I stood and scratched the back of my head in puzzlement. Why would the felons who beat John Thrale to his death seek this place? As the question entered my mind, so did the answer. Here was a place where men had lived long ago. Perhaps those men had buried their wealth somewhere near to conceal it from brigands.
Arthur was as perplexed as I. “What is here?” he finally asked.
“Many years past men built here a house, I think, and these columns supported it. The murdered chapman may have found the place, and somehow discovered a buried hoard. The men who slew him knew he visited this place, and now seek the treasure.
Arthur frowned, looked about him, and placed a hand upon the hilt of his dagger.
“They are not here,” I said. “We made noise along that track. They would have heard us coming and fled.”
“Fled? Would they not fight for riches?”
“Perhaps, if pressed, but they would sooner flee, so as not to give suspicion that there is anything here worth fighting for. Let’s see what may be here… Go about the other side of these hillocks and see what may be found.”
Arthur frowned in puzzlement. “What am I to seek?”
“Anything which seems out of place in a forest. Some hole, perhaps, recently dug. Leaves will cover it, so search carefully. I will examine the ground this side of the mounds.”
Arthur disappeared into the forest so that all I knew of his progress was the occasional snapping of a twig. Meanwhile I walked the length of the stubby columns but saw no place where any man had made a trench in the earth.
I explored the forest five or six paces beyond the columns and there appeared three declivities in the earth before me. At the moment I saw them I heard Arthur speak through the wood. “Here is a hole… nay, two.”
“Stay where you are,” I replied, and wound my way through the trees until I saw his blue-and-black livery through the forest. He stood between two leaf-covered depressions, each about three paces across and knee deep.
These holes were fresh. Whoso dug them had piled the dirt nearby, and the mounds and holes had but a thin layer of fallen leaves as cover. I took a broken limb, stepped into one of the holes, and scraped away the leaves. I found nothing.
“There are three hollows much like this over yonder,” I said.
“Five holes? Them fellows find that much treasure, you think?”
“Nay. I think they found none.”
“None. Why so much labor, then?”
“Aye, why dig in so many places if you knew where you must search? They dug, found nothing, and dug again.”
“An’ gave up after five holes?”
“Aye.”
“What if they found what they sought in the fifth hole?”
“Mayhap,” I said. “We must hope they did not.”
“An’ why dig in these five places? Why choose here?” He pointed to the excavation before us. “Why not over there?” He pointed to an untouched opening between two great beech trees to our left.
“I cannot tell,” I shrugged. “There may have been some sign which the felons thought might tell of riches below the ground. Perhaps their digging obliterated it? When we find them I will ask it of them.
“For now, let’s follow the track beyond the clearing and see where it leads. There may be other ruins nearby, and other holes.”
There were not. The overgrown trail began to bend to the left, and perhaps a quarter of a mile beyond the five holes the path rejoined the road. To the right was Standlake, a half-mile distant. To the left, no more than two hundred paces off, was the place where we had left the road, following the track of a broken horseshoe.
I looked down at the road where I stood, and saw there the mark of the ill-shod horse we had followed into the forest. We had trailed the beast back to the road. Arthur followed my eyes and studied the mud at our feet.
“Them fellows didn’t return the way they come,” he said. “Nay. Had they found treasure in the forest, they would return home, but the track leads on toward Standlake… unless that is near their home. We’ll retrieve the horses and see where these men may lead us.”
Past Standlake the roads diverge, one way leading north, to Witney, the other west, to Bampton. I considered as we passed through Standlake what I should do if the trail led north.
I was spared the decision. The mark of a broken horseshoe traveled toward Bampton.
We followed, watching closely for any place where the horse had left the road.
Through Aston and Cote we saw no such trail, and at Cote rain began to fall, soaking us thoroughly and slowly obliterating the track we followed.
The deluge had nearly blotted out the trace of a broken horseshoe when we came to the place near to St. Andrew’s Chapel where John Thrale had been beaten to his death. Here the horse we followed again departed the road, and went along the same path which led to the clearing where I had found the chapman’s horse and cart.
I turned Bruce from the road, and Arthur followed. We were already soaked through, wet and cold. What matter if we became colder and wetter?
It was not necessary to dismount to follow this path. I knew the way, and I thought I knew where it would lead. I discovered soon enough that my knowledge was incomplete.
We came to the clearing where John Kellet and I had found Thrale’s horse and cart, and here I dismounted to inspect the surrounding forest for cavities made by those who sought the chapman’s hoard. No such digging was visible, but two wicked men had recently come to this place for some reason. It was not to enjoy the solitude of a peaceful autumn wood.
I told Arthur to circle about the clearing to the right, and I would do the same to the left. No more than ten paces from the clearing I found a duplicate of the ruins we found near Standlake. Here there were twenty leaf-and-mold-covered columns, four across and five in length, standing in a shallow declivity, as in the first discovery. Here was a place where ancient men had once lived, but a half-mile from Bampton, yet so far as I knew, no man of Bampton knew of the place. Perhaps some swineherd had passed by, or men seeking downed limbs for winter firewood, but if they saw the lumps in the forest they thought little of them. I was sure I would find holes dug into the earth nearby, and soon did so; four of them.
I called softly to Arthur and a moment later he appeared, stepping silently through the sodden forest.
Here the layer of fallen leaves covering the holes and the accompanying piles of dirt was thinner than at Standlake. Rain had surely loosened some this day, so whoever dug these pits had done so recently, perhaps this very morn. I held a finger to my lips to silence Arthur, though in truth he made no sound as he stepped near, and glanced about to see if any men might at that moment be seen observing us from behind an oak. Arthur caught my intent, and did likewise. We stood thus for some time, silent in the dripping wood, but neither saw nor heard any other man.
“’Tis sure the villains who delved here found no riches at Standlake,” said Arthur.
“Aye, they would not trouble themselves here had they done so. Nor did they find silver or gold here, I think.”
“Four holes, rather than one?”
“Aye, unless the fourth pit rewarded their labor.”
Arthur peered about, water dripping from his cap and eyebrows, and shivered. This was unlike him, for he bore discomfort as well as any man. I knew this from having spent some hours with him bound uncomfortably in a cold swineherd’s hut a year and more past.
“We have missed our dinner,” I said. “But mayhap cook will have a morsel remaining, and I am wet through and need dry clothes. Let us be off.”
Once or twice as we neared, then passed St. Andrew’s Chapel, I thought I saw in the road the mark of a broken horseshoe, but the pelting rain had so eroded all impressions in the mud that I could not be sure the felons had entered the town. And I was so wet and chilled, I no longer cared much where the fellows had gone. My mind, as we approached Bampton Castle, was fixed on warm, dry clothes, and a warm, dry wife. I found both readily.