The Alehouse Murders Read online

  This unfortunate but true observation set Agnes off into a fresh paroxysm of tears and Jennet lost her patience. “Why do you carry on so? Wat were not a good husband to you, as I’ve told you many a time. How many beatings have you had off him since you married him two years ago? More times than you can count, I’ll warrant. I thought you would have learned your lesson with that other wastrel our da wed you to when you was young. Even though he didn’t raise his hand to you, he was the laziest swine I’ve ever met in my life. And when he died, not beforetimes I might add, from drinking too much ale, you went and married another useless oaf, twice as worse. And he was your own free choice, too. God forgive me for saying so, but it’s maybe not a sad matter that none of your babbies survived to grow. They’d never have thrived, not with the husbands you’ve had.”

  “Oh, Jennet, don’t scold me,” Agnes sobbed. “It’s bad enough Wat was killed the way he was, and those others—stabbed right in my own taproom. But I could have been murdered, too. Haven’t you thought of that? It’s making my flesh creep, knowing I was there while . . . while. . . .” She started to cry afresh.

  “Well, you weren’t murdered, were you? Whoever did it wasn’t after you, was he? If he had been, you wouldn’t be here in my house now.”

  Jennet looked at her sister, purposely stifling the pity she felt. She had learned through their years of growing up that if you once gave Agnes any compassion she would give herself over completely to self-pity. The only way to get her through any difficulty was to bully her out of it. Their father had been the same, and Jennet had learned how to deal with Agnes by watching their mother. As Agnes began to recover somewhat and took a sip of her posset, Jennet looked at her consideringly. There was something more to Agnes’ tears than grief. She was frightened alright, but Jennet was sure there was something else, something she was not telling. Agnes could be sly at times and secretive, just like their old dad, but Jennet could usually worm any secrets out of her sister, most of them anyway.

  “When Father Anselm sent for me and I came to the church this morning, that Templar knight was asking you some strange questions. What did he mean about anything hidden in the ale house?” Jennet had arrived at St. Andrew’s just as Bascot was about to leave and had only caught the last part of the conversation between him and Agnes.

  “I don’t know, Jennet, truly I don’t.” Fear now completely took over Agnes. It was plain in the way her hands and voice shook. “He said that them bodies—the others, not Wat—might have been in my house or yard the day before. But I never saw anything. We had our custom as usual and I served up the ale. The taster even came and said I’d made a good brew. I don’t know anything about any bodies, or anything else. . . .”

  Jennet took a seat beside her sister. The table at which they were sitting was good and solid, as were the four chairs arranged around it. She was proud of the few bits of furniture she had, for her husband, Tom, who was a carpenter, had made them. He wasn’t a master craftsman, but he belonged to the town guild and earned a reasonable living making simple items and doing repairs in the yard out behind their little house. He was a good man, worked hard and never took too much ale or hit her even though, by law, he was allowed to strike her if she gave him just cause. And they had raised three children; the two girls married well, one to a freeman with a small holding outside Lincoln and the other to a tanner, while the boy, her youngest, helped his father. She felt pity again for Agnes in her plight and unhappy life, but quashed it down. She didn’t want her to start crying again.

  “Did Wat come to bed with you last night? Or did he stay up?” Jennet asked.

  Agnes looked at her sister, then her eyes slid away. Jennet knew there was something she was not telling. “He always stayed up after curfew, just for a little while usually. To have a last glass of ale, or . . .”

  “Play at dice?” her sister finished knowingly. “But last night? What did he do last night?”

  “The same,” Agnes mumbled.

  “If there was something different, you had better tell me,” Jennet said firmly. “If that murderer missed you by mistake and you know something—well, he might just come back to finish you off. If there’s anything you haven’t told, the more that know it the better. You’ll be safer that way.”

  Agnes’ eyes rolled in her head and she began to shake again. Jennet gripped her by the arms with surprising strength in her bony fingers. “What happened, Agnes? Tell me.”

  “Wat said . . . Wat . . .” Agnes began to stutter and Jennet shook her so hard that her sister’s large bosom wobbled beneath her gown.

