by Alys Clare
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
Map
February
Death by Poisoning
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Death by Drowning
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Death by the Blade
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Postscript
Also by Alys Clare
Copyright
For Richard
whom I first met in the tavern, with all my love
Qui mane me quesierit in taberna,
post vesperam nudus egredietur
et sic denudatus veste clamabit:
Wafna! Wafna!
(Whosever seeks me out, at the tavern in the morning,
he’ll be on his way, naked, after Vespers,
and thus, stripped of his garments,
he’ll yell out:
Woe! Woe!)
From Carmina Burana,
‘Cantiones profane’
(author’s translation)
February
A night of the dark moon, the bright stars concealed behind dense, low cloud heavy with chill moisture. A night of shrieking wind, blowing out of the north east, its steady howl bringing with it a phantom hint of snow-laden steppes, unimaginably distant. Unimaginably lonely.
The inn at Tonbridge had been busy since early morning. It was market day and obvious since first light that it was going to be a poor one. In such terrible weather, merchants and stall-holders had been more than ready to forego the possibility of further dealing – increasingly unlikely as folk headed home for the comfort of their own hearths – and, turning their backs on the early-falling darkness, make their way to Goody Anne’s tap room. Ah, but you could count on old Anne for a warm welcome! Nowadays, it came in the form of a tasty mug of her ale and a trencher of good fat bacon, or maybe a solid slice of hot, fragrant pie, oozing with gravy, bursting with chunks of rabbit or mutton. All the same, men had long memories, especially where their bodily comforts were concerned, and Goody Anne’s tap room housed many a fellow who recalled other, more intimate services that had once been on offer.
It was getting late now. The tap room was empty of customers, its tables cleared of mugs and platters, wiped cursorily and put straight, stools and benches tidied neatly beneath. The boy and the serving maid had finished their chores for the night. Finished what they were prepared to do of them, at any rate; they had both been on their feet since dawn, and, now that Goody Anne had turned in – if they stood still, they could hear her snores resonating from her room along the passage – neither of them saw any reason why they shouldn’t, too.
In a room in another part of the inn, the bitterly cold wind drove against a flapping piece of hide stretched across the small window, easily tossing it out of the way and filling the room with air as deadly cold as the night outside. It was Goody Anne’s guest chamber, fitted out with half a dozen narrow cots, all but five of which were at present stacked against one wall. The sixth was in use, fitted with a straw-filled sack to serve as a pillow and covered with two or three coarse wool blankets, much darned and none too clean.
Midnight.
As the boy and the serving maid snuggled down into their separate corners in the warm little scullery that backed on to the great kitchen hearth, gradually all sounds of life from the tavern ceased.
The wind strength grew, howling round the old building like an evil spirit, seeking access, blasting chill breaths into every gap. The rain that had finally begun to fall an hour ago turned to hail. The frozen droplets, as if they bore the stone walls a personal grudge, were being hurled against them with spiteful force, while, as a perpetual accompaniment, the wind howled its malicious song.
On the floor of the guest chamber, where he had half-fallen from the narrow cot, lay a dying man. He had come to rest on his side, the left cheek pressed hard against the thin rags that partially covered the floor. His legs and feet remained on the cot, tangled in the dirty covers.
In and around his mouth were quantities of brownish-yellow vomit, in which chunks of partially-digested meat and vegetables stood up like islets in a stream. He had been violently sick soon after staggering away to the privacy of this room, driven to seek solitude by the rapidly increasing feelings of unease that had been overcoming him … burning and tingling in the mouth, and a strange sense that every object in his sight had suddenly taken on a fuzzed outline. And his tongue had gone all numb, too, so that it felt like some fat foreign object in his mouth – how they’d laughed, when he couldn’t get his words out straight! To spare himself the humiliation of throwing up in Goody Anne’s tap room, he had crept away, hand pressed to his lips, moaning softly under his breath, stumbling down some endless, dark passage until he came to a door. And, beyond the door, this chamber. With a cot he could thankfully lay himself down on.
He had been there some hours now. The rapid breathing that had so alarmed him had slowed, and he was slipping in and out of consciousness, only spasmodically aware of where or who he was.
In one brief moment of clarity, he thought, I shouldn’t have stayed. Should have done as I planned, and turned for home soon as I’d sold my produce. Soon as the market wound up and trading finished, anyway. Shouldn’t have given in to temptation, and let the lads persuade me to come to the inn with them. Spent almost every penny I made this day, an’ all. Great merciful God, the ale I swigged! Greedy glutton that I was, I’m paying for it now. And that walloping great piece of pie, why, it were all I could do to finish it, me as can eat most other fellows under the table!
At the memory of his evening’s consumption, his stomach heaved again. But it was practically empty now, and the agonising, dry retching brought up little but a thin stream of yellowish bile.
Dear Lord, the man thought, tears of pain and weakness trickling down his cheeks, but I’m too old for this …
He lapsed into unconsciousness.
