by Maureen Ash
The Templar believed him. Although Gildas, with his gregarious nature, liked to prattle of the mundane events that occurred from day to day, he was not a spiteful man and Bascot knew he would frown on those who repeated any rumour that cast unfounded aspersions on the reputation of another.
“Just so,” Bascot agreed. “And it is because of these tales that I do not wish to go to Master Adgate and ask him my questions directly. This murder has already given him enough upset and I do not wish to discommode him further.”
The Templar paused for a moment to ensure Gildas was amenable to respecting the implied confidentiality and, when the barber gave a sympathetic smile, went on. “There is a need to find out some information concerning Adgate’s first wife who, I understand, died some years ago. Lady Nicolaa has had the suggestion made to her that the former Mistress Adgate may have been related to Aubrey Tercel. If this is true, then it would be most distressing for the furrier to discover that, in addition to the unkind tales about his present wife, he could also be related, albeit by marriage, to the murdered man. That is why I have come to you. The castellan has asked me to try and find out the truth in a discreet manner, if I can, and I thought that, as a long-standing citizen of Lincoln, and one who meets many of the townsfolk through your trade, you might be able to give me the information we seek. Do you happen to know the name of Adgate’s first wife, or the town from whence she came?”
Mention of the possibility that he might be of practical help to the castellan made the barber straighten up in his chair. Nicolaa de la Haye was held in high repute by the townspeople of Lincoln and the Templar had been sure Gildas would be eager to assist her. “Yes, yes, Sir Bascot, indeed I can help you, for not only has Simon been my customer for many years, but has been my friend since our youth. His first wife’s name was Martha. Both my own wife and I knew her well. But I do not think the dead man could have been related to her. Tercel was from Stamford, was he not?”
When the Templar confirmed the statement, Gildas went on. “Martha came from Hull; she was the daughter of a taw-yer in that town. Simon married her about twenty years ago, soon after he met her when he went to the port to oversee the delivery of some furs from Scandinavia. He had commissioned her father to preserve some of the furs so they could be safely sent to Lincoln before deterioration set in and when Simon went to his shop to inspect the completion of the work, Martha was there and my friend was smitten. It wasn’t many months later that they married and they were very happy until, sadly, just two years later, the poor woman was taken ill with an abscess in her breast and died. But while she was alive, she often spoke to my wife and myself of her family and, as far as I can recall, they were all from Yorkshire. I do not think it likely she was related to the murdered man; I am sure she would have mentioned it if she had any relatives in a town so close to Lincoln.”
Chagrin surged through Bascot. Adgate’s marriage had taken place too long after the time of Tercel’s birth to make it likely that his first wife had been the cofferer’s mother and, even had that not been the case, to investigate further and try to discover whether a woman from the distant town of Hull had travelled to Winchester so many years ago would be nigh on impossible.
Nonetheless, Bascot thanked the barber for his time and, as he prepared to leave, said, “It is just as well I spoke to you, Gildas, and not to Master Adgate. To have involved his dead wife’s name in such a grisly business may well have brought him further grief, and I know I can trust you to keep the matter in confidence from him.”
The barber rose from his stool, his countenance full of gratification as Bascot added, “I shall tell Lady Nicolaa of your cooperation. I know she will be most appreciative.”
ONCE THEY WERE OUT ON THE STREET, THE TEMPLAR DECIDED, as a last resort, to go and speak again to Hacher, the barber Tercel had visited just before he was murdered. “I do not expect a further questioning of Hacher will be useful,” he said to Gianni, “but there is always the possibility that he may have remembered something pertinent since we last spoke to him. If he does not, I fear this investigation has come to a standstill.”
