A Deadly Penance tk-6 Read online

  Nine

  The next morning, after the service at Terce, Bascot rode out of the commandery and across the Minster in the direction of the castle. Stalls selling heated wine and roasted chestnuts had already been set up in the area around the cathedral and the aroma of hot meat pies wafted in the air as roving vendors hawked their wares among the small crowd that had attended the morning service. Even though the temperature was slightly warmer, the Templar was well wrapped up in his cloak and wore a black quilted arming cap on his head for protection against the chill. As he passed out of the Minster grounds and crossed Ermine Street, there was already foot traffic and wagons on the main thoroughfare, all making their way towards Northgate, Lincoln’s northernmost exit, and the one that led out into the open countryside.

  When Bascot reached the castle gate, he saw Gianni waiting for him just inside the entrance, eyes alight with excitement. On his head the boy had a fur-lined cap that had been given to him by Ernulf a couple of winters before. The last time he had seen Gianni wearing it, it had been too large, but now it fitted snugly over his curls and, with a heartrending pang, Bascot was once more made aware of how much the boy had grown.

  With a lighthearted step, Gianni ran forward and handed a piece of parchment to the Templar. On the paper were written the names of the two townsmen that had yet to be interviewed. One of them was known to Bascot, a barber-surgeon he had met three years before when a priest had been stabbed in St. Andrew’s Church. Bascot had not made the acquaintance of the other, who was, according to the note Gianni had made beside his name, head of the chandler’s guild.

  “We shall see these two citizens before we go to the furrier’s shop,” Bascot said as he motioned for Gianni to scramble up and ride pillion behind him. “The barber, if I remember correctly, is an observant man. Mayhap he will recall something that can help us learn more about the victim.”

  He felt the boy give two light taps on his shoulder, a signal for “yes.” As they rode out of the castle ward and onto Ermine Street, it was as though time had turned backward and they were as they had once been, master and servant on a quest. It gave both of them a great feeling of satisfaction and, had it not been that it was the occasion of a murder that had caused them to be once again in close company, they would have found great joy in the reunion.

  The streets of the town were sparsely populated and those who were out in the cold air were well wrapped in cloaks and hats. The barber, whose name was Gildas, had his business premises on a narrow turning just off Danesgate, near the church where Bascot had first met him. Gildas’ shop was a large establishment employing three assistants and had the sign associated with the trade-a brass cup atop which stood a pole wound about with bandages-outside the door.

  When they went inside, the shop was crowded with customers, all sitting on chairs with elongated backs that ended in wooden headrests. Some of the patrons were having their faces shaved or hair trimmed, while one or two were being bled, some by the opening of a vein on the inside of the elbow, others by dry cupping, where a heated circular vessel was applied to the skin and, as it cooled, drew the blood to the surface. Another, attended by Gildas himself, was stripped to the waist and had leeches affixed to his chest. Piles of bandages, jars of leeches, pairs of wicked-looking pliers for drawing teeth and small, sharp knives were neatly stacked on shelves along the walls and the air was heavy with heat from braziers burning in each corner. The strong scent of perfumed oil was overlaid with the metallic tang of blood and the floor was littered with tufts of hair and soiled bandages.

  When Bascot entered the shop, Gildas immediately left his customer and came forward to greet him. The master barber was as the Templar remembered him; a rotund little man of short stature with greying hair and a merry smile. Around his neck hung a thin silver chain threaded with extracted teeth.

  “Sir Bascot-you are well come, well come indeed.”

  Gildas’ customer, noticing he had been deserted, gave a shout of alarm and the barber motioned for one of his assistants to attend to the man before turning back to his visitor.

  “I expect you have come about the murder that took place in the castle the night before last,” he said knowingly. “We have,” Bascot confirmed. “You were, I understand, one of those who attended the feast that evening?”

  Gildas’ chest swelled with importance. “Yes, as head of our guild, I went there to take the monies I and the other barber-surgeons in the town had collected for donation to Lady Nicolaa’s foundling home.”

