The Alehouse Murders

by Maureen Ash

  Bascot made no comment. The incident had deepened the lines of strain on Nicolaa’s face. She rose and walked a pace or two, then turned to him. “Go on with your enquiries, de Marins. And let us pray to God most fervently that there are no more murders.”

  Bascot left, his head and eye socket still aching, wanting only the privacy of his chamber. With Gianni in tow he went back to the old tower and they climbed the stairs to their room. There he lay down on the narrow mattress of his bed while Gianni plopped down on the floor, taking from under his own pallet a small store of scraps of old parchment on which he practised his letters, along with a quill and pot of ink kept in a small wooden box. The parchment was much used, its surface scraped bare of ink at least two or three times and very thin. Gianni contemplated his last efforts, a copy of three verses from one of the Psalms, slowly tracing the words with his forefinger, brows furrowed in concentration, before putting the parchment down beside him and picking up the pen and beginning slowly and carefully to copy the words once more. Bascot felt the ache in his eye socket easing and enjoyed the cool breeze that was coming through the high slit window above him. Slowly his good eye closed and he felt himself slipping into a light doze.

  This state of sleep he found enjoyable. In it the dreams that appeared in his mind were seen with two good eyes, not just the half-view of one. For a time the scenes were a jumble, a nonsense of pictures—the mane of a horse, the long face of the cobbler’s son superimposed over that of the elderly knight he had dined with in the hall, a notion of the smell of the sea and the heaving of waves—all accompanied by an awareness of the light scratching of Gianni’s pen. In his mind he saw the boy’s hand as he played his stone game, the pebbles going up in the air, Gianni’s hand palm side up, then palm side down, the constant reversing and turning as the pebbles were caught and thrown, balanced and then thrown yet again, over and over, the fingers young and supple, flexing and straightening. The motion mesmerized him and he felt himself slipping deeper and deeper into sleep . . .

  Bascot was not sure how long he dozed, but felt himself dragged up from a deep slumber by the sound of footsteps on the stone of the landing outside the door and then a voice speaking to Gianni. Bascot opened his eye. It was Ernulf.

  “Sorry to disturb you,” the serjeant said. “Sheriff Camville sent me. He wants to know if you will consent to be one of the judges at the tourney tomorrow. Since most of the barons will have a son or some other relative in the melee, he cannot ask any of them for fear of bias. The winner’s purse is a good size, and he must have men of experience and impartial judgement to fill the posts. As a Templar, your decision would be respected. He also intends to ask d’Arderon.”

  Bascot got up from his bed, his head still half muzzy from sleep. “Tell Sir Gerard I will be honoured to assist him, Ernulf. And grateful. It will be a welcome diversion for my disordered mind.”

  Ernulf grinned in response and left the chamber. Suddenly the room felt hot and airless to Bascot. Motioning to Gianni to continue with the practice of forming his letters, Bascot went out and up onto the roof. On the top of the tower the air was clearer and the sun beat down strongly. Although the breeze was fresh, it was warm, almost humid. Bascot limped over to the edge of the parapet, and leaned into the gap of the crenel, breathing deeply to steady the familiar dizziness that assailed him. He thought of the men that would be fighting tomorrow, young men, whole in limb and sound of faculties. He did not begrudge them their vitality for once he had been such as they, but he suddenly felt old, and it unsettled him.

  He should not have slept in the afternoon. It had made him discomfited. The thought of disrupted sleep returned his mind to Ermingard. Her fear of blood, the nightmares she must endure, fuelled by the murderer abroad in Lincoln. He could feel empathy for her. Many times he had been near the edge of madness himself during the long years of his imprisonment by the Saracens. Slivers of his dreams intruded on his train of thought, disjointed now that he was awake. Again the water, but this time accompanied by the sound of rain, swirling in muddy pools. The glisten of a knife blade.

  Bascot stood at the parapet, forcing himself to focus his attention on the panorama of Lincoln stretched out below him on the southern sweep of the hill. A flock of starlings swooped and wheeled above the buildings. He could make out the broad arc of Danesgate as it went down the slope past the small bell tower of the church where Anselm had officiated. Unbidden, his mind returned to contemplation of how to find the malefactor who was responsible for the murders. Somehow, he was sure, the priest had been connected to the deaths in the alehouse. But how? Somewhere there was a connection, some fact he had missed, or not taken note of. But what?

