by Maureen Ash
“It is important, my lady, and cannot be delayed.”
Nicolaa gave her a brief nod. “Get on with it then,” she said.
Bettina raised up her courage and spoke clearly. “It is said you have taken Mistress Fleming and her agister in charge for murdering Sir William’s squire, but it is not so, my lady. They did not do it.”
A stirring of voices rumbled through the crowd, ending in a sigh as they all fell silent to hear what came next.
“How do you know this, Bettina?” Nicolaa asked.
“Because all of us in the village know who it was that murdered the squire, and it was not the goldsmith’s widow or her deputy.”
Bettina’s voice had begun to weaken, but it grew stronger as she caught Lady Nicolaa’s glance. Awareness that the castellan knew what she had been primed to say gave her the temerity to continue. “The man who committed the murder told us to stay within the compound and not go out into the forest while he dealt with the squire. And he told the Chards to do the same.”
“Why did John Chard, and you, not give this evidence when asked by my husband and Sir Bascot?” Lady Nicolaa asked, her voice stern.
“We were frightened, my lady. We had been ordered not to speak of what we knew. Then, when the charcoal burner and his family were killed, all of us in the village thought it right to be fearful, and so we did not speak for dread of our own deaths.”
Nicolaa leaned down in the saddle, but her voice still carried out over the crowd. “Then why have you come forward now?”
“Because our priest, Father Samson, found out our secret and said that if we did not tell of it, we would be committing a sin, a grievous sin, by letting innocent people be charged with a crime they did not commit.”
Nicolaa looked out over the crowd. They stood with bated breath, avid for more revelations concerning the murder of Hubert de Tournay. At the back of the group of prisoners behind her she could hear a stir of feet as Ernulf positioned his men across the open gate. There was in the air a taint of apprehension, and, from Melisande Fleming, an audible gasp of hope.
Nicolaa regarded the milkmaid, admiring the girl’s courage. Behind Bettina her kinsmen stood with uncertain looks on their faces, glancing apprehensively at the soldiers around them, but they kept resolutely to their places.
Finally Nicolaa spoke. “Then, Bettina, you had best tell me who it was that murdered Hubert de Tournay.”
Bettina swept her gaze slowly over all the company assembled there, taking her time, as she had been told to do, so that there should be no mistake as to the identity of the man she pointed out. Passing over the barons and squires gathered on the edge of the crowd she finally turned toward the line of men behind Nicolaa and Richard. Holding up her hand, she raised a forefinger and pointed it in steady accusation. “It was him. Sir Gerard’s forester, Tostig.”
As she called out his name, Tostig kicked his heels viciously into the sides of his mount so that it bolted and shot free of the press of prisoners and men-at-arms that surrounded him. With a curse, the forester drew the wicked blade of his hunting knife from his belt, and swerved the horse straight at Bascot.
The animal, wild-eyed and snorting, thundered across the bail. Bascot was well aware that the only chance a man on foot had to escape the flying hooves of an adversary’s mount was to wait until the last possible moment before stepping aside. If he could do that, others would bring the woodsman down. Murmuring a prayer, Bascot kept still, bracing himself to wait, focussing the vision in his sighted eye so completely on the hurtling animal that the people, the bailey, and even the sky, faded from his perception.
Just as it seemed that he could allow the iron-shod hooves to come no closer, a darkness, like a sudden cloud, flew between Bascot and the horse. Renault, who had been standing within the fringe of people closest to Bascot, had swirled the loosely draped cloak he had been wearing up into the air and over the horse’s head. The animal, already frightened, reared in alarm, sliding on its hind legs as it tried to stem its headlong flight. With an equine squeal, it lost balance, toppling over as Tostig frantically pulled on the reins in a futile attempt to control his mount. With a crash, and a pitiful whinny from the horse, it fell, pinning Tostig underneath.
