by Paul Doherty
‘Kathryn.’ Thomasina came up quietly behind her.
‘Foxglove,’ Kathryn replied. She got up and turned. ‘Thomasina, how on earth can two old ladies be eating foxglove?’
‘That would kill them,’ Thomasina said.
‘Oh, no! If given in small doses, however, it might bring about the same symptoms they are suffering from: giddiness, nausea, a bilious stomach. Are you sure the water was clear?’
‘Of course, Mistress, the butt was well cleaned, the rain-water pure.’
Kathryn went back to the house, Thomasina following her.
‘Unless,’ Kathryn declared, ‘someone else has been giving them something to eat? But they’d tell me that.’ Kathryn stopped, an icy prickle going along her spine. ‘Wuf!’ she called.
A crashing on the stairs and the boy danced into the kitchen. Kathryn crouched down beside him.
‘Wuf, run as fast as you can to the Guildhall, seek out the clerk, Master Simon Luberon.’
‘Oh, yes, I know him, short and fat.’
‘Yes, Wuf, short and fat. Tell him he is to bring some bailiffs down to the plague house in Old Jewry Lane.’
‘And where will you be, Mistress?’
‘I’ll be there.’
Kathryn made Wuf repeat the message. The boy sped off as Thomasina collected their cloaks and left instructions with Agnes the housemaid. Then the two women walked out up Ottemelle Lane.
Rawnose hopped along to thank Kathryn for the medicine but Kathryn just hurried by. On the corner, Goldere the clerk, still scratching his codpiece, moved to block their way, but one look at Thomasina’s face and he slunk back. Kathryn had already decided on what she should do. She ignored Thomasina’s wail of protest and entered the musty darkness of the Traveller’s Rest just round the corner from Old Jewry Lane.
‘Faugh!’ Thomasina muttered. ‘The place smells of beer and onions. Mistress, what on earth are you doing here?’
Kathryn stood in the doorway. She stared round, then smiled and waved as she saw the two corpse-collectors. She walked over, docile as a lamb.
‘Sirs, I owe you an apology.’
The two corpse collectors stared at her in amazement, mouths and chins dripping with the froth from their beer tankards.
‘What are you talking about?’ one of them spluttered.
‘The two old ladies, Maude and Eleanor. You were correct: they have the plague! Either that or a tertian fever.’
‘Are they dead?’
‘No, but they soon will be.’ Kathryn shrugged. ‘I have just visited them. There is nothing more I can do except, as city regulations state, inform you.’ Kathryn spun on her heel, walked to the door and hastened down Old Jewry Lane.
A haggard Eleanor answered her pounding on the door. She allowed Kathryn to push her gently inside whilst Thomasina grumbled about such unseemly haste.
‘Come,’ Kathryn urged, leading the old lady back into the solar. ‘Soon we will have visitors. Thomasina, go to the water butt with a tray of four – no, six – cups, fill them to the brim but do not drink from any.’
Kathryn smiled as a knowing look replaced Thomasina’s astonishment. The nurse did as she was asked and brought them back to the solar where Kathryn ordered everyone to remain silent. The old ladies, weak and sickly, obeyed. Kathryn sat on a stool rocking herself backwards and forwards.
‘They’ll come,’ she whispered.
She thought of Wuf’s journey, his searching out of Luberon, and remained confident that the clerk would only arrive after her visitors. Kathryn’s patience was soon rewarded. There was a sharp rap on the door. She gestured with her hand for all to stay still. Another series of knocks, then the door opened and they heard footsteps slithering along the passageway. The two corpse-collectors walked into the solar. Kathryn did not know whether they were more surprised to see the two old ladies alive or her and Thomasina sitting there so quietly.
‘What is this?’ one of them growled. ‘What nonsense?’
‘Oh, Maude and Eleanor are ill.’ Kathryn smiled, rose and picked up two of the cups from the tray. ‘Please have a drink, fresh water from the butt.’
The corpse-collectors took the cups.
‘I never drink water,’ one of them replied instantly.
‘Oh, you will this time. Indeed, we all will!’ Kathryn shared out the other cups. ‘You see,’ she continued, ‘even if you don’t drink, I am going to.’ She raised the cup to her lips, glimpsing panic in the man’s face.
