Murder for Christ's Mass tk-4

by Maureen Ash

  “Thanks be to le Bon Dieu,” Roget breathed as his men extinguished the blazing material, sending up a cloud of smoke tinged with an acrid smell that caught in the throat and set them all to coughing. “Bring some sand and cover all the embers,” he instructed the guards, “and make sure both the inside and outside of the walls are well damped down.”

  He and Ernulf, still coughing from the effects of the smoke, went out into the street. As he began to assure the crowd the danger was past, the guards he had sent to check on the rear of the house came around the corner. With them were two men, one stumbling along as though bemused while the other was being hauled along reluctantly.

  “Found the casket maker asleep in his bed,” one of the guards said with a grin. “Had to wake him up to tell him he was near to needing one of his own coffins.”

  Roget looked at the coffin maker. There was a strong smell of ale about his person and his gaze was uncomprehending as he stared at the charred wood on the front of his shop and the people gathered round. It was clear he must have been drunk when he went to bed and the effects of the alcohol had not yet worn off.

  “Were you drinking in your shop tonight?” Roget asked him.

  The man nodded, his eyes bleary. “Only a cup or two,” he replied. “Helps me sleep.”

  The sempstress came forward, her eyes ablaze with anger. “’Tis more like you had a dozen,” she yelled at him. “You’re always drinking in there and it’s not the first time you’ve left a candle alight. ’Tis only by God’s grace that I and my children were not burned to death.”

  “No, no, mistress,” the casket maker slurred. “I only had a few cups, I promise you. No more.” His words ended in a prodigious belch, the smell of which sent them all reeling away from him.

  Disgusted, Roget told one of the guards to take him to the gaol and keep him in one of the cells until he slept off the effect of the ale. The captain then spoke to the sempstress. “I shall report his drunkenness to the town bailiff,” he told her. “If any of your property is damaged, he will ensure you are paid reparation.”

  Mollified, the sempstress turned away and a kindly neighbour offered to give her and her children lodgings for the night, which she gratefully accepted. Roget now turned his attention to the other man the guards had brought with them, and who was still held firmly in their grasp.

  The captain stroked his beard and a smile curved his lips as he looked at the cringing figure. The guards returned his smirk. Their captive cowered under Roget’s gaze as one of the guards held aloft a rough sack. It swung heavily from his raised fist.

  “Found him with this, Captain,” the guard said. “He was climbing over one of the fences in the lane.”

  “So, Cotty,” Roget said, addressing the prisoner, “you are back in Lincoln and are once again trying my patience with your thieving ways.”

  “I found the sack on the ground, Captain Roget,” the man whined. “I was just on my way to turn it in to you.”

  Roget regarded the thief. He was dressed in rags and was extremely dirty. Looped around his neck was a pair of old rope sandals tied together with string. Both sides of his nose had been slit and his left hand was still red and sore on the stumps of two missing fingers.

  “I thought I told you never to come back to Lincoln,” Roget said, gesturing to the thief’s mutilated hand. “Did that punishment not teach you a lesson?”

  “’Twas hard out on the road in this weather,” the man snivelled. “I only come to town to get some alms from the church and then I was going to be on my way. I didn’t steal anything, I promise you. I found that sack. It was just lying on the ground where someone must have dropped it.”

  Roget pointed to Cotty’s bare feet; his toes, curling on the cobbles amid the churned-up mess of slush and ashes from the fire, were nearly as long as his fingers and almost as prehensile. “If you are lying, it will be your toes I take this time. Without them, you will no longer be able to climb through windows like a thieving squirrel.” Roget thrust his hand into the sack. “Let’s see what it is that Cotty claims he has found.”

  Ernulf and the guards gasped as Roget pulled out a leather pouch and upended it into his open hand. From inside slithered a heavy gold chain adorned with a ruby pendant and two men’s silver thumb rings set with precious stones. As the captain gave the pouch a final shake, a cloak clasp of beaten gold tumbled out to join the rest. “Ma foi,” Roget exclaimed, “you have struck on a pretty nest of treasure this time, Cotty.” The captain glowered at the thief. “Which house did you steal this from?”

