Templar suspected their inner feelings were just as unruly, but held in check by necessity. Gilbert because, now he was head of this turbulent family, he needed to try and control them as his unfortunate father had attempted to do and Savaric, due to his baseborn status, had probably learned to present a bland face to his legitimate relatives at a very young age. Any one of them could be responsible for the murder of the prostitutes, with the possible exception of Herve, who did not seem to have felt much love for his dead brother. Could it be that one of the people in this room had become so enraged by the news of Jacques’ death that they were seeking an outlet for their grief by murdering the women they perceived as having led him astray?
The Templar glanced at Roget, who looked back with a quizzical raise of his heavy black brows. Bascot gave a nod and the captain spoke to Gilbert, asking him, and the others, for an account of their whereabouts during the times the two prostitutes were killed and also on the evening of the previous day.
At the inclusion of the last, Gilbert’s head snapped up.
“Why yesterday night? Has another prostitute been killed so recently?”
“A former harlot was attacked but fortunately she did not die,” Bascot replied.
At his response there was an audible hiss of indrawn breath from Julia, and Gilbert’s wife, Margaret, stifled a sob. Gilbert shook his head wearily and answered Roget’s question.
“We have all been here at Ingham during every one of those times,” he declared. “On the first occasion, Savaric had barely returned with his sad news and it took all of us, and our energies, to cope with my mother, who was in a hysterical state. Since then, except for duties about the estate, we have all been here at Ingham. Our servants can verify this, not only my steward but also the men who care for our sheep. They will attest to the truth of my words.”
Bascot knew that questioning the servants would most likely prove futile. Any servant would lie to protect a master on whom his livelihood depended. He did not, however, voice this opinion, and merely said that steps would be taken to do so. He and Roget rose from their seats and, with a sigh of weary resignation, Gilbert Roulan accompanied them to the door.
Twenty-three
“ Ma Foi, what a tribe!” Roget exclaimed as they rode down the track leading to Ermine Street. “My mother was a harridan and my father a toper, but compared to that lot, they seem like angels.” He gave Bascot a sidelong glance. “Do you think one of them is the person we are seeking?”
“I would rule out Gilbert and his wife as suspect,” Bascot replied. “The eldest brother is a dutiful man and might murder to protect one of kin, but I do not believe he would jeopardise the safety of his wife, and his holdings, to take revenge for a fate that Jacques brought on himself. And Herve, too, I think, is not culpable. Unless his professed dislike of his dead brother is a pretence-which I think a drunken man would find hard to simulate so convincingly-I do not believe he is responsible. That is not to say,” Bascot added, “that they are not protecting another member of their family who is guilty.”
“If the murderer is a woman, I do not think it can be Gilbert’s wife,” Roget said. “And if the person who attacked Terese is the same one who killed the harlots, Margaret is too short to fit the description Terese gave us.”
“And of too frail and timid a nature, I suspect,” Bascot replied in agreement. “That leaves Julia-who is tall enough and, from the way she struck her brother, of sufficient strength-and the baseborn half brother, Savaric.”
“I will ask about the town to see if anyone noticed either of them during the times the two prostitutes, and Terese, were attacked,” Roget replied, and then grimaced. “That means my knuckles will once again become bruised from knocking on doors.” Almost as the words left his mouth, his aspect brightened. “I will go first to question the perfumer, Constance, and her maid. That task, at least, will be a pleasure.”
Bascot smiled at his friend’s bewitchment with Mistress Turner. It was not often Roget took an interest in a respectable woman. He wondered if the captain, after so many years of protesting he would never take a wife, had finally succumbed to the charms of a female.
“It might also be advisable to ask Lady Nicolaa if her bailiff, or some other person on her household staff at Brattleby, can speak to the servants on the Roulan property. Servants will be less reluctant to tell another menial the truth about Gilbert’s claim that none of his family left his demesne during the times in question. They might not be so forthright with either of us.”
“A good thought, mon ami,” Roget replied. “I will suggest it to Sir Gerard as soon as we return to the keep.”
The next two days passed uneventfully. In the preceptory Bascot, having given a report of all that had passed with the Grimson party and the Roulan family to d’Arderon, joined the other men in the enclave in the regular regime of attending religious services throughout the day and taking part in daily exercise in the training ground. The tempers of all of the men were growing short. The men of the contingent were eager to be gone and found the delay frustrating, while the regular soldiers based in the Lincoln enclave grew testy from sharing the overcrowded quarters. Even the servant with the crooked back, normally cheerful, wore a scowl on his face as he cleaned the midden and strewed flea-deterring herbs on sleeping pallets.
As Bascot went about his duties, he went over and over in his mind the small amount of information that was known about the murderer. The only hints to his, or her, identity were the limited description that Terese had given and the gold cloak clasp Agnes had seen. He tried to fit them in with the suspects they had-Joan and Sven Grimson, the two seamen they employed, and Savaric and Julia Roulan. There were also the two Templar men-at-arms, Thomas and Alan. Although the description might fit all of them, it was unlikely that either Askil or Dunny would possess such a valuable item as the clasp, or Savaric who, as a baseborn relative, would not have access to the wealth of the Roulan family. With respect to the two Templars, even if they had not given up all of the valuables they possessed at the time they joined the Order, both came from impoverished backgrounds and were unlikely to have ever owned such an expensive piece of jewellery.
Bascot felt as though he were trying to reconstruct a shattered pottery jar from only half the pieces. There was something that dragged at the edge of his consciousness-a half-remembered phrase or a detail that had seemed of little importance at the time-but now would not come to the surface. Doggedly he threw himself into training the two unseasoned knights that had come from York. Once before a bout of strenuous exercise had loosened the knots that hampered his thoughts, he hoped it would happen again.
In the castle, Nicolaa De La Haye sent instructions to her bailiff at Brattleby to try and find out if all of the Roulan family had, as they said, remained at Ingham over the last two weeks. Such information could not be obtained quickly. It would take time for the bailiff to approach those who lived at the Roulan manor house in such a way as to engage in casual conversation. While she waited, the castellan chafed at the delay.
Roget embarked on his rounds of knocking on doors in the town enquiring about the Roulan family. As he had told Bascot was his intention, he began with the home of the perfumer, Constance Turner. He was given a warm welcome and invited in to partake of a cup of wine and pleased to find that, this time, it was one of good Spanish red which Constance had bought for him especially. As the captain sat in a little parlour enjoying both the wine and Constance’s lovely smile, he was surprised to hear that the perfumer’s little maid, Agnes, had been perversely relieved when she heard of the attack on Terese.
“Agnes now reasons that the murderer is not aware that she saw him,” Constance told Roget with a mischievous glint in her eye, “for, she said, if he had, he would have come after her and not attacked another woman. I do not follow her logic, but am thankful that she thinks thus, for she is now willing to go about her duties as formerly and I can at last give my full attention to my work.”
Roget spent a pleasant hour in Constance’s parlour before he reluctantly left to resume his task of trying to discover whether any of the Roulan family had been seen in Lincoln. Before he left, however, he obtained a promise from the perfumer that he could come back and spend an evening in her company.
“I will cook you a meal,” Constance said with an inviting smile, “and may even get another bottle of Spanish wine to accompany it.”
