I replaced the waxed cloth atop the cart, then led the horse through the wood to the road. Here I halted to again study the dust of the road to see if it might tell me more of what had happened here. Many men had walked this way since the last rain, and horses also. It was impossible to tell which of the tracks might have been made by the men who had slain the chapman.
We walked to St. Andrew’s Chapel, where Kellet left me to set about his duty to bury the chapman in the hallowed ground of the churchyard. I led the horse and cart through the town and under the Bampton Castle portcullis to the marshalsea, where I told a page to unharness and care for the beast, but to leave the cart where it stood. I then sought John Chamberlain and requested of him an audience with Lord Gilbert. I awaited John’s return in the hall, but was not long abandoned. John returned with announcement that Lord Gilbert was at leisure and would see me in the solar.
That chamber, smaller and more easily warmed than the hall, was Lord Gilbert’s choice when the weather turned cool and damp. The day was mild, but a fire blazed upon the hearth when I was ushered into the solar. A great lord cares little for use of firewood, as he will always have supply. And, in truth, the warmth was pleasing. If I had such resources to hand I would this day have a blaze in all of the hearths in Galen House.
“Hugh, what news?” Lord Gilbert said, looking up from a ledger. Lord Gilbert is a bearded, square-faced man, ruddy of cheek and accustomed to squinting into the sun from atop a horse. Unlike most lords, he desires to keep abreast of financial dealings within his lands. Each year I prepare an account for his steward, Geoffrey Thirwall, who resides at Pembroke. Thirwall visits Bampton once each year, for hallmote, when he examines my report. Most nobles allow their stewards final say in matters of business, as, in truth, does Lord Gilbert. But, unlike most, Lord Gilbert wishes to keep himself informed of profit and loss first hand, rather than rely only upon the accounts of bailiff and steward. Many great lords have lately been reduced to penury, and must sell lands to pay debts. The plague has taken many tenants, and dead men pay no rents. Lord Gilbert is not in such straightened circumstance. Perhaps his inspection of my accounts and those of his other bailiffs is reason why.
“A dead man was found this morning upon your lands,” I said. “Well, he was not dead when found, but died soon after.”
“A tenant, or villein?”
“Neither, m’lord. A chapman, I think. We found a place in the wood where the man was attacked, and a horse and cart were there.”
“We?”
“Aye. John Kellet found the man moaning and near dead under the porch roof of St. Andrew’s Chapel. I have brought horse and cart to the castle. Neither I nor Kellet recognize the dead man, nor did Hubert Shillside or any man of his coroner’s jury. If no heirs can be discovered the goods in his cart are yours, m’lord.”
“Oh, aye… just so. What is there?”
“Two chests of combs, buckles, buttons, pins, and such like, and another of woolen cloth of the middling sort.”
“A traveler, then,” said Lord Gilbert.
“Aye. ’Tis why he is unknown in Bampton. Hubert Shillside sells much the same stuff. The man has probably passed this way before, perhaps traveling from Cote to Alvescot or some such place, and this may be why he sought St. Andrew’s Chapel when men set upon him.”
“If thieves,” Lord Gilbert wondered aloud, “why did they not make off with his goods?”
“Before he died he looked at me and said, ‘They didn’t get me coin.’ Poor men might find it impossible to hide possession of ivory combs for their wives. Even selling such things would raise eyebrows. But coins… even a poor cotter will have some wealth. Perhaps whoso attacked the chapman thought disposing of his goods might point to them as thieves, so wished only for his purse.”
“Did you find it?”
“Nay. He had no purse fixed to his belt, nor was there one in the cart or the forest, unless it is well hid.”
“Then why, I wonder, did he say the fellows had not got his coin?”
“This puzzles me, as well. Perhaps the purse was in his cart, and he was too knocked about to know that the thieves made off with it.”
“Aye,” Lord Gilbert agreed. “Let us have a look at the cart, and see what is there.”
“John Kellet has asked, if the chapman cannot be named, and no heir found, some of the goods found in the cart might be sold and the profit dispensed to the poor, to help them through the winter to come.”
Lord Gilbert is not an unjust man, but the thought of surviving a winter, or possibly not, does not enter his mind, nor do any nobles give the season much thought other than to make ready a Christmas feast. That many folk might see winter as a threat to their lives and the survival of their children was an unfamiliar thought to my employer.
“Oh, uh, well, let us see what is there and I will consider the matter.”
Most great lords need an extra horse or two, even if the beast be of the meaner sort. Lord Gilbert ordered the chapman’s horse placed in an empty stall, and after inspecting the contents of the cart, commanded two grooms to take the goods to John Chamberlain’s office, where he might hold them secure while I sought for some heir to the unidentified chapman. The empty cart was placed beside the castle curtain wall, behind the marshalsea, there to await disposition.
My stomach told me ’twas past time for my dinner, and as I departed the castle gatehouse the noon Angelus Bell rang from St. Beornwald’s Church tower to confirm the time. Kate had prepared a roast of mutton, which I devoured manfully, though such flesh is not my favorite. I have never told this to Kate, as I dislike disappointing her. So I consumed my mutton and awaited another day and a dinner more to my pleasure.
I decided after dinner, of which a sizeable portion remained for my supper, to revisit the clearing in the forest where John Kellet and I found the cart, then travel east to Aston and Cote. Perhaps the chapman did business in the villages and some there would know of him, or perhaps his murderers lived there and might be found out.
The path to the forest took me past St. Andrew’s Chapel, and as I approached the lychgate I saw the curate and another man leave the porch, the dead chapman between then upon the pallet. In a far corner of the churchyard was a mound of earth where a grave lay open to receive its unidentified tenant. I turned from the road, passed through the rotting lychgate, and became a mourner at the burial.
Kellet lifted his eyes from his task when I approached and this caused him to stumble as a toe caught some uneven turf. He tried to regain his balance while maintaining a grip on his end of the pallet, but was unable to do either. The priest was a man who, three years past, could draw a longbow and place arrows in a butt as well as any. It is unlikely he could do so now, or even break an arrow shaft across his knee. Kellet’s gaunt frame seems hardly robust enough to keep him upright, much less sustain a burden, and the chapman had been a sturdy man.
Kellet had provided no shroud for the corpse. The priest gives away so much of his living that he probably had no coin with which to purchase a length of even the coarsest hemp. So when he dropped his end of the pallet the chapman rolled uncovered to the sod, face down.
I hastened to help Kellet to his feet, and together with his assistant we lifted the corpse back upon the pallet. But when the chapman’s face was raised from the grass I saw there a thing which arrested my attention and caused his dying words to return to my mind. A small coin lay upon the turf where a moment before the corpse had lain face down.
When the dead man was again upon his pallet I searched in the grass and retrieved the coin. It was worn and corroded, and looked like no coin I had before seen. It was of tarnished silver, smaller than a penny, very near the size of a farthing.
Kellet and his assistant watched as I inspected the coin. The priest finally spoke, “How did that come to be here in the churchyard?”