Shroud of Dishonour tk-5 Page 10

  “Camville must be told of this news immediately,” d’Arderon said, “especially as you will need his writ to question any of Scallion’s relatives in Grimsby, de Marins. Since it is common knowledge in Acre, there is no need for the matter to be kept private within the Order.”

  “I will go to the castle straightaway, Preceptor,” Bascot replied, rising from his seat. As he did so, Emilius asked the preceptor if he would now allow the contingent waiting in the enclave to depart. D’Arderon shook his head. “We do not yet have any surety that Scallion’s death is the cause of these crimes. Until we do, the men stay here.”

  Bascot and Roget started out very early the next morning to ride to Grimsby, Camville’s writ safely stowed in the captain’s tunic. The port was nearly forty miles northeast of Lincoln and, if they kept their horses to a steady pace, they would reach it by mid-afternoon. Both men were riding mounts primarily used by messengers-Bascot’s from the preceptory stable and Roget’s from the castle-and capable of covering long distances at a steady speed.

  The two men spoke little on the journey, stopping only to rest their horses occasionally and take a pull from the wine flask Roget had slung on his saddle along with a bite of the bread and cheese Bascot had brought from the preceptory kitchen. As they approached the port of Grimsby, situated on a narrow river called the Haven which emptied into the Humber estuary, the ground turned marshy. Grimsby had once been a small village but because of its sheltered position on the small tributary of the Haven-and hence the name of the little river-was fast becoming a thriving little town. Providing a safe harbour from the storms that often ravaged the North Sea, the port was used as a refuge for oceangoing vessels. That advantage, along with the copious quantities of fish its inhabitants were able to catch in their small boats, had swelled its importance to the realm and King John had granted the town a charter in 1201, allowing its inhabitants to enjoy certain privileges that were denied to hamlets less fortunately situated.

  As they rode the last few miles, the salty smell of the sea filled the air. There were no walls encircling the port for the wide expanse of marshy ground surrounding the town provided ample defence against any attack by an enemy force. The rippling ground of the flatland was covered in clumps of couch and marram grass on either side of the road, interspersed here and there with wildflowers, the most predominant of which was yellow-wort, the flowers of which were used to make dye. The air was filled with the noise of the birds that proliferated in the marshland, mainly ringed plover and curlews, and they passed several small groups of men and boys reaping a harvest from snares that had been set to trap the fowl. Above them, the strident calls of terns wheeling in the clear blue sky added to the cacophony.

  Soon, the port lay ahead of them and, beyond the rooftops of the houses gathered along the few streets of the town, the masts of several ships riding at anchor in the swelling tide could be seen. When they reached a small stone shed set alongside the approach to the main street, they asked the guard inside for directions to the house of the town bailiff, Peter Thorson. The bailiff was known to Gerard Camville and the sheriff had told them to ask for his assistance.

  The guard nodded and pointed towards the harbour. “Thorson’s house is the one that overlooks the port,” he said. “Two stories high and has three scallop shells on the door.”

  The two men rode down the main street. The town was small, not much more than a village, but seemed orderly. As they dismounted in front of the house that had been described to them, the smell of the ocean and its overlying odour of fish was strong.

  Roget wrinkled his nose. “Faugh, what a stench. I hope our journey here has not been wasted, mon ami. I have never liked being near the sea, it reminds me of too many battles fought on shipboard along the coast of Outremer when I was in the army that followed King Richard on Crusade. I cannot swim and think the only reason I survived was because I was more fearful of drowning than being skewered by an enemy sword.”

  Bascot laughed. “I doubt there will be any need for you to board a ship here, Roget. If there are any suspects to be had in Grimsby, it is most likely they will be found on dry land.”

  “And for that, mon ami, I will be truly thankful.”

