Free A Corpse at St Andrew's Chapel by Mel Starr Page A

father’s quarter yardland, the hut, and anything Alice left in it. He is a tenant of the Bishop of Exeter. I am not informed of the business of that manor in the Weald, though the property be but across Mill Street from the castle.
    “I was anxious for Philip,” I said. “I remember Will Shillside looking on, and a few others. I did not notice your brother.”
    “He was at the edge of the crowd. I saw ’im when I came up wi’ the lad you sent t’fetch the box.”
    She looked down at my instrument case. I could not tell where this conversation was going. Perhaps nowhere, for Alice became silent again. I am a patient man. The girl had, I thought, more to say. I listened to the mill wheel creaking as it turned, and to the splash of water through the sluice. We were so still and silent that a small trout ventured out from the shadow of the bridge and positioned itself below us, waiting for the current to bring a meal its way.
    “I saw ’em when I was kneelin’…when you asked for help.”
    “Saw what?”
    “The shoes. I was down close to the ground, like, an’ you notice things down there you don’t when standin’ up.”
    “Your brother’s shoes?” I guessed. I had a feeling I now knew what the girl wanted to say, and why she found it difficult.
    “Aye. Him as hardly ever owned any, as I remember. Least, not like them ’e wore today.”
    “Did he never wear shoes, even in winter?”
    “Oh, aye…but made ’em hisself. Never paid cobbler for shoes.”
    “And what of the shoes he wore today?”
    “Wood soles. Thick, like they was new, an’ leather t’bind ’em to ’is feet. Soft leather, ’twas. Tanned.”
    “Like those missing from the feet of Alan the beadle?”
    Alice nodded her head and gazed back toward the mill. For all the mistreatment she had endured at her brother’s hands, she no doubt felt disloyal for bringing me this report. And, perhaps, apprehensive that her brother might learn of her disclosure.
    The girl remained silent, her eyes on the turning mill wheel but not, I think, seeing it.
    “The blue yarn,” she whispered. “Henry once had a cotehardie of blue. ’Twas old and faded last I saw it.”
    “Threadbare?” I asked.
    “Aye…tattered, like.”
    “So that loose threads might fall from, say, a ragged sleeve?”
    “Aye.”
    “When did you last see your brother wear such a garment?”
    “Before I came t’live in castle, sir. I see little of Henry now, so what he owns I know not, but ’twas before father died I last saw ’im wi’ the old blue cotehardie.”
    “You have performed two good services this day,” I told her. “I will see to this business of your brother’s new shoes and old blue cotehardie. Rest easy. He will not learn how my suspicion was aroused.”
    A look of relief brightened her face.
    “Run back to the castle and explain my absence at dinner to the cook. Ask him to send a meal to my chamber. I will be there straightaway.”
    “Aye, sir,” she chirped, and set off as I directed. I watched with pleasure as she hastened away. Well, there was nothing much else to look at; I had already viewed the mill and stream.

Chapter 5
     
    A fter a cold dinner in my reeking chamber I made my way across Mill Street to the path leading along Shill Brook and the cottages in the Weald. These were the bishop’s tenants. I had not had cause to venture down this lane since I treated Alice’s father, unsuccessfully, for his broken hip.
    His hut lay in disrepair, the toft overgrown and the door fallen from its leather hinges. Whatever of the man’s possessions his sons thought valuable enough to keep from Alice, this dwelling was not among them.
    I did not know which of the next two huts belonged to Henry atte Bridge. I rapped on the door of the first, which was ajar, and was rewarded for my efforts by the appearance of a disheveled woman of indeterminate age carrying a basin on one hip and a runny-nosed child on the other. Both mother and child appeared to have