The Deadliest Sin

by The Medieval Murderers

  ‘And where were you trying to take this, Henry?’ he asked amiably.

  ‘Outside the back door, sir. It is to be collected by someone from St James’s, as clothing to be given to the poor.’

  The coroner’s serjeant hefted the bundle back to the entrance and as he dropped it outside, noticed that the clothing appeared to be of the best quality with no signs of wear.

  ‘Good stuff to be given away so readily,’ he remarked.

  ‘That is the last bundle, sir. The mistress is getting rid of all my dead master’s clothing. No doubt it reminds her too much of the great loss she has suffered.’ William felt that it might also be a token of ridding herself of the last vestiges of someone she wished to replace. If so, she had acted quickly, as her husband had only died on the previous day. Then he chided himself for his cynical thoughts, as Henry might have been correct with his more charitable version of Mistress Giffard’s motives.

  ‘Is she ridding the house of all of his belongings?’ he asked, knowing that he may well get better information from the more lowly servants than the likes of Stogursey or Hamelin the bottler.

  ‘I don’t know about everything, sir, but I have had to tie up three bundles of his garments and several pairs of boots and shoes, which have already gone to the priory.’

  The coroner’s officer used the opportunity to pursue another matter.

  ‘That’s a very fine horse I saw in the yard. The groom told me it belonged to the father of the gentleman I saw here yesterday. Is he a frequent visitor?’

  Henry, always ready for a gossip, shook his head. ‘I’ve never seen the older man here before. The cook said he is a rich man who owns many of the ships along the riverside.’

  ‘Did his son, the younger man, come often?’ Henry’s ingenuous expression did not falter.

  ‘Quite often, sir, John Black said he was especially helpful to the mistress when Master Giffard was away in London after his first illness.’

  It sounded as if the cook was the fount of gossip in the household and William marked him down as the next to be interviewed in more depth. Having squeezed all he could from the boot-boy, William went further into the house, looking for Edward Stogursey. He found him in a small chamber next to the room where the physician used to see his patients. The servant-cum-apothecary was sitting at a table cluttered with bottles and boxes of powders, grinding something in a pestle and mortar.

  When he saw who his visitor was, his face clouded in annoyance, but no one could risk offending the coroner or one of his serjeants, on penalty of being dragged to the castle and fined, or worse.

  ‘A senior apothecary will be coming very shortly to examine these premises, looking for anything that might have caused the symptoms your late master suffered,’ he announced brusquely. He saw no reason to defer to this man, who was only a house servant, however much he thought he was above that station in life.

  Stogursey shrugged indifferently. ‘Very well, but it’s a waste of everyone’s time. All doctors’ houses have a score of substances that could cause death, given a sufficient quantity.’

  ‘Well, I’ll let Matthew Herbert be the judge of that. You will give him your full co-operation – understand?’

  From the deepening of the man’s scowl, William guessed that the leader of Bristol’s apothecaries was not Stogursey’s favourite person, but he continued his questioning.

  ‘I see that Ranulph fitz Hamon’s horse is outside. I assume that he is visiting your mistress?’

  ‘I would not know that; it’s none of my business,’ Edward said sullenly.

  ‘Does he visit often, like his son?’ demanded William, being deliberately provocative.

  ‘Again, I don’t know. My mistress’s affairs are of no concern of mine.’

  And if you did, you wouldn’t tell me, said William to himself, though he admitted that it was the proper attitude for a loyal servant to take.

  ‘Mistress Giffard seems to depend heavily upon you, from what I heard at my last visit.’

  ‘Only in professional matters to do with the medical practice!’ snapped Stogursey. He began pounding the white granules in his pestle with renewed vigour.

  ‘I see that the lady has been generous enough to give away many articles of clothing for distribution to the poor and needy,’ persisted Hangfield.

  ‘My mistress performs many charitable acts in the city – and as her departed husband has no further need of them, she felt that the friars could find a better use for them.’