  “Tell me,” she demanded.

  Agnes gulped. “Last night Wat told me to go up to bed and not to come down, not for anything. He said if I did, I’d be sorry. When I asked him why, he said someone was coming to see him and whoever it was wouldn’t take kindly to me being about. I thought it was just another of his dice games and said so, but he gave me a slap and said I’d better keep my mouth shut and put myself out of sight.” Agnes stopped for a moment and wiped the wetness of her tears from her face with the hem of her gown.

  “And . . .” Jennet prompted. “Did you not hear anything, screams or summat? With four people being murdered, I’d have thought there would have been some sort of ruckus.”

  “I heard nary a sound. I did just as Wat had said. I didn’t want a beating. Wat had a heavy hand, as well you know.” Here she hastily crossed herself, for forgiveness in speaking ill of the dead. “But, Jennet, that morning Wat had told me not to touch anything in the yard. I was just to pour the ale, not draw it. And he wouldn’t let me even go out to the latrine, at the back. I had to use our old pot in the house. But, Jennet, if Wat had known there was to be murder done, why was he murdered himself? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Did you tell the Templar about this when he asked you?”

  “No, he scared me. He looks so . . . like a heathen, with his dark skin, and there’s that eye patch. It’s like he could be a murderer himself.”

  “That’s silly,” Jennet exclaimed. “He’s a Templar, swore his life to God’s service, he did, and spent years in a cell at the mercy of them same bloody infidels you say he looks like. If you could trust anyone, it’s him. Even more than the priests, because most of them are more interested in the pennies we give than in saving our souls. You don’t see them giving up everything they possess for the love of God, like he did.”

  “Father Anselm isn’t like that,” Agnes protested. “He was kind to me this morning and helped me when I was all alone.” There was an accusatory tone in Agnes’ voice, as though her sister should have known of her distress and been there when it happened.

  “Well, some of them are alright,” Jennet conceded. “There are a few good ones, I suppose, even if Father Anselm is a bit too well favoured for a priest, and knows he is, and all. But the Templar is from Lady Nicolaa, not from her husband, the sheriff. Gerard Camville is none too gentle a creature, as you well know. If he sends one of his men-at-arms to question you, you’ll be made to tell what you know, right enough. And they won’t be asking you quiet like the Templar did. They’ll take you up to the castle and beat the truth out of you.”

  Jennet wasn’t too sure if this was true or not, about the Templar being sent by Nicolaa de la Haye, but she had heard a man-at-arms from the castle telling the Haye serjeant that Lady Nicolaa would be waiting for their report in her own chambers so there was a good chance that the castellan had sent them. Whether it was so or not, Jennet wanted to scare her sister into doing as she was told, and Sheriff Camville was enough of a devil to scare anyone.

  “Oh, Jennet,” Agnes wailed, “what am I going to do?”

  “Tomorrow we’ll ask Father Anselm to tell the Templar you want to see him, and then you’re going to repeat what you told me. I’ll go with you,” she added, seeing the distraught look on her sister’s face. “The sooner the task is done, the sooner you’ll be easy.” She looked down sternly at her sister. “There isn’t anything else yo
u’re not telling me, is there?”

  Agnes shook her head and swore that there wasn’t. Jennet was not confident that her sister was telling the truth, but she decided not to press the matter because Agnes truly did look as though she might swoon from the torment of emotions that her ordeal had caused. Later, when Agnes had rested, Jennet would question her again. She was sure there was something her sister was hiding.

  Finally allowing the compassion she felt to come to the surface, Jennet took her sister by the arm and led her up a flight of narrow stairs to a bedchamber above. “You lie down on our pallet and sleep now, Agnes. I’ll come up later and fetch you a bit of food for your dinner.”

  Willingly letting her sister take charge, Agnes crawled under the thin cover and closed her eyes. She didn’t know what she would have done if she hadn’t been able to come to Jennet.

