The Alehouse Murders Read online

  Here the clerk looked down at his ale, seemingly embarrassed. “It appears that early in his youth Sir Philip was enamoured of a young lady of the town and planned to make her his wife. His family stopped the marriage and a contract was arranged with his present wife, who was then a widow with a young son. However, even though the marriage of his choice was stopped, and the young girl who held his affections was sent away, it seems she was already with child by Sir Philip, a circumstance known only to him and to her. She later had the child, a boy, and wrote to Sir Philip of the birth. He was not then in a position to help her and, besides, he had hopes that the wife chosen for him would present him with a son. But many years have now passed and he despairs of any issue from his present wife so he decided to contact the woman he was in love with in his youth by sending her a letter and asking if his child by her still thrived.”

  “And you wrote this letter for him?” Bascot asked.

  “I did, sir, and the one that followed her reply. When Sir Philip found that the boy had grown up hale and hearty, he offered a place for the lad here and I know, if the lad pleased him, it was his intention to formally acknowledge him and make him his heir. He intimated as much to the boy’s mother when he wrote.”

  Scothern now leaned forward in earnestness. “This last letter was written a scant two months ago and a response was made indicating that Sir Philip’s son, Hugo by name, would leave almost immediately, and that he would bring with him his wife, Ernestine. She was with child, the letter said, which made Sir Philip overjoyed, for he thought not only to have a son of his own, but perhaps a grandson, too, into the bargain. Do you see my dilemma, Sir Bascot? All the circumstances—the age of the two murdered strangers, the woman being enceinte, the origin of the cloth that was part of her apparel—all point to them being this same son and his wife. But if I should tell Sir Philip and I am wrong, then I give him grief for nothing, while if I am right . . . then he should know at once.”

  “I take it that Sir Philip has never seen this illegitimate son?”

  “No.”

  “And the messenger who took the letters to Maine, did he meet with the boy?”

  Scothern sighed. “They were sent in the usual way, by one of the de Kyme retainers to the south coast via London, then in the charge of a captain on a boat crossing the Narrow Sea, and by hired messenger on the other side. The replies were brought back in like manner. The situation in Maine and neighbouring Brittany and Anjou is volatile at the moment, what with King Richard’s death and his brother John ascending the throne. As you will be aware, there are many who hate the English there, thinking that Arthur, son of King John’s dead older brother Geoffrey, should have the crown. Sir Philip thought it best if no attention was drawn to his former love by the arrival of a messenger from England. And he wished to keep the matter secret. It is quite likely that Conal or his mother would have noticed if one of Sir Philip’s servants was gone for any length of time and they might have asked questions.”

  “Well, if it is this Hugo and his wife that have been murdered, Lady de Kyme and Conal will soon know of it, whether Sir Philip wills it or no. But how are we to prove the dead couple’s identity? By the time the boy’s mother could journey from Maine to Lincoln, her son would be no more than an unrecognisable rotting corpse. And from what you have said, it sounds unlikely that there is anyone in England that would know him, dead or alive.”

  Gianni came forward at this point and respectfully tapped Bascot on the shoulder. When the Templar looked at his servant, Gianni drew his finger down the side of his neck, then pointed to the pouch at Bascot’s belt.

  “Yes, Gianni. The scar—and the trinket we found. They may help, if one is known of and the other familiar.” He stood up. “I think it best, William, if we take this matter to the sheriff and Lady Nicolaa. Let them decide what should be done. The weight of the matter will then be taken from your shoulders, and mine.”

  A short time later Gerard Camville had Philip de Kyme brought to a private room in the castle and there, in front of Lady Nicolaa, Bascot and William Scothern, told his friend what the clerk suspected.

  “It is possible that they may be some other travellers, Philip,” the sheriff said, “but if we can, we must be sure. Do you know the general description of the boy, if he had any scars or marks on his body? Is this”—he placed the tiny brooch on the surface of the table at which de Kyme was seated—“familiar to you? Although it may not have belonged to the girl, but have been dropped by another some time before the murders occurred,” he added.

