A Plague of Poison (33 page)
His eyes swivelled to Gerard Camville, who was standing a little apart from the rest. This was the man who had ordered the hanging of Drue. Soon sorrow would descend on his brutal heart and he, too, would be alone in his misery, his world shattered by the deaths of his loved ones.
Harald had commenced the preparation of the wine, making a great fuss of pouring a little into the bowl and adding the spices before heating the contents with a small poker that had been resting in the embers of the brazier. After allowing the spices to simmer for a few moments, he used a loosely woven cloth to strain the mixture into a beaker and then poured a little into the bottom of two silver goblets Eudo had placed in readiness on the table. A heady aroma filled the air, comprised mainly of the sharp tang of cinnamon but with hints of other spices, such as tarragon and rosemary, mixed in.
“Now, the wine itself must be poured and heated,” the merchant said, plunging the red-hot poker, which had been reheating while the spices were simmering, into a decanted flagon of the wine he had brought. Then he filled both of the goblets to about an inch from the brim. “It is most important that the wine be well heated, for the warmth enhances the taste of the honey.”
So saying, he tipped up the honey pot and poured a good measure into each of the wine cups, stirring the contents of both as he did so with a silver spoon hanging from a chain about his neck. The honey poured out in a thick golden flow, glistening lusciously in the light of the flaring torches that illuminated the hall. There was a murmur of approval from the spectators.
“Now, lord and lady,” Severtsson said as he handed a goblet each to Nicolaa and her son, “tell me truly if you have ever tasted a more flavoursome wine.”
As they both drank from the wine cups, Mauger felt a surge of elation. He edged his way closer to the front of the group near the table, the better to see the effects of the poison. It should not be long before the symptoms began to show themselves.
As he gained a place near the table, he gloated with satisfaction as Nicolaa said to her son, “It is most certainly toothsome, Richard, but I fear, even with the addition of the honey, it is a little too strong. My throat is tingling.”
“That is as it should be, Mother,” Richard replied with a smile. “A good vintage arouses the senses, and who amongst us does not enjoy that?”
The ambiguity of this remark with its salacious overtones was greeted by chuckles from the crowd gathered around the table, but Nicolaa made light of her son’s lewdity and persisted in her uncertainty about the merit of the wine.
“I am not sure, merchant, that this vintage fulfills your boast. What region did you say it comes from?”
“Perigord, lady, south of the Limousin,” Harald replied. “It is sold by a vintner there who has, I am told, lately received orders for a large quantity from none other than our king’s mother, Queen Eleanor.”
“Ah,” Nicolaa replied, pretending to be suitably impressed. There was a modicum of contention in her voice, however, as she added, “But since that esteemed lady comes from those lands herself she is doubtless prejudiced in favour of the wine that is produced there.” She turned to her son. “We need another opinion, Richard, to help me decide whether this wine is suitable to serve to the guests who grace our board. Do I not recollect that we have heard someone speak of the wines of Perigord before today?”
Richard pretended to consider her question before nodding his head and saying, “Yes, Mother, we have,” and with that he raked the crowd with his eyes until he saw Mauger and called out his assumed name. “I remember that you once said the produce of the vineyards in the Limousin area is superior to any other. Come, have a cup of Severtsson’s wine and tell us if it is truly worthy of the claim he is making.”
Mauger’s bowels turned to ice as Richard Camville bade him come forward and sample the wine. Damn the man for remembering a slight remark that had been made months ago. Quickly, he measured his chances of escape, but they were few. Bascot de Marins, the Templar knight, stood a little behind him, to his left, and on his right hand was the bulk of the castle serjeant, Ernulf. Neither would let him pass if he did not obey the bidding of the sheriff’s son. Only behind the two Severtsson brothers was there a small clearness of space that would enable him to gain access to the door of the hall, but the merchant blocked his path. He took a slow step forward; the effects of the poison should soon take hold of both Nicolaa and Richard. If he could delay drinking from the cup of wine just long enough for one of them to become ill, he may be able to escape detection.
