by Maureen Ash
“I find it hard to believe that what you have just told me about Tercel is true. Why did you not apprise me of these facts when you urged me to give him a post in my household?”
Wharton, a man of about fifty years of age with an open, honest face and mild blue eyes, tried to find words that would pacify the baron. De Humez was a fussy and precise individual who was a little too conscious of his high position, but he was a decent man and they had been friends for a long time.
“Truly, Dickon, I did not think the matter of any importance… .”
De Humez’s response was full of irritation. “Of no importance! How can you deem it a falderal that a retainer of mine-one I took into my service on your recommendation-believed himself to be the bastard son of a man who was once king of England! And that he might have been murdered to prevent him substantiating that claim!”
“It may seem as though I have deceived you, Dickon, but truly, that was not my intent,” Wharton said abjectly. “I thought his notion was merely a passing fancy, one that he would soon dismiss when he saw the futility of pursuing it further. But now that he has been killed, I fear he may have been asking questions in quarters where they would not be well come…”
“And was murdered to ensure his silence,” de Humez finished gravely. The baron walked over to the table and poured himself another cup of wine. When he had drunk deeply from the cup, he sat down heavily on a padded chair beside the roaring fire in the grate.
“You had better tell me the whole sorry tale, Stephen. And then, if you value my friendship, you will go to Lincoln and repeat it to my sister-by-marriage, Nicolaa de la Haye.” His eyes narrowed as he added, “And God help you if this so called fantasy of Tercel’s has put my wife and daughter in danger. I am not normally a vengeful man, but you can be assured that in this instance I will ensure you pay to the fullest measure for your actions.”
Wharton took a nervous swallow of his wine. De Humez held a large fief from the king and was far above him in wealth and social standing. He hoped that what he was about to relate had nothing to do with Tercel’s death but if, by some rare chance it did, he prayed that his own role in the matter would be overlooked, at least by the man seated across from him.
Bascot arrived at the castle just after Terce. He had spoken at length with Richard Camville and Lady Nicolaa the afternoon before, relating the little he had learned from the barber-surgeons and the chandler before revealing his suspicions about Simon Adgate and telling them that he had commanded the furrier and his wife to come to the castle for further questioning at mid-morning. Nicolaa had requested that Bascot be present at the interview and the Templar had willingly consented. Now, as he left his horse in the castle stable and made his way into the hall, the Haye steward, Eudo, came forward and told him that the castellan and her son were in the solar and had asked that, when he arrived, he joined them there.
As Bascot went up the stairs in the western tower, Gianni came from the landing that led off to the scriptorium, his wax tablet in his hand. Together they ascended to the top storey, where the solar was located. When they entered the chamber they found Alinor seated alongside her aunt and cousin. From the purposeful set of her mouth, Bascot could see that she had been told of his suspicions about Clarice Adgate and agreed with them.
She gave him a smile as he took a seat beside her. “Well done, de Marins,” she said. “It would seem you have already discovered the murderer. Adgate’s wife must have been having an affair with Tercel and somehow the furrier managed to kill him for his trespass.”
Bascot shook his head. “I am not certain of that, lady, only that Adgate and his wife are hiding something. It may be,” he added, remembering the momentary look of revulsion on the furrier’s face as he touched his wife’s body, “that Clarice Adgate is the woman your maid supposed Tercel was involved with but, beyond that, it does not necessarily follow that her husband is the one who killed him. Adgate was overlooked for all the hours during which the murder was committed.”
“It could be that the furrier hired an assassin to do the deed for him,” Alinor opined.
“He certainly has enough wealth to do so,” Bascot agreed. “But surely such an act would be more easily accomplished within the confines of the town. And it would be a haphazard assassin that would not come armed with his own weapon and instead have need to take one from the castle armoury.”
As everyone nodded their agreement, Bascot leaned forward and spoke to Nicolaa. “Lady, I think it would be more profitable if we spoke to Adgate and his wife separately. When I spoke to her, she continually looked to the furrier for guidance. If it is her intimate connection with Tercel that the pair is hiding, she may be more forthcoming if he is not on hand to protect her from any reckless admission.”
Nicolaa nodded and, at that moment, a servant came into the solar and told the castellan that the furrier and his wife had arrived and were downstairs in the hall. “Send the woman up first,” she instructed the servant. “And tell the husband he is to wait below until he is called.”
A few minutes later Clarice Adgate came hesitantly into the room. She was dressed in a sober gown of dark grey and her coif was of plain white linen. The only ornamentation on her person was a simple gold chain about her neck bearing a small pendant etched with the image of the Virgin Mary. She fingered this nervously as she gave a small curtsey of deference to Lady Nicolaa and the other nobles. Her eyes flicked from one to the other in apprehension.
By unspoken agreement, the castellan began the questioning. The management of her huge demesne had given her years of experience in dealing with situations similar to this one, when it often became necessary to ferret out the truth between the conflicting claims of tenants and villeins.
