A Holy Vengeance

by Maureen Ash

  The castellan then asked if his wife knew of her mother’s whereabouts.

  “We have been told she is dead,” Glover replied.

  Disappointed, Nicolaa glanced at Bascot.

  The Templar leaned forward and continued the questioning. “Who was it that told you about Lorinda’s demise?” he asked.

  “My wife’s half-sister,” Glover replied.

  “Then your wife must have stayed in touch with her mother and half-sister after she went to live in Nottingham?”

  “No, she did not,” Glover said. “She knew nothing of what had happened to them until just after we were married and I brought Mabel here to Lincoln. It was only then, when we happened to meet her half-sister purely by chance, that she learned of her mother’s demise.”

  “And what is her half-sister’s name?”

  “Aliz.”

  Roget muttered an oath under his breath and Bascot, in a sharp tone, rapped out his next question. “Is this Aliz a prostitute?”

  “Yes,” Glover replied shamefacedly.

  “And where does she ply her trade?”

  “In an alehouse down on the riverbank operated by a man named Dern.”

  * * *

  At the soap-maker’s statement, Nicolaa ordered Ernulf to bring Mabel Glover to the solar at once. As the serjeant hurried off, Bascot continued to question her husband.

  “Is that not the same place in which I saw you sitting at a table just after Emma Ferroner was murdered?”

  “It is, lord,” Glover replied.

  Then I assume that Dern is a friend of yours?” Bascot said.

  The soap-maker was aghast. “No, he is not, I swear to you. It is true that I used to go in there occasionally before I married Mabel, but ever since I learned that her half-sister is a jade there, I have never returned except for that one evening.”

  The Templar was certain that the man before him was not telling all he knew and shot his next words in a scathing manner.

  “I do not believe you, Glover. In the course of our murder investigation we have been conducting a search for Lorinda, a woman whose relationship to your wife has been kept secret both by her and by you. And now we learn that you seem to be on intimate terms with Dern—who we are told is called ‘brother’ by your wife’s half-sister and is possibly another relative of your wife’s—and is even now under arrest and about to be questioned as to possible collusion in Mistress Ferroner’s death. There are too many connections to you in this matter for me not to believe that you are also involved.”

  “Murder Emma?” Glover burst out unbelievingly. “You suspect me of conspiring to kill her?” He lifted pain-filled eyes to Bascot. “I would never have countenanced such a heinous crime, I promise you. Emma was my good friend—we had known each other since we were children and I loved her dearly, like a sister, as did my mother. Why would I want her dead?”

  At that moment the door opened and Ernulf led in Mabel. As she walked across the room, she made an attempt to carry herself with the same haughty stance that the Templar remembered from when he had met her on his visit to Glover’s home. When she saw the abject state of her husband, however, her boldness vanished and was replaced by trepidation.

  “Bring Mistress Glover to stand by her husband,” Nicolaa instructed Ernulf and, as Mabel came forward, high spots of colour appeared on her cheeks and she began to tremble.

  The soap-maker turned to his wife. “They suspect me of killing Emma, Mabel, and all because of you and your secrets. I am going to tell them all of it, wife, and be damned to you and your relations. I have had enough of all of you.”

  Mabel made no response to her husband’s outburst, and stood silently as Glover told of the events that had taken place since he had brought his new wife to Lincoln—how they had met Aliz on a pathway near the manufactory, how she had recognized Mabel and that, in the ensuing conversation between them all, Aliz had told them that she had received a message that Lorinda was dead.

  “Just before we parted from Aliz,” he added, “Mabel asked her to keep their relationship a secret and it seemed that she agreed. But a few days later, and at regular intervals thereafter, she came to the manufactory to extort money and other favours from me, threatening to break the promise she had given if I did not meet her demands. On the evening that you saw me there, Sir Bascot, I had tired of her scheming and had gone to tell her that I intended to make an end to her extortion. When I went in, Dern told me that she was with a customer upstairs and that, if I wished to wait, I could speak to her when she was done with him.”

