‘If Peter was murdered, it would be a great shame to let his murderer go free,’ Baldwin said slowly.
‘Undoubtedly. But what would you recommend? I am a busy man. Even now I expect there are calls for me to go and view corpses between here and the Cornish border. I haven’t the time or inclination to search for killers when they may be as insubstantial as marsh gas.’
‘I quite understand,’ Baldwin said. He sighed. ‘And you are probably right. But I am struck by the fact that so many things seem to have happened: Karvinel’s robbery, the murder of Ralph, and now this fellow Peter dying. It seems odd, especially now we have heard from Elias about Peter’s curious second visit. What lay behind that?’
Coroner Roger stretched. ‘God knows. Since he’s dead, we may never find out. Anyway, as far as I am concerned, with Christmas Day tomorrow, I won’t be able to do more for a while.’
Baldwin looked at him, his features serious. ‘What do you think, Roger? Was Peter murdered?’
The Coroner met his gaze without blinking. ‘My report will note the facts. There is no evidence to suggest he was murdered.’
‘Which means Elias is still in danger.’
‘If Peter was murdered, it’d make me more inclined to consider Elias innocent.’
Simon interrupted them. ‘Now we know what will go in your report, what do you think, Coroner?’
Roger glanced away. ‘I don’t think Elias is a murderer, but if he didn’t kill Ralph, who did? And why would someone poison Peter?’
Henry mockingly held out his hand for the other Choristers to kiss, just as they would usually bow and kiss the ring of the Bishop. He held his head superciliously, nose in the air, peeping at his peers as they filed past, some giggling, most trying desperately to hold their faces in a solemn mask – and failing.
‘You shouldn’t be doing that,’ Luke cried. His voice was petulant, he knew, but he couldn’t help it. It was horrible seeing Henry making fun of the most important aspects of the Feast Day. Henry was a cheat: a liar and a cheat. He’d taken the election when Luke knew he should have won. It wasn’t fair that Henry had got all the others to vote for him. Not that there was anything he could do about it now. The cheat had won unfairly, bribing other Choristers to give him their votes, and Luke had fallen by the wayside. As soon as the hands went up for Henry, those who were wavering saw how the rest were going and supported Henry too. And when the boys who had promised themselves to Luke saw that their leader was lost, they instantly conformed. It was a unanimous vote.
In his heart of hearts Luke might have been able to sympathise with them. If he had been one of them, he would probably have voted along with them. After all, the boy-Bishop would be unlikely to forget who had failed to support him. It might only be for one day that the boy-Bishop reigned, but that was long enough to make the life of an intransigent elector painful. There were summary punishments to be given, like the refusal to allow him to sit at the same table and perhaps make him go hungry for the day, or even the extreme of embarrassment, making a fool of him on Holy Innocents’ Day when all the Choristers were enjoying themselves. It would be easy to make a boy feel a complete dottypoll on such a day. Especially when all the other Choristers were determined not to stand out by defending someone else in case they might be picked on next.
Luke turned away in disgust. It was stupid, and insulting to God. And He only knew what the Succentor would say if he caught them all at it. It was tempting to go and find Brother Gervase to tell him, but Luke resisted the impulse. He knew that Henry would simply tell the other boys to disappear and keep quiet. Then it would be Luke’s word, Luke the boy who had wanted to be the boy-Bishop, against that of Henry, the boy who had won it. There was no skill in guessing which of them would be believed. Henry would put on his sad, innocent, forgiving face and kindly tell Luke that he mustn’t invent such stories, that telling lies was displeasing to God. And Luke would be looked upon as a vindictive liar.
He left the sniggering clan grouped about their leader and walked through into the hall where they all studied. Only a small room, it had a series of trestle tables set about it. Luke went to his desk. Although he wasn’t supposed to keep food here, he had concealed his half loaf on the shelf beneath. If he became hungry during his work, he could take a lump of the drying crust and chew it. Not that he would want to, because the coarse loaf was growing hard. Luke hadn’t had a chance to pick at it, for the Choristers had been spending almost all their time in the Cathedral practising their singing for the Christmas celebrations and the Feast of Holy Innocents. He wasn’t hungry now anyway, he thought, putting the loaf back; he was too angry to think of food.
