‘Don’t be a fool, Blundus!’ snapped Humphrey. ‘The lady of the house, his own wife, was one who put herself at risk by sampling everything he ate. And is it likely that she would kill her rich husband, the source of her comfortable life?’
‘Her father was far richer, remember,’ grumbled Blundus, but he was ignored. William was anxious to complete his tasks, then hurry back to the castle and eventually, to his home. ‘You three have now had an opportunity to examine him – and I’ve told you all we know about the circumstances. So have you any suggestions as to what the poison might be – and how it was administered?’
Again they went into a huddle, muttering amongst themselves, and eventually Humphrey de Cockville appointed himself spokesman, not that he had much to offer.
‘There are so many poisons to be extracted from the plants and herbs of the countryside that it’s impossible to be sure what it might be. It was certainly not deadly nightshade or any of the potent mushrooms. It could have been wolfsbane or foxglove, or perhaps extract of yew wood, which would fit with the symptoms, but there’s no way of knowing.
‘Possibly a good apothecary might make a better guess,’ suggested Blundus. ‘After all, we are physicians, dedicated to curing people, not killing them. Apothecaries spent more time collecting and extracting plants than us, so you could ask one of the better ones in the city.’
Humphrey, determined to keep the lead in any dialogue, nodded at this. ‘A reasonable idea, but surely it matters little what it was that killed Giffard – what you need to know is how it was given to him, for that should lead you to his killer. I see no other means other than through his mouth, so maybe those who claim that all his food was tasted are lying?’
‘Could it have been in an enema or an ointment?’ suggested William Blundus, in a glum voice that indicated he had little hope of this being true.
‘How could an ointment kill him?’ said the coroner’s officer, rather scathingly.
Blundus shrugged. ‘Just a suggestion. Many drugs are absorbed through the skin – otherwise it would be pointless in us prescribing salves, lotions and ointments.’
‘Well, I’ll enquire,’ replied Hangfield, in a tone that indicated he would be wasting his time. ‘But maybe the coroner will take up your idea that an apothecary might be able to help us.’
Within the hour, William was back in the castle, where he routed out their old clerk, Samuel, to dictate a brief résumé of what he had learned, which was almost nothing.
‘The coroner has gone somewhere, he’ll not be back here until the morning,’ announced Samuel in his quavering voice. ‘He said that he was having a meeting with the sheriff and the mayor before chapel to discuss the physician’s death.’ The old man snorted in disgust. ‘Just because the fitz Hamons and other wealthy merchants are upset over losing their doctor, we all have to run round in circles to appease them.’
William sighed, as it meant getting up early in the morning. He lived in a little house at the north side of the city and as it was obligatory for all the castle’s officers to attend early Mass in the chapel at the seventh hour in the summer, he would have to leave home before he was properly awake.
He trudged back to his house in the early evening, enjoyed a good meal of pork and beans that his wife prepared for him and told her of the day’s events. His six-year-old son, Nicholas, listened open-mouthed at the tale and, though he did not understand much of what his father was saying, he knew the dread implications of the word ‘murder’, which usually ended with a public ceremony at the gallows just outside the city wall.
It was an ill-tempered group that met in the sheriff’s chamber early next morning. Nicholas Cheney and Richard de Tilly had both been at a feast in the Guildhall the previous evening, and the notorious lavishness of the Guild of Vintners, especially when they were celebrating the inauguration of a new Master, had left them with aching heads from the abundance of wine provided. The coroner had been at a different, more private celebration after attending a cock-fight and was also feeling as if the drummer of a war galley was performing inside his skull.
They listened in silence as William Hangfield read out his report of his activities the previous day and elaborated on a few of the points, to make it sound as if there was slightly more substance than it actually possessed. When he had finished, the silence continued for a moment, until it was broken by a rustling sound as the overdressed mayor fished around in his belt-pouch and pulled out a crumpled piece of parchment.
‘Before we start discussing this shocking affair once again, what do you make of this?’
