Murder for Christ's Mass tk-4 Read online

  Nicolaa suggested the young people, after the midday meal, hold the instruction in the chamber she used to administer the details of her vast demesne. It was private and supplied with a good quantity of parchment and writing implements. She also asked Lambert to attend the lesson so he could act as a translator for Gianni’s gestures and directed the clerk to write down a brief description of the movements so that Stephen, who was literate, could use the notes for reference.

  As Gianni’s eager steps took him into the keep, the hunt master came out into the bail and gave a loud blast on his horn. In response, saddled horses were led from the stables and the kennel master strode from the compound where the dogs were kept, a pack of mastiffs and boarhounds at his heels. Outside the kitchen, panniers containing flagons of wine were hastily strapped to the back of a sturdy palfrey to provide refreshment for members of the hunting party.

  As the barking of the dogs sounded loud on the cold air, Gerard Camville and Gilbert Bassett left the keep and came down into the bail. Behind them were Richard, Ralph of Turville and the household knights. All were wrapped in heavy cloaks and wore close-fitting caps lined with fur.

  The sheriff mounted his horse and looked about him. Satisfied all was in order, he raised his hand. The gateward on the western gate blew a signal on his horn and the heavy doors were pulled open by two men-at-arms. As the party rode through the opening and out into the countryside, a wide swathe of churned-up mud and slush marked their passage.

  Once the sounds of jingling harnesses and yelping dogs had faded into the distance, Bascot felt a fleeting stab of regret that he was not accompanying the hunters. The sport was forbidden to brothers of the Templar Order because it was believed that such secular pleasure would detract from the monks’ devotion to their religious duties. Although Bascot agreed with the sentiment of the rule, he still felt a craving to indulge in the excitement of the chase. Resolutely he pushed his longing aside. He had been too long away from the company of his brothers, he decided, and since it was unlikely that either Lady Nicolaa or her husband would require his presence until later in the day, he would go and spend the morning at the Templar enclave and immerse himself in the familiarity of the Order’s regime.

  The Lincoln enclave of the templar order was modest in size and located on the eastern shoulder of the hill upon which the castle and Minster stood and just below the area where the stone quarry lay. Although not a large commandery, Lincoln was on the main route from southeast England to the north coast and the preceptory often fulfilled the function of a staging post for messengers, and a harbour for travelling brothers in need of a night’s rest. Sparsely manned at this time of year when movement about the countryside was limited, it still had a complement of a dozen men-at-arms, a serjeant, a priest and a draper, all under the command of the preceptor, Everard d’Arderon. There was also a small number of lay servants-a cook, a blacksmith and several grooms.

  When Bascot arrived, a huge wagon was in the encampment, drawn up outside the storehouse where the goods received in fee from local Templar properties were kept. It also housed a supply of commodities that had been produced in the Holy Land and were sent to enclaves throughout the kingdom for the purposes of trade, such as rare spices and candi.

  Bales containing some of the more staple items were being loaded on the cart as Bascot entered the preceptory. Preceptor d’Arderon was standing alongside the wagon, a piece of parchment in his hands, directing a pair of men-at-arms in placement of the goods. D’Arderon, an older knight with a bluff countenance and neatly clipped greying beard, greeted his visitor warmly and, when Bascot asked the destination of the supplies, explained they were part of a shipment being sent to Tomar in Portugal, a Templar castle that was a bastion against the ever-increasing threat of encroachment by the Moors.

  “This wagonload of goods will join two others that are due to stop here on their way from the preceptory in York,” d’Arderon explained. “Once they have all reached London, the goods will be loaded aboard ship and taken to Portugal. Most will go to the enclave in Tomar, but some of it is needed by brothers in nearby Almourol. Those infidel bastards in the south of Portugal give our men no time to forage for themselves.”