‘No, don’t!’ he said.
Kathryn lowered the cup. ‘Why shouldn’t I?’
‘Oh, shut up!’ The elder one rounded in fury on his brother. ‘Just shut up, you stupid poltroon!’
‘Why should he?’ Kathryn declared. ‘He’ll confess in the end. The ward court will meet, they’ll assemble all the neighbours, everyone will swear how they avoided this house on your instructions.’
She looked at Eleanor, who was now nodding wisely.
‘The only people to come into this house were you and myself. I came here as a physician. I had the water butt cleaned. I regularly checked its purity, but your persecution of these old ladies is well-known.’
‘Piss off!’ the corpse-collector sneered.
‘It’s true!’ Maude screeched. ‘You came into the house only yesterday. You said you were sorry for any harm caused, but you were only doing your duty. You asked for a ladle of water.’
The corpse-collector snatched the cup from his companion and slammed both cups down on the table.
‘I don’t have to listen to this!’ he snarled.
‘Oh, it won’t take long,’ Kathryn said. ‘And don’t threaten violence. You came into this house with a small pouch of foxglove, which you sprinkled into the water butt. The old ladies would become weak, sicken and die. You would then help yourself to whatever possessions you wanted.’
‘It’s not true,’ the younger one muttered.
‘Oh yes, it is,’ Kathryn whispered. ‘And you must make your mind up whether you stand before the King’s Commissioner in Canterbury accused of attempted murder or accept the King’s pardon and confess all.’
Whatever reply the corpse-collector was going to make was drowned by a deafening knock on the door. Thomasina went to answer it and returned with Luberon and a posse of bailiffs behind him.
‘What’s all this?’ the clerk puffed, his face wreathed in a look of official concern.
Somewhere behind the bailiffs Wuf was shouting and jumping up and down, screeching for Mistress Swinbrooke. Kathryn picked up her cloak.
‘Three things, Master Luberon. First, I’ll leave Thomasina here and take Wuf home. Secondly’ – she pointed at the corpse-collectors – ‘these are guilty of attempted murder.’ She went to walk past them.
‘You said there were three?’ Luberon asked.
‘Oh, yes! For God’s sake, don’t drink the water!’
‘Why?’ Luberon demanded.
‘Ask them!’ Kathryn stared accusingly at the two corpse-collectors. The two men now stood crestfallen, heads down, so Kathryn could hardly tell them apart. The same bodies yet different heads, she thought, and then remembered the decapitated corpse pulled from the river. ‘What if . . .?’ she murmured to herself.
‘Pardon?’ Luberon asked.
Kathryn stared at the little clerk. ‘The headless corpse,’ she replied. ‘The one we viewed. Tomorrow, can it be coffined and taken to the castle?’
Luberon shrugged. ‘It’s not to be buried till this evening. I could stop it.’
‘Please do,’ Kathryn said absent-mindedly. ‘I may have made a dreadful mistake.’
Chapter 8
The next morning Kathryn went down to Saint Mildred’s Church, where she heard Mass in a chantry chapel. After the priest had sung the ‘Ite, Missa Est’, Kathryn lit candles in front of the statue of the Virgin and went to pray beside her father’s tomb. She looked down at the carved inscription she had composed for the repose of his soul. For a while Kathryn day-dreamed about her
youth: trotting beside her father through the streets of Canterbury, she and Thomasina out in the fields looking for certain plants or herbs. Kathryn blinked back the tears, kissed the tips of her fingers and pressed them against the cold grey stone.
‘I miss you,’ she whispered.
Kathryn genuflected towards the high altar and left the church. She sat on a stone plinth outside the porch enjoying the sunshine and watching the carts and pack-horses make their way down to the Buttermarket. She thought about her visit to the castle and hoped she would be proved correct about the headless corpse fished from the Stour.
‘Kathryn, are you day-dreaming about me?’
She shaded her eyes with her hand and stared up at Colum. He pointed back to the church gate.
‘I have been out to Kingsmead and back to tease Thomasina. I have collected your horse from the stables.’ He leaned down and touched her gently on the cheek with his glove. ‘Were you really day-dreaming about me, Kathryn?’
Kathryn smiled back. ‘And if I was, Irishman?’
