Shroud of Dishonour

by Ash, Maureen

  The former squire gave a heartfelt sigh. “It was then that they began to fight and somehow Scallion got ahold of the knife at Jacques’ belt and, in the struggle, it ended up in the boat owner’s chest.” Savaric shrugged. “That is what Jacques told me happened. I cannot vouch for the truth of it, but he had no reason to lie.”

  “And, when the hue and cry was raised to find Jacques, you helped him get away?” Bascot asked. Although he felt no compassion for the man he held captive, he began to understand the depth of the squire’s quandary. It would not have been easy to deny aid to a much loved brother, even if he was gravely at fault. And love his legitimate brother Savaric must have done, for not only had he followed the immoral knight to the Holy Land, but he had also stood by Jacques when he had committed murder. There was courage there, too—not many would risk exposure to leprosy for another’s sake, no matter how closely they were related. But Savaric’s loyalty had been misplaced, and he had known it to be so. For that Bascot could not forgive him.

  Savaric nodded. “When Jacques came tearing out of the stewe, we got away from the area as fast as we could. After we felt we were safe from discovery, he told me what had happened. Jacques had a couple of rings and a gold chain in his scrip. We waited on the outskirts of Acre until morning, and then exchanged some of the jewellery for a couple of mounts from an Arab horse trader. Then we rode southward down the coast towards Haifa. There we hired a boat to take us to Cyprus, and sold the horses and the rest of the jewellery to pay for passage home. The rest you know.”

  “So your brother not only broke his vow of chastity but, by keeping valuable items in his possession after he entered the Order, also the one of poverty. And neither he nor you gave any thought to the infection he was spreading among the people you came into contact with on the journey back to England.” Bascot’s fury resurged and, with it, disgust. “The silver coins that Jacques left beside the bodies of each of the prostitutes he killed. Were they also part of his secret hoard?”

  “He left some silver coins and jewellery buried here, at Marton, when he went to join the Templars,” Savaric admitted shamefacedly. “None of us knew he had done so. I only got the truth out of him last night.”

  “I cannot condone your actions,” Bascot replied, “but in a small part I can understand them, at least until you brought your brother safely back to England. What I fail to comprehend is why, once you had returned to Lincoln, your family did not ensure that Jacques entered a lazar house?”

  “Gilbert wanted him to go to the one in Pottergate,” Savaric said, “but Jacques begged to be allowed to stay at Marton, which is where I brought him when we first returned. I smuggled him in at night while the pig man was sleeping and then went to Ingham and told the family what had happened. Gilbert, Hervé and Julia rode here the next morning and tried to persuade him to go to the lazar house but he pleaded with them to leave him here, promising he would let no one see him or come into contact with him. He said his only wish was to die at home on the family demesne. Julia took his part and said that after all Jacques had gone through to return home, it would be cruel to lock him away at the end of his journey.”

  Savaric glanced at the Templar. “My half brother could be very persuasive, Sir Bascot, especially with women. His mother and Julia idolized him. When his dam heard what had happened, she collapsed and we feared she would not recover. Julia told Gilbert that if he did not want to be the cause of their mother’s death, he would do as Jacques asked. Since I had been in his company for so many months and might have already contracted the disease, I offered to bring him food and keep him company when he wished it. Gilbert finally, and reluctantly, gave in, although Hervé advised against it. They all—Gilbert, Julia and Hervé—came to see him just that one time, for Jacques insisted they stay away after that, for their own safety’s sake.”

  “And after he garrotted the harlot in our chapel,” Bascot said in a hard voice, “was the love all of you felt for this degenerate brother so strong that you also condoned his sin of murder?”

  “No, Sir Bascot, it was not,” Savaric replied, his words exploding from him with a brief flare of defiance. “We didn’t know, at the time, that he had killed her, or that he murdered the other one a few days later. It was not until the day that you and Captain Roget came to Ingham that we found out he was responsible. I only spent the odd night or two at Marton and none of us knew Jacques had gone into Lincoln, or that he was responsible for those terrible crimes. I had gone early that same morning, before you came, to take him some food and wine. I arrived before he was out of bed and saw the strips of cloth he had wrapped around the wound on his leg. When I asked him how he had come by the injury, he blustered at first, saying he had stumbled on one of the broken boards in the house and the shattered end had pierced his leg. I looked at the wound and could tell it had been made by a knife. When I challenged him with his lie, he finally told me the truth. But although he admitted he killed the two harlots, he did not tell me he had attacked another woman the night before. We did not learn of that until you came to the manor house later that day.

  “His brain had been turned by the disease,” Savaric continued sadly. “He said he wanted to kill as many harlots as he could because they were the cause of all his troubles. It was because of them, he said, that he had been forced to join the Templars. If he hadn’t done so, he would never have lain with the prostitute that infected him.”

  “But why did he implicate our Order?” Bascot demanded. “Surely Jacques could not blame the brethren for his downfall.”

