The Poisoned Chalice (25 page)

The coroner thought for a moment, looking around the room. ‘We had best keep this food and the wine, to see if some better examination can be made of it,' he decided.

‘Did the wine come from there, I wonder?' asked Gwyn, pointing to a small grey-stone jar with a wooden stopper, that stood on a shelf nearby.

John took the flask and removed the bung, sniffing at the contents. He shook it and estimated that it was about half full. ‘We'll take this as well – and this.' He picked up a small round wooden box, alongside the wine jar. There was some cabalistic inscription on the lid and inside was a brown fibrous powder that had a faint herbal smell.

Gwyn looked at the specimens they had collected. ‘So what do we do with them now?'

‘I'll keep them next door until the morning, then I'll take them to an apothecary to see what he makes of them.'

Gwyn's blue eyes looked frankly at his master. ‘Not to an apothecary's apprentice?' he asked pointedly.

John sighed. ‘I already guess how my brother-in-law's mind will work. If this is a poisoning, then Edgar of Topsham will be the prime suspect, after the threats and attack he has made on Fitzosbern.'

Gwyn gave one of his grunts. ‘For once, it is hard to blame the sheriff if he comes to believe that. Edgar is the obvious choice.'

John led the way back to the steps, taking the flask and medicine box, while Gwyn followed with the platter and chalice.

‘We had better go up to St John's, to see if we are dealing with a murder or just an attempted one.'

The priory, tucked just inside the massive East Gate, was but a series of rooms attached to a small chapel. Living quarters for the four monks, a tiny refectory and a kitchen were adjunct to several cells and a larger room that acted as the hospital. It was always full of sick people from the poorest section of the town, but Brother Saulf, a Saxon who was the elder monk under the prior, had shifted a patient out of a cell into the main ward so that Fitzosbern could be accommodated.

When the coroner arrived, the silversmith lay on a pallet, deathly pale, still clammy and sweating. As John went into the cell with Saulf, the patient suddenly vomited and retched, a stream of almost clear fluid gushing from his mouth and nose. Saulf knelt to wipe it from his lips and nostrils and tipped the man's head to one side to see if any more could escape. Then, to John's surprise, he picked up a pitcher from the floor and bending Fitzosbern's head back, poured a generous amount of fluid into his mouth.

There was a spluttering and coughing, but the monk clamped the man's jaw shut with his hand so that he was forced to swallow, though he seemed almost to suffocate in the attempt. A moment later, he retched again and more fluid shot from between his lips to join the mess on the floor.

‘If it is a poison, then the only hope is to cleanse it from his belly with copious draughts of salt and water,' explained the middle-aged brother, justifying his heroic treatment.

‘Do you think he
has
been poisoned?' demanded the coroner.

Saulf looked up from clearing his patient's mouth. ‘I cannot tell. It may be some bad food he has eaten or it may be some foul substance that he has been given. The symptoms of so many poisons are the same – collapse, pain in the throat, vomiting and purging.'

‘Will he live?'

‘That is in God's hands. It's too soon to say. He might be perfectly well in the morning – or he might be dead.'

Gwyn leaned against the door post behind John. ‘Has he spoken any sensible words, to say what happened to him?'

‘Nothing but groans, apart from a whisper I caught, which sounded like “burning, burning”.' De Wolfe stood looking down at the victim, who still had trembling of the hands and feet and occasional twitches of the limbs. ‘What about that throat wound? He was cut by a sword edge two nights ago, but it was a trivial injury at the time.'

Saulf touched the swollen red line with a finger, expressing several beads of yellow pus. ‘It could be the cause of his hoarse attempts to speak and maybe his collapse from purulence in the blood. Yet he has no fever, he is cold and damp. And I fail to see why he trembles and jerks in this way.'

They stayed a few moments longer, but it was obvious that, whether Godfrey lived or died, he was not going to enlighten them that night about what might have happened to him in Martin's Lane.

John thanked the monk and promised to return first thing next morning, leaving the silversmith to the mercies of the brothers and their God.

