MAureen Ash: A Deadly Penance

The Templar regarded the furrier. Was he a man who would commit murder to protect his cousin’s dark secret, or pay another to do so? Adgate had, so far, evidenced a merchant’s glib evasiveness, side-stepping all of the questions put to him, never telling an outright lie but confining himself to a partial truth when nothing else would suffice. Despite his irritation at Adgate’s continuing subterfuge, Bascot felt that the furrier was an honest man at heart and that if he was involved in the machinations of the murder, would have found it impossible to successfully conceal his guilt. The Templar looked carefully at the man seated before him. For the first time since Bascot had made his acquaintance, Adgate looked his age. The pouches beneath his eyes looked bruised and his skin was sallow. The Templar could not detect any trace of culpability in the furrier’s demeanour, instead Adgate exuded an ineffable lassitude, as though the events which had overtaken him-Tercel’s haranguing, his wife’s betrayal and, last but not least, the admission of his cousin’s secret-had wearied him beyond his strength. Although he felt some sympathy for the man who fate had, it appeared, chosen to buffet through the actions of others rather than his own, it remained imperative to discover if the murdered man’s mother had a connection with her son’s death and, to that end, he must pursue the matter.

“How did Tercel learn that his mother was related to you?” he asked.

Adgate raised haggard eyes to Bascot. “I do not know. Truly I do not. He merely said he had proof of his mother’s identity and that she was my cousin. Then he pressed me to tell him who his father was.”

“And who was it?”

“I could not tell Tercel and nor can I tell you, Sir Bascot, for I do not know,” Adgate replied.

The Templar felt his temper rise. “Come, furrier, surely your cousin’s parents, at least, would have known the man’s name. Or are you saying they refused to tell you?”

“No, I am not. No one knew who he was.”

At Bascot’s uncomprehending look, the furrier added, “My cousin was raped, Sir Bascot. The assault took place in the darkness of evening and she was attacked from behind. She never saw the face of her assailant.”

The Templar finally began to understand Adgate’s reticence. To have borne a child as the result of an illicit liaison would certainly cause damage to a woman’s reputation, but it was a sin that, although frowned upon, would have been understood and perhaps forgotten with the passage of time. But to have conceived a child due to a sexual assault would tarnish the mother, and the babe, with a stigma that could never be erased. Any woman defiled in such a fashion would be thought to have attracted her attacker due to her lewd nature, and so it would be she, and not the rapist, who was blamed for her misfortune. She would be considered on a level with a harlot, and her child no better than those born to the women in that profession. It could not be wondered at that she had hidden her condition and was willing to give up the babe after it was born. It was the only means she had of hiding her shame and, at the same time, protecting the child from a life filled with the scorn of others.

“Did you tell Tercel the truth of his paternity?” Bascot asked.

“What would have been the purpose in that?” Adgate said resignedly. “He seemed to have formed the impression that his father was of royal blood. Even though he angered me with the haughtiness of his demand, so much so that I felt like striking him, I could not bring myself to tell him what had happened to his mother, for he was, after all, related to me by blood.” The furrier looked at Bascot with a plea for understanding in his eyes. “Surely it was better for him to believe that a royal prince had been his father than to be told that his sire was a nameless villain who had violated a defenceless young girl.”

In the castle solar, Nicolaa and Petronille sat with Richard discussing what Willi had told them. The boy was still in the chamber, standing a little apart from the group, huddled close to the protective presence of Ernulf at the far end of the room. Richard had returned to his mother and aunt after Elise had been removed from the hall and had told them that the leech and Alinor were watching over the wounded maid.

Once assured that no more could be done at the moment for the unfortunate girl, Nicolaa told her son what Willi had related about his sighting of the person near the old tower.

“The boy says he saw a figure coming through the door of the armoury while he and the other children were being taken to the stables. It would have been about the time we assume that Tercel was killed; just as the meal for the guild leaders was about to be served and a little while after Clarice Adgate had left to meet him.”

“Could he see the person clearly?” Richard asked.

“Well enough to say it was a woman. Although her head was covered by the hood of a cloak, the edges of a coif showed beneath it and there was a trail of skirts below the hem of her mantle.”

Richard considered the information. “There would be no reason for a woman to be in the armoury, so that fact in itself is suspicious, and makes me inclined to believe the boy. Now we have only to find the woman and have him identify her.”

“Yes,” Nicolaa said, “but therein lies the difficulty. Willi is not familiar with any of the guild leaders’ wives or, beyond the two or three maidservants he has come into contact with, any of the females in my household. Neither is he acquainted with many of the women in the town. He says he believes he would know her if he saw her again, but we can hardly take him by the hand and traipse him through the bail and the streets of the town so he can search the faces of all the women who live here.”

“And while she remains undiscovered, the boy is in danger,” Petronille interjected. “It will not take long for the real reason the boy was brought here to become common knowledge. Even though his sighting of the murderer was never told to anyone directly and is, so far, known only to us few, such information has an insidious way of being ferreted out and then travelling from one person to another as though it was borne on the wind.”

“We must contrive a means of keeping him safe and yet, at the same time, seek an opportunity for him to regard the faces of any of the women who might be deemed culpable,” Nicolaa said. “We could start with the wives of the guild leaders. If I ask them all to come here under the pretext of discussing further candidates for the foundling home, Willi could be in the hall when they arrive…”

As the castellan was speaking, Alinor came into the room. Her gown was splattered with bloodstains, but there was a smile of relief on her face. “The leech thinks that, with careful nursing, Elise will recover,” she said. “She came to her senses for a few moments and although she is in pain, seemed rational. Hedgset says that her humours are weak, but appear to be in balance, and he has given her more juice of poppy to help her sleep. I have told him to remain with her until I return and that I will personally keep watch over her. I have also asked your steward, Aunt, to arrange for one of your men-at-arms to stand guard at the door.”

“Was the girl able to tell you who attacked her?” Richard asked.

Alinor shook her head. “She remembers little; only craning her head to see the talking bird and then a sharp pain in her side.”

“Thanks be to God that she was not killed,” Petronille exclaimed. “What of Margaret? She, too, must be sore distressed.”

“She stayed with me while Hedgset attended Elise and, like myself, is relieved to hear that the leech thinks she is out of danger. I have sent her to the stables to tell the groom, Nicholas, that, as far as Hedgset can determine, Elise is not mortally wounded. I thought it only right that the groom should be reassured, for if it had not been for his valiant effort, Elise could have bled to death in the street.”