The Alehouse Murders

Fourteen

In the chamber Nicolaa used for her solar Bascot sat facing Sybil de Kyme and her attendant, Isobel, who was sister to William Scothern. The room was a comfortable one at the top of the new keep. A number of padded settles and stools scattered around the perimeter of the chamber marked it as one used by women, as well as the embroidered tapestries that hung upon the walls. A large fireplace, now unlit, dominated the far side of the room, and an array of comfits and containers of honeyed wine were set out on a table near the door.

Conal stood by his mother, his handsome face weary and drawn, but solicitous of his dam as he laid a hand gently on her shoulder now and then to reassure her. Nearby Richard Camville paced, angry strides carrying him the length of the chamber and back in a manner reminiscent of his father’s restless movements. He and Conal had returned to Lincoln just before dawn and had been told of the charge laid by Philip de Kyme against his wife and stepson. The accusation and any plea in defence would be placed before the royal justices when their circuit of the kingdom reached Lincoln later in the summer, near the end of July.

“This whole matter is absurd,” Richard expostulated as Bascot was asking Sybil de Kyme if she had known of the existence of her husband’s illegitimate son. “Why would Conal want to kill this Hugo? He was a bastard. The justices would never give claim to an illegitimate heir over a lawful one.”

“If it was proven that the child was the result of a union before Sir Philip contracted his marriage with Lady Sybil, then it could be considered that the liaison with the boy’s mother constituted a prior contract, and the later marriage was unlawful,” Bascot said. Remembering that Ernulf had voiced the opinion that Philip de Kyme was in the process of finding some means of releasing himself from his marriage the Templar had sought out the view of Nicolaa de la Haye’s secretarius, an older clerk who was well versed in the law. “They are difficult circumstances to prove, but it has been done.”

“Neither my mother or I knew of this Hugo. Nor did we know that he was coming to Lincoln,” Conal said quietly. “As for de Kyme’s inheritance, I have no interest in it. My own father left me a small manor near Scunthorpe. It is enough for me.”

Lady Sybil reached up and laid her hand over her son’s. “The justices will not see it that way, Conal. They will see only that there was the prospect of a rich fief, and this illegitimate boy stood in your way of it.”

Bascot glanced at Isobel Scothern, who had sat silent and with downcast eyes throughout this exchange. A strange position she and her brother were in, one the servant of the master, the other of the mistress, and these two at odds with one another. “Did your brother tell you of the letters that had been exchanged with the boy’s mother?” Bascot asked her.

“No, he did not,” she answered. “My brother is scrupulous about the confidentiality of his post as secretarius to Sir Philip. He tells me nothing of his work.”

Bascot considered the answer, and the girl. She was a striking contrast to Lady Sybil, and not only for the twenty-some years difference in their ages. Where Conal’s mother was a tall angular woman, fair of hair and face, and dressed in a gown of cool colours that set off the whiteness of her complexion, Isobel was petite and dark, the Haye red showing only in glints of auburn in her glossy brown hair, and her eyes, heavy lidded, were a rich deep hazel. Her dress was of mossy green, reflecting the lustre of her colouring in an undergown and sleeves of tawny yellow. Her manner was restrained and polite, but there was a latent sensuousness about her person, hinted at in the graceful angle in which she held her head and in the easy movement of her small delicate hands as she smoothed the folds of her gown. Even Richard Camville, preoccupied with his anger, still found time to give her an occasional appreciative glance when his pacing took him near to where she sat.

“I do not wish to belabour the point, demoiselle,” Bascot said to her, “but are you sure that you knew nothing of this matter? It will be part of the accusation that Lady Sybil or Conal knew of Sir Philips’s intentions and were thus provided with a motive for murder. Even if you did not see the letters, did your brother perhaps let something slip about the business in a conversation with you? Something you may have, albeit innocently, mentioned to your mistress?”

Isobel regarded him with eyes of amber. “I am sure. How could I have done so when I had no knowledge of the matter myself until this morning? It is impossible.” With a small smile she dropped her gaze downwards.