  “But you did not stay the night?” Bascot asked.

  Gildas shook his head. “I had an important client coming early the next morning and had to be in my shop to attend him. My wife did not relish the journey home on so cold a night, but she understands that the needs of my customers must come before personal comfort.”

  “The man who was killed was named Aubrey Tercel,” Bascot said, “and was a servant in Lady Petronille’s retinue. Did you know him?”

  “I did not know his name, but I believe I know which man was murdered,” the barber pronounced. “Did he have fair hair and wear a dark blue tunic with a red leather belt?”

  Surprised, the Templar said that the description fitted the dead man. Gildas gave a self-satisfied smile. “When the news of the murder spread throughout the town yesterday and it was said the victim had been a servant of Lady Nicolaa’s sister, one of our guild members, a barber by the name of Hacher, said that a member of Lady Petronille’s retinue had come to his shop twice in the last few weeks to have his hair trimmed.” Gildas gave Bascot a wide smile. “Now, Sir Bascot, I pride myself on being able to recognise the work of every one of our guild members and, when I arrived at the castle, I immediately noticed the man I have just described passing through the hall. I knew at once that he had been to Hacher to have his hair dressed. I would not have taken note of him otherwise. Hacher’s style of work is unmistakable- cut just below the ears and at the sides and long in the back…”

  Bascot had forgotten that Gildas, while observant, was also garrulous and gently cut the barber off in mid-flow. “Then I need to speak to this other barber. Tercel may have said something while in his shop that could be pertinent to the murder investigation. Where can I find him?”

  “Just on the other side of Spring Hill, by the church of St. John,” Gildas replied, his round face showing the pleasure he was deriving from being able to help. Bascot had no doubt that, by the end of the barber’s working day, every customer would be regaled with the details he had been able to supply. As he watched one of Gildas’ assistants pick up a pair of vicious-looking pliers and prepare to draw a tooth from a man whose face was contorted with misery, he hoped the story would distract the unfortunate customer from his pain.

  Bascot and Gianni found hacher’s shop in a little side street just behind St. John’s church. It was smaller than the one Gildas owned and the barber was the antithesis of the talkative guild master. Tall and skinny, Hacher had a cadaverous face that looked as though it would crack if its owner broke into a smile. There were only two chairs in his shop, one occupied by a man having his luxuriant beard trimmed by an apprentice and the other empty. Hacher was sitting on a stool at the back, surveying his almost-deserted shop with a lugubrious expression. Here, as in Gildas’ premises, the air was filled with pungent aromas but overlying the tang of blood was the strong scent of sage, the same cloying perfume that had emanated from Tercel’s corpse.

  As Bascot and Gianni came through the door, Hacher rose from his seat, and, with a hopeful raising of his sparse eyebrows, enquired how he could be of assistance. When the Templar related why he had come, gloom once again settled over the barber-surgeon’s features, but he confirmed that Aubrey Tercel had come to him twice over the weeks since Christ’s Mass, and had his hair trimmed both times.

  “He was a fussy customer,” Hacher added dolefully. “Complained I hadn’t cut his hair short enough the first time and declared he wasn’t prepared to pay the cost of a second trimming. But he
did buy some scented oil to keep his locks smooth, so I suppose I gained some profit from his patronage.”

  “While you were attending to his needs, did he make any mention of acquaintances he had made in the town?” Bascot asked. “Perhaps a lady whom he wished to impress?”

  Hacher thought for a moment. “He didn’t say much, just told me he was only in Lincoln until Eastertide and was in the retinue of Lady Nicolaa’s sister. The next time he came, he said he was in a hurry, and we spoke little.”

  “Are you sure he said nothing else-where he was going after he left your shop, for instance?” Bascot pressed.

  When the barber gave a woeful shake of his head, the Templar and Gianni, disappointed, left the shop. But once they were again out in the street, Bascot paused for a moment. “Hacher’s information does not help us much,” he said to Gianni, “but it does give us some indication of Tercel’s personality. It appears he was a vain man, and parsimonious with it. You must have seen him while he was staying at the castle, Gianni. What was your impression of him?”

