by Mel Starr
I bid the tanner good day and left him to his work. Perhaps a visit to the silversmith on East St. Helen Street should be my next call. The silversmith was not likely to know of Thrale’s sisters, but he might be the buyer of the ingots the chapman had made upon his hearth.
He was not, or if he was he did not wish to say so. I asked the silversmith first how he came by the metal which he fashioned into spoons and cups and jewelry. This was a poor beginning. The man was immediately on his guard, which was, perhaps, a clue that some of his supply was acquired in a manner unacceptable to the King.
“From Devon,” he said warily, “an’ from folks as wish to sell what they may have so to raise funds.”
“From mines in Devon?”
“Aye. Cornwall, too.”
“And merchants bring bars of silver from the mines to craftsmen such as you?”
“Aye. King’s seal stamped on ’em to show taxes paid.”
“If a silversmith purchased a silver ingot without the King’s seal…”
“He’d pay a fine.”
“But if you purchased silver from some man in financial embarrassment, what then?”
“No law against that, so long as the silver was ’is to sell, an’ not stolen.”
“Have you done so recently?”
The man’s eyes narrowed again, and the wary tone returned to his voice. “Not for many months. Next time the King demands taxes to war with France there’ll be folk wantin’ to sell their plate, but while we’re at peace… well, mostly at peace, I’m not offered much.”
“Did you know the chapman, John Thrale, who purchased a house a few doors from here at Lammastide?”
“A chapman? On East St. Helen Street?”
“Aye.”
“Oh… I’ve seen a fellow with cart an’ horse nearby the house. That him?”
“Aye, probably. Did he offer to sell silver to you?”
“Where would a chapman come by silver? ’Course, had he any, he might want to sell so’s to have coin to buy more stock.”
The coin which had fallen from John Thrale’s mouth was in my purse. Thieves had the others, but that first coin I had kept with me. I withdrew it from my purse and held it before the silversmith.
“Have you seen such a coin since Whitsuntide?”
The silversmith took the coin and squinted at it, turned it over, then held it at arm’s length. He was not a young man. He would soon need to purchase eyeglasses to see work close before his face.
“Nay, never seen such a coin.”
More conversation with the silversmith yielded no acknowledgment that the man had ever purchased silver, or any jewel or gold, from John Thrale. I believed him. But what did Thrale do with the ingots he so laboriously made?
Arthur is not a man to miss a meal, so I expected to find him awaiting me at the New Inn. Some things in life are predictable, if others are not. Arthur awaited me before the inn. We made a supper of wheaten bread and cheese, and ale, and sought our beds. Arthur had seen no mark of a broken horseshoe, though he had prowled Abingdon’s streets with his head down till dark.
The man who falls to sleep first in an abbey guest house or inn will sleep the best. I lay awake while others, including Arthur, fell to sleep and filled the chamber with their snoring. I did not find rest until some time after the abbey sacrist rang the bell for vigils.
Chapter 5
During a wakeful hour in the night another method of discovering John Thrale’s sisters came to me. He had purchased his house on East St. Helen Street from someone. Perhaps the seller knew more of the chapman than his name and the weight of his purse.
Monks do not break their fast, but after lauds set about their work until prime and terce, after which they take their dinner. As the abbey owned the New Inn, the guest master there saw no need to offer a loaf to us who sought lodging there. We could live as monks and be grateful for the well-thatched roof over our heads in the night.
A few paces from the New Inn is an ale house, and across the marketplace a baker has his shop, so we were able to eat and slake our thirst. In a busy town any print of a broken horseshoe upon the street would likely be soon obliterated, but having no better plan, I sent Arthur to roam Abingdon’s streets again, and told him to keep to the better sections of the town. No poor man would own a horse, broken shoe or not, and there would be small chance of finding the mark I sought on a street of paupers.
I set off again for East St. Helen Street and the pepperer’s shop.
“Good day,” the fellow smiled. He could not be certain I would make no purchase some other day, so greeted me pleasantly, as he would any customer.
