A Deadly Penance Read online

  IT WAS ALMOST MIDDAY WHEN STEPHEN WHARTON ARRIVED at Lincoln castle. His horse and that of the groom who had accompanied him were flecked with foam from the hard riding they had been put to that morning. After stopping overnight in the guesthouse of an abbey a few miles north of Grantham, Wharton had decided they would start out before first light and the pair had spurred the horses hard for the remaining twenty-odd miles. Wharton was anxious to get his unpleasant errand done with.

  After instructing his groom to tend to their mounts, he walked wearily up the steps of the keep’s forebuilding and, upon entering the hall, asked the servant in attendance at the door to inform Lady Petronille that he wished to speak to her urgently.

  A little over an hour later, while Richard and Bascot were ensconced in Gerard Camville’s chamber discussing the paucity of information that had been obtained from re-interviewing all of the servants, there was a knock at the door and the Haye steward, Eudo, entered.

  “Lady Nicolaa has sent me, Sir Richard,” he said, “with a request that you and Sir Bascot attend to her in the solar. She told me to tell you that the matter is most urgent.”

  Fourteen

  WHEN RICHARD AND THE TEMPLAR ENTERED THE SOLAR THEY found Nicolaa, Petronille and Alinor seated at the far end of the room in the company of a man who was a stranger to both of them. He appeared to be of middle age and, by the sword he wore at his belt, was of knight’s status. On his face was an expression of apprehension. A little behind Nicolaa’s chair, Gianni sat unobtrusively on a stool, his wax tablet and stylus in his hand, glancing apprehensively at the company around him. The strained look on the countenances of the two sisters bore evidence of tension and Alinor’s delicately arched brows were drawn down in a glower. In her hand, Nicolaa held an unrolled sheet of parchment.

  “This is Stephen Wharton, a friend of my brother-by-marriage,” Nicolaa said, introducing the man to her son and the Templar as they approached. “He is also the person, Richard, who recommended that your uncle Dickon give Aubrey Tercel a post in his retinue.”

  She paused for a moment as the men all nodded at one another. Then, her voice taking on the determined note that Bascot knew so well, continued, “Wharton has come to tell us a very strange tale about the background of the murdered man. While there is no proof of anything he will relate, the important aspect is that Tercel believed it to be true and, in so doing, may have given someone reason to wish him dead.”

  After Richard and Bascot had got over their surprise at Nicolaa’s words, they looked towards Wharton expectantly. The knight took a nervous swallow of wine before he began to recount his tale for a second time. Although neither Nicolaa nor Petronille had evinced any censure of him for keeping Tercel’s fanciful conclusions a secret, Alinor had been furious and still was. She, like her father, saw the repression as a breach of trust and had accused Wharton of placing her mother and herself in possible danger. As the visitor looked at the two men facing him, he felt very nervous of their reaction to his story; would they, like Alinor, find his actions irresponsible?

  Taking a deep breath, Wharton began his recounting. “When Aubrey was just a few weeks old, my younger brother, Lionel, brought him to my manor house. Although Lionel never confirmed it, I believed the boy to be my brother’s illegitimate son. He asked me to keep privy the fact that he had given the babe into my care, so together we concocted a tale that the child was the posthumous offspring of my falconer, Bran Tercel, who had taken a chill and died of a congestion in the lungs a couple of months before. We said that my falconer had told me on his deathbed that he had a paramour in Stamford town who was enceinte with his child and begged me to care for the babe after it was born. To explain the absence of the mother, we said that she had died giving birth and her family had given their consent for the boy to be placed in our care. It was a flimsy tale, but it was accepted, and no one questioned it during the years that Aubrey grew to manhood.”

  Wharton took another swallow of wine and, knowing the next part would be the hardest to relate, continued. “About the time that I recommended Aubrey be taken into Dickon’s service, my brother had a fatal accident. While out on a hunt, Lionel’s horse stumbled and fell, and in the tangle that ensued, landed on my brother with the full force of its weight, crushing his vital organs. He lived for only a couple of hours and died in extreme pain.”

