Gosbert was at the gutting table, stuffing an ox heart with a mixture of onions and herbs. He looked up at Bascot’s approach and gave a respectful nod as he waited for the Templar to speak.
“I have come to ask about the potter, Wilkin, who is son-by-marriage to the beekeeper at Nettleham. I am told that he sells his wares in Lincoln town. Does he supply any of the vessels you use here, in the castle kitchen?”
Gosbert’s spiky eyebrows rose up towards his shining bald pate in surprise. “Yes, he does,” he replied.
“Has he been here recently?” Bascot asked.
“He comes here often,” Gosbert informed him. “Some of the scullions can be cack-handed if Eric or I don’t watch them close, and quite a few of the wine or oil beakers get broken. Wilkin makes good pots, and they aren’t too expensive. We usually get one or two replacements from him every week or so, and although I can’t remember exactly which days he came, it is more than likely he has been here at least once in the last sennight.”
“Does he come into the kitchen when he brings them?”
“Yes, he does,” Gosbert confirmed. “He leaves his cart outside, in the bail, and carries whatever I have ordered through here and puts them in the storeroom down there-the one that Lady Nicolaa ordered locked after Thorey found the poison in that pot of honey.” He pointed to a door that was just past the table where he was working. Anyone going into it was within easy reach of the shelf where the jars of honey had been kept.
Bascot felt his interest in the potter quicken at the cook’s statement. So Wilkin had the opportunity to covertly remove a pure pot of honey and replace it with a tainted one-had he availed himself of it?
Gosbert was regarding Bascot closely as the Templar considered what he had just been told. Suddenly the cook, his fingers tightening on the haft of the sharp knife he was holding, asked, “Do you think it was Wilkin that tampered with the honey?” His tone was truculent.
“I do not know, cook,” Bascot replied, “and until I find out whether he did or not, I ask that you keep our conversation to yourself.”
Gosbert responded with an angry clenching of his jaw but was mollified when Bascot reminded him that suspicion had fallen on Gosbert not so long ago and, at the time, had seemed justified to everyone except himself. To cast aspersion on another without proof, as the cook should well know, was an act that could have dire consequences.
Gosbert reluctantly agreed with his observation, and when Bascot went on to ask if he knew of any reason for Wilkin to bear a grudge against anyone who lived within the bail, he admitted he did not. “Wilkin is always made welcome here,” the cook said, “and, as far as I know, is content in our company. I would not call him a talkative man, but he is always polite and respectful, and seems pleased that I authorise the purchase of his wares. He has never shown or made mention of any animosity towards me or my staff, or of any disgruntlement with Lady Nicolaa or the sheriff.”
Despite the cook’s assurance, Bascot decided there was enough reason to investigate further into the matter of the ill feeling between Wilkin and the bailiff. Perhaps it would lead to a discovery of some dispute the potter had with those who lived in the castle of which Gosbert was unaware. The man had originally delivered the honey and also had easy access to the confines of the kitchen. It was necessary to find out more about Wilkin before he could be considered innocent.
Taking Gianni with him, the Templar went down into the town. The atmosphere on the streets of Lincoln was oppressive. There were small knots of citizens gathered in groups of two or three on corners and at the marketplaces, their attitudes ranging from belligerence to wariness. As Nicolaa de la Haye had instructed, the men of Roget’s guard and the castle men-at-arms were a visible presence on the streets.
After asking one of the town guards for information, Bascot found Germagan in the yard behind the house of a prominent silversmith, testing various foodstuffs-notably honey and preserved fruit-on half a dozen rats that his assistant had secured in cages. The rat catcher greeted the Templar with his former effusiveness and asked how he might be of service.
After motioning Germagan a little to one side of the yard, out of earshot of the catcher’s assistant and the silversmith’s wife, Bascot said, “I am looking for a kins-man of yours, a relative that Serjeant Ernulf told me was engaged as a rat catcher for some time at Wragby. I have some questions I would like to put to him.”
“That would be Dido,” Germagan replied. “He is my cousin and now lodges with me, and plies his trade within the town walls.” Waving his hand at his assistant, who was busy pushing a bit of bread smeared with apricot conserve through the bars of one of the cages, the catcher added, “As you can see, the fear of poison has made the services of those who ply my trade in much demand. Dido went this morning to the premises of a baker in Baxtergate who asked him to test the honey he uses in his pastries. Do you wish me to send him to the castle to attend you?”
Bascot shook his head. “No, I want to speak to him as soon as possible. And privily.”
Germagan looked up at the Templar with dark, intelligent eyes, very like those of the rats he caught. “ ’Tis not my place to ask, sir, but I would reckon this is to do with the poisoner that’s brought our fair town to the depths of such misery. If that is so, both myself and Dido will be right pleased to help you.”
When no reply from Bascot was forthcoming, just a tightening of the Templar’s mouth that the catcher took for confirmation of his statement, Germagan said, “My lodgings are near Baxtergate, sir, close by the baker’s house where my cousin is at work. I would be honoured to offer my home for your use. You may be as private as you wish within my walls, for there is only my wife at home, and she will absent herself if I tell her to. I can take you there immediately and collect Dido on the way.”
“That will do admirably, Germagan,” Bascot replied. As they left the silversmith’s house, the catcher strode ahead of the Templar and Gianni, cleaving a path through the people that were gathered on the street by waving his ratting pole so that the bells affixed to its tip crashed together noisily as he walked. Bascot smiled inwardly. Germagan, he thought, was a man who was not averse to making any potential customers aware that he was in the confidence of a person of such high rank as a Templar knight.
Twelve
Dido was a short, thin man of about forty years of age with a shock of carrot-coloured hair. He came at once when Germagan knocked at the door of the baker’s home and asked to speak to him, hastily stuffing the two ferrets he used in his work into one of the large pockets of his rough tunic. Telling the baker he would return as soon as he could, Dido came out into the street, and the two catchers led Bascot and Gianni to a small dwelling place near the Witham River. The house was sturdily built of strong wooden timbers with an interior that was clean and had sweet-smelling rushes strewn on the floor. There were only two rooms, but both were a fair size, and Germagan led Bascot and Gianni, bowing as he did so, into the larger chamber of the two, which contained four comfortable chairs and an oaken table. The catcher’s wife, a broad-hipped woman with a large bosom, greeted the guests with a low curtsey and hastened, at her husband’s bidding, to bring tankards of ale for them all.
Germagan offered Bascot the most comfortable chair in the room, which, to the Templar’s surprise, had both arms and a padded seat. He had not realised that exterminating rats was such a profitable business. Gianni stood behind him, gazing in awe at the draught-excluding cloths of rat skins that hung from the walls and the marvellous pewter bowlful of rats’ claws that sat in the middle of the table.