Rest Not in Peace (The Chronicles of Hugh De Singleton, Surgeon #6) Read online

  The chronicles of Hugh de Singleton, surgeon

  The Unquiet Bones

  A Corpse at St Andrew’s Chapel

  A Trail of Ink

  Unhallowed Ground

  The Tainted Coin

  Rest Not in Peace

  Text copyright © 2013 Mel Starr

  This edition copyright © 2013 Lion Hudson

  The right of Mel Starr to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Published by Lion Fiction

  an imprint of

  Lion Hudson plc

  Wilkinson House, Jordan Hill Road,

  Oxford OX2 8DR, England

  www.lionhudson.com/fiction

  ISBN 978 1 78264 008 0

  e-ISBN 978 1 78264 009 7

  First edition 2013

  Acknowledgments

  Here, drawing of Bampton Castle: Used by kind permission of Professor John Blair, Queens College, Oxford. Redrawn by Jonathan Roberts, Lion Hudson.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Cover image: Shutterstock/Sandra Kemppainen

  Another one for Susan

  Several years ago when Dan Runyon, professor of English at Spring Arbor University, learned that I had written an as yet unpublished medieval mystery, he invited me to speak to his fiction-writing class about the trials of a rookie writer seeking a publisher. He sent sample chapters of Master Hugh’s first chronicle, The Unquiet Bones, to his friend, Tony Collins. Thanks, Dan.

  Thanks to Tony Collins and all those at Monarch who saw Master Hugh’s potential. And thanks especially to my editor, Jan Greenough, who excels at asking questions such as, “Do you really want to say it that way?” and, “Wouldn’t Master Hugh do it like this?”

  Dr. John Blair, of Queen’s College, Oxford, has written several papers about Bampton history. These have been invaluable in creating an accurate time and place for Master Hugh. Tony and Lis Page have also been a wonderful source of information about Bampton. I owe them much.

  Ms. Malgorzata Deron, of Poznan, Poland, offered to update and maintain my website. She has done an excellent job. To see the result of her work, visit www.melstarr.net

  Angelus Bell: rung three times each day, dawn, noon, and dusk. Announced the time for the Angelus devotional.

  Arbolettys: a cheese-and-herb egg custard.

  Ascension Day: forty days after Easter; May 25 in 1368.

  Bailiff: a lord’s chief manorial representative. He oversaw all operations, collected rents and fines, and enforced labor service. Not a popular fellow.

  Boar in confit: honey-glazed pork fillets, served cold.

  Bodkin: a sharp, slender tool for punching holes in leather and heavy cloth.

  Book of Hours: a devotional book, usually elaborately decorated and illustrated.

  Boss: the decorative junction in a ceiling where the barrel vaulting joins.

  Braes: medieval underpants.

  Buttery: a storage room for beverages stored in butts, or barrels. A butler would be in charge of it.

  Cabbage with marrow: cabbage cooked with bone marrow, breadcrumbs, and spices.

  Candlemas: February 2. Marked the purification of Mary. Women traditionally paraded to church carrying lighted candles – hence the name. Tillage of fields resumed this day.

  Capons farced: chicken stuffed with hard-boiled egg yolks, currants, chopped pork, breadcrumbs, and spices.

  Chamberlain: the keeper of a lord’s chamber, wardrobe, and personal items.

  Chardewarden: pears cooked in wine sauce with breadcrumbs and spices.

  Charlet of cod: fish beaten to a smooth paste, then cooked with wine, vinegar, ground almonds, sugar, and spices.

  Chauces: tight-fitting trousers, often of different colors for each leg.

  Chewet: a meat or fish pie, rather like a pasty.

  Claret: originally a yellowish or pale-red wine from the Bordeaux region.

  Commissioner of Laborers: Officials chosen to enforce the Ordinance of Laborers, which limited wages to pre-1348 levels.

  Coney in cevy: rabbit stewed with onions, breadcrumbs, and spices in wine vinegar.

  Cormarye: pork roasted after marinating in red wine and spices.

  Cotehardie: the primary medieval outer garment. Women’s were floor length; men’s ranged from thigh to ankle.

  Cresset: a bowl of oil with a floating wick used for lighting.

  Crispels: pastry made with flour, sugar, and honey, and fried in lard or oil.

  Cyueles: deep-fried fritters made of a paste of breadcrumbs, ground almonds, eggs, sugar, and salt.

  Dexter: a war horse; larger than pack horses and palfreys. Also, the right-hand direction.

  Dirge: a song or liturgy of grief and lamentation.

  Eels in bruit: eels served in a sauce of white wine, breadcrumbs, onions, and spices.

  Egg leech: a thick custard, often enriched with almonds, spices, and flour.

  Farthing: one fourth of a penny; the smallest silver coin.

  Fast day: Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday; not the fasting of modern usage, when no food is consumed, but days upon which no meat, eggs, or animal products are consumed.

  Fewterer: the keeper of a lord’s kennels and hounds.

  Garderobe: the toilet.

  Gathering: eight leaves of parchment, made by folding the prepared hide three times.

  Gentleman: a nobleman; the term had nothing to do with character or behavior.

