A Holy Vengeance

Templar Knight Mysteries

The Alehouse Murders

Death of a Squire

A Plague of Poison

Murder for Christ’s Mass

Shroud of Dishonour

A Deadly Penance

The Canterbury Murders

A Holy Vengeance

A Holy Vengeance

A Templar Knight Mystery

Maureen Ash

InterMix Books, New York

AN IMPRINT OF PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE LLC

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A HOLY VENGEANCE

An InterMix Book / published by arrangement with the author

Copyright © 2015 by Maureen Ash.

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eBook ISBN: 978-0-698-40526-4

PUBLISHING HISTORY

InterMix eBook edition / September 2015

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Penguin Random House is committed to publishing works of quality and integrity.

In that spirit, we are proud to offer this book to our readers; however, the story, the experiences, and the words are the author’s alone.

Cast of Characters

Principal Characters

Bascot de Marins—A Templar knight

Gianni—A mute Italian boy, former servant to Bascot, now a clerk in castle scriptorium

Nicolaa de la Haye—Hereditary castellan of Lincoln castle

In the Castle

Roget—Captain of the town guard

Ernulf—Serjeant of Lincoln garrison

Clare—Sempstress

Eudo—Steward

John Blund—
Secretarius

Preceptory

Everard d’Arderon—Preceptor

Feradac MacHeth—Deputy preceptor

Wilikin—Scullion

Clerics

William of Blois—Bishop of Lincoln

Roger de Rolleston—Dean

Burton Village

Rudd—Reeve

Greetwell Village

Gwen Hurdler—Villager

Thomas Hurdler—Gwen’s husband

Letty—Young girl

Newark

Goddard—Serjeant of Newark castle

Mistress Sloper—Widow

Others

Robert Ferroner—Armourer

Emma Ferroner—Robert’s daughter

Wiger—Emma’s husband

Constance Turner—Perfumer

Agnes—Constance’s maidservant

Noll—Master armourer, employee of Robert Ferroner

Thea—Robert Ferroner’s housekeeper

Lorinda—Robert Ferroner’s paramour

Granny Willow—Lorinda’s grandmother

Dern—Alekeeper

Aliz—Prostitute

John Glover—Soap manufacturer

Mabel Glover—John’s wife

Nan—John’s mother

Ivo and Cerlo—Town guards

Master Drogue—Apothecary

Selso—Alekeeper

Lincoln Town—Late Summer 1179

“I am come, Robert Ferroner, to hold you accountable before witnesses. You gave me a pledge of marriage and it is past time for you to honour it. When will you do so?” The young woman spat out the accusation, dark eyes ablaze and arms akimbo.

Her scathing words shattered the lazy hum of conversation among those gathered at the small marketplace alongside the riverbank, and everyone turned to stare. There were bargemen and sailors come ashore for a cup of ale, workmen from nearby manufactories, and a small knot of gossiping goodwives. They had all been enjoying the late afternoon sunshine and relaxing from their day’s labours when she had suddenly appeared in their midst and flung out her challenge. With mouths agape, they swung their heads in the direction of the young man to whom she was speaking.

He had been standing at leisure, munching on an apple and chatting to a fruit-seller, but at the sound of his name, he turned swiftly. About twenty years of age, tall and burly, he had massive shoulders and a leonine head of straw-coloured hair. The son of a prominent armourer who had premises farther along the riverside, he had already, despite his young age, earned a dissolute reputation because of his predilection for ale and loose women. Usually bluff and genial to all, he stood his ground and gave the young woman a defiant answer as a frown appeared on his brow.

“I did not promise to wed you, Lorinda, and never will do. Why would I marry such as you? You are little better than a harlot.”

The crowd was agog, attention avid as they listened to every word of the exchange.

Lorinda advanced a few paces towards her erstwhile lover, head thrown back on her graceful neck so that her long dark hair flew in a mass of curls about her shoulders. No head covering such as decent women wear contained her beautiful tresses, and her gown was cut too low for modesty. She was very handsome, and many a man in the crowd licked his lips at the sight of her. Even in a fury, she was extremely desirable.

“You shall rue the day you refused me,” she replied in words of menace, her upper lip curled with contempt. “And even more so, you shall regret your foul slander of my virtue. I hereby curse you, Robert Ferroner, to be thrice damned—in the woman you marry, the children she bears you, and in your fortune. And when you are living in a hell here on earth, you will remember me, and that it was Lorinda who put you there.”

With these last words, she turned and stalked off, black hair flying and the skirt of her scarlet kirtle billowing around her ankles. The crowd, after a collective gasp, fell silent, and it was not until she had disappeared from view that they turned to look at the armourer’s son.

He was standing as still as if he had been turned to stone, his countenance blanched white. Suddenly he shook his great head and, seeming to come to his senses, turned to face the crowd.

“It would seem I have been well and truly chastised for my wanton behaviour,” he said, making a feeble attempt to inject levity into the humiliating situation. “And there will be more punishment to come when my father hears of it.”

A few of the men in the crowd gave a weak smile at his words; John Ferroner’s disapproval of his son’s wild ways was well-known, but the group of goodwives shook their heads reprovingly. They all, to a woman, were heartily censorious of his lewdness, and it would take more than a display of feigned remorse to change their opinion.

“’Twould serve you right, young Ferroner, if your father took a rod to your back,” one old beldame declared, withered lips pursed in disapproval. Her female companions nodded in agreement.

“Since it was his own rod that got him into trouble in the first place,” one of the bargemen called out waggishly, “it might be wiser if his sire instead forged a shackle to contain it.”

