by Maureen Ash
As he fell to his knees beside her, Margaret did the same, pulling back the folds of the girl’s cloak as she did so. Blood was welling up from a wound in Elise’s side and running onto the cobbles beneath her body.
Quickly, Margaret ripped Elise’s kirtle apart and exposed a deep wound in Elise’s abdomen. “May heaven help her,” the sempstress exclaimed in terror, “she has been stabbed.”
Among the crowd watching the parrot was Merisel Wickson. She had been standing near Elise when the maid had fallen and been stunned by what she had witnessed. Normally she would have been in her father’s candle manufactory at this time of day, but she had gone to visit her mother’s cousin, Simon Adgate, the day before and what he had told her had been so distressing that she was having difficulty keeping her mind on her work. To try and distract her tumbling thoughts, she had begged leave of her father to go and join the crowd watching the outlandish bird and, when he had given his permission, had gone out into the street and spent a few pleasurable moments listening to the parrot’s lively speech and watching with fascination the way in which the bird turned its head back and forth as it bobbed up and down on its owner’s arm, an expectant look in its beady eyes.
It had only been when she had glanced around her just as Elise had been stabbed that her attention had been torn from the diversion in a horrible manner. She could hardly believe what she had seen. Retreating a few paces, her first instinct had been to scream out an accusation, but her innate good sense had overridden the impulse, for she thought she knew the identity of the person who had committed the crime and, if she was correct, there could be dire repercussions to her family if she made the knowledge public. Trying to set her tumbling thoughts in order, she hurried off down the street. It was imperative that she go to Simon Adgate and tell him what she had seen.
Twenty-four
As Elise’s body lay crumpled and bleeding on the cobblestones of Mikelgate, Willi was standing in front of Lady Nicolaa in the castle solar. Petronille and Alinor were seated alongside her and Richard was by the fireplace, sipping a cup of wine as his mother spoke to the young runaway. A few paces behind the lad Ernulf stood, and Gianni was in his customary place in the corner, seated on a stool and taking notes.
“Do you know why you have been brought here, Willi?” Nicolaa asked the young boy.
“’Cos I stole a blanket,” Willi replied disconsolately.
Suppressing a smile, Nicolaa said, “No, that is not so. Neither I nor Bailiff Stoddard would begrudge you the means of keeping yourself warm.”
Willi looked up at her in surprise. He knew the woman in front of him was a great lady and had not expected her to be kind.
“You told Mark, the other boy at the foundling home, that you had seen the person who murdered my sister’s servant. If that is so, you are the only one who can identify him, or her, and we were fearful you might be killed because you can do so. That is why we have been looking for you, to bring you back here and keep you safe.” Nicolaa leaned forward. “If you told Mark an untruth, you will not be punished, but you must tell us if you really did see the murderer.”
Willi’s eyes stretched wide as he admitted that he had.
“Was it someone you had seen before-about the town, perhaps, or in the hall when you and the other children were brought before the merchants?”
This time Willi shook his head. “I only saw ’un when they wus comin’ out of that old tower across the bail. And later I heard the washerwoman sayin’ as how that’s where the crossbow what killed that man up on the ramparts was kept.”
“And did you see the murderer clearly? Was it a man or a woman?”
Before Willi could answer a servant burst into the solar. “Milady, I am sorry to interrupt, but Lady Alinor’s maid, Elise, has just been brought into the hall. She was stabbed while in the town and is like to die. Margaret thinks it was done by the same person that killed the cofferer.”
Alinor jumped up from her seat. “I must go to her,” she said and ran from the room.
“Richard, attend her!” Nicolaa said to her son abruptly. “Caution must be used until we find the person who is wreaking this havoc. And we cannot be certain that it is not someone within the castle walls.”
The castellan’s son, his hand going to the dagger at his belt, left the chamber with hurried strides.
Nicolaa looked at her sister, who was on the point of following her daughter, and lifted a hand to forestall her. “You, too, Petra, must be careful. Two of your servants have been attacked and you might be the next target. For now, you must stay here in the solar where Ernulf can keep guard over you.”
