The Deadliest Sin (37 page)

‘Go on, please,’ she said. ‘Touch the talisman and pass it round. Observe the image of the lion. It is good for the stone and for those of a choleric disposition. A
cunning-woman held that thing and it told her a story. Perhaps it will tell one of you another story, a different one.’

The storytelling was now taken up by an individual called Nicholas Hangfield. It was he who had attempted to speak to Janyn Hussett, the veteran of Crécy, at the very
beginning. He was a quiet, good-natured fellow in his thirties, stocky and with dark hair. He explained that he’d been born in Bristol but that he’d moved to London, where he worked as
a shipping clerk. He liked being near the water and he liked the sight of boats, though you’d never have caught him actually boarding one. Bristol was one of the places in the west where the
plague was supposed to have struck and people looked expectantly at Nicholas as though he might have news for them, but he said that he had no family living there now and thus was no better
informed than any of them.

‘My father, William, God rest his soul, told me this tale many times, especially when I was a child – and when he was bed-fast for months, dying of a creeping inflammation of his
lungs.

‘In his prime, he had been one of the serjeants of the Sheriff of Somerset, living in Bristol where I was born and brought up. Not yet thirty years ago, in the fifteenth year of the
reign of the second Edward, he had been assigned by the sheriff to be an officer to the county coroner and he served him for a considerable time. My father came to know about all the violent,
unusual and suspicious deaths in the city and regaled me with many remarkable tales. One story in particular intrigued me and every detail has stuck in my memory – so much so that in many
idle moments, I contrived my own conception of the affair, seeing the people in my mind’s eye and hearing their voices in my imagination, until I built up a kind of play or masque in my head
that was as good as reality. My theme is . . .

One sunny afternoon in late spring, Robert Giffard was lying on a bench in the garden behind his burgage in High Street, listlessly watching his servant place a goblet on a
stool alongside him. It contained no fine wine, but a sour concoction that he himself had ordered the man to make up in his dispensary at the front of the house.

‘Had we enough mother-wort in stock, Edward? We were running low.’ Robert’s voice was weak as he reached for the glass, but Edward Stogursey nodded reassuringly.

‘Enough for another dozen potions, sir. And plenty of valerian, too.’

He was the physician’s house steward and personal servant, but also acted as his lay assistant in the practice. A stocky man with a square face and cropped brown hair, he had an impassive
manner that rarely showed any emotion. As far as he knew himself, he was about thirty years old, but as he had been left as a foundling in the porch of Stogursey Priory, he had no knowledge of the
date of his birth. A local widow had taken him in and given him the name of their village in the Quantock Hills, adding the royal Edward for good measure.

As he walked back to the house, he stood aside deferentially as his master’s wife hurried out of the door and made for where her husband lay in the sunny part of the long, narrow
garden.

‘Robert, are you sure this is safe to drink?’ she asked anxiously, as she picked up the glass and sniffed at it suspiciously. Eleanor Giffard was a tall, slender woman, a decade
younger than her husband’s forty years. Glossy black hair peeped from beneath a linen coif, framing a smooth, oval face that had a hint of Latin ancestry.

‘It was made to my own prescription, dear woman,’ he replied slowly, as she took a sip of the brown fluid, then made a grimace of disgust.

‘It’s horrible! You know how careful you must be. We should get an extra taster, after what happened in February.’

Her husband made limp gesture of dismissal. ‘Edward always tries everything first – and so far, he has remained hale and hearty.’

Somewhat reluctantly, she replaced the goblet on the stool and bent down to rearrange the pillow that cushioned Robert’s head.

‘You claimed then that someone was trying to poison you,’ she said accusingly, ‘and now you are ill again.’

‘This is quite different from that time,’ he countered, a hint of irritation strengthening his tone. ‘Then I had yellow jaundice from an excess of bile in my liver. This time,
I have palpitations, cramps and trembling. If I am being poisoned, then I intend to defeat it by taking nothing but simple food and drink that cannot be adulterated.’

Eleanor delicately lifted her skirts from the ground and sat down at the end of the bench alongside his feet.

‘It seems beyond belief that anyone in Bristol would wish you harm, Robert! You do so much good in treating many people.’

