A Holy Vengeance Read online

  Templar Knight Mysteries

  The Alehouse Murders

  Death of a Squire

  A Plague of Poison

  Murder for Christ’s Mass

  Shroud of Dishonour

  A Deadly Penance

  The Canterbury Murders

  A Holy Vengeance

  A Holy Vengeance

  A Templar Knight Mystery

  Maureen Ash

  InterMix Books, New York

  AN IMPRINT OF PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE LLC

  375 HUDSON STREET, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10014

  A HOLY VENGEANCE

  An InterMix Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © 2015 by Maureen Ash.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  INTERMIX and the “IM” design are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  For more information about the Penguin Group, visit penguin.com.

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-698-40526-4

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  InterMix eBook edition / September 2015

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Penguin Random House is committed to publishing works of quality and integrity.

  In that spirit, we are proud to offer this book to our readers; however, the story, the experiences, and the words are the author’s alone.

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  Contents

  Templar Knight Mysteries

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Cast of Characters

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Cast of Characters

  Principal Characters

  Bascot de Marins—A Templar knight

  Gianni—A mute Italian boy, former servant to Bascot, now a clerk in castle scriptorium

  Nicolaa de la Haye—Hereditary castellan of Lincoln castle

  In the Castle

  Roget—Captain of the town guard

  Ernulf—Serjeant of Lincoln garrison

  Clare—Sempstress

  Eudo—Steward

  John Blund—Secretarius

  Preceptory

  Everard d’Arderon—Preceptor

  Feradac MacHeth—Deputy preceptor

  Wilikin—Scullion

  Clerics

  William of Blois—Bishop of Lincoln

  Roger de Rolleston—Dean

  Burton Village

  Rudd—Reeve

  Greetwell Village

  Gwen Hurdler—Villager

  Thomas Hurdler—Gwen’s husband

  Letty—Young girl

  Newark

  Goddard—Serjeant of Newark castle

  Mistress Sloper—Widow

  Others

  Robert Ferroner—Armourer

  Emma Ferroner—Robert’s daughter

  Wiger—Emma’s husband

  Constance Turner—Perfumer

  Agnes—Constance’s maidservant

  Noll—Master armourer, employee of Robert Ferroner

  Thea—Robert Ferroner’s housekeeper

  Lorinda—Robert Ferroner’s paramour

  Granny Willow—Lorinda’s grandmother

  Dern—Alekeeper

  Aliz—Prostitute

  John Glover—Soap manufacturer

  Mabel Glover—John’s wife

  Nan—John’s mother

  Ivo and Cerlo—Town guards

  Master Drogue—Apothecary

  Selso—Alekeeper

  Prologue

  Lincoln Town—Late Summer 1179

  “I am come, Robert Ferroner, to hold you accountable before witnesses. You gave me a pledge of marriage and it is past time for you to honour it. When will you do so?” The young woman spat out the accusation, dark eyes ablaze and arms akimbo.

  Her scathing words shattered the lazy hum of conversation among those gathered at the small marketplace alongside the riverbank, and everyone turned to stare. There were bargemen and sailors come ashore for a cup of ale, workmen from nearby manufactories, and a small knot of gossiping goodwives. They had all been enjoying the late afternoon sunshine and relaxing from their day’s labours when she had suddenly appeared in their midst and flung out her challenge. With mouths agape, they swung their heads in the direction of the young man to whom she was speaking.

  He had been standing at leisure, munching on an apple and chatting to a fruit-seller, but at the sound of his name, he turned swiftly. About twenty years of age, tall and burly, he had massive shoulders and a leonine head of straw-coloured hair. The son of a prominent armourer who had premises farther along the riverside, he had already, despite his young age, earned a dissolute reputation because of his predilection for ale and loose women. Usually bluff and genial to all, he stood his ground and gave the young woman a defiant answer as a frown appeared on his brow.

  “I did not promise to wed you, Lorinda, and never will do. Why would I marry such as you? You are little better than a harlot.”

  The crowd was agog, attention avid as they listened to every word of the exchange.

  Lorinda advanced a few paces towards her erstwhile lover, head thrown back on her graceful neck so that her long dark hair flew in a mass of curls about her shoulders. No head covering such as decent women wear contained her beautiful tresses, and her gown was cut too low for modesty. She was very handsome, and many a man in the crowd licked his lips at the sight of her. Even in a fury, she was extremely desirable.

  “You shall rue the day you refused me,” she replied in words of menace, her upper lip curled with contempt. “And even more so, you shall regret your foul slander of my virtue. I hereby curse you, Robert Ferroner, to be thrice damned—in the woman you marry, the children she bears you, and in your fortune. And when you are living in a hell here on earth, you will remember me, and that it was Lorinda who put you there.”

