A Plague of Poison tk-3

by Maureen Ash

  “Milady and Sir Richard request that you attend them as soon as you are able,” he told the Templar. “I’ve just been trying to help them with a list they’re making of men in the town that might be this damned Mauger Rivelar.” He shrugged regretfully. “I wasn’t much help, I fear.”

  When he reached Nicolaa’s chamber, Richard was with her, discussing each of the names on the list they had compiled. As Bascot entered, the castellan looked at him expectantly. “Was the potter able to give you any additional details about Mauger’s appearance?”

  “Only that he might have blue eyes,” Bascot replied. “That is all.”

  Nicolaa sat back in her chair, disappointed. “We have been trying to recall John Rivelar’s appearance in more detail,” she said, “but our memories contain nothing remarkable.” She tapped the piece of parchment on the table in front of her. “Many of the men on this list could be his son, but lacking some definitive feature to set one apart from the others, it is impossible to tell which of them it could be.”

  Bascot picked up the list and scanned it. It was separated into three parts-castle, town and priory. The listing for the castle household had just over half a dozen names with Gosbert’s assistant, Eric, at the top followed by six more, and ending with the name of Gilles de Laubrec, the marshal. Bascot was surprised at the knight’s inclusion.

  “I had not expected to see de Laubrec’s name here,” he said.

  Richard gave a nod of reluctance. “He took up his post in my father’s retinue just before you came yourself, de Marins, and so his arrival is within the two-year space of time during which Mauger could have returned to Lincoln. De Laubrec told us that he was formerly in the retinue of a lord in Normandy, but…” Richard rubbed a hand over his mouth as though to stop himself from voicing his misgivings, “if Mauger gained some skill at arms during the ten years he was absent, the pretence of being a landless knight in a distant demesne would not be difficult to assume. We can send a messenger to Normandy, of course, and ask the baron if de Laubrec is telling the truth, but it would take many weeks before we knew the answer. We do not have that much time.”

  “The same can be said of most of the others on the list,” Nicolaa added. “Eric came to me saying he had been in the employ of a woman with whom I am acquainted but have not seen for many years. He gave me details of her household and the manor house in which she lives. I did not question his veracity.” She pointed to some of the other names. “You will also see that Martin, the castle leech, is here, along with Lambert, John Blund’s clerk. Martin told us he served his apprenticeship for leechcraft in the company of a physician from London while they were both in the retinue of one of the Marcher lords on the Welsh border. Lambert says he comes from Exeter, in Devon, and claims he was taught to scribe at a schola there. Their bona fides, like the marshal’s, can all be checked but, as Richard says, it will take a long while to do so.”

  Bascot pointed to the second category on the list, that of the priory, where the names of Brother Andrew and two other monks were written down. “It should not be as difficult with these men. The church is scrupulous in investigating the backgrounds of any men requesting admission to their ranks.”

  Richard got up and began to pace. “You would think so, de Marins,” he said, “but I have been to All Saints and spoken in confidence to the prior, and that is not always so. Andrew claims to come from the land of the Scots, and to have been a member of a Benedictine monastery on one of the many small and remote islands off the northern coast of Scotland. He brought with him a letter from the abbot there, saying Andrew wished to extend his knowledge by studying under Brother Jehan, whose renown as an herbalist is well-known.”

  He gave Bascot a look of irritation. “Unless we send an enquiry to the Scottish monastery, how are we to know that Mauger did not adopt the guise of Andrew to gain access to the priory? In the ten years he has been away, he could easily have become skilled in scribing and written the letter himself. The prior seems to think he is sincere.”

  “Andrew, by his own admission, had easy access to the shelf where the pot was kept in the priory,” Bascot mused, “but so do the many people of the town who come to the infirmary for aid when they are ill.”

  “Exactly,” Richard replied.

  “I have asked Roget to enquire discreetly about those who live in the town,” Nicolaa said, pointing to the section where ten names were recorded, “but it will not be easy to ask their neighbours for information without revealing the purpose for it.”

