by Maureen Ash
The three villagers looked balefully at Bascot, their manner subservient but wary. Plainly they regarded the presence of Bascot and the forest officials as an intrusion and were resentful.
Copley spoke up, his tone impatient. “Sir Bascot is not interested in the names of the reeve or his kinfolk, priest. He just wants some truthful answers to his questions. Let us get on with it.”
The reeve gave Copley a sullen glare as he spoke and the priest, flustered by the sharpness in the agister’s voice, made haste to invite them into a small half-timbered edifice that served as a church. The reeve and his two kinsmen followed behind.
“I have no wine to offer, good sirs,” Samson said, “but there is ale, if you wish…?”
“Better than nothing. Bring us some,” Copley ordered before sitting down heavily on a stool placed just beside the door. The only other furniture in the one small room they had entered was a tiny altar at the far end and a wooden box used to house the priest’s vestments and vessels for the celebration of Mass. On the limewashed walls crude pictures of biblical scenes had been painted, mainly from stories the villagers would most easily understand, those of shepherds tending their flocks and Jesus feeding the multitude from a basket containing only five loaves and two fishes.
As the priest turned to hurry away for the ale, Bascot stopped him. “No, thank you, Father, we do not require any of your ale. Our visit is to be but a brief one. It will not require that you deplete your small store for our benefit.”
The Templar turned angrily to the agister, who was looking at him with stupefaction. “You will stay on your feet, Copley, out of respect for the good Father’s office and his age. If any here should be accorded the comfort of sitting, it is he, not you, who should receive it.”
Disregarding the look of outrage that settled on Copley’s face, Bascot spoke to the villagers, who were now regarding him with a little less hostility and barely concealed glee at the reprimand he had given the agister. Behind them Tostig was grinning, while Eadric ducked his head to hide a smile. Gianni, who had not come in after them, stood in the open doorway, fondling one of the village dogs. The animal had declawed toes, a hobbling demanded by law to prevent any dog not belonging to a lord or forest official from hunting animals that were the sole province of the king.
Bascot addressed the reeve. “Alwin, you will know that I am here to try and discover how the squire Hubert de Tournay came to be found murdered nearby in the forest. Did any of you see him on the day he was killed?”
“No, lord,” Alwin answered. “Neither did we know of his death until Sir Gerard came yesterday and told us.”
“Did anyone of his age and rank ever come to the village-apart from those in the company of the sheriff?”
Again the reeve shook his head. “Only the bailiff ever comes here. And he is a man of an age with my own years.”
“The boy must have come to where he was killed late in the evening of the day before or perhaps during that same night. Did you hear anything-voices or horses-out in the woods at that time?”
Again the stubborn shake of denial. Then the priest spoke up. “There are always some sounds in the forest after darkness has fallen, Sir Bascot. Once daylight has gone many creatures-foxes, owls and the like-come out to seek their prey. Unless a great disturbance was made, any slight noise would be thought just the sounds of their foraging.”
Bascot sighed and stood up. “If anyone remembers anything, Father, I would be pleased if you would let me know. Tostig will get a message to me.”
They all went back outside and Bascot looked around for Gianni, who had disappeared, along with the dog, from the doorway of the church. The villagers were still clustered about in clumps of two or three, watching silently as their priest led the visitors back in the direction of the gate. Suddenly there was the crash of splintering wood and the bellow of an animal; then a girl came running from one of the buildings near the pond. She was young and buxom, her fair hair streaming down her back like a ribbon of amber and, as she ran, she sobbed, stuffing her fist in her mouth to stifle the sound. She came straight towards Bascot and, when she reached him, threw herself down on the ground at his feet.
“It’s my fault, lord. My fault that the squire is dead. I said…I said I would meet him, but I didn’t go. He must have been waiting for me and…and got himself murdered by poachers or some other outlaws.” She hung her head down, pushing her hands into the muddy earth at her knees. “It’s all my fault,” she said again.