  “As I said, his thinking was deranged. He said the Templars were hypocrites; that they all lusted after women and bedded them whenever they had an opportunity to do so. Because he had visited a brothel and not been caught, he was convinced there were many others that did the same. He said that if the leprosy had been sent by God to chastise him for breaking his vow of chastity, it was a punishment that was not warranted, for he was but one of many.”

  Savaric gave Bascot an earnest look. “I tried to tell him he was wrong, that there were very few Templars who dishonoured their vow, but he would not listen. He just raged at me and said it could not be so, that it was not natural for a man to live like a eunuch. He said that before he died, he intended to make the brothers’ rampant fornication known to all of Christendom, and expose them to the contempt they so rightly deserved. His reasoning made no sense, but I did not try to dissuade him. It was too late. The women were already dead. Nothing I could say would bring them back.”

  The former squire shook his head sadly as he continued, “After he finished raving, I locked him in the sleeping chamber here at Marton and went to tell Gilbert what had happened. It was that discussion you and Captain Roget interrupted when you arrived at Ingham. It was a shock to learn that he had attempted to kill another woman.”

  “How did he get into Lincoln? Did you leave him a mount?”

  “No, I did not, for there was no reason for him to have need of one,” Savaric replied. “He told me that he walked into Torksey after the swineherd was abed—the pig man drinks his fill of ale in the village alehouse every afternoon and then comes home to sleep like a stone until morning—and hired a horse from a stable there.”

  “And the women he killed, how did he entice them into his company?”

  The former squire looked shamed as he repeated what Jacques had told him. “He said he went to the brothel where the first girl worked and asked her to aid him in winning a wager that a woman could not be smuggled into the chapel at the preceptory. She came willingly when he offered to pay her handsomely for her help.”

  Savaric’s voice diminished to almost a whisper as he described how Jacques had gained entry to Adele Delorme’s house. “The second harlot was known to him from before he entered the Order. He had been friends with her paramour, a knight who lives in Newark, and had helped to persuade her lover to pay her handsomely to leave the town before he got married. When he called at her house, she recognised him as an old fr
iend and had no suspicion that his intention was anything other than harmless.”

  The Templar felt a tide of loathing flood him at the recounting of such flagrant evil. “And, knowing all this, your family still did not give him up to Captain Roget’s authority when we came to Ingham,” Bascot spat out. “How many more women did he have to kill before you would have done so?”

  “There would have been no more!” Savaric responded heatedly, his sorrowful demeanour vanishing. “I came back to Marton after you left the manor house and stayed to keep guard over Jacques. We knew he could not last much longer; that it was only a matter of time before he became too weak to be a threat to anyone. He was starting to lose the feeling in his fingers and his toes had begun to waste. And, more than once, he had been taken with a wracking fever that I thought would be the end of him. We planned to take him to a shepherd’s hut at the edge of the pasture lands at Ingham that is isolated and not used anymore. I was going to send the pig man away on some errand and take Jacques there today. If you had not come to Marton this morning, I would have cared for him until the end and he would have spent whatever time was left to him with his family nearby. . . .”

  “He was a foul murderer and deserved no such consideration,” Bascot said brutally. “His death was too quick to serve justice; he should have swung at the end of a rope and had a taste of the terror he inflicted on the women he attacked. And the rest of you should suffer a like fate for enabling him to commit his vicious crimes.”

  Bascot’s reply was deliberately pitiless. He had seen the body of poor Elfie and heard Roget’s description of Adele Delorme’s corpse. Had she not been fortunate, Terese would have died in a similarly cruel manner. And if that had happened, little Ducette, Elfie’s young daughter, would have been twice bereft, not only of her mother, but of the only other person in the world who cared for her.

  Savaric made no reply and they sat in silence until Roget and half a dozen men-at-arms rode up the track towards them. Bascot explained to Roget as succinctly as he could what had happened and suggested that Jacques’ body be secured in the building where it lay and left there until someone from the lazar house in Pottergate could come and fetch it.

  “The baseborn brother may be infected. He can ride his own horse back to Lincoln under escort by your men,” Bascot added. “Once you reach the castle he should be put in a cell on his own until a leech has examined him to see if he has contracted leprosy. Then the sheriff can do with him, and the rest of his cursed family, as he will.”

  In a hard voice he added, “Tell your men that if Savaric tries to escape, they are to cut him down. He should not be shown any mercy, for he deserves none.”

  Roget nodded and watched with concerned eyes as his friend went into the ramshackle building and emerged a few moments later with the body of Emilius cradled in his arms. Going over to the horse the draper had ridden on their journey to Marton, Bascot laid the dead Templar across the saddle, covered him with his cloak and tied him securely in place. Then Bascot mounted his own steed and, taking up the reins of Emilius’s horse, rode off down the track. Roget’s heart went out to his friend and the rest of the brothers in the Lincoln enclave. The draper had died at the hands of one of their own, a corrupt brother who had kept neither the vows he had sworn nor upheld their honour. Their grief would be inconsolable.

