A Holy Vengeance Read online

  Laying a hand on Gianni’s shoulder, the Templar first commended him for having the courage to reveal his disquietude and then said, “I fully understand your apprehension, Gianni, but ofttimes the only way to quell an anxiety is, with Our Lord’s aid, to face and overcome it. If you do not, you will never be free of it. If it should become necessary to search for this woman, it is my hope that, for your own well-being, you will accompany me, but I will not censure you if you do not. What say you?”

  Gianni looked into the Templar’s pale blue eye, which had the clarity of a cloudless dawn, and knew that with this man at his side, he had no cause to be frightened. Slowly and gravely he nodded his willingness to go.

  Bascot gave the boy’s shoulder a final firm clasp and Gianni, his confidence restored, now walked with steady steps beside his former master to the house where Ferroner’s employee Noll had told them they would find Nan Glover.

  It was a well-maintained building that belonged to Mistress Glover’s son, John, who was proprietor of a soap-making manufactory on the riverbank near Robert Ferroner’s armoury. Of modest proportions, it was two stories high, the lower one of stone and the upper of wood, and the casement shutters had been painted an attractive shade of blue.

  When they knocked at the door and asked the maidservant who answered for Emma’s former attendant, they were shown into a small hall where a woman of late middle years was sitting in a comfortable padded chair stitching at a tapestry. With her was a much younger, and very handsome, female companion, wearing a fine silken gown and bedecked with expensive jewellery. She had a slightly haughty cast to her expression, but when the maidservant announced that one of the visitors was a Templar knight, she rose quickly from her seat and gave him a fulsome welcome.

  “I am honoured, Sir Bascot, to have you in my home,” she said, introducing herself as Mabel Glover, the wife of Nan’s son. “How may I serve you?”

  “It is your husband’s mother that I wish to speak to, mistress,” he informed her and then turned to the older woman. “You are Nan Glover, are you not?”

  “I am,” she replied. “Please excuse my not rising, Sir Bascot. I have a weakness in my joints that makes it difficult for me to move.” As she spoke, she gestured to a wooden cane that rested on the arm of her chair.

  “Do not trouble yourself, mistress,” Bascot said to her kindly. “I will not take up much of your time but, with your permission, would like to speak to you privately about Emma Ferroner. At Lady Nicolaa’s request, I am investigating her murder and, having been told that you attended her for many years, am hoping that you can answer some questions I have about her background.”

  Nan Glover readily gave her assent, and Mabel, after asking if the Templar wished any refreshments to be brought, hovered for a moment or two until it became obvious that he was not going to speak to her mother-by-marriage until she had left the room.

  Annoyed, and with a barely concealed moue of resentment at not being included in the forthcoming interview, she flounced out of the door.

  Once she was gone, Mistress Glover said, “I beg your forgiveness for Mabel’s brashness, lord. She is from Nottingham and, having only been here for the short time that she and John have been wed, has still to learn that our Lincoln ways are not so forward. I am sure she meant no disrespect.”

  After the Templar had assured her that he had not been offended by Mabel’s manner, Mistress Glover bade him take a seat beside her and tell her what it was he wanted to know.

  The Templar sat down, and when Gianni took up a position standing behind him, his writing tablet in his hand, asked Nan Glover if she would mind notes being taken of their conversation. She nodded her acquiescence and then he said to her, “I would like to find out more about Mistress Ferroner’s character—what kind of person she was and if she had any enemies. Will you tell me what you knew of her?”

  “Of course,” Nan Glover said with tears springing in her eyes. “I was so sorry to hear of her death, and the manner of it, as was my son, John. He and Emma played together often throughout the years when she was in my charge and he looked upon her as a younger sister. We both loved her well. But, to my regret, I have not seen much of her recently, so I can only tell you of her circumstances during the time she was in my care.”

  “That is all I expect,” Bascot told her.

