The Poisoned Chalice (7 page)

The well-to-do Riffords had a large town house near the East Gate, next door to the church of Saint Lawrence. Pulling on her heavy winter cloak, Christina slipped out of the side door into the lane and walked down it into the High Street. There were still plenty of people about, but most were head down against the keen east wind, hurrying home to reach their own hearths. A few hardy peddlers were still selling roast chestnuts, hot pies and new bread at the sides of the narrow streets, as she happily stepped out to fetch her new bracelet.

Crossing the High Street, she lifted the hem of her cloak and kirtle as she daintily tried to avoid the worst of the mire, then dived down Martin's Lane towards the cathedral Close. Her destination was the second narrow house on the right, the workshop and dwelling of Godfrey Fitzosbern. It was a tall timber building with a slate roof, almost identical to the one next along, which she knew was where Sir John de Wolfe lived.

She pushed open the heavy oak door, its riveted hinges creaking as she went into the shop. It was warm in there after the chill wind outside and she slipped back her hood and undid the shoulder-brooch that held her otter-skin cloak closed. The room was dimly lit by half a dozen tallow lamps set on shelves around the walls, but she knew the place quite well, after her previous visits. At the back sat Alfred, Fitzosbern's senior craftsman, working behind a cluttered table with hammer and punch, a horn lantern alongside him to give extra light. Christina smiled at him and he grinned back toothlessly. She blushed as she felt his eyes undressing her and quickly moved hers away, to rest on the other workman, leaning on a bench to the left of the door. He was a large young man, whose name she did not know, and was slowly buffing a silver goblet with a long strip of soft leather. He, too, gaped at her, and deliberately altered the stroke of his polishing, somehow giving it a suggestively erotic rhythm. No doubt the two men thought her a vision of beauty and desire to lighten the dull routine of their long day, but she felt distinctly uncomfortable under their blatantly lustful gaze. On previous visits, Fitzosbern had been present and they had had to keep the eyes down on their work – except when his back was turned.

‘Is your master here? He's expecting me.'

Alfred, a haggard Saxon in early middle age, tore his eyes from the swell of her bosom peeping through the open cloak. ‘He is indeed, mistress, and will be more than glad to see you, I'll swear.' In his thick Devon accent, he managed to imbue the simple words with lascivious meaning.

The younger man, dressed like Alfred in a long leather apron over his dull woollen tunic, ended his stropping to bang loudly on the wall behind him. ‘Master Godfrey!' he yelled. ‘The young lady is here for you.' He leered at her as if he had just announced the arrival of a new courtesan for the Caliph.

Christina was becoming accustomed to the ill-concealed lechery she attracted, although this made it none the less unwelcome. She turned to examine a shelf with silver jewellery on display, as a way of avoiding the eyes of the workmen and their murmurings.

A moment later, she heard a heavy tread beyond the curtain that screened the door at the back of the shop and the master silversmith entered. ‘Mistress Rifford, a very good evening to you. I see that you are alone.'

For a few moments, they indulged in polite conversation, then Fitzosbern led her by the hand to a stool set against an empty table on the right of the room. He was a large man, powerful and fleshy but not yet running to fat. In a few years, he would begin to look coarse and dissipated, but now he was still good-looking with a dark, heavy kind of handsomeness. Big features, clean-shaven and with a mass of wavy hair, there was an animal intensity about him that many women had found irresistible – and some still did, even though he was almost forty and twice married. He dressed well, and as he moved behind the table, unrolled a velvet cloth before Christina, she noted that he wore a surcoat of finest yellow linen that came to mid-thigh, showing the bottom of a knee-length green tunic, the hem and neckline decorated with delicate embroidery. His fine woollen hose ended in shoes of the latest style, with long toes padded out with wool to form curled points.

Godfrey unwrapped the velvet and carefully lifted out her bracelet. He took two wax candles, an expensive luxury in place of the usual tallow dips, and lit them at the nearest flame so that a better light could dance on the bright silver of her new bauble. ‘A beautiful thing, mistress, fit for a beautiful woman,' he said, in his low, strong voice, which caused a little shiver to run down her back. Unchaperoned, she felt both vulnerable and a little excited at the almost palpably sexual atmosphere that the three men generated in the dimly lit room.

