“But you said you requested that the coffin be sealed. Is there any need for her to know the more distressing details?”
“No, but they are sure to be bruited abroad by gossiping tongues. I would rather she heard them gently, from a member of her family.”
Melisande nodded in agreement. “That is a caring thought, my friend. It is a shame the boy was killed at all.”
“Yes, but he was a careless youth, heedful only of his own pleasures, and greedy for them. I told him more than once that he might one day end up in trouble if he did not curb his impulses, but he would not listen. And now he is dead, murdered, most likely by someone he angered beyond toleration.” De Vetry sighed again. “For all his cunning intelligence, he was a stupid boy.”
Melisande reached over and placed her hand comfortingly on her companion’s knee. “And his stupidity was most likely the cause of his death, Joscelin. You must not blame yourself.”
As the goldsmith murmured his acceptance of her condolences, they were unaware that their conversation was being overheard. Outside the chamber door, which was slightly ajar, stood Melisande’s daughter, Joanna, a young woman just past her eighteenth summer. She was not pretty, being rather too plump for beauty, but her eyes, when not red rimmed from crying, were of a luminous quality that gave her the look of a startled doe. Now, listening to the conversation going on in Melisande’s chamber, she stuffed the corner of her sleeve into her mouth to stop herself crying out. Hubert was dead and her whole world was crashing into pieces around her.
In a chamber not far from Melisande’s house, in the top storey of Lincoln castle’s new keep, another young woman was in distress. Alys had gone to the room she was now sharing with three other girls to sit and think. Neither Alinor nor the others were there, and she was glad of their absence, for what Hugo had told her had alarmed and frightened her.
She had, from its onset, noticed the morose mood that had occupied her young cousin for the last few days. At first she had thought it was due to a reprimand for some prank or other, or perhaps for being negligent in his duties, but when he had continued to be dejected, an attitude so different from his normally cheerful bonhomie, she had become concerned, especially as he seemed to become more depressed when in Alain’s company, for he had always respected and admired her brother. That morning, after attending Mass, she had watched for him among the crowd and pressed him to walk with her in the castle herb garden, saying she had need of his company as an escort. He had followed her in an abstracted manner, not seeming to feel the cold bite of the wind that had been a harbinger of the sleeting rain which soon followed. Alys had wrapped her cloak tightly around her and pressed him to tell her what it was that was distressing him so.
“There is something wrong with you, Hugo,” she had said. “Do not deny it, for it is obvious. Please tell me, so that I may help you.”
Her soft caring tone had made the boy stiffen at first, then he had flung himself down on a stone bench that was placed in the lee of the wall. Pulling at a late-blooming sprig of mint, Alys had thought he was going to be stubborn and not answer her, and she sat down beside him in an attempt to cajole him further. But there had been no need. Seeming relieved, he had spoken first.
“I don’t see how you can help, Alys, but I must tell someone before I burst with it. I dare not even tell a priest, for fear that somehow Alain will suffer.”
“Alain?” Alys felt her mood swing from concern to alarm. “What has Alain to do with what is troubling you?”
Hugo looked up, confused. “But I thought that was why you asked what was the matter, that you, too, suspected…” The squire shook his head in dismay and sunk his head into his hands. “Oh, I should not have said anything, anything at all.”
Alys touched him gently on the shoulder. “But now you have, Hugo, and you must tell me what it is. If it concerns Alain, I have a right to know. I am his sister and, like you, I love him. I would do nothing to hurt him, even if to do so meant hurt for myself.”
Although her words were brave, her dismay had intensified as she had listened to the tale that Hugo had to tell. It had been about the night that Hubert had met his death, and how her cousin suspected that Alain, and perhaps also Renault, was responsible. “We were all sleeping on the floor of the hall,” he had said, his voice tremulous, “wrapped in our cloaks, along with a lot of other guests. I couldn’t fall asleep-the man beside me was snoring so loud I thought he would choke-and I saw Alain get up and leave the hall, quietly, so as not to disturb anyone. Some time later, maybe two hours or perhaps three, Renault followed him.”
“But that does not mean…” Alys started to protest.
“They did not come back for a long time, Alys,” Hugo interrupted her. “It was early in the morning when they returned. I know it was because just a few moments later the cathedral bells rang the hour of Prime. They had been gone nearly all the night.”
“Did you ask Alain where he and Renault had been?” Alys said.
“Yes,” Hugo replied miserably. “But he lied. He said he had only got up once, to relieve himself at the privy, and had returned almost immediately. When I tried to say I had seen him, and Renault, he just laughed and said I must have been dreaming.” The boy gave her an agonised look. “I wasn’t dreaming, Alys. They were gone all that time. And it was during those hours that Hubert must have been killed.”
“But why would Alain or Renault want to harm Hubert?” Alys said, fearful of the answer, fearful that her brother had discovered how Hubert had shamed and threatened her. “I know they didn’t like him,” she went on bravely, trying to convince herself as much as her cousin, “but Hubert was not liked by many people. That is not a reason to do him harm.”
Hugo took his cousin’s hand and held it. “Alain knew what Hubert had done to you, Alys. Hubert taunted him with it, daring Alain to challenge him, saying that if he did he would tell all the world you are unchaste. There was nothing Alain could do, except…except…”
“Murder him?” Alys said tearfully. “Oh, Hugo, Alain would never do such a thing. It is dishonourable, treacherous. I don’t believe it. And even if I did, it would have been unnecessary. Hubert tried to force me to bed with him, but I did not. There was no truth in his cruel taunts.”
“But Alain would not have known that Hubert was lying,” Hugo replied. “Not unless he asked you. And he would never have done that. It would have implied he thought you welcomed Hubert’s attentions.”
“I still don’t believe that Alain would commit secret murder, Hugo. I cannot.”
“I don’t want to either, Alys,” her cousin replied, his despondence deepening. “But before the Templar came to question us, Alain told all the other squires and the pages that we were not to volunteer any information, that we were to protect each other. What else could he have meant except that we were to lie for him?”
This revelation shocked Alys, convincing her more than the fact that Hugo had witnessed Alain and Renault’s absence from the hall that her brother had something to hide. Alain had always been an honest person, valuing truth and loyalty above all else. Only a terrible secret would make him veer from such a path. Were her fears that her brother had killed Hubert now to be proved true?
There had been no words she could find to console Hugo. They had sat together in silent commiseration until disturbed by one of the kitchen maids come to pick some of the mint that Hugo was mindlessly shredding between his fingers. As she sat in the chamber, Alys thought that always, ever after, she would associate the smell of mint with death.
Sixteen
Gerard and Nicolaa’s son,Richard, arrived home that night just as the company seated in the hall had finished listening to a troubadour that Nicolaa had hired to play for the king during his visit. The minstrel was a woman, not so uncommon an occurrence as it had once been before Queen Eleanor had ascended the throne and given her patronage to anyone, male or female, who had the ability to compose and sing well. The troubadour’s name was Helena, and she was from Portugal. Not only was she an accomplished jongleur, she was young and beautiful. Seated on a stool before her audience, she had just plucked the last notes of a soulful melody from her lute when the door of the hall was flung open and Richard and two other people came hurriedly in, all appearing tired and dishevelled.