The Alehouse Murders tk-1

by Maureen Ash

  “And I thought you came just for the candi,” d’Arderon jested, taking one himself and crunching it between teeth still strong and white. “Tell me your problem, and how we may be of assistance. If it does not detract from Christ’s cause, I will do my best to aid you.”

  Bascot repeated the gist of his conversation with Hilde the night before, and her suspicions that the identification of the murdered young couple may have been false. “If de Kyme did have a son by his former paramour, then it is vital that we discover whether the boy lived in La Lune and whether he did, in fact, journey to England with his wife. If there was no son, or if he is still alive and well, then

  …”

  “De Kyme is behind the plotting and the murders,” d’Arderon finished.

  “Or he was gulled into thinking he had an heir who was then killed by his wife and stepson.” Bascot stopped short. There were so many possibilities to the situation that he resisted enumerating them. He was sure only that finding out if the dead pair were who they were said to be was the logical place to begin and try to fit the pieces of the riddle together.

  D’Arderon paced back and forth a bit, deliberating aloud as he did so. “I think I can help you. As you know, we have riders with despatches leaving every day for London, and often farther afield. As it happens, I have a missive to send to Maine this very day, to Le Mans, and I thought to send a couple of new recruits who need the edges taken off them. A trip through the turmoil over there will steady them up nicely. I’ll add a message to the preceptor in Le Mans. Tell him to make enquiries about the boy with all speed and send his findings back to me immediately. Shouldn’t take too long, twelve days at most, ten if I tell ’em that’s how quick I want it done. Do the new lads good to feel a whip at their backs.”

  At Bascot’s questioning look he added, “These recruits are for the men-at-arms rank. Got a feeling they were outlaws and joined up before Sheriff Camville could catch up with them. They’re freeborn, of course, couldn’t take them otherwise, but if they’ve been spending the last few months in the greenwood, the prospect of a comfortable straw pallet and free food would look good to them, never mind that they’ll be clothed and armed into the bargain. They have yet to take their final vows and I want to test their mettle and their commitment before they do. One thing to enjoy the benefits of the Order, quite another to put up with the discomfort of hours in the saddle with the possibility of an ambush and an arrow in your neck all the while-and you know well that’s what they’ll face in the Holy Land. Saracens behind every sand dune. And just to ensure they don’t run off once they’re free of Lincoln I’ll send Hamo with them. He’d slit a Christian throat just as soon as a Saracen’s if he thought they were betraying the Order. I’ll send your enquiry along with him.”

  “I appreciate your assistance,” Bascot said, rising.

  D’Arderon threw an arm affectionately about his shoulders. “We are all brothers in Christ, de Marins. And brother should help brother. Remember that when you finally make your decision whether to stay in the Order or leave it. You will find no such steadfastness in the world outside.”

  “I am aware of it, preceptor. And will not forget your kindness.”

  Bascot felt a tiny sliver of regret as he crossed the yard and departed through the gate. A part of him wanted to stay within the confines of the walls, to join d’Arderon and the Templar brothers at their communal meal in the refectory and engage in the camaraderie that would prevail afterwards. Then he thought of Gianni. Despite the preceptor’s assurance that the boy would be looked after if Bascot should return to the Templar ranks, he knew that the young Sicilian, however well treated, would feel lost and betrayed if he left him. No, it was not a decision he could yet make. First he would complete his enquiry into the alehouse murders. Time enough afterwards to put his mind to the future.

  After he left the preceptory, Bascot walked the long distance through the town and down to the shop of the cobbler to find out if his boots were ready. By the time he had reached the shop, and had been admitted by the shoemaker’s wife, he was more than ready to take a seat on the same chair he had sat on before and which was, again, quickly proffered for him.

  The shoemaker bobbed in deference, then brought from his workbench a pair of fine leather boots, highly polished, and knelt in front of Bascot to remove his old ones and slip the new pair on. They were soft and supple, encasing his feet snugly, but without strain. Bascot could feel, just slightly, the soft pads that had been inserted into the left boot and which forced a gentle pressure on his injured ankle.