The serjeant nodded and moved to stand a little closer to the two women, loosening the short sword he wore at his belt as he did so. Willi, frightened by the report of the stabbing, was thankful of Ernulf’s presence and now, instead of trying, as he had done in the town, to escape the serjeant’s notice, crept closer to his reassuring bulk.
When Petronille would have made a protest, Nicolaa overrode it. “You cannot do anything to help Elise. We must leave her to the care of the castle leech and trust that if she can be saved, he will do it. It is more important, at the moment, to try and find the villain who is perpetrating these crimes.”
She beckoned to Willi. “You are safe here, lad. Now, come forward and tell me about the person you saw.”
When Alinor rushed into the hall,Richard was close behind her. In the middle of the huge chamber, Elise had been placed on one of the trestle tables used at mealtimes. The castle leech, a man named Hedgset, was bending over her. Closest to the stricken maid was Nicholas; when he had seen Elise lying bleeding on the ground, he had scooped her up in his arms and run from Mikelgate all the way up Steep Hill and into the bail. His exertions had left him gasping for breath but even so, his face, beneath a sheen of heavy perspiration, was ashen.
Margaret rushed forward when she saw her mistress’ daughter. “Oh, lady, the leech says the injury is a grave one.” She, too, was panting, for she had followed Nicholas as quickly as she could, arriving just after he had taken Elise into the hall. Her sallow cheeks were tinged bright red and she was wringing her hands in agitation.
Alinor walked swiftly over to the table and looked at her maid. Elise was unconscious, her breathing shallow. Her coif had been removed and the coils of her chestnut braids shone with a vibrant lustre above her ears, as though belying the deathly pallor of her face. Hedgset noticed Richard’s presence and, without pausing in his examination of the wound, said succinctly, “A clumsy piercing, lord, with a thick blade, but it has gone deep and penetrated her abdomen just below the rib cage. I do not think any of the vital organs have been damaged, but I cannot be sure.”
As he spoke, Elise’s eyelids fluttered and she began to regain consciousness. Her hand, instinctively, flew to the gash in her side, and Hedgset took hold of her fingers. “I have to stitch the flesh together, Sir Richard, and quickly. She must be kept still while I do so.”
The castellan’s son nodded and, grasping her wrists, held them tightly at her shoulders. He then gave Nicholas a command to take hold of her ankles. “Hold her fast,” Richard instructed softly as the groom moved reluctantly forward. “You have brought her thus far, do not fail her now.”
With a grimace of fear lest he give further hurt to the girl he so admired, Nicholas gently took hold of Elise’s feet and held them still. At the touch of his hands on her bare ankles, and the pressure of Richard’s weight on her shoulders, the injured maid began to stare wildly around, moaning as she struggled against the double restraint and making an attempt to rise, but she was securely pinioned, and the leech set to work.
Hedgset had not been with the castle household long, having only recently come there after having been recommended for the post by a London friend of Gerard Camville, but it was soon evident that his hands were deft. Although not above five and thirty years of age, he exuded a calm assurance as he ripped Elise’s kirtle and gown apart to expose the site of the injury mo
re clearly, and then pulled the edges of her clothing tight across her stomach so that the material screened the more intimate portions of her anatomy. Taking up a bone needle threaded with catgut from his bag of instruments, he began to sew the ragged edges of the wound together. All was done with an economy of movement and speed, despite Elise’s agonised screams as the needle pierced her flesh. Richard surmised that the leech, although young, had gained his expertise during the years of his apprenticeship in London, while attending the many victims of assault on the notoriously violent streets of the city.
As Hedgset prepared to make the final suture, the pain became too great for Elise to bear and, her eyes rolling back in her head, she swooned again, her body going limp and offering no resistance as the leech finished his task. Adroitly he wrapped strips of linen over the site of the wound and around her stomach, crisscrossing them at her waist to keep them secure. Then he extracted a small vial from his bag and dribbled some of the liquid it contained into his comatose patient’s mouth.