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Well, that would be reward enough for a hard day’s work.’
Kathryn narrowed her eyes. She was about to tease him further when Widow Gumple swept up the path, her face pursed tight as if she were sucking on a sour lemon. The widow’s voluminous billowing gown and her ridiculous headdress made her look like a fat-bellied cog in full sail.
‘Good morning, Mistress Swinbrooke.’ Gumple’s voice was honey-sweet.
‘Good morning, Widow Gumple. Are you well?’
Widow Gumple bowed her head patronisingly, looked nervously at Colum who glowered fiercely back, then swept on into the church to tend, as the good widow always declared, ‘to the Lord’s affairs.’
‘Just an excuse for malicious gossip,’ Thomasina had once observed. ‘That fat cow’s never said a proper prayer in her life!’
Colum watched the widow’s retreating back. ‘You were going to say, Mistress Swinbrooke, or daren’t you now?’ He helped her to her feet. ‘Are you,’ he continued, ‘frightened of such clacking tongues?’
Kathryn brushed the dust from her dress.
‘Frightened, Irishman?’ she replied with mock curiosity. ‘Frightened of what?’
‘Of clacking tongues?’
‘And what, pray,’ Kathryn asked sweetly, ‘could they clack about?’
Colum took a deep breath; he was being drawn into one of Kathryn’s clever traps.
‘About me,’ he stammered.
‘Irishman, what is your meaning?’
‘Well,’ he stammered, ‘I stay at your house.’
‘So does Wuf.’
‘I am a man,’ Colum said.
‘Are you?’ Kathryn asked innocently. ‘And why should tongues clack about you being a man?’
Colum could stand it no longer and gripped her by the elbow.
‘Now, now, my bonny, you know full well what I mean.’
Kathryn smiled at him. ‘You are a friend, Colum,’ she said. ‘A dear, close friend. I trust you. If you left, not a day would pass without me thinking of you. But . . .’
‘But what?’ Colum demanded.
Kathryn gestured back towards the church. ‘I’ve just prayed over my father’s grave.’ She clutched Colum’s wrist. ‘Years ago, Murtagh, a man like you would have swept me off my feet.’ She grinned. ‘In every sense of the word. But as we grow older, Colum, life becomes twisted. It’s a struggle to make sure it doesn’t twist us.’
Kathryn paused and stared as the bellman walked ponderously past the church gates down to the market-place. He was followed by a beadle leading a fishmonger down to the stocks, the rotten produce the trader had tried to sell slung round his neck.
‘Alexander Wyville,’ Kathryn went on. ‘Not Widow Gumple’s clacking tongue. He’s the ghost who haunts my soul. He said he loved me but he was nothing more than a drunken bully.’
‘And you think the same of me?’ Colum retorted.
‘No, no.’ Kathryn slipped her arm through his and they walked towards the gate. ‘Wyville was a drunkard and a bully boy. He could be alive, so, in God’s eyes, I am still married. Yet,’ she sighed, ‘that’s only the flotsam and jetsam on the river’s surface, beneath it lies the hurt. The soul has wounds as well, Colum. The pity is,’ she continued, ‘they heal so slowly.’
Colum saw the tears brimming in her eyes.
‘Well,’ he said, squeezing her hand. ‘As long as you daydream about me, it’s more than any Irishman could ask.’
He began to tease her, knowing that it would be cruel to persist in his questioning. They collected their horses and walked quietly down Winchepe towards the castle.
‘So Master Luberon will have the corpse ready? What do you hope to prove?’
Kathryn paused to loop the horse’s reins round her wrist. The crowds were milling about them, so they had not bothered to ride. The stalls were busy and the air dinned with the curses of carters who were shouting loudly: ‘Make way! Make way!’
Kathryn waited until they had threaded their way through.
‘I asked Luberon to bring the corpse to the castle because I think it may be identified there. I may have made a mistake.’ She went on to explain. ‘The corpse belonged to a vigorous, well fed man, so I immediately concluded it couldn’t be a prisoner. However, Sparrow was a young, strong man. He must have been to overcome that turnkey.’ She shrugged. ‘Moreover, Webster seemed to be a kind-hearted gaoler. I doubt if any prisoner in Canterbury Castle was starved. The food may not be good but there’d be plenty of it.’