‘Perhaps too many! That may be the problem,’ he murmured obscurely.

His wife’s smooth brow creased in perplexity. ‘Too many? How can that be?’

‘There are those who are jealous of my success, as you well know. They are envious of the number and quality of my patients and would wish to gather some of them for themselves.’

Eleanor shook her head dismissively. ‘You have said this before, Robert, but I can’t believe that your colleagues would contemplate murder just to further their own
ambitions!’

The physician gave a wry smile. ‘They are not my colleagues, lady – they are my competitors! Just as a baker or a tanner competes for trade with his fellows, my medical brothers
would cut each other’s throats to gain a dozen more patients.’

The handsome woman considered this for a moment. ‘I admit that I don’t like any of them much – though that scrawny William Blundus seems modest enough and popular with the
common folk.’

‘Then he might have most to gain from having more patients, especially ones who could pay,’ said Edward, cynically. ‘But I wouldn’t trust the other two, either. Humphrey
de Cockville is too full of his own importance and would kill to have some of my richer customers.’

‘What about Erasmus Crote?’ asked Eleanor. ‘He’s such a whining, miserable fellow that I could easily see him hatching some devious plot.’

Her husband shrugged and winced as his muscles cramped with the movement. ‘Of course, it may be someone who has nothing to do with doctoring. Maybe you have a secret lover who lusts after
you and wants to get rid of an inconvenient husband!’

Eleanor reddened and stood up. ‘Don’t jest about it, Edward! I think we should get an experienced physician from outside Bristol to see you. Perhaps you are suffering from some
obscure disease, and not being poisoned at all. That was your diagnosis, but even you are not infallible.’

‘Thank you for your confidence in my talents, lady,’ he replied rather sourly. ‘And who do you suggest we could consult?’

‘I hear that the new infirmarian at Keynsham Abbey is greatly to be recommended. The mayor’s wife told me that he attended the university in Bologna.’

‘Certainly one of the most famous schools,’ he admitted. ‘Even older than Salerno and Montpellier. I’ll think about it, before we decide.’

‘And I’ll watch the kitchen like a hawk,’ said his wife resolutely. ‘Nothing will go on your plate or in your cup that I have not tasted myself!’

The physician’s house on High Street was in the lower part, just above the bridge crossing the River Avon to Redcliffe. At the top of that street was the High Cross, the
focal point of the city, from which four main roads radiated out to the gates set in the city wall. On one of them, Corn Street, three men sat in a back room of the Anchor alehouse. On a table
before them stood a jug of wine, a fresh loaf and half a small cheese. They were not real friends, merely acquaintances, their only common bond being that they were members of the medical
profession.

‘He’s no better. I saw him yesterday and he looks worse than last week,’ said William Blundus, wrapping his fingers around his wine-cup. ‘He has strange symptoms; I
don’t know what’s wrong with him.’

Blundus was a thin man, slightly stooped and though hardly forty, had grey hair speckling his mousy thatch. A sad, lugubrious face was creased with worry lines and his down-turned mouth
suggested that he was a chronic pessimist.

The man next to him was very different. A rotund fellow of about fifty, he had a puffy face with rolls of fat beneath his chin like a prize porker. Bald but for a rim of ginger hair around the
back of his head, he had a pink complexion from which a pair of gimlet-like blue eyes stared aggressively at the world.

‘You don’t know what’s wrong him?’ he repeated in a rasping voice. ‘Well, diagnosis was never your strong point, William!’

Humphrey de Cockville’s sarcasm was ignored by the others, who were used to his waspish tongue.

‘I wish the man no harm,’ said the third doctor, Erasmus Crote, though the others knew full well that he was lying. ‘But it’s an ill wind that blows no good, for
I’ve picked up three of his patients since he’s been indisposed.’

Humphrey leaned forward to cut a wedge of cheese with a knife he took from the pouch on his belt.

‘It’s unfair that profitable work for us in Bristol is spread so unevenly,’ he complained. ‘Robert Giffard must have twice the number of patients that I see – and
he attends upon most of the important families in the city and county.’

‘And wealthy ones, as well as being important!’ Erasmus added enviously. ‘Most of the ships moored along The Backs belong to patients of his.’