She murmured her appreciation of the bracelet, for it
was
a very pretty thing, the bright new silver glittering in the candlelight.

‘Here, let me try it for size.' Godfrey picked up her hand and held it in his large fingers for an unnecessarily long time while he slid the bracelet over her white fingers and set it in position on her wrist. Still he held on to her and, indeed, placed his other hand on her forearm, pushing back the floppy sleeve of her kirtle to support her arm just below the elbow, the better to admire the set of the ornament.

She trembled slightly at his touch, as no man – not even Edgar – had touched any part of her without some other woman being within sight.

‘Perfect! Now that we've shortened it a trifle, it sits where it should, yet you can get your hand through without trouble.'

Christina's cheeks had coloured and she was glad of the gloom to hide her embarrassment. She was not sure how she felt about Godfrey Fitzosbern – he had a certain reputation among the gossips of the town, but there was no doubt that he was good-looking, even if he was almost old enough to be her father. His own wife, Mabel, was only a few years older than herself, though the whispers said that they disliked each other as much as John de Wolfe and his wife Matilda.

Christina drew her hand from his, slowly, so as not to give offence. ‘It is very lovely, I like it very much,' she said softly.

Fitzosbern leaned forward to pat her cheek. ‘You should thank Alfred and Garth there, as well. Though I made the design, theirs were the hands that fashioned it.'

Reluctantly, she turned and nodded to the two men, who had been watching her like hawks all the while.

Alfred touched a finger to his forelock. ‘Always a pleasure to do you a service, mistress,' he said, in a voice redolent with double-meaning. ‘And I'm sure Garth here feels the same.'

Fitzosbern, catching their tone, scowled at the men, who hurriedly dropped their eyes to the benches, tapping and buffing at the white metal that was their life. ‘It's a cold night, mistress. Can I offer you a cup of hot wine before you go?' He motioned with his head towards the curtained door.

A flush ran up the girl's neck again. She was still unused to handling unwelcome invitations from masterful men. ‘Thank you, sir, but I must go now.'

‘Nonsense, Mistress Rifford! The evening is bitter outside, you need something to warm you. I'll not take no for an answer.' Fitzosbern came around the table and took her hand again. Almost pulling her, he steered Christina towards the inner doorway.

‘I really should be leaving! I have to meet someone – at the cathedral.' She used the first location that came into her mind.

‘I'll wrap this bracelet in a piece of silk and put it in a small casket for you, while you sip some wine. Come through.' This time, Fitzosbern's arm slipped around her slim waist as he almost lifted her up the step into the room beyond. As she reluctantly passed through the doorway, she saw the gap-toothed leer of Alfred and the loose-lipped stare of Garth watching every move that their master made, jealous longing stamped on their faces.

The inner room was another workshop, now in darkness apart from the glow of a damped-down metal furnace. Wooden stairs at the back led up to the silversmith's living accommodation on the floor above. Reluctantly, but now committed too far to refuse, Christina allowed him to escort her upstairs. Here, a good fire burned in a hearth and more dips and candles gave a mellow light. At a long table, a glass flask of wine sat with some pottery cups. Godfrey released her waist with obvious reluctance and poured two generous measures of wine, then went to the fireplace and brought a kettle that was simmering on the hob. He added some hot water and held out a cup to her, touching his own to hers. ‘Here's to a happy Yuletide to you, Christina – and may you enjoy your excellent present!' He gave her a broad wink and held up the bracelet.

The young woman sipped the wine reluctantly, not wishing to appear ungrateful for his hospitality but uneasy at the intimate overtones.

‘Is your wife not at home this evening?' she asked, rather pointedly. ‘I spoke to Mistress Mabel at service in St Lawrence only last Sunday.'