  Bascot closed his sighted eye against the dizziness that resurged with the focusing of his thoughts, absently rubbing the leather patch that covered his empty eye socket. A red glow from the bright sunlight beating against the lid of his good eye suffused his inner vision, merging with the constant blackness of the unsighted side as he struggled to bring some order to his speculations.

  Anselm had been the first to be told of the bodies in the alehouse, by Agnes, the alewife. The day had passed, during which he and Gianni had discovered that the bodies of the four dead had been brought there in the casks that were used to transport the ale. The priest had been alone and unharmed before Vespers, when Bascot had gone to the church and asked where Agnes could be found. Then, but a short while later, he had been stabbed, and Bascot had gone back to the church where he had met Roget and the alewife had told a little more of the truth she had been withholding. He had felt extremely angry, Bascot remembered, at having to order the screeching woman dragged back to the church in the rain.

  The rain. Ermingard had said the cloak she had seen was wet. Whoever had attacked Anselm would have been caught in the downpour as he left the church. And the elderly knight he had sat with at table had advised Bascot to look for a woman. Could the offhand remark be right?

  Ermingard had said the woman of whom she spoke was with child. Perhaps he should be looking for a pregnant woman. If Anselm was a lecher, had he made one of his flock pregnant? Then been killed by an irate male relative of the girl? But, if that were so, what connection would there be with the other murders? It was only his own instincts that made him think there was such a connection. And between Anselm and Brunner? The dead girl in the alehouse had been pregnant. Perhaps if she hadn’t been there would not have been such haste to kill her. But once she was dead, and the baby with her, then why the urgency for the bodies to be found?

  The view of Lincoln faded from Bascot’s awareness as a new thought formed. Perhaps the haste had been not to kill Hugo’s pregnant wife before their baby was born, but to have them dead before it was time for another woman to be brought to her birthing. He had been looking for the murderer amongst those who would benefit by becoming de Kyme’s heir, but what if that heir had yet to be born?

  His thoughts chased up and down like Gianni’s hand in the stone game. That day in the solar, when Ermingard had become distressed—where had she been looking when she had become so insistent about the wrong colour? It had been suggested that it was the tapestry about which she had been rambling, but perhaps it had not been the bright colour of red depicted in the embroidered picture. Perhaps the person she would not, or could not, name had been present. Who had been there? Bascot thrust his mind back to that morning—his own embarrassment, the air of tension. Following that line of reasoning, the motive for the murders took on a different slant, and he juggled the people that he and Hilde had suspected with others hitherto dismissed as of no importance. The shadow cast by the sun on the stone of the parapet had moved a good measure before he suddenly threw up his head and took a deep breath of air. He had found the connection he had been looking for.

  Twenty-five

  HILDE LISTENED INTENTLY AS BASCOT EXPLAINED WHO he believed had committed the murders and his reasons for thinking so. When he had finished, she nodded. “Yes, Templar. It all fits. Like a rott
en plum hidden deep in a basket, hard to find until one tastes it and knows it to be rank.”

  They were sitting in Hilde’s chamber, alone. Gianni had been left in Bascot’s room and admonished to keep practising his letters while Hilde’s servant, Freyda, had been sent to keep watch outside the door while her mistress and Bascot talked together. The old lady had herself poured the wine they were drinking from a pair of small cups decorated with silver gilt.

  “Will you go to the sheriff with your findings?” Hilde asked.

  “I cannot, not yet,” Bascot replied. “First I must have proof. Even if Camville agrees with me, he must have some evidence to lay a charge.”

  Hilde held out her cup for Bascot to refill. “Such proof will be hard to find,” she said.

  “Unless we devise some,” Bascot answered quietly.

  Hilde’s bright blue eyes regarded him. “You have thought of a means of doing that?” she asked disbelievingly.

  “If my instinct is true and the stabbing of Father Anselm is connected to the other murders—for something he may have unwittingly seen or heard that constituted a threat—then I think I have. But I shall need your help to make it convincing, if you are willing.”

  “You shall have every assistance I can give you, Templar,” Hilde assured him. She leaned forward. “Now, tell me what it is that I must do.”

