by Mel Starr
“John Chamberlain said you feared poison?”
Lord Gilbert shrugged, then whispered, “’Twas but the thought of a moment. We are all baffled. I would not have Lady Margery hear of poison.”
“John,” Lord Gilbert continued, “take Master Hugh to Sir John’s chamber.” Then, to me he said, “’Tis an odious business, I know, to ask of you, but I wish to know if Sir Henry’s death is God’s work or man’s.”
“You suspect man’s work?”
“Nay. I do not know what to think. So I have called for you. Is it possible that the sleeping draught you sent did this?”
“Nay. The seeds of lettuce are but a mild soporific. A man would need to swallow a bucket of the stuff to do himself harm.”
Lord Gilbert turned back to Lady Margery and left me to John, who nodded and led me to the stairs which would take us to the guest chambers beyond Lord Gilbert’s solar.
Past the solar the passageway grew dark, but at its end I saw two figures. I recognized one. Arthur, one of Lord Gilbert’s grooms, stood at the closed door of a chamber, and another man, wearing Sir Henry’s livery and badge, stood with him.
The two men stood aside as I approached, having been notified, no doubt, that I was to inspect the corpse and give reason for the death. I opened the heavy door and entered the chamber, but none followed. Death is not pleasant to look upon, and the three men who stood outside the door were content to allow me to do my work alone.
Sir Henry lay as he had been found, upon his back, sightless eyes staring at the vaulted ceiling and boss of his chamber. Would a man die in his sleep with his eyes open? Perhaps some pain seized him in the night and awakened him before death came.
A cresset was burning upon a stand, where it had been all night should Sir Henry have wished to rise and visit the garderobe. I lifted it and held it close to the dead man’s face. Two windows gave light to the room, but they were narrow, and one faced north, the other west, so that the morning sun did not illuminate the chamber.
I first inspected Sir Henry’s neck to see if any contusion was there. None was. I felt the man’s scalp, to see if any lump or dried blood might betray a blow. All was as it should be. I pried open the lips – no easy task, for rigor mortis was begun – to see if Sir Henry might have choked to his death upon regurgitated food. His mouth was clear.
Because Sir Henry was already stiffening in death I assumed that he was dead for some hours before he was found. De Mondeville wrote that rigor mortis begins three or so hours after death, and becomes severe at twelve hours after death.
A blanket yet covered the corpse. I drew this aside, and with my dagger slit Sir Henry’s kirtle so I might inspect the body for wounds or evidence of blows. There were none.
Beside the bed, next to where the cresset had been placed, was a cup. I held it to the window and saw in the dregs the few remains of the pounded seeds of lettuce which had been in the wine. Was some other potion added to the cup? I touched the dregs with my fingertips and brought them to my lips. I could detect no foreign flavor, although this is not telling, for there are several malignant herbs which leave little or no taste when consumed. Monk’s Hood is one. And for this they are all the more dangerous.
The walls of Sir Henry’s chamber were of stone, of course, and the door of heavy oak. If he felt himself afflicted in the night, and cried out for aid, he might not have been heard, especially if his call was weak due to an affliction which took his life.
I went to the door, where Arthur and Sir Henry’s valet stood, and asked the valet if anyone had heard Sir Henry shout for help in the night.
“Don’t know,” he replied. “I spend the night in the servants’ range. I wouldn’t have heard ’im.”
“Has no other, those whose chambers were close by, spoken of it?”
“Nay. None said anything.”
“It was you who found him?”
“Aye.”
“Has anything in his chamber been moved since then? Has Sir Henry’s corpse been moved?”
“Nay… but for Lady Margery throwin’ herself upon ’im when she was brought here an’ saw Sir Henry dead. Lord Gilbert drew her away. Told her he had a man who could tell why Sir Henry was dead. That would be you?”
“Aye. I am Hugh de Singleton, surgeon, and bailiff at Bampton manor. You are…?”
“Walter Mayn, valet to Sir Henry… was valet to Sir Henry.”
“Two days past I was asked to provide herbs which might help Sir Henry fall to sleep. Was there some matter which vexed him, so that he awoke of a night?”
