The Alehouse Murders Read Online Free

either.”
    Bascot knelt down beside the Jew, the nearest corpse to him. He lifted the hand that had not been molested by the rats. The nails were free of any skin or material that might have been torn from an attacker and, apart from the rent made by the dagger, his clothes seemed untouched. The young man and woman’s bodies and clothing were in a like condition. “I would think that all three were dead before they were stabbed,” he said. “The blood had already settled and the hearts ceased to pump when these wounds were made. There are no bruises. Whatever the means of their deaths, it has not left a mark.” He looked up at the serjeant. “Do you recognise any of them?”
    “Two,” Ernulf replied succinctly. “The Jew—his name is Samuel. Cousin of Isaac that lives in the big house in Mikelgate. And the one over there”—he nodded in the direction of the body lying beside the ale cask—“that’s Walter, the alewife’s husband. The other two I’ve never seen before. The girl looks, by her dress and wig and face paint, to be a harlot, but she’s not a regular from the stewes down in Butwerk. I’d recognise her if she was.” He rubbed his stubble-encrusted jaw. “ ’Course, with all the strangers that we’ve got in Lincoln right now she could be some newly arrived country girl who decided to turn bawd in the hope of earning a few pennies. If she is she might have strayed out of the whores’ patch.”
    The serjeant waved his hand towards the young man. “Don’t know about the lad. Could be a visitor come for the fair, or perhaps an apprentice new to Lincoln.”
    If Ernulf did not know the two young people then it was most probable that they were strangers. In his short time at the castle, Bascot had come to realise that Ernulf seemed to know every person that dwelt within the precinct of the town walls as well as having an almost intimate knowledge of most of the buildings. Since Ernulf had spent all his life in the town, except for occasional sojourns abroad in the service of the Hayes, this was not surprising.
    As fresh air came into the room from the opened shutters, it became a little easier to breathe in the fetid atmosphere. Bascot and Ernulf moved back towards the door. Near the entrance was a table, on its surface a candleholder with a burnt down stub and a pair of dice. Apart from that, and the two empty tumblers on the floor, the place was tidy and seemed to have been scrubbed within the last few days; even though the reek of ale was exceptionally strong, there were no obvious spills and the rushes on the floor looked fresh.
    “Why bring three dead bodies in here and stab them?” Bascot mused. “Why not leave them wherever the deed was done? It is most strange.”
    The serjeant shrugged. He had seen death too often to be much affected by it, and the bodies in the chamber were not, as far as he knew, anyone of importance—two strangers, a Jew and an alekeeper. “I’ll send for the infirmarian at the Priory of All Saints. The monks’ll take the bodies and see them ready for burial—the Christian ones, that is. The Jews’ll want to take care of their own, I reckon. Good fortune that one of the dead was a Jew. Otherwise the whole lot of ’em would be blamed for the murders. That’s usually the way it is. And that’s the last thing Lady Nicolaa needs, right in the middle of the biggest fair of the year, a hue and cry after any member of the Jewish community. Not good for trade, is that.”
    Bascot flinched inwardly. His enmity towards the Jews had been the same as that of every other good Christian until he had been captured by the Saracens. It had seemed logical and just that they were to be hated as the race who had crucified Christ. But during his years of captivity there had, at times, been Jews imprisoned with him, especially after the great infidel leader, Saladin, died and his unruly family fought for control of the Muslim world. Bascot had come to know one of them well, a