A Plague of Poison tk-3

by Maureen Ash

  The reason why poison had been employed to murder people connected with those responsible for Drue Rivelar’s death came to the Templar with undeniable certainty, and he knew beyond any doubt that Mauger was the one that had used it.

  His elation, however, was short-lived. There was no means of proving his conviction. Without substantiation, Gerard Camville would give no credence to a claim that his official declaration of the potter’s guilt had been an error and that the true culprit was, instead, a man who had not been seen in Lincoln for ten years. And Nicolaa de la Haye would also doubt Bascot’s assertion; it had been on her authority that Wilkin had been accused, and she was still convinced that her charge had been a true one. Both of them would dismiss his allegation about Mauger as being unsupported by real evidence, and it was highly unlikely that either the sheriff or his wife would agree to a search being made for Rivelar’s elder son.

  The Templar looked out over the town of Lincoln. Mauger was out there somewhere, he knew. He could be one of the people walking through the crowded streets below, or a servant in the castle ward or Minster, safe behind the facade of his false identity as he pretended to share in the horror that the poisonings had provoked amongst those with whom he lived and worked. He was resourceful and he was clever and Bascot had no doubt that he would kill again. It was imperative to find him before that happened. But how?

  He needed evidence linking Cooper’s murder to Mauger before either the sheriff or Lady Nicolaa would believe that John Rivelar’s elder son was the poisoner. The only person left who might be able to give him information that would enable him to do that was Cooper’s cousin, Mary Gant. Although Roget had questioned her on the morning that the body of the fishmonger’s assistant had been found, the captain had not, at that time, yet spoken to Mistress Marchand and so was not aware that the murderer had been someone Cooper had not seen for many years. And even after the draper’s wife had given the captain that additional bit of information, Roget believed it to be a brigand who was responsible and would not have thought to return to the glover’s wife and question her again.

  There was also the need to discover whether Mistress Gant had visited the alehouse in her childhood and had been there on the occasions that Mauger and his father had stopped to sup ale. If she had, it was possible that she, like Cooper, would recognise him and know that the name he was using was not his own. She, along with the beekeeper’s family, could be in great danger and must be provided with protection.

  Bascot turned away from the parapet and went back down the stairs to the bail. He would visit the glover’s wife without delay. The need to institute a search for Mauger became more urgent with every passing moment.

  Roget had told him that Mary Gant lived in a house on Clachislide, which was a street that branched off Mikelgate near the church of St. Peter at Motston. Bascot took Gianni with him, but they did not go directly to it, taking a circuitous route by walking down Danesgate until they came to Claxledgate before turning onto Clachislide. With every step that he took, Bascot wondered if Mauger was keeping watch on the approaches to Mary Gant’s house, waiting to see if anyone connected with the sheriff came to question her again about her cousin’s death. As they walked, he told Gianni the reason for their journey, and to keep a sharp eye out for any who seemed to be loitering without purpose near the glover’s home.

  They found the premises without difficulty, since the open-fronted shop on the lower floor was still open for custom. As Ernulf had said, it seemed that Gant had a good business, for there were quite a few customers crowded around the goods displayed on the counter that lay open to the street. Bascot scrutinised the customers carefully. Most were women, some accompanied by a child or a maidservant, and although there were three men amongst them, these all appeared to be well over the age of thirty. Deciding it would be safe to assume that none of the men could be Mauger, Bascot approached the shop and spoke to the middle-aged man behind the counter, telling him he wished to speak to the glove maker.

  The man nodded and went to the back of the premises and disappeared through a doorway, returning a few moments later accompanied by a short, spare man with a kindly face. His brown eyes were gentle and his shoulder-length hair was liberally sprinkled with grey.

  He introduced himself to Bascot as Matthew Gant and asked the Templar politely how he could be of service.

  “I want to ask you and your wife a few questions concerning the death of her cousin, Fland Cooper,” Bascot told him.

  Gant nodded and, opening a small wooden gate that allowed entry into the shop, led Bascot and Gianni through the door that the glover’s assistant had used and into a workshop strewn with pieces of leather, soft linens and wool. On the work surfaces were many wooden lasts in the shape of a hand, all of different sizes, and numerous pairs of scissors as well as large spools of thread and a quantity of needles. Square wooden frames that were used for stretching the materials before they were cut and sewn were hanging from the walls. Motioning to a flight of stairs that led to the second storey, and explaining that his wife was above, they followed the glover up the narrow staircase to the living quarters and into a large chamber where Mary Gant sat at a table sewing tiny beads into a decoration on the back of a woman’s glove. She was older than her cousin Fland, about thirty years of age, and some ten or fifteen years younger than her husband. Her face and figure possessed little beauty, for her dull brown eyes were set close together and lines of irritability curved alongside lips that wore a pursed expression.

  “My wife tends to the finer work,” Gant said proudly. “She has a deftness that is rare.” That explained why the glover must have married her, Bascot thought; she had no other attribute to recommend her.

