A Holy Vengeance (4 page)

It was past time for the evening meal before Roget had carried out both of the tasks entrusted to him and was on his way back to the castle ward. As he rode his horse slowly up Steep Hill, the sharp incline that led up from the lower town to the castle, he was in no better mood than when he had descended it earlier that day.

The setting sun still maintained its heat as he reflected on his commission of the duties that Lady Nicolaa had given him. First he had gone to Ferroner’s workshop to inform the victim’s husband and father of her death, a sad task that had struck pity in his heart.

Robert Ferroner’s armoury was a moderately sized establishment set close to the riverbank, with a large horizontal waterwheel mounted on wooden piers jutting out over the Witham River to provide power for the operation of the huge bellows that fired the forge. The wall in which the forge was set was constructed of stone, the other three of stout timber, and the side that faced the river had been fitted with two large shuttered casements which could be opened in warm weather to allow a passage of air to cool the men working inside. On entering, Roget saw six or seven men engaged in various tasks, one of them the armourer himself. The captain recognised Ferroner at once; they had met a few weeks before when Roget had needed to levy a fine on two of the armourer’s apprentices for being drunk and belligerent in a local alehouse.

Ferroner was a big bear of a man, bald headed and cheerful, and when Roget walked over to the anvil where he was working, the armourer greeted him heartily. “Ha, Captain, you are well come, unless it is to tell me that some of my men are in trouble again for making too merry with their ale?” This enquiry was accompanied by a rumble of mirth, and Roget felt a pang of guilt for the knowledge that he must soon destroy the armourer’s good-humour.

Not giving an immediate answer to Ferroner’s question, the captain looked around the huge premises in a desperate bid to stall for time while he thought how he could best convey his dire news. Two of the workshop employees were close in age to Ferroner and probably held master status; one engaged in riveting together a knight’s helm and the other overseeing a young man drawing red-hot strips of metal through an iron loop to make them tubular so they could be fashioned into links for mailed armour. The rest of the men were of all of younger age and engaged in minor tasks—one of them working a small hand-fired bellows set alongside the larger one, another polishing finished pieces with a mixture of sand, vinegar and urine, and the rest putting final touches on smaller and simpler items such as stirrups and spurs. All of their eyes had turned upon Roget when he entered the armoury, some covertly, others openly curious. The heat was intense, a combination of the powerful warmth of the blazing summer sun and the glowing fires of the forges making it almost unbearable. Most of the men were stripped bare to the waist, their only cover a leather apron as protection against burning sparks, and heavy leather gloves that extended up past their wrists to the elbow. The smell of molten metal was strong in the air, tinged with the pungent scent of human sweat.

“No, Master Ferroner,” Roget finally replied to the armourer’s query, “I have not come about any of your men’s unruly behaviour but on another, much sadder, duty.”

The armourer put down the mace on which he had been working, a finely crafted weapon of the type known as a “morning star,” which had a number of deadly spikes attached to a round metal ball, and looked at the captain with apprehension.

“What has passed?” he asked quietly, his beefy face apprehensive. “Has something happened to my daughter? She was away last night staying with a friend so they could go early to St. Dunstan’s shrine. There hasn’t been an accident, has there?”

Roget tried to think of a way he could soften the blow he was about to deliver, but knew there was none. “I am afraid your daughter is dead, Master Ferroner,” he said gently. “An unknown assailant attacked and killed her this morning while she was at the shrine.”

A howl of anguish broke from the armourer, and he fell back against a post on which shirts of chain mail were hanging, just as though he had been struck a heavy blow from the mace on which he had been working. “No, it cannot be!” he groaned. “Are you certain it is Emma and not some other maid who has been mistaken for her?”

“There is no doubt, I am afraid,” Roget replied sadly. “Her friend, Mistress Turner, was with her at the time of her death and has made certain identification.”

The armourer fell to his knees and began to sob, and one of the younger employees, a tall man with a shock of fair hair and finely chiselled features, ran forward and knelt beside him. “What is it, Robert? What has happened?”

“It is Emma—she is dead, Wiger, dead of murder.” Ferroner’s voice had sunk to a whisper, and the other man, his countenance shocked, looked up at Roget.

“I am Emma’s husband. Is this true?”

At Roget’s nod, Wiger got to his feet, his voice hoarse with stupefaction. “How did it happen?”

