by Maureen Ash
“What is it you require of me, lady?” Bascot asked.
Nicolaa leaned forward, her hands clasped together as they rested on the table in front of her. “If it is at all possible, it is imperative that the truth be found out. To do that, the matter must be delved into. I am asking you to undertake that task, de Marins.”
Bascot gazed at her, his one sighted eye locked into the two of hers. They had played this game before when there had been murder done in an alehouse in Lincoln town during the summer. She had asked him for assistance then and, since both he and Gianni were accepting the shelter of Lincoln castle and the largesse of its mistress at the time, he had complied. More through good fortune than his suitability for the venture, the murderer had been caught. And Bascot, to his surprise, had felt a great satisfaction for the part he had played in the apprehension of the culprit—and she knew it.
With a wry smile, he nodded his acceptance. Nicolaa, in turn, quietly thanked him.
“Is it known why the boy was out in the forest?” Bascot asked.
“No, not yet. That is my concern. Why was he there? Did he go willingly or not? The track nearby where he was found is one frequently used by those who have reason to travel in the chase—villagers, my husband’s forester, our bailiff and the like. If he was not killed by the brigands that poached the deer, it may be that he was abducted and taken there to be killed, or perhaps lured there for a false appointment with the murderer. It may even be simply that he was followed as he went about some purpose of his own. These are the questions for which answers need to be found, de Marins.”
Bascot nodded as she went on. “My husband’s forester is in the hall below. I asked him to wait there so that you can speak to him. There is probably little he can tell you, but it is a place to start.”
She stood up and so did Bascot. “The other pages and squires in William Camville’s retinue—how many are there?” he asked.
Nicolaa frowned in thought. “Seven altogether, I believe. Three pages and four squires. Two of the older boys are almost at the end of their training and hopeful of soon attaining the rank of knight. William tells me that all of them deny any knowledge of the reason for Hubert’s absence from the castle last night.”
“Still, it might be worthwhile for me to speak to them. They may know some fact that is pertinent and not realise its import.”
Nicolaa nodded. “I will have my steward summon them to one of the chambers below. And also instruct the forester to wait upon your pleasure.” With a decisive movement, she picked up the papers that lay on her desk and began to walk towards the door. “If there is nothing else, de Marins, I shall await your report after the evening meal.”
Dismissed, Bascot left the chamber. Once again he was embroiled in secret murder and he sent up a silent prayer that the outcome of this investigation would be as successful as the last one.
Three
“HUBERT WAS WORSE THAN A PAIN IN THE GUT! I’M not sorry he’s dead. And I’m not afraid to say so.”
The pages and squires of William Camville’s retinue had, on instructions conveyed by the Haye steward, gathered in a small chamber to await the arrival of Bascot. The room was small and dusty, used as a repository for records of the revenues of Haye tenants, and was piled high with rolls of parchment and tally sticks. There was barely enough room for all to sit or stand in comfort.
The boy who had spoken was one of the younger ones, Osbert, who sat cross-legged on the floor and stared defiantly up at the two eldest, Alain and Renault, who were standing and leaning against the embrasure of the one small window in the room.
“Your honesty does you credit, Osbert,” Alain said to him with a small smile, “but I do not think it would be wise to be quite so forthright with Sir Bascot.”
“Perhaps not, but it is the truth,” Osbert maintained. He was nine years old, with hair the colour and shape of a wheat sheaf, and his green eyes glowed with outrage as he continued, “He was always sneering at us younger ones, saying we didn’t know one end of a lance from the other and that no amount of training would ever make us into knights. He was a bully and a braggart and you know it well, Alain, for you yourself changed angry words with him more than once.”
Alain, tall and slim at eighteen years old, with a sober face and rigidly erect posture, flushed slightly at the youngster’s words. “It was my duty to correct him. I was his senior in age and rank,” he said quietly.
“You weren’t correcting him when you told him you’d break his head if he dared approach your sister again,” Osbert retorted angrily. “And I’d have done the same if I had been you. He deserved what he got and I give praise to his murderer, whoever he may be.” His voice dropped a little lower, but was still defiant, as he added, “Even if that murderer was someone from our own household.”
Renault, a few months younger than Alain, straightened up from his relaxed position. He was a Poitevin, the only one of the group whose family did not possess a fief in England. He was wirily built, with black hair, sallow skin and dark eyes. Always moving with a slow unhurried grace, he had nevertheless proved his skill at the quintain and on the practice field, and gave promise of one day being a redoubtable knight. He now looked down at the feisty little Osbert, smiled and said languidly, “You have an impertinent tongue, little one. Be careful it doesn’t get you into trouble.”
The words, spoken so carelessly, nevertheless held a hint of warning and Osbert reluctantly clamped his mouth shut, contenting himself with clenching his small fists and bunching them on his knees.
One of the other boys spoke up, a lad whose name was Harold but who was always called Rufus for the redness of his complexion. At fourteen, and having just obtained the rank of squire, he was not quite as fearful of Renault as the younger Osbert. “You hated Hubert as much as any of us, Renault. I remember when you found out that he had taken your new belt and worn it. You were very angry.”
Renault turned his gaze on Rufus. “No angrier than you when he dropped one of his boots in the midden and made you clean it.”
Rufus lowered his head and made no reply. Pushing himself upright, Renault heaved a sigh. “But you are right, Rufus, and so is Osbert. All of us have reason to rejoice that pig’s turd is dead.” He glanced around at them all and, with a lazy grin, added, “My only regret is that I promised Hubert a good thrashing if he continued with his pilfering ways. I should have given it to him then. Now he is dead, I will not get the chance.”
This remark brought titters from all the rest of the boys except one, a lad about Rufus’s age named Hugo. He was sitting on the floor, fiddling with a piece of straw, and had not raised his head once since they had all gathered in the room.
“What ails you, Hugo?” Alain asked. “Are you ill?”
Hugo finally looked up. Alain was his cousin and it was no secret that the youngster had a great admiration for his elder kinsman. “No, Alain, I am not ill,” he replied with a tremble in his voice. “I just wish that Hubert was not dead. I did not like him any more than the rest of you, but still I wish that he was not dead.”
The two youngest of the group, seven-year-old pages sent by their families, like the rest, to William Camville to spend the long years of training for knighthood, looked fearful at the anguish in Hugo’s voice. One of them rubbed at his eye with a knuckle, trying to stem the tears that were threatening to trickle down his cheeks.
Osbert, who was sitting near the lad, gave him a sidelong glance and then a push on the shoulder along with a command to stop snivelling. The boy smothered his sobs with an effort and wiped his running nose on his sleeve.
Alain moved forward into the midst of the group. “These speculations are not profitable, nor are they just. It is clear that none of us had any love for Hubert or are sorry he is dead. And if we feel this way, there must be many others not of our household who feel the same. But we must be wary of what we tell the Templar. Suspicion is easily cast on an innocent person. To be circumspect is the only honourable course.”
/> “And the most advisable,” Renault commented wryly. “The less that is made of this matter, the better for all of us. Even the little ones know that it would hardly help the reputation of any of us here, or that of our families, to be suspected of secret murder. I do not intend to risk losing the chance of winning my spurs for such a one as Hubert, whether he be alive or dead.”
Although Alain gave his friend an angry glance for the baldness of his words, the rest of the boys nodded to each other in agreement; Osbert and Rufus enthusiastically. All, that is, except Hugo. He only gave his cousin Alain a surreptitious glance filled with fear, then bowed his head before it should be noticed, and resumed his mournful contemplation of the musty trampled rushes beneath his feet.
Four
BASCOT’S TALK WITH WILLIAM CAMVILLE’S PAGES AND squires left him feeling both amused and confused.
