could not identify him. “I have been told that, in later years, Fland’s father often had brigands for customers,” he said to Mary. “Is that true?”
He wanted to find out if Cooper had ever spoken of Mauger’s brother, Drue, to his cousin. If he had, it was possible he had also mentioned Mauger. His question set the glove maker’s wife off into a tirade.
“That was all Fland ever talked about,” she said sharply.
“How he had met all those outlaws and of the tales they told him. I warned him more than once that he was not to tell his stories to people who knew myself and my husband, but he would not obey me. It was embarrassing to have all our neighbours know that members of my family kept such nefarious company.”
“Now, Mary,” Gant said in a conciliatory tone to his virago of a wife, “the boy meant no harm. And his customers found his stories interesting. You know that he was often given a fourthing or a halfpenny by some of them when he went to make deliveries of fish. He said it was because they liked to listen to his tales.”
Mary Gant clamped her lips together and made no reply to her husband’s comment.
“Did he mention any of these wolf’s heads by name?” Bascot asked her.
She waved her hand dismissively. “Often. Especially those that were hanged by the sheriff about two years ago, but I paid no attention to their names.”
“Do you remember of whom he spoke?” Bascot asked the glove maker.
Matthew Gant shook his head.
The Templar changed the direction of his questions. “Your cousin told someone who knew him that he was expecting to receive some money from a man he was once acquainted with. Did he tell you of this?”
“Money?” Mary Gant said explosively. “Never. He had none and no prospect of any. That is why we were forced to give him shelter.”
Bascot turned from the wife and looked at her husband. “And you, Master Gant, did he ever speak to you of this expectation?”
Gant looked at his wife uncomfortably before he answered. “Not specifically, no, but he did tell me just before he was killed that he would not be taking advantage of my generosity-and that of my wife, of course-for much longer.”
His wife glared at him. “He never said that to me. Why did you not tell me he was planning to leave us?”
Gant shrugged his shoulders helplessly. “He was killed before I could mention it, Mary. It did not seem important once he was dead.”
“What exactly did Fland say to you, Master Gant?” Bascot asked, feeling his hopes rise.
The glove maker took a moment to recall the conversation. “It was the night before he was killed,” he said and then gave a glance that bordered on defiance at his wife. “He and Mary had an argument earlier, while we were eating. It was, as usual, about him recounting some memory of the brigands he had known to a friend of ours the day before. They exchanged harsh words and I felt sorry for Fland.”
He looked up at the Templar with his soft brown eyes. “The boy had not had a very good life, but it was all he had known. It was only natural he wanted to talk of it.” Bascot nodded and bade him go on.
“After my wife went to bed, I tried to console him and told him that Mary only castigated him because she was concerned for his well-being and was worried that his tales might damage not only our reputation in Lincoln but his own. It was not her intent to be purposefully unkind, I told him, but he did not believe me. He said that I need not worry there would be any more arguments since he would soon be leaving our home and would no longer be here for Mary to rail at him.”
“Since your wife said he had no money, did he explain how he expected to be able to pay for other lodgings?” Bascot asked.
“I asked him that and his answer was a strange one,” Gant replied. “He laughed and said that while Mary might not think it profitable to make his former association with brigands known, his company with them had proved far more gainful than she thought, especially when he also knew the members of their families.”
Bascot felt his pulse leap. “Did he make mention of any particular outlaw, or to which relative he was referring?”
Gant shook his head. “Not really. He just looked at me and said that it was a true saying that blood was thicker than water, especially between brothers.”
The Templar glanced at Gianni, who was standing beside him, and saw the boy smile. They had found the evidence they had been looking for.
Twenty-eight
After they left the glove maker’s shop, Bascot decided that they would not go directly back to the castle but would take their time in returning. If Mauger was amongst the people on the street, the Templar did not want to arouse any suspicion that they might have learned anything of import from Cooper’s cousin. First, he and Gianni went into the nearby church of St. Peter at Motston to offer up a prayer of thanksgiving for heaven’s assistance in their quest. After leaving there, they walked slowly up Hungate and stopped at the shop of a cobbler who had supplied the Templar with the boots he was now wearing-ones that the shoemaker had fitted with soft pads that greatly eased the pain in his injured ankle. They were greeted with what appeared to be genuine pleasure by the cobbler’s wife, a horse-faced woman with a mellow voice. She explained that her husband and son were both absent at the moment, having gone to pick up supplies of leather from one of the tanners in the lower part of town, but she would be glad to help Bascot with anything he required. The Templar examined some wrist guards that were on display on the counter and then enquired about getting a pair of new shoes for Gianni. After looking at several models the cobbler’s wife showed him, he promised to return later and place an order for a pair, then they left and walked back up Hungate to Spring Hill and out onto Steep Hill, passing through Bailgate before they entered the eastern gate of the castle.
It was nearing time for the evening meal when they reached the ward, and the Templar, aware that it might still be prudent not to seem in any haste to speak to the sheriff, sat down in his customary seat. He forced himself to chew slowly, conscious all the time that any of those eating at board or serving the food could be the man he sought. If Mauger had been watching as he and Gianni had gone to the home of Cooper’s cousin, it was imperative that he believed Mary Gant had not been able to tell anything of importance. Bascot lingered over a last cup of wine until he saw that Gerard Camville was making ready to leave the hall before he called to a page and sent him to the sheriff with a request that he speak privately to the sheriff and Lady Nicolaa. After listening to the page’s message, Camville gave him a nod across the space that intervened between them, and Bascot waited for a full quarter of an hour after the sheriff and his wife had left the room before he went up the staircase that led to Camville’s private chamber.
When Bascot arrived, a servant had just finished placing a tray bearing a flagon of wine on a small table set against the wall. The sheriff offered the Templar a cup before he asked why he had come, and Bascot accepted it, taking a deep draught before he spoke.
“I have come to tell you, lord, that I believe the potter to be innocent of the crimes with which he has been charged, and that the poisoner is a man named Mauger Rivelar. He is the older brother of Drue, a brigand you hanged about two years ago. He is also the one who is responsible for the recent death of Fland Cooper, the young man who worked in the fish market.”
Camville’s heavy brows came down over his eyes. “That is a far leap of the imagination, de Marins,” he said harshly. “Do you have some proof to substantiate this allegation?”
“I do, lord. Mauger left the Lincoln area some ten years ago, but Cooper knew him well as a child, when Mauger and his father used to patronise an alehouse Cooper’s parents owned on the Wragby road. I have evidence that will support this. After speaking to a relative of Cooper’s, I am certain that Mauger returned to Lincoln after the deaths of his brother and father and it was he who adulterated the honey that killed six people in the town. The fishmonger’s assistant saw him while he was returning from placing the poisoned honey in the home of the merchant, Reinbald, and recognised him. When Cooper realised that Mauger was using a name that was not his own, he also became aware that it was he, and not the potter, who was the poisoner. Cooper then tried to extort money from Mauger to keep his identity, and his crimes, a secret and was killed for doing so.”
The sheriff had begun to pace in his restless fashion as Bascot had been speaking. “And Rivelar’s reason for