  Cotty fell awkwardly to his knees, his arm still in the grasp of one of the guards. “I didn’t steal it, Captain, I swear.”

  Roget looked up Mikelgate. The back of all the houses adjoining the casket maker’s faced into the lane where Cotty had been apprehended. Among them was Warner Tasser’s silver manufactory.

  “I don’t believe you, Cotty, and I have no doubt report of this theft will soon prove your lie.” He motioned to the guard who held the unfortunate thief. “Take him to the gaol and lock him up. And give him some water to wash his feet. I have no wish to soil my sword on the filth that encrusts his toes.”

  With an evil grin, the guard dragged his captive away, Cotty still protesting his innocence. Roget turned to Ernulf. “Will you tell Sheriff Camville there is no longer any danger from the fire, mon ami, and also that I will be delayed in making my report until after I have found out who this jewellery belongs to?”

  Ernulf nodded his compliance and, calling to his men, mounted his horse and rode back to the castle.

  Fifteen

  It was well past the midday hour by the time Roget trudged up to the castle, the leather bag of jewellery firmly tied to his belt. He was tired and hungry and his clothes and hair stank of smoke. Before he went to make his report to the sheriff, he went over to the barracks, hoping to get a pot of ale and something to eat from the store Ernulf kept in the guardroom.

  Once inside the building, he went to the room the serjeant used as his own, a small cubicle separated by a leather curtain from the large open space shared by the men-at-arms. Pushing the curtain aside, he went in and found Bascot and Gianni in company with the serjeant, the Templar having delayed his journey to Grantham in case the fire in the town spread and every able-bodied man in Lincoln was called out to fight it.

  “I have come for a pot of that malodorous brew you call ale, Ernulf,” Roget said to the serjeant, hooking a stool from the corner and sitting down heavily. “My throat is as dry as the sands of Outremer.” The air in the tiny chamber was warm from the heat of a brazier burning in the corner and the captain began to relax as he took a pot of ale from the serjeant and downed it in one gulp.

  “Have you found the owner of the jewellery?” Ernulf asked as he took the captain’s cup and refilled it.

  Roget shook his head and patted the scrip at his belt. “No. I still have it here. When I make my report to Sir Gerard, I will give it into his safekeeping.”

  “Ernulf told me about the theft and how the jewellery the thief had on him appears to be very valuable,” Bascot said. “I would have thought that whoever owns it would have soon noticed it missing and reported their loss.”

  “So would I, mon ami,” Roget replied. “But I went to every building along Mikelgate, including the one belonging to that chien of a silversmith, and asked them to check their valuables. All denied having anything taken while they were out in the street.”

  He took out the leather pouch and tipped it up so Bascot could see the contents. The ruby in the pendant gleamed richly in the light from the brazier. The Templar leaned forward and picked up one of the rings.

  “These are fine pieces. Their absence would not be easily overlooked.”

  Roget nodded. “When no one claimed them, I thought that maybe one of the Lincoln gold- or silversmiths would recognise the workmanship and, if they did, I could discover the owner through whoever made them. So I went to the head of their guild and asked if he could hel
p me. But he could not. He said that even if the rings had been fashioned by a Lincoln smith, they would not have been by any who are living here now. The design is a very old one and whoever made the ring will have been a long time dead.”

  Roget pointed to the mounting on the shoulder of one of the rings. It was bevelled and etched with a pattern of curlicues and tiny feathery leaves. Set with a sapphire, the jewel seemed as though it was a flower nestling in a bough of greenery.

  “The head of the guild said this design was popular just before the reign of King Stephen. It wasn’t made after Stephen took the throne because it resembles the flower that Geoffrey of Anjou used as his symbol.”

