Nightshade

by P. C. Doherty

  Corbett had announced the sitting during the funeral collation the night before. Lady Hawisa had immediately demurred. All three priests voiced their clerical status, pleading benefit of clergy, which Dame Marguerite supported, whilst Master Claypole claimed the rights of the town. Corbett swiftly silenced the protests, pointing out how the King wished to establish the truth about so many issues, including the murder of a manor lord, not to mention the theft of royal property, whilst a refusal to cooperate could mean the Court of Chancery might find it difficult to approve Lord Scrope’s will. Corbett even hinted that, as in certain cases, such a delay might take years. They all agreed, more or less, the three priests, Brother Gratian particularly, reminding Corbett that they were clerics and could not be tried before a secular court.

  ‘You’re not being tried,’ Corbett retorted, ‘but asked the truth about certain questions.’

  Father Thomas replied that he had no difficulty with that and the three priests promised to present themselves before the commission when summoned. Corbett also issued warrants under a subpoena to the town hangman, boatman Pennywort and others of Scrope’s retinue. He began with these. Pennywort could add little to what he had already said. He took the oath standing at the lectern beside Chanson, then recited what had happened. Corbett thanked him, asked Chanson to return Pennywort’s belt then gave the boatman a coin to stand on guard outside the door whilst Chanson secured the inside. The rest of Scrope’s retinue could say little about the night their master was murdered. Corbett quickly established how these men had sheltered amongst the trees around their fire. The weather had been freezing cold. They had been reluctant to leave the warmth yet they individually swore that the jetties, the boat and the approaches to the reclusorium had been carefully watched, and they had seen no one or anything untoward. Verderers and huntsmen were questioned about the Free Brethren practising archery in Mordern woods, but memories were indistinct and no one could say who actually saw what. Corbett then summoned the hangman Ratisbon, a dirty, dishevelled character dressed in faded leather breeches and jerkin over a tattered grimy shirt. His hair was lank and greasy, moustache and beared badly clipped, his face rubbed raw by the wind, his watery blue eyes reluctant to meet Corbett’s gaze. He was unable to read, so had to give the oath word by word after Chanson had repeated each one at least twice. He slouched down on the bench, glared at Corbett then looked away.

  ‘I’ve done nothing wrong,’ he mumbled. ‘All I do is the odd job here and there. The mayor pays me to execute felons, so I do.’

  ‘Do you remember John Le Riche, the thief who plundered the King’s treasury at Westminster?’

  ‘Course I do! Hanged him in November I did, a very expert job too, sir. He was on the cart, I pushed him up the ladder. I put the noose around his neck, the knot tied tight behind his left ear. I climbed down the ladder, then turned it. He dangled and kicked as they always do.’

  ‘Are you sure he died?’ Ranulf asked.

  ‘As sure as I am sitting here.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ Ranulf insisted.

  ‘I’ve seen enough men hang. I know when they are dead. They lose control over bladder and bowels. It’s a filthy business. John Le Riche died, his soul has gone to God. When I’m given a job, I do it well.’

  ‘You collected him from the prison,’ Ormesby asked, ‘on that morning?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I did.’

  ‘And he was the prisoner Le Riche?’ Corbett asked.

  ‘Oh, of course.’

  ‘What was his disposition?’ Corbett asked. ‘How was he?’ He explained. ‘Le Riche? Some men protest, others are quiet.’

  ‘Well, I tell you this.’ Ratisbon leaned an arm on the table and spoke in a gust of ale-sodden breath. ‘I like a drink, and so did Le Riche. Master, if he’d drunk any more he’d have fallen down.’

  ‘He was drunk?’ Corbett asked.

  ‘Drunk? He could hardly stand, but I tell you this, drunk or not, he’s dead.’ Ratisbon could say no more. Corbett thanked him, gave him a few pennies and the man shuffled from the hall.

  Lady Hawisa arrived garbed in her widow’s weeds. She took the oath, sat down, lifted back her veil and immediately smiled at Ranulf, who became so solicitous Corbett glared at him.

  ‘Lady Hawisa,’ Corbett began, ‘I thank you for coming here despite these distressing times. Certain questions must be asked and the King requires answers.’

  ‘Sir Hugh, ask your questions.’