  The elderly widow settled herself more comfortably in her chair and laid aside the tapestry on which she had been working. “I was a friend of Robert Ferroner’s wife before she died; Emma was only a baby when her mother was taken from her and a suitable woman was required to tend to her needs. I, like Robert, had been made bereft of my spouse when my child was very young. My poor husband, who was a glove maker, cut himself with a pair of scissors one day in his workshop and it festered. ’Twasn’t long after that his whole arm turned black and his heart stopped, God rest him.”

  She wiped her eyes with the cuff of her sleeve. “But you won’t want to hear my sorry tale,” she said and staunchly resumed relating the history of her association with the armourer and his daughter. “After my husband died, I couldn’t continue with his business for I had never learned the skill. And, as our son had been born late to us, I was no longer a young woman. I sorely needed employment to sustain myself and John, but the aching in my joints had already begun to plague me and I had not the strength to carry out more than the easiest of labour. Robert Ferroner knew of my straitened circumstances and offered me the post of his daughter’s attendant, which I gratefully accepted. I left my son in the care of my husband’s brother—who had just then started up in the business of soap-making—and although he could not afford to take both myself and John into his care, he and his wife had no children of their own and kindly agreed to shelter my son. The arrangement turned out most happily in the end, for my husband’s brother made a great success of his manufactory and a few years ago, when he died, he left the business to John. But, as I said, at the time we were all undergoing a degree of hardship and so, with my child safely housed and cared for, I was able to take up my duties as Emma’s companion.

  “She was a lovely girl, lord,” Mistress Glover continued earnestly. “Robert doted on her, and gave her everything she wanted—new dresses, sweetmeats, pretty ribbons and toys. But I think that even if she had not been so pampered, her sunny nature would have been the same—always laughing and loving to all around her and never any crying or a cross word at all. At least she was that way until . . .”

  Her words ground to a halt and her expression turned sad. “What is it, mistress?” he asked. “Did something happen to change her?”

  Nan Glover did not answer him directly but said instead. “I take it you have not seen her visage?”

  The Templar shook his head, but recalled Clare’s description of Emma as being uncomely and was not surprised when Mistress Glover gave a sad sigh. “Emma was not exactly ill-favoured, but she was very plain. She had none of her mother’s prettiness, but instead inherited her father’s height and large bones along with the strong cast of his features—which are becoming in a man, but not a woman.”

  She looked up at Bascot. “To put it straightly, she was not very attractive in either features or form, but I think that would not have proved an insurmountable barrier to her self-esteem until the time when she was about seven years old and was stricken with the pox. She nearly died, Sir Bascot, and we all gave thanks to God that she survived, but the illness left her face and parts of her body badly marked. Nonetheless, the scars did not trouble her at first—and all of us who cared for her made light of them for they seemed a small penance to pay in exchange for her life—until one day soon afterwards I took her to church and, while we were standing among the congregation, she heard a neighbour—who was not aware of Emma’s presence behind her—make an unfortunate remark about her appearance, something along the lines that Robert Ferroner’s daughter was now so ugly that only a frog would find her pleasing.
r />   “Oh, she was so upset, Sir Bascot,” Nan Glover said sorrowfully. “She ran out of the church before I could stop her and when she got home she cried for hours. I tried to tell her that a kind heart and a loving nature—both of which she had—were far more important than an attractive face, but she would have none of it.” She shook her head sadly. “Girls of that age are so impressionable; one unkind word or glance can blight their lives forever.”

  “And after that?” Bascot prompted.

  “She became very shy and withdrawn,” Nan Glover told him. “She would not go out at all with me, even to the shops in the market, saying what need had she of new ribbons, or gewgaws and the like, for nothing would ever make her pretty. When we went to church she made me stand with her at the very back of the nave and never spoke to anyone in the congregation, insisting that we leave immediately the service was over. I tried to tell her father of what had happened but, in his eyes, even though her visage was marred, she was still beautiful and he dismissed her behaviour as a girlish whim she would grow out of.