  The knight looked up at the company; his eyes had darkened as he had spoken of his brother’s death. “Since Lionel had never wed, it fell to me to go through the few possessions he kept at the dower property he inherited from our mother. Among them, I found a small package containing a letter that was addressed to me”—he gestured towards the parchment Nicolaa was holding—“and which I have brought with me. It was written some years before, about the time that Lionel left England to follow King Richard on crusade to the Holy Land. I think my brother penned it in case he should not return and, when he came safely back, forgot that it had been written, and left it lying in the chest where I found it. In the letter, among instructions for disposal of his property, there was mention of Aubrey. It said that although Lionel knew I had assumed the boy to be his bastard, this was not the case. It went on to say that Aubrey had been given into his care by someone ‘to whom he owed a debt of loyalty’ and that the reason he had allowed me to be misled as to the boy’s parentage was to prevent the child’s true heritage from becoming known. There was a ring enclosed with the papers that Lionel said would provide a small inheritance for Aubrey and was to be given to him if, and when, I deemed him worthy of receiving it.”

  “Was it a gold ring with an engraving on the inner side of a crescent moon encircling a star?” Richard asked.

  “Yes, that’s the one. After I read the letter, and had given much soul-searching thought to the matter, I showed the letter to Aubrey and gave him the ring. My main reason for doing so was that he should know his father had not been, as he had been led to believe, of common stock, but had most likely been a friend of my brother’s and therefore a man of knight’s rank.”

  “Did your brother name the father?” Bascot asked.

  “No. He said in the letter that it was of no consequence; the lie had been told to protect Aubrey’s mother. She had been a maid of Winchester, Lionel wrote, and a woman of good repute, who was the daughter of a merchant and promised in marriage to a burgess of Lincoln. Since her future husband could not be expected to accept her as a bride if he discovered she had borne a child sired by another man, it was decided to keep the matter secret and my brother was asked to take her to a convent where she could be immured until the birthing. After that event, he said, it had been requested of him that he find a good home for the babe, so the woman could go to her betrothal as though she were a virgo intacta. As far as I can tell, all went as planned. Lionel brought the child to me and the mother married the merchant. Since I had believed the boy to be my own kin, even though of bastard stock, I contrived to have him educated and cared for as best I could. It was a shock to learn, so many years later, that my reason for doing so was fallacious.”

  “Did your brother never ask after the child’s progress?” Nicolaa asked.

  “Lionel was seldom in England during the years after he left Aubrey with me. Lionheart gave him a small fief in Aquitaine and it was there that he spent most of his time, and where he died, the manner of it told to me in a missive sent by the priest who was his confessor. I sometimes received a letter from Lionel to let me know how he fared, but that is all. But his news dealt mostly with his own activities or, after Lionheart died, with the political situation across the Narrow Sea, and made no mention of the boy. I must admit, to my shame, that I gave little thought to Aubrey myself until I found the letter I have brought you. His tutor was one I had hired to school some of the children of my upper servants and I left him to the cleric’s care, and that of my steward. On the rare occasions I spoke to him, he seemed a personable lad, and intelligent.”

  Richard leaned back in his chair. “As interesting as al
l this is, Wharton, I cannot see what connection it has to his murder.”

  “The tale, in itself, would have none,” Wharton said. “It is what Aubrey made of it that has brought me here. I wish now that I had kept the secret hidden from him. He made much of the ring and the mention of Winchester in the letter, for around the date of his conception, which would have been during the month of April, 1176, the late King Richard, then a prince, was in the town at a meeting with his father, King Henry.”

