Mel Starr - The Tainted Coin

I first drew the gag from Kate’s mouth, and she immediately shouted that I must make haste and be after them. I made haste, rather, to free her wrists and ankles from their bonds, then asked what had befallen her.

“Two men,” she gasped, rubbing chaffed wrists, “came upon me unannounced and asked for you. I told them you were at the castle, upon Lord Gilbert’s business.”

“They did not leave to seek me?”

“Nay. They exchanged glances, then one seized me and put a hand over my mouth while the other picked Bessie from the floor.”

“What then?”

“The man who held Bessie approached the hearth and said I was not to cry out or he would pitch her into the fire.” Kate shook as she recalled the moment, and I held her close to calm her quivering.

“My captor then released me, and told me to lie face-down upon the rushes and be silent, else his companion would set Bessie in the fire. I did as he demanded, and from the corner of my eye watched as he moved about the room. He soon saw your chest, opened it, and I heard him tell the other he’d found what they sought.”

“The three sacks?”

“Aye. He set them upon the floor before me when he bound me.”

“This was how long ago?”

“Not an hour past. They were mounted. I heard them ride off.”

I cursed myself that I had not sent Thrale’s sacks to the castle when I first learned from the pepperer’s wife that I was known to men who sought what I had found in the chapman’s house.

“It is nearly dark… too late to follow upon the roads, but I will ask on Church View Street and the High Street if any saw which way they went.”

“Do so. Do not fear to leave me. I am not harmed, but for tender wrists where I was tightly bound.”

“Describe the rogues, so I may ask wisely.”

“One was tall and slender, the other short and stout. The tall man’s beard was trimmed close.”

“And he wore a brown cotehardie and a red cap,” I added, “while the shorter man wore grey, with a blue cap.”

Kate’s eyes widened. “Aye… the one who held Bessie to the fire, he wore a blue cap. How did you know?”

“The same men did hamsoken to John Thrale’s house in Abingdon. A neighbor described them.”

“Are these the men who slew the chapman?”

“So I believe. They tried to learn of the coins and wealth from him, and beat him to make him tell.”

“But if the coins were in his house,” Kate mused, “why not enter while he was away? Why waylay him on the road and beat him?”

“It was not only the coins he had already found that they sought, I think. The chapman discovered some cache of coins and jewelry in his travels, and each time he did the circuit of villages he renewed his supply.”

“What did he do with them?”

“Melted them to ingots in a small iron box, then sold them to a silversmith, I’ll wager.”

“So these villains knew what you found in the chapman’s house, and thought it might be here?”

“Aye. Knew, or guessed. I am a fool. The neighbor’s wife told them the bailiff of the manor where John Thrale was found had visited his house. Men who will beat another to death will not so easily give up the pursuit of the loot they seek.”

“You think they knew it was you, then, who entered the chapman’s house and took away his wealth?”

“Not then, but they knew he died upon Bampton Manor. When they arrived this day the first man they met upon the street could tell them my name and where I was to be found.”

“I am glad you were not here,” Kate shuddered.

“Why so?”

“You would have tried to do some manly thing when they threatened to harm Bessie. They would not have hesitated to beat you as they did the chapman. I might now be a widow.”

I could say nothing, for I suspect Kate spoke true. Fathers do not always behave wisely when wife or children are threatened. There is a field, the Green Ditch, to the north of Holywell Street in Oxford, where a scaffold is raised whenever felons are hanged. I vowed to see the miscreants dangle there. For the murder they did, or for the insult to my house, my wife, my child? I could not say which was the sharper spur.

I left Galen House and found the place on Church View Street where Kate’s assailants had tethered their horses. ’Twas near dark, and the evening Angelus Bell rang while I studied the dust where horses had left imprints of their hooves. Close inspection showed that one beast wore a broken shoe, as if the horse had galloped over cobbles and snapped off a small part of a horseshoe. This shoe was not so malformed as to require immediate replacement, but enough to distinguish the animal from any other.

I cast my thoughts back to the discovery of the chapman’s cart, and the hoof-prints in the road. I could not recall a mark made there by a broken horseshoe, but other matters concerned me at the time, so I might have seen such a print and taken no notice of it.

I rose from studying the dust and saw Martyn the cobbler peering at me from before his shop. He was surely astonished to see Lord Gilbert’s bailiff on hands and knees in the street. I stood, motioned to him to hold his place, and hurried the hundred paces to where he waited.

“Two men on horseback, not of Bampton,” I began. “About an hour past. Did you see such men?”

“Aye.”

I thought he might, for he has placed his bench before a shutter which, when lifted, provides light and looks out on the street. He sees all who pass on Church View Street.

“Did one wear a red cap, the other blue?”

“Aye.”

“When they reached the High Street, which way did they go?”

“East, through the marketplace, toward St. Andrew’s Chapel.”

I had suspected that, thanked the cobbler for his time, and hastened back to Galen House and my affronted family. Kate awaited me upon a bench by the hearth, nursing Bessie. She looked up expectantly when I entered, but I had little to tell her. The broken horseshoe, which track I intended to follow next day even though it would be Sunday, was my only discovery.

Kate heard the news without comment. She had not expected, I think, when we wed, that she would be attacked in her house by those whom, in the course of my duties, I had provoked. And this assault was not the first. Would she have accepted my suit had she known what might follow? I sat beside her upon the bench and, in answer to my unspoken question, she rested her head upon my shoulder.

I awoke in the night to the sound of rain upon our bed-chamber window. I was at first pleased to hear this, but as I collected my wits I realized that the shower would obliterate the tracks I hoped to follow come morning. This was no misty drizzle, but a cloudburst, and it was not over and done with quickly. A gentle rain yet fell when Kate and I left our bed at dawn.

I went immediately to our door and walked out into the street, where the evening before I had discovered the track of a broken horseshoe. No trace of the mark remained. There was nothing to follow, no way to discover where the villains had gone once past the marketplace.

I was sure they were of Abingdon, or thereabouts, and was determined to seek them. But not alone. They had proven what villainy they would do. After mass I would seek Arthur at the castle and require him to accompany me.

Arthur had proven himself a useful companion in the matter of Master John Wyclif’s stolen books, and always seemed eager when I found it necessary to have his aid. He is a groom to Lord Gilbert, but as he is wed he is not required to travel when Lord Gilbert takes residence at Goodrich or Pembroke. I did not seek a violent confrontation with the miscreants who slew John Thrale and invaded my house, but to apprehend such men might require some compulsion. Arthur is a good man to have at one’s side in such a case, thick-set and ready for a brawl.