Murder for Christ's Mass (26 page)

Bascot nodded, but repeated his question to ensure they had given it enough thought. “You are quite certain you saw no one, not even someone you knew?”

Both men again shook their heads. “No, lord. But ’twas hardly surprising since anyone with any sense would have done the same as we did, sought out a place where it was warm and stayed there. You could smell there was snow in the air. ’Twas not a night for any ’cept homeless beggars to be out, lord.”

A rational statement, Bascot thought, but also one that dashed any hope of helpful information from the two men.

Thanking the men for taking time from their work to answer his questions, the Templar left the workshop and rode back along Masons Row. As he neared the small row of houses, Cerlo came out of his home. Mindful of his thought that the mason may have robbed Brand of his scrip, Bascot reined in his horse.

“I wanted to speak to you again, Cerlo. We now know for a certainty that Brand was killed on the day of the snowstorm, and must have arrived in the quarry just as dusk was falling. Are you quite certain you were not abroad in the pit at that time?”

Cerlo shook his head but, still holding his head in a cocked manner to compensate for his failing vision, moved his eyes slightly sideways as he mumbled an assurance he had remained in his house all day. It could be a sign he was lying, Bascot thought, or at least not telling a complete truth.

“Your answer seems evasive, Cerlo,” he said. “I want to know why.”

Cerlo looked down, his weathered face hidden from view as he said, “’Tis only that I should have gone down into the pit that evening, lord, and I didn’t. While I was acting for the quarry master, one of my duties was to ensure the covers on the equipment were secure at night. But, just as I was on my way out the door to check all was in order, my wife spilled a cauldron of hot pottage over herself, all down her arm and hand and even some on her foot. She was near to faintin’ and I had to help her, but by the time I’d got her seen to, it was dark and the snow had started to fall, so I left my task in the pit undone. That’s why I went out so early on the day of Christ’s Mass, lord. I was worried the sledges would be damaged and I would lose my post for dereliction.”

Even though Bascot remembered seeing a bandage on the hand and arm of Cerlo’s wife on the morning he had gone to their home, the mason’s words had a false ring to them, as though he was using the incident to cover an omission in his tale. The mason’s next statement, however, rang as true as one of the bells in the cathedral tower. It quickly disabused the Templar of the notion that Cerlo had robbed the dead clerk of his scrip. The mason lifted his head and, turning his dimmed eyes in the direction of the cliff top, said with heartfelt emotion, “If I had of gone out that night like I should of done, then perhaps I could have prevented that thievin’ bastard from murdering young Master Brand.”

Twenty-six

BASCOT’S MOOD AS HE RODE BACK DOWN MASONS Row was one of disappointment. His questioning of the stonecutters had not gained any information, and Cerlo’s passionate words made it seem unlikely the mason had robbed the clerk’s corpse. He felt frustrated. It was as though the elusive facts he sought had been buried with Brand and Fardein’s bodies underneath a screen of swirling snowflakes.

He slowed his horse, an even-tempered grey, as he approached the gate, trying to place the little he knew of the sequence of events on the night of December twenty-first in some sort of order. As he did so, a pile of refuse caught his attention. Comprised of pieces of broken stone, old shards of timber and leafless branches of dead trees, it was about thirty feet from the gate into the Minster and heaped against the high stone wall that encircled the cathedral ground. As Bascot looked at it, he could have sworn he saw one of the branches move. The quarryman’s remark about only homeless beggars being out on a night of such terrible weather as the one when Brand was murdered came into his mind and he guided the grey towards the pile. As he approached it, the horse tossed its head slightly and gave a soft whicker.

Bringing the grey to a halt, Bascot sat regarding the pile and, after a moment or two, thought he could see an eye watching from the depths of the debris. Dismounting, he walked towards the heap. He felt, rather than saw, the presence of something living within it. It was probably only an animal—a feral cat or even a rat—but he decided it was worth investigating and, as he drew close enough for his feet to almost touch the edge of the discarded material, he caught sight of a fringe of dirty blond hair above an eye that could only be human.

“Come out,” he called softly. “I mean you no harm.”

There was no response. He hunkered down so as to be on the same level as the person who was hiding, putting his weight on his right foot to take the strain from the old injury in his left ankle. Reaching into the scrip at his belt, he extracted a silver penny and held it up in plain view. “If you show yourself,” he said quietly, “you may have this.”

Slowly the screen of dead tree limbs parted and a head came into sight. It was a young girl, her hair a dirty blond mat above an equally filthy face. She looked to be no more than six or seven years of age, and her fear was palpable, only overcome by the lure of the shining coin Bascot held in his hand.

Reaching towards her, the Templar held out the penny. The child’s hand, the fingernails torn and ragged, darted out and snatched it from his grasp. Before she could retreat into her hiding place, Bascot took another coin from his purse. “You may have this penny as well if you will talk to me. I promise I will not hurt you.”

Slowly the child pushed her head and shoulders into view. She was pitifully thin and reminded the Templar of the time he had first seen Gianni. Like the boy, this little girl had sores on her face and her eyes were devoid of hope. Compassion flooded through Bascot. There were many such children in every town in England and, indeed, all over the world, but their desolation never failed to instil a deep pity in him.

“What is your name?” he asked.

“Whatcher want to know fer?” the child said, her eyes suspicious.

“So I may call you by it,” Bascot replied. “But if you do not want to tell me, it doesn’t matter.”

“Me name’s Mary,” the child said grudgingly, her eyes still on the penny the one-eyed knight was holding.

“Do you live here all on your own, Mary?” Bascot asked.