  ‘How long were you married to your husband?’

  ‘About eleven years.’

  ‘And you had no child?’

  ‘None whatsoever, Sir Hugh, God’s will.’

  Corbett studied her pale face, eyes large and dark, lips pressed together. Lady Hawisa had a slightly nervous movement of the head as if the left side of her neck pained her. Despite the circumstances, Corbett decided bluntness was the best path to follow.

  ‘Did you love your husband?’

  ‘No, I hated him!’

  Corbett ignored the gasps and muttering of his two companions.

  ‘Why did you hate him?’

  ‘He had a midnight soul, Sir Hugh, dark as the deepest midnight. He was cruel, he was cold.’

  ‘Lady Hawisa.’ Corbett stooped down for the leather sack under his chair and drew out the cup he’d taken from the death chamber. ‘You recognise this cup?’

  ‘Of course I do. I gave it to my husband as a present.’

  ‘It is fashioned out of elm?’ Corbett asked.

  ‘No, Sir Hugh, I think you know what it’s fashioned out of. Yew. I gave it to him as a curse. To bring yew into a house creates ill luck. I hoped ill luck would befall my husband.’

  ‘Lady Hawisa, you tend the manor herb garden. It’s richly stocked with all kinds of plants, some beneficent, others malevolent, yes?’

  Lady Hawisa just stared back.

  ‘And in that herb garden you grow belladonna – nightshade?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ve been down there.’ Corbett leaned forward. ‘I’ve looked at a certain plot where the nightshade grows; the soil has been disturbed, a plant has been plucked.’

  ‘It may well be, Sir Hugh, but I did not do that.’

  ‘You do know what was found in your husband’s chamber?’

  ‘I’ve heard the rumours: wine tainted with deadly nightshade.’ Lady Hawisa glanced quickly at Physician Ormesby. ‘Enough poison to kill him, but he never drank it and I never put it there! Neither the plucking of the herb nor the poisoning of the wine was my doing. Ask the servants. Lord Scrope took his own wine there. He chose it himself from his cellar, filled the jug and took it across; he would always sample it. Lord Scrope was a man with many enemies. He feared the past, God knows why; he was most cunning in all his dealings.’

  ‘Did your husband know you hated him?’

  ‘My husband did not care a whit about what I felt, what I thought or what I did. I was a rich heiress, Sir Hugh. I did not marry out of choice. I was a ward of the Crown. My husband married me not because of my fair face but for my rich estates.’

  ‘Did you ever plot to murder your husband?’

  ‘In my mind, many, many times. Why not? As I’ve said, he had a soul as black and as deep as midnight. He was not brutal or cruel to me, just cold, dead! He had a heart of stone, no soul. He had no real lusts except for wealth. However, much as I loathed him, I did not kill him. I will not act the hypocrite, Sir Hugh. I will not swear on the Book of the Gospels and say we had a marriage made in heaven. We simply didn’t have a marriage. I was a stranger to him, as he was to me.’

  ‘And how can you explain the nightshade?’

  ‘I cannot. I had nothing to do with it. Anyone can enter that herb garden. Anyone can pluck a plant.’

  ‘Sir Hugh?’ Ormesby protested.

  Corbett raised a hand. ‘Very well, and the night your husband was murdered?’

  ‘I was asleep in my bed. My husband had decided to withdraw to the reclusorium.’

/>   ‘Why did he do that?’

  ‘To think, to talk to himself. Yes, I think he conversed with himself as if another person was really with him. I suspect the conversation was about the past, though he never talked about that to me. As for my movements that night, Sir Hugh, you’ve seen the lake, for the love of God, yards wide, yards deep; the water is so icy, the very shock of it would kill you.’

  ‘And your husband’s past, did he ever refer to it, even obliquely?’

  ‘No, though I suspect it troubled him deeply. He was a knight. He fought in Wales, Scotland and Gascony, then he took the cross. He led a company from Mistleham. Sir Hugh, I swear I know nothing of what happened out there except that Acre fell, and my husband seized a great deal of treasure and brought it back to England.’

  ‘And these warnings?’

  ‘I can add nothing to what has already been told you.’ Lady Hawisa shook her head. ‘Nothing,’ she whispered. ‘Some hideous legacy, I suppose, from a hideous past.’