‘Yet you said there were no manacle marks around the corpse’s wrists or ankles.’
‘You should have realised that mistake,’ Kathryn replied tartly.
‘What do you mean?’ Colum taunted. ‘Are you reproving me, Mistress Swinbrooke?’
‘Tell me, Irishman,’ Kathryn teased back. ‘You once served as the King’s marshal?’
Colum nodded.
‘You put men in prison?’
Colum agreed.
‘And how many of them were loaded down with chains and manacles?’
Colum smiled and touched Kathryn gently on the tip of her nose.
‘Clever woman,’ he said, leading his horse on. ‘Of course! Just because Sparrow was wearing manacles when he escaped, that does not mean he wore them all the time. In his prison cell these would be taken off. They’d only be put on when he was taken out onto the castle green.’
‘And that,’ Kathryn said, ‘does not make our task any easier.’
‘In what way?’ Colum asked.
‘Well . . .’ Kathryn replied slowly. ‘Sparrow escaped by killing the turnkey and unlocking his manacles.’ She winked at Colum. ‘Oh, by the way, we never asked what happened to those. Anyway, Sparrow slips from the castle. Quite an easy task, it was dusk and the garrison was reduced to a skeleton force. Now, Irishman, what would you do if you were the escaped prisoner?’
Colum raised his eyebrows. ‘I’d steal some food, a horse, a sword, a dagger, whatever. I’d certainly put as much distance between myself and Canterbury as possible.’
‘Yet Sparrow doesn’t do that,’ Kathryn replied. ‘Oh, I suppose warnings were issued in the city. However, once the prisoner’s free, he’d be miles away before the good burgesses were acquainted with his new-found freedom.’ Kathryn stared up at the castle’s forbidding keep and thought of Webster falling to his death. ‘Something kept Sparrow in Canterbury,’ she observed. ‘He apparently met a violent death, but at whose hands? Someone ruthless enough not only to kill him but to decapitate his corpse and throw the torso into the Stour.’
‘If I follow your thinking,’ Colum said, ‘the person who murdered Sparrow was frightened of him? Blackmail?’
‘Did Sparrow know something about Brandon’s death?’ Kathryn asked in turn. ‘And then use that knowledge?’
‘But what would the escaped prisoner know?’ Colum asked. ‘What, Kathryn, if Sparrow was blackmailing Webster? Did the Constable kill Sparrow,
toss his body into the Stour, then suffer some sickness of the mind which led to his suicide from the top of the keep?’
Kathryn led her horse over the drawbridge. ‘We are building our castles with straw,’ she said. ‘We still have to find out whether the corpse is really Sparrow’s.’
They found Luberon hopping from one foot to another beside a huge four-wheeled cart standing in the bailey. He waved Colum and Kathryn across.
‘I have been here some time,’ he declared roundly. ‘Mistress Kathryn, this corpse should be buried.’ He gazed reprovingly round at the scrawny chickens pecking in the dust and the hounds lazing in the early-morning sun, impervious to his sharp words. ‘No one,’ he complained, puffing out his fat chest, ‘no one here seems to know who I am. I approached that clerk Fitz-Steven but the caitiff just told me to piss off!’
Kathryn seized the little man’s hand. ‘I am grateful, Simon. And so is Colum. Now,’ she added mischievously, ‘watch our Irishman stir this nest.’
Colum was already walking towards an ostler sitting on the keep steps, sucking on a piece of straw. He rapped out his orders and the man skipped away, as agile as a rabbit. One by one the officers of the garrison assembled dourly in the yard. All, except Gabele and Fletcher, were scowling as they greeted Colum and Kathryn.
‘What is it now?’ Fitz-Steven wailed.
‘We’ve brought your prisoner back,’ Colum said. ‘At least we think it is him. May I also introduce Master Simon Luberon, secretarius to the Archbishop of Canterbury, principal clerk of the city council. A man who, in a bad mood, could make life very difficult for anyone in this castle.’
Luberon was greeted with false smiles, the shuffling of feet and a mumbled apology from Fitz-Steven.
‘What is it?’ Gabele asked quietly. ‘You have brought Sparrow back?’
Kathryn went to the cart and wrenched off the lid of the coffin.