the lad free. Now, may I resume my journey?” – this to Sir Roger – “or is there another matter yet to detain me?” This he spoke in a sarcastic tone, intended, I think, to wither Sir Roger. He did not succeed. The sheriff had stood, his arms folded, throughout the exchange between Sir William and Margaret. Now he smiled sweetly, or as sweetly as any king’s sheriff is likely ever to smile.

“We will not delay you longer, Sir William. We trust you will have a pleasant journey and find all well at your home. You shall rest easy this night, knowing you have saved a king’s loyal subject from death on the scaffold.” There might be, I suppose, some debate about Thomas Shilton’s loyalty to King Edward, but this was not the moment to raise the point.

“Harumph…yes…no doubt.” And with another “harumph,” Sir William stalked from the clerk’s chamber. I heard him summon his clerk and grooms, who had remained in the passageway throughout the exchange, and together they stomped off down the hall, their heavy riding boots punctuating Sir William’s departure.

Sir Roger handed the release document to his clerk. “Show this to the jailor and release Thomas Shilton, then preserve it in the registry. Bring Thomas here. He is entitled to an explanation,” he turned to Margaret and me, “from you!”

I bowed and nodded. There was nothing to be said. The sheriff was correct.

A few minutes later footsteps echoed in the passageway outside the clerk’s door. Margaret shrank behind me and glanced at the window as if to measure the possibility of escape. The clerk pushed the door open and motioned Thomas Shilton through it.

Thomas, his eyes blinking in the unaccustomed light, glanced at me, Margaret, and the sheriff with open mouth and stunned expression. Sir Roger, his lips pursed, nodded to me. I recognized the gesture, stood to one side to unshield the cowering Margaret, and began my explanation.

I told him of my misgivings about his guilt, my time with Master John Wyclif, of Margaret’s flight and the reason for it, and how I discovered her. I concluded with an apology for the trouble I had brought to him. This was no deception. I trust he felt it sincere.

“And now,” I concluded, “Margaret wishes to return to her father.” Whether or not this was true I did not know, but I was convinced it should be true, and that at this moment someone needed to push her in that direction. So I did. “Shall I take her to him, or will you?”

Thomas did not speak for a moment. The silence was only for a few seconds, but it seemed hours before he spoke. I was nearly convinced that I would see duty as her escort back to Burford when Thomas finally spoke through thin lips and tight jaw.

“I will see her to her father. We have much to speak of on the way.”

From his tone I thought most of the talk would come from him. Margaret remained silent throughout this exchange, but I had seen enough of her spirit to know that had his words displeased her, she would have informed us. I took her silence as acquiescence, which proved to be correct.

“How will you travel?” I asked.

“Walk. ’Tis not so far,” Thomas replied.

“The road is mud,” I remarked.

Thomas shrugged. “We will keep to the verge. If travel be strenuous, we will seek shelter at Witney and finish the journey tomorrow.” He said this with a long glance at Margaret’s belly.

“Then be off,” Sir Roger commanded. In my apology to Thomas and the further discussion, I had forgotten that the sheriff was an observer. I took his words as a charge to me, as well, and so made to follow Thomas and Margaret out the door. I was mistaken.

“Master Hugh,” Sir Roger called as I was about to step into the passageway. “Will you renew your effort to find a murderer?”

“Aye. Lord Gilbert is adamant about the matter. He will surely demand I continue the search. And now it is my bailiwick.”

“Quite so…quite so. Well, have you need of my office, send a man and I will provide what aid you require. Murder is the king’s business, and in the shire, it becomes my business.”

I thanked him for his offer, which I thought generous after the fraud I had put on him. The truth was, at that moment I had no scheme to seek further into the matter of either misplaced bones or buried gentlemen.

I walked from the castle gate to the market, seeking Arthur along the way. I thought he might have tired of the entertainment, but not so. He stood at the fringe of the crowd watching a man throw daggers at a tiny, dark-haired girl who stood unflinching against a panel of boards erected to catch the whirling weapons. The blades fixed themselves to this screen only inches from the girl, who remained immobile, a smile frozen to her face, throughout the display.

The multitude shouted approval when the last dagger was hurled to its target. Then a short, brawny, thick-necked fellow of indeterminate age stepped to the small platform the troupe had erected and challenged all to wrestle. A challenger who could defeat this champion would win sixpence. Others of the troupe circulated through the audience, taking bets and giving odds. I declined the offered wager when it came my turn, not being much of a sporting type.

The wrestler dispatched three opponents in quick succession, then belittled some men in the crowd for refusing his challenge. These smiled sheepishly, shook their heads, and would not be persuaded. They had seen with what ease he conquered those foolish enough to take his dare. His strength was surely great, but it seemed to me as I watched the matches that he won as much through skill and technique as sheer brawn.

The wrestler stepped from the stage and the girl who was the target for the knife-thrower vaulted onto it, flipping head-over-heels from the ground to land on the elevated boards. She proceeded to twist herself into impossible positions, walked about the platform on her hands, then, supported only by her hands, concluded the performance by raising her feet until they were behind her head. The crowd applauded while the knife-thrower and an older woman walked through the mob, baskets in hand, collecting farthings and pennies from the appreciative audience. I threw in a penny and felt myself charitable. Well, Christmas would soon be upon us.