Death of a Squire tk-2

by Maureen Ash

  “You must ensure that the matter stays as it has been left, Copley,” Melisande said firmly to the agister. “Keep the villagers in their place and let them know that any further speech with the Templar would be unwise. Remind them of the need for pasture and pannage for their beasts-and so for their own bellies-and that the rights to these can be granted or taken away.”

  She made a graceful gesture of smoothing her skirt of heavy velvet with the tips of her fingers, then gave her kinsman a smile that barely curved her lips. “Hunger is not a pleasant thing, Copley. Nor is thirst. I am sure that by threatening the villagers with the former, you will ensure that you need never experience the discomfort of the latter.”

  The agister ducked his head miserably in compliance and drank deeply from his wine cup.

  Bascot did not sleep well that night. The temperature had dropped at nightfall and the small chamber he shared at the top of the old keep with Gianni was frigid, despite the brazier that burned in one corner. The Templar had seen the boy well wrapped in his blankets and Ernulf’s hat before snuffing the candle, but while Gianni’s breathing soon dropped into the gentle regular sound of sleep, Bascot found himself still wide awake.

  He had removed his eyepatch as soon as the chamber was in darkness and now he rubbed the empty socket, a habit he had acquired when alone and tired. The movement gave some lessening of the tension he felt and allowed a light slumber to overtake him, but it was filled with disturbing dreams and he awoke in moments, feeling the sweat that had broken out on his body chill like ice inside his clothes.

  He knew the reason for his wakefulness. After the evening meal in the hall was over, he had paid a visit to the castle chapel where Hubert’s body was laid out to rest until a relative should come to claim it. Nicolaa de la Haye had told him that a messenger had been sent to the squire’s mother-his father was dead-and the mother had sent the envoy back with news that the boy’s uncle would be coming to take her son’s body home.

  Bascot had expected to find someone, one of the other squires or a priest, keeping vigil beside the body, but the space around the bier was empty, although candles had been lit at either end only recently. Their flickering light illuminated the chamber with an eerie glow. A cloth of dark velvet had been laid over the coffin, leaving only the boy’s head and shoulders open to view, with a square of white linen spread over the face to hide the ravages of the crows. Around his neck another length of linen was loosely wound, presumably to conceal the mark of the rope that had been the instrument of his death. Against the wall, on the far side of the bier, stood a box containing the boy’s clothing, boots and dagger. Bascot lifted the items out and scrutinised them. The material of both hose and tunic was expensive, marked with stains and scrapings that could have come from rough handling before the boy was dead, or on the journey back to Lincoln slung over Tostig’s horse. His boots were in the same condition. The cloak was wool, a dark brown in colour, and was shredded at collar and hem. The fastening had been a simple silver gilt clasp and was still pinned to the fabric near the shoulder. The dagger was a well-made one, not ornate, but of good tempered steel. Surely, Bascot mused, if outlaws had been the cause of the boy’s death they would at least have taken the pin and dagger, even if they had not had time to remove his clothes.

  Finally the Templar examined Hubert’s body. The squire seemed to have been sturdily built, judging by the breadth of his shoulders and the muscles that swelled in his neck. It seemed strange that, with such strength, he had not fought his attacker. Reluctantly, Bascot removed the protective cover from the face, standing for some moments looking at what was left of Hubert’s visage. Someone, probably the castle leech, had sewn up the worst of the damage, but little was left to indicate what the boy had looked like. A soft ribbon had been bound under the jawbone and up over the top of the head to keep the mouth closed and hide the remnants of the lad’s tongue, which, Bascot guessed, the crows would have found particularly delectable. Soft circles of lead had been laid over the eyeless sockets and his hair, a vivid chestnut in colour, had been pulled down low over his forehead to hide more of the birds’ relentless feeding. Altogether there was not much left to indicate the appearance of the boy whose soul had been prematurely forced from its earthly home.

