Maureen Ash: The Alehouse Murders

Bascot waited for her to continue. “Conal was insistent that he was innocent, and I believed him, but I knew that he was keeping something back, something that may have implicated someone else-his mother, perhaps. I tackled young Richard and he told me where Conal was, where he goes rather often, it seems. It is to visit a young woman.”

As Bascot started to interrupt, she held up her hand. “No, Templar, it is innocent enough, and has no connection with the murders. It seems young Conal believes himself in love and, with the silly notions of chivalry that our king’s mother has made popular with her songs and courts of love, he believes he is protecting the girl by keeping her identity a secret.”

“Is she married?” Bascot asked.

“No, but she is a cripple,” Hilde replied. “Her foot, at birth, was thickened and twisted, so that one leg is shorter than the other and she can walk only with great difficulty. Her mother died giving her life, and her father, who is a prominent goldsmith in Newark, has kept her virtually imprisoned in his house since she was born for shame at her appearance. Richard tells me that Conal met her on a day when she was sitting in her garden and, from the other side of the wall, he heard her singing. Intrigued, he climbed up to find the owner of the voice and saw her. Since then he has been meeting her secretly. Her father does not know of his attentions, only one elderly servant who is the girl’s sole companion is privy to the liaison.

“Conal believes that if he tells of the girl, she may be forced to come and give witness before the justices. If that were necessary, she would be subjected not only to her father’s wrath but to the gawking and ridiculing eyes of the world. Conal has said he would rather be found guilty of the crime than force that upon her. Richard believes it is Conal’s intention to make the girl his wife, and that he would have done so before now but that he feared the scorn that would be heaped on his mother’s head by Philip de Kyme.”

Hilde leaned back in her chair. “What follies we commit when we are young. I have told Richard to let Conal know that if he wishes to marry the girl, he has my blessing. I do not doubt that Magnus and Ailwin will be swift to give theirs also, since the girl’s father is prosperous and would likely provide a rich dower for connection with a knight’s family. Once he has got over his anger at being deceived, that is.”

Bascot digested her words, then said slowly, “As wealthy as her father may be, it cannot compare with that of Philip de Kyme. Conal has, after all, only a young girl who loves him and her old servant to prove the truth of his claim. It will be said they are lying.”

Wearily Hilde nodded her head. “I know, Templar. I know. But for your purposes, at least, I implore you to believe him.”

Bascot smiled at her. He could see that the fear of her great-nephew’s involvement in this crime had taken its toll of the old lady’s meagre strength. “I think I must do, lady. If for no other reason than, as Conal himself said, that if it had been he that had done the deed he would have merely left the bodies to rot in the greenwood.”

Hilde’s spirits revived at her companion’s acceptance of Conal’s innocence. “That is the thing that puzzles me, Templar. If the young man was truly de Kyme’s bastard son, why the haste to kill him, and for his body to be quickly found? Such elaborate trappings to despatch him must have a reason. Even if he had arrived and been received with due honour by Philip, surely it would have been easier to let fly an arrow during a hunt, or slip some potion in his wine cup one evening. Why all the involvement of Wat and the alehouse? Why the need for such speed?”

As Hilde finished speaking, Gianni, from his position on the floor, tugged timidly at her skirts. She looked down and Gianni folded his arms and rocked them back and forth, as though he held a babe and were soothing it.

Hilde laughed. “Of course, lad. You are right. Hugo’s wife was pregnant. The child could not be allowed to be born. That would have provided another heir that needed to be disposed of.” Her cornflower blue eyes flashed at Bascot. “Or Philip de Kyme knew the dead pair for impostors and did not wish to be forced to have the child of a stranger declared his grandson.”

Bascot leaned back and rubbed the leather patch over his missing eye. The more he discovered about the murders, the more complicated the matter became. It made the empty socket where his eye had been ache with frustration.

Bascot sat with Hilde for a short while longer. She told him of her suspicions of Sybil and that she could find no gossip of Philip de Kyme’s having a leman.

“Incidentally,” she added. “Philip is back in Lincoln. He is staying with his nephew, Roger, who is riding in the tourney. Philip intends to come and watch him. He will not, however, go to the castle, since Sybil and Conal are there, but I understand he allows Will Scothern to visit his sister.”

Since it would still be some days before they would have an answer from the Templar preceptor, d’Arderon, about Bascot’s enquiries in La Lune, they then pondered on the question of whether Hugo and his female companion were impostors or not and, if they were genuine, who could have been aware of Hugo’s intent to come to England. Even though William Scothern had insisted that he had told no one of the correspondence between the baron and his former lover it was possible, probable even, that Philip had spoken of the matter while deep in his cups.

“Apparently, he was always baiting Conal and Sybil, saying he had the ways and means to free himself from them,” Hilde remarked. “It would not have been surprising if he had revealed the existence of his illegitimate son while drinking with his cronies.”

“I did not find out much else of pertinence,” she went on, her face a mask of disappointment. “I did get the impression that Sybil’s maid, Isobel, is hiding something, but what it is, or its importance, I could not determine. The girl wears her piety like a mask, shielding her thoughts behind her Psalter. She should have been a nun, for all she has the face and body of a temptress. Matilda Bardolf is rumoured to have had lovers, but there is no one named. She is enamoured of Richard Camville, so the gossip mongers opine, but he does not return her fancy. It is also said that she and Isobel do not like each other, but that perhaps is because I have seen the glances of appreciation that Richard gives to Sybil’s maid. Since Nicolaa’s son is appreciative of any woman with a soft cheek and pretty eyes, it seems rather pointless of Matilda to harbour enmity towards just one, but perhaps that is because he is often near Isobel, when he and Conal are in company together.”

She sighed. “It seems I have not been as much use to you as I had thought to be, Templar.”

Bascot assured her of his appreciation of her efforts, reminding her that although he had discovered how the murders were carried out, he, like herself, had come no nearer to uncovering who had caused the deaths. He left the chamber, the socket of his eye still aching, intending to return to the solitude of his own chamber, but coming down the steps of the forebuilding outside the keep, he met Ernulf coming in search of him.

“Anselm is dead,” the serjeant said. “A young brother from the priory came to inform Lady Nicolaa. Breathed his last just before Tierce. The monk said that he never regained consciousness. Just slipped away, easy as you please. God assoil him,” Ernulf added as he crossed himself.

“Amen,” Bascot said, bowing his head for a moment in silent prayer.

“That now makes six murders we’ve had,” Ernulf declared roughly. “The devil’s loose in Lincoln for this fair.”