Maureen Ash - Shroud of Dishonour

“And, when the hue and cry was raised to find Jacques, you helped him get away?” Bascot asked. Although he felt no compassion for the man he held captive, he began to understand the depth of the squire’s quandary. It would not have been easy to deny aid to a much loved brother, even if he was gravely at fault. And love his legitimate brother Savaric must have done, for not only had he followed the immoral knight to the Holy Land, but he had also stood by Jacques when he had committed murder. There was courage there, too-not many would risk exposure to leprosy for another’s sake, no matter how closely they were related. But Savaric’s loyalty had been misplaced, and he had known it to be so. For that Bascot could not forgive him.

Savaric nodded. “When Jacques came tearing out of the stewe, we got away from the area as fast as we could. After we felt we were safe from discovery, he told me what had happened. Jacques had a couple of rings and a gold chain in his scrip. We waited on the outskirts of Acre until morning, and then exchanged some of the jewellery for a couple of mounts from an Arab horse trader. Then we rode southward down the coast towards Haifa. There we hired a boat to take us to Cyprus, and sold the horses and the rest of the jewellery to pay for passage home. The rest you know.”

“So your brother not only broke his vow of chastity but, by keeping valuable items in his possession after he entered the Order, also the one of poverty. And neither he nor you gave any thought to the infection he was spreading among the people you came into contact with on the journey back to England.” Bascot’s fury resurged and, with it, disgust. “The silver coins that Jacques left beside the bodies of each of the prostitutes he killed. Were they also part of his secret hoard?”

“He left some silver coins and jewellery buried here, at Marton, when he went to join the Templars,” Savaric admitted shamefacedly. “None of us knew he had done so. I only got the truth out of him last night.”

“I cannot condone your actions,” Bascot replied, “but in a small part I can understand them, at least until you brought your brother safely back to England. What I fail to comprehend is why, once you had returned to Lincoln, your family did not ensure that Jacques entered a lazar house?”

“Gilbert wanted him to go to the one in Pottergate,” Savaric said, “but Jacques begged to be allowed to stay at Marton, which is where I brought him when we first returned. I smuggled him in at night while the pig man was sleeping and then went to Ingham and told the family what had happened. Gilbert, Herve and Julia rode here the next morning and tried to persuade him to go to the lazar house but he pleaded with them to leave him here, promising he would let no one see him or come into contact with him. He said his only wish was to die at home on the family demesne. Julia took his part and said that after all Jacques had gone through to return home, it would be cruel to lock him away at the end of his journey.”

Savaric glanced at the Templar. “My half brother could be very persuasive, Sir Bascot, especially with women. His mother and Julia idolized him. When his dam heard what had happened, she collapsed and we feared she would not recover. Julia told Gilbert that if he did not want to be the cause of their mother’s death, he would do as Jacques asked. Since I had been in his company for so many months and might have already contracted the disease, I offered to bring him food and keep him company when he wished it. Gilbert finally, and reluctantly, gave in, although Herve advised against it. They all-Gilbert, Julia and Herve-came to see him just that one time, for Jacques insisted they stay away after that, for their own safety’s sake.”

“And after he garrotted the harlot in our chapel,” Bascot said in a hard voice, “was the love all of you felt for this degenerate brother so strong that you also condoned his sin of murder?”

“No, Sir Bascot, it was not,” Savaric replied, his words exploding from him with a brief flare of defiance. “We didn’t know, at the time, that he had killed her, or that he murdered the other one a few days later. It was not until the day that you and Captain Roget came to Ingham that we found out he was responsible. I only spent the odd night or two at Marton and none of us knew Jacques had gone into Lincoln, or that he was responsible for those terrible crimes. I had gone early that same morning, before you came, to take him some food and wine. I arrived before he was out of bed and saw the strips of cloth he had wrapped around the wound on his leg. When I asked him how he had come by the injury, he blustered at first, saying he had stumbled on one of the broken boards in the house and the shattered end had pierced his leg. I looked at the wound and could tell it had been made by a knife. When I challenged him with his lie, he finally told me the truth. But although he admitted he killed the two harlots, he did not tell me he had attacked another woman the night before. We did not learn of that until you came to the manor house later that day.

“His brain had been turned by the disease,” Savaric continued sadly. “He said he wanted to kill as many harlots as he could because they were the cause of all his troubles. It was because of them, he said, that he had been forced to join the Templars. If he hadn’t done so, he would never have lain with the prostitute that infected him.”

“But why did he implicate our Order?” Bascot demanded. “Surely Jacques could not blame the brethren for his downfall.”

“As I said, his thinking was deranged. He said the Templars were hypocrites; that they all lusted after women and bedded them whenever they had an opportunity to do so. Because he had visited a brothel and not been caught, he was convinced there were many others that did the same. He said that if the leprosy had been sent by God to chastise him for breaking his vow of chastity, it was a punishment that was not warranted, for he was but one of many.”

Savaric gave Bascot an earnest look. “I tried to tell him he was wrong, that there were very few Templars who dishonoured their vow, but he would not listen. He just raged at me and said it could not be so, that it was not natural for a man to live like a eunuch. He said that before he died, he intended to make the brothers’ rampant fornication known to all of Christendom, and expose them to the contempt they so rightly deserved. His reasoning made no sense, but I did not try to dissuade him. It was too late. The women were already dead. Nothing I could say would bring them back.”

The former squire shook his head sadly as he continued, “After he finished raving, I locked him in the sleeping chamber here at Marton and went to tell Gilbert what had happened. It was that discussion you and Captain Roget interrupted when you arrived at Ingham. It was a shock to learn that he had attempted to kill another woman.”

“How did he get into Lincoln? Did you leave him a mount?”

“No, I did not, for there was no reason for him to have need of one,” Savaric replied. “He told me that he walked into Torksey after the swineherd was abed-the pig man drinks his fill of ale in the village alehouse every afternoon and then comes home to sleep like a stone until morning-and hired a horse from a stable there.”

“And the women he killed, how did he entice them into his company?”

The former squire looked shamed as he repeated what Jacques had told him. “He said he went to the brothel where the first girl worked and asked her to aid him in winning a wager that a woman could not be smuggled into the chapel at the preceptory. She came willingly when he offered to pay her handsomely for her help.”

Savaric’s voice diminished to almost a whisper as he described how Jacques had gained entry to Adele Delorme’s house. “The second harlot was known to him from before he entered the Order. He had been friends with her paramour, a knight who lives in Newark, and had helped to persuade her lover to pay her handsomely to leave the town before he got married. When he called at her house, she recognised him as an old friend and had no suspicion that his intention was anything other than harmless.”