  Muttering a brief prayer and asking heaven’s forgiveness for his intrusion, Bascot gently moved aside the linen around Hubert’s neck. The rope and the boy’s clothing had been of some protection against the birds and, beneath the cloth, the mark of the rope was clear, still angry and showing starkly against the bleached hue of the surrounding flesh. The abrasion was rough and deep, running from beneath the chin and up behind his ears, ending in a large contusion on the left-hand side, which must have been made by the knot in the noose. Bascot wondered again how the boy had been taken without a struggle. Had he been threatened with a knife or a sword? Or perhaps surreptitiously given a potion that would render him senseless? Gently he ran his hands over the squire’s head. There seemed to be no swellings that would indicate he had been knocked unconscious before being hanged. Again the Templar examined the rope burn, pushing the cloth a little lower. Just faintly he could see another mark almost parallel with the deeper one. It ran around the neck, from back to front, more of an indentation than an abrasion. Bascot laid his fingers in it, felt it run across the boy’s larynx and, at the nape of the neck, his searching fingertips found a tiny raising of the flesh, as though it had been pinched. He pondered for some moments, then gently raised Hubert’s head, searching in the dim light of the candles for visual confirmation of what he had found. The mark was there, consistent with something thin having been wrapped around the boy’s neck and twisted tight, not enough perhaps to kill him, but certainly with enough force to take him out of his senses. But why? Why leave the deed half done? The murder could surely have been completed then and there without the additional need of a rope. Why this throttling twice over, when the intent, all along, must have been to kill? Perhaps the murderer had been interrupted during his grisly act and forced to delay its completion. But, if that was so, why was the garrotte not used to finish the task? What had been the need to use both cord and rope? To have done so seemed excessive and bothersome.

  He examined the mark again. It would have passed unnoticed when the sheriff and his brother had stripped him and looked for some sign of a wound, missed as being part of the deeper mark left by the hanging. Hubert had certainly gone to his death without protest, but only because someone had slipped up behind him and reduced him to a state that made him unable to fight for his life.

  It was this thought that kept Bascot awake that night, bringing with it an outrage at the stealth of the crime, the cowardice of it. He had spent long years in captivity, knew the helplessness that came with being a slave, unable to defend oneself from physical harm or mental torture, and he felt a strange empathy with the dead squire, losing his life without being able to put up the least resistance.

  He lay awake for the rest of the night, listening to the slow tramp of the men-at-arms on night duty as they passed along the wall connected to the tower he was in, and the quiet murmur of their conversation as they stopped for a few moments’ rest and a little gossip. From the bailey came only silence, broken intermittently by the lowing of a restless cow or the squawk of a goose. As he lay he wondered if he had missed anything else when he had examined Hubert’s body and belongings. He would not get another opportunity to view the corpse, for soon it would be gone to its final resting place.

  Sleep was just beginning to invade his restless mind when, towards dawn, the noise of men and horses stirring in the bailey awoke him. Bascot remembered that Gerard Camville had arranged for a hunt that morning. Meat was always needed for the table but, even with the annual late autumn slaughter of cattle that were too old or infirm to be fed through the winter, and the killing of deer trapped in the sheriff’s buckstalls, feeding King John and all the attendant guests would demand an additional supply.

  Just as dawn was about
to break, Bascot heard the yelping of hounds and the strident tones of the kennel master as he called his charges to order. The Templar got up from his pallet and pushed his eyepatch back into place. Soon the horn would blow to signal for the gate to be opened and the sheriff and his hunting party would leave. Quietly Bascot slipped on an extra padded tunic over the one he was wearing, then threw his cloak around his shoulders before bending down to place a hand on Gianni’s shoulder. The boy was fast in slumber, only his nose peeping out from beneath the mound of covers in which he was ensconced. Bascot hated to wake him but Gianni became alarmed if he found his master absent and did not know where he was. A fear of vulnerability left over, no doubt, from the time Bascot had found him begging for food on a wharf in Palermo.

  Gianni came awake instantly at Bascot’s touch, his eyes looking the question his tongue could not ask.

  “It’s alright, Gianni. I am going to follow the hunt. You may go back to sleep or break your fast, if you wish. I will be back by midday.”

  It was a measure of the boy’s growing confidence that he nodded quickly in agreement and did not show any distress at being left alone. A few months before he had dogged Bascot’s footsteps like a shadow and was only comfortable out of his master’s presence when he was in the protective company of Ernulf or in the midst of the pack of hounds in the castle hall.

