Mel Starr - The Tainted Coin

“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.

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.