by P K Adams
The Italians’ reputation for using poison as a method of getting rid of their enemies or opponents was widespread, even though plenty of others did, too. Why, even Helena, a Pole, had laced wine with belladonna before she gave it to Don Mantovano on the night she killed him. Although, I reminded myself, she had procured the herb from Doctor Baldazzi.
I pulled the linen coif off my head, let my hair fall loose, and ran my fingers through it, as if that could help me think. Perhaps our deadly reputation was justified, after all. A groan of frustration escaped me—I knew very well why I resisted the idea. If poison led to Italians, then Italians led to Queen Bona, and not only her estranged son would blame her. Scores of others, especially in Kraków, would agree.
I recalled my sister-in-law, before I left for Vilnius, sharing the rumor about Queen Elizabeth’s young maid who had died under mysterious circumstances a few days earlier. I had dismissed the allegation of poison as a vilification spread by Chancellor Maciejowski’s faction, but was there some truth to it? After all, the similarity of circumstances was uncanny. I had never believed the many accusations Bona had faced over the years—being a poisoner was only one of them—but I had to keep an open mind or I would never get to the truth of what happened to Milda.
* * *
I met Chamberlain Opaliński, assigned to aid me in the inquiry, at eight o’clock. As we headed to the main kitchen, he informed me that the duke had ordered the entire cellar, not just his private wine stores, closed except to those with a special permit from now on. It was a sensible precaution.
The kitchen was a bustle of activity, delicious smells of frying eggs and baking bread whetting my appetite. Opaliński commandeered a table in a corner so we could interview each member of the staff. A maid arrived with fresh cheese, fragrant rosemary bread rolls, butter, and a jug of wine.
I studied the color and smelled the contents. “Malvazia,” I announced, not without relief.
“The same the Master Cupbearer brought for the duke yesterday morning,” the chamberlain said. “I spoke with him to confirm.”
“So someone brought the Spanish wine and replaced the one the duke had ordered,” I said. But who, and why?
“Do you think it was poisoned in the kitchen?” Opaliński asked as we buttered our rolls.
“It’s quite possible.” I reflected. “I suppose he could have done it elsewhere, but since he had to carry it and could have been asked to share it if he bumped into an acquaintance, my guess is he kept the vial hidden and didn’t empty it into the flagon until he reached the kitchen.”
The chamberlain scratched his neatly trimmed beard, puzzled. “None of the guards outside saw anyone who didn’t belong in the kitchen the entire day, and the only person who came through with flagons of wine was the authorized cupbearer in the morning.”
“Then he must have gotten in through that door from the outside.”
Opaliński shifted in his seat. “He would have had to get through two sets of doors—from the main courtyard and the delivery door, both of which are kept locked.”
I thought about that. “Unless he walked out of the palace through the terrace from the state rooms on the ground floor. As for the delivery door, the key was on the peg, but he could have bribed someone to duplicate it.”
Opaliński considered the point, then shook his head. “Too risky. He could have been stopped and interrogated.”
“Servants carry wine around all the time, and many noblemen do, too.” I thought about that last, then conceded, “Although usually in goblets, not in flagons.” I considered the possibilities once more. “He could have worn a disguise or done it late the night before, when there are fewer guards around.”
“Done what?”
“Taken the wine to the delivery door and left it there. If there was no delivery during the day, nobody would notice it, and he could have gone back empty-handed to complete his scheme between eight and ten last night.”
“Hmm.” Opaliński chewed his roll and swallowed. Neither of us had touched the wine yet. “So, one way or another, he gained entrance through the side door under the cover of darkness, replaced the Malvazia with the Spanish—”
“Dumping it outside, most likely,” I interjected.
“—then proceeded to poison the Spanish.”
“That makes most sense,” I said. “He took the vessel with him and left nothing behind that could be traced to a particular person.” I felt a grudging admiration. Whoever did this had thought it through.
We finished the rest of our meal, then took a reluctant sip of wine. I suspected we each wanted to show the other that we were not afraid, and that in both cases that was not true. In fact, after that sip, neither of us drank anymore.
Throughout breakfast, we observed the kitchen staff. Many cast furtive glances in our direction. The subdued atmosphere and the puffiness of some eyes told me they already knew what had happened. And why would they not? One of their own had been slain, and the night-duty servants would have spread the news quickly. The duke wanted to keep the death as secret as possible—not unlike his father in 1519, when Helena went on her murderous rampage. It would not work this time either. Once the servants knew, the story—and the attendant rumors—would spread like wildfire.
For nearly three hours, we talked to each member of the staff separately, from the chief cook to the servants who scrubbed the pots and the floors. We learned that Milda had been a good worker but prone to fits of temper, confirming the image of a troubled young woman the duke’s cook had already painted. But she did not seem the type to attract enemies, although her peers also admitted that since the new kitchen had been built, they had seen little of her. It seemed that nobody knew Milda closely or was on friendly terms with her. By the time we finished, I could only hope that talking to the dead girl’s chamber-mate would yield more information.
