by Maureen Ash
There was hesitation in Ralph’s voice as he answered. “Much as I would like to, Miles, I cannot, for I promised to escort my wife into town this afternoon to look for new bed linen. Besides, I doubt whether I would again find such an easy opponent as I had the other night. They do not often come across my path.”
“Legerton, you mean?”
At mention of the exchanger, Gianni paused in his descent and listened.
“I did not know his name,” Ralph replied, “but he seemed sore upset at his losses.”
Miles chuckled. “He has plenty of money to lose. He is exchanger at the mint and receives a handsome stipend for the post.”
“I thought he was a merchant, but, nonetheless, he was very distressed.”
“Yes, I noticed he seemed downcast as we were leaving,” Miles said and then added thoughtfully, “I wonder if the rumours I heard could be true? I have been told Legerton is indebted to a couple of other players and is being very tardy in redeeming the notes of promise he gave them.”
Ralph gave a snort. “’Tis just as well, then, that I did not take his pledge when he offered it to me.”
As Miles began to speak of other matters, Gianni continued down the staircase, squeezing by the two knights with a polite nod as he did so. Walter Legerton was one of the men his master had questioned about the death of Peter Brand on the day Bascot and Gianni had gone to the manor house at Canwick. His home had been a fine one and handsomely appointed. It was difficult to believe he had not repaid money he owed. While Gianni could not see how Legerton’s insolvency could have any connection with the death of the clerk, Gianni thought it might still be of interest to the Templar and resolved to tell his master what he had overheard as soon as he could. As he collected the wiping cloths, another, and quite separate, reflection about the ramifications of Legerton’s debts came to Gianni’s mind and he decided it might be worthwhile mentioning that to his master as well.
Bascot rode his horse down to the end of Masons Row and stopped in front of the workshop, a wooden structure with large casements punctuating each wall. The building was in one corner of a large yard where stone blocks of various shapes and sizes were piled alongside a couple of sturdy handcarts. Hitching his horse to a ring beside a small door, which was locked, Bascot walked around the side of the building and found the main entrance. As he walked up to the two large doors covering the opening, he could hear a distant braying from the nearby stables.
One of the doors into the workshop was ajar and the ticks and thumps of hammers came from inside. Bascot pushed the door completely open and stepped through.
Two workbenches comprised of huge slabs of wood ran down the middle of the room, and smaller benches lined the walls. The surfaces of the narrower benches were littered with a variety of tools including dividers, set squares and touchstones. There were also pulleys, grindstones, rope, pieces of leather and rough sacking and, in a far corner, a cask of ale and a half dozen wooden cups. The air was cloudy with stone dust, and chips of limestone littered the floor.
Two men were at work on the central benches, a horn lantern with a thick tallow candle set alongside to bolster the daylight coming through the casements. Both men were about the same age, some thirty-five to forty years, and clad in heavy leather aprons and caps. One of them was tapping a mallet made of hickory onto the end of a straight chisel as he put the finishing touches to an oblong piece of stone about five feet long, glancing at a wooden template lying on the bench as he did so. On the end of the stone facing Bascot, the stonecutter had engraved his personal mark. This would identify him as the worker who had dressed the stone and, once the piece had been assessed and deemed acceptable, entitle the cutter to payment for his labour. The details of the work were exacting and the hewer was using a pair of dividers to check the measurements of the stone against the template. It was obvious that excellent eyesight would be one of the prerequisites for those who laboured with the unyielding blocks and so it was not to be wondered at that Cerlo’s diminishing vision would cause loss of his employment.
The other man was working on a larger stone block of approximately the same size and shape, but the surface of this one was still rough. The cutter was using a lump hammer-a heavy round piece of dense wood capped on one end with a thick sheet of iron-to drive the broad base of a tool called a pitcher over the stone and bring it to smoothness.
