The Canterbury Murders (19 page)

“It might be advantageous to question the girl away from the company of Isabella and Marie, but after John’s confrontation with the queen, I doubt we will be allowed to do so.”

“Leave it with me,” Nicolaa said after a moment’s thought. “I shall invent an excuse to visit the nunnery again—under the guise of a social visit, perhaps—and try to find an opportunity to speak to Yvette alone.”

Bascot nodded and said no more as they drew up close behind the king and his escort and they all passed through Ridingate. Once on the other side, and nearing the townhouse on Watling Street where Nicolaa and her entourage were staying, John gave a curt wave of dismissal and continued on his way back to the cathedral guesthouse, ignoring the few townspeople on the street that made an obeisance as he passed. But Marie’s attitude towards the king lingered on the periphery of Bascot’s thoughts and, as they came to a halt in front of the townhouse, he asked Nicolaa if she knew anything about her background.

“Very little, I am afraid,” she replied. “John only mentioned her in passing, saying she had recently been appointed to her post, and that is all. Why do you ask?”

“I do not believe she has much love for the king,” he replied, and told her of the look of repugnance he had seen on Marie’s face.

“It could have been fostered by John’s chastisement of the queen,” Nicolaa suggested. “It is obvious that both of the women have a great affection for Isabella.”

“Perhaps so,” Bascot agreed, but the incident still bothered him and he did not dismiss it from his mind.

Chapter Thirty

The warmth inside the townhouse was welcoming, as was the mulled wine awaiting Nicolaa and the knights in the hall. As the others went to partake of the refreshment, Bascot followed Gianni up the stairs to the lad’s chamber where, the lad announced by a series of hand gestures, it was his intention to write up a record of the interviews that had taken place at St. Sepulchre’s while the conversations were still fresh in his mind. The Templar, extremely disappointed by their failure to establish the truth or falsity of Aquarius’ statement at the nunnery, and with a sense of urgency, wanted to go through all the notes pertaining to the investigation again. Nicolaa de la Haye was under some kind of threat until this mystery was solved and, in addition, the three Norman servants that were in prison would remain there, daily suffering the threat of imminent torture until their guilt or innocence was proven.

He followed Gianni up to the chamber the youngster had been allotted, a high-ceilinged small room containing only a narrow bed, a table for use as a desk and two three-legged stools. On one side was a small brazier that had been left alight to take the chill from the room. Above it, on the outer wall, was a small casement fitted with shutters, one of which had been left slightly ajar to allow the draught to dispel the fumes of the burning charcoal. The Templar paused at the door and stood watching Gianni set about his task. Lighting a candle, he placed it on the desk; laid out two or three pages of ruled parchment, some sharpened reed pens and a small pot containing ink; and then sat down to work. His movements were smooth and practiced; the competence of his actions made Bascot realise how far the lad had progressed in the short few years since they had arrived in Lincoln. A vivid picture came to his mind of the early days after their arrival at the castle, when Gianni had sat on the floor of the chamber they had shared in the older of the two keeps within the ward, struggling to copy out a few phrases the Templar had written on scraps of well-worn vellum. The boy had not been much more than skin and bone at the time, but tenacity had been strong within him and he had learned his lessons well, so much so that he had achieved his aim of becoming a clerk, and one in the employ of no less a personage than Lady Nicolaa de la Haye, the hereditary castellan of Lincoln castle. A surge of affection swelled in Bascot’s heart; although he would never have a son of his own loins, he did not feel the loss. Gianni more than filled the gap.

As the lad moved his pen across the page in confident strokes, Bascot sat down on the other stool and took up the pile of notes that contained transcripts of previous interviews. They included the one Gianni had prepared the night before when, at Nicolaa’s direction, the Templar had given him the details of his conversation with the cook, Alfred and Aquarius. Starting at the beginning, with the interviews that had been conducted the day after the murder, he carefully began to read, but soon found his concentration flagging, distracted by his inability to discover a motive for the crimes. Had both victims been killed because they had inadvertently foiled attempts on the king’s life, or were their deaths due to a personal enmity? None of the evidence seemed to confirm either premise with any surety. And even if one of these possibilities was correct, he had still not been able to establish whether he should be looking for an intruder or instead, as Chacal kept insisting, be searching amongst the household staff. Until he knew which direction to take, it was impossible to discern which trail to follow.