  Bascot glanced over at Gianni. The boy had been studying a set of questions given him by Lambert that morning and was writing down the answers on his wax tablet. When Roget mentioned King Stephen’s name, however, he looked up at his master in surprise. Geoffrey of Anjou had been married to Matilda, daughter of King Henry I and the heir her father had chosen to reign after his death. After Henry died, Matilda’s cousin, Stephen, seized the English throne before she could come to England and claim it. His precipitate action had plunged the country into a civil war between the two contenders. Matilda’s husband, Geoffrey, had always worn a sprig of planta genesta in his helm and the simple plant, which was the common broom, had become associated with him and his wife, and also with his son, who later became King Henry II. To wear such a likeness during the reign of King Stephen would indicate a partisanship for Matilda and would not have been wise.

  “And the other pieces-the chain and pendant and the cloak clasp?” Bascot asked. “Did the goldsmith say they are old, too?”

  Roget shrugged. “He made no mention of it. He only told me he didn’t recognise the workmanship, and so it wasn’t likely a member of the Lincoln guild who made them.”

  Bascot ran his fingers over the smoothness of the links in the heavy gold chain from which the pendant hung. The setting that held the jewel, like the unadorned surface of the cloak clasp, was plain and without design. These pieces, unlike the rings, would be hard to identify as to age, but could easily have been made many years before.

  “What will you do with the thief?” Ernulf asked. “If you cannot find out who owns the jewellery, he cannot be punished for stealing it.”

  “Oh, he stole it, alright,” Roget said with certainty. “Where he got the valuables from is a mystery, but I know he did not come by them honestly. I had one of my men knock him about a bit, but he will not admit to theft. He just keeps saying he found them.” Roget shrugged. “If the sheriff thinks it worthwhile, I will question Cotty further, but if no one comes forward to claim the jewellery, Sir Gerard may be satisfied just to confiscate it and let Cotty off with a good flogging.”

  Bascot looked across at Gianni and the boy surreptitiously made a circle in the palm of his left hand with the forefinger of his right, then pointed at the jewels and meshed the fingers of his hand together. The Templar nodded. The same thought had occurred to him. The coin Gianni had found atop the cliff face and the jewellery were of the same period, that of the reign of King Stephen. If Gerard Camville was correct in his assumption that the coin was part of a hidden cache, it could be the jewellery had also been in the hoard. If that was so, whoever Cotty had stolen it from would be reluctant to claim ownership because it would be impossible to prove a legitimate provenance of the items. It was a tenuous link, but it was there. Even if the coin, or the jewellery, did not have any connection to the murders of Brand or Fardein, they could prove the existence of a cache of valuables that belonged, by right, to the crown.

  “I think I would like to speak to this thief you are holding, Roget,” Bascot said.

  The captain gave the Templar a look of surprise. “I did not think you would be interested in such a simple crime, mon ami. There is unlikely to be any murder done in this theft; Cotty would never have the courage. He is just an insignificant little villain who climbs inside people’s houses and steals whatever he can find.”

  Mindful of Gerard Camville’s stricture to keep private the existence of the coin, Bascot did not want to reveal his true purpose for wishing to question the thief and so was careful with his answer to Roget.

  “This jewellery is valuable-murder has been committed for items of much less worth. Even if Cotty is not responsible for the two deaths I am investigating, he may have stolen the jewellery from the person who did kill them, and if so, I want to know who it was.”

  A smile lit Roget’s weary features as he fingered one of the rings. It was set with a large topaz and the jewel glowed like the eye of a cat. “You could be right. As soon as I have made my report to the sheriff, we will go to the gaol and question Cotty a little more zealously.”

  Sixteen

  Bascot went with Roget while he made his report to the sheriff. Gilbert Bassett was with Camville, and both men listened attentively as Roget told of the fire and how Cotty had been apprehended. When the captain produced the jewellery found on the thief and related the guild master’s opinion that the age of the rings dated from the reign of King Stephen, the Templar could see from the expressions on their faces they had formed a similar conclusion to his own.

