Shroud of Dishonour tk-5

by Maureen Ash

  Bascot picked the weapon up and, after ensuring that Jacques’ wound was severe enough to incapacitate him, ran to Emilius and dropped to his knees. Savaric, with a stifled sob, backed away from the stricken Templar and went to crouch beside his half brother. With one glance, Bascot realised that the draper’s wounds were mortal. The flesh of one cheek had been torn away and hung in a flap, the bone beneath it crushed. One of the spikes in the ball of the flail had sliced a deep gash across the side of Emilius’s throat, severing the main arteries. Blood from the wound had formed a large puddle on the floor beneath the draper, but the pulsating flow was ebbing as the life essence became depleted. Emilius would not live for much longer than a few more minutes.

  Gently removing the draper’s helm, Bascot lifted the dying man’s head and rested it in the crook of his arm. Emilius’s eyelids fluttered as he did so, but it was plain his vision was beginning to dim. The draper muttered something faintly and Bascot leaned close to hear. He only caught the last few words before Emilius, with a sigh, expelled his final breath, but Bascot knew well what the draper had said. “Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed Tuo Nomini da gloriam.” Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Thy Name give the glory. It was the battle cry of the Templar Order.

  Twenty-seven

  With great care Bascot laid Emilius’s head back on the floor, and then rose and strode over to where Savaric was slumped on his knees by his half brother. Hauling the squire to his feet, the Templar shoved him roughly back against the wall and told him to stay there. Then, sword in hand, he knelt beside the rogue Templar. A quick glance told him the man responsible for so many deaths was now, himself, dead.

  Bascot scanned the features of the leper, taking in his visage more closely than he had been able to when Jacques had come charging through the doorway. The knight had once been a handsome man; white even teeth, dark curling hair and a generous curve to the mouth beneath the hereditary aquiline nose. In life, it was easy to imagine his head thrown back with laughter and a rakish glint in his eye. There was no doubt women would have found him attractive. But now the disease had taken hold. Patches of scaly skin could be seen in small bare patches beneath the curls of his beard and on the lobes of his ears and, when Bascot lifted with the point of his sword the cuff of one of the heavy gloves Jacques wore, a dark circle of lesions around the wrist was revealed. No doubt other parts of his body, underneath his clothing, were scarred in a similar fashion.

  From across the room, Savaric spoke, his attitude no longer impassive, but wrought with emotion. “Jacques was not always an evil man, Sir Bascot,” he sobbed. “The disease-it turned his brain. Once he knew he had leprosy, he became a man completely unlike his former self.”

  “Whatever the reason, four people are now dead because of it,” Bascot replied bluntly.

  Motioning for Savaric to go outside, the Templar followed him out of the building and told him to sit on the ground. Using a length of rope hanging from the gate of the pigsty, he bound the squire’s hands behind him. By now, Gerard Camville would have responded to the message sent to him by d’Arderon and it would not be long before the sheriff’s men-at-arms arrived.

  As they waited, Bascot tried to stem the tide of angry sorrow that threatened to engulf him. Emilius’s murmuring of the battle cry had been a correct judgement although when he and Bascot had left the preceptory they had not expected to engage in a confrontation with the leper. If they had, they would have taken the time to don complete armour, along with mailed hoods, and Emilius’s neck would have been protected from the spikes of the flail. But both Bascot and d’Arderon had surmised there would be no more than token resistance from a fatally ill man who had, so far, attacked only helpless women. How wrong they had been. And Emilius lay dead because of that error.

  Bascot knew he would have to give a recounting to the sheriff of the unrelated events that had led to his assumption that the murderer was Jacques Roulan. To calm himself, he ran through them in his mind. They were many and, for a time, had seemed to bear no relation to each other. Master St. Maur’s advice that the death of Robert Scallion in Acre might be involved in the slaying of the two harlots; the sighting of the image on the cloak clasp by Constance Turner’s maid, and how later, through Bascot recalling the meaning of the Roulan name, it seemed likely that one of the family would wear such a piece of jewellery. Then there was the involvement of the Grimsons and last, but not least, the moment when the blacksmith’s gloves in the preceptory’s forge had reminded him that Dunny had mentioned how the knight who killed the boat owner had, in the intense heat of the Holy Land, been wearing gloves.

