A Holy Vengeance (18 page)
Within a very short space of time, Bascot, Gianni and Ernulf were speeding back to Lincoln on fresh mounts provided by Goddard from the Newark castle stables. The Templar had told Ernulf what Mistress Sloper had revealed and why there was need for haste.
“It is certain that Mabel has kept her relationship to Lorinda hidden from her mother-by-marriage,” he had said, “and, perhaps, from her new husband as well. Nan Glover is too honest a woman not to have told us of it when I asked about Lorinda. And now we find that Mabel has married into a family that were very close to the victim and she has not told them that the woman who once bore great enmity towards Robert Ferroner—a man who is Nan Glover’s good friend and was her former employer—is her mother. Why has she kept the identity of her dam secret? Does she know where Lorinda is and also the whereabouts of this older bastard daughter that Mistress Sloper told us of? Is it because Mabel herself, or her mother and half-sister, are involved in Emma’s murder? We must return to Lincoln as speedily as we can and find out the answers to these questions.”
* * *
Earlier that day, back in Lincoln, Lorinda had been sitting in the common chamber of the hostel when an itinerant tinker, one of the other inhabitants of the lodging house, returned to partake of his portion of the communal stew kept bubbling on the hearth. As he greedily devoured his bowl of pottage, he related to the other residents a bit of gossip he had heard that morning out in the town, saying that an alekeep by the name of Dern who had his premises just outside the southern wall of the town, along with a harlot called Aliz, had been taken into custody by the captain of the town guard. A frisson of alarm filled Lorinda. Both of the people that had been arrested had links to her which she did not want discovered, and since the tinker, when questioned, was not certain of the reason for their arrest, saying only that he had been told it had “something to do with forcing a child into prostitution,” she decided to go out into the town and see if she could find out more information herself.
A few minutes later she was on her way, and although she had already been out onto the streets of Lincoln once or twice since her arrival and not been recognized, she still took the precaution of wrapping the ends of her coif securely about her face so that as much of her features as possible was hidden from view.
The lump in her throat, which had first made its appearance on the outside of her neck and then slowly grown within, made her breathless from the slightest exertion, so she walked slowly, and with her hands, which had developed a tremor, clasped tightly together in front of her to still their shaking. As she passed through Claxledgate and into the confines of the town, her thoughts focused bitterly, as they so often had during the last twenty-five years, and especially recently, on Robert Ferroner. One of her incursions into the town after her return had been down to the banks of the Witham, and from there she had walked up to the armoury and peered in through the open shutters to see if she could catch a glimpse of her former paramour. He had, indeed, been working inside and, had it not been for his height and girth, she would not have recognised him. A straggle of greying strands below a bald pate was all that was left of his mane of golden hair and his face was lined with age.
How much more handsome he had been on the day she had first met him at the summer fayre. She had been immediately smitten. And so, she had believed, had he with her. Within a few minutes of their introduction to each other by a girl of Lorinda’s acquaintance in the town, they had been strolling together amongst the stalls, drinking mead and eating honeyed plums while listening to the lilting airs played on citoles and shawms by a band of roving minstrels. Only an hour had passed before Robert had kissed her and their lips had melted together with a taste sweeter than fine wine. It was by mutual and eager consent that, before the day had ended, they had gone out into the greenwood and there, on a bed of soft moss in a leafy bower, had their first coupling. How delightful the future had seemed on that day and the ones that followed; he had been the first, and only, man she had ever loved and she had been certain he would marry her. What other meaning could she have construed from the loving words he had whispered to her when they bedded? But it had not been long before her entrancement had come to a brutal end. Just a bare month later the same friend that had introduced her to Robert had said she had heard he had asked another woman to be his wife. His betrayal had wounded Lorinda deeply.