  Gant smiled at his wife and explained why Bascot had come. She had laid her sewing aside when she saw that their visitor was of knight’s rank and gave a deferential nod in response to her husband’s explanation, but her manner was far from welcoming. “I know nothing about any of the people my cousin associated with,” she said, her pinched features screwed up with disapproval. “I told Captain Roget so on the day that he came here.”

  “I am aware of that, mistress,” Bascot said, tingeing his voice with sternness. “But since the captain’s visit, further information about your cousin has been received that you might be able to help clarify.”

  The glover saw that the Templar was annoyed by his wife’s tone and hastened to offer Bascot some refreshment. Bascot shook his head and bade them both be seated. When they had done so, he asked Mary Gant if she had ever visited the alehouse her relatives had run out on the Wragby road.

  She sniffed with condemnation. “No, I never went there,” she replied loftily. “It was a low place, even when my great-aunt ran it.”

  “Fland’s grandmother and Mary’s were sisters,” her husband interrupted in explanation.

  Bascot nodded his head in understanding, and although he was relieved to find that it was not likely the glove maker’s wife had ever seen Mauger, and so would not be a threat to him, he felt a pang of disappointment that she could not identify him. “I have been told that, in later years, Fland’s father often had brigands for customers,” he said to Mary. “Is that true?”

  He wanted to find out if Cooper had ever spoken of Mauger’s brother, Drue, to his cousin. If he had, it was possible he had also mentioned Mauger. His question set the glove maker’s wife off into a tirade.

  “That was all Fland ever talked about,” she said sharply.

  “How he had met all those outlaws and of the tales they told him. I warned him more than once that he was not to tell his stories to people who knew myself and my husband, but he would not obey me. It was embarrassing to have all our neighbours know that members of my family kept such nefarious company.”

  “Now, Mary,” Gant said in a conciliatory tone to his virago of a wife, “the boy meant no harm. And his customers found his stories interesting. You know that he was often given a fourthing or a halfpenny by some of them when he
went to make deliveries of fish. He said it was because they liked to listen to his tales.”

  Mary Gant clamped her lips together and made no reply to her husband’s comment.

  “Did he mention any of these wolf’s heads by name?” Bascot asked her.

  She waved her hand dismissively. “Often. Especially those that were hanged by the sheriff about two years ago, but I paid no attention to their names.”

  “Do you remember of whom he spoke?” Bascot asked the glove maker.

  Matthew Gant shook his head.

  The Templar changed the direction of his questions. “Your cousin told someone who knew him that he was expecting to receive some money from a man he was once acquainted with. Did he tell you of this?”

  “Money?” Mary Gant said explosively. “Never. He had none and no prospect of any. That is why we were forced to give him shelter.”

  Bascot turned from the wife and looked at her husband. “And you, Master Gant, did he ever speak to you of this expectation?”

  Gant looked at his wife uncomfortably before he answered. “Not specifically, no, but he did tell me just before he was killed that he would not be taking advantage of my generosity-and that of my wife, of course-for much longer.”

  His wife glared at him. “He never said that to me. Why did you not tell me he was planning to leave us?”

  Gant shrugged his shoulders helplessly. “He was killed before I could mention it, Mary. It did not seem important once he was dead.”

  “What exactly did Fland say to you, Master Gant?” Bascot asked, feeling his hopes rise.

  The glove maker took a moment to recall the conversation. “It was the night before he was killed,” he said and then gave a glance that bordered on defiance at his wife. “He and Mary had an argument earlier, while we were eating. It was, as usual, about him recounting some memory of the brigands he had known to a friend of ours the day before. They exchanged harsh words and I felt sorry for Fland.”

  He looked up at the Templar with his soft brown eyes. “The boy had not had a very good life, but it was all he had known. It was only natural he wanted to talk of it.” Bascot nodded and bade him go on.

  “After my wife went to bed, I tried to console him and told him that Mary only castigated him because she was concerned for his well-being and was worried that his tales might damage not only our reputation in Lincoln but his own. It was not her intent to be purposefully unkind, I told him, but he did not believe me. He said that I need not worry there would be any more arguments since he would soon be leaving our home and would no longer be here for Mary to rail at him.”

  “Since your wife said he had no money, did he explain how he expected to be able to pay for other lodgings?” Bascot asked.

  “I asked him that and his answer was a strange one,” Gant replied. “He laughed and said that while Mary might not think it profitable to make his former association with brigands known, his company with them had proved far more gainful than she thought, especially when he also knew the members of their families.”

  Bascot felt his pulse leap. “Did he make mention of any particular outlaw, or to which relative he was referring?”

  Gant shook his head. “Not really. He just looked at me and said that it was a true saying that blood was thicker than water, especially between brothers.”

  The Templar glanced at Gianni, who was standing beside him, and saw the boy smile. They had found the evidence they had been looking for.

