A Plague of Poison tk-3

by Maureen Ash

  Bascot told the brothers that he was on his way to speak to the castellan, and together the trio went into the keep and up the stairs of the tower in which Nicolaa’s chamber was located. She was in the midst of dictating letters to John Blund when Bascot and the two monks arrived; the pot of poisoned honey was still sitting on her desk. The secretarius immediately rose from his seat at the small lectern and began gathering up his papers, but Nicolaa forestalled him and told him to remain where he was.

  “I should like you to take note of any salient points that Brother Jehan may be able to give us, John, in case we should want to review them later.”

  As the secretary reseated himself and placed a fresh sheet of parchment on his desk, Nicolaa thanked the infirmarian for his prompt answer to her summons, and then, explaining that her throat was sore from her ailment, asked Bascot to tell the two monks what little information they had concerning the deaths of the clerk and Simon of Haukwell.

  “The poison that was used appears to act quickly once it is ingested,” he said, “and is extremely virulent.” He then went on to describe the symptoms that had afflicted the rodent after eating the honey-soaked bread. “Although Thorey told us that rats do not usually vomit, some foam did appear around its mouth, and both Haukwell and Ralf purged extensively before they died.”

  “There are many poisons that have a similar effect,” Jehan said reflectively. He was an elderly man, with a slow and sonorous manner of speaking and a frail appearance that belied his inner fortitude. “However, as we were coming across the bail, we spoke to the rat catchers. They expressed their opinion as to the nature of the poison, and I think I can tentatively agree with their observation.” He looked across at Brother Andrew who nodded in agreement.

  Nicolaa’s eyebrows rose. “The rat catchers know the type of poison that was used? Why was I not informed?”

  Jehan gave a slow smile. “Such knowledge could be considered as incriminating, lady. The catcher here in the castle-Thorey, I believe his name is-was careful to explain to me that after watching the effects of the poisoned honey on the rat, he believes it contained a venom that is used by many of those who follow his trade. While assuring me that he does not use the substance himself, or indeed any other type of poison, he feared that it might be thought he was the perpetrator of the crime.”

  “I see,” Nicolaa nodded. “It is true that I have forbidden him to use such a means to rid the castle of rats. When I was a child, the catcher my father employed was in the habit of using poison to kill rodents, and one of my father’s favourite hounds accidentally ate some poison and died. My father was so angry that the catcher was lucky to escape with his life. Afterwards, my father forbade all of his catchers to use any type of venom, and I have followed that dictate. Thorey, as far as I am aware, uses only his dogs and traps baited with untainted food for his purpose. He would be dismissed if he did otherwise.”

  She returned Jehan’s smile. “And so his concern that he may be blamed is understandable. There was a great display of anger against my cook, even though it is not certain he is guilty. Thorey would have known that and feared the same suspicion might fall on him.”

  Bascot motioned to the earthenware pot. “That is the pot that contains the poisoned honey. What is it that Thorey-and you-believe to have been used to adulterate it?”

  “It is a common ingredient in rat poison, Sir Bascot,” Jehan explained, “and is extracted from a plant whose Latin name is Helleborus niger but is more commonly called the Rose of Christ. The plant blossoms about the time of the celebration of Christ’s holy Mass, and the leaves of it, in pagan days, were used in a ceremony to bless cattle and protect them from evil spirits. Other than as a means to destroy vermin, it is sometimes used in a beneficial manner, as a tincture to assist in the purging of parasites or to restore the balance of humours in women, but it is a very dangerous medicant and must be administered with great caution. Most apothecaries would not recommend it for any purpose other than to kill rodents.”

  “But it is available for purchase from an apothecary?” Bascot asked.

  “Oh yes,” Jehan replied. “The usual customers would be rat catchers, but any householder who wishes to forego the catcher’s fee could buy it to use himself.”

