The Canterbury Murders (21 page)

Chapter Thirty-four

As Bascot approached, Marshal did not waste any time on words of greeting. “De Laxton has told me of your suspicions,” he said tersely. “Have you been able to validate them?”

“With regard to the suspect for the washerwoman’s murder, yes,” Bascot replied and related what he had been told by the two grooms and Aquarius.

“And the queen’s attendant?” Marshal asked.

“I am fairly certain she is responsible for the steward’s death and that the other companion, Yvette, may have witnessed something that will prove it. Marie should be taken into custody as soon as possible so that she does not harm the young girl to prevent her telling what she knows.”

Marshal turned to Gilles. “Go to the cathedral guesthouse and inform the king. Tell him that he should arrange for her arrest with all haste.”

The tall knight nodded and went to retrieve his horse from the groom who had taken it into the stables. Within a few minutes, he was riding out of the bail.

After he had done so, Marshal looked over to the far side of the compound where Chacal continued to oversee his men’s punishment, then flicked his gaze around the empty bail and up to the parapets, where two lone men-at-arms were pacing on sentry duty. “The garrison seems depleted of men,” he said to Criel.

“Some of them are without the ward on punishment duty,” the constable replied.

Marshal gave a grim smile. “Then we must be prepared for a battle.” There was an expectant gleam in the earl’s eye as the spoke, and it was evident that he relished the thought of conflict, despite his advanced years.

Loosening his sword in its scabbard, Marshal turned to Bascot. “You are the one that tracked the quarry, de Marins. To you must go the privilege of his capture. The rest of us will guard your back.”

At Bascot’s nod, the earl turned to Criel and rapped out an order. “Instruct your gateward to close and bar the gate.”

Criel called out an order and the huge double doors of the entrance were slammed shut and barred. The movement attracted the attention of the mercenary band and they paused in their circuit of the training ground, sweat pouring down their faces. Chacal, also alerted by the noise, whirled around, his hand dropping to the sword at his belt. Bascot removed his cloak, handed it to Miles and, sword in hand, walked towards the mercenary.

“You are under arrest, Chacal, on a charge of murder,” he said as he approached. “If you are wise, you will submit quietly.”

The mercenary made no attempt to deny the charge, merely shifted his stance so that his feet were slightly apart and his body turned to one side. “So, Templar, you have found me out,” he declared with an ironic chuckle. “But in answer to your excellent counsel, wisdom has never been amongst my strengths. I prefer to depend on my sword.”

As he spoke, he pulled his blade from its scabbard. His band, alarmed by the challenge to their leader, drew their short swords and closed up behind him, and the Templar could hear Marshal, Miles and Criel respond by readying their own weapons and moving forward. But Chacal forestalled the imminent clash by calling out for his men to hold.

“None of my band were involved in this matter,” he said to Bascot, “or privy to its commission. Will you give them pardon?”

Bascot surveyed the half-dozen men of the mercenary band. Despite their willingness to defend their captain, he could see confusion in their expressions. It appeared that Chacal was telling the truth.

“Order them to discard their weapons and submit to Criel’s restraint, and no charges will be laid against them,” he said quietly.

Chacal gave a nod and with a gesture of his hand, his men drew back to the shelter of the castle walls and lay their swords at their feet, leaving their captain and Bascot alone in the middle of the ward.

“I must warn you, Templar,” Chacal said, “that I do not intend to be taken. I would rather die than be left to the mercy of your dishonourable king.” He hawked and spat on the ground. “He is a cowardly
cochon
. I should have killed him when I had the chance.”

Bascot made no reply and the two men met in a clash of steel. Neither wore mail or helm, both clad only in thick leather jerkins and quilted arming caps. One stroke from the heavy blades would easily cut through the meager protection and into the flesh beneath. Bascot circled to keep his sighted side towards his adversary, cursing the drizzling fall of rain that was obscuring his vision. The hard beaten earth of the bail was treacherously slick, and both men placed their feet cautiously. Even so, it only took the Templar a moment to realise that although Chacal was quick, he was also reckless, and prone to press his advantage before the time was ripe. After they circled each other two or three times, the mercenary leapt forward in a precipitous attempt to strike Bascot’s sword arm and, after sidestepping the blow, the Templar retaliated by slicing his blade into the upper portion of Chacal’s thigh.

