didn’t watch no more.”
The man who had not reappeared must have been Peter Brand. Mary’s brother had been right about him sleeping, but it had been the long sleep of death, not the natural one of slumber.
“The man with the lantern—are you sure he didn’t walk over to the shack where the first two men went; or speak to one of them?”
Mary was positive in her denial. “No.”
“Did either you or your brother hear any sounds of an argument while the men were there? Voices raised in anger, or perhaps the noise of a fight?”
Again, the child was positive in her response. “’Tweren’t no sounds at all, not voices nor nuthin’ else.”
“And you saw only those three men; no one else came through the gate or up the road to the quarry?”
Again, the beggar child gave a definite “no” to his question.
Bascot felt his mind whirl. As he had thought, there had been a third man in the quarry that night and it had been Cerlo. But if the child’s tale was to be believed—and he thought it was—the mason could not have killed Brand for, according to Mary, he did not appear to have spoken to the clerk, or even been aware of his presence by the shack. That left only Fardein. He had already been behind the shed when Brand walked over there and, since the clerk never appeared again, it must have been the apprentice who killed him. Instead of being a witness to the crime, as the Templar had thought, Fardein had committed it.
Whether his motive had been fear of discovery or greed, Fardein had used the cudgel found amongst his belongings to hit the clerk over the head and then used his knife to administer the deathblow. Once Brand was dead, it would be the work of a moment to remove the clerk’s scrip and push his lifeless body over the edge of the cliff face. Had that been when Cerlo appeared?
It must have been the mason that Brand had come to meet, but Cerlo had been delayed by the need to attend to the burns on his wife’s hand and arm. When he finally arrived, he had waited atop the cliff face in vain, for by that time the clerk was either unconscious or dead. But what had been the purpose of their assignation? The two were unlikely associates—one an educated clerk and the other a man who laboured with his hands. Did their connection with each other involve, as the sheriff believed, the discovery of a trove?
And who, in turn, had murdered Fardein? Had it been Cerlo, or was there yet someone else involved, someone who had not come to the quarry but had known the secret the mason and the clerk shared; someone such as Tasser?
The myriad of unanswered questions chased one after another in the Templar’s mind until he realised that Mary was watching him with anxious eyes, fearful that the tale she had told was not enough to merit the two pennies the knight had promised.
Bascot gave the destitute child, who was shivering with cold, a reassuring nod and handed her the coins. “Your words have helped me greatly, Mary,” he said.
“So much so that you deserve a greater reward.” Pulling off his cloak, he bundled it up and handed it to her.
“That should keep you and your brother warm at night until the milder days of spring arrive,” he said gently.
Mary’s eyes grew round with wonder as her fingers touched the heavy material. Lovingly she stroked it with her thin hand as though she could not believe it was real. She did not say a word of thanks, but Bascot did not need any. The look of joy that flooded her face was reward enough.
Twenty-seven
BASCOT RESISTED THE TEMPTATION TO RETURN TO THE quarry and confront Cerlo. Before he did that, he needed to think through what he had learned. Reining his mount to slowness, he rode back through the gate in the city wall and entered the grounds of the Minster.
There were more people about now than there had been earlier. A queue of people was seeking admittance to the Priory of All Saints to obtain remedies from the monks in the infirmary for a variety of winter ailments. And, around the perimeter of the grounds, customers patronised stalls selling hot roasted chestnuts and thin wine. Among the throng were quite a few clerics, a complex mixture of priests, monks, vicars and secondaries, all hastening in and out of