Laying the transcripts aside, he leaned his shoulder against the wall and mentally recited a paternoster, hoping the familiar regime would bring some order to his mind. As he did so, Gianni glanced up at him and, noticing the furrows of vexation on his former master’s face, leant forward and touched him gently on the arm. When the Templar looked towards him, the lad moved his hands to mime drinking from a cup, asking if he should bring some wine.

Gratefully, Bascot nodded and, as Gianni hurried out of the room, walked over to the casement. Releasing the hook on the shutters, he threw them wide open. A blast of cold air entered the room, but he welcomed the shock to his senses, hoping it would clarify his thoughts. Resting his elbows on the bottom ledge of the casement, he looked out over the town. From his vantage point on the upper storey of the townhouse, he could see overtop the houses on the other side of Watling Street. Directly in his line of vision, and just outside the city walls to the northeast, stood the abbey of St. Augustine and, a little farther north, the spires of the cathedral. Snow was encrusted on all the roof tiles and piled slantwise against chimneys. Overhead the sky had a smoke-like darkness, a dull and misty grey that promised further snow was on the way.

Canterbury was the most hallowed city in England, he thought, and yet, despite the city’s reputation for sanctity, secret murder still crept within its walls, casting deceit and treachery over all. Bascot felt drained of energy; if God intended him to discover the identity of the miscreant, he must summon up the vigor to continue the pursuit. Murmuring a prayer for guidance, he took a deep breath of the frosty air, and, pulling the shutters back to their original position, returned to his task.

Chapter Thirty-one

When John had returned to the cathedral precincts after the appalling confrontation with his wife, he had dismissed his guards with an impatient growl and gone to the guesthouse, imperiously waving aside the hosteler hovering outside the door. Once alone in the luxurious chambers, he had poured himself a cup of wine and begun to pace. First Nicolaa’s cold disapproval and now Isabella’s defiance; it was not to be borne, and anger churned in his gut at their impudence. All about him was perfidy, he thought, his peregrinations up and down the chamber setting the candles flickering wildly in the wake of his furious passage. And it had been that way ever since a time he was young enough to remember. His mother instigating defiance of his father amongstst her children, his brothers vying with each other as they struggled to gain more than their fair share of apportionment; even his sisters had entered the fray, siding first with one sibling and then another as the whim took them. And even though, of his original family, most were now dead—only his mother and one of his sisters, Eleanor, married to the king of Castile, were still living—the duplicity remained, swirling about him in a miasmic cloud.

Slowly he stopped pacing and, willing himself to calmness, seated himself on a comfortable chair at the head of the table. These morbid reflections were not serving any useful purpose; if he was to negotiate his way through this latest morass of betrayal he must maintain a clear head. His prime objective was to raise an army and drive Philip out of Normandy, and to do that he must have the support of his English nobles and their agreement to give him the necessary funds to pay for the additional mercenaries he would need. But in order to maintain the confidence of his liegemen, Arthur’s whereabouts and condition must remain hidden, at least until Normandy was secure. After that, it would matter little whether the truth came out. Once he was victorious, no one would dare gainsay John’s account of what had happened to his nephew, and would be forced to accept the lie he had told the archbishop, that one of his hounds had attacked Arthur and caused his injuries.

But until the council at Oxford had taken place, the secret must remain secure. As far as he could judge, Nicolaa had kept faith with her promise, even if she had done so reluctantly, and John was fairly certain she had not revealed it to the Templar. It would suit him admirably if de Marins proved these murders had been committed at the instigation of Hugh of Lusignan. The discovery might even be a spur to gaining the support of his nobles. Not many would welcome the thought that one of King Philip’s minions had infiltrated England and attempted to slay their king. Yes, John thought, his composure rapidly returning, the wisest course was to wait—and be ready to take preventative measures if, and when, they were warranted.