  The great hall was crowded that night, full almost beyond capacity, just as it had been on the eve of the fair. All those who had been deemed to have any connection with the murders were present, even Philip de Kyme, who had been persuaded to join the company by Gerard Camville with the promise that his wife and stepson would be seated well away from him and warned not to approach the baron under any circumstances. Outside there had been a light shower of rain, not sufficient to threaten the tourney that was to take place on the morrow, but heavy enough to lessen the heat that had gathered by the end of the day. Once the meal was over, the trestle tables were cleared from the middle of the huge room and minstrels were summoned to play while members of the company danced or just listened to the music. Nicolaa and her husband presided over the company, making a point of moving about amongst their guests and engaging most of them in conversation.

  Hilde was there also, leaning heavily on the arm of her great-nephew, Conal, as she walked about the room. Finally she asked him to seat her with a group of guests still sitting at a small side table, lingering over their wine in a desultory fashion. Hilde was unusually affable, leaning across to ask a question of one or the other of her companions, or to pay a compliment.

  She sat for some little time in this manner, before leaning back and, under cover of the flow of conversation and the strains of the music, said in a low voice to the person who sat beside her, “I have much cause to rejoice this night. Conal and his mother have been proved innocent, and the identity of the true murderer discovered.”

  Furrows appeared between the brows of her companion, but Hilde made it appear that she had not noticed and blithely continued speaking. “It seems that the Templar was with Father Anselm just before he died, and the priest told him who it was that had stabbed him. De Marins believes that it was the same person that killed de Kyme’s son and his wife, and says he has proof to support it. He told me privately that the innocence of my relatives is now not in question, although he would add nothing further. Of course, the Templar is a monk and must consider whether he can reveal what Anselm told him in such extreme conditions, but since he is not a priest he is not bound by the oath of the confessional. I am confident that by morning he will tell what he knows to Sheriff Camville and the murderer will be arrested.”

  Hilde paused to let her gaze roam over the company before adding, with a smile of satisfaction, “Yes, even now, de Marins is preparing to spend the night in a solitary vigil before the altar of St. Clement’s. God will guide him aright, I am sure of it. By this time tomorrow, Conal and Sybil will be free of the charge against them.”

  Just before midnight, Bascot put on the Templar surcoat he had not worn since he had come to Lincoln. The red cross emblazoned on the pristine white cloth of the coat settled comfortably over his heart. He had not donned a shirt of mail underneath, fearing it might warn the murderer he was expecting to be attacked and had, instead, chosen to wear a well-padded gambeson under his dark-sleeved tunic. With any luck it would provide as much, or more, protection as the hair shirt Father Anselm had worn. Finally he smoothed his fingers through his hair and beard, adjusted his eye patch and left the room. The only weapon he carried was the short-bladed knife at his belt.

  The sounds of revelry from the hall could be heard as he crossed the bail. The outbuildings were all but deserted, the servants of the castle either in attendance on the guests in the keep or asleep in their beds. Shortly before midnight Bascot let himself through the postern gate in the north wall and walked along the cobbled path that led to the small church of St. Clement. Near the entrance he could see two shadowy figures waiting for him. D’Arderon and a Templar priest.

  As Bascot approached, the preceptor came forward and spoke quietly. “We are here, de Marins, as you asked. Where shall we keep watch?”

  “The sacristy,” Bascot replied. “The door is in the shadows. You can see out, but none can see in.”

  They went inside the church and d’Arderon and the priest crossed the nave, going to a small door near the altar. Just before he slipped inside d’Arderon turned and whispered a benediction. “God be with you, de Marins. And with this venture.”

  Once they were out of sight, Bascot knelt at the low rail in front of the altar, crossing himself and murmuring a prayer as he did so. The darkness inside the building was relieved only by the small glimmer of the sanctuary lamp and the larger brightness of one fat beeswax candle. Above the altar hung a wooden crucifix carved with the tortured body of Christ, the candle’s light accentuating the hollows of the face and glistening upon the nails thrust cruelly through the hands. With one last plea for heavenly aid, Bascot stretched himself out full-length on the stones of the floor, face down and arms extended so that his body formed an imitation of the cross that hung above him.