  “We seem to be at a standstill,” Bascot said.

  Their frustration was like a physical presence in the room, as though a fog had descended and engulfed them. Nicolaa stood up, breaking the tension. “We must press onwards, regardless of how hopeless it seems, until we find some way to uncover Mauger’s false identity. There is no other option left open to us.”

  That evening, Bascot sat with Ernulf in the small cubicle in the barracks that the serjeant used for a sleeping place, sharing a pot of ale. Even though the room was screened off by a leather curtain from the large open space that housed the soldiers of the garrison, they were talking quietly lest they be overheard. In a corner, Gianni sat listening to their conversation while he used the wax tablet to practice his competence with Latin phrases.

  The Templar and the serjeant were discussing the names on the list Nicolaa and Richard had prepared.

  “I can’t believe ’twould be any of those in the castle,” Ernulf said. “Especially Sir Gilles. He has never given, by word or sign, that he is other than what he claims to be.”

  “Neither has Martin,” said Bascot. “A man becomes a leech, I would have thought, because he wants to heal people, not kill them.”

  Ernulf took another swig of ale. “Could be the clerk, Lambert, I suppose,” he said. “He’s allus seemed to me to be a sly fellow. I put it down to him coming from Devon. I knew a lass from those parts once; she was as bright and pretty as a new minted penny, but she slipped my purse with a month’s wages off my belt and was gone before I’d had time to take the kiss she’d promised me. Never trusted anyone from Devon after that.”

  He looked at Bascot. “Course, if Lambert is Mauger, he never would of come from Devon, anyway, so maybe his slyness has more to it than I thought.”

  The serjeant’s logic was convoluted, but Bascot nodded in agreement as Ernulf added, “Milady said it was possible that the monk that helps Jehan in the infirmary could be Mauger, the one who calls himself Brother Andrew.” The serjeant shook his head in despair. “Don’t like to think that a man of God could be responsible for killing all those people but then, if he’s only posing as a monk, I suppose it might make sense.” He hawked and spat on the ground. “If ’tis that assistant of Gosbert’s, I’ll skewer him on a spit and roast him like a pig over an open fire. He’ll not die quick, I promise you that.”

  At that moment, the leather curtain over the cubicle rattled and Roget entered. The expression on his face did nothing to lighten the despondency that Ernulf’s words had invoked. The former mercenary looked disgruntled and tired; the scar down one side of his face seemed deeper and his eyes were dull. He was carrying a stoppered flagon of wine and poured himself a generous measure before offering it to the others. When they shook their heads, he sat down heavily on a stool.

  “I have just finished giving my report to Lady Nicolaa,” he told them. “I tried to find out what I could about the people whose names she gave me but discovered little that might help us. It could be none of them, or all. Everyone seems to be what he says he is, but how are we to know who is telling the truth and who is not?” He took a long swallow of his wine and cursed long and hard. “ Mon Dieu, it is like going into battle with a sack over your head. You know the enemy is there, but you cannot see him.”

  Both Bascot and Ernulf commiserated with his words and they sat in morose companionship until the Templar stood up and said he was going to bed. Bidding the serjeant and the captain a good night’s rest, he called t
o Gianni and they left the barracks, making their way across the bail towards the old keep. Once in their sleeping chamber, Bascot struck tinder from a small firebox he kept beside his bed and lit a rushlight, not extinguishing it until they had both removed their boots and lain down on their pallets.

  Once the chamber was in darkness, Bascot removed his eye patch. He knew sleep would not come easily, for even as he closed his eye, his mind began to go over and over the small store of information they had about Mauger. He felt as though one of the ferrets that belonged to Dido was in his mind, ducking and diving into dark crannies to find the scent of the rodent he was seeking, just as he was searching for a trace of the human vermin who was the poisoner. He had a feeling that something had been missed but could not determine what it was.

