by Paul Doherty
‘Colum.’ She grasped the Irishman’s arm to steady herself. ‘Blunt was a master archer but his eyesight was poor and he had that terrible cough. How could he have pulled a bow, taken aim and released three arrows so swiftly? For heaven’s sake,’ she continued, ‘Alisoun and her two suitors, Nicholas and Absolon, would have heard him coming from a mile away.’
‘But the arrow wounds?’ Luberon asked, coming up beside her.
‘Yes, the arrow wounds,’ Kathryn said. ‘They were very deep. This is what happened,’ she continued, hurrying on. ‘Blunt came home and found Alisoun and her two admirers poisoned. He wanted to protect Emma Darryl. He took his bow and shot an arrow into each of the corpses and, to make it look more realistic, opened a window, probably waited for someone like Widow Gumple, and threw Nicholas’s corpse out.’
‘And you can tell that?’ Colum asked. ‘Just from the arrow wounds?’
‘Yes, they were far too deep and don’t forget how dark that chamber was at Blunt’s house. A young man, a professional archer, would have been able to deliver three killing arrows. Perhaps if he had been in good health, Blunt could have done the same, but not racked by coughs, his eyesight failing.’
‘Why didn’t you tell us?’ Colum accused.
Kathryn stopped and stared at the large icicles forming on the porch of the large house.
‘How could I?’ she said softly. ‘When I visited Blunt in his prison cell, he was dying. That’s why he asked to see me. He was no fool. He knew I would be called to examine the corpses. Now the light in the death house was poor but something about the skin of each corpse, the wet spongy feeling and the slight discolouration made me think.’ She shook the water from her cloak. ‘The arrow wounds were so deep, so precise, only a master archer, loosing at very close range, could have inflicted them. The man we met in the guildhall dungeon, with his squinting eyes and racking cough, could never have achieved that.’ Kathryn wetted her lips. ‘Neither Peter nor Emma possessed such skill, so I reached the conclusion that Emma killed all three before Blunt ever returned home.’
‘And now you intend to confront her?’
Kathryn shook her head. ‘No, I want to save Peter. Lord save us, I hope I am not too late!’
They took a short cut down an alleyway to Blunt’s house. Kathryn, her stomach heaving, hands slightly trembling, hammered on the door. With a sigh of relief she heard ponderous footsteps and the bolts being pulled back. The door swung open, and Peter stood there smiling at them.
‘Peter,’ Kathryn cried, pushing him to one side. ‘Are you well?’
‘I am hungry,’ the young man replied. ‘And Emma should be up making dinner, but she is still fast asleep.’
Kathryn pushed by him and hurried up the stairs to the second gallery, Colum and Luberon thundering behind her. She glimpsed a half-open door and went into the bedchamber. Emma Darryl was lying on the bed, hands by her side, her eyes staring sightlessly up at the canopy. Kathryn sat down and grasped the woman’s hand. She felt a slight tinge of warmth but no blood flow in the neck or wrists. She then pressed her ear against the thick, woollen dress but could detect no heartbeat. Kathryn stared round the chamber as Colum and Luberon burst in. She pointed to a small silver dish standing on an iron-bound chest.
‘Colum, bring that here, quickly!’
Colum passed this over. Kathryn polished the silver plate with the cuff of her sleeve and held it as close as possible to the woman’s lips. She took it away and crossed herself.
‘Dead?’ Colum asked.
‘Aye, God rest her. Master Luberon, ask Peter to stay downstairs.’
Luberon walked out of the gallery. Kathryn heard him speaking softly; then he came back, closing the door behind him. Kathryn gazed at Murtagh.
‘We have all got secrets, Irishman, haven’t we?’
Colum recalled his conversation with Father Cuthbert and nodded slightly.
‘And you, Master Luberon, know mine. I constantly wonder if my husband is really dead or, one day, might return.’ Kathryn gently stroked the dead woman’s hand. ‘Well, Emma Darryl had her secrets.’ Kathryn’s eyes never left Colum. ‘She loved Richard Blunt with a consuming passion. They had a child, a boy named Peter, but they never married. Blunt, as we’ll call him even though it wasn’t his baptismal name, had three great gifts. First, as an archer, secondly as a painter, and thirdly, his loyal Emma: where he went, Emma accompanied him.’ Kathryn stared round the comfortable chamber and steeled herself against the sheer pathos of the tragedy.