Walter did not reply. He looked away, as if he heard some man approach at the end of the passageway. A valet is to be circumspect, and loyal, and hold his tongue when asked of the affairs of his lord. The man did not need to say more. His silence and glance told me that some business had troubled Sir Henry. Whether or not the issue had led to his death was another matter. Might a man die of worry? If so, this was no concern of Lord Gilbert Talbot’s bailiff.
“Who slept in the next chamber?” I asked the fellow.
“Sir Geoffrey Godswein.”
“And across the passageway?”
“Sir John Peverel.”
“They are knights in Sir Henry’s service?”
“Aye.”
“And they did not speak of any disturbance in the night?”
“Not that I heard. There was lots of screamin’ from Lady Margery and all was speakin’ at once when Sir Henry was found.”
I decided that I should seek these knights, and the Lady Margery, if she was fit to be questioned. I told Arthur and Walter to remain at Sir Henry’s door and allow no man, nor woman, either, to enter the chamber ’til I had returned.
Lady Margery I had seen in the hall, so I returned there and found Lord Gilbert and Lady Petronilla comforting the widow. Lady Margery’s eyes were red and her cheeks swollen. She had seen me an hour before, but through teary eyes.
“Master Hugh,” Lord Gilbert said, rising, “what news?”
“Hugh?” the woman shrieked. “This is the leech who has poisoned my husband?”
Lord Gilbert answered for me. “Nay, Lady Margery. Master Hugh is as competent as any at his business. He has assured me that the potion he sent to aid Sir Henry’s slumber could not cause death.”
“Of course he would say so. Something did. And Sir Henry took none of the potion until the night he died.”
The woman stood, her fists clenched, as if prepared to strike me. Lord Gilbert saw, and took her arm.
“’Tis of that night I would speak to you,” I said. “Your chamber is not far from your husband’s. Did you or your maids hear anything in the night? Some sound which might now, when you think back upon it, have told of Sir Henry’s distress, even if in the night, when you heard it, you paid no heed?”
“Nay, I heard nothing. ’Twas the potion you gave which caused his death. It was to bring sleep, you said. So it did, the sleep of death. This man,” she turned to my employer, “should be sent to the sheriff for trial before the King’s Eyre for the murder he has done.”
“Surely Master Hugh has done no murder,” Lady Petronilla said. “If so be his potion brought death ’twas surely mischance, not felony.”
Lady Margery stared skeptically at Lady Petronilla, but said no more.
Across the hall, as far from the grieving widow as could be yet remaining in the chamber, I saw two knights sitting upon a bench, their heads close together in earnest conversation.
“Sir John and Sir Geoffrey occupied chambers near Sir Henry, is this not so?”
“Aye,” Lord Gilbert replied, and nodded in the direction of the solemn knights.
I walked in the direction of his gaze and the two knights stood when they saw me approach.
“I give you good day,” I said courteously, although my words were but an affectation, for no such day could be good. “You are knights in service to Sir Henry?” I asked, although I knew the answer.
“Aye,” the older of the two replied
. “I am Sir John Peverel. This is Sir Geoffrey Godswein.”
Sir John was a large man, taller than me and three stone heavier. His hands were the size of a dexter’s hooves. Sir Geoffrey was smaller, a man of normal size.
I introduced myself and my duty, and asked if they had heard any cry in the night, or any other sound to indicate that Sir Henry might have been in distress. Both men shook their heads.
“Heard nothing amiss ’til Walter shouted for help,” Sir Geoffrey said.
“When he did so you went immediately to Sir Henry’s chamber?”
“Aye.”
“Who entered first?”
“I did,” Sir Geoffrey replied.
“What did you see? Tell all, even if it seems of no importance.”
“Walter stood at the door, which was flung wide open, bawling out that Sir Henry was dead. I pushed past and saw ’twas so.”
“Were the bed clothes in disarray, as if he’d thrashed about?”
Sir Geoffrey pursed his lips in thought, turned to Sir John as if seeking confirmation, then spoke. “Nay. All was in order. Not like Sir Henry’d tossed about in pain before he died.”
