The Alehouse Murders

by Maureen Ash

  Bascot allowed Freyda to refill his wine cup before answering. “I think it was done as part of the story that was told to Wat. He was a willing accomplice and expected to be alive the next morning when the bodies were found. He may have been told that the purpose of the slayings were for a different reason altogether—that the girl was a harlot, perhaps, and she and Hugo were, say, trying to extort money by threatening a person of importance with revelations of the baby’s true father. It might have been that Wat was going to explain their presence in the alehouse by saying that Hugo had hired the taproom for a private meeting, and Wat had come down in the morning to find them dead. Slain by a person whose identity he did not know and had never seen. That would explain the gown, to convince Wat of the girl’s calling. As for the stab wounds, just another piece of frippery to give weight to his story, and confuse him as to the real issue.”

  Hilde thought over what he had said, absently holding out her own cup to Gianni for refilling. The boy responded quickly, staring at the silver raven’s head on her cane as he handed her the replenished cup. She noticed his look and laughed.

  “Would you like to touch it, boy?” she asked.

  Gianni nodded solemnly and went nearer, reaching out one forefinger to touch the gleaming metal reverently. Hilde placed her old hand, gnarled and bent with age, over his young one and gently curled his fingers around the beak. “You may hold it, boy. Keep it ready for me when I have need to use it.”

  Bascot thought that even the new shoes with the red beads had not brought such a look of delight to Gianni’s face. Carefully he took up the cane and sat down on the floor beside Hilde’s chair, holding the raven’s head delicately between his hands, the staff of the cane lying across his knees. Hilde looked down at him indulgently, rewarded with a smile of such sweetness from Gianni that it took Bascot by surprise.

  “You are the first person, lady,” he said, “that I have ever seen him so at ease with.”

  “It is my age, and my sex, Templar. I am not a threat to him and so he is comfortable.”

  She returned to the matter they had been discussing. “Then you know the manner of the deaths, and how they were accomplished. But that does not bring you closer to the knowledge of who is responsible.”

  Bascot made his next observation carefully. “It is probable they came upriver from some town farther south—Grantham, perhaps, or Stamford, or . . . Newark.”

  Hilde’s eyes flashed at him. “And Conal was in Newark on that day.” She made the statement sound like an accusation.

  “He was, lady,” Bascot said gently. “And has yet to give an explanation as to what he was doing there.”

  “No, he has not,” Hilde replied. “But I know where he was all the same.” Bascot looked at her attentively. “Richard Camville told me, in confidence.” She sighed. “And, if I am to share information with you, as you have done with me, I must reveal what I was told.”

  Bascot waited for her to continue. “Conal was insistent that he was innocent, and I believed him, but I knew that he was keeping something back, something that may have implicated someone else—his mother, perhaps. I tackled young Richard and he told me where Conal was, where he goes rather often, it seems. It is to visit a young woman.”

  As Bascot started to interrupt, she held up her hand. “No, Templar, it is innocent enough, and has no connection with the murders. It seems young Conal believes himself in love and, with the silly notions of chivalry that our king’s mother has made popular with her songs and courts of love, he believes he is protecting the girl by keeping her identity a secret.”

  “Is she married?” Bascot asked.

  “No, but she is a cripple,” Hilde replied. “Her foot, at birth, was thickened and twisted, so that one leg is shorter than the other and she can walk only with great difficulty. Her mother died giving her life, and her father, who is a prominent goldsmith in Newark, has kept her virtually imprisoned in his house since she was born for shame at her appearance. Richard tells me that Conal met her on a day when she was sitting in her garden and, from the other side of the wall, he heard her singing. Intrigued, he climbed up to find the owner of the voice and saw her. Since then he has been meeting her secretly. Her father does not know of his attentions, only one elderly servant who is the girl’s sole companion is privy to the liaison.

  “Conal believes that if he tells of the girl, she may be forced to come and give witness before the justices. If that were necessary, she would be subjected not only to her father’s wrath but to the gawking and ridiculing eyes of the world. Conal has said he would rather be found guilty of the crime than force that upon her. Richard believes it is Conal’s intention to make the girl his wife, and that he would have done so before now but that he feared the scorn that would be heaped on his mother’s head by Philip de Kyme.”

