Both Bascot and Ernulf commiserated with his words and they sat in morose companionship until the Templar stood up and said he was going to bed. Bidding the serjeant and the captain a good night’s rest, he called to Gianni and they left the barracks, making their way across the bail towards the old keep. Once in their sleeping chamber, Bascot struck tinder from a small firebox he kept beside his bed and lit a rushlight, not extinguishing it until they had both removed their boots and lain down on their pallets.
Once the chamber was in darkness, Bascot removed his eye patch. He knew sleep would not come easily, for even as he closed his eye, his mind began to go over and over the small store of information they had about Mauger. He felt as though one of the ferrets that belonged to Dido was in his mind, ducking and diving into dark crannies to find the scent of the rodent he was seeking, just as he was searching for a trace of the human vermin who was the poisoner. He had a feeling that something had been missed but could not determine what it was.
The Templar tossed and turned, trying to still his mind so that he could induce it to rest. He lay thus for a long time, until finally the cathedral bells tolled the hour of Laud. The slow pacing of the strokes was sonorous, and Bascot felt a calmness descend on him. Just before sleep claimed him, the words of a verse from the Bible came to him, from the book of Exodus, where it was related how the Lord had commanded Moses to turn back and camp by the sea so as to confuse the Egyptians. As his mind stilled into the void of slumber the words “Go back” echoed in his consciousness like one of the cathedral bells.
Thirty-two
The next morning, as Bascot and Gianni attended Mass in the castle chapel, the Templar found the two words from the text in Exodus still reverberating in his mind, so much so that he found it difficult to concentrate on the words of the service. A restless night’s sleep had added its toll to his fatigue, and he decided that he was in need of some physical exercise to sharpen his concentration.
After they had emerged from the chapel and broken their fast, Bascot sent Gianni to the barracks and watched until the lad was safely inside before he walked across the bail to the open stretch of ground that was set aside for use as a training area by the squires and pages. The household knight that had been appointed in Haukwell’s stead as mentor to the young men of the Camville retinue had set Thomas and one of the other older boys to a round of practice at the quintain, while the younger ones were strengthening the muscles in their arms and the accuracy of their eye by throwing wooden javelins at water butts filled with sand. Sending a page to the armoury for one of the blunt-edged swords used for training in combat, Bascot stripped off his outer tunic and set himself before one of the half dozen thick wooden posts that stood near the perimeter of the training ground. When the sword was brought to him, he hefted it in both his hands to gauge the weight and then began to swing it at the block.
As the first strokes of the dulled blade smashed into the wooden block, a feeling of relief engulfed Bascot’s knotted muscles and he kept swinging the sword until perspiration dripped from every part of his body. Shaking his head to clear it of the beads of sweat that had gathered on his brow, he took a moment’s respite from the exercise and then began again, this time more methodically, letting the rhythm of the sword beat order into his mind and thoughts. As the words of the text had seemed to bid him, he went back in his memory to the day Mauger had claimed his first victim and Bascot had ascended the stairs to the scriptorium and found Blund kneeling over the dying clerk. Then had come the death of Haukwell and Nicolaa de la Haye’s subsequent questioning of Gosbert and his assistant. Thomas’s accusation that Eric had poisoned the honeyed drink had followed, and then the assistant’s denial, citing the fact that Gosbert had used some of the honey to make marchpane and it could not have been tainted. That was when it had been revealed that Nicolaa de la Haye had most likely been the intended victim, since the cook had admitted he had sent the cake to her chamber, saying in his defence that he had done so in the hope of tempting her flagging appetite. The sempstress, Clare, had then told how she had taken the cakes to the scriptorium…
Bascot halted in the sword in mid-stroke. No, it was later that Gosbert had mentioned Nicolaa’s failing appetite, when Bascot had questioned him in the holding cell after the cook had been incarcerated. Then Gosbert’s statement had been more detailed; he had said his purpose in sending the cakes had been to encourage Lady Nicolaa to eat and had added that his reason for doing so had been that “he had heard” her appetite was waning. Who had told him that? The entire household in the castle had known that Nicolaa was indisposed, but Bascot could not recall anyone mentioning that she had suffered a disinclination for food. Had it been an assumption on Gosbert’s part that her illness had induced a lack of appetite, or had someone intentionally told him it was so? Could it have been Mauger, in the guise of his assumed identity, that had encouraged Gosbert to prepare the marchpane and send it to his mistress, using the cook as an innocent dupe in the commission of her murder?
