The Tainted Coin

by Mel Starr

  Arthur had proven himself a useful companion in the matter of Master John Wyclif’s stolen books, and always seemed eager when I found it necessary to have his aid. He is a groom to Lord Gilbert, but as he is wed he is not required to travel when Lord Gilbert takes residence at Goodrich or Pembroke. I did not seek a violent confrontation with the miscreants who slew John Thrale and invaded my house, but to apprehend such men might require some compulsion. Arthur is a good man to have at one’s side in such a case, thick-set and ready for a brawl.

  After mass and a dinner of roasted capon I sought Lord Gilbert, told him of the assault on Kate, and requested permission to take Arthur from his duties at the castle. As is his custom, Lord Gilbert raised one eyebrow as I related the previous day’s events. Three years past, when I was new to Bampton, I had tried to emulate him in this. I failed.

  My employer was florid with anger when I completed the tale. His brows were now lowered in a scowl, and he seemed ready to leap from his chair to accompany Arthur and me to Abingdon.

  “Take Arthur, and any other you may need,” he said when I fell silent. “No man will threaten your Kate and Bessie in such a manner and escape, if I can do aught about it.”

  “Arthur is worth two in a scrap,” I said.

  “Aye, he is that. And he’s no dullard, even so he is low-born.”

  Arthur, as I suspected, was eager to leave the drudgery of castle labor and set off for Abingdon. I told him to arm himself with a dagger, and be ready to leave next day at dawn. My warning that violence might find us, or we might find violence, did not seem to trouble the man. He raised his head, grinned, and promised to be ready at the appointed time. Men who generally win their fights do not much fear being drawn into another.

  I visited the marshalsea and told a page to have Bruce and an old palfrey ready next morn, then set off for Galen House. I was through the gatehouse and crossing the castle forecourt when a disagreeable thought came to me. What if the men I sought learned of my pursuit before I found them? Might they seek vengeance upon me by returning to Bampton, knowing I was in Abingdon, and do harm to Kate and Bessie? I could not leave my wife and daughter alone.

  Lord Gilbert was in the solar, with Lady Petronilla, when I returned to the castle. I explained my worry, and he readily agreed that Kate and Bessie should remove to the castle until I had discovered the men who murdered the chapman and assaulted Kate.

  When I was a bachelor I went where I would, when I would. It is difficult to learn a new manner of living, to think of others before making a decision, but after nearly two years since I wed Kate under the porch of the Church of St. Beornwald, I was beginning to consider new obligations before my own plans.

  After a supper of bruit of eggs I told Kate she must leave Galen House and lodge with Bessie in the castle, in my old bachelor chamber. She was not pleased with the move, as I knew she would not be, and her lips drew tight across her teeth while I told her what she was to do. But when I pointed out that the men who had attacked her and threatened Bessie might return in my absence, she rubbed her chafed wrists absent-mindedly and reluctantly agreed to my decision.

  I told Kate to prepare what she wished to take to the castle, and that next day she should expect a cart from the marshalsea to move her thence. I reminded her to lock the door to Galen House upon leaving, to which admonition she rolled her eyes. Such advice was probably unnecessary, but the longer I am wed, and the more I consider my responsibilities to Kate and Bessie, the more cautious I seem to become.

  Next morn I kissed my Kate farewell, and was pleased that her embrace did not betoken so much displeasure as I had feared. At the castle I found Uctred, another of Lord Gilbert’s grooms, and told him to take a horse and cart to Galen House, there to load what Kate wished taken to my old chamber off the Bampton Castle great hall. Arthur and I then mounted our horses and set off across Shill Brook.

  The journey took us past St. Andrew’s Chapel, where I saw John Kellet at work, his robe drawn up and tucked into the cord he used for a belt, mending the tumbled-down wall about the churchyard. He looked up as we approached, sucking upon a thumb as would a babe. Nettles grew in profusion against the wall. I believe the priest had found one as we came into view.

  “Good day, Master Hugh,” Kellet greeted me amiably, and nodded recognition to Arthur. “A fine day, after the rain.”