“Mistress Adgate,” she said in a deceptively kind tone, “you have come here to answer further questions about the night my sister’s retainer was killed. Previously you stated that you retired early because you were feeling unwell. What was the nature of your indisposition?”
“My head was aching dreadfully, lady,” Clarice replied, relieved at the innocuous nature of the question. “It was the excitement of the day, I think, that brought it on.”
“And you went to the room you had been assigned, got into bed and immediately fell asleep?” Nicolaa went on.
“I did,” Clarice replied.
The castellan leaned slightly forward as she posed her next question. “I am surprised that slumber came so quickly when you were suffering such pain. Did you take a medicament to ease it?”
The question took Clarice by surprise and she stumbled over the answer. “A medicament? I… I… yes, I did. I had a potion with me, a draught of poppy juice.”
Nicolaa leaned back in her chair, seemingly satisfied with the answer. “I thought you must have done; that is what made you sleep so soundly. If you will give us the name of the apothecary from which you obtained it, we will have no further questions for you.”
Clarice’s face went white as she realised the trap into which she had been led. She was, as Nicolaa had said previously, a rather foolish woman. It had not taken a great deal of expertise on the castellan’s part to lead her in the direction they wanted her to go. “I do not know which apothecary it was, lady,” she replied, her lower lip beginning to tremble. “My… my husband got it for me.”
“Then I will send for your husband and ask him where he bought it. I am sure he will be able to provide us with the answer,” Nicolaa replied, raising her hand to motion to the servant standing at the door.
“No, lady, please!” Clarice burst out, her agitation increasing. “Simon will not know… I was mistaken… It was my maidservant that got it, not my husband…”
“I do not understand your confusion, mistress,” Nicolaa said sternly. “Juice of poppy is a powerful sedative; surely you can remember how you came by it. Or is it, perhaps, that you did not have any? That you did not go to the bedchamber because you were ill and needed to rest, but for some other purpose?”
&
nbsp; Clarice burst into tears and the castellan pressed her advantage. “Aubrey Tercel was your lover, was he not?” Nicolaa charged ruthlessly. When the furrier’s wife nodded her head in a forlorn fashion, Nicolaa sought to confirm the details of their suspicions. “And the reason you left the hall early was not because you were ill, but to engage in dalliance in the very bed you were later to share with your husband?”
Clarice’s answer took them by surprise. “No, we did not meet in the guest chamber,” she said miserably. “Aubrey told me to come to another room, one at the top of the tower. He said it was safer there and that if my husband should decide to retire beforetime, he would not discover us together.”
Gianni and Bascot glanced at each other. There was only one chamber large enough to be used for such a purpose and it was one that the Templar and the boy had shared while Bascot had been staying in the castle before his return to the Order. And it was located just a few steps below the walkway that led to the ramparts.
Richard now took charge of the interrogation and spoke in harsh tones to the furrier’s wife. “You have lied to us, mistress, and I do not take it kindly. If you value your freedom, and your life, you had best tell us the truth.”
Clarice nodded and slowly the whole story came out. She had, she said, formed a friendship with Tercel shortly after Christ’s Mass when he had come to her husband’s shop to purchase furs on Lady Petronille’s behalf. Simon Adgate was often away from his premises while he went to the tanning pit he owned in the lower part of the town and it was at those times that Tercel had come to the shop and engaged her in conversation and, finally, enticed her to meet him in a room he had rented above an alehouse in the town. When the feast was proposed, her paramour had suggested Clarice take advantage of her husband’s preoccupation with the celebrations to join him in the old tower and she had agreed.
“But when I left him, he was alive,” she said tearfully. “Truly, I did not know he was dead until the next morning.”
“And where did you leave him, mistress?” Bascot asked. “Was he still in the chamber where you had met, the one at the top of the tower?”
“No,” Clarice replied. “He was standing outside the door. He thought he heard a noise while we were… while we were inside the room, and feared it might be my husband. He bade me go down to the bedchamber below and stood at the top of the stairs while I descended.”
“And was it your husband?” Bascot asked.
“No, there was no one there; at least, I don’t think there was anyone. Aubrey did not light a candle. I went down the stairs in the darkness, feeling along the wall to guide my steps. After I entered the bedchamber, I got into bed. A few minutes later I heard footsteps pass the door and thought it was Aubrey returning to the hall.”
“By that time, mistress, he was dead,” Bascot said harshly. “And the footsteps you heard belonged to his killer.”
“I know,” Clarice replied miserably. She lifted her tear-stained eyes to the company. “That is what I realised when I learned that Aubrey had been murdered-that I could just as easily have been killed as well.”
They asked her a few more questions and when Alinor suggested the murderer had been her husband, Clarice startled them all with a flash of hitherto unseen insight. “But it could not have been Simon,” she said. “My husband is lame-he broke his leg as a child and it never mended properly-and the footsteps that went by my door were unfaltering. He would be incapable of making such a swift passage.”
That, at least, explained Adgate’s limp and further negated him as a suspect. When the suggestion was made that Adgate had hired someone to carry out the deed for him, she again shook her head. “My husband was not aware that I had taken a lover until after Aubrey was found dead,” she said miserably, her tears welling anew, “so he would have had no reason to do so.”