  “And so Emma became somewhat of a recluse,” Nan Glover continued. “I despaired of her ever having any friends and indeed, to my knowledge, she only ever made one, a perfumer in the town named Constance Turner.”

  She looked at Bascot with a worried expression. “I have been told that Mistress Turner is suspected of murdering poor Emma. I cannot believe she would do so, lord. She is a gentle soul, and not capable of such a deed.”

  “I have been told that it was you who introduced Emma to Mistress Turner,” Bascot asked. “Is that correct?”

  “Yes, I did. A neighbour had mentioned to me that a new perfumer had come to town and made fragrances that were wonderful and, thinking that a comforting scent might lift Emma’s spirits, I finally persuaded her to visit Mistress Turner on one of the days she came here to visit me. I was very pleased when they took to each other straightaway and later became friends.”

  She paused for a moment in thought. “It seemed to me that the perfumer is a lonely girl, too; perhaps that was the attraction between them. But whatever the reason, she was good for Emma. Not only did she suggest a fragrance that was suitable; she also provided an unguent that could be applied to the disfigurements on her face and help to cover them and then gave her, gratuitously, a lotion to darken her eyebrows. Emma was most pleased with the results.”

  Nan looked up with a smile on her face. “However unattractive the rest of Emma’s features were, she had beautiful eyes. Does not the apostle Matthew say in the Bible that the light of the body is in the eye? That’s how Emma’s were. She was possessed of a pure heart and it shone through whether she was unhappy or not. Mistress Turner immediately noticed this, and the darkening of Emma’s eyebrows made all the difference, for they framed the radiance of her soul. I was very grateful they became friends and it made my heart easier for them both.”

  “Were you acquainted with Wiger, the man that Emma married?”

  Nan Glover’s countenance darkened. “Yes, I knew him. He had come to work in the armoury before I left Robert’s employ and I was there when he first began to pay court to Emma. He is very handsome and she was flattered, but I did not trust his purpose. I felt he only paid attention to her because she was the daughter of a wealthy man. There was something in his eyes, lord, when he looked at her—a slight disdain, perhaps—and even though, out of Christian charity, I tried very hard not to judge him, I felt uneasy. I hoped Emma would see through him, or at least Robert would, so I was not too pleased when I heard she had accepted his proposal of marriage. But even though I believe he wedded her for mercenary purposes, it is my fervent hope that he gave the poor girl some happiness before she died. I must admit she seemed elated the last time she came here, so perhaps my opinion of him was wrong.”

  “And when was that?” Bascot asked.

  Nan Glover’s eyes filled with tears. “A few days before she was murdered, lord. She came to tell me that she was going to the shrine to ask the saint for help in conceiving a babe, and had brought to show me the little horseshoe she was taking as an offering. She told me she would have liked me to be her companion when she went but knew that, because of my frailty, it would be impossible for me to make the journey, and so had asked Mistress Turner to accompany her instead. I said I would send up my own prayers to St. Dunstan, asking that he listen to her plea, and she thanked and kissed me most tenderly before she left. Oh, to think that was the last time I will ever see her.”

  Tears now began to course down her withered cheeks and she fumbled for a scrap of linen in her pocket to wipe them dry. After giving her a few moments to compose herself, Bascot, with a reassuring glance at Gianni, broached the subject of the curse about which Ferroner had told him. Mistress Glover and the armourer were of a similar age and it was quite possible that she had heard of the confrontation between him and his erstwhile paramour at the time it had happened. If it became necessary to try to trace the woman who had laid the malediction, there was a hope that Nan, through gossip, might have obtained more information about her than Ferroner or Noll had been able to offer.

  “Oh, my, yes,” she replied when he asked her if she had heard of the incident. “It was the talk of Lincoln for some days afterwards. Robert had, just a few days before, asked Edith to be his wife, and she was most upset when she heard of it. Indeed it took him a few weeks to convince Edith that he had finished with that woman long before he had made his offer of marriage, and also to make her believe that he was earnest in his pledge to forego his old wayward habits. But theirs was a true love match, Sir Bascot, and Robert kept his promise not to indulge in any more wild behaviour. They were very happy for the short time they were together before she died.”

