A Deadly Penance (10 page)
“Did you attend to him personally?”
“Yes, I did,” Adgate said uneasily. “When my assistant realised that the purchase might prove to be a substantial one, he sent for me and I showed Tercel a selection of the furs that I carry.”
“As I understand it,” Bascot pressed, “he came into the shop on more than one occasion. Did you see to his requirements each time?”
Adgate nodded, and the Templar could sense mounting tension in the man. “Surely, during three times of meeting, you must have spoken of matters other than the furs,” Bascot suggested. “Did he tell you anything about himself, or the places he had been in the town?”
Adgate shook his head and walked over to the pile of furs that Gianni had pointed out earlier. Bascot noticed that the furrier walked with c wafont sia slight limp. Picking up a pelt of sable, Adgate brought it back and showed it to the Templar. “As you can see, my goods are of the finest quality,” he said, running his fingers caressingly through the rich, dark fur. “I have no need to engage in idle chatter with a customer to persuade them to make a purchase. Tercel saw the quality of my goods and so, I assume, did Lady Petronille when he took the squirrel furs to show her. Our conversation dealt entirely with the business transaction. We spoke of nothing else.”
The furrier’s little speech seemed earnest but Bascot was not gulled. There seemed to be a hint of desperation behind Adgate’s facile words and, glancing at Gianni, the Templar saw the boy surreptitiously curl the tips of the fingers of his right hand and quickly release them, a gesture that denoted apprehension. He had noticed the furrier’s uneasiness as well.
Bascot considered Adgate’s limp. Was it an old injury or a recent one? Could it be that there was some merit to Alinor’s wild assumption that the furrier had discovered his wife and Tercel together and fought with him, and that their struggle had resulted in an injury to Adgate’s leg? But the furrier had been overlooked all that evening by another guild leader, the armourer and his wife who had sat beside Adgate and accompanied him to their respective guest chambers in the old tower. Still, there must be a reason for the furrier’s seeming alarm and perhaps, as Bascot had discussed earlier with Richard Camville and Alinor, it was related to his wife.
Feigning acceptance of Adgate’s explanation, the Templar said, “I need to ask a few questions of your wife. Now that she has had time to get over the shock of being in such close proximity to where a murder took place, I would like to ask her whether or not she has recalled any information that may help us.”
Bascot felt, rather than saw, Adgate stiffen. “I am afraid my wife is indisposed,” he protested. “She has taken a chill and is keeping to her bed in an effort to recover from it.”
But Bascot did not intend to be so easily thwarted. “Be that as it may, I must insist on speaking to her, else it will be necessary for her to come to the castle so that Lady Nicolaa or Sir Richard can ask their questions directly.”
Faced with the unacceptable alternative, Adgate acquiesced to Bascot’s demand, asking only that the Templar give his wife a few moments to don suitable attire before coming down.
Bascot nodded and the furrier left the room, instructing his assistant to show the Templar into an adjoining chamber and pour him a cup of wine. The room into which Bascot was led, with Gianni at his heels, was a sumptuous one; a gleaming oak table set with candlesticks and condiment dishes of silver graced the middle of the room and richly embroidered tapestries hung on the walls. In front of a fire blazing in a capacious hearth were ladder-backed chairs and settles and a thick rug lay on the floor. There were two casements and the shutters of both had been partially opened to reveal square panes fitted with thinly shaven horn that allowed light to enter but prevented coldness from seeping into the room. The assistant bid the Templar be seated and poured wine into a silver cup and placed it in front of him.
His duty completed, the servant left the room and Bascot looked at Gianni and raised an eyebrow. “There is much wealth here,” Bascot mused. “If Tercel was making Adgate a cuckold, the furrier has more than enough riches to pay for the hire of an assassin.”
Gianni nodded in solemn agreement as the door opened and Adgate returned, leading his young wife by the hand. Clarice w cnd.3”>as a very handsome woman, with clear skin and a ripe red rosebud mouth, but now her pretty face was withdrawn and there were dark hollows under her lovely green eyes. She came forward hesitantly and seated herself on the edge of a chair.
