Bad Money (A Stephen Attebrook mystery Book 6)

by Jason Vail

  Stephen answer was a nod as he strode to the passage into the hall which was midway down.

  “The master’s not going to like this.”

  Stephen paused. “We won’t be long.”

  What he sought was not in the hall, but he had to pass through it to get to the buttery, where food was stored. The passage to it was on the other side beneath the stairs to the upper floors.

  Two female figures were standing by the hearth in the center of the floor, their eyes on him.

  Stephen stopped short at the sight of them. “Mistress Wattepas. Adele. I did not expect to find you here.”

  Adele’s answer to this was to break for the stairway.

  Stephen gestured at her. “Go get her.”

  A pair of burly bailiffs rushed across the hall and snared Adele halfway up the stairs.

  “I see I can kill two birds with one stone,” Stephen said. “I was wondering where you two had got to. Don’t let them go anywhere. We’ll take care of our first business first.”

  Stephen expected bluster from Mistress Wattepas like he had received from the elderly steward, but she looked away, eyes flinty, her lips a hard line. Adele looked frightened.

  The buttery, where the food was kept, held crates and sacks along one wall. A long and high cupboard occupied the other. A pair of pheasants hung upside down at the open window, which looked out into the back garden, where the corner of a wooden kitchen could be seen.

  At the far corner by the window, barrels of wine sat on top of a pallet. It was not unusual to rest things upon pallets, especially sacks of grain, to keep them off the dirt floor and the moisture that could contaminate the contents.

  “Move those barrels and then that pallet,” Stephen ordered the bailiffs who could be spared the task of keeping hold of Mistress Wattepas and her daughter.

  There wasn’t room enough for Stephen in the buttery while this work went on, so he retreated to the passage way to wait with the steward.

  Although the barrels had been full, or nearly so, it did not take that long to roll them aside and pull the pallet away from its corner.

  “We’ve found it,” one of the bailiffs said, sticking his head out of the pantry.

  “Very good,” Stephen said and reentered.

  The pallet had concealed a wooden door in the ground, which had been thrown up. Stairs led down to a cellar. It was dark down there.

  “I’ll need a candle,” Stephen said to the steward.

  “Of course, you will, sir,” the steward said.

  He went out and came back in a few moments with one.

  “A lighted candle,” Stephen said.

  “How stupid of me,” the steward said, and retreated again.

  This time he brought a copper pan in which lay some tinder, and a flint and steel. The steward handed the pan to one of the bailiffs. He struck sparks into the tinder. When one caught at last, Stephen lighted the candle.

  Holding the flame before him, Stephen descended to the cellar. Things sparkled in the darkness, shadows creeping about.

  “Anything down there, sir?” called one of the bailiffs, who had remained above owing to the crampness of the space.

  “I’ve found what we’re looking for,” Stephen said.

  He climbed out the cellar and handed the candle to a bailiff. “Have it all brought up and put on the cart.”

  “This is an outrage!” Mistress Wattepas snapped when Stephen returned to the hall, having recovered her sense of indignation.

  “We’ll see,” Stephen said. “Sit down. The both of you.”

  The two women sank into chairs by the fire after some hesitation.

  “I am afraid your wedding plans have hit an obstacle,” Stephen said. “I presume by your presence here that the talk of a postponement was premature, or not accurate.”

  “What sort of obstacle?” Mistress Wattepas demanded.

  Before Stephen could reply, Adele burst into tears, face in her hands.

  “Stop that, you silly girl!” Mistress Wattepas snapped.

  Stephen waited a moment for Adele to stop sobbing. She raised her head, no longer making any noise, but tears streaming down her cheeks.

  He said, “It seems that Sir Maurice is the center of a theft ring.”

  “That is preposterous!” Mistress Wattepas said.

  “There is the proof.” Stephen gestured to the first of the bailiffs who had appeared carrying an armload of the stolen silver. “We will take it to the castle and have the owners come to identify it. With that, he will be condemned. I cannot imagine he will escape a serious sentence, perhaps even beheading.”