At least Henry hadn’t attacked him out in the Cathedral grounds since that last time when he hurled horseshit at him. Luke still hadn’t found Henry’s hiding place. Yet another failure. The common, nasty boy had a hideaway, somewhere that Luke couldn’t even find, let alone use himself. It wasn’t fair.
Rising, he wandered disconsolately along the desks, glancing at the work being done by each of the boys. At Henry’s was a rough picture in fine charcoal with the words of a prayer alongside it and Luke peered forward to read it. It was a text from the Bible, the piece from the Book of Revelation which told how the boys were all murdered at Herod’s command. Henry had worked hard, using the most expensive materials to colour it in vivid yellows, reds and greens.
‘Centum quadraginta quatuor milia qui erupti…’ he read, translating easily as he did so: ‘The hundred and forty-four thousand which were raised from the earth reign in Heaven and the Lamb of God is with them.’
He recognised the text. It was the reading which would be given on Holy Innocents’ Day, one of those spoken by the boy-Bishop. The sight made his bowels twist with impotent rage. From his outer appearance it would have been impossible to detect, but he was filled with a loathing of Henry so strong that it almost choked him.
Slumping down into Henry’s seat, he stared at the badly executed picture. He could have done it better. And the text was hardly clear. If Luke had drawn the characters, they would have been greatly improved. It was tempting to smudge the page, to eradicate the hard but essentially ill-conceived effort. But he couldn’t. No, it would be an affront to God. God had decided that Henry should become the boy-Bishop, and he had decided to draw and colour this page in praise of God. To damage it would be to insult God Himself. The only means Luke had of revenge was by doing a similar picture and doing it better.
That was what he would do, he decided. Another picture, working on the same text, but this one with the careful attention to detail that only Luke could achieve. He smiled unpleasantly. That would show them – all of them. He should have been the boy-Bishop, and he’d show them how wrong they were.
There was a pot of orpiment on Henry’s desk, the naturally occurring arsenic that all the students used for the richer gold colours. Luke picked it up with a smile. He would use Henry’s own colours.
Vincent le Berwe thrust his hands into his belt, whistling. He had to stop a while and watch outside a tavern where some apprentices and maidens had commandeered the roadway, dancing and singing in celebration of Christmas. One girl spun round so fast, she grew dizzy and fell on her rump with a scream of delight, hiccuping and burping, her head moving still, forwards and backwards, as she attempted to focus on her friends. They laughed and grabbed pots from a table nearby, moving out of the way of the people waiting patiently in the roadway, and Vincent could walk on again.
Peter’s death was already common knowledge. A boy dropping dead in the middle of a service was hardly the kind of news which could be hushed up, especially since several churchmen had been heard to allege that it was poison. Vincent smirked to himself. This was turning into a much better end-of-year than he could have hoped for: Karvinel emasculated, Ralph dead and buried – and now Peter too had died, the only witness Vincent had needed to fear after Ralph’s death.
There was something troubling him, however. He was not at all happy
that Jolinde might be implicated in Peter’s death. It was one thing to see his enemies ruined or destroyed, and quite another to see his sole heir at risk because of it. He had heard a pair of men in the road discussing the affair and deciding that Jolinde must have had a hand in it.
That was something he would have to see to. He didn’t want Jolly to suffer in any way while he triumphed. Still, if Jolly was accused of anything, Vincent would arrange the best protection for him. He would bribe the Sheriff, if he could – or the Justice sent to try the case, if it came to that.
It would cost a great deal of money, though, he reflected. And that, ironically enough, was one thing he didn’t have a lot of at present. But provided that his other competitors didn’t hear about his little reverse, there was no reason why he shouldn’t survive this crisis. By the time the Justice arrived, Vincent was sure he’d have enough to protect his son.
