Murder for Christ's Mass - By Maureen Ash Page 0,60
right from the first days of their marriage. Their wedding night had been the only time Simon seemed greedy for her body, and even then he had been reticent, especially after she made a pretense of pain when he supposedly ruptured her maidenhead.
All these thoughts had caused her to toss and turn restlessly, angry there was no one interested in her news, or her charms, annoyed by the coldness of the weather and the chamber, and disappointed by the absence of the draper’s son when she had gone to his father’s shop. She was bored beyond her patience and knew the only remedy for it would be to visit her sister, Lisette. She was not close to her elder sibling—Lisette was cut in the mould of their father, sanctimonious and disapproving of what she called her sister’s “ill-advised behaviour”—but at least she would be interested in a firsthand accounting of Tasser’s arrest. Even though Lisette was a prig she did, for all that, like to indulge in a bit of gossip.
BASCOT AND GIANNI SPENT MOST OF THE MORNING searching the silversmith’s premises. The manufactory was locked when they arrived, with a guard at the door, but the sheriff had given Bascot the keys confiscated from Tasser when he was arrested. The silversmith’s two remaining employees had been ordered to go to their homes and stay there until they were deemed innocent of connivance, or otherwise, in the theft of the stolen pieces of silver, so there was no one on the property to hinder their search.
Once inside, they went up to the floor above the manufactory and into Tasser’s office. Since access to the hidey-hole was in this chamber, it was here the pair began their search. When a careful examination of each of the stones in the rear wall revealed none loose in their setting except the one screening the hiding place, they turned their attention to the floorboards, carefully knocking on each one to ensure the space beneath was not hollow. When the search proved fruitless, they carried out the same procedure in Tasser’s sleeping chambers.
Bascot then hoisted Gianni up onto his shoulders so he could crawl into the small space under the roof of the building, gaining entry through a trapdoor in the ceiling of the main bedchamber. The Templar waited hopefully as he heard the boy scamper across the boards above him, prying into every corner. When Gianni reappeared and shook his head, they went downstairs to the hall and carried out the same procedure there and also in the kitchen. Still finding nothing, they went into the manufactory. This was a much more difficult area to sift through, as there were shelves closely packed with the implements of Tasser’s trade and numerous boxes containing everything from strands of fine silver wire to the lumps of tin used to make an alloy with melted silver.
Leaving Gianni to examine the stones of the forge—which were now cold—Bascot turned his attention to the locked chests on the floor. Although he and Roget had examined the contents a few days before, Bascot wanted to make sure the silversmith had not, in the interim, added coins previously hidden in the wall. Again, their efforts proved useless. No more secreted items were found, nor did any of the coins in Tasser’s money chests bear any image other than that of King John, his brother Richard, or their father, King Henry.
Tired and frustrated, their hands and faces begrimed from their efforts—especially Gianni’s—the pair went into the tiny room that Roger Fardein had used for sleeping. It was as bare as the Templar remembered, the scuffed leather satchel still hanging empty from a peg on the wall and the dented pewter mug and empty flagon sitting on the small table beside the apprentice’s thin mattress. Nonetheless, Bascot asked Gianni to search the room again and watched as the boy ran his nimble fingers over the straw of the pallet and around the plank on which the bed rested. He then examined every crack and crevice he could find, both where the floor joined the wall and along the wood of the doorway, ending his search by making a gesture asking the Templar to hoist him aloft so he could run his fingers along the top of the lintel above the door. The boy was extremely thorough and Bascot knew Gianni hoped to repeat a previous triumph when he had found a scrap of red cloth that had proved instrumental in discovering the identity