  Hilde leaned back in her chair. “What follies we commit when we are young. I have told Richard to let Conal know that if he wishes to marry the girl, he has my blessing. I do not doubt that Magnus and Ailwin will be swift to give theirs also, since the girl’s father is prosperous and would likely provide a rich dower for connection with a knight’s family. Once he has got over his anger at being deceived, that is.”

  Bascot digested her words, then said slowly, “As wealthy as her father may be, it cannot compare with that of Philip de Kyme. Conal has, after all, only a young girl who loves him and her old servant to prove the truth of his claim. It will be said they are lying.”

  Wearily Hilde nodded her head. “I know, Templar. I know. But for your purposes, at least, I implore you to believe him.”

  Bascot smiled at her. He could see that the fear of her great-nephew’s involvement in this crime had taken its toll of the old lady’s meagre strength. “I think I must do, lady. If for no other reason than, as Conal himself said, that if it had been he that had done the deed he would have merely left the bodies to rot in the greenwood.”

  Hilde’s spirits revived at her companion’s acceptance of Conal’s innocence. “That is the thing that puzzles me, Templar. If the young man was truly de Kyme’s bastard son, why the haste to kill him, and for his body to be quickly found? Such elaborate trappings to despatch him must have a reason. Even if he had arrived and been received with due honour by Philip, surely it would have been easier to let fly an arrow during a hunt, or slip some potion in his wine cup one evening. Why all the involvement of Wat and the alehouse? Why the need for such speed?”

  As Hilde finished speaking, Gianni, from his position on the floor, tugged timidly at her skirts. She looked down and Gianni folded his arms and rocked them back and forth, as though he held a babe and were soothing it.

  Hilde laughed. “Of course, lad. You are right. Hugo’s wife was pregnant. The child could not be allowed to be born. That would have provided another heir that needed to be disposed of.” Her cornflower blue eyes flashed at Bascot. “Or Philip de Kyme knew the dead pair for impostors and did not wish to be forced to have the child of a stranger declared his grandson.”

  Bascot leaned back and rubbed the leather patch over his missing eye. The more he discovered about the murders, the more complicated the matter became. It made the empty socket where his eye had been ache with frustration.

  Twenty-four

  BASCOT SAT WITH HILDE FOR A SHORT WHILE LONGER. She told him of her suspicions of Sybil and that she could find no gossip of Philip de Kyme’s having a leman.

  “Incidentally,” she added. “Philip is back in Lincoln. He is staying with his nephew, Roger, who is riding in the tourney. Philip intends to come and watch him. He will not, however, go to the castle, since Sybil and Conal are there, but I understand he allows Will Scothern to visit his sister.”

  Since it would still be some days before they would have an answer from the Templar preceptor, d’Arderon, about Bascot’s enquiries in La Lune, they then pondered on the question of whether Hugo and his female companion were impostors or not and, if they were genuine, who could have been aware of Hugo’s inten
t to come to England. Even though William Scothern had insisted that he had told no one of the correspondence between the baron and his former lover it was possible, probable even, that Philip had spoken of the matter while deep in his cups.

  “Apparently, he was always baiting Conal and Sybil, saying he had the ways and means to free himself from them,” Hilde remarked. “It would not have been surprising if he had revealed the existence of his illegitimate son while drinking with his cronies.”

  “I did not find out much else of pertinence,” she went on, her face a mask of disappointment. “I did get the impression that Sybil’s maid, Isobel, is hiding something, but what it is, or its importance, I could not determine. The girl wears her piety like a mask, shielding her thoughts behind her Psalter. She should have been a nun, for all she has the face and body of a temptress. Matilda Bardolf is rumoured to have had lovers, but there is no one named. She is enamoured of Richard Camville, so the gossip mongers opine, but he does not return her fancy. It is also said that she and Isobel do not like each other, but that perhaps is because I have seen the glances of appreciation that Richard gives to Sybil’s maid. Since Nicolaa’s son is appreciative of any woman with a soft cheek and pretty eyes, it seems rather pointless of Matilda to harbour enmity towards just one, but perhaps that is because he is often near Isobel, when he and Conal are in company together.”

