The Canterbury Murders (4 page)

Chapter Six

After a hasty meal of hot meat pies and fresh bread provided by Dauton, Gianni and Miles set out for the royal townhouse on Stour Street. Gianni was pleased that it was Miles who would accompany him, for the knight had, on a previous occasion, been with the Templar during the apprehension of a murderer and was full of enthusiasm for their task. In his early thirties, he was an even-tempered knight, with an innately cheerful nature, and Gianni had always found him congenial company.

The cathedral bells were ringing the hour of None when they started out, and the streets were filled with people—goodwives visiting the open-fronted shops that sold various household items, vendors bearing trays of hot pies in baskets slung around their shoulders, clerics from the cathedral and the many other churches in Canterbury hurrying past and, on almost every corner, the ubiquitous beggars that inhabited any town of reasonable size. There were not many pilgrims at this time of year, and only a few were on the streets, distinctive of notice by the medals depicting an image of the saintly Thomas Becket pinned to the crowns of their broad-brimmed hats.

As they rode across the town, Miles said to Gianni, “I am looking forward to this duty. While I regret the woman’s death and the threat it poses to the king, I am intrigued to be involved in the mystery that surrounds it. As you know, I was with de Marins when he arrested the man who murdered the clerk in the quarry, and afterwards he took the trouble to explain to me how he had discovered the mistakes the culprit had made. I was fascinated by the insight with which he made his deductions.”

He looked down at Gianni with a smile. “The Templar also told me that you were of great assistance in untangling the riddles that confronted him, so I will take your lead, youngster, and learn as I go.”

Gianni lifted his head a little higher as Miles repeated the Templar’s praise, but then he reminded himself not to be caught up in the sin of pride. He must go carefully and ensure he was not blinded by unwarranted confidence and so, with firm resolution, he turned his thoughts to the manner in which they would proceed after they arrived at the townhouse. During the rest of the short journey, and by means of questions from Miles and gestures and nods of agreement or negation from Gianni, they discussed how they would conduct the search for evidence and the questions the servants were to be asked. The knight’s suggestions and comments were perceptive and the lad felt certain that he and Miles would work well together.

The royal townhouse was a large one, built of stone, and three stories high, with a kitchen at the back and stables and several outbuildings in a large yard. As Nicolaa had said, a guard was stationed outside the premises to keep the servants’ confinement secure, not mercenaries this time, but castle men-at-arms, all wearing the Canterbury badge of three choughs—a member of the crow family—on their tunics alongside the royal insignia. When they went up the steps and Miles told the soldier on guard at the entry the nature of their business, he opened the door and called for the steward of the property to attend them.

The steward, whose name was Inglis, was a middle-aged man with thinning brown hair and wearing a tunic of rich brown velvet lavishly embroidered at collar and cuff. His attitude was haughty and the complete antithesis of Dauton’s warm civility, as he regarded Miles with a disdainful air and overlooked Gianni completely while waiting for the knight to state the purpose of their visit.

Miles responded in kind. “I am Miles de Laxton, knight in service to Lady Nicolaa de la Haye of Lincoln and sent by the king to make an enquiry into the death of his servant,” he said aloofly. “I require to be shown the chamber where she was killed and to question all of the servants that are employed here.”

Mollified by the knight’s status and his commanding tone, Inglis gave a deferential nod of his head and stood aside so that Miles and Gianni could enter the house. The entryway was large, with a number of doors along its length before it debouched into a passage that led to the back of the house. A set of stairs was situated at one side and Inglis, in a slow stately manner, led the way up them. Once the steward’s back was turned, Miles glanced at Gianni with a look of concern, fearful that Inglis, by ignoring his presence, had offended the lad. But Gianni gave him a wide smile. He had not been upset by the incident; being overlooked had, during previous investigations, often worked to his and the Templar’s advantage, enabling him, without notice, to make surreptitious searches for evidence or overhear incriminating words uttered by a suspect who discounted the listening ears of a young, and seemingly unimportant, boy. He was more than willing to allow such an attitude to serve his purpose once again.

The chamber that Inglis led them to had, by the king’s command, been left as it was when Molly’s corpse was discovered. It was moderate in size and without casements. Using a small taper that had been left burning, the steward lit a few of the candles that stood in holders about the room. The heightened brightness revealed the outlines of a sturdy wooden tub in the middle of the floor. It was still full of water—long since cold—and tinged red with blood. On its surface, small beads of scented oil were floating. A painted board that must have been laid across the tub to hold bathing implements had been knocked from its place and lay askew, one end immersed in the bathwater. On the side of the tub that was facing them, blood was encrusted on the rim and had run in rivulets down the side and onto the sheepskin rug on the floor. Amidst the gory spatters lay a round ball of soap, its pale yellow colour marred by drops of red. The air held a zesty aroma of citrus that, despite its pungency, did not quite overcome the metallic scent of blood.