  This last had been one of the final pieces of the puzzle. While it was usual to wear heavy gauntlets in battle, gloves were only otherwise necessary when there was need to protect the hands from cold or while performing an abrasive task. In the hot lands of Outremer, and in a brothel, they served no purpose. When Dunny had first mentioned them, Bascot should have recognised their importance, that gloves were a strange item of apparel to wear on such an occasion, but he had not. It was only later that he realised they were hiding the telltale scarring of leprosy.

  It had been when he tried to envision, without success, either Savaric or Julia as the guilty party that he recalled Nicolaa de la Haye’s bailiff mentioning that all of the brothers and their sister had made a visit to the property at Marton. Why had Julia gone there? It would be within Gilbert or Herve’s province to authorise repairs, not hers. Why would she go with them to inspect a rundown building? Then he had begun to wonder if Joan Grimson’s suspicion that Jacques had returned to Lincoln was true and the disgraced Templar was living there in secret. But if so, why? He had no reason to hide. The murder had taken place in a distant land; Joan’s threat of exposing him was not a serious one. It was more than probable that the sheriff would have no interest in arresting a man for the commission of a crime that had taken place so far away. As for the Order, any Templar brother could leave their ranks if he wished. To break one’s oath in such a fashion might imperil a man’s immortal soul, but it was not a crime. And, besides, the whole of the Roulan family had claimed he was dead. If he was alive, what was the purpose of such a terrible lie?

  Julia’s outburst had provided the answer, for she had spoken of her deceased brother as though he still suffered mortal agony. How could he be dead and at the same time still in pain? There was only one answer to that. He was a leper.

  His conclusion had been strengthened by Jacques’ reputation for insatiable lechery. It was commonly believed that leprosy was most often contracted through sexual congress. The truth of that opinion had not yet been proved, but it was more than probable that Jacques, like most people, believed it. If he had discovered that his body was fatally diseased, he could easily have conceived a deep hatred for the type of woman who had given it to him. And a man with his lack of conscience would have blamed a prostitute for his condition rather than his own lust. That conclusion could easily foster an unreasonable craving for revenge.

  Bascot looked down at Savaric. Emilius’s death had left Bascot bereft of compassion, not only for Jacques but for the rest of the Roulan family. If they all, especially Savaric, had not aided their diseased brother, the two prostitutes and the draper would still be alive. But there was one point that still puzzled him.

  “There are Templar lazar houses in Outremer that care for brothers afflicted with leprosy,” Bascot said harshly. “Why did your half brother not enter one of them?”

  Savaric gazed at the man standing over him with more than a little trepidation. The one-eyed knight was so angry that his face could have been carved from stone. The icy blueness of his sighted eye seemed as though it would freeze Savaric’s soul if he did not tell the truth. There was nothing left to gain by lying anyway, he thought. Deception had been Jacques’ tool and Savaric had always been reluctant to use it.

  “He left it too late,” Savaric answered flatly. “Once Jacques had killed Scallion, he knew he would be expelled from the Order a
nd a place in a Templar lazar house would be denied to him. And if he was taken by the authorities for murder, he would be hanged. There was nothing else he could do but get away from Acre before he was caught.”

  There was a tremor in Savaric’s voice as he went on. “He pleaded with me to bring him back to Lincoln. He was my close kin and had always treated me as an equal, even though I was baseborn. I could not deny his wish to die at home.”

  Savaric’s mouth twisted into a bitter smile as he added, “Had it not been for Scallion’s death, Jacques would have remained in Acre and never returned to England. But the ironic part of it all is that when my half brother got involved in that fight with the boat owner, he was not trying to harm him but was, instead, making an attempt to prevent him from being infected with leprosy.”