  De Kyme sat as though mazed when he had been told what Scothern had revealed to Bascot. It was some moments before he could take in the possibility that his illegitimate son and the boy’s wife had been murdered. At first he had shaken his head, denying the thought, then he dropped his head into his hands. “My last hope,” he muttered. “Am I never to have a son of my own? Why does God always deny me what he gives freely to other men?”

  Gerard Camville poured a cup of wine and handed it to his friend. “It may be that these two are not your son and his wife,” he said with compassion in his usually surly voice. “That is the need now, to identify them. Have you any way to do that, Phillip?”

  “No, I have not, not unless his mother is sent for. Poor Eleanor. Again she has suffered through my hand, however much I wanted to do her good.” He looked up at Camville and shrugged. “If I see the boy I might perhaps recognise a likeness to myself or his mother—but that is tenuous at best. As for scars, or the like, I do not know if he had any. How am I to tell . . . ?”

  He stopped speaking as he belatedly caught sight of the tiny brooch and reached forward quickly to pick it up and examine it closely. His face turned grey as he looked at Bascot. “This . . . this . . . it was found on the boy?”

  “On the premises,” Bascot answered. “The alewife said it was lying on the ground near where one of the bodies had been hidden. Do you recognise it?”

  De Kyme nodded slowly, his face now drawn with lines of certainty and renewed grief as he turned the brooch over, revealing a small circle of two strands of twisted silver wire set on the back. “I gave it to his mother all those years ago,” he said. “It was a pledge between us, for her to wear next to her heart, hidden under her clothing. I had the metal entwined together to symbolise our love, that we should never be parted. How I wish I had kept my bargain with her, and not given in to my father’s demand that I wed his choice of wife instead of my own.”

  De Kyme jumped up, anger contorting his features. “And now my son—the only son I have—has been murdered. There can only be one person foul enough to do such a deed. My wife. Her and that prancing hellhound she has for a son. Somehow she must have found out my intention to put my own true blood in place of Conal and has had him killed, along with the wife who bore another of my line. I know it as surely as I breathe my life’s breath, for I know her for the bitch that she is.”

  Hand on sword he strode towards the door but Camville was there before him, speaking softly and advising caution. If his friend truly believed Sybil and Conal were guilty of secret murder, he said, than a charge must be made against them. This was the lawful procedure and much preferable to resolving the matter with violence. Philip calmed somewhat at the sheriff’s words and listened as Camville went on persuasively, reminding his fellow baron that proof of their culpability must be found else any accusation would be too weak to merit their being brought before the king’s judges.

  “I will lay the charge for you, Philip,” Camville said, “and then let us find out, if we can, where Conal was during the day when the killing must have taken place. Also your wife. Someone must have seen your son as he travelled up from the south. Then let us see if we can ascertain where the deed was done and if it is reasonable for Conal to have done it himself or have hired some wolf’s-head to do it for him. That is the best course if you would see them brought to the king’s justice.”

  “Gerard is right,” Lady Nicolaa added. “There must be s
ome proof to set before the king’s judges, as you well know. Leave the matter with us for now, and keep private counsel before others until we can act.”

  De Kyme’s temper flared again at her words. “By God,” he shouted, “that is all well enough, but not only do you ask me to keep my sword from that bitch and her spawn, you also ask me to stomach their company and keep silent. I cannot do it, I tell you. I cannot.”

  Nicolaa looked at her husband with raised eyebrows and he nodded. “Then I think, Philip, it would be best if you returned to your own demesne. I will ensure Sybil stays here and, with my son Richard’s help, Conal also. We will keep them close and away from your presence until the truth is known.”

  Reluctantly de Kyme agreed, saying only that first he would stop at the priory to see the remains of the lad who had been his son. “For,” he said morosely, “although I had no opportunity to honour him in life that does not mean I cannot do so in death. He will be buried in the station I would have raised him to, and his wife and the unborn child beside him. That you will not deny me, will you, Gerard?” he asked of the sheriff roughly.

