“I am sorry to have made you wait, lords,” he said. “The bees will be swarmin’ soon, and I had needs to tell them I was leavin’ their presence so they will stay near the hives ’til I return.”
Bascot remembered that Preceptor d’Arderon had mentioned the beekeeper was a little odd, so he paid Adam’s strange statement no mind and told him, and his daughter and her husband, why he and Hamo had come.
Adam’s response to the revelation that poison had been put in the honey from his apiary was anger. “ ’Tweren’t no poison in the honey when ’twas put into the pots,” he declared stoutly. “My bees wouldn’t stand fer it, and neither would I. ’Twas pure and clear when it was stopped up and sealed, lords.”
Again Bascot ignored the beekeeper’s peculiar reference to his bees and said, “The honey that was poisoned was of the finest grade which is, I believe, put in pots that are glazed in a bright amber shade. Were any of those type of pots left unattended before they were either sold or collected by Severtsson?”
“After all the pots be poured and stoppered, we keeps ’em in a shed until it be time for the fair,” Adam replied. “The ones for the bailiff was along with them. They was only there for a day or two before he came and collected them and then the rest was taken to town.”
“Was the shed kept locked while the honey pots were in there?”
Adam looked at him in amazement. “No, lord. There b’aint no need. Even if someone was of a mind to steal some, the bees wouldn’t let any but us ’uns near their honey. ’Twould be right dangerous for any who tried to pilfer it.”
Seeing Bascot’s impatience with Adam’s curious manner of speaking about his bees, Wilkin hastened to justify the beekeeper’s claim. “We have two dogs here, lord, and both of them keep a good guard. If anyone tried to come onto the property, they would soon alert us. They made no disturbance while the honey was in the shed.”
Bascot nodded his thanks to the potter for the clarity of his reply and said to the beekeeper, “Did you take the honey to the autumn fair yourself last year?”
“No, I never does,” Adam replied. “I hasn’t been in Lincoln for nigh on ten years. Wilkin allus takes it, and Margot goes along to keep the tally.”
Bascot turned his attention to the potter. “After you left here to go to the fair, was the honey left unattended by either you or your wife for any length of time?”
“No, lord,” Wilkin replied. “We did deliver some to the Priory of All Saints, but Margot stayed with the wain all the time that I unloaded the honey and took it inside.
Then we went straight to the fairgrounds and my wife set up our stall.”
“And when did you take the order to the castle, before or after the fair?”
“Before, lord. I took them while Margot was setting up the stall. One of us was with the pots all the time until they were either delivered or sold.”
Bascot then asked the potter if he made all the containers that were used for the apiary’s honey.
“Aye, lord, I do,” was the response.
“And where are the pots kept after you have fired them and before they are filled?” Bascot asked, trying to determine if there could be a chance that the poison had been placed in the adulterated jars before the honey was poured in.
“In the same shed as they’re kept in after they have been filled and stoppered,” Wilkin told him.
“You told me your dogs gave no alarm of any intruder while the filled pots were in the shed. Was there any alert from them before that, while it contained only the empty ones?”
Both Adam and Wilkin shook their heads. Unless the beekeeper or one of his family was guilty, it seemed unlikely that any of the honey had been adulterated before it left the apiary, or while it was in transit. To be sure, he asked them if the honey was overseen at all times once it had been harvested from the combs and poured into the pots.
“The best grade is,” Adam said. “That be the one we gets from the first gleanin’. It be ready right away, so after we pours it into honey bags it goes straight from the bags into the jars. Then we leaves the bags to drip overnight on their own before wringin’ ’em out for the second gleanin’ and then we washes ’em out with water for the third.”
Bascot nodded absently. He was only interested in the best grade, for it was the type that had been poisoned, and it appeared that it could not have been tampered with while under the beekeeper’s care. The second grade, which was cheaper and usually purchased by people with lesser means, was of no interest to him, and neither was the last type, which was very thin and used mainly to make mead. He resumed his questioning of the potter and the vessels he made.
“Do you make any of the amber-glazed honey pots for another apiary’s use?” he asked.
“No, lord,” Wilkin told him. “I fashion many other vessels that I sell in Lincoln town, but not that kind.”
“I understand it is the practice for the pots, once they have been emptied by your customers, to be returned to the apiary so they can be reused. Are you the one that collects them?”
“Yes, but I only take back those that are not chipped or broken,” Wilkin explained. “We pay the customers a fourthing of a penny for each. I collect the empty pots once a year, in the late summer, so as to have ’em ready for the next harvest.”
So, Bascot thought, all of the empty pots of the type that had been used by the poisoner were still sitting in the castle shed awaiting collection. The same would probably be true in Reinbald’s home; his cook would put them in an out-of-the-way place until the potter arrived to take them away. It would be a simple matter to steal one. A missing pot would not be noticed until Wilkin went to collect it and would even then be thought to have been discarded because it was damaged.
Since it seemed that the honey had not been tampered with while it was on the apiary property-or while it was in Severtsson’s possession-it was likely that the adulteration of the honey had been carried out recently, as had been suspected. Nonetheless, he asked Adam how many pots of that grade had been gleaned last year and if the beekeeper knew who had bought them.
“ ’Twere two score and four pots altogether,” Adam replied. “I don’t know who bought ’em, but Margot does, she keeps the tally sticks for to show the bailiff.”
“A score went to the castle, lord,” the beekeeper’s daughter replied. “Then there were the eight given to Master Severtsson for his uncle, six that went to the priory and t’other ten were sold in ones and twos to customers in the town. I don’t know the names of the people that had those; I never goes to town except to sell the honey, and I only know their faces, not who they are.”
Bascot was relieved to hear that the remainder of the pots had been sold in small quantities throughout the town. It was likely that all of these had been opened and used throughout the winter months, and since no suspicious deaths had been reported during that time, all of that honey must have been pure. Deciding there was nothing further to be learned from Adam and his family, Bascot signalled to Hamo that he was ready to leave.
As they went towards the door of the cot, the bailiff, who was a little ahead of Bascot, hesitated and glanced at Rosamunde. The young woman was still sitting as she had been during the whole time they had been there, staring vacantly at the empty space in front of her, and made no sign of having noticed his, or anyone else’s, presence. Despite that, Wilkin quickly stepped into the space between the bailiff and his daughter in a protective manner and glared at Severtsson. Margot watched her husband’s defiant movement with an anxious face, her lips pressed tight together as though to stop her from crying out in alarm. The bailiff gave them both a disdainful stare and then, with a petulant shrug of his shoulders, turned and left the room.