A Holy Vengeance Read online

  The armourer snorted. “Never paid her no mind once the bloom of their marriage wore off, did he? Out drinking near every night after we’d finished work, and I saw him pass her by on the path from Robert’s house the other day without so much as a look in her direction. ’Twas much different than when he was first wooing her, all smiles and lovin’ looks whenever she appeared, but once they were wed he had no more interest in her, for he knew that one day, when Robert passed on, through his marriage to Emma he would lay his hands on the armoury. If she conceived a child, it would have strengthened his relationship to Robert even further, so her barrenness must have been a sore disappointment to him.”

  Noll’s vehemence died down a bit and then he added, “It fair used to gall me when he looked around the workshop after his and Emma’s marriage, eyes gleaming with avarice, as though the armoury was already his own. No, Emma made a bad choice there, although she may not have realised it.”

  “Does Wiger have another woman tucked away, do you think? Perhaps one he knew from before his marriage?” Bascot asked.

  Noll shook his head. “Not as I knows of or, if he does, he keeps her well hidden. As to afore he was wed, and to be fair, I never heard of him courtin’ any other maid; probably visited a harlot when he had the need, like many a young man, but even of that I have no evidence.”

  The Templar decided to broach the subject of the curse that Ferroner had mentioned. Although Bascot, as he had said, did not think the curse was a true one, old sins did cast long shadows and it might be that the woman Ferroner had rejected all those years ago was somehow involved in his daughter’s murder.

  When Bascot asked Noll about it, his response was a sad nod. “Aye, I reckon Robert told you about that, did he?”

  When the Templar confirmed the assumption, Noll gave another sigh. “I wish he would forget that old misery. He took guilt on himself because of that curse when his wife, Edith, died, and now he’s doin’ it again with poor Emma. As I’ve told him many’s the time, that woman, Lorinda, was no more than a doxy, lookin’ to snare herself a wealthy husband, and had no more power over dark forces than any other bitch of her kind, which is none. Could have been that her grandam was a witch, I suppose—although I never heard of anyone who knew the old woman directly—but that doesn’t mean that Lorinda was one. And even if it’s true, like they are sayin’ in the town, that it was the Devil or a demon that killed Emma, I don’t believe that, even if she could, it was Lorinda who magicked either of them up. Why would she? If she’s still alive she’ll be an old woman by now and long past caring about a squabble from so many years ago.”

  “Did you ever see her?” Bascot asked.

  “Oh, aye. I was in the marketplace when she started her ruction and laid the curse on Robert. Witnessed it all, I did, along with a fair few others. Lorinda were beautiful, I’ll give her that, but she was bold with it, dressing herself in a gaudy gown that no chaste woman would wear, and her hair all tumblin’ down like a harlot’s. ’Twas plain what she was, and what she was after, and the only reason she laid that curse was because she was angry at Robert for refusing her.”

  “Ferroner said he never saw her again after the day she confronted him. Do you know where she lived?”

  “No, I don’t, Sir Bascot, and nor did anyone else, even Robert. She had been seen walkin’ along the road southwards of the river once or twice, so she must have lived in one of the hamlets south of town, but there are many villages in that direction—Bracebridge, Coleby, Waddington, Boothby, to name but a few—so it could have been any one of them, or none at all. All I knows is that she was never heard of coming back to Lincoln again.”

  Moving away from the subject of the curse, Bascot took the murder weapon from his scrip and showed it to Noll, telling him it was the knife that had been used to despatch Emma. “Have you ever seen it before?” he asked.

  Muttering imprecations on the head of the man that had wielded it, Noll picked up the blade and examined it. As Ferroner had done, he pronounced it just a knife of common manufacture, and that he did not recognise it.

  After thanking Noll for being so forthright, Bascot dismissed him and told Roget to send in Wiger next.

  Chapter 17

  During the previous interviews, Bascot had seated himself on one of the barrels of nails stacked on the floor, with Gianni perched next to him. When Roget sent Wiger in, the Templar did not, as he had done with all of the previous employees, tell him to be similarly seated, but instead kept him standing for a good long moment while he regarded him. Although the newly made widower was making an effort to present a grief-filled countenance, the Templar saw that, unlike Robert Ferroner and Noll, there did not seem to be any sorrow in his eyes, only wariness.

  Bascot was certain Noll’s opinion that Wiger had wed Ferroner’s daughter for pecuniary gain was a true one, and felt only scorn for the man standing in front of him. Quite often marital alliances were made for the material advantage the union would bring, especially in the noble classes, but usually both parties, man and woman, were aware of that purpose and no pretence of love was made between them. But with Emma, a plain-featured young woman who had been the daughter of a prosperous man, this was not the case, for both her father and Constance Turner had said that she was in love with him. Wiger had used his handsomeness to gain himself a wealthy wife; had he now, for some reason, wanted to be rid of her?

  Bascot made no attempt to console Wiger for his loss and began his questions without preamble.

  “I have been told that you had been wed to Master Ferroner’s daughter for almost two years. What was the date of your marriage?”

  Wiger, a little startled at the brusqueness in the Templar’s tone, hesitated momentarily before replying. “We were married in the autumn of the year before last, lord.”