Hacher’s shop, when they walked in, was busy. Two customers were waiting on stools near the door, the assistant was trimming the beard of a man seated on a high-backed chair, and Hacher was just finishing the treatment of a man with toothache. As the barber doused the lit candle he had been holding near the customer’s aching molar in an effort to draw out the worms believed to cause the pain, he saw the Templar and nodded, saying he would be with his visitor in just a moment. Hacher then handed a small bottle of oil of cloves to the customer, whose face was a picture of misery, telling him to apply the oil to his gums overnight and return the following morning. Bascot winced at the sight. One of his own back teeth ached at times, especially after he had eaten a candi. He felt a great degree of empathy for the customer.
“If the ache persists, I will draw the tooth,” Hacher said. “And then cup a little blood to balance the humours in your body. If you wish, I have some tincture of poppy to help you sleep.”
The customer mumbled that he didn’t need it for he had pledged an offering to St. Apollonia, the patron saint of those suffering from toothache, and was sure that she would soon ease his pain. With slumped shoulders he left the shop, his hand held firmly to his jaw.
Hacher came forward to where Bascot and Gianni were standing, attempting to form a smile on his doleful countenance as he asked how he could be of assistance.
“We have come to ask you a few more questions about Aubrey Tercel. I would like you to again recall the conversations you had with him on the two occasions you trimmed his hair. Are you certain he did not mention anyone in the town to you, one of the merchants, perhaps, or some other tradesman?”
Hacher’s domed forehead wrinkled in concentration. “He told me he was in the retinue of Lady Nicolaa’s sister and held the position of cofferer,” the barber said in his slow lugubrious manner, “but I think he only did that to impress on me that he was of some importance for, just after he said that, he warned me to take especial care while attending his hair.” Hacher sniffed. “I replied that I always gave the best of my service to every patron, whether of high standing or low.”
Bascot gave a nod of seeming sympathy, knowing he would have to be patient if he was going to get any information out of the man. “Did he speak of anything else?”
“We exchanged a few remarks about the quality of wine available in the town,” Hacher replied. “I told him I preferred, when I can afford it, a vintage made from the grapes of Portugal and he agreed with my taste and asked where I bought it. I told him there were several merchants in the town who sell the vintage and we left it at that.”
Clarice had also mentioned that she and her lover had discussed wine, but it was a common enough subject, and not likely to be of importance. “And you are certain he spoke of nothing else?” Bascot pressed.
“I do not think so,” the barber replied and then added ironically, “He did not seem a man much given to conversation.”
The Templar and Gianni left the shop, their spirits low. Even though they had achieved the goal of finding out about Simon Adgate’s first wife, the information had been of no significance and now Bascot found himself nonplussed as to which direction to take next. So far, they had only discovered what appeared to be two completely disparate motives for the crime—that of a violent reaction from a jealous lover or, alternatively, an attempt by Tercel’s mother, or someone close to her, to protect her sullied reputation. Was it possible that the two were linked together in some manner? And, if so, how?
Twenty-one
IT WAS LATE IN THE MORNING BY THE TIME NICOLAA AND PETRONILLE returned to the bail. Bruet and Ernulf had been thorough in their search for the missing boy, coursing through the forest all around Riseholme for a good distance, but there had been no trace of him. The castellan had questioned young Mark exhaustively while the search was being conducted, but he had not been able to add much to what he
had already told them except that it had been “a long time before it got light” that Willi crept out from where they were sleeping. Deciding that the boy must have gone a good distance, or maybe even reached Lincoln, before they arrived, she gave orders for the party to return to the castle.
“It is in the town we must search,” she said to her sister. “We must return at once.”
Leaving instructions with Stoddard that he was to send news to her immediately if Willi returned to Riseholme, the small party went back to Lincoln. Once there, Nicolaa asked Ernulf if he was familiar with the boy’s appearance.
“Aye, lady. I saw him when I brought all of the children into the hall on the day of the feast. With that bright red hair of his, it was easy to mark him from the rest.”
