The poisoned chalice srs-2

by Paul Doherty

  'I can't believe it! No,' he stuttered eventually. 'It's not possible!'

  He rose and paced up and down the room.

  'What is it, master?'

  'Shut up, Roger, and let me think.'

  The pacing continued. He sat down at his desk and began scribbling madly on any available piece of parchment. He was still writing when I fell into a fitful sleep.

  The next morning a red-eyed Benjamin shook me awake.

  'Look, Roger,' he said, almost dragging me from the bed. 'You are to dress, go down and join the rest and break fast with them in the hall. You are to draw them into conversation and ask John Dacourt whether his late wife's name was Catherine Stout, but watch Millet and ask him a question: did he have a sister called Gabriel who has recently died?'

  'But what's the use?' I asked.

  'Oh,' Benjamin jibed, 'his name's Michael, the name of an archangel, his sister was Gabriel, the name of another, and Raphael's the name of a third!'

  'But…'

  'Shush!' Benjamin raised a finger to his lips. 'Please, Roger, just do it. But make sure they are all there.'

  I wandered down to the great hall and sat making idle conversation until the rest joined us. I turned the talk to the Abbe Gerard.

  'When I was at his house,' I lied, 'I saw his list of Masses for the dead. Sir John, your late wife was the Lady Catherine Stout?'

  Well, old Dacourt's eyes immediately brimmed with tears.

  'Yes, yes,' he mumbled, tipping his nose into his cup of watered wine. 'She died five years ago. The old abbe and she were friends.'

  'And you, Michael? I see you also paid for masses for your sister Gabriel?'

  Millet looked self-conscious.

  'Yes, she died about eight months ago when the sweating sickness visited Lincoln.'

  'Michael and Gabriel,' I smiled. 'The names of archangels.'

  Oh, I tell you this, I felt as if I had put a noose round that young man's neck. He writhed in embarrassment. Dacourt looked up sharply, Clinton became agitated, whilst Peckle's eyes narrowed. I saw the cloud of suspicion grow.

  'It was a conceit of my father's,' Millet blurted out as if he couldn't stand the silence and unspoken accusations. He laughed. 'We cannot be responsible for what our parents do, eh, Shallot?'

  I let the subtle insult pass and changed the conversation to other matters. Yet, whatever my master had intended, his arrow had struck home. I left the hall and went back to report what had been said. Benjamin finished shaving himself, washed his hands carefully in the pewter bowl on the lavarium and grinned as he dried himself.

  'Soon, my dear Roger, a new game will begin. Or, as we say in Ipswich, you have shaken the tree, let's see what falls out.'

  The first real change was Millet's exclusion by the rest of the embassy staff as if he was already marked out. Dacourt gave him more menial tasks and, when these were finished, the dandified fop spent most of the time in his own chamber. The real game, however, began two days later when Dacourt summoned Benjamin and myself to his chamber. The old soldier glared at us accusingly.

  'It would appear,' he began, 'you have made great friends at the French court.'

  'We have no friends at the French court,' Benjamin quietly replied.

  'Well, sir, it appears that you have.' Dacourt waved a small piece of white parchment with a purple seal on the end. 'An invitation from His Most Christian Majesty, despatched under his signet seal, inviting you to his palace at the Tour de Nesle in Paris to discuss the matter of a certain ring.' Dacourt glanced at the parchment. 'Of course, this was not written by the king but his creature, Vauban.'

  Benjamin snatched the parchment from his hand and, with me peering over his shoulder, studied it carefully. Dacourt had not given us the full message. King Francis said he wished to discuss the matter of the ring: 'As well as other matters attendant upon it, which could ease the ring's speedy return to His Most Christian Majesty's royal brother, King Henry of England.'

  'What does it mean?' Dacourt snapped.

  Benjamin handed the parchment back. 'I suggest, Sir John, you keep this matter to yourself. And whilst we are gone, be most careful what happens here at Maubisson.'

  We left the ambassador standing open-mouthed. Benjamin hustled me back through the corridors to our chamber.

  'Pack now!' he snapped. 'We leave for Paris immediately. And we go well armed. Roger, I urge you to eat or drink nothing, to touch nothing, and to stay close by me until we are out of the chateau.' He raised one bony finger to his lips. 'Trust me, Roger, and be most careful, for we are to face a most ruthless and skilful enemy.'

