Shroud of Dishonour (5 page)

Roget did not let him finish. “Elfreda is dead, Verlain. Murdered.” The stewe-keeper’s jaw dropped. “I want to know the names of all her customers,” Roget went on. “And to speak to the rest of your harlots; see if they can tell me anything about her movements on the night she was killed.”

Verlain almost fell over himself complying with Roget’s order. He quickly reeled off the names of a few men who had been Elfreda’s regular patrons although, he added, there were some whose identities he did not know, customers who came only infrequently.

Roget glanced at Bascot as the stewe-keeper came to a halt. One more question about Elfreda’s customers needed to be asked, but the captain was reluctant to do it. The Templar gave him a nod and spoke to Verlain directly.

“Among those customers you did not know, did any of them seem likely to be a Templar brother or one of the laymen from the Lincoln preceptory?”

His question took Verlain aback, and he stuttered to find the words to reply. “I am not sure… . I do not know….”

“The truth, Verlain,” Roget interjected, the scar of the old sword slash that ran down the side of his face whitening as he gritted his teeth in impatience. “If you lie, I will tear your panderer’s heart out and feed it to the dogs in the street.”

Verlain’s furred tongue flicked out and worked nervously over his lips as he viewed the angry visage of the former mercenary glaring down at him. “I am not familiar with the faces of the men who live in the enclave, Captain, and so cannot swear to the truth of my answer, but as God is my witness, I do not believe so.”

Roget nodded, satisfied that the stewe-holder was, out of fear, telling the truth. Relieved that no violence to his person was forthcoming, Verlain scurried away to rouse the harlots who were, at this early hour, taking a hard-earned rest in the tiny cubicles on the floor above.

There were eight bawds altogether, most of them past the bloom of youth, but one or two still had a freshness in their complexion, even if their eyes had already acquired the hardness common to those who plied their trade. Most wore only a flimsy wrapper to conceal their nakedness, but a couple had cheap cloaks thrown over their shoulders. When told of Elfreda’s death, the younger ones began to weep, but the older bawds responded only by a tightening of their lips and one of them muttered a foul expletive beneath her breath.

All of them readily answered the questions the captain put to them. None had been aware that Elfie had not been in her bed on the night of her absence, or of any reason she may have left the stewe, except for one, an older prostitute named Sarah.

“She snuck out of the house a couple of days ago,” the bawd said. “It was early in the morning, just after my last customer—a greedy bastard who made sure he got his money’s worth—had gone. I heard her and asked where she was going….”

“Why did you not tell me?” Verlain interrupted. “You know I have been asking if anyone has seen her.”

The bawd looked at him with distaste. “Why should I? All you’re interested in is the money you’re losing by her not being here, not if anything untoward has happened to her.”

Roget quelled any further protest Verlain might have made with a glance and asked the bawd where Elfreda said she was bound.

“She wouldn’t tell me,” Sarah said. “Just said she was going to earn a plentiful measure of silver to put by for her little daughter. I thought mebbe she’d hooked herself a rich customer, one who’d pay good money for a session away from this place.” The bawd’s shoulders drooped in a disconsolate fashion. “I wished her well. If I’d guessed for one minute she was goin’ to her death I would have stopped her.”

Roget asked to see the belongings that Elfreda had kept in the stewe. At a nod from Verlain, one of the bawds went upstairs to the cubicle the dead girl had used and returned a few moments later with a bag made of rough, cheap, material. The contents were pitifully few—a change of kirtle and a worn pair of hose, a comb of bone with a few teeth missing, a much-knotted length of bright yellow ribbon faded by time and two wedge-shaped fourthings of silver, penny coins that had been broken in half and then broken again. At the bottom was one of the dyed horsehair wigs the women wore when they were abroad in the town. The only thing of value was the fourthings which were, no doubt, tips from satisfied customers.

The paucity of the dead bawd’s material wealth brought tears to the eyes of all the prostitutes. Roget carefully replaced the possessions back inside the tawdry bag and told the stewe-keeper he would see that they were kept for Elfreda’s daughter, and then asked Verlain where the child could be found.

“There’s an old woman who lives nearby that takes care of prostitutes’ children for a few pennies a week,” Verlain said. “Her name is Terese and she lives here in Butwerk, two streets over from the Werkdyke.”

As the captain and the Templar left the brothel to go and speak to the childminder, Bascot said to Roget, “It would appear it was the enticement of money that persuaded the harlot to accompany her murderer to the preceptory. Do you know any of the customers Verlain mentioned?”

“All of them,” Roget replied. “But none seem likely to have had a part in this devil’s scheme. They’re all citizens of the town—a couple of older men with wives past their prime and the others regular tradesmen who visit a stewe when they have an itch in their loins. It might have been one of the others Verlain mentioned, the customers whose names he did not know.”

“And it may just as easily have been someone she knew, or met, outside the brothel,” Bascot opined.

The captain nodded glumly. “Perhaps this woman, Terese, will know his name.”

W
HEN
G
ERARD CAMVILLE RETURNED TO
L
INCOLN CASTLE, HE went to the chamber where his wife, Nicolaa, attended to the many details involved in managing the vast demesne she had inherited from her father. Although nominal lord over her estates, Gerard was a restless man, his temperament more suited to the excitement of the hunt than the mundane administration of the fief, and he left all such matters in her hands. Nicolaa had also inherited the constableship of the castle and, while the country was at peace, supervised the fortress’s household. It was she, rather than her husband, who was referred to as the castellan by the local populace. Only in matters concerning the shrievalty did Camville take an interest. It was a lucrative post, and he guarded his rights jealously.