  “No!” Adele cried. “Please, no!”

  “There is something else I want to discuss, though,” Stephen said. “Your husband.”

  “What about him?” Mistress Wattepas asked in a dismissive tone, but something about her bearing suggested wariness and perhaps anxiety.

  “You know that he was not kidnapped. He made it look like a kidnapping to cover his departure for Bishop’s Castle. Your engaging me was part of that ruse. What was he doing there?”

  Mistress Wattepas did not reply.

  “I know that something was going on at Bishop’s Castle, something to do with the minting of money. Apparently a certain Nigel FitzSimmons had come up with a plan to mint money without license. A clever plot to help finance a rising by the barons. Or so I am told by a knowledgeable source.”

  “A lie,” Mistress Wattepas spat.

  “Your husband worked at the mint here in Hereford during the Long Cross coinage,” Stephen said. “He was one of the engravers of the dies.”

  “I know nothing of such things.”

  “Of course you do. It couldn’t have escaped your conversation, especially since you were already married at the time if the ages of your children are any guide. In fact, I suspect his work was widely known to people interested in such things. I have no doubt that’s why FitzSimmons approached your husband and tried to recruit him into this plot. The thing is, evidently Nicholas Feyn was the better engraver. In order to avoid direct complicity in case things went wrong, your husband instead recruited Feyn for the business. But something went wrong. Feyn ran away, carrying off a set of dies. And he came to Ludlow. A strange thing to do. Why was that?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “But I think you do. He came to see your husband. But why?”

  Stephen’s inquiry met silence.

  “You stand to lose everything you have,” Stephen said. “The only way to save anything from the wreckage is to help me.”

  “You can’t make such promises,” Mistress Wattepas said. “You are but a little man, of no account.”

  “I know you think little of me because your family was higher than mine,” Stephen said. “But you must attend to your present circumstances. Crauford is beyond her reach now. But other suitors might not be, if you keep some means and don’t lose all to the crown. Which you will do when your husband’s collusion becomes known to the authorities. So you must gamble upon the King’s mercy.”

  Mistress Wattepas stared bitterly into the fire. “Feyn came to see Leofwine,” she said at last. “He was to deliver the dies to Leofwine, you see. They were Adele’s bride price.”

  “Bride price? You mean, they were to be given to Crauford?”

  “Yes.”

  “He demaned them?”

  Mistress Wattepas nodded.

  “Why would Crauford want a set of dies?” Stephen asked.

  “I don’t know, but I surmise from all this silver your men are carrying off that he planned to mint his own money as well.” She looked around. “Houses like these cost a lot of money. He was short of it. But we’re all short of money. Perhaps that was his way out of the dilemma. Simpler than borrowing, you have to give him that.”

  Stephen had an inspiration. “Leofwine wanted to use Feyn’s dies because they were less likely to be detected as forgeries, and thus less likely to threaten your daughter’s happiness.”

 
Mistress Wattepas nodded.

  “And how did Feyn end up in the privy?”

  “That greedy little man!”

  “Mother! Don’t!” Adele said.

  “What’s the use?” Mistress Wattepas said. “He’ll work it out himself anyway.”

  “That your husband killed Feyn?” Stephen asked.

  “There was an argument,” Mistress Wattepas said in a tired voice. “Feyn demanded more than was promised. Without the dies, Crauford wouldn’t go through with the marriage. So Leofwine struck him. He didn’t mean to kill him. It was an accident.”

  “And for his pains, he didn’t find the dies.”

  “That miserable cripple in the stable heard the altercation and came to the door,” Mistress Wattepas said. “Leofwine would have been seen, so he hid until that monster went back to his bed. By the time Leofwine came out, Feyn had dragged himself into the privy, thinking he might hide, I suppose. I expect he fell in on his own account. Leofwine had nothing to do with his death.”

