Death and Taxes
Standard Disclaimer: Don't own, don't profit
Season one, one shot
There are heroes, there are villains, and in between in the vast middle, there are taxpayers…
"He's dead. Deceased. Passed on. No longer with us. Gone to meet his maker. Bereft of life. Dead. Meaning, he's not alive anymore to still be earning taxable income." Agnes was surprised to hear the words coming out of her mouth. She thought she'd lost her sense of humor along with her husband.
The soldier scowled at her, not amused by her flippancy, and Agnes scowled back. Meanwhile, the tax collector merely smiled with cruel amusement at her morbid statement.
Agnes was not surprised the sheriff's underling traveled with one of the sheriff's many hired thugs. His shiny-headed guardsmen were good at being menacing, many of them imported mercenaries from the slums of France with no ties to the local populace, satisfied with the easy job of bullying villagers into obeying the sheriff's every whim.
Lately, however, the guardsmen had been forced to actually earn their pay, going up against the nobleman-turned-outlaw, Robin of Locksley. Everyone was still talking in excited whispers of how the young earl had thrown down a challenge to the sheriff, daring to defy him.
As a result, the man was now a fugitive; but rumor had it that he had freed men unjustly sent to the gallows, and had been giving the Sheriff a well-deserved headache, and so far had gotten away with it all."
Agnes glared at the two men, trying to look haughty. She tried to remind herself that a personal visit from the Nottingham tax clerk, ill though it boded, was better than a visit from the sheriff himself - or worse, from his personal guard dog, Sir Guy, whispered to be in the pay of both the sheriff and Death Himself.
Hurray for being unimportant, thought Agnes with a mixture of despair and self-deprecating amusement.
"My dear Mistress Payne," said the clerk in a voice as smooth as fish oil, "I am well aware of your husband current status. Indeed, that is why we are here."
"What does my husband's death have to do with last year's taxes?" she asked with asperity. "They've been paid."
"Ah, but not the death taxes on the estate of the late Master Adam Payne," he told her.
"The what?" she asked, not quite sure she'd heard right.
"Your husband died this winter and was buried during the last fiscal quarter. That means his total worth, such as it is," he glanced around the cottage, "falls under last years' taxes as well as the taxes on his labors already paid."
Agnes clenched and unclenched her hands, worried where this conversation was heading.
He consulted a sheaf of papers in his hand. "I must say, I was disappointed you were remiss in paying this, you and your husband were always so prompt; I guess that means he was the one in charge of the household accounts." He made a tut-tutting noise. "Wise of him, it is well known women have no head for finance."
Agnes restrained herself from slapping him only by telling herself there was probably a heavy tax for such an action.
"So," the agent continued blithely, "I was forced to add a late fee as well onto the death tax." He handed her a small square of parchment. "Here is the total, tax and fee, please present this along with the money to the tax office no latter than the end of the week. After that, every day that the money is late, a charge of fifteen percent interest will be added – that's one penny on every six," he said, as if speaking to someone simple minded.
With a slightly trembling hand Agnes took the parchment. She read the total and felt the blood drain from her face. The remaining blood in her body seemed to turn into ice water as she realized the utter impossibility of paying the unexpected tax.
Shock turned to anger and she looked the tax agent square in the eye. "How in the name of God's teeth am I supposed to pay this? The taxes on labor, supplies, and firewood this winter took nearly all our savings, but we paid them. I paid the doctor who treated him for his last illness, the apothecary who made the medicines that were supposed to save him, the gravediggers who buried him, the priest for the funeral mass and the endless prayers to get his poor damned soul out of purgatory, all the meanwhile paying the baker and butcher so I wouldn't starve to death myself while working to make the money to pay all those expenses." She waved at her loom. "I'll have the money for this year's taxes when the time comes, but only after selling the work I'm doing now and hiring myself out to help with the threshing come harvest time."
She paused briefly to draw breath. "But for right now," she gritted her teeth, "There. Is. No. More. Money."
Throughout her rant the tax agent merely smiled faintly, looking a bit amused at her railing. "My dear Mistress Payne, the government does not care. The state demands its due, that is all."
"How-?" her voice came out in a squeak, and she broke off, afraid she was on the edge of breaking down.
He leered at her, "I'm sure you can find some way to come up with the money. There is a type of installment plan you may qualify for. If you're interested, please come see me at my rooms in the castle, anytime after sunset, and I'll interview you to see if you… qualify." The look on his face left no doubt as to what she would need to do.
Agnes felt her lip curl up in disgust. "I am very sure I do not qualify, of that you can be certain," she snapped at him.
"My dear lady," he said in his oily voice, "the only two things certain in this life are death and taxes." He smiled, and left.
Once he was gone, Agnes slumped down on the bed, and sat and stared at the wall for a while, silently repeating over and over again, There is no more money, completely at a loss what to do next. It was true what she had told him, she would have money later - she just didn't see how she could make it to that point.
She fell asleep eventually, her dreams filled with uneasy wanderings, looking for something she couldn't find.
The next morning she woke up, it was one of the first real warm days of the spring season. The sun was actually shining, she could smell things beginning to really grow, and it took her a full second to remember to be unhappy.
She got up, pulled her dress on over her linen shift and, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, went to stir up the fire so she could break her fast with some oat pottage. As the pottage cooked, she glumly stared into the iron pot hung over the fireplace, glumly wondering how long she could live on just pottage before going insane. Of course, if she was thrown in the dungeons for not paying taxes, she'd probably get really desperate for anything to eat, even oat pottage.
She was glumly debating which would be worse, being thrown in the dungeons or running away to Wales and marrying a doleful harpist who would never stop singing when there was a knock at the door.
She walked to the door and threw it open, fully prepared to shout "I still have the rest of the week!" in the tax collector's face, but to her surprise the doorway was empty. She looked around – no sign of anyone. She glanced down and saw a large basket on the threshold.
She bent down and picked it up. The basket held a loaf of fresh bread, a good assortment of dried vegetables, and what appeared to be a part of a haunch of freshly smoked venison. There was something else beneath it – she moved the other items aside slightly and drew out a heavy leather pouch from the bottom.
She put down the basket to have both hands free. Opening the pouch her jaw dropped as she saw the coins inside. It looked to be a large amount – enough to pay the tax and get her through until she could earn money again.
Glancing around she saw other cottages in the village had similar baskets being examined by similarly puzzled and amazed villagers. People made brief eye contact, and then ducked back into their houses furtively. Agnes did the same.
She set the basket and pouch on the table. And smiled.
Robin of Locksley had declared war on the sheriff, as surely as if he had declared it with banners and trumpets, and all of Nottingham was going to be the battleground. She was smart enough to realize that people were going to die - not just the combatants, but surely innocents as well. But many others were going to survive. And right now, it looked like not only was she going to survive, but life was about to get very interesting indeed.