When Gerard entered her chamber, Nicolaa was engaged in a scrutiny of the fees collected from one of the Haye estates with her
secretarius
, John Blund. The castellan was a short, slightly plump woman of mature years, her figure encased in a serviceable dark blue kirtle and white coif. She looked up in surprise when her husband entered the room. It was rare for him to interrupt her when she was at work and she felt a brief frisson of alarm.

“I have just come from the Templar preceptory, Wife,” Camville said brusquely. “There has been murder done in their chapel; the victim was a harlot from one of the stewes in town.”

Both Nicolaa and Blund, an elderly clerk who had served his mistress for many years, listened in horrified silence as Gerard related the circumstances of the murder. When he had finished, Nicolaa rose and poured her husband a cup of wine from a jug sitting on a small table.

“This is a serious business, Gerard,” she said to her husband, “and a crime that will be difficult to solve.” She waited until he had taken a good mouthful of his wine, contemplating what she had been told. Then she said, “Have you considered that someone in the preceptory may be responsible?”

The sheriff shook his head. “Why would I? This is an attack on the honour of the enclave. It does not make sense that someone belonging to the Order would commit the crime.”

Nicolaa sat back down and paused before she continued, judging her next words with care, not wishing to set her impatient husband chasing after a false quarry. “As we have sorry cause to know, Gerard, it is often those that seem to be friends who are the enemy.”

For a moment Camville glared at his wife, and then he nodded, recognising the truth of her words. It had not been so long ago that a member of their household had been guilty of secret murder and had, for a long time, screened his evil nature behind a mask of genial bonhomie. The lives of both Nicolaa and their son, Richard, had been placed in jeopardy before Bascot de Marins had finally tracked down the culprit.

Seeing her husband’s agreement, Nicolaa leaned back in her chair and extrapolated on the thought that had come to her. “A life of chastity is not easy for some men, even though they have given their sacred word to be continent. Supposing, as you suspect, one of the Templar brothers is guilty of consorting with prostitutes, and while his transgression is not known to the preceptor, there is one other in the preceptory that is aware of it. Would not most men find it difficult to battle with their own sexual frustration while watching another break his vow with impunity?”

“The solution would be to report the erring brother to d’Arderon or Draper Emilius.”

“But what if it is one of the lay brothers, or a lay servant?” Nicolaa persisted. “The former have sworn, as do lay brothers in other monastic institutions, to devote their life to Christ, but they are not fully fledged monks of the Templar brotherhood. They give the gift of their labour so that the Templar brothers can devote their energies to the ongoing battle against Christ’s enemies. To witness the transgression of a monk betraying his vow of chastity would not be easy to swallow and yet, because of their lower station, any protest they made might be disregarded; and if there was no proof of the charge, might even earn punishment for the sin of bearing false witness.”

She paused for a moment, and then continued, “And if one of the lay servants is privy to such a secret and could not corroborate his claim, he would have even more to lose, for his livelihood would be at risk. Even though the lay servants have not taken a vow of chastity, they are expected to comport themselves with circumspection, and so must eschew the pleasure of a woman’s company. The knowledge that one of the brothers was enjoying what was denied to them could easily cause a rancorous burn in the gut.”

Camville took a few moments to carefully consider his wife’s words and found they had merit. John Blund, the secretary, had kept silent during the exchange, but it was obvious from the look on his face and the slight nodding of his head while Nicolaa had been speaking that he found her premise worthy of consideration.

“I hope you are wrong,” Camville finally said. “My writ has no authority over any member of the clergy and even less within the Templar Order.”

His statement brought to their minds the struggle that the late King Henry II had waged with Thomas a Beckett, when the king and the archbishop had come into violent disagreement over the church’s autonomy in matters relating to crimes committed by those in clerical orders. Even though Beckett was now dead, murdered by a few of Henry’s loyal, but rash, knights, the issue had not been resolved. Gerard faced a similar problem to the one that had plagued the late king; if the murderer belonged to the Templar Order, he could not lay a charge against the killer. Only the pope, or a Master Templar, could take action against the guilty party.

“I think d’Arderon will cooperate to the fullest extent he is allowed,” Gerard said slowly. “But if the murderer is a man under his command, he has no choice but to obey the dictates of the Order.”

“Then we must hope that my postulation is an erroneous one,” Nicolaa said.

“Just so, Wife,” Camville replied with a concerned look on his face.

T
HE DWELLING WHERE
T
ERESE, THE OLDER WOMAN WHO LOOKED after the children of prostitutes, lived was in a row of houses even more shabby that the ones in Whore’s Alley. The stench from the Werkdyke was almost overpowering; the ditch contained all of the refuse collected from the streets of the town and, in the increasing heat brought by the spring sunshine, had begun to renew decomposition. The house they were seeking had only two floors, but the doorsill had been swept and the iron knocker rubbed free of rust. Terese had once been a prostitute herself, Verlain told them, and now that she was too old to entice customers to her bed, earned the few pennies she needed to live by caring for children that younger and more attractive harlots had the misfortune to accidentally produce.