Alwin went over to the girl and wrenched her roughly to her feet. “Slut,” he mouthed at her. “You’ll get us all in trouble with your wanton fancies. I told you to stay hidden and keep your lips sealed.”
“I couldn’t, Uncle.” She turned and pointed in the direction of the shed, from which could still be heard an agitated lowing, multiplied now by the din of all the village dogs barking in chorus. From the shed strode Gianni, a grin on his face and a sharp pointed stick in his hand.
“That boy, the Templar’s servant, he found me hiding in the cowshed. He tried to pull me out and when I wouldn’t come he poked our milch cow so hard she tried to kick herself out of her box. If I hadn’t of come out she’d of kicked me as well.” The girl’s mouth drooped in resignation. “’Sides, the boy recognised me. If not today, I’d of been found out soon enough. Someone at the castle would have remembered me talking to the squire.”
Bascot looked more closely at the girl. She seemed vaguely familiar but he could not recall where he had seen her before. As Gianni came up, the boy made a series of quick hand gestures to his master, conveying that the girl had been at Lincoln castle, then hunched his shoulders and mimed a straddle-footed walk to suggest carrying a yoke laden with a heavy burden.
The girl sighed heavily. “That’s right, sir. I help the milkmaids up at the castle to make buttermilk for the sheriff’s table.” Just for a second, pride gleamed in her eyes and her prettiness was plain. “I make good buttermilk, lord. Lady Nicolaa asks for me special to come on the two days of service our village owes each week.”
“How is it that you became acquainted with the squire?” Bascot asked her.
“He saw me, sir, coming from the dairy. He kept pesterin’ me and…”
“And you, slut, fell in with his lewdity,” Alwin shouted, giving her an open-handed slap across the back of her head. The girl began crying again, tears spilling down her face and her nose beginning to run as she squirmed away from her uncle.
“Enough,” Bascot said as Alwin moved to give his niece another blow. Tostig stepped forward and caught hold of the reeve’s upraised arm.
“I don’t think you’d be wise to do that, Alwin. Leave the girl be,” the forester said. Alwin gave Tostig a look of surprise, then glanced at Bascot and, seeing his anger, reluctantly dropped his hand.
Bascot turned his attention to the girl. “What is your name?”
“Bettina, lord,” she answered fearfully.
“You will come with me, and Father Samson, into the church and tell me what you know of this matter.” He swung towards Alwin. “You, and the rest of the villagers, will stay here. All of you have contrived to hide information about the murder of Sir William’s squire. If you do not wish to increase the sheriff’s choler when he learns of your deception, you will cease this pretense. Otherwise, the consequences will be your own fault.”
As Father Samson helped the sobbing Bettina to her feet and led her towards the church, Bascot stopped to speak quietly to Gianni. “Well done. Now, watch them. And watch Copley and Eadric, too. The agister is a sight too complacent with his power here not to have some knowledge of this matter. I would know more of him.”
Bascot followed the priest and the girl into the church and gently shut the door behind them.
“So you think it possible that Hubert may have gone out to meet the girl and been set upon by the poachers that were roaming the woods?” Nicolaa de la Haye’s mouth set in a moue as she asked the question.
Bascot nodded.
“It is possible, certainly. Whether it is probable, I am not sure.”
After the Templar had returned to the castle later that day he had gone to the castellan’s private chamber to give his report. Nicolaa had offered him a glass of wine and set out a dish of candi, boiled lumps of sugar made from sweet canes in the Holy Land and transported to England by the Templar Order. A store had been put by for the guests that would soon flood the castle but, knowing how fond Bascot was of them, Nicolaa had ordered a few sent to her room. Now, seated across from her at a broad oak table, he savoured the sweet taste of the candi, called al-Kandiq by the Arabs, as it mingled with the sharp bite of the wine. The sensation of pleasure was well worth the ache he knew would settle in his back teeth later on.
“You think, then, that the girl is not telling the truth?” Nicolaa asked.
