“It will be my pleasure, ma belle, to provide the wine,” the captain replied.
When Roget left, both he and Constance were well satisfied with the arrangement.
Twenty-four
“ Grimson is a lying cowson!” Camville growled to Bascot the following morning. “He anchored his vessel on the southern side of the estuary, just as Thorson said he might have done.”
The sheriff gestured at the message he had received the day before from the town official in Hull, which now lay unfurled on a table in Camville’s private chamber. The sheriff was pacing the room in exasperation as he spoke. Nicolaa de la Haye was also present and it was she who related the details of the message.
“Although the men on Sven’s list all confirmed he had been in contact with them on the days he stated, the Hull bailiff couldn’t find anyone who saw Grimson’s vessel in the port,” she said. “Since my husband had asked that a check be made on that detail, the bailiff sent one of his constables across to Barton to question the man that operates the ferry across the Humber. The ferryman remembered seeing Sven’s boat at anchor in the harbour and also stated that he took both Sven and his wife across to Hull, but he swears the two sailors weren’t with them. As Bailiff Thorson said, it would have been an easy matter, during the time Grimson’s boat was at Barton, for the seamen to have sailed a skiff down the Ancholme to Bishopbridge, and then walked to Lincoln and killed both of the prostitutes before returning the way they had come.”
“And despite Thorson keeping watch over the Grimson party while they are here in Lincoln,” Camville added, “it could be that one of them is responsible for the attack on the harlots’ childminder. I should have thrown them all in the castle gaol when they first came.”
Bascot considered the conclusion Camville had reached. The Templar had always felt that the Grimson faction was not telling the complete truth but, as he had said to Roget, he did not think they were lying in a direct fashion, only omitting certain facts for their own purposes. He mentally reviewed the tale that Dunny had told them and Joan Grimson’s later claim that the knight who had killed her brother was from Lincolnshire. The remarks Thorson had made about Scallion’s unsavoury reputation came to his mind and then Roget’s mention of Bishopbridge as he and Bascot had ridden up Ermine Street and approached the turnoff to the Roulan manor house. Suddenly, the Grimsons’ purpose became clear.
“I do not believe the seamen killed the prostitutes, lord,” he said to Camville, “although I think, as Thorson suggested, that they did make the journey down the Ancholme. But it was not Lincoln that was their destination.”
Camville spun around in surprise and Nicolaa raised her eyebrows in query. “Where else could they have been going?” she asked.
“Ingham,” Bascot replied.
An hour later Sven and Joan Grimson and the two seamen stood once again in the hall of the castle, facing Gerard Camville, Lady Nicolaa and Bascot, who were all seated on the dais. As before, Roget stood to one side in the company of Peter Thorson.
Camville let silence reign for a few moments and then he rose from his seat and came down onto the floor of the hall, coming to a stop a few paces in front of Sven, his hand on the hilt of the sword at his belt. “You have been lying to me, Grimson, and I have no patience with prevarication, or the men who practise it.”
Sven Grimson blanched. Although taller by a good hand’s span than the sheriff, Camville’s massive bulk, and his authority, seemed to tower over the boat owner.
“Lord, I have not told you an untruth, I swear,” he stuttered. “I went to Hull, just as I said, to enquire if anyone knew the name of a knight Joan’s brother had fraternised with in the town. We thought it might be that he was the one who killed Robert…”
“And you sent the two seamen who work for you to seek him also, did you not?” Camville demanded.
Grimson shook his head in confusion. “They went with me to Hull…” he began to protest.
“To Barton, you mean,” the sheriff barked.
“We anchored at Barton, it is true,” Sven said nervously, “but we went to Hull, as we said, to try and find out the identity of…”
“Enough,” Camville roared. “You already knew the name of the knight that killed your brother-by-marriage. It is Jacques Roulan. And you sent the two seamen to Ingham to see if he had returned home. If you do not admit the truth, I will charge you all with bearing false witness to an officer of the king.” The sheriff’s rage was palpable.
Joan Grimson laid a hand on her husband’s arm. “What you say is true, Sir Gerard. We did know that it was Jacques Roulan who killed Robert, and that was the main reason Sven and I went to Hull. But we found no one who had seen him recently and neither did Askil and Dunny when they went to Ingham.”
Camville turned his venom on the wife. “That, mistress, is because he is dead!”
Now it was Joan’s turn to step back in shock. “But he cannot be,” she said haltingly, her composure finally slipping. “Dunny saw him run away, after he had killed Robert. He was not injured in the fight between them…”
“A man can die many ways, mistress,” Camville replied, “and it was months ago that Roulan took your brother’s life. Much can happen in such a space of time.”
Nicolaa’s cool voice interjected from where she sat on the dais. “I suggest, Master Grimson, that you and your wife now tell us exactly what you know of the night your brother died in Acre, and of your actions since you learned of it.”
And so the whole story came out. As Bascot had suspected, Dunny had, all along, been aware of the identity of the knight who had killed Robert Scallion. He had heard his employer call Jacques by name and had relayed the information to Askil who, having been a lifelong friend and companion of the boat owner, knew the Roulan brother from the days before the knight had joined the Templars and had, on one or two occasions, been present when Scallion and Jacques had shared a debauched drinking spree in the alehouses and brothels of Hull. When Askil had brought her brother’s vessel home, Joan had reasoned that if Roulan had been expelled from the Templar Order for murdering a Christian, it was probable he would have returned home to Ingham. She had insisted they make an attempt to find him.
Still Joan persisted in her claim that neither she nor her husband had any intention of harming Roulan if they found him, claiming that their purpose had merely been to denounce him to the sheriff and hope that some repercussions would fall on the family, if not on Jacques himself. Since it would be easy for Askil and Dunny to pose as itinerant seamen looking for work, it had been Joan’s idea to send them to the village near the manor house and see if they could discover if Jacques had returned, while she and Sven went to Hull and looked for the knight in the alehouses and brothels where he and her brother had been so fond of carousing. The two sailors went to the hamlet and took lodgings in the local alehouse, telling the ale keeper they were on their way to Torksey and hoped to find work on the barges that carry goods up and down the River Trent. That night, they sat in the alehouse and got into conversation with some of the villagers over a few rounds of ale, encouraging them to talk about the local nobility. Eventually the name of Roulan was mentioned, and that one of the family had joined the Templar Order. Many tales were told of his rakehell ways before he became a monk, but no mention was made that he had come back to England or of his having been seen in the neighbourhood. Not aware that Savaric had only recently returned with the report of Jacques’ demise and that this news had not yet reached the villagers, Askil and Dunny decided their journey had been in vain and returned to Bishopbridge. They then went back to Barton as they had come, via the Ancholme, and rejoined Joan and Sven. After discussing the matter and deciding that Jacques must still be in the Holy Land, they had all sailed back to Grimsby.
“And, so, mistress, for this capricious whim to avenge your brother, you have wasted my time and that of Bailiff Thorson,” Camville said.
For once Joan was contrite. “I apologise for that, lord,” she said. “I admit my grief overwhelmed my good sense.”
“So it did, mistress, so it did,” Camville replied, returning to his seat on the dais and picking up his wine cup. “And you shall pay for that error. Before you return home, you and your husband will sign a pledge to submit a fine of twenty pounds for the inconvenience you have caused me, and you will also give Bailiff Thorson a sum of five
