The Alehouse Murders

Three

Several hours later, in a small carpentry shop hard by the church of St. Mary Crackpole near Mikelgate, the alewife, Agnes, sat with her sister, Jennet. She had ceased to cry but an occasional sob would still shake her ample frame and she was having difficulty sipping the posset made of herbs and honey that Jennet had prepared for her.

The two sisters were very different in appearance, for Jennet was tall and slim and the carrot-coloured hair that framed her thin sharp face still bore no traces of grey even though she was only three years younger than Agnes. In one respect, however, they had a similarity, and that was in strength. Agnes possessed it in her thick bones and sturdy flesh; in Jennet it evidenced itself in her mind, which was aggressive and quick.

The younger sister regarded the older. Jennet bore no grief that her brother-by-marriage was dead. She had thought Agnes a fool for marrying him and was not sorry to see him gone except, perhaps, for the manner of it and how it would affect her sister.

“You must try to calm yourself, Agnes,” she said sternly. “The monks have taken Wat. They will see that he is prepared right and laid out for his burial. Which won’t be delayed too long,” she added thoughtfully, “because of this hot weather.”

This unfortunate but true observation set Agnes off into a fresh paroxysm of tears and Jennet lost her patience. “Why do you carry on so? Wat were not a good husband to you, as I’ve told you many a time. How many beatings have you had off him since you married him two years ago? More times than you can count, I’ll warrant. I thought you would have learned your lesson with that other wastrel our da wed you to when you was young. Even though he didn’t raise his hand to you, he was the laziest swine I’ve ever met in my life. And when he died, not beforetimes I might add, from drinking too much ale, you went and married another useless oaf, twice as worse. And he was your own free choice, too. God forgive me for saying so, but it’s maybe not a sad matter that none of your babbies survived to grow. They’d never have thrived, not with the husbands you’ve had.”

“Oh, Jennet, don’t scold me,” Agnes sobbed. “It’s bad enough Wat was killed the way he was, and those others-stabbed right in my own taproom. But I could have been murdered, too. Haven’t you thought of that? It’s making my flesh creep, knowing I was there while… while…” She started to cry afresh.

“Well, you weren’t murdered, were you? Whoever did it wasn’t after you, was he? If he had been, you wouldn’t be here in my house now.”

Jennet looked at her sister, purposely stifling the pity she felt. She had learned through their years of growing up that if you once gave Agnes any compassion she would give herself over completely to self-pity. The only way to get her through any difficulty was to bully her out of it. Their father had been the same, and Jennet had learned how to deal with Agnes by watching their mother. As Agnes began to recover somewhat and took a sip of her posset, Jennet looked at her consideringly. There was something more to Agnes’ tears than grief. She was frightened alright, but Jennet was sure there was something else, something she was not telling. Agnes could be sly at times and secretive, just like their old dad, but Jennet could usually worm any secrets out of her sister, most of them anyway.

“When Father Anselm sent for me and I came to the church this morning, that Templar knight was asking you some strange questions. What did he mean about anything hidden in the ale house?” Jennet had arrived at St. Andrew’s just as Bascot was about to leave and had only caught the last part of the conversation between him and Agnes.

“I don’t know, Jennet, truly I don’t.” Fear now completely took over Agnes. It was plain in the way her hands and voice shook. “He said that them bodies-the others, not Wat-might have been in my house or yard the day before. But I never saw anything. We had our custom as usual and I served up the ale. The taster even came and said I’d made a good brew. I don’t know anything about any bodies, or anything else. …”

Jennet took a seat beside her sister. The table at which they were sitting was good and solid, as were the four chairs arranged around it. She was proud of the few bits of furniture she had, for her husband, Tom, who was a carpenter, had made them. He wasn’t a master craftsman, but he belonged to the town guild and earned a reasonable living making simple items and doing repairs in the yard out behind their little house. He was a good man, worked hard and never took too much ale or hit her even though, by law, he was allowed to strike her if she gave him just cause. And they had raised three children; the two girls married well, one to a freeman with a small holding outside Lincoln and the other to a tanner, while the boy, her youngest, helped his father. She felt pity again for Agnes in her plight and unhappy life, but quashed it down. She didn’t want her to start crying again.

“Did Wat come to bed with you last night? Or did he stay up?” Jennet asked.

Agnes looked at her sister, then her eyes slid away. Jennet knew there was something she was not telling. “He always stayed up after curfew, just for a little while usually. To have a last glass of ale, or…”

“Play at dice?” her sister finished knowingly. “But last night? What did he do last night?”

“The same,” Agnes mumbled.

“If there was something different, you had better tell me,” Jennet said firmly. “If that murderer missed you by mistake and you know something-well, he might just come back to finish you off. If there’s anything you haven’t told, the more that know it the better. You’ll be safer that way.”

Agnes’ eyes rolled in her head and she began to shake again. Jennet gripped her by the arms with surprising strength in her bony fingers. “What happened, Agnes? Tell me.”

“Wat said… Wat…” Agnes began to stutter and Jennet shook her so hard that her sister’s large bosom wobbled beneath her gown.

“Tell me,” she demanded.

Agnes gulped. “Last night Wat told me to go up to bed and not to come down, not for anything. He said if I did, I’d be sorry. When I asked him why, he said someone was coming to see him and whoever it was wouldn’t take kindly to me being about. I thought it was just another of his dice games and said so, but he gave me a slap and said I’d better keep my mouth shut and put myself out of sight.” Agnes stopped for a moment and wiped the wetness of her tears from her face with the hem of her gown.