  I agreed that this was so, and asked the priest if he had seen two men ride this way late Saturday.

  “Many folk pass by here,” he said. “But not so many mounted. There were but two men on horseback toward evening.”

  “Did one wear a red cap, the other blue?”

  Kellet thought for a moment. “Aye… so they did. Passed the chapel twice, first going toward Bampton, then, as I was ready to sound the Angelus Bell, I saw them ride east.”

  “Did they ride easy, or seem hurried?”

  “They seemed in some haste. They’d not spurred their beasts to a gallop, but they did not travel at an easy pace. More like a canter. Fast enough to raise the dust as they passed.”

  No man would raise dust upon the road this day. I had searched the lane from Bruce’s back for any sign of a print made by a broken horseshoe, but between Bampton and St. Andrew’s Chapel the only impressions upon the road were the footprints of those who had walked this way since the rain ceased shortly after dawn on Sunday.

  I thanked Kellet for this news, bid him good day, and set off for Abingdon. The curate bent again to his labor on the toppled wall, and I marveled once more at the change in the man. The John Kellet I knew two years past would not have troubled himself to repair the churchyard wall of St. Andrew’s Chapel even were there no nettles to impede the work.

  It was midday when Arthur and I led the horses to the mews behind the New Inn. We found a dinner of pottage of eggs in the public room.

  The pepperer’s wife had said that John Thrale had lived in the house on East St. Helen Street since Lammastide. I wondered where he had made his home before, so sought the woman to learn if she knew. Before I set about this task I told Arthur to walk the streets of Abingdon with his eyes fixed to the ground, seeking the track of a horse with a broken shoe. If he found such a mark he was to follow the track, if he could, to see where it led. In the marketplace before the New Inn I drew in the mud a copy of the misshapen horseshoe, then set off for East St. Helen Street while Arthur circled the marketplace before setting off to explore side streets.

  The door to the pepperer’s shop was open, the owner at work grinding peppercorns and sneezing as a result of his labors. The man’s wife was absent, but he was as likely to know where Thrale had lived before Lammastide as his spouse.

  “Ock Street,” he replied when I asked. “Near to the river, with the tanners.”

  If John Thrale had lived near tanners it was no wonder he chose to move his residence from the stench of that occupation. I thanked the pepperer for this information, bid him good day, and followed his directions to Ock Street.

  Tanners and rope-makers lived along Ock Street – a convenient location, for water was at hand in the river and both trades used large amounts. Near to a place where the river curved close to the street I found a florid-faced tanner fleshing a hide, greeted him, and asked if he knew a chapman named John Thrale.

  “Oh, aye… don’t live near anymore, though. Bought ’imself a house freehold over on East St. Helen Street.”

  The tanner shook his head gently as he said this, as if to add to the incredulity in his voice.

  “Where did he live before he went to St. Helen Street?”

  “Just over there.”

  The tanner pointed to a hut across the street and two houses closer to the marketplace. There was but one window in the hovel, and a broken shutter hung askew over it. Weeds grew in the dirt before the house, and in several places the thatching of the roof was so thin that the contour of rafters could be seen.

  “If you seek ’im, he’ll likely be on ’is rounds. Travels about, does John, sellin’ stuff t
o folks as don’t have shops or markets in their village. Might be ’ome, but I’d doubt so. Winter comin’, ’e’ll be at ’is business while roads is firm.”

  “Have you seen the chapman since he moved from here?”

  “Nay. Why’d ’e come by here if ’e didn’t have to? Never knew there was such profit in sellin’ buckles an’ buttons an’ such.”

  “Did he sell the house when he moved away?” I asked. “Looks like no one lives there now.”

  “Nay. Belongs to the abbey, as does all the ’ouses here on Ock Street. Paid rent, like the rest of us. Abbey wasn’t pleased to see ’im go, I’m thinkin’. Empty ’ouses all through the town.”

  “Most of these the abbey owns?”

  “Aye. Good for us who be yet alive, after plague come twice. Rents is supposed to be fixed,” the tanner put a finger aside his nose and winked, “but a man – or an abbot – with an empty ’ouse’ll do what’s needful to find a tenant. Not that abbot Peter” (here the tanner spat upon the ground) “is pleased to do so.”

