The Canterbury Murders

by Maureen Ash

  “I want to ask you about your relationship with Inglis,” Bascot said, “and whether or not you were complaisant with him.”

  Aquarius was startled by the question and stammered a little before he answered. “Reasonably so, lord,” he replied. “I only met him a couple of days before he died, but during that short time, he treated me with courtesy.”

  “Then how is it that you were seen in argument with him?” Bascot asked accusingly.

  “Argument, lord?” the bath attendant replied with what appeared to be genuine confusion. “I did not have any argument with him. Your witness must be mistaken.”

  “I have reason to believe that is not so,” Bascot declared.

  Aquarius’ fingers ceased their restless fidgeting as he clenched his hands together in front of him, the knuckles white with tension. “I swear to you, lord, that I am not lying,” he said desperately. “I did not, at any time since I arrived here, have a disagreement with Inglis.”

  The Templar leaned back in his chair and gave a sigh of irritation. “On the day before Inglis was poisoned, you had a confrontation with him in the yard. There is no purpose in denying it; you were seen by a person who has no reason to lie. If you do not tell me what it was about, you will be taken to the castle gaol and charged with his murder.”

  Aquarius’ sallow features went ashen. “As God is my judge, I was never in argument with Inglis, nor did I harm him. . . .”

  Bascot began to rise from his seat, and as he did so the bath attendant took a step back, continuing his frantic protestations. Suddenly, as the Templar was about to take hold of him, his face cleared. “Lord, I have just remembered what the witness must have seen,” he said hurriedly. “But it was Molly that Inglis was angry with, not me.”

  “Explain yourself,” Bascot commanded.

  “I was asking him about something that had occurred between him and Molly earlier that day,” he said eagerly, “when I went to St. Peter’s to attend the early service. Inglis had arrived before me, and was outside in the churchyard talking with Molly. When I walked up to join them, I noticed Inglis looked annoyed, and was in the process of discounting something she was telling him, saying it was not worthy of his attention. Molly gave him a rude reply and flounced off into the church. When we went inside, she made a point of standing apart from him and refused his offer to accompany her back to the townhouse. Because I had to work closely with Molly and feared her ill temper might extend itself to me, I asked Inglis about it out in the yard lest she hear me if I did so when we came into the house. And it is true that his face clouded over when I spoke to him, and he might have seemed annoyed with me to anyone who saw us speaking together. That is what your witness must have seen.”

  The Templar considered the tale. It confirmed Mistress Wattson’s sighting of Inglis and the washerwoman in the churchyard, and that they had seemed to be in an intense conversation when a person fitting Aquarius’ description had joined them. Since the bath attendant had no way of knowing that these actions had been witnessed, the truth of this part of his story was substantiated. But Bascot was also interested in the fact that, according to Aquarius, Inglis and Molly had been at odds with one another. Could the cause of their disagreement have anything to do with why they had both been murdered?

  “And what did the steward tell you when you asked about this argument?”

  “Very little,” Aquarius replied, “and he did not tell me the cause of it. All he said was that Molly, like most of her gender, was frivolous and enjoyed gossip more than was seemly.” He paused, trying to frame words that would convince the Templar he was telling the truth. “I vow to you, lord, that is all that passed between us. Inglis was annoyed by the incident—and looked it—when I spoke to him, but not with me.”

  Bascot studied the man seated in front of him. His manner seemed sincere, but he had come to learn that those who committed secret murder could be very artful when they chose. Besides, the story lacked substance; there may not have been any quarrel between the washerwoman and Inglis at all—they may have merely been speaking casually together and Aquarius had used their conversation as a means of concealing his own conflict with the steward.

  “Can you prove your claim?” Bascot asked. “Did anyone else, either at the church or out in the yard, overhear what was said between you and the steward?”

  Aquarius looked down at the floor, crestfallen. “Not to my knowledge.”

  Bascot tapped his fingers on the table in front of him in impatience. “Your defence is nebulous. You claim there was a disagreement between two people who were murdered shortly after this supposed confrontation, yet you cannot tell me what it was about, and have no witness except yourself. Why should I believe you?”

  “I can only tell you what I know,” Aquarius replied miserably. “And that is that they were in dispute with one another, even if it was only mildly so, but I never learned the reason. All I heard as I walked up to them in the churchyard were a few of the words Molly said before Inglis told her she was being foolish. And they made no sense to me.”

  The Templar felt a stir of interest. “Tell me what she said.”

  “She was asking Inglis why someone would use oc instead of oïl if they did not come from southern France,” Aquarius replied in a defeated monotone. “Inglis told her that her question was fatuous, and she was just using it as an excuse to relate more of her tittle-tattle to the king. Molly’s face became red when he said that and she told him he was an ignorant old fool, then stalked off into the church. That is all. As I said, it was unintelligible.”

