Murder for Christ's Mass

Fourteen

In the early hours of the next morning, just after Nocturn, the fire bell hanging from a pole on Mikelgate began to ring. Its insistent pealing soon had people running from their homes and out into the street. Captain Roget and the off-duty guards sleeping in the town gaol leapt from their beds and pulled on their boots. As Roget and his men ran towards the sound of the tocsin, one of the men who had been on night patrol met them just as they rounded the corner of Brancegate.

“The fire’s in the casket maker’s shop, just down there,” he said, pointing to the end of the road.

His men at his heels, Roget ran towards the glow of flames flickering around the shutters of a casement on the ground floor. “The alarm was sounded by a sempstress who lodges above the shop,” the guard told Roget as they ran. “She’s a widow and got herself and her two children out safely, but she said she hasn’t seen the casket maker since early yesterday afternoon. He must still be in there.”

Shouting to two of his men to bring ladders and hatchets, Roget directed others to gather some of the emergency water barrels placed about the town and roll them to the site of the fire. A crowd of neighbouring householders were hauling buckets of water from a well in the middle of the street and Roget pushed past them to take stock of the situation. The casement was burning fiercely, flames licking up the walls of stout timber beams set in a crosswise fashion atop a low foundation wall of stone. The preservative tar painted on the beams was beginning to blister and pop with an ominous sound, as was the wattle and daub used as infill. Although there was only a slight danger of the tiled roof catching fire, it was imperative to prevent the wooden framework of the dwelling, and that of the adjoining houses, from igniting. Roget hoped the recent snow and rain had dampened the wood thoroughly enough to make it difficult for the flames to easily catch hold.

As the two men he had sent for ladders and hatchets came running with the equipment, the clatter of horses’ hoofs could be heard as Ernulf and a half dozen men-at-arms from the castle raced down Mikelgate to give their assistance. Propping the ladders up against the walls of the adjacent houses, the soldiers clambered up and tossed buckets of water onto the beams at the top of the house’s facade, while the men of the town guard tried to douse the flames at ground level. Roget ripped off his cloak and, soaking it with water from one of the emergency barrels, wrapped the dripping fabric around his arm and lifted it to shield his face as he took an axe to the burning casement. The wood of the shutter was almost burned through and fell quickly, but as soon as it lay smouldering on the ground, fierce flames from the inside of the window leapt greedily through the opening.

As townspeople ran forward with more buckets, Roget called to the sempstress, who was standing with her arms around her crying children at the edge of a crowd of frightened women. “The casket maker-where does he sleep?”

“In a room at the back,” she replied. “But ’tis in that room”-she pointed to the burning chamber beyond the casement-“that he keeps cloths for lining the coffins. It must be those that are burning. Our room is just above and the smell of smoke woke me up.”

“We can’t get through the casement, the flames are too fierce,” Roget shouted to Ernulf. “We’ll have to go through the door.”

The serjeant nodded and, as Roget had done, removed his cloak and dunked it into a water barrel. As the two men went towards the front door, which had been left slightly ajar by the fleeing sempstress and her children, the captain yelled to one of his guards. “Take two men and go down the lane behind the building. Make sure the fire has not spread to the back of the house.”

As the men ran to do his bidding, he and Ernulf, their upper torsos and heads swathed in the dampened cloaks, kicked open the door. Inside, the passageway was filled with dense black smoke, but thankfully there were, as yet, no flames. Calling for his men to bring more water, Roget used it to soak the wood of the door that led into the burning room before cautiously pushing it open. There was a slight whoosh of hot air as he did so but, once they were inside, it was apparent the core of the fire was, as the sempstress had suggested, in a pile of burning cloth. The material lay directly underneath the open window and was fiercely ablaze. A coffin on a stand on the opposite side of the room had begun to char from the heat but, apart from that, the rest of the room was intact. There was no sign of the casket maker.

“Thanks be to le Bon Dieu,” Roget breathed as his men extinguished the blazing material, sending up a cloud of smoke tinged with an acrid smell that caught in the throat and set them all to coughing. “Bring some sand and cover all the embers,” he instructed the guards, “and make sure both the inside and outside of the walls are well damped down.”

He and Ernulf, still coughing from the effects of the smoke, went out into the street. As he began to assure the crowd the danger was past, the guards he had sent to check on the rear of the house came around the corner. With them were two men, one stumbling along as though bemused while the other was being hauled along reluctantly.

“Found the casket maker asleep in his bed,” one of the guards said with a grin. “Had to wake him up to tell him he was near to needing one of his own coffins.”

Roget looked at the coffin maker. There was a strong smell of ale about his person and his gaze was uncomprehending as he stared at the charred wood on the front of his shop and the people gathered round. It was clear he must have been drunk when he went to bed and the effects of the alcohol had not yet worn off.

“Were you drinking in your shop tonight?” Roget asked him.

The man nodded, his eyes bleary. “Only a cup or two,” he replied. “Helps me sleep.”

The sempstress came forward, her eyes ablaze with anger. “’Tis more like you had a dozen,” she yelled at him. “You’re always drinking in there and it’s not the first time you’ve left a candle alight. ’Tis only by God’s grace that I and my children were not burned to death.”

“No, no, mistress,” the casket maker slurred. “I only had a few cups, I promise you. No more.” His words ended in a prodigious belch, the smell of which sent them all reeling away from him.

Disgusted, Roget told one of the guards to take him to the gaol and keep him in one of the cells until he slept off the effect of the ale. The captain then spoke to the sempstress. “I shall report his drunkenness to the town bailiff,” he told her. “If any of your property is damaged, he will ensure you are paid reparation.”

Mollified, the sempstress turned away and a kindly neighbour offered to give her and her children lodgings for the night, which she gratefully accepted. Roget now turned his attention to the other man the guards had brought with them, and who was still held firmly in their grasp.

The captain stroked his beard and a smile curved his lips as he looked at the cringing figure. The guards returned his smirk. Their captive cowered under Roget’s gaze as one of the guards held aloft a rough sack. It swung heavily from his raised fist.

“Found him with this, Captain,” the guard said. “He was climbing over one of the fences in the lane.”

“So, Cotty,” Roget said, addressing the prisoner, “you are back in Lincoln and are once again trying my patience with your thieving ways.”

“I found the sack on the ground, Captain Roget,” the man whined. “I was just on my way to turn it in to you.”

Roget regarded the thief. He was dressed in rags and was extremely dirty. Looped around his neck was a pair of old rope sandals tied together with string. Both sides of his nose had been slit and his left hand was still red and sore on the stumps of two missing fingers.

“I thought I told you never to come back to Lincoln,” Roget said, gesturing to the thief’s mutilated hand. “Did that punishment not teach you a lesson?”

“’Twas hard out on the road in this weather,” the man snivelled. “I only come to town to get some alms from the church and then I was going to be on my way. I didn’t steal anything, I promise you. I found that sack. It was just lying on the ground where someone must have dropped it.”

Roget pointed to Cotty’s bare feet; his toes, curling on the cobbles amid the churned-up mess of slush and ashes from the fire, were nearly as long as his fingers and almost as prehensile. “If you are lying, it will be your toes I take this time. Without them, you will no longer be able to climb through windows like a thieving squirrel.” Roget thrust his hand into the sack. “Let’s see what it is that Cotty claims he has found.”

Ernulf and the guards gasped as Roget pulled out a leather pouch and upended it into his open hand. From inside slithered a heavy gold chain adorned with a ruby pendant and two men’s silver thumb rings set with precious stones. As the captain gave the pouch a final shake, a cloak clasp of beaten gold tumbled out to join the rest. “Ma foi,” Roget exclaimed, “you have struck on a pretty nest of treasure this time, Cotty.” The captain glowered at the thief. “Which house did you steal this from?”

Cotty fell awkwardly to his knees, his arm still in the grasp of one of the guards. “I didn’t steal it, Captain, I swear.”

Roget looked up Mikelgate. The back of all the houses adjoining the casket maker’s faced into the lane where Cotty had been apprehended. Among them was Warner Tasser’s silver manufactory.

“I don’t believe you, Cotty, and I have no doubt report of this theft will soon prove your lie.” He motioned to the guard who held the unfortunate thief. “Take him to the gaol and lock him up. And give him some water to wash his feet. I have no wish to soil my sword on the filth that encrusts his toes.”

With an evil grin, the guard dragged his captive away, Cotty still protesting his innocence. Roget turned to Ernulf. “Will you tell Sheriff Camville there is no longer any danger from the fire, mon ami, and also that I will be delayed in making my report until after I have found out who this jewellery belongs to?”

Ernulf nodded his compliance and, calling to his men, mounted his horse and rode back to the castle.