Unhallowed Ground by Mel Starr Read Free Book Online Page B

to the rear of their houses as we watched. Maud was in retreat, Emma shaking an angry fist in her face. Emma’s oldest son, a strapping lad of fourteen years or so, advanced behind his mother to support her cause in the dispute. She appeared capable of defending her position unaided.
    Tenants and villeins in the Weald are the Bishop of Exeter’s concern. I had no wish to place myself between two angry women, especially as the dispute was not my bailiwick. Peter seemed to think likewise. He looked at me, shrugged, and we set off again for Philip Mannyng’s house. We could yet hear Maud and Emma when we stood before Mannyng’s broken door.
    Amabil Mannyng opened the fractured door to Peter’s call. The old woman was bent with age, an affliction of her sex common to those who have seen many years pass. She had expected Peter, but was surprised to see me.
    “You’ve come to mend me door, then?” she asked, speaking to Peter, but examining me.
    “Aye, an’ do you know Master Hugh? ’E’s bailiff to Lord Gilbert.”
    “Seen ’im about. Heard ’e patched Gerard’s head.”
    Gerard is Lord Gilbert’s verderer. Two years past he had the misfortune to stand where an oak his sons were felling might swat him with a plunging limb. His skull was badly cracked. I repaired the injury, but he walks now with a limp, which I suspect will always be so.
    “Your man lies ill in his bed, I am told.”
    “Aye. Since Candlemas ’e’s been low.”
    “And near a fortnight past someone beset him in his bed?” I added.
    “They did.”
    “Perhaps I might see him. I have herbs which can comfort afflicted folk.”
    “Was going to call for you when I found ’im, but Philip wouldn’t have it. Said he’d heal well enough, an’ if not was ready to see God. ‘No use payin’ the surgeon,’ he said. My Philip’s always been tight with a penny.”
    I left Peter to inspect the splintered door and followed Amabil into the dim interior of the house. The woman’s aged husband lay upon his bed, his form so shrunken with age and illness and abuse, he seemed but an assemblage of coppiced poles beneath the bed coverings. I found myself in agreement with the old man’s prophecy: he was near to seeing the Lord Christ.
    Philip heard our conversation and approach and turned in his bed to see who disturbed his slumber. A purple bruise, beginning to turn green and yellow, stretched from his forehead to cheek. A gash across his scalp, which I might have closed with needle and silk thread, bore a thick scab. Philip would, did he live, bear a wide scar where the blow caught him. His nose was swollen, purple, and bent.
    A bench sat near the bed. I drew it to Philip’s side and introduced myself.
    “Know who you are,” he wheezed. “Seen you about the town.”
    “I am told you lay abed a Sunday and were attacked while your wife was at mass.”
    “Aye. My time is short… know that well enough.”
    “Who was it tried to hasten your passing?”
    “Dunno. Kicked in the door. That’s what woke me. I don’t see so well any more. All I remember is a fellow raisin’ a club over me. Next I knew, ’twas Sunday eve an’ Amabil and Arnulf was bendin’ over me.”
    “Door was barred,” Amabil added. “Arnulf thought it best. Philip can rise from ’is bed when needful, an’ could unbar the door when I returned.”
    “Have you been in dispute with any man that you must bar the door?”
    “Nay,” Philip managed a chuckle. “I’m near seventy years old. Too old to quarrel with any man.”
    “Why, then, would a man wait ’til you were alone, then attack you?”
    Philip shook his head weakly, and sighed. The effort seemed to pain him, for he closed his eyes and grimaced.
    “Most folk in the Weald know Philip is afflicted,” Amabil said. “It’s no secret ’e’s seldom from ’is bed.”
    “And none holds a grudge against him?”
    “Nay. My Philip was always a peaceful man.”
    Then why, I wondered, bar the door while Philip was abed