  'Then why are we going?' I asked.

  'My dear Roger, we have no choice. If we stay we are in great danger. You must realise that. And how can we face our own master if there is a letter on record, held by the English ambassador in Paris, that King Francis offered to negotiate over King Henry's ring and we refused?'

  Benjamin dragged our saddle-bags from their peg on the wall.

  'A clever plan,' he murmured. 'We don't control the game yet, Roger, so we must dance to the tune that's being played.' He started pushing clothes into one of the bags.

  'Do you think King Francis wishes to negotiate?'

  Benjamin made a face. 'God knows. He may well do. Francis is like our own master, duplicitous. On the one hand he declares Henry is his brother. On the other, Uncle told me that the French king has even consulted an astrologer on how to kill Henry. Francis has already sent assassins to England who, by careful and crafty means, tried to kill the king but were caught and summarily hanged.' Benjamin threw the saddle-bag on to the bed. 'This may be a trick or Francis could be trying to save his master spy, Raphael.' He smiled thinly. 'Be well armed and remember, Roger, when you go to sup with the devil you always take a long spoon!'

  We entered Paris just before curfew and made our way through its streets, smelling even fouler after a violent summer thunder storm, to a comfortable tavern near the Latin Quarter. We dined in silence, Benjamin in one of his withdrawn moods, mumbling to himself as if I wasn't there. The following morning, as the church bells were clanging the hour for lauds, we presented ourselves at the ornate gateway to the king's palace at the Tour de Nesle on the right bank of the Seine. A strange building, towers and turrets soaring into the sky, it was half-fortress, half-palace with extensive gardens and orchards all enclosed by a high-bricked, crenellated wall. (A place cursed, or so Benjamin told me, for it was here two hundred years earlier that Philip IV's three daughters-in-law secretly met their lovers. I mean, it's rare enough for a princess to put the cuckold's horns on her husband but these three beauties successfully duped each of Philip's sons with their secret assignations with young knights of the court. But at last Philip found out and the princesses were bricked up in cells and allowed to starve to death; the young men were pulled apart by wild horses in the very courtyard we crossed.)

  I thought of the story Benjamin had whispered to me as we followed an arrogant chamberlain into the palace proper, along silk-draped corridors to a small audience chamber where, of course, Master Lucifer himself, Monsieur Vauban, was awaiting us. He was dressed in his usual ostentatious finery: lace ruffs and cuffs, high-heeled boots, a short gown which fell to just beneath his knees, and those bloody bells which tinkled every time he moved. His hair was oiled. I am sure he had some cosmetic on his face and he reeked of perfume. Mind you, the bastard could be charming. He rose from behind his desk and clasped our hands.

  'Monsieur Daunbey, Monsieur Shallot, I am so pleased. Come! Come!'

  He waved us through another door, I thought we were going to see the king. Instead, he took us into a small chamber, the walls and ceiling painted completely blue and decorated with silver crescents and stars. On the small dais at the far end a veritable banquet had been laid out for us. A collation of cold meats, breasts of chicken, slices of lamb, jellies, quince tarts, and a jug of chilled white wine. Like some devil inviting us to temptation, Vauban bowed and mockingly gestured.

&n
bsp; 'Come, Messieurs, you are our guests.'

  We heard a sound. I turned and froze in terror: seated in the far corner of the room was the great, black mameluke. He just squatted there on a stool and, crouching before him, their gold chains wrapped round one of his muscular hands, were those two damned cats, cool amber eyes studying us lazily.

  'What's he doing here?' I whispered.

  'I didn't see him,' Benjamin murmured back.

  'Oh, he always sits there,' Vauban replied. 'Always in a corner just inside the door. People often walk in and scream in terror when they catch sight of him. But he's harmless enough. Where I go, Akim goes!' Vauban pointed to our sword belts. 'Messieurs, if you please, you must take those off. In the presence of the king, no one is allowed to wear arms.'

  'Where is His Most Christian Majesty?' Benjamin tartly asked.

  Vauban shrugged. 'In a little while, Monsieur Daunbey. Your sword belts, please.'