  The Templar castles at both Tomar and Almourol-twelve miles south of Tomar-had been built about thirty years before at the behest of a Portuguese Templar Master, Gualdim Pais, who had died in 1195. It was an area of much unrest as the Moors battled to retake territories that had been reclaimed from them with great difficulty and loss of life by the Christian populace of northern Portugal. If the heathens were not kept back in both Portugal and Spain, there was a danger they would overwhelm the whole of the Iberian Peninsula.

  As d’Arderon had been speaking, Bascot noticed the preceptor looked very tired. Usually hale and hearty despite his sixty-odd years, there were now lines of strain etched on his face, and Bascot recalled the preceptor had recently suffered a bout of tertian fever, a recurring ailment that had been the cause of his being relieved of duty in Outremer two years before, and sent to take up the post of preceptor for the Lincoln enclave. It had been hoped that the softer climes of England would provide some relief from his ailment. And so they had, but the bouts still came upon him at times and although of far less intensity than formerly, they were nonetheless debilitating.

  “I do not have any duties at the castle for the next couple of hours, Preceptor, and would be more than pleased to carry out any task you care to assign me.”

  D’Arderon clapped him on the shoulder. “I look forward to the day when you will be back in our ranks for good, de Marins. Until then, you are welcome for however long a time you can spend.”

  The preceptor looked to where two grooms were exercising the enclave’s horses, walking them around the perimeter of the training ground that lay in the centre of the commandery. Usually the mounts were taken out onto the hillside below the preceptory and given a daily run, but the fall of snow over the last few days had precluded this. On the far side of the compound was a forge where a blacksmith was fitting new horseshoes on d’Arderon’s big black stallion. The animal was frisky and trying to bite the groom attempting to hold it steady. The blacksmith was having great difficulty completing his task.

  “If you would finish overseeing the loading of this wagon, de Marins,” the preceptor said, handing Bascot the paper he had been holding, “I will go and subdue my mount. Although he is unmatched as a destrier, he is also fractious, and needs a firm hand.”

  Bascot took the parchment and for the rest of the morning supervised the loading of sacks of grain, barrels of salted herring, some lengths of timber suitable for palings and a number of casks containing crossbow quarrels.

  After the cart was loaded and securely covered with a protective sheet of leather hides, Bascot reluctantly bid d’Arderon farewell and left the preceptory.

  As he rode back to Lincoln castle, he felt a sense of well-being, instilled by the hours he had spent in the company of men who, like himself, had dedicated their lives to the service of Christ. The desire to accompany the hunting party that had so suddenly engulfed him that morning was completely expunged. As he entered the Minster grounds and rode across it in the direction of the castle, he looked toward the Priory of All Saints where the body of Peter Brand was being kept. The memory of the clerk’s broken body and the fatal wound in his chest surged into the Templar’s mind. Although forbidden to hunt game, it seemed as though God had ordained he be a stalker of murderers.

  Ten

  As Bascot was returning from the preceptory, the hunting party was also on their way back to the castle. All were in high good humour. As they rode, they recalled the high points of the chase, especially the moment when the boar was killed.

  It had been shortly after they entered the sheriff’s chase-the edge of which was a marshy patch of ground threaded with small streams-that the dogs had flushed the boar from its lair beneath a snow-covered mound of dead bracken. At first the pig attacked and wounded one of the dogs wit
h its sharp yellow tusks, but then, realising there were too many adversaries to be overcome, it sped off into a wooded area. The chase was an arduous one. With the dogs snapping and snarling at it heels, the boar darted farther into the trees, zigzagging back and forth, occasionally executing one of the sudden turns its short legs could perform so well and lunging at its pursuers.

  The quarry was finally brought to bay in the bed of an old dried-up stream. At the far end of the shallow depression were the decaying remains of a long-deserted beaver’s lodge, now covered in a thin layer of melting snow. The boar, finding its passage blocked by the pile of debris, turned and faced its enemies. It was a mature animal, and large, standing more than a metre high at the shoulder and weighing at least two hundred pounds. The dogs, still growling and barking but wary of the gleaming tusks, managed to hold it there until the hunt party caught up.