Miles knelt and felt the woolly material of the rug. “There are damp patches here,” he said to Inglis. “Is this the spot where the victim was discovered?”

“Yes,” the steward replied. “It was Aquarius, the king’s bath attendant, who found her. When he came in, she was lying draped over the side of the tub, her throat cut and her head in the water.”

Miles stood up and gestured to a door on the other side of the chamber. “Does that lead to the royal bedchamber?”

“It does,” Inglis confirmed.

With a curt nod, Miles dismissed the steward, telling him to make the household staff ready for questioning. “I wish to interview Aquarius first of all,” he added before Inglis left the room. “Ensure that he is present.”

The order in which the servants were to be questioned was one of the points the knight had raised as they had ridden to the townhouse, and Gianni had indicated that the person who found the body should be at the top of the list. Miles had agreed that this was a logical premise.

After the steward shut the door behind him, the knight gave a great guffaw of laughter. “What a pompous ass,” he exclaimed. “I hope you did not mind, youngster, that I allowed the steward to believe it is I who am leading this enquiry. It seemed to me that he would respond with more alacrity to my direction than yours.”

For answer, Gianni shook his head and parodied Inglis by placing his arms akimbo and taking a few mincing steps with his nose stuck up in the air. “A perfect imitation,” Miles said, chuckling, and then looked around the room. “Now, where do we start?’

The lad surveyed their surroundings, trying to view the chamber as the Templar would have done, attempting to envision it at the moment the washerwoman had been attacked. Apart from the area around the tub, all was neat and orderly, with no sign of disturbance. In a corner was a small table on which stood a flagon of wine. To one side was a clothes chest with the lid thrown back, revealing a pile of garments within. Above the chest were hooks. An open-fronted gown of soft yellow velvet depended from one of them, no doubt for the king to don after he had finished bathing. Beside the far end of the tub was a padded chair, laid with a pile of smallclothes. There was no indication that any struggle had taken place.

Gianni walked all around the tub, examining it from every angle and searching with the tips of his fingers behind each of the heavy wooden struts on which it rested. Finally, he came to the sheepskin rug. The surface was scuffed and, as Miles had noticed, damp and stained with spots of blood. Kneeling down, he ran his hand lightly over the inner edge of the mat. There were two round and deep indentations there which could have been made by the washerwoman’s knees as she bent to add oil to the bathwater. He next picked up the soap and examined it, before turning to the tub itself and, pushing up his sleeve, scooping out some items that lay on the bottom, underneath the end of a board that rested half in and half out of the water. A cup, a pair of scissors and a sodden square of linen all emerged from the gory depths. After a moment’s consideration he also removed the board and then placed it across the tub and laid the items he had retrieved along the top of it.

“That is how everything would have been laid out in preparation for the king’s bath,” Miles opined, and Gianni gave him a nod before picking up the soap and holding it in his hand.

With a glance at Miles, the lad then knelt in the indentations left by the victim’s knees and bowed his head, moving his free hand in simulation of a swirling gesture over the blood-tinged water.

“You think she was kneeling with her back to the door, busily engaged in carrying out her duties when the murderer came upon her,” Miles interpreted.

Gianni nodded at the knight’s correct understanding of his gestures, and then, without warning, opened his eyes wide in surprise and threw out his arms, dropping the soap on the floor and upsetting the board across the tub so that it, and the objects on its surface, fell into the water. He then, using his finger in imitation of a knife, drew it across his throat and slumped forward, allowing his upper torso to rest on the edge of the tub.

Miles nodded in agreement. “That is the way it must have happened. She would have been unaware that anyone was behind her until it was too late to raise an alarm. It would have been the work of a moment to kill her. Well done, lad,” he added appreciatively. “What is our next step?”

Gianni removed his wooden tablet from his belt. It had two wooden leaves infilled with soft wax and laced together with leather thongs. The right-hand side he used when Lady Nicolaa gave him dictation, which he took down in an abbreviated form using a method taught to him by an older clerk in the Lincoln scriptorium. The left-hand surface was normally left blank unless he needed to note additional instructions from his mistress or to compute figures associated with his clerical duties. Today he would use this side to communicate with Miles, and the other for recording details. In response to the knight’s question, he quickly wrote down a few phrases, explaining that they must now search the room thoroughly, looking for any trace that the murderer might have left. Miles willingly complied but, by the time an hour had passed, they had found nothing untoward except a clump of mud that must have been left by the passage of a boot, and could have been made by anyone, including the king. They then went into the bedchamber where the royal couple had been ensconced while the murder had taken place.