  Bascot made no further comment as he pondered this information. Oc was the word for yes, and used only, as Molly had said, in certain regions in the south of France—such as Angoulême, where Queen Isabella came from. Oïl was used in the rest of the country or sometimes, in the environs of Paris, oui. All three words meant yes, but such was the distinction of the southern dialect, which included many more words of a different intonation and spelling, that it had been called langue d’oc in contrast to langue d’oïl, the name given to the dialect spoken throughout the rest of France. Langue d’oc had a very mellow sound and was favoured by troubadours, but outside of that it had not been adopted in general usage and was only spoken in the southern provinces.

  “I am surprised that a washerwoman would know the difference,” Bascot remarked. “Was she conversant with the French language?” Most of the common people in England spoke only English; French was the language of the nobles and also used by clerics and royal officials, but they all, without exception, spoke langue d’oïl.

  “A little,” Aquarius replied in answer to the question, “a rough patois that I heard her speaking to the Norman servants in Rouen castle. But she understood it well. When I joined the king’s entourage, I asked her how she had come by her knowledge and she told me that she had been forced to pick up a smattering of French during her travels with the king. If she had not, she said, she would never have been able to understand what the servants were saying in the places that she went with him. She would certainly know that oc was said for yes instead of oïl in southern parts, because the queen often speaks to her companions in her own dialect and would most likely have used the word in front of Molly.”

  Bascot nodded in acceptance. “Did she mention the name of the person she had heard saying this word during the bit of conversation you overheard between her and Inglis?”

  “No,” Aquarius replied.

  Molly’s quarrelsome insistence in pursuing such a seemingly trivial subject might appear odd unless one remembered that not only did the queen come from a land where langue d’oc was spoken, but so also did Hugh de Lusignan, John’s sworn enemy and the man who had accompanied the king’s nephew, Arthur, when he had tried to take Queen Eleanor hostage at Mirabeau. Was that why Molly, a woman who would have been well aware of the enmity between them, found the incident troublesome? Had she feared that Lusignan
had placed a spy in the king’s household and, wishing to discuss the matter with someone she could trust, had brought her concern to Inglis, a man she had known for many years and of whose loyalty she had no doubt?

  Bascot paused for a moment in his ruminations and looked at the bath attendant cum clerk, studying the resigned expression in his dark brown eyes. The whole tale seemed fanciful. Was it all prevarication, an attempt to detract Bascot from his own argument with the steward, or was it the truth? For the moment, Bascot decided, he would give him the benefit of the doubt; or at least until, as he had promised Nicolaa, he gave her a report of what Aquarius had said.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Isabella and her attendants were quite comfortable in the guesthouse at the Priory of St. Sepulchre. In common with most religious establishments, the accommodations for travellers included separate quarters for those of higher station. Two rooms had been allotted to the queen, one a bedchamber with a comfortable bed for her and ample space for her two companions to lay their pallets on the floor, and the other fitted with a small table, chairs and a settle, comprising a small sitting room that could be used either for leisure or entertaining guests. The food was served in a small communal hall and was delicious, the table laid with pewter plates, fine linen napkins and an ample supply of sweet wine. Unfortunately there were no ladies of noble rank in the guesthouse at that time, and Isabella had elected to eat in the sitting room where a roaring fire was kept burning. Even though the nunnery was secluded, she found it far preferable to the gloomy fortress at Dover.

  The Priory had been established in 1100 by Archbishop Anselm, and the Benedictine nuns that inhabited it were extremely pious; their daily fare, in contrast to that provided for their guests, was meager, and their regime strict, allowing conversation only when necessary and during the short time after Compline when communal interchange was allowed. Isabella and her ladies were hardly aware of the presence of the nuns; the only ones they came into contact with were the sister who was in charge of the guesthouse and a young novice that brought their food at mealtimes.

  The journey from Dover, through bitter wind and gusting snowflakes, had tired all three women and by the time they reached their destination, they wanted no more than to throw off their heavy cloaks and rest. Now, however, they were all refreshed and beginning to become restless. The snow lay thick upon the ground and, although pathways had been cleared within the walls of the nunnery, there was nowhere for them to take any exercise. John had given Isabella strict instructions that she was not to stray outside the convent, and had left some mercenary soldiers to stand on guard outside, not only for her protection but also to ensure she did not disobey him.

  The queen, sitting by the fire in a fur-lined gown, glanced across at her two attendants. They, like herself, were from the temperate lands in the south of France and finding the inclement weather extremely dreary. Yvette, the younger of the two companions, picked up her citole—a small musical instrument with four strings—and began to strum it in a desultory fashion. She was the daughter of a troubadour that had played in the court of Isabella’s father and was very skilled in the art of music. As she strummed the opening bars of Can vei la lauzeta mover, a song made popular by the troubadour Bernart de Ventadorn, and began to sing in her high clear voice the melancholy plaint of a thwarted lover’s sadness, moisture stung Isabella’s eyes and Marie, the more staid of the two attendants, also became tearful. The song reminded them of home—the bright blue sky, the dusty fields of grain and the hot scent of the honeysuckle that grew everywhere in wild profusion during the summer.