He slapped the parchment on to the sheriff’s table and smoothed it out with a podgy hand.
‘Some urchin slipped it into my under-clerk’s hand as he arrived at my chamber this morning. The boy ran off as if the Devil was chasing him, but even if we had caught him, he would only have said that some stranger gave him a penny to deliver it.’
The coroner, who had flashing zigzag lights in his eyes as a harbinger of a migraine, did not attempt to read it. ‘What does it say?’ was his only question.
Sheriff Cheyney picked it up, being proud of his literacy in a society where that was mostly confined to clerics and merchants. In fact, the mayor could not read or write and the contents of the note had been read to him by his under-clerk.
‘A scrawled hand, I suspect to disguise the penmanship,’ muttered the sheriff. ‘It reads, “Look to the killer in he who woos the lady.”’
‘And what in Hell’s name might that mean?’ growled the coroner, as the effort of thinking seemed to make his headache worse.
‘It’s blatantly obvious,’ said the sheriff impatiently. ‘Someone is claiming that Eleanor Giffard had a lover who wished to rid her of the encumbrance of a husband.’
The mayor had already worked this out for himself and the dangerous significance of it was not lost upon him. ‘We would be entering hazardous waters if we took any notice of this foul accusation. It is obviously nothing but some evil libel made up by some malicious enemy.’
Nicholas Cheyney was inclined to agree. ‘Even if only a breath of such scandal were to become common knowledge, Maurice, Earl of Berkeley, and his powerful retinue would descend upon us like avenging angels, to defend the honour of their kinswoman.’
‘To say nothing of the fitz Hamon family, if they became embroiled in this foul defamation,’ growled the coroner, the flashing lights in his eye becoming more aggravating.
‘Why should they be involved, for God’s sake?’ demanded the mayor.
Fitz Urse turned to his officer. ‘Tell them what we saw at the Giffard house yesterday, William.’
Rather reluctantly, Hangfield related how they had called upon the widow and found her closeted alone in her solar with Jordan fitz Hamon, the lady’s chaperone having been banished outside.
The sheriff, to whom this revelation was new, looked thunderous, while the mayor slammed his hand on the table and jumped to his feet.
‘I knew this would lead to trouble!’ he bellowed. ‘This must not be made public knowledge, whatever happens! Imagine the scandal if the son of our most prosperous ship owner – and most generous benefactor to the city – was suspected of murder.’
‘And even more if he was tried at the Eyre of Assize and hanged,’ added the sheriff, with grim satisfaction.
The coroner overcame his headache to add fuel to the flames of anxiety. ‘You are assuming that it is a man who is the culprit . . . but what if the wife wanted to be free to marry a younger man? Would it not be an even greater calamity if the daughter of Maurice of Berkeley was found guilty of poisoning her husband?’
The sheriff held up his hand for quiet. ‘Before we begin to rant and rave about the calamity that might happen, had we not better decide whether this scrap of parchment has any shred of truth in it? And if not, then let us forget it.’
His rational approach calmed the other two men.
‘If true, it is a serious allegation,’ said the mayor heavily. �
��For a man to be alone with a married woman, especially if her handmaiden has been sent out of the room, can only suggest some impropriety.’
‘So can we talk about who might have sent it – and why?’ agreed the coroner. ‘Either he has some knowledge of the poisoning – or is falsely trying to lay the blame for it on to another person.’
‘With what object?’ blustered the mayor. ‘Could it just be spite – or perhaps he is just a deranged madman, out of his wits?’
‘You keep saying “man”, but it could equally well be a woman,’ objected the sheriff. ‘They are well known for both their devious cunning and for being fond of poison for their murderous deeds.’
There was a silence as the men digested these alternatives, until William Hangfield ventured to enter the discussion.
‘You asked why he sent this missive, sirs,’ he said respectfully. ‘Surely, another motive might have been to divert suspicion from himself by falsely blaming others?’