  “There will be a price for the blow, if your story is to be believed.”

  “It isn’t my story. It is Leofwine’s. He will stand by it under oath if need be.”

  “Hmm,” Stephen muttered, digesting what he had heard. “Crauford is a friend of Fitzsimmons. Does he know about that plan? He must, if he thought to mint his own money. Where else would he have got the idea?”

  There was another long pause before Mistress Wattepas nodded. “He knows. He’s part of it.”

  Stephen was speechless for a time. “What possible part could he have to play?”

  “The plan isn’t merely to strike money to pay for the baron’s soldiers. It’s also meant for the King’s men.”

  The full impact of her words dawned on Stephen. “The bad money. FitzSimmons is going to give the bad money to Crauford who will pay it out to the King’s mercenaries.”

  “Yes.”

  “And they’ll discover this and, having been paid in bad money, they will leave service, weakening the King considerably when war breaks out.”

  “So Leofwine has told me.”

  Stephen hurried toward the doorway. “I must go. Bring them along when you’re done loading the cart! The servants too!”

  Chapter 29

  Percival FitzAllan rode straightaway for Windsor Castle when Stephen brought him word of what he had learned at Crauford’s house. He covered the distance, one-hundred-twenty miles, in two days of hard riding.

  He spent an hour closeted with the King, Prince Edward and several of their closest advisors. Stephen was not privy to this meeting. He remained in the passageway outside the chamber, however, in case any of the great men wanted to question him.

  The participants in this secret meeting emerged with grim faces, which suggested that they took seriously the news that FitzAllan had brought.

  A force was sent to the mercenary encampment outside town to arrest Maurice Crauford. He was put to questions upon his arrival at the castle, a little roughly, resulting in the loss of two fingers and part of a thumb before he confessed.

  A scratch force of knights and sergeants was put together and rode off that very day for a certain manor about forty miles east of Bishop’s Castle, where Crauford said the minting operation had been relocated. Stephen’s horse was so exhausted by the ride from Hereford that she could not make this one, and no one thought to give him another. So he remained behind.

  He spent several anxious days until a messenger returned with word that the raid had been successful: the minting operation had been broken up, dies and other materials captured along with a party of workmen, although FitzSimmons and Leofwine Wattepas had managed to escape. Stephen was relieved that nothing was said about Margaret de Thottenham.

  Shortly afterward, Stephen received a summons from the Prince. Like most visitors to the sprawling castle, he had been confined to the west bailey and not allowed in the east one, where the King’s hall and apartments sat along one wall below the huge round tower on its great motte. The messenger who had brought the summons conducted him through the gate, across a wooden drawbridge over a ditch north of the motte and through a fortified gate into the eastern bailey. Stephen could not help gauging the prospects for scaling the walls of that tower on the motte, and felt chagrined when he realized he was doing it. The messenger led him then to a chamber in one of the buildings near the gate rather than to the hall itself and left him at the door. The messenger knocked, entered the room, then came out again.

  “Wait here,” the messenger said. “The Prince will call for you when he’s ready.” He went away.

  Stephen waited in the corridor for more than an hour, listening to the murmur of voices beyond the door. There was not a bench or stool in sight, so he could only pace back and forth, fretting that he might have done something wrong.

  Finally, the door opened and a familiar figure emerged: Ademar de Valence, one of the King’s justices. A tall thin man who concealed the spare scaffold of his body in heavy maroon robes lined with ermine, he scowled at the sight of Stephen.

  “You!” de Valance spat. “I’ve warned him this is a mistake.”

  “What’s a mistake?” Stephen asked, surprised to be addressed. He and de Valence had not got along from the first moment they had met and their aging acquaintance had not improved things.

  “Just stay out of my way in future,” de Valence said, and strode down the corridor to the stairway, followed closely by a clerk whose arms were burdened with scrolls.

  A servant stuck his head out the door. “The Prince will see you now.”

