Shroud of Dishonour (30 page)

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.”

B
Y EARLY AFTERNOON, THE WHOLE CASTLE HAD HEARD OF what had passed and the news had spread down into the town. The reaction it provoked was one of commiseration. Many of the women shed a tear for the Templar who had been slain and the men gathered in alehouses about the town discussed the matter with grave expressions on their faces. In the scriptorium, Gianni listened with horror as Master Blund told of the details he had learned when summoned by Nicolaa to write down a record of the events for subsequent presentation in Camville’s court.

For Gianni, the worst part of Blund’s recounting was the manner in which the Templar knight had died. The lad was appalled by the thought that it could so easily have been his former master who had been fatally struck by the spikes of the flail. Gianni had always been aware, since the day that Bascot had rejoined the ranks of the Templars, that the knight would most likely face death many times while he was on active duty in some war-torn land, but this recent close brush with death suddenly made that nebulous possibility now a frightening reality. It was with a heavy heart that the lad left the scriptorium at the end of his work day and wandered out into the bail.

In front of the barracks he saw Roget and Ernulf standing with pots of ale in their hands. The faces of both men were downcast and their conversation, usually bantering, was desultory. The events of the morning had cast a pall over the entire castle as servants tended to their tasks in a dispirited fashion, and occasional baleful glances were directed towards the holding cells where the family of Jacques Roulan was imprisoned.

Gianni did not feel like partaking of the meal that was being laid out in the hall, nor did he wish the company of others, so he turned his steps towards the old stone tower that stood in the southwest corner of the bail. This building had once been the keep and main residence of the sheriff and his wife but with the erection of a taller, and much more capacious, fortress a few years before, now housed only the armoury on the bottom storey and a few empty chambers above that were used to accommodate visitors to the castle. The tower was three stories high and, at the top, was the small room that Bascot and Gianni had been given when they arrived in Lincoln in the winter of 1199. The lad entered the building and slowly mounted the stairs to the upper storey, remembering how it had been difficult for his former master to climb them when they first arrived because of an injury he had sustained to his ankle while escaping from the Saracens. It had only been due to Bascot’s acquisition of a new pair of boots skilfully fitted with strengthening pads by a Lincoln cobbler that the Templar had finally been able to climb them with ease.

Gianni came to the door of the room they had occupied for two long years and slowly pushed the door open. It was as bare as he remembered it, with a stone shelf on one side where the Templar had slept on a straw-stuffed mattress. Gianni’s bed had been laid on the floor, his covering an old cloak Bascot had provided. The straw pallets were still there, rolled up and piled in a corner for use by the next guest, and the small brazier that had dispensed their only warmth in the cold days of winter stood in a corner, piled high with unlit charcoal. Gone, of course, were their meagre personal effects—the trunk with their few items of clothing and the little box in which Gianni had kept the scribing instruments with which the Templar had taught his young servant to read and write.

Gianni went over to the stone shelf that Bascot had used for a bed and knelt beside it. This was where he and the Templar had been accustomed to saying their prayers and that is what he did now, sending up heartfelt thanks to God for keeping Bascot free from harm. He then added an earnest plea that Brother Emilius be greeted with favour in heaven. Once this was done, he took the straw pallet that the Templar had used, spread it on the stone shelf and lay down. Nicolaa de la Haye had said he was now a man but, at this moment, he still felt like the young orphan that the Templar had rescued from certain starvation in Palermo. He knew his insecurity would pass with time and that once the Templar had departed from Lincoln, he would be able to accept his master’s absence with more equanimity. But, for now, he felt a comfort in remembrance of the days when the Templar had been by his side. Closing his eyes, he felt himself relax, and was soon fast asleep.

I
N THE PRECEPTORY, AS
R
OGET HAD FORESEEN,
E
MILIUS WAS deeply mourned. With Preceptor d’Arderon, Bascot undertook the task of cleansing and readying the draper’s corpse for burial. Since the Lincoln preceptory did not have a cemetery within its confines, it was decided that Emilius would be taken to the burial ground of a much larger enclave a few miles south of Lincoln. Until arrangements for the ceremony could be made, the men of the next contingent would stay in the preceptory and, along with the brothers regularly based in the commandery, keep vigil over the draper’s bier.