  She sighed. “It seems I have not been as much use to you as I had thought to be, Templar.”

  Bascot assured her of his appreciation of her efforts, reminding her that although he had discovered how the murders were carried out, he, like herself, had come no nearer to uncovering who had caused the deaths. He left the chamber, the socket of his eye still aching, intending to return to the solitude of his own chamber, but coming down the steps of the forebuilding outside the keep, he met Ernulf coming in search of him.

  “Anselm is dead,” the serjeant said. “A young brother from the priory came to inform Lady Nicolaa. Breathed his last just before Tierce. The monk said that he never regained consciousness. Just slipped away, easy as you please. God assoil him,” Ernulf added as he crossed himself.

  “Amen,” Bascot said, bowing his head for a moment in silent prayer.

  “That now makes six murders we’ve had,” Ernulf declared roughly. “The devil’s loose in Lincoln for this fair.”

  “Where is Lady Nicolaa?” Bascot asked.

  “She’s in the herb garden with her sisters. Said to tell you to attend her there. She’s much concerned at the priest’s death, I can tell you. All this mayhem will not be well received by the king, or Bishop Hugh, come to that, when he returns.” As usual, the serjeant’s thoughts were for the discomforts his mistress would endure; pity for the dead came second to his loyalty to Nicolaa.

  Bascot crossed the bail and made for the walled enclosure at the far end. A small gate led inside, where the sweet smell of herbs was strong and pleasant. He found Nicolaa and Petronille sitting on a stone seat in the light of the morning sun. Ermingard was on her knees beside a patch of mint, plucking the leaves and placing them in a small basket standing on the ground nearby. Bascot walked to where Nicolaa sat, the heady aroma of thyme pungent as his feet bruised the profusion of bushy plants that carpeted the enclosure.

  Nicolaa returned his words of greeting absently. “This is a bad business, de Marins. We must discover who murdered these people, and the priest. Have you anything new to report?”

  “Beyond what I told you of the boat and how I believe that Samuel came to be with Hugo and his wife, no,” Bascot replied. “I am sorry for Anselm. Not only for the loss of his life, but that I had hoped he might be able to tell us who it was that attacked him. I have always felt that his stabbing was somehow connected to the deaths in the alehouse. He was close by. He may have seen something or someone, perhaps without knowing the importance of it, which made him dangerous to the murderer.”

  “Well, it is too late for him to tell us of it now,” Petronille said sadly. Her kind face was drawn in sympathetic lines, unlike her sister Nicolaa’s, whose capable countenance was tight with anger.

  “The shame of it is that when Anselm was attacked, we took no note of the whereabouts of those we now believe may have been involved,” Bascot said, his voice mirroring the futility evident in Nicolaa’s face. “It was too soon. We did not know that the dead boy would be claimed as Philip de Kyme’s son, or how the boy and the others had come to be in the alehouse. If we had, more attention might have been paid to those who may have had the opportunity to go to the church and attack Father Anselm.”

  “There was much activity that night, de Marins,” Nicolaa said. “The town was in a turmoil preparing for the fair, and the alarm of the murders made for more confusion. There were many people in the hall—Philip and Sybil, Conal, Hugh Bardolf and his daughter, even Roger de Kyme, among them. Alan de Kyme was not there, but will most likely claim that, like the night before, he was preparing his stock for sale at the fair. But even of those who were present, it would be almost impossible now to remember if all were in sight all of the time. The church where Anselm was priest is not far away. Any of them could have slipped out for a space and not been missed.”

  “It was just before Vespers, was it not, that the priest was stabbed?” Petronille asked. “If we put our minds to it, Nicolaa, perhaps we can remember who was with us then. It will not give us any harm to try.”

  Nicolaa leaned back on the warm stone of the seat, closing her eyes for a moment in thought. “Gerard was talking to Richard, I think, and Conal was with them. Roger de Kyme I seem to recall seeing, but at what particular moment, it is hard to place. And shortly afterwards the representatives of the townspeople came with their complaints. And there was the storm, too.”

