Murder for Christ's Mass

Twenty-eight

While Bascot waited for a groom to saddle mounts for the two men-at-arms that were to accompany him to arrest Cerlo, the bells of the cathedral tolled the hour of Sext and the Templar realised it was time for the midday meal. As outside servants began to make their way towards the hall, Gianni descended the steps of the forebuilding and ran across the bail towards him.

When Gianni reached his master, the boy quickly made the sign they used to communicate a desire for private speech-Gianni pointed at Bascot, then at his own mouth, and meshed the fingers of both his hands together. The Templar glanced towards the stable door and saw the grooms were still inside; it would be a few minutes yet before they appeared with mounts for the waiting soldiers. He asked Gianni if his message was urgent and the boy seesawed one of his hands back and forth-it might be. Bascot motioned for him to move a little to one side and asked what he had to tell.

Gianni pulled his wax tablet and stylus loose of the strap that held them to his belt and, with a combination of gestures and written words, conveyed the essence of the conversation he had overheard between Miles de Laxton and Ralph of Turville and how they had spoken of the exchanger, Walter Legerton, being in debt due to gaming losses. The boy then added a supposition of his own, recalling the list that he and his master had found among Tasser’s records, the page where the silversmith had appended four single letters with substantial sums written beside each one. One of these, Gianni recalled, had been the letter L. Could it be that the exchanger was in debt to the silversmith?

Bascot considered the question. Usury was considered a grave sin if the person who loaned the money was a Christian; most moneylenders were of the Jewish faith. But that did not mean wealthy members of the Christian populace did not engage in the practice; they merely increased the actual sum of money loaned to include an amount of interest and any agreements that were drawn up, whether verbal or written, stipulated the higher sum as the amount that had been borrowed. Still, such practise was frowned upon and most men of means would not be tempted to engage in it. Tasser, however, had no such scruples. It was quite likely he indulged in usury and Bascot imagined his rate of interest would be a high one.

“You are probably correct, Gianni,” Bascot said to the boy. “But even if you are, I do not think it has any bearing on the murders. I am on my way now to arrest Cerlo, the mason. It was he, I think, who found the hidden cache of valuables and was involved in the slay ings of both men.”

Bascot looked up and saw the soldiers were waiting for him, standing beside the saddled horses. Gianni nodded his understanding with a dejected look as he wiped the surface of the wax tablet clean and replaced it on his belt.

“Your information will still be of interest to Sheriff Camville,” Bascot said consolingly. “If Tasser is practicing usury, the evidence you have uncovered will strengthen the charges against him. Sir Gerard will be pleased with your information.”

Somewhat comforted, Gianni watched the Templar mount his horse and then, as he had been told to do, went to the barracks to await his master’s return.

When Bascot and the two men-at-arms entered the Minster grounds, it was just as crowded as it had been earlier that morning. As they approached the front of the cathedral, Bascot saw Cerlo standing just outside the entrance in conversation with Alexander. The mason was facing the route along which the Templar and two men-at-arms were riding and, as they neared, Bascot saw him screw up his eyes and stare over Alexander’s shoulder in their direction. The builder turned to see what had attracted his companion’s attention and, as he did so, Cerlo turned away and broke into a run, heading for the corner of the church. Bascot knew that if he disappeared out of sight around the side of the building, he would have a good chance of being lost in the crowd. He called to one of the men-at-arms to head Cerlo off.

The soldier dug his heels into his mount and quickly barred the mason’s path. Cerlo turned, saw any other escape route was blocked, and began to scramble up one of the ladders the workmen had been using earlier to investigate the cause of the leaking gutter. The Templar slid his horse to a halt.

The mason climbed like a monkey, his long years of working atop ladders giving him an agility most men did not possess. On the ground, passersby stopped to stare at the knight and two soldiers, and then gazed upwards at the climbing figure. Alexander also watched, mouth agape, as did a couple of canons who had been on the point of entering the cathedral.

“I can get an archer from the castle, Sir Bascot,” one of the men-at-arms offered. “He can try to bring the mason down with an arrow shot.”

“No,” Bascot said as one of the clerics overheard the soldier’s suggestion and began to protest vociferously, saying they were in the precincts of a house of God and it would be sacrilege to commit such violence. “Wait here. I’ll go up.”