“She should be taken to a chamber where it is quiet,” he said as he straightened and replaced the stopper in the vial. “I have given her a small dose of juice of poppy and, if she awakens, it will help keep her drowsy so that she does not tear the stitches I have put in.”
“You said if she wakes, leech,” Richard said. “Is there a danger she may not?”
Hedgset did not answer immediately, first instructing two servants to fetch the top of another trestle table for use as a makeshift stretcher. When they had done so, he bade them hold the litter steady while he eased Elise’s prone form onto its surface. Only when that had been done did he make a response to Richard’s question, and his reluctance to do so was evident as he glanced at Alinor’s white face. Nonetheless, he did not mince his words. “With knife wounds, lord, there is always a chance they may prove fatal,” he said bluntly. “I have had strong men die within a few hours from no more than a scratch and others recover completely from what appeared to be a mortal wound. If the humours in the maid’s body are not too far out of balance, and if the blade has not pricked her spleen or her liver, she has a chance; that is all I can tell you.”
Hedgset stepped back and Alinor, her breath catching in her throat as she tried to keep her composure, told the two servants to take Elise to her own chamber, adding that the girl was to be placed in the large bed that Alinor used. She would nurse the maid herself, she said, but, as she went to follow the servants to their destination, she heard Richard ask Margaret what she had seen of the attack and paused to hear the sempstress’ answer.
“It all happened so fast, lord,” Margaret replied. “There was quite a large number of people watching a strange bird that spoke words just as though it were human. One minute Elise was exclaiming with the rest of us how clever it was and the next… I heard her cry out. Then she fell down onto the ground beside me.”
“Did you recognise anyone in the crowd?” Richard asked.
Margaret faltered. “I didn’t notice who was there, lord… I did not think to look, my attention was on the bird.” She turned to Alinor. “Oh, lady, the person that stabbed Elise must be the same one as murdered Aubrey. Who else would have reason to do such a thing? And we do not know where he will strike next. It could even be that he will attack your mother if he gets the chance. We are none of us safe here-please, please, let us go back to Stamford before he kills again.”
As she had listened to Margaret, the set of Alinor’s mouth had become determined and her response to the plea was firm. “It will do no good to run from this villain. If he is intent on harming another one of us, he will seek us out wherever we are. I do not intend to give him the satisfaction of seeing us flee like a startled hare.”
Margaret’s face fell in disappointment as her mistress’ daughter turned to catch up to the two servants bearing Elise’s inert form out of the hall.
Twenty-five
When Bascot left Reinbald’s house, he turned his horse toward the lower part of town and the shop of Simon Adgate. His route took him away from the top of Mikelgate Street, and so he did not pass the spot where Elise had been stabbed, nor see the little knots of townsfolk standing looking up Steep Hill towards the castle, in the direction that Nicholas had dashed with the unconscious Elise held fast in his arms.
As he rode, Bascot pondered what he had been told by the wine merchant about the neighbour who had travelled to Winchester over twenty years before. “The draper’s name was Thomas Adgate and, although I am not absolutely sure, I believe the two young girls were kinfolk of his.”
“Do you know if the draper was any relation to Simon Adgate, the furrier?” Bascot had asked.
“I believe so. Thomas was Simon’s uncle, I think, or a cousin of some sort.” The wine merchant had shaken his head sadly. “Many years ago, the Adgates were a prolific family, all related to an ancestor named Ad who, at one time, owned premises near Stonebow gate, but in my own generation, not many male children were born to the family. All of them were engaged in the cloth trade, fullers, dyers, drapers and a couple of furriers. Now only Simon, to my uncertain knowledge, is left.”
“And the girls-are they still here in Lincoln?”
Reinbald had pondered for a moment and then said, “Do you know, I don’t believe I ever saw either of them again after the draper returned from his trip. Not that I recall, anyway.”