As Bascot walked in, the cutter smoothing the unfinished block cursed as his tool slipped and made a deep gouge. “If I find the cowson that took my hammer,” he said, “I’ll swing for him. I swear I will.” He threw down the hammer he was using and, picking up one of the lanterns, strode over to the bench and began to root among the tools.
“There’s no one would take it, you fool,” the other cutter said. “Why would they? There’s plenty more in that there pile.”
“I’ve had that same hammer since I was an apprentice,” returned the other in an aggrieved tone. “My old da gave it to me and ’tis the only one that feels right in my hand. Everyone knows it’s mine for my mark is on the handle, but someone has borrowed it anyway and not returned it…”
His voice trailed off as he found the elusive hammer and pulled it from the heap. As he turned back to his work, he saw Bascot standing at the door. The other cutter noticed the knight at the same time and both men pulled off the leather caps they were wearing and touched a finger to their brows.
Bascot told them why he had come. “Master Alexander tells me both of you were at work here on the fourth day before Christ’s Mass. It is almost certain that Peter Brand, the clerk found dead in the quarry, was murdered on that day. I have come to ask if either of you saw anyone in the precincts of the quarry at that time, or perhaps on the road that leads to the Minster, someone you might not have expected to be here.”
The men looked at each other, puzzlement warring with excited interest as they pondered the question. Finally, the one who had been looking for his hammer said, “I don’t recall anyone, lord.” The other cutter shook his head in agreement. “The sky was overcast that day-heavy with the snow that fell later-and the light was so bad we left early and went back to our lodgings in the town.”
Bascot nodded, but repeated his question to ensure they had given it enough thought. “You are quite certain you saw no one, not even someone you knew?”
Both men again shook their heads. “No, lord. But ’twas hardly surprising since anyone with any sense would have done the same as we did, sought out a place where it was warm and stayed there. You could smell there was snow in the air. ’Twas not a night for any ’cept homeless beggars to be out, lord.”
A rational statement, Bascot thought, but also one that dashed any hope of helpful information from the two men.
Thanking the men for taking time from their work to answer his questions, the Templar left the workshop and rode back along Masons Row. As he neared the small row of houses, Cerlo came out of his home. Mindful of his thought that the mason may have robbed Brand of his scrip, Bascot reined in his horse.
“I wanted to speak to you again, Cerlo. We now know for a certainty that Brand was killed on the day of the snowstorm, and must have arrived in the quarry just as dusk was falling. Are you quite certain you were not abroad in the pit at that time?”
Cerlo shook his head but, still holding his head in a cocked manner to compensate for his failing vision, moved his eyes slightly sideways as he mumbled an assurance he had remained in his house all day. It could be a sign he was lying, Bascot thought, or at least not telling a complete truth.
“Your answer seems evasive, Cerlo,” he said. “I want to know why.”
Cerlo looked down, his weathered face hidden from view as he said, “’Tis only that I should have gone down into the pit that evening, lord, and I didn’t. While I was acting for the quarry master, one of my duties was to ensure the covers on the equipment were secure at night. But, just as I was on my way out the door to check all was in order, my wife spilled a cauldron of hot pottage over
herself, all down her arm and hand and even some on her foot. She was near to faintin’ and I had to help her, but by the time I’d got her seen to, it was dark and the snow had started to fall, so I left my task in the pit undone. That’s why I went out so early on the day of Christ’s Mass, lord. I was worried the sledges would be damaged and I would lose my post for dereliction.”
Even though Bascot remembered seeing a bandage on the hand and arm of Cerlo’s wife on the morning he had gone to their home, the mason’s words had a false ring to them, as though he was using the incident to cover an omission in his tale. The mason’s next statement, however, rang as true as one of the bells in the cathedral tower. It quickly disabused the Templar of the notion that Cerlo had robbed the dead clerk of his scrip. The mason lifted his head and, turning his dimmed eyes in the direction of the cliff top, said with heartfelt emotion, “If I had of gone out that night like I should of done, then perhaps I could have prevented that thievin’ bastard from murdering young Master Brand.”