“You can’t.” The words burst from the other man-at-arms, the soldier forgetting Bascot’s rank at the danger in the Templar’s proposal. Belatedly he remembered himself and, a dark flush rising on his cheeks, added, “Sir Bascot, all the mason has to do is wait until you’re halfway up and push the ladder away. It will be certain injury or death to try.”

The Templar gave the man-at-arms a wry smile. “I am well aware of that, but I do not think he will try to cause me harm. Wait here and keep the crowd back.”

The two soldiers nodded, their faces plainly showing their doubt of Bascot’s opinion, but they did as he ordered and cleared the area around the base of the ladder as the Templar put his foot on the bottom rung.

Bascot went up slowly. Having taken part in many assaults on the walls of enemy castles during his youth, and later in the Holy Land, he had no fear of heights, but the loss of half his vision always caused a momentary dizziness whenever he was up high. He took the first dozen rungs at an easy pace until his eye adjusted to the changed perspective and then began to climb more rapidly.

Looking up, he could see Cerlo above him, kneeling behind the low stone curb that ran along the edge of the roof and perhaps twenty feet from the top of the ladder at the corner of the building. Behind the mason the roof rose steeply, culminating in one of the bell towers. The sky above was as murkily grey as the sheets of lead that covered the roof. As Bascot ascended, the breeze that had been blowing gently at ground level increased in intensity and stung his eye, making it water for a moment. Above him, Cerlo’s head was turned slightly to one side as he peered at the Templar through his distorted vision, but he made no move towards the top of the ladder and Bascot began to breathe more easily. He had been right in his assumption that violence did not come naturally to Cerlo. The mason had no wish to attack the men who had come to arrest him, just to escape them.

The distance from the ground to the edge of the roof was perhaps sixty-five feet and, as the Templar climbed, he passed the top of a smaller door set beside the main entrance, then a frieze supporting a row of decorative pillars, and finally a ledge on which rested larger columns topped with small curved arches of stone. When he reached the lip of the roof he came to a halt alongside the stone gargoyle that Alexander suspected of being damaged. The gargoyle was a hideous creature, half man and half bat, with distended wings and a face of extreme ugliness. It leered at Bascot with its bulbous eyes, the contemptuous curl of its overlarge mouth set in a mocking grimace. From between the gargoyle’s lips a tongue protruded. It was almost the length of a man’s arm and formed the spout over which water from the eaves would gush. For all its grotesque-ness, the stone face was wonderfully carved, with a delicacy that made it seem as though it would spring to life at any moment.

“Don’t come any nearer, Sir Bascot,” Cerlo shouted, pulling a lump hammer from a loop on his belt and raising it threateningly.

Bascot spoke to the mason in even tones. “Come down, Cerlo. You cannot escape.”

“What, come down so’s the sheriff can hang me from a noose?” Cerlo retorted. “I’d rather die here where I spent most of my life working.” He pointed to the gargoyle. “See that, I made that, I did, for Bishop Hugh. He said I was one of the finest masons he’d ever seen. And I’d still be one if this accursed blight had not struck my eyes.”

The mason peered down at Bascot. “I knew you’d figure it out, right from that first day in the quarry. All the folk in town say how clever you are, and they’re right. I thought that little beggar girl at the gate might have seen me on the night Brand was killed and when one of the stonecutters said he’d seen you talkin’ to her, I knew it wouldn’t be long before you come after me. And then Master Alexander said you’d been askin’ about where I worked…”

“I know you didn’t kill Peter Brand-”

The mason cut Bascot words short. “No, but you knows I killed that murderin’ bastard of an apprentice. And you knows about the treasure we found, don’t you?”

Bascot made no reply and the mason nodded his head as he saw his conjecture was correct. “Fardein figured it out about the cache, too,” Cerlo said, “and he was so greedy to get more that he swallowed my promise to change the money he’d taken from Peter into new coin and give him another full pouch besides. He thought I was just a thick-witted dolt. Followed right willingly outside the city walls, he did, and gave me the silver without a qualm, then held out his hand for his bloodstained booty.” The mason gave a short bark of bitter laughter. “The rotten sod never dreamed for one moment as how he’d soon be just as dead as the lad. I took no pleasure in killin’ him, but it was a just reward for his murdering Brand. We wouldn’t have involved the boy if we’d known he’d come to harm.”