“It is not that I am questioning. Her tale seems honest enough-up to a point. She is to be married soon, to the son of a villein from another village. She is happy with her groom-to-be and did not welcome Hubert’s advances, but he threatened to have her anyway, whether she was willing or no, and told her that it would be better for her to give him what he wanted without a struggle, rather than otherwise. Frightened of Hubert, and of her uncle, she said she would do as he wished and arranged to meet him at the ruins of the old hunting lodge late that evening. Then she went home and told Alwin’s wife, her aunt, what had happened. The aunt told Alwin and, after conferring with a couple of other villagers, it was decided that they would keep Bettina inside and close the gates to the compound early. This they claim they did, keeping the whole matter from the priest, who is elderly and always early abed. The villagers also insist that they heard nothing from the woods that night that was unusual.”
“But you think they may have decided to solve the problem another way?” Nicolaa helped herself to more wine and pushed the flagon across to Bascot.
The Templar shrugged. “It would have been a simple matter for two or three men from the village to wait for Hubert as he made his way through the woods, overpower him and string him up on the tree. They would have known that the problem he presented was not going to go away, that if Bettina did not meet him that night, he would either pressure her for another tryst, or rape her as he had threatened to do. If he had done the latter, there was nothing they could have done; he was a knight’s son, she a simple village girl, a maker of buttermilk. No one would have believed her if Hubert had denied it.”
“If the men from the village did murder Hubert, the poacher’s presence there that same night, or early morning, was a gift of God, or the Devil, for them. It would give more credence to their story, and make it believable that he had been waylaid by outlaws. Much as Gerard supposed it to be.” Nicolaa shook her head. “Is it too credible? Or just credible enough to be true?”
“I do not know, but according to one of William Camville’s pages Hubert often boasted of his prowess in bedding wenches. Perhaps the only way he could sustain such a reputation was by threatening women into compliance. If that is so, then Bettina may be telling the truth.”
He took another sip of wine. “But, if we take it that she is, then it tells us that Hubert was of a nature that was not above using menace to get whatever he desired. And it may not have been only women’s bodies that he lusted after.”
“You are suggesting that he used the threat of revealing secrets he was privy to as a means of extorting favours or possessions?”
“Yes.” Bascot nodded his head slowly. “Alain, Renault and the other squires and pages did not hide their dislike of him, but when I asked them why, they became vague, saying only it was because he was disagreeable and pompous. I came away from their company feeling there was much about Hubert de Tournay they had not told me.
“And these rumours that Hubert was intimate with a faction favouring the overthrow of King John in order to put his nephew Arthur on the throne,” he continued. “It may be possible there is more to this murder than a simple tale of unwanted lust and retribution.”
“It could be so, de Marins,” Nicolaa said, rising from her chair as she spoke. “The girl’s tale will satisfy my husband, but I am in agreement with you. It does not satisfy me.” She began to walk towards the door, saying as she did so, “I am afraid I must leave the matter for the moment. There are some guests recently arrived that I must make welcome.”
“Do you wish me to do anything more with regard to the matter, lady?” Bascot asked, getting to his feet.
Nicolaa paused, her hand on the leather pull strap that served as a handle. “Yes, but do it discreetly. If the murderer is not of the village or to be found amongst the outlaws in Sherwood, it will do no harm to let him believe we do not intend to look further afield. Confidence often brings a loose tongue; such a false supposition may prompt someone’s to wag with a freedom that has been guarded up until now.”
Bascot nodded his assent, then followed her through the door and down into the hall.
Eight
The evening meal in the castle hall that night was not an elaborate affair even though there were many guests present. Entertainments and all the special viands and dainties that had been, and were in the process of being, prepared would be kept for the king’s arrival. Bascot sat at the table reserved for the household knights, just a little below the dais, and studied the guests. Gerard’s brother William was seated on the sheriff’s right hand, with Nicolaa and de Humez on his left. De Humez’s wife, Nicolaa’s sister Petronille, had not accompanied her husband to Lincoln for the festivities, having been confined to bed with a painful ulcer on her leg. Farther down the table were de Humez’s daughter Alinor and his son’s betrothed, Alys. The boy himself, Baldwin, had retired to bed early. He was of a sickly disposition and needed constant bed rest to maintain his strength.
