Mel Starr: The Tainted Coin

Hubert Shillside, Bampton’s haberdasher, was no more pleased than I had been to open his door so early, but accepted his duty as coroner, and when told of the death at St. Andrew’s Chapel, set out to assemble a jury while I walked to Church View Street and Galen House.

I told Kate of events at the chapel, hurriedly gobbled the loaf she had set out for me, swallowed a cup of ale, then set out again for the chapel. I arrived with Shillside and his coroner’s jury. The haberdasher asked of the priest what he knew of the corpse, and was told what I had already heard. Kellet could think of nothing more to explain the dead man’s condition.

All who viewed the corpse agreed that the death was murder, not misadventure, and so Shillside did readily declare. No weapon was to be found, so the coroner, no doubt hungry to break his fast, absolved himself and his jurymen of further responsibility in the matter and turned the death over to me.

As the coroner’s jury departed the place, I told Kellet to once again take in hand an end of the pallet. Together we carried the corpse through the porch, into the chapel, and deposited it on the flags before the altar.

“I’ll say a mass, have a grave dug, and bury the man this day,” the priest said.

I wished to know where this stranger had been attacked, to see if there might be at the place some evidence of his assailants. It could not have been close to the chapel, for he would have cried out when attacked, and Kellet would have heard him. But the dead man had been so badly injured that he would not have crawled far. I searched the grass of the churchyard for blood and found traces which led to the lychgate. The curate saw, and followed. Beyond the gate was the path, dry from absence of rain for the past fortnight. In the dust it was easy to follow the track of a crawling man back to the east, for the sun was now well up over the fields and meadow which bordered the narrow road. Nearly two hundred paces to the east the path entered a wood, and a few paces beyond that the marks of a crawling man disappeared into the verge.

I studied the place where the man had crawled from the forest. Why did he struggle to leave the place and crawl to St. Andrew’s Chapel? In his battered condition this required much effort. Was he familiar with Bampton, so that he knew help might be found could he reach the chapel?

John Kellet had followed from the chapel and with me studied the path where marks in the dust told of the man’s entry upon the road.

“Look there,” the priest said, and pointed a few paces beyond. Between road and forest was a swathe of dry grass and across this patch of vegetation two parallel tracks of bent-down foliage showed where a cart or similar wheeled conveyance had turned from the road and entered a narrow opening which led into the forest. Marks of the cart wheels and a horse’s hooves, and the footprints of men were visible in the dust of the path where the vehicle entered the wood, but although we searched for many paces in both directions from the place, neither Kellet nor I could find any mark where a cart might have left the wood and regained the road. Whatever had entered the forest was yet there.

The priest followed as I traced the path of the cart into the wood. Fallen leaves covered the forest floor, so the track was soon obliterated, but it was possible to guess the way by seeking openings between the trees and bushes large enough to admit passage of a horse and cart.

We had walked perhaps fifty paces from the road when I heard a horse whinny. Another forty paces brought us to a shaded clearing in the wood where before us stood a horse, harnessed to a cart, its reins tied to a small beech. The horse neighed again, no doubt pleased to see men who might offer it water and food.

“Why is this beast here, so distant from the road?” Kellet wondered aloud. “And did it belong to the man now lying dead in St. Andrew’s Chapel?”

My mind had posed the same questions, and I thought it likely the answer to the second question was “yes.” An inspection of the cart might confirm this. It was well made, with two wheels. A waxed cloth had covered the cart, but was drawn aside and hung from the cart to the forest floor. I peered into the cart and saw there several chests, open and upended. Their contents were strewn about. There was a packet of combs, some of wood and cheaply made, but others of fine ivory. Another small chest had held an assortment of buckles, pins, buttons, and a package of needles. These were all tossed about in the cart. A larger chest had held several yards of woolen cloth in a variety of colors. This fabric was flung about, and one bolt lay partly over the side of the cart, dragging upon the leaves. Here was a chapman’s cart. The owner made his living selling goods in villages too small to have haberdashers and suchlike merchants.

I began to form an opinion of what had happened here. The chapman, I thought, had decided to sleep the night under his cart, the weather being yet mild. He led his horse deep into the wood, away from the road and felons who might prowl the countryside, but was followed. Perhaps men saw the track his cart made in the dust of the road, as did the priest and I, or mayhap he was trailed from the last town where he did business.

Here in the forest men surprised the chapman and demanded his purse. He refused to give it up, so they set upon him with a club, but yet he would not tell them where it was hid. They beat him senseless, near to death, ransacked his cart, then left him in the forest to perish.

Kellet had inspected the contents of the cart from over my shoulder. As I pondered the discovery I saw him reach for a sack and untie the cord which closed it. He examined the contents, then poured some into a wooden bucket which lay in the cart beside the sack. The horse smelled the oats, and neighed in anticipation. The priest took the bucket to the beast, which plunged its muzzle in eagerly. No doubt the animal was thirsty as well.

A fallen branch next caught my eye. It lay at the edge of the clearing, three or four paces from the cart, and seemed freshly broken. One splintered end was white in the dappled sunlight, and the limb lay atop the fallen leaves, not under, as should be had it occupied that place for a day or more.

I lifted the broken limb and saw a thing which caused me to recoil. At a place where a twig had broken from the branch and left a raised and thorn-like barb was the dark stain of blood and what appeared to be a bit of flesh. The priest saw me examining the club, and when the horse had consumed his ration of oats Kellet joined me in studying the cudgel.

“Broke it over ’is ’ead, I’d say,” Kellet said.

The limb was as large around as my arm, and as long. Blows from it would easily break a man’s ribs or skull.

I was not optimistic that I could find the felons who had done this murder. Had they taken goods from the chapman’s cart, I might seek in villages nearby for men who had wares to sell, or whose wives wore new buttons upon their cotehardies or bragged of ivory combs. But if the villains did take goods from the cart, they left much behind. Why so? Unless some men boasted of this attack, I would have no clue which might lead to the assailant.

Even the horse and cart might be carried away to some town and sold. The beast would fetch ten shillings, perhaps twelve, and the cart another eight or ten shillings, for it was well made and sturdy. Whoever murdered the chapman had left here in the woods goods to the value of as much as three marks. Did the chapman cry out loudly as he was attacked, so as to frighten the felons away? Kellet had heard no such screams, but I could think of no other reason thieves might leave such loot here in the forest.

“Whose goods are these now?” Kellet asked.