A Plague of Poison tk-3

by Maureen Ash

  “Severtsson has only held the post for a couple of years, although he was employed in a minor capacity at Wragby for some time before I gave him the office,” d’Arderon said. “I am sure, since it was his own family members who were very nearly poisoned, that he will do his utmost to help you. He lives in the manor house at Wragby, which is not too far from the apiary, and I can arrange for him to meet you at Nettleham village, if you wish.”

  D’Arderon shook his head sadly as he added, “These deaths make me wonder if the position of bailiff at that property is not ill-fated in some way. If Reinbald or his wife had been harmed, it would have been the second time that tragedy had struck the man who has held the post.”

  “How so?” Bascot asked.

  “The former bailiff was a man named John Rivelar,” d’Arderon explained. “He had a son who lived with him, and just about the time I came to Lincoln two years ago, the boy was discovered to have been consorting with brigands and was taken into custody by Sheriff Camville. When the lad was hanged for his crimes, Rivelar became so distraught that, a few days later, he was taken with a seizure of his heart and died.” He sighed heavily. “As I said, the post seems to be ill-fated.”

  “How long has the property been in the Order’s possession?”

  “Quite a number of years,” the preceptor replied. “It was bequeathed to us by a widow whose youngest son was a member of our brotherhood and stationed in Outremer. He was killed during a skirmish with the Saracens in the Holy Land only a few months before King Richard left on crusade. Shortly after she received news of her son’s death, the widow sickened and met her own end. In her will, she left Wragby and the Nettleham apiary-both of which had been part of her dower-to the Order in memory of her son.”

  “Do you know anything about the beekeeper that may have a connection with these poisonings?” Bascot asked.

  D’Arderon shook his head. “No, I do not. I have only met the apiarist, whose name is Adam, once, when I went on a tour of the Order’s properties shortly after I arrived. He is a rather strange old man, and has a peculiar way of speaking about his bees, but seems competent enough.”

  “Are there any others living at the apiary?”

  “Only a daughter and her husband with their children. The daughter’s husband is a potter and makes jars for the beekeeper’s honey as well as a variety of other vessels which he sells in the town.”

  Bascot thanked the preceptor for his help and promised to inform him immediately if he found any connection between the poisoner and the apiary. “It may only be a chance occurrence, Preceptor, that both pots came from Nettleham,” he said.

  “We must hope so, de Marins,” d’Arderon replied. “But it shall be, as always, as God wills.”

  Eight

  Early the next morning, just after the service of Mass had been held in the castle chapel, Nicolaa de la Haye gave orders that all of the household were to assemble in the bail. She did not intend to let Gosbert, of whose innocence she was convinced, remain a prisoner in the holding cells any longer. When her summons had been obeyed, she donned her cloak and, accompanied by Ernulf, went down the steps of the forebuilding and across the ward to the holding cells. At her command, the serjeant brought Gosbert out and left him quaking with fear in front of his mistress. Nicolaa gave him a few words of quiet reassurance and then turned to face the watching servants and addressed them in a stern voice.

  “It has been proven to my satisfaction that Gosbert is innocent of the crime of poisoning Sir Haukwell and Ralf the clerk. He will now return to his duties, and I charge you all to know he is under my protection. Should any of you be foolish enough to cast further aspersions on his name, that person will be dismissed from his or her post and banished from Lincoln.”

  As she said this, she turned her eyes towards Thomas, the squire. The young man reddened but returned her gaze steadily, and nodded in her direction to show that he realised the import of her words and would obey her instruction.

  Gosbert fell to his knees in front of Nicolaa. “I thank you, lady, for your trust in me. I would never harm you, never.”

  “You may get up, Gosbert,” she said kindly. “I never doubted your loyalty, but it had to be proved before I could release you. Return to your duties. You have trained Eric well, but he does not have your delicacy of touch when it comes to preparing the roasted coney of which I am so fond.”

  Gosbert rose to his feet and gravely nodded his head. “I shall prepare it for you tonight, lady,” he said, “and in the manner to which you are accustomed.” The cook gave his mistress a solemn bow and then, his head held high, strode across the bail to the kitchen.