  Wharton paused to allow everyone to cast their minds back to that year and remember how King Henry had, in response to the constant plotting of rebellion by his wife and recalcitrant sons, imprisoned his queen, Eleanor, at Salisbury in 1174. Although she had been kept in close confinement by her gaolers, her incarceration was not unduly harsh and, two years later, in 1176—the year of which Wharton was speaking—she had been taken to Winchester at Eastertide for a reconciliatory meeting between the son and his father. Prince Richard had been amenable to the conclave, for he hoped, with his mother’s help, to persuade his father to give him assistance in controlling the rebellious nobles in his duchy of Aquitaine, a part of the territory Eleanor had inherited from her own father and which she had persuaded Henry to cede to their son a few years before.

  Once assured that all of his listeners recalled the circumstances of which he was speaking, Wharton continued his tale. “Aubrey cobbled the information together in a most unlikely fashion. He said the coincidence of the prince being in Winchester at the time of his conception, coupled with the fact that my brother had been in his service, could lead to no other conclusion than that his father had been Lionheart himself. The ring, he said, confirmed this because it bore a design that was often used on his badge, both while he was a prince and when he later became king.”

  “A rather dramatic summation,” Richard opined sceptically. “The ring could have belonged to any of the nobles in Lionheart’s retinue. Even when a prince, he was known to be generous in rewarding his followers, and remained so after he took the throne. To give such a token would not have been unusual. And your brother’s mention of loyalty could have meant that due to friendship with a fellow knight.”

  “That is exactly what I tried to explain to Aubrey,” Wharton agreed eagerly, “but he would not listen. Although he was intelligent, he could be rather inflexible in his opinions.”

  Alinor gave a snort of derision. “You understate it, Wharton. Tercel was smug and self-opinionated.” The knight looked abashed and made no comment in response.

  “How long was your brother in Lionheart’s service?” Richard asked.

  “Almost three years,” Wharton replied, “and had accompanied the prince to Winchester in 1176. I was surprised to see my brother when he turned up with Aubrey, for I had believed him to have returned to Aquitaine, but he said he had been sent to England with messages for Queen Eleanor and was due to return to his duties across the Narrow Sea, hence the urgent need for my help.”

  The knight leaned forward now, his reticence forgotten. “When I saw how Aubrey reacted to the information contained in Lionel’s letter, I tried to dissuade him from his notion. I told him that his father was most likely another knight, like my brother, in Lionheart’s service, one who was my brother’s friend and had asked for his help, but Aubrey would have none of it. His father must have been the prince, he said, of that he was certain, and the only way he could prove it was to find the woman who had been his mother. When I taxed him with how he proposed to do that, he said he would go to Lincoln as soon as opportunity provided and seek her out. I thought he would have no chance to do so while in Dickon’s service and would soon forget his ridiculous notion, but I did not foresee that Lady Petronille would subsequently decide to travel to Lincoln and that Aubrey would be included in her retinue.”

  “He practically begged my father to come with us,” Alinor said angrily. “Now we know the reason why.”

  Richard shrugged. “Well, I cannot see what Tercel hoped to gain by proving the prince was his sire or how he would be considered a threat if he managed to do so. Lionheart acknowledged a couple of bastard sons, both of them in lands he held on the continent, but only one of them, Philip of Cognac, benefitted by his acknowledgement, for he was given an heiress to wed. Even so, all Cognac received on the death of his father was one mark, which King John, in accordance with his brother’s will, awarded him. Tercel could hardly have expected any financial reward.”

  “I think his interest was more in confirming that he was of royal blood than in the expectation of material gain,” Wharton said. “He became obsessed with the idea and believed it would enhance his stature in society. That aim, even though self-serving, would have been innocent enough, but in order to achieve his goal, he would need . . .” Wharton, reluctant to speak aloud the implication, let his words trail off.

  “To discover the identity of his mother and, in so doing, reveal the fact that she had borne an illegitimate child before her marriage,” Bascot finished for him.

  Nicolaa nodded in agreement as the Templar continued. “Whoever Tercel’s father was, his mother has now been married—if she still lives—for twenty-six years, her shameful secret hidden from all the world. No matter whether her former lover was king, merchant or peasant, to have such knowledge bruited abroad would create a terrible scandal, one that would affect not only her, but those with whom she has since become closely connected, such as her husband and any legitimate children she has borne since her marriage. Such a revelation would be disastrous.”

