“Aye,” Askil replied. “Dunny came haring back to the ship in the early hours of the morning. Said Robert had gone into a brothel and got into a fight with another Englishman.”
“And this Dunny, did he come back to Grimsby with you and, if so, is he still here?”
Askil nodded, then turned around and gave a piercing whistle in the direction of the men who were mending nets a little farther along the shore. When he had their attention, the steersman made a motion for one of them to come forward and, reluctantly, the man did so.
Some years younger than Askil, who looked to be in his mid-thirties, Dunny was lean of build, with straggly hair hanging in greasy clumps on his shoulders and a face scarred by old craters of childhood pustules. Sparse hair grew on his chin and he rubbed at it nervously as he joined the group, avoiding eye contact with anyone but Askil.
“This is Sir Bascot and Captain Roget, Dunny,” the steersman told him. “They have come to ask about the death of Captain Scallion. Repeat what you know about the fight in Acre that took his life.”
Dunny shuffled his feet for a moment and Sven Grimson, his voice tinged with impatience, said, “Speak up, man. Just tell what you saw.”
Faced with a direct command from Grimson, the young sailor began his tale, stumbling over his words at first, then growing more confident as he went on. “The cap’n took me with him that night, just in case there was a need for someone to carry whatever he might buy from the merchant in the souk. He didn’t get anything, tho’, said we had to come back the next day. Then he said we’d go to a brothel he knew of, ’cause it was time I had a taste of some foreign women.”
Dunny looked up at that point in his narrative and spoke directly to Roget who, the sailor rightly assumed, was partial to the company of women and would be more understanding of the reason for a visit to a stewe. “I’d only ever worked on fishing boats from hereabouts ’til the cap’n took me on board his cog and I’d never before been to a brothel the likes of those they have in France or Spain. The cap’n said the ones in the Holy Land were even better.”
When Thorson gave Dunny a censorious glance for declaring his enjoyment of such places, the young sailor dropped his eyes before continuing. “The brothel was not what I’d expected. They had young boys for hire there as well as women. Outright sodomists, some of them were, and they gave me some sort of drink that the cap’n said was the closest thing they had to English ale. I took only one swallow and left the rest. It tasted like cat’s piss.”
“Just get on to what happened to Robert,” Grimson said with irritation. “We don’t need to know all the sordid details.”
“Aye, master,” Dunny replied obediently. “There was a lot of men in the place, mostly heathens, all dickering over the women-and boys-on display, and the cap’n took a fancy to one of the girls, a right little darlin’ she was, with long black hair and great big…” A glare from Grimson curtailed his description of the bawd and he gulped nervously before he continued. “I couldn’t understand what the cap’n was sayin’ to the stewe-holder ’cause they was speakin’ in the language they all talk in those parts, but I think he had made an offer for her when another man came into the brothel. The newcomer was dressed in good clothes and had a beard, I remember, and he walked right up to where the cap’n was standin’ and said somethin’ to the stewe-keeper, then flashed a pile of silver coins he took from his purse. The stewe-keeper looked at the man who had just come in and nodded, then shrugged his shoulders at the cap’n as much as to say he was sorry, but the other man would be havin’ the girl.
“The cap’n turned to the stranger-somehow I thought as how they knew each other, just by the way the cap’n looked at him-and told him to feck off. The other man pushed the cap’n in the shoulder, and told him, in English, to do the same and to find another girl ’cause he wasn’t getting this one. ’Twas then the cap’n called him a Templar, sayin’ as how he was breakin’ his vows by being in the place at all, let alone payin’ for the company of one of the women.”
Dunny shrugged his shoulders. “That was when the other man and the cap’n started to fight. They traded a few blows and the cap’n fell on the floor. The cap’n was a right good brawler, but the man he was fightin’ was more than a match for him. All the rest of the men in the brothel was yelling, but I couldn’t understand what any of ’em was saying. The whoremaster was screamin’, too, and started banging on a big drum he had beside him. I thought as how I should maybe help the cap’n in some way, but couldn’t see what I could do. If the cap’n couldn’t get the best of the other Englishman, there was no way I was going to be able to. I wouldn’t have had a chance anyway, ’cause it was then that I saw a knife flash between the pair of ’em.”