  Twenty-eight

  AFTER ROGET LOCKED SAVARIC IN A HOLDING CELL AND WENT to relate to Gerard Camville what he had been told by Bascot, the captain was sent to Ingham to arrest Gilbert, Hervé and Julia Roulan. Gilbert’s wife, Margaret, was left at the manor house to manage the supervision of the servants and to care for their grief-stricken mother. The two brothers and sister were locked in a separate holding cell from that of Savaric and, at Nicolaa’s suggestion, a request was sent to Brother Jehan, the elderly infirmarian at the Priory of All Saints, asking him if he would come to the castle gaol and examine the prisoners for signs of leprosy. Jehan was an extremely able herbalist who had, in his long lifetime, treated most of the ailments that plagued mankind. Both Nicolaa and Gerard trusted his judgement in the matter.

  After spending some time with Savaric, and a brief visit with the other Roulan siblings, Jehan returned to the hall and said that, as far as he could tell, all four of them were free of the disease.

  “With regard to the three legitimate members of the family,” the monk told them in his slow sonorous voice, “I am assured, both by them and the baseborn son, that they had no close contact with the leper. They did not even, at his request, embrace him, so it is unlikely they have been infected. With regard to the illegitimate son, however, I would ask you to bear in mind that I cannot be certain he has not contracted the disease. Although there is no rash with the distinctive scales that the word lepra implies, he had been exposed to the noxious breath and touch of a leper and may yet contract it. While many of the monks that attend the lazar house below Pottergate do not become infected with the disease, there is usually one or two who catch it in the fullness of time.”

  For a moment Jehan’s gaze became unfocussed as he pondered on the affliction. Finally, he said, “I asked the baseborn son some questions about the leper who was slain by Sir Bascot and I would be very surprised if he contracted the disease in Outremer. I think it most likely he was already infected before he went to the Holy Land.”

  At the looks of astonishment on the faces of Nicolaa and the sheriff, the infirmarian explained his reasoning. “I base that judgement on studies I have conducted among the monks who have served in the lazar house in Pottergate and eventually fall prey to the disease. The monks do not, of course, have carnal liaisons with the women there, but are in close contact with all of the lepers on a daily basis while they tend their needs. I have never seen any of the monks become infected before at least a year of service and, even then, the telltale rash develops slowly. From what I was told about the advanced state of the leprous brother’s symptoms, it would seem he may have been infected long before he lay with the heathen prostitute and probably some time before he left England.”

  “Then he was already ill before he joined the Order,” Nicolaa exclaimed. “His judgement of the Templars was entirely misplaced.”

  Jehan nodded. “I could be in error, of course. God has yet to reveal to mankind any certainty of the manner in which the infection is spread, or why some escape the disease and others do not. I also suspect that there are often cases which are deemed to be leprosy but are, in fact, a different ailment entirely, for I have noticed that the flesh of many marked by an unsightly rash does not waste with the passage of years.” He sighed with frustration at his inability to be of more help to those infected with the disease and finally added, “I do not think the dead man would have lived for very long, in any case. Many lepers’ lives are taken prematurely by a secondary infection that proves fatal in their weakened state, while others live to a great age even though they are terribly deformed. It sounds as though his volatile nature made him susceptible to minor ailments, any of which could have killed him.”

  The monk stood up, his reflections done. “I fear that all I can assure you, at the moment, is that none of the prisoners appear to be suffering from the disease.”

  Nicolaa thanked the infirmarian for his assistance and, after he left, she and Gerard decided that it would be best to keep Savaric in solitary confinement until they could be certain he carried no taint. In the meantime, there remained the question of what charges were to be brought against him and the other members of Jacques Roulan’s family.

  “If what de Marins was told by the baseborn brother is true, then they did not truly give their aid to Jacques when he murdered the prostitutes,” Nicolaa said to her husband. “But by shielding him, they made the crimes possible, and should be brought to answer for that action.”

  Camville’s eyes glinted with anger. “Do not fear, Wife. I will ensure they pay for their complicity,” he said. “Had they not harboured their murderous brother in the first instance, neither of th
e prostitutes would have been killed. Nor would a Templar knight have been slain. I will take great pleasure in bringing charges against them when I preside over the next sheriff’s court.”

  BY EARLY AFTERNOON, THE WHOLE CASTLE HAD HEARD OF what had passed and the news had spread down into the town. The reaction it provoked was one of commiseration. Many of the women shed a tear for the Templar who had been slain and the men gathered in alehouses about the town discussed the matter with grave expressions on their faces. In the scriptorium, Gianni listened with horror as Master Blund told of the details he had learned when summoned by Nicolaa to write down a record of the events for subsequent presentation in Camville’s court.

  For Gianni, the worst part of Blund’s recounting was the manner in which the Templar knight had died. The lad was appalled by the thought that it could so easily have been his former master who had been fatally struck by the spikes of the flail. Gianni had always been aware, since the day that Bascot had rejoined the ranks of the Templars, that the knight would most likely face death many times while he was on active duty in some war-torn land, but this recent close brush with death suddenly made that nebulous possibility now a frightening reality. It was with a heavy heart that the lad left the scriptorium at the end of his work day and wandered out into the bail.