by Jason Vail
There was, however, a thong around the victim’s neck and looped under the left arm: a circlet of leather, which was an odd thing, as people did not wear such things as decoration. Stephen removed the thong from around Feyn’s neck and discovered that it was attached to a leather pouch, which had evidently hung down the man’s back when he was alive. It was a large pouch, and quite heavy.
Stephen worked the mouth of the pouch open and poured the contents on the ground; or rather, he expected it to pour. But instead of money two iron cylinders about two inches thick by four inches long plopped onto the ground.
“What the devil?” Stephen asked no one in particular. He had never seen anything like these cylinders and had no idea what they were, or why a fellow like Feyn would be carrying them in a hidden purse.
A design had been engraved on one end of each cylinder. Stephen held them out to Gilbert. “What do you make of that?”
Gilbert’s eyes narrowed as he bent for a closer look. He ran a finger over the designs. “These are the dies for minting money. No one should have these. No one, but with the proper license from the king.”
Chapter 7
Stephen and Gilbert had hardly passed through the door to the inn, the inquest having concluded with the inevitable verdict of death by homicide, when Jennie confronted them.
“Dad,” she said, “you’ve got to see this.”
“What have I got to see, dear? Can’t you see that we’re very busy? We’ve got to question as many people as we can while their memories are fresh.”
“Mum said to come upstairs. She’s something odd to show you.”
“I’ve had my fill of odd things today. Can’t it wait?”
“It’s about that dead man.”
Gilbert glanced at Stephen. “Very well. Let’s be quick.”
Stephen should have let Gilbert handle this oddity and gone on to begin the search for possible witnesses. But that was such a tedious and usually unrewarding business that he let his curiosity pull him up the stairs to the first floor after Jennie and Gilbert.
Jennie led the way to the front room overlooking the street. It was the most expensive chamber in the house, and had a cupboard for clothes, a night table and even a chair. It was well lighted with two great windows that were thrown upon to admit the morning’s air and light. Edith stood in the open doorway, a thunderous expression on her face.
“What is it, my dear?” Gilbert asked.
“Look at what that fool did before he died,” Edith said.
Gilbert and Stephen stepped around Edith into the chamber. Gilbert gasped at what he saw. A plain cloth satchel lay in the middle of the floor. It was empty and its contents had been strewn about. But that wasn’t what had Edith upset. The chamber, in addition to its other furnishings, had a poster bed with curtains and a feather mattress and feather pillows. The mattress had been pulled off the bed, its linen bag cut open and the feathers dumped out. There were feathers everywhere. The pillows had received the same treatment.
“Why would he do that to a perfectly good mattress?” Edith demanded.
“I don’t think Feyn did this,” Stephen said. “It was someone else.”
“But why? What’s the point? Other than sheer vandalism and love of destruction?”
“Someone came here after Feyn died,” Stephen said. “Someone who was looking for something he had.”
Gilbert looked thoughtful. “I think you have that right.”
Stephen feigned shocked. “Mark this day, Edith. Gilbert agrees with me on something.”
“The dies perhaps?” Gilbert said.
“That could be the only thing.”
“Companions in crime who had a falling out?”
“That is a likely possibility,” Stephen said.
Gilbert prodded the empty satchel, while looking about the room. “These are his only effects. That’s odd.”
“Why?” Stephen asked.
“He came on foot, without a horse.”
Stephen blinked at this seeming change of subject. “So?”
“Most people who take this room are men of substance. They usually have a horse and more baggage than a simple bag.”
“Perhaps he stabled his horse elsewhere.”
“Perhaps so. But how do you explain the bag?”
“Perhaps he stored his effects elsewhere.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“I don’t know what to believe. I am suspending judgment until I have more facts.”
“That is unlike you, Stephen. You are learning.”
“With all your pestering, you don’t give me any choice. He had no obvious companions, either. What man of substance travels alone?”
“Perhaps he stored them somewhere else as well.”
“Or perhaps he was trying to elude them.”
Gilbert nodded. “That seems most likely. A falling out, they pursued him, and found him here.”
Stephen strolled into the chamber, kicking the piles of feathers, trying to capture a thought that raced about the edges of his mind. “It’s odd that he would take this chamber, a man of little apparent substance spending so much for a single night’s lodging.”
“What are you doing!” Edith cried. “You’re making the mess worse!”
“Sorry, Edith,” Stephen said. “I thought perhaps there might be something underneath that might be important.”
“I’ll have the girls clean it up,” she said. “If they find anything, they’ll bring it to you straightaway.”
“Have the girls collect these things,” Stephen said, indicating Feyn’s effects, “and bring them down to my table in the hall.”
Stephen sat at his usual table by the hall’s great stone fireplace looking down at Feyn’s satchel and belongings. There was an extra pair of braies, a pair of stockings, some loose ties for the stockings, and a linen shirt. There was also a hammer and a pair of shears.
Stephen ran his fingers along the hammer. “Odd things to carry about in your satchel.”
