Mel Starr - The Tainted Coin

“I’d like to know who, or what, is in there.”

“You shall. We will wait here behind this wall till dark, then approach from behind that barn you see to the right of the coop. If the fellow is yet guarding the place, and it’s my opinion that’s what he’s doing, we can be upon him in a few steps when he turns in his pacing.”

“What if there’s no one in that shed?”

“The fellow is behaving strangely if that is so. And we’ll deal carefully with him. Find a fallen limb here in the wood which will put him to sleep when laid across his skull, but not so large as to give him more than a headache tomorrow.”

“Aye,” Arthur smiled. “I’d best be about it while there’s light an’ enough to see.”

The day had been cloudy and drear since dawn, and so now, at the tenth hour, it was already growing dark. I heard Arthur searching the forest while I kept watch on the guard and the shed. I was convinced that Amice Thatcher and her children were held there, and if I acted wisely and boldly I could free them. But sometimes wise acts are not bold, and bold acts are unwise.

Arthur soon returned carrying a downed oak limb nearly the size of his arm.

“Don’t swing that too hard, or the fellow will not awaken till next week.”

“Was all I could find,” Arthur said, glancing down at his cudgel. “I’ll be kind. The fellow’ll not feel nothin’.”

“Till he awakes,” I laughed.

“Aye. By then we’ll have done what’s needed an’ be gone.”

Just before the twelfth hour, when the forest was dark and the field between us and the manor near so, a second figure approached the shed. The two faced each other for a moment, and perhaps spoke, but ’twas too dark to see. Then the first man departed and the newcomer took his place. I dimly saw the fellow bend toward the shed, but if he spoke or not I could not tell.

“Changed the guard over who’s in the hencoop,” Arthur said. “Must be someone important. Whoso put ’em in there don’t want ’em to get away.”

“Amice Thatcher is in the shed, I think.”

“My guess, too,” Arthur agreed. “Think it’s dark enough?”

“Not yet. We’ve waited three hours. Another half-hour will not do us harm.”

When it was so dark that I could no longer see the shed or the man who stood beside it, I whispered to Arthur, “Let’s be off,” and together we climbed the stone wall and crossed the field. Nettles grew in the stones of the wall, and when I pulled myself over the top my hands found them. This was not an auspicious beginning to the business. Arthur must have found the nettles also. I heard him mutter a curse as we dropped to the other side of the wall.

The wheat stubble was wet and pliant under our feet. We made no sound crossing the field, and even the sheep, huddled together for the night near the center of the enclosure, paid us no attention.

When we first came upon the field I had seen that near the shed was a gate. I had decided to avoid it and its squealing hinges, and vault the wall, as we had done leaving the forest. But the thought of another encounter with nettles persuaded me to try the gate.

It was a crude affair, made of coppiced poles and fastened together with lengths of hempen cord. Such cords also formed rough hinges and, unlike iron, offered no protest when used to swing the gate open. I pushed against the gate, and Arthur followed through the opening and across an open space until a barn hid us from the shed and the manor house.

The house was perhaps twenty paces from where we stood. I could hear voices from within, and candlelight flickered from two of the windows, which were of glass. If the man standing beside the shed was allowed to raise an alarm, those in the house would surely hear. Whatever we did must be silent.

Perhaps a change of plans was in order. If I circled behind the second barn I could approach the shed and its guard from the direction of the house. If I made no effort to be silent or conceal my appearance the guard would turn his attention to me. Perhaps he would think his lord was making a last inspection of the prisoner in the hencoop before taking to his bed. While I approached Arthur might sneak up behind the guard, and seize him with a hand across his mouth. Then, with Arthur’s dagger at his throat, he might be persuaded to keep silence while I opened the shed to free Amice Thatcher and her children. If the fellow seemed unwilling to cooperate there would always be Arthur’s club to fall back on. If we could keep the fellow conscious he might be persuaded to answer some questions after I released Amice and the children.

I whispered the scheme to Arthur and he nodded agreement. The clouds had begun to clear, although there was no moon, and so by starlight I could faintly see Arthur glance regretfully at his cudgel. It might yet be put to use.

The toft was muddy from the day’s drizzle and I feared the guard might hear the ooze sucking at my feet while I crept around the second barn so as to approach him from the house.

I reached the house unnoticed and was halfway from the manor house to the shed when I saw the guard stand erect from where he had been leaning against the hencoop.

“That you, m’lord?” he said.

“Aye,” I lied. May the Lord Christ forgive me.

“Come to see all’s well with the maid?” the guard asked.

“The maid”? His words startled me. Amice Thatcher, attractive as the widow was, was no maiden, and was furnished with two children to prove it so.

There was little time, however, to consider the man’s words. I saw Arthur’s dark shadow creep from behind the barn as I approached the guard. I worried that there might be enough light that the guard would see that I was not the man he expected, so slowed my pace to be sure that Arthur would clap hands about the fellow’s throat and mouth before he might take alarm.

The guard was a small man, short and slight of form, and Arthur well suited for the task given him. He seized the fellow with one arm about his neck, a hand over his mouth, and lifted him, kicking wildly, into the air. I leaped forward, and together we flung the fellow face-first into the mud. I heard his muffled splutter through the muck and Arthur’s thick hand.

“Silence!” I hissed. “Be silent and no harm will come to you.” Well, no harm but for a faceful of mud.

The guard did not immediately cease his struggle, but neither did he cry out, which, even with Arthur’s hand over his mouth, he might have done. When he lay still, or nearly so, I motioned to Arthur to turn his face from the mud, drew my dagger, and held it before his eyes.

“Remain silent and I will not use this against you,” I said.

The starlight was dim, there in the mud between the shed and barn, but what light there was gleamed from my blade. I knew the fellow could see it.

“You understand? Blink your eyes twice if you agree.”

The man blinked twice, and I told Arthur to free the guard’s mouth, yet otherwise keep him tightly restrained.

“You thought I was your lord,” I said. “Who is that?”

The guard made no reply, so I thrust my dagger before his eyes again and repeated the question.

“I’m not to say. Not where the lass can ’ear. She’s not to know who has her, nor where she is.”

I raised my dagger to his eyes again and tried to appear resolute.

“Rede,” he finally said. “Sir Philip Rede.”

“Who is in the hencoop? Who do you guard?”

“Dunno.”

I frowned and held forth my blade again. The fellow may not have seen my scowl, but he saw the dagger.

“Some maid is there,” he mumbled. “Dunno her name.”

“And you are to be sure she does not escape in the night?”