Tears came into Dunny’s eyes and he faltered for a moment. Askil laid a hand on his shoulder and the young sailor swallowed a couple of times to smother his anguish and then finished the tale. “I don’t rightly know which of ’em pulled the knife, whether it was the cap’n or the other Englishman, ’cause everyone was millin’ around and I couldn’t see right plain,” he said. “Alls I knows is that blood started to gush and I saw the cap’n go still. The stranger got up from where the pair of ’em was lying and one of the heathen customers tried to grab ahold of him, but he knocked the man down and scarpered out of there like a flash of lightnin’ just before two big infidels rushed in-I think they was men the stewe-keeper hired to keep peace in the place and had come when they heard the drum bangin’. I went over to where the cap’n was laying, but I could see he was dead. The blade had took him under the ribs; must have gone right through his heart, so I ran out of the place myself. I didn’t want one of those heathen bastards grabbin’ ahold of me, and I run as fast as I could back to the ship.”
Bascot looked at Askil. “And then what happened?” he asked.
The steersman’s face was full of grief as he finished the young seaman’s tale. “An official from the port arrived almost on Dunny’s heels. I went and identified Robert’s body and was told that the man who killed him had not been caught. I offered the information that he was a Templar knight, but apparently the stewe-holder had already told them he belonged to the Order, but that he didn’t know his name.”
“How did you know he was a knight and not of man-at-arms rank?” Bascot asked.
“Dunny told me,” Askil replied.
Bascot turned to the younger sailor with an interrogative look.
The young seaman answered the unspoken question readily enough. “He was wearin’ clothes that was too fine for an ordinary soldier,” he replied. “They was made of better stuff than any man-at-arms would own and his gloves were soft leather. And the way he spoke to the cap’n-even if he was angry and swearing-it was educated like. He was a knight, right enough. Anyone could see that.”
Bascot accepted the explanation. There was a difference in the type of cloth used for garments in the ranks of the Templar Order. Those of knight’s rank wore clothing made from finely spun wool or closely woven linen, while the material used for the serjeants’ and men-at-arms’ garments was a much rougher type of cloth. Bascot briefly wondered why the knight had been wearing gloves in such a hot climate but, thinking it was possible he had injured his hands in some way, gave it no more thought and asked Askil what had ensued after he had identified Scallion’s corpse.
“The official who was questioning me asked where our cargo had been bought and who from, then I was given permission to take Robert’s body on board our ship and leave the port. We waited until we were well away from the harbour and buried the captain at sea.”
A silence fell over the little group at Askil’s last words. Even though the recounting of Scallion’s murder had been told in sketchy words by the young seaman, it was vivid, and Bascot could understand why Joan, Scallion’s sister, had been so angry. That a Templar had not only broken his vow of chastity by frequenting a brothel, but also committed the sacrilege of killing a Christian and fellow country-man was enough to raise the ire of any who heard the tale, let alone that of a family member. Bascot, although well aware that there would always be men who broke solemn oaths-history recorded that even kings that done it in the past-was heartily sorry that such a one had apparently been a Templar brother. However, he also knew that the Order did all it could to prevent any applicant suspected of harbouring baseness in his soul from joining its ranks. The sins of this one man should not be allowed to taint the purity of the many brothers who served the cause of Christ with absolute fidelity.
He glanced at Sven Grimson’s face. His features had remained impassive throughout the recounting but he had heard the tale before and it would have been easy for him to disguise his true feelings. Was he as innocent of wishing revenge for Scallion’s death as he claimed? Or had he, along with his wife and Scallion’s good friend, Askil, conspired to murder the two Lincoln prostitutes as a means of extracting retribution?
“We shall need an account of your whereabouts, Grimson, during all the hours of the day the first prostitute was killed eight days back,” Bascot said. “And also for the time of the second murder, three days ago.”
It took a moment for the purpose behind the Templar’s instruction to register, but when it did, Grimson’s face
