The Merchant of Death

by Paul Doherty

  Colum grasped Kathryn’s arm. He pushed his face close to hers. Luberon leaned across to listen.

  ‘She’s a wicked woman,’ Colum murmured. ‘But she has the truth of it. They have hidden the monies and the King will be furious. God knows what might happen. Everyone in this tavern could be held accountable for these monies and that includes us. There again, the barons of the Exchequer may simply rule that no taxes were delivered so no taxes were collected and the people of these parts will pay twice.’

  ‘They’ll be pardoned?’ Kathryn whispered.

  ‘Oh, no.’ Colum looked at Blanche Smithler. ‘Woman, you have my word as the King’s Commissioner.’ He pulled out a cross on a piece of cord that hung round his neck. ‘I swear, if you return those taxes, you’ll have your lives.’

  ‘For how long?’ Tobias Smithler asked.

  ‘I don’t play games with murderers,’ Colum replied, still clasping the cross. ‘Bring the monies down here. There are scales in the kitchen. Master Luberon will weigh it and check that all is well.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘You will go as you are,’ Colum replied, ‘to the sanctuary church of St. Mary in Queningate. You will claim sanctuary and remain there, untroubled, for forty days. If the Exchequer concludes that every penny Erpingham collected has been returned, you will, towards the end of January, be allowed to leave that church and take the road to Dover. You will take no provisions, no staff, no property. You will be furnished with a cross. You will not be allowed to leave the King’s highway. At the King’s port of Dover, you must throw yourselves upon the mercy of any sea captain. You will leave England, and all territories under the jurisdiction of the Crown, never to return on pain of death!’

  Blanche Smithler’s face lost some of its hardness. ‘You are a ruthless man, Irishman.’

  ‘And you are very fortunate,’ Colum retorted. ‘Now, I will sit back and count to one hundred. If those taxes are not returned by the time I finish, you will hang. Mistress Smithler, stay with us, your husband will find what we are all looking for.’

  The landlord fairly leapt from his seat and ran upstairs.

  ‘Do we have to keep our word?’ Luberon whispered.

  Colum stared up at the blackened rafters. ‘This tavern has stood here for centuries. God knows what secret cupboards and closets exist.’ He looked bleakly across at the clerk. ‘The King will be pleased. Erpingham and Vavasour were corrupt: he will seize all their property. He also has his taxes back, not to mention a comfortable tavern.’

  ‘You are not counting, Irishman!’ Blanche Smithler said.

  Colum spread his hands and grinned. ‘What’s the use?’ he replied. ‘Once I get past fifty I’m in difficulties. I am sure your husband has my meaning.’

  His words were greeted by a pounding on the stairs and Smithler, breathing heavily, came into the room carrying two bulky sacks and slammed them down on the table.

  Colum snapped his fingers at one of the bailiffs.

  ‘You and three of your men take the landlord and his wife down to Queningate. They may take cloaks and suitable footwear.’

  ‘And food?’ Smithler wailed.

  ‘Whatever you can quickly collect from the buttery,’ Colum added.

  Kathryn sat and watched the prisoners, surrounded by the bailiffs, go into the kitchen and return. Each carried a small linen bundle. The bailiffs paused at the foot of the stairs whilst the Smithlers went up to their chamber. Once they were down, they were hustled towards the door. Blanche Smithler suddenly turned. Kathryn steeled herself at the look of pure hatred in the woman’s dark eyes.

  ‘I’ll go!’ Blanche rasped. ‘I’ll go to the church and, in forty days, I will be free of Canterbury!’ She pointed a finger at Kathryn. ‘But never forget me, Swinbrooke, because, before God, I shall never forget you!’

  The bailiffs dragged her away, down the passageway; the door to the tavern was unlocked, then slammed shut behind them. Kathryn stared at the money bags.

  ‘Two men died for those,’ she murmured. She glanced at Luberon. ‘Well, Simon, you are the city clerk. I suggest you have them weighed, numbered and counted, then placed in the guildhall strong box. When the roads are clear, they can be sent to their owners in London.’

  Luberon, licking his lips, picked up the heavy bags and staggered into the kitchen. Kathryn stared into the dying fire. She rose and took a log from the pile heaped on the hearth, threw it on, then stood warming her fingers. Colum came up behind her. He grasped her shoulders and kissed her gently on the back of the head.

  ‘Physician, you did well.’

  Kathryn looked over her shoulder. ‘“Thus ends the third part, so begins the fourth and last part,” as The Knight’s Tale puts it.’

  ‘What do you mean, Kathryn?’ Colum turned her around and stared into her tear-filled eyes. ‘Kathryn, what’s the matter?’

  She shivered. ‘I don’t know.’ She chewed on her lip. ‘God save us, Colum, did you see the hate in that woman’s eyes?’

  The Irishman shrugged. ‘A wicked woman, frustrated in her ways.’

  ‘No.’ Kathryn shook her head and stared across the darkened taproom. ‘Before God, Colum,’ she whispered, ‘I have yet to see the last of Blanche Smithler.’

  ‘Empty words,’ Colum scoffed. ‘She’ll be lucky to reach Dover alive.’ He grasped Kathryn’s cold hands and squeezed them. ‘And you will always have me.’