Blood immediately began to ooze, and the mercenary reeled for a moment before giving Bascot an approving glance. “First stroke to you, Templar, but it will be your last.”

Chacal was now more cautious in his approach and, favouring his wounded leg, circled to the left, on Bascot’s unsighted side. For some moments, each of them sought an opening in the other’s defence until, with a sudden lunge, the mercenary caught Bascot high on his left arm with the point of his sword. The blow sliced through the Templar’s tunic and into his bicep. With a quick counter-stroke, Bascot aimed his blade low, and another wound appeared on Chacal’s leg, just beneath the first injury, which was now bleeding profusely.

Around them, the bail was deathly silent, the only noise that of their swishing blades and the raucous overhead cry of a circling seagull that must have strayed inland from the coast. Marshal, Criel and de Laxton stood with watchful eyes, not only on the combatants but also on the mercenary band, whose attention was riveted to the conflict in front of them. Suddenly the rain ceased to fall and, as it did so, tiny flakes of snow began to drift lazily down, settling on the shoulders of the two men in the center of the compound and on the cloaks of the spectators.

Bascot began to abandon all hope of arresting Chacal without inflicting further injury. The mercenary had declared his intent not to be taken alive and it was obvious, by the determination in his flat pale eyes, that he meant this struggle to be his final one. Even if Bascot was himself overcome, Chacal would continue to defy any subsequent effort to arrest him, and face Marshal, Criel or Miles with the same determined resolution, until he forced one of them to deal the death blow. The Templar could not, with honesty, fault the mercenary’s logic. John would be merciless in his revenge; drawing, hanging and quartering would be the mercenary’s certain end if he was taken. But it was a punishment he deserved, and Bascot did not intend to allow his adversary to avoid it if he could find a way to forestall him. With a surge of anger, he renewed his attack.

Chacal stumbled back as Bascot’s blade came in low under his guard. Surprise flared in his eyes, but only for a moment, and he made a fierce retaliation. Their blades struck sparks as they met and locked, the two metal shafts slithering down each to the hilts until the pair stood breast to breast, straining against the other. Bascot could feel Chacal’s breath hot against his cheek as he murmured,
“Jusqu’à la dernière extrémité, religieux.”

And a bitter end it proved to be. Bascot twisted, and with a powerful thrust of his shoulder, threw Chacal backwards. The mercenary staggered on his injured leg and almost fell, desperately trying to raise his sword to defend himself. But it was to no avail. The Templar’s blade took him directly in the upper portion of his sword arm, cleaving through the muscle and slicing into the bone beneath. Blood spurted from the wound, and Chacal’s blade fell from his hand as he dropped to his knees, his arm hanging uselessly by his side.

“Grant me a quick death, Templar, I beg of you,” he said in a hoarse voice. “Deliver the
coup de grâce
and end this.”

“No, Chacal, I will not,” Bascot declared. “You have forfeited your right to such a courtesy.”

The mercenary gave a resigned nod. “So be it,” he replied.

Chapter Thirty-five

After Chacal had been incarcerated in a holding cell, Bascot went into the hall and Miles attended to the wound in his arm, binding it up with strips of linen. Although the mercenary’s sword had sliced open his flesh from shoulder to elbow, it had not, fortunately, penetrated too deeply.

As Miles completed the task, the king and Archbishop Walter walked into the hall, the Earl of Pembroke and Criel just behind. John strode up to the stool on which Bascot was seated.

“Congratulations, de Marins,” the king said to him as the Templar rose in deference to the monarch’s presence. “Once again you have tracked down a murderer. I am pleased to hear Chacal is under lock and key, but by the look of your arm, he did not come willingly.”

“No, he did not,” Bascot confirmed.

“And has he revealed the reason for his crimes?” John asked.