  We had no choice but to unbuckle them. Vauban received them as carefully as a trained servant and laid them gently on a chest. Do you know, looking back, I don't think I've ever attended such a strange banquet. We sat eating and drinking only what Vauban ate and drank; that archangel of the Luciferi served us with a mocking deference; and all the time the cruel-faced mameluke and his predatory cats watched us unblinkingly. Vauban was courtesy itself.

  'Will Monsieur try this dish? Master Roger, some wine?'

  And all the time, on one banal subject or another.

  Benjamin remained cool despite the beads of sweat on his brow and the flicker of fear in his eyes. I was terrified. Here we were in the midst of our enemies, naked to their malice, being entertained by a man who hid his ruthlessness beneath a polished veneer of courtly manners. The afternoon passed without a sign of the king though once, and I thought it may have been due to fear, I looked at the portrait hanging on the far wall and was sure I saw the eyes move. When I looked again, all I glimpsed was the glassy look of some long dead courtier framed for ever in a dusty oil painting.

  'Monsieur Vauban,' Benjamin interrupted the archangel's meaningless chatter, 'we were invited here to discuss the matter of the ring. The day is passing.'

  'Ah, yes, the ring.' Vauban smiled. 'You have heard the story about it?'

  And, without waiting for an answer, he launched into a long, detailed story of the friendly rivalry which had existed between the two kings and how His Most Christian Majesty wished it to be returned. At last even he tired of wasting time.

  'Come,' he invited. 'Let us walk in the garden.'

  He led us off down a darkened passageway and I realised it was almost dusk. Behind us, padding like three figures of death, came the mameluke and the two great leopards swaying on their chains.

  The gardens behind the Tour de Nesle were cool and fragrant under a red-streaked sky. Vauban took us along narrow, winding paths between raised flower beds and into a small orchard. Now, at first, I thought the pieces of cloth hanging from the trees were some subtle decoration but, on closer scrutiny, I nearly fainted with terror. The orchard was small and enclosed, the trees closely grouped together, and from the branches of many hung a number of corpses, the only consolation being that their faces were hidden beneath black, leather hoods. Vauban just ignored them and kept up his inane chatter but Benjamin stopped and stared around this small forest of the damned.

  'What is this?' he whispered.

  Vauban looked surprised and stared up at the trees as if he was some proud fruiterer.

  'Oh, these,' he declared. 'These are the fruits, the crop of my hard work. They were members of His Most Christian Majesty's household who believed they could steal from the royal treasury or make profits by selling secrets to the agents of foreign powers.' He studied the legs of one corpse and tapped it playfully on the foot so the remains danced evilly and the branch from which they hung creaked and groaned. 'This is Reynard,' Vauban continued. 'He was a squire in the chancery and thought he would make a little profit in telling what he knew to Venetian spies.' Vauban stepped back as if expecting our applause.

  I just looked away, pinching my nostrils with my fingers, for beneath the sweet smell of apple I caught the sickly stench of corruption.

  'The marshal of the royal household always hangs them here,' Vauban continued. 'Anyone guilty of lese-majesty ends his time in my orchard.'

  We walked on, the mameluke and his cats still padding behind. We came to the edge of the steps and stretching out below us, about a mile across, was an intricate maze.

  'Do you like it?' Vauban asked. 'The hedges are of boxwood and privet. It was first laid out by Louis XI whom you English call the Spider King. Do you know the story of the maze?'

  Benjamin shook his head wordlessly.

  'Louis wanted to go on crusade to the Holy Land.' Vauban spread his hands. 'But you know the burdens of high office. He was unable to keep his vow, so instead he laid out this maze and every Good Friday crawled on his knees to the centre to make his devotions. Come, let me show you, then we will see the king.'

  We followed him down and entered the narrow tunnels of the maze. On each side of us, the boxwood hedges stretched up about three yards high. The paths were narrow, about half a yard across, so we were forced to follow Vauban in single file. My terror increased when I heard the mameluke pad softly behind us and the purring of the great cats as they pulled at the ends of their chains. Still talking, Vauban led us round one corner after another until I had lost all sense of direction, whilst above us the sky darkened and the sun began to set. Benjamin looked around and threw one anxious glance at me. I shared his fears. We were now in the thick of Vauban's treachery.