Briefly, and with as few words as possible, the captain conveyed the details that had been related to him. As he spoke the other employees crowded round, sympathy for their master and Wiger written large on each of their faces, as they shook their heads in disbelief that such a tragedy had taken place.

When Roget had finished telling them all that was known of what had befallen Emma Ferroner, he told both the armourer and her husband that Lady Nicolaa sent her condolences and also her assurance that she would make every effort to bring the murderer to justice. Then he asked both of them if they knew of anyone who had cause to wish Emma dead.

“There is no one,” Ferroner declared, getting slowly to his feet. “She was a good maid all of her life, like her dead mother before her.” He raised his huge hands and clenched them into fists. “It is I who am to blame. I should never have let her go to the shrine without protection, may God forgive me. And now she is dead, just like my wife.”

Sobs again began to rack his frame, and Wiger, his own eyes filled with tears, tried clumsily to comfort him, telling him that it was not his fault; he could not have foreseen that any harm would come to Emma on such an innocuous journey. A chorus of “ayes” came from the assembled men as they added the same assurances. But Ferroner did not listen, just stumbled from the workshop and out the door, begging to be left alone with his grief.

Roget had taken his leave shortly after, feeling it would be best to wait until a few hours had passed and the armourer’s sorrow, and that of young woman’s husband, had time to settle before making any attempt to question them further.

He had then ridden to the town’s gaol and drunk a quick cup of ale to bolster his courage before riding up the main thoroughfare of Mikelgate to the turning where Constance Turner’s house was situated.

The perfumer’s maid, Agnes, opened the door when he rapped on it. She was a little rabbit of a girl, with dolorous eyes and a timid expression. When she saw Roget, she burst into tears. “Oh, Captain, murder has once again touched this house. How can this be happening?”

Although he could see the little maid was distraught, today his concern was all for Constance, and he made no reply to the maid as he stepped across the threshold. “Fetch your mistress for me, will you, Agnes?” he said to her. “I will wait here while you do so.”

Moments later the perfumer appeared. The soft flesh around her lovely hazel eyes was puffy from weeping, and strands of hair peeped in a disorderly manner from beneath her snow-white coif. Usually neat and tidy, she had never before appeared to Roget in such disarray.

“You are sent by Lady Nicolaa?” she asked as she came to stand in front of him.

When he gave a grim nod, Constance spoke to Agnes, who was hovering behind them. “Bring wine for the captain and cordial for me. We will be in the chamber where I receive my clients.”

Leading Roget into a small room just off the vestibule which contained a tiny table, two chairs and a shelf on which stood a collection of vials filled with the perfumes and unguents she made, Constance motioned for him to take a seat. “I am pleased to see you again, Roget, though I would wish it were not for such a terrible reason. The castellan said she would have more questions for me. What are they?”

As he had walked to her house, Roget had tried to determine what manner to adopt when he interrogated the woman he admired so much. He would be gentle, he decided, but direct. He knew her to be a virtuous woman, and was certain she would never lie, so he told her exactly what Lady Nicolaa had said, and of her doubts about Constance’s testimony.

“She feels you are hiding something. Surely that is not true?”

The perfumer looked down at her hands, clutched together tightly in her lap, and then raised her head. “The castellan is a perceptive woman. Yes, I did omit something because I felt it was of no importance, but now I see that I was wrong to do so.”

Roget, astonished by her admission, said nothing, and she went on to explain her statement.

“The castellan asked me if I knew of anyone who had quarrelled with Emma and I told her I did not, but that was a falsehood. A few weeks ago I had an argument with Emma—a petty disagreement that left us estranged for a time—but we had lately become reconciled and were good friends again when we went to the shrine.”

Her soft hazel eyes begged his understanding as she added, “If I did not speak of it, it was only because I knew it had no bearing on her death, and not for any other purpose. But I should have realised that my omission, if discovered, could be misconstrued. It is always a sin to lie and I deserve whatever penance befalls me.”

A short time later Roget left Constance’s house. She had told him the cause of the argument between her and her friend and she understood that he would have to relate it to Lady Nicolaa. As he entered the castle ward, he mouthed an oath. He was accustomed to dealing with petty thieves, rowdy trouble-makers and belligerent drunkards; they formed the largest part of his responsibility to keep peace in the town, and he was comfortable meting out justice to such miscreants. But seeking out secret murderers had never been his forte, especially those that involved women, even though he had accompanied the Templar on two or three occasions during Bascot’s hunt for such villains.

