Murder for Christ's Mass - By Maureen Ash Page 0,45
similar type to those employed by de Stow, former soldiers who had fallen on hard times and depended on their military skills to earn a living. They were dressed in boiled leather jerkins and plain dark hose and each carried a cudgel and short sword on their belts.
Respectful of Bascot’s rank, neither guard gave any sign of apprehension when he told them he was investigating the death of Peter Brand and asked them the same questions he had put to de Stow’s employees. They answered in a similar manner as the workers at the mint had done—both denied keeping company with the clerk outside of working hours and claimed he had not made any mention of going to the quarry on the day of his death.
As they made their replies, the older of the two, a hirsute man with a thick wiry beard named Jed, pulled at his lower lip thoughtfully and added that the clerk had seemed a little excited in the two or three days before he disappeared.
“How so?” Bascot asked.
“He were merry, like,” Jed replied. “Not that he were ever glum. Mostly he seemed a friendly enough fellow—mayhap a bit too garrulous at times—and always gave a greeting in passing, but for those days ’twas like he was burstin’ with happiness. We all knew he was lookin’ forward to going home to see his sweetheart, and reckoned he was in high spirits at the prospect of bein’ with her again. But mebbe we wus wrong; mebbe ’twas somethin’ else that had nowt to do with the girl.” The guard looked at Bascot with sorrow in his dark eyes. “Mebbe ’twas that somethin’ else that got him killed.”
When Bascot added a question about money stored in the exchange, both men were adamant that the only time coinage was brought onto the premises was during transactions with customers.
“And then it’s only there for as long as it takes to exchange it,” Jed assured him. “All t’other times the money is kept in the mint, else we’d be on guard every day and all night too, just like the men that work for Master de Stow. ’Twould suit our purpose right enough if it was, then we’d get our lodgings free and wouldn’t have to share a room in this hovel.”
The Templar did not detect guile in either of the men. They had answered his questions readily and without evasion; if they had been privy to any criminal activity in the exchange, Bascot was sure they would not have been so candid. Disappointed, he bought the men a pint of ale each and returned to the castle.
LATER THAT EVENING, AFTER HE AND GIANNI HAD returned to the hall and were watching the Lord of Folly command six of his fellow servants to spin around in a circle until they could no longer stand, the Templar felt as though his own senses were reeling. The more he investigated the murder of the two men, the more he felt as though he was caught in a maelstrom that was tossing him first one way, and then another. Again, he wondered whether the sheriff was correct in his assumption that the deaths of Brand and Fardein were connected. And, if he was, did the murders have a further link with a cache of silver coins, as Camville also surmised? If either of these suppositions was in error, he was following a false trail by giving them credence. In the case of Tasser’s apprentice, and given the silversmith’s penchant for larceny, the motive for Fardein’s death could be associated with his employer’s illegal acts. As for Brand, the exchange guard had said the clerk seemed excited during the few days before he was murdered. Lust was often a stimulant, especially in a young man thwarted by distance from the object of his affections—had Brand found a new love in closer proximity than Grantham, one that lived in Lincoln but whose affections were engaged elsewhere? Even though the quarry did not seem a likely place for a tryst, was it possible the clerk had been lured there by an irate husband, or even a jealous paramour, and subsequently murdered for his sexual trespass? But if that was so, and his love for the girl in Grantham had waned, why had a betrothal ring seemingly intended for her been among his belongings?
The Templar shook his head to clear it of his swirling thoughts. There could be many reasons for the slaying of either man, as there