For one brief moment there was silence, then Renault leaped forward and snatched up the knife that had fallen from Tostig’s hand. Breathing heavily, the horse shook its head free of the cloth that had blinded it and struggled to its feet. With quivering legs, it stood for a space before trotting away, head tossing and tail swishing.
Tostig lay still on the ground, his legs bent at an unnatural angle. His eyes, like the horse’s, were rolling, and sweat beaded his brow as he tried to lift himself, then fell back. A slow trickle of blood began to form at the corner of his mouth. The crowd in the bailey started to surge forward, but a voice that carried with a loud resonance gave a sharp command for them to keep back. Through the press Gerard Camville stepped and made his way to where the stricken forester lay.
Before he could reach Tostig, another figure streaked through the shocked throng. It was Joanna. She ran to Tostig and knelt by his side, tears streaming down her cheeks. Bascot moved to stand at Tostig’s feet. It was plain the forester was mortally hurt. There would be no recovery from such an injury.
Tostig had closed his eyes, but he opened them as he heard Joanna call his name. His gaze fell on Bascot. “Damn your heart, Templar. If it had not been for you, I would not have been found out.”
Joanna shook her head and, with one long slim hand, she smoothed the hair back from the forester’s brow. “No, my love,” she said quietly. “It is not the Templar you should damn, but my mother. May she be consigned to hell for this day’s work.”
The girl looked up to where Melisande still sat captive on her horse, frozen into place as she watched her daughter cry over the woodsman.
“It was you, Mother, who caused all this. You, and your love of gold and position.” Joanna threw back her head and laughed, a bitter sound that died in her throat and became a sob. “It would not have been seemly, would it Mother, for your daughter to marry a common woodsman? You wanted a rich merchant, at the very least. And all the while you were more base than the lowest serf, stealing the very revenues that the king pays you to protect. Well, Mother, now you shall have a just reward for your treachery, and so shall I. But I, at least, shall feel that my pain was worth it. Will yours be?”
The sheriff had reached Tostig as Joanna was speaking and, calling for a measure of wine, he knelt beside the dying man and held the cup to his lips. Tostig tried to drink, but it ran out of the corner of his mouth, mixing with the blood that had begun to flow in a heavy stream. He coughed, and looked up at Gerard. “I am sorry, my lord, for failing you.”
“You did not fail me, Tostig,” Gerard Camville said gently, and Bascot was surprised to hear the compassion in his tone. “You have served me well and faithfully all these years. I will not forget that.”
“Thank you, my lord.” The words came with effort from Tostig’s lips as, with a shudder and a great outpouring of blood from his mouth, he died.
Twenty-nine
Bascot felt the tiredness in his bones as he made his way up the stairs to Nicolaa’s chamber. It had been a long day, and an even longer evening. It was an hour past Compline and he had yet to give his report to the castellan. After sending Gianni to bed in the barracks, he and Ernulf had taken Joanna to a room off the armoury and questioned her. Anger had pushed through her tears as she had told them all of the tale, of her mother’s cupidity and intransigence, of Hubert’s demands and, finally, of her love for Tostig.
“We knew it was only a matter of time before my mother found out about us, Tostig and me,” she had said, her mouth quivering as she fought the urge to sob, “but we had thought to force her acceptance of our union. Tostig knew of her theft of the king’s revenues and of Copley’s traffic with the outlaws. He was going to threaten to reveal it to Sir Gerard unless she gave us her blessing.”
“And Hubert found out about you and Tostig before you could carry out your plan?” Bascot had prompted.
“That maggot!” Joanna’s vehemence was plain. “We made certain he would regain his senses before we hanged him,” she said with bitter satisfaction, “and know the fate that awaited him. I watched Tostig kill him with pleasure.”
“And the charcoal burner and his family, did you watch their deaths with pleasure, too?” Bascot could not hide his anger.