  “It can also be made by any who know how to do so,” Brother Andrew added. “In the countryside, where the services of an apothecary or a rat catcher may not be available, I am sure there are many wisewomen who possess the knowledge to make it.” The younger monk’s speech was quicker than his elderly companion’s and contained a lilting accent that was not common to the Lincoln area.

  Nicolaa and Bascot exchanged glances. If the poison was one that could easily be purchased or made, it would not make their task of finding the poisoner an easy one. “Are you certain, Brother, that this is the poison that was used?” Bascot asked Jehan.

  “Reasonably so,” he assured him. “But it may be easier to confirm that it was truly Helleborus niger if there was another person nearby when either of the two victims was first taken ill. There are certain symptoms that are peculiar to this poison, and if they were present, it would eliminate the possibility that it could be venom of another type.”

  Nicolaa spoke to her secretary, who was busy writing down what Jehan had said. “You were with Ralf just before he died, were you not, John?”

  Blund laid his quill aside. “Yes, lady, I was. Only for a few moments, though.”

  “Were you in his presence before he began to vomit?” Jehan asked.

  “No,” Blund replied. “When I arrived he was lying on the floor and was near death.”

  Jehan and Andrew both shook their heads. “Soon after the poison is ingested, and before it acts upon the contents of the stomach and bowels, it will cause an excessive flow of saliva and a tingling sensation in the mouth which usually results in slurred speech. Unfortunately, you arrived too late to see if this was so with your clerk, Master Blund.”

  “What of Thomas, Haukwell’s squire?” Bascot suggested. “He said he served his lord with more than one cup of the poisoned wine; it may be that he noticed these symptoms.”

  Nicolaa despatched John Blund to fetch the squire, and while they waited, Bascot asked the two monks how long a poison made from Helleborus niger would remain potent. “There is a possibility that the honey was adulterated some time before the pot was opened,” he explained. “If the venom deteriorates with the passage of time, it may help us to determine when the pot was contaminated.”

  “It would not lose any of its strength with age,” Andrew replied. “It might even become more vigorous, aided by fermentation in the honey.”

  “That is not good news,” Bascot said regretfully. “It means that, as we feared, the poison may have been added to the honey at any time since it was harvested from the combs.”

  When Blund returned with the squire, Jehan asked him if he had been in company with Haukwell before he was taken ill. “Yes,” Thomas replied. “After I brought him the wine, I sat with him in conversation while he drank it.”

  “Did he show any signs of discomfort before he began to purge?” Andrew asked.

  Thomas thought for a moment. “Not discomfort, but I did think that the wine seemed to affect him more quickly than usual.”

  “How so?” Andrew enquired.

  “His speech became slow, and he kept wiping his face and mouth on his sleeve as though he were hot. It was almost as though he were cupshotten.” The squire’s young face grew thoughtful. “Sir Simon was not a winebibber. He often cautioned myself and the other squires to beware of the excesses of strong drink, saying it would cloud our judgement on the battlefield. Because of that, I was a little surprised that he would allow himself to be overblown with wine, but when he finished his last cup and said he felt very tired, I thought that perhaps his manner was due to the heaviness of the meal he had eaten earlier. After he retired, I went to my own pallet, which was laid only a little way from his. It was just minutes later that he began to vomit.
”

  “I think,” Jehan said in his slow, methodical fashion, “that there can be little doubt that the poison used was extracted from the Helleborus niger plant.” He pointed to the honey pot on Nicolaa’s table. “I would advise that the contents of that jar be disposed of with great care.”

  The rat catchers did not finish their testing of the rest of the honey until late that afternoon. All proved to be untainted. Despite that, after discussing the matter with Bascot, Nicolaa de la Haye ordered that all of the pots be placed in a separate storeroom with the door locked. She also gave directions that only roasted meats free of garnish and plain boiled vegetables were to be served in the days to come, with rounds of cheese to follow. Sweetmeats of any kind, except for dried fruit, were to be foregone.

