The Marsh King's Daughter by Elizabeth Chadwick

you seldom recover the bodies. Lucky to have found what they have.'
    'What exactly are they looking for?' Miriel asked.
    The shepherd cocked her a sharp look. 'You've not heard the news then?'
    Miriel shook her head.
    He fixed the women with a bright stare, paused for a moment to extract the final drop of drama, then said, 'King John's baggage train got bogged down out there in the mist yesterday on the way to Swineshead Abbey. The mud and the tide swallowed it up in less than an hour. Lost everything, so it's said - including his crown.' He winked at the nuns. 'Be a huge reward for anyone as finds it.'
    'King John's baggage train,' Miriel repeated and gazed at the people busy on the sands. 'Were there any survivors?'
    The shepherd spread his hands. 'A few reached Sutton and raised the alarm, so one o' the soldiers told us, but the rest of them's out there, buried wi' the King's gold. All we found so far are two bodies and a broken candlestick.'
    Miriel pursed her lips. 'We saw the ponies tethered behind your cot, and your linens blowing in the wind.'
    He met her gaze squarely. 'I discovered them ponies wandering on the sheep pasture; I haven't stolen nothing. If they wants them back, they can come and get them -aye and the laundry too, providing they pay my wife for the washing of it all.'
    'Of course,' Miriel said. It was an effort not to laugh at his burst of righteous indignation. Whatever Godefe said about old Wynstan's honesty, Miriel doubted that King John would ever see the return of his ponies, linens, or piss-flask.
    The shepherd cleared his throat and looked at Godefe. 'You may as well tend my leg here. I'll be staying awhile yet.'
    'Even though there's nothing to find?' Miriel asked innocently—
    You got to show willing, haven't you?' He sat down and began unwrapping his hose binding.
    Leaving Godefe to deal with the shepherd, Miriel turned her mule and rode him down closer to the shoreline. The wind bustled off the sea, watering her eyes and almost
    dislodging her white novice's wimple. A strong salt tang filled her lungs. On the raised causeway above the mud,
    nobles wearing furlined cloaks and jewel-bright colours were
    supervising the operation. Miriel imagined the tide rolling behind and engulfing them as it must have done to the baggage train yesterday. She gave an involuntary shudder and thrust the thought to the back of her mind, wondering instead how much treasure had been lost.
    If someone found it, then it would literally be a King's ransom. In her mind's eye, she saw herself scooping a crown from the muddy sand and holding it aloft, soft pinpoints of light catching exposed areas of gold. How much would it be worth? More than enough to buy her freedom from the cloister and begin a new life. A house of her own, good food and fine clothes. She would be able to do as she pleased with no one to tell her nay. A smile curved her lips. She would build her own weaving business and become the best in all the Midland shires. She would—
    'Sister Miriel!' Godefe's insistent voice jolted her from her daydream. The crown vanished, leaving her the plain view of windswept shoreline and the villagers working methodically across the estuary with their hurdle fences and prods.
    'I'm coming.' She turned the mule.
    'You shouldn't have ridden off like that.'
    'I wanted to see what was happening.'
    'Yes, but you—'
    'Mother Abbess will want to know the details,' Miriel interrupted quickly before Godefe started to lecture in earnest. 'We can give a better account from what we have seen for ourselves.'
    Godefe narrowed her eyes, but conceded the point with a sniff as she tugged on her mule's bridle. 'Even so, it is time we returned. They will be ringing the bell for nones soon.'
    Then vespers, then compline, Miriel thought grimly, and nothing for sustenance but a piece of dry bread and a small cup of weak, herbal tisane. Concealing a grimace, she followed the older nun.
    The shepherd, his leg anointed and rebandaged, touched