  Isabella turned to stare into the flames of the fire. The music reminded her not only of Angoulême but also of Hugh de Lusignan, the man to whom she had been promised before John, in agreement with Isabella’s father, had succeeded in persuading her that becoming queen of England would be far more desirable than marriage to Hugh. She wondered now if that decision had been a mistake. At first, her life as John’s consort had been exciting and she had congratulated herself on the choice she had made. John had proved himself a handsome and attentive lover, her crowning in Westminster Abbey had been a display of much splendour and, to her gratification, she had received many compliments on her beauty and youthful grace. But then the problems with Arthur had arisen, and the attack on his grandmother at Mirabeau, a raid in which Arthur’s allies had been her former suitor Hugh of Lusignan and Hugh’s uncle, Geoffrey. She had been so proud of the way that John had immediately ridden to Eleanor’s defence and the military expertise he had shown in capturing Arthur and his allies. But her admiration had lately been replaced by resentment. Just a few months before they had journeyed to England, John had left her at Chinon in Touraine while he travelled south to assess the strength of his fortifications in that area, and his enemies had taken advantage of his absence to attack the castle in which she was staying. She had fully expected John to ride swiftly to her rescue—as he had done for his mother—but when he had been informed of her plight, he had sent a detachment of mercenaries to relieve her instead. For that she could not forgive him. If, as he said, he loved her beyond all else, he could at least have displayed the same devotion to her as he had shown to his dam.

  Although Isabella, under the tutelage of her father, had been trained in statesmanship, she was not yet old enough to have outgrown, in her heart, the romantic inclinations of a young girl. Since the days of her infancy, she had listened to the minstrels in her father’s court sing of chivalry, and the lengths to which a lover would go to protect the well-being of the woman he admired, even if it meant sacrificing his own life. And yet John had relegated the safety of her person to a band of paid soldiers. Was this the action of the ardent lover he professed to be? She was certain that Hugh of Lusignan would not have treated her so shabbily.

  She had also been discontented by the air of confusion that had taken place during the last months she and John had spent in Rouen, when the French king had attacked Normandy and many of her husband’s vassals had deserted him. John had railed against them, but to no avail, and had been moody and despondent ever since. And then there had been the rumours circulating about Arthur. She had heard what was being said about John’s treatment of his nephew—that he had tortured and murdered the lad—but when she had asked John about the truth of the tales, his reply had been terse, and he had merely said that Arthur was alive and that she was not, in future, to pay any attention to scurrilous gossip. She was hurt by his cursory dismissal, especially after she had read a letter from John’s mother that he had left lying in their bedchamber. In it, Queen Eleanor, after suggesting certain military strategies to use against the encroachment of the French, had made a reference to her grandson. Cryptically, she had written, “With regard to Arthur, be very careful and do not allow your thoughts to bedevil you.” It was obvious John had confided the problems he was having with his nephew to his mother; why had he not accorded the same deference to her, his wife?

  And now these dreary murders had been committed. Isabella wrinkled her nose in distaste as she remembered her brief glimpse of the washerwoman’s dead body. She had never approved of John’s familiarity with this coarse servant and disagreed with his opinion that the killing, in some fashion, constituted a threat to him or herself. It was far more likely that the washerwoman’s death and the subsequent slaying of the steward had been the result of some sexual liaison between them, possibly perpetrated by a jealous lover. Although, she reflected, since the washerwoman had been fat and ugly, and the steward an elderly man, it was difficult to give much credence to this eventuality. But then, she decided, the common people of England had a strange affection for stodgy food; it would not be surprising if they also liked their women encased in lard.

  She did not look forward, either, to the journey she was soon to make to Lincoln, even though she would be in the company of Nicola
a de la Haye, whose dry but acerbic wit she found entertaining. In this bitter weather, it would be not be a pleasant trek, and was one she would rather forego.

  At that moment, Isabella was distracted from her moody reflections by Marie, who came forward with some sugared almonds that she had, she said, managed to coax the timid novice who brought their meals to fetch from the store of special foods kept aside for guests.

  As Isabella, delighted, reached greedily for the comfits, Marie turned and spoke to the younger companion. “Play a more lively tune, Yvette,” she said. “Something that will cheer the queen out of the doldrums this dismal country is forcing upon her.”

  The queen gave Marie a grateful look. The woman had not been long in her service, only since a few months before when, while they were in Rouen, Isabella’s previous attendant—an elderly woman who had looked after her since infancy—had succumbed to a wasting sickness and died. Casting her eyes over the maidservants in the castle for a suitable replacement, she had learned that Marie was from a small town in the south of Angoulême and had taken her into service. She was very glad she had done so. While the queen bore much love for little Yvette, her companion since the days of both their childhoods, the girl was naïve and could be giddy at times. Marie, with the wisdom of her more mature years, provided the stability that Isabella had been missing since her elderly companion had been taken from her, and gave the queen great solace with her sensible counsel. The queen also sensed in her a latent sensuousness, a passion that accorded with her own ardent nature, and which provided a welcome foil to Yvette’s youthful innocence.

  “I beg you not to be disconsolate, lady,” Marie said to the queen. “I am certain that soon you will be released from the confines of this nunnery and residing in the comfort that is your right. And, if all goes well, you may, by spring, even be able to visit Angoulême.”