Roget said. “I got your message.” He looked up at the sign hanging above Tasser’s door, a wooden board painted with a picture of a silver cup on a blue background. “I hope you want my help to interrogate this chien. It would give me great pleasure to beat some truths out of him.”
Bascot laughed. “The sheriff told me that he is not the most honest of men. I understand his criminal activities have given you some trouble in the past.”
“More than I care to remember,” Roget replied. “Tasser is a thief of the worst kind. He lets others take the risk of stealing but ensures, by his slyness, that he garners the profit for himself. He is slippery, like an eel, and just as difficult to catch.”
Bascot told him about the discovery of Fardein’s body outside the castle gate. “What kind of man was the apprentice? I have examined his body but that does not give me his measure.”
“He was an apprentice in more than silversmithing to Tasser,” Roget said grimly. “As a child apes a parent, so did Fardein copy his master. He was often in one tavern or another, all of the lowest type, and huddled together with men who have had their noses clipped for thievery. I am sure he helped Tasser buy stolen goods but I have never been able to prove it.”
Bascot considered this information and then said, “The sheriff thinks the body of the apprentice may have been taken outside the town through one of the postern gates. Either that, or Fardein walked through it willingly with his attacker before he was killed. How carefully are the gates watched by your guards?”
Roget thought for a moment. “There is no gateward on any of them, but my men ensure they are shut and barred at curfew.” He shrugged, a Gallic movement of his shoulders. “But the gates are closed to keep intruders outside the city walls, not to prevent honest citizens from leaving. They are only sealed by means of an iron bar across the inside. It would be an easy matter to remove the bar and leave the gate open for a couple of hours without my guards noticing, then reenter the town and close it again. I will ask my men if they noticed anything untoward during their nightly rounds over the last few days, but I am sure they would have reported it if they had.”
“Do that, Roget, but in the meantime let us see what Tasser has to say about the death of his apprentice. I want to know why he didn’t raise an alarm when Fardein failed to report for work over the last few days. Sheriff Camville has given his permission for us to be as forceful as we like with our interrogation.”
Roget’s mouth split into a grin. “I am glad to hear it, mon ami. It will make this task one greatly to my liking.”
Eleven
WITHIN AN HOUR OF THE FINDING OF ROGER Fardein’s body, report of his murder had spread through Lincoln. The first to relate it was a chandler who had been in the castle ward when the guards brought the body into the bail. When the chandler left the bail, he related it to an acquaintance he met in Ermine Street. A few minutes later the chandler’s acquaintance told the story to one of the flesh mongers in the market and the monger, in turn, repeated the news to every customer who stopped at his stall. After that, rumour of the death, like the heavy rain that had fallen on Lincoln before Christ’s Mass, flooded through every street in the town.
Two hours later, in a large room on the upper floor of Helias de Stow’s house, two women sat in company with each other. One of them, and the older of the pair, was de Stow’s wife, Blanche; the other was the spouse of the assayer, Simon Partager, a vivacious young woman named Iseult. They sat in front of a roaring fire, drinking watered wine heated with a hot poker. Blanche was stitching on a tapestry while her companion sat idle, toying with an expensive bangle encircling her wrist.
The two women were not much alike in appearance or nature. The moneyer’s wife was a plump woman with plain features, but she had about her an air of competence while Iseult, although very handsome with long braids of corn-coloured hair and flashing eyes of deep blue, had a petulant manner. As she sat sipping her wine,