Bascot nodded in acceptance of her words as Conal burst out, “Sir Bascot, if I had wanted to kill anyone and not be found to have done so, I would have murdered them in the greenwood and left them for the wolves to devour, not pushed them into barrels and dumped them on the floor of an alehouse.”

“Exactly,” interjected Richard. “It would have been far better for Conal, if he had done this deed, that this bastard son had just disappeared without a trace, would it not?”

Bascot sighed. Always it came back to the same question-why had the young couple and the Jew been murdered as they had? Why had they been stabbed after death? Why had Wat been involved in leaving them on his premises?

“I agree with you,” Bascot replied. “This is a coil that there seems no way to unwind.”

He spoke once again to Lady Sybil and her son. “It is believed that Hugo and his wife, along with the Jew, had been dead for some hours before they were left in the alehouse. This puts the time of their deaths as during the second day before the fair began, that is three days ago. Can you both tell me where you were then?”

“We all-my husband, Conal and myself-came to Lincoln a few days before that,” Sybil answered. “We stayed at the house of my husband’s nephew, Roger de Kyme. Roger was not there himself, but his steward was, stocking up with victuals for when his master and mistress should arrive. On the day about which you ask my husband went on a hunt with Gerard Camville and later that same day-in the evening-I, on Lady Nicolaa’s invitation, took up guest’s lodging, with my husband, at the castle. Conal stayed on alone at Roger’s until the day before the fair. He left when Roger and his wife arrived since they had guests with them and the chamber Conal had been using would be needed. He then came to the castle and Richard was kind enough to share his quarters with him.”

“Then on the second day before the fair, both of you were at Roger de Kyme’s house?” Bascot asked, feeling a chill start to creep at the back of his neck. “What were your movements on that day?”

Sybil looked up at her son, a little frown drawing her delicate brows together. “My mother was unwell, Sir Bascot,” Conal answered for her. “She believed she had eaten something that had been turned sour by the heat, and so she kept to her bed until she went to the castle. I rode to Newark and was gone most of the day.”

“Did either of you have servants in attendance? Lady Sybil, did Isobel keep you company in your sickness? Conal, did you travel with a friend, or perhaps take a groom with you?” Bascot almost felt their answers before they were made, so great was his sense of foreboding.

“I sent Isobel away,” Sybil said. “There was much to see around the town and since my husband would not be wanting her brother to attend him while he was hunting, I gave her permission to keep him company for a few hours of pleasure. I had no other companions or servants with me. Roger’s steward was gone also, fetching fresh eels for his master’s table, a delicacy Roger enjoys and prefers to be obtained from an area just south of Lincoln. The house, I believe, was empty. The rest of the household staff, except for the steward, had not yet arrived. With the aid of a nostrum Isobel prepared for me I slept most of the time and felt much better when I awoke.”

“And you, Conal?” Bascot asked.

Conal shook his head. “I went to Newark alone. I wanted to think. I stopped for a sup of ale and food at a tavern in the town, but there was no one there I knew.”

“Why did you go to Newark?”

Conal’s face flushed, but he didn’t answer. Lady Sybil did instead, with an upward glance at her son and a tightening of her fingers on his hand. “My son and my husband exchanged heated words early that morning. When Conal is… distressed, he prefers no company but his own. He has been that way ever since he was a small boy. Riding to Newark helped him exhaust his temper, just as it did yesterday.”

“Richard Camville was with you yesterday. Would that he had been with you on the previous occasion,” Bascot replied heavily. “Although Hugo, his wife and the Jew were all found a day later, it is almost certain that they had been dead for longer than a few hours, and were killed on the very day that neither of you had witnesses to your movements. Moreover, Roger de Kyme’s house was one scheduled for a delivery from Walter, the alekeeper. It would have been very convenient, Conal, for you to have done the deed and then, aided by your mother, have stowed the bodies in barrels which were then passed to the alekeeper when he called, under the guise of empties being sent for return.”

Richard Camville erupted again, almost before Bascot finished speaking. “This is ridiculous. Conal, you must…”

Whatever he had been about to say was cut short by the entrance into the solar of Nicolaa de la Haye’s two sisters, Petronille and Ermingard. With them was Hugh Bardolf’s daughter, Matilda. The chatter of their conversation stilled as they entered the room and saw the group seated near the fireplace.