“Aye, so ’tis,” I replied. “And a good day to you, also. John Thrale” — the pepperer crossed himself when he heard his neighbor’s name — “lived next door since Lammastide. Who owned the house before him?”
“A widow. Husband died when plague returned six years past. A tailor, was Walter.”
“Where does the woman make her home now?”
“Went off to Oxford to live with a son, Thomas. He’s a tailor, also. Shop on St. Michael’s Street, near to the Northgate, I hear tell. Maud tried to keep Walter’s business, she bein’ a good seamstress upon a time, but she’s the disease of the bones, an’ it pained her to ply a needle. Knuckles was all swollen.”
“How long was the house empty?”
“Near two years since Maud went to Oxford. There’s more’n one house stands empty in the town. She was right pleased to find a buyer, I’m thinkin’. No one to care for the place since Maud left, an’ she could do little enough the last few years she was there.”
“John Thrale got a good price, then?”
“Oh, aye. Six pounds, four, I heard. Don’t know what’ll become of the place now. Thatchin’ is goin’ bad, an’ rafters will soon rot, does no one see to it.”
The previous owner of Thrale’s house would be able to tell me nothing of his kin, being two years gone from Abingdon before the chapman made his purchase, so there was no need to seek her. I left the pepperer with no other scheme in mind to seek either John Thrale’s sisters or the felons who slew him. As I stood in the street, pondering what I might do next, my eyes wandered to Thrale’s empty house. The shutters, closed, were in need of repair and did not fit tightly against each other. In the crack between the shutters of the left-side window I thought I saw movement, but when I cast my eye back to the fissure all was dark. Perhaps I had imagined a cheek and eye peering out at me?
But perhaps not. Had the chapman’s murderers come back to search again Thrale’s house? I had no pressing business, so decided to investigate the house. Even if no person was within its walls, perhaps a close examination might reveal some clue I had missed which might lead to sisters or murderers.
I walked quietly and warily to the rear of the house. I did not really believe that some man was in the house, thinking my imagination or some play of light and shadow responsible for the apparition in the opening between shutters.
The window, missing the ripped skin which had closed it, was open to the cool breeze. It was also open to sounds. My cautious steps were silent, but not so the person inside the house. I neared the open window and heard soft sobbing from within the place.
I crept near the window and peered through the opening. The broken window covering and the cracks between closed shutters provided enough light that I could see the chamber and its inhabitant clearly. A woman sat upon the floor, her back to a wall, and wept into her apron. I felt guilty for intruding upon her grief.
Here, I thought, is one of John Thrale’s sisters. I was wrong. My error did not trouble me much when I learned of it, as I am become accustomed to the blunders, great and small, I make while investigating felonies upon Lord Gilbert’s lands.
The woman seemed to sense that some man looked upon her. She lifted her head abruptly, peered at the window, and drew a startled breath when she saw me gazing down upon her.
The situation required that I speak first. “P
ardon me. I did not mean to encroach upon your sorrow,” I said through the window.
The woman scrambled to her feet, wiped her eyes again, and asked in a quavering voice, “Who are you?”
The woman who spoke was perhaps near thirty years old, and comely for a woman of her years.
“I am Hugh de Singleton.” This announcement would mean nothing to the woman, so I continued, “I am a surgeon, and bailiff to Lord Gilbert Talbot at his manor in Bampton. And you,” I added, “must be Edith or Julianna?”
The woman’s eyes opened wide. “Nay,” she said. “No sister.”
She was silent for a moment, as was I, having had my assumption of her identity so demolished. “No sister,” she repeated softly. “What does a bailiff from Bampton seek in this house?”
“Thieves and murderers,” I replied. This was a blunder, but when speaking to females I seem often to find the wrong thing to say, and say it before considering the consequence. Some men seem not to have this affliction. I envy them.
The consequence in this case was a renewed flood of tears. As I had already spoken unwisely, I thought it prudent to say no more for a time. I held my tongue, and when the woman was able to contain her weeping she again spoke.
