The Alehouse Murders (34 page)

Gianni raised his head, a smile beginning to form tremulously on his lips. With a quick movement, he had straightened and was running towards the castle kitchens, Bascot’s dirty clothing bundled under his arm. The Templar reached into the pouch at his belt and took out a
candi
. He felt light-headed—a transient, fleeting sense of freedom. It was not permanent, he knew, but he enjoyed it all the same. Perhaps God was giving him a direction after all. For the present, at least, he would remain in Lincoln.

H
AMO, THE TEMPLAR SERJEANT THAT D’ARDERON HAD sent on Bascot’s quest to discover the truth of dead Hugo’s identity, returned, as the preceptor had ordered, ten days after he had left. As expected, the young couple that had been slain were confirmed by the boy’s mother as Philip de Kyme’s illegitimate son and his wife. The distraught woman was herself prostrate with grief after receiving William Scothern’s letter telling of her son’s death only the day before Hamo’s arrival. She still planned to make a trip to the shrine of St. James in Compostella, this time to pray for her dead son’s soul instead of to give thanks for his good fortune.

Isobel Scothern was never brought to answer the charge of murder before the king’s justices. The morning after the tourney she was found dead in her cell, a cup on the floor beside her which the infirmarian from the Priory of All Saints declared to contain the dregs of a strong distillation of foxglove leaves, a deadly poison.

The elderly monk, called from his patients to examine the murderess’ body, had gently closed Isobel’s lids over her sightless amber-coloured eyes, murmuring as he did so, “By committing a mortal sin she has escaped her earthly judgement, but I fear her heavenly trial will be far more terrible. May God have mercy on her soul.”

A few days later, without ceremony, Isobel Scothern’s body, with the child she had carried dead in her womb, was buried in a patch of unhallowed ground at the edge of a stony field outside the walls of Lincoln.

The setting for
The Alehouse Murders
is an authentic one. Nicolaa de la Haye was hereditary castellan of Lincoln castle during this period and her husband, Gerard Camville, was sheriff. The personalities they have been given in the story have been formed by conclusions the author has drawn from events during the reigns of King Richard I and King John.

For details of the town of Lincoln, I am much indebted to J. W. F. Hill’s
Medieval Lincoln
and, for information about the Order of the Knights Templar, to John J. Robinson’s very definitive book,
Dungeon, Fire and Sword
.

MAUREEN ASH
was born in London, England, and has had a lifelong interest in British medieval history. Visits to castle ruins and old churches have provided the inspiration for her novels. She enjoys Celtic music, browsing in bookstores and Belgian chocolate. Maureen now lives on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada.