Read Online Unhallowed Ground by Mel Starr - Free Book Online Page B

place.”
    “Father Thomas said he is a changed man.”
    “Pilgrimage and privation may alter a man’s outlook. We may hope in Kellet’s case ’tis so. I wonder I did not see Kellet upon the street. Is he yet about, or gone to Exeter?”
    “Gone to Exeter, I think. Father Thomas said he was here but for two days, near a fortnight past.”
    “About the time Thomas atte Bridge was found at Cow-Leys Corner. I think I must visit Father Simon.”
    I found Father Simon at his vicarage, enjoying his dinner. The rotund priest has enjoyed many dinners, and employs a cook whose skills are reputed to rival those of the cook at Bampton Castle. A servant greeted me at the door and showed me to Father Simon, who was licking the last grease of a capon from his fingers.
    “Good day, Master Hugh. Have you dined?”
    I assured the priest that I had, and watched relief wash across his cherubic face. Some of the capon lay unconsumed upon a platter before him, reserved, perhaps, for his supper, and he worried he might be called upon to share it.
    “You had a visitor some days past… John Kellet.”
    “Aye. But he has completed his penance. You have no jurisdiction over him.”
    The priest thought I yet harbored ill will toward Kellet, and would do the man mischief if I could. He was not far wrong.
    “I do not seek him, but I would know when he was here. I did not see him upon the streets, nor did any other, I think, else I would have been informed.”
    Father Simon glanced away for a moment, then spoke: “Kellet asked no one be told of his visit. Said he wanted only to see me, an’ thank me for taking care of him when he was but an orphan lad. Came one day, late it was, stayed with me two nights to rest from his journey, then set off for Exeter, where he is to serve the almoner.”
    “When was this?”
    The priest scratched at his wispy hair. “Why? ’Twas but a visit. You cannot forbid that, even be you Lord Gilbert’s bailiff.”
    “Too late to forbid, but I have reason to know when it was Kellet slept under your roof.”
    “Very well,” the vicar shrugged. “He came the day before St George’s Day, and set off for Exeter two days later.”
    “He was in the town for St George’s Day? I did not see him in the marketplace.”
    “Nay. Said he’d seen St George slay the dragon an’ rescue the fair maid many times.”
    “Or perhaps he did not wish it known that he was about,” I asserted.
    “Perhaps. He left Bampton under a black cloud, ’tis true. He spoke of his shame.”
    “Shame! He slew a man. Was he not in holy orders, he would have hanged by the neck before the walls of Oxford Castle.”
    “None saw him slay Henry atte Bridge. That felony is but your assertion.”
    “You doubt he did so?”
    The priest was silent. This was answer enough.
    “He departed for Exeter and the Priory of St Nicholas on the twenty-fourth day of April?”
    “Aye, he did. Before the Angelus Bell he was off.”
    “You saw him away?”
    “Nay. Don’t rise from my bed so gladly as when I was a young man. I have the disease of the bones.”
    Surely the priest’s corpulent form also made rising from anything, chair or bed, an irksome task.
    Kellet’s journey to Exeter would have taken him past Cow-Leys Corner. Did he see Thomas atte Bridge, his partner in villainy, dangling from the oak? Perhaps, if he set out very early, it was too dark to see the man. Or perhaps atte Bridge was not yet suspended from the tree. Or perhaps John Kellet had to do with Thomas atte Bridge’s place and condition that day?
    If so, Kellet did not act alone. Thomas was not slung over some strong man’s shoulder and carried thence to Cow-Leys Corner. Two carried him, of this I was certain, and one dropped his feet.
    “Didn’t know him when first he came to my door,” the priest continued. “Pilgrimage to Compostela took much flesh from his bones.”
    John Kellet had grown fat from blackmailed venison. Did he resent Thomas atte Bridge’s loose tongue,