Maureen Ash: The Alehouse Murders

“The watchman told me that the alewife discovered the bodies earlier this morning,” Ernulf said to Bascot as they dismounted. “Luckily she went running straight to the priest at St. Andrew’s instead of screaming her head off in the street. The priest had the presence of mind to calm her, then went to the alehouse and barred the door before he sent to inform Lady Nicolaa. Probably be best if we went to see the alewife and the priest first.”

Bascot nodded and followed the serjeant’s squat figure as he led the way into the church, a small one in comparison with many others in Lincoln, and down into the shadows of a short nave that was lit at one end by a torch flaring in a wall sconce. By its flickering light brightly painted scenes depicting stories from the Bible could be seen on every wall. Across the empty space, below the altar, Bascot could see the priest standing over a woman seated on a low stool. The woman was crouched over her knees, her broad shoulders shaking beneath the plain gown that she wore. Her sobbing was loud and grating. Upon her head was a piece of crumpled linen, looking as though it had been hastily donned for a makeshift covering. As Bascot and Ernulf approached she looked up and, at the sight of them, began to moan and cry in heartrending gulps. She was about fifty years of age with a florid face and pale eyes. Wisps of fine grey hair escaped from the confines of her slightly askew coif. Despite the ravages of time and her present distress, there could be seen the shadow of a once fresh-faced comeliness. Her hands, wringing themselves together in her ample lap, looked strong and capable.

The priest, Anselm, a handsome full-faced man of about forty years of age, looked relieved to see Bascot. He had met the Templar once before, soon after Bascot had arrived in Lincoln, and he murmured a greeting before patting the distraught woman’s shoulder and saying, “Now, Agnes, you must compose yourself. Sir Bascot has come from the castle. You must tell him what you found this morning, just as you told me.”

The alewife gulped and, with an effort, managed to stem her tears. “I came down this morning, from my bed in our chamber above the taproom. I thought it strange that Wat-Walter-that’s my husband-wasn’t in bed beside me, but I thought as maybe he’d got up early like. He does-did-sometimes, if he’d taken too much ale the night before and it made his stomach bad.”

She stopped for a moment and wiped her running nose on the sleeve of her gown. “I went down to the taproom and opened the door, thinking I’d pull him a draft, just to set him right, you know. When I went inside, it was still dark from the shutters being closed and I went. .. I went…”

Here she broke down and began to sob again. Father Anselm took up her tale. “Apparently she went to open the shutters and stumbled over something. As she fell she realised it was a person lying on the floor. She was not alarmed at first. It seems”-and here he looked down with a stern but understanding expression at the woman, who was again hiding her head in her hands-“that there are often patrons who spend the night on the floor after they have had more ale than is good for them. However, when she managed to get the shutters open she found that there were not one but four prone figures on the floor, and that they were not insensible from drink, but dead. One of them was her husband.”

Bascot regarded the nearly incoherent woman and spoke to the priest. “The serjeant and I will go and see for ourselves what is at the alehouse. Please keep Mistress Agnes here until we return.”

Father Anselm, with a resigned sigh, agreed to do as he had been asked. The corners of his mouth turned down in an exasperated grimace as they left him to the difficult duty of trying to console the unfortunate alewife.

Coming outside from the dark interior of the church the light of the sun, which even this early had more heat than was usual, dazzled their eyes. They went across the cobbles to the door of the alehouse, ignoring the stares of a small crowd that had now begun to gather about the horses and men-at-arms, and removed the bar which the priest had placed across it. From the outside it had the appearance of a moderately well-run establishment. The walls had been freshly limed and the shutters were clean and in good repair. The sign above the lintel had been recently repainted. But as Bascot pushed the door open the smell of heat and death, wrenchingly familiar from the time of his captivity, rushed out to meet him. No amount of cleanliness or industry could defeat that stench.

Ernulf told the two men-at-arms to remain where they were, then he and Bascot went in, finding themselves standing on a small threshold just inside the door. To the right was the entrance to the taproom, in front of them a passage with what appeared to be an open door leading outside at its end, and to their left a flight of narrow stairs presumably giving access to the floor above. Both men drew their swords and, moving swiftly, made a thorough search of the premises. They found no sign of any intruder.

Returning to the taproom they stepped inside, the death smell more pungent here. The interior was dim, lit only by the glare of the sun glancing off the wall of the building opposite through the one open casement which the alewife had unshuttered. The bodies lay like piles of unwashed linen on the floor and Ernulf stepped around them to throw open the other casement. The scuttling of rats could be heard, and the insistent drone of flies.

The task was unpleasant, but necessary, and one by one Ernulf and Bascot went to each body and examined it. There were three men and a woman. One of the men was elderly, and wore the long beard of a Jew. Nearest to the door, he was half-propped against a three-legged stool. At the front of his gown was a long rent through which the marks of a dagger thrust could be seen just below his heart; a thin trickle of blood mixed with the grey hairs on his chest. The exposed tissue had a drained look and was tinged a bluish white. His face was the colour of clay, the mouth hanging slackly and the lids of his eyes not quite closed. His hands lay one on each side of his body, loosely, palms up. The left one bore evidence that the rats had begun to feed.

The body in the far corner was that of a young man, plainly dressed in sturdy clothes. He was fair of hair and face with a broad sprinkle of freckles across his nose. A crease of skin at the side of his neck showed the scar of an old injury, possibly a burn. This victim had been stabbed from behind and he was slumped forward, as though he had obligingly offered his back to his attacker. Again, there was only a small stream of dried blood from the wound on the back of his jerkin.

Bascot and Ernulf moved to where the woman lay, halfway between the Jew and the young man, in front of one of the casements. It must have been her body that the alewife had tripped over. She was slightly turned onto her side, and one arm was flung out in front of her as though in useless supplication. She was wearing a gown of cheap but bright material with sleeves of green. There was no covering on her head and her hair, the shade of pale honey, tumbled down her back in riotous disarray. Nearby lay a wig such as those worn by prostitutes, made of hair taken from the mane and tail of a horse and dyed. The colour of this one was a deep dark red. Ernulf turned her over. Even though dead, she had a fair prettiness that was marred by the ver-million face paint daubed on her cheeks. Like the Jew, her breast bore the marks of a dagger thrust above the low neck of her gown, with a small stain of blood smearing the lace just below it.

The last victim was a man of late middle age, with thick shoulders and a large stomach barely contained by the black leather belt that encircled it. He was sprawled on the floor beside a cask of ale, face down in the rushes, his limbs stiff. The back of his skull had been smashed in. Beside him lay two empty ale cups.