Death of a Squire

Twelve

At about the same time that Alinor and her companions were en route to the cathedral, Bascot was also leaving the castle bail. Mounted on the grey gelding, he left by the western gate, riding in the direction of the sheriff’s chase. He rode fully armed with sword and mace, and wearing a conical helm and dark surcoat over a hauberk of mail to ensure he would not be vulnerable to another attack by a stray arrow. It was his intention to talk to the charcoal burner and, from there, revisit the village where Bettina lived. He felt sure that the core of the mystery that had led to Hubert’s murder was to be found in the forest, but he was at a loss as to how to discover it.

Crossing the Fossdyke, he barely felt the coldness of the morning or noticed the random snowflake that dropped and melted on the warmth of his horse’s flank, except to reflect fleetingly that Hubert’s lust must have been high to have sought a tryst with Bettina in such dank weather, even though it had been reasonably mild on the night he was killed. Still, he thought, ardour does not cease when winter throws its blanket over the earth, and the young are robust. A warm cloak and a bed of leaves would be just as snug as a cold secluded cranny within the castle walls. As he entered the chase, he bent his mind to his task, trying to envision the forest as it would have been on the evening when Hubert had met his death. The woodland was alive with movement at all times of the year, not only with wolves, deer and boar, small animals and birds, but with men as they chopped and hewed, hunted and gleaned, reaped a harvest of meat and berries for the pot or gathered wood for building and burning. Most of these activities were lawful, carried out either by agents of the lord who held the land or by peasants given permission from their master. But there were many in the forest that were not there by right, men and women judged by society as outside its law, forced to steal in order to keep hunger at bay.

Although it was late in the year, there would still be a few peasants grazing a goat or a pig in the forest, or collecting bracken and wind-felled wood. This was a territory they knew, all the tracks and pathways as familiar as the lumps of straw in their beds. Their own livelihood and health depended on such knowledge and they would be well aware of any intruder, be it four-footed beast or two-legged man. Unless Hubert had possessed the skill to move through the denuded branches of the trees with the stealth of a spectre, someone must have seen or heard him. It was Bascot’s task to find out who.

As he neared the site of the old hunting lodge, the snow began to come down a little harder, still in tiny delicate flakes, but swirling now, drifting in circles as it was driven by a slight wind that had arisen. At the ruins of the old hunting lodge, the ground had hardened with the drop in temperature. The churned-up tracks made by the passage of the hunt were hard with rime, the mud glistening with frozen moisture. Bascot passed them by, heading in the direction of the thin trails of smoke from the charcoal burner’s fires that were visible above the tops of the trees.

Bascot travelled only a short distance before he came to a large clearing. In it were three huge turf-covered mounds, each about nine feet high. Built up from the inside of a shallow pit, they were a construction of wood piled about a central tripod of tall branches, which was then covered with a thick layer of soil and sod. At the top of each was an iron disk, covering the hole through which the stacks were lighted by means of dropping in a handful of burning embers. Ventilation slits were carefully placed around the perimeter of each mound, at intervals of approximately three feet. When the smoke from these slits turned a clear blue it signalled that the charcoal was ready. The whole process took about three or four days, and constant attendance was needed to monitor the fire and repair any cracks that might appear in the outer covering of turf.

One of the stacks in the clearing had apparently already served its purpose, for it had been allowed to go out and was dismantled. Some charcoal still remained in the depths of the base, waiting to be put in bags and taken for sale. Both of the other mounds were still burning, the nearest one emitting smoke that was an almost translucent haze. At this one, a tall gaunt man clad in a rough goatskin jerkin was on a ladder placed against the side of the stack, carefully blocking the vent holes so that the lack of air would extinguish the fire. At the next stack a young man, similarly dressed and enough alike the other to be his son, was engaged in filling in cracks in the turf covering. Both looked up at Bascot’s approach, but only the younger one looked startled.

The Templar dismounted and tethered the grey to the branches of a tree at the edge of the enclosure, near to where a crudely built cart with iron-plated wheels stood. In a small pen a donkey peered inquisitively at the newcomers. Bascot’s horse snuffed discontentedly at the acrid smell of burning but, being a reasonably placid animal, chose to ignore it and began to push his nose hopefully at the rough grass near his feet. The Templar walked over to the mound at which the elder of the two men still kept to his task and approached the bottom of the ladder. As he did so, another boy, a younger version of the other two, appeared at the doorway of a roughly constructed shack, a dog at his side, and stood watching.

“Are you John Chard?” Bascot called up to the man on the ladder.

“I am,” was the laconic reply.

“My name is Bascot de Marins. I have been sent by Sheriff Camville to enquire into the murder of a young man in the forest near here. I need to ask you some questions.”

The man made no reply, nor did he seem in awe of Bascot’s rank, or the fact that he was armed. He continued to concentrate on his task. Bascot felt his temper rise, but held it in check. He knew only too well how deep ran the resentment of those who had to answer to a master. Charcoal burning was a filthy job, demanding that the stacks be watched day and night to keep the fire under control, and it was dangerous, too, for when the stack was finally cool enough to extract the charcoal there was always the possibility that it would burst into flame and consume not only the wood, but the charcoal burner as well. There was little profit in it either, for despite the skill that the procedure required, and the demand for charcoal for braziers and the forges of smiths, there was little remuneration to be had, especially after the licence to operate had been paid.

