A Plague of Poison Read online

  “Nonetheless, Wilkin believed it was true. That is the reason he tried to harm Severtsson.”

  Neither Margot nor Adam made an answer to his charge, but the beekeeper said, “But, lord, why would he want to harm all those others? He had no cause to wish the deaths of anyone in the castle or at the priory. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Did Wilkin not tell you that he had lost his commission to sell his pots at both places? Another potter made an offer to supply them more cheaply and your son-by-marriage was told of this two weeks ago. He not only had a grudge against Severtsson, but good reason to be resentful of Lady Nicolaa and the prior of All Saints.”

  The old man’s mouth dropped open and he looked at his daughter. Margot’s face had gone white with shock. “He never said a word to me about losing their custom, Da,” she said to her father in a whisper. “Not one word.”

  Adam’s shoulders slumped. “Then I reckon there’s no chance for him,” he said resignedly. “None at all.”

  Both Margot and Young Adam began to cry. Bascot could see that their distress had upset Gianni, for he went to the beekeeper’s grandson and laid a hand on his shoulder in commiseration. The Templar shared his servant’s compassion. There was stark desolation in the faces before him. It dispelled any doubt he might have harboured that Margot or her father were guilty of complicity in Wilkin’s crimes. Their astonishment at learning that the potter had lost two of his most important customers was too real to be feigned.

  Calling to Gianni, he left them to their misery, wishing wholeheartedly he had not been the bearer of the news that had precipitated it.

  Seventeen

  AS BASCOT And GIANNI WERE ON THEIR WAY BACK to Lincoln, Nicolaa de la Haye was sitting alone in her chamber, a blank sheet of parchment, quill and ink pot before her, reviewing the events of the past few days. Early that morning she had received another visit from Henry Stoyle, the town bailiff. Since it was his duty to oversee the administration of local justice and mete out punishment for minor infractions, the town gaol fell within his province, even though Roget, captain of the town guard, was the man responsible for arresting wrongdoers and took his orders from the sheriff. It was because of this that Stoyle had come to the castle early, just after Terce, and made a request to speak to her. When she admitted him to her chamber, he had expressed his concern that the prisoner, Wilkin, would be unsafe if he was kept in the town gaol until his fate was decided.

  “Even though he was only arrested last night,” Stoyle had said, “news of his incarceration has already spread through the town, and many of the citizens are crying out for his immediate punishment. If Wilkin is placed within the town gaol to await his trial, I fear they will not have the patience to wait for the court’s verdict and may attempt to extract it themselves. Their mood is ugly, lady, and tempers may fly too high for Roget and his men to be able to prevent them from seizing the potter and hanging him.”

  She had assured Stoyle that she would keep Wilkin confined in the castle cell until her husband returned but, after the bailiff left, thought that her own men-at-arms would be just as averse to keeping the potter safe as the townspeople. She could not blame them. The crimes had been despicable, not only for the stealth in which the poisonings had been carried out but for the dreadful manner of the deaths the victims had suffered. She felt her fingers tighten compulsively on the shaft of the quill pen as she recalled how close she had come to such a fate. It was not often that she allowed her composure to slip, as her father, once he had realised there would be no male heir to his estate, had impressed on her the need never to show fear in the face of adversity. To do so was to weaken one’s resolve and give strength to an enemy, he had said, and he had been right. But when she had watched the rat’s body contort with pain from the effect of the poison, she had come as near as she had ever done to giving way to her emotions. Had her throat not been too sore to swallow, she would have eaten the simnel cake that Gosbert had so innocently made and would have suffered the terrible death that had overtaken Blund’s clerk. Even though the poisoner was now safely incarcerated, the memory made her shudder.

  Pushing the recollection of her fear aside, she pulled a piece of parchment towards her. Gerard must be told not only of the death in the priory and the subsequent arrest of Wilkin but also that the castle, and the town, had sore need of the knights of his escort to assist in keeping order among the populace. As she wrote, she reflected that although she often privately disparaged her husband’s impatient and bellicose manner, she would welcome the return of his commanding presence to Lincoln town.

  AS BASCOT GUIDED HIS HORSE THROUGH NEWPORT Arch and back into Lincoln, he ruminated on what he had been told about Wilkin’s charge of rape against the bailiff. Even if the man responsible for Rosamunde’s pregnancy was the now dead brigand, Drue Rivelar, it did not mean that Ivor Severtsson had not violated the girl. He had promised Preceptor d’Arderon he would try and find out if the charge was valid. Although he was reluctant to see Wilkin again, he would have to do so in order to discover why the potter was so positive of his claim.

  Once in the castle bail, Bascot took his mount to the stables and left it in charge of a groom. Ernulf was crossing the ward as he and Gianni emerged from the stables, and the serjeant hailed them.

  “You’re just in time to have a decent meal,” he said as he walked up to them. “Now that bastard of a potter is safe behind bars, Gosbert is making some tasty dishes’ full of spicy sauces to serve at midday.”

