“A deplorable state.” Hugh Bardolf chuckled as he spoke. “But your uncle is in good health yet. He has time aplenty to spawn sons, especially if the new wife is young, and comes from a family known for its fecundity.” Since the size of Bardolf’s brood of children was well known, this was a pointed remark and not taken well by de Kyme’s nephew.
De Rollos looked increasingly uncomfortable as Roger turned his angry face away from Bardolf and took another pull at his wine cup. De Kyme’s cousin, Alan, kept his silence, his pale brown eyes sly and cunning as they darted back and forth from his host to the rest of the company. Roger’s son Arthur looked defiantly ahead of him, hatchet nose high in the air in imitation of his father.
Philip de Kyme looked blearily up at Bascot. “If you haven’t come to tell me you have proof of my wife’s guilt, Templar, then why are you here?”
Tired of the baron’s maudlin attitude and still feeling remnants of his earlier irritation, Bascot answered him with little patience. “I have come to see the letters written by Hugo’s mother. It is possible they will give some hint of how Lady Sybil or Conal could have found out about your illegitimate son’s existence.”
De Kyme nodded drunkenly. “Yes. A common acquaintance here in Lincoln, perhaps. Some merchant the boy was to travel with that had a loose tongue. I will send for Scothern. He has the letters in his safekeeping.”
As a servant was sent scurrying for the secretarius, Bardolf gave Bascot a lazy smile. “You are assiduous in your task, Templar. I wish you joy of it.”
“There is no joy in murder, Bardolf,” Bascot said shortly, “and still less for those who profit from the deed.”
The pretence of amiability dropped from Bardolf’s expression as he pushed himself up straighter in the chair, seeking whether the Templar’s answer was directed at himself or not. De Rollos put a hand on his companion’s arm as Bascot’s own hand dropped casually to the sword at his belt. Just then William Scothern appeared and Bardolf, thinking better of testing the strength of the insult that might have been contained in Bascot’s remark, relaxed as the secretarius came to stand behind his master’s chair.
“Sir Bascot has come to see the correspondence you exchanged with Hugo’s mother, William,” de Kyme said, his mazed senses momentarily sobered by the imminent clash between one of his guests and the Templar. “Take him to my chamber and show her letters to him.”
Bascot was not loath to leave the group behind him. They reminded him of the vultures that had gathered over the corpses on the plains outside Acre. With the exception, perhaps, of William de Rollos who, as far as Bascot could determine, would have little to gain from the death of de Kyme’s bastard son or the imminent disposal of his wife and stepson. His presence here was puzzling.
Scothern led Bascot to an upper chamber in one of the manor house’s corner turrets. The room was well appointed, with a large bed and bolster covered in good linen and sweet-scented rushes strewn on the floor. The secretarius went to a locked coffer standing on the floor against the far wall. Opening it with a key taken from the scrip at his belt, Scothern removed a small number of parchment rolls and placed them on a nearby table. Beside them he laid several sheaves of parchment covered in writing and tapped them with a forefinger.
“These are the copies of the letters that Sir Philip sent to Hugo’s mother, Eleanor. The others are her replies. You will find they are in the order of their dating.”
Bascot motioned to the coffer. “These have been kept locked away all the time Sir Philip was in correspondence with the boy’s mother?”
“They have,” he affirmed. “Only Sir Philip and myself had access to them.” Scothern’s genial freckled face was drawn in lines of tautness and there was a fine sheen of perspiration on his upper lip.
“Is Sir Philip literate?” Bascot asked.
Scothern shook his head. “He can sign his name, and scan the tallies of some of his holdings, but not much more.”
“Then you will have written all of his letters and read the replies for his benefit?” The secretarius nodded. “How did your master locate the boy’s mother? It would seem she had been gone many years from Lincoln.”
“Her father was a perfume maker, and Sir Philip knew that he had relations in Maine and also believed that was where she was sent when
… her condition… became obvious. I made enquiries among the merchants of Lincoln and, from the information I garnered, we discovered that it was most likely she was in the town of La Lune. Sir Philip directed that a letter be sent there-to the provost of the town-asking that he make an attempt to locate the lady he was looking for. Not much later we had a reply from a priest-the lady apparently lived in his parish-and Sir Philip sent a letter, written at his direction by myself, for the priest to forward to her.”
“I see.” Bascot picked up one of the scrolls. It was neatly dated on the outside with the inscription of a day in early April. “This is the first one received from her?”
Scothern nodded and Bascot unrolled the letter and scanned the contents. The scribing was neat, probably written by a clerk or priest. It was in formal language, thanking her former lover for his interest in their son and telling how she had, with the help of relatives, been able to follow her father’s trade of perfume maker. She went on to say that she had never married, that her whole existence had revolved around Hugo and that she had never let him forget that his father was of the English nobility. He was a fine boy, she had appended, whom she had managed to have educated and who had repaid her efforts by being hardworking and honest. The letter closed by saying that she hoped one day Philip would want to meet his son and that they looked forward to further communications from him.
In all, it was a letter written with almost fawning polite-ness and hinted at the underlying hope of some gain from the resumption of de Kyme’s interest. Philip’s reply was enthusiastic, expressing a desire to see his son and offering to pay the expenses of the boy’s trip to England. Eleanor’s reply to this letter was effusive, as was the next, and last, one. She told him the boy would journey as soon as he could to Lincoln and would bring his pregnant wife with him. She thanked him for his generosity and said that, once Hugo was safely on his way, she would be going on a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James in Compostella to thank God for her boy’s good fortune in being reunited with his father.
“That Hugo’s mother was going on a journey was not mentioned when Sir Philip learned that it was his son who had been murdered,” Bascot said to Scothern.
“I believe he had forgotten,” the secretarius replied. “He was so distraught, I think he gave little thought to how much Hugo’s mother would be grieved.”
“Has any attempt been made to inform her?” Bascot asked, noting again the clerk’s seeming nervousness as he replied.
“Sir Philip bade me write a letter to the priest at La Lune. When she returns I have no doubt he will tell her the sad news.”
Scothern busied himself rerolling Eleanor’s letters and started a little when Bascot told him that he would take them back with him to Lincoln for it was probable they would be needed when the charge was brought against Lady Sybil and Conal at the assizes. The clerk’s edginess irritated Bascot and finally he said, “What is it, Scothern? You quiver like a deer that has scented the hounds. Is there something you are not telling me?”
The clerk shook his head vigorously. “No. No, Sir Bascot. It is only…”
“Out with it,” Bascot prompted.
“It is only that I wonder if I did the right thing in telling you my suspicions about the identity of the two murdered young people. Perhaps it would have been better had they been left unknown. When the boy did not turn up Sir Philip would perhaps have thought he had not come after all, or that he had perished somewhere on the journey long before he reached Lincoln.”
“Why do you say that?” Bascot asked.