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Shillside and his son binding Thomas by the wrists, leaving a strand of hempen cord upon atte Bridge’s frayed sleeve, then taking him by shoulders and heels to carry him off to Cow-Leys Corner. I imagined the lad losing grip of Thomas’s heels, allowing them to drag briefly in the mud. I saw the youth sneaking in to atte Bridge’s hut some days earlier to make off with the stool, which would prove then to all that Thomas atte Bridge took his own life.
    These images caused me much distress, for Hubert Shillside was my friend.
    I entered Galen House in somber mood. What I found there did little, at first, to improve my dour outlook. Kate heard me enter and left our bed, where she had withdrawn. She was half-way down the stairs, coming to greet me, when she grew light-headed and fell. It was my good fortune that I heard her descending, so was at the foot of the steps when she stumbled. I caught her before she could do harm to herself, and carried her to a bench.
    Kate came quickly to her senses, although I admit I did not. I took a cup of water from the ewer upon our cup board and splashed it into her face. She spluttered and protested and demanded I cease, which I did.
    Kate dried her face with her apron, then began to giggle. I thought my wife had come unhinged. I found no humor in the scene. I sat beside her upon the bench to comfort her, and put an arm about her shoulder to support her should she again swoon. I did not wish to apply my surgical skills to repair her broken scalp should she fall back upon the flags.
    “You are unwell,” I said. “I will take you to bed, where you may rest.”
    “I have just come from there,” she said. “I rose when I heard you enter, and did so too quickly. ’Tis why I became giddy on the stairs.”
    “You have not been well for many days.”
    “I am very well, or would be did you not dash cold water in my face. My illness is but what is common to women.”
    I am a surgeon, not a physician, and in surgical training I had learned nothing of swooning being customary female behavior. I said so.
    “I will be quite well in a fortnight, or perhaps a little longer,” she assured me. “This sickness which now afflicts me will pass, as it does with all womankind who are with child.”

Chapter 3
     
    K ate’s announcement caused me to forget for a time what I had learned from Hubert Shillside. When thoughts of his conversation returned I attempted to excuse the knowledge. What had the fellow told me? Only that Alice atte Bridge might inherit a smallholding from her deceased mother.
    I might wish ignorance of the matter but this was not given to me. I knew of Will’s interest in Alice. I knew of the haberdasher’s desires for his son. And now I knew of a reason Thomas atte Bridge might die at the hands of another. The thought brought bile to my throat.
    Kate saw that my joy at her disclosure had faded, along with my appetite for dinner. She mistook my anxiety.
    “I will soon be well, Hugh. I do not fear bearing a child… since Eve women have borne babes.”
    She did not say that her mother died in childbirth, and the babe with her, when Kate was but a wee lass, and so I did not speak of it either. But surely such apprehension must occasionally cloud her thoughts. Now that I knew of her condition such dark reflections would, I knew, come unbidden to me.
    “Should our child be a boy,” she continued, “shall we name him for his father?”
    “Perhaps,” I shrugged. “But when you summon him from the door of Galen House I would then think you called for me. And it would confuse the neighbors. Robert, for your father, would serve, I think.”
    “He would be well pleased. If the child is a lass I should like her named for my mother, have you no objection.”
    “Elizabeth? A fine name. I should enjoy my little Bessie playing about my ankles.”
    “You do not seem joyful.”
    “For your news I am much pleased. I have some worry… for you and the babe, but I know well the good in