O
N THE MORNING OF THE THIRD DAY AFTER HIS UNTIMELY death, Emilius’s coffin was secured to the bed of a large dray and the men who would form the escort lined up alongside to accompany the draper’s body on its last earthly journey. Temple Bruer, where they were bound, was situated in a lonely stretch of land in Lincoln Heath, a property that had been donated to the Order some fifty years before. It had then been a desolate place, inhabited only by the sheep that provided wool for the preceptory’s main source of income, but the brothers’ arrival had enlivened it with their presence. To reach it, the cortege needed to travel down the track that led outside the eastern wall of Lincoln town, cross over the River Witham and onto the southbound stretch of Ermine Street. After a few miles, where Ermine Street ran along the edge of Lincoln Cliff, they would reach the western edge of the preceptory’s property and could travel down a forked track, one arm of which led south to Byard’s Leap, where the enclave’s horses were exercised, and the other eastward to the Temple Bruer preceptory.

Bascot and d’Arderon led the funeral procession, riding at the head of the column in front of the cart on which Emilius’s coffin, draped with his own white surcoat, lay cushioned on thick blankets. A man-at-arms held the reins of the two horses hitched to the dray and Brother John, the priest of the enclave, rode beside him. At the end, riding two abreast, were six brothers from the Lincoln preceptory. Serjeant Hamo had been left behind to take temporary command in d’Arderon’s absence. Tears had trickled down the dour serjeant’s face as he had watched the cortege exit through the preceptory gate. He, along with the lay brothers and servants and the men of the contingent, had stood in a solemn line as the procession passed by.

As the cortege neared the suburb of Butwerk, they could see that a great number of Lincoln townsfolk had gathered along the track. Stretching down along the city walls past Pottergate and along to the banks of the River Witham, they stood respectfully silent as the procession came near, many of the women weeping and the men with bowed heads. One small group was composed entirely of prostitutes. Terese stood at the front of the women, holding Elfie’s little daughter, Ducette, in her arms. The child’s eyes were round with wonder as she gazed at the sober-faced Templars, all clad in full armour covered by surcoats with the blood red cross of the Order emblazoned on the chest.

Tears blinded Bascot’s eye as he saw the sorrow on the faces of the people they passed. Throughout the murder investigation that had led to Emilius’s death, the draper had always been fearful that the reputation of the Templar Order would be defiled, tainted by a shroud of dishonour that could never be expunged. Along with the majority of Templar brothers, Emilius had an unshakeable belief in the rightness of their cause, and had never doubted that his duty lay to fight for Christ in defending Christian lands against the encroachment of the Saracens and to protect the pilgrims who wished to visit the places Our Lord had sanctified with his presence. But one rogue Templar like Jacques Roulan could, in the eyes of the Christian populace, give a false impression of corruption. The grieving presence of the townspeople gathered along the path proved that had not happened. The draper’s sacrifice of his life in commission of his duty had, instead, inspired admiration and respect for his memory and, in so doing, for the Order to which he belonged. Emilius had not died in vain.

W
HEN THE MEN OF THE ESCORT RETURNED TO
L
INCOLN TWO days later, a Templar messenger from London was waiting for d’Arderon. On the day that Bascot had returned to the preceptory with Emilius’s body, the preceptor had sent a letter to Thomas Berard relating all the sad details of what had passed. He had also appended a note of his intention to allow the departure of the long delayed contingent for Portugal. The messenger waiting in the enclave had brought Master Berard’s reply.

D’Arderon, his shoulders still slumped with sorrow, went to his office to open the letter, asking Bascot to accompany him. Once he had read the missive, the preceptor laid it on the table in front of him and stood without speaking for several moments. Finally, he said quietly, “Master Berard conveys his condolences on Emilius’s death and tells me that a requiem Mass for the draper was held in London the day after my message reached him.”

The preceptor then paced slowly across the room to the window, adding as he did so that a note had been made of the departure of the contingent and a boat would be waiting for their arrival in Portsmouth to carry them across the Narrow Sea to Portugal.

When d’Arderon reached the casement he turned and gave Bascot a direct look. “Master Berard also deals with another matter in his missive. Another knight must be chosen to fill the office of draper and your name has been suggested for the post.” He paused for a moment, his eyes searching Bascot’s countenance for the younger knight’s reaction. “Master Berard can command you to the position,” d’Arderon said finally, “but he would rather you took up the duty with a willing heart. What say you?”