  Bascot slipped out of the room and made a slow passage down the stairs, being careful of his ankle which, despite the support of his new boots, seemed more fractious in cold weather. At the stables he ordered one of the grooms to saddle the even-tempered grey gelding he had used the day before and then he left the bailey, slowly following the hunting party as it made its way in the direction of the sheriff’s chase.

  Nine

  The morning air was frosty and the breath from Bascot’s mouth, and that of his mount, streamed in the cold air like ragged plumes of smoke as they headed for the forest. The Templar ruminated on Hubert as he rode; thought how he had only the opinions of others for the squire’s character, his personality. He had been painted blackly, as a disagreeable young man, a braggart and a lecher. Had he truly been such? Was there not a trace of good, even in the most evil of men, some redeeming trait not immediately apparent? Bascot thought of the infidel lord in whose household he had been held captive in the Holy Land, and at whose direction the hot iron had been thrust into his eye. Bascot had hated him with all his might, not only for being the enemy and his tormentor, but for the contempt with which the Saracen had regarded any of the Christian faith. Had the opportunity presented itself, Bascot would have willingly-nay, eagerly-taken the infidel’s life, even if it had been at the cost of his own. But on reflection, and with the benefit of hindsight, Bascot had to admit he had seen his captor show kindness to those of his own heathen faith, and had seemed genuinely fond of the many children he had sired on the numerous women of his harem. No doubt he had been viewed as a generous and loving benefactor by those receiving his favour.

  The same could be true of Hubert, Bascot thought. He may have been a dutiful and loving son to his mother or have given a few of the women he boasted of bedding some pleasure for being in his company. Or had he been one of those individuals who loves self above all else? To whom consideration for others is never even contemplated, let alone attempted? It was possible, but there could be many other reasons why the boy had formed the character he had seemed to display, and it was difficult to make any kind of judgement of a person who was no longer alive. Perhaps the uncle that was coming to claim the body could enlighten Bascot about the nephew’s nature. If just one person could be found who had liked Hubert, or whom he had perhaps confided in, it might be that the motive for this murder would become clearer.

  His pondering had passed most of the journey to the sheriff’s chase and Bascot entered the wood in the wake of the hunting party, broken branches and hoof prints in the mud of the track marking its passage plainly. It was the Templar’s intention to visit the hunting lodge where Bettina had said she had arranged to meet Hubert. It was unlikely that the squire had been there for he had been found some distance away, but Bascot remembered that earlier that year, when he had been asked by Nicolaa de la Haye to investigate the murder of four people in an alehouse, it had been a tiny scrap of cloth found at a place far removed from where they had been killed that had led him in the right direction. It might be he would find such a guide again.

  Tostig, the forester, had told him the general direction in which the ruin of the old lodge could be found, near to where the charcoal burner kept the huge mounds in which he burned his wood. A thin stream of smoke, rising almost straight up on the still air, told of the way he must go, away from the path followed by the hunting party, which could be heard farther to the south, the horns blowing almost constantly and the deep belling of the dogs signalling that a quarry had been sighted. Gerard Camville was after wild boar today, a dangerous animal to hunt, with razor-sharp tusks and lightning speed. The lair of one had been discovered by the sheriff’s huntsmen and Camville was eager to test his skill against it, as well as have some of the tasty meat for the castle table. Bascot envied him his pleasure. As a Templar, he was forbidden to engage on a hunt, either with hawk or bow, but he had enjoyed those on which he had accompanied his father in the days of his youth, and the remembrance brought a smile to his lips.

  Bascot came upon the old lodge almost by accident, finding the ruin in his path as he nudged his horse in the direction of the smoke. Two of the lodge’s thick wooden walls were still standing, with a part of the roof clinging precariously above the join at which they met. Remnants of the foundations poked above the ground beside them, showing that it had once been a good-sized building, easily housing a large hunting party intent on celebrating their kill, or to give shelter if an overnight stay was planned. Bascot dismounted and tied the reins of the grey to the lower branches of a nearby tree, giving the animal enough slack to allow him to graze on the meagre slivers of grass at its base before he walked over to inspect the ruin.