  While Gosbert was being released from the holding cell, Bascot was on his way to visit the apiary at Nettleham. The preceptor had sent a message to Ivor Severtsson, instructing him to await the Templar at Nettleham village. Hamo, a serjeant from the preceptory, went with Bascot at d’Arderon’s suggestion, so there would be no doubt in the bailiff’s mind that any enquiries put to himself and the residents of the apiary were being made with the Order’s permission. The Templar would have liked to bring Gianni with him. The boy had sharp eyes and ears, and his help had been invaluable to Bascot on the previous occasions when a murderer had been abroad in Lincoln town. But his involvement in his master’s investigations had, the last time, nearly cost the boy his life, and Bascot was reluctant to put him in such jeopardy again. Gianni had been downcast when he had been told he would be left behind, but it was better he suffer disappointment than take a risk with his well-being.

  Bascot gave a glance at the stern countenance of the knight riding beside him. Hamo was a dour and taciturn individual, but his devotion to the Order was total and without reservation. He would, Bascot knew, be as anxious as the preceptor to prevent any stigma from attaching itself to the Templar brotherhood through the actions of one of its tenants.

  The weather was holding to its promise and the day was again a warm one, with white fleecy clouds scudding overhead across a pale blue sky. After leaving Lincoln by the northern gate of Newport Arch, they turned off Ermine Street a short distance from the town, onto a track that led eastwards towards Nettleham and Wragby. As they rode, the sights and sounds of the countryside engulfed them; all of the trees were in bud, and intermittent patches of bluebells filled the air with their earthy scent. Small birds flitted to and fro, twigs or bits of leaf clamped in their tiny beaks as they went about the task of building their nests, and the hammering of woodpeckers made an intermittent, and clamorous, accompaniment to their passage. An occasional traveller passed them on the track, mainly carters taking produce to one of the markets in Lincoln, but for most of the way, the road was empty.

  Nettleham village was situated about four miles’ distance from the main road, with the larger property of Wragby a further seven miles on. The village was a tiny one, consisting only of a small church, a blacksmith’s forge and a few cots built of wattle and daub. On one side was a grassy area of common ground where meetings could be held or animals grazed, and beyond that was a stretch of rolling flatland dotted with sheep. A few villagers were in the street, a woman with a basketful of eggs over one arm and another two women standing gossiping by a well near one of the houses that had a sheaf of greenery fixed beside the door, denoting it was an alehouse. Severtsson was waiting for them outside the blacksmith’s forge, his horse tethered to a nearby post and a pot of ale in his hand.

  He was a tall man, with handsome, craggy features, broad shoulders and a shock of close-cropped blond hair above a pair of blue eyes almost as pale as Bascot’s single one. Not only his name but his appearance indicated that it was likely he had Viking blood among his antecedents.

  Setting his ale pot on a block of wood at the entrance to the forge, he greeted them in a deferential manner and waited to be told the reason he had been summoned.

  Bascot suggested that they mount their horses and ride a little way out of the village lest the smith, who was engaged in repairing the blade of a plou
gh, or any of the other villagers overhear their conversation.

  When they had left the hamlet behind them, Bascot slowed his horse to a walk and said to the bailiff, “Did Preceptor d’Arderon include the purpose of our visit in his message?”

  “No, lord,” Severtsson replied, “he only gave an instruction that I was to be here to meet you this morning.”

  Realising that the bailiff had not yet heard of the poisoned honey that had originally been in his uncle’s house, he explained the matter carefully. “We are here to make enquires concerning the matter of five deaths that have occurred within the castle and town. All were victims of poison, and the substance that killed them was placed in jars of honey that came from Nettleham. I have been sent by Lady Nicolaa, with Preceptor d’Arderon’s permission, to determine whether it is possible that the honey was adulterated while it was in the beekeeper’s care at the apiary, or during its transport to the places where the poisoned pots were discovered.”