Bascot asked her if Tercel had, during their times together, spoken of any enemies he had made in Lincoln and Clarice shook her head. “None that he mentioned. We did not… did not have time for much casual conversation together.”
Finally, Nicolaa dismissed her and told the servant to admit her husband into their presence.
Twelve
When the furrier saw Clarice walking across the hall to where he was seated, he knew by the look on her face that she had admitted her adultery. Not for the first time in the last few days, he asked himself why he had chosen to marry such a vacuous young woman. And again, the answer echoed hollowly in his head-vanity. He had watched Clarice grow up in the tanner’s yard he owned, and where her father was employed, and had seen her beauty develop from the time she had been a small child. When she had reached the age of maturity, he knew it had been no coincidence that he had suddenly convinced himself that he should marry again and try, before death overtook him, to beget an heir to inherit his prosperous business. There were other women in Lincoln that he could have offered for, and would have suited him admirably for his purpose-young daughters of other merchants and tradesmen-but he had not taken the time to give any of them consideration; he had taken notice only of Clarice and her lovely green eyes, dwelling on the facade of her beauty and dismissing the emptiness that he had, even then, sensed lay within. And, if he further examined his conscience without self-deception, he knew that it had not been lust that had driven him, but the envy with which other men would regard him for having such a desirable woman in his bed.
Not even for one moment had he ever considered that Clarice, coming from such an impoverished background, would dare to stray from his bed. He had thought she would be grateful that he, a respectable and wealthy merchant, had taken her in marriage, and that he had cajoled her into loving him by the expensive clothes and furs with which he had adorned her lovely body. How wrong he had been. While it was true that she carried out her duties in his shop well enough, he had soon realised it pleased her mercenary heart to touch and display the fine furs that he sold. Her soul was grasping, seeking only the gratification of her senses. She had no thought for anyone other than herself.
With a surge of regret he remembered his first wife, his dear Martha. They had been wed such a short time before she was taken from him by death, and they had been so much in love. After she had died, fond memories of her had made him unable to countenance the thought of marrying again and the years had slipped by without notice. Now, with the folly of an aging man, he was wed to a woman who had proved no better than a whore. How ironic it was that if, by some chance, Clarice was with child, there was a more than a probable chance that the heir he had longed for had been sired by another man. For all his success in business, Adgate knew he had been a fool in his private life.
Clarice came up and stood nervously beside him as the servant who had accompanied her back to the hall told Simon he was wanted in the solar by Sir Richard and Lady Nicolaa. Adgate gave his wife not a glance or a spoken word, just followed the servant across the hall and up the tower stairs. Before he went into the chamber, he tried to square his shoulders and exude a degree of confidence. He had no other option now but to tell the truth; that he had not been aware of his wife’s infidelity until the moment when he and Clarice had been told of the murder. Had it not been for his wife’s tears and tender murmurings of the dead man’s name when she heard the news, he would, even now, still be in ignorance of her unfaithfulness. Pushing aside the pain the memory caused him, he reflected that honesty had always been his guide in business; he must trust it would suffice now. If he was careful with a recounting of the facts, questions about any other entanglements he had with Tercel might not be asked.
When he walked into the solar, the circle of nobles daunted him for a moment and he checked his stride. After a moment’s hesitation, he summoned up the courage to stand determinedly in front of them, and he kept his manner deferential as Richard Camville told him that his wife had admitted she had gone to keep a tryst with Tercel in an upper chamber of the old tower on the night he had been killed.
“She also told us, furrier,” Richard added,
“that she met with him on several previous occasions. Are you certain you had no suspicion of this liaison?”
“No, lord, I did not,” Adgate said. “Not until the morning after he was killed.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Richard said bluntly.
“Nonetheless, lord, it is true,” Adgate asserted.
“You will have to convince me of the validity of that statement,” Richard declared. “The man who made you a cuckold has been murdered; that gives you a prime motive for killing him.”
Adgate recoiled against the accusation, but he held Richard’s gaze firmly as he replied. “It was not I who murdered him, lord. From what I understand, Tercel was slain early in the evening. I never left the hall until I retired to the chamber my wife and I had been assigned by your steward. The other guild leaders I sat beside at the feast can confirm that.”
“You could have paid someone to do the deed for you, Adgate,” Richard replied. “Lincoln is no different than other towns; one can always find a man who is willing to carry out such a service if the fee is handsome enough.”
Adgate did not lose his composure at the suggestion. “As I said, Sir Richard, I had no knowledge of my wife’s infidelity. How then would I have reason to hire an assassin?”
Bascot admired the man’s imperturbability, but he noticed that beads of sweat were forming on the furrier’s brow. Evidence of tension was entirely understandable in Adgate’s situation; to be accused of murder is not a matter to be taken lightly, whether guilty or not. Still, the Templar wondered if his agitation was due merely to the ordeal he was undergoing or if it stemmed from some other cause.