Sir John nodded agreement, then said, “His eyes were open. You being a surgeon would know better than me, but if a man died in his sleep, they’d be closed, seems like.”
I agreed. “Unless some pain awoke him before he died.”
“Then why’d he not cry out?” Sir Geoffrey asked.
I had no answer.
“When did you last see Sir Henry alive?”
“Last night,” Sir John said.
“After the music and dancing,” Sir Geoffrey added. “We retired same time as Sir Henry and Lady Margery.”
“Did he seem well? Did any matter trouble him?”
The two knights seemed to hesitate, slightly, but I noted it, before they replied.
“Nay,” Sir Geoffrey said. “Lord Gilbert had musicians and jongleurs to entertain here in the hall after supper. Sir Henry danced an’ seemed pleased as any.”
“When he went to his chamber did he stand straight, or was he perhaps bent as if some discomfort afflicted his belly?”
Again the knights exchanged glances, but this time Sir John spoke with no hesitation. “Sir Henry always stands straight, being shorter than most men. Wears thick-soled shoes, too. Was he bent last eve we’d have noticed, that being unlike him.”
“Think back again to this morning, and when you first entered Sir Henry’s chamber. Was anything amiss, or in disarray?”
“When a man is found dead,” Sir John said, “other matters are trivial. I paid no heed to anything but the corpse.” Sir Geoffrey nodded in agreement.
I thanked the knights, bid them “Good day,” whether it was or not, and motioned to Lord Gilbert that I wished to speak privily to him.
“What have you learned?” he asked when we were out of Lady Margery’s hearing.
“You saw the corpse?” I asked.
“Aye,” he grimaced.
“Sir Henry’s eyes were open in death.”
“Aye, they were. What means that?”
“I do not know, but the fact troubles me.”
“Why so? You think violence was done to him?”
“Nay. I examined the corpse. I found no injury. If a man dies in his sleep, his eyes will be shut. I’m sure of this. If Sir Henry awoke, and felt himself in pain, he would, I think, have called out. But no man, nor Lady Margery, heard him do so.”
“The castle walls are thick,” Lord Gilbert said.
“As are the doors. But between the bottom of the door to Sir Henry’s chamber and the floor is a space as wide as a man’s finger is thick. If Sir Henry cried for help I think he would have been heard through the gap, unless the affliction had greatly weakened him.”
“Mayhap the malady took him of a sudden.”
“Perhaps,” I shrugged.
“You are not satisfied to be ignorant of a matter like this, are you?” Lord Gilbert said.
“Nay.”
“’Tis why I employed you. But you must remember that only the Lord Christ knows all. There are matters we mortals may never know.”
Lord Gilbert Talbot, baron of the realm, valiant knight, now theologian and philosopher.
“You wish me to abandon my inquiry?”
“The longer you continue, the more distress for Lady Margery. If you think it unlikely you will ever discover the cause ’twould be best to say so sooner than later. Men often die for no good reason.”
“There is always a reason, but other men are ignorant of understanding the cause.”
“And you do not like being deceived, even by death, do you?”
“Nay. And if I cannot discover what caused Sir Henry’s death, Lady Margery will tell all that ’twas my potion which did so.”
“Another hour or two, then. Have ready an opinion by dinner.”
I promised to do so. As I left the hall Sir Henry’s daughter entered, as red-eyed and puffy-cheeked as her stepmother. Lady Anne, I had been told, was Sir Henry’s daughter by his first wife, the Lady Goscelyna. The lass looked to be about nineteen or twenty years old, and was followed by two youths – squires, I remembered, to Sir Henry. The lads were somber, but showed no sign of terrible loss. Lady Anne is a beautiful maid, and surely accustomed to being followed by young men.
I returned to Sir Henry’s chamber, nodded to Arthur and Walter, and entered the room. Perhaps, I thought, murder was done here in some manner I had not discovered, and when Sir Henry was dead all marks of a struggle had been made right. But if such had happened, why did Sir Henry not shout for assistance when he was attacked? Whether the man died of some illness, or was murdered, I could make no sense of his silence.
