Nicolaa de la Haye’s female guests also felt a modicum of relief. The temper of their menfolk had grown increasingly testy from the enforced inactivity, and the men’s absence from the keep meant the women would be able to retire to the solar and spend the day in leisurely conversation. It was traditional for gifts to be exchanged on the first day of the New Year, and the women were eager to compare the presents they intended to bestow and to speculate about what they hoped to receive.
Only Stephen, Ralph of Turville’s young son, was disconsolate. Even though a couple of older pages about the same age as the lad were to accompany the hunting party, Stephen’s mother, Maud, begged her husband to deny their son permission, insisting the boy should stay in the shelter of the keep lest the coldness of the weather bring on one of the ear aches that plagued him at this time of year.
When Ralph reluctantly concurred with his wife and told the boy he must remain behind, Lucia resurrected her notion of teaching Stephen some of the gestures Gianni used to communicate, begging Maud to reconsider her earlier refusal to allow the lesson. Conscious of the pleading look in her son’s eyes, Maud relented and gave her permission. Lucia did not give her cousin any time to change her mind. She immediately got up from her seat at the end of the table on the dais and made her way to where Nicolaa de la Haye sat.
The next morning, the eve of the first day of the New Year, Bascot stood in the bail and watched Gianni race across the ward to the keep. The Templar had readily acceded to Lucia’s request, which had been put to him by Lady Nicolaa on the girl’s behalf. Bascot suspected Gianni’s eagerness to participate in tutelage of the young Turville heir was not completely due to the honour of having the castellan make a personal request for his services, but primarily because he had been told that Lucia Bassett intended to be present during the lesson. The boy had been giving the young noblewoman admiring glances ever since she arrived and, although Lucia was a few years older than Gianni, Bascot guessed the lad had arrived at the age when young males start to become painfully aware of the attractions of female pulchritude. Neither age nor rank had ever been a barrier to the onset of love’s awakening desires, and the crimson blush that spread over Gianni’s face when Bascot told him about the arrangements was a good indication the boy was smitten with the fair Lucia.
Nicolaa suggested the young people, after the midday meal, hold the instruction in the chamber she used to administer the details of her vast demesne. It was private and supplied with a good quantity of parchment and writing implements. She also asked Lambert to attend the lesson so he could act as a translator for Gianni’s gestures and directed the clerk to write down a brief description of the movements so that Stephen, who was literate, could use the notes for reference.
As Gianni’s eager steps took him into the keep, the hunt master came out into the bail and gave a loud blast on his horn. In response, saddled horses were led from the stables and the kennel master strode from the compound where the dogs were kept, a pack of mastiffs and boarhounds at his heels. Outside the kitchen, panniers containing flagons of wine were hastily strapped to the back of a sturdy palfrey to provide refreshment for members of the hunting party.
As the barking of the dogs sounded loud on the cold air, Gerard Camville and Gilbert Bassett left the keep and came down into the bail. Behind them were Richard, Ralph of Turville and the household knights. All were wrapped in heavy cloaks and wore close-fitting caps lined with fur.
The sheriff mounted his horse and looked about him. Satisfied all was in order, he raised his hand. The gateward on the western gate blew a signal on his horn and the heavy doors were pulled open by two men-at-arms. As the party rode through the opening and out into the countryside, a wide swathe of churned-up mud and slush marked their passage.
Once the sounds of jingling harnesses and yelping dogs had faded into the distance, Bascot felt a fleeting stab of regret that he was not accompanying the hunters. The sport was forbidden to brothers of the Templar Order because it was believed that such secular pleasure would detract from the monks’ devotion to their religious duties. Although Bascot agreed with the sentiment of the rule, he still felt a craving to indulge in the excitement of the chase. Resolutely he pushed his longing aside. He had been too long away from the company of his brothers, he decided, and since it was unlikely that either Lady Nicolaa or her husband would require his presence until later in the day, he would go and spend the morning at the Templar enclave and immerse himself in the familiarity of the Order’s regime.
The Lincoln enclave of the templar order was modest in size and located on the eastern shoulder of the hill upon which the castle and Minster stood and just below the area where the stone quarry lay. Although not a large commandery, Lincoln was on the main route from southeast England to the north coast and the preceptory often fulfilled the function of a staging post for messengers, and a harbour for travelling brothers in need of a night’s rest. Sparsely manned at this time of year when movement about the countryside was limited, it still had a complement of a dozen men-at-arms, a serjeant, a priest and a draper, all under the command of the preceptor, Everard d’Arderon. There was also a small number of lay servants-a cook, a blacksmith and several grooms.
When Bascot arrived, a huge wagon was in the encampment, drawn up outside the storehouse where the goods received in fee from local Templar properties were kept. It also housed a supply of commodities that had been produced in the Holy Land and were sent to enclaves throughout the kingdom for the purposes of trade, such as rare spices and candi.
Bales containing some of the more staple items were being loaded on the cart as Bascot entered the preceptory. Preceptor d’Arderon was standing alongside the wagon, a piece of parchment in his hands, directing a pair of men-at-arms in placement of the goods. D’Arderon, an older knight with a bluff countenance and neatly clipped greying beard, greeted his visitor warmly and, when Bascot asked the destination of the supplies, explained they were part of a shipment being sent to Tomar in Portugal, a Templar castle that was a bastion against the ever-increasing threat of encroachment by the Moors.
“This wagonload of goods will join two others that are due to stop here on their way from the preceptory in York,” d’Arderon explained. “Once they have all reached London, the goods will be loaded aboard ship and taken to Portugal. Most will go to the enclave in Tomar, but some of it is needed by brothers in nearby Almourol. Those infidel bastards in the south of Portugal give our men no time to forage for themselves.”
The Templar castles at both Tomar and Almourol-twelve miles south of Tomar-had been built about thirty years before at the behest of a Portuguese Templar Master, Gualdim Pais, who had died in 1195. It was an area of much unrest as the Moors battled to retake territories that had been reclaimed from them with great difficulty and loss of life by the Christian populace of northern Portugal. If the heathens were not kept back in both Portugal and Spain, there was a danger they would overwhelm the whole of the Iberian Peninsula.
As d’Arderon had been speaking, Bascot noticed the preceptor looked very tired. Usually hale and hearty despite his sixty-odd years, there were now lines of strain etched on his face, and Bascot recalled the preceptor had recently suffered a bout of tertian fever, a recurring ailment that had been the cause of his being relieved of duty in Outremer two years before, and sent to take up the post of preceptor for the Lincoln enclave. It had been hoped that the softer climes of England would provide some relief from his ailment. And so they had, but the bouts still came upon him at times and although of far less intensity than formerly, they were nonetheless debilitating.