Glancing up he realised that it was already past noon and strode off towards his home once more, beaming as he passed more revellers in the streets, laughing as he joined in an impromptu dance.
He was so proud of his boy. Vincent knew what his son had done for him.
Baldwin looked over at Simon as they walked the quiet streets towards Talbot’s Inn where Jeanne awaited them. He knew that the Bailiff’s brain was not so logical as his own, but he also knew that Simon had a stronger intuition when it came to offences or to the behaviour of people. ‘What do you think?’ he asked.
‘Me? God knows!’ the Bailiff answered with a shrug. ‘I don’t think we’ll get anywhere with an investigation. Peter’s dead, but he was poisoned without being forced, if he was poisoned, which means his food was poisoned without his knowing, or he willingly took the stuff, whatever it was. And although Karvinel was there just at the right time to poison Jolinde’s food, why would Karvinel have wanted to harm his own clerk? More to the point, how would he know that the food was destined for Peter Golloc’s belly?’
‘Could he have been hoping to kill Jolinde instead?’ Baldwin mused. ‘And what of the dead glovemaker? There must surely be something that makes sense of all this mayhem.’
‘God knows!’ Simon laughed weakly. ‘I thought we were here to enjoy ourselves.’
‘But think of the glovemaker a moment,’ Baldwin persisted. ‘Elias said that the doors to the shop and house were locked, so he went round to the back door. Then he hurried back to the front and found the door ajar. Why should the murderer leave it open?’
Simon considered. ‘If the killer was there, he’d have locked the doors while he was inside.’
‘Yes. And as soon as he was done, he would have unlocked the front door and left the scene as quickly as possible. Bolted from the place.’
‘Why leave the shop unlocked?’
‘Through sheer cunning. Think about it, Simon. What happened? The Bailiff arrives and finds the apprentice’s knife and keys at the dead man’s side. What inference can he make, but that Elias is the guilty party. It’s the perfect set-up. The killer knew Elias was there. He’d been banging on the door. So the killer waits inside the house until Elias has gone round the back, then he unlocks the front door, leaves it, runs to the shop, unlocks it, throws in the keys, stabs the corpse of Ralph with Elias’s own knife, and then dashes off. It was a very clever, bold crime.’
‘Committed by a vicious murderer,’ Simon commented coldly. ‘And where does Peter come into all of this?’
‘A good question, but very hard to answer.’
‘We don’t actually know Peter’s death was a crime, do we?’ Baldwin said. ‘But I think you are correct to emphasise that there may be a link. After all, he was there that morning. If he was the chance victim of food poisoning, we could expect someone else to have succumbed. If he bought a pie in the street, he would not be alone – others would have eaten the same foul meat. The same does not go for the food Jolinde brought him.’
‘Jolly, you mean?’ Simon enquired dryly.
‘God give me strength!’ Baldwin winced. Every time Claricia had used the name it had grated. Baldwin did not like names to be shortened.
Simon laughed. ‘This place is the same as Crediton Canonical Church: each Canon eats with his own Vicar, Secondary and Chorister, except Peter’s Canon wasn’t here so the lad ate food given to him by Jolinde. The trouble is, since Jolinde himself told us he bought it, I find it hard to believe that he tried to poison Peter. If a man uses a weapon like poison, it’s in order to keep things quiet. There was no need for him to tell us about the food, so I’m inclined to think he didn’t tamper with it.’
‘That is a fair summary. There might have been something else he had poisoned.’
‘In which case we’re even less likely to discover it. Which brings us to the second likely possibility: self-murder.’
‘A fellow like him? It is possible. Certainly we cannot afford to exclude it as a potential solution.’
Simon nodded. He and Baldwin both knew of men who had committed that sin while their minds were unbalanced. Simon himself could almost comprehend the despair which could lead a man to do so. When his little son Peterkin had died, he had thought he would never recover from the hideous black depression which engulfed him. But the pain had eased eventually, as all such miseries do. ‘A fellow of his age – what could lead him to commit suicide? A girl?’
‘Not, perhaps, the most likely possibility,’ Baldwin grinned.
