by Ian Morson
‘And do all the nuns strew their cells with them?’
‘Some do. But I fear I have to admit their use is a vanity I allow mainly myself. I could give you some for your own house.’
Saphira held up her hands as if to fend off the generosity.
‘Please, there is no need. I was just enquiring, because Mistress Segrim drew William’s attention to some herbs on the floor of Sister Marie’s cell. There was probably no significance to them.’
Gwladys’s face turned frosty, as she realized that her visitor had tried to draw out more information about the dead nun.
‘I fear our conversation is at an end, my dear. Divine offices call me.’
She stood, and just as Saphira moved towards the door, there came a great cry from somewhere outside the nunnery, followed by a clash of steel. All three women cast fearful looks at each other. Gwladys was the first to respond, rushing from the room to follow the unholy sounds. At the gate leading back into the outer courtyard, Gwladys pressed her face to the grille. She gasped in horror. Pushing past her, Saphira looked to see what had so shocked the prioress. In the middle of the courtyard, lying on the ground was Hal Coke with his hands over his head. He was quaking with fear. Astride him, but down on one knee was the bent figure of Peter Bullock. He held his rusty old sword in a defensive position across the front of his body. Before him stood the towering figure of a black-bearded knight dressed in white. As Saphira looked on in horror, he swung his gleaming sword in a downward arc. With great clanging of steel on steel, Bullock wearily parried the fierce blow as clearly he had done a few times before. But his energy was spent and he was blowing hard. Saphira called out.
‘Peter!’ Then she turned to the prioress. ‘Open this door.’
‘What? And let this maniac in?’
‘We must do something. He will kill Peter.’
She turned to look back through the grille and breathed a sigh of relief. A small wiry man garbed in a brown tunic was restraining the ferocious knight. He called out to him.
‘Brother Odo, stop this. You cannot kill this man, he is the constable. There is nothing to gain now. She is dead.’
Odo de Reppes took a deep sigh and fell to his knees before Bullock, who carefully relieved him of his sword. Gwladys, with the danger over, at last unlocked the gate to the outer court. Saphira flew through and helped the panting Bullock to the gatekeeper’s lodge, where he slumped on the stool. There was blood seeping from a head wound and he looked grey. Hal Coke, whose life he was protecting, also staggered in and sat on the floor. With a great commotion, Hildegard and Gwladys appeared in the doorway.
‘Does he need any aid?’
Saphira nodded.
‘Something for a head wound. A clean cloth and an astringent. I would suggest helichrysum if you have it.’
Gwladys hurried off with Hildegard in tow. The old crone cast suspicious glances around her as she crossed the outer yard. Odo de Reppes and his sergeant had mounted up and gone already, but she clearly felt the press of outside evil. Saphira looked at Bullock, staring into his eyes to make sure he had not taken a serious blow to the head. Both of them ignored Coke, who dragged himself over to a barrel of ale and tapped off a draught into a jug. He drank deep of the only medicine he required.
‘Did you learn anything?’
Saphira shook her head at Bullock’s question. She had some clues, but had got nothing precise from the prioress after all.
‘No. How about you? And how did all that start?’
Bullock shrugged his shoulders, while trying to hide the fact that his hands were shaking. He did not like to admit that the whole encounter had deeply shaken him. Odo de Reppes’s eyes had held murder in them.
‘I was questioning Coke about who might have access to the nunnery, when we heard the sound of horses. Coke was first out, with me following. We had no reason then to suppose that whoever it was had violent intentions. The next thing I knew was that the Templar had Coke by the throat wanting to know who had killed his sister. I stepped in to calm matters down and suddenly we were at swords drawn. One thing it does tell me, is that however Odo is involved with this whole mess, he is too hot-tempered to have solved it with poison.’
‘I agree. There is something odd here in connection with Odo’s sister’s death. It concerns…’
Before Saphira could voice her doubts, Gwladys returned, not with Hildegard but the whey-faced Sister Margaret. The young nun held an iron-bound box in her hands. Gwladys pushed Margaret forward.