Slowly Bascot let the sword fall loose in his hand so that the tip rested on the ground as he examined the notion that had just come to him, and then, grabbing the tunic he had discarded, he gave the blunted sword to one of the pages and walked swiftly across the bail in the direction of the castle kitchen.
When Bascot entered the cookhouse, he found Gosbert overseeing two scullions as they positioned the carcass of a recently slaughtered sheep onto a spit in one of the fireplaces. Eric was standing nearby, a pot of grease with which to lard the animal in his hand. When the Templar called to Gosbert, the cook immediately came to his side, pulling off the rough linen cap that covered his bald head.
“I am here under instruction from Lady Nicolaa,” Bascot informed him. The Templar wanted to get the information he was seeking from the cook without Gosbert realising the point of his questions, and also wanted to prevent Eric overhearing the gist of their conversation. He would have to use a ploy of some sort to get the cook away from the rest. “She wants to ensure that Wilkin did not tamper with any of the other foodstuffs in the kitchens,” he said to the cook, “especially those in the storeroom, which was not locked until after the remaining honey pots had been tested. Open the door and show me what the room contains, so I may judge whether there is need for Thorey to test any of it on his rats.”
Gosbert was quick to comply with the request and led the Templar away from the ovens towards the room that Bascot remembered seeing on the day he had come to question Eric. Taking a candle from a shelf, Gosbert set the wick alight from the flame of one of the cresset lamps that were set in holders at intervals along the walls, and he walked to the far end of the kitchen. After unlocking the storeroom door with a key hanging from a chain on his belt, Gosbert pushed it open and led Bascot inside. The Templar shut the door behind them. The room was large, with bags of flour stacked along one side and barrels of salted fish lined up on the other. Stoppered earthenware containers of various sizes stood at the farthest end, and above them were shelves laid with rounds of cheese, bowls of eggs and jars of mustard. In one corner were a box of candles and a large wooden bucket filled with scoops and ladles.
“I think ’twould only be the fish that would have a taste strong enough to mask a poison, lord,” Gosbert said with a worried look on his face, “but the mustard might do just as well. Shall I get them all brought out into the bail so Thorey can test them?”
Bascot walked about the room, pretending to examine the lids on all of the fish barrels and the seals on the jars of mustard. “I will ask Lady Nicolaa if she thinks it best to do so, Gosbert. After all, the potter managed to exchange a jar of poisoned honey for a pure one while you and the rest of the kitchen servants were near at hand; he could just as easily have slipped in here and done the same with one of these.”
The cook ran a hand over his bald head in distress. “I know, lord. I blame myself for not being more vigilant. ’Twas bad enough the life of Sir Simon was taken, and that of the clerk, but if Lady Nicolaa had died…”
“Yes, we must give thanks to God that she was spared,” Bascot replied soberly. “If her throat had not been so sore, then such would have been her lot.” He gave the cook an accusing look. “But, Gosbert, it must be said that if you had not made the simnel cake and sent it to her chamber, the danger to her life would not have been there in the first place.”
“I know that, lord.” Gosbert gave the Templar a look full of remorse, but as Bascot had hoped, he then tried to exonerate himself from blame. “I would never have made the cake, Sir Bascot, if I had not been told that milady’s desire for food was waning. ’Tis well-known that Lady Nicolaa has a fondness for marchpane. I thought it might encourage her to eat. She is a good mistress and has been kind to me; I would never wish any harm to come to her.”
“I am sure you would not,” Bascot offered sympathetically. “And neither, I am sure, would the person who told you of her disinclination for food. Did he, too, know of Lady Nicolaa’s liking for marchpane?”
Gosbert nodded absently, and Bascot then asked, in as nonchalant a manner as he could adopt, the name of the person with whom the cook had discussed Nicolaa de la Haye’s failing appetite. The Templar held his breath as he waited for the cook’s reply and, when it came, felt a surge of triumph. It was one of the names on the list that Nicolaa and Richard had prepared.