Chapter 1

I had told my Kate for several days that St. John’s Day should not be considered midsummer. Roger Bacon, the great scholar of an earlier century, and Robert Grosseteste before him, showed how the calendar has gone awry. Bacon told all who would listen that an extra day is added to the calendar every one hundred and thirty years or so, and so in the year of our Lord 1369 we are ten days displaced. Kate laughed.

“What difference,” she asked, “even if ’tis so?”

“Saints’ days, and the seasons,” I replied, “are out of joint.”

“Oh… aye.” But she was yet unconvinced, I think, so when men of Bampton began gathering wood for the Midsummer’s Eve fire I said no more. We would make merry with others of the town and castle, and celebrate the warm days of summer, regardless of the calendar. I have been wed three years and more. I know when to hold my peace.

The great pile of fallen branches from Lord Gilbert Talbot’s forest was raised in a fallow field to the north of the Church of St. Beornwald. For three days fuel was added. I watched the pile grow each day, little suspecting that the daily increase would soon bring me much consternation.

Kate had tied green birch twigs above our door in honor of the summer, so when we departed Galen House at dusk to watch the lighting of the St. John’s Day fire I had to duck my head to avoid entangling my cap in the greenery.

I am Hugh de Singleton, surgeon, and bailiff to Lord Gilbert Talbot at his manor of Bampton. I thought that Lord Gilbert might, with some of his knights, attend the Midsummer’s Eve blaze. The Lady Petronilla died a year past, when the great pestilence returned, and Lord Gilbert was much distressed. But when he returned to Bampton in the spring, after spending the winter at Goodrich Castle, I thought he seemed somewhat recovered from his great sorrow.

Lord Gilbert did not attend, but several of his retainers – knights, gentlemen and their ladies, valets and grooms – did so. I am not much given to capering about like a pup chasing its tail, so stood aside and lifted my Bessie to my shoulder so that she could better see as others danced about and played the fool, aided in their efforts, no doubt, by great quantities of ale.

Bessie has discovered speech, and exercised her vocabulary as the flames reached into the sky as high as the roof of Father Thomas’s vicarage, which stood a safe distance to the east. Kate held Sybil in her arms. The babe is but four months old, is unimpressed by anything inedible, and so slept through the shouts and singing and garish illumination.

Bessie also soon became limp against my shoulder. The merry-making would continue without us. Kate and I returned to Galen House, put our daughters to bed, and fell to sleep with the raucous sound of celebration entering our chamber through the open window.

I was breaking my fast next morning with a loaf and ale when I heard the church bell ring in a solemn cadence. The passing bell. The Angelus Bell had sounded an hour before. Someone in Bampton or the Weald had died in the night. At nearly the same moment a hammering upon Galen House door jolted me from my semi-comatose condition. The pounding ceased and a man shouted, “Master Hugh,” in a voice which might have awakened half the residents of Church View Street. It did awaken Sybil, who instantly realized that she was hungry and began to wail. Kate hastened to the stairs to deal with our daughter while I stumbled to the door to learn who was awake so early after such a night.

Father Thomas’s clerk, Bertrand Pecock, stood before me, his fist ready to again strike against the Galen House door if I had not opened it.

“Master Hugh, Father Thomas would have you attend him. There are bones.”

“Bones?” I replied stupidly. I am not at my best until an hour or so has passed since Kate’s rooster has announced the dawn.

“Men gathering the ashes found them.”

“Ashes?”

“Aye… from the St. John’s Day fire. To spread upon a pea field. They came to the vicarage to tell Father Thomas. He has sent me to tell you of this foul discovery and to fetch the coroner.”

“The bones are human?”

“Aye. There is a skull. I have just come from the place.”

In past years men would often pitch the bones of swine into a St. John’s Day fire so as to ward off sickness in cattle and men. ’Twas thought to do so would prevent aerial dragons from poisoning streams and ponds of a night with their foul froth. But I had not heard of this being done at Bampton since I came to the village. Of course, men might toss a few bones into the pile of wood as a precaution, I suppose, and none know of it.