  “If it will please you to stand, Sir Templar, you will find a new comfort in your limb,” the cobbler said.

  Bascot did so and, as he came to his feet, felt surprise. Aside from a slight strangeness that the feel of the pads gave, there was no other sensation in his ankle. The pain had gone.

  “You have the touch of an angel in your hands,” he told the shoemaker. “Never since I sustained the injury have I been without a constant ache in that ankle.”

  The cobbler looked gratified but gave him a warning. “You will still find it there if you give your leg too much strain, sir,” he said. “With normal walking or riding, the boot will help. Alas, it will not make your bones whole again.”

  “The boots are well worth your price,” Bascot told him warmly. “Had I known of your skill, I would have become a patron when first I came to Lincoln. I would have been saved many hours of anguish.”

  The shoemaker’s son, who had ambled in behind his mother to see the fitting of the new boots, enjoyed the compliment to his father. “Da’s helped many a man that’s had an injury, haven’t you, Da?” he said. “Got a rare touch, he has, so everyone says.”

  “Hush, boy,” the cobbler said with a slight impatience. “It is a sin to boast.”

  “I’m sayin’ nowt but truth, and well you knows it,” the boy replied. “And truth’s not a sin, is it, sir?” He asked the question of Bascot, showing his long equine teeth in a grimace that passed for a smile.

  “No, it is not,” Bascot assured him. “And it is certainly true that your father has a talent for helping the maimed.”

  “He makes covers for them that has lost a hand, too,” the cobbler’s son went on, “to keep the arm from injury. And once he fitted a brace on a man that had broken his shoulder, so he could stand straight.” The boy giggled. “He even makes hair shirts for priests sometimes, so that their misery fits them comfortably.”

  “That’s enough, boy,” the cobbler said sternly. “My aids are between me and my customers, not to be spoken of lightly by the likes of you. Be careful that God, for your impertinence, does not strike you with some affliction my skill cannot help.”

  The threat subdued the boy and he stopped speaking, hanging his head in a sullen manner. Bascot, however, was interested in what he had said before he had been chastened into silence.

  “Is it true that you have fitted priests with hair shirts, shoemaker?” he asked.

  “Aye, one or two. Men’s chests and shoulders come in all sizes, just like feet. It would not be proper for the hair shirt to be seen, since its exposure would defeat the spirit of humility in which it is worn. So I make them to fit snug under a priest’s vestments.”

  Bascot acknowledged the sentiment, then said, “There was a priest in town that was attacked with a dagger and almost killed only a few short days ago. Father Anselm. Do you know him?”

  “Aye, I do,” was the reply.

  “He was wearing a hair shirt when he was attacked. It is thought the shirt saved him from death. Was it one of yours?”

  “Since you already know of its existence, it cannot be wrong of me to tell you about it. Yes, I made it for Father Anselm. Just a week before the fair began. And I thank God that I did so, for if it helped to deflect the dagger that struck him, then it was God’s hand that guided mine in the making.”

  Bascot took a deep breath. Here was the possibility of more information, connected perhaps not only with the attack
on the priest, but also with the murders. But he had to be careful how he asked for it. The shoemaker was a simple man, honest and truthful-and frightened of committing a sin. “Father Anselm is near death. The monks at the priory fear that he will leave this world without regaining consciousness and never be able to tell who it was that assaulted him. A person that would strike a priest must be caught. The crime is repugnant and calls out for punishment. If you know of anyone that might have wanted to harm the priest…”

  “He spoke no word to me of enemies,” the cobbler replied. “Indeed, he spoke little at all when he was here.”

  “You have no knowledge, then, of the reason he wanted the shirt?” Bascot had tried to avoid the direct question, but could find no way around it.

  The cobbler looked at him with a shocked expression. “No, sir, I do not. It would not have been fitting for him to tell of it to any except his confessor.”

  The shoemaker’s son burst out in a new fit of giggles. “ ’Twas for lechery, Da. Everyone knows that, even if you don’t…”

  “Silence!” The shoemaker rose to his full height, which was still a good half-head shorter than his son. His rage, however, made him seem taller. “Hold your tongue unless you can find a better use for it than to slander a priest. Go! Go out of my sight, and beg God for forgiveness.”