“I fear that, like Sir Gerard, I have not much taste for honey in my wine,” Mauger said as he approached the table. “Perhaps I could take a cup of it without the sweetener so that I may give a better judgement of its merit.”
Nicolaa de la Haye shook her head. “If I am to purchase some of this, it will be prepared as Master Harald has directed, and that is how it must be tasted.”
She motioned to the wine cup which the merchant had filled and into which he was adding a generous dollop of honey. “Besides, the cup is already prepared.” She looked up at Mauger. “You would not deny a lady her whim, would you?”
Mauger’s fingers were trembling as he took the cup in his hand. It was not hard for him to let it slip, as though by accident, so that the contents spilled across the white cloth that had been laid on the table, leaving a deep purple stain.
“I am sorry, lady,” Mauger apologised. “That was clumsy of me.”
“Do not reproach yourself,” Nicolaa replied considerately. “It will not take Master Harald more than a moment to prepare another one.”
Mauger watched with dismay as the merchant picked up the fallen cup, set it upright and refilled it with wine from the flagon and added the spices. As he reached for the honey, Nicolaa forestalled him. “Perhaps, merchant, you should use honey from the other pot, the one you brought last night, instead of the sweetener that has been added to my cup and that of my son.”
She looked up at Mauger. “We used honey from the castle kitchen for ours, since the cost of the honey that the merchant brought was nearly as high as the wine. I had hoped to save the expense of purchasing it by using our own native honey instead, but it may be that, by doing so, I have detracted from the taste.” She gave her butler a curt order, and from beneath the table, where its presence had been hidden by the long cloth, he lifted another pot of honey.
Mauger felt his senses reel as he realised that the wine both the castellan and her son had drunk had not been sweetened with the honey he had adulterated. The tainted pot that he had left in the buttery was there, in front of him, being freshly opened and the honey about to be added to a cup of wine that he must either drink or give an acceptable reason for refusing. A memory of the dog he had killed flashed into his mind, accompanied by vivid pictures of the symptoms it had suffered before its death; how it had writhed in spasms of agony and spewed the contents of its stomach and bowels. The thought of undergoing such a fate made the beating of his heart accelerate, and the sound drummed in his ears as Nicolaa directed that the merchant be generous with the sweetener lest the wine’s taste be spoiled by parsimony.
As the cup was held out to him by Harald Severtsson, Mauger took a step backwards, his hand reaching for the knife that was secreted in his tunic. Nicolaa looked at him, her protuberant blue eyes filled with condemnation. “You seem reluctant to drink the wine that you recommended to my son, Martin—is that perhaps because you know that poison has been added? And, if so, how do you know that? Could it be because your name is not Martin, but Mauger Rivelar, and you seek to murder us in the same way you have killed six others?”
In desperation, Mauger sought to escape and, drawing his blade, he stabbed out at Harald Severtsson, catching the merchant in the flesh of his upper arm. As Harald staggered back Mauger pushed past him, upsetting the table and the flagons of wine as he did so but gaining his way to the clear space beyond. Without pause, he began to run towards the door of the hall feeling a momentary rush of exhilaration and the hopeful expectancy of escape. But another obstacle suddenly appeared in his path—one that would not be so easy to circumvent as the merchant. Gerard Camville, moving his bulk with the speed that made him such a formidable opponent in battle, was in front of him, sword drawn and the point imbedded in the cloth of the leech’s tunic. Mauger could feel the bite of the steel as it lanced his flesh.
“I would as soon gut you now, pig, as later,” Camville growled. “The choice is yours.”
Thirty-seven
O
NCE MAUGER HAD BEEN HAULED AWAY, WITH considerable roughness, by Ernulf and one of the men-at-arms, Brother Andrew hastened to tend the wound that Harald had sustained. It proved not to be serious, and as the monk was binding it, the young merchant gave Nicolaa a smile and said, “I think, lady, that the offer you made me yesterday of sharing in a cup of wine would now be most welcome. And, if it pleases you, I would prefer it not to be sweetened.”