I sat upon a chair, ready to abandon the loathsome task I had been assigned. The Lord Christ gives to all men their appointed tasks, but occasionally I wish that He had assigned another profession to me. My eyes fell upon the fireplace. It was cold, and the ashes of the last blaze of winter were long since disposed of, but ’twas not the hearth which seized my attention.
A poker stood propped against the stones, and my mind went to a rumor which passed among students while I studied at Balliol College. A rumor concerning the death of King Edward II. Mortimer and Edward’s faithless queen deposed him nearly a half-century past, and he was taken to Berkeley Castle where, some months later, he was found dead of a morning. Folk living near the castle were said to have heard terrible screams in the night, but, as with Sir Henry, no mark was found upon the King’s corpse to tell of violent death.
A red-hot poker, rumor said, was thrust up the deposed King’s rectum, doing murder and cauterizing the wound at the same time, so no blood flowed to disclose how the felony was done. And no visible wound was made to indict the murderers.
There had been no blaze in Sir Henry’s fireplace, but I went to the hearth to examine the poker nevertheless. The iron bar was dusty with ashes from its last use, which had been as was intended, not to do murder.
I replaced the poker against the wall, but the thought of Edward II’s death caused me to consider again Sir Henry’s corpse. Surely if a man was murdered as the King was, his screams would have been heard throughout the castle, stone walls and oaken doors notwithstanding.
But what if he was silenced with a pillow over his face? Would that muffle his shrieks? Or might a pillow have been enough to suffocate the man and silence his protest at the same time?
I turned to the door of the chamber to seek Arthur and Walter and conduct an experiment with the pillow. ’Twas then I saw the tiny brown droplet upon the planks. I knelt to inspect the mark, thinking at first it might have been made by a drop of Sir Henry’s wine. The color so matched the wood that ’tis a wonder I saw it at all. Some man, or men, did not.
The circular stain was smaller than the nail upon my little finger, and when I scraped a thumbnail across it I was able to lift some of the substance from the floor. Wine will not thicken so. A tiny drop of dried bloo
d lay before me.
Could this be Sir Henry’s blood? If so, whence did it come? I approached the corpse, turned it upon the bed, and spread the legs so I might inspect the rectum for some sign of violence. I saw none, although I admit I might have performed the examination more carefully.
When Sir Henry was again upon his back I made another search of the corpse for some wound from which the drop of blood might have come. As before, I found none. Was there some other orifice of a man’s body whereby he might be stabbed and murdered, the wound invisible? I had already peered into Sir Henry’s mouth and seen nothing amiss. I tilted the head back and inspected the nostrils to see if any trace of blood was there. None was.
Sir Henry was stiff in death, but I managed to turn his head so that I could inspect his left ear. ’Tis all dark within a man’s ear, so at first I saw nothing, but it seemed to me that Sir Henry’s ear was darker than might be expected. I drew my dagger and with the point teased from the ear canal a flake of dried matter identical to the drop of dried blood upon the floor. If a man died in the throes of apoplexy would the strain cause an eardrum to burst? I had never heard of such a thing, and Galen and de Mondeville wrote nothing of such a phenomenon.
I needed my instruments. I bid Arthur and Walter maintain their watch, told Lord Gilbert my examination was near complete, and hastened to Galen House. Bessie toddled to me, but I could spare her but a peck upon a cheek before I seized a sack which I keep always ready for a time when my skills are called for.
Often when I walk the bridge over Shill Brook I stop to observe the water pass beneath, but not this day. I hastened to the castle, and at Sir Henry’s chamber I selected my smallest scalpel with which to prod the dark recess of Sir Henry’s ear. A moment later I drew forth a clot of dried blood.
If an awl is driven through a man’s ear, into his brain, will he die so suddenly that he does not cry out in pain before death comes? I did not know, and do not know yet, for there is no way to make experiment to learn if it may be so.
But I was then sure that Sir Henry was murdered. Some man thrust an awl or thin blade through his ear. If such a wound bleeds much – I had no experience of such a wound to know, and no writer has treated the subject – the felon had mopped up the blood so as to befuddle all who sought to find the cause of Sir Henry’s death. They had overlooked one drop.