  Once Jennet heard her sister’s breathing begin to grow slow and regular, she left her. There was more to this coil than could be seen, she was sure of that. Just as she was also sure that Agnes could be blamed in some way, if not for the actual killing, then for having a helping hand in it. She hadn’t suggested that to her sister, for it would scare her even more than she already was and, besides, Jennet was sure that Agnes was innocent. She was a trial sometimes, and could be unexpectedly stubborn, but she would never hurt anyone. Why, if she had been that kind she would have fought back at Wat when he hit her. She had enough strength to lift a cask of ale, she could have defended herself. But even when she was being beaten she had never tried to hurt the one who was doing it to her.

  Of one thing Jennet was sure, and that was that she didn’t really want her sister to be taken in for questioning by the sheriff’s men. Gerard Camville was a brutal man, and crimes committed by anyone other than himself were harshly punished. And he would be looking for a solution to this murder. It would be bad for custom in the town to have an unknown murderer on the loose and he was fond of his silver, was the sheriff. Just let him see a drop in the tolls and taxes the fair would bring and he would be angry, angry with that cold fury he was capable of—and would look for someone to blame it on. No, she had to get Agnes to tell what she knew and preferably to someone not directly connected to Camville. If she had put the right interpretation on what she had overheard, then the Templar was Lady Nicolaa’s knight, not Camville’s, and it would be much better for Agnes to be under the jurisdiction of the castellan rather than the sheriff. Lady Nicolaa was stern, but she was fair, unlike her husband. Yes, Jennet decided, she would take Agnes to the Templar. Besides, he was a monk, God’s own man, and despite her remarks to Agnes about clerics, she did believe that some of them were good, especially one who had risked his life in the service of Christ amongst the heathens. Muttering a prayer beneath her breath she asked for God’s help and that her instinct about the Templar prove true. She had always tried to protect her sister and often failed; she implored God for assistance in safeguarding Agnes now.

  Four

  AFTER HE AND ERNULF HAD MADE THEIR REPORT TO Nicolaa de la Haye, Bascot left the keep, motioning for Gianni to follow him. Outside, the bailey of the castle was a mass of moving men and animals as visitors arrived for the fair and castle servants rushed about unloading baggage and arranging for it to be stored. Along the perimeter of the castle walls outbuildings were packed close together—smithy, granary, the garrison sleeping quarters and stables, and space allotted for use to the carpenters, fletchers and coopers. There were also pens for sheep and swine, an area for poultry and, at the far north side, walled in for protection against a stray four-footed intruder, Lady Nicolaa’s herb garden. Adjacent to the garden were the mews where the castle hawks were kept.

  Bascot and Gianni threaded their way through the crowd, making for the tall tower of the old keep, and Bascot’s room at the top. The Templar knew it was a rare privilege, and in deference to his standing as a member of the Order, that he had been given a private chamber, for the majority of Haye retainers made up their pallets on the floor of the great hall. Although he was grateful for the privacy, the room was almost at the top of the narrow tower, and he cursed his aching ankle as he climbed the circular stairway to the third storey. Once inside, he sank down gratefully onto the shelf that held his pallet and told Gianni to pour them ale from a leather flagon standing in the corner. Reaching into a bundle by the bed, Bascot brought out a small leather sack. In it was a supply of the lumps of boiled sugar that were sent to England from Templar property in the Holy Land, made from sweet canes that grew in the fields near Acre. The Arabs called them al-Kandiq, but in England they were known simply as candi, and were one of the items the Templars used in trade to raise funds for the upkeep of their Order. Bascot was very fond of them, even though they made his teeth ache if he ate too many. He tossed one to Gianni and watched the boy’s delighted expression as he popped it into his mouth and let it roll on his tongue.