NCE MAUGER HAD BEEN HAULED AWAY, WITH considerable roughness, by Ernulf and one of the men-at-arms, Brother Andrew hastened to tend the wound that Harald had sustained. It proved not to be serious, and as the monk was binding it, the young merchant gave Nicolaa a smile and said, “I think, lady, that the offer you made me yesterday of sharing in a cup of wine would now be most welcome. And, if it pleases you, I would prefer it not to be sweetened.”
Nicolaa de la Haye poured the wine herself and, with a disdainful glance at Ivor, said to Harald, “Your courage does you credit, merchant. You have brought honour to your family’s name.”
As Richard explained to the puzzled spectators the meaning of what they had witnessed and how it was not the potter, Wilkin, who had murdered six people in Lincoln, but the leech, Martin, who was truly the poisoner, Bascot asked the sheriff for permission to take the news of Mauger’s capture to Wilkin.
Camville gave his assent and said, “Tell the potter that he will need to be kept in the holding cell for a day or two until his innocence has been proclaimed throughout the town. He will not be safe abroad in Lincoln until all are assured he had no part in the murders.”
As Bascot left the hall, he found that his gratification at the successful apprehension of Mauger was mingled with a deep sorrow for the anguish of all those who had been affected by the crimes the bailiff’s son had committed. The act of murder was itself a type of poison, reaching out a like malignant hand to taint all of those it touched.
Wilkin was overjoyed at the news, as was Everard d’Arderon. When Bascot went directly from the holding cell to the preceptory and told the older Templar knight that the charges against the potter would now be dropped, d’Arderon seemed to regain some of his old ease of manner.
“Our prayers have been answered, de Marins,” he said. “I shall send immediately to the apiary and ensure that Adam and the rest of Wilkin’s family are told he will soon be released.”
By the time Bascot returned to the castle, the servants who had been out in the countryside were coming back from their excursion, faces flushed and happy, and with a multitude of boughs bearing apple and cherry blossoms piled in the cart and wildflowers entwined in the tresses of the men and women. Kegs of ale were broached as the branches were tied to ropes and affixed to the top of the maypole, and the music of pipes and tabors accompanied the women as they picked up the ends of the ropes and began to dance in an intertwining fashion about the pole until it was covered in the fairy-like flowers. Food was brought out and laid on trestle tables, and everyone ate their fill as the dancing continued throughout the rest of the afternoon and evening. It was a day full of merriment and laughter, and by the time night fell, all were sated with contentment.
T
HE NEXT MORNING, AFTER ATTENDING MASS, Bascot and Gianni went into the hall for the morning meal. John Blund was sitting in his customary place, just below the salt, and the Templar took a seat beside him. Now that the poisoner had been caught and the complement of household knights was back to its full strength, Bascot knew he could not delay his trip to London any longer. But first he hoped to resolve the question of furthering Gianni’s education. He asked Blund if he had had sufficient time to give the matter his consideration.
HE NEXT MORNING, AFTER ATTENDING MASS, Bascot and Gianni went into the hall for the morning meal. John Blund was sitting in his customary place, just below the salt, and the Templar took a seat beside him. Now that the poisoner had been caught and the complement of household knights was back to its full strength, Bascot knew he could not delay his trip to London any longer. But first he hoped to resolve the question of furthering Gianni’s education. He asked Blund if he had had sufficient time to give the matter his consideration.
The secretary’s face brightened at the question. “I have given much thought to the matter, Sir Bascot, and have arrived at what I hope you will feel is an acceptable solution. It was my intention to seek you out this very day and tell you of it.”
Blund motioned to the empty space across from him, where Lambert, his assistant, usually sat. “Lambert is already at his tasks in the scriptorium, even though the hour is early. We have been sore pressed, in the absence of Ralf, to keep up with our duties because the many small chores to which he attended—sharpening quills, ruling lines on parchment, mixing ink and so forth—take up so much of our time. It is this situation that has prompted me to my suggestion.”
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