‘Now Blunt fell ill, just a cough to begin with, but as he breathed in the noxious humours from the materials he used in his paintings at St. Mildred’s and elsewhere, it grew worse. His life began to slip away and then he met Alisoun, a true May and December romance. Matters might have remained calm and peaceful but Alisoun played the harlot, hastening Blunt’s death. Emma Darryl watched this and silently brooded.’ Kathryn looked down at the dead woman’s face, so peaceful in death. ‘Emma feared Alisoun with her menacing threats against herself and, more acutely, against her son Peter. She also became alarmed: Blunt was going to die and Alisoun, his wife, would inherit everything. She and Peter would be turned out of doors, left to beg.’
‘So Emma killed Alisoun?’
‘Yes. I doubt very much if Emma also intended to kill the two young men. Yet you can imagine the scene. Blunt was in St. Mildred’s and Alisoun was here whilst Emma, the faithful housekeeper, prepared a deadly potion.’ Kathryn picked up the wine cup from the table at the side of the bed and sniffed, wrinkling her nose at its acrid stench. ‘I suspect Emma used what the Latins term Amanita virosa, a deadly mushroom. The cap is egg-shaped, silky white, glossy, tinged at the centre to a foxy brown.’
Kathryn took the wine cup across the chamber and poured the dregs into a night jar.
‘It makes a deadly potion which can be hidden beneath the strong tang of claret. On the night of the murder, Emma retired to bed as Alisoun entertained two visitors and shared her wine with them. Perhaps Emma sat in this chamber listening to their laughter: she was past caring, so consumed with hate against Alisoun. Then Blunt returned and discovered the three corpses.’
‘And he took the blame?’ Luberon interjected.
‘Oh yes. Peter was probably sent to his chamber whilst Blunt began this play-acting with the bow and arrow. He would reason with Emma, point out that he was going to die anyway. She would have to stay to look after Peter.’
‘And would Emma agree to that?’
‘Perhaps, reluctantly; that’s why Blunt demanded to see me – he wanted to make sure his sacrifice had not been in vain.’ Kathryn walked to the window and stared out over the ice-covered rooftops. ‘As soon as I met him in the cell at the guildhall I knew something was wrong. The same was true when I studied his painting at St Mildred’s, of Abraham sacrificing Isaac on the altar. Did you notice the knife was turned inwards? Abraham’s preparing to sacrifice himself rather than his son. Blunt was thinking of himself.’
‘But that was done before the murders, wasn’t it?’ Luberon asked.
Kathryn looked over her shoulder. ‘I wonder,’ she replied. ‘Did Blunt know the murders were going to occur? Or did he see himself dying because of his work, sacrificing himself for his family?’ Kathryn gestured at the bed. ‘Whatever, as soon as Blunt died, Emma had no reason to live. She may have suspected that we knew the truth and so the poor woman took her own life.’ Kathryn turned round and leant against the windowsill. ‘When Simon told me that her reaction to Blunt’s death was to wonder about what to eat, she was already planning her own death. I just prayed that she would entrust Peter to our care and compassion. Anyway, it’s over,’ Kathryn concluded. ‘Simon, please take Peter to Father Cuthbert at the Poor Priests’ Hospital. Explain what has happened, then come back and seal the house.’
Luberon agreed. Kathryn heard him go down the stairs and talk to Peter, then the door closed as they left the house. Kathryn walked over and grasped Colum’s hands.
‘The past can be dreadful,’ she said softly. ‘It’s never really the past but, like a shadow, hangs close behind you. Sometimes it just catches you up in its dark embrace. We must not let that happen to us.’
Colum bent down and gently kissed her on the lips. Kathryn blushed and stepped back.
‘One less secret,’ she murmured, pointing at the bed.
‘And the business at the Wicker Man?’ Colum asked.
Kathryn drew in a deep breath and walked briskly towards the door. She paused, her hand on the latch.
‘God be my witness, Irishman. I don’t know, except that there may be some mysteries which are never resolved.’