  I turned to gaze again at the decrepit house where John Thrale had once lived. Had I lived in such a place, and found a treasure which would permit me to reside elsewhere, I might also have resisted losing the wealth to others, even to the point of death. The tanner turned to follow my gaze, and could hold his curiosity no longer.

  “Why do you seek John?”

  “I don’t. I know where he is.”

  The tanner was silent for a moment, a puzzled expression upon his face. “You’d know more of John was you to ask ’im, not me.”

  “Not so. He lies in a churchyard near to Bampton. I helped bury him. He was waylaid upon the road and murdered.”

  The tanner crossed himself and studied his feet. “Poor John,” he said softly. “An’ him doin’ so well at ’is trade, too. ’Spect that’s why some brigands set upon ’im, eh? To seize ’is goods an’ money?”

  “Aye. As you say. I have heard that he had sisters. Do you know where they might be found? Some of his goods were not taken, and I seek heirs so as to give what remains of Thrale’s possessions to them.”

  The tanner pursed his lips and scratched his head, shoving aside his cap to do so. “’E did speak of kin, but where they may be I cannot tell. Gone often, was John. Would hitch ’is cart to a leather harness ’e made to go over ’is shoulders an’ about ’is waist, then off ’e’d go.”

  “He drew his cart himself?”

  “Aye… well, not for some months. ’Bout Whitsuntide ’e bought a new cart, an’ a horse to pull it. Had no barn; kept the beast in the house with ’im till ’e went to St. Helen Street.”

  “The new cart was larger than the old, then?”

  “Oh, aye. Wouldn’t be pullin’ the new cart by hisself. I bought the old one from ’im. Use it to haul hides about. There it sits.”

  The tanner pointed behind his house to a shed where, at the side, a small cart was parked against a fence. “Gave three pence for it,” the tanner added.

  John Thrale, near the end of May, had come into money. He bought first a horse and cart, then moved to a larger house in a respectable part of town, for which he paid perhaps as much as ten pounds. The tanner spoke true. An itinerant chapman was not likely to live so well on the profits of his business. And some men more dangerous than the tanner had noticed this also.

  I bid the tanner good day and left him to his work. Perhaps a visit to the silversmith on East St. Helen Street should be my next call. The silversmith was not likely to know of Thrale’s sisters, but he might be the buyer of the ingots the chapman had made upon his hearth.

  He was not, or if he was he did not wish to say so. I asked the silversmith first how he came by the metal which he fashioned into spoons and cups and jewelry. This was a poor beginning. The man was immediately on his guard, which was, perhaps, a clue that some of his supply was acquired in a manner unacceptable to the King.

  “From Devon,” he said warily, “an’ from folks as wish to sell what they may have so to raise funds.”

  “From mines in Devon?”

  “Aye. Cornwall, too.”

  “And merchants bring bars of silver from the mines to craftsmen such as you?”

  “Aye. King’s seal stamped on ’em to show taxes paid.”

  “If a silversmith purchased a silver ingot without the King’s seal…”

  “He’d pay a fine.”

  “But if you purchased silver from some man in financial embarrassment, what then?”

  “No law against that, so long as the silver was ’is to sell, an’ not stolen.”

  “Have you done so recently?”

  The man’s eyes narrowed again, and the wary tone returned to his voice. “Not for many months. Next time the King demands taxes to war with France there’ll be folk wantin’ to sell their plate, but while we’re at peace… well, mostly at peace, I’m not offered much.”

  “Did you know the chapman, John Thrale, who purchased a house a few doors from here at Lammastide?”

  “A chapman? On East St. Helen Street?”

  “Aye.”

  “Oh… I’ve seen a fellow with cart an’ horse nearby the house. That him?”

  “Aye, probably. Did he offer to sell silver to you?”

  “Where would a chapman come by silver? ’Course, had he any, he might want to sell so’s to have coin to buy more stock.”

  The coin which had fallen from John Thrale’s mouth was in my purse. Thieves had the others, but that first coin I had kept with me. I withdrew it from my purse and held it before the silversmith.