“No. Beyond an admission that he is guilty of murder,” the Templar replied, “he will say nothing. I questioned him after he was taken to a cell, but he would not reveal if he had an accomplice, nor tell why he conspired in the killing of your two servants. He is adamant in his refusal to give any information.”

“The bastard!” John exclaimed, but Bascot thought he saw a look of relief in his eyes, even as he denounced the man who had betrayed him. “I will question him myself and see if he is more forthcoming.”

“I think it would be best to wait until his wounds are attended to before doing so, sire. At the moment, he is near to unconsciousness from loss of blood and his senses are somewhat mazed.”

“I have sent for a barber-surgeon to treat his wounds,” Criel informed the king, and then added that the mercenaries of Chacal’s band had not been privy to their captain’s crimes and that he had sent for Godeschal de Socienne—who was taking a turn keeping watch at the royal townhouse with some of his men—to come to the bail and take charge of them.

As he finished speaking, Nicolaa de la Haye and Gianni, escorted by Gilles de Laubrec, came into the hall. Gianni, seeing the bandage on Bascot’s arm, started to run towards him, but Miles, who had moved to one side of the hall at John’s entrance, grasped the lad’s arm and assured him in quiet tones that the Templar’s injury was not serious. In the meantime, Nicolaa approached the king, who was still standing beside Bascot in front of the table on the dais, with the archbishop, William Marshal and Criel by his side. As the castellan began to come forward, there was a commotion at the door, and Isabella rushed into the room, flushed with agitation. Behind her came Yvette, white-faced and biting her lips, along with two men of the archbishop’s episcopal guard. The soldiers stood aside as Isabella, eyes ablaze with fury, sped across the hall to where her husband stood.

“How dare you order the arrest of my companion without asking my permission,” she shouted at John, and then flung a hand out towards the archbishop’s men-at-arms. “Even though I ordered them not to, these minions of yours have taken her to a cell and put her in chains. You presume too much, husband. I am your queen, and will not suffer myself, or my servants, to be treated in such a fashion.”

John’s eyes grew hard. “You have only yourself to blame, Isabella,” he said to his wife. “Until such a time as you have learned to comport yourself with the dignity of the rank to which I have raised you, I have no choice but to leave you outside my confidence.”

The king’s answer rendered Isabella speechless, but only for a moment. As the rest of the company tried to hide their embarrassment at the burgeoning royal argument, and the queen started to frame a sharp retort to her husband’s rebuke, Archbishop Walter made haste to intervene.

“It was not the king’s order that the guards were following, lady, but mine,” he said, his tone suitably contrite. “I suggested to his majesty that since the woman is suspected of a serious crime, it might be dangerous to your person if she was not taken without delay. I hasten to assure you that my concern was only for your well-being and that I meant no disrespect. If you find it so, please accept my apologies.”

Walter’s words, spoken in an attitude of deference, mollified Isabella a little, and she pursed her lips and gave a small nod in acceptance of his apology, before turning to John and addressing him again. “Then, husband, I demand to know now what I would have asked if I had been made privy to your intentions earlier. What is this crime of which you believe Marie is guilty?”

“Collaborating to commit the murders of my washerwoman and steward,” John replied shortly. “The mercenary captain, Chacal, has already admitted his culpability and there is evidence to show that Marie was his accomplice. That is why she has been incarcerated.”

Isabella quickly seized on the weakness in his statement. “Did Chacal name Marie as his confederate?”

When the king gave a reluctant shake of his head, the queen gave a smile of satisfaction. “I knew it; this is all supposition. You have no proof of her guilt.”

Again Archbishop Walter intervened. “We now have evidence that your companion was seen to be on friendly terms with the mercenary, lady, and speaking to him in
langue d’oc
, a fact she previously denied. That in itself gives cause for suspicion.”

Isabella waved the objection aside. “Marie always conversed with myself and Yvette in our dialect and would answer any remark put to her, by the mercenary or anyone else, in that language instinctively, not for sinister purposes. That is what must have happened and your witness was mistaken. When you asked her about it that day at the nunnery, it is only natural that she would have forgotten such a trifling incident.”

