A Poisonous Plot: The Twenty First Chronicle of Matthew Bartholomew (Chronicles of Matthew Bartholomew)

by Susanna Gregory

  ‘Prior Norton also told me that Shirwynk uses a lot of sucura in his apple wine,’ the beadle went on. ‘Shirwynk offered him some once, and being a man who knows his beverages, he was able to tell exactly what was in it. He says it is loaded with the stuff.’

  ‘Go to the castle and repeat all this to the Sheriff,’ ordered Michael. ‘Then ask him to come to the brewery as soon as he can. Matt and I will meet him there.’

  Unfortunately, he and Bartholomew reached Shirwynk’s domain to find a cart piled high with boxes and a horse already in harness – Peyn was about to leave for Westminster. The apprentices were waiting, ready to make their farewells when he emerged.

  ‘No!’ whispered Bartholomew urgently, as the monk prepared to stride through them. ‘We should wait for Dick. There are too many of them, and if the situation turns ugly—’

  ‘We have no choice,’ Michael hissed. ‘Peyn is just as much to blame as his father, and we cannot risk losing him. And we certainly cannot have him appearing for work at the Treasury!’

  Unhappily, Bartholomew followed him inside, the apprentices a menacing presence at their heels. They were just in time to see Shirwynk hugging his son. The brewer was furious, mortified that strangers should witness the unmanly tears that glittered in his eyes.

  ‘What do you want?’ he snarled. ‘Get out!’

  ‘We have reason to believe that your apple wine is giving people the debilitas,’ began Michael briskly. ‘It is—’

  ‘Do you see what they are doing, Peyn?’ asked Shirwynk angrily. ‘They want me to drop my case of trespass against Morys, so they aim to bully me into submission by attacking my wares. It is sly and mean, but that is to be expected of the University.’

  ‘The architects of ancient Rome knew not to use lead containers for making wine,’ said Bartholomew, walking to the nearest vat and inspecting it closely. ‘But you ferment yours in these metal tanks, which you recently bought from—’

  ‘Ancient Rome?’ echoed Shirwynk in disbelief. He addressed Peyn a second time. ‘They must be desperate indeed if they are forced to quote examples from ancient Rome!’

  ‘Listen to me,’ said Bartholomew quietly. ‘Vitruvius was a very wise man, and he recommended clay for storing foodstuffs, because lead has compounds that leach—’

  ‘There is nothing wrong with my wine,’ snapped Shirwynk, and to prove it, he went to the nearest vat, dipped a beaker into it and drank deeply. ‘Delicious! But am I dead? No, I am not. Now leave, before my lads toss you out.’

  ‘Wine is acidic,’ persisted Bartholomew, jigging away from the burly youth who tried to grab his arm. ‘It dissolves lead. You must have noticed the white granules that grow where—’

  ‘No,’ interrupted Peyn shortly. ‘We have not.’

  Bartholomew ran his finger down the tank, then held it up so they could see the whitish powder that adhered to it. ‘Lead salts – formed when the acid from the fermenting apples eats into the metal. They are sweet to the taste, which is why your wine has a sickly flavour. It is not the kind of sucura you can buy in London, imported from Tyre and taxed at ninety per cent, but something else altogether.’

  ‘Most of Cambridge does not call my apple nectar sickly,’ said Shirwynk dangerously. ‘It is extremely popular.’

  ‘I am sure it is – far more than the sour stuff you could brew in wooden barrels. But you bought these metal ones from the Austin Priory this year—’

  ‘Then it is their fault, not ours,’ Peyn interrupted again. ‘Not that it matters, because you are wrong anyway. You say our wine is causing the debilitas, but my mother died of that disease, and she never touched wine of any description.’

  ‘But she ate food made with your “sucura”,’ argued Bartholomew. He raised his finger again. ‘And this is it – a by-product of brewing apple wine in lead tanks. It is not smuggled into the town, but manufactured here. You are the ones who have flooded Cambridge with it.’

  ‘We most certainly are not,’ declared Shirwynk indignantly. ‘Yes, there is usually a white crust in the vats, but not enough to “flood” an entire town. As everyone knows – except you, it would seem – sucura comes through the Fens.’

  ‘No, it does not, which is why the Sheriff has never been able to catch anyone bringing it in. You have complained several times that someone steals your wine at night, yet Peyn stays here to keep guard, so how can thieves break in? But I know the answer.’