It was sumptuously furnished; in the middle of the room was a great feather bed laid with woollen blankets and a wolfskin coverlet and, alongside it, an ornate commode with a decorated lid. Set at various places about the chamber were small tables and padded chairs, and on the walls were richly embroidered tapestries depicting hunting scenes. On the outer wall was a large casement, the shutters closed and securely fastened.

“I doubt we will find anything of use in here,” Miles said, unbolting the coverings over the window and throwing them open so that light shone into the room through the horn panes. “According to what we have been told, the murderer fled immediately after the killing and never entered this room.”

Nonetheless, Gianni insisted they inspect it, wiping his wax slate clean and then explaining via another note that after the corpse was discovered and the alarm raised, it was entirely possible that the king or queen or one of the guards had, during the ensuring hubbub, carried a trace of the murderer’s presence into the chamber on their clothing or shoes. Miles grimaced with reluctance to lay his hands on the royal possessions, but he nonetheless assisted Gianni in a close examination of the bedding and chairs, even kneeling down to search the floor underneath the various pieces of furniture. Once again, their efforts were to no avail.

“I did not realise that hunting down a murderer was such a painstaking task,” Miles said with a grin as they went downstairs to interview the servants. “You have taught me much already, Gianni.”

Chapter Seven

When the pair went down to the lower floor, they found Inglis waiting for them at the bottom of the stairs.

“I have assembled the servants, Sir Miles, as you directed,” he said in sonorous tones. “They are waiting in the hall.”

“How many are there?” Miles asked.

“Eleven in all,” Inglis replied. “Eight of them are English and serve under me all the year round at the townhouse, and the other three are from Normandy—the bath attendant, Guillaume Aquarius, and two grooms. The king usually has a larger retinue when he visits, but except for the queen’s two female attendants who returned with her to Dover, the rest of his entourage took passage on the ship that became separated from the others during the crossing over the Narrow Sea and have not yet arrived.”

“Very well,” Miles pronounced, satisfied that the steward had correctly obeyed his instructions. “Show me to a private room where I may interview each member of staff separately.”

Inglis led them to a small chamber a little way along the passage and they went inside. It was suitable for the purpose, furnished with a table and some comfortable chairs, and with a casement in one wall.

“You may now send in Aquarius,” Miles said to the steward, as he took a seat behind the table and Gianni went to stand beside him. Inglis disappeared and a few moments later the bath attendant appeared at the door.

Aquarius was a tall, spare man of about thirty years of age, and he entered the chamber in a diffident manner, pausing awkwardly near the door. His clothes were sober, and his expression anxious. Miles motioned for him to come forward and stand in front of the table.

“I understand that you were the one who found the body of the murdered woman,” he said, “and I would like to learn how that came about. Where were you just before you went to the antechamber?”

Aquarius licked his lips before replying, and then said hesitatingly, “I was in the kitchen, waiting for Molly to call me to attend the king while he bathed. She . . . she didn’t like me to be with her while she prepared the bath; I always waited until she sent a servant or came to summon me herself.”

“And how long were you in the kitchen before you went upstairs?”

“It must have been almost an hour. Two menservants carried up water for the tub about eight o’clock, and it was near nine when I became concerned at the delay and went to find out why Molly was so long in sending for me.”

“And when you got to the antechamber?” Miles asked.

The bath attendant paused, his eyes darkening with remembrance. Finally he said, “I knocked and called out her name, softly, so as not to disturb the king and queen in their bedchamber and, when I received no reply, I pushed the door open and went in. . . .” His voice became hoarse. “Molly was . . . she was lying across the edge of the bath. . . . It was a terrible sight. She was slumped over the tub and there was blood everywhere, in the bathwater and on the floor.”

“And that was when you raised the alarm?” Miles asked as Aquarius came to a halt.

“No, it was the king who did that. I must have cried out, or made some noise—I do not really remember—for he came to the door of his bedchamber and gave a great oath when he saw Molly’s body. Then he called for the guards and they came running.”

“Were there any servants on the stairs when you went up to the chamber?”

“No. It was late, and most of the staff were finishing up their duties and getting ready to retire.”

Gianni gave Miles a gentle tap on the shoulder, and the knight looked down at the tablet the lad was holding. It had just three words etched on the surface of the wax—“Ask his background.”

