Brother Thomas led Bascot to the place where Brunner had been discovered. Gillie had been right, the buildings were hovels, most with caved-in roofs and insect-infested walls.
“It was I who found the dead man,” Brother Thomas explained. “One of the sheep had strayed during the night and I was looking for it when I saw what I took to be a bundle of clothes in the grass. I thought perhaps some kind soul had left them as a gift for the community and went to examine them. It was then that I discovered the terrible deed that had been done.”
“And the girl?” Bascot enquired. “How did you know she was in the shack?”
“I did not. I merely went in to see if the dead man had perhaps left some clue to his identity in there. Inside I found the girl, lying on the floor, bound hand and foot and too frightened to cry out for help. She was much distressed, poor creature.”
Brother Thomas’ face became solemn as he showed Bascot the interior of the shack. There was nothing inside, just a dirt floor on which was a pile of mouldy straw and the length of rope with which Gillie had been tied. There was no sign, either inside or out, of the blade that had ended Brunner’s life.
“Do you have much trouble with beggars or other unfortunates using these shacks?” Bascot asked Thomas.
The monk’s wide face creased into a smile. “No, we do not. There are few desperate enough to intrude so near the inmates of the hospice and risk infection. Besides, as you can see, there is little to make use of.” He looked down sadly at the spot where he had found Brunner. “The slain man must have certainly been in dire circumstances to have sought refuge here.”
“He was, Brother,” Bascot replied. “And whoever killed him must have been just as desperate.”
Bascot did not enter the hospice where those lepers too sick to leave their beds were tended by the monks. However, he still took the precaution of washing his hands in a laver of wine which was kept near the entrance. “We do not know how the disease is spread,” Brother Thomas had told him, “but the ancient Greeks thought much of the cleansing properties of wine and so, under Bishop Hugh’s instruction, we always wash our hands in it before we leave.”
Bascot had thanked him and ridden slowly back to the castle, oblivious to the crowds in the town and conscious only on the periphery of his thoughts that his new boots made the effort of sitting in the saddle much easier. By the time he got back to the hall, tables were being set up for the evening meal and Gianni was waiting for him anxiously at the east gate instead of in his usual place among the dogs. Ernulf was nearby, talking to one of his men.
“The lad would not leave the gate, even when I tried to tempt him with something to eat,” he told Bascot with a smile. “I reckon he thought you would be struck with the lepers’ disease the moment you entered the hospice and be instantly confined there, never to return.”
Bascot told the serjeant that he had discovered nothing helpful and asked if it had been confirmed that Lady Sybil and Conal had spent all of the evening and the night before within the castle walls.
“It has,” Ernulf said with some satisfaction. “Conal kept company with Richard Camville until late, and then they both retired to the same chamber together, along with another male guest who is staying here. Conal’s mother went to the room she shares with Lady Petronille and, unless she be a wraith that can vanish through walls, never left it ’til the morning. Because the chamber is cramped, Lady Petronille’s maid had a pallet across the door. If anyone had left the chamber in the night, she would have been woken.”
“Then we know that they, personally, are innocent of Brunner’s death.”
“It would seem so,” Ernulf replied.
Alan de Kyme sprawled in a chair by an unlit hearth in his small manor house, drinking a cup of weak ale, his foxy face set in concentration. His wife sat nearby, repairing a rent in one of her husband’s old tunics while keeping a watchful eye on their three children, who were playing with a ball on the other side of the room.
“You’ve heard that the Templar has evidence that neither Sybil nor Conal were involved in this latest crime,” Alan said to his wife.
“Doesn’t mean they weren’t involved in the other one,” his wife responded shortly. She was like her husband in features, with a similar pointed nose and sharp eyes, but instead of the flaming red hair that he possessed, hers was dark, and her skin was sallow. She also had a less humorous temperament than her husband.
“The Templar believes it does. He thinks the murders are all connected-de Kyme’s son, the priest and the stewe-holder.”
“If he knows so much, why doesn’t he know who did it?” his wife retorted sourly.
Alan de Kyme laid his finger alongside his nose in an artful manner. “Knowing is one thing, proving is another.”
His wife’s head came up sharply. “Do you think he does know, then?”
Alan shook his head gently. “I don’t think so. But he’s determined, I’ll say that for him. If he doesn’t find out it won’t be for want of trying.”
Alan’s wife gave him a searching look from under her dark brows. “Do you know who it was, husband?”
“I could make a guess, if I had to,” he replied in an offhand manner.
“And who would it be, if you were to guess?” she enquired, her needle still, poised in midair as she waited for his answer.
“No, wife, not even to you will I name anyone. Could be dangerous. Look what happened to the priest and the stewe-holder. They knew who it was, like as not, and they were murdered because of that knowledge.”
His wife looked thoughtful, then bent her head to her sewing once again, and kept her head lowered as she asked softly, “Alan, it wasn’t you, was it?”
“Don’t ask daft questions,” her husband replied, the words sharp but his tone gentle. “I’ve enough problems without adding to them by skulking about murdering my cousin’s bastard.”
If his wife noticed that he had not given a direct answer to her question, she did not remark on it. Instead she turned the conversation to the problems he had mentioned. Holding up the tunic she was mending, she said, “This repair is all but done, Alan, but the fabric is overworn. I will need some cloth if I am to make you a new one, and also some material to sew clothes for the children. They will soon run naked without.”
“I know, woman, I know,” Alan said, a little testily. “If only that damned Jew had come here first before he got himself murdered we could have had the money he was bringing and denied receiving it to Isaac. It wasn’t much, but with the loan the Jew will give us anew it would have got us not only some timber for the mill but a new ram as well as your lengths of cloth.”
His wife sighed. “Are you sure you shouldn’t ask Philip for the money instead, Alan?”
“Not the right time to ask,” her husband said decidedly. “My cousin is awash with grief for a bastard son he never even laid eyes on. He’s spent more on the trappings for laying that Hugo and his wife out in his chapel than he’d lend me in a score of years, the parsimonious wine-sop. Beeswax candles at the end of each bier, and not just one, mind you, but three. And the best of silk for the palls. No, I’ll repair the mill with the money Isaac lends us, as we’d planned, and we’ll have to hope for a good harvest this year for the rest.”
“Perhaps Philip will make you his heir once his bastard’s been buried,” his wife opined hopefully.
“Not if Roger has his way, he won’t,” Alan said with a sudden grin. “Every time he goes to visit his uncle he brings that damned Arthur with him to dangle under Philip’s nose. He doesn’t realise Philip is usually too wine mazed to even notice the boy. Or Roger’s fawning.”