The bawdy comment broke the tension, and even the women smiled at the jest. Responding with a look of mock horror, Robert said he had best get home before such a notion occurred to his father, and with a cheeky bow in the direction of the gaggle of women, he turned and walked away.

As he made his way along the path to the armoury, Robert was not quite as sanguine as he had striven to appear. It did not take much reckoning to know what had caused Lorinda’s outburst, for it could only be that she had heard he had recently become enamoured of Edith, the daughter of a cloth merchant in the town, a lovely young woman he had asked to be his wife a few days ago. While it was true he had tumbled Lorinda a few times out in the greenwood during the summer, it had only been in a casual fashion. He had spent the earlier part of most of the evenings he had lain with her in an alehouse and had consequently been ale-shotten when they coupled. While he may have uttered a few words of endearment during their lovemaking, he was quite certain that, even with his wits mazed by ale, he had never made a promise to wed her. Why would he? She had not been a maid when he first lay with her, and even if he had cared for her, which he didn’t, he would never have contemplated taking other men’s leavings for a wife. If she had mistakenly interpreted his passionate murmurings as such, that was her fault.

But rightly or wrongly, he now feared that Lorinda’s allegation would ruin his bid for Edith’s hand. His beloved was a girl of chaste virtue and had already gently scolded him for his libertine ways. He had promised her that he would lead a life of sober respectability if she consented to marry him, and that was a pledge he intended to keep. But when the gossip about himself and Lorinda reached her—as it was sure to do—would she still look with favour on his suit? How could he convince her that his last romp with Lorinda had been almost a month ago, long before he had asked for Edith’s hand, and that he had not dallied with her since, much less spoken of marriage to her?

And quite apart from concerns about Edith’s reception of the disastrous incident, he had to admit that Lorinda’s curse had shaken him, for she was the granddaughter of a witch, a woman who had congress with the Devil. If Lorinda was as skilled in the dark arts as her grandam, might not the curse prove true? A shudder passed through his large frame at the thought of such a terrifying prospect. Crossing himself, he fervently murmured a plea for Christ’s protection, then repeated to himself the words from the psalm that was a favourite among those who crafted armour—“The Lord is my strength and my shield”—until he was fortified. By the time he reached his father’s workshop, he had resigned himself to acceptance of the heavy penance his father would most surely mete out when he learned of his errant son’s latest misbehaviour.

* * *

Later that day, Lorinda was sitting on a stool in her grandmother’s small cot in the greenwood south of Lincoln, her temper still boiling. She had told her grandmother, Granny Willow, what had passed in the marketplace and how she had laid a curse on Robert Ferroner. Granny, a small, sturdy woman with a gentle and surprisingly unlined face for her age, had been sorting some herbs she had picked that morning when her granddaughter had stormed in and, after laying the small wicker basket of plants aside, had listened in silence to Lorinda’s tirade, and was shocked by it. She had raised her granddaughter almost from birth, ever since the day when the girl’s mother—Granny’s only child—and her husband had been crushed to death when the wain in which they had been riding was overturned by a fractious bullock. Lorinda had not been an easy child to care for and reminded Granny of her own mother, after whom Lorinda had been named. Wilful, high tempered and selfish, with a good measure of lasciviousness thrown in. This latest turmoil in her granddaughter’s life was but one more incident in a succession of tempestuous love affairs that had been going on since she reached puberty. The only difference with Ferroner was that, unlike all of Lorinda’s previous lovers, it had been he who ended their liaison instead of her. Because of this, Granny now wondered if her granddaughter truly cared for the armourer’s son or if her fury had been aroused solely by injured pride. At the moment, however, Granny was more concerned about Lorinda’s soul than the reason for her indignation.

“If Ferroner is foolish enough to prefer that whey-faced draper’s daughter to me,” Lorinda continued heatedly, “then he shall pay for it, and count the cost dearly. I shall never forgive him for his betrayal, never.”

“Be careful you are not the one who is punished, Lorinda,” Granny warned. “Ill-wishing someone, deserved or not, is an invitation to the Devil to come into your heart, and may rebound on you instead. You must not think any more of reprisal, but instead of your own welfare and that of the child you are carrying.”

Although Lorinda had told Robert Ferroner that Granny Willow was a witch, she had done so only in order to create, in his eyes, a reflected aura of mystery about her own self. Her grandam was not, in fact, a witch, but a simple cunning woman, called so because of her extraordinary talent for preparing medicaments from herbs and other plants, especially a decoction made from white willow bark which she administered to those suffering from a fever or joint pain. It was due to its marvellous efficiency that she had come to be called by the name of the tree from which it was made. Far from dealing in the dark arts or having traffic with the Evil One, she was a devout Christian, honoured and respected by all of the villagers from the nearby hamlet of Coleby. Her admonition to Lorinda was heartfelt. At her advanced age, Granny had seen many a person’s life ruined from failure to resist the Devil’s tempting. Satan was wily, taking any opportunity to steal a soul from Christ, and she now feared her granddaughter had fallen into his evil trap.

But Lorinda paid her grandam’s admonition no heed. “If the Devil tempted me, Granny, it was worth it.” She gave a mirthless laugh as she recalled her triumph, fully realising that Ferroner believed her grandam might have taught Lorinda her supposed evil powers and, if so, that her malediction would come to pass. “You should have seen his face when I laid the curse on him,” she added. “He was terrified. And so he should be, for I promise you the day will come when he will sorely repent his rejection of me.”

Granny, realising any further caution would be futile, said no more and listened with a heavy heart as her granddaughter rose from her seat and announced her intention to leave their home and seek her fortune elsewhere. Lorinda had yet to learn that heaven, as well as hell, could extract retribution and that, of the two, a holy vengeance was far more terrible.