  ‘But your late master has not yet been put into the earth.’

  ‘That is none of my business, Serjeant,’ said Edward, in a tone of finality. ‘If you wish to know more of my mistress’s personal affairs, you will have to ask her yourself.’

  ‘Oh, I will, never fear. But first, I wish to speak to John Black. Where will I find him?’

  ‘In the kitchen, as befits a cook,’ muttered Stogursey, bordering on the insolent, but William ignored him and left to seek the nether regions of the house. He found John Black not cooking, but sprawled in a chair in the large kitchen, a quart pot of ale on the table nearby.

  A young girl, little more than a child, was chopping onions in a far corner, the tears in her eyes presumably not because of the death of her employer. The cook was a big, fat man who obviously took sampling his dishes seriously. William thought cynically that if the doctor had been poisoned through the food in the household, John Black would have succumbed much earlier than his master. A florid-faced man with thinning fair hair, he was less than forty years of age, but his teeth were already reduced to a couple of blackened stumps.

  ‘Back again, sir? I told you all I knew last time,’ he lisped, having some slight impediment in his speech.

  ‘This is different, I want to learn more about who might have wished your master sufficient ill will to want to deprive him of life.’

  Black’s pale blue eyes widened in surprise. ‘How would I know anything about that, sir? I’m only the cook in this place.’

  William slid his backside on to the corner of the table. ‘But you seem to know a lot about what goes on in this household. What about visitors? Who comes and goes?’

  ‘This is a physician’s house, Serjeant. People are in and out every day.’

  William became irritated by the man’s evasions. ‘You know damned well that I don’t mean patients! Anyone of note, friends of the late doctor and his wife? There seems to be one such person here at this moment – don’t tell me that servants’ gossip hasn’t reported it to you?’

  Cowed by the change in Hangfield’s tone, the cook nodded. ‘You mean the prince of shipmasters? He’s a new one. I’ve never seen him visit before. No doubt bringing his commiserations to the mistress at her grievous loss.’

  ‘But no doubt you’ve seen his son here?’ snapped William.

  John Black smiled, exposing his horrible teeth. ‘Oh, certainly. He came often to visit the master and his good wife.’

  ‘But sometimes just his good wife, eh?’ demanded the coroner’s man.

  This time, the cook leered, rather than smiled. ‘Well, quite often, the master happened to be away from home, visiting sick patients, if you get my meaning.’

  William frowned; he did not trust this man to tell the truth.

  ‘I have to ask you this, did you ever hear of any impropriety between them.’ John Black looked over his shoulder and yelled at the kitchen skivvy to leave the onions and go outside to fetch carrots from the garden. As soon as she had scurried away, he looked back at Hangfield.

  ‘Too many ears flapping and tongues wagging in this house, sir. As to your question, it is not my place to tell tales on my employers, but I would guess that the man in question would dearly like to have taken Robert Giffard’s place in my mistress’s bed.’

  ‘What evidence do you have for that bold statement?’ demanded William.

  ‘Oh, none at all other than idle gossip, sir,’ said Black hastily. ‘But perhaps Evelyn, my lady’s maid, might know more –
though as she is so devoted to her mistress, I doubt she would tell you, other than under torture.’

  Privately, William tended to agree with him, and saw no advantage in pursuing the matter at the moment, as it did not help in determining how and by whom the death of Giffard had been accomplished. Let someone else grasp that particular nettle if it came to making accusations against anyone in the fitz Hamon dynasty.

  After John Black had stone-walled a number of other questions with his repeated claims that as a lowly servant he knew nothing of the goings-on in the upper reaches of the Giffard household, William sought out the remaining servants to question and got precisely nothing useful from them. As expected, the lady’s maid, now released from her chaperone duties as Ranulf fitz Hamon and his horse had left, maintained total ignorance of any improper liaison between Jordan fitz Hamon and Eleanor Giffard.