  The boy slunk out and the cobbler turned to Bascot with an apologetic air. “I am sorry, sir. The boy forgets himself, and also that you, too, are a man who has sworn himself to God’s service. I beg your pardon for his behaviour.”

  Bascot made light of the boy’s remark. “I am not so old that I forget on what a young lad’s mind constantly dwells. Were we not all once enthralled with the tumbling of a lass and could think of nothing else?”

  The shoemaker shook his head. “What you say is true, but in my youth I would not have dared to speak so in front of my elders. The young today have no thought for any but themselves. It is a sad statement, but a true one.”

  Bascot changed the subject, paying the cobbler for the boots and complimenting him once again on their making. As he left the shop he saw the shoemaker’s son standing over to one side, still punching holes in a piece of leather, but with anger this time. Bascot walked over to him.

  “Did another speak of Father Anselm being lustful, or is it only your own imagination at work?” he said to the boy harshly.

  Now fear replaced resentment in the boy’s eyes. His answer came out in a rush. “ ’Tis the truth, I swear it. Da will not listen to what he says is evil gossip, but a friend of mine told me his sister complained to him of the priest, said that Father Anselm was always touching her when he got the chance. And not only her, but some of her friends. Accidentally brush their titties, or stand so close behind they could feel his member pushing into their bottoms, that sort of thing. We reckon that’s why he got the hair shirt, and that it was some angry father or husband that stabbed him, after finding out he had been lecherous with one of their womenfolk.”

  The boy looked down at the piece of leather in his hands, now almost in shreds. “I wouldn’t of said it if I hadn’t been sure it was true. Da’s always telling me I’m insolent, but even so I wouldn’t make up a story about a priest, as well he should know.”

  “Perhaps you’ll find it easier to get on with your father when you have gained a few more years,” Bascot said, not unkindly. “It may surprise you to find that the older one gets the more we appreciate the wisdom of those we did not think possessed it.”

  As Bascot walked back up to the castle, marvelling at how easily his ankle bore his weight, he turned over in his mind what the boy had said. Had the stabbing of Father Anselm been nothing more than an outraged parishioner’s revenge for liberties that no priest should take, or was it somehow involved with the deaths of the people in the alehouse? It seemed the more he delved into these murders, the more lust played a part-that of de Kyme and the paramour of his youth, Hilde’s suggestion that Hugh Bardolf’s daughter was unchaste, and now Father Anselm and his hair shirt. Was there a link between one deadly sin and another?

  The midday meal was already in progress when Bascot arrived back at the castle. The fair was almost half-over and its momentum had slowed somewhat, as though taking a breath, readying itself to pick up the pace again as the final days approached. Nicolaa had obtained permission from the king to hold a tournament on the last day and now most of the conversation around the crowded tables was of the merits of one knight or another.

  As Gianni came up silently beside him, Bascot pushed his way through to a seat next to the elderly knight he had been in conversation with on the evening that William Scothern had come to tell him of his suspicion of the identities of the slain young couple. As Gianni ran to fetch wine for his master’s cup, the old man glanced at Bascot, wiped his straggly moustache free of gravy, then said, “Found out if it was young Conal who did ’em in yet?”

  Bascot shook his head, taking a long draught of wine from his freshly filled cup as the old knight went on. “Look for a woman, that’s what I say. Always a woman mixed up in secret murders. Bound to be. Especially where there’s poison.” He shot a quick look at Bascot from under his bushy eyebrows. “Was poison that killed ’em, wasn’t it?”

  “It is believed so. They were stabbed as well, but that was after they were dead.”

