Seeing him, she had fussily hurried the two men from the place, and then stood before him smiling. ‘You wanted this?’
He took the hammer from her.
‘I found it this morning as soon as the men moved the chest to paint the wall,’ she chuckled. ‘Will you be in trouble?’
‘Not if I get it back for tomorrow,’ he said. ‘If it’s late I could be fined. The last man forgot it once, I think, and he was fined three shillings.’
The smile was wiped from Meg’s face at the thought of so much money being taken. ‘That’s terrible. Surely Abbot Robert wouldn’t do that to you?’
‘Forgetting it could have led to three hundred miners milling about in Tavistock, all demanding that their metal should be coined, all drinking steadily until they were of a mood to riot,’ he said drily. ‘You haven’t seen the damage that ten happy miners can wreak after a few quarts of ale, so you can’t imagine a hundred angry miners on the rampage after a couple of gallons each. It doesn’t bear thinking about! So yes, the abbot will fleece me as best he might if I don’t get this to Tavistock quickly.’
‘You must have been very distressed,’ she murmured, putting her arms about him.
‘I was.’
‘And now you have to leave again. So sad.’
She had turned her head from him, so that her cheek was against his breast, and he could smell the lavender in her hair. He stroked it, kissed her head and let his hands wander down her back to her waist. A shiver ran through her body, and then she stood back and slowly began to undress. ‘You don’t have to leave immediately, do you?’
It was while he was giving himself up to a pleasantly erotic recollection of the occasion, that the procession arrived.
There was a sudden quietness among the bearded, scruffily dressed miners. Up until then Simon had been aware of the rumble of low voices and the clatter of pots and trenchers as the girls from the local alehouse filled pots and served pastries. Not now. Suddenly the marketplace was silent, and when he looked up, he saw the steward’s men roping off the centre, the crowds being pushed back by servants.
When a space was cleared, the King’s beam was brought out and adjusted, the controller and weigher carefully checking the machine with their standard weights, which were solemnly unsealed from their box while the whole crowd watched intently, witnessing the fact that there could be no cheating here. It was in the interests of the miners that the metal should be fairly weighed. All were to be taxed against the measured weight of the tin that they had brought, and until the miner paid the tax on his ingot, he could not sell the metal.
When all was prepared, the assay-master sat at his small anvil, his hammer and chisels ready, while the other officials took their seats facing the beam where they could have a clear view.
The receiver, a short, dark-haired man with the face and belly of a glutton, stood and called the crowd to witness the coining, and porters began bringing up the marked ingots of tin. Some were well-formed, neat rectangles of metal, but many were rougher, marked by their moorstone moulds’ irregularities. These heavy blocks of one or two hundred-weight were placed on the scales and the true weight was shouted out and noted by the three clerks to the officials. Each ingot had the mark of the owner stamped upon it, and the name was called out at the same time, checked with the register held by the receiver.
Simon knew of him. He was called Joce Blakemoor, a local burgess, and Simon had never liked him. He seemed too smooth for the Bailiff’s taste.
The assay-master, a slim, wiry man with the dark hair and features of a local, was chiselling chips from the first of the ingots and seeing that the metal was of the right quality. In front of him was a grim-faced miner with a filthy leather jerkin over a patched linen shirt, so heavily stained that it looked like worn leather. His lower face was hidden entirely by a thick, grey-speckled beard, and his head was covered by a hood, which gave him the appearance of peering out shortsightedly, rather like a suspicious snail. He watched the assay-master with a keenness that told Simon he must be the owner of the tin, hoping against hope that his coinage wouldn’t be too expensive. Simon knew the man. It was old Hal Raddych.
There were many witnesses, from miners, to locals, to several strangers who Simon thought must be pewterers and agents. People from all over the country wanted tin.
One in particular caught his eye – a tall, well-made man with oddly-cut clothes. He was no local, Simon was sure. When a red-headed youth in a Benedictine novice’s garb bumped into him, he swore, but not in English or French. The youngster was profusely apologetic, and the man smiled and nodded.
Simon was leaning against a pillar and viewing things, his servant scowling ferociously at all about, for Hugh detested crowds, daring any cutpurse to try his luck, when the messenger reached them; it was to the noise of the stamps hammering the King’s arms into the ingot that Simon received his summons.
‘I must go to the abbot now!’ he repeated, bellowing over the din, and as he spoke the noise suddenly stopped. By coincidence, the assaying of one ingot was complete, and the bill of weight charged against Hal Raddych was being scrawled on the bill sheet. Once the tax was paid, the tinner could sell his metal, so there was a short period of expectation while the interested merchants and pewterers’ agents witnessed the bill being signed, and it was into this void that Simon’s voice roared.
Every head in the place was turned to him. Ashamed, he wanted to scurry
