He waited nervously as the serjeant and the Templar made their slow progress down the street. He knew that they would soon arrive at his own door and he waited with indecision, uncertain as to whether to take refuge in flight over the wall or to stay and do as he had promised Wat the day before the alekeeper had been found dead. Brunner had never thought matters would come to such a pass. Wat had merely told him there was a goodly pile of silver to be had if he gave the alekeeper one of his harlot’s old gowns and was to tell anyone, if asked, that the girl who would be wearing it was known to him as a prostitute.
Never had he thought that murder would be involved. Nor had Wat apparently, since he had not foreseen his own death. The alekeeper had hinted that the money would be forthcoming from someone of high birth and Brunner had assumed that the whole charade was designed to compromise some girl who was, perhaps, dunning a young lord to marry her. It wouldn’t be the first time hot blood had led to rash promises which were later regretted. During his time as a stewe-holder he had seen more than one young buck get heartsick over a fresh little doxy. A few beddings were usually all that was needed to make the ardour disappear.
When Brunner had heard of Wat’s death, and that there had also been a dead female dressed as a harlot along with him, he had felt the sharp taste of dread rise on the back of his tongue. To dispel it he had reminded himself that only Wat had known of Brunner’s involvement and, if any enquiries were made, he could simply deny knowledge of the dead woman or her dress. The gown had only been an old shabby one, after all, belonging to a harlot that had died the year before. That thought had comforted him until yesterday night when, after all his wenches were tucked up in their rooms with customers, he had found a scrap of parchment lying on the bed in his room. Brunner couldn’t read, but it wasn’t necessary to be literate to understand the drawings that had been limned on the paper. In black ink two prostrate figures had been sketched, one with a broken head and the other with a knife stuck in his heart. It was easy to identify the man with the crushed skull for he had a huge belly just like Wat and a barrel of ale had been pictured standing beside him. The other, blood pouring from the wound in its chest, had black eyes inked in, just like his own. He knew it for a warning that he must keep to the story Wat had told him to tell and, if he didn’t, he would be as dead as the alekeeper now was. The sour taste of fear had quickly returned.
Brunner had slept not at all, but had lain tossing on his pallet until dawn. He had been up and drinking a cup of wine to steady his nerves as, one by one, the customers his women had been entertaining had left. Then he had heard of a priest being stabbed and his fear intensified. Anyone who would try to kill a priest would think nothing of murdering a lowly stewe-keeper. And now the very thing he had been dreading was about to take place. He was about to be questioned by someone in authority. Thinking furiously he began to pace, then he left his room and ran up the stairs to the landing above. Along the narrow passageway dirty leather curtains hung, shielding the entry to a number of small closets, each one only big enough for a pallet and stool, where the doxies carried on their trade. He went to the curtain at the farthest end and pulled it aside. On a straw mattress lay a young girl. She was buxom and fresh faced, with long blond hair loose and spread on her pillow. She was not asleep, however, even though her eyes were closed, for her hands were pressed hard against her mouth to stifle the sobs that were shaking her.
Brunner went inside and grabbed her by the arm. “Up, you. Now. I want you downstairs.”
She pulled away from him, but there was no way to escape. He stood at the door and watched her as she crouched against the wall. “I want to leave,” she snivelled. “ ’Tis against the ordinances for you to keep me here against my will. You said you wanted me for a servant, not to be a harlot. If you don’t let me go, I’ll find the bailiff and tell him.”
Brunner leaned over her and gave her a sharp kick in the belly. She doubled up and began to moan. “You knew what it was all about when you came here, my girl. Don’t pretend the innocent with me. Not so keen now you find that you have to lay with whoever wants to pay for you instead of being able to pick and choose your customers, are you? Well, you say one word to the bloody bailiff and I’ll fix you up so no man, not even an old and ugly one, will ever want you to pleasure him again. Now get up and go downstairs, before I take a paddle to your bare arse.”
He flung the leather curtain aside and strode out into the passage. The girl rose and crept after him, her hands to her stomach where he had kicked her. She followed Brunner downstairs and into his room, and he shut the door behind her. Then, with more threats of physical injury, he primed her in what she was to say when Ernulf and the Templar arrived.
Twelve
As they approached Brunner’s door, Ernulf hawked and spat. “If I find any ordinances broken in here, I’ll take the fine out of the stewe-holder’s hide. Nothing would give me greater pleasure.”
Bascot looked at the serjeant and smiled. “I take it you have no liking for the man,” he said.
“None at all. Most of the stewe-holders we’ve just seen are not too bad. They treat their wenches passably well and don’t take too many liberties with the regulations. But this one… I’ve been tempted more than once to take my fist to his pasty face.”
“Has he given you a personal offence?” Bascot asked while Gianni, still holding the horses, looked in surprise at Ernulf’s grim face.
“No, but we fished a young girl out of the river once. One of the rat-catchers down on the docks saw her as she jumped in, but she drowned before anyone could get to her. About two year ago now, it were. She was just a little bit of a maid, not much more than a child. Drowned herself she had, but before she jumped into the river someone had taken a birch rod to her back and legs. She was cut from neck to ankle. Been one of Brunner’s wenches we were told, but he swore he hadn’t seen her for a week or more before we found her and, although we tried, we couldn’t prove different. But I know he did it. Beat her so badly she committed the sin of killing herself rather than face him again. Poor soul was probably too afraid to go to the bailiff, so she took the only way out left to her.”
“What did you say his name is?” Bascot asked. “Brunner?”
“That’s right, but he should be named Devil’s Backside, for that’s what he is.”
When Ernulf knocked on the door and the stewe-holder opened it, the serjeant did not enter into any good-natured banter the way he had at the other stewes. He pushed Brunner roughly aside and told him to call his women down, and to be quick about it. When the harlots were all roused and standing downstairs, Ernulf asked them the same questions he had asked at all the other houses along the street. Did they recognise the clothes? Did they know of any harlot that had pale brown hair, was about midway in her term with an unborn child and had not been seen lately?
Most of the women shook their head but one of them, a blond-haired wench who called herself Gillie, had looked startled when Ernulf had said they were looking for a woman who was pregnant. She had then hesitantly said she had met a girl like that the week before, when she was travelling the road to Lincoln.
“Where were you coming from?” Bascot asked, the first question he had personally put to any of the prostitutes.
“From near Nottingham, sir,” she said. “But I’ll not tell you the name of my village. I run away and I don’t want my kinfolk to find me. Especially here.”
She kept looking nervously at Brunner until Ernulf, a scowl on his face, said to her, “If you want to leave, you have only to walk out of that door with us when we go. No one shall stop you.”