  Gianni immediately struck a pose, arms akimbo, feet wide apart and head thrown back. The implication was obvious and confirmed Bascot’s judgement of Tercel’s conceit.

  The Templar smiled at the boy’s mimicry, but it quickly faded as he thought that the man the boy was parodying was now dead. A coxcomb he may have been, but he did not deserve to have his life taken by another.

  He looked at the other name on the piece of parchment Gianni had given him. “The chandler’s shop is on Mikelgate, between here and Adgate’s premises. We will go there first and then to the furrier’s.”

  As Bascot and Gianni were on their way to the candle makers, the five young foundlings destined to be taken to Riseholme were being shepherded into a capacious wain. The day before, after spending the previous night sleeping on straw in the stables, they had all been thoroughly washed by the castle laundress in the room where she kept a large vat of water boiling to wash the napery used in the hall. The washer-woman was a raw-boned female with arms that swelled with muscle. For all her frightening appearance, she had been gentle with the children, lathering them with soap made from wood ash and tallow and sluicing them down with warm water before she removed the lice from their undernourished bodies. She had then clad them in warm clothes-remnants of old servants’ tunics cut down to smaller sizes by the castle sempstresses-and given them a bowl of warm broth to eat. Now, their pitifully thin frames wrapped up against the cold and their shrunken bellies filled, they were to be taken to their new abode.

  They were all frightened. The youngest, a girl of about five years of age, was weeping and clinging to the hand of her sister, a girl only a couple of years older than she. The pair had recently lost their only protector, an elder brother who had succumbed to a fever, and both were frightened at being sent to live among strangers. The older sibling was valiantly trying to present a brave face for the sake of her little sister, but her lower lip began to tremble as a castle maidservant instructed them to get up into the back of the cart that was to take them to Riseholme.

  As the five-year-old was lifted up, she began to wail. “We’s not bein’ taken to be murdered, are we, like that man that was killed?” she cried out in terror. All of the children cringed as she gave voice to her fear. The third girl in the group, a child of about seven who answered every question put to her with only a shake of her head and a muttered “Dunno,” abandoned her resolute silence and let out a small moan.

  It was oldest of the boys that brought calm to the situation. He was a ten-year-old named Willi with a thatch of hair the colour of carrots and freckles sprinkled liberally over the bridge of his nose. As the maidservant fussed and tried to comfort the girls, he took the smallest one by the hand and said stoutly, “Don’t be daft, little ’un, ’course they ain’t going to kill us. Now, stop your grizzlin’ and do as you’re told.” Mollified, the child took his hand and allowed herself to be lifted up onto the bed of the cart.

  The maidservant gave him an approving smile and guided the other children up into the wain before climbing up beside them. Willi and the only other lad in the group, a blond-haired boy named Mark, a couple of years younger than Willi, moved a little apart from the girls and the maidservant, sitting on the floor of the cart with their backs to the driver.

  As the equipage trundled out of the castle gate and headed north on the two-and-a-half-mile journey to Riseholme, Mark spoke to Willi in a whisper.

  “You don’t reckon that girl is right do you, and that we’re all going to be murdered once we get to wherever we’s goin’?”

  “ ’Course not,” Willi replied firmly. “D’you think it likely they’d have given us food if they wus going to kill us? Be a waste of good grub, that would.”

  Mark saw the wisdom in his words, but remained unconvinced, the intelligent blue eyes in his bony little face screwed up in concentration as he did so. “Still,” he said finally, “there wus a murder in the castle t’other night and it must’ve been someone in the ward that done it.” Keeping his voice low so the girls would not hear, he added in a whisper, “How do we know the murderer ain’t the groom that’s drivin’ this cart? Or that maidservant they sent along with us?”

  “ ’Cos I saw the murderer, that’s why, and it wasn’t either of these two,” Willi replied, keeping his voice low so that neither the maidservant nor the groom would hear what he said.