The slow breathing became more laboured as paralysis increased its grip on the respiratory muscles. As the relentless fist crept inexorably towards the heart, its beat weakened.
Within the half hour, the man was dead.
Death by Poisoning
Chapter One
February, Josse d’Acquin thought miserably, was a wretched month for a journey.
He was nearly home, and he was experiencing in full the phenomenon of something unpleasant becoming far more so when one need not endure it much longer. The wind was coming steadily from the north-east quarter; into Josse’s mind sprang suddenly the memory of a fellow-soldier, a man he’d known years ago, who used to refer to a north-easter as the Snowmother.
The Snowmother was making Josse about as uncomfortable as a man could be just then, he reflected grimly. His cloak was soaked through – and it was his heavyweight one, too, guaranteed to keep you dry, curse that lying merchant –
and his shoulders were aching with cold. His buttocks were sore, and his thighs were badly chafed from hours of sitting in the saddle with wet hose. He was hungry and thirsty – what inns there had been on the road that were open for business had had little to offer a traveller in the depths of a harsh winter – and his feet in the sodden, mud-caked boots burned with chilblains. Burned, anyway, where they weren’t frozen numb.
His horse was in little better state. ‘Poor old Horace,’ Josse murmured, slapping the big horse’s neck, ‘the things I ask of you, eh?’ The horse shook his head, and small drops of ice flew from his mane, spinning through the air and catching the weak light. ‘A thorough rub-down, a good feed, and tonight in your own stable, I promise,’ Josse added. ‘Another five miles, six at most, and we’ll be safe home at New Winnowlands.’
New Winnowlands. The small but stoutly-built manor house, once forming the dower house of a larger estate, had been given to Josse by King Richard Plantagenet, in grateful thanks for services Josse had rendered. Given, however, had apparently been open to question, by the King at least; even when awarding Josse his prize, the words ‘at a reasonable price’ had crept into Richard’s little speech. It had been only on the intercession of his mother, the great Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife to Henry II and beloved queen of the English people, that the gift had managed to stay a gift.
Then, damnation take it, two years on and along comes a demand for rent! Rent! Josse had been alarmed, horrified – the mentioned sum of rent arrears was more than sizeable, it was downright huge – and, finally, furiously angry.
‘The King gave me my house!’ he had raged, pacing up and down before his fireplace, spinning round so violently that Will, his manservant, nipped forward and rescued a tray bearing a jug of wine and a half-full goblet before Josse could send them flying. ‘Two years and more ago, it was a gift! And now he wants me to pay for it!’ He turned furious eyes to Will. ‘In God’s name, what can he be thinking of?’
Will, who wasn’t in a temper and who therefore retained the power of logical thought, pointed out that, with King Richard still far away on crusade in Outremer, the rental demand could scarcely have come from him. ‘He’ll be far too busy with them devil Saracens to worry about a tiddly little manor house, sir,’ Will went on, with scant diplomacy, ‘you mark my words.’
Josse, amused despite himself, nodded sagely. ‘How right you are, Will,’ he said, in almost his normal voice. Frowning hard, he muttered, ‘If not the King, then who?’
It took neither Josse nor Will more than a few seconds to come up with the probable answer. Simultaneously Will said, ‘It’ll be that John Lackland, I’ll stake money on it,’ while Josse exploded, ‘That calculating, money-grabbing bastard, John! It’s him!’
* * *
A demand for money, however, was a demand for money, and needed to be dealt with. Especially when it came from the King’s younger brother, a man who saw himself – and was busy trying to make everyone else see him – as the next King of England. Whose coronation, if John had his way, couldn’t come too soon.
The trouble was, Josse mused, as he tried to decide what to do, was that Richard, God bless his single-mindedness and his courage, seemed to have forgotten about his realm of England the moment he quit it – a matter of weeks after his coronation in September 1189 – to go off on crusade. He’s playing right into John’s grasping hands, Josse thought, and it’s hardly surprising that people are half-inclined to believe John when he puts it around that King Richard will never come home.
And what if he’s right? Crusading’s no picnic, that’s for sure, and our Richard isn’t a man to stand at the back and order others into the fray. And, as well as the perils of fighting, there’s sickness. The dear Lord alone knows what ills a man may fall foul of out there. Fevers, the flux, and who knows what others?
Supposing King Richard dies?
It was a sobering thought. The King’s marriage to Berengaria of Navarre was but a few months old, and gossip was already declaring that the swift conception and birth of a son and heir was most unlikely. Well, with some justification, Josse acknowledged, since a man with fighting on his mind isn’t as likely as some to bed his wife with the regularity necessary to impregnate her. As matters currently stood, the heir to the throne of England was a four-year-old boy, Arthur of Brittany, the posthumous son of Richard and John’s brother, Geoffrey, and his wife. Constance.
And the word of the wise was saying that the barons of England weren’t going to be happy supporting Arthur.