  ‘Do not listen,’ Peyn instructed his father nervously. ‘He is just jealous that I am about to become a successful Treasury clerk. He wishes it was him that was going to Westminster.’

  ‘I will hear no slander against my son, Bartholomew,’ warned Shirwynk. He nodded to his apprentices. ‘Throw him out.’

  ‘He has been boiling the wine down while you are tucked up in bed and he is here alone,’ said Bartholomew, ducking behind the vat to escape the hands that came to lay hold of him. ‘A process that sees it crystallise as white powder – which he passes off as sucura. I wager anything you please that it will no longer be available once he leaves home.’

  Peyn was shaking his head, but he wore a heavy bag looped over his shoulder, and his hand kept dropping to it in a very furtive manner. Michael made a lunge for it. Peyn tried to jerk away, and the ensuing tussle saw several packets drop out on to the floor.

  ‘Those are mine,’ shouted Peyn. ‘I bought them to … to bake my father a farewell cake.’

  ‘And when do you propose to do that?’ demanded Michael archly. The apprentices stopped trying to seize Bartholomew and stared at Peyn instead, equally unconvinced by the claim. ‘On the open road? And that is enough for twenty cakes, anyway.’

  Shirwynk’s open mouth and pale face suggested that he had no idea what his son had been doing, but he rallied quickly. He ordered his apprentices out and told them to close the door behind them, unwilling for them to hear more of the discussion.

  ‘Peyn is a good lad,’ he said, when they had gone. ‘If he says he bought the sucura, then he did. It is illegal, but we all do stupid things from time to time, and one foolish mistake should not cost him his Treasury career. I am sure we can come to an arrangement.’

  Michael reached under a table and retrieved something from the floor – several pieces of parchment that had been folded to make tiny envelopes, all of which were identical to the ones Cynric had given the Michaelhouse Fellows to protect them against restless spirits.

  ‘Then why is there a lot of unused sucura wrapping here? And I imagine the Sheriff will find even more evidence once he starts looking.’

  ‘We will make good on the tax,’ blurted Shirwynk, capitulating abruptly as the case against Peyn went from strength to strength. ‘We will offer Tulyet a settlement he cannot refuse. However, it is none of the University’s concern so—’

  ‘Oh, yes it is,’ said Michael sternly. ‘Scholars are dead because you have been selling contaminated wine, while your greedy son has been manufacturing lead salts and calling them sucura.’

  ‘Lead salts are not poisonous,’ said Peyn, licking dry lips. ‘Physicians and apothecaries use them in medicine. Even if you can prove these charges, we have harmed no one.’

  ‘They may have benefits in small doses,’ acknowledged Bartholomew. ‘But people have been swallowing lots of them.’ He turned to Shirwynk. ‘Including you, probably. Can you honestly say that you have not recently suffered from headaches, a metallic taste in your mouth, dizziness, stomach cramps, insomnia, loss of appetite, weakness in the limbs or nausea?’

  ‘I might have felt a little shabby of late,’ conceded Shirwynk. ‘But you cannot prove it is because of my wine or sucura.’

  ‘Yes, I can,’ countered Bartholomew. ‘All it needs are a few simple tests.’

  ‘You have been listening to that imbecile Nigellus,’ sneered Shirwynk, although a tremor in his voice revealed his growing fear that the physician might actually be right. ‘He does not know what he is talking about either.’

  ‘Other symptoms of lead
poisoning include irritability and increased aggression,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Which may explain why so many people have been unusually short-tempered these last few weeks. Yourself among them.’

  Shirwynk stared at him. ‘If I am angry, it is because your University tries my patience. It has nothing to do with any so-called lead salts.’

  ‘Peyn has told us twice now that he does not touch apple wine or sweet foods,’ said Bartholomew. ‘And he has exhibited none of these symptoms. He—’

  He stopped speaking when Shirwynk whipped around and grabbed a long metal hook from the wall. He jabbed at the scholars with it, forcing them to retreat or risk being disembowelled.

  ‘Put that down,’ ordered Michael imperiously. ‘Or I shall—’

  ‘You are in no position to make threats,’ snarled Shirwynk. ‘And I have heard enough. I cannot allow you to harm Peyn as he stands on the brink of his new life. I am afraid you must die.’