***

After Gianni had collected the wine and returned to his chamber, he found Bascot rereading the records of the interviews. When the lad handed him a cup filled to the brim, the Templar took it gratefully and swallowed a deep draught.

“There is nothing in these statements that leads to the identity of the killer,” he said, his tone heavy. “At the time of the washerwoman’s death, all of the servants were overlooked by another, and as for the steward, there was ample opportunity for any of the people in the townhouse to place the poison in the buttery without being seen. And there is no evidence to support the supposition that both of these acts were committed by an intruder. Whoever this villain is, he has covered his tracks well.”

He looked at Gianni, his expression full of chagrin. “And because he remains undetected, and there seems to be no hope of verifying Aquarius’ statement, the king may, at any time, order the torture of the prisoners in the castle gaol. Three men, Gianni, all of whom will most likely admit to any crime if enough pain is inflicted on them, whether they are guilty or not.”

The Templar looked towards the window and the charcoal glowing in the brazier. The burning embers reminded him of when he had been held captive by the Saracens in Outremer and his eye had been put out by the red-hot tip of an iron bar. He could still recall his fear as the metal had been heated in a fire much larger and fiercer than the one burning in the brazier, how every muscle in his body had stiffened in apprehension as he had watched it being prepared, and the moment of excruciating agony when the burning metal had been thrust into his eye. Anger flooded through him at the thought the prisoners might be put to a similar test, and perhaps unjustly.

Gianni recognised the expression on his former master’s face. He knew the Templar’s ways, and how his conscience plagued him if he could not save an innocent person from wrongful persecution. It was the same sentiment that made him so successful in apprehending a murderer; he engaged with the villain just as though he were on the battlefield, plying his mind on behalf of the victim just as he would wield his sword against an enemy of Christ, thrusting and probing until he found a weakness that would lead him to victory.

Picking up the notes that lay on the table, Gianni found the record of what Bascot had told him of his recent interrogation of Aquarius and scanned it once again, hoping desperately that he would discover something that had been missed. His whole concentration on the task, he read the words slowly and carefully, his head bowed.

For some moments, the pair remained immobile, the Templar staring at the brazier and Gianni reading. Only the muffled yelp of a dog in the street below broke the silence until finally the lad looked up with a glimmer of hope in his eyes, and proffered the paper for Bascot’s inspection.

The Templar looked down at the parchment and saw it was the transcript the lad had made the night before, the one that included the outline of the few words Aquarius claimed to have overheard the washerwoman say to Inglis in the churchyard. Mystified, the Templar read aloud the portion to which Gianni was pointing. “‘She was asking Inglis why someone would use
oc
instead of
oïl
if they were not from the region where that dialect is spoken.’” Bascot shook his head. “I do not understand. Efforts have already been made to substantiate this piece of evidence and failed. Why do you refer to it again?”

Gianni embarked on a flurry of hand gestures, first pointing to the “someone” in the statement and then to himself and Bascot as though they were in conversation. Then he shook his head, and pointing away, he cupped his hand about his ear as though he were listening. It took the Templar only a moment to realise what the lad was trying to impart.

“Of course—Aquarius did not hear all that the washerwoman said to Inglis,” Bascot said, “only that she had been telling him of someone who
used
, rather than
said
,
oc
instead of
oïl
, and he could have been mistaken in believing that the word was spoken to her directly. It may not have been. She could just as easily have been referring to overhearing two people conversing with each other, and speaking in the dialect which she called simply ‘
oc.
’ And if that is so, then her suspicion of only one of them would imply that she expected the other person to be conversant in it.”

Revitalised, the Templar rose from his seat and took a few slow steps to the casement and back, speaking his thoughts aloud. “There are only three people in the royal household whose native tongue is
langue d’oc
—the queen, Yvette and Marie. I think we can dismiss Isabella from suspicion—her effrontery when she accused the king of losing confidence in her seemed genuine to me. As for Yvette—she is far too naïve for involvement in the complicated machinations these murders required. Her guileless face would betray her in an instant. That leaves only Marie, a much more likely prospect, and one about whom I already had reservations.”