  He lifted imploring eyes to Bascot. “That is why I was seated at the table, but after you and the captain left, Dern disappeared upstairs and never came back. Tired of waiting, I left the alehouse, thinking that I would instead confront Aliz on her next visit to my manufactory. I have not seen her since.”

  He paused and again appealed to his interrogators. “I had no hand in Emma’s murder, I swear to you. Nor would I, if I had known that you were seeking Lorinda, have kept hidden the fact that she was Mabel’s mother.”

  The castellan spoke to the soap-maker’s wife. “Your half-sister calls Dern her brother. Is he yours also?”

  Mabel nervously shook her head. “Even though she calls him such, he is no blood relation to either of us. His father was the man that my mother went to live with shortly after she left Nottingham and took Aliz and I back to live in Coleby.”

  At this information, Bascot leaned forward; Aliz could be the child that Nan Glover’s husband had seen with Lorinda in Nottingham.

  “Is Aliz older than you by a year or two?” he asked Mabel.

  She nodded.

  The Templar paused for a moment. Could Aliz’s father be involved in this coil? A man who, perhaps, had enmity for the armourer and had conspired with Dern or the prostitute to bring him grief by murdering his child?

  “What is the name of the man who sired your half-sister?”

  “She does not know, Sir Bascot,” John Glover replied. “She told me that her mother would never reveal the identities of their sires to either her or Aliz and that she only discovered the name of her own father due to overhearing a conversation between Lorinda and her grandmother.”

  The Templar looked at Mabel. Although the soap-maker might believe what his wife had said, he was not so certain she was telling the truth. As Glover had said, she liked to keep secrets; might she not have kept this one as well?

  “If you know the name of your half-sister’s father, mistress, you had better speak it now, for if it is proved that you are lying, you will be charged with withholding important evidence from this murder enquiry.”

  Mabel went white. “Lord, I am sorry for my reticence,” she said beseechingly. “I did not realise his name would be so important else I would have told my husband. I did overhear who Aliz’s father was; his name was said, along with my own father’s, when my mother and Granny Willow were speaking together about them.”

  Glover looked at her in astonishment. “It is past time for me to be surprised at your schemes and machinations, Mabel, for it seems they are endless,” he railed at her, “and I grow exceedingly tired of them as, I am sure, do Lady Nicolaa and Sir Bascot. Reveal what you know or I swear before God, wife or not, I will turn you out of my home before this day is done.”

  Never had Mabel seen her mild-mannered husband in such a rage and she had no doubt his threat was not an idle one. Hanging her head, she reluctantly did as she was bid.

  In a hesitant whisper, and with downcast eyes, she told the Templar what he wished to know. “My mother said that Aliz’s father was Robert Ferroner.”

  Chapter 33

  After obtaining a sworn assurance that she had never told her half-sister, or anyone else, the name of Aliz’s father, the castellan ordered the Glovers to be taken from the room. Once they were gone, she and the Templar discussed the implications
of what they had just learned.

  “If Aliz somehow found out that Ferroner is her father,” the castellan said, “it would give her a motive to murder Emma. Once the armourer’s legitimate daughter was removed, the way would be open for Aliz to reveal her parentage to him and lay a claim on his affections and his fortune.”

  “It is possible, lady,” Bascot replied. “But I cannot see how such a need would have arisen. Ferroner is a good-hearted man, well-known for his philanthropy. He would have given Aliz pecuniary assistance whether Emma was alive or not.”

  “But Emma was his heir,” Nicolaa protested. “Aliz could never step into that enviable position, and all the wealth it would bring her, unless Ferroner’s legitimate daughter was no longer living.”

  The Templar nodded, but was still not convinced. He rose from his seat and walked over to the casement. He always found that looking at the world from a high place helped him to think. As he gazed with his sighted eye through the gathering gloom of the evening out over the bail and the Minster, he concentrated on what Mabel had revealed.