The high table was being waited on by William Camville’s squires, since many of those belonging to the Haye household had been sent some days before to accompany Gerard and Nicolaa’s son, Richard, on his journey to meet King John and form part of the entourage that the king would bring with him to Lincoln. Bascot noted that the two eldest of William’s squires, Alain and Renault, had been given the privilege of serving their master and the sheriff, and both young men were performing their tasks with considerable attention to detail. Alain, especially, took great care to move forward at the correct moment from his place at his lord’s elbow to remove William Camville’s empty trencher and replace it with another for the next course, while Renault, serving Gerard, ensured that the sheriff’s wine cup was constantly refilled. At the farther ends of the table the two younger squires, Rufus and Hugo, were serving the rest of the company, including the ladies. Osbert and the other pages, along with the few that still remained in the Haye household, were kept busy bringing the various dishes and flagons of wine to the board for the elder boys to serve. All of them seemed to be well trained in their duties and the meal flowed smoothly through the various dishes of spiced herring, coney pottage and roast venison. Broth containing onions, garlic and peas was ladled out with correctness, as was the final course of stewed plums, platters laid with segments of cheese and dishes of the recently gathered nuts. Once the spiced wine was served, the boys could relax a little, but not leave their post. They would stay until dismissed and only then could they go and satisfy their own hunger.
Bascot, as he ate the meal Gianni served him, took the opportunity to study the young people at the table above him. Hubert, had he been alive, would have been up there tonight, taking his place alongside the others of William Camville’s retinue. Was he missed, or did his absence bring relief to the young men who had been so outspoken of their dislike of him? Did the other squires and pages, as Bascot had felt, know more of his death than they had told, or was it merely his own fancy that they were keeping something back? Perhaps he and Nicolaa were wrong; perhaps the boy had been led to his death by his inclination for lechery alone and not for any other reason. He returned his attention to his trencher, trying to quell th
e anger that rose whenever he thought of the outrage of secret murder. To take another’s life by stealth was an abomination, an affront to heaven. Death, when it came, should come cleanly, at the behest of God, not man. With a sudden surge of distaste, he motioned for Gianni to remove his platter and refill his wine cup.
In a fine stone house fronting on Mikelgate, Melisande Fleming sat in front of a fire, sipping from a chased silver goblet. She was a woman of middle years, well fleshed, with heavy dark brows and an inordinate pride in the beauty of her hands, which she kept white and supple by the application of an unguent obtained from a local apothecary. Now, she moved these expressively as she spoke to the man seated on a stool opposite her.
“You are sure, Copley, that the Templar will look no further into the death of the squire?”
Copley, the agister, shook his head with certainty. “No, he will not, cousin. He seemed satisfied with the tale of the village girl. Whether he believes Alwin killed the boy himself, or locked the gates and let outlaws take the lad’s life, I do not know, but I am sure that he thinks it to be one or the other.”
Melisande nodded in satisfaction. She had been in some disquiet about the matter for she held the post of chief forester over the royal chase that lay to the west of Lincoln, and within which the private chase of Gerard Camville was enclosed. She had purchased the appointment after the death of her husband two years before. It was a lucrative office, one that her husband, a goldsmith, had retained for some years, and she was loath to put the security of it in jeopardy. It was not unusual for a woman to hold the position, but she had needed to employ a deputy for the actual work and Copley, a distant relative by marriage on her mother’s side, was the one she had chosen. He was a pliable man, fearful of losing her favour-and the generous supply of wine she granted him as part of his remuneration-and was ever amenable to do her bidding, especially in the matter of extracting extra fees from the hamlets in her jurisdiction. She did not want the sheriff’s attention drawn to affairs that were within her writ.