Bascot continued to pace. All along they had been searching for one murderer, but Gianni’s interpretation of the washerwoman’s words made him consider, for the first time, that there were two assassins working in concert, and that Marie was one of them. If that was so, the other must be the one the washerwoman had overheard in conversation with Marie and had, by having fluency in a language that he or she should not have been familiar with, aroused her suspicions. It also implied that Molly and Inglis had been the intended victims all along, slain because of the knowledge Molly had accidentally discovered, and then related to the steward.

His thoughts raced, tumbling over one another, but this time with lucidity. He cast his mind back to what was known about Marie and why such a seemingly innocuous secret as hiding the country a person hailed from would be deemed dangerous if it was revealed. It could only be because the guise was concealing some nefarious purpose, and the usual reason for such a ruse was espionage. And because Marie had knowledge of it, it would imply that not only was her companion pretending to be someone they were not, but that she was also. Nicolaa de la Haye had said Marie had only been in Rouen for a few months before being taken into Isabella’s service. Were she and her cohort spies in the employ of the French? Had she come to the castle with the express purpose of gleaning all she could about John’s strategies for the defence of Normandy and relaying it back to her paymaster? Given the state of the king’s affairs across the Narrow Sea, it seemed a logical assumption to make, even if there was not yet any proof of its veracity.

Satisfied that this premise was a viable one, the Templar turned to consideration of who might be her accomplice. She had arrived in Canterbury just a couple of days before the washerwoman was murdered, so her confederate must have been known to her before she came to England, for there had not been enough time to forge such an alliance during her short time in the country. Was this person another agent who had accompanied her to Rouen when she first went there, or someone she had hired in Normandy after she learned of John’s plan to leave for England? It had to be someone claiming to be from a country far from the south of France—most likely England or Normandy—to keep secret his true origins, for this was the falsehood that the washerwoman had recognised.

Mentally he ran over the list of suspects they had considered so far—the wine merchant de Ponte, the manservant Alfred and Aquarius, the bath attendant. The first two could have travelled to the continent—the vintner on trips to buy wine, and the manservant accompanying his master, the draper, on visits to cloth fairs—and met Marie by chance, or design, when they did so. Was it possible that, on such an occasion, she had engaged one of them to help her in her undertaking? The Templar pondered both men for a moment, and then dismissed them. Both were truly English and if Molly had heard either of them speaking in
langue d’oc
, she would have merely assumed they had become conversant in the dialect during their travels. It was highly unlikely she would have accused either of misrepresenting their birthplace, much less related her fear to Inglis.

Aquarius was a different matter altogether—and there had been something about his story that had not rung true. He had been in Rouen castle when Marie went there, and although he claimed to be a Norman, he could, in truth, hail from the south of France. He had been in the right place (Rouen castle) and at the right time (when she had arrived there earlier in the year) for him to be either the person she had been told to contact and take orders from, or to have been enlisted by her to join in the enterprise. But if that was so, why had he given information that might reveal his involvement?

Mentally he reviewed the notes he had read as he paced back and forth across the room, every word of the transcripts now familiar from his constant examinations of them. Juggling and sorting each statement, he recalled each of the people in the townhouse and their whereabouts at the time of Molly’s death, searching for any other that might be culpable. Suddenly a name came to him and he slowed his steps. There was only one other person, a man that had so far never been regarded as a suspect but fit the criteria of a candidate for Marie’s accomplice just as snugly as Aquarius, and without any attendant objection. As he reflected on it further, a smile crossed his face. Although he had no proof, he was certain he had discovered the identity of the other murderer.

Turning to Gianni, he gripped the lad’s shoulder in commendation. “Well done. Your insight has led to the solving of this riddle. Come, let us go downstairs and tell Lady Nicolaa.”