Bascot regarded her for a moment before he spoke. She did not look up at him while he did so, directing her gaze downwards to where her hands were tightly entwined in her lap. “On the night of the feast, mistress, you told Sir Richard that you left the hall early and, after going to the chamber in the old tower which you and your husband had been allotted, went immediately to bed and slept undisturbed until morning. Are you absolutely certain all was quiet during all that time?”
Clarice answered in a voice so low it was barely audible. “Yes, lord, I am.”
“And earlier, when you crossed the bail, did you see anyone lingering around the entrance to the old tower when you went in—a servant, perhaps, or one of the guests?”
Clarice shook her head and said nothing, keeping her eyes downcast. Bascot, irritated by her withdrawn attitude, decided to act on instinct and said sharply, “But you were acquainted with the man who was murdered, mistress, were you not?”
Clarice’s gaze flew up to Bascot’s face and he saw fear in her eyes. Adgate, who had been hovering behind his wife’s chair, placed a hand on her shoulder and answered in her stead. There was a touch of panic in the protective movement and, the Templar noted with surprise, also a fleeting curl of distaste on the furrier’s full lips when his fingers touched his wife’s body.
“My wife might have been in the shop on one or two of the occasions when he called—she is often in there helping me display some of the ladies’ furred cloaks to prospective customers—but that can hardly be called an acquaintanceship.”
The Templar ignored the furrier and, once again, spoke directly to Clarice. “When he came into your husband’s shop, mistress, did you engage in conversation with him?”
Clarice remained mute and looked helplessly up at her husband. Adgate once again gave a reply to the question. “As I have said, Sir Bascot, she may have seen the dead man once or twice, but that is all. Now, I must insist that you allow my wife to return to her bed. She is ill, as you can see, and the memory of how near she was to death is very distressing to her.”
Bascot stood up. “Very well, furrier. I will leave my questions there—for now. But I, or Sir Richard, will want to speak to both you and your wife again. Be ready to present yourselves at the castle tomorrow at mid-morning. Perhaps your wife will have recovered sufficiently by then to answer my questions more fully.”
Adgate started to protest, but the Templar cut him short. “I find it hard to believe that your wife would be so stricken with distress for the death of a man you claim she barely knew, or that she was so indisposed that she heard nothing while this same man was being murdered in the building where she was abed. I would advise you both to reflect on the matter until tomorrow and, when you come to the castle, be ready to tell the truth.”
Clarice let out a great sob as Bascot and Gianni left the chamber. Once outside the shop, Bascot untied the reins of his horse and, as they both settled themselves atop the animal, said to Gianni, “Lady Alinor was right, there is something that both Adgate and his wife are not telling us. It only remains to discover what it is.”
L
ATER THAT cAdga EVENING, HER WORK IN THE CHANDLERY FINISHED for the day and the household set in order, the candle-maker’s daughter, Merisel, slipped into the chamber where her ailing mother lay in bed. The illness that had seemed slight on the day of the feast had taken a turn for the worse and Mistress Wickson now lay on her pallet, grey-faced and short of breath.
ATER THAT cAdga EVENING, HER WORK IN THE CHANDLERY FINISHED for the day and the household set in order, the candle-maker’s daughter, Merisel, slipped into the chamber where her ailing mother lay in bed. The illness that had seemed slight on the day of the feast had taken a turn for the worse and Mistress Wickson now lay on her pallet, grey-faced and short of breath.
Merisel went to her side and, reaching out a hand, smoothed her mother’s disordered hair back from her brow. Edith Wickson did indeed look ill, large dark circles had formed under her soft brown eyes and her mouth was tremulous. She had always been of an energetic and dithering nature, flittering from one task to another in an effort to please her demanding husband; to see her lying so still was worrying. “Are you feeling any better, Mother?” Merisel asked.
“A little,” Mistress Wickson replied. “Have you attended to all that needs to be done?”
“I have,” Merisel replied. “Do not worry, you will soon be well and able to see to the tasks yourself.”