  “Aye, just as I said. Look for a woman. Though any female would need a man’s help to kill four. Unless she were a witch, of course. Then she’d have demons to help her. I mind me of one time, back in ’76 it was, when the old king was still alive, found six bodies, all laid out in a circle around an oak tree by the king’s hunting lodge. Not a mark on ’em. That was a witch. Found her in a hut nearby. Had her familiar with her. A black dog it was…”

  Bascot let the old knight’s voice drift out of his consciousness and surveyed the company in the hall. On the dais Lady Nicolaa presided with her husband beside her. Tonight the sheriff was attired more resplendently than Bascot had ever seen him before, in a pale grey tunic with embroidered silver sleeves and a matching cap. In his hand was the familiar cup of wine. On his right sat Conal’s uncles Ailwin and Magnus, while Nicolaa had her sisters Petronille and Ermingard to her left. Farther down the board sat Richard Camville, between Conal and Lady Sybil, and near the end sat Hilde, strategically placed between Hugh Bardolf and his daughter. Bascot could see her smiling and chatting with good humour and saw that her amiability had not passed unnoticed by Ailwin and Magnus, for occasionally one or the other of the brothers would glance down at her with a look of perplexity on their faces.

  Gianni piled Bascot’s trencher with the remnants of the stew that was left in the large bowl in the middle of the table. It was mostly root vegetables and gravy, for all of the choice pieces of meat had already been consumed, but it was tasty and Bascot ate it with relish, finding that he was unusually hungry. As he started on the next course-spiced eels simmered in their own juice-he felt a movement beside him and looked up to find Ermingard’s husband, William de Rollos, beside him.

  “I have been looking for you, Templar,” de Rollos said, wearing an embarrassed look on his heavy-jowled face. “I thought to tell you that Bardolf did not have my support in his baiting of you yesterday at de Kyme’s manor. Nor do I endorse his sentiments towards Lady Sybil and her son. If they are guilty-then well enough, they should be punished, but that remains yet to be proven. I want no part of that intrigue.”

  De Rollos was sitting on Bascot’s sighted side and he could not see if the elderly knight on his right was taking an interest in their conversation or not. However, he felt Gianni at his shoulder, taking an interminably long time to prepare his plate and straighten his wine cup and napkin. He guessed the boy was acting as a shield against his neighbour hearing his conversation with de Rollos and dropped his voice accordingly.

  “How did you come to be at de Kyme’s manor?” Bascot asked de Rollos.

  “Bardolf asked me to accompany him to one of his properties to see a new destri
er he has acquired. As you know, there will be a tournament at the end of the fair. Although I do not intend to ride myself, Ivo has a fancy to try his sword in the melee. Bardolf thought perhaps I might be interested in buying the animal for my son to ride. We stopped at de Kyme’s manor on the way. I would not have gone if I had suspected Bardolf would get embroiled in a drunken argument with de Kyme and his relatives. I thought only to get away from the castle for awhile, and to see if the horseflesh he touted was of worth. Ivo needs a distraction. He is much distressed at his mother’s illness.”

  And so are you, thought Bascot, but did not say it. Instead, he asked, “Your wife-she is no better?”

  De Rollos shrugged. “She has not been this bad since Ivo was born. Then I thought I would lose her-it was the sight of so much blood at the birth, you see. But these last years she has seemed much calmer. And was still so, until a few nights after we arrived.”

  “Did anything happen that might have precipitated her illness?” Bascot felt sorry for the man. Even though it was probable that theirs had been an arranged marriage, the Norman knight seemed genuinely fond of his wife, and cared about her welfare.

  “Nothing that we know of,” de Rollos replied. “When we first arrived she seemed glad to be in the company of her sisters again, and behaved as normal. Then, one night-I think it was the night of the day the bodies were discovered-she was found wandering near dawn along one of the passages in the upper keep, crying and tearing at her garments.”

  “Is it known how she came to be there?” Bascot asked.

  “No. She was sleeping in a chamber with her sister Petronille and their maids. I had bunked down on the floor of the hall, for the keep was crowded and all the available chambers had been kept for the women or those who were elderly. Her maid came to me just as the sun was rising, telling me of her condition. Apparently Ermingard had got up in the night without waking anyone-presumably she wanted to use the privy. Neither Petronille nor the two maids knew how long she had been from her bed, but when one of them woke and found her gone they went searching for her. She was some distance from their chamber, and in the state that I have told you.”