  Leaving their horses a safe distance from where the pig was trapped, the men dismounted and the hunt master sent two of his assistants up onto the banks of the streambed, one on either side. Each of the huntsmen carried a large net that could be cast over the boar if the need arose. The men of the party, Camville and Bassett in the lead, armed themselves with short cross-hafted boar spears.

  The area around the streambed was heavily wooded, all the trees denuded of leaves and the branches laden with dribbles of slushy snow. The feral stench of the boar permeated the air and the menacing snarls of the boarhounds and mastiffs echoed loudly in the narrow space.

  Motioning to the others to spread out behind, the two barons walked slowly forward. As they did so, one of the mastiffs, excited beyond caution, made a sudden dash at the boar. The pig was ready for him and caught the mastiff in mid-leap, ripping a gash in the dog’s underbelly and then, with an insolent fling of its head, tossed its attacker over its back. The dog fell heavily and did not move, its intestines trailing streaks of blood in the sparse covering of snow. It gave one feeble whimper and died.

  The boar tried to back away from the approaching men, its tiny hooves scrabbling in the slush-covered stone of the streambed until its hindquarters touched the tumble of decaying wood that had once been the beaver’s lodge. There it stopped, head swinging from side to side and little red eyes glaring.

  The sheriff and his friend moved forward. They had no need to speak or even look at each other as they moved into position; Camville directly in front of the boar, Bassett a few feet to the sheriff’s right. They had fought alongside each other since the days of their youth, following King Henry II in his campaigns to defend his lands across the Narrow Sea and afterwards, when the king’s sons defied him in attempts to wrest the crown from their father’s head. In a battle, or on a hunt, the two barons moved in familiar concert, accustomed to facing danger as comrades-in-arms.

  Suddenly another of the mastiffs, ignoring the hunt master’s order to stay back, leapt at the boar. The pig reacted with lightning speed, propelling itself forward towards the dog, clumps of dirt, pebbles and slush whirling from beneath its hooves as it came to meet its adversary. Barely in time, the dog lurched to one side and the sharp tusks missed by inches. But even though the mastiff was no longer in its path, the boar did not lessen its speed, and the momentum of its charge carried it straight towards Bassett. Kneeling down and holding his spear at the ready, the baron braced himself for the impact, but just as the clash between man and animal was imminent, the boar veered to one side, seeking an escape route through the narrow space between Bassett and the sheriff.

  Camville raised his spear, holding it with both hands as the animal attempted to run past him. With one swift movement, he plunged it deep into the pig’s neck. The struggle between them was violent, the boar thrashing against the steel impaled in its flesh and the sheriff determined not to release his hold. The hunt master’s assistants ran forward with their nets, but there was no need of their help. Using his great strength, Camville threw his legs astride the boar and, leaning his full weight against the spear, thrust it in farther and farther until the animal, with one final spasm and a horrendous squeal, stilled into death.

  Now, riding home, the story of the kill was recounted again and again. The dead pig, gutted and tied to a stout branch carried by the hunt master’s assistants, was a trophy worthy of celebration, and the men passed a flagon of wine back and forth as they rode. One of the squires began to sing a hunting song and the others joined in, their voices ringing out in a paean of victory over the stillness of the winter countryside.

  It was not until they were nearing the castle that anything occurred to disturb their good humour. The path leading to the western gate ran parallel to the city walls and traversed the incline at the top of the hill on which the castle and Minster stood. As the hunt party rode along the path, the hounds, which had been fed on the boar’s entrails and were trotting along docilely, suddenly became attracted to a drift of snow at the wayside. One of the mastiffs snuffled at the pile and, despite the hunt master’s shouted order to rejoin the pack, the dog began to dig. Almost at once, two of the other hounds joined the first and added their labour to his, their powerful chest muscles driving their paws deep into the snow, unheeding of the repeated order to stop. Cursing, the hunt master got down from his horse and pulled out the short whip he carried at his belt. Wading into the group of recalcitrant hounds, he yelled at them to fall back, swinging the whip above their heads as he did so. The dogs retreated, but only for a moment, then circled back to the same spot.