  Twenty-eight

  After they left the glove maker’s shop, Bascot decided that they would not go directly back to the castle but would take their time in returning. If Mauger was amongst the people on the street, the Templar did not want to arouse any suspicion that they might have learned anything of import from Cooper’s cousin. First, he and Gianni went into the nearby church of St. Peter at Motston to offer up a prayer of thanksgiving for heaven’s assistance in their quest. After leaving there, they walked slowly up Hungate and stopped at the shop of a cobbler who had supplied the Templar with the boots he was now wearing-ones that the shoemaker had fitted with soft pads that greatly eased the pain in his injured ankle. They were greeted with what appeared to be genuine pleasure by the cobbler’s wife, a horse-faced woman with a mellow voice. She explained that her husband and son were both absent at the moment, having gone to pick up supplies of leather from one of the tanners in the lower part of town, but she would be glad to help Bascot with anything he required. The Templar examined some wrist guards that were on display on the counter and then enquired about getting a pair of new shoes for Gianni. After looking at several models the cobbler’s wife showed him, he promised to return later and place an order for a pair, then they left and walked back up Hungate to Spring Hill and out onto Steep Hill, passing through Bailgate before they entered the eastern gate of the castle.

  It was nearing time for the evening meal when they reached the ward, and the Templar, aware that it might still be prudent not to seem in any haste to speak to the sheriff, sat down in his customary seat. He forced himself to chew slowly, conscious all the time that any of those eating at board or serving the food could be the man he sought. If Mauger had been watching as he and Gianni had gone to the home of Cooper’s cousin, it was imperative that he believed Mary Gant had not been able to tell anything of importance. Bascot lingered over a last cup of wine until he saw that Gerard Camville was making ready to leave the hall before he called to a page and sent him to the sheriff with a request that he speak privately to the sheriff and Lady Nicolaa. After listening to the page’s message, Camville gave him a nod across the space that intervened between them, and Bascot waited for a full quarter of an hour after the sheriff and his wife had left the room before he went up the staircase that led to Camville’s private chamber.

  When Bascot arrived, a servant had just finished placing a tray bearing a flagon of wine on a small table set against the wall. The sheriff offered the Templar a cup before he asked why he had come, and Bascot accepted it, taking a deep draught before he spoke.

  “I have come to tell you, lord, that I believe the potter to be innocent of the crimes with which he has been charged, and that the poisoner is a man named Mauger Rivelar. He is the older brother of Drue, a brigand you hanged about two years ago. He is also the one who is responsible for the recent death of Fland Cooper, the young man who worked in the fish market.”

  Camville’s heavy brows came down over his eyes. “That is a far leap of the imagination, de Marins,” he said harshly. “Do you have some proof to substantiate this allegation?”

  “I do, lord. Mauger left the Lincoln area some ten years ago, but Cooper knew him well as a child, when Mauger and his father used to patronise an alehouse Cooper’s parents owned on the Wragby road. I have evidence that will support this. After speaking to a relative of Cooper’s, I am certain that Mauger returned to Lincoln after the deaths of his brother and father and it was he who adulterated the honey that killed six people in the town. The fishmonger’s assistant saw him while he was returning from placing the poisoned honey in the home of the merchant, Reinbald, and recognised him. When Cooper realised that Mauger was using a name that was not his own, he also became aware that it was he, and not the potter, who was the poisoner. Cooper then tried to extort money from Mauger to keep his identity, and his crimes, a secret and was killed for doing so.”

  The sheriff had begun to pace in his restless fashion as Bascot had been speaking. “And Rivelar’s reason for the poisonings?” he asked tersely.

  “Revenge, lord,” Bascot replied in an equally short fashion. “Against you, Ivor Severtsson and the prior. You were the one responsible for hanging his brother, the bailiff gave information that enabled him to be captured and the prior was witness to the deed.”

  “But none of us are dead, Templar,” Gerard objected. “I do not see how his purpose has been served by the deaths of those who had no part in bringing his brother to justice.”

  Bascot spoke earnestly. “Each of those w
ho was an intended victim was connected to one of you three, lord. Here, in the castle, the poison was meant for Lady Nicolaa. With Severtsson, it was his aunt and uncle. It was only happenstance that, on both of those occasions, others ingested the poison in their stead. The death in the priory is the only instance where Mauger achieved his aim. The poison was given to one of the monks, who are, to the prior, like members of his family. I have been told that when Mauger was a boy he enjoyed watching others being inflicted with pain. The manner in which Cooper was killed indicates that maturity has not changed him. Any revenge he sought would not be taken quickly, in the way that most men would do, with their fists or a sword. His requital would only be satisfied if he made his victims suffer before the coup de grace was delivered, so that he could take pleasure in their anguish before he despatched them. If Lady Nicolaa and Severtsson’s family had died, as he intended, he would have fulfilled his purpose.”

  Camville’s face had become grim. “What are your proofs of this man’s guilt?”

  Bascot related the details of Roget’s interview with the draper’s wife and how Gianni had afterwards made a suggestion that there was a connection between the poisoner and Cooper’s death. He then gave details of his questioning of Wilkin and, afterwards, the beekeeper and his daughter. Finally, he related his conversation with Matthew Gant and how it had provided proof of his suspicions. Both the sheriff and his wife listened intently.

  “Mauger will not stop, lord, until he has gained his objective,” Bascot said when he had finished. “He will kill again. And the next time he might be more successful.”