  The Prince stood looking out a tall window. He turned when Stephen stopped at the table separating them which was covered by more scrolls.

  The Prince was a tall man — taller even than Stephen who was six feet in his stockings — with auburn hair that fell in cascades about his head, looking today like it needed a combing. Stubble covered his cheeks and prominent chin: he was known to dislike the attentions of barbers and only shaved once or twice a week. He smiled at Stephen, lighting up his open, handsome face.

  “Attebrook,” Edward said, “thank you for coming.”

  “My pleasure, my lord,” Stephen said, glad at least that there seemed to be no reprimand on the horizon. “How may I serve you?”

  Edward’s fingers wandered among the scrolls on the table until he found the one he wanted. “Our friend Geoffrey Randall has resigned his commission. His wounds, you see. They are rather serious and there is no prospect for recovery soon. We need a replacement. He has recommended you for the position. The King has accepted this recommendation. Here is your appointment.” Edward handed Stephen the scroll.

  Stephen accepted the scroll, feeling light-headed. He read the words with a struggle since they were in Latin. “I’m to be appointed coroner?”

  “That is the idea.”

  “Thank you, my lord.”

  “The appointment comes with a stipend, of course. It’s not a lot, but in your case it should keep you in bread and beer well enough. I’m sorry that we’re not in a position to do more.”

  “That is well enough, my lord. I am grateful.”

  Edward turned toward the window and Stephen thought he had been dismissed. But Edward beckoned. “There is one thing that occurred to me,” Edward said. “Come on, man. Don’t put down roots there.”

  Stephen crossed round the table and stepped to Edward’s side. Edward was looking out into the bailey so Stephen looked out as well. Edward waved at someone outside one of the stables lining the southern wall. The groom drew out a horse and led him on a halter across the yard. Stephen’s heart beat faster at the sight of that horse, an Andalusian stallion he knew very well. He had paid the horse to Edward some months ago to avoid a prosecution for homicide.

  “FitzAllan told me the part you played in defeating this plot involving bad money,” Edward said. “A knight shouldn’t be deprived of his best horse.”

  “Thank you, my lord.”

  “War will be upon us so
on. We’ll need every lance we can muster.”

  “There are dark times ahead.”

  “Times of struggle. But we will see it through, God willing. I hope you will be ready when the call comes. Now,” Edward clapped Stephen on the shoulder, “if you will excuse me, I have a lot to do. Correspondence! You’d think that being a prince meant lolling around drinking wine with beautiful women, but no, it’s mainly correspondence.”

  Chapter 30

  The move into Stephen’s new house began at dawn. There was not much to move of his things: a borrowed bed, a second-hand chair, a stool, a washstand, the bench Harry had carved upon and a basin — not enough to fill a single chamber let alone an entire house. But as generous as his stipend had been, it was now almost all used up in rent, Gilbert’s back wages, pasturage for his horses, and a few other odds and ends.

  Mark the groom and another of the servants carried the parts of the bed into the house and upstairs to one of the upper chambers along with the stool and washstand, having deposited the chair and bench by the hearth in the hall.

  Mistress Bartelot’s belongings took longer, and she fussed quite a bit making sure that the servants and Jennie Wistwode got things in their proper places. The process was not without aggravation. Mark whispered to Stephen as he hurried by, “Are you sure you want to share a house with that woman?”

  “You should be asking her that,” Stephen said. “It was her house to begin with.” Although in fact it was not now her house, since Stephen had taken over the tenancy. Mistress Bartelot had not yet gone down to Hereford to recover her stolen spoons, so she had no money. But she had been happy to move back even if she had to share the place with him.

  Stephen saw Harry plodding to work at Broad Gate, and he went out and called before Harry got too far away, “Why don’t you come in and have a look around?”

  “Why would I want to do that?” Harry asked. “I’ve seen the inside of a house before. There’s no reason to think this one is different from any other.”