Throughout the years she had been away she had kept track of him through itinerant chapmen, merchants and carters whose trade often took them to Lincoln. He came to be a man well-known for his talent as an armourer and, as his business became more and more successful, there was always gossip about him. She had rejoiced when she had learned of the death of his wife shortly after their only child had been born and then, later, when she heard news that his daughter had been taken seriously ill. But, to her chagrin, the girl had survived and there had been no more hearsay about him until, a few months ago, she had learned that his daughter was married and that he was impatiently awaiting the birth of his first grandchild.
How different her life would have been if he had honoured his pledge to marry her. Down through the years that had elapsed, she would have had comfort, security and respect and not been forced to travel the highways and byways in search of a lecherous man willing to provide food and shelter in exchange for her body. And now, in her illness, she would have been cosseted, attended by a leech and prescribed a medicine that might have eased her distress.
Her musings had taken her to the bottom of Steep Hill. The town had not much changed in her long absence, and there was still a marketplace there with stalls selling meat, fish and poultry. She mingled with the goodwives gathered around the mongers and stood quietly on the fringe of the crowd so she could listen to any gossip being exchanged.
The first bit of information came not from one of the women but from a stall-holder, who had his customers riveted with his eyewitness testimony of the arrest of the alekeep and his jade.
“I see’d the captain and his men comin’ up the street dragging that pair along with ’em,” he exclaimed. “And they had one of the little girls Dern was usin’ as a harlot as well, holding on right tightly to the captain’s hand she wus, near scared to death, poor little thing. She were no more than a babby, I tell you, and painted just as though she was a jezebel. Dern and that harlot he calls sister deserve to swing for what they’ve done to her.”
The crowd of women nodded as they gave voice to their agreement, and then one of them said, “My husband says he heard that one of the captain’s men nigh on killed the man he found layin’ with the child. Well done, I says, the dog deserved all he got.”
Again there were murmurs of concordance and one after another bystander chimed in with further details that had been learned, such as that the alehouse had been smashed to pieces and that Roget had given all of the customers that were in there a stern warning that if he should learn that any of them had been guilty of swiving a child they would be treated just as harshly as the miscreant that had bedded the little girl.
Lorinda was uneasy at the turn events had taken. Slowly she turned away and directed her steps back towards the hostel. She tried to hurry, even though her breathing became more laboured when she did so. She was expecting a visitor this afternoon, the only person left to her that she could trust, and did not want to be late. There was a desperate need for them to discuss what effect Dern’s arrest would have on their plans.
* * *
As Bascot and his companions, having pressed their mounts as hard as they dared after leaving Newark, were approaching Lincoln, John Glover, Mabel’s husband, had finished his day’s work and was on his way home.
A tall, sandy-haired man of a usually pleasant demeanour, he walked through Stonebow with his brow furrowed. His life had changed dramatically since he had married Mabel, and not for the better. When he had first met her last year while attending a meeting of the soap-maker’s guild in Nottingham, he had been immediately attracted to her and quickly determined that he wished to make her his wife. In accordance with that intention, he had approached her father, a man of excellent reputation, to ask if his suit would be acceptable, and her sire had reluctantly revealed that although he had raised Mabel as if she were his legitimate daughter, she had not been born in wedlock, but to a woman that had, for a while, been his leman.
“I do not know the whereabouts of Mabel’s mother,” he had added, “and nor, as far as I am aware, does my daughter. All I can tell you is that her dam, Lorinda, had another illegitimate daughter as well, an older girl, the result of her dalliance with a paramour she was involved with before I met her, and that I have seen neither of them since the day many years ago when Lorinda left me. The only other information I can give you is that Mabel came to live with me because she found the company her mother was keeping distasteful and wanted no part of it, which spoke well for her moral sense. Nonetheless, I will understand if you find Mabel’s background unsuitable. If, however, you feel you can withstand it, you have my willing permission to court her.”
John, with hindsight, now wished he had considered the older man’s words more carefully but, at the time, he had been very enamoured of Mabel and had cast any doubts he may have had aside. Later, after she had accepted his proposal and they were wed, he had asked Mabel for, and had been given, more details about where her mother had taken her after she had left Nottingham.
