The Alehouse Murders Read Online Free PDF Page A

same,” Agnes mumbled.
    “If there was something different, you had better tell me,” Jennet said firmly. “If that murderer missed you by mistake and you know something—well, he might just come back to finish you off. If there’s anything you haven’t told, the more that know it the better. You’ll be safer that way.”
    Agnes’ eyes rolled in her head and she began to shake again. Jennet gripped her by the arms with surprising strength in her bony fingers. “What happened, Agnes? Tell me.”
    “Wat said . . . Wat . . .” Agnes began to stutter and Jennet shook her so hard that her sister’s large bosom wobbled beneath her gown.
    “Tell me,” she demanded.
    Agnes gulped. “Last night Wat told me to go up to bed and not to come down, not for anything. He said if I did, I’d be sorry. When I asked him why, he said someone was coming to see him and whoever it was wouldn’t take kindly to me being about. I thought it was just another of his dice games and said so, but he gave me a slap and said I’d better keep my mouth shut and put myself out of sight.” Agnes stopped for a moment and wiped the wetness of her tears from her face with the hem of her gown.
    “And . . .” Jennet prompted. “Did you not hear anything, screams or summat? With four people being murdered, I’d have thought there would have been some sort of ruckus.”
    “I heard nary a sound. I did just as Wat had said. I didn’t want a beating. Wat had a heavy hand, as well you know.” Here she hastily crossed herself, for forgiveness in speaking ill of the dead. “But, Jennet, that morning Wat had told me not to touch anything in the yard. I was just to pour the ale, not draw it. And he wouldn’t let me even go out to the latrine, at the back. I had to use our old pot in the house. But, Jennet, if Wat had known there was to be murder done, why was he murdered himself? It doesn’t make any sense.”
    “Did you tell the Templar about this when he asked you?”
    “No, he scared me. He looks so . . . like a heathen, with his dark skin, and there’s that eye patch. It’s like he could be a murderer himself.”
    “That’s silly,” Jennet exclaimed. “He’s a Templar, swore his life to God’s service, he did, and spent years in a cell at the mercy of them same bloody infidels you say he looks like. If you could trust anyone, it’s him. Even more than the priests, because most of them are more interested in the pennies we give than in saving our souls. You don’t see them giving up everything they possess for the love of God, like he did.”
    “Father Anselm isn’t like that,” Agnes protested. “He was kind to me this morning and helped me when I was all alone.” There was an accusatory tone in Agnes’ voice, as though her sister should have known of her distress and been there when it happened.
    “Well, some of them are alright,” Jennet conceded. “There are a few good ones, I suppose, even if Father Anselm is a bit too well favoured for a priest, and knows he is, and all. But the Templar is from Lady Nicolaa, not from her husband, the sheriff. Gerard Camville is none too gentle a creature, as you well know. If he sends one of his men-at-arms to question you, you’ll be made to tell what you know, right enough. And they won’t be asking you quiet like the Templar did. They’ll take you up to the castle and beat the truth out of you.”
    Jennet wasn’t too sure if this was true or not, about the Templar being sent by Nicolaa de la Haye, but she had heard a man-at-arms from the castle telling the Haye serjeant that Lady Nicolaa would be waiting for their report in her own chambers so there was a good chance that the castellan had sent them. Whether it was so or not, Jennet wanted to scare her sister into doing as she was told, and Sheriff Camville was enough of a devil to scare anyone.
    “Oh, Jennet,” Agnes wailed, “what am I going to do?”
    “Tomorrow we’ll ask Father Anselm to tell the Templar you want to