  Kathryn cocked her head slightly, listening to Luberon singing in the kitchen as he merrily counted the coins.

  ‘Is it all there, Simon?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he shouted back. ‘As Master Murtagh is fond of quoting, “Avaritia radix malorum”: The love of money is truly the root of all evil. I could kill for this myself!’

  ‘I don’t think so!’ Kathryn replied.

  Luberon went on singing. Kathryn smiled at Colum and turned back to the fire.

  ‘We are not finished yet.’ She unrolled the scrap of parchment in her hand. ‘We need to see Father Ealdred. Please, Colum, bring him down. I’ll explain then.’

  The Irishman left and returned a few minutes later with the priest. Kathryn threw the scrap of parchment onto the fire and turned to greet him.

  ‘Father, I’ll come swiftly to the point. Did you intend to kill Sir Reginald Erpingham? Is that why Standon heard you mutter “Too much! Too much!”?’

  Ealdred’s face paled. ‘Before God, Mistress,’ he whispered, ‘I don’t know. In my parish I am a herbalist, not a physician like yourself but, after Erpingham’s visit, I seethed with rage. I was tired of his wickedness and the way he abused poor women.’ He ran a finger round the collar of his shirt. ‘I was so tired of Erpingham. I didn’t want to kill him, but as I passed through the city, I stopped at an apothecary’s and bought a small dose of deadly nightshade. On the evening before he had the nightmare, Smithler passed me Erpingham’s goblet of wine. I put a few grains in. If I had really wanted to, I could have killed him, but I knew his sleep would be disturbed. I thought it might be a warning. I’d taken him aside and pleaded with him but he’d laughed, so I was pleased when I heard how frightened he had been. I intended to speak to him later, claim it was a warning from God.’ He smiled thinly at Kathryn. ‘But, apparently, God intervened before I could.’ The priest took a step closer to Kathryn. ‘I did not want Erpingham dead,’ he pleaded. ‘Punished, yes.’

  Kathryn picked up her cloak from where it lay over a stool. She swung it round her and smiled at the priest.

  ‘Well, you can tell the rest, Father, it’s finished. God’s justice has been done and so has the King’s. Never again will Sir Reginald Erpingham visit your village and harass and abuse members of your parish.’

  She left the passageway, Colum followed her.

  ‘Sir! Sir!’ Raston came hurrying along behind. ‘What will happen to the tavern?’

  ‘Why, Master Raston,’ Colum replied, ‘till the King decides, you manage it.’ He clasped the old man’s hands. ‘Be careful when you go poaching,
especially on these cold, dark nights. I shall mention the service you gave, so you must live long enough to enjoy your reward.’

  He and Kathryn bade farewell to Luberon and went out into the freezing night. They pulled up the cowls of their cloaks, hiding their faces behind their mufflers. Colum linked his arm through Kathryn’s. Once they were clear of the tavern, back on the alleyway leading into the city, Kathryn paused and stared up at the brilliant night sky.

  ‘What do you think, Irishman? Will it snow before Christmas?’

  Colum pulled a face. ‘Now in Ireland we have a saying: If it snows before Christmas it will be a long, hard winter. Whatever it does, Kathryn, let’s enjoy the feast.’

  ‘Not half as much as Wuf will his marzipan tomorrow,’ Kathryn murmured.

  ‘Aye,’ Colum sighed. ‘He’s a good lad. He can come out with me to Kingsmead.’ He glanced at Kathryn. ‘You did well.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ she replied. ‘But could it all have been avoided? If Alisoun Blunt had been a good and honourable wife? If the Smithlers hadn’t been so avaricious and Erpingham so wicked?’

  ‘To quote the Pardoner,’ Colum began, ‘“The devil found them in such a wicked state, he had full leave his rage to consummate”.’

  Kathryn laughed and, clutching his arm, walked on.

  ‘I’ve just decided, Irishman, what to buy you for Christmas.’

  ‘Which is?’

  Kathryn grinned mischievously. ‘Something to help you count past fifty!’

  Author’s Note

  The use of hallucinogenic drugs in the Middle Ages was quite common and the strange effect of nightshade and other herbal concoctions was carefully noted. Many writers now agree that the visions of so-called witches were linked to these drugs. Indeed the word ‘assassin’ is a corruption of the word ‘hashish’, the opiate eaten by members of an eleventh-century Syrian sect before they carried out their drug-induced crimes.

  Tax collectors, at least in Medieval England, were usually hated and their nefarious practices were a constant complaint by Parliament. Time and again, they were attacked, physically as well as verbally, and their depredations were a constant factor in peasant uprisings, especially in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

  A word about the dialogue and characters: certain modern concepts and idioms separate us from the fifteenth century, but a survey of Margaret Paston’s letters (died 1484) show emotions and their expression not very different from our own. Indeed, I used Margaret Paston as a model for Kathryn Swinbrooke: industrious, composed, single-minded and committed to a world of work. Women such as Margaret Paston were models of propriety in an age where emotional outbursts or sexual impropriety by a woman could mean public and private disgrace. Chivalry and the language of the Courts of Love may sound very pleasant to our modern ears; to the women of the fifteenth century however, they were simply a pleasant diversion from the grim struggle against war, pestilence, superstition and sudden death.