  “Have you seen such a coin since Whitsuntide?”

  The silversmith took the coin and squinted at it, turned it over, then held it at arm’s length. He was not a young man. He would soon need to purchase eyeglasses to see work close before his face.

  “Nay, never seen such a coin.”

  More conversation with the silversmith yielded no acknowledgment that the man had ever purchased silver, or any jewel or gold, from John Thrale. I believed him. But what did Thrale do with the ingots he so laboriously made?

  Arthur is not a man to miss a meal, so I expected to find him awaiting me at the New Inn. Some things in life are predictable, if others are not. Arthur awaited me before the inn. We made a supper of wheaten bread and cheese, and ale, and sought our beds. Arthur had seen no mark of a broken horseshoe, though he had prowled Abingdon’s streets with his head down till dark.

  The man who falls to sleep first in an abbey guest house or inn will sleep the best. I lay awake while others, including Arthur, fell to sleep and filled the chamber with their snoring. I did not find rest until some time after the abbey sacrist rang the bell for vigils.

  Chapter 5

  During a wakeful hour in the night another method of discovering John Thrale’s sisters came to me. He had purchased his house on East St. Helen Street from someone. Perhaps the seller knew more of the chapman than his name and the weight of his purse.

  Monks do not break their fast, but after lauds set about their work until prime and terce, after which they take their dinner. As the abbey owned the New Inn, the guest master there saw no need to offer a loaf to us who sought lodging there. We could live as monks and be grateful for the well-thatched roof over our heads in the night.

  A few paces from the New Inn is an ale house, and across the marketplace a baker has his shop, so we were able to eat and slake our thirst. In a busy town any print of a broken horseshoe upon the street would likely be soon obliterated, but having no better plan, I sent Arthur to roam Abingdon’s streets again, and told him to keep to the better sections of the town. No poor man would own a horse, broken shoe or not, and there would be small chance of finding the mark I sought on a street of paupers.

  I set off again for East St. Helen Street and the pepperer’s shop.

  “Good day,” the fellow smiled. He could not be certain I would make no purchase some other day, so greeted me pleasantly, as he would any customer.

  “Aye, so
’tis,” I replied. “And a good day to you, also. John Thrale” – the pepperer crossed himself when he heard his neighbor’s name – “lived next door since Lammastide. Who owned the house before him?”

  “A widow. Husband died when plague returned six years past. A tailor, was Walter.”

  “Where does the woman make her home now?”

  “Went off to Oxford to live with a son, Thomas. He’s a tailor, also. Shop on St. Michael’s Street, near to the Northgate, I hear tell. Maud tried to keep Walter’s business, she bein’ a good seamstress upon a time, but she’s the disease of the bones, an’ it pained her to ply a needle. Knuckles was all swollen.”

  “How long was the house empty?”

  “Near two years since Maud went to Oxford. There’s more’n one house stands empty in the town. She was right pleased to find a buyer, I’m thinkin’. No one to care for the place since Maud left, an’ she could do little enough the last few years she was there.”

  “John Thrale got a good price, then?”

  “Oh, aye. Six pounds, four, I heard. Don’t know what’ll become of the place now. Thatchin’ is goin’ bad, an’ rafters will soon rot, does no one see to it.”

  The previous owner of Thrale’s house would be able to tell me nothing of his kin, being two years gone from Abingdon before the chapman made his purchase, so there was no need to seek her. I left the pepperer with no other scheme in mind to seek either John Thrale’s sisters or the felons who slew him. As I stood in the street, pondering what I might do next, my eyes wandered to Thrale’s empty house. The shutters, closed, were in need of repair and did not fit tightly against each other. In the crack between the shutters of the left-side window I thought I saw movement, but when I cast my eye back to the fissure all was dark. Perhaps I had imagined a cheek and eye peering out at me?

  But perhaps not. Had the chapman’s murderers come back to search again Thrale’s house? I had no pressing business, so decided to investigate the house. Even if no person was within its walls, perhaps a close examination might reveal some clue I had missed which might lead to sisters or murderers.