Bascot examined the object she handed him. It was a small silver brooch, too tiny to be of use for a cloak, probably intended for pinning a woman’s garment of light weight. It was fashioned in a circle, formed by a pair of clasping hands, and with the letter M-most likely for the Virgin Mary-scrolled on the top. The design was not unusual, betrothal rings were often made so, but uncommon in a brooch. The pin was bent, but still held in the clasp, as though it had been pulled from the material it held. It was not particularly valuable, but to Agnes it was worth quite a few of the pennies she charged for stoups of her ale. The fact that she had produced it meant that it was probable she was finally telling the truth.
He put the brooch into the purse at his belt, to keep company with the scrap of material Gianni had found. “Yesterday-you did your business as usual? You tended to your ale, served customers-all as on any other day?” Bascot asked Agnes.
She nodded. “It were busy, what with all the people come from other parts of the country for the fair. I served in the taproom. I barely had time to set out my malt for the next mash, or prepare my gruit.” Bascot knew that gruit was the flavouring for the ale, and that Agnes would have used the herbs he had found in the cubbyhole upstairs in the alehouse. “I uses a special mixture for gruit that my mam taught me, bog myrtle and honey. That’s what makes my ale so good.”
“The Jew and the two strangers-they were never in the taproom?”
“No, sir,” she denied positively. “I never have Jews in my house-and they wouldn’t come in neither-and the other two I never saw before, before…” She faltered to a stop.
“Then they must have been brought to your yard and put in the barrels, or brought to the yard already inside them.” Agnes looked at Bascot in confusion as he went on. “Your husband, Wat-did he leave the premises at all yesterday?”
“Only to do deliveries,” Agnes said.
“What deliveries?” Bascot asked with more patience than he felt for the woman’s slow thinking processes.
“There were three. Master Ivo the Goldsmith-he took two kegs; Mistress Downy, the widow-she took one ’cause she has her son and his wife coming to stay for the fair; and the steward of Sir Roger de Kyme, he took two for his master’s house in town.”
“And how did Wat go about these deliveries-what was his routine?”
At Agnes’ look of bewilderment, her sister Jennet, who had seen the purpose of his questions, gave the answer. “He would put the kegs full of ale on the cart, get the cart-horse from its stable at the end of the lane and deliver them. If there were any old kegs that were empty, he would bring them back and put them aside for cleansing and reusing. That’s how the bodies were brought back, sir. In the empty kegs.”
“Thank you, mistress,” Bascot said gratefully. “Then Wat must either have killed them himself, or have knowledge of who did.”
“Oh no, sir,” Agnes protested. “My Wat would never have killed anybody. I know he wouldn’t.”
“Seems he knew somebody else had, at least,” Jennet remarked to her sister dryly. “If they had died natural-like he wouldn’t have been stuffing them in ale kegs and lifting them out after dark, would he?”
Bascot felt satisfied that it was now known how the bodies had arrived at their final destination, and that Wat had been an accomplice in their deaths, if not the actual murderer. But he was already dead when the priest had been stabbed, so the person Agnes had seen in the yard last night must have been responsible for the attack in the church.
The noise of the rain pelting down outside was louder now, and Bascot looked to where the carpenter and young boy were respectfully standing a short distance away. He beckoned for them to come forward.
“This is your son?” he asked Jennet. She nodded and told Bascot his name was Will. He looked strong, with the big bones and wide frame of his aunt, rather than the slight ones of his mother and father. The boy stood uncertainly before Bascot, awed by his presence and that of the sheriff’s guard, and looked anxious at being singled out for attention.
Bascot pointed to the hammer tucked into the belt of the lad’s leather apron. “You know how to use that, Will, do you?”
“Aye, sir. I helps me da in the yard,” the boy answered. Behind him his father nodded.
“Then keep it with you, and stay by your aunt for the next few days. If anyone threatens her, use it on them as you use it on the wood in your father’s yard. Do you understand me?”
Will nodded his head in a determined fashion. “Aye, sir. I’ll not let anyone harm her.”
Bascot looked down at the drained face of the alewife. “If you recall any more of what you saw last night, send a message to Ernulf at the castle. He will see that I am informed.”
Relieved that she was not to be taken to the castle for questioning, the alewife left the church with her sister and family. Bascot waited until the priest, still unconscious but with his wound now neatly bandaged by the barber with strips torn from an altar cloth, had been removed on a hastily constructed stretcher before he called to Gianni and Ernulf and they rode slowly back through the downpour of rain to the castle keep.
Nine
“You believe, then, that the victims were killed elsewhere and their bodies transported to the ale house in empty casks? The obvious question is: why?”
Bascot was once again ensconced with Nicolaa de la Haye and Gerard Camville in the small chamber where he had given his report earlier that day. Roget had reported the attack on the priest to the sheriff and Nicolaa had summoned Bascot, to listen to his account of the affair and any other information that he had uncovered.
Now, sitting at her table, she had carefully laid before her the scrap of material that Gianni had located and the little brooch that Agnes had found. Across from her stood Bascot, while her husband prowled restlessly about the room, his footfalls soft and sure despite the massive bulk of his body. From the hall below came the distant sounds of revelry as the multitude at the table enjoyed the entertainment of the tumblers and minstrels that their hosts had provided. Nicolaa and her husband had excused themselves from their guests to hear Bascot’s report, and Gianni had been sent in the company of Ernulf to get some of whatever food still remained after the vast number of visitors had eaten their evening meal. The occasional flash of lightning could still be seen through the opening of the small arrow slit set high on the chamber wall, but the rumble of thunder was decreasing in strength and seemed to be moving away to the east. The rain, too, was lessening in intensity and already the fresh smell of its cleansing fall could be felt in the air.
“As to the first question, lady, I think that is the most likely explanation,” Bascot confirmed. “Before being put into the barrels, they were probably put to death by means of poison or suffocation-although the latter is not likely unless they were given a potion that would have rendered them insensible beforehand. There was no sign of a struggle on their bodies, as would be the case with at least one of them, if they had been smothered while still in possession of all of their faculties. What the reason was-I am afraid I cannot even hazard a guess. If Father Anselm recovers, or regains consciousness, he may be able to tell us who his assailant was, or at least the reason why he was attacked. It seems plausible that the person who assaulted him also committed the other crimes.”
“You still haven’t found out who the two strangers are,” Gerard interjected, irritation in his tone. “That’s what I want to know. And if they have relatives who will come claiming compensation for their deaths.”
“If Father Anselm is still unable to tell us what he knows by morning, then I will question the drapers and weavers in the town,” Bascot replied. “The material is a fine cloth, too rich for a prostitute to wear, unless she was the leman of a patron of substantial means. If it can be determined where it was made, it might provide an answer to her identity.”