“Do you know what has become of John?”
The answer to that question should not be delivered through a window, I thought. “Aye,” I said, and went to the door, which had remained unlocked since felons had ransacked the house.
“John Thrale,” I continued, when I stood before her in the house, “lies in a grave in a churchyard near to Bampton.”
“Dead? John is dead?”
The woman began to sway unsteadily. She seemed likely to swoon, and I made ready to catch her before she toppled to the rushes. But she steadied herself, choked out a great sob, then spoke again.
“What has befallen my John?”
Her John? The pepperer’s wife said the chapman was not married.
“Did he take ill upon his rounds? He was well when he set out. Did some sickness strike him down?”
The woman thought of more questions as she spoke. “Why does a bailiff visit his house? And why,” she glanced about the room, “is John’s house so ruined? Some felons have done hamsoken while John was gone. Do you seek them? Why does a bailiff from Bampton seek villains here, in Abingdon? John is dead?”
The woman fell silent, and then stumbled to the chapman’s ruined bed, where she sat and renewed her sobs.
“You spoke of John Thrale as ‘My John.’ A neighbor said he was not wed.”
The woman seized control of her emotions and answered, “The banns was to be read at St. Helen’s Church soon as John returned. Said he’d be home today. I came to greet ’im, and found all this ruin, an’ no John. Was about to begin to try an’ set things right when you came.”
“So many tears for a broken table and chest, and torn mattress and pillow? Did you guess some harm had come to him?”
“Nay. Thought he’d be home soon.”
“Why, then, such sorrow?”
The woman looked from me to the corner where fragments of the larger chest were mixed with pieces of the small chest and the table leg which had been used to batter it open. “Stolen,” she sniffled. “Wealth we was to use to repair the house.”
“Ah… you wept for the silver coins and jewelry Thrale had locked in his chest?”
My greatest success in this interview seemed be in regularly causing this woman’s eyes to open wide in wonderment, followed by a renewed flow of tears.
“How did you know what was in John’s chest?” she sobbed.
I sat on the ripped mattress beside the woman and explained my presence there. I told her of John Thrale’s death (leaving out that information which could only cause her more sorrow), my discovery of his cache of coins and jewelry, the attack upon my wife and child, and the theft of the chapman’s hoarded wealth.
“You knew of the silver and gold Thrale possessed,” I concluded. “Where did he come by it?”
The woman’s tears had begun again when I told her of the chapman’s death, but by the time I concluded the sad tale she had composed herself again.
“Didn’t tell me. I asked. Said as how he knew women like to gossip. If I didn’t know where his wealth come from, I couldn’t tell another, he said. All I know is, when he come home from makin’ rounds to sell goods, he’d have more coins an’ such.”
“What is your name?”
“Amice… Amice Thatcher.”
“You never wed?”
“Nay. I’m a widow. Husband dead three years now, an’ two children to feed.”
“How do you live?”
“Brew ale. Keeps me an’ children alive.”
“John Thrale was older than you, was he not?”
“Aye. But a good man is… was John.”
“And with the supply of Roman coins he had found, he could ease your life.”
“’Tis hard for a widow. You’d not understand.”
She spoke true. It is difficult to put one’s self into another’s place. From what I knew of the chapman, and what I’d seen of his corpse, he was a decade older than Amice Thatcher, perhaps more. Unlikely he would have attracted a comely widow if he yet lived near the tanners on Ock Street and drew his tiny cart about the shire harnessed to it like a beast.
“Did you keep company with John Thrale upon Abingdon’s streets?”
Amice frowned at the question, and I explained. “The men who overturned this house, and who threatened my wife and child and stole the coins I took from this place, they will not be content until they know where John found the treasure. They may seek you, and will not be satisfied if you tell them you know not where John discovered the hoard.”
“They would deal with me as they did poor John?”
“Aye, and threaten harm to your children if you do not tell.”