  ‘That one occasion when I was sent out of the room was because of her state of desolation because of the death of her husband that day,’ she claimed indignantly. William left it at that, knowing that he was wasting his time. Similarly, the stableboy, the groom and the housekeeper had nothing useful to offer – and as for Betsy the kitchen skivvy, she was too frightened of him to answer even a single question, put however gently.

  By this time, Matthew Herbert had arrived, and the coroner’s officer took him directly to the chamber where Edward Stogursey was still making his preparations. The steward left immediately, not saying a word to the apothecary, his scowl speaking volumes about the professional man’s intrusion into what he considered his private domain.

  ‘I assume that this room and the one next door used by the physician would be where all the medicaments were stored,’ said William, waving a hand at the rows of shelves and drawers around them.

  Matthew nodded. ‘I can soon check the names on each jar and drawer, though of course whether that is actually in them may be another matter. I’ll do that within the hour and let you know if anything unusual is kept here, though I doubt it will help, as many substances, innocuous in medicinal doses, can be harmful or even fatal in excessive amounts.’

  As this was exactly what Stogursey had told him, William had little expectation of anything useful coming from the exercise, but if the coroner wanted it done, so be it. He left Matthew to his task and made his way back to the castle, to get the old clerk to write a short account of his activities to present to Ralph fitz Urse, when he arrived back from the Great Hall where he had gone for his midday dinner.

  Then, thankfully, William made his own way back to his house in Vine Street, where he could enjoy an hour’s rest and a good meal prepared by his wife Marion. Then, with a mug of ale in one hand, he sat his small son on a stool in front of him and told him of what he had been doing that day.

  The funeral of Robert Giffard took place two days later, after the coroner had held a brief inquest over it in a side room of the castle chapel. This merely identified the body and allowed the dozen jurors, dragooned from the Giffard servants and castle retainers, to parade solemnly past the corpse and note that there were no visible injuries. Ralph fitz Urse called a few witnesses, including the widow, Edward Stogursey, the cook, the bottler and, rather surprisingly, Humphrey de Cockville. The latter, having pushed himself forward as the spokesman of the three doctors, merely concurred that the symptoms of the final illness were consistent with poisoning, but that the nature of it could not be determined. After the inevitable verdict of murder by persons unknown, the coroner announced that the record of the inquest would be presented to the King’s judges at the next Eyre of Assize and that any further information would be considered if and when it arose.

  The funeral cortège set off towards St Augustine’s Abbey, across the River Frome, and a considerable number of the city’s great and good walked behind the cart pulled by a plumed black horse. The widow, supported by her maid and flanked by several of her female friends, walked immediately behind, with a score of well-dressed citizens following. Chief amongst them were her parents, the Earl of Berkeley and his lady, then the sheriff and the mayor, then Ranulf and Jordan fitz Hamon, with a number of prominent churchmen and a gaggle of the more important ship-owners plodding behind.

  Quite a number of Giffard’s patients made up the tail of the procession and the three other physicians were spread amongst them, not being averse to canvassing for business as they walked, as there was yet no sign of the new doctor allegedly coming from London.

  Once Robert Giffard had been reverently put to rest in the graveyard of the abbey, the investigation seemed to come to an end. There was no new information in the following two weeks and though there were rumbles of discontent from Berkeley Castle and to a lesser extent from the fitz Hamon household, there seemed nothing that the coroner or sheriff could do to move things forward.

  Gradually, the public interest in the death waned and was replaced by news of King Edward’s increasing problems. The new doctor arrived from St Bartholomew’s Hospital and virtually all of Giffard’s patients resumed their attedance at his consulting room. Even the few who had drifted to the three lower-level doctors returned to the High Street practice as soon as good reports came of the younger and more energetic physician now installed there.

  ‘What is the town gossip saying about this new fellow?’ demanded the coroner of William Hangfield one morning. ‘Is he living in Giffard’s house now – and possibly in Giffard’s bed?’