When we left the kitchen, Opaliński headed toward the staircase that lead to the servants’ quarters on the top floor, but I stopped him. “We should pay a quick visit next door.” I pointed toward the private kitchen.
He understood right away.
Inside, we found the cook, alone and grim-faced, washing up after the duke’s breakfast. She informed us that Barbara’s food had been returned untouched, and that she, the cook, was still awaiting a new maid.
Opaliński assured her that one would be assigned by tonight, then we walked over to the delivery door. Nobody had paid much attention to it the previous night given that the key was in place on its peg; now it was of vital importance as the means of the murderer’s access.
“When was the last delivery?” I asked the cook.
“On Saturday.”
“Have you or anyone else opened this door since last night?”
She shook her head.
I took a breath and turned the knob. The door yielded. The chamberlain and I exchanged a glance. Over his shoulder, I saw the cook pause at the vat and stare open-mouthed.
“This door’s supposta be locked.”
We stepped outside into an overcast and chilly morning. The air smelled of damp leaves and wet earth, unmistakable scents of the approaching autumn. We were on the side of the palace facing the river. A cobbled road led from the door and ran the remaining length of the palace wing and then along the wall that enclosed the main courtyard. The path that once served as the main supply route ended at a gate in the courtyard wall.
“The food and wine for the main kitchen is brought in every Saturday morning through a door in the southern wing and undergoes a general inspection there,” the chamberlain explained. “Then it’s carried to the kitchen through an underground passage. The duke’s food still comes through here after it’s inspected again by guards who also act as tasters, drinking small samples from every one of the wine casks that come in from the outside.”
A double inspection—triple, if you count Milda—and a round-the-clock guard in the kitchen corridor. I marveled at that level of security, fueled by Zygmunt’s distrust of hi
s own mother. Was he right to be so suspicious? Whatever the case, the person who wanted to kill Barbara had clearly found a way around it.
I bent to examine the lock but found no obvious signs of manipulation. Opaliński saw that, too. “It had to be a duplicate key,” he said. “If the lock was tampered with, there would be marks on it, some scratches, wouldn’t there?”
“I suppose,” I said, although I had never seen a picked lock before. I looked along the palace wall that ran in the opposite direction from the cobbled road. It was just a grassy lawn that extended toward the corner of the palace, where it merged with the ducal gardens. Three floors above us were the windows of my lodgings.
“How difficult is it to access the gardens from inside the palace?” I asked.
He hesitated. “I wouldn’t imagine it’s difficult.”
“Are the glass doors of the state rooms that open onto the terrace locked at night?”
“They’re not,” he said, and my certainty that the murderer had taken that route solidified.
“So you do believe he was inside the palace last night, and perhaps the night before?” Opaliński lowered his voice, casting a fearful glance over his shoulder, as if someone might be lurking there. “Is it possible that he lives here?”
I matched his volume, so as not to alarm the cook. “Lives or stays as a guest. The entire compound is walled, including the gardens.” I swept an arm around. “I imagine trying to scale these walls would be troublesome, especially if you’re carrying wine in the dark.” Then I added, “But he may be gone already.”
Near the beginning of the path, not far from the door, grew a clump of bushes where a flagon of wine could easily have been hidden, covered against the rain, in advance of last night’s attack. The whole area looked like a place few people would stray into unless they wanted privacy. But no one would have sought that kind of privacy during the cold and damp of the last two days. I considered the grass, rendered soggy and flat by the overnight rain. I tried but failed to discern whether anyone had recently walked on it or poured the Malvazia out onto it; nonetheless, both seemed at least possible.
“If the killer had a duplicate key, why didn’t he lock the door behind him when he left?” Opaliński asked.
“Perhaps he forgot, or Milda arrived early and spooked him. Impossible to tell. But I don’t see any other way he could have gained entry.”
Yet the point was well taken. The person we sought was not so clever and steely-nerved, after all. He may have covered his tracks inside but inadvertently left us a clue on the way out.
* * *
As we climbed the staircase to the servants’ floor, Opaliński offered to have all of the kitchen staff interviewed again to see if anyone would admit to having given the delivery door key to a stranger to duplicate.
“I doubt that would be useful,” I replied after some consideration. “Doing a search of their possessions for extra ducats they couldn’t explain might, but only three people had easy access to that key: the cook, Milda, and the Master Cupbearer, given that the kitchen is always locked when not in use. Milda is dead, so that leaves the cook and the cupbearer, who I’m assuming has his own key to the kitchen?”
“He does,” the chamberlain confirmed as we stopped at one of many narrow doors on the attic floor, its ceiling so low I could have touched it if I stretched my arm above my head. The narrowing down of the bribery suspects to two, one of them a high-ranking palace courtier, clearly troubled Opaliński. Leveling accusations at powerful people was always risky, and if the cupbearer proved to be innocent, we would pay a price. “Let’s see what we can learn here first,” he said with a note of desperation in his voice. I felt sorry for him.
He knocked on the door, the sound sharp and short.
After some moments, a wan-looking girl in a chambermaid’s outfit answered. She, too, showed signs of tears. “My Lord Chamberlain.” She curtsied, keeping her eyes on the floor. She looked terrified.