  The squire glanced up at the Templar. Savaric did not expect clemency for himself, but felt he had to try and justify the actions of his dead relative. At a curt nod from Bascot, he went on.

  “Jacques had been to that brothel before, just a short time after we arrived in the Holy Land. He found chastity very hard to bear, but he had an honest desire to atone and managed to stay celibate while we were in Qaqun, where there are not many brothels. But we were only at Qaqun a few weeks before we were sent to Acre, and the port has a stewe on almost every corner. The temptation became too great for Jacques. One night he stole out of the enclave and spent an hour in the bawdy house where he later met Scallion. For a time, his lust was sated but, a few months later, he realised that the harlot had given him a disease. At first, when his man’s parts swelled, he thought it was the pox, but then a rash appeared on his hindquarters and back and he knew he had been infected with leprosy. I had never seen him so distraught. From that moment, he began to change and became not the brother I had once known, but a stranger.

  “I tried to dissuade him from going back to the brothel but he would not listen to me. He insisted he must denounce the girl to prevent her infecting others, but I feared he meant to kill her. Thinking I might forestall him from doing so, I insisted he let me accompany him. When we got there, I stayed outdoors to keep watch on the guards that were standing a little way along the street. It wasn’t until later he told me that when he went in, the boat owner was inside. They were old friends; they had whored and got drunk many a time in the brothels and alehouses in Hull. But the girl that infected Jacques had taken Scallion’s fancy. Jacques tried to dissuade him from laying with her, and even offered the whoremaster a huge sum to keep her away from Scallion, but the boat owner was drunk-he had been drinking some of that filthy liquor made from fermented dates they have in Outremer-and was in a vile temper. He threatened to report Jacques to the Templar commander in Acre and began to taunt him for breaking his vow of chastity.”

  The former squire gave a heartfelt sigh. “It was then that they began to fight and somehow Scallion got ahold of the knife at Jacques’ belt and, in the struggle, it ended up in the boat owner’s chest.” Savaric shrugged. “That is what Jacques told me happened. I cannot vouch for the truth of it, but he had no reason to lie.”

  “And, when the hue and cry was raised to find Jacques, you helped him get away?” Bascot asked. Although he felt no compassion for the man he held captive, he began to understand the depth of the squire’s quandary. It would not have been easy to deny aid to a much loved brother, even if he was gravely at fault. And love his legitimate brother Savaric must have done, for not only had he followed the immoral knight to the Holy Land, but he had also stood by Jacques when he had committed murder. There was courage there, too-not many would risk exposure to leprosy for another’s sake, no matter how closely they were related. But Savaric’s loyalty had been misplaced, and he had known it to be so. For that Bascot could not forgive him.

  Savaric nodded. “When Jacques came tearing out of the stewe, we got away from the area as fast as we could. After we felt we were safe from discovery, he told me what had happened. Jacques had a couple of rings and a gold chain in his scrip. We waited on the outskirts of Acre until morning, and then exchanged some of the jewellery for a couple of mounts from an Arab horse trader. Then we rode southward down the coast towards Haifa. There we hired a boat to take us to Cyprus, and sold the horses and the rest of the jewellery to pay for passage home. The rest you know.”

  “So your brother not only broke his vow of chastity but, by keeping valuable items in his possession after he entered the Order, also the one of poverty. And neither he nor you gave any thought to the infection he was spreading among the people you came into contact with on the journey back to England.” Bascot’s fury resurged and, with it, disgust. “The silver coins that Jacques left beside the bodies of each of the prostitutes he killed. Were they also part of his secret hoard?”

  “He left some silver coins and jewellery buried here, at Marton, when he went to join the Templars,” Savaric admitted shamefacedly. “None of us knew he had done so. I only got the truth out of him last night.”