The meeting with Hubert Walter was set for the tenth hour on the morning of Tuesday, but John de Wolfe was active about the town before that. In the grey light of a winter dawn, he went first to the hospital of St John to see whether Fitzosbern had survived the night or whether he had a murder on his hands. Brother Saulf was in the cell when he arrived and looked as if he had been there all night. ‘He is much better, Crowner, after throwing up most of his guts into a bucket, thanks to the salt-water purges.'

John looked past the monk and saw Godfrey, deathly pale, lying motionless on his side. ‘He looks dead to me,' he said dubiously.

‘No, he's asleep now – a proper sleep, not the twitching coma you saw last night.'

‘Has he spoken at all?'

The Saxon brother shook his head. ‘Only the muttered gibberish we heard when he first came here. Let him sleep then we'll see if his senses have returned.'

He shut the door firmly, keeping John and himself outside. ‘Do you think he was truly poisoned?' asked John.

‘It seems likely, but he might also have had some kind of apoplexy, though I've not seen one quite like this before.'

With that, the coroner had to be satisfied, but at least it looked as if Fitzosbern would live to sin another day. John left the priory and made his way back to his house, where last night he had arranged to meet his two assistants. Matilda was still asleep in the solar and he was happy not to disturb her.

A few moments later, a small procession left Martin's Lane, the coroner striding ahead of Gwyn, who held a wooden tray with the remains of Godfrey's roast fowl and the small box of herbs, all covered with a white cloth. He was followed by Thomas de Peyne, carefully carrying the chalice, still half full of wine, and the stone bottle.

The trio marched out into the high street and down to the crossing at Carfoix, ignoring the curious glances of the stall-holders and shoppers who stood back to make way for them. As John waited for a loaded ox-cart to pass, he looked behind and one of his rare grins spread across his face at the sight of his two companions: his over-sized Cornish henchman, solemnly bearing a cloth-covered tray, and the unfrocked priest, reverently clasping a silver goblet of wine, looked like two acolytes bearing the Sacred Host down the main street of Exeter.

They had not far to go, as on the other side of Fore Street lay the apothecary's shop. As John neared it, the door flew open and three struggling figures erupted on to the roadway.

Two men-at-arms from Rougemont were dragging Edgar of Topsham from the shop, the apprentice yelling at the top of his voice for them to let him go. Behind him, Nicholas of Bristol peered from the doorway, wringing his hands in agitation. When the soldiers saw the King's coroner, they stopped in their tracks, but did not loosen their grip on Edgar. ‘Sheriffs orders, Sir John,' said one apologetically.

As soon as he saw the coroner, the captive appealed desperately to him. ‘Save me, Sir John, these men are abducting me! Tell them it's a mistake, they must have the wrong man.'

The elder soldier shook his helmeted head. ‘We're arresting you, not abducting you. And it's no mistake. The sheriff said Edgar of Topsham – and that's you, son.'

Edgar began to babble protests, but John could do nothing for him at this stage. ‘Go quietly, Edgar, it's no use struggling. I'll see what I can do to straighten all this out. And I'll send word to your father so that he can come to see you and the sheriff.'

With this, the apothecary's apprentice had to be content, as John jerked his head at the guards and they marched Edgar away, up the hill towards the castle.

John, followed by his two disciples, crowded Nicholas back into his shop and shut the door. The leech was still twittering with concern at the unceremonious loss of his assistant. ‘This is nonsense, what has he done to be treated like that?'

John was patient with him. ‘You know full well that he has threatened Godfrey Fitzosbern several times and he attacked him on Saturday.'

The apothecary nodded spasmodically, the corner of his mouth drooping all the more in his agitation. ‘He came back on Saturday bruised and battered – that foul man used him atrociously, he could have been killed!'

‘Well, Fitzosbern could have been killed last night, by all accounts. He was poisoned and his life hangs in the balance today.'

A little exaggeration never did any harm when you are trying to get co-operation, thought John. ‘Naturally, Edgar is the prime suspect – you can't blame the sheriff for wanting to question him.'

Nicholas's jaw dropped, temporarily hiding the slackness of his mouth. ‘Poisoned? What has that to do with Edgar?'

John sighed as he began explanations about the silversmith's affliction ‘Edgar had promised to kill him and he is almost a fully qualified apothecary, with much knowledge of poisons.'