  His officer grinned at his master’s salacious mind.

  ‘I doubt that very much, sir! He has taken lodgings in Queen Street and, though he is apparently a good-looking fellow of about Eleanor Giffard’s age, the gossips still have their money placed on Jordan fitz Hamon as the next occupant of her bed.’

  The routine of coroner’s work soon displaced the death of the physician as the centre of discussion between the coroner and his officer. As well as the usual run of fatal stabbings in the wharfside alehouses, deaths under millwheels or the occasional hanging, William’s time was occupied by a collision of two vessels in the narrow Avon Gorge during a gale, which led to the drowning of a dozen seamen. Recovering and identifying the bodies from the several miles of tidal mud and turbid water then took him several days. It was at the end of this that the Giffard murder reared its head once again.

  When William arrived at the castle one morning, the old clerk said that one of the city watchmen was waiting in the Great Hall to report a death. The Watch was the rudimentary police force of Bristol, a handful of men each armed with a staff and a cudgel, who attempted to keep order in the city streets, especially at night when drunken sailors were brawling outside every alehouse. The coroner’s officer knew them all and he soon found Egbert, a tall blond man of Saxon descent, sitting at a bench in the hall, drinking from a pint pot of cider.

  ‘What have you got for us this time?’ he asked. ‘Not another boatload of drowned shipmen, I hope.’

  The watchman shook his head. ‘Just a dead beggar, William. As usual, it was a boy with a dog who found him, in a hovel along Welsh Back.’

  This was part of the long quayside along the river, between the city walls and the bend in the Avon where it turned down into the gorge.

  ‘He’s gone off a bit, but no signs of violence,’ he added.

  William decided he had better look for himself and the two men set off for the riverside. They crossed the entry of the Frome stream into the Avon, dug out in the last century to divert the smaller river, to act as an additional defence to the city and to give some extra space for the burgeoning number of ships coming up from the sea. This was the maritime heart of the city, the second busiest port in England. An unbroken line of ships lay against the wharfs, riding high on the flood tide.

  Labourers ran up and down gangplanks with sacks of merchandise on their shoulders, taking them either in or out of the warehouses set back from the quayside. Wooden derricks craned bales and barrels from the ships’ holds, and the scene was one of prosperous activity. For a moment, William was reminded of
Jordan fitz Hamon and his wealthy father, who probably owned many of these vessels.

  As well as storehouses and barns behind the quay, there was a variety of other buildings, a few alehouses and some private dwellings, mostly small and often semi-derelict, to the point of being little more than heaps of rotting timber. Many of the stevedores working the ships lived there in mean circumstances and it was towards one of these that Egbert made his way.

  ‘He’s in that one, probably been dossing down in there for weeks,’ he said, leading William to a ramshackle hut, which still had a sagging roof of mouldering thatch on walls of rotting wood. There was a door, but it was half open, tilted back on the one remaining hinge.

  ‘Stinks in there, mainly due to the corpse itself,’ warned the watchman.

  Once inside, Williams saw that the single room was half-filled with rubbish, but on the beaten-earth floor a figure lay on its side. It was fully clothed but the skin visible on the back of the neck was swollen and greenish in colour. Several dead rats lay on the floor a few feet away.

  ‘He’s been dead a couple of days, given this hot weather,’ said Egbert. Both men were well used to visiting corpses in all states of decay, and the sight and smell did not cause them any distress, The coroner’s officer pulled on the dead man’s shoulder to roll him face up, when an elderly man with grey hair was exposed. The features were distorted by pressure against the floor as well as early putrefaction and a number of rat bites, but the watchman immediately said that he knew the man.

  ‘Don’t know his name, but I’ve seen him about the city for years, usually rooting in rubbish middens for something to eat.’

  William crouched to make a cursory examination of the neck and head to exclude obvious injuries, but given the state of the flesh, he made no effort to look at the rest of the body under the clothing.