  As Bascot’s cheek touched the coldness of the stone, he was reminded of the night before he had taken his vow to become a Templar, when he had lain in just such a fashion. But then there had been gladness and joy in his heart, not stealth. This time, instead of meditating upon God and contemplating a future in His service, Bascot was laying his back open to an assassin’s knife, hoping that the murderer of Hugo and the others would be tempted to try to silence him before he had a chance to reveal the name that Anselm had supposedly whispered on his deathbed. It was a wild scheme, as d’Arderon had said, but Bascot hoped it would work.

  There was no sound from the sacristy, but Bascot could feel d’Arderon’s presence as surely as if the preceptor were kneeling beside him. Since the laws of old King Henry stated that, other than a close relative, only a witness to the act of murder or attempted murder could lay a charge against the assailant, Bascot had asked the Temple for help in providing one. D’Arderon, on learning of the danger Bascot proposed to put himself in, had insisted on coming himself. He had brought a priest with him in case his services should be needed. Bascot fervently hoped they would not.

  The stones beneath him smelled faintly of incense, along with a trace of the gritty aroma of leather and oil, a reminder that this chapel was used mainly by the castle garrison. Many a knee encased in mail must have bent in genuflection where Bascot now lay. It was a comforting thought. As the moments went by, the silence in the chapel became complete. Not the rustle of a mouse or the squeak of a bat could be heard. Only the faint exhalation of his own breath sounded in Bascot’s ears, and the beating of his heart.

  The stillness dragged on. If the murderer came at all, it would be in the darkest part of the night, after all the guests and residents of the castle were asleep, but it had been necessary to come well before that time to make the vigil seem genuine. Bascot felt te
nsion gather in his injured leg and tried to relax his muscles to ease it, thankful for the leather eye patch that shielded his cheek from the stone beneath. He would have an hour or two yet to wait.

  Slowly his mind drifted, returning to thoughts of his long imprisonment. Was the capture of this murderer the reason he had been spared for all those years? He thought of the cell he had first been incarcerated in, the dust, the heat, the constant drone of flies, the evil smirking face of his gaoler when he threw him, twice a day, a mouldy lump of some hard bread-like substance. He remembered the day he had been herded out of his cell, lined up with other prisoners, not a Christian amongst them, and been inspected by a Saracen noble on a prancing white horse. Then the whip that had lashed across his shoulders as he was driven forward with a few others to become a slave in an infidel household. The Muslim overseer into whose care he and the other slaves had been entrusted had taken delight in finding the most menial and degrading tasks for the Christian captive to perform. Bascot had been unable to contain the humiliation and rage that had engulfed him.

  It had been for insolence that his eye had been put out and the same reason, later, had prompted his sale, and that of Benjamin’s, to the captain of a pirate ship. He could still recall the monotonous rhythm of the ship’s drum as he and forty others pushed and pulled the huge oars to its beat, their feet chained into place, terror in their hearts when the ship of a trader was attacked and they were locked in place, defenceless while the battle between the pirates and their prey raged around them.

  It had been during a storm that he had escaped, one of the sudden forceful tempests that were common in the sea south of the island of Cyprus. For the better part of a morning, rain and wind had lashed them, the waves of the ocean boiling and foaming as though they were afloat in a huge cauldron. Finally the flimsy planks of the boat, long past need of caulking, had given way, letting the sea rush in to batter captors and slaves alike. Bascot remembered how the mast had come crashing down to where he and Benjamin, along with two others, were chained, knocking free the hasp that held their leg irons in place. As it slid loose, the mast had suddenly tilted, trapping Bascot’s leg beneath it. Benjamin, already on his feet and preparing to dive overboard to freedom, had hesitated when he saw that Bascot could not move. Then the Jewish boy had turned and, putting all his weight to the mast, had freed Bascot’s trapped limb. It had been at that moment that one of the Saracen pirates had stumbled across them and, raising his sword, had cleaved Benjamin’s neck where it joined his shoulder. Amongst the struggling, howling mass of slaves and pirates, his leg useless, Bascot had found the strength to drag the guard down beside him and wrench the scimitar from the man’s grasp. With one swift stroke he had disembowelled him. But when he turned to Benjamin, the Jewish boy was almost dead, the bright blood pumping out of his throat like a geyser, mixing with the slicing drops of rain and covering his body in a mantle of red.