  Severtsson’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “I have heard of the deaths in the castle,” he said, “but not of any in the town. May I ask who it is that has died?” The bailiff was well-spoken, but his words were touched with a slight Scandinavian accent, which confirmed the impression that he was of Nordic stock.

  “A neighbour of your uncle Reinbald’s,” Bascot replied. “A spice merchant named Robert le Breve, and his wife and young daughter.”

  The information startled the bailiff. “I am sorry to hear that,” he said. “Le Breve was a good friend of my uncle’s. I know he will be distressed at his passing, and especially by the manner of it. You say the little girl was poisoned, too?”

  Bascot nodded. “The only one left alive in the household was an elderly servant. A woman named Nantie.”

  “And it is certain that the honey in which the poison was placed was purchased from the apiary at Nettleham?” Severtsson asked.

  “It was, but it was not le Breve who bought it. It was given to Maud le Breve by your aunt, and came from a stock which she said was supplied to them by you.”

  It took a moment for Severtsson to register the implications of what Bascot had told him, and when he did, the blood drained from his face. “Are you saying that if my aunt had not given the honey to her neighbour, it would have been she and my uncle who died?”

  “Yes. It would seem that the poisoner’s intended victims were members of your family, not le Breve’s.”

  Bascot gave the bailiff a few moments to recover from the shock of what he had been told and then asked, “When did you take the honey pots from Nettleham to your uncle’s house?”

  “Last autumn, just after it had been harvested,” Severtsson replied, his voice unsteady. “My uncle asked me to buy some for him and I did so, when I went to Nettleham to collect the beeswax that is the beekeeper’s fee for tenancy.”

  “After you collected it, did you leave it out of your sight for any length of time before you took it to your uncle’s house?” Bascot asked.

  “No,” Severtsson replied. “I was going into Lincoln that day and had a cart with me. I loaded both the honey and the wax on the wain and took the pots of honey directly to Uncle Reinbald’s house. It is my custom, whenever I am in Lincoln, to call on them and stay for a meal. That is what I did that day. After we had eaten, I took the beeswax to the preceptory on my way back to Wragby. The honey never left my possession at any time, nor did I leave it unattended while it was on the wain.” He ran his tongue over his lips in an agitated manner and said to Hamo, “Is it really possible that the honey could have been poisoned before I collected it?”

  “It may have been,” the serjeant replied, “and the matter must be looked into. That is why Sir Bascot wishes to go to the apiary and question the inhabitants. Tell him what you know of the beekeeper and his family.”

  Hamo’s tone was brusque, and Severtsson recovered his composure a little under the force of it. “There is the beekeeper himself, whose name is Adam. He is a widower, but he has a daughter, Margot, and her husband living with him. Margot’s husband’s name is Wilkin; he is a potter and makes jars for the apiary honey and other types of vessels which he hawks around Lincoln. They have two children, a daughter, Rosamunde, who is about twenty years old and has a babe of her own, and a young son named after his grandfather and called Young Adam.”

  “And this daughter, do she and her husband live on the property as well?” Bascot asked.

  Severtsson’s gaze faltered a little as he answered. “She has no husband,” he said.

  Bascot noted the hesitation that the bailiff had made when speaking of the girl, and had the feeling that Severtsson was being evasive. He did not pursue the impression, however; it might be nothing more serious than that the bailiff felt uncomfortable speaking of a female who had borne a child out of wedlock, especially to two monks whose vows forbade them to marry or seek out the company of women.

  “Are you aware of any enmity that one, or more, of these people, including the beekeeper, might feel towards your uncle?” Bascot asked. If the honey had been tampered with before it was taken to Lincoln, the beekeeper or a member of his family would have had ample opportunity to do so.

  “None that I know of,” Severtsson replied. “They are good tenants. The beekeeper submits his fee every year without fail, and the property is kept in good order. And, as far as I am aware, they all get along peaceably with the villagers in Nettleham.”

  As they had been speaking, they had approached a thick stand of elms that stood at one side of the road. The bailiff motioned to a trail that branched off the main track just opposite the trees. It was heavily marked with ruts from the wheels of a wain. “The apiary is about a half mile down that lane,” Severtsson said.