  Bascot sipped his ale and sucked the candi thoughtfully, his mind on the meeting from which he had just come. Lady Nicolaa’s husband, Gerard Camville, had been present, just returned from a morning’s hunt. Bascot was reserved in his opinion of the sheriff. Ostensibly the Templar was a guest in the retinue of his wife, for it had been to her that his introductions had been directed when he had arrived last year, but Camville was her husband and, as such, was lord over both her and her offices and possessions. The sheriff was an impressive man, massive with thick black hair cut high on the nape of his neck in the old Norman fashion and a heavy jaw that he kept clean shaven. He seemed as broad as he was tall, with thick shoulders and thighs that swelled beneath the rust-coloured jerkin and hose that he wore. But his unpredictability disturbed Bascot, for his moods were as restless as his body seemed to be. All the time Bascot and Ernulf had been giving a report of their findings at the alehouse, the sheriff had prowled back and forth in front of them and behind. It was as though he found the walls of the private chamber in which they were holding the meeting too small to contain his wide frame.

  When the tale had been finished, Gerard had muttered an oath and said, “And tonight we can expect a deputation from the town officials, come to complain about a murderer being loose, spurred on by their wives and daughters. Every female in Lincoln will be seeing a bloody fiend behind her bed curtains, or lingering malevolently near her privy. Damn the deed, and him who did it! My men are stretched as far as they can be at the moment, protecting visiting merchants from outlaws on the road and from thieves in the town. I cannot spare any to go hunting this miscreant.”

  He banged the wine cup, from which he had been drinking, down on the table in front of his wife. “And, if these two strangers are found to be of more than lowly station their relatives will come dunning me for recompense. It all means more silver to be paid out, silver I will have to make up out of my own coffers, for the king will say it is my responsibility, not the crown’s.”

  Lady Nicolaa had sat silent throughout her husband’s tirade. What Camville had said was all too true. As sheriff, he was responsible for the safety of travellers to the fair and if he was found wanting in his duties, he would have to pay the cost for that failing to any family member who had suffered from the loss of the deceased. Even villeins, absconded from a lord, would merit a few pieces of silver as a consideration to their master. Bascot knew that Camville was nervous of the new king, John, who had ascended to the throne the previous year after the death of his brother, Richard. This was so even though, while Richard had been away on Crusade, Camville and Prince John—as he had been then—had conspired to overthrow the chancellor that Lionheart had left to rule England in his stead. Reprisals had been heavy on Camville when Richard returned to England after being imprisoned in Austria on his way home from the Crusades. The king had taken the shrievalty away from him. Although John had restored it when he had gained the crown, the new king was not as trusting as his brother and watched Camville with a wary eye, for he knew how easily he could be swayed to betrayal. Had it not been that John regarded Nicolaa de
la Haye as an old and trusted friend, it was doubtful he would have reappointed Camville to his post, and the sheriff was aware of how tenuous his position was. If the people of Lincoln complained loud enough about their sheriff, the king would have no recourse but to listen and perhaps give the lucrative post to another.

  When Nicolaa spoke, it was quietly. “The alehouse is on land held in fee from the Haye demesne, Gerard. Anything that happens on property from which the Haye coffers gain revenue is ultimately my responsibility. It is, therefore, right and proper that I personally oversee the search for the perpetrator of these murders. At least initially, just until the fair is over and our visitors have left, which is only a matter of a week or so. And, I think, the townspeople will accept my guidance. If they do, it will soften any complaint they may make to the king.”

  Camville relaxed enough under her suggestion to stop his pacing. He nodded. “You will use Haye men?” he asked.

  “De Marins and Ernulf have already viewed the bodies. They can make further enquiries into the matter and I will inform the coroner what is being done.”

  Nicolaa, with a concise movement of her hands, pressed them down on the table top and rose, signifying the end of the discussion. “See if you can find out the identity of the two strangers, de Marins. Also enquire about the Jew—his own people may be able to tell you if he had incurred the enmity of a disgruntled creditor or was, perhaps, at odds with one of his own race.” She thought for a moment, then said, “This alewife—were she and her husband complaisant with each other, I wonder? It may be she knows more than she is telling. Could she have been responsible for the deaths, do you think?”

  Bascot shook his head. “She has the strength, I think, but not the wits or the boldness. And it took wits and boldness to kill and hide three bodies unseen for at least a day.”