  The Templar tossed and turned, trying to still his mind so that he could induce it to rest. He lay thus for a long time, until finally the cathedral bells tolled the hour of Laud. The slow pacing of the strokes was sonorous, and Bascot felt a calmness descend on him. Just before sleep claimed him, the words of a verse from the Bible came to him, from the book of Exodus, where it was related how the Lord had commanded Moses to turn back and camp by the sea so as to confuse the Egyptians. As his mind stilled into the void of slumber the words “Go back” echoed in his consciousness like one of the cathedral bells.

  Thirty-two

  The next morning, as Bascot and Gianni attended Mass in the castle chapel, the Templar found the two words from the text in Exodus still reverberating in his mind, so much so that he found it difficult to concentrate on the words of the service. A restless night’s sleep had added its toll to his fatigue, and he decided that he was in need of some physical exercise to sharpen his concentration.

  After they had emerged from the chapel and broken their fast, Bascot sent Gianni to the barracks and watched until the lad was safely inside before he walked across the bail to the open stretch of ground that was set aside for use as a training area by the squires and pages. The household knight that had been appointed in Haukwell’s stead as mentor to the young men of the Camville retinue had set Thomas and one of the other older boys to a round of practice at the quintain, while the younger ones were strengthening the muscles in their arms and the accuracy of their eye by throwing wooden javelins at water butts filled with sand. Sending a page to the armoury for one of the blunt-edged swords used for training in combat, Bascot stripped off his outer tunic and set himself before one of the half dozen thick wooden posts that stood near the perimeter of the training ground. When the sword was brought to him, he hefted it in both his hands to gauge the weight and then began to swing it at the block.

  As the first strokes of the dulled blade smashed into the wooden block, a feeling of relief engulfed Bascot’s knotted muscles and he kept swinging the sword until perspiration dripped from every part of his body. Shaking his head to clear it of the beads of sweat that had gathered on his brow, he took a moment’s respite from the exercise and then began again, this time more methodically, letting the rhythm of the sword beat order into his mind and thoughts. As the words of the text had seemed to bid him, he went back in his memory to the day Mauger had claimed his first victim and Bascot had ascended the stairs to the scriptorium and found Blund kneeling over the dying clerk. Then had come the death of Haukwell and Nicolaa de la Haye’s subsequent questioning of Gosbert and his assistant. Thomas’s accusation that Eric had poisoned the honeyed drink had followed, and then the assistant’s denial, citing the fact that Gosbert had used some of the honey to make marchpane and it could not have been tainted. That was when it had been revealed that Nicolaa de la Haye had most likely been the intended victim, since the cook had admitted he had sent the cake to her chamber, saying in his defence that he had done so in the hope of tempting her flagging appetite. The sempstress, Clare, had then told how she had taken the cakes to the scriptorium…

  Bascot halted in the sword in mid-stroke. No, it was later that Gosbert had mentioned Nicolaa’s failing appetite, when Bascot had questioned him in the holding cell after the cook had been incarcerated. Then Gosbert’s statement had been more detailed; he had said his purpose in sending the cakes had been to encourage Lady Nicolaa to eat and had added that his reason for doing so had been that “he had heard” her appetite was waning. Who had told him that? The entire household in the castle had known that Nicolaa was indisposed, but Bascot could not recall anyone mentioning that she had suffered a disinclination for food. Had it been an assumption on Gosbert’s part that her illness had induced a lack of appetite, or had someone intentionally told him it was so? Could it have been Mauger, in the guise of his assumed identity, that had encouraged Gosbert to prepare the marchpane and send it to his mistress, using the cook as an innocent dupe in the commission of her murder?

  Slowly Bascot let the sword fall loose in his hand so that the tip rested on the ground as he examined the notion that had just come to him, and then, grabbing the tunic he had discarded, he gave the blunted sword to one of the pages and walked swiftly across the bail in the direction of the castle kitchen.

