Mel Starr - The Tainted Coin

We tied Bruce and the palfrey to saplings and made our way afoot into the wood. Where this trail led I could not guess, for the forest soon closed in upon us. Where the mud gave way to turf we had seen the tracks of horses entering this overgrown lane, but there were no marks of any horses leaving it. This was a puzzle. Arthur and I had left our beasts behind, so overgrown was the path. If a man entered this forest track with his horse, he must do so afoot, leading with his beast behind. But where would he go that he would not return the way he came?

The path became so overgrown that I was required to push foliage aside to make a way through. At several places I saw where others had done so also. Twigs and small branches were snapped off, and recently — the breaks showing white and fresh. This was not a silent business, and it occurred to me that the felons I sought might be hidden in the forest, warned of our approach and waiting in ambush. I turned to Arthur, put a finger to my lips, then proceeded with new caution.

There was no need for this vigilance. A hundred or more paces from the road the path entered a clearing in the wood, edged with blackberry thorns. This opening was much like the clearing to the east of St. Andrew’s Chapel where I had discovered John Thrale’s cart. Was this another place where he had sought solitude for a night’s rest? Surely the way from the road to this place was not wide enough for his cart. But when he traveled harnessed to his small cart, might he then have penetrated to this quiet spot?

The forest opening was no more than twenty paces across, and when I studied the opposite side I saw a place where men and horses might have gone. I pointed, motioned to Arthur, and silently he followed me across the clearing to where another overgrown path led into the forest. Where the forest and a tangle of blackthorn met I noticed a strange thing. Several strange things. Spaced little more than one pace apart were hummocks rising from a large depression in the leafy mold. I counted four in one direction, and six in another, so that there were twenty-four of these mounds, identical in size and shape, in an orderly pattern where forest and clearing met.

My curiosity was aroused. I knelt beside one of the mounds, which rose to a height nearly to my knee, and with the point of my dagger prodded the lump to see what might lie in such orderly rows, under the decay of a forest floor. Arthur peered intently over my shoulder as I did so.

Masonry was there. The blade of my dagger struck something hard before I had poked it in the length of my little finger. I did not at first know what I had found, but a few moments with dagger and fingers cleared the moss and overgrowth from the pile enough that a short column of what appeared to be tiles and mortar became visible. These tiles were not a random assembly. They had been cut square and carefully stacked, and there were twenty-three more mounds like the one I had uncovered. What men had done this, and what these short pillars were to do, I could not tell.

I stood and scratched the back of my head in puzzlement. Why would the felons who beat John Thrale to his death seek this place? As the question entered my mind, so did the answer. Here was a place where men had lived long ago. Perhaps those men had buried their wealth somewhere near to conceal it from brigands.

Arthur was as perplexed as I. “What is here?” he finally asked.

“Many years past men built here a house, I think, and these columns supported it. The murdered chapman may have found the place, and somehow discovered a buried hoard. The men who slew him knew he visited this place, and now seek the treasure.

Arthur frowned, looked about him, and placed a hand upon the hilt of his dagger.

“They are not here,” I said. “We made noise along that track. They would have heard us coming and fled.”

“Fled? Would they not fight for riches?”

“Perhaps, if pressed, but they would sooner flee, so as not to give suspicion that there is anything here worth fighting for. Let’s see what may be here… Go about the other side of these hillocks and see what may be found.”

Arthur frowned in puzzlement. “What am I to seek?”

“Anything which seems out of place in a forest. Some hole, perhaps, recently dug. Leaves will cover it, so search carefully. I will examine the ground this side of the mounds.”

Arthur disappeared into the forest so that all I knew of his progress was the occasional snapping of a twig. Meanwhile I walked the length of the stubby columns but saw no place where any man had made a trench in the earth.

I explored the forest five or six paces beyond the columns and there appeared three declivities in the earth before me. At the moment I saw them I heard Arthur speak through the wood. “Here is a hole… nay, two.”

“Stay where you are,” I replied, and wound my way through the trees until I saw his blue-and-black livery through the forest. He stood between two leaf-covered depressions, each about three paces across and knee deep.

These holes were fresh. Whoso dug them had piled the dirt nearby, and the mounds and holes had but a thin layer of fallen leaves as cover. I took a broken limb, stepped into one of the holes, and scraped away the leaves. I found nothing.

“There are three hollows much like this over yonder,” I said.

“Five holes? Them fellows find that much treasure, you think?”

“Nay. I think they found none.”

“None. Why so much labor, then?”

“Aye, why dig in so many places if you knew where you must search? They dug, found nothing, and dug again.”

“An’ gave up after five holes?”

“Aye.”

“What if they found what they sought in the fifth hole?”

“Mayhap,” I said. “We must hope they did not.”

“An’ why dig in these five places? Why choose here?” He pointed to the excavation before us. “Why not over there?” He pointed to an untouched opening between two great beech trees to our left.

“I cannot tell,” I shrugged. “There may have been some sign which the felons thought might tell of riches below the ground. Perhaps their digging obliterated it? When we find them I will ask it of them.

“For now, let’s follow the track beyond the clearing and see where it leads. There may be other ruins nearby, and other holes.”

There were not. The overgrown trail began to bend to the left, and perhaps a quarter of a mile beyond the five holes the path rejoined the road. To the right was Standlake, a half-mile distant. To the left, no more than two hundred paces off, was the place where we had left the road, following the track of a broken horseshoe.

I looked down at the road where I stood, and saw there the mark of the ill-shod horse we had followed into the forest. We had trailed the beast back to the road. Arthur followed my eyes and studied the mud at our feet.

“Them fellows didn’t return the way they come,” he said. “Nay. Had they found treasure in the forest, they would return home, but the track leads on toward Standlake… unless that is near their home. We’ll retrieve the horses and see where these men may lead us.”

Past Standlake the roads diverge, one way leading north, to Witney, the other west, to Bampton. I considered as we passed through Standlake what I should do if the trail led north.

I was spared the decision. The mark of a broken horseshoe traveled toward Bampton.

We followed, watching closely for any place where the horse had left the road.

Through Aston and Cote we saw no such trail, and at Cote rain began to fall, soaking us thoroughly and slowly obliterating the track we followed.

The deluge had nearly blotted out the trace of a broken horseshoe when we came to the place near to St. Andrew’s Chapel where John Thrale had been beaten to his death. Here the horse we followed again departed the road, and went along the same path which led to the clearing where I had found the chapman’s horse and cart.