discs were then passed to another table where hammermen worked alongside one another, striking the blank rounds of silver between two dies provided by the Exchequer in London. The moneyer explained that the bottom die, mounted in a small block of solid iron, bore the imprint of the king and his name, while the upper die, a long, thin rod of the same metal, had one end fashioned in the design of a short cross in a circle. As they watched, one of the hammermen fixed a blank disc onto the surface of the bottom die and, grasping the upper die firmly in his hand, positioned the imprinted end over it. Once he was satisfied the disc and dies were correctly aligned, he brought his hammer down sharply on top of the upper die to produce a coin that was imprinted with both the obverse and reverse images at the same time. The newly minted penny was then given to a worker at an adjoining table to polish with a buffing rag. The whole procedure was slow and tedious, requiring studied concentration.
Casements fitted with protective iron grills were set in the walls on either side of the forge and, despite the cold winter temperature outside, the shutters had been thrown open in an attempt to lessen the stifling heat. In one corner, a bell with a pull rope hung from the ceiling. Lined up on the floor nearby were a half dozen stout wooden chests banded with iron and fitted with triple locks. Standing beside them was another guard who, like the men on duty at the doors, was clad in a leather tunic studded with iron rings and had a short sword in a scabbard depending from his belt.
De Stow motioned to a door near where the guard stood. “That leads through to the exchanger’s office,” he said. He then gestured towards a shelf where a set of scales and a pile of empty leather sacks were laid. “And that is where his assayer keeps his equipment. Usually it is stored in Legerton’s office but when they are both away, Partager brings it in here for safekeeping.”
The Templar looked around the room. “You said you had four guards in your hire. I see only three; is the other off duty?”
“He is,” de Stow said. “All the guards live in quarters in the yard at the back. I also keep two mastiffs there and the dogs patrol the grounds at night. The guards rotate their shifts, so that after working hours there is one on duty in here and one asleep in their quarters, while the other two are at liberty to spend some time in the town if they choose. If anything untoward should occur after the mint is closed, the inside guard would ring the bell to sound the alarm and bring the other man, and the dogs, to his assistance.”
“You keep a secure mint, moneyer,” the Templar said. “Your precautions are admirable.”
De Stow gave a smile of pleasure; it was obvious he was gratified by the compliment.
Bascot nodded at the iron chests. “The coins you produce-are they kept in those chests?”
“Yes, as are those brought in for changing. Two of them contain blocks of refined silver from the mine. As I said, the assayer tests all the old coins before they are melted down. He usually uses only a touchstone and his scales, but there are some occasions when he feels it necessary to assay the silver by melting it with lead in a crucible. When he wishes to do that, he uses my forge.”
Bascot nodded. If any coins from the reign of King Stephen had been brought in to be exchanged, Peter Brand would have had access to the place where they were kept, but so would all the rest of de Stow and Legerton’s employees, including the guards. “I assume only you and the exchanger are in possession of keys to the coffers?” he asked de Stow.
The moneyer nodded, patting the pouch he wore on his belt. “Each of them has three separate locks and a different key is required to open each one. I hold the master keys to all of them and Legerton has duplicates. We keep them on our persons at all times. Even when I lie down for my night’s rest, I place the keys in a strongbox beside my bed and keep the key to the box on a chain about my neck. I imagine Master Legerton takes the same precautions. I also check the contents of each chest every morning before work is begun and again at the end of every working day, to ensure that no discrepancy has occurred in the interim.”
The security here would be difficult to infiltrate, Bascot thought, but if either de Stow or Legerton allowed himself a moment of carelessness with his keys, it would not be impossible for anyone with enough daring to steal them and gain access to the contents of the chests.
“What about the silver ore you use-how is the security of that controlled?”
De Stow gave Bascot a searching look accompanied by a cynical smile. His shrewd dark eyes took on a hard alertness as he said, “I assume you are asking these questions because you believe my clerk may have stolen coins or silver blocks from here and had them on his person when he was killed. Is that not so, Sir Bascot?”
“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.