  It was late in the evening by the time she was ready to retire, and she was exhausted. She thanked God that the Templar was there to give his assistance, for her ailment and the events of the day had drained much of her energy. But it was necessary that Gerard be informed of what had passed, and so before she went to her bedchamber, she penned a letter to her husband in London in order that it could be sent with a messenger early the following morning. She found that the words she needed to write did not come easily to her mind; she knew how much value Gerard had placed on Simon of Haukwell, both as a man and a knight, and that her husband’s explosive temper would erupt when he learned the manner of Simon’s death. It would be best for Gosbert if Gerard was many miles from Lincoln when he was given the sad news.

  Five

  Although the poisoner was elated by the successful effect of the poison, his excitement was tinged with disappointment. It had been a simple task to place the adulterated pot of honey in the kitchen, but the risk he had taken to ensure that Nicolaa de la Haye would be his first victim had failed.

  He consoled himself with remembrance of the fearful agitation among the castle household after the discovery of the poison; the secret power he held over them all had given him a heady rush of exhilaration. It would be accelerated even further when the next victims fell prey to his venom. He looked forward to it with eager anticipation.

  Six

  The next morning Bascot was awake before Prime and lay on his pallet considering the events of the previous day. Before retiring to their chamber at the top of the old keep, he and Gianni had visited the kitchen, a long, cavernous building constructed mostly of stone and attached to the keep by a covered wooden walkway. The Templar had wanted to see for himself how easy it would be to access the shelf on which the poisoned honey pot had been placed. Even though it had been late in the day, the kitchen was full of activity as scullions scraped and scoured cooking utensils and pared and chopped vegetables in readiness for the next day. The air was redolent with the lingering aroma of roasting meat and the pungent tang of onion.

  There were three large fireplaces set in one wall, their flames damped down to rest overnight, with vertical rows of ovens set in niches between each. Huge baskets of turnips, parsnips and carrots were piled on the floor, and bunches of herbs dangled from the ceiling. Deep shelves of considerable length lined almost every wall and were laid with bowls of eggs and grated cheese rinds as well as a number of earthenware jars filled with all manner of substances from grease drippings to leftover gravy. The room was brightly lit, not only by the radiance of the fires, but also by candles fitted into sconces fastened into the wall between the shelves.

  Gosbert’s assistant, Eric, was making bread, kneading dough in a huge bowl, when Bascot and Gianni entered. Some loaves had already been laid out to rise overnight; a few were of fine white manchet bread, which was served to those of higher rank, while the rest, and the most numerous, were made from the coarse-grained flour of barley or rye. Eric quickly left his task when Bascot came in, and he asked the Templar how he could be of assistance.

  The shelves that had held the honey pots before Lady Nicolaa had ordered them put into the locked storeroom were near the back, alongside a small cupboard that Eric told him was filled with spices. It was quickly apparent that, as Gosbert had said, access to the honey pots would have been relatively easy; the shelves were out in the open and within reach of all.

  Bascot asked the assistant cook how many jars of honey the shelf had contained when the cook had made the marchpane. “Perhaps a dozen altogether,” Eric replied, “but I think there were only two of the finest sort.”

  “And both of those came from the Nettleham apiary?”

  “Yes. We have used up all of those from the Haye apiary and are awaiting a delivery of more,” Eric explained. “We use a great quantity of honey throughout the year, Sir Bascot. There is not enough room to store it all in the kitchen, so Lady Nicolaa’s beekeeper sends further supplies four or five times a year, as it is required.”

  “But the Nettleham honey-it is delivered all at once, in the autumn?”

  Eric nodded. Bascot went on to ask what was done with the pots once they were empty, and Eric told him that all that were not chipped or cracked were cleansed and placed in a shed in the bail for collection so they could be used for refilling. It would be a simple matter, Bascot thought, to extract one of the empty pots from the shed, fill it with tainted honey and then bring it into the kitchen and exchange it for a pot whose contents were pure.