Joanna’s shoulders slumped. “No,” she whispered. “Neither Tostig nor I had any joy in that.” She had lifted her head defiantly. “But that was your fault, Templar. If you had left well enough alone and not gone chasing into the forest with your questions…”
These last words kept ringing in Bascot’s mind as he reached the top of the stairs and tapped lightly on the door of Nicolaa’s chamber. When he went in he found the castellan seated, as usual, at her desk, and Gerard’s brother, William, standing by the fireplace with a cup of wine. Two torches flared in wall sconces, giving the room a bright illumination.
“My husband has gone to keep vigil at Tostig’s bier,” Nicolaa said by way of explaining the sheriff’s absence. Bascot nodded. He was not surprised. The evidence that Gerard Camville felt genuine grief for the death of his servant had been plain when he had overridden the castle priest’s protests and ordered that the body of the dead forester be placed in the castle chapel to await burial. “He may be a murderer,” he had said to the shocked cleric, “but he was my loyal servant. If I show God how much I valued him in life then perhaps our Good Lord will be compassionate when Tostig stands before him at death. Now, get out of my way, priest.”
William offered Bascot the wine jug as Nicolaa invited him to be seated. “I gave orders for Melisande and Copley to be detained at her home under guard until I should know the king’s pleasure in the matter,” she said. “You have left Joanna under lock and key?”
Bascot nodded. “Ernulf has her secured.”
Nicolaa stood up from her seat but motioned for Bascot to keep to his when he would have risen. “I need to move,” she said with a small smile. “My limbs are so weary that if I do not stir them, my feet will take root in the floorboards.”
She took a few steps to the end of the room, then paced back. “What did the girl Joanna tell you, de Marins? Did she confirm the dairymaid’s tale?”
“For the most part. Hubert did proposition Bettina and threaten her with ravishment if she did not comply…”
“So the little maker of buttermilk was telling the truth?” William said.
“Yes, she was,” Bascot replied, “except she, and the other villagers, omitted to tell us that it was two nights before Hubert was killed that he first demanded she meet him.”
At William’s look of confusion, Nicolaa interrupted. “I have not told William all of the tangle, de Marins. I thought it best to wait until it was confirmed by Tostig’s paramour. He does not yet know how all of this began.”
Bascot took a sip of his wine and spoke directly to the sheriff’s brother. “According to Joanna, she and the forester took advantage of any occasion that Melisande was absent from her home or early abed to spend the night together in the hunting lodge. On the night that Hubert waited in vain for the dairymaid, he saw them together in the forest. The next day he got Bettina alone in one of the castle cowsheds and berated her for not coming to meet him, demanding that she turn up the next night or he would take her then and there on the bare boards of the floor. Frightened, she promised she would do as he asked. Then Hubert asked her the identity of the girl he had seen with Tostig the night before and Bettina told him she was the daughter of a wealthy widow in Lincoln. Hubert laughed and said she was a toothsome piece and he had a fancy to have a turn with her himself. He told Bettina to tell Tostig of his desire and, if the forester proved unwilling to share his bawd, then he, Hubert, would apprise the sheriff of the use to which his servant was putting the hunting lodge.”
Bascot shrugged. “Whether the squire was serious about carrying out his threat we will never know, but both Bettina and Tostig had no cause to doubt it, if only because Hubert had shown himself relentless in his pursuit of the dairymaid.”
“I knew he was a singularly unpleasant boy, but I never suspected he was capable of such villainy,” William said.
Bascot nodded. “He was sly enough not to reveal his true nature to his elders, but your other squires and pages knew of it and had good reason to hate him. He seems to have been a boy who had never learned to keep his appetites under control. And he had become so accustomed to exploiting any weakness he found in others, or in gaining an advantage by threatening to reveal a secret they nurtured, that he had come to believe that he would never come to any harm by doing so. And that is why he failed to recognize the danger of trying to use Tostig in such a manner.”
“What happened when Bettina gave the forester Hubert’s message?” William asked. “Did Tostig and the dairymaid devise the plan to kill him?”