  Nine

  The Nettleham apiary appeared to be, as Severtsson had implied, orderly and well run. The main building was a large cot with a thatched roof, alongside which were a few small sheds and a byre. Set a little distance away was a potter’s kiln, stone walled and topped with a domed roof of clay. Just inside the gate in the wattle fence that enclosed the main area was a large herb garden, and the bouquet of rosemary, thyme and marjoram was pungent in the air even though the plants were not yet in bloom. A series of niches set in the stone wall down one side of the garden contained beehives, with a few of the insects buzzing lazily about their entrances. To the south was an orchard filled with apple, pear and plum trees, and several large skeps of plaited straw formed two orderly rows beneath their branches. To the north, beyond the enclosure, was a stretch of woodland, mainly comprised of trees of alder and ash.

  As the Templars and Severtsson approached the gate, they could see a man loading earthenware vessels onto a two-wheeled wain, taking his supply from a shed that stood close to the kiln. A towheaded boy of about Gianni’s age who was tending a litter of pigs in a sty looked up at their approach and came running to the gate, a large black and white dog following on his heels and barking loudly.

  “We are come to see the beekeeper, Adam,” Hamo said. “Open the gate and let us through.”

  The boy did as he was told, his mouth dropping open a little as he gazed up at the two Templars on their horses, both clothed in thick leather gambesons with a cross pattee sewn on the shoulders. As they rode their horses up to a hitching rail and dismounted, two women came to the door of the cot. One was tall, thin and of middle age, dressed in a homespun kirtle and holding a distaff in her hand; the other, whom the older one held firmly grasped by the arm, was much younger and fair of face and figure.

  “The older woman is the beekeeper’s daughter, Margot,” Severtsson said, gesturing towards them. “The other is her daughter, Rosamunde.” His voice dropped in tone slightly as he spoke the girl’s name.

  The man who had been loading the wain came across to them and bobbed his head respectfully. He was about forty years old, with a sallow complexion, lank brown hair and deep-set brown eyes. His hands and nails were engrained with clay. With no more than a baleful glance at Severtsson, he add
ressed himself to Bascot and Hamo. “I am Wilkin, the beekeeper’s son-by-marriage,” he said. “I heard you ask for Adam, lords. He is in the orchard. I will send the boy for him.”

  As the lad ran off, Wilkin asked if it would please them to be seated and take a stoup of ale while they waited. Bascot told him it would, and he and the others followed the potter into the cot.

  The interior of the building was large enough to encompass living and sleeping quarters for the beekeeper and his family. An open grate in the center provided heat for warmth and cooking, and a rough-hewn table with benches alongside was set against one wall. In a corner sleeping pallets were piled in readiness for use and there was a sturdy open-faced cupboard lined with shelves along which a variety of jars was ranged. Strings of onions, garlic and herbs hung from the rafters and there were baskets of root vegetables on the floor below. It was all very neatly kept and clean.

  The older woman that Bascot had seen at the doorway, Margot, came forward bearing a tray on which were set three wooden cups of ale, and Wilkin pulled one of the benches away from the table so that the visitors could be seated. Bascot looked around for the girl who had been with Margot at the door and saw her sitting on a stool in the corner, stirring the contents of a bowl placed on her lap with a wooden spoon. Seen close to, Bascot realised that she was more than fair; she was beautiful. Long braids of russet hair framed a heart-shaped face that bore a complexion as delicate as the petals of a flower. Her brow was wide and smooth, and her eyes were the blue green colour of seawater. If this was Rosamunde, the daughter of Wilkin and Margot that the bailiff had seemed embarrassed to speak of, her name surely suited her, for she was indeed a “Rose of the World.” She paid the visitors no mind, and just kept stirring the contents of the bowl and gazing into the distance as though she were in a dream. Sitting among the rushes at her feet was a small child of perhaps fifteen months, amusing itself by sucking on the cloth at the hem of her skirt.