“Dies, hammers and shears go together,” Gilbert said.
“How so?”
“Let’s see those dies.”
Stephen produced the iron cylinders from his belt pouch.
“Hold this,” Gilbert said, returning one of the cylinders to Stephen. “Keep it up, that’s it, engraved part toward the ceiling.”
Gilbert poised the other die over the one in Stephen’s hands. “You first cut a blank coin with the shears from a flat sheet of pure silver. You heat the blanks over a fire until they are soft. Then you put the blank there, upon the lower die.” Gilbert touched the spot. “You then put the upper die upon it, like this.” Gilbert rested the die in his hands upon the lower cylinder. He took up the hammer. “Then you strike the upper die so.” He tapped the die in his hands with the hammer. “And voila, now you have money. That’s why it’s called striking money.”
Stephen smiled slightly. “Almost like out of nothing.”
“Well, not exactly out of nothing. You have to have the silver. That’s hard to get. And expensive, even in ingots.”
“This is odd knowledge for a mere innkeeper.”
“One my brothers at the monastery had been a moneyer when the Shrewsbury mint was open at the time the Long Coinage was being minted. It’s a simple process, really, except for the engraving of the die. That takes talent and experience.”
“So you’re told.”
“Of course. I’ve never seen it done.”
Stephen placed the die on the table and spun it slowly with a finger. He put the die in his pouch and retrieved the other from Gilbert’s hands, which he also returned to his pouch. He stood up.
“Where are you going?” Gilbert asked.
“I need to speak to Harry.”
“Good Lord, what about?”
“I am not quite sure.”
Harry was at his usual place just within Broad Gate, a blanket wrapped around him for warmth since he was in shadow, his begging cup before him. As there were no
people in sight having the intention to pass through the gate, he was whittling on a block of wood, where someone’s face was beginning to take shape.
There was no bench or other place to sit while conversing with him. Stephen squatted and put his finger in the cup, stirring the few farthings within it like so much soup.
“What’s the matter?” Harry asked. “You hard up for money again?”
“I’m always hard up for money,” Stephen said, removing his finger from the cup.
“I’ve told you time and again that you should sell one of those horses of yours. Useless things, horses, spreading shit everywhere and eating you out of house and home. You only need one, anyway. But you’re too pigheaded to take advice.”
It was true that Stephen had resisted this advice. He had not sold any of them because he had already fallen so low as a result of his misfortunes in Spain that he could not bear the feeling of sinking any deeper by giving one up. Until recently he had had three horses, but he’d been forced to surrender his best horse, a specially trained Andalusian stallion, to buy his way out of a homicide charge. Now he had only the two mares, ordinary riding horses unfit for battle. A knight needed a warhorse to call himself a proper knight, and he longed more than anything to climb out of the pit afforded by his current employment. The pit seemed deeper now, and he had acquired certain enemies hereabout that made the selling of a horse more urgent as he needed money to get away from Ludlow. Yet he had nothing but excuses to put off what needed to be done.
“I shall probably have to do so soon,” Stephen allowed.
“Well, get on with it, and keep your hand out of my cup.”
Stephen fished into his belt pouch for the pennies he had taken from Brereton. “I need your advice on another matter, Harry.”
“Always ready to oblige if the price is right.”
“As this is official business, it is your duty to oblige without cost.”
“Is this about that dead fellow in the privy? It’s a relief folk found only him. It caused me quite a scare.”
“Me too, and yes, it is.” Stephen held one some of the pennies. “Can you have a look at these?”
Harry peered at the pennies in Stephen’s palm. “Why? Where’d you get those? I’ve never seen you in possession of such riches at one time, except the time I loaned you my savings.” His eyes narrowed. “What have you been up to? I’ll have you know that I’ll not be a partner in crime. I am a well behaved fellow. I want no trouble.”
“I just want your professional opinion.”
“Professional opinion about what?”
“You’re a connoisseur of money. I’d like you to have a look at these.”
“What’s a connoisseur? I don’t speak Dutch.”
Stephen smiled. “It’s a person with special knowledge.”
“Oh, well, why don’t you just speak plain English, then? Of course. I am knowledgeable on many subjects. I have nothing to do all day here but to think great thoughts — the nature of the universe, God’s plan for us, what is the best and most fit form of government.” He raised his arms heavenward while speaking, then let them drop to his lap. “And why should I look at this money?”
“You’re a collector of money. I’ve never met anyone so obsessed with it.”
“You’re forgetting Edith.”
“I wanted to hear your opinion before I confront her.”
Harry’s eyes narrowed. “You suspect there’s something wrong with this money.”
“I fear it might be bad money, some of it anyway.”
“You can’t usually tell bad money from good money just by looking at it.”
“You can’t?”
“No. Usually it has to be tested on a scale — weighed against the equivalent weight in silver.”
“Why is that?”
“Because forgers, if they know their craft, get the imprints right. It’s the materials they skimp on, cutting the silver content, using lead, copper or iron instead.”