  CHAPTER 13

  The cold determination in Shirwynk’s eyes told Bartholomew and Michael that he meant to kill them where they stood. Peyn knew it, too, and his face was hard with savage glee as he drew the long knife he carried at his side, aiming to lend a hand.

  Bartholomew pulled a pair of heavy childbirth forceps from his medical bag. They were not much of a weapon, but they did serve to deflect Shirwynk’s first blow, although he knew it was only a matter of time before the hook found its mark.

  ‘I know why you hate the University,’ the monk said, wholly unfazed by the danger. ‘Peyn made such a point about not wanting to be a scholar that I looked in our records. And what did I find? That he did apply, but was soundly rejected. You are both bitter—’

  Bartholomew only just managed to counter the furious swipe that Peyn aimed at the monk’s vitals, although Michael did not flinch, perhaps because there had been no time. The resulting clash made Peyn yelp in pain and he fell back, nursing a wrenched elbow.

  ‘King’s Hall,’ he hissed between gritted teeth, flexing his damaged joint. ‘How dare they refuse me! And they were followed by Gonville, Peterhouse and all the hostels.’

  ‘Even Zachary!’ said Michael tauntingly. ‘A place with no academic standards whatsoever. You must have cut a miserable figure indeed for them to turn you down.’

  Bartholomew was hard-pressed to fend off Shirwynk’s indignant assault, and was aware that if father and son attacked together, he and Michael would be dead. Shirwynk fell back eventually, circling as he considered his next move. Peyn had recovered sufficiently to try a jab or two, but he was tentative, unwilling to risk further injury.

  ‘If you must antagonise them, Brother, then at least grab a weapon,’ hissed Bartholomew urgently. ‘I cannot defend you indefinitely.’

  Michael picked up a ladle from the floor and feinted at Peyn, who staggered backwards with an alarmed squeak.

  ‘You should have accepted my son,’ said Shirwynk coldly. ‘He would have been an asset to you, and I had set my heart on him becoming a lawyer. But his talent is such that he does not need your paltry degrees anyway. Not now he has won his post in Westminster.’

  Confident in his father’s devotion, Peyn began to gloat. ‘It was so easy to fool you! I read how to make lead salts when I was preparing my application for King’s Hall – Stephen let me use his library. No one guessed it was me making and selling the sucura.’

  ‘Peyn!’ barked Shirwynk, horrified. ‘Say no more.’

  ‘Why?’ shrugged Peyn. ‘They will never repeat this conversation to anyone else, and they should know that their stupid University made a mistake by declining to take me.’

  ‘So I am beginning to understand,’ murmured Michael, ‘given that you promptly turned around and started to poison everyone.’

  ‘I have been making sucura for months,’ said Peyn tauntingly. ‘At first, I only sold it in Barnwell, thinking to keep the venture modest, but it was so successful that I could not resist expanding into Cambridge. People want it so badly that they pay stupidly high prices, and it has made me rich. How do you think I got my post at Westminster?’

  Shirwynk blinked. ‘Because the Treasury heard about your remarkable abilities and invited you to join them, just as I have been telling everyone.’

  Peyn laughed, although it was a bitter sound. ‘Nothing is free in this world, Father. I bought the position – with money from my sucura.’

  ‘But if the stuff has been causing the debilitas, as these scholars say, then it means you killed Letia,’ breathed Shirwynk, shocked. ‘Your mother.’

  ‘She was dying anyway,’ shrugged Peyn. ‘Or so she claimed. Personally, I thought it was just an excuse to lie around in bed eating cakes.’

  ‘You did not know your sucura might be dangerous,’ said Shirwynk. It was a statement, not a question, and there was a pathetic desperation in his eyes. ‘You sold it in all innocence.’

  Peyn grinned malevolently, a response that made his sire’s face crumple in dismay. ‘I had my suspicions, which is why I never touch it myself. Not the sucura or the apple wine.’

  ‘But you let me drink it.’ Shirwynk’s voice was low and strained.

  Knowing where his best interests lay, Peyn abandoned his air of gloating insouciance and became ingratiating. ‘I would not have let you come to harm. And I am not responsible for the deaths anyway. All the victims were old, ill or overly greedy.’

  ‘Was Frenge overly greedy?’ asked Michael. ‘I assume you poisoned him as well?’

  Peyn shook his head. ‘His death was a nuisance, actually, because he was the one who took the sucura out to sell.’

