Dark Tidings

Chapter 30 - Sixteen Aethelreds

Since the creation of the magic pouch, Madrick had used, gifted or cashed in twenty-one of the gold Aethelred II coins.

"These coins are miracles," said Tung.

"No, they're just a source of money which allow us to live in the lap of luxury at the Ritz," said Madrick

He'd no idea what happened to the coins after he'd disposed of them, and frankly, he didn't care. The fact of the matter was these Aethelreds were bought and sold by a series of traders, each one along the chain making a very healthy profit, thank you very much. Eventually, sixteen of the coins ended up on a deep brown, highly-polished, mahogany table being stared at by four, rather sombre looking, suited men.

***

"These are the rarest of rare coins and six weeks ago there were only a few known examples in the world, and not one of them was in anything like this uncirculated condition. Now, within the space of a few weeks, sixteen perfect examples had turned up in the city."

"Yes, and this is just one of a series of strange occurrences which has happened in our city."

They examined the coins in great detail and marvelled at their beauty. Just touching the old gold was enough to warm the cockles of a man's heart; well, the average man's heart. These men were different. These men showed no emotion and the coins merely presented them with a problem. They had to find out where they had originated and why they were now appearing in such numbers.

"We need to keep a close eye on this phenomenon," said the tallest man carefully replacing the coin beside the others.

The sixteen circles of gold were identical. They all had the same date and they were all in pristine condition. It was as if they had been taken directly from the engraver's die and stored in protective isolation for over a thousand years.

"Maybe a secret collector decided to sell off part of an illicit collection."

"No, it's something different. Any collector worth his salt would know the value and wouldn't have sold them all over the city for a fraction of their worth, even if his collection had been gathered illegally."

"Maybe they were stolen and the thief didn't know the value of what he'd got."

"Very unlikely, most thieves off-load their proceeds to a single fence. I think there is more to this than we can explain. We need to find out what is going on."

Over the next two days, they researched the history of the coins, consulted experts in the field and checked with listed collectors. They tracked down unlisted collectors by trawling the Deep Web, the murky parts of the Internet which Google doesn't reach. Their inside connections allowed them to talk to the directors of banks whose vaults contained secret stashes of Nazi gold, but no one could shed light on the mystery.

Try as they might, they just couldn't find a logical or reasonable explanation for the Aethelreds so, as a last resort, they sent out sixteen trusted agents, each tasked with tracing a single coin back to its source.

"We need to find answers quickly or we'll all suffer because the chief is demanding a formal report."

That demand was not to be treated lightly, because their chief was the Great Grand Master of the Occultus Populous.