It was a shocking tale and had filled John with disquietude. His new wife had told him that after Lorinda had left Mabel’s father, she and her older half-sister had been taken by their mother to live with their great-grandmother, Granny Willow, near the village of Coleby.
“Although Granny was very poor, I must admit I was happy living with her,” she had said with a small smile of gratified remembrance. “She was kind to both myself and my half-sister but unfortunately, she was very old and before too many years had passed, became ill and died. It was then that my life took a turn for the worse. After Granny was buried, my mother took us to live with a man she had taken up with—an old acquaintance from her younger days, I think—and by whom she had just borne a son. The man’s name was Gar and he ran an alehouse near the village where we lived.
“It was a terrible place,” Mabel had added tearfully. “Full of drunkards and thieves. My half-sister, Aliz, did not seem to mind it as much as I for she was greatly attracted to Gar’s eldest son, Dern, calling him brother even though he was none. But I hated it and wanted to leave. Our mother would never tell either Aliz or myself the identity of our fathers—I could barely remember mine, let alone recall his name—but before Granny Willow died, I overheard her and my mother speaking about the man who had sired me, mentioning his name and where he lived, so I ran away to see if I could find him, and I did.”
She had looked up at him with her dark soulful eyes and begged him to understand her dilemma. “I have never seen or spoken to my mother or either of my half-siblings from the day that I left and I promise you, have no intention of ever seeking them out.”
John, believing that the sins of a mother should not be laid on a child, had given Mabel his assurance that her past made no difference and, in accordance with her wishes, had sworn he would never reveal what she had told him to anyone else, even his mother.
And so things had stood until Mabel had, soon after their marriage, come to take up residence with him in Lincoln. A couple of weeks after they arrived, he had taken her down to the banks of the Witham to show her the soap manufactory he owned and it had been after they had left the building and were returning home that a young woman who was walking towards them on the path they were taking had given a start of recognition and hailed Mabel by name. His wife had jumped like a frightened hare and tried to run back into the manufactory, but she was not quick enough, and the woman had caught up with them.
Nervously, Mabel had told him that the stranger was her half-sister, Aliz, and John was horrified. The woman who was now related to him through his marriage was dressed, and comported herself, like a prostitute. She was wearing a tight gown of gaudy yellow silk, her hair was uncovered and her face painted. She was the very image of a harlot. As she gave Mabel a merry greeting and said how pleased she was to see her, asking where she had been since she had run away from Coleby, John felt his heart sink with shame.
Not wishing any passersby to see either him or his new wife in the company of a bawd, John had ushered them back into the manufactory and taken them into the room he used as his office, so that Mabel could give her half-sister some sort of response to her enquiry. Mabel had stammered out a reply to Aliz’s question, giving only a scant few details, saying simply that the reason she had fled all those years ago was to try to find her father, which she had accomplished, and he had kindly given her a home. She then told her half-sister that John was her husband, that they were newly married and she was now living in Lincoln.
After listening intently to the brief tale, Aliz had given a rueful laugh and said, “Well, you fared better than I, Mabel. If I had known the identity of my father when we were both young I might have done the same thing as you and gone to throw myself on his mercy.”
She then told Mabel that Gar, her mother’s lover, had died a couple of years after Mabel had left and that she and his eldest son, Dern, had come to Lincoln and opened up an alehouse. It was, she said, not far from where they were now standing, being in close proximity to the manufactory. As she spoke, a shiver of shame passed through John as he realised that the alehouse she had spoken of was one that he sometimes frequented. Although he knew there were prostitutes for hire on the premises, he gave thanks to God that he had never been tempted to avail himself of their services. If he had, it was quite possible that he would have lain with Aliz, which would have made him uncomfortably close to the sin of committing incest through bedding a close female relation of the woman he later made his wife.