‘Here is your patient, sister.’ She turned to address Saphira. ‘Sister Margaret is learning the skills of herbal medicine. She is quite a keen pupil, aren’t you, Margaret?’
The nervous girl mumbled some response under her breath and opened the wooden box. Choosing a particular pot, she applied the contents with a clean cloth. Bullock gasped as the astringent oil staunched his wound, and Margaret mumbled an apology. She then closed the box and scurried back to the door of Coke’s lodge. While Gwladys was engaged in questioning Hal Coke as to the cause of the fracas, Saphira took the opportunity to follow the young nun.
‘I would like to know what you used on the wound. I am learning about remedies myself, you see.’
Margaret cast an edgy look around her, as if afraid of the outside world pressing down on her. She had not been beyond the gate of the nunnery for a long time.
‘It is a preparation of helichrysum, which grows around the Mediterranean Sea. We cultivate it now in the garden here.’
Saphira smiled encouragingly.
‘You are very wise concerning plants, then? Perhaps you saw what was on the floor of Sister Marie’s cell the day she died. They and the rushes were cleared away by someone.’
Margaret looked as if she might faint and Saphira held out a hand to steady her. But the young nun recovered, stepping away from Saphira’s proffered support. She looked away from Saphira towards the open gate of the nunnery. Her eyes betrayed her desire to be safely within its confines once again.
‘I cleaned the cell myself at the behest of Mother Gwladys. I saw some dried herbs mixed with the rushes on the floor.’
‘Could you tell what they were?’
‘Yes. But it is not important. They grow around the nunnery in profusion. I am sure Marie picked them not knowing their properties. It is not true she killed herself.’
‘If so, then you have no reason to avoid telling me what they were.’
Margaret was becoming more and more agitated, picking with a fingernail at one edge of the iron binding on the box she held.
‘There was birthwort… and henbane.’
‘Birthwort?’
Saphira and Peter Bullock were walking back to Oxford across Port Meadow. The constable seemed well recovered from his ordeal, though Saphira was keeping an eye on him. He was an old warrior, but the shock of an encounter such as he had experienced could come much later, when Peter had time to think about what might have been. For now, she was happy to distract him with an analysis of what they had learned.
‘Yes, birthwort. It is that weed growing in abundance around the nunnery. The one with the small greeny-yellow flowers. And yes, it is used for what its name suggests. Both to encourage birth and, if taken early on, to cause a miscarriage.’
Bullock grimaced.
‘Some might say that its link with a nunnery, with the reputation it had before Gwladys’s days as prioress, spoke strongly of the nuns’ behaviour. And maybe even after Gwladys’s arrival, the presence of it in a cell where a nun died should not be ignored. It is too late now to know if Sister Marie was with child, but it looks like another avenue to follow. And the henbane? It’s a poison, isn’t it?’
Saphira didn’t reply immediately as a stern-faced man dressed in black was approaching them from the direction of the town. She didn’t want their conversation overheard, no matter how accidentally. As the man passed, both she and Bullock greeted him, but he did not deign to reply. His mien was stiff and awkward, and she noticed a bru
ise on his cheek. She stopped, thinking that she recognized him from somewhere. But then, it was probably from the thronging streets of Oxford. She did ask Bullock if he knew him.
‘Who, him? That’s Regent Master Ralph Cornish. He bore witness against William and got that bruise on his cheek for his pains. Falconer punched him by way of preserving your honour.’
‘Mine?’
Bullock blushed.
‘He suggested something improper was occurring between you and William. So William hit him.’
Saphira laughed loudly.
‘And what is he doing out here, I wonder?’
‘Oh, Thomas Symon told me. He’s the chaplain to the nuns at Godstow. He’ll keep them on the straight and narrow will that one. He behaves like the world is a cesspit, and it’s his duty to see it cleaned out. Goes around like there’s a nasty smell under his nose and a poker up his arse. If you’ll pardon an old soldier’s language.’
