Murder for Christ's Mass (25 page)

One of the men leaning over the diagram was about forty years of age, sandy haired and wearing a serviceable tunic and hose of dark wool. From his age and confident bearing, Bascot surmised he must be Alexander, the master builder who had a vast array of workmen under his command—not only masons and stonecutters, but also roofers, scaffolders, mortar mixers, carters and general labourers.

The other man was much younger and clad in a leather apron similar to Cerlo’s. As he listened to the orders Alexander was giving, he stood in an attitude of respectful attention, his leather cap clutched in hands that were rough and cracked.

They both looked up as Bascot entered the room and, after the Templar had identified himself and his purpose for being there, Alexander bid the young workman go about his allotted task. The builder then gave Bascot his full attention.

“I cannot recall for certain if any of my men were in the workshop four days before Christ’s Mass, Sir Bascot,” he responded politely to the Templar’s question. “But if you will allow me a moment to consult my rota, I should be able to tell you if any were or not.”

Alexander went to a large open-faced cupboard standing on one side of the room and extracted a roll of parchment. After studying it for a few moments, he said, “Two of the stonecutters were in the workshop on that day.” The Templar felt his pulse quicken with hope as Alexander went on. “We are currently engaged in finishing the chapel of St. Mary Magdalene as well as commencing work on a great window that is destined to be sited in the north transept. Such inside work is usually done while the weather is bleak and, since two pieces of stone from the quarry had been taken to the workshop a week earlier, I sent the cutters there to shape them from a template. Once their work was finished—and it took a few days to complete—the stone pieces were brought to the cathedral and put in place by one of the masons.”

“Cerlo told me that none of the church’s employees were in the quarry on the day of the snowstorm. Would he not have been aware there were men in the workshop?”

“Not necessarily. Only the quarrymen were under Cerlo’s supervision, not the stonecutters.” Alexander replied. “Unless he saw the men on their way to the workshop or coming back to the cathedral, it is understandable he did not know they were on the site.”

The builder’s face looked sympathetic as he mentioned Cerlo’s name and Bascot said he had been told of the mason’s failing eyesight.

“Yes,” Alexander replied. “His is a sad case. He has worked here in the cathedral for quite a few years, since just after the earthquake in 1185, when he was one of those sent to Lincoln by the mason’s guild to repair the damage caused by the tremors. Bishop Hugh, who was alive then and oversaw the restorations after his appointment as bishop in the year following the earthquake, was so impressed with Cerlo’s work that he gave him a permanent post and allotted him one of the houses in Masons Row to use as a domicile. Now, after so many years of excellent craftsmanship, it seems tragic that Cerlo will be forced to leave.”

Alexander’s hazel eyes were full of compassion. “It is a fate that can come to any of us. I have kept him on long past the time I should have done, for his vision started to deteriorate some months ago; first the sight in one eye began to fail and then, a few weeks later, the other. He even spent a night in vigil, praying at Bishop Hugh’s tomb, hoping the saintly man would favour him with one of the miracles he has extended to so many others but, sadly, Cerlo’s plea went unheard. His guild will help him, of course, but he and his wife are not young and the combined loss of income and their home will be difficult to cope with. I have allowed him to carry out some simple commissions throughout the town—quite apart from his duties here—so he can store up a little money against the days of his leaving but, even so, I fear it will not be long before he and his wife are forced to live in a state close to destitution.”

“Do they not have any children to help them?” Bascot asked.

“They have a daughter, who is married and lives with her husband in a village not far from town,” Alexander said, “but, unfortunately, the daughter’s husband, an osier weaver, does not earn much for his labour and they have a large brood of children. I fear any money Cerlo might have been able to save has been given to the daughter, to assist her with the purchase of food and clothing for his grandchildren. As I said, it is a sad situation for all of them.”

Bascot added his commiserations to Alexander’s and asked where he could find the stonecutters that had been in the quarry on the day of the snowstorm. The builder told him they were again at labour in the workshop on Masons Row, preparing blocks of stone for the extension of an interior staircase. Bascot, after thanking Alexander for his time, left the cathedral, mounted his horse and rode across the Minster.

As he urged his mount into a canter down Masons Row, he reflected on what Cerlo had told him about finding Peter Brand’s body and wondered if it was the exact truth. If the motive for the clerk’s murder had not been robbery, Brand’s scrip may still have been attached to his belt when the mason found him. Had Cerlo’s desperate need for money driven him, perhaps in collusion with the quarryman who had accompanied him that morning, to rob Brand before reporting the death? If so, had the pouch, as Gerard Camville suspected, contained more that just the one silver penny Gianni had found? And if it had, where were the coins now?

Twenty-five

AS BASCOT WAS LEAVING THE MINSTER AND ON HIS way to Masons Row, Gianni was running down the stairs of the north tower, sent by Master Blund to bring a fresh supply of quill-wiping cloths from the castle laundress. As he neared the bottom of the staircase, he saw that the door into the hall was open and the voices of Miles de Laxton and Stephen’s father, Ralph of Turville, could be heard in conversation. He slowed his steps, not wishing to interrupt them.

“Do you fancy another few hours in the wine shop, Ralph?” Miles was asking. “Your fortune was good the other night, it may be so again.”

