Delorme’s house. “The second harlot was known to him from before he entered the Order. He had been friends with her paramour, a knight who lives in Newark, and had helped to persuade her lover to pay her handsomely to leave the town before he got married. When he called at her house, she recognised him as an old friend and had no suspicion that his intention was anything other than harmless.”
The Templar felt a tide of loathing flood him at the recounting of such flagrant evil. “And, knowing all this, your family still did not give him up to Captain Roget’s authority when we came to Ingham,” Bascot spat out. “How many more women did he have to kill before you would have done so?”
“There would have been no more!” Savaric responded heatedly, his sorrowful demeanour vanishing. “I came back to Marton after you left the manor house and stayed to keep guard over Jacques. We knew he could not last much longer; that it was only a matter of time before he became too weak to be a threat to anyone. He was starting to lose the feeling in his fingers and his toes had begun to waste. And, more than once, he had been taken with a wracking fever that I thought would be the end of him. We planned to take him to a shepherd’s hut at the edge of the pasture lands at Ingham that is isolated and not used anymore. I was going to send the pig man away on some errand and take Jacques there today. If you had not come to Marton this morning, I would have cared for him until the end and he would have spent whatever time was left to him with his family nearby…”
“He was a foul murderer and deserved no such consideration,” Bascot said brutally. “His death was too quick to serve justice; he should have swung at the end of a rope and had a taste of the terror he inflicted on the women he attacked. And the rest of you should suffer a like fate for enabling him to commit his vicious crimes.”
Bascot’s reply was deliberately pitiless. He had seen the body of poor Elfie and heard Roget’s description of Adele Delorme’s corpse. Had she not been fortunate, Terese would have died in a similarly cruel manner. And if that had happened, little Ducette, Elfie’s young daughter, would have been twice bereft, not only of her mother, but of the only other person in the world who cared for her.
Savaric made no reply and they sat in silence until Roget and half a dozen men-at-arms rode up the track towards them. Bascot explained to Roget as succinctly as he could what had happened and suggested that Jacques’ body be secured in the building where it lay and left there until someone from the lazar house in Pottergate could come and fetch it.
“The baseborn brother may be infected. He can ride his own horse back to Lincoln under escort by your men,” Bascot added. “Once you reach the castle he should be put in a cell on his own until a leech has examined him to see if he has contracted leprosy. Then the sheriff can do with him, and the rest of his cursed family, as he will.”
In a hard voice he added, “Tell your men that if Savaric tries to escape, they are to cut him down. He should not be shown any mercy, for he deserves none.”
Roget nodded and watched with concerned eyes as his friend went into the ramshackle building and emerged a few moments later with the body of Emilius cradled in his arms. Going over to the horse the draper had ridden on their journey to Marton, Bascot laid the dead Templar across the saddle, covered him with his cloak and tied him securely in place. Then Bascot mounted his own steed and, taking up the reins of Emilius’s horse, rode off down the track. Roget’s heart went out to his friend and the rest of the brothers in the Lincoln enclave. The draper had died at the hands of one of their own, a corrupt brother who had kept neither the vows he had sworn nor upheld their honour. Their grief would be inconsolable.
Twenty-eight
After Roget locked Savaric in a holding cell and went to relate to Gerard Camville what he had been told by Bascot, the captain was sent to Ingham to arrest Gilbert, Herve and Julia Roulan. Gilbert’s wife, Margaret, was left at the manor house to manage the supervision of the servants and to care for their grief-stricken mother. The two brothers and sister were locked in a separate holding cell from that of Savaric and, at Nicolaa’s suggestion, a request was sent to Brother Jehan, the elderly infirmarian at the Priory of All Saints, asking him if he would come to the castle gaol and examine the prisoners for signs of leprosy. Jehan was an extremely able herbalist who had, in his long lifetime, treated most of the ailments that plagued mankind. Both Nicolaa and Gerard trusted his judgement in the matter.
After spending some time with Savaric, and a brief visit with the other Roulan siblings, Jehan returned to the hall and said that, as far as he could tell, all four of them were free of the disease.
“With regard to the three legitimate members of the family,” the monk told them in his slow sonorous voice, “I am assured, both by them and the baseborn son, that they had no close contact with the leper. They did not even, at his request, embrace him, so it is unlikely they have been infected. With regard to the illegitimate son, however, I would ask you to bear in mind that I cannot be certain he has not contracted the disease. Although there is no rash with the distinctive scales that the word lepra implies, he had been exposed to the noxious breath and touch of a leper and may yet contract it. While many of the monks that attend the lazar house below Pottergate do not become infected with the disease, there is usually one or two who catch it in the fullness of time.”
For a moment Jehan’s gaze became unfocussed as he pondered on the affliction. Finally, he said, “I asked the baseborn son some questions about the leper who was slain by Sir Bascot and I would be very surprised if he contracted the disease in Outremer. I think it most likely he was already infected before he went to the Holy Land.”
At the looks of astonishment on the faces of Nicolaa and the sheriff, the infirmarian explained his reasoning. “I base that judgement on studies I have conducted among the monks who have served in the lazar house in Pottergate and eventually fall prey to the disease. The monks do not, of course, have carnal liaisons with the women there, but are in close contact with all of the lepers on a daily basis while they tend their needs. I have never seen any of the monks become infected before at least a year of service and, even then, the telltale rash develops slowly. From what I was told about the advanced state of the leprous brother’s symptoms, it would seem he may have been infected long before he lay with the heathen prostitute and probably some time before he left England.”
“Then he was already ill before he joined the Order,” Nicolaa exclaimed. “His judgement of the Templars was entirely misplaced.”
Jehan nodded. “I could be in error, of course. God has yet to reveal to mankind any certainty of the manner in which the infection is spread, or why some escape the disease and others do not. I also suspect that there are often cases which are deemed to be leprosy but are, in fact, a different ailment entirely, for I have noticed that the flesh of many marked by an unsightly rash does not waste with the passage of years.” He sighed with frustration at his inability to be of more help to those infected with the disease and finally added, “I do not think the dead man would have lived for very long, in any case. Many lepers’ lives are taken prematurely by a secondary infection that proves fatal in their weakened state, while others live to a great age even though they are terribly deformed. It sounds as though his volatile nature made him susceptible to minor ailments, any of which could have killed him.”
The monk stood up, his reflections done. “I fear that all I can assure you, at the moment, is that none of the prisoners appear to be suffering from the disease.”
Nicolaa thanked the infirmarian for his assistance and, after he left, she and Gerard decided that it would be best to keep Savaric in solitary confinement until they could be certain he carried no taint. In the meantime, there remained the question of what charges were to be brought against him and the other members of Jacques Roulan’s family.
“If what de Marins was told by the baseborn brother is true, then they did not truly give their aid to Jacques when he murdered the prostitutes,” Nicolaa said to her husband. “But by shielding him, they made the crimes possible, and should be brought to answer for that action.”
Camville’s eyes glinted with anger. “Do not fear, Wife. I will ensure they pay for their complicity,” he said. “Had they not harboured their murderous brother in the first instance, neither of the prostitutes would have been killed. Nor would a Templar knight have been slain. I will take great pleasure in bringing charges against them when I preside over the next sheriff’s court.”
By early afternoon, the whole castle had heard of what had passed and the news had spread down into the
