Murder for Christ's Mass

Twenty-four

Thenext morning, after Gianni had gone to the scriptorium, Bascot ordered a mount saddled and rode to the cathedral. He felt cleansed of the anger that had engulfed him the day before, having knelt by the pallet in his bedchamber once Gianni was asleep and begged God’s forgiveness for his transgression, silently repeating the Confiteor in admission of his fault. Now, as he rode, he implored heaven to look favourably on his quest for a witness.

When he reached the church, he dismounted and walked up to the entrance. As he went through the huge portal, the soaring nave lay in front of him, and he genuflected at the marble font just inside the door. A stream of penitents was making its way to the chapel of St. John the Evangelist at the south end of the transept, where the body of Bishop Hugh of Lincoln had been interred in November of the year 1200. Many miracles had been reported by those who sought succour at the saintly bishop’s tomb, and the number of hopeful supplicants increased daily.

As Bascot stood there, searching for a cleric who could help him locate Alexander, a secondary-one of the young men in training to become a priest-came bustling past. Accosting him, the Templar asked for Alexander. Although the secondary was obviously in a hurry, he nonetheless stopped and answered the enquiry courteously, pointing to a narrow set of stairs just off the entryway. The stairs led upwards and were almost hidden from view of anyone coming into the great church.

“The builder is usually at work in a chamber above,” the young cleric replied. “If you go to the top of those stairs, you will find him in the room where plans of the cathedral are stored.”

Mounting the small staircase, Bascot came out onto a tiny landing cluttered with tools, coils of rope and empty leather buckets and saw an open door leading into a low ceilinged but capacious room. Voices came from inside, engaged in a discussion about the possibility that one of the gargoyles protecting the mouth of a waterspout at the western corner of the church was damaged.

“It may only be the trough that is blocked,” an authoritative voice said, “but I noticed water spilling down the sides from above the opening. If the stone surround has cracked in the recent cold weather, it will need repairing. Go up and inspect it, and let me know what you find. In the meantime, I will have two men examine the interior portion of the wall. There is leakage on the inside as well; I noticed it yesterday after the midday service was over. Now that the holy days are passed and repair work will not disturb the services, the archdeacon has given me permission to do what is necessary.”

Ducking through the low arch of the doorway, Bascot found two men inside, poring over a massive drawing on the floor. It was an extremely detailed outline of the cathedral walls, etched into a thin skin of lime plaster encased in a wooden frame and annotated with measurements of every elevation of the cathedral’s structure as well as the differing sizes of stone blocks used in the walls and pillars.

One of the men leaning over the diagram was about forty years of age, sandy haired and wearing a serviceable tunic and hose of dark wool. From his age and confident bearing, Bascot surmised he must be Alexander, the master builder who had a vast array of workmen under his command-not only masons and stonecutters, but also roofers, scaffolders, mortar mixers, carters and general labourers.

The other man was much younger and clad in a leather apron similar to Cerlo’s. As he listened to the orders Alexander was giving, he stood in an attitude of respectful attention, his leather cap clutched in hands that were rough and cracked.

They both looked up as Bascot entered the room and, after the Templar had identified himself and his purpose for being there, Alexander bid the young workman go about his allotted task. The builder then gave Bascot his full attention.

“I cannot recall for certain if any of my men were in the workshop four days before Christ’s Mass, Sir Bascot,” he responded politely to the Templar’s question. “But if you will allow me a moment to consult my rota, I should be able to tell you if any were or not.”

Alexander went to a large open-faced cupboard standing on one side of the room and extracted a roll of parchment. After studying it for a few moments, he said, “Two of the stonecutters were in the workshop on that day.” The Templar felt his pulse quicken with hope as Alexander went on. “We are currently engaged in finishing the chapel of St. Mary Magdalene as well as commencing work on a great window that is destined to be sited in the north transept. Such inside work is usually done while the weather is bleak and, since two pieces of stone from the quarry had been taken to the workshop a week earlier, I sent the cutters there to shape them from a template. Once their work was finished-and it took a few days to complete-the stone pieces were brought to the cathedral and put in place by one of the masons.”

“Cerlo told me that none of the church’s employees were in the quarry on the day of the snowstorm. Would he not have been aware there were men in the workshop?”

“Not necessarily. Only the quarrymen were under Cerlo’s supervision, not the stonecutters.” Alexander replied. “Unless he saw the men on their way to the workshop or coming back to the cathedral, it is understandable he did not know they were on the site.”

The builder’s face looked sympathetic as he mentioned Cerlo’s name and Bascot said he had been told of the mason’s failing eyesight.

“Yes,” Alexander replied. “His is a sad case. He has worked here in the cathedral for quite a few years, since just after the earthquake in 1185, when he was one of those sent to Lincoln by the mason’s guild to repair the damage caused by the tremors. Bishop Hugh, who was alive then and oversaw the restorations after his appointment as bishop in the year following the earthquake, was so impressed with Cerlo’s work that he gave him a permanent post and allotted him one of the houses in Masons Row to use as a domicile. Now, after so many years of excellent craftsmanship, it seems tragic that Cerlo will be forced to leave.”

Alexander’s hazel eyes were full of compassion. “It is a fate that can come to any of us. I have kept him on long past the time I should have done, for his vision started to deteriorate some months ago; first the sight in one eye began to fail and then, a few weeks later, the other. He even spent a night in vigil, praying at Bishop Hugh’s tomb, hoping the saintly man would favour him with one of the miracles he has extended to so many others but, sadly, Cerlo’s plea went unheard. His guild will help him, of course, but he and his wife are not young and the combined loss of income and their home will be difficult to cope with. I have allowed him to carry out some simple commissions throughout the town-quite apart from his duties here-so he can store up a little money against the days of his leaving but, even so, I fear it will not be long before he and his wife are forced to live in a state close to destitution.”

“Do they not have any children to help them?” Bascot asked.

“They have a daughter, who is married and lives with her husband in a village not far from town,” Alexander said, “but, unfortunately, the daughter’s husband, an osier weaver, does not earn much for his labour and they have a large brood of children. I fear any money Cerlo might have been able to save has been given to the daughter, to assist her with the purchase of food and clothing for his grandchildren. As I said, it is a sad situation for all of them.”

Bascot added his commiserations to Alexander’s and asked where he could find the stonecutters that had been in the quarry on the day of the snowstorm. The builder told him they were again at labour in the workshop on Masons Row, preparing blocks of stone for the extension of an interior staircase. Bascot, after thanking Alexander for his time, left the cathedral, mounted his horse and rode across the Minster.

As he urged his mount into a canter down Masons Row, he reflected on what Cerlo had told him about finding Peter Brand’s body and wondered if it was the exact truth. If the motive for the clerk’s murder had not been robbery, Brand’s scrip may still have been attached to his belt when the mason found him. Had Cerlo’s desperate need for money driven him, perhaps in collusion with the quarryman who had accompanied him that morning, to rob Brand before reporting the death? If so, had the pouch, as Gerard Camville suspected, contained more that just the one silver penny Gianni had found? And if it had, where were the coins now?