MAureen Ash - A Deadly Penance

Margaret realised his intention. “Instruct the serjeant to leave the gates open, Templar,” she commanded.

As Bascot called down to Ernulf, two figures appeared in the huge portal. It was Simon Adgate and Merisel Wickson. Both looked up aghast at the figures on the parapet and the furrier came farther into the ward, motioning for his companion to stay back.

“Margaret, what are you doing up there?” he called in astonishment. “And why are you threatening that boy?”

“Stay out of this, Simon,” the sempstress responded grimly. “It is naught to do with you.”

Adgate looked back towards Merisel and spoke to her quietly. When the girl gave a frightened nod, the furrier turned and once again faced the parapet. “I am coming up there, Margaret,” he said, a look of determination on his face, “and you will give the child, unharmed, to me.”

“This is no concern of yours, Simon,” she screamed at him. “I am telling you not to interfere.”

“I have heeded your wishes for far too long, Margaret,” he replied. “It is time to put an end to this mayhem.”

With limping strides he went towards the ladder Ernulf was accustomed to use to go up onto the ramparts and began to ascend. In agitation, Margaret began to shriek at him, telling him to go back. As she did so, her hold on Willi loosened and, with a courage born of desperation, the boy began to struggle, kicking out with the sturdy boots he had been given on the day he came to the castle. One of the thick heels caught the sempstress with a sharp rap on the shin and she recoiled in pain.

It was all the advantage Bascot needed. Leaping forward, he took hold of her arm and the hand that held the scissors. With an outraged cry, the sempstress tried to shake herself loose from his grip, but he held her fast as Willi sprang away from her and into the safety of Bruet’s waiting arms.

As two men-at-arms escorted Margaret across the bail to a holding cell in the castle gaol, Bascot walked over to where Simon Adgate stood with a trembling Merisel Wickson. As he saw the Templar approach, the furrier laid a hand gently on the girl’s shoulder and whispered something in her ear. With a nod, she turned around and, with but one fleeting glance over her shoulder, ran quickly out onto Ermine Street and disappeared.

“Your intervention was timely, furrier, and you have my thanks for making it,” Bascot said when he came up to Adgate. “But I am afraid I must still ask if you were complicit in the murder.”

“No, I was not, lord,” the furrier responded quietly.

“Nonetheless, you could have saved today’s anguish if you had told me Margaret was Tercel’s mother.”

“But she is not,” Adgate replied. “It is true she is my cousin, but…”

Bascot did not let him finish. “She has just confessed to the killing, you have no need to protect her anymore.”

“You do not understand, lord,” Adgate protested. “Margaret was not his mother. It was her sister who bore him.”

The statement took Bascot aback until he remembered his puzzlement at the way the sempstress had spoken up on the ramparts, her words implying that the man she had killed had not been her own son.

“And this sister, she is the one who went to Winchester with your uncle?” he asked Adgate, trying to make sense of what the furrier was saying.

“They both did, lord,” Adgate replied, “but although Margaret also made the journey, it was her sister who was violated.”

It had not occurred to Bascot that both of Adgate’s cousins had travelled to Winchester. He had thought of only one but now, with the furrier’s revelation, the insinuation behind Margaret’s words became clear.

“I did have a suspicion at first, terrible though it seemed, that Margaret might be responsible for Tercel’s death,” Adgate said, “and sent her a message to meet me so that I could ask if she was involved. But when she came, she assured me most fervently that she was not the one who had murdered him, and that the culprit must be the husband of one of his paramours.” He took a deep, and shaky, breath. “May God forgive me, after discovering that my own wife had lain with the man, I was only too ready to be convinced that what she said was the truth. And, until this morning, I kept to that conviction.”

“What changed your mind?” Bascot asked.

“I was told, by a witness, that it was possible Margaret had stabbed a young woman. The witness had never met my cousin and came to me for verification of her appearance. When I was given the description and, even though, in my heart, I realised there could be no mistake, I came here with the person who saw the act, intending to bring my cousin before her so she could personally identify Margaret as the woman she had seen. If it was confirmed that it was she who carried out this morning’s assault, I knew it must have some connection with the murder-that perhaps the girl she attacked had, like Tercel, learned our family secret and threatened to expose it-and I intended to implore my cousin to give herself up to Sir Richard’s justice.”

The witness Adgate was referring to must be Merisel Wickson, the Templar surmised, for the chandler’s daughter had been with Adgate when he came into the bail. And the candle-maker’s manufactory was very near to the spot where Elise had been attacked. Recalling the hesitancy which Merisel had shown in answering the questions he had put to her on the day he had gone to the chandlery, the Templar now saw the connection and also why, if it had been she who saw Margaret stab Elise, she had gone to Adgate instead of reporting what she saw to Bruet, who only minutes later was at the spot where the stabbing had taken place, attempting to find a witness.

“I vowed, along with Margaret, that I would never reveal her sister’s shame,” Adgate said with abject resignation. “But now, I have no choice.”

“Let your conscience be easy, furrier,” Bascot said. “You do not have to tell me, for the truth is plain to see. The woman you and Margaret have been protecting is the chandler’s wife, Edith Wickson, is it not?”

“Yes, lord, it is,” Adgate confirmed miserably.

An hour later, Nicolaa and Richard, along with Petronille and Alinor, were in the solar, listening as Bascot related the details of his conversation with Adgate. Hugh Bruet was there as well and so was Gianni, the latter taking down notes of what his former master was recounting. The furrier had been left outside the chamber in the company of a man-at-arms.

When Bascot had finished, Nicolaa asked, “Do you think Adgate is telling the truth when he says that he and Mistress Wickson were not involved in the murder?”

“I cannot be certain, lady, but I think so. He is a very shaken man but also, I believe, an honest one. If you will recall, he has never told us an outright untruth, but has simply avoided revealing what he knows. As for Mistress Wickson, the furrier tells me that after he told her that her illegitimate son was searching for her, she feigned illness on the night of the feast out of fear that, if she came to the castle, Tercel might, because of some passing resemblance between them, recognise her as his mother. After he was killed, so Adgate says, the news of his death made her truly ill and she has not risen from her sickbed since. These facts bear out what we were told by her husband-who, apparently, is not privy to her secret-and led to the conclusion that she could not have been, at least actively, involved in the crime.”

“Did Adgate tell you how Tercel discovered that Edith Wickson was his mother?” Richard asked.

“He was not aware that she was,” Bascot said, surprising them all. “Adgate says that when he came and asked to speak to him privily, he seemed to believe that Margaret was his dam. He told the furrier that he had challenged the sempstress with his accusation, but that she would not admit to it, nor tell him who his father was. Adgate, of course, told him that Margaret was telling the truth, but his protestations fell on deaf ears. What happened next is only conjecture on the furrier’s part, but he thinks that Margaret killed Tercel because she feared he was getting too close to his objective, and would soon discover that it was her sister, not she, who had birthed him. She murdered him to prevent that from happening.”