“Your pardon,” Petronille said, her eyes singling out Bascot as she apologised for the interruption. “We had not thought to find anyone here and my sister is in need of a small respite from the crowds below.”

Ermingard did indeed look flustered. Her face was flushed and tendrils of hair escaped from under the linen coif she wore on her head. Her gaze was confused, darting sideways and back, then down at the floor. As Petronille spoke, Ermingard pushed up a hand to rub her eyes, staring to where Sybil and Isobel sat.

Bascot rose. “There is no need for apologies, lady,” he said. “Our speech here is finished. We will leave you ladies to your own company.”

Bascot rose as he spoke, as did Isobel, who moved to stand behind Sybil de Kyme’s chair. As she did so, Ermingard’s confused gaze moved with her and she started to cry.

“It is the wrong colour, Petronille. I tell you, it is the wrong colour.” She became very agitated, pulling at the stuff of her sleeve as though she would tear it, and sobbing as she repeated the words over and over again.

Petronille moved close to her and encircled her with her arm, while Matilda looked to where Ermingard had been staring. “It is the tapestry,” Matilda said, pointing to a large wall hanging which depicted the Three Wise Men bringing their gifts to the Christ child. All of the figures were picked out in threads of gold and silver, with garments of deep blue and green against a background of a deep dark red, the colour of ripe cherries.

“It reminds her of blood,” Matilda added. “She does not like blood.”

“Hush, Matilda,” Petronille’s habitually benign expression flashed with a look of annoyance at the girl’s words, quickly reverting back again as she tried to comfort her sister, whose sobbing and moaning had increased. “Come, Mina,” she said, using a sister’s privileged soubriquet, “have a cup of Nicolaa’s honeyed wine. It will cool your head.”

Petronille led Ermingard over to a window at the far end and sat her down on a settle, then poured a tumbler of wine and pressed it into her sister’s hands, murmuring quietly to her. Ermingard gradually subsided, but she continued to shake her head and mutter about the wrongness of the colour.

Bascot, whose blinded right side was towards the offending tapestry, turned full around to see the object of Matilda’s words. As he did so, he caught a flare of irritation on Isobel’s face. It seemed to be mixed with something else-loathing, perhaps-but he was not sure if it was directed at the weakness of Lady Nicolaa’s sister or the offensiveness of Matilda’s outspoken words. He glanced back at Hugh Bardolf’s oldest daughter. Her eyes were fixed on Conal, and there was a little smile curled at the corner of her lips as though she had scored some small triumph. Conal and his mother’s attention were fixed on Petronille and her disturbed sister, but Richard’s face had resumed it’s angry look, with a different target this time, as he gave Matilda a look of fury.

“If you are to keep my aunt company, Matilda, I suggest you refrain from upsetting her with careless speech,” he said icily.

“I am sorry, Richard,” Matilda murmured apologetically. “I did not think.”

Despite the words, her tone did not sound contrite and Richard said no more. As the men rose to leave, Bascot was aware of undercurrents of emotion in the room, and not all caused by Ermingard’s unfortunate outburst. It was clear that Matilda and Isobel did not have any affection for each other, and also, from the sidelong glance of impatience that Isobel threw at Conal, that he was somehow involved in their enmity.

When they reached the door, Bascot motioned for the two younger men to precede him down the winding stone stairway, pleading that the enforced slowness caused by his unsound ankle would impede their descent. As they clattered down and disappeared round a turn in the tower, he could hear their voices echo back to him, Richard’s importunate and Conal’s blunt in refusal. Bascot heard his own name mentioned, then the voices drifted farther away before they were stilled by the slam of the door at the bottom of the stairway. When Bascot reached the base of the tower there was no sign of either of the two young men. Only Gianni, patiently awaiting his master’s return, was in sight, sitting in the shade of the stairway up to the forebuilding, passing the time by repeatedly tossing three stones from the back of his hand to the palm in an age-old children’s game.