Unhallowed Ground by Mel Starr Read Free Book Online Page A

a bag of tools slung over a shoulder and was evidently called to exercise his carpentry skills. Some lives must continue even when others cease.
    “A fine day for labor,” I remarked, finding any other subject of conversation uncomfortable.
    “Aye. If I keep me hands busy I can keep me thoughts from Jane an’ what befell her. Father Thomas says hate is an evil thing. We are to love others. How can a man love one who ravished his daughter, her but a maid, an’ sent her to her death?”
    Choosing a contrary subject for conversation with one who is single-minded is not readily done.
    “The Lord Christ commands us to love our enemies,” I replied. “Even those who use us badly.”
    “Aye, so the priests say. Don’t say ’ow to do it, though, an’ they don’t have daughters to be despoiled… Well, there be some as do, I suppose.”
    “Where does your work take you this day? I will walk with you if it be toward the castle.”
    “In the Weald. Some man did hamsoken there while all were thought to be at mass. Broke down the door, an’ I’ve got to place a new door-post an’ set the hinges right.”
    “Who was attacked?”
    “Philip Mannyng.”
    “He is an aged man, is he not?”
    “Aye. Keeps to ’is bed most days. Amabil went off to church, an’ come home to find ’im beaten. Senseless, he was.”
    “Who did such a thing?”
    “Couldn’t say. Amabil asked, of course. He couldn’t remember. Whoso done it took a club to ’is head while ’e was sleepin’. Amabil said as ’e had great lumps on ’is skull an’ ’is nose broke.”
    “Did they complain to the vicars?”
    “Oh, aye. Father Simon come to see the damage an’ what could be done. Philip could recall nothing.”
    “Do Philip and Amabil have enemies in the Weald? They are the bishop’s tenants, so I know little of doings there.”
    “Don’t know much of what ’appens in the Weald meself, but never heard anything against ’em. Arnulf is wrathful an’ seeks whoso did it.”
    “Arnulf?”
    “Arnulf Mannyng, Philip’s son. Has a yardland of the bishop, an’ works ’is father’s lands.”
    I tried to fit a face to the name, but could not. Arnulf Mannyng had evidently done nothing to draw the attention of Lord Gilbert Talbot’s bailiff. Probably, like most men, he is content to live a quiet life with wife and children. A man much like Peter Carpenter, perhaps. An attack upon an aged and infirm parent might cause even a placid man to do injury to the assailant. Who would be most angry, I wondered – a man whose daughter was violated to her death, or one whose parent was attacked? I resolved to learn more.
    “I will walk with you to the Weald. Keeping the peace there is the vicars’ business, but I would know more of the matter.”
    Peter said no more, but a man would not need to be clairvoyant to guess my interest. Together we crossed the bridge over Shill Brook and turned to the lane leading to the Weald. Philip Mannyng’s house stood near the end of the narrow road. To reach it we passed the dwellings of Maud and Emma atte Bridge, two widows who now lived without beatings if also without a husband’s labor at field and hearth. I wondered what they thought of the exchange.
    A small, dirty face peered out of the open door of Emma’s hut, but otherwise the houses were silent. That is, until Peter and I had walked twenty paces or so past. Then, of a sudden, we heard feminine voices. Father Thomas, deaf as he is, might have heard them. Indeed, he might have heard them from Mill Street.
    The words were indistinct, but the shrieking came from behind the atte Bridge hovels. Peter peered at me from under questioning brows and we halted to better discover the source and meaning of the screeching. Across the lane I saw a woman look out from her open door, shake her head in disgust, then disappear about her work. Her reaction seemed token that such din was not uncommon in the Weald.
    Emma and Maud appeared in the space between their tofts