Bascot walked over to the youngster standing at the door of the hovel. At his approach, the dog emitted a low tentative growl, which soon subsided when the boy administered a sharp cuff to the animal’s head.

Bascot gestured to Chard and spoke to the boy. “Go up on the mound to your father and tell him that I will wait only long enough for him to descend his ladder before I use my mace on the sides of his stacks. Then he will either talk to me or I will take him to be questioned by the sheriff.”

The boy, eyes wide in his dirty face, nodded quickly and ran to the mound and scampered up the ladder. After pulling urgently on the back of his father’s jerkin he whispered Bascot’s message. The charcoal burner turned and gave the Templar a stare of sullen resentment, but did as he had been told, and shambled over to stand in front of his tormentor. Chard’s face was just as dirty as his son’s, his hands and nails black and ingrained with a dirt that had been there so long it would never wash off. The goatskin garment he wore gave off a pungent smell and was stiff with old sweat and grime. Giving his young son a push and telling him to go up on the stack and continue with the task of stopping up the vent holes, the charcoal burner at last grudgingly gave Bascot his attention.

“You have heard of the death of a lad, a squire in William Camville’s retinue, found hanged in a tree not far from here?”

Chard gave his head a slight nod.

“Where were you the night before he was found?” Bascot’s tone was sharp.

“I’m here every night,” Chard replied. “My sons are too young to be left with the care of the fires. I have to do it.”

“Did you hear or see anything of the dead boy on that night?”

“No.” The answer was surly.

Bascot drew a deep breath and tried to summon up patience as he walked to the stump of a newly hewn tree and sat down. He decided to try a different tack.

“Who takes the charcoal to sell?” he asked.

“My eldest son,” the charcoal burner replied with a jerk of his head in the direction of the bigger of the two boys, still perched atop the middle mound and watching them both fearfully.

“Did he go to Lincoln that day?” Bascot asked.

Chard nodded his head. “He did. And returned before sundown. He and my younger boy were in the compound through all the hours of darkness.”

Bascot called up to the boy. “Did you see or hear anything unusual on your journey?”

Before the lad could speak, his father interrupted. “He did not. I told you. We were here all that night. No one came near nor by.”

Bascot stood up and drew the short sword he carried in his belt. He walked over to the stack that the charcoal burner had been plugging and dragged the top of his knife across the top of one of the squares of turf that formed its cover. Almost immediately a little puff of smoke appeared. He turned to Chard. “I have little inclination to be lenient with you, burner. You are insolent and uncooperative. Your very manner tells me you have something to hide. Either you tell me what it is willingly, or I take you to the sheriff and let him force it out of you. The choice is yours.”

Still the charcoal burner stood silent, his wide mouth set in a stubborn line. The dog began to whine. Bascot, his patience at an end, stepped forward and said, “Very well, Chard. You have made your decision.”

At these words the elder son, from his perch atop the smoking mound, let out a yell. “No! Tell him, Da! For the sake of Our Lord, tell him.”

Chard looked up at his son. “Shut your mouth, Adam.”

“No, Da, I will not.” The boy scrambled down and came to stand by his father, resolution on his thin grimy face. “I did see summat that afternoon,” he said to Bascot. “Just as I was coming home. A horse and rider were ahead of me on the path. There was a girl, too, up behind, on the pillion.”

Chard interrupted once more. “This has nowt to do wi’ us, Adam. If the sheriff can find someone to blame he will, whether they be guilty or no. You are putting your head in a noose, and mayhap mine and your brother’s as well.”

“No, burner, you are wrong,” Bascot told him coldly. “If you are innocent, you have nothing to fear.”

The charcoal burner gave him a scornful look of disbelief, but said nothing. Bascot left him to his doubt and turned once again to the boy. “Did you recognise either of these people? Did you see where they went?”

The boy hesitated for a moment, glanced at his father’s face, and answered with a deliberate shake of his head. “No, sir. And that’s the truth. I could tell they were my betters by the fineness of the horse and the cloak the girl wore. If they were bent on a loving spree they would not take kindly to the likes o’ me spying on ’em. So I stopped the donkey and waited for a spell. Once they had disappeared up the path, I took a different track to get back here.”

“Did you get a look at the girl’s face?”

Adam shook his head. “She had her back to me and the hood on her cloak was up.”

“Nothing else?” Bascot asked, disappointed.

“No, sir. That’s all.”

The charcoal burner relaxed his stance now, a look of resignation on his face. Bascot spoke to him once more. “I will ask you again, Chard-did you hear anything later that night-a scream, a shout for help, anything?”

The man shook his head in negation and his eldest son did, too. Even the little one, still crouching down by the dog, moved his head sideways in agreement with the others in his family. Bascot knew he would get no more out of them.