As Bascot reined his horse in at the door to the furrier’s premises, he wondered if he had stumbled across yet another connection between Adgate and the murdered Tercel. First it had been discovered his wife was involved in an adulterous affair with the dead man and now it appeared that a relative of Adgate’s could be Tercel’s mother. Alinor’s intuition had been correct when she had insisted that Adgate was hiding something apart from his wife’s affair. Was it possible, despite strong evidence to the contrary, that it was the furrier who was responsible for the cofferer’s death?
When Bascot entered the shop, Adgate was serving a customer, a man who had brought his wife to select a fur-lined tippet. Clarice was with the furrier, placing various lengths of fur about her shoulders so that the woman could consider which of the scarflike garments she favoured. Adgate’s assistant hovered nearby.
When Bascot was shown in by the guard at the door, the furrier immediately came forward, his expression one of watchfulness. The customers looked speculatively towards Bascot as they noticed the Templar badge on the front of his cloak. Clarice looked frightened.
“I would have a few moments of private speech with you, Adgate,” Bascot said brusquely.
Signalling to his assistant to take his place, the furrier led Bascot to the hall where they had spoken together before. He offered the Templar a cup of wine which Bascot declined.
“I have come to ask about two relatives of yours, women who were related to a draper named Thomas Adgate. They were, I believe, your cousins.”
The furrier said nothing in response, just nodded.
“What were their names?” Bascot asked.
Adgate looked to the side, away from the Templar’s gaze. “May I ask why you want to know, Sir Bascot?”
“The information may be pertinent to the investigation into the murder of Lady Petronille’s retainer,” Bascot replied.
“I do not see how it can be,” the furrier replied. “What can either of my cousins have to do with it?”
Irritated by the furrier’s avoidance of a direct answer, Bascot decided to be more forceful with his questions and took a bold leap, as though his knowledge was certain rather than nebulous. “I am told that one of your cousins went to Winchester with Thomas Adgate some twenty-five years ago. That is the time, and the place, where Aubrey Tercel-the man your wife was having an affair with-was conceived. Later, the child was given into the care of another and the mother returned to her home in Lincoln. I have reason to believe that Tercel’s mother and one of your cousins are the same person.”
The vitality seemed to drain out of Adgate. He sank onto the seat of a ch
air at the table and, with shaking hands, poured himself a cup of wine before he answered. When his response came, it was murmured in a voice that was barely audible.
“Yes, she is,” he said quietly.
The Templar experienced a thrill of satisfaction. Although he was still far from obtaining proof of the woman’s, or Adgate’s, culpability, he was making progress towards that end. It was evident in the furrier’s submissive attitude that he was on the verge of revealing that which he had so far kept concealed. Bascot’s voice took on a hard edge as he pressed his advantage. “Had Tercel discovered that fact? Was that the matter you discussed with him here, in this very room, on the day that your wife said you were closeted with him for a long time? And the reason you were arguing with him in the street in front of your premises?”
Adgate looked up in startlement at the last statement.
“You were seen, furrier, by a neighbour,” the Templar informed him.
The flesh on Adgate’s face sagged, and he nodded miserably.
“Then you must tell me your cousin’s name.”
But instead of responding as Bascot had expected him to do, and reveal his cousin’s identity, the furrier pulled himself up and squared his shoulders. “I will not do so. She has suffered enough. And I am certain she did not commit the murder. To know her name will profit you nothing, and will cause her great distress if it is revealed. I have kept her secret all of these years and I will not betray her now.”
Bascot struggled to keep his temper at the furrier’s refusal and consoled himself with the thought that now that they knew the woman was related to Adgate, it would take only a little effort to unearth the name of both his cousins. Gildas, the barber, as a good friend of Adgate, would know the identities of the other members of the furrier’s family, and so, most probably, would other merchants in the town. It was simply a matter of asking, finding out their names and then questioning both of them to determine which of them had gone to Winchester in the year of Tercel’s conception. But even if they found the woman, it did not prove she was linked to the death of her illegitimate son, or that Adgate had been involved in the killing.