There was hesitation in Ralph’s voice as he answered. “Much as I would like to, Miles, I cannot, for I promised to escort my wife into town this afternoon to look for new bed linen. Besides, I doubt whether I would again find such an easy opponent as I had the other night. They do not often come across my path.”

“Legerton, you mean?”

At mention of the exchanger, Gianni paused in his descent and listened.

“I did not know his name,” Ralph replied, “but he seemed sore upset at his losses.”

Miles chuckled. “He has plenty of money to lose. He is exchanger at the mint and receives a handsome stipend for the post.”

“I thought he was a merchant, but, nonetheless, he was very distressed.”

“Yes, I noticed he seemed downcast as we were leaving,” Miles said and then added thoughtfully, “I wonder if the rumours I heard could be true? I have been told Legerton is indebted to a couple of other players and is being very tardy in redeeming the notes of promise he gave them.”

Ralph gave a snort. “’Tis just as well, then, that I did not take his pledge when he offered it to me.”

As Miles began to speak of other matters, Gianni continued down the staircase, squeezing by the two knights with a polite nod as he did so. Walter Legerton was one of the men his master had questioned about the death of Peter Brand on the day Bascot and Gianni had gone to the manor house at Canwick. His home had been a fine one and handsomely appointed. It was difficult to believe he had not repaid money he owed. While Gianni could not see how Legerton’s insolvency could have any connection with the death of the clerk, Gianni thought it might still be of interest to the Templar and resolved to tell his master what he had overheard as soon as he could. As he collected the wiping cloths, another, and quite separate, reflection about the ramifications of Legerton’s debts came to Gianni’s mind and he decided it might be worthwhile mentioning that to his master as well.

BASCOT RODE HIS HORSE DOWN TO THE END OF Masons Row and stopped in front of the workshop, a wooden structure with large casements punctuating each wall. The building was in one corner of a large yard where stone blocks of various shapes and sizes were piled alongside a couple of sturdy handcarts. Hitching his horse to a ring beside a small door, which was locked, Bascot walked around the side of the building and found the main entrance. As he walked up to the two large doors covering the opening, he could hear a distant braying from the nearby stables.

One of the doors into the workshop was ajar and the ticks and thumps of hammers came from inside. Bascot pushed the door completely open and stepped through.

Two workbenches comprised of huge slabs of wood ran down the middle of the room, and smaller benches lined the walls. The surfaces of the narrower benches were littered with a variety of tools including dividers, set squares and touchstones. There were also pulleys, grindstones, rope, pieces of leather and rough sacking and, in a far corner, a cask of ale and a half dozen wooden cups. The air was cloudy with stone dust, and chips of limestone littered the floor.

Two men were at work on the central benches, a horn lantern with a thick tallow candle set alongside to bolster the daylight coming through the casements. Both men were about the same age, some thirty-five to forty years, and clad in heavy leather aprons and caps. One of them was tapping a mallet made of hickory onto the end of a straight chisel as he put the finishing touches to an oblong piece of stone about five feet long, glancing at a wooden template lying on the bench as he did so. On the end of the stone facing Bascot, the stonecutter had engraved his personal mark. This would identify him as the worker who had dressed the stone and, once the piece had been assessed and deemed acceptable, entitle the cutter to payment for his labour. The details of the work were exacting and the hewer was using a pair of dividers to check the measurements of the stone against the template. It was obvious that excellent eyesight would be one of the prerequisites for those who laboured with the unyielding blocks and so it was not to be wondered at that Cerlo’s diminishing vision would cause loss of his employment.

The other man was working on a larger stone block of approximately the same size and shape, but the surface of this one was still rough. The cutter was using a lump hammer—a heavy round piece of dense wood capped on one end with a thick sheet of iron—to drive the broad base of a tool called a pitcher over the stone and bring it to smoothness.

As Bascot walked in, the cutter smoothing the unfinished block cursed as his tool slipped and made a deep gouge. “If I find the cowson that took my hammer,” he said, “I’ll swing for him. I swear I will.” He threw down the hammer he was using and, picking up one of the lanterns, strode over to the bench and began to root among the tools.

“There’s no one would take it, you fool,” the other cutter said. “Why would they? There’s plenty more in that there pile.”

“I’ve had that same hammer since I was an apprentice,” returned the other in an aggrieved tone. “My old da gave it to me and ’tis the only one that feels right in my hand. Everyone knows it’s mine for my mark is on the handle, but someone has borrowed it anyway and not returned it. . . .”

His voice trailed off as he found the elusive hammer and pulled it from the heap. As he turned back to his work, he saw Bascot standing at the door. The other cutter noticed the knight at the same time and both men pulled off the leather caps they were wearing and touched a finger to their brows.

Bascot told them why he had come. “Master Alexander tells me both of you were at work here on the fourth day before Christ’s Mass. It is almost certain that Peter Brand, the clerk found dead in the quarry, was murdered on that day. I have come to ask if either of you saw anyone in the precincts of the quarry at that time, or perhaps on the road that leads to the Minster, someone you might not have expected to be here.”

The men looked at each other, puzzlement warring with excited interest as they pondered the question. Finally, the one who had been looking for his hammer said, “I don’t recall anyone, lord.” The other cutter shook his head in agreement. “The sky was overcast that day—heavy with the snow that fell later—and the light was so bad we left early and went back to our lodgings in the town.”