  At last we reached the centre of the maze. A small circle, the ground pebble-dashed, in the middle a simple, wooden cross and two stone benches. Vauban sat on one of these and gently wiped the sweat from his brow with the silken cuff of his sleeve. He looked up and breathed in the evening air.

  'I love coming here,' he said quietly. 'Only I know the way in and the way out.'

  Benjamin sat next to him whilst I stared round. There was no sign of the mameluke and his cats.

  'And you don't intend us to leave, do you, Monsieur Vauban?'

  The Frenchman smiled and I saw his hand go to where his dagger was hidden.

  'My master wanted you to be killed immediately,' he answered, his face becoming serious. 'But you are like me, Master Daunbey. We work in the shadows of the great ones. Our game is one of luck and chance.' He rose and went to one of the entrances. 'It's all a game.' He bowed slightly. 'Bonne chance, Messieurs!’

  And, before we could object or say anything, he slipped down the darkened path. I ran after him but he just disappeared. All I could hear was faint, mocking laughter and the tinkling of those bloody bells.

  'Come back, Roger,' Benjamin murmured.

  'We have been trapped!' I wailed.

  'Yes, Roger, we have been trapped. But if we escape we will know who the murderer is, though I am still a little puzzled as to how some of the deaths were arranged.' He squinted up at the darkening sky. 'We were invited here because Raphael has seen through our little charade at Maubisson. Vauban has left us to die. He is probably drafting the letter to our royal master, saying we left the palace safely and that he cannot be accountable for our movements after that. We are supposed to disappear, but how?'

  I stood and shivered with fear for the thought hadn't occurred to me. How could we be in danger in the centre of a maze? Vauban could be trying to ridicule us and we could spend most of the night trying to get out, but there must be something more than that. I heard the eerie shriek of peacocks from the lawns then a gust of evening breeze fanned the stench from that horrible orchard and its rotting human fruit. Old Shallot's courage just ebbed away. Benjamin played with the top of his boot.

  'Master, what are we to do?'

  A twig cracked. Benjamin rose quickly and pushed me down a path. He ignored my protests and shoved me on, turning up and down the paths of the maze. He was using the setting s
un as a pointer, determined to put as much distance between us and the centre of the maze as possible. At last, breathless, we stopped and Benjamin put his hand over my mouth.

  'Who else came into the maze?' he whispered. Benjamin saw the terror in my eyes and smiled thinly. 'Yes, indeed. The mameluke,' he whispered. 'He and those damned cats. Roger, we are being hunted!'

  'But how?' I hissed. 'They will need our scent.'

  'Where's your sword belt, Roger? They have our scent, as well as our weapons.'

  We stood, ears straining into the darkness. We heard a faint snap followed by a soft, silken sound and the low, deep purr of one of the cats.

  Now, I have been hunted by wolves in frozen Paris and outside Muscovy; by killer dogs in the catacombs of Rome; and by Venetian assassins in the old Roman sewers of London. Yet none was more macabre than that dreadful hunt on a balmy summer's evening through a dark green maze under the night skies of Paris. Now and again we could hear the sound of merry voices on the evening breeze and, every so often, the slither of soft-soled shoes over twigs and pebbles, the pad of clawed feet and the deep-throated purr of the hunting leopards. What is more we couldn't run. There was nowhere to run to. No fixed point of safety. And that's what Vauban intended. We would run until we dropped then wait for the mameluke and his leopards to capture us. The sweat streamed down our faces. My heart began to thud like a drum and my terror only increased when I realised we were using paths we had already been down. The green box hedges closed in like the thickest walls of a prison. I suppose my presence gave my master some form of courage for, when I glanced at his sweat-soaked face, the usually calm features were twisted into a snarl of rage.

  We paused, caught our breath and hurried on. We turned a corner and there, squatting on all fours, was one of the leopards, eyes blazing, ears pulled back, its great tail twitching. For a few seconds it just sat there, the muscles of its golden back rippling, then it rose and the purr became a snarl. Benjamin seized me by the shoulder and we ran. We came to a crossroads in the maze.