The Templar shook his head. “No. When Bettina told the forester of her conversation with the squire, Tostig was understandably furious. He told Bettina that she was, on the following night, to do as she had done before, stay in the village and tell her uncle to again close the gates and guard them against intrusion. If asked, they were to deny any knowledge of the matter. And they did as they were told. But they did not realise that Tostig was going to kill Hubert; they thought he meant only to give him a beating or perhaps threaten to expose the squire to his lord. When they learned what the forester had done, they feared to be punished for their own involvement.
“Joanna told me that she waited with Tostig for Hubert to arrive at the old hunting lodge where he expected to find a thoroughly cowed Bettina. The squire knew the area well, apparently, from previous visits to Lincoln and accompanying you, Sir William, on numerous hunts. It is possible he may have used the old lodge for dalliance before. When Hubert arrived, he found Joanna in the dairymaid’s stead. While she pretended acquiescence to his lust, Tostig came up behind and rendered him speechless-and senseless-by half-strangling him with a thin cord.”
Bascot took a swallow of wine before he continued. “Although it was their intent to kill him, they did not want to leave his body there; it was too close to the new hunting lodge where Tostig had his bed and belongings. So they trussed Hubert’s hands and took him away from the area, to the oak where they hanged him, because it grew by one of the main tracks through the forest. Tostig wanted it to appear that the murder had been carried out by someone from the town, not anyone associated with the forest and its inhabitants. It was common knowledge among the castle servants that Hubert was held in extreme dislike by his peers, and even with hatred by some of them. Tostig wanted the hunt for the murderer to be behind the city walls, not in the woodland where he lived and worked.”
“That was why the boy’s body was left clothed, and his dagger in his belt,” Nicolaa interjected. “To make it appear that Hubert had been killed over some private quarrel with a person of his acquaintance, and not for profit by someone in the forest.”
“In retrospect,” Bascot added, “it was a simple plan and should have worked. But things began to go wrong for Tostig almost from the start.”
“The poachers, you mean?” said William.
“That was the first problem to plague him, yes, but it was not an insurmountable one,” said Bascot. “When he came to ‘discover’ the body the following morning and found the slaughtered deer, Joanna said he considered cutting Hubert down and stripping him to make it look as though the poachers had killed the squire, but he feared that to do so would bring the very thing
he didn’t want, an active search throughout the woodland, so the forester left the squire’s body as it was in the hope that his original plan would still work. And it might have, for it seemed unlikely that outlaws would have left such valuables as his clothes and dagger behind if they had killed the boy. But it was after he had dealt with the matter of the poachers that a much greater difficulty arose.”
“Something to do with Bettina, I presume?” William said.
“Yes. Tostig had neglected to tell the villagers-including Bettina-that he had moved the boy and hanged him near the track, not at the old hunting lodge. And when you and your brother went to question the villagers about Hubert’s death, you did not mention where it was that he had been found, did you?”
William thought for a moment. “No, we did not.”
“So, when I went to the village the following morning they believed that the boy had been hanged at the place where he had ordered the dairymaid to meet him. When Gianni found Bettina hiding-and she had concealed herself for fear of being recognised and perhaps remembered as seen in conversation with Hubert-she blurted out the tale that she told to protect herself and the villagers. But it led me to search where Tostig did not want me to go-the grounds of the old hunting lodge.”
“So it was he that fired the arrow at you on the day of the hunt?”
“It was. He had heard Alain and Renault speak of seeing me ahead of them that morning and he tracked me. When he saw me kneel to look at the marks Hubert’s boots had made on the ground he was worried about what implications I might draw from them, and so he fired the shaft. He didn’t mean to miss. If I had been killed it would have been assumed that a stray arrow meant for the deer had caused it. I was too close to where he had apprehended the boy, you see. And I kept on asking questions. He was worried that, in the end, I might get answers.”
“And the charcoal burner and his family-what part did they play in all of this?”