  “That is welcome news,” Bascot said, glancing at Gianni. The boy had a healthy appetite and enjoyed his food. The Templar hoped that the prospect of eating more than the simple fare that had been served in the hall for the last few days might help to lessen the dejected mood that had descended on the lad when he had witnessed the misery on the faces of Wilkin’s family. Gianni, however, did not brighten.

  “I am just on my way to question the potter again,” Bascot told the serjeant. “I want to find out more about his accusation of rape against Severtsson. I have no doubt he believes it, else he would not have tried to take his revenge, but I would like to be able to assure the preceptor as to whether or not it is true.”

  “Rather you than me,” Ernulf snorted. “If I was left alone with that cowson for more than a few moments, the sheriff would be relieved of his task of bringing him to trial. When I think that it could have been milady that was lying dead instead of the clerk . . .”

  The serjeant’s rage made him choke on his words, and Bascot was sure that if Ernulf were given the opportunity he would, as he had said, despatch Wilkin to hell without a second’s thought.

  Bascot spoke to Gianni. “I may be some time. Go with Ernulf and get yourself something to eat. I will come to the hall once I am finished with the potter.”

  The boy nodded, and as Bascot watched him walk away, he wished he could do something to alleviate his despondency. Now not only those directly connected to the victims but Wilkin’s own innocent family would be affected by his vile actions. The old beekeeper and his daughter, as well as Young Adam, Rosamunde and her little child, would all suffer in their turn for the crimes he had committed. He felt the taste of gall rise into his throat and strode swiftly to the door of the holding cell. The man-at-arms on guard saw the black look on his countenance and swiftly unlocked the door, privately hoping the Templar would use his sword on the man inside.

  When Bascot entered, Wilkin was sitting crouched in the corner, one of his ankles secured by a manacle to the wall. The bandage on his injured arm was bloodstained, and there were some new bruises on his face. It would appear that the soldiers who had attached his chains had been none too gentle while carrying out their task.

  The potter looked up at his visitor, fear in his eyes. He struggled to a sitting position, cradling his bandaged arm with the other hand. As Bascot approached him, he cowered.

  The Templar knew the potter’s hatred for the bailiff was real, and there must be a reason. Had Rosamunde, as Dido had said w
as possible, given her favours willingly to both Severtsson and the dead brigand? If she had, could it be that Wilkin, driven by shame for his daughter’s wanton ways, had blindly fixated on the bailiff as the cause of her downfall? He decided to test the theory on the man in front of him.

  “I have been to Nettleham and spoken to your wife and her father,” Bascot said to him roughly. “They both tell me that your daughter was the paramour of a brigand and it is he who was the father of her child, not Severtsson. Your tale of the bailiff raping her is false. Why did you invent such a charge? Is it because Rosamunde also lay with Severtsson and you were enraged by her lechery?”

  “I did not invent it, lord,” Wilkin replied shakily. The icy intensity of the gaze in the eye of the knight looming over him chilled his bones, and he had difficulty in keeping his voice steady. “My daughter is not a jade, even though there are those who would name her one. I did not lie when I said the bailiff took her against her will.”

  “Did you see him do so?” Bascot demanded.

  Wilkin shook his head. “No. But I saw him just a few minutes before I found her, coming from the place where she was laying.”

  The potter swallowed hard before continuing. “Her clothes were all flung up, lord, and . . . and . . . her woman’s parts uncovered. She had bruises on her arms and her mouth was swollen. I asked her what had happened, but she didn’t speak, didn’t even look at me, and she’s been that way ever since.”

  Wilkin looked up at Bascot, almost defiantly. “What else could have happened to her, lord, but that she’d been raped? Margot and Adam tried to tell me that it was grief for the brigand that made her lose her senses, and they said I was imagining the rest, but they didn’t see her like that, lord, and I did.”

  Bascot turned from the prisoner and walked a few paces away. Once again, the potter’s words had a ring of truth in them. But he had lied before and could easily be doing so again.

  Bascot turned back and strode over to where Wilkin crouched on the floor of the cell. “I am going to look into this matter further, potter, and if I find that you are lying, I will see to it that you suffer the torments of hell before you hang.”

  Eighteen

  AFTER BASCOT LEFT THE HOLDING CELL, HE DECIDED to go down into the town and call at the house of the merchant Reinbald. Nicolaa de la Haye had said there was a need to warn all of the people involved in the murders that they would be called as witnesses at Wilkin’s trial. Using that as a pretext to visit them would give him an opportunity to find out, from Reinbald’s family, more about Ivor Severtsson’s character. He went to where Gianni was sitting with Ernulf in the hall and told the boy he would be gone for a short time.

  Gianni gave him a solemn nod, and Bascot, his concern for the boy deepening, left the hall and made his way down into the town.

  The mood among the townspeople was more subdued than it had been the day before. The flesh markets were busy as goodwives bought meat, poultry or fish, and pedlars were once again hawking their wares among the throng. Some of the men, however, were still clustered in groups of two or three outside many of the alehouses and were speaking in angry tones together. The few snatches of conversation that Bascot overheard were of Wilkin and the need to bring him to a swift justice.