Kate descended the stairs from our chamber carrying Sybil, with Bessie holding tight to her mother’s cotehardie. I told my wife of the discovery and set off for the field while Bertrand hastened to tell Hubert Shillside, Bampton’s coroner, of the bones and request that he assemble his coroner’s jury.

Father Thomas had notified Father Ralph and Father Simon of the discovery. The three vicars of the Church of St. Beornwald stood staring at the ash pile, their arms folded across their chests as if deep in thought. Who knows? Perhaps they were. But knowing Father Ralph, I doubt it so.

Four villagers by the ashen mound opposite the priests, leaning upon rakes and shovels. A wheelbarrow half filled with ashes stood beside the four.

“Ah, you have come,” Father Thomas said. This was obvious to all, so I did not reply. As I drew near the ash pile I saw a familiar shape in the morning sun and crossed myself. Being forewarned, I knew what this must be.

“Bertrand will fetch the coroner,” the vicar continued, “but I think Hubert will need your advice.”

I did not ask of what advice Father Thomas thought I might supply. Surgeons deal with bones, although when called to do so the bones are generally clothed with flesh. Shillside and his coroner’s jury would put their heads together, cluck over some fellow’s misfortune, then leave the matter to me. ’Tis what bailiffs are to do: find and punish miscreants. I knew this when I accepted Lord Gilbert Talbot’s offer to serve him at his Bampton manor. Good and decent folk prefer to have little to do with a bailiff. So also felons. Most bailiffs have few friends.

I walked slowly about the pile of blackened ashes and felt yet some warmth from what had been six or so hours before a great conflagration. The men scooping the ashes had come early to the work, to gather ashes before others might think to do so. But they had ceased their labor when they found the skull. This was clear, for the rounded cranium was yet half buried, eye sockets peering blankly at me from an upturned face. Well, it was a face at one time.

I saw a few other bones protruding from the ashes, enough that I was convinced that whoso was consumed in the flames went into the fire whole. But to discover if this was truly so I would need to sweep away the ashes and learn what bones were here and how they lay. I would await Hubert Shillside and his jury for that. And the ashes would cool while I waited.

Bampton’s coroner did not soon appear. Most of his jurymen had attended the St. John’s Day fire the night before, drunk too much ale, and cavorted about the blaze ’till near dawn, and had to be roused from sleep to attend to their duty. A sour-looking band of fellows eventually shuffled into view beyond the church.

When they had approached close enough to see the skull, one and all crossed themselves, then bent low to better examine the reason for being called from their beds.

I stood aside as Shillside collected the jury after each had circled the ash pile. I could have predicted their decision. There was, they decided, no reason to raise the hue and cry, as they could not know if a felony had been done, and even if ’twas so there was no evidence to follow which might lead to a murderer. A man, or perhaps a woman, was dead. The coroner’s jury could discover nothing more. They would leave further investigation to me. So said Hubert Shillside as his jury departed to seek their homes and break their fast.

Before the coroner left the place I drew him to where the three vicars of the Church of St. Beornwald stood. I asked the four men if any man or woman had gone missing from Bampton or the Weald in the past few days. They shrugged, glanced toward one another, and shook their heads.

“Perhaps some fellow had too much ale last night, before he came to the fire, and danced too close,” Father Simon suggested.

“Odd that no one would see him fall into the flames,” Father Thomas said. “Most of the village was here, and in the light of the blaze he would surely have been seen.”

“Would’ve cried out, too,” Shillside said. “No man burns in silence, I think.”

“Or woman, either,” I added.

“What will you do with the bones?” Father Ralph asked. “We should bury them in the churchyard, but must not do so ’till we know that the dead man was baptized.”

“And was not a suicide,” Father Simon said.

Were there any corpses to be found in England unbaptized, and therefore ineligible to be interred in hallowed ground? I thought not. And I could think of a dozen more acceptable ways to take...