“She was,” Nicolaa told him. “The thought that she had been sleeping so close to where the murder was carried out upset her greatly and she reacted with a great outpouring of tears. Her dismay seemed a little excessive, I thought, but her husband told me she has a very sensitive nature, and apologised for her outburst.”
“She was in close proximity to where the murder took place, and at the right hour, and you have said that it could have been a woman who used the bow,” Bascot observed. “Have you discounted her as a suspect?”
“We have,” Nicolaa replied. “Clarice Adgate is, I fear, a rather empty-headed young woman and, whatever the cause of her distress, it denotes a hysterical nature. For the murderer to successfully lure Tercel up onto the ramparts and shoot him, determination and a steady nerve were required. The furrier’s wife does not seem to me to be possessed of either of those attributes.”
Bascot accepted Nicolaa’s assessment without hesitation. He knew the castellan to be an astute observer of human nature and had rarely known her judgement to prove faulty.
“I have yet to make enquiries of the two guild leaders and their wives that did not remain in the castle overnight,” Richard told him. “But since it is most likely that they, in common with most of the others, would not have known Tercel personally, I do not suppose any of them will have taken particular note of his movements.”
“I presume there was much activity in the hall last night, lady,” Bascot said to Nicolaa. “With the number of people that were present-the guests, your own household and your sister’s retinue-it would have been easy for the dead man to leave the hall relatively unnoticed in the throng.”
“That is true,” she agreed. “Attention was also distracted by a minstrel I hired. He proved to be an excellent jongleur who kept us enthralled with his songs. But as far as we have been able to determine, no one was noticeably absent except Adgate’s wife. And the only one that saw Tercel leave the hall was one of our household servants, and that only because he almost bumped into him as he was on his way to the latrine.”
“Your sister has been in Lincoln for some weeks now, I understand,” Bascot said. “During that time, Tercel might have made an enemy in the town. It would have been easy for an extra person to have slipped in amongst your guests when they arrived. Mayhap the murderer came from without the bail and left after he had completed his mission.”
Nicolaa gave the notion some thought and said, “It is possible, I suppose. Petronille is an easy mistress; all of her servants have been given leave to attend services in the cathedral whenever they wish, or to go abroad in the town if their absence does not cause a disruption in the commission of their duties. It is conceivable that Tercel might have made an enemy among the townspeople during his forays into Lincoln.” She looked at her son. “My sister’s servants will have to be questioned again, to see if any of them know where he went, and whom he met, on those occasions that he left the ward.”
Richard nodded. “It is as good a place as any to start, I suppose. Will you assist me, de Marins?”
“With pleasure,” the Templar replied.
Six
It was nearing midday by the time Simon Adgate and his wife, Clarice, arrived at their fine stone house situated near Stonebow, the principal gate at the lower end of Lincoln town. Their journey from the castle had been slow; even though the sun was shining, its meagre warmth had not completely melted the coating of ice on the cobbles and the streets were still slippery. They had been forced to guide their horses down the sharp incline of Steep Hill with great care until they reached the main thoroughfare of Mikelgate. Once away from the castle ward, Simon had ceased his attempts to comfort his wife and become aloof. By the time the couple had reached the turning where their house was located, Clarice’s crying had been reduced to quiet hiccupping sobs and she was timorously glancing sidelong at her husband’s stern face. His grey eyes were hard and the deep furrows alongside his mouth seemed as though they were set in stone.
Adgate’s business premises adjoined his house. Since he knew that his assistant would be in the shop attending to any customers that had come out on this cold morning, he guided their horses around to the small stable at the back of the building and, after giving the animals into care of a groom, led his wife directly into the house. The middle-aged maidservant who supervised Adgate’s household heard their entry and came forward to take their outer clothing.
“There is a good fire in the hall, Master Simon,” she said with a worried glance at Clarice’s tear-stained face. “Shall I bring some mulled wine to warm you?”
Simon shook his head. “Take your mistress up to our bedchamber,” he instructed tersely, “and help her disrobe and get into bed. She has had a bad shock and is in need of rest.”
As the servant took Clarice’s arm and led her up the stairs to the upper storey, Simon went into the room that served as a small hall. It was a graciously appointed chamber containing a highly polished oak table and chairs and padded settles. There were tapestries on the walls depicting hunting scenes, and many of the animals whose furs he sold were portrayed in the background-foxes, squirrels, rabbits and the weasel from which ermine was obtained. On the floor, in front of the hearth, was a fine wolfskin rug on which lay two pairs of soft shoes-one pair for himself and the other for Clarice-lined with lamb’s wool. Simon walked over to an open-faced cupboard at the end of the room and took down a silver goblet, into which he poured a full measure of wine from a flagon on the table. Then he sat down heavily on one of the settles near the fireplace, hardly feeling the warmth of the flames. It was as though the ice that covered the town had invaded his heart.
Clarice’s outburst of tears had shocked him, and it had taken only moments for him to realise that her grief for the death of a man she was supposed to have known only in the most casual fashion was inordinate. The implication of her unseemly weeping hit him like a hammer blow and, with a sense of desolation, he realised she had been intimately involved with Aubrey Tercel. As the other guild leaders and their wives had turned to stare at her in puzzlement, his first reaction had been to protect both her and his own reputation and so he had led her apart from the group. But the effort of keeping his anger in check and forcing himself to show a solicitous concern towards her had placed him under a great strain, especially as it had been compounded with a personal fear of quite a different nature.
As he sipped the wine, he tried to still his racing thoughts. Had his protestations that his wife’s anguish was due to her delicate nature been accepted by Lady Nicolaa and Sir Richard? He was not sure, for he had seen the dawning of speculation in their eyes. But that was the least of his worries, he thought, and again dread gripped him. There was far more at stake than the loss of his good name; if what he feared was true, then the well-being, indeed the very lives, of people that were dear to him hung in the balance. Fervently, he offered up a prayer that even if Clarice’s adulterous affair should be discovered, the other connection between himself and the dead man would remain a secret. If it did not, the consequences could be disastrous.
In the castle barracks,Ernulf was also in a state of agitation, but for an entirely different reason. As serjeant of the garrison, it was his responsibility to ensure that the castle and its inhabitants were safe, and he felt that since the men under his command had not been alert enough to catch the murderer it was he, as their senior officer, who was at fault. Whether the murderer had come from without the walls, or within, his entry up onto the ramparts should have been seen by one of the guards and challenged. After the inquest, and following the coroner’s questioning of all of the men-at-arms who had been on duty, Ernulf had subjected them to a second inquisition in the barracks, voicing his displeasure for their lack of vigilance.