  As he reached the end of Hungate Street, where Reinbald lived, he saw a horse tied to a hitching post near the merchant’s house. It seemed familiar to him, and after a moment or two he realised it was the one that Ivor Severtsson had been riding when he and Hamo had met the bailiff in Nettleham village.

  He was admitted to the house by a young woman servant and was shown into the large room that served as the merchant’s hall. It was well appointed, with an ample fireplace, two oaken settles with padded tops and a large table around which were placed chairs with ladder backs. Reinbald was sitting in one of these, his younger nephew, Harald, beside him, while his wife was standing in front of the fireplace, speaking in soothing tones to Ivor. The bailiff’s face was sullen, and when he turned along with the others to see who was entering the room, Bascot saw that his mouth was set in lines of peevish irritation.

  Reinbald rose immediately as the maid announced their visitor, and he offered Bascot a cup of wine from the flagon that was standing on the table. Bascot refused the merchant politely, saying his visit would not be a lengthy one, and that he had merely come to enquire if they had heard of the potter’s arrest. When Reinbald confirmed that they had, Bascot told them about the need for their attendance when Wilkin was brought to trial and that detailed evidence of the potter’s grievance against Ivor would be required.

  His words brought an immediate outburst of speech from Helge, in which was mixed a word here and there of her native tongue. She was a large woman, heavy of frame and with thick hands that she waved angrily as she spoke. When the Templar had met her on the morning of her neighbours’ deaths, she had been distraught, her fair hair in disarray and tears streaming down her cheeks. Now she seemed recovered from her grief, and her manner was indignant. Her fat fingers moved in a cadence of angry punctuation as she spoke.

  “That man,” she said, “he is not only a murderer but a løgner, a liar. Only this morning Ivor was taken to task by Preceptor d’Arderon about the terrible falsehood that djevel spread and now you tell us that it must be repeated again before all those who attend the sheriff’s court. It is not to be borne, I tell you. It cannot be done.”

  Reinbald reproved his wife. “It must be, Helge. The court will enquire if we know of any reason for the potter’s hatred of Ivor, and if we do not speak of it, we will be forsworn.”

  “But it is not true,” Helge burst out.

  “The potter believes it is,” Reinbald replied, “and that is why it must be told.”

  Bascot studied the merchant’s wife for a moment; her ample bosom was heaving with outrage, and her fair skin, so like that of her two nephews, was covered in red blotches. “I was told by the potter, Mistress Helge, that nearly two years ago, after he made his allegation about your nephew, you refused Wilkin your custom and encouraged those who live nearby to do the same. What reason did you give your neighbours for your sudden disinclination to buy his wares?”

  Her pale blue eyes flickered with sudden misgiving as she replied evasively, “I did not tell them of the lies he was spreading.”

  “You must have given them a reason. What was it?”

  She pursed her lips and glanced first at Ivor and then at her husband before she answered. “I told them he had tried to be familiar with my maidservant,” she said defiantly, “and that when I reprimanded him on her behalf, he had been insolent to me. I said that if they did not take care, he might take the same liberties in their households.”

  Silence followed her words, and she immediately made an attempt to justify her actions. “I could not tell them the truth. People always want to gossip, and soon the story would have spread about the town.” Her head came up and she placed her hand on Ivor’s arm. “My nephew is a handsome man; there are many of my husband’s acquaintance that would be only too pleased to have him as a bridegroom for their daughters. Such a tale would have ruined his reputation.”

  Bascot glanced at the faces of the rest of the family. Reinbald’s heavy face seemed to droop as he shook his head in exasperation, while Harald’s gaze was fastened downwards on the contents of his wine cup as though he wished it would swallow him up. Unlike the other two men, Ivor stared at the Templar boldly and placed his own hand over the one his aunt had laid on his forearm, as though in support of her actions.

  “But, mistress,” Bascot said softly, “was not the tale you invented for your neighbours just as much a lie as the one you claim the potter told?”

  “Nei,” she said firmly. “No. I said it only to protect my nephew from that djevel’s scurrilous tongue. I would never have said it otherwise. It is my duty to protect my dead sister’s sons and that is what I was doing.”

  Finally, Harald spoke. “Tante, do you not realise that the potter was doing
just the same thing? Even though Ivor says it is not true, Wilkin most assuredly believes it is. He said what he did in a righteous attempt to defend his daughter’s virtue.”

  “Virtue?” Ivor burst out. “The girl had no virtue left to defend, Harald. She had taken a brigand for a lover. What girl of modesty would do that?”

  Bascot looked at the two brothers, so alike in appearance but so different in nature. Harald made no reply to Ivor’s statement but merely resumed his contemplation of his wine cup.

  “Why did you not speak to the potter at the time he made the accusation against you, bailiff?” Bascot asked. “It is now almost two years since he first made the charge. Why did you not refute it?”