  “And did you wed her out of love or for the fortune she would one day inherit?”

  The bald question took Wiger aback, and he stammered out his answer. “I . . . I . . . wed her because I loved her, and for no other reason.”

  His response lacked conviction and Bascot pressed him. “Then you found no need to take a lover?” This time Wiger seemed to have regained some of his composure and answered carefully. “Emma was all that a man could want in a wife. She gave me no cause to seek out the company of another woman.”

  The Templar had noted the ambiguity of the answer and again let a short silence reign before asking, “Do you know of anyone who would have wanted your wife dead?”

  “No, lord, I do not.” The answer was, this time, a little more assertive, but Wiger’s face was etched with fear.

  With an abrupt movement, Bascot took the murder weapon from his scrip and tossed it across the open space between them. Startled, Wiger fumbled a little as he tried to catch it, and it fell to the ground. With an apprehensive look at the Templar, he reached down and picked it up by the hilt.

  “That is the blade that killed your wife,” Bascot barked. “Have you ever seen it before?”

  Wiger turned the knife over once or twice in his hand, and then shook his head. “No, lord, I have not.”

  The Templar leaned forward and spoke in a menacing tone. “In my experience, it is usually someone close to a victim that is guilty of their murder. You, Wiger, are high on my list of suspects.”

  “But, lord,” the nervous man exclaimed, “I could not have killed her. I was here in the armoury at the time she was attacked.”

  “That does not eliminate the possibility that you hired an assassin to despatch her,” Bascot declared. “If any reason is uncovered, even the slightest indication, that you had cause to conspire at your wife’s death, you will be taken to the castle gaol and questioned by the sheriff’s men. Do you understand?”

  Miserably, Wiger nodded, fully aware of the rough treatment that would ensue from such an eventuality, and Bascot dismissed him.

  “What think you of his testimony, Gian
ni?” Bascot asked after Wiger had left.

  The lad waggled his fingers back and forth, and the Templar nodded. “A little truth, some evasion and the hint of a lie. And since that is the case, we must find out more about him, and whether, despite losing the profit he hoped to gain through his wife, there is still a motive for him to wish her dead.”

  * * *

  “It would seem there is no connection to the murderer to be found in the armoury, but there are still several lines of enquiry to follow,” Bascot said as he, Gianni and Roget rode back to the castle. “First, I would like to visit the alehouses in the area. Noll said that Wiger made a habit of drinking in the evenings; if we can discover which one he frequented, we might be able to learn from the alekeep or other patrons if he has ever mentioned having a paramour. I also think it might be profitable to speak to the woman who used to be Mistress Emma’s companion, Nan Glover. She may be able to tell us of any enemies the dead woman might have had.”

  Gianni made a few quick gestures with his hands. “Yes,” the Templar confirmed. “There is always the hope that Lady Nicolaa has discovered something of importance from the apothecary she sent for.” He tapped his horse lightly with his spurs to urge the mount on a little faster. “But if not, then we must wait for God to show us the way.”

  * * *

  As the trio rode up Mikelgate towards the bail, they noticed that the panic among the townspeople seemed to have been allayed by the presence of MacHeth and the other Templar brothers. The churches were beginning to fill up again as the hour for the service at Sext approached, and people were going into the places of worship without reserve. Many of those standing on the street smiled as Bascot passed by. They were grateful for his protection, and that of the other Templar brothers, while evil was threatening their town.

  The man who had slain Emma Ferroner was among the crowd and was not so pleased. He had been delighted when he heard that the townsfolk believed the killing had been perpetrated by the Devil. He had not chosen the murder site for such a purpose, but it had, nonetheless, served him well by providing detraction to the discovery of his identity. But he had heard of the reputation of the Templar monk for solving secret murder and feared he might not be so easily gulled. There were obscure links between himself and the victim that, if uncovered, would reveal his culpability. For the first time the elation that had buoyed him after the slaying began to diminish. Killing the armourer’s daughter had been an act of loyalty and courage, and he had not expected to suffer punishment for it.

  As he mused on the problem now confronting him, a plan slowly came to him and he smiled as he realised that its commission would safely eradicate any trace of his involvement in the murder. Such a scheme would not only reinforce the townsfolk’s mistaken notion about the Devil, but also lead the monk down a false trail.

  Chapter 18

  “Let us sum up the information we have,” Nicolaa de la Haye said a short time later, after Bascot had given her a report of his visit to the armoury and she had told him and Gianni of her conversation with Drogue. “Firstly, the victim was a plain-featured woman who was heiress to a goodly fortune, wedded to a husband who married her for financial profit. While that may be despicable, it would appear he cannot be considered a suspect, for, now that she is dead, he will lose all that he might have gained had she lived.”

  The castellan tapped the table with a forefinger as she continued, “Secondly, we have a grieving father who claims his daughter was killed by a witch who placed a curse on him twenty-five years ago. But no one knows where this woman lived at the time of his liaison with her; it will be almost impossible to locate her so many years later in order to determine whether or not she has any connection with the death.