As he walked up the steps of the fore-building and into the keep, he hoped the castellan would not treat Constance too harshly. He believed the perfumer had, as she claimed, no involvement in the murder of her friend, but try as he might, he could not summon up any hope that Lady Nicolaa would be of the same opinion.

Gianni sat at Nicolaa’s side in her private chamber as she listened to Roget’s report, writing the information down on his wax tablet so that it could be transferred to parchment later. He glanced often at his mistress as he wrote, noting the lines of incredulity that furrowed her forehead as she was told of Constance Turner’s lie. Gianni was concerned about his mistress, and had been for some months, ever since shortly after they had been summoned to Canterbury by King John in the early days of the previous December. Gianni had been included in the escort she had taken with her on the journey, his duty to act as her
secretarius
in place of the ageing John Blund, for whom the trip would have been too arduous. It had been while they had been in Canterbury that Gianni had noticed a change in her demeanour, and he was certain it had something to do with the king.

One of John’s servants had been brutally murdered just after they arrived, slain while she was preparing his bath. His mistress had been drawn into the search for the killer, just as had Gianni himself, but the murderer had not been discovered until the Templar, Bascot de Marins, had been summoned to assist in the hunt. But while the investigation was being carried out, there had been private meetings between Gianni’s mistress and King John from which she had emerged very angry, and other times when she had been secreted with the Templar which had left both looking grim. It had been just before they had returned to Lincoln that Lady Nicolaa had started to become withdrawn and, unusually for her, irritable. In the four years that Gianni had known her she had always been of a calm temperament, and composed even in the face of adversity. But now she was prone to short bursts of ill temper, usually prompted by unfounded suspicions of wrongdoing among her servants and the tenants on her vast demesne, which had alarmed all who served her. This was most unlike their fair-minded mistress, and Gianni was puzzled as to the cause.

Perhaps, he surmised, her malaise was due to the disastrous events that had taken place after King John had met with his council at Oxford earlier this year. Although his nobles had agreed to a hefty tax to send an army to prevent the encroachment of the French into the monarch’s lands across the Narrow Sea, barely two months had passed before Normandy had been lost. Then, a few weeks later, the king’s mother, Queen Eleanor, had died, causing much sorrow throughout the land. All of England had been plunged into mourning for both events. It would not be surprising if Lady Nicolaa, who, along with her husband, Gerard Camville, was a noble of high degree, felt the losses more keenly than most and it was this that was making her disgruntled. Gianni hoped she would soon be restored to her usual good spirits, for at the moment, Roget was feeling the brunt of her irascibility.

“And do you mean to tell me, Roget, that you believe this woman’s tale?” Nicolaa stormed at the captain. “How can you be so credulous?”

Not giving the captain time to answer, Nicolaa tapped her fingertips impatiently on the table in front of her. “She lied to me when she told me that she knew of no one with whom the dead woman had quarrelled, and now, when pressed, she admits that she herself had an argument with her slain friend. And the reason for this squabble, she claims, is that the armourer’s daughter wanted her to make some sort of potion, to which request Mistress Turner refused.”

Nicolaa paused and, despite Roget’s crestfallen expression, continued in a stern tone. “I am well aware that you have a tendresse for a pretty face and form, Roget, but by now you should know that a woman is just as capable of murder as a man, and can often be far more devious in her machinations. Mistress Turner is the only witness to the crime—we have only her word that her friend was slain by an unknown assailant, who was conveniently chased away by a pair of ravens before she herself could be harmed. She substantiates her possession of the murder weapon by claiming that the assailant dropped it—what murderer is likely to lose his blade so carelessly? Does it not strike you that all this could be a fabrication to cover up her own guilt, and that it was she who killed her friend?”

Miserably Roget nodded.

Nicolaa leaned back in her chair. “Tomorrow morning you will bring Mistress Turner in for further questioning, but this time I will interrogate her, not you. In the meantime, instruct Ernulf to send one of the castle men-at-arms to stand guard outside her house to ensure she does not flee Lincoln in the interim. That is all, Roget. You may leave now.”

As the captain left the room, Nicolaa sighed, and Gianni could see regret on her face for the harsh manner in which she had treated him. She rubbed her hand across her forehead. The margin of hair which showed beneath her coif, and which had once been red, now had more strands of grey in it than formerly. He wished he knew what was troubling her, and of a way to alleviate it.