“If copper or iron was used, couldn’t that be easily spotted?”
“Not necessarily. That would be the core, but the surface would be faced with silver. Enough certainly to fool the eye.”
“What if we clipped them,” Stephen suggested, shaking his palm. “Could we tell then?”
Harry’s mouth formed an upside down U. “We might.”
“You’re not sure.”
“I’ve never thought to do that. Never had the need. False coins are rare. The penalties for possessing them are severe enough to discourage people.”
“It does happen, though.”
“Perhaps in the bigger towns, but Ludlow? I’ve never worried about it.”
“But you have given the matter some thought.”
“Anyone in my position does. It’s a matter of professional interest, after all. We beggars discuss these things at our conclaves.”
“I am glad you do,” Stephen said. He closed his fist over the coins. “I haven’t anything to clip them with here. But I’ll have some for you to look at after supper.”
Gilbert was waiting in the hall when Stephen returned from Broad Gate with word that they had been summoned by the undersheriff, Walter Henle, to the castle.
“I think he’s upset that we didn’t report immediately to him about the fellow in the privy,” Gilbert said as they hurried out to Bell Lane and up the hill to High Street.
“I would say we’ve been rather busy investigating the death, wouldn’t you?” Stephen said. “Can’t he understand that we must act quickly before the witnesses disperse? By the way, you’ve interviewed everyone who might have seen or heard anything, haven’t you?”
“All but Harry. I trust you’ve taken care of that.”
“Of course,” Stephen lied. It had not occurred to him to ask Harry if he’d seen or heard anything last evening, although he should have done. “And what did you learn?”
“No one saw or heard anything untoward.”
“I wonder how much of that is true.”
“I doubt we shall ever know.”
“We’ve done all that could be expected of us, at any rate. It’s a matter for the sheriff anyway. Not our affair. Time to pass off the unrewarding business.”
“Certainly the matter of those dies are. You have them still? His messenger asked after them.”
Stephen patted his pouch. “They’re safe here.”
Henle received them in the castle’s hall, a great timber building over a stone undercroft that stood between two towers on the north wall of the inner bailey.
Henle steepled his fingers when Stephen and Gilbert stood before him. “I’ve been led to understand that this fellow Feyn had the dies for making money in his possession,” Henle said. “Where are they?”
“Here,” Stephen said. He put the dies on the table.
Henle rolled them on the table top and inspected the engravings at their ends. “I wonder how he came by them,” Henle mused, a question that did not seem to call for an answer so Stephen and Gilbert said nothing. “This is no ordinary death. It is a matter of great importance. We must find out how he acquired them. And he must have had accomplices. I made inquiry about the fellow and he did not seem the sort to have acted alone.” Henle directed a finger at Stephen. “I shall need a full report from you on what you’ve learned. In writing, right away. The sheriff will want to know everything.” Henle took up one of the die. “I shall dispatch your letter and these to Hereford first thing tomorrow.”
“Of course,” Stephen said, glad that Henle seemed eager to take over this unpleasantness.
“Meanwhile, you shall continue your inquiry,” Henle said.
“I shall?” Stephen asked, his relief punctured.
“Of course you shall. This is a crown matter. You are the person best suited for it.” Henle said this, however, with some reluctance and a dash of distaste, for he had no affection for Stephen. “I want you to find out how Feyn got these dies and what he proposed to do with them. You shall report all your findin
gs directly to me, and to me alone. Do good work and perhaps you will redeem yourself.”
“I have no need for redemption.”
“Percival FitzAllan thinks otherwise.”
“He is mistaken.”
“He says you conspired with the enemies of the king to do harm to his grace’s friends.”
“I was engaged to find the killers of some salt merchants, nothing more.” There had, in fact, been quite a bit more, and FitzAllan was right, although Stephen would not say so.
“If you find out what Feyn was up to and we catch his accomplices, I will put a good word in for you. The king will be much concerned about the counterfeiting of his coin. He will reward those who put a stop to it.”
“I shall be pleased to assist,” Stephen said, doubting that Henle’s word carried much weight with either the king or Prince Edward, and not being pleased at all. It was bad enough that he had to pursue work that he found distasteful, but worse that he would be under Henle’s thumb while he did it, since Henle was sure to grab the greater part of the credit for himself. “What about my expenses? This is likely to be a costly undertaking.”
Henle pursed his lips, taken aback at the question. He had clearly not considered the ramifications of his order. “Just don’t be profligate.”
“I shall do my best, your honor,” Stephen said.
“See that you do.”
“I am surprised you agreed,” Gilbert said as they descended the stairs to the bailey.
“I don’t know what came over me,” Stephen said. “It was the scent of blackmail, I suppose.”
“I for one am glad. I have been worried that we might not have an answer for the matter, and that it will reflect badly on the inn. It’s bad for business to have guests murdered in the yard, the sort of thing that could put us out of business if not resolved. If we left the inquiry to Henle, he’d just bollix it up.”