Edith Wickson fiddled nervously with the heavy braid of greying brown hair which lay over her shoulder and said, “Your father told me that a Templar came today to question him about the murder in the castle. And that he spoke to you as well. What did he ask?”
“Only if we knew the man who was murdered in the castle and if we had seen him speaking with anyone in the town.”
“And what did you tell him?”
Merisel shrugged. “The truth, of course. That I had neither made his acquaintance nor knew of anyone that had.”
Mistress Wickson took her daughter’s hand and pressed it as tears welled in her eyes. “You are a good girl, Merisel, and serve your father and myself well. You know that I only want what is best for you.”
Merisel smiled. “I am glad you feel so, Mother,” she replied, but a shiver of unease rippled through her. It was unlike her mother to be so melancholy. She reached for a small phial sitting on a table beside the bed. “Come, take the medicine I got from the apothecary. It will help you sleep more peacefully. If you do not get enough rest, it wi
ll take you longer to recover.”
ll take you longer to recover.”
Obediently, Mistress Wickson sipped the foul mixture from the spoon her daughter held out to her, then lay back and closed her eyes. But as Merisel doused the candle and left the room, the girl could not erase the conversation she had with the Templar from her mind, nor the anxiety her mother had shown when she had asked about it.
Eleven
E
ARLY THE NEXT MORNING, SOME FIFTY MILES SOUTHWEST OF Lincoln, Richard de Humez, Petronille’s husband, was pacing the floor of a small chamber in his manor house near Stamford, agitatedly running a hand over the thinning hair on his pate. Seated on a chair across the room was a local knight, Stephen Wharton, whose small demesne abutted the fief de Humez held from the king. They had been friends for many years but now de Humez’ face was filled with consternation as he stopped his pacing and faced Wharton.
ARLY THE NEXT MORNING, SOME FIFTY MILES SOUTHWEST OF Lincoln, Richard de Humez, Petronille’s husband, was pacing the floor of a small chamber in his manor house near Stamford, agitatedly running a hand over the thinning hair on his pate. Seated on a chair across the room was a local knight, Stephen Wharton, whose small demesne abutted the fief de Humez held from the king. They had been friends for many years but now de Humez’ face was filled with consternation as he stopped his pacing and faced Wharton.
“I find it hard to believe that what you have just told me about Tercel is true. Why did you not apprise me of these facts when you urged me to give him a post in my household?”
Wharton, a man of about fifty years of age with an open, honest face and mild blue eye fauthocenter”>s, tried to find words that would pacify the baron. De Humez was a fussy and precise individual who was a little too conscious of his high position, but he was a decent man and they had been friends for a long time.
“Truly, Dickon, I did not think the matter of any importance… .”
De Humez’s response was full of irritation. “Of no importance! How can you deem it a falderal that a retainer of mine—one I took into my service on
your
recommendation—believed himself to be the bastard son of a man who was once king of England! And that he might have been murdered to prevent him substantiating that claim!”
your
recommendation—believed himself to be the bastard son of a man who was once king of England! And that he might have been murdered to prevent him substantiating that claim!”
“It may seem as though I have deceived you, Dickon, but truly, that was not my intent,” Wharton said abjectly. “I thought his notion was merely a passing fancy, one that he would soon dismiss when he saw the futility of pursuing it further. But now that he has been killed, I fear he may have been asking questions in quarters where they would not be well come… .”
“And was murdered to ensure his silence,” de Humez finished gravely. The baron walked over to the table and poured himself another cup of wine. When he had drunk deeply from the cup, he sat down heavily on a padded chair beside the roaring fire in the grate.
“You had better tell me the whole sorry tale, Stephen. And then, if you value my friendship, you will go to Lincoln and repeat it to my sister-by-marriage, Nicolaa de la Haye.” His eyes narrowed as he added, “And God help you if this so called fantasy of Tercel’s has put my wife and daughter in danger. I am not normally a vengeful man, but you can be assured that in this instance I will ensure you pay to the fullest measure for your actions.”
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