  When Bascot entered the cookhouse, he found Gosbert overseeing two scullions as they positioned the carcass of a recently slaughtered sheep onto a spit in one of the fireplaces. Eric was standing nearby, a pot of grease with which to lard the animal in his hand. When the Templar called to Gosbert, the cook immediately came to his side, pulling off the rough linen cap that covered his bald head.

  “I am here under instruction from Lady Nicolaa,” Bascot informed him. The Templar wanted to get the information he was seeking from the cook without Gosbert realising the point of his questions, and also wanted to prevent Eric overhearing the gist of their conversation. He would have to use a ploy of some sort to get the cook away from the rest. “She wants to ensure that Wilkin did not tamper with any of the other foodstuffs in the kitchens,” he said to the cook, “especially those in the storeroom, which was not locked until after the remaining honey pots had been tested. Open the door and show me what the room contains, so I may judge whether there is need for Thorey to test any of it on his rats.”

  Gosbert was quick to comply with the request and led the Templar away from the ovens towards the room that Bascot remembered seeing on the day he had come to question Eric. Taking a candle from a shelf, Gosbert set the wick alight from the flame of one of the cresset lamps that were set in holders at intervals along the walls, and he walked to the far end of the kitchen. After unlocking the storeroom door with a key hanging from a chain on his belt, Gosbert pushed it open and led Bascot inside. The Templar shut the door behind them. The room was large, with bags of flour stacked along one side and barrels of salted fish lined up on the other. Stoppered earthenware containers of various sizes stood at the farthest end, and above them were shelves laid with rounds of cheese, bowls of eggs and jars of mustard. In one corner were a box of candles and a large wooden bucket filled with scoops and ladles.

  “I think ’twould only be the fish that would have a taste strong enough to mask a poison, lord,” Gosbert said with a worried look on his face, “but the mustard might do just as well. Shall I get them all brought out into the bail so Thorey can test them?”

  Bascot walked about the room, pretending to examine the lids on all of the fish barrels and the seals on the jars of mustard. “I will ask Lady Nicolaa if she thinks it best to do so, Gosbert. After all, the potter managed to exchange a jar of poisoned honey for a pure one while you and the rest of the kitchen servants were near at hand; he could just as easily have slipped in here and done the same with one of these.”

  The cook ran a hand over his bald head in distress. “I know, lord. I blame myself for not being more vigilant. ’Twas bad enough the life of Sir Simon was taken, and that of the clerk, but if Lady Nicolaa had died…”

  “Yes, we must give thanks to God that she was spared,” Bascot replied soberly. “If her throat had not been so sore, then such would have been her lot.” He gave the cook an accusing look. “Bu
t, Gosbert, it must be said that if you had not made the simnel cake and sent it to her chamber, the danger to her life would not have been there in the first place.”

  “I know that, lord.” Gosbert gave the Templar a look full of remorse, but as Bascot had hoped, he then tried to exonerate himself from blame. “I would never have made the cake, Sir Bascot, if I had not been told that milady’s desire for food was waning. ’Tis well-known that Lady Nicolaa has a fondness for marchpane. I thought it might encourage her to eat. She is a good mistress and has been kind to me; I would never wish any harm to come to her.”

  “I am sure you would not,” Bascot offered sympathetically. “And neither, I am sure, would the person who told you of her disinclination for food. Did he, too, know of Lady Nicolaa’s liking for marchpane?”

  Gosbert nodded absently, and Bascot then asked, in as nonchalant a manner as he could adopt, the name of the person with whom the cook had discussed Nicolaa de la Haye’s failing appetite. The Templar held his breath as he waited for the cook’s reply and, when it came, felt a surge of triumph. It was one of the names on the list that Nicolaa and Richard had prepared.

  Thirty-three

  A short time later Bascot was sitting with Nicolaa in her private chamber. He told her that he had discovered an indication of the assumed identity Mauger was using but, to corroborate it, he needed first to ask her a question. The castellan gave him a look of puzzlement but agreed to his request all the same.