Mel Starr - The Tainted Coin

Here was a distressing announcement. If the two who had entered John Thrale’s house were the men who had murdered him, they knew who it was who sought them, and if they knew of and coveted the gold and silver from his chest, they now knew where it might be if it was not found in Thrale’s house. But of these villains I knew nothing but a description which might match a quarter of the men of Oxfordshire. I began to wish I had taken the three pouches to John Chamberlain in the castle for safekeeping.

I went to three other houses on East St. Helen Street to learn if any resident knew of Edith or Julianna. Only one resident had heard their names, and did not know more of them.

Before I returned to the New Inn I decided to see what damage was done to the chapman’s house. I walked behind the place and saw that the shutters had been torn from the single small window which looked out upon the toft. The oiled skin which had closed the window to the chill October nights was ripped asunder. Likely the two men climbed in through the torn window.

I sought the shed, and with the rake tested the filthy straw until I found the key, where I had returned it two days past. Here was evidence that my assumption was correct, for thieves would not trouble themselves to replace a key, and had they found it they would not have awakened a neighbor by forcing entry to Thrale’s house.

I opened the door farther, entered the chapman’s house, and saw before me a scene of ruin. The bed was overturned and mattress and pillow were torn apart. Straw and feathers littered the floor. The table and cupboard were likewise displaced, and the table stood askew, missing a leg. The small chest was gone from the table, but I soon found what remained of it.

When the felons had failed to discover a key they chose to force the large chest open. This they must have done by battering it with the smaller chest and a leg from the table. Splintered remains of the small chest littered the floor about the larger chest, which lay open, its top demolished. The fractured table leg lay propped in the ruins of the chest. I peered into the chest and saw there the hammer and the small iron box. The bellows lay apart, near the opposite wall of the room, as if it had been thrown there in disgust. No wonder the neighbor had been awakened in the night. Breaking open such a chest would rouse all the street, but none had intervened. Violence heard in the night will keep most men behind their own barred doors. The destruction they heard might be visited upon them if they thought to meddle in the business.

I left all as it was, shut the door behind me, and left the place. I did not trouble myself to dig the key from the straw to relock the door. To what purpose?

If neither a man with whom John Thrale had done business, nor the chapman’s neighbors, could direct me to his kin, I had no other thought as to how I might discover them. This concern occupied my mind as I returned to the inn, and so distracted was I by this failure that I came close to encountering a man upon the street before the inn whom I preferred to avoid. It was not yet dark, so I saw clearly a group of four men walking twenty or so paces before me. Much banter and laughter accompanied them. One of the four was taller than most, and wore a yellow cap with a long liripipe coiled stylishly upon his head. His friends also wore fashionable clothing. These young gentlemen entered the New Inn and as they did so I got a better view of the taller man’s misshapen ear, which I recognized with a shock.

I remembered the man’s profile as well, and his great, hawk-like nose. The ear was familiar to me, as I had sewn it to the fellow’s head when Odo Grindcobbe had come near to knocking it loose from his skull, supposing the man to be me. It was Sir Simon Trillowe who walked before me into the New Inn.

Sir Simon is a vengeful sort. He blames me, I think, that an ear juts from the side of his head in unsymmetrical fashion. ’Tis not easy work to stitch a man’s torn ear in place, and his was the first I had ever attempted. Perhaps I will do better should the need arise again.

Sir Simon also harbors a grudge against me because I won Kate Caxton, when he had set his cap for her also. I was outnumbered four to one, so decided prudence would be a virtue. Perhaps some would call it cowardice, but I passed by the door, walked through a gate to the mews, and made my bed that night in the straw beside Bruce. He seemed glad of the company, and unlike others who occupied the upper story of the inn, Bruce did not snore.

I thought it unlikely that Sir Simon would yet be found in the public room of the inn, but entered cautiously next morn in case it might be so. He was gone, and I wished to be away from the place myself, so I downed a cup of ale, then visited the baker across the marketplace for a fresh loaf which, after I had saddled Bruce, I ate as the horse ambled from the town.

Once again I arrived in Bampton just past the hour for my dinner. But this day I first left Bruce in the hands of the castle marshalsea, and so could enjoy my meal with no other obligation to intrude. That was not precisely true, for as I consumed the stewed capon which Kate set before me, my eyes traveled to my iron-bound chest and I remembered the three pouches there.

Lord Gilbert wishes to be kept informed of events upon his lands, so I kissed my Kate and left Galen House for the castle. I found my employer entertaining guests in the hall, and decided he was not likely ready to hear a complete recitation of my travels and discoveries, slight as those were. So I told him the rudiments of what I had learned, then bowed my way out of the presence of this noble entourage.

For the remainder of the day I occupied myself with manor business. John Holcutt, Bampton’s reeve, is competent to oversee these affairs, but he would be employed upon his own land and I might relieve him of some of his labor if I saw to manor concerns.

Final plowing of fallow fields was nearly complete, and upon Monday villeins would begin to sow wheat and rye upon Lord Gilbert’s demesne lands. It is a risk to sow crops so late in the year. If no rain fell soon, the seed would be much delayed in sprouting, so that when the chill of winter approached, it would rot in the cold soil rather than take root and grow.

Some villeins not engaged in plowing were gathering wheat stubble from the August harvest to mix with hay as winter fodder for Lord Gilbert’s beasts. A few tenants who owed boon work were at this task as well, and would soon be doing the same work upon their own strips. These laborers looked up from their toil as I passed by, and tipped a cap or tugged a forelock in greeting. They needed no advice from me about their work, anymore than I needed their counsel before setting a broken arm.

Darkness was near when I completed my observation of Lord Gilbert’s manor, and herders who had been in the forest with their swine, pannaging, were driving the beasts to their sties for the night. I walked to Galen House well content with my lot. I had wed a beautiful lass, and was father to a healthy babe. I owned freehold a house worth ten pounds, and another of like worth in Oxford, part of Kate’s dower, a gift of her father when we wed, which brought twenty shillings each year rent. I did have an obligation to seek who murdered John Thrale, but the responsibility did not undermine my spirits on this fine autumn evening as I approached Galen House, Kate, Bessie, and my supper.

I suspected some mischief as I came close to Galen House and saw the front door standing open to the chill evening. I broke into a run, plunged through the door, and found Kate trussed upon the rushes of the floor, her mouth stuffed with a gag made of fabric ripped from Bessie’s tiny gown. The rushes were disordered where Kate had thrashed about to free herself, but this she could not do, for her wrists were bound tight together and then to a leg of our table. Our daughter lay beside her mother, unharmed but for the damage to her clothing. As I ran to free Kate I saw, from the corner of my eye, my chest standing open.