Twenty-six
Bascot’s mood as he rode back down Masons Row was one of disappointment. His questioning of the stonecutters had not gained any information, and Cerlo’s passionate words made it seem unlikely the mason had robbed the clerk’s corpse. He felt frustrated. It was as though the elusive facts he sought had been buried with Brand and Fardein’s bodies underneath a screen of swirling snowflakes.
He slowed his horse, an even-tempered grey, as he approached the gate, trying to place the little he knew of the sequence of events on the night of December twenty-first in some sort of order. As he did so, a pile of refuse caught his attention. Comprised of pieces of broken stone, old shards of timber and leafless branches of dead trees, it was about thirty feet from the gate into the Minster and heaped against the high stone wall that encircled the cathedral ground. As Bascot looked at it, he could have sworn he saw one of the branches move. The quarryman’s remark about only homeless beggars being out on a night of such terrible weather as the one when Brand was murdered came into his mind and he guided the grey towards the pile. As he approached it, the horse tossed its head slightly and gave a soft whicker.
Bringing the grey to a halt, Bascot sat regarding the pile and, after a moment or two, thought he could see an eye watching from the depths of the debris. Dismounting, he walked towards the heap. He felt, rather than saw, the presence of something living within it. It was probably only an animal-a feral cat or even a rat-but he decided it was worth investigating and, as he drew close enough for his feet to almost touch the edge of the discarded material, he caught sight of a fringe of dirty blond hair above an eye that could only be human.
“Come out,” he called softly. “I mean you no harm.”
There was no response. He hunkered down so as to be on the same level as the person who was hiding, putting his weight on his right foot to take the strain from the old injury in his left ankle. Reaching into the scrip at his belt, he extracted a silver penny and held it up in plain view. “If you show yourself,” he said quietly, “you may have this.”
Slowly the screen of dead tree limbs parted and a head came into sight. It was a young girl, her hair a dirty blond mat above an equally filthy face. She looked to be no more than six or seven years of age, and her fear was palpable, only overcome by the lure of the shining coin Bascot held in his hand.
Reaching towards her, the Templar held out the penny. The child’s hand, the fingernails torn and ragged, darted out and snatched it from his grasp. Before she could retreat into her hiding place, Bascot took another coin from his purse. “You may have this penny as well if you will talk to me. I promise I will not hurt you.”
Slowly the child pushed her head and shoulders into view. She was pitifully thin and reminded the Templar of the time he had first seen Gianni. Like the boy, this little girl had sores on her face and her eyes were devoid of hope. Compassion flooded through Bascot. There were many such children in every town in England and, indeed, all over the world, but their desolation never failed to instil a deep pity in him.
“What is your name?” he asked.
“Whatcher want to know fer?” the child said, her eyes suspicious.
“So I may call you by it,” Bascot replied. “But if you do not want to tell me, it doesn’t matter.”
“Me name’s Mary,” the child said grudgingly, her eyes still on the penny the one-eyed knight was holding.
“Do you live here all on your own, Mary?” Bascot asked.
The girl’s eyes grew hard. “No, I doesn’t. My bruvver lives here, too. He’ll be back any minute. And he’s bigger than me, much bigger.” Her voice faltered as she took in the solid muscular build of the man in front of her and the sword that hung from his belt. No matter how much larger her brother, he would be no match for the strength of a grown man trained to arms. Bascot had thrown back his cloak as he crouched down and the child’s gaze slid to the Templar badge on his tunic. It seemed to reassure her a little, but not much.
Not wanting to alarm her further, Bascot edged back a space. “If your brother returns while I am here, there will be a penny for him, too,” he said. “I only want to speak to you, Mary, nothing else.”
The small face relaxed slightly, but her eyes remained wary. “Whatcher want to talk about?” she asked.
“I want to know if you and your brother sleep here at night.”