All of the young men and boys had denied any knowledge of the reason Hubert had been out in the forest on the night he had been murdered. When Bascot had suggested that the person or persons who had killed the squire might not have been outlaws, but someone known to the dead boy, they had all easily accepted that as a possibility.
Their general dislike of the dead squire had been evident in the way they had spoken of him, but none had admitted to having a particular grudge against him, nor of knowing anyone who had. This seemed an unlikely proposition in view of how disagreeable they had made Hubert sound. Only Osbert had offered any information that might be of interest. Hubert had, the page proclaimed, often boasted of his prowess with women, bragging that once he had bedded a wench she could not wait for more of the same.
“I don’t know if what he said was true, Sir Bascot,” Osbert had added, his small face quite serious. “Especially since his bollocks and shaft weren’t much bigger than mine. But it could be that he was meeting a lover in the woods, and was perhaps discovered by an outraged husband who took his revenge.” Osbert had glanced, almost defiantly, at the two eldest squires, Alain and Renault, as he said this, but their faces had remained impassive.
Bascot had been hard put to hide a smile at the boy’s words, but they had made him pause for thought. It was possible that Hubert had strayed into a relationship that had led to his death, but it was hard to believe that it would have been with anyone he had met in the few days he had been in Lincoln. Did he know someone from previous visits? Perhaps Hubert had already been acquainted with a woman from the town or in the retinues of nobles come to attend the king’s visit. It was a suggestion worth pursuing.
Making his way down to the hall to talk to the forester who had found the squire’s body, Bascot cast his mind back to the days when he had been the same age as Hubert. He had been spared the necessity of going to the household of one of his father’s peers to train for knighthood since he had spent much of his younger days within the walls of a monastery, having been placed there as an oblate—an offering for Christ—to prepare for the day when he would take his vows as a monk. It had not been until he was well past Osbert’s age that his father had removed him, one of Bascot’s older brothers having died, leaving a gap, which his sire had been anxious to fill. But still Bascot could remember how he had felt when he had returned home and begun to practice with sword and lance. Despite his reluctance to leave the monks, he had been excited, full of the joy of young manhood and anxious to indulge in all the pleasures he had so far been denied in his life behind the monastery walls. Wine had tasted sweet, as had platters full of roasted venison and boar, and the most delicious of all had been sampling the charms of the many willing women servants on his father’s demesne. There had not been many ready to deny a son of their lord his pleasure, or their own. It was not until he had taken his vow of chastity as a Templar that he had eschewed the charms of women and, although he had never broken his pledge, the temptation at times had been hard to resist. But as a young man he had not viewed it as a transgression, and had indulged the hot blood that rose at the sight of a softly curved breast or a slim ankle as readily as Hubert had apparently done. None had been wife to another man, however, but still, Osbert’s opinion might bear merit.
In the hall he found the forester, Tostig, in the company of Ernulf, drinking ale. When Bascot approached, the serjeant introduced them. The forester was a tall man, clad in a leather jerkin over a green tunic and hose, with stout boots on his feet and a handsome strongly boned face that had been weathered by the elements. His hands, although calloused, were large and well shaped. On his left forearm he wore a leather bracer, used by archers to strengthen the aim of an arrow shot. At his feet lay a dog, a lymer hound, its keen eyes surveying Bascot dolefully as he approached. Ernulf told Bascot that Tostig had been employed as a mounted forester by Gerard Camville for the last fifteen years and that his bailiwick—the area in which he carried out his duties—was the chase granted by the king to the sheriff for his own use.
“It was the birds that told me something was amiss,” Tostig said in answer to Bascot’s question as to how he had come to discover the body. “Gathered and circling like the carrion eaters they are. I thought it could be a dead animal and went to investigate. I found the deer first, the carcass half-buried under leaves. But then I noticed that the birds hadn’t disturbed it much and looked around, thinking there might be another one slaughtered nearby.”