  With these las
t words, she turned and stalked off, black hair flying and the skirt of her scarlet kirtle billowing around her ankles. The crowd, after a collective gasp, fell silent, and it was not until she had disappeared from view that they turned to look at the armourer’s son.

  He was standing as still as if he had been turned to stone, his countenance blanched white. Suddenly he shook his great head and, seeming to come to his senses, turned to face the crowd.

  “It would seem I have been well and truly chastised for my wanton behaviour,” he said, making a feeble attempt to inject levity into the humiliating situation. “And there will be more punishment to come when my father hears of it.”

  A few of the men in the crowd gave a weak smile at his words; John Ferroner’s disapproval of his son’s wild ways was well-known, but the group of goodwives shook their heads reprovingly. They all, to a woman, were heartily censorious of his lewdness, and it would take more than a display of feigned remorse to change their opinion.

  “’Twould serve you right, young Ferroner, if your father took a rod to your back,” one old beldame declared, withered lips pursed in disapproval. Her female companions nodded in agreement.

  “Since it was his own rod that got him into trouble in the first place,” one of the bargemen called out waggishly, “it might be wiser if his sire instead forged a shackle to contain it.”

  The bawdy comment broke the tension, and even the women smiled at the jest. Responding with a look of mock horror, Robert said he had best get home before such a notion occurred to his father, and with a cheeky bow in the direction of the gaggle of women, he turned and walked away.

  As he made his way along the path to the armoury, Robert was not quite as sanguine as he had striven to appear. It did not take much reckoning to know what had caused Lorinda’s outburst, for it could only be that she had heard he had recently become enamoured of Edith, the daughter of a cloth merchant in the town, a lovely young woman he had asked to be his wife a few days ago. While it was true he had tumbled Lorinda a few times out in the greenwood during the summer, it had only been in a casual fashion. He had spent the earlier part of most of the evenings he had lain with her in an alehouse and had consequently been ale-shotten when they coupled. While he may have uttered a few words of endearment during their lovemaking, he was quite certain that, even with his wits mazed by ale, he had never made a promise to wed her. Why would he? She had not been a maid when he first lay with her, and even if he had cared for her, which he didn’t, he would never have contemplated taking other men’s leavings for a wife. If she had mistakenly interpreted his passionate murmurings as such, that was her fault.

  But rightly or wrongly, he now feared that Lorinda’s allegation would ruin his bid for Edith’s hand. His beloved was a girl of chaste virtue and had already gently scolded him for his libertine ways. He had promised her that he would lead a life of sober respectability if she consented to marry him, and that was a pledge he intended to keep. But when the gossip about himself and Lorinda reached her—as it was sure to do—would she still look with favour on his suit? How could he convince her that his last romp with Lorinda had been almost a month ago, long before he had asked for Edith’s hand, and that he had not dallied with her since, much less spoken of marriage to her?

  And quite apart from concerns about Edith’s reception of the disastrous incident, he had to admit that Lorinda’s curse had shaken him, for she was the granddaughter of a witch, a woman who had congress with the Devil. If Lorinda was as skilled in the dark arts as her grandam, might not the curse prove true? A shudder passed through his large frame at the thought of such a terrifying prospect. Crossing himself, he fervently murmured a plea for Christ’s protection, then repeated to himself the words from the psalm that was a favourite among those who crafted armour—“The Lord is my strength and my shield”—until he was fortified. By the time he reached his father’s workshop, he had resigned himself to acceptance of the heavy penance his father would most surely mete out when he learned of his errant son’s latest misbehaviour.

  * * *

  Later that day, Lorinda was sitting on a stool in her grandmother’s small cot in the greenwood south of Lincoln, her temper still boiling. She had told her grandmother, Granny Willow, what had passed in the marketplace and how she had laid a curse on Robert Ferroner. Granny, a small, sturdy woman with a gentle and surprisingly unlined face for her age, had been sorting some herbs she had picked that morning when her granddaughter had stormed in and, after laying the small wicker basket of plants aside, had listened in silence to Lorinda’s tirade, and was shocked by it. She had raised her granddaughter almost from birth, ever since the day when the girl’s mother—Granny’s only child—and her husband had been crushed to death when the wain in which they had been riding was overturned by a fractious bullock. Lorinda had not been an easy child to care for and reminded Granny of her own mother, after whom Lorinda had been named. Wilful, high tempered and selfish, with a good measure of lasciviousness thrown in. This latest turmoil in her granddaughter’s life was but one more incident in a succession of tempestuous love affairs that had been going on since she reached puberty. The only difference with Ferroner was that, unlike all of Lorinda’s previous lovers, it had been he who ended their liaison instead of her. Because of this, Granny now wondered if her granddaughter truly cared for the armourer’s son or if her fury had been aroused solely by injured pride. At the moment, however, Granny was more concerned about Lorinda’s soul than the reason for her indignation.

