Maureen Ash - Shroud of Dishonour

It was late in the evening by the time Bascot returned to the commandery. He and Roget had spoken to all of the men Verlain had named and every one had witnesses to their presence on the morning in question. In the case of three of them, it was the customer’s wives who provided their spouses’ alibis-with angry glances at their husbands as they did so-and for the rest of them, who were all unmarried or widowed-it was a member of the household in which they lived who confirmed their whereabouts at the pertinent time. Before they parted, Bascot and Roget agreed that, on the morrow, the captain would visit all of the houses in Butwerk, especially those close to the stewe where Elfreda had worked, and ask if any of the inhabitants had seen the prostitute after she left the bawdy house. In the meantime, Bascot would speak to the men in the preceptory, asking each one if they were certain they had not noticed anything untoward during the time Elfreda and her companion had been admitted to the enclave. Preceptor d’Arderon had already made this same enquiry, but it had been at a general assembly of the men after Elfreda’s body had been removed, and the response had been negative. Perhaps by Bascot speaking to each brother individually, as well as to the grooms that slept out on the hillside where the surplus horses were penned, he might find some small trace of the prostitute’s presence and a description of the man who had accompanied her.

That night, Bascot’s sleep was restless. As the rest of the men in the dormitory snored on their pallets, the Templar gave more consideration to the notion that one of the men in the enclave was guilty of the crime. In the small radiance cast by the rushlights kept burning all night long in the sleeping place, Bascot stared into the wooden rafters above him with his one good eye and pondered if the idea was feasible. In order to have gained Elfreda’s company, it would have been necessary for the man to have left the commandery the evening before, and to have done so unnoticed. If he had been able to accomplish that, he could have regained admittance in the guise of one of the lads Hamo had hired as extra help, killed Elfreda and secreted her body in the chest, then returned to his pallet. Apart from the danger of his earlier absence being noticed, the task would have been much easier for an inmate of the preceptory to commit than an outsider. He would be familiar with the daily routine, cognizant of the layout of the chapel and other buildings and, since he was expected to be present in the enclave, had no need to be concerned about a surreptitious exit.

If his suspicion had merit, it was possible that the guilty person’s absence had not been noticed. Sleeping quarters in the dormitory were cramped due to the excessive number of men in the enclave; priority was given to those of knight’s rank and their squires, requiring that the overflow take their night’s rest wherever they could find enough space to lie down. Some of the men-at-arms had spread their pallets in the stables, others on the floor of the granary or in the confines of the storehouse, squeezing in beside the lay brothers and servants who regularly slept in the buildings. And there was always the possibility that the culprit was a brother who had left the preceptory with the recently departed contingent. When those additional men were in the enclave, sleeping quarters had been even more inadequate. It was unlikely one man’s absence would have been noticed.

Short of asking every brother to vouch for the presence of his sleeping companions, there was no way in which Bascot could verify that all of the Templars, as well as the lay brothers and servants, had remained within the precincts of the commandery for the entire night. Another concern was that if he asked the question too boldly, it might exacerbate the existing feeling of disquietude; he did not want to plant the suspicion in their minds that a Templar might have carried out the murder. If that happened, morale would fall even lower than it was now. Still, he decided, by taking care to be judicious with his questions, it might just be possible to ascertain the presence of everyone without revealing his purpose. He hoped it would prove a fruitless exercise, but felt it to be a necessary one, if only to eliminate the possibility that, God forfend, a Templar brother was the murderer.

In the castle, Gerard Camville grew even more testy than usual as one day passed and another began, and still no trace of Elfreda’s killer was found. Finally, Nicolaa suggested that he take a hunting party out into the greenwood and use his pent-up energy in pursuit of an animal quarry instead of a human one, perhaps even stay overnight in his hunting lodge while he did so. She would, she told him, send a message to him at once if any new information was unearthed. When her irascible husband agreed to her suggestion, there was a sigh of relief not only from his wife, but from every member of the castle household.

Early the next morning, after Prime, d’Arderon had all of the men from the contingent assemble in the centre of the commandery and declared that, since they were to leave for Portsmouth in two days’ time, they were to spend the intervening period preparing for the journey. Horses were to be rested, weapons put in good order, and repairs made to any tears or snags in clothing. They were also to ensure that the beards which every brother was constrained to grow in accordance with the Templar Rule were neatly trimmed, as well as their hair shorn to an acceptable length. The next morning, the preceptor said, all of the men-at-arms in the contingent would present themselves for inspection by Draper Emilius, while the knights would take the responsibility of ensuring that they and their squires were ready to embark.

The preceptor’s decree made Bascot’s task of speaking to each of the brothers, both those regularly based in the commandery and the ones belonging to the contingent, much easier. Within the organised muddle of men honing swords, repairing rips in tunics with needles and lengths of gut, or sitting patiently while a comrade used a sharp knife to shear off excess growth in hair or beard, he was able to approach small groups of two or three brothers at a time and tell them the preceptor had asked him to confirm, before the contingent left the enclave, that no one had noticed anything suspicious on the night of Elfreda’s murder. He also asked each of the men in which part of the enclave they had been sleeping.

All of the men’s responses to the first part of his question were, as he had expected, in the negative. None claimed to have heard or seen anything unusual and had, for the most part, taken their night’s rest undisturbed. By taking note of those who had slept in the same locations, he was able to crosscheck that their claims were true. The men stationed with the horses in the makeshift pen out on the hillside had also passed a quiet night and had neither seen nor heard anything untoward. Only one of the brothers he questioned, a young man-at-arms from the contingent, had said that he could not be sure, since he had been taken with gripes in his belly for almost all of that night.

“A couple of hours after I lay down on my pallet in the stable, I had to rush to the jakes,” he admitted shamefacedly, and guffaws broke out from the men who were with the young soldier when Bascot asked the question. “I was back on my pallet before the bell for Matins sounded,” he added, “but if anyone was about in the preceptory, I don’t think I would have noticed them, ’cause the pains were really bad.”

He was the recent initiate, Bascot recalled, who had received a reprimand from Hamo for not being in command of his short sword on the day Elfie’s body had been found. It was more than likely his sour stomach had stemmed from anxiety about his lack of proficiency with the weapon.