Blundus nodded his scrawny head in agreement. ‘All my flock are as poor as a village priest – the richest man I have is a saddle-maker!’

There was a silence as they poured more wine from the jug and Crote hacked the loaf into three, putting the two ends in front of his companions, keeping the softer middle for himself.

‘I think I’ll call to see him today,’ he said. ‘We must all show a little concern for one of our medical brethren,’ he added piously.

Humphrey de Cockville cackled at his colleague’s hypocrisy. ‘You want to make sure he’s dying, eh? Then you can chisel away a few more of his patients before we get
them.’

Erasmus scowled, his long face creasing in dislike of the fat physician. Crote was older than the other two, being in his early fifties. A sour, humourless widower, he always felt resentfully
inferior to them. Blundus had trained in St Bartholomew’s in London and de Cockville in Montpellier, both prestigious medical schools, whilst Crote had been merely an assistant to a physician
in his native Dublin. However, he considered himself equally skilful and prided himself on his ability to treat skin diseases better than anyone in the West of England.

‘I merely wish to show my concern for him and to offer any help I can,’ he growled.

‘And to ogle that beautiful wife of his at close quarters, no doubt!’ sneered Humphrey. ‘Though you’re a score of years too old to be thinking of bedding her if he
dies.’

Crote’s sallow face flushed with annoyance, partly because there was some truth in de Cockville’s taunt. Eleanor Giffard was indeed very handsome, but he would have little to offer
her if she became a widow, especially with a dozen rich merchants all eager to snap her up if she became available.

‘None of us has a chance there,’ agreed William Blundus. ‘I have heard that Jordan fitz Hamon has been a frequent visitor to the Giffard household and that the fair Eleanor
looks upon him with some favour.’

Humphrey Cockville’s pale eyebrows rose up his podgy face. ‘Your long nose has been more active than usual, Blundus! The fitz Hamon family owns probably a third of the ships that ply
their trade from Bristol.’

The three physicians were well aware that Jordan fitz Hamon was the eldest son of Sir Ranulf fitz Hamon, and would undoubtedly be the heir to his business, making him one of the most eligible
widowers in the city, as well as one of the richest.

‘And he’s barely forty years of age, not like you two middle-aged paupers!’ continued Blundus waspishly.

‘You are just a younger pauper!’ countered de Cockville. ‘Being of the same age as Ranulf makes you no less unattractive to a woman like Eleanor Giffard!’

‘Stop bickering about fantasies,’ snapped Erasmus Crote. ‘It’s no concern of ours what happens to Giffard’s wife if he dies – we are only concerned with its
effect upon our practices.’

This cooled the sniping between the other two physicians and they brought their minds back to the main issue.

‘At least there are no other doctors in Bristol and none nearer than Bath or Taunton,’ said Blundus. ‘So we will have no other competition, unless Eleanor marries some
fashionable physician from London.’

‘We are talking as if the man is dead already!’ complained Crote, who, alone amongst the three of them, showed a vestige of decorum. He rose to his feet and placed a few coins on the
table to pay for his ale and food. ‘As I said, I’m off to pay a call on the Giffards, both to see how the man is faring and to wish him a return to good health.’ He marched out of
the room, pulling the door closed behind him to cut off the snide remarks that he knew would follow him.

Humprhey de Cockville glared at the closed door. ‘Two-faced hypocrite, he’s off to discover how to wean a few more patients away from Giffard, if the man can’t attend to his
business.’

William Blundus looked thoughtful. ‘That man Stogursey that Robert Giffard thinks so much of – he’s been holding the practice together these past few weeks, even though
he’s nothing but an amateur apothecary.’

De Cockville gave a rare nod of agreement. ‘It’s not right that a mere servant should pass himself off as a doctor. If we only had a proper guild for us physicians, we could put a
stop to it. The tanners or the silversmiths wouldn’t tolerate such improper competition for half a day!’

Blundus sighed as he reached for the dregs in the wine jug. ‘Yes, it’s bad enough having the religious fraternity taking trade from us. If the common man can get free treatment from
the nearest abbey infirmary, why should he pay a doctor’?