  ‘No!’ snapped Michael. ‘I questioned any number of people who bought the stuff – Agatha, Cynric, Mistress Tulyet, Dodenho, Chancellor Tynkell – and none of them got it from Frenge.’

  ‘Stephen did,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He told me so a few months ago.’

  Peyn shot them both a pitying glance. ‘Frenge did not deal with the bulk of our customers himself, stupid! He hired petty criminals to do it – men who are used to hawking goods of dubious origin around the town’s taverns.’

  ‘Then it was all Frenge’s idea,’ said Shirwynk, still unwilling to see his beloved son in the role of arch villain. ‘He was a thief … there was a rumour that he stole cattle—’

  ‘He did not have the wits to devise a scheme of this audacity and cunning,’ interrupted Peyn. ‘Only I did.’ He smirked challengingly at Michael. ‘And incidentally, he never delivered ale to King’s Hall on the day he died. I made that up to confuse you.’

  ‘But you told me that tale as well,’ said Shirwynk hoarsely. ‘And I repeated it to others …’

  ‘Just as I intended,’ said Peyn, all smug triumph. ‘It put suspicion on King’s Hall, which serves them right for suing us.’

  There was a moment when Bartholomew thought Shirwynk would be so stunned by his son’s nasty revelations that he would lay down his hook and surrender, but only a fleeting one. Peyn also sensed his sire’s weakening resolve, so took steps to remedy the situation. He put a loving arm around his father’s shoulders, and murmured in his ear. Whatever he said caused Shirwynk to take a deep breath and become businesslike.

  ‘Go and wait outside. I do not want your last memories of Cambridge tainted by murder.’

  ‘No, we shall dispatch them together,’ said Peyn, obviously not trusting him to go through with it. He gripped his blade purposefully. ‘Ready?’

  Shirwynk nodded, his expression grim, and they advanced side by side. Bartholomew held his forceps in one hand and let his medical bag slide into the other, aiming to swing it in the hope of entangling one of their weapons.

  ‘Stop!’ ordered Michael, raising the ladle. ‘Desist immediately, or I will—’

  ‘Will what?’ sneered Peyn. ‘Arrest us? How? We are the ones with the pointed implements.’

  ‘By summoning HELP!’ Michael bawled the last word at the top of his voice, and the brewery door flew open to reveal Tulyet and several soldiers. Dickon was there, too, his face st
ill scarlet, although his teeth were back to their normal yellowish white.

  Shirwynk and Peyn whipped around in horror. In a frantic but ill-advised effort to save the day, Shirwynk went on a wild offensive, but a hook, however sharp, was no match for broadswords, and Tulyet disarmed him with ease. When he saw his father defeated, Peyn dropped his knife and held his hands in front of him, to show he was unarmed. They shook with fear.

  ‘I assume you heard everything, Dick?’ asked Michael, while Bartholomew leaned against the wall and wished he had known that the Sheriff had been poised for rescue. No wonder Michael had been all cool composure in the face of death!

  ‘I did,’ replied Tulyet. ‘Every word.’

  ‘It was all Frenge’s idea,’ bleated Peyn. ‘I swear! He forced me to help him and—’

  ‘How?’ asked Tulyet mildly. ‘You just said he did not have the wits.’

  ‘No, but he does,’ said Peyn, pointing at his father. ‘I did learn about lead salts in Stephen’s books, but when I told him about them, he devised a way to make himself rich and to rid himself of an unwanted wife into the bargain. I did nothing wrong. It was all him.’

  The blood drained from Shirwynk’s face, but even this final evidence of his son’s perfidy did not dent his devotion. ‘Yes,’ he said softly. ‘The scheme was all mine. Peyn knew nothing about any of it. He is innocent of any wrongdoing.’

  There was a flicker of something in Peyn’s eyes, but it was gone too quickly to say whether it was remorse. ‘So release me,’ the boy said. ‘I shall go to Westminster and our paths will never cross again. Unless you ever need a favour, of course, in which case I shall be delighted to oblige.’

  ‘Take them away,’ said Tulyet, eyeing him with disgust. ‘Thank God I have an upright, noble son, because I think I should die of shame if I had one like you.’

  Once Shirwynk and Peyn had been marched to the castle, Bartholomew examined the metal vats, to assure himself that his conclusions were right. He was, and Michael and Tulyet listened aghast as he explained in more detail how Peyn had made ‘sucura’, both appalled by the lad’s brazen disregard for the people who had sickened or died.