  “Mistress Glover could also have a motive for using a hired killer,” he said. “It is very apparent that her husband is impatient with her and the trouble she has brought on him since their marriage, and we have just heard him relate how fond he was of the victim. Perhaps Mabel became jealous and, fearing she might lose his affections to her rival, paid an assassin to slay her.”

  Nicolaa had to admit that this theory, too, had merit, but was still more inclined to think that the prostitute was the culprit, and said so.

  “But how would Aliz have known that Emma would be at the shrine on that particular day?” Bascot argued. “In the case of Mabel, Nan Glover gave witness that Emma paid a visit to her a few days before she went to pray to St. Dunstan and revealed her plan to go there. Mabel could easily have overheard their conversation and decided to arrange for the murder to be carried out on that day, but Aliz, removed as she was, from any contact with Emma, or anyone else in the armoury, would not have been privy to the information.”

  He paused for a moment, and then said, “We have yet to identify the woman that was seen by Ferroner’s housekeeper in intimate conversation with Wiger in the town. If it was Aliz, then he may have told her of his wife’s intention, thereby enabling her to make the arrangements for the murder to take place in the dell. He must be more hardly questioned if we are to find out the truth.”

  As he was speaking, Ernulf and Roget returned to the solar, and the castellan gave the captain instructions to bring Wiger before them without delay.

  * * *

  When Roget had earlier gone in search of Wiger to take him into custody, he had found him in Selso’s alehouse, sitting with the rough customers he had shunned after his marriage. He must have been there for some time, for he was cup-shotten when Roget arrested him, but his brief spell of incarceration in a holding cell seemed to have sobered him, for he walked with a reasonably steady gait as the captain escorted him across the solar to stand in front of Nicolaa and Bascot.

  “You are here to be questioned further about your possible involvement in your wife’s murder,” Bascot advised him. “Answer me truthfully and you will go free. Lie, and you will suffer.”

  Wiger nodded warily and the Templar barked his next words at him. “We have been told that you were in the habit of frequenting an alehouse near the armoury run by a man named Dern. Do you dispute that?”

  Carefully Wiger shook his head in negation.

  “Then you will also not deny acquaintance with Aliz, the prostitute who works there?”

  Again, there was a shake of Wiger’s head.

  “Have you ever paid for her services?”

  The armourer’s son-by-marriage swallowed once or twice before answering. “Yes, lord, before my marriage I did.”

  “But not after?”

  “No.”

  The Templar leaned back in his chair and decided to use a gambit he had often employed before, that of making a suspect believe he had knowledge of facts that, unknown to the person he was questioning, had yet to be substantiated.

  He nodded to Roget, who had moved a little apart once the interrogation had begun, to come forward and stand beside Wiger. “I warned you what would happen, Wiger, if you did not tell the truth. We have a witness who saw you in intimate conversation with the harlot in Lincoln town recently. Now, do you wish the captain to take you back to the cells and question you more roughly, or are you ready to admit you continued your liaison with her after you were wed?”

  Wiger’s knees began to tremble and it was only with a great effort that he stayed upright. “I . . . I . . . I did bed Aliz after Emma and I were married,” he stammered, “but only once or twice.”

  “When was the last time?”

  The question came at him like an arrow shot and he stumbled over his answer. “A few . . . a few days before Emma was murdered,” he finally admitted.

  “And did you tell the jade of your wife’s intention to visit the shrine and the day on which she would do so?” Bascot rapped out.

  Wiger hesitated for a moment, but the Templar did not intend to allow him time to fabricate a response that could extricate him from the damning situation he was in. “I am running out of patience, Wiger,” he snapped. “Answer my question.”

  “I may have done, lord,” was the shaky reply. “I recall Aliz asking me if there was any sign of Emma bearing a babe and I said we were hopeful it would be soon because Emma was going to St. Dunstan’s shrine to ask for the saint’s aid.”

