Bascot stood up and William’s horse shied at his unexpected appearance. The sheriff’s brother cursed as he fought to bring his mount under control, then changed to an oath of surprise when he realised what had caused the animal’s alarm. Wrestling the startled steed to a halt, he stared at Bascot as de Humez and the rest of the hunt streamed past him.
“De Marins! What are you doing here? Did you sight the stag? Are the dogs still on its trail or have we lost him?”
Suddenly he saw the shaft of the arrow protruding from beneath the fold of Bascot’s cloak. “My God, you’ve been pricked. How badly are you hurt?”
William slid off his horse in one motion and ran towards Bascot, bow still in hand. As he did so the two squires, Alain and Renault, came crashing with their horses through the woods a little distance from where the main body of the hunt had come. Seeing their lord dismounted and running towards Bascot, they came to a standstill. Behind them, from the woods to the south, straggled a few men on foot: a couple of huntsmen and the two foresters, Tostig and Eadric.
“I am not badly wounded,” Bascot assured William. “A scratch, nothing more.”
“Thanks be to God for that,” William replied. “Someone must have loosed at the stag and found you for a mark instead.” He shook his head. “You should know better, de Marins. A hunt is a dangerous place not only for the quarry, but also for the hunter. Even kings have been brought down by a stray arrow, unwisely loosed.”
“I do not think this one was short of its target,” Bascot said, pulling the shaft free of the cloth in which it was imbedded. “Had I not turned when I did, it would have taken me full in the chest.”
“Even so, de Marins, it does not mean that it was intentional. The stag passed this way just moments ago, did it not? No doubt one of the others misjudged the distance and let loose beforetimes.”
“I think not, my lord,” Bascot insisted.
William looked intently at the Templar. “Do you have some reason for believing so? Did you see who aimed the shaft?”
Bascot shook his head.
“Then…?”
“It is the direction from which it came, my lord. Your hunting party approached from the south, did it not?”
“Yes.” William’s face was beginning to show annoyance that the Templar was not making himself clear. “My brother was after boar. We had no beaters with us for deer, but a stag came across our path. Myself and a few others went after it while Gerard stayed with the pig. But I do not see…”
“My lord Camville,” Bascot said, “I was on the other side of the wall when the arrow was loosed. Unless that shaft can miraculously change direction or penetrate solid wood it could not have been loosed at the deer.”
“You mean…” William’s face drew down in consternation as he realised the import of what Bascot had said.
“Exactly, my lord. It was fired from the north, not the south. I was at the edge of the wall and the arrow came from behind its protection. The deer could not have been seen from there. I was the quarry, not the stag.”
Ten
Later that afternoon Bascot attended the Camville brothers in the sheriff’s private chamber. It was a larger room than the one his wife used as her own, filled with spare boots, tunics, assorted bits of tack and a sleeping bench fitted with a well-padded mattress and bolster. Nicolaa was also there, seated on a stool near the fire that blazed in the hearth. The two brothers were on their feet, William leaning negligently against the window embrasure while Gerard paced the room in his restless fashion. The excitement generated in him by the hunt was still evident, seeming to roll off him in waves as he trod from one side of the chamber to the other. It had been he who had slain the boar, driving his spear deep into the animal’s throat after it had killed two lymer hounds and sliced open the leg of one of the huntsmen. Now the beast was being skinned and prepared for the evening meal.
The stag that had inadvertently strayed into the path of the boar-hunting party had also been brought down, finally taken when its strength had given out and the dogs, attacking in a pack, brought it to its knees. The sheriff had good reason to be pleased with the day’s work, but the news of the arrow shot at Bascot had tempered his good humour with anger. His broad face wore a bellicose scowl as he listened to Bascot explain, as he had to the sheriff’s brother, how the arrow could not have been loosed from the direction of the hunt party, and also of the other marks on Hubert’s throat and how he believed that the boy had first been rendered unconscious and then carried to the tree where he had been strung up.
“You are sure you are not mistaken about the arrow being loosed at you with purpose, de Marins?” Nicolaa asked, concern in her tone. “It is not uncommon for a shaft to find the body of a man instead of a beast during a hunt. All is such confusion once the quarry is sighted.”
“I wish there was some doubt, lady,” Bascot replied, rubbing the spot where the castle leech had washed the small injury he had sustained with wine before binding it tight with strips of linen. “Only the hand of the Devil could have sent that arrow from the south. Otherwise, it would be impossible.”
“If it was the Devil, then he certainly flies high. The wall behind which you were standing is at least twice the height of a tall man and you were only a couple of steps away from its shelter.” William pondered what he had just said. “Who knew you were going there this morning?”
“No one except my servant,” Bascot replied. “I have questioned him. He did not tell anyone where I was.”
“He is mute, is he not?” William asked.
“Yes, but he can make himself understood by gestures for simple communications. For anything of greater import, I have taught him the rudiments of his letters and, if need be, he can write down what he wishes to impart and show it to someone who is literate. But he assures me that no one spoke to him from the time I left until I returned. He stayed in our chamber, later got some food from the kitchen and returned to our room to eat it. It was there I found him when I got back.”
“Then, if this arrow shot was not chance, someone must have been watching you, seen you enter the forest and followed you to the spot,” William mused.
“Or have already been in the woodland when I arrived,” Bascot replied.
“You say you found traces that Hubert may have been attacked there, then taken to be hanged from the oak?” It was the first time that Gerard Camville had spoken. His voice was harsh.
“I believe so, yes,” Bascot replied.
“Then it may be that you found something you were not meant to discover.” He turned away to pace again. “If this is the work of those villagers, they will hang for it. And higher than they hanged my brother’s squire.”
“If de Marins has found out something important enough to be a threat to the murderer, what is it?” Nicolaa said in a voice that was calm by contrast to her husband’s. “You are sure there was nothing else to be found?”
William answered the question. “No, there was not. We scoured the ground all around for some distance into the forest. No tracks, no disturbances, nothing.”
“Well, it is a certainty that it was not an outlaw that fired the arrow at de Marins, for none would have dared to come so close with a hunting party in the woods. So it seems we must look for someone other than a brigand as the culprit. And it also appears the attempt on your life must be linked to the death of the squire in some way. If, as my husband says, you were not meant to discover those marks by the old lodge, what do they signify? It seems to matter little that Hubert was attacked and rendered unconscious in one place but finally killed in another.”
“Perhaps the murderer was disturbed in his act,” Bascot mused, “and had need to move away from the area. If the boy were partially strangled, it would be easy to smother him in such a state. Then it would be possible for the one deed to be done early in the evening and to hide him before hanging him some hours later. That would provide a reason for my finding the tracks to be incriminating.”