Chapter 11
They returned home. Thomasina had the meal ready and Kathryn ate in silence, still affected by the deaths of Blunt and Emma Darryl. She quietly vowed to visit Father Cuthbert and ensure that Peter remained in kind hands whilst any property and monies the simpleton might inherit were properly handled. Colum ate quickly, then went up to his own chamber; he could see that Kathryn was lost in her own thoughts so he cheerfully hid his own frustration and disappointment. In his mind, he was already beginning to draft what he would write to the King’s Exchequer in London about Erpingham’s and Vavasour’s murders.
Outside darkness began to fall though Wuf still insisted on playing in the garden, so Kathryn absent-mindedly let him. As Thomasina and Agnes cleared the table, Kathryn went back to her chancery. She lit a lantern and a few candles, prepared parchment and quill and began to list her thoughts and suspicions about Erpingham’s murder and Vavasour’s mysterious death in the frozen mere. Kathryn nibbled the end of the quill. What was it, she thought, that she had seen amiss in Vavasour’s chamber? She heard Wuf shrieking with laughter in the garden so, clutching the lantern, she went out to discover what was happening. She found him on the edge of the small carp pond, sliding his polished wooden disc across, then running round to the other side to collect it. He was in no danger so Kathryn stood for a while watching him.
Wuf shouted at her. ‘Soon the ice will crack!’
Kathryn smiled and made her way towards him. Wuf sent the disc spinning across; sure enough, the ice beneath, warming under the thaw, crackled and snapped. Kathryn put the lantern down on the edge of the pond so Wuf could see more clearly.
‘Sooner or later, sooner or later,’ Wuf chorused, ‘the ice will crack!’
‘Wuf!’ Thomasina called from the kitchen. ‘Come in here and help!’
The little boy looked at Kathryn.
‘Go on, Wuf!’
She took him by the hand and led him to the kitchen door. Wuf scampered in. Kathryn walked back to collect the lantern, then abruptly stopped. She saw the light and the wooden disc, and her heart leapt.
‘Of course!’ she breathed. ‘That explains it!’
Kathryn stared at the lantern. Vavasour’s death had been a mystery. Everyone had been in the tavern, yet someone must have been waiting on the mere for Erpingham’s clerk to come. But how had that person survived when Vavasour had drowned in the frozen waters? She gingerly made her way down the garden path, picked up the lantern and wooden disc and hastened back into the kitchen. She ignored Thomasina’s questioning glance and Wuf’s request that his toy be returned. Instead she returned to her writing office. She picked up her quill and quickly drew a rough sketch of the Great Meadow, indicating with a cross where Raston had seen the light flickering, inviting Vavasour forward onto the mere. Kathryn put the quill down and leaned back, steepling her fingers.
‘If that’s how it was done,’ she said to herself, ‘the next question is who had the means and resources to set such a trap?’
She took out a list of the people at the Wicker Man.
‘There can only be one conclusion. But how does this resolve Erpingham’s death?’ She remembered the grisly skull and bones found under the floorboards: how had they caused Erpingham’s nightmare? Kathryn took down her father’s battered folio, greasy with age and thumb marks, which listed all known poisons. Each entry had been filled in at different times and only careful scrutiny of the faded inked pages found the entry on deadly nightshade. Kathryn smiled sadly as she read the entry.
‘A tall herb,’ her father had written, ‘which can survive all year and has many branched stems. The flowers are purple, solitary and drooping though sometimes they can be lurid violet or violet-green. Its fruit, shining black berries, is a great danger to children and the unwary. The drug is distilled either from fresh or dried leaves or roots, though all parts of this herb are poisonous. Nevertheless, it is very useful in resolving the evil humours of the stomach, but even small quantities can cause severe poisoning.’
Kathryn finished reading the entry and was about to close the folio when she noticed a further entry, the ink very faded, scrawled in the margin. She pulled the lantern closer yet; even under its light, the writing remained illegible. She took a large magnifying glass from a small coffer, went back and studied the cramped letters. Her father had written in shorthand but Kathryn, flushed with excitement, could decipher it. She put the glass down and leaned back in the chair, closed the folio and clasped it in her hands.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered: that simple entry had helped resolve one mystery. ‘You don’t know as much as you think you do, Swinbrooke,’ Kathryn murmured. ‘Perhaps it’s time you reread all your father’s journals.’
Kathryn closed her eyes and tried to recall every detail surrounding Erpingham’s death. How the tax collector had eaten and drunk only what the other guests had. How he had taken his goblet upstairs to his chamber, locking and barring the door. No one had approached him except for Standon, who wished to ensure all was well with his master.