  Grocer: a wholesaler of staples.

  Groom: a household servant to a lord, ranking above a page and below a valet.

  Haberdasher: a merchant who sold household items such as pins, buckles, buttons, hats, and purses.

  Hallmote: the manorial court. Royal courts judged free tenants accused of murder or felony; otherwise manorial courts had jurisdiction over legal matters concerning villagers.

  Hanoney: eggs scrambled with onions and fried.

  King’s Eyre: a royal circuit court, presided over by a traveling judge.

  Kirtle: a medieval undershirt.

  Lammas Day: August 1, when thanks was given for a successful wheat harvest. From Old English “loaf mass.”

  Leech: a physician.

  Liripipe: a fashionably long tail attached to a man’s cap and usually coiled atop the head.

  Lychgate: a roofed gate over the entry to a churchyard under which the deceased would rest during the initial part of a medieval funeral.

  Malmsey: the sweetest variety of Madeira wine, originally from Greece.

  Mark: a coin worth thirteen shillings and four pence (i.e. 160 pence).

  Marshalsea: the stables and their associated accoutrements.

  Maslin: bread made with a mixture of grains, commonly wheat and rye or barley.

  Matins: the first of the day’s eight canonical hours (services). Also called Lauds.

  Nones: the fifth daytime canonical office, sung at the ninth hour of the day (i.e. mid afternoon).

  Page: a young male servant, often a youth learning the arts of chivalry before becoming a squire.

  Palfrey: a riding horse with a comfortable gait.

  Pantler: a valet in charge of the pantry.

  Pantry: from the French word for bread, pain. Originally a small room for bread st
orage. By the fourteenth century other items were also stored there.

  Passing Bell: ringing of the parish church bell to indicate the death of a villager.

  Pears in compost: pears cooked in red wine with dates, sugar, and cinnamon.

  Portpain: a linen cloth in which bread was carried from the bakehouse to the hall.

  Pottage: anything cooked in one pot, from the meanest oatmeal to a savory stew.

  Pottage of whelks: whelks boiled and served in a stock of almond milk, breadcrumbs, and spices.

  Poulterer: a manor employee in charge of chickens, ducks, and geese.

  Reeve: an important manor official, although he did not outrank the bailiff. Elected by tenants from among themselves, he had responsibility for fields, buildings, and enforcing labor service.

  Remove: a dinner course.

  Rice moyle: a rice pudding made with almond milk, sugar, and saffron.

  Rogation Sunday: the Sunday before Ascension Day. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were Rogation Days, also called “gang days.” A time for beseeching God for a good growing season.

  Runcie: a small, common horse of lower grade than a palfrey.

  St Benedict’s Day: June 11.

  St Beornwald’s Church: today the Church of St Mary, in the fourteenth century it was named for an obscure Saxon saint.

  St Boniface’s Day: June 5.

  St John’s Day: June 24.

  St Stephen’s Day: December 26.

  Screens passage: a narrow corridor which screened the hall from the kitchen and from which the buttery and pantry were accessed.

  See: the authority or jurisdiction of a bishop.

  Set books: the standard textbooks used by medieval undergraduates.

  Shilling: twelve pence. Twenty shillings made a pound, although there was no pound coin.

  Sinister: the left-hand direction.

  Sobye sauce: a sauce for fried fish made with white wine, raisins, breadcrumbs, and spices.

  Solar: a small room in a castle, more easily heated than the great hall, where lords preferred to spend time, especially in winter. Usually on an upper floor.

  Sole in cyve: fish boiled and served in a yellow onion sauce.

  Statute of Laborers: following the first attack of plague in 1348–49, laborers realized that because so many workers had died, their labor was in demand, and so demanded higher wages. In 1351 Parliament set wages at the 1347 level. Like most attempts to legislate against the law of supply and demand, the statute was generally a failure.

  Steward: the chief officer of a manor. Occasionally a steward would have authority over all manors belonging to his lord.

  Stockfish: the cheapest salted fish, usually cod or haddock.

  Stone: fourteen pounds.

  Subtlety: an elaborate confection, made more for show than for consumption, often served between removes.

  Toft: land surrounding a villager’s house, often used for growing vegetables and keeping chickens.

  Valets: the highest-ranking servants to a lord.

  Verderer: the forester in charge of a lord’s forest.

  Villein: a non-free peasant. He could not leave his land or service to his lord, or sell animals without permission. But if he could escape his manor for a year and a day, he would be free.

  Void: dessert – often sugared fruits and sweetened wine.

  Week-work: the two or three days of labor per week (more during harvest) which a villein owed to his lord.

  Whitsuntide: White Sunday; ten days after Ascension Day, seven weeks after Easter. In 1368, June 4.

  Yardland: about thirty acres. Also called a virgate and, in northern England, an oxgang.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Afterword

  Unwelcome guests may be a tribulation, and when they depart ’tis usually considered a blessed occasion. But not so if the visitor is a knight, and he departs to make his new home in St Beornwald’s churchyard.