He took a swig from the ale in his mug, swallowed, then spat among the rushes on the floor. “Made my gorge rise when I looked up and saw what those damned crows had been feasting on,” he told Bascot. “The lad’s face was almost gone, and they’d been at his body, too, pecking through his clothes.”
He shook his head sadly and crossed himself before continuing. “They still kept watch even after I cut him down, landing near me and croaking like imps from hell, though my dog was doing his best to forestall them. So I wrapped the boy in his cloak, which was still pinned to his shoulders, slung him over my horse and carried him out of the woods. If I had left him there to get help, they would have been at him again.”
“What about the boy’s own mount?” Bascot asked. “Surely he wouldn’t have gone into the forest on foot.”
“Found it not too far from where the lad was strung up,” Tostig replied. “It was loose and came to follow me on my way back to the castle. The reins were knotted at the end, and trailing, as though the lad had left the horse loosely tethered somewhere.”
Ernulf reached over and filled the man’s flagon again. Bascot waited until he had taken a deep drink, then asked, “Did you notice if there were any other marks on the boy’s body besides that made by the rope and the birds?”
“You mean, had he been killed first, and then strung up?” Tostig asked. When Bascot nodded, the forester shook his head. “Apart from the damage done by the crows there was nothing else. Sir William and Sir Gerard stripped him themselves when I brought him in, looking for an answer to the same question, but there was no wound from a blade or arrow on his person or any mark on what was left of his head. Even allowing for the bird’s feasting, there would have been trace of damage if his skull had been caved in.”
“Nothing at all?” Bascot persisted.
The forester shook his head again. “As far as could be told it looks as though the boy just stood peaceful-like and let that noose be dropped over his head.”
“Or else he didn’t struggle because he was faced with a greater threat,” Bascot said.
The forester looked straight at him, “Like a sword or a bow, you mean?”
Bascot nodded. “Either that or else he was taken by surprise before he had the opportunity to defend himself.”
IN A PRIVATE UPPER CHAMBER GERARD CAMVILLE AND his brother sat sharing a cup of wine. They had just returned from the tract in the forest where Hubert had been found and, as they had expected, could locate nothing to indicate how the boy had come to be there or who had killed him. After a circuit of the perimeter of the chase they had called a halt for if outlaws had been the cause of the boy’s death, they had long since disappe
ared into the depths of Sherwood. Gerard was in a foul temper, which even the rough questioning of the inhabitants of a nearby village had done nothing to assuage. All had claimed not to have seen or heard anything, or to have known the identity of the dead boy. Threats to take some of the young men of the village into Lincoln castle for questioning had elicited no further information. Finally, Gerard, at his brother’s urging, had left them in peace and they had returned to Lincoln.
“Bloody peasants, always the same. You’d think they were deaf and blind to all that goes on around them. Until you ask for a reckoning of their livestock or the grain yield from harvest. Then they know down to the last dead lamb and stray kernel of wheat just how much they owe to their lord, and all the while they’re stealing their masters blind.” Gerard poured himself another cup of wine and began to pace the chamber from one end to the other.
“For the love of Christ, Gerard, sit down,” William expostulated. “I cannot talk to you while you roam about so. And talk we must. This death could become a serious problem.”
William refilled his own wine cup, looking intently at his brother. Gerard had ceased his pacing and was standing by a small fireplace built into a corner of the wall, staring into the flames. The fireplace had a hood, in the latest fashion, and the applewood logs that burned in the open grate gave off a pleasant aroma. Gerard, however, gave no indication that he had heard his brother. He drank deep from his cup, then threw the lees of the wine into the fire before resuming his contemplation of the burning logs.
“Gerard, this death—it has nothing to do with you, has it?” William asked softly.
The sheriff turned and gave his brother a tight-lipped smile that held no humour. “You, too, Will? I thought my own brother would have more faith in me. Do you really believe I could be so base as to secretly murder a young stripling to advance my own ends?”