His master, Richard fitz Urse, supported his officer’s remark. ‘It is certainly something to bear in mind. I suppose we have no notion at all who may have sent this?’
The sheriff looked at the creased strip of parchment again.
‘It looks as if it was torn from a larger document, but nothing remains of that to assist us. The writing is in ordinary black ink and the penmanship is very irregular, though individual letters seem well-formed.’
‘And what does all that tell us?’ demanded the mayor aggressively, partly because, being illiterate, he was suspicious of anything to do with pen and ink.
‘At least that he was educated enough to be able to write this, and was not some gutter-cleaner or wharf-labourer,’ retorted the sheriff, restraining his desire to add ‘or a mayor’ to his list.
‘Most merchants’ clerks, clerics and even many choirboys can read and write to some extent,’ countered Richard de Tilly irritably.
The others ignored him as the coroner addressed the sheriff.
‘And you suggested that he – or she – disguised their handwriting?’ Nicholas Cheyney waved the scrap of parchment.
‘It seems strange that though the lines of writing are uneven and ill-spaced, most of the individual letters are well-formed.’
‘Are you suggesting that we search a city of fifteen thousand people to find someone whose letters match these?’ demanded the mayor.
The sheriff shook his head emphatically. ‘That would not only be futile, but impossible! I suggest that we lock away this scurrilous note somewhere safe, but bear its allegation in mind in case any other evidence comes to light.’
The coroner looked dubious. ‘I feel I must at least make some very discreet enquiries about the relationship between the younger fitz Hamon and Eleanor Giffard,’ he said. ‘What other motive can we imagine for this death? It is useless us sitting here, pontificating about it like a bunch of priests arguing about how many angels can sit on the point of a needle!’
He turned to his officer, who sat patiently waiting for someone to talk some sense.
‘William, we need you to question those damned servants more rigorously. They must know something – possibly about the widow and Jordan fitz Hamon. And get a decent apothecary to look at the contents of the late doctor’s pharmacy, to see if anything is there that might have caused the symptoms from which Giffard suffered.’
‘And maybe a good look at the kitchen, the larder and the storeroom might reveal something,’ added the sheriff.
A bell began tolling to summon the faithful to the castle chapel, and with some relief William rose and waited for the other men to leave, before they could find him even more tasks to perform. As they filed out to attend the early Mass, he wondered if there would ever come a time when murders were investigated by more than one coroner’s officer in a city the size of Bristol.
William Hangfield was a devout man and he was bringing up his small son, Nicholas, to be the same, the family attending their local church of St Mary-le-Port every Sunday. However, at the castle chapel that morning, his mind was more on the tasks the coroner had given him, rather than on his devotions. As soon as the Mass was over, he hurried down Corn Street to the shop of Bristol’s best-known apothecary, Matthew Herbert.
The coroner’s officer entered his shop, which opened directly on to the street, the shutter of the front window hinging down to provide a counter for the public display of pots of salve, bunches of herbs and bottles of lotions. Within the large room behind, several journeymen and apprentices sat at counters, busy grinding powders and mixing ointments. The walls were lined with shelves and rows of small drawers, each with a Latin name or cabbalistic sign painted on them to mark the contents. Bunches of herbs and even dried reptiles hung from the ceiling, and at the back of the shop, at a high desk set on a raised plinth, was the apothecary himself.
He was a grey-haired man in his mid-fifties, the most respected of his profession in the city. Matthew was the leader of the small apothecary group in the Bristol lodge of the Guild of Pepperers, which, through its monopoly of the spice trade, also embraced the purveyors of drugs and medicines.
William had met him several times, usually when he required some cure for his wife or son. Most of the city’s inhabitants went to an apothecary when they were ill, as doctors were too expensive. Probably, yet more people sought the help of ‘wise women’ than even an apothecary – and in the countryside, this was universal, as there was usually no one else in a village, other than some widow or midwife, who could deal with ill health.