  “I cannot condone your actions,” Bascot replied, “but in a small part I can understand them, at least until you brought your brother safely back to England. What I fail to comprehend is why, once you had returned to Lincoln, your family did not ensure that Jacques entered a lazar house?”

  “Gilbert wanted him to go to the one in Pottergate,” Savaric said, “but Jacques begged to be allowed to stay at Marton, which is where I brought him when we first returned. I smuggled him in at night while the pig man was sleeping and then went to Ingham and told the family what had happened. Gilbert, Herve and Julia rode here the next morning and tried to persuade him to go to the lazar house but he pleaded with them to leave him here, promising he would let no one see him or come into contact with him. He said his only wish was to die at home on the family demesne. Julia took his part and said that after all Jacques had gone through to return home, it would be cruel to lock him away at the end of his journey.”

  Savaric glanced at the Templar. “My half brother could be very persuasive, Sir Bascot, especially with women. His mother and Julia idolized him. When his dam heard what had happened, she collapsed and we feared she would not recover. Julia told Gilbert that if he did not want to be the cause of their mother’s death, he would do as Jacques asked. Since I had been in his company for so many months and might have already contracted the disease, I offered to bring him food and keep him company when he wished it. Gilbert finally, and reluctantly, gave in, although Herve advised against it. They all-Gilbert, Julia and Herve-came to see him just that one time, for Jacques insisted they stay away after that, for their own safety’s sake.”

  “And after he garrotted the harlot in our chapel,” Bascot said in a hard voice, “was the love all of you felt for this degenerate brother so strong that you also condoned his sin of murder?”

  “No, Sir Bascot, it was not,” Savaric replied, his words exploding from him with a brief flare of defiance. “We didn’t know, at the time, that he had killed her, or that he murdered the other one a few days later. It was not until the day that you and Captain Roget came to Ingham that we found out he was responsible. I only spent the odd night or two at Marton and none of us knew Jacques had gone into Lincoln, or that he was responsible for those terrible crimes. I had gone early that same morning, before you came, to take him some food and wine. I arrived before he was out of bed and saw the strips of cloth he had wrapped around the wound on his leg. When I asked him how he had come by the injury, he blustered at first, saying he had stumbled on one of the broken boards in the house and the shattered end had pierced his leg. I looked at the wound and could tell it had been made by a knife. When I challenged him with his lie, he finally told me the truth. But although he admitted he killed the two harlots, he did not tell me he had attacked another woman the night before. We did not learn of that until you came to the manor house later that day.

  “His brain had been turned by the disease,” Savaric continued sadly. “He said he wanted to kill as many harlots as he could because they were
the cause of all his troubles. It was because of them, he said, that he had been forced to join the Templars. If he hadn’t done so, he would never have lain with the prostitute that infected him.”

  “But why did he implicate our Order?” Bascot demanded. “Surely Jacques could not blame the brethren for his downfall.”

  “As I said, his thinking was deranged. He said the Templars were hypocrites; that they all lusted after women and bedded them whenever they had an opportunity to do so. Because he had visited a brothel and not been caught, he was convinced there were many others that did the same. He said that if the leprosy had been sent by God to chastise him for breaking his vow of chastity, it was a punishment that was not warranted, for he was but one of many.”

  Savaric gave Bascot an earnest look. “I tried to tell him he was wrong, that there were very few Templars who dishonoured their vow, but he would not listen. He just raged at me and said it could not be so, that it was not natural for a man to live like a eunuch. He said that before he died, he intended to make the brothers’ rampant fornication known to all of Christendom, and expose them to the contempt they so rightly deserved. His reasoning made no sense, but I did not try to dissuade him. It was too late. The women were already dead. Nothing I could say would bring them back.”

  The former squire shook his head sadly as he continued, “After he finished raving, I locked him in the sleeping chamber here at Marton and went to tell Gilbert what had happened. It was that discussion you and Captain Roget interrupted when you arrived at Ingham. It was a shock to learn that he had attempted to kill another woman.”