  “If Ferroner is foolish enough to prefer that whey-faced draper’s daughter to me,” Lorinda continued heatedly, “then he shall pay for it, and count the cost dearly. I shall never forgive him for his betrayal, never.”

  “Be careful you are not the one who is punished, Lorinda,” Granny warned. “Ill-wishing someone, deserved or not, is an invitation to the Devil to come into your heart, and may rebound on you instead. You must not think any more of reprisal, but instead of your own welfare and that of the child you are carrying.”

  Although Lorinda had told Robert Ferroner that Granny Willow was a witch, she had done so only in order to create, in his eyes, a reflected aura of mystery about her own self. Her grandam was not, in fact, a witch, but a simple cunning woman, called so because of her extraordinary talent for preparing medicaments from herbs and other plants, especially a decoction made from white willow bark which she administered to those suffering from a fever or joint pain. It was due to its marvellous efficiency that she had come to be called by the name of the tree from which it was made. Far from dealing in the dark arts or having traffic with the Evil One, she was a devout Christian, honoured and respected by all of the villagers from the nearby hamlet of Coleby. Her admonition to Lorinda was heartfelt. At her advanced age, Granny had seen many a person’s life ruined from failure to resist the Devil’s tempting. Satan was wily, taking any opportunity to steal a soul from Christ, and she now feared her granddaughter had fallen into his evil trap.

  But Lorinda paid her grandam’s admonition no heed. “If the Devil tempted me, Granny, it was worth it.” She gave a mirthless laugh as she recalled her triumph, fully realising that Ferroner believed her grandam might have taught Lorinda her supposed evil powers and, if so, that her malediction would come to pass. “You should have seen his face when I laid the curse on him,” she added. “He was terrified. And so he should be, for I promise you the day will come when he will sorely repent his rejection of me.”

  Granny, realising any further caution would be futile, said no more and listened with a heavy heart as her granddaughter rose from her seat and announced her intention to leave their home and seek her fortune elsewhere. Lorinda had yet to learn that heaven, as well as hell, could extract retribution and that, of the two, a holy vengeance was far more terrible.

  Chapter 1

  Twenty-five Years Later—Summer 1204

  As the cathedral bells tolled the hour of Prime, the first religi
ous service of the day, the guards on Newport Arch, the northern exit from Lincoln town, swung open the heavy oaken gates to admit traffic. There was already a throng of people waiting to leave, anxious to start their journey before the sun got too hot to make travelling comfortable. In front of them stretched the continuation of Ermine Street, the great thoroughfare that started in London and went all the way through Lincoln and on to York. The crowd was motley—pedlars and tinkers, merchants and labourers, messengers and beggars, all setting out northwards to their various destinations, and already other travellers could be seen coming southwards, carts laden with early fruit and vegetables to take into the town and sell in markets, bent on an early arrival. Forest lined either side of the road, mainly of oak, but with a few birch and hawthorn trees, all proudly wearing new foliage.

  In the midst of those leaving the town were two young women. One of them was Emma Ferroner, daughter of Robert and his lovely Edith, and born a year after their wedding. Tragedy came to the devoted couple soon after this happy event, for a virulent fever descended on Lincoln town and struck down many of the townsfolk, including Edith and, soon afterwards, her mother as well, who contracted the sickness when she came to nurse her daughter. Emma was not aware of the curse that had been laid on her father, only that, in later years, whenever he spoke of her mother, he seemed to unreasonably blame himself for her death. He had always been overly protective of herself as well, almost as though he feared that she, too, would come to harm if he didn’t constantly watch over her. It had been with the greatest difficulty that she had persuaded him to let her come to the shrine with only a female friend for company, claiming it would be better if he, or her husband, accompanied her. His attitude had always puzzled her, but eventually she had assigned it to the fact that he was merely an excessively doting parent. With the passage of years, the incident that had taken place between her father and Lorinda had faded from people’s memories, and among those old enough to recall it, none were so unkind as to relate it to his daughter.

  Emma was now a young matron, married to Wiger, one of the apprentices in her father’s armoury, the ownership of which had, in due course, passed down to Robert after the death of his sire. She had not, unfortunately, inherited her mother’s beauty, except for a pair of lustrous green eyes, the colour of a newly budded leaf in spring. She was plain-featured, tall and a bit ungainly, with an angular frame that was sparsely fleshed, and, unfortunately, had unsightly pockmarks on her face, scars left by a near-fatal contraction of pox she had suffered during her childhood. But she was very much in love with her new husband, and the only blight upon her life was her inability to conceive a child.