Fitzosbern's heavy features drew together slightly in a frown. ‘She's out visiting some poor sick woman or some such thing,' he replied shortly, then changed the subject. ‘Your man Edgar – that lucky fellow – told me to give you the bracelet when it was complete, but said that you should keep it unopened until he visits you with his father on the forenoon of Christ Mass.' Going to a shelf, he took a small wooden box and placed the bangle inside, wrapping it in the square of red silk that was already lining the casket. He gave it to her, and pressed Christina to have more wine, sit near the fire, before going out into the winter night.

This was too much for her and she shook her head decisively. ‘I heard the cathedral bell just now, I must be there very soon.' Pushing the little box into a pocket inside her cloak, she improvised quickly on her excuses. ‘I wish to pray at the shrine of St Mary for the success of my marriage. I am meeting my cousin Mary there,' she lied. Closing her cloak around her, she thanked Godfrey Fitzosbern for his kindness and for the excellent workmanship on the bracelet, then turned, walked resolutely downstairs and through the door into the workshop.

The silversmith followed her so closely that she could feel his heavy breath on her neck through her thin veil. He grasped her elbow, as if to help her down the step and kept it tight until she reached the street door. Once again, she was acutely aware of the intensity of the inspection that the two silver-workers focused on her, but her inborn good manners made her stumble out some parting words. Alfred chattered out a response she could not catch, while Garth merely made some sucking and blowing noises through his teeth.

Fitzosbern opened the heavy door and steered her through it, his arm tightening on her waist for a last squeeze as she escaped. Pulling her pointed hood up over her head, she thankfully scurried away down Martin's Lane, obliged to go towards the Close for her fictitious appointment.

John de Wolfe pushed open his own front door, which was never locked as someone was always about the place. Matilda was usually to be found embroidering in her solar upstairs or gossiping with her friends around the fire in the hall. If she was out, then either Mary, the buxom cook-housekeeper, or the poisonous Lucille, his wife's handmaiden, were somewhere in the house or in the yard at the back, where the cooking, brewing and washing took place.

Tired from a day in the saddle, the coroner shrugged off his heavy black cloak and hung it on a peg in the vestibule. Ahead of him was a passage to the back yard, and on his right, an inner door to the hall, a gloomy vault that rose to the roof-timbers, the dark wooden walls hung with sombre banners and tapestries. He looked inside and saw a small fire burning in the large hearth, but the settle and chairs around it were empty. The long trestle table was bare of dishes, food or drink.

‘A fine bloody welcome for a man after a long day's ride,' he muttered to himself, even though he was half relieved that his scowling wife was not there to berate him. He walked wearily through to the yard and found Mary sitting in the lean-to hut that was her kitchen and sleeping place. She was busy plucking a chicken by the light of the fire, his old hound Brutus wagging his tail at her feet. She jumped up in surprise, laying down the chicken and brushing feathers from her apron. ‘Master John, I didn't hear you come in. We didn't expect you tonight.'

Mary was a good-looking woman in her late twenties, a strong and energetic worker with a no-nonsense outlook on life. The bastard daughter of a Saxon woman and a Norman squire, John had bedded her a few times in the past. They were genuinely fond of each other, but these days she kept him at arm's length, as she suspected that her arch-enemy Lucille was trying to betray her to John's wife. ‘The mistress is out – she's gone down to St Olave's to some special Mass. There's nothing ready cooked, but I can get together some bread and cold meat for you.'

John sighed. ‘No matter, Mary. My wife's soul must be more important to her than my stomach. She spends more time in that damned church than I do in taverns.'

Mary grinned at his self-pity and risked giving him a swift kiss on the cheek, with one eye on the open door in case Lucille was spying. Matilda's maid, a French refugee from the Vexin north of Paris, lived in a small shed under the outside staircase that went up from the yard to the solar. This was a room built out on timbers from the upper part of the hall, where John and his wife slept and where Matilda spent much of her time.

‘I think I'll go down to the Bush for a bite to eat and ajar of ale,' he said.

Mary prodded him in the chest with a strong finger. ‘Make sure that's all you get from Nesta tonight! The mistress is working up for one of her moods so be on your best behaviour when you get back.'

‘Tell her I've had to go to the castle to see her damned brother, will you?'

As he retreated down the passage, she murmured under her breath, ‘You're treading on very thin ice, Master John. One day you'll fall right through.'