  She and Petronille went through as many of the people they could recall as having been present, but could vouch for the constant presence of none of them. “Besides,” Nicolaa added, “it will be easy enough for any of them to lie if they have something to hide . . .”

  Ermingard’s voice suddenly interrupted them. “She lied. I know she did because it was the wrong colour.”

  The two women and Bascot started at the words. They had all but forgotten the presence of the youngest Haye sister. She had been in a more composed frame of mind for the last two days, and had moved about the keep in company with Petronille in a withdrawn, but unmazed, manner. She looked at them now out of eyes clear of confusion, her words deliberate and coherent.

  “What do you mean, Mina?” Petronille asked her. “You were not in the hall that afternoon, you were resting, don’t you remember?”

  Petronille spoke to Bascot. “My sister was very upset at the news of the murders. I persuaded her to lie down for awhile to calm her mind.”

  Petronille did not add that later that evening Ermingard had been found wandering the corridors in the middle of the night, but it was in all of their minds.

  “The cloak,” Ermingard insisted, “she said it was Sybil’s, but it was not. It was the wrong colour. Sybil is all fair and light, like ice. She would never have worn it. A dirty brown colour, the shade of old dried blood.” She shuddered. “And it was wet, I picked it up after she left. The blood stained my hands. Ah, I scrubbed at it, but still it stayed there, on my fingers.”

  Ermingard’s voice faltered. Her expression became clouded. Petronille rose quickly and went to her, putting her arm about her. “Don’t talk about it, lovey,” she said soothingly. “It only distresses you.”

  “But I must. She lied, I keep telling you,” Ermingard wailed.

  “Perhaps if you tell us who it is you are speaking of we could help you,” Petronille suggested, trying to calm her sister’s rising terror. But the only answer Ermingard gave was to shake her head and begin to weep.

  “She will not tell you, Petra. She never does, no matter how many times we ask,” Nicolaa said. “It is these murders,” she murmured to Bascot. “That is what has unsettled her mind.

  “Take her inside, P
etra,” Nicolaa said to her sister. “We should not have discussed the matter in front of her. I had forgotten she was there, how it might affect her.”

  Petronille persuaded the confused Ermingard to her feet, began to lead her towards the gate, but her sister balked a little. “It is not my imagination. She did lie. It was her cloak. And she is pregnant.” With this last statement Ermingard’s voice became sly, like a child trying to divert punishment by revealing a playmate’s wrongdoing. “I saw her, winding strips of linen about her waist under her gown to hide the thickening of her flesh. She thinks no one knows. But I know. And I know what it will be like when she has the baby. There will be blood. Just like there was when I had Ivo . . .”

  Ermingard’s voice had begun to rise, the note of hysteria increasing. Petronille became a little more forceful, pressing her sister towards the opening in the wall, but with little success. Nicolaa rose and went to the pair. When she spoke, her voice was low and sharp, the same tone that Bascot had heard her use to a servant that had been slip-shod. “Mina! You will be quiet and go with Petra and do as she tells you. Do you understand?”

  Ermingard recoiled, as though Nicolaa had slapped her, but she calmed and slowly nodded her head. “Yes, Nicolaa,” she said obediently, but then added in a low voice with a touch of her former defiance. “But I still say it was the wrong colour.”

  Nicolaa relented and patted her youngest sister on the shoulder. “We believe you, Mina. But now you must forget about it all and put your mind to something else. Petra will get you some camomile posset and read to you. You will like that, won’t you?”

  Ermingard nodded and finally allowed herself to be led away. Nicolaa returned to her seat by Bascot. “I love my sister, but I pity poor de Rollos. She is so confused. First the murders, then we learned that the dead girl in the alehouse was pregnant. It has brought Ivo’s birthing back to her, and the attendant shedding of her own blood.” She shook her head sadly. “It may be she picked up a cloak of such a colour as she describes and it was wet, and now she has muddled that and the birthing in her mind, believing it to be blood. Poor Mina. It cannot be easy for a husband to have such a one for a wife.”