  A silence fell over the company as they realised the import of Bascot’s words, all of them reluctant to speak aloud the inescapable conclusion they led to. Filicide—to kill one’s own child—was the most dreadful of crimes, and none of them wished to admit that such a thing could have happened within Lincoln’s society.

  It was Petronille who, as understanding came to her, broke the silence. Her voice trembling with disbelief, the words burst from her, “Surely you are not insinuating that his mother is responsible for Tercel’s death? Such an evil is impossible to contemplate.”

  Wharton was abashed by her obvious distress. He had not wanted to speak of his fear in front of a woman still grieving for her recently dead son, but there had been no other recourse.

  Nicolaa leaned forward and laid a hand on her sister’s arm. “Please do not upset yourself, Petra. It may not have been the mother herself who committed the murder, but someone who wishes to protect her. A family member who was privy to her secret, perhaps, and did not wish to see her good name sullied, or even her husband who, for all we know, could have later discovered her transgression.”

  “Even so,” Petronille said, her face ashen, “the mother would have to be complicit. I cannot believe there exists any woman who would willingly countenance such a terrible act.”

  “I agree, Petra; most women would not,” Nicolaa said softy, “but not all females are imbued with a maternal instinct, as history tells us well enough. Did not Medea and Jocasta in Ancient Greece consent to the slaying of their offspring? And the women of Rome, in bygone days, allow unwanted babies to be left on the hillside to die of exposure?”

  “But those were not Christian women,” Petronille objected fiercely.

  “Nonetheless, they were mothers,” Nicolaa reminded her gently. “If we are to apprehend the murderer, we must give due consideration to every possible motive, no matter how distasteful.”

  A tear rolled down Petronille’s cheek and she bowed her head. Finally, with some reluctance, she made a response. “I suppose you are right, sister. The devil lurks in the most unexpected of places. He can taint even a love that should be sacrosanct, that of a mother for her child.”

  Rising from her chair, she dashed the tears from her eyes, and then faced the others. “I do not think my continued presence here will be of assistance to the investigation,” she said, her voice unsteady. “Indeed, at the moment, I think it would be detrimental. If you will excuse me, Nicolaa, I will go to the chape
l and offer up prayers for the soul of my dead servant. Alinor may remain if she so wishes and, if there are any decisions to be made, can make them on my behalf.”

  Silently, Richard rose and accompanied his aunt to the door. Once Petronille had left the room, he returned to his seat, his face like a thundercloud. “I hope, for my aunt’s sake, that the mother was not involved in the death but, if she was, I will do my utmost to see her punished to the fullest extent of the law.”

  Fifteen

  AT RICHARD’S ANGRY PRONOUNCEMENT, WHARTON WAS CONTRITE. “Dickon was right. I should have told him of Aubrey’s delusion. None of this would have happened if I had done so.”

  “That is not necessarily so,” Nicolaa said tartly. “If he was as adamant as you say about finding his mother, it would not have been long before he found a way to come to Lincoln and look for her. And if that search was the cause of his murder, then he would still be dead, whether he was Dickon’s retainer or not. If any blame can be attached to you, Wharton, it is for telling him the contents of your brother’s letter in the first place. It would have been far better to have left him in ignorance, content with the fictitious mother and father you provided him with so many years ago.”

  It was unlike the castellan to express herself in such a harsh manner. Bascot thought Petronille’s distress had probably fuelled her angry words. Even though their natures were diverse, the two sisters were close and, he surmised, had been so ever since their mother had died when they were both quite young. None of the company made any response to Nicolaa’s acerbic observation. Stephen Wharton, chastened, looked down into the depths of his wine cup in embarrassment and Alinor, for once, was silent, her lips compressed together as she nodded in agreement with her aunt.