Maureen Ash: Murder for Christ's Mass

“It would provide a motive, moneyer, especially if the person who murdered him was aware they were in his possession.”

De Stow shook his head. “My clerk was an honest man, Sir Bascot, but even if he had not been, he would not have had the opportunity to steal from the mint. Besides, Peter has been gone some days and I have been doing his job since he left. If there was a shortage, I would have discovered it by now, and there is not.”

After pausing for a moment, he continued. “But, to answer your question. The blocks of solid silver from the royal mine are delivered to these premises by armed guards. I then weigh them to ensure they tally with the figures I have been given by the overseer of the mine and make separate checks all through the stages of production until they are turned into coinage. That is why I have need of a clerk, for there are many figures to be recorded, but I can assure you that I double-check all of them. There is no margin for error-or pilfering.”

“I will take you at your word, Master de Stow,” Bascot replied. “Now I would like to speak to your employees. From what you tell me, Brand must have gone to the quarry late in the afternoon of the day he was killed. I want to ask if any of your workers know the reason he did so.”

The moneyer called each of the men up in turn, the hammermen first, then the apprentices, and Bascot explained to each of them that he was conducting an investigation into Brand’s death on Gerard Camville’s behalf and wanted to know if the clerk had told any of them about his intention of going to the pit. The Templar also told Gianni, who was standing beside him, to take out his wax tablet and write down the names of each of those he interviewed and make a brief note of their responses. Most of de Stow’s employees looked apprehensive while this was being done, which was what the Templar intended. They were far less likely to lie if they knew their names were included in a report for the sheriff. Each of them denied having seen Brand after he left the mint on the day of his death or any knowledge of why he would have gone to the quarry. The three guards on duty were subjected to the same questions and gave the same answers, as did the one that was sleeping in the guardroom in the yard behind the mint when de Stow sent one of his employees to rouse him.

Once Bascot had finished his questioning, he told de Stow he would also like to speak to Master Legerton and his assayer and asked if they were on the exchange premises.

“Not today,” the moneyer replied. “The exchange was closed on the eve of Christ’s Mass and Legerton went to his manor in Canwick for the holy days. Partager will have gone with him, I expect. The men hired to guard the exchange would not remain here during that time, for they are only needed when Legerton is in his office. All of them should return tomorrow, when the exchange is due to open for custom.”

Bascot told de Stow he would come back in the morning to speak to Legerton and his staff. The Templar then casually asked, as though in passing, about the condition of the coins brought in for exchange. “I suppose most of them are fourthings or halfpennies that need to be made into whole coin, are they not?”

“Yes,” de Stow replied. “And there are always a few that have edges badly worn from usage. Sometimes there are a few coins from other countries included, but not often. The large number of foreign coins we are melting down today is an exception, rather than otherwise.”

“When I was in my childhood,” Bascot added in an offhand manner, “I remember my grandsire complaining about coins from King Stephen’s reign being clipped, but I suppose the new design of a short cross brought in by King Henry twenty years ago stopped that illegal practice.”

“It did, Sir Bascot. And when King Henry gave an order that all old coins, especially those from King Stephen’s reign, should be exchanged for ones of new issue, everyone was only too pleased to submit to his decree, for some of the parings were so deftly done it was difficult to tell whether a coin was short weighted or not. I do not believe there are many left from before King Henry’s time now, except for the odd single coin or two. I have hardly seen any these last ten years.”

Reluctant to press the subject of coins from Stephen’s reign any further lest de Stow become suspicious of the reason for his interest, Bascot asked the moneyer to show him the room where Peter Brand had lodged. De Stow led him outside the mint and back into his own house, then through a door into the yard.

“His room is up there, over the horse stall,” the moneyer said, pointing to a wooden building of two storeys with double doors at the bottom. A staircase wound up the outside wall. The top of the building was completely enclosed except for a small casement window and a narrow door at the top of the stairway.

Bascot followed de Stow up the stairs and into the room where Peter Brand had lodged. It was neat and tidy, with a palliasse covered by a pair of thick blankets. There were few of the clerk’s possessions in the room; some blank pieces of parchment and some scribing tools lay on a small table, and a spare pair of hose and a lightweight summer cloak hung from a peg behind the door. On the floor near the bed was a smallish bag of heavy linen that Bascot told Gianni to open and search. When the boy did so, he extracted a tunic of good wool, another pair of hose and a small package carefully wrapped in a piece of soft cloth. Looking to his master for permission, he unrolled the parcel and found a tiny ring of silver gilt inside, which he handed to the Templar.

Bascot glanced at the clothing and then examined the ring. “It would appear your clerk intended to return for this bag before he left on his journey to Grantham,” he said. “Not only would he have needed the change of clothing, I doubt whether he would have left without taking this.” He held up the ring so the moneyer could see it more clearly. It was fashioned in a design of clasping hands popular for betrothal rings. “A hopeful gift for your clerk’s sweetheart, I would think.”

De Stow nodded sadly. “You are right, Sir Bascot. Its presence here also indicates that Peter lied to me.”

“How so?” Bascot asked.

The moneyer gave a regretful sigh. “When Peter asked to leave early on his last day of work, he told me he needed to do so because he had to pick up his good tunic from a fuller who was cleansing it. The fuller’s premises are on the way to the river where the boat Peter was to take lay at anchor. It would not make sense for him to go and collect his tunic and then come all the way back here just to get his extra hose and the ring. He would have taken the bag with him and collected his tunic on the way to the quay.”

“Then he must have picked up his tunic on a previous day, for it is here and looks newly cleansed.” At de Stow’s disappointed nod of confirmation, Bascot added, “And the reason he asked to leave early must have been so he could go to the quarry for some purpose he did not wish to reveal to you.”

“I suppose it must,” de Stow remarked glumly.

A short time later, Bascot and Gianni left De Stow’s house and retrieved the Templar’s horse. As they rode past St. Mary Crackpole church towards Mikelgate, Bascot looked up at the sky. The pale blue above them was unmarred except for a few grey clouds and even though there was a bank of darkness in the east, he thought it unlikely that any rain or snow would fall during the next few hours. He turned his mount down Mikelgate towards Stonebow, the principal gate out of the lower part of the town and, once they had passed through it, went along Briggate towards the bridge that crossed the Witham River. The village of Canwick, where Walter Legerton had his manor house, was only about two miles’ distance from the river.