“Good. Take the groom who drove the children to Riseholme with you—he also had a good opportunity to note the lad’s features—and search for Willi in the vicinity of St. Peter at Arches, where he went for alms. It is unlikely he will show himself at the church, for the priest there would wonder why he is in the town and not at Riseholme, but the streets nearby will be the place that his father left him and it is there that Willi will go to look for him. The other child, Mark, also said that Willi told him his father was over-fond of ale, so visit the alehouses in the area and see if he has been in any of them. And go out to the suburb of Butwerk, too, it is close by and many of the town’s poor seek refuge in the hovels there; it may be that he has joined them. Be discreet, do not tell anyone the reason we are searching for the boy; if one of those you speak to is the person he saw in the bail that night, you could place the lad in danger. Simply say you are looking for the boy because he is ill and may be infectious. That should put the fear of God into any that are sheltering him and induce them to reveal his whereabouts.”
As the serjeant and groom rode out of the bail, Petronille, who was standing nearby, said, “I pray they find him, and speedily. If the murderer saw Willi looking at him, he will be aware the boy can identify him. If their paths should cross while the child is searching for his father, then . . .”
“He will kill him,” Nicolaa finished grimly. “Let us hope Willi is found before that happens.”
THE SUBJECT OF THEIR SEARCH WAS, AT THAT MOMENT, PEERING out from behind an old ale cask that was being used as a water barrel. It was behind a house in a street not far from Pottergate, the town gate which led out into the suburb of Butwerk. Willi was not aware that anyone was looking for him, for he had been outside the walls of Lincoln by the time Bruet and Ernulf had begun their search of the woods. He had not gone into the town through Newport Arch as he had intended, but skirted the walls that encircled Lincoln and slipped into the town through Pottergate on the eastern side, his first intention to look in the sheltered nook down one of the backstreets where he and his father had been accustomed to spend their nights. The lane was rarely used by any of the people that lived nearby; it led only to a high fence that backed onto a yard where a carter kept his old horse and there were no doorways in the walls of the houses on either side. Willi and his father had gathered a pile of old rags in the corner that abutted the wall to keep them warm throughout the night and the boy believed that was where his da, if he had returned, would have looked for him. But when Willi had gone down into the alley, it was deserted and the rags lay in an undisturbed heap, crusty with a rime of unmelted frost.
Willi had then gone into two of the nearby alehouses, covertly peering at the faces of each customer, hoping to find the familiar visage of his father. But none of them had been his da and, when Willi asked the keeper in the second alehouse if he had seen his father recently, the man had shaken his head and gruffly told the boy to leave.
It had been as he was leaving the alehouse that Willi had seen two mounted men coming towards him. One of them he recognised as the grizzled serjeant from the castle and the other was the groom that had driven the small party of foundlings to Riseholme. Sheltering in a doorway, he heard the serjeant ask a passerby if he had seen a boy of Willi’s description, mentioning that he had a head of carrot-coloured hair. The boy had not waited to hear the man’s reply; he scooted as fast as he could down the street away from the alehouse and, seeing the water barrel down a side turning, had hidden behind it. Now he watched anxiously to see if either the serjeant or the groom had spotted him.
They must be looking for him because he had stolen the blanket, he decided, clutching the rolled up swathe of rough wool closer to his chest. He had carried it all the way from Riseholme for use when night fell, but now he cursed the fact that he had taken it. If he had not, they wouldn’t be trying to find him. He shivered as he thought of what might happen if they caught him. Thieves were often punished by having their noses slit or one of their fingers cut off. His lip began to tremble as he thought of the pain he would endure. He didn’t know what to do. If he left the town, he would never find his da but, if he did not, it was certain the castellan’s servants would eventually find him.
Then he saw Ernulf and the groom ride their horses past the end of the turning and continue on down the street. He gave a sigh of relief and, unrolling the blanket, draped a fold of it over the brightness of hair and wrapped the rest around his body, tying the corners at his waist. The food he had brought with him from Riseholme was already gone; the walk into town had made him hungry and he had eaten it on the way but, with good fortune, he would find his da soon and was, for the moment at least, safe from discovery.