‘But he never checked the taxes?’ Kathryn murmured, opening her eyes. ‘His clothes were thrown in a heap. No poison was found in his room. How was that done, eh?’
Kathryn already had a vague suspicion about the identity of the assassin, but how was the crime carried out? She closed her eyes again: Vavasour; his chamber; the coins lying on the floor.
‘Kathryn?’
She started. Colum stood in the doorway, staring strangely at her.
‘You shouldn’t be so soft-footed, Irishman.’
Colum sat on a stool beside Kathryn’s desk; he noticed how her cheeks were slightly flushed, her eyes sparkling.
‘You’ve found something, haven’t you?’ he asked quickly. He grabbed her hand and squeezed it. ‘I knew you would, oh clever physician.’
Kathryn replied carefully. ‘I may know how Vavasour died. He was lured to his death but, at the moment, that’s not important.’
‘What is, then?’
‘The details concerning Erpingham’s death.’ She tapped her father’s folio. ‘I have just discovered there were two distinct attempts to kill Erpingham.’
‘Two!’ Colum exclaimed.
‘Oh yes. I have just read my father’s journal on poisons. Deadly nightshade is well named. It causes death very quickly: a heavy sleepiness and the victim slips away quietly.’ Kathryn tapped the folio again. ‘But a few grains of deadly nightshade will have another effect: it might not kill but it will cause fantasies in the mind, delirium and nightmares.’
‘And so Erpingham was given the potion twice?’
‘Yes. Just think, there he is, a godless man, sleeping in a chamber where, according to legend, one of his ancestors, a devil worshipper, had died. Now Erpingham would reflect deeply upon that, perhaps even revel in it. However, the night before he died, he was given a few grains of deadly nightshade, not enough to kill, but certainly sufficient to evoke a horrid nightmare. Do you remember what Sir Gervase told us about Erpingham’s appearance? Flushed face, sweaty, feeling of nausea, his limbs trembling? Well, those are the effects of a few grains of deadly nightshade.’ Kathryn paused. ‘Now, what I think happened is that Erpingham fell asleep and the potion set to work. Our tax collector suffered a mild delirium. Now either he has a dream or, waking up, cannot distinguish between what he saw
in his sleep and what his potion-soaked imagination made him see. Anyway, Erpingham rises from his bed. He is agitated and nervous and goes next door. Gervase gives him some wine. Erpingham is sick either before he visits Percy or afterwards, and this purges his body of the evil humours caused by the poison.’ Kathryn sighed. ‘The following night Erpingham is not so fortunate: this time the murderer realises his mistake and increases the strength. Erpingham dies and our mystery is set.’
‘But who?’ Colum asked. ‘How and why?’
‘For that,’ Kathryn declared, ‘I am going to need everyone in this house. Colum, before I lay allegations against anyone, I wish to see if I can play the same trick the murderer did.’ She leaned forward and stroked the Irishman gently on the cheek. ‘Please ask Thomasina, Agnes and Wuf to gather in the kitchen. Tell Thomasina to get three of our pewter wine cups down. You know, the ordinary sort.’
Colum opened his mouth to ask further questions.
‘Go on,’ Kathryn urged. ‘And, if I am right, before the day is finished, we will return to the Wicker Man tavern to trap the murderer.’
Colum needed no further encouragement: he hurried into the passageway calling for Thomasina and the rest. They all gathered around the kitchen table. Thomasina was intrigued, Wuf and Agnes only too glad to be called away from their household tasks.
Kathryn sat down in her chair.
‘Now, Thomasina,’ she began, ‘please fill the wine cups.’
Thomasina picked up the flagon and obeyed.
‘Keep a cup for yourself,’ Kathryn urged. ‘Give one to Colum and the last to me.’ Kathryn sipped from hers. ‘Come on,’ she teased. ‘Aren’t you going to drink my health?’
Colum raised his eyebrows at Thomasina and they both drank. For a while Kathryn just sat, sipping at her wine cup.
‘You always were the mysterious one!’ Thomasina exclaimed.
Kathryn smiled back. ‘Thomasina, I have a task for you. Take your wine cup up to my chamber and trim the hour candle there.’