‘If he’s a regent master, why is he not sitting in the Black Congregation? You don’t think they have reached a verdict already?’
‘We had better get back and find out.’
PART THREE
THE VERDICT
TWENTY-FOUR
Chancellor Bek rose from his seat and the Black Congregation fell hushed.
‘The time for disputation is over. The facts have been presented in the case of Ann Segrim’s murder, and they point in one indisputable direction. How do you find William Falconer? Guilty or not guilty?’
He scanned the assembled masters, whose faces were a pale and sombre crest bobbing on a sea of black. Bek heard but a few murmurs of dissent. He would note who they were for careful but persistent persecution in the future. His gamble had paid off. The overwhelming response was clear.
‘Then I find William Falconer guilty of the murder of Ann Segrim.’
He turned to look severely at the accused and, tasting its sweetness on his lips, he repeated the sonorous word.
‘Guilty.’
TWENTY-FIVE
It was a glum Thomas Symon who met with Peter Bullock and Saphira Le Veske that evening.
‘Guilty. What are we to do now? Can Master Falconer buy his freedom?’
Bullock shook his head.
‘No. It is only the great of this land who may do that. And then only when the royal courts are involved. The king is more interested in raising funds than dispensing justice. Our only hope is that the king’s justices reckon the chancellor has overstepped the mark in holding the trial in the first place. Though it has to be said that the law is unclear on that. After Thomas Becket’s murder, the mood was to allow the Courts Christian to try the clergy. And Falconer as a regent master is in holy orders. No matter how he might behave.’ He glanced briefly at Saphira, not wishing to cast doubt on Falconer’s celibacy in front of Thomas. ‘But I have sent a message to the sheriff urging him to alert the king’s justices to what is afoot.’
Thomas felt he had let his mentor down, and could not accept there was nothing more they could do.
‘What of Odo de Reppes? Is not his behaviour at the nunnery a clear sign of his madness? What is de Bernere going to do?’
‘Brother Laurence remains tight-lipped about his fellow Templar. They are a close-knit bunch. I should know – I served them for years. But I do believe they will sort the matter out within their own ranks. I do not think de Reppes will get away with it, whatever he has been up to. I do think, however, that we can wipe him off our list of suspects for Ann’s murder. Saphira, you are right. He is too much of a warrior to meddle in slow poisoning.’
‘But where does that leave us?’
It was Thomas’s question that roused the so far silent Saphira to respond.
‘I am convinced that the reason for Ann’s death is closer to home than you thought, Thomas. And William thinks as I do too.’
Thomas frowned.
‘Do you mean someone at Botley? Alexander Eddington? The servants say he was rebuffed by Ann when he tried to elicit her favours.’
The boy blushed at his own suggestion of improper behaviour on the part of Ann’s brother-in-law. Saphira smiled and leaned over to pat his hand, causing him to redden even more.
‘We must not ignore that possibility. But I was thinking more about the nunnery. There is something very wrong inside that place, despite Gwladys’s best efforts. And I would like to speak to Sister Margaret again. She surely has something to hide.’
Bullock cut in.
‘But how are you going to do that? You said your last conversation with the prioress ended on a very frosty note. How will you get back in again?’
‘I was wondering if the chaplain might help me.’
‘Ralph Cornish?’ Thomas couldn’t help being surprised at Saphira’s suggestion. ‘But he was a witness against Falconer.’
‘Then I shall appeal to his Christian charity. But that is all for tomorrow. Tonight I propose to talk to William, and see if he has any more insights to offer. You know, he seems to work best in isolation. His mind does not get diverted by other mundane matters. Perhaps after this is all over, I should lock him away permanently.’
She shared a secret smile with Bullock, who saw the undertones in her words. But he could not be amused by her wanton suggestion. He was afraid his friend might not survive to enjoy the undoubted pleasures offered by Saphira Le Veske.