  Frustrated, the hunt master now swung his whip in earnest but as the dogs, this time, obeyed his order, he stopped short and stared down at the hole they had made. Relaxing his grip on the whip, he lifted his head and walked back to the path.

  “What is it, man?” Gerard Camville asked roughly. “What ails the dogs?”

  “They have found a body, lord, buried under the snow,” was the reply.

  The sheriff shrugged. “It is most likely a beggar who died of exposure. I will have some men come and remove-”

  The hunt master interrupted him with a shake of his head. “I do not believe it is a beggar, lord, and even if it is, he did not die from the foulness of the weather. There is a stab wound in his chest. He has been murdered.”

  When Bascot guided his horse through the eastern gate into the bail, the hunting party had already returned. He was just in time to see Gerard Camville issue a terse order to Ernulf, the serjeant of the castle garrison, before disappearing up the wooden staircase that led to the door of the keep. As he did so, the Templar noticed that a party of four men-at-arms, moving at a quick pace, were leaving the ward by the western gate.

  As Ernulf turned away from the staircase and started to walk across the ward in the direction of the barracks, he noticed Bascot and called to him, an expression of relief on his face.

  “De Marins, I was just about to send one of my men to find you. Sir Gerard requests you attend him immediately.”

  “What’s amiss, Ernulf?” the Templar asked. “I saw your men leaving. Is there some trouble in the sheriff’s chase?”

  The grizzled serjeant shook his head. “Not in the forest, no, but right here in Lincoln. As the hunt party was returning, the dogs found a body buried under the snow just outside the city wall. My men have gone to fetch the corpse into the ward.”

  Ernulf gave Bascot a sorrowful look as he continued. “Not only is the man dead, but he’s been murdered. Stabbed through the heart, just like the clerk. I reckon the reason the sheriff wants to speak to you is that he figures there’s a connection between this corpse and the one found in the quarry.”

  Bascot felt a chill settle over him that was not caused by the coldness of the winter air. “Who is the dead man, then? Is it someone who knew Brand?”

  Ernulf rubbed the greying stubble on his unshaven chin. “Don’t rightly know about that, but they both worked with silver in one form or another. The dead man’s name is Roger Fardein and he was apprentice to a silversmith in the town.”

  When Bascot went into the kee
p and up to the sheriff’s chamber, Camville confirmed the name and occupation of the man buried under the snow.

  “Fardein was apprentice to a man named Warner Tasser,” the sheriff explained as he walked up and down the chamber, a cup of wine in his hand and his voice filled with fury. The good humour instilled in him by the success of the hunt was gone. The faces of Gilbert Bassett and Richard Camville, also in the chamber, mirrored the sheriff’s anger.

  “Tasser is a man of ill repute,” Gerard went on. “He has been fined by his guild twice for debasing the silver content in pieces his workshop produces. And, a few years ago, he was implicated in having disposed of items that had been stolen-accused of melting them down in his forge and fashioning them into new ones. Nothing could be proven against him at that time, but I am certain he was guilty of the charge.”

  Camville stopped in his pacing and banged his wine cup down on the table. “And now his apprentice is dead, killed in just the same way as the clerk. Both dead men were employed in a place where silver is kept. There is a link between the two murders; I am sure. And I would wager Tasser is involved.”

  “You cannot be sure of that, Father,” Richard protested. “It may only be happenstance.”

  Camville snorted. “Two men murdered in the same way, by a blow to the head and stabbed, and both left in a place where they would not be found quickly-what is there not to be sure about?”

  “I did not mean they were not killed by the same person, only that it may not have been Tasser,” Richard replied. “He has not, as far as I am aware, any connection with the mint. His workshop produces only items for personal or household use, jewellery, cups, and that sort of thing.”