Bascot glanced at Yvette, who was standing just behind the queen, and again saw the same look of uncertainty on the young girl’s face as had been there on the day he and Nicolaa had gone to the nunnery. Now that she understood the seriousness of the matter, it was time to try and convince her to tell what she was concealing.

“The day that myself and Lady Nicolaa came with the king to St. Sepulchre’s,” he said to her, “you told us that you had never spoken to anyone other than your mistress and Marie in the language of your homeland, and I am sure that is true. But you were not asked if you had heard Marie converse with another person in that tongue, so I will now ask you that question. Did you, at any time, hear her speak to someone other than yourself and the queen in
langue d’oc
?”

Reluctantly the girl nodded, and Isabella whirled on her. “What is this, Yvette? Why did you not tell me?”

“I did not think it of any importance, lady,” Yvette said haltingly.

Ignoring the queen’s interruption, Bascot pressed the girl. “With whom was she conversing?”

Shamefaced, Yvette admitted it was Chacal. “But nothing they said was about the two murdered servants,” Yvette quickly added. “I asked Marie about it later and she told me she was asking the mercenary about the security arrangements for our mistress, and giving him an instruction that he was to ensure that his men, who were all very uncouth in appearance,” she interjected with a moue of distaste, “did not intrude on the queen’s privacy while we were staying in the townhouse.”

Murmuring a silent prayer of thanks that Marie had been arrested before Yvette could betray her knowledge, he asked the girl when she had heard their conversation and what they had said to each other.

Yvette’s youthful brow wrinkled in concentration. “It was in the early afternoon of the day the washerwoman was killed. Some of the parchment on which my music is written had become wet with seawater while we were crossing the Narrow Sea, and I asked the steward if there was a place where I could lay them out to dry. He told me to go to a little room just off the entryway—it was small and only used, I think, for storing the servants’ cloaks because there were mantles hanging on hooks around the walls—but it had a little table in the middle that he said I could use for my purpose. I had not shut the door firmly and it was just as I was spreading the parchment on the table to dry that I heard Marie speaking to someone in
langue d’oc
in the hallway.”

Bascot prompted her to repeat what she remembered of the conversation, and as Yvette went on, he noticed an uneasy glance pass between John and the archbishop as she began to relate what she had heard.

“They did not say much. The mercenary asked Marie if she had found a way to take care of the matter they had discussed and she said that she had. Then she said that she would leave it to him to resolve the rest of the problem.”

Yvette now directed her words to the king, explaining why she had not reported the conversation earlier. “As I said, my lord, I asked Marie about it later and she told me she was concerned that one of those loutish guards would trespass upon the queen’s, or mine and Marie’s, privacy under the guise of watching over our safety. They were always leering at the maidservants and passing ribald remarks, so I thought she was right to make it clear that their behaviour was not acceptable.”

As Yvette finished speaking, Bascot and Nicolaa exchanged a glance. The words Yvette had heard were ambiguous and could be taken in another way than the one Marie had ascribed. The pair could just as easily have been speaking about the arrangements for the murders—that Marie had managed to place the poison in the flavouring mixture and was confirming that Chacal would take the necessary steps to despatch the washerwoman. But there was one further point that needed to be clarified before they could assume this was so. To that end, the Templar asked the girl another question.

“Yvette, you told us that you had seen Marie coming out of one of the rooms in the townhouse and heard the steward, Inglis, reproaching her for having gone in there without his permission. Do you remember at what time of day this was and which chamber she entered?”

A frown of bemusement passed over the girl’s face, but after giving the question some moments’ thought, she answered readily enough. “It was before I went into the little room to try and repair the damage that had been done to my music—perhaps an hour before, I think, or maybe a little more. As to which chamber it was, I cannot be certain, but as the steward was speaking so roughly to Marie some men came with kegs of wine and Inglis walked away from her to show them into the room he had seen her coming from, so I think it must have been the buttery.”