  “I have been told that the name of the woman who cursed him was Lorinda,” Bascot said, and Nan Glover nodded. “It was also said that she was never seen in the town again after the day she challenged him in the marketplace.” Again the elderly woman signified by another confirming movement of her head that the information was correct. “Do you know what happened to her?” he asked.

  Mistress Glover answered with some reluctance. “Not exactly, lord,” she hedged, “but . . . well, I am not certain . . . but I have reason to believe she may have gone to Newark.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “I have never told anyone this before, Sir Bascot,” she replied quietly and with some doubt in her voice as to the wisdom of imparting the revelation she was about to make. “At the time, the gossip about Lorinda and Robert was still fresh in everyone’s minds and I did not wish to upset Edith by bringing back bitter memories. But she has been long dead, and so now is poor Emma, so I don’t suppose it matters who hears of it.”

  The Templar nodded and waited for her to continue, which she did.

  “’Twas about two years after Robert and Edith were married that my husband had occasion to go to Newark, to get some fine leather from a tanner there to craft a pair of expensive gloves for a customer. My husband said, although he was not certain, that he saw a woman who greatly resembled Lorinda on the main thoroughfare in the town, carrying a young child in her arms.”

  “Did your husband speak to her?”

  “Oh, no, lord. He had never made her acquaintance, so had no reason to. He did notice that she was with a companion, a finely dressed man who looked like a wealthy merchant, with whom she was laughing and chatting. She, too, was dressed in costly attire. They both went into a very grand house that a passerby told my husband belonged to the head of the drapers’ guild, so it would seem that Lorinda had fared well after her disastrous entanglement with Robert. That was all my husband learned, lord, and when he came home and told me about it, we decided to keep it to ourselves lest, as I said, it brought distress to Edith.”

  “And your husband never saw Lorinda there again?”

  Nan Glover shook her head. “He seldom travelled to Newark—it is a very l
ong walk there and back if you cannot find a carter to give you a ride—and he only went that time because of his customer’s impatience and the worry that he would lose the commission if he did not make haste to get the material to fashion the gloves.”

  Seeing that Mistress Glover was tiring, the Templar thanked her for her time and brought the interview to a close.

  As he and Gianni exited the room, Mabel Glover was standing in the hall, as though she had been waiting to waylay them before they left.

  “I hope my husband’s mother was able to help you, Sir Bascot,” Mabel said with an ingratiating smile, and quite the opposite attitude she had displayed just a short time before. “Emma was a lovely girl and did not deserve to meet such a terrible death. I have heard in the town that it is believed to be a man crazed by a demon who killed her. Is that true?”

  Recalling that Constance Turner had told him that Emma did not like Nan’s daughter-by-marriage, he put Mabel’s display of concern down to nosiness. Irritated by her false manner, he answered her shortly, sensing that her blatant insincerity, if it was habitual, could easily have been the reason that Emma Ferroner had not wished to be in her company.

  “The investigation is ongoing, mistress,” he said bluntly. “Questions about the identity of the murderer will not be answered until it is completed.”

  Her face fell at the curtness of his reply, and she said no more as he and Gianni left the house.

  Chapter 20

  The woman who had laid such a weighty curse on Robert Ferroner was not, at that moment, very far away, for she was in the common room of a dilapidated lodging house in the Lincoln suburb of Butwerk. The area was a poor one, containing most of the town’s brothels or, as they were more commonly called, stewes, and there were also one or two hostels offering cheap accommodation. It was in one of the latter that Lorinda had taken refuge. A small fee was charged for shelter, and the lodgers—mainly itinerant tinkers, packmen and a few beggars—all shared, once a day, a pottage kept bubbling in a cauldron and slept on pallets laid around the perimeter of the large chamber on the ground floor.