With the guards following, Roget and Bascot went immediately to the manufactory. The door was locked but Roget kicked it in. The blast of heat from the tiny furnace almost knocked them back as they entered. The silversmith’s two employees-the old man and his lackey-were busy at the crucible. At their feet lay a pile of candlesticks, cups and plates, all fashioned of silver. In the small crucible a half-melted salt cellar was fast disappearing in a molten pool, while a square-shaped mould on a nearby table was already filled with liquid silver. Tasser was standing alongside it. When Roget and Bascot entered, he looked up at the intruders with a resigned expression on his face.
“You have been quicker than I thought, Captain,” was all he said.
Ordering Tasser’s employees to leave their task and stand to one side, Roget bent down and examined the items lying on the floor. “Every one of these pieces has been reported stolen within the last six months,” he said to Bascot and then, to the silversmith, “You will not be able to convince either the sheriff or your guild you are innocent of conniving with thieves this time, Tasser.”
The silversmith nodded. “I am aware of that.”
Roget ordered his guards to take Tasser to the gaol and incarcerate him in one of the cells, but Bascot intervened and countermanded the instruction. “Take him to the castle and have Serjeant Ernulf place him in one of the holding cells. I think the sheriff will want to question him personally.”
Tasser’s face went ashen. Camville’s reputation for brutality was well known.
“Why am I to be taken to the sheriff?” the silversmith asked fearfully. “I am a wealthy man; I can pay a surety to guarantee my presence in the sheriff’s court.”
“A surety is not allowed for a charge of murder,” Bascot replied in a hard voice.
“Murder?” The word was a breathless squeak. “But I have killed no one.”
“Have you so quickly forgotten that your apprentice, Roger Fardein, was murdered just a few days since?” Bascot said. “I think perhaps it was your hand that dealt the deathblow.”
“No,” Tasser said vehemently. “I did not kill him. Why would I do such a thing?”
“Perhaps because he knew of your dealings with thieves and wanted a share? Or because he threatened to tell the authorities of your criminality?” As the Templar spoke, he looked at the silversmith’s two remaining employees. Both of them were edging away from Tasser, tripping over each other in an attempt to distance themselves from him.
“No, lord. It is not true,” the silversmith replied, his voice shaking as sweat began to form in droplets on his forehead and run down his fat cheeks. “I did not murder Roger. I swear it.”
“So you say, silversmith,” Bascot replied laconically. “But I have heard such lies from the lips of murderers before.” The Templar nodded to Roget’s men. “Take him to the castle and tell Ernulf I shall be along directly.”
As the guards hustled the silversmith away, Bascot and Roget went out into the yard behind the manufactory and looked up at the rear wall of the premises. The masonry, as Cotty had said, was badly in need of pointing and the loose stone the thief had chanced across jutted out at an angle from the rest of the wall.
“If I remember correctly from the day we searched Tasser’s premises,” Bascot said, “the room behind that loose stone is the chamber where the silversmith keeps his records.”
Roget nodded. “There was nothing of value in there, just rolls of parchment and some writing implements.”
“And therefore no reason to believe the room contained anything of value.”
They went back into the house and up to the chamber on the second storey. One of the stones along the edge of the floor swivelled out easily when pressure was applied to a corner. Behind it was a cavity of capacious size, lined on the bottom with wood that rested on the infill of rubble between the inner and outer stones of the wall.
“If Tasser had been more conscientious about repairing the outside of the building, Cotty would never have discovered this hiding place,” Roget said.
Bascot shook his head. “Tasser could not take the chance of hiring a mason. Any good workman would have found the hole while repairing the mortar, just as Cotty did. Once it was known to be there, it would lose its security.”
Roget nodded his agreement. “Do you really think the silversmith murdered Fardein?”
“I do not know, but if he did not, it is likely he knows who did,” Bascot replied.
Seventeen
As the silversmith was marched up Mikelgate by Roget’s guards, people on the street stopped and stared. Most of the bystanders were goodwives shopping for meat, fish and poultry at the markets near Bailgate, but a few were strolling along looking at the wares displayed in the open-fronted shops along the thoroughfare. One of these was Iseult Partager. She had begged her husband to allow her to come to Lincoln early that morning with him and Legerton, hoping to renew the exchanger’s interest in her once they were away from Canwick and the eagle eye of his sister. But all her efforts to coax a smile from her lover proved of no avail. He had ignored her throughout the short journey, his only conversation being with Simon as they discussed the various merchants with whom they were to meet that day and whether they had enough new coinage to exchange for the silver pennies the burgesses would bring. Even Simon, usually so attentive, had barely spoken a word to her since they had risen from their bed that morning.
Once the small party arrived at the lodgings above the mint, the two men went downstairs to confer with de Stow and see how his production of new coinage was faring. Unused to being ignored, and left with only the company of a young serving maid, Iseult quickly became bored. As the morning passed, she gave up hope that Legerton would return and seek out her company while her husband was engaged in his duties. He had done so once or twice in the past, and her lush mouth smiled in remembrance of the rollicking hour they had spent together in the bed in Legerton’s chamber while her husband toiled on the floor below. But now she had to face the fact that the exchanger was no longer interested in sampling the delights of her body. It was time, she thought, to find herself a new admirer.
She had gone into the town, ordering the young serving maid to accompany her, with the intention of visiting the shop of the draper that had been one of Legerton’s guests at Canwick over the holy days. The draper’s son had been most attentive to her and was a handsome lad, with strong muscles rippling at the neck of his tunic and a smile showing teeth that were even and white. Iseult gave no thought to her husband. She had only married Simon to get away from the threats of her father who, when she lived under his roof in Nottingham, had sworn he would confine her in a nunnery if she did not mend her wanton ways. It had been in order to remove her from the scandal of bedding a neighbour’s husband that her father had sent her to Lincoln for a prolonged stay with her sister, knowing his eldest daughter would keep a vigilant eye on her younger sibling. Soon after she arrived in Lincoln, Iseult had met Simon. From the first moment of meeting him, she knew the diffident assayer was besotted with her and would, she thought, be a biddable and complaisant mate. In that opinion she had been proved correct, and she gave no thought to the hurt she inflicted on him, nor would she have cared if she’d been aware of it.
Her trip to the draper’s shop had not been fruitful. Although the merchant had greeted her civilly enough, he had been very curt in his response to her request to speak to his son, informing her in icy tones that his offspring was not in Lincoln at the present, having left their home almost as soon as they had arrived back in town. His son was, he said, visiting a family member who lived just to the north of Lincoln, in Riseholme, and not expected back soon.