Bascot kept silent. Cerlo’s use of the plural “we” was puzzling. It implied that yet another person was involved in discovering the trove apart from Brand.

The mason was almost sobbing with anger as he went on. “I didn’t know Brand was dead until I found his body on the morning of Christ’s Mass. Young Peter didn’t deserve to die. He was nobbut a lad wantin’ to earn a few pennies so he could wed the girl he loved. He had nothin’ to do with any of the other, nothin’ at all.”

“Do you mean Brand didn’t know anything about the trove you found at the mint?”

Bascot’s question jolted the mason and his face took on a look of surprise, which was quickly replaced by an expression of grim humour.

“At the mint?” he said disbelievingly. “Mebbe you ain’t as clever as I reckoned, Sir Bascot. ’Twasn’t at the mint we found all that silver and gold.”

“Then where was it? And who was with you if it wasn’t Brand?” Bascot asked.

Cerlo shook his head, almost sadly. “I’ll not tell you,” he said. “If the only ones you knows about is me and the clerk, then I’ll not betray someone as has never done me any harm. And I’ll not see him, nor me, swing from the sheriff’s noose, neither.”

The mason rose from his crouching position and, dropping the hammer onto the slope of the roof, stepped up onto the low curb in front of him. Bascot drew in his breath sharply as he realised Cerlo’s intent.

Pushing aside the questions burning in his mind, the Templar attempted to dissuade the mason from his deadly purpose. “Cerlo, to kill yourself is a mortal sin. You will burn in the flames of hell.”

“Reckon I’m already bound there, Sir Bascot, for killing Fardein.”

“You can confess to a priest, obtain absolution,” Bascot said desperately.

Cerlo laughed. “God might pardon me, but the sheriff won’t. I’ll still hang.”

“What about your wife, your daughter and grandchildren?” Bascot said harshly, gauging his chances of preventing the mason from jumping. He knew it was hopeless; he was too far away to grab hold of the man and, even if he were closer, his precarious position on top of ladder would most likely send him to his death as well if he made the attempt. “You will deny yourself the right to a life in heaven. Is it fair to refuse your family the hope of joining you there?”

“I reckon as how they’d a been better off without me in this earthly life,” Cerlo replied. “’Twill most like be the same in the hereafter.”

So saying, and with one final look at the gargoyle, he stepped off the roof and out into open space. He did not scream, and the only noise that could be heard was a collective gasp from the spectators below and the dull thud of his body hitting the ground.

By the time Bascot descended the ladder, a crowd had gathered around Cerlo’s corpse. Most were standing a little back from the body, looking in horror at the blood trickling from the mason’s nose and the terrible way his legs were crumpled beneath him. Cerlo’s eyes were open, but a canon dropped to his knees beside the dead man and gently closed them as Bascot pushed his way through the crowd. The priest looked up at the Templar with a sorrowful face and said, “We are all witness that he died of his own volition. I wish I could give his soul ease, but I cannot.”

Bascot nodded. Absolution and Extreme Unction could not be administered to a suicide. The mason would go to meet his Maker unshriven and be buried in unconsecrated ground. The Templar felt a deep sorrow for the unfortunate man.

As Alexander ordered two of his workmen to bring some means of conveying Cerlo’s body to the death house at the Priory of All Saints, and the canon ordered a secondary to disperse the crowd, Bascot considered what the mason had said in the moments before he stepped off the roof. It was not likely that Cerlo, about to take his own life, had lied. From the few words he had spoken it would appear that Bascot’s conjecture about the murders had been correct-Fardein had killed Brand and Cerlo had subsequently murdered Fardein-but his supposition that the trove had been buried in the mint was completely erroneous. The mason had also said that another person was involved, someone he would not name. The Templar again went through the steps that had led him to conclude that Cerlo had been involved in the murders-his questioning of the mason and his uneasy answers, how the beggar child told of seeing three men in the quarry, how Alexander had said Cerlo had done some renovation work on a wall in the mint… There he stopped. He had not let Alexander name all the places where Cerlo had carried out his extraneous work. Once Bascot heard mention of the mint, he had not waited to hear the other sites on the list. Castigating himself for being precipitous, he walked over to where the master builder was sombrely watching Cerlo’s body being laid on a makeshift bier.

“I must ask you to consult your records once again, Master Alexander,” he said. “And urgently.”