  Camville readily agreed to Bascot’s suggestion that he accompany Roget to question the thief, and the two men set off down into the town. The town gaol was located near to the centre of Lincoln and not far from the casket maker’s house where the fire had occurred early that morning. It was a squat rectangular building of thick stone housing four large cells and a small area furnished with pallets and a table where the guards slept or ate when not on duty. Cotty had been placed in a cell at the far end and was secured to the wall by a manacle around one leg. When Roget and the Templar entered, his face became fearful and he shrank back against the wall.

  “I’m telling the truth, Captain Roget,” he whined. “I found that jewellery. I didn’t steal it, and may God strike me dead if I’m lying.”

  “Then le Bon Dieu will save me the trouble of slicing off your toes,” Roget answered complacently. One of the guards had come into the cell with them, and the captain ordered him to fetch a stool. When it was brought, the captain grabbed one of Cotty’s legs and, propping the thief’s foot on the top, drew the short sword from his belt. The edge was sharp and reflected pinpoints of light from the flaring torch held by the guard. Cotty’s long toes wriggled as he tried to extricate his foot from Roget’s grasp.

  “No, Captain, no,” he screamed. “You ain’t going to cut off my toes, I beg of you. I won’t be able to walk.”

  “Nor will you be able to climb,” Roget replied, “and that will save me a great deal of trouble.” With these words, Roget lowered the blade until its edge rested on the joint of the thief’s largest toe. Blood began to well from the wound. “If you tell me the truth about where you stole the jewellery, I might only take off one of these miserable worms,” he said to Cotty. “But if you do not…”

  The threat was enough. Cotty began to blubber and admitted that his tale of how he had come by the sack was only partially true. “I found it, Captain, just like I said, but not on the ground. It was in the wall of one of the houses, behind a stone that was loose. I found it when I was climbing up to get to a casement in the house beside it.…”

  And so the thief’s story came out. It required little prompting from Roget beyond a slight pressure on the knife he held against Cotty’s toe. The thief said that in the late afternoon of the day before he had been in the lane behind the row of houses where the guard had found him and noticed that one of the windows on the top storey of a house appeared to be unlatched. He kept watch for the rest of the day and evening and, when no light appeared behind the shutters after darkness fell, he thought the room was most likely used for storage purposes and not a sleeping chamber. Aware the premises belonged to a clothier, Cotty said he thought he might be able to steal some better clothing than the rags he possessed. His only reason for doing so, he said, “was to keep my bones war
m, Captain. I was perishin’ from the cold.” He said he thought the best way to climb up to the unlatched casement was to scale the stones of the building next door, which belonged to the silversmith, Tasser. “It’s stone all the way up, Captain, as you know, and made that way for to keep his workplace safe from the flames of the forge.”

  When Roget had nodded at his explanation and eased the pressure of the knife a little, Cotty became more garrulous. “’Twas easy to scale it, Captain. There’s some good toeholds on them stones ’cause the mortar’s beginning to crumble. I was up it in a minute, intending to climb along a wooden beam that edges onto the stone on Tasser’s building and get up to the clothier’s casement.”

  He paused for a moment, his eyes glistening as he drew a deep breath and then went on. “But I never got onto the beam. I’d just got level with the floor of the top storey on Tasser’s house when I felt one of the stones was loose. I pushed it and it turned sideways a little bit, like there was nothing behind it, so I put my hand inside and felt around. It seemed like there was some bundles in there, so I grabbed ahold of one and pulled it out. It was that sack you took off of me that came out in my hand, Captain, the one with the jewellery inside.”

  He stopped again, looking at Roget to see his reaction. When he got nothing but a slight increase of pressure on the knife, he winced and quickly finished his tale. “It was just then that the tocsin began to ring. I knew as how everyone would come out into the streets and maybe into the lane-for all I knew the fire could have been inside Tasser or the clothier’s house and I’d be burned to death-so I shoved the sack inside my tunic and climbed down. I thought I’d hide in the silversmith’s yard ’til I knew it was safe to come out.”