Matthew Herbert recognised the coroner’s officer and came down from his high chair to greet him. When he discovered that William was there in his official capacity, rather than as a patient, he took him into a more private back room, which was a store filled with boxes, jars and bales, redolent with the aromatic scents of herbs.
‘You have no doubt heard of the sad demise of Robert Giffard?’ began William. ‘The coroner would be grateful for your professional assistance in the matter.’
Matthew’s bushy grey eyebrows rose in surprise. ‘I have heard of the untimely loss of our best physician, but how can I be of any help in that?’
The coroner’s officer explained the problem, leaving out any hint as to possible suspects in the case. ‘We have no idea what poison was used nor how it was given, but we wish to know if it might have been some substance already within the household, as naturally a physician will hold his own stock of healing drugs and potions.’
The apothecary was an intelligent and perceptive man.
‘You wish to know if some evil person within the household might have been responsible – or whether the vile act came from outside?’
William agreed that this was the general idea, but Matthew was not optimistic about a useful result.
‘I know that Robert Giffard held a wide variety of medicaments, as I have provided some of his patients with repeat prescriptions. Every physician will have a range of such materials to hand, as they tend to dispense themselves, rather than send their patients to an apothecary.’
He said this without any rancour, though William knew that it meant competition for his own trade.
‘If that infirmarian from Keynsham, of whom I have heard glowing reports, did not know what killed Giffard, I doubt that I can do any better,’ he continued. ‘But I am willing to look through his stock to see if anything fits the symptoms he suffered. Having said that, many substances in a doctor’s house can be lethal, just as the contents of this shop could kill half of Bristol if used improperly.’
He swept his hand around the room to make his point, as William wondered if he knew anything about Edward Stogursey.
‘The mainstay of that household appears to be a man who acted not only as a servant, but as the physician’s dispenser and even medical assistant. Mistress Giffard has indicated that she wishes this man to carry on dealing with their patients until a new physician can be found, which seems very irregular.’
The apothecary shook his head sadly. ‘
You meant that fellow Stogursey? We in the Guild have been concerned about him, as he is usurping our professional status in the city. And to hear that he has also been “acting the physician” is even more disturbing.’
‘Can nothing be done about it?’
‘It is difficult since he is not – and could not be – a member of the Guild, as he is unqualified and has served no apprenticeship. Thus there is no way of disciplining him, other than by physical violence and ejection from the city. As far as the physicians are concerned, they have no professional organisation, being so small in numbers outside London. So there is no one to say him nay!’
The coroner’s officer arranged with Matthew to go down to the Giffard house in an hour’s time, giving William the opportunity to speak further with the servants before he arrived. As he arrived at the physician’s home, he saw a fine horse with an expensively decorated harness standing in the yard that led to the stable behind the house. It was being tended by a groom, who had his own pony tethered a few yards away, and William guessed that a man of substance was visiting the house. Was this person going to be the subject of the anonymous note, he wondered. As a lowly public servant, he felt he could hardly tackle Jordan fitz Hamon, the heir to the richest fortune in Somerset, to ask him whether he had been committing adultery with the dead man’s widow. He walked over to the groom, who wore a smart uniform, rather than the usual nondescript tunic and breeches.
‘That’s a fine mare. Does he belong to Jordan fitz Hamon?’ he asked bluntly.
The man, seeing the small badge bearing a crown on the jacket of Hangfield’s jerkin that denoted a King’s servant, touched his forelock.
‘No, sir, it’s his father’s steed. My master is Ranulf fitz Hamon.’
Surprised, William gave a grunt and moved on rapidly. What was the significance of this, he wondered. He must tread carefully, as he had no wish to be caught up in some inter-family intrigue amongst the upper echelons of Bristol society.
Going into the house through the servants’ door at the back, he came across Henry, the young boot-boy, who was struggling to drag a large bundle of clothing tied up in twine. As the lad was a thin, weedy weakling, who looked as if a substantial meal would do him good, William picked up the bundle for him, conscious that the lad was only a few years older than his own son, Nicholas.
The Deadliest Sin Page 33