  ‘And the Free Brethren of the Holy Spirit?’

  ‘At first Lord Scrope tolerated them; he did so at my request and that of his sister. I was much taken by them, especially the leader, Adam, a merry soul with laughing eyes.’ She glanced archly at Corbett. ‘No, Sir Hugh, there was no dalliance. I regarded Adam as the brother I would have liked or the son I would have loved.’

  ‘Then your husband changed his attitude?’

  ‘God knows why. He never discussed the matter with me. I only knew about the massacre after it occurred. I remember him summoning the men in the courtyard below. They were armed, chattering about going out to Mordern to overawe the Free Brethren. As God is my witness I did not think he intended to slay any of them. On reflection it was inevitable; by the Feast of All Saints Lord Scrope truly hated the Free Brethren. He called them vermin in his barn and wanted to have done with them. My husband,’ Lady Hawisa laughed sharply, ‘kept his word. They were wiped out like you would a nest of rats.’

  ‘And Lord Scrope was pleased?’

  ‘Like any farmer who’d cleared his property of a nuisance. He celebrated with Master Claypole and Robert de Scott, a few more cups of wine than usual.’

  ‘And Master Le Riche, the thief?’

  ‘Again, Sir Hugh, I have told you what I know. My husband was summoned to the guildhall, where Le Riche had been seized and detained. I was with him because I wanted to make certain purchases from the market. We entered the guildhall; Le Riche was already bound. He looked a folorn, abject creature. I thought he was inebriated, drunk.’

  ‘You are sure of that?’

  ‘Sir Hugh, I tell what I saw.’

  ‘Lady Hawisa, your husband and Master Claypole?’ Corbett straightened himself in the chair, ignoring the disapproving looks of both Ranulf and Master Ormesby. ‘A delicate, sensitive matter …’

  ‘No, a rather feckless matter!’ Lady Hawisa retorted. ‘True, now that my husband is dead, the stories about Claypole being his legitimate son could play a prominent part in my life. I’ve heard all the rumours, but the truth? If Claypole is Lord Scrope’s son, then he’s a by-blow, illegitimate, with a bar sinister across his arms. He has no more right to these lands than the Great Cham of Tartary.’

  Corbett smiled at Lady Hawisa’s bluntness.

  ‘If Master Claypole wants to try his case in the courts, then let him. I shall vigorously challenge any such claims.’

  ‘And before your husband died?’ Corbett asked. ‘He betrayed no anxieties?’

  ‘I did not know my husband’s business. He resented you being here and wished you were gone. He bitterly regretted having to hand over the Sanguis Christi. He believed the King had judged him unfairly over his treatment of the Free Brethren, but more than that? Lord Scrope was as much a stranger to me as he was to you. When he spoke it was about minor matters, the care of the manor, what the cooks were doing. He showed more concern for his horse and his dogs than he did for me.’ She paused. ‘Only one thing, and he mentioned it more as a source of irritation. The day before he died, Lord Scrope asked if I had noticed anything missing from the chapel. I said I hadn’t, what was he talking about? But that was his manner. He just glared at me and walked away.’

  ‘Something missing from the chapel, here in the manor?’

  ‘Yes, Sir Hugh. I still don’t know what he was talking about.’

  ‘Sir Hugh,’ Ranulf intervened, ‘I believe her ladyship has told us all she can.’

  Lady Hawisa beamed at Ranulf, who just coughed and glanced away. Corbett studied the woman. Sometimes in court or during an interrogation he would scrutinise something that could not be put into a logical framework. If Lord Scrope was a mystery, so was Lady Hawisa. Was it because she had spent her long years of marriage living like a nun, hiding behind a veil against her coldhearted husband, or was she concealing something else? Nevertheless he sensed that he’d questioned her enough, at least for today. He rose, thanked her, and Lady Hawisa took her leave. She nodded at Ormesby, smiled dazzlingly at Ranulf and swept out of the hall. Corbett sat down, drumming his fingers on the tabletop.

  ‘You are hard, master.’

  ‘Ranulf, this is hard business. We are dealing with treason, murder and theft. Let us not forget why we are here. Lord Scrope, whatever he was as a man, was a manor lord holding his lands directly from the King. He also held certain goods which rightly belong in the royal treasury at Westminster. More importantly, a murderer prowls Mistleham; he has killed time and time again and might do so again. Our task is to resolve these mysteries. We’ll question Master Claypole next.’

