After Roget locked Savaric in a holding cell and went to relate to Gerard Camville what he had been told by Bascot, the captain was sent to Ingham to arrest Gilbert, Herve and Julia Roulan. Gilbert’s wife, Margaret, was left at the manor house to manage the supervision of the servants and to care for their grief-stricken mother. The two brothers and sister were locked in a separate holding cell from that of Savaric and, at Nicolaa’s suggestion, a request was sent to Brother Jehan, the elderly infirmarian at the Priory of All Saints, asking him if he would come to the castle gaol and examine the prisoners for signs of leprosy. Jehan was an extremely able herbalist who had, in his long lifetime, treated most of the ailments that plagued mankind. Both Nicolaa and Gerard trusted his judgement in the matter.
After spending some time with Savaric, and a brief visit with the other Roulan siblings, Jehan returned to the hall and said that, as far as he could tell, all four of them were free of the disease.
“With regard to the three legitimate members of the family,” the monk told them in his slow sonorous voice, “I am assured, both by them and the baseborn son, that they had no close contact with the leper. They did not even, at his request, embrace him, so it is unlikely they have been infected. With regard to the illegitimate son, however, I would ask you to bear in mind that I cannot be certain he has not contracted the disease. Although there is no rash with the distinctive scales that the word lepra implies, he had been exposed to the noxious breath and touch of a leper and may yet contract it. While many of the monks that attend the lazar house below Pottergate do not become infected with the disease, there is usually one or two who catch it in the fullness of time.”
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.”
By 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.
In the preceptory, as Roget had foreseen, Emilius 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.