Would they be any happier supporting John? Surely not! No man in his right mind would back the untrustworthy John, not all the time there remained even the slimmest chance of Richard returning home hale and hearty.
Josse slowly shook his head, his thoughts returning to that ominous demand for money. John, it was clearly apparent, was building up funds. For what? For some well-thought-out and clever plan, knowing John; whatever else you thought of him, you had to admit he was clever. Or possibly cunning was a better word …
In a flash of inspiration, Josse knew what he must do. He must put his case before Queen Eleanor. She had interceded on his behalf with her favourite son, so surely she would do the same with John.
It was worth a try.
It was, in fact, Josse’s only hope.
* * *
Eleanor was lodging with the nuns of Amesbury Abbey. And Amesbury was in Wiltshire, half of the width of southern England away from Josse, whose manor was in Kent.
Still, it could have been worse. The Queen had spent Christmas in Normandy, and, had she still been there, it would have meant a dangerous sea crossing in addition to days and days on roads made all but impassable by the winter weather. It was pure good fortune that she was this side of the Channel, brought over in a rush to plead with John to abandon his scheme to ally himself with King Philip of France. Ally himself against Richard.
Nothing could have lent more speed to the Queen’s feet than a threat to her beloved Richard, whose interests, both in England and on the Continent, she was doing her best to look after in his absence. With the present danger averted – for the time being – she had retired to Amesbury to catch her breath.
Which was where Josse found her.
To his amazement, she remembered him. ‘Josse d’Acquin,’ she said, extending a hand gloved in fine white kid fringed with some soft, dense, pale fur, ‘my son’s solver of puzzles.’
‘My lady,’ Josse replied, bending low over her hand.
‘How are matters in Kent?’ she enquired.
‘Quiet, my lady, in this severe weather.’
‘Indeed.’ She nodded. ‘And how fares my friend the Abbess of Hawkenlye?’
‘Abbess Helewise is well, as far as I know.’
‘Ah.’ There was a pause. Then Eleanor said, ‘Given the aforementioned weather, Sir Josse, would we be right in concluding that you have not ventured all the way from Kent purely to kiss our hand?’
Josse looked up and met her amused eyes. ‘My lady, it would be worth the journey,’ he began gallantly, only to be interrupted by her burst of laughter.
‘In May, perhaps, but in February? What nonsense, sir knight!’ she said. Smiling – really, Josse thought, she was still the most beautiful woman, despite her seventy-odd years – she said kindly, ‘Now, let us waste no more time. Tell me how I may help you.’
Humbly – for it was surely a great thing, not only to be remembered fondly by the great Eleanor of Aquitaine, but also to be so unconditionally offered her help – Josse outlined his problem.
‘I hesitate to put what must seem so trivial a matter before you, Lady,’ he finished, ‘and I only do so because…’ He trailed off. Because your son promised that Winnowlands was to be a gift, was the honest reason. But it would sound so very blunt!
The Queen, however, was ahead of him. ‘Because, as you and I both very well recall, Sir Josse, Richard gave your manor to you. Not without prompting, as I remember,’ she added in a murmur. ‘But a gift is a
gift,’ she announced grandly, ‘and ever more should remain so.’ With a wave of her hand she summoned a lady-in-waiting from the small group huddled around the fireplace of the Abbey’s reception hall. ‘Writing materials, please,’ she said, and the woman hurried to fetch them.
Then, as Josse watched, Eleanor calmly wrote out three or four brief lines, decorating the thick parchment with an elegant, flowing hand. Not wanting to peer too closely, Josse made himself keep back. When she had finished, snapping her fingers at her lady-in-waiting, who proffered the royal seal, Eleanor raised her head, smiled swiftly as if she knew exactly what he was thinking, and, rolling up the parchment, handed it to him.
‘Should my youngest son ever present himself in person to claim what he accuses you of owing,’ she said tonelessly, ‘then you may show him this. Anyone else you may dismiss out of hand.’
Thinking that such a dismissal might, depending on to whom it was addressed, be more easily said than done, Josse bowed again, thanked her, and, sensing himself dealt with, began to back out of the room.
The Queen stopped him. ‘Sir Josse!’
‘My Lady?’
‘My compliments to the Abbess Helewise, when you see her.
She seemed, Josse thought later, in no doubt that it was when, not if.
* * *
Riding into his own courtyard, his many bodily discomforts were all but obliterated by the pleasure of being home again. And, moreover, with his mission accomplished. He patted the parchment, carefully stowed inside his tunic. Now let them come demanding rent! he thought cheerfully. I’ll show them!
On reflection, it was rather a pleasant prospect. He actually hoped some agent of John would turn up. It would be worth the furore to see the man’s face when Queen Eleanor’s personal seal was waved under his nose.
Horace, who had broken into an almost eager trot over the last half mile, was urging on across the courtyard in the direction of the stables. Yelling out for Will, Josse slid off the horse’s back, stumbling slightly on stiff, numb legs, and led Horace under cover.