  “And did you tell her on what day your wife’s visit was planned?”

  Wiger gave a miserable nod. “I said she was intending to go with Constance Turner at the end of that week.”

  Chapter 34

  “It must have been Aliz who contrived Emma’s murder,” Nicolaa said decisively after Wiger was removed from the chamber, “and also subsequently arranged the second slaying at Greetwell in the hope that it would confuse our investigation. She has motive and, through Dern, access to villains who will kill for money.”

  But Bascot shook his head. “I am still not certain of her guilt,” he said. “Or even that of Mabel. We have been shown that both of these women are manipulative, a trait they seem to have had in common with their mother, and that keeps bringing my mind back to Lorinda. It is almost as though she is still alive and scheming to confound us.”

  “But she is dead,” Nicolaa exclaimed.

  “So we have been told, lady, but only at third hand. Aliz herself did not witness Lorinda’s death, and then she told it to Mabel, who relayed it to us.”

  “You think it possible that Lorinda still lives?” Nicolaa asked.

  “I do not know, lady; I only sense that these murders were committed because of an old sin, not a recent one.”

  All the way throughout the preceding interrogations, Gianni’s mind had been racing furiously as he had been trying to recall details of an incident that had been itching at his mind ever since the soap-maker had been questioned. As Bascot was speaking, the memory finally clicked into place.

  It was part of his and Lambert’s duties to check the castle accounts for all supplies that had been received and, once the amount and cost had been certified, to then pass them on to Master Blund for authorisation of payment. One of these bills had been for soap that, Gianni was certain, had come from Master Glover’s manufactory. But it was not the fact that Glover had supplied the soap that now interested the lad, but the nature of the wording on the bill.

  He had been struggling to remember the exact way in which the soap had been listed. It had been in the spring, he remembered, just before it was time for all of the bedding in the castle to be removed for washing by the castle laundresses. Along with five gallons of soft soap, which was in liquid form and used for general purposes in the kitchen, stables and the like, an order had been filled for thirty
bars of plain tallow and ash soap for the washerwomen’s task, each weighing three pounds and cut into small tablets for easy usage. But, he recalled, along with these items there had been another account for three bars of hard soap, also cut into tablets, for the use of the laundress that took care of Lady Nicolaa’s personal linen. This soap had been much more expensive than the rest because it was scented and he had been struggling to remember if the name of the aromatic ingredient had been listed. Up until that moment, the lines on the bill had been dancing tantalisingly before him, blurry and indistinct, but now, suddenly, it came to him. It was cloves.

  He laid his hand on the Templar’s arm to attract his attention and then, by means of writing words on his wax table and gestures, explained what he had recalled.

  “Well done, Gianni,” Bascot said, becoming once more invigorated as he gave the lad an enthusiastic smile. “So far, this investigation has led down many false trails, but now, I think, you have steered us towards the correct one. This information may reveal the link we have been searching for.”

  “How so, de Marins?” Nicolaa asked. She had been able to follow most of Gianni’s gestures and had read the words that he had written on his tablet. “That soap has a strong scent while it is in the bar, but is only faint on any item on which has been used, be it one’s person or clothing, and even then its perfume lingers only for a short time. Surely any aroma that remained on the murderer would not be strong enough for the little girl at Greetwell to have noticed it.”

  “If it is only used for laundering or washing of the body, I agree,” the Templar replied, “but that is not the case with a person who has been involved in its manufacture. Just as a salt-maker has traces of the salt he processes on his clothing, the grease from the soap would adhere to the cuffs and tunic of any person who handled it constantly, and leave a very strong scent. And, I believe, there is a simple way to test Gianni’s theory.”

  Bascot drew the knife that had been used as a murder weapon from his scrip and said to Gianni, “If I interpreted your words correctly, you said that the soap had been cut into tablets before being delivered to the castle storeroom?”