  As he lay in the darkness and reviewed all that he had seen, the Templar considered the likelihood of Eric being the one who had placed the poison in the jar. Was the assistant covetous of Gosbert’s position and, wishing to discredit the cook, had tainted the honey in order to pave the way for his own promotion? If so, it could be that Eric had not realised the strength of the poison and had thought it would only cause a slight illness and, as Martin had suggested, could imply that the cook’s management of the kitchen was so dilatory that food was becoming contaminated through slovenliness. Or was the assistant perhaps resentful of Gosbert’s overbearing manner and had he poisoned the honey in a malicious response to a reprimand he had received?

  Bascot sighed and turned on his pallet. Such speculation was useless. There could be a myriad of reasons for this crime, ranging from a desire to extract vengeance for some unknown enmity to something as simple as finding enjoyment in malicious mischief, and a plenitude of people who had the opportunity to do it. He did not relish the thought of interrogating every one of the more than twenty scullions who worked in the kitchen, as well as all of the servants who waited on the tables in the hall, but it might prove to be the only way of finding out if any had seen or heard something that was pertinent.

  He recalled the previous times he had been involved in discovering the identity of a secret murderer. As on those occasions, he was outraged by the cowardly stealth of the crime. Ralf, a young man joyfully anticipating marriage to his sweetheart, dead before he had been able to look on the face of the girl he loved one last time. And Haukwell, a knight deserving of meeting death cleanly, with a sword in his hand, taken from life by an enemy that did not have the courage to face him. Bascot knew that the anger he felt would be a detriment to clarity of thought and resolutely put his wrath aside, deciding to replace it with the solace of prayer.

  He began a repetition of the prayer of a paternoster, holding the words steadily before him in his mind’s eye. It was a practice that all Templars were encouraged to follow as a means of strengthening their resolve, and it was one that Bascot had often used, especially when he had been a captive of the Saracens in the Holy Land. On the day that an infidel lord had ordered his eye to be put out with a hot poker, he had used the prayer to sustain him through the pain and humiliation of the ordeal, focusing especially on the passage that asked God for deliverance from evil. His supplication had been answered when he had been given the opportunity to escape from his heathen captors. Now he ended each repetition of the litany with a heartfelt plea for heavenly aid in discovering the identity of the poisoner and hoped that, once again, God would look on his appeal with favour. The exercise brought him comfort, and slowly he felt his tense musc
les relax.

  Sleep was just beginning to reclaim him when he heard Gianni stir on his pallet and the rustle that accompanied the boy as he rose and used the chamber pot in the corner of the room to relieve himself. Dawn was beginning to show its light through the one small casement the room possessed, and Bascot decided to get up. If he was going to get to the bottom of this matter, there was a lot of work ahead of him and no time for delay. Pushing into place the leather patch that covered his missing right eye, he pulled on his boots and shoved his arms into the padded gambeson he had discarded before retiring. Telling Gianni to follow him, he had just left the chamber and was standing at the top of the stairs leading down to the bail when he heard one of the gatewards blow his horn three times, the alarm that signalled an emergency.

  Ordering Gianni to return to the chamber and fetch his sword, the Templar descended the stairs as quickly as his injured ankle would allow. When he emerged into the bail, he saw that it was the gateward on the eastern gate-the one that led out into Ermine Street-that had sounded the alarm. Ernulf and two of his men-at-arms were running in that direction. As Bascot followed them, the lanky figure of Gilles de Laubrec appeared at the door to the stables, and he hastened to join the Templar.

  “I just sent off one of the grooms with a letter to the sheriff from Lady Nicolaa,” the marshal said as he came up. “Let us pray there is no more trouble astir, else there will be need to send another messenger on his heels.”

  The gateward had come down from his post at the top of one of the two towers that flanked the huge entrance, and he was standing with a man that Bascot recognised as a member of the town guard under the command of Roget, a former mercenary and now their captain. The guard was out of breath and had obviously been running. As the others reached him, he struggled to make his voice steady enough to speak clearly.