  Mark’s eyes grew round. “You saw him? When was that then?”

  “When they wus takin’ us across to the stables. I saw someone comin’ out of that old tower on the other side of the bail. All wrapped up in a cloak and skulkin’ along in the shadows. Can’t think of any reason for a person to be actin’ like that if they wasn’t doin’ anythin’ wrong. Must of been the murderer.”

  “Are you goin’ to tell anyone about it?” Mark asked fearfully.

  “Why should I? It’s nuffink to do with me.”

  “You might get some extra food if you wus helpful,” Mark suggested. “They’d be right pleased if you told them what you knows.”

  “Nah,” Willi replied with a shrug of his shoulders. “They’d only start askin’ me all kinda questions and I wants to keep my head down low ’cause I’se not staying long at this place they’re takin’ us. I only come with the priest that brought me to the castle ’cause I was hungry. Me da said I wus to wait where he left me and if he comes back and finds me gone, he’ll give me a right good thrashin’ for not doin’ what I wus told.”

  “How comes you’re here if you’ve got a da?” Mark asked in puzzlement. “All the rest of us is orphans. The priest where I went to get alms asked me that partiklar like. Said I couldn’t go to the home if I had someone to look arter me.”

  “I lied, didn’t I?” Willi replied breezily. “My da went lookin’ for work and told me to stay where I wus and get alms from the priest at St. Peter’s church. He said he’d only be gone a day or two, but he was gone longer than that and I wus starvin’ so bad my stomach hurt. So when the priest asked me if I had a ma or da, I told him I didn’t so’s I’d get somethin’ to eat. But I didn’t ’spect I’d be sent to the castle, nor that I’d be taken outside the town, so I’m not gonna stay at this place they’re takin’ us for long. Soon as I gets a chance, I’m goin’ back to Lincoln so’s I can find my da.”

  Mark thought over what Willi had told him. “You wants to be careful,” he cautioned. “If that murderer saw you lookin’ at him and finds you wanderin’ around the town, he might just kill you so’s you can’t tell no one it wus him you seen. You’ll be safer out at Riseholme.”

  Willi looked at Mark and realised his newfound friend had made an assumption that was erroneous. He started to correct him, but then changed his mind. The less the other boy knew, the better. Instead he gave Mark a glare and said, “I ain’t told no one what I saw ’cept you. And if you tells on me, I’ll say you saw the murderer as well. Then you’ll be in just as much danger as me.”

  Mark quickly assured W
illi that he would not reveal what he had been told but, after he had done so, added, “I’d still be right chary of going back to town if I wus you. If you isn’t, you might just end up dead as well.”

  Ten

  When Bascot and Gianni went into the Chandler’s manufactory they were met, as in the shops of Gildas and Hacher, with a comforting blast of heat. From the front entrance, the chandlery opened out into a huge workshop lined with troughs containing melted beeswax. Alongside each trough was a line of workers holding rods from which depended rows of linen wicks. Slowly and carefully they lowered the rods and dipped the wicks into the melted wax until a layer formed around each one. The rods were then hung up so the wax could dry and, as soon as it was hardened, the process was repeated until each candle was of a desired thickness. Some of the finished products were narrow and tapered, some broad and shallow while others, tall and fat, contained exactly enough wax to burn for twenty-four hours. These last would be scored with lines, each one denoting the passage of one hour, and used as a guide for the passage of time. It was a simple task but one, nonetheless, that required delicacy and a certain amount of expertise to ensure that each candle was of a perfect weight and smoothness.

  To one side was a small hearth where honeycombs were being dissolved. Two young men attended this process and the aromatic scent of the crushed herbs they were adding to the melting beeswax was pleasing to the nostrils. Standing at the back of the large chamber were immense racks hung with finished candles. These needed to dry for at least eight days and, in good weather, would be trundled outside to allow the sun to bleach the wax to a fine brightness. Overseeing all of the work, and pacing back and forth as she did so, was a girl of about eighteen years of age dressed in a dark grey gown over which was draped a voluminous apron.