When he had calmed down Aldred got him to focus on just how they would pounce.
“We need to catch them at it,” Den said. “I need to see the materials, the tools, the process. I need to see the false money being manufactured.”
“I think that can be arranged,” said Aldred, sounding more confident than he felt. “They do it at regular times, always a few days after the quarter day. Wynstan collects his rents, takes genuine money to Dreng’s Ferry, and there turns it into twice as many counterfeit coins.”
“It’s diabolical. But for us to catch them, they mustn’t be forewarned.” Den became thoughtful. “I would have to leave Shiring before Wynstan, so that he wouldn’t get the idea he was being followed. I’d need a pretext: I could pretend we’re going to search for Ironface in, say, the woods around Bathford.”
“Good idea. I heard a report of goats being stolen there a few weeks ago.”
“Then we would have to hide out in the forest near Dreng’s Ferry, well away from the road. However, we would need someone to tell us when Wynstan arrives at the minster.”
“I can arrange that. I have an ally in the village.”
“Trustworthy?”
“He already knows everything. It’s Edgar the builder.”
“Good choice. He helped the lady Ragna in Outhenham. Young, but smart. He would have to alert us as soon as they begin making the coins. Do you think he would do that?”
“Yes.”
“I believe we have the beginnings of a plan. But I need to think this over carefully. We’ll talk more later.”
“Whenever you like, sheriff.”
On Michaelmas, the twenty-ninth day of September, Bishop Wynstan sat in his residence at Shiring, receiving his rents.
Wealth poured into his treasury all day long, giving him a pleasure that was every bit as good as sex. The head men of nearby villages appeared in the morning, driving livestock, steering loaded carts, and carrying bags and chests of silver pennies. Tribute from more distant places within Shiring arrived in the afternoon. Wynstan as bishop was also lord of villages in other shires, and their payments would arrive over the next day or two. He tallied it all as carefully as a hungry peasant counted the baby chicks in the henhouse. He liked the silver pennies best of all, for he could take them to Dreng’s Ferry where they would miraculously be doubled.
The headman of Meddock was twelve pence short. The defaulterwas Godric, the son of the priest, who had come to explain. “My lord bishop, I beg your gracious mercy,” said Godric.
“Never mind that, where’s my money?” said Wynstan.
“The rain has been terrible, before and after Midsummer. I have a wife and two children, and I don’t know how I’m going to feed them this winter.”
This was not like last year’s calamity at Combe, where everyone in town had been impoverished. Wynstan said: “Everyone else in Meddock has paid their dues.”
“My land is on a west-facing slope, and my crops were washed out. I will pay you double next year.”
“No, you won’t, you’ll tell me another story.”
“I swear it.”
“If I accepted oaths instead of rents, I’d be poor and you’d be rich.”
“Then what am I to do?”
“Borrow.”
“I asked my father, the priest, but he doesn’t have the money.”
“If your own father has refused you, why should I help you?”
“Then what can I do?”
“Get the money somehow. If you can’t borrow it, sell yourself and your family into slavery.”
“Would you take us as slaves, my lord?”
