Mel Starr - The Tainted Coin

“You made a man’s broken head whole again?”

“Aye.”

“An’ he walks now near as good as ever,” Arthur found his voice again.

“Do you have salves which might help me, some ointment Brother Bartholomew does not know of?”

“Nay, no ointment will remedy your hurt.”

“See,” the porter said, “there is nothing to be done if Brother Bartholomew cannot work a cure.”

Brother Theodore turned to me and said, “Is this so?”

“Nay. Such a fistula can be repaired. I saw it done in Paris.”

“Paris?”

“Aye,” Arthur said. “Master Hugh studied surgery in Paris.”

The monk looked from me to the porter, then slowly dropped the linen cloth which had covered his disfigurement.

“Can you deal with this?” he asked.

The fistula was between his nose and his right eye. I believe it had vexed the man for many months, perhaps even years, for it was of great size and oozed constantly a fluid of pus and blood.

I approached close to the sufferer and studied the lesion carefully before I made reply. “Aye, I can. I must tell you, however, that such surgery as I must do to mend you will be painful.”

“But after the pain I will have relief?”

“Aye, I believe so. An unsightly scar will remain.”

“No more unsightly than this wound I now bear.”

“Nay, not so bad as now.”

“When can you deal with this affliction?”

“I have no instruments with me. I must return to Bampton for them. While I do so you and the infirmarer may find a chamber for a woman who needs a place of safety for herself and her children. Felons who have done theft and murder may seek her out to do more villainy.”

“I am Brother Theodore,” the monk said. “Hosteler to the abbey. Brother Bartholomew and I will see that the woman is safe in the hospital.”

I left the abbey pleased that I would be able to help a troubled man, and pleased also that when I did so, I would have a friend inside the abbey walls.

So it was that the infirmarer of St. John’s Hospital, Abingdon, was pleased to find a place for Amice Thatcher and her children. Perhaps the porter, had he some infirmity I might have mended, would also have been willing to see Amice sheltered there. As it was, he showed his displeasure with a scowl and in every way but by words.

Arthur and I left the abbey and returned to the crowded alleys of the bury. Amice Thatcher’s door was open for custom, and a bushel was raised upon a pole above her door, to tell all that here was fresh-brewed ale. The narrow lane was swarming with residents, both adult and children. Their numbers would keep Amice safe in the day, but for the dark of night I was well pleased that she would be within St. John’s Hospital.

I saw fright in Amice’s eyes as my shadow darkened her door. She was, I think, unwilling to shut out customers, but fearful of those who did enter her ale house. I told her of the sanctuary provided her at the hospital and saw her features relax.

“I brewed five gallons of ale fresh yesterday,” she said, “and have sold but a gallon this day. It will go stale. Must I remain long at the abbey, you think?”

“Perhaps the hosteler will have need of fresh ale for the guest hall. I will ask it of him.”

I was confident that, to retain my good will, Brother Theodore would purchase four gallons of ale. He did, and offered six pence (which price Amice was much pleased to accept), and sent a lay brother following Amice’s directions to fetch the cask and bring the ale to the abbey.

When the sacrist rang the abbey church bell for nones Amice Thatcher and her children were safe within St. John’s hospital. So I did believe.

In my travels about Abingdon I had seen several blacksmith’s forges. There was yet nearly three hours till dark, so I set out with Arthur to learn if any smith had recently plied his trade upon a horse with a broken shoe. None had, but I left each smith with a promise that, should he do so, and then report the labor to me at the New Inn, he would be rewarded.

Next day Arthur and I, after a dinner of stockfish and wheaten loaves, wandered the town searching the streets for the mark of a broken horseshoe. We saw none.

Thursday morn, after a pint of ale at the ale house across the marketplace from the inn, Arthur and I started for Bampton. There was little more to learn of John Thrale in Abingdon, and the sooner I could apply my skills to the hosteler’s fistula the sooner I would have a friend in the abbey.

I must learn to be more observant. We had crossed the Thames at Newbridge, more than halfway to Bampton, before I looked to the muddy road under Bruce’s hooves and saw that we followed the track of a horse with a broken shoe. I called to Arthur to bring his palfrey to a halt, dismounted, and squatted in the road to see better if the marks there seemed to be the same as those made by the beast which carried a man who had threatened my Bessie. They were, and Arthur, peering over my shoulder, was able to see clearly now the imprint he had before known only by my description.

“Not likely to forget that,” he said after his inspection. “That horse’ll soon be lame, I think, does his owner not see to him.”

I am not skilled in the care of horses, so I could not judge the accuracy of Arthur’s assertion, but it seemed to me I sought some gentleman who suffered from financial misfortune. The fellow had wealth enough that he could own a horse, but not enough to care for the beast properly, and he was willing to beat and murder another to gain what that other man possessed.

My next thought was that the man was headed toward Bampton. Kate and Bessie were safe within the wall of Bampton Castle, so I had no fear for them, but I wondered what other mischief the fellow might be about, or what he sought.

Had we followed the track since leaving Abingdon? Had I been more observant, I might have had answer to that question. The day was yet young. An extra hour or two backtracking to see where the broken-shoed horse had entered the road would not much delay our journey.

The nearer we approached to Abingdon the more folk had been upon the road, and the marks of their passage began to obliterate the track we followed. At one place, where for many paces we saw no mark of a broken horseshoe, Arthur dismounted and led his palfrey, studying the road before us for a resumption of our trail. He found it, briefly, at a place where the tower of the abbey church looked down upon us through an opening in a wood through which the road passed. But a hundred paces beyond, the mark we followed was again obscured by the passage of men and beasts, and this time, search as we would, we could not recover the track.

Before us was a crossroad. We went so far as to examine this lane, where a track would be easy to follow, for fewer travelers went there. We did not find the mark we sought.

I called to Arthur — who had explored the crossing path to the south, while I searched to the north — to give up the hunt. We resumed our interrupted journey to Bampton, followed again the track of a broken horseshoe to Newbridge, and this time searched for where our quarry went, rather than whence he had come.

A mile past Newbridge, nearly to Standlake, Arthur shouted, “Look there!” and drew his palfrey to a halt. He rode to my right, so when the hoof-print we followed broke from the road to a narrow track which led to the right, he saw it first.

Two horses had recently turned into this narrow lane, one well shod, the other the beast we followed. The path soon became so narrow and overgrown that we were forced to dismount, and at the place we did so the mark of a broken-shoed horse also disappeared. So few travelers had passed this way that grass and fallen leaves had covered the path, and no rider would gallop his horse here to throw clods of turf, where trees grew close over the way and a low limb might unseat him.