  The mayor swaggered up to the dais resplendent in his furlined civic robes, a chain of office round his neck, its gilt medallion shimmering in the light. He stood at the lectern, his mean face screwed up with annoyance. He placed one hand on the Book of the Gospels, lifted the other and gabbled the oath. Afterwards he took the chair directly opposite Corbett, one hand clutching the edge of the table, the other his beaver hat. He glared at Corbett as he wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.

  ‘Say it,’ Corbett rasped. ‘Come on, say your piece, Master Mayor! How you object to these proceedings. How you are a mayor of a town with its own liberties. How you object to being summoned here.’ He shrugged. ‘All nonsense! You either answer here or before King’s Bench in Westminster Hall. I assure you, Chief Justices Staunton and Hengham will have little patience with your petty claims.’

  Claypole cleared his throat and waved a hand as if wafting away a foul smell.

  ‘Sir Hugh, your questions. I am here.’

  ‘Your service in Outremer?’

  ‘In 1290,’ Claypole gabbled as if reciting a poem, ‘we learnt how hard pressed the Christian kingdom in Outremer had become. Lord Scrope convoked a meeting of every able-bodied man in the nave of St Alphege’s Church.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Corbett intervened. ‘You went as his squire along with others; they never returned, you did.’

  ‘You are skilled with the longbow?’ Ranulf asked.

  ‘Of course!’ Claypole retorted, face all flushed. ‘As are many in Mistleham.’

  ‘Why did Scrope appoint you as his squire?’ Ormesby asked.

  Corbett hid his smile. The rumours about Claypole’s possible parentage would certainly intrigue this inquisitive physician.

  ‘Why shouldn’t I be his squire?’

  ‘Is it true,’ Ormesby persisted, ‘and remember, sir, you are on oath. What you say can be used elsewhere either for or against you.’ He paused. ‘Are the rumours true that you are a by-blow, the illegitimate son of Lord Scrope?’

  Claypole’s face suffused with rage, red spots of anger blotched high in his cheeks, eyes glittering, and for a moment Corbett thought he was going to rise and strike Ormesby.

  ‘Master Claypole,’ Corbett soothed, ‘we only repeat rumours. Are they true?’

  ‘No, they are not true.’ The mayor leaned against the table, glaring at Corbett. ‘They are not true because I am the legitimate son of Lord Scrope
and Mistress Alice de Tuddenham, and I shall prove that.’

  ‘How?’ Corbett asked. ‘Father Thomas says the blood registers covering the year of your birth are missing. Do you have them?’

  ‘Do you think I would be sitting here if I did? No! I asked Lord Scrope about that. He believed Father Thomas stole or destroyed them.’

  ‘Why should he do that?’

  ‘Because Father Thomas hates me as he hated Lord Scrope. Do you think it’s a coincidence, Corbett—’

  ‘Watch your tongue!’ Ranulf snapped.

  ‘Oh, I am watching my tongue,’ Claypole assured him. ‘But do you think it’s a coincidence that Father Thomas came here to serve in a parish church the lord of which was a man he hated? No, no, no! He came here for other reasons.’

  ‘Which are?’

  ‘Ask Father Thomas,’ Claypole retorted. ‘He is from these parts, as was his brother Reginald, who joined us on our expedition to Acre.’

  Corbett sighed and leaned back in the chair. ‘And what happened to Reginald?’

  ‘Killed with the rest.’

  ‘So you think,’ Corbett asked, ‘that Father Thomas came here to discover what happened to his brother?’

  ‘I don’t know. You must ask him.’

  ‘But why should Lord Scrope,’ Ormesby asked, ‘patronise a man who hated him?’

  Claypole showed his yellowing teeth in a smile. ‘Quite simple, physician. Lord Scrope did not hate Father Thomas. He is a good pastor, a priest who looks after the poor; such priests are rare. Moreover, Father Thomas is a local man. Lord Scrope felt sorry for Reginald’s loss. My master did have his good qualities, a sense of justice. He was happy to see Father Thomas appointed to St Alphege’s.’