Free The Alehouse Murders by Maureen Ash Page A

he will live. And it is God’s own hand twice over that has willed it so. Firstly, in that the saintly man was wearing a hair shirt beneath his garments, which served to deflect the blow, and secondly, in that it was I who found him. My skill in staunching blood was sore needed this night.”
    It was plain that the man spoke the truth for blood had spread in a dark viscous pool below the altar step on which Father Anselm was lying and his garments were soaked with it.
    “Never in all my years of letting a patron’s blood have I failed to stem it at the right moment,” the barber said, displaying with pride where he had ripped apart the priest’s robe and the inverted shirt of bull’s hide, then wadded material from Father Anselm’s own vestments over the lips of the wound. The priest, his body on one side and head cradled in the barber’s lap, was unconscious and deathly pale but as the slow pulse at the side of his neck indicated, still breathing.
    Bascot motioned to Roget and they moved aside. “I take it you did not catch the assailant?” he asked.
    “No,” Roget replied. “Nor was anyone seen or any weapon found. The barber and his wife, along with a couple of neighbours, came for Mass. They were a little early and the first to enter. They saw the priest’s feet sticking out from behind the altar and the barber attended the wound. A few minutes more and the priest would have bled to death. No one else was about until the rest of the congregation began to arrive.”
    Roget glanced at Bascot shrewdly, the dim light in the church accentuating the hollows of puckered skin where the scar on his face pulled at the flesh around his eyes, and sending points of brilliance sparkling from the rings of gold threaded through his earlobes. “Nothing was stolen. The poor box is intact and nothing of value among the communion vessels appears to be missing. Do you think this assault is connected with the murders in the alehouse across the street?”
    Bascot nodded. “It has to be. So near in time and so close in proximity. The priest must have been a threat to the murderer in some way. If Father Anselm recovers, and can identify his attacker, we may learn not only why the murders were committed, but who did them.”
    A few feet away Ernulf stood with Agnes, her arm firmly in the serjeant’s grasp. She had ceased to sob and was watching Bascot and Roget with wide eyes, her body trembling with fear. Ernulf was leaning down, speaking to her, and suddenly she nodded, hands pressed to her lips.
    The serjeant approached Bascot. “The alewife says she wishes to speak to you.”
    “The sight of the priest has shocked her into telling the truth, has it?” Bascot asked.
    Ernulf gave a snort of laughter. “No. I told her that if she did not, we would give her over to Roget for questioning.” He looked at the mercenary captain, eyes alight with mirth. “Seems the threat has loosened her tongue. Do you always have that effect on women?”
    Roget threw his head back and laughed, showing teeth that were still strong and white but gapped in many places. “My mother was a scold, always berating me. I swore when I left her tender care at the age of nine that I would never let another woman lash me with her tongue. And I never have. Perhaps your Agnes can sense my remarkable intolerance with wailing women and has chosen the wiser course of tormenting you instead.”
    As Bascot took Agnes into a corner of the nave, Jennet, along with her husband and son, were admitted by the guard. They came hurriedly to the alewife’s side. Agnes, shocked by the brutal attack on the priest and fearful of being handed over to the intimidating Roget, was now eager to talk. Her voice came rushing in a tumble as she told that she had not been in bed at all the night before, but had gone down into the yard while her husband was occupied elsewhere and had hidden behind the privy.
    “I wanted to see what Wat was up to, sir,” she said. “I thought maybe