The girl’s eyes grew hard. “No, I doesn’t. My bruvver lives here, too. He’ll be back any minute. And he’s bigger than me, much bigger.” Her voice faltered as she took in the solid muscular build of the man in front of her and the sword that hung from his belt. No matter how much larger her brother, he would be no match for the strength of a grown man trained to arms. Bascot had thrown back his cloak as he crouched down and the child’s gaze slid to the Templar badge on his tunic. It seemed to reassure her a little, but not much.

Not wanting to alarm her further, Bascot edged back a space. “If your brother returns while I am here, there will be a penny for him, too,” he said. “I only want to speak to you, Mary, nothing else.”

The small face relaxed slightly, but her eyes remained wary. “Whatcher want to talk about?” she asked.

“I want to know if you and your brother sleep here at night.”

Mary gave a slight shrug of her shoulders. “Most times we do. We ain’t breakin’ no law when we does,” she added defiantly. “The guards only chase us away if we stays inside the wall, not outside.”

Regrettably, what she said was all too true. There was a fair number of beggars in Lincoln, just as in most towns, but unless they could find a sheltered spot within the city walls where they would be safe from discovery by the town guards, they were forced to go outside.

“I know you are permitted to stay here,” Bascot said. “That is not why I wish to speak to you. I want to ask if you, or your brother, were here on the night of the snowstorm, just a few days before Christ’s Mass.”

“What if we were?” Mary retorted.

“Then I would like to know if you saw anybody down there, on the track by the shed.” As he spoke the Templar gestured behind him, toward the path that veered off Masons Row. From this vantage point, the top of the cliff face above the quarry could just be seen, as could the shack that sat atop it.

“We might o’ done,” Mary said, her confidence growing and her eyes still fixed on the penny.

The Templar extracted another coin from his scrip. “I do not want any lies, Mary. If you do not tell me the truth, then the pennies will go back in my purse and not into your hand. If you did not see anybody, then say so, and the pennies will still be yours.”

The child gave him a measuring look and, after a few moments she nodded. “We did see some men,” she said slowly. “The first one came just before it got dark. I was by myself then, my bruvver didn’t come back ’til later, just after the second man come.”

“What did he look like, the first man?” Bascot asked, holding his breath as he waited for her reply.

“He were as tall as you,” Mary said, “and wore a brown cloak. It were a good one,” she added wistfully. “He weren’t riding a horse, nor was the man who came after. The first man walked down the track to the cliff top and just stood there, like he was waitin’ for someone.”

That must have been Peter Brand, Bascot surmised. “And the second man; was it light enough for you to see what he looked like?”

“Not much,” Mary said. “There were a little bit of moon, but all I could see was it gleamin’ on his shoulders. Looked like he didn’t have as fine a cloak as the first man what come.”

Roger Fardein, Bascot thought. Tasser had been correct in his assumption that his apprentice had been following the clerk. “And the second man, did he go and speak to the other man?”

Mary shook her head vehemently. “No. He hid, crept up behind the shack that’s down there when the other man wasn’t lookin’. That’s when my bruvver come. We stayed in here close and tight, in case one of them saw us, and watched.”

“Were both of them there a long time?” Bascot asked.

Mary nodded. “The wind came up and we couldn’t see right well, but we was scared to go to sleep for fear one of them might find us. The first man kept pacin’ up and down for a bit and then he walked towards the shack.”

“And what happened then?”

“I dunno,” Mary replied with a shrug of her thin shoulders. “We couldn’t see good enough. But they was both there for a little while before the other man came.”

This must have been the one who murdered the clerk, Bascot thought. At last he had found a witness.

“Did you get a look at the face of the other man as he came through the gate, Mary?” he asked.

“He didn’t come from the Minster, he come from down there,” Mary replied, having gained enough confidence to extract her hand from the pile of rubbish and point in the direction of Masons Row. Bascot saw that her arm, bare except for a torn fold of some ragged material, was as thin as one of the sticks of her makeshift nest. The skin was ingrained with dirt.

“Did you recognise him?” Bascot asked.

Mary looked at Bascot as though he were an idiot. “’Course not. It were too dark by then. He was carrying a horn lantern, but it was hooded and he held it down low so as to cast a glim where he trod.”

Suppressing a smile at her insolence, Bascot realised the other man must have been Cerlo. He had lied when he said he had not come to the quarry that night. Had it been he, after all, who killed Peter Brand?

“Did the man with the lantern speak to either of the first two men?” he asked.

“I don’t think so, ’cause we didn’t hear no voices. He just walked up to where the first man had been afore he went over to the shack, on top of that bit where the ground drops down, and stayed there for a bit. We could see the light from the lantern alongside o’ him and it never moved. Then he went back down the road.”

“And he didn’t come back again?”

Mary gave a negative shake of her head.

“And the first two men—did you see either of them again?”

“Only one of them. It was a little while after the man with the lantern had gone. He passed us as he went out through the gate. I don’t know which one it was ’cause it was too dark to see more than his shape. We never saw the other man again, even though we stayed awake for a long time in case he come by. Then my bruvver said he must have gone to sleep in the shack and so we didn’t watch no more.”

The man who had not reappeared must have been Peter Brand. Mary’s brother had been right about him sleeping, but it had been the long sleep of death, not the natural one of slumber.

“The man with the lantern—are you sure he didn’t walk over to the shack where the first two men went; or speak to one of them?”

Mary was positive in her denial. “No.”

“Did either you or your brother hear any sounds of an argument while the men were there? Voices raised in anger, or perhaps the noise of a fight?”