  “No, only that you wait a space. Once you have seen them, the bodies can be sealed in their coffins for the time being. Give us a few days only, Philip, we will get to the bottom of this soon enough, I promise you.”

  With that, Philip de Kyme nodded his agreement and, calling to Scothern to accompany him, left the chamber.

  Nicolaa looked at Bascot. “Find out if Conal did this thing, Templar, if you can. And if he did not, who did. I have today received a message from King John. He will be here in just a short time hence, in November. I want him to find that justice has been employed in this matter, not mayhem. And mayhem we will have if de Kyme lets his sword loose. Sybil’s family, and that of her long dead husband, are not without influence. If they find she and Conal have been unjustly accused we will have a local war on our hands. I doubt that would please the king, since it is just such turbulence he is trying to forestall in his territory on the continent. Let him find that England, at least, gives him no such grievance.”

  Fourteen

  IN THE CHAMBER NICOLAA USED FOR HER SOLAR BASCOT sat facing Sybil de Kyme and her attendant, Isobel, who was sister to William Scothern. The room was a comfortable one at the top of the new keep. A number of padded settles and stools scattered around the perimeter of the chamber marked it as one used by women, as well as the embroidered tapestries that hung upon the walls. A large fireplace, now unlit, dominated the far side of the room, and an array of comfits and containers of honeyed wine were set out on a table near the door.

  Conal stood by his mother, his handsome face weary and drawn, but solicitous of his dam as he laid a hand gently on her shoulder now and then to reassure her. Nearby Richard Camville paced, angry strides carrying him the length of the chamber and back in a manner reminiscent of his father’s restless movements. He and Conal had returned to Lincoln just before dawn and had been told of the charge laid by Philip de Kyme against his wife and stepson. The accusation and any plea in defence would be placed before the royal justices when their circuit of the kingdom reached Lincoln later in the summer, near the end of July.

  “This whole matter is absurd,” Richard expostulated as Bascot was asking Sybil de Kyme if she had known of the existence of her husband’s illegitimate son. “Why would Conal want to kill this Hugo? He was a bastard. The justices would never give claim to an illegitimate heir over a lawful one.”

  “If it was proven that the child was the result of a union before Sir Philip contracted his marriage with Lady Sybil, then it could be considered that the liaison with the boy’s mother constituted a prior contract, and the later marriage was unlawful,” Bascot said. Remembering that Ernulf had voiced the opinion that Philip de Kyme was in the process of finding some means of releasing himself from his marriage the Templar had sought out the view of Nicolaa de la Haye’s secretarius, an older clerk who was well versed in the law. “They are difficult circumstances to prove, but it has been done.”

  “Neither my mother or I knew of this Hugo. Nor did we know that he was coming to Lincoln,” Conal said quietly. “As for de Kyme’s inheritance, I have no interest in it. My own father left me a small manor near Scunthorpe. It is enough for me.”

  Lady Sybil reached up and laid her hand over her son’s. “The justices will not see it that way, Conal. They will see only that there was the prospect of a rich fief, and this illegitimate boy stood in your way of it.”

  Bascot glanced at Isobel Scothern, who had sat silent and with downcast eyes throughout this exchange. A strange position she and her brother were in, one the servant of the master, the other of the mistress, and these two at odds with one another. “Did your brother tell you of the letters that had been exchanged with the boy’s mother?” Bascot asked her.

  “No, he did not,” she answered. “My brother is scrupulous about the confidentiality of his post as secretarius to Sir Philip. He tells me nothing of his work.”