  The wood of the two remaining walls was almost sound. It had some slight infestation of insects but for the main part it stood firm to his touch and the ragged beams of the remaining portion of the roof above seemed solid. There was enough of a covered area to keep out any but the heaviest of rain or snow for a space of perhaps ten feet square. It must have been here that Hubert had intended to have his tryst with Bettina, if the girl had been telling the truth. Bascot carefully inspected the ground, but it seemed undisturbed. There was a pile of desiccated leaves blown haphazardly by the wind into a corner and underneath the moss was soft and unmarked. An old tree branch, whitened and smoothed from exposure to the weather, lay almost in the center of the sheltered space. When Bascot lifted it, the depression beneath looked to have been there for some time, with insects scuttling for cover as light and air penetrated their hiding place. If Hubert had been in this spot, he had left no trace.

  As Bascot started to walk around the remains of the other walls, the sounds of the hunt increased, seeming to come nearer. His horse lifted its head and whickered softly, and Bascot went to it and rubbed a hand over its flank to calm it. If the chase came this way, he would have to ensure that he did not impede its progress. It was as he began to untie his mount that he noticed some marks in the earth near the outside edge of one of the remaining walls. He walked over to the spot and knelt down to examine them more closely. The hard-packed soil was deeply scored, two or three ruts on top of one another, ending in a flat impression like that made by the heel of a boot. Bascot looked up at the wall, then across at the faint track that led from the forest on this side. Had Hubert stood here, waiting in vain for the village girl, when he had been attacked? If someone had come up behind him, unheard and unseen while the squire’s attention was fixed on sighting the maid whose body he soon hoped to enjoy, it would have been an easy matter to loop a length of cord around his throat and choke him. As the boy had struggled, kicking out with his feet, his heels could
have scored the ruts in the earth, sliding uselessly as he struggled to escape the constriction at his throat. If, as Bascot suspected, Hubert had been rendered unconscious before being hanged, was this the spot where he had first been attacked? But if it was, then why had he been moved such a far distance to the oak tree where he was found?

  Bascot walked a pace or two in the lee of the wall to see if there were any other indications of a struggle, some trace that would prove his tentative and unlikely assumption. The sounds from the hunt were growing louder now, but seemed to be coming from two different directions, one nearer than the other. Perhaps more than one quarry had been found and the party had split in two. The Templar was conscious of the need for haste; he did not want to get caught between the hunters and their prey, yet he did not want to leave and perhaps have any other signs of a possible assault on Hubert destroyed by the passage of dogs and horses. Making a quick circuit on the outside of the adjoining wall, he had just decided to remount when he heard the huntsman’s horn blast loud and shrill from the woods that edged the perimeter on the far side of the ruin. At that same moment a huge stag burst from the trees and into the clearing. The beast paused, sides heaving. Its flanks were flecked with foam and saliva dripped from its mouth. For one second the beast’s eye met Bascot’s good one. Fleetingly, he saw the terror and desperation of the animal before it lowered its head, took a few faltering steps then, spurred on by another blast of the horn, sprang once again into flight. Leaping with an inordinate grace over the few remaining stones of the foundation it disappeared into the woods on the other side of the lodge.

  It was as he turned to watch the vanishing deer that Bascot felt the arrow. Felt, rather than heard, for the noise of the hunt drowned out the whisper of flight the missile made before it embedded itself in the thickness of the extra tunic he was wearing under his cloak. The tip grazed the flesh covering his ribs and the cloth pulled as the shaft became snarled in the sheepskin padding of his under-tunic. Instinctively he dropped to the ground, protecting his sighted eye with his arm as he rolled into the timbers at the base of the wall. A second later a dog pack burst from the trees, led by two huge mastiffs. Racing across the open ground they continued the chase, their throaty baying echoing after them. Long moments behind were the horses, a powerful roan in the lead on which was mounted William Camville, with Richard de Humez following at some distance. Both held bows at the ready, arrows bristling in the quivers slung on their saddles. Other riders could be heard coming along the track behind them.