The leech looked from face to face, as if seeking sanity in a world suddenly gone mad. ‘But anyone could put poison in his victuals. Every old wife and village peasant knows of plants and toadstools that have noxious effects.'

John did not reply, but motioned Gwyn and Thomas to put their burdens on the shop counter. ‘I want you to examine these, to see if they contain any harmful substance – and if so, what it is,' he announced.

The apothecary stared at the exhibits incredulously. ‘But most poisons are undetectable!' he protested. ‘There is almost no way in which they can be tested. Our knowledge is hopelessly poor about such things.'

He drew himself up to his full sixty-two inches. ‘And not only me. Not an apothecary in England has any better methods.'

The coroner was unmoved. ‘Just do your best, Nicholas. Look, this one might be easier. What do you say about this?' He picked up the small wooden box and handed it to the leech, who glanced at it perfunctorily.

‘That's simple. It contains a mixture of ground herbs useful for countering inflammation,' he proclaimed.

Gwyn scowled ferociously at him, his ginger eyebrows dropping towards his equally auburn moustache. ‘How can you tell when you've not even opened it yet?'

In spite of his distress, the apothecary could not resist a superior smirk. ‘Because it's written on the lid – see?' He pointed to the obscure symbol on the top. ‘And I should know what's in it, for I gave it to Fitzosbern only yesterday.'

There was a silence.

‘You gave it to him, yesterday?' repeated John slowly.

‘Yes, of course. He came in late in the afternoon, complaining of pain in his throat and a fever. I examined him and saw this recent slash on his neck, which was going purulent. I bathed it and put some lotion on it, then gave him these herbs to take thrice a day to try to assuage the sepsis.'

‘You gave him the medicament yourself?'

Nicholas nodded. ‘Of course. I took it from here.' He turned and pulled out a small wooden drawer from a double row of similar receptacles along the wall behind the counter. Holding it out, they saw that it was half full of a brown powder similar to that in the little box.

‘Was Edgar in the shop when Fitzosbern came?' demanded John. The apothecary looked uncomfortable. ‘He was, but he turned his back on the silversmith and remained so in the corner of the shop, pretending to work at something.'

‘So he had nothing to do with the prescription or the treatment?'

‘Nothing! He kept well out of the way, for obvious reasons.'

John digested this. ‘Did you leave them alone here at any time?'

The apothecary considered for a moment. ‘Only when I had to go into the store room behind the shop to get a supply of these little boxes as we had none left in the shop.'

‘Was that for long?'

‘Only a few minutes – and I had to get a pan of hot water from the fire in the hut at the back, to bathe his wound.'

A few more questions drew a blank and John had to be satisfied with what he had already learned. Emphasising the need to try to test the food and wine, they left for Rougemont.

At the lower door of the castle gate-house, the coroner gave his officer a last order before going over to the keep. ‘I want Bearded Lucy questioned again. I feel that she knows something else, above what she admitted to us last week.'

Gwyn cleared his throat noisily and spat on the ground. ‘Can I persuade her a little?' he asked hopefully, scratching his crotch.

‘Only with your voice, understand? I don't want her broken in half or anything like that. Take Thomas with you, in case you frighten her to death. Then he can shrive her soul. But get some information from her first!'

He strode away across the inner bailey, his mantle streaming behind him like the plumage of some great black crow.

The meeting in Richard de Revelle's chamber had been going on for some time when John arrived, but none of that part concerned him, as they had been discussing county administration and the collection of taxes. When he slipped on to a vacant bench, they were still arguing about the Stannery Towns, the semi-autonomous communities scattered around the edges of Dartmoor, where the tin-miners had ancient rights, including their own courts – and, with the miners of Cornwall, even a form of local parliament.

None of this had any relevance to the coroner, as his jurisdiction was universal. He took the opportunity to study the large group assembled to meet Hubert Walter, who sat at the head of a square of trestle tables, with the sheriff on his right. On his left was John de Alecon, as the Bishop delegated such secular meetings to his staff. The other thirty men were mainly barons and court officials from the western counties and the travelling circus that went around with the Chief Justiciar.