* * *

The castellan dismissed Gianni a few moments later and he went out into the ward and across to the barracks which housed the castle garrison. As he had expected, Roget was inside, ensconced in a cubbyhole at the back which Ernulf used as his sleeping quarters.

The captain had a cup of wine in his hand and was drinking deeply. Ernulf, sitting across from him, had obviously been told by Roget of the castigation he had just received, for there was an expression of commiseration on his face. They both looked up when Gianni pulled back the leather curtain that served as a door, and nodded in greeting.

After he and the Templar had first arrived in Lincoln four years before, Gianni had often, over the ensuing years, come to this little room with Bascot and curled up unobtrusively in a corner as his former master sat in company with either Ernulf or Roget, or sometimes both together. On all of those occasions, Gianni had been just a young lad of insignificant stature and rank; but lately he had grown both in size and in position, so instead of sitting apart from the conversation, he pulled up a stool and sat down beside the captain, laying a hand on his arm in a gesture of consolation.

Roget tried to smile and failed. “Ah,
mon jeune ami
, you were a witness to my betrayal of the fair Constance. Because of me she will be arrested and found guilty, I know it. I am
un conchon
, a swine, who does not deserve her friendship.”

“Seems to me as how you had no choice but to tell Lady Nicolaa about Mistress Turner’s lie,” Ernulf reproached him. “You was only doing your duty.”

“Ah, but I should have told it differently, made it seem unimportant. Instead I have placed her in the way of great harm. I have betrayed her, Ernulf, and you know it.”

He shook his head, the old jagged scar down the side of his face puckered as he gritted his teeth in frustration. Neither Gianni nor Ernulf had ever seen him so dispirited.

“You’re certain Mistress Turner is innocent?” Ernulf asked him.

“Of course,” Roget replied emphatically. “She swore to me that the killing happened exactly as she described it, and that she did not have a hand in it. And I believe her.”

The serjeant glanced worriedly at Gianni and then took Roget’s cup from his hand and refilled it. “Then we must find a way, old comrade, to prove that she is innocent,” he said. “Gianni here knows the Templar’s ways in searching out a secret murderer, and we’ll follow them. Somewhere out there the bastard that did this is hiding, and when we find him, I promise you he’ll rue the day he was born.”

* * *

Nicolaa de la Haye, after dismissing Gianni, had gone to the privacy of her bedchamber, ordering a page to bring her a cup of cider. Once it came, she took the drink and, sitting by her bed, sipped it slowly as she reviewed her treatment of Roget. She had been too hard on him; he was a stalwart soldier and had served both her and her husband as captain of the town guard with utmost loyalty for some years. She should not have reprimanded him so severely.

Taking another sip of the cider, she admitted to herself that since her return from Canterbury she had been ill-humoured and, at times, unreasonable. She was also well aware that the change in her demeanour had caused more than a little dismay to all of those who served her. Wondering looks when she issued a sharp reproof where none was merited, surprised glances at her lack of patience and, worst of all, a dispiritedness of which she was the cause.

With a pang of regret she recalled her long-dead father’s words from many years before when he had been teaching her, as his heir, how to comport herself with the multitude of people that lived and worked on the demesne she would one day rule. “An unruly temper is a bane to all, Nicolaa,” he had said, “but especially to the one who possesses it. Such a lack of control is dangerous. It distorts the judgement and inspires umbrage.” How right he had been. She had always followed his dictates and they had guided her well. Now she was falling prey to the very action he had warned her against.

Damn John, she thought, remembering his recent betrayal of her trust, and damn herself for being so gullible. She had always supported the king, even when others hadn’t, most especially her husband, Gerard, who detested the monarch. She had truly believed John to be a finer man than he was given credit for, but now she saw that she had been in error. Either that or events had changed his nature drastically. At Canterbury he had inveigled her into sharing a dishonourable secret he had kept hidden, one that had left her feeling tainted after its revelation. She could not cleanse herself of the knowledge, but it was unforgivable that she should make others suffer for her own lapse in judgement.

She drained her cup and placed in on the table by her bed. Turning back the embroidered coverlet that was draped over a feather-filled mattress, she made a resolution. Tomorrow her servants would see the return of their old mistress, the woman that was noted for her equability and fairness. And she would start with Roget.