  As the templar and Roget were commencing their enquiries in Grimsby, Gianni was sitting at one of the lecterns in the scriptorium of Lincoln castle. His attention to his work was distracted as he tried to capture the fleeting thought that had so elusively slipped from his grasp the day before while he had been listening to the conversation between Ernulf and Roget. The exercise had cost him a sleepless night on his pallet in the barracks and, as he copied out various records of tenant fees paid into the Haye coffers, continued to elude him.

  The bulk of his work entailed making copies for the archives of the many documents that passed through the hands of John Blund and Lambert. It was tedious work but Gianni enjoyed it. Not only were his writing skills improving with the exercise, but his Latin vocabulary was being greatly enhanced by the formal wording of many of the official papers. He was, as well, gaining a good knowledge of the vast properties that comprised the demesne Nicolaa de la Haye had inherited from her father. Pursuant to Lady Nicolaa’s instructions, a duplicate was made of every record and stored in a chamber in another part of the keep. John Blund had explained to him that the reason for doing so was because, in the castellan’s younger years, a carelessly tended candle had caused a small fire in the scriptorium and resulted in the loss of quite a few important documents. Thereafter, Nicolaa’s father, Richard de la Haye, had instructed that a copy be made of every record and retained elsewhere. His daughter now followed the practise he had inaugurated.

  As Gianni pulled forward another sheet of paper, a deed of transfer, onto the shelf of the lectern and placed a piece of second-grade vellum in front of him, he suddenly remembered what it was that he had been trying to remember. A few weeks before, he had been copying another such deed, a record of a Haye tenant requesting Lady Nicolaa’s permission to change the name of the heir from an older son to a younger. The bequest entailed a property of a few arpents located not too many miles distant from the bulk of the estate. The reason for the alteration had been that the older son had now decided to “dedicate the rest of his mortal life to the service of Christ” and had entered holy orders. It had not been the contents of the document that had lodged in Gianni’s mind-there were many such requests made to Lady Nicolaa who, because she held her lands directly from the king, was required to approve any changes in tenancy-but because there had been two different spellings of the older son’s name and it had prompted Gianni to enquire of Lambert if he should make them conform and, if so, which spelling he should use.

  Lambert had authorised the amendment, instructing him which form of the name was correct and then gone on to add a comment about the individual concerned in the document. “I do not expect the Roulan family will be sorry to see this son gone from their family home,” he had said. “Lady Nicolaa’s bailiff at Brattleby told me that he has a penchant for consorting with immoral women and that, before his father died, this inclination caused his sire much grief.”

  Lambert had tapped his ink-stained fingers on the document, his prominent jaw thrust out in disapproval as he said, “While the property was under this son’s care, he lived there alone with some servants, supposedly preparing himself for the day when he would inherit it, but the bailiff told me there were rumours that prostitutes were often seen on the premises, sometimes staying for as long as two or three days at a time.” The clerk had sniffed. “I would like to think that his sudden desire to join a monastery is due to repentance for his sinful ways, but I think it is most probably because his father threatened to cast him out of the family home if he did not make reparation for his sins. So the Brattleby bailiff gave me to understand, anyway.”

  The reason the connection of Lambert’s comments and Roget’s recounting had occurred to him, Gianni realised, was because of the mention of monks and prostitutes. The document did
not state which order the errant son had joined, but it could just as easily have been the Templars as the Benedictines or Cistercians. Could there be a link between this man and the murder of the two harlots? From helping his former master with previous murder investigations, Gianni was well aware that while there could be many reasons for a person to commit murder, one of the more common compulsions was lust. A lover threatened, or scorned, or a woman left to face the birth of an illegitimate child, could foster a terrible need for revenge on the person responsible. Had this Jacques Roulan, the son who had so disappointed his father, committed such a sin and fled to the seclusion of a religious order to escape the consequences? Could the hatred of the person he had wronged become so all consuming that they were now wreaking vengeance on the Order he had joined and the fallen women he had fraternised with? There was only the slimmest chance that such speculations would prove true, but the boy remembered how often, in the past, it had been some seemingly innocuous scrap of information that had proved vital. How he wished the Templar was still in the castle and he could convey his suspicions to his former master. But that was not possible. The Templar was in the preceptory and youngsters, even male ones, were not allowed inside its walls.