When she did not move, Opaliński pushed the door open, and the maid stumbled backward. She righted herself in time to prevent a fall and stood in the middle of the room, head hanging low.
“I sent a message this morning, instructing Oksana to remain here until we spoke to her,” Opaliński explained as I took stock of the simple room. It had two wood-framed, narrow beds with a table for a candle beside each one and a shelf for personal effects. The shelf held two combs, a painted wooden casket that might hold a girl’s trinkets, and a small book bound in cheap cloth, which I guessed was a breviary, although I doubted either of the maids could read. The only other items of furniture were a washstand with a chipped ceramic bowl and a pitcher, two chairs, and a linen chest. Unsurprisingly, the room was clean, and the two beds—one of which had not been slept in last night—made neatly.
The chamberlain opened the painted casket, but it contained nothing more than some hair pins and a couple of metal brooches that might have been purchased at a fair. He returned it to the shelf and went to the chest that stood against the wall. When opened, it revealed a change of work uniforms for each girl, two pairs of clean if much mended stockings, and two linen dresses.
I took one of the chairs and instructed Oksana to sit on her bed. Opaliński remained standing. “Do you have any idea who might have wished Milda harm?” I asked.
She shook her head without a word, and her lips trembled.
“Can you think of anything that might help us identify who did this to her?”
Again she shook her head wordlessly.
I took a breath, trying to contain my impatience. “Did she confide in you recently? Secrets, for example?”
“No. We weren’t friends. She was sullen and bad-tempered. We didn’t talk much.”
I sighed. There was a good chance I would learn even less here than I had in the kitchen.
I was trying to think of a way to drag more information out of Oksana when I noticed her casting furtive glances toward Milda’s bed. I followed her gaze. The thin blanket reached the whole way to the floor, even though on Oksana’s it hung only half way down.
I rose and lifted the blanket. Stuffed between the floor and the frame was a bundle of sheets.
Oksana jumped to her feet and burst into tears, covering her face with her palms, like a child. “She begged me not to tell anyone. She said it was only for a few days.”
“What was?”
Her tears turned into heaving great sobs that blocked her words.
I put a hand on her shoulder and guided her, gently but firmly, back to the bed. “Calm yourself, girl,” I said. “We’re here to find out who killed Milda. Anything you tell us can be helpful and won’t hurt you. If you are innocent, you have nothing to fear.”
It took a long while for Oksana to calm down. At last, she wiped her nose and eyes on her sleeves and said haltingly, “She ’ad a cousin, Jurgis, who fled his village … to look for work … He needed a place to hide until he could make his way south, somewhere he heard they was looking for laborers …”
Opaliński’s lips tightened, and he frowned. It was a major breach of security for someone to sneak into the palace and lodge undetected. The captain of the palace guard had much explaining to do. But that was none of my concern. I asked Oksana, before the chamberlain could be tempted to reprimand her, “When did he arrive?”
“Last Saturday.”
The day the food was delivered to the palace. I looked at Opaliński and saw that he thought the same thing. The boy must have found a way to come in with the farmers who brought their produce to the palace. He might have got himself hired as a carrier and after his work was done scurried up the servants’ staircase to Milda’s chamber.
“And when did he leave?”
“This morning,” she said.
“What do you mean, this morning?! He was still here when his cousin was killed?”
She nodded, fresh tears springing to her eyes. “When we learned she was dead, and then the messenger from my lord chamberlain came to tell me to st
ay ’ere, he decided to run.”
I turned to Opaliński. “We must check with the guards if they caught anybody leaving who wasn’t supposed to be here.”
“I would have heard of it,” he said. “Although they are more lax with people who leave than those who come in.”
They seem to be lax either way, I refrained from saying. Instead, I addressed the maid again. “So you stuffed his bedding under Milda’s bed?”
“I’m sorry, my lady. I didn’t know what else to do!”
“It’s all right,” I said soothingly. Her little deception was the least of our worries. But something else puzzled me. “Why did Milda’s cousin need to hide here, instead of going directly south to seek work?”
“It’s against the law,” she said fearfully.
I gave the chamberlain a quizzical look. He explained. “Peasants in Poland-Lithuania are prohibited from relocating without the landowner’s approval, with the exception of women who marry.” I had forgotten the oppressive conditions of serfdom in these northeastern lands. Opaliński continued in the dispassionate tone of a servant of state, “It benefits small and middling gentry, but magnates who possess tracts of empty land need every pair of hands they can get, which leads some laborers to abscond from the estate of a master they don’t like and settle on a magnate’s or a churchman’s land. It’s hard to find them and bring them back, and their new masters have no interest in giving them up to the law.”
“You best find ’im and talk to ’im, my lord,” Oksana said. “They often whispered to each other in the night. Milda might have told ’im something she wouldn’t have told me. We weren’t really that close, like I said.”
I sighed. “He could have gone anywhere by now.” The Duchy of Lithuania was far larger than the Kingdom of Poland and more sparsely populated, rendering those tracts of land the chamberlain had spoken of very vast indeed.