Amice shuddered, as well she might. “What am I to do? I cannot tell what I do not know. Perhaps these men will not find me.”
“Perhaps. But was I you, I would seek safety until the villains are found out.”
“Where am I to go? I cannot leave off brewing. I have little enough to feed my children as is.”
“I will think on it. Meanwhile I will see you to your house. When I have devised some scheme for your safety I will seek you.”
“I live in the bury, with other poor folk… beyond the marketplace.”
I had begun to see foes everywhere, so when Amice and I left the house I peered cautiously into the street to see if two men — one slender and wearing a red cap, the other stout, wearing a blue cap — were upon East St. Helen Street. A monk, perhaps the almoner, seeking poor folk, walked the street, followed by two men. Only later did it occur to me that poor folk would not likely be found on East St. Helen Street.
We hurried away to the marketplace and the New Inn, where Arthur awaited. I called to him to join us, and together we escorted Amice Thatcher to her house. I told her to remain there until I returned. She agreed readily, having had time to consider what trouble might come if John Thrale’s assailants found her.
There is much poverty on the lanes beyond the marketplace. Little wonder Amice was eager to wed if the sacrament would take her from the bury to East St. Helen Street. Her tears had been for John Thrale, I suppose, but perhaps also for shattered hopes of escape.
Arthur and I returned to the New Inn and between mouthfuls of pottage I related the morning’s events to him. While I explained, a way to provide for Amice Thatcher’s safety occurred to me.
’Tis but a few paces from the New Inn to St. John’s Hospital. I found the hospital porter and asked that he fetch the infirmarer. The man looked down his nose at me, or tried to, but as I stood half a head taller than him, this he found difficult to do. He did make a manful effort. At last he deigned to reply.
“The New Inn, just beyond the gatehouse, serves travelers.”
“Aye, and we are lodged there. It is accommodation for another I seek.”
The porter made no reply. I believe his instructions were to permit as few folk as possible to enter the hospital. When Amice Thatcher was safely in the hospital, this hostile reception might serve to protect her — if she was first permitted to enter the place.
“I am Hugh de Singleton,” I said. “Surgeon, and bailiff to Lord Gilbert Talbot at his manor of Bampton. It is Lord Gilbert’s business which brings me here.”
“Lord Gilbert wishes lodging in the abbey? I will send for Abbot Peter. He will wish for Lord Gilbert to be his guest. When shall I say Lord Gilbert will arrive?”
The sullen porter was suddenly willing to please. I could fit in no word till he had stopped for breath and had begun to turn from me to send for the abbot.
“Nay, ’tis not Lord Gilbert who wishes lodging in Abingdon.”
“You said you are here on Lord Gilbert’s business,” the porter scowled.
“Indeed. There has been theft and murder done upon Lord Gilbert’s lands. One who may know something of the felony needs a place where she may be safe from those who might do her harm so as to silence her and escape my investigation.”
“She?”
“Aye. A widow and her two children.”
Another silence followed. I would not plead with the porter, and he could think of no reason to deny my request that he seek the hospital infirmarer.
“I will fetch Brother Theodore,” he finally said, then turned and slowly entered the hospital.
Arthur and I stood before the porter’s chamber, shifting weight from one foot to another, for nearly an hour before the porter reappeared with two elderly monks following. If Lord Gilbert Talbot’s name could generate so little haste, it is sure that Master Hugh, surgeon, would have found even less regard in this place. Here was not the first time I had found it convenient to mention my employer’s name when I needed something from men who might otherwise be loath to provide for my need.
One of the grizzled monks who followed the porter held a linen cloth over his mouth and nose. When he came close I saw that this fabric was stained with blood and a yellowish effusion.
“Brother Bartholomew,” the porter said, “here is… Hugh, bailiff to Lord Gilbert Talbot. Brother Bartholomew,” he turned to me, “is infirmarer at the abbey and hospital.” The elderly monks bowed slightly, and I returned the greeting.