  “Lastly we have the witness to the crime, Constance Turner, who, although protesting her innocence, still lied to us when she concealed that she had recently been estranged from the victim. We can exclude her from being the actual assailant by means of the scrap of material St. Dunstan’s ravens gave us that proves, just as she claimed, that the murderer was chased away by them, but even so, it does not exempt her from collusion in the deed.”

  Nicolaa leaned back in her chair and expelled her breath in disgruntlement. “There is not much there to lead us to the killer, de Marins. What do you suggest we do next?”

  “I would like to continue with the search to discover more of a personal nature about Emma Ferroner,” he replied. “Mistress Turner was able to tell me a little, but I feel there is more to be learned about the victim, especially in regard to her relationship with her husband. To that end, I would like to go and speak to Nan Glover, the woman who was Emma’s attendant after her mother died. Apparently she was not only an intimate of the armourer’s daughter while she was growing up, but continued to be a friend to Emma until her death. She may have some information that proves helpful.”

  “Very well,” Nicolaa agreed. “Anything else?”

  “Yes. I would also like to investigate the husband, Wiger, more fully. Although the colour of his hair indicates that he cannot be the killer, that does not, as in the instance of Constance Turner, exempt him from complicity in the crime. It may be that he has a lover who is getting impatient with his married state, or been keeping company with some other wealthy woman who would be willing to marry him if he were free, and so hired a murderer to despatch his wife. We need to find out more about him before he can be completely exempted. I was told by one of Ferroner’s employees that Wiger had lately formed the habit of visiting alehouses in the evening, so I would like to go to those closest to the armoury and, if we can determine which one he patronised, question the alekeep and other customers. A man often grows careless with his speech when he in his cups, and he may, in conversation, have revealed some fact that is incriminating.”

  “Very well,” Nicolaa said. “It will, of course, be best to visit the alehouses in the evening when they are full of patrons who have stopped by to quench their thirst after finishing the day’s work. You will go tonight?”

  Bascot nodded. “Yes, after Gianni and I have spoken to Nan Glover. And I would appreciate it if Roget could accompany me. I am not familiar with the locations of the alehouses outside the southern walls of the town and will need a guide to show me where they are.”

  “I will tell the captain to make himself ready to attend you,” the castellan promised.

  Chapter 19

  The house where Noll had said that Mistress Glover now lived with her son and his wife was not far distant from the castle and so Bascot and Gianni decided to walk there. As they made their way down Steep Hill and past the market at the bottom of the incline, the Templar glanced at the lad, concerned that he seemed downcast. He had been that way since shortly after they had arrived at the armoury, and although he had taken down the information given during the interviews with Ferroner’s employees in a competent fashion, and listened with seeming attention during the discussion with Nicolaa de la Haye, Bascot was certain he had, nonetheless, been distracted.

  “You seem preoccupied, Gianni,” Bascot said, as they left behind the busy throng in the marketplace and turned down Danesgate, the side street where the house belonging to Mistress Glover’s son was located. “Does something ail you?”

  Miserable, Gianni began to shake his head in negation when he stopped in his tracks, suddenly realising that his fear of the strega had almost caused him to lie to the man who had always shown him the love of a father. He could not allow his dread to cripple his mind, he decided, especially while he was carrying out the very important task of helping to investigate a murder. Taking a deep breath, he nodded at Bascot.

  With the help of words written on his wax tablet, accompanied by gestures, Gianni told Bascot how Robert Ferroner’s mention of a strega had frightened him and the reason why.

  Bascot pondered what Gianni had told him and how terrifying the experience must have been. Sicily, like the rest of Christendom, had
a deep belief in the existence of witches, and it was referenced in many places in the Bible that such creatures were real. Nonetheless, the Templar was certain that many who claimed to be witches were spurious, using the false reputation as a means of controlling others or, if they were alone or elderly, as a means of protection against those that might wish them harm.

  The latter could easily be the case with the old crone of whom Gianni had spoken. She had brandished her supposed talent for magick as a defence against any who might be tempted to steal from her pitiful stock of fruit. If that was the case, then the boy’s death was easily explained—the sailor whom the youngster had tried to rob had lashed out in a drunken stupor and accidentally thrown the boy off the pier with no intent to kill him and, afterwards, still mazed by the ale he had drunk, had not retained any memory of the act. As for fighting off the guards and fatally wounding two of them, his strength could have been born of desperation rather than evil genius. The other frightening part—of how wicked fairies had been seen dancing at the moment of the sailor’s demise—could merely be due to embellishment by a few over-excited spectators at his hanging. If that was the case, then the old fruit-seller had not actually possessed any devilish powers, but must have revelled in the outcome. Her reputation as a witch had been enhanced and her wares made safe from thievery.

  The same could be true of Ferroner’s rejected lover. After failing to entice him into marriage with her natural charms, she had resorted to the implied knowledge of her grandam’s witchery to try to force him into wedlock. That her scheme had not worked had been her misfortune, but she had, nonetheless, succeeded in laying a yoke of trepidation on the armourer that was still plaguing him many years later. Just as Ferroner’s fear of the curse was real, so was Gianni’s dread of witches. Such burdens were crippling to the soul and the Templar knew he must try to find a way to help the lad.