“You name is a strange one, Aquarius. Where do you come from?”

A small tic appeared in the bath attendant’s cheek as he gave his answer. “Aquarius is the name that King John bestows on all of those who attend him while he bathes, after the sign of the water bearer in the heavens. My true name is Guillaume Pontorson.”

“And you are from Normandy, from the town of that name?” Miles asked.

“I am, yes,” he replied.

Miles paused. Lady Nicolaa had said that there was a possibility that the murderer had been a Breton who had managed to get into the townhouse, a loyal subject of Arthur who, incensed by the king’s prolonged imprisonment of their count, had been intent on taking John’s life in retaliation. And Pontorson—from whence Aquarius hailed—was a town situated on the border of Brittany, the land that Arthur ruled. It was almost certain, given their geographical closeness, that there was much commerce between the town and the neighboring province—was it possible that Aquarius had ties with Brittany, perhaps relatives who lived there, and his sympathies lay in that direction? Miles glanced at Gianni and raised his eyebrows in query. The lad responded with an almost imperceptible shake of his head. Gianni had guessed the reason for the knight’s interrogative look but the Templar had always been careful never to give a suspect any hint that his story was distrusted until he had made an attempt to find facts that would disprove it and, following his former master’s method, deemed it wiser to wait for a space before pursuing the matter.

Accepting the boy’s decision, Miles changed the course of his questions. “How long have you held the post of bath attendant to the king?”

“Only since we left Rouen,” Aquarius replied. “I was a clerk in the castle there, dealing mainly with correspondence for the master of the king’s wardrobe. Just before the king left to come to England he directed that a new body servant be assigned to him, one who had good literacy, to accompany him on the journey, for the man who regularly attended him was to stay in Rouen. Since I was familiar with the items of clothing King John wears, and was also a clerk, I was chosen, and told that my duties would include attending him when he wished to bathe.”

“And are you pleased with your new post?” Miles asked, trying to detect if the man had any animosity towards John.

“Oh, yes,” Aquarius replied earnestly. “I had hoped that if my service was satisfactory, and the king impressed with my skill with numeracy, I might look for advancement, perhaps even, one day, be awarded a post in one of the royal counting houses.”

For a moment, his ambitious dream lit his cadaverous features with animation, but then remembrance of the reason for the interrogation intruded, and he once again became morose. “But now I no longer have any such aspirations,” he said sadly. “Molly’s murder has caused much turmoil and it is most likely the king will overlook me entirely, and forget my existence.” This last sentiment was uttered with seeming sincerity and not a little regret.

Gianni felt some sympathy for Aquarius as a fellow clerk, but he did not allow it to deter him from the purpose for which they had come. As the person who claimed to have been the last to see the victim alive, he was a foremost suspect, especially as there was a possibility he had ties with Brittany. The commission of the murder would have taken only a few seconds. The bath attendant would have had ample time to kill the washerwoman by coming to the chamber earlier than he claimed and then, when the king came in, told him that the washerwoman had already been dead when he entered the room. With that thought in mind, the lad jotted down a direction for Miles to ask about Aquarius’ relationship with the victim.

“It would seem that the performance of your duties would require you to be in the company of the washerwoman fairly often,” the knight said. “Not only did she prepare the king’s bath, at which you attended, but she would have laundered his clothes, for which you were responsible.”

“That is true,” Aquarius replied. “I oversaw the condition of his garments and if there were any stains that required attention, or creases to be smoothed, she would carry out the repairs under my direction.”

“And did she respond amiably to your supervision?” Miles asked. “She, after all, was a servant of long standing while you were new to your post. Did she resent your authority?”

“I do not think so,” Aquarius replied carefully. “She could be a little prideful at times for the favour in which the king held her, but she was very skilled at her duties and so I listened carefully to any advice she gave me. I think she appreciated my deference, for cross words never passed between us.”

Miles nodded thoughtfully, and glanced at Gianni. Aquarius’ answer had been a reasonable one, but was his apparent humbleness merely a pose? Had he, in truth, resented the high-handedness of the washerwoman, so much so that he felt she was a bar to his advancement and decided to remove her? It was difficult to tell.

The knight went on to his next question. “Do you know if she had a recent quarrel with anyone, one of the other servants perhaps, who may have felt resentment towards her?”

The bath attendant did not give an immediate answer. After seeming to give some thought to the question, he pursed his thin lips tightly together and then said, “No, lord. She seemed to be on good terms with all. I do not know of anyone who might have wished her dead.”