‘You may not think so, but priests are always being caught with women. Look at Jolinde. He’s been sleeping with Claricia – they both admit it.’
‘Yes,’ Baldwin agreed thoughtfully. ‘Which means that anyone else could have visited Peter in that little hall and given him food. A sweetmeat or pie – it wouldn’t have to be much to hold enough poison to kill a man.’
‘Wait! Jolinde said that Peter had been unwell for a few days. Would a poison kill him so slowly?’
Baldwin considered. ‘There are poisons which would do that, yes. The Saracens know more about poisons than you would wish to have commonly understood, Simon. But there are other poisons that a man could consume which would slowly weaken him until a large dose finished him off. And don’t forget that he might have looked as if he was being poisoned because he was so worried about being inhabited by a demon.’
Simon shivered. He had never lost his superstitions. ‘Don’t,’ he said.
Baldwin smiled. ‘Very well. But what if someone had taken to poisoning the bread each evening, slowly increasing the dosage?’
‘Why should someone wish to kill him? Because of the glovemaker’s robbery?’
‘The motive is still unclear but the two murders must be connected. And that, I think, means it is likely that someone in the city was responsible, not someone from the Cathedral.’
‘Why?’
‘Because most of the men from the Cathedral would be locked up behind their walls at night. We know that Jolinde went to the tavern, but surely most of the Cathedral staff were in the precinct when poison was put in the food…’
‘If it was put in the food while it lay in the tavern.’
‘If it was,’ Baldwin agreed. ‘Also, Ralph died first thing in the morning. All the Cathedral staff should have been within the choir.’
Simon nodded. Both knew that all the clerics would be expected to attend every service. ‘All I wonder is, whether someone wanted to kill Peter but make his death look natural, or perhaps it was someone who was squeamish about using a knife and preferred to kill in this foul manner. And either way, did he decide to murder Peter purely in order to get his fists on the money?’
‘Yes. The money.’
Simon threw his friend a quick look. ‘What is it? The difference between the receipt and what Ralph was given?’
Baldwin laughed. ‘I long for the day when I can surprise you. Yes. The good Dean told us that the receipt showed four rubies, fifty small gems and fifty small pearls, as well as two pounds five and sixpence. Yet Elias told us he counted two pounds one shilling and a farthin
g and there were only two rubies and forty-four gems. And then Peter went back on the day Ralph died and delivered the shortfall.’ He stared into the distance, trying to make sense of it all.
He raised both hands in a gesture of despair. ‘Ah! Look at the sun! It must be well past noon. Jeanne will be wondering where we have got to. Let us return and see her. It is Christmas Eve and here we are dawdling like two old peasants.’
The quiet streets had become bustling and raucous. Youths chased each other or girls; hawkers bellowed their wares from the street corners while shopowners leaned against their doorframes watching the passers-by with measuring expressions.
They had almost arrived at Paul Street when Baldwin stopped and glanced at the shop they were passing. It was an apothecary’s, and on the trestle before the window were displayed many different herbs and powders.
‘Look – orpiment,’ Baldwin said, ‘and realgar. Yellow and ruby arsenic. I wonder…’
Simon followed him inside.
‘Godspeed, sir,’ said the keeper. He was a tall, hunched man in his late twenties, with a significant pot-belly, but pale and slender in his build apart from that. He had acid scars on his hands and a livid burn above one eyebrow that made Simon wince at the sight. It could so easily have taken out his eye, had it been one inch lower. ‘Can I help you? My name is Gilbert of Lyme. What can I do for you?’
‘Good day,’ Baldwin said. He had drawn himself up to his full height, and with his hand arrogantly set atop his sword-hilt, he looked very much the elegant, courtly knight, even with his unfashionable beard. ‘I see you sell orpiment.’
‘Ah, yes sir. It’s quite local, from a mine not far from here.’
‘Can you refine it?’
‘It is not difficult, my Lord. I can produce some for you,’ the man said, but now there was a hooded wariness in his eyes. ‘However, I should have to warn you – it is a very potent poison.’
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