MAureen Ash - A Deadly Penance

When Gianni and Ernulf reached the lower part of the town, the serjeant pointed out the alehouse where Willi had been seen the day before. Gianni glanced at it for a moment and then let his sharp young eyes roam over the surrounding shops and cross streets that led off the thoroughfare where they were standing. Slipping down from his seat on the horse, he motioned to the serjeant to leave him and indicated, by pointing at himself and circling his fingers, that he would like to search for Willi on his own.

Ernulf was not sure if this was a wise idea. “With a murderer on the loose, I don’t reckon the Templar would be any too pleased if I was to let you roam around unprotected,” he said doubtfully. But Gianni forestalled his objections by raising his finger to where a weak winter sun was shining in the sky and then moving it a little to indicate it would only be for a short while. With a shrug he spread his arms out towards all the people that were on the street-women with shopping baskets over their arms, carters driving wagons laden with vegetables and other foodstuffs, and tradesmen walking hurriedly by with bags of tools over their arms-as if to say, “What could happen to me here among so many people?”

After some musing, Ernulf finally gave in, but before he rode away he gave Gianni an admonition. “I don’t want to have to search for two missing boys, so you be right careful, do you hear? I’ll meet you back here in an hour.”

Gianni nodded and gave the serjeant a grin and, as Ernulf and the groom rode off down the street, he strolled along the roadway, seemingly looking at the wares displayed on counters protruding from the bottom stories of the houses he passed but, in reality, searching for any dark corners that were hidden from the general view. He went up one side of the street and then turned and ambled back down the other until he was again standing near the alehouse where Willi had gone to ask after his father, passing the mouth of a narrow alley that he had noticed on his earlier perambulation. It was situated alongside the alehouse premises and its width was no more than the span of a thin man’s shoulders. The interior was in a dark shadow with only a small glimmer of light at the far end giving evidence that it debouched into an adjoining street.

In the days before the Templar had found him, and when Gianni had been a waif begging on a dock in the port of Palermo, he and the other urchins had often needed to hide from the commandante del porto and his minions. The port reeve and his men made regular excursions to rid the docks of beggars who importuned sailors for money and Gianni and the others had a desperate need to hide from the men, for not only would they chase them away, but might also beat them and take any money they had been given. The best places to conceal oneself were not in the obvious recesses behind bales of goods or among coils of rope, but in narrow apertures that were in plain sight and too small for a man to get into. Gianni could remember countless times when he had taken advantage of this trick, holding his breath as the port officials had passed by within inches of where he was hiding, not realising their quarry was almost under their noses. It was very possible that Willi, having been forced to live on the streets of Lincoln without his father for a time, had learned this ruse. The alley Gianni had seen, too narrow for a grown man to pass down its width with ease, would make an excellent place for a small young boy to hide while he waited to see if his father returned to the alehouse.

Not wishing to make his purpose obvious, Gianni lingered by the shop of a leather merchant, fingering the pairs of shoes and wrist guards on display until it should be time for Ernulf’s return. When he saw the serjeant enter the top of the street where it curved to the west, he ran quickly in the opposite direction until he was out of sight of the alley, and waited until Ernulf drew up beside him.

“Did you have any luck, lad?” the serjeant asked.

Gianni, not responding to the question, made a motion for Ernulf and the groom to ride a little farther down the street. Once they had turned a corner, Gianni began to make gestures with his hands, attempting to tell Ernulf that he wanted to return to the place he had just left, but that he did not want the serjeant or the groom to accompany him, and for them to wait out of sight for a small space of time. It took some minutes for him to make Ernulf understand him-the serjeant was familiar with some of the gestures Gianni used to communicate with the Templar, but not many-and it was the groom, a foxy-faced young man whose hazel eyes had a look of quick intelligence, who finally understood what he was trying to say.

“I think he has a notion where the boy may be hiding, Sarje,” the groom said, “but wants to look on his own in case the lad sees us and runs away.”

Gianni nodded enthusiastically and pointed to the horses and then to a hitching rail on the street they had just left, making a motion of tying them. Ernulf nodded and Gianni pointed at both of them and then made a walking movement towards a cart laden with bags of flour outside a baker’s shop. Shielding the lower part of his face so that only his eyes remained uncovered, he gestured with his other hand back up the street where the alehouse, and the alley, were situated. This time Ernulf understood him.

“You wants us to wait behind that cart and watch,” the serjeant said, “while you go and see if you can find the boy.”

A broad smile on Gianni’s face told Ernulf his understanding was correct and then the boy made a circle with his hand to indicate he could be some time. “Right, lad. We’ll stay there until you’ve either caught the boy or come back here. May you have good fortune.”

Waiting until Ernulf and the groom were in position, Gianni slipped around the corner and made his way back up the street. Casually looking into the shops, he took his time examining the variety of goods on display in each one-iron nails and chisels in the first, an array of combs and ribbons in the next, a pile of besoms and small brushes a little farther along, and then a shop with a shelf on which were laid an array of pots and pans-before buying a couple of hot meat pies from a roving vendor.

Munching on one of the pies he had just bought, Gianni strolled slowly up to the entrance to the alley and sat himself down on one of the empty ale kegs that were stacked there awaiting refilling. He balanced the uneaten pie on a keg sitting beside him and then, as the savoury smell of the meat wafted upwards, took his writing tablet from where it was suspended on his belt and, opening the wooden cover, pretended to be absorbed in reading it.

He hoped his ruse would work. If Willi was, in fact, secreted in the depths of the alley, it all depended on whether or not he had noticed Gianni in company with Ernulf and the groom when they had arrived on the street a little while earlier. If he had, the boy might suspect a trick and not take the bait but, if he did not and was, as Gianni suspected, very hungry, the sight and smell of the pie should prove an irresistible lure.

The moments ticked by. Gianni finished the pie he had been eating and took up his stylus to inscribe some letters on the wax tablet, turning his body so that his back was towards the uneaten pie and he gave the impression of being engrossed in his writing. Still there was no sound of any movement behind him and he began to fear he had been wrong. More minutes passed and it was just as he was about to admit failure that he heard a slight rustle behind him. Gratified, Gianni smiled inwardly and stood up. Now he must find a way to make it seem safe for the boy to come forward and snatch the pie. Not lifting his head from his study of his wax tablet, he took a couple of steps as though intending to walk away, leaving the pie on the ale keg as though he had forgotten it. Once he was a few paces beyond the alley, he crept back close to the side of the wall and saw the small fingers of a hand creep out towards the succulent pastry. Cautioning himself to patience, he waited until the reaching fingers had almost closed around their objective, then quickly shot out his own hand and grabbed the exposed wrist, dragging the small body attached to it out into the street.