Mary gave a slight shrug of her shoulders. “Most times we do. We ain’t breakin’ no law when we does,” she added defiantly. “The guards only chase us away if we stays inside the wall, not outside.”
Regrettably, what she said was all too true. There was a fair number of beggars in Lincoln, just as in most towns, but unless they could find a sheltered spot within the city walls where they would be safe from discovery by the town guards, they were forced to go outside.
“I know you are permitted to stay here,” Bascot said. “That is not why I wish to speak to you. I want to ask if you, or your brother, were here on the night of the snowstorm, just a few days before Christ’s Mass.”
“What if we were?” Mary retorted.
“Then I would like to know if you saw anybody down there, on the track by the shed.” As he spoke the Templar gestured behind him, toward the path that veered off Masons Row. From this vantage point, the top of the cliff face above the quarry could just be seen, as could the shack that sat atop it.
“We might o’ done,” Mary said, her confidence growing and her eyes still fixed on the penny.
The Templar extracted another coin from his scrip. “I do not want any lies, Mary. If you do not tell me the truth, then the pennies will go back in my purse and not into your hand. If you did not see anybody, then say so, and the pennies will still be yours.”
The child gave him a measuring look and, after a few moments she nodded. “We did see some men,” she said slowly. “The first one came just before it got dark. I was by myself then, my bruvver didn’t come back ’til later, just after the second man come.”
“What did he look like, the first man?” Bascot asked, holding his breath as he waited for her reply.
“He were as tall as you,” Mary said, “and wore a brown cloak. It were a good one,” she added wistfully. “He weren’t riding a horse, nor was the man who came after. The first man walked down the track to the cliff top and just stood there, like he was waitin’ for someone.”
That must have been Peter Brand, Bascot surmised. “And the second man; was it light enough for you to see what he looked like?”
“Not much,” Mary said. “There were a little bit of moon, but all I could see was it gleamin’ on his shoulders. Looked like he didn’t have as fine a cloak as the first man what come.”
Roger Fardein, Bascot thought. Tasser had been correct in his assumption that his apprentice had been following the clerk. “And the second man, did he go and speak to the other man?”
Mary shook her head vehemently. “No. He hid, crept up behind the shack that’s down there when the other man was
n’t lookin’. That’s when my bruvver come. We stayed in here close and tight, in case one of them saw us, and watched.”
“Were both of them there a long time?” Bascot asked.
Mary nodded. “The wind came up and we couldn’t see right well, but we was scared to go to sleep for fear one of them might find us. The first man kept pacin’ up and down for a bit and then he walked towards the shack.”
“And what happened then?”
“I dunno,” Mary replied with a shrug of her thin shoulders. “We couldn’t see good enough. But they was both there for a little while before the other man came.”
This must have been the one who murdered the clerk, Bascot thought. At last he had found a witness.
“Did you get a look at the face of the other man as he came through the gate, Mary?” he asked.
“He didn’t come from the Minster, he come from down there,” Mary replied, having gained enough confidence to extract her hand from the pile of rubbish and point in the direction of Masons Row. Bascot saw that her arm, bare except for a torn fold of some ragged material, was as thin as one of the sticks of her makeshift nest. The skin was ingrained with dirt.
“Did you recognise him?” Bascot asked.
Mary looked at Bascot as though he were an idiot. “’Course not. It were too dark by then. He was carrying a horn lantern, but it was hooded and he held it down low so as to cast a glim where he trod.”
Suppressing a smile at her insolence, Bascot realised the other man must have been Cerlo. He had lied when he said he had not come to the quarry that night. Had it been he, after all, who killed Peter Brand?
“Did the man with the lantern speak to either of the first two men?” he asked.
“I don’t think so, ’cause we didn’t hear no voices. He just walked up to where the first man had been afore he went over to the shack, on top of that bit where the ground drops down, and stayed there for a bit. We could see the light from the lantern alongside o’ him and it never moved. Then he went back down the road.”