IT WAS ALMOST TIME FOR THE MIDDAY MEAL WHEN BASCOT and Gianni returned to the ward. When they went into the hall, tables were being set up and they threaded their way through the servants engaged in the task, making their way to the corner tower of the keep where Nicolaa’s solar was located. There they found Petronille, Richard and Alinor with the castellan, sharing a flagon of wine as they discussed Willi’s disappearance and the dire consequences that could befall him. At the far end of the chamber, Alinor’s maid, Elise, sat with Margaret, Petronille’s sempstress, engaged in repairing a tear in one of her mistress’ kirtles. For once Elise’s merry smile was absent and Margaret’s countenance was even more sober than usual.
Bascot was offered a cup of wine and, while he drank it, was quickly brought up to date on how Willi had run away from the foundling home and that one of the other children said the boy had seen the person who murdered Aubrey Tercel. “Did he recognise him?” the Templar asked.
“Of that we are not certain,” Nicolaa replied. “Willi told the other boy very little beyond claiming he had seen him, not even whether the villain was a man or a woman—I wish he had. At least then we would know the gender of the person. As it is, we can only hope that we find Willi first, or that the boy did not, in fact, see the murderer but allowed his childish imagination to manufacture a killer from a brief glimpse of a servant innocently crossing the ward.”
After Bascot told her of his visit to the two barber-surgeons and added that, according to Gildas, it did not seem possible that Simon Adgate’s first wife had been Tercel’s mother, Alinor’s face fell and she reluctantly admitted she might be wrong about the furrier.
“If Ernulf finds the boy, and the child can identify the person that murdered the cofferer, further enquiries will be unnecessary,” Nicolaa said.
“Let us hope that turns out to be so, lady,” Bascot replied and stood up. After thanking her for the wine, he said he would not return to the preceptory until the morrow. “There is not much more that can be done until Ernulf has completed his search for the boy.”
Nicolaa nodded. “We must pray he will be successful,” she said.
WHEN BASCOT RETURNED TO THE PRECEPTORY, DUSK WAS closing in and it was almost time for the service at Compline. He went into the office where he was accustomed to do the Order’s paperwork and found Everard d’Arderon seated at the desk, poring over an inventory of weapons in the armoury.
When the preceptor saw the disheartened look on Bascot’s face, he laid the list aside and asked what was amiss. “A boy we belie
ve can identify the person who murdered Tercel has gone missing,” Bascot replied. “If the lad is not found, it is feared he might be the next victim.”
D’Arderon listened with grave attention as Bascot explained the details of Willi’s flight from Riseholme and how attempts were being made to find him. The preceptor was well aware of Bascot’s strong propensity for protecting those less fortunate than himself; it was an admirable trait and one of the prime directives of the Order, but d’Arderon also knew, from his long experience of the evils of mankind, that such an aim could often be unattainable. He cast about in his mind for some way to ease Bascot’s apprehension.
“There is nothing more distressing than fearing that a child’s life may be in danger,” he said finally. “I remember a similar situation once, when I was with a cohort of brothers travelling from Jaffa to Arsuf in the Holy Land, and we stopped to make camp at a native village near an oasis. The little daughter of one of the villagers had gone missing and we offered to help search for her, for it was thought that she might have wandered out into the desert and been taken by a jackal or some other predator. With the men from the village, we combed the area all around, but there was no sign of her. Just as it was coming up to nightfall, and the worst was feared, she was discovered, not by one of those who had been searching for her, but by her older sister. It seems the little girl had stolen some honey from her mother’s kitchen and, fearing to be punished, had hidden underneath a pile of wicker baskets. All the time we had been looking for her, she had been only a few feet away from the center of the village. The older sister, who was not much more than a child herself, had remembered how she and her younger sibling had often played a game of hiding and seeking, and that the spot under the baskets was one of the missing child’s favourite places to hide.”