  Since Gianni had been in the scriptorium the previous day when the Templar had come to the castle to tell Gerard Camville of the information sent by Amery St. Maur, the boy did not know that there was now hope of one or more possible suspects for the crime to be found in Grimsby, and his desire to help his former master remained with him for the rest of the day like an itch he could not scratch. Finally, deciding that his conclusions must be brought to the Templar’s attention in some way, he decided to write out the details of the document where Jacques Roulan was mentioned, along with how he thought it was possible there was a connection to the murders. He would then ask John Blund if he would give it to Lady Nicolaa with a request that, if she thought it relevant, she would see that the information was given to Bascot.

  This he did and, gesturing to Lambert his intention by means of the gestures he and the clerk used to communicate, asked his help in explaining his purpose to Blund. When Gianni’s information and conclusions were given to the secretary, he gave it his careful consideration for a few long and silent moments.

  Finally, he nodded his head in assent. “I well know how much assistance you gave Sir Bascot when he delved into previous murders and so does milady. It would be remiss of me not to present your conjectures to her, even if they prove to be erroneous.” He lifted up the piece of parchment. “I shall ensure this is given to her before the end of the day.”

  While Gianni was securing Blund’s promise to intercede on his behalf with Nicolaa de la Haye, Ernulf, the serjeant of the castle garrison, was knocking on the door of the former prostitute, Terese. He had been sent by the castellan to give her the thirty silver pennies that Preceptor d’Arderon had sent to the castle the day before.

  As Ernulf had ridden down through Lincoln, he had noticed that the women of the town were fearful. All the females he saw were travelling in groups of two or three as they went about their daily shopping in the markets and stalls. Even though the murderer’s victims, thus far, had been prostitutes, there was no assurance that if the villain struck again, he would not choose a woman of good repute as a target. The serjeant damned the murderer under his breath and hoped that the Templar and Roget would have good fortune in Grimsby.

  Fourteen

  Bailiff Peter Thorson greeted Bascot and Roget warmly when a maidservant announced their presence. On being told they had come to Grimsby on behalf of the sheriff of Lincoln, he readily invited them into his home. The bailiff was a man of middle years with a stocky frame and a belly that was beginning to thicken with age. A thick shock of greying yellow hair topped a face that was weather beaten, with bushy eyebrows above a pair of piercing blue eyes.

  “You are well come,” he said genially. “Sir Gerard did our town a great favour a few years back by ridding the Lincoln road of outlaws that were plaguing some of the merchants leaving here with supplies. We are in his debt.”

  Thorson led them to the back of the house and into a room where he transacted the business of his office. A large table sat at one end with inkpot, quills and piles of parchment on it. On the wall behind it was a large chart penned with indecipherable symbols that seemed to denote the times of tides. His wand of office, a finely polished piece of ash wood topped with three small scallop shells, lay on a small table alongside a jug of wine and some cups.

  Bidding his guests be seated, Thorson called for a servant to pour them all wine and asked how he could be of assistance.

  The bailiff listened without interruption as Roget told him of the murder of the prostitutes and the fact that the Templar Order seemed to be involved in the motivation for the crimes. The captain then went on to explain that there was a possibility that the death of a man from Grimsby, Robert Scallion, might have some connection to the murders. He was about to relate the circumstances of Scallion’s death when Thorson held up his hand to forestall him.

  “I already know how Scallion died and that a Templar knight was accused of murdering him,” the bailiff said. “Scallion’s ship is in our harbour. It came into port three weeks ago; his crew sailed it back here from the Holy Land.”