“And…” Jennet prompted. “Did you not hear anything, screams or summat? With four people being murdered, I’d have thought there would have been some sort of ruckus.”

“I heard nary a sound. I did just as Wat had said. I didn’t want a beating. Wat had a heavy hand, as well you know.” Here she hastily crossed herself, for forgiveness in speaking ill of the dead. “But, Jennet, that morning Wat had told me not to touch anything in the yard. I was just to pour the ale, not draw it. And he wouldn’t let me even go out to the latrine, at the back. I had to use our old pot in the house. But, Jennet, if Wat had known there was to be murder done, why was he murdered himself? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Did you tell the Templar about this when he asked you?”

“No, he scared me. He looks so… like a heathen, with his dark skin, and there’s that eye patch. It’s like he could be a murderer himself.”

“That’s silly,” Jennet exclaimed. “He’s a Templar, swore his life to God’s service, he did, and spent years in a cell at the mercy of them same bloody infidels you say he looks like. If you could trust anyone, it’s him. Even more than the priests, because most of them are more interested in the pennies we give than in saving our souls. You don’t see them giving up everything they possess for the love of God, like he did.”

“Father Anselm isn’t like that,” Agnes protested. “He was kind to me this morning and helped me when I was all alone.” There was an accusatory tone in Agnes’ voice, as though her sister should have known of her distress and been there when it happened.

“Well, some of them are alright,” Jennet conceded. “There are a few good ones, I suppose, even if Father Anselm is a bit too well favoured for a priest, and knows he is, and all. But the Templar is from Lady Nicolaa, not from her husband, the sheriff. Gerard Camville is none too gentle a creature, as you well know. If he sends one of his men-at-arms to question you, you’ll be made to tell what you know, right enough. And they won’t be asking you quiet like the Templar did. They’ll take you up to the castle and beat the truth out of you.”

Jennet wasn’t too sure if this was true or not, about the Templar being sent by Nicolaa de la Haye, but she had heard a man-at-arms from the castle telling the Haye serjeant that Lady Nicolaa would be waiting for their report in her own chambers so there was a good chance that the castellan had sent them. Whether it was so or not, Jennet wanted to scare her sister into doing as she was told, and Sheriff Camville was enough of a devil to scare anyone.

“Oh, Jennet,” Agnes wailed, “what am I going to do?”

“Tomorrow we’ll ask Father Anselm to tell the Templar you want to see him, and then you’re going to repeat what you told me. I’ll go with you,” she added, seeing the distraught look on her sister’s face. “The sooner the task is done, the sooner you’ll be easy.” She looked down sternly at her sister. “There isn’t anything else you’re not telling me, is there?”

Agnes shook her head and swore that there wasn’t. Jennet was not confident that her sister was telling the truth, but she decided not to press the matter because Agnes truly did look as though she might swoon from the torment of emotions that her ordeal had caused. Later, when Agnes had rested, Jennet would question her again. She was sure there was something her sister was hiding.

Finally allowing the compassion she felt to come to the surface, Jennet took her sister by the arm and led her up a flight of narrow stairs to a bedchamber above. “You lie down on our pallet and sleep now, Agnes. I’ll come up later and fetch you a bit of food for your dinner.”

Willingly letting her sister take charge, Agnes crawled under the thin cover and closed her eyes. She didn’t know what she would have done if she hadn’t been able to come to Jennet.

Once Jennet heard her sister’s breathing begin to grow slow and regular, she left her. There was more to this coil than could be seen, she was sure of that. Just as she was also sure that Agnes could be blamed in some way, if not for the actual killing, then for having a helping hand in it. She hadn’t suggested that to her sister, for it would scare her even more than she already was and, besides, Jennet was sure that Agnes was innocent. She was a trial sometimes, and could be unexpectedly stubborn, but she would never hurt anyone. Why, if she had been that kind she would have fought back at Wat when he hit her. She had enough strength to lift a cask of ale, she could have defended herself. But even when she was being beaten she had never tried to hurt the one who was doing it to her.

Of one thing Jennet was sure, and that was that she didn’t really want her sister to be taken in for questioning by the sheriff’s men. Gerard Camville was a brutal man, and crimes committed by anyone other than himself were harshly punished. And he would be looking for a solution to this murder. It would be bad for custom in the town to have an unknown murderer on the loose and he was fond of his silver, was the sheriff. Just let him see a drop in the tolls and taxes the fair would bring and he would be angry, angry with that cold fury he was capable of-and would look for someone to blame it on. No, she had to get Agnes to tell what she knew and preferably to someone not directly connected to Camville. If she had put the right interpretation on what she had overheard, then the Templar was Lady Nicolaa’s knight, not Camville’s, and it would be much better for Agnes to be under the jurisdiction of the castellan rather than the sheriff. Lady Nicolaa was stern, but she was fair, unlike her husband. Yes, Jennet decided, she would take Agnes to the Templar. Besides, he was a monk, God’s own man, and despite her remarks to Agnes about clerics, she did believe that some of them were good, especially one who had risked his life in the service of Christ amongst the heathens. Muttering a prayer beneath her breath she asked for God’s help and that her instinct about the Templar prove true. She had always tried to protect her sister and often failed; she implored God for assistance in safeguarding Agnes now.