  Bascot considered the answer, and the girl. She was a striking contrast to Lady Sybil, and not only for the twenty-some years difference in their ages. Where Conal’s mother was a tall angular woman, fair of hair and face, and dressed in a gown of cool colours that set off the whiteness of her complexion, Isobel was petite and dark, the Haye red showing only in glints of auburn in her glossy brown hair, and her eyes, heavy lidded, were a rich deep hazel. Her dress was of mossy green, reflecting the lustre of her colouring in an undergown and sleeves of tawny yellow. Her manner was restrained and polite, but there was a latent sensuousness about her person, hinted at in the graceful angle in which she held her head and in the easy movement of her small delicate hands as she smoothed the folds of her gown. Even Richard Camville, preoccupied with his anger, still found time to give her an occasional appreciative glance when his pacing took him near to where she sat.

  “I do not wish to belabour the point, demoiselle,” Bascot said to her, “but are you sure that you knew nothing of this matter? It will be part of the accusation that Lady Sybil or Conal knew of Sir Philips’s intentions and were thus provided with a motive for murder. Even if you did not see the letters, did your brother perhaps let something slip about the business in a conversation with you? Something you may have, albeit innocently, mentioned to your mistress?”

  Isobel regarded him with eyes of amber. “I am sure. How could I have done so when I had no knowledge of the matter myself until this morning? It is impossible.” With a small smile she dropped her gaze downwards.

  Bascot nodded in acceptance of her words as Conal burst out, “Sir Bascot, if I had wanted to kill anyone and not be found to have done so, I would have murdered them in the greenwood and left them for the wolves to devour, not pushed them into barrels and dumped them on the floor of an alehouse.”

  “Exactly,” interjected Richard. “It would have been far better for Conal, if he had done this deed, that this bastard son had just disappeared without a trace, would it not?”

  Bascot sighed. Always it came back to the same question—why had the young couple and the Jew been murdered as they had? Why had they been stabbed after death? Why had Wat been involved in leaving them on his premises?

  “I agree with you,” Bascot replied. “This is a coil that there seems no way to unwind.”

  He spoke once again to Lady Sybil and her son. “It is believed that Hugo and his wife, along with the Jew, had been dead for some hours before they were left in the alehouse. This puts the time of their deaths as during the second day before the fair began, that is three days ago. Can you both tell me where you were then?”

  “We all—my husband, Conal and myself—came to Lincoln a few days before that,” Sybil answered. “We stayed at the house of my husband’s nephew, Roger de Kyme. Roger was not there himself, but his steward was, stocking up with victuals for when his master and mistress should arrive. On the day about which you ask my husband went on a hunt with Gerard Camville and later that same day—in the evenin
g—I, on Lady Nicolaa’s invitation, took up guest’s lodging, with my husband, at the castle. Conal stayed on alone at Roger’s until the day before the fair. He left when Roger and his wife arrived since they had guests with them and the chamber Conal had been using would be needed. He then came to the castle and Richard was kind enough to share his quarters with him.”

  “Then on the second day before the fair, both of you were at Roger de Kyme’s house?” Bascot asked, feeling a chill start to creep at the back of his neck. “What were your movements on that day?”

  Sybil looked up at her son, a little frown drawing her delicate brows together. “My mother was unwell, Sir Bascot,” Conal answered for her. “She believed she had eaten something that had been turned sour by the heat, and so she kept to her bed until she went to the castle. I rode to Newark and was gone most of the day.”

  “Did either of you have servants in attendance? Lady Sybil, did Isobel keep you company in your sickness? Conal, did you travel with a friend, or perhaps take a groom with you?” Bascot almost felt their answers before they were made, so great was his sense of foreboding.

  “I sent Isobel away,” Sybil said. “There was much to see around the town and since my husband would not be wanting her brother to attend him while he was hunting, I gave her permission to keep him company for a few hours of pleasure. I had no other companions or servants with me. Roger’s steward was gone also, fetching fresh eels for his master’s table, a delicacy Roger enjoys and prefers to be obtained from an area just south of Lincoln. The house, I believe, was empty. The rest of the household staff, except for the steward, had not yet arrived. With the aid of a nostrum Isobel prepared for me I slept most of the time and felt much better when I awoke.”