  Thorson looked directly at the Templar. “And I now understand the reason for your presence here, Sir Bascot. News of the death of the first harlot in Lincoln had reached us, but only that she was slain in a church, not that it was the chapel of your preceptory. And the second killing is, of course, too recent for tidings of it to have travelled to Grimsby. I expect that because there might be a connection between these recent killings and the charge that Scallion was killed by one of your brethren, you, as well as Sheriff Camville, are searching for a likely suspect among his family and associates. Am I correct?”

  “You are, Master Thorson,” Bascot replied, relieved at the bailiff’s quick understanding of the situation. “And now that Scallion’s crew is also here, our investigation must be extended to include them.”

  Thorson nodded. “Robert had only one relative, a sister. She is married to a local fisherman, Sven Grimson, and both are well respected hereabouts. I cannot believe she, or her husband, would be involved. Or even have the inclination to wish revenge for his slaying. She would not be surprised that he met his death in the manner that he did. The only wonder is that he was not killed in some such way long before now.”

  The bailiff leaned back in his chair and explained the reason for his observation. “Robert Scallion was not a man of good repute. He seldom sailed into our port and, when he did, respectable townspeople kept clear of his company. Not only was he prone to an excessive consumption of ale-during which times he would usually start a brawl in whichever alehouse he happened to be in-there were also rumours that he practised piracy during his trips. A cordwainer who came to pick up some leather goods Scallion had brought from Spain claimed some of it was part of a shipment stolen from a boat that was carrying merchandise belonging to a trader in Boston. He said it bore the mark of a manufacturer in Rouen and had been pirated. But the cordwainer had no means of proving his claim and the charge was never substantiated. Nonetheless, the honest folk in Grimsby pride themselves on honest trading, and the cordwainer’s accusation did not sit well with them. When the king granted us a charter last year, many were reluctant to associate with a man possessing such a stained reputation. This taint, added to his uncertain temper and fondness for strong drink, made me think it unlikely he would live long enough to make old bones. And I suspect his sister felt the same.”

  “Then I am surprised that Scallion’s men brought his ship back here,” Bascot said. “They could easily have sailed the vessel to another port and sold it or, if they had truly been engaged in piracy with Scallion, used it to continue their thieving ways.”

  Thorson nodded his head. “And so they might have done, I think, were it not for the man who was Scallion’s steersman. His name
is Askil and he, like Scallion, is a Grimsby man. They grew up together and it is well-known that, at one time, Askil hoped to marry Scallion’s sister, Joan. Even though she gave him no encouragement and married another, Askil retains his regard for her. Since Joan is her brother’s only heir, I believe Askil brought the vessel home for her sake, and hers alone. He also sold the cargo-which was mostly perishable goods, a type of onion that grows in the Holy Land and has been the main staple of trade in Robert’s family for a couple of generations-in one of the ports along the coast of France and gave her the proceeds.”

  “Is it possible that this Askil might be the one we seek?” Bascot asked. “Do you think he is likely to be so enraged by his friend’s death that he would seek revenge, or perhaps because he thought it would console the woman for whom he has such affection?”

  Thorson gave the question a few moments thought before answering. “I cannot judge his reactions with any certainty. To his credit, Askil was never involved in Robert’s forays into the alehouses and the inevitable fights that broke out. He usually stayed on shipboard during their rare visits here, so I have not had enough contact with him during these last few years to judge his character.” The bailiff shrugged. “It is possible, I suppose.”

  “Is he in Grimsby?” Bascot asked.

  “I believe so. Joan’s husband paid him to remain on board Scallion’s ship after its return, and keep watch over its safety while a new crew was found to man her, since most of those who returned with Askil have left the area. I suspect they have gone to one of the larger ports where Scallion’s reputation for piracy might not be so harshly regarded.”

  “We would like to speak to the steersman,” Bascot said, “and also any remaining crew members that were in Acre when Scallion was killed. They may have details about his death that are unknown to us.”