Sister Margaret could not sleep for the demons. They assaulted her senses as soon as darkness came. She kneeled by her bed in prayer, but they mocked her. They accused her of licentious and unholy acts with other women.
‘No, I did not. There is nothing evil in an act of love.’
She spoke in a whisper, scared that others might hear and report her. She could be accused of being possessed. Of witchcraft. But they poked and prodded her, the voices. Hissing like a serpent in her ears until she tried to stop them with her hands pressed either side of her head.
‘I loved her. And she loved me. But she was not strong enough. You broke her, not me. It was not my fault.’
She threw herself on the cold, damp floor of her cell, her arms stretched out in the shape of Our Lord’s Cross. She mumbled prayers. But they would not go away. One voice silenced all the others. It whispered to her in the darkness. A voice no longer disembodied, coming from the dark shape lingering in the gloomy corner of her cell.
‘You killed her. You alone killed her.’
‘No. No. NOOOOO!’
Her voice wailed too loud to be unheard. She buried her head in the dirty rushes on the floor, feeling rather than seeing a shaft of light falling on her. Then as suddenly as it had come, she was in darkness again. Until the sister from the next cell pushed her door tentatively open.
‘Are you having a nightmare, sister?’
Sister Margaret sobbed, and scratched at the stone floor until her fingers bled.
Saphira thought that Falconer looked remarkably calm for a condemned man. When she had arrived at the Bocardo with a supply of cold meats and a flagon of Rhenish, he had pressed his face against the grille and smiled cheerfully. He had taken the provisions, placing them carefully on the floor of his bare cell, before returning to the grille.
‘I shall eat the meat tonight before the rats get to it. And the Rhenish will ensure a good night’s sleep, I don’t doubt.’
Saphira was astonished at his equanimity. She had dreaded this meeting, thinking she would have to be the one to be cheerful, when she felt everything but. He saw the surprise on her face.
‘Don’t worry about me. Peter has sent a letter to the sheriff, and he will not allow Bek to get away with it.’
‘But you know Peter is not the greatest of scribes. And, as he would admit himself, nor is he persuasive when it comes to niceties of law. He only knows the power of the sword and a threat of bodily harm. Why would the sheriff listen to him?’
‘Because I drafted the letter myself. And exercised all my subtle skills in ensuring the sheriff, as the representative of the king, sees how his mast
er’s law is being undermined. Along with his revenue from fines.’
Saphira could not help laughing, despite the desperate situation.
‘So the convicted murderer has written his own letter to the justices pointing out the error of the ways of his judge.’
‘Something like that. It would not surprise me to find that the king’s justices were already riding hot-foot towards Oxford even now. I think Chancellor Bek’s days are numbered, along with anyone who has aided and abetted him. So, tell me what you found out at Godstow nunnery, and perhaps we will have an alternative view on the murder to present to them when they arrive.’
Saphira laid before him her discovery concerning the poisonous herbs seen in Sister Marie’s cell, which were cleared away before anyone could question their presence. Falconer’s eyes lit up.
‘Birthwort. Could the poor girl have been with child, and seeking to get rid of it?’
‘It’s possible. But no man can get into the nunnery, and the nuns do not come out beyond its walls.’
‘What of Odo?’
‘No, he was her brother, and besides this was his first visit in years apparently.’
‘Hal Coke? I recall he is something of a rogue and he keeps the key to the nunnery gate.’
‘He is a drunk and an old man.’
Falconer eyed Saphira ruefully through the grille that separated them.
‘I am not much younger than he is. And if it were not for this cell door, I would prove to you that old men can still…’
Saphira hushed him and glanced around. The lane in which the jail stood was dark and narrow, but it was still a thoroughfare where anyone might pass.
‘Be serious for a moment. The nun may have been with child, or merely imagined she was. We women are quite hysterical creatures, you know.’
Falconer played along.
‘And prone to fainting fits when they cannot have their own way.’
Saphira pressed her body against the door.