  Sir Henry Burley was a small man, with a face that sloped back in all directions from a prominent nose, like a badger’s. I should probably not be commenting upon the size of another man’s nose. If ability to detect a scent was dependent upon the size of one’s nose I could likely track a stag as well as Lord Gilbert’s hounds.

  Evidently in battle at Poitiers more than a decade past, Sir Henry had done some service for my employer, Lord Gilbert Talbot. What this service was I did not learn ’til later. Lord Gilbert said only that it would cost him little to repay the knight’s valor. From this brief explanation I judged that Sir Henry had distinguished himself in battle, to Lord Gilbert’s advantage. How this could be was a mystery to me, for Lord Gilbert is nearly as tall as me, and is squarely built, while Sir Henry is – was – small and slender and, I judge, weighed little more than eight stone.

  But after nearly a month entertaining Sir Henry, his wife and daughter, two knights and two squires in Sir Henry’s service, and several valets and grooms, Lord Gilbert was clearly ready for them to depart. Sir Henry was a demanding sort of man who seemed to delight in finding fault with Bampton Castle and its inhabitants; the garderobe was not perfumed to his liking, and Lord Gilbert’s grooms and valets did not show him proper deference.

  Three days before St John’s Day, in the year of our Lord 1368, Sir Henry went to his bed hale and healthy after enjoying a long evening of music, conversation, and dancing in Bampton Castle’s hall. The next morn his valet found him cold and dead. Death is but the path to God, but most men would prefer to travel that way in some distant future day.

  Shortly after Sir Henry’s valet made this disagreeable discovery I was breaking my fast when a loud and insistent thumping upon my door drew me from my morning reverie. Kate was feeding bits of a wheaten loaf to Bessie and continued her occupation, an early summons not being unusual in Galen House. I am often sought at such an hour, either because of my profession, surgeon, or due to my service as bailiff to Lord Gilbert Talbot’s manor of Bampton. My summons this day was because of my training as surgeon, but soon called for a bailiff’s work as well.

  John, Lord Gilbert’s chamberlain, stood before me when I opened the door. I knew immediately some great matter had brought him to Galen House. A groom or valet would have been sent for some routine business.

  “Come quickly, Master Hugh. Sir Henry is dead.”

  Why the presence of a surgeon was required quickly, when the patient was dead, did not seem to have occurred to John, but I did as he bid. I had yet a part of a wheaten loaf in my hand. This I left upon our table before Kate, then explained my hasty departure, the reason for which my wife had not heard. Bessie has discovered language, and makes incessant use of the knowledge, often at great volume if she believes her words are not awarded sufficient importance. So Kate did not know who was at our door or what the reason until I told her.

  Two days earlier a page had called at Galen House. Lord Gilbert’s guest, he said, was unable to sleep. Lord Gilbert wished me to send herbs which might calm a troubled mind and bring rest. I sent a pouch of pounded lettuce seeds, with instruction to measure a thimbleful unto a cup of wine an hour before Sir Henry went to his bed.

  Usually when I am called to some place where my skill as a surgeon is required I take with me a sack of instruments and herbs, so as to be prepared for whatever wound or injury I may find. I took no implements this day. Of what use would they be to a dead man?

  I questioned John regarding the matter as we hurried down Church View Street to Mill Street, crossed Shill Brook, and approached the castle gatehouse. As we spoke I heard the passing bell ring from the tower of the Church of St
Beornwald.

  “Lord Gilbert wishes your opinion as to what has caused this death,” John said. “The man was in good health yesterday. Complained of no illness. Lord Gilbert, I think, fears poison or some such thing which might cast blame on him and his household.”

  John did not say, but I suspect Lord Gilbert worried that the lettuce seed I provided to aid Sir Henry’s sleep might have contributed to his death.

  “Is there reason to suspect evil in this?” I asked.

  “None… but that the man was robust one day and a corpse the next.”

  “Men may die of a sudden. ’Tis known to occur.”

  “Aye, when they are aged.”

  “But Sir Henry was not. I dined with him a week past, when Lord Gilbert invited me to his table. How old was the man?”

  “Forty-six, his wife said.”

  Faces of those who greeted me in the Bampton Castle hall were somber, lips drawn tight and thin. Lord Gilbert and Lady Petronilla sat in earnest conversation with an attractive woman whom I recognized as Lady Margery, Sir Henry’s wife. Lord Gilbert stood when he saw John usher me into the hall, spoke briefly to the widow, then approached. Over Lord Gilbert’s shoulder I saw Lady Margery rise from her chair, her face twisted into a venomous glare. She began to follow Lord Gilbert, but Lady Petronilla laid a hand upon her arm and spoke, and the woman resumed her place. The hate in her eyes remained.

  “I give you good day,” I said to my employer.

  “Much thanks, Hugh, but the day is ill. John has told you?”

  “Aye. Your guest was found dead this morning.”

  “He was. And no sign of what caused the death… which is why I sent for you. A surgeon or physician might more readily see what indisposition has caused this.”

  “You have seen the corpse?”

  “Aye.”

  “And you saw nothing out of sorts?”

  “Not a thing. All was as a man should be when asleep, but for his eyes. They were open. The body is unmarked. Sir Henry was not a young man, but he was in good health yesterday.”