reproach.”
As concise an obituary as he had ever heard, Baldwin thought to himself. “Did you hear anything on the night that she died?”
Joan pulled a face. “No. Nor did the other girl.”
“The lay sister?”
“Cecily.” She nodded towards the snoring figure huddled in one of the beds. “She’s got a broken wrist. The infirmarer made us dwale to help us all sleep. Needed it with Cecily’s racket.”
“Is she asleep now?”
“Listen to her!” Joan cackled. “She couldn’t be much more asleep whatever you did to her!”
Dwale, Baldwin mused. Not a flavour to be mistaken: although the precise mixture varied, it was inevitably sour and unpleasant. Dwale was another name for belladonna, deadly nightshade, but leeches used it mixed with henbane or hemlock and a soporific, usually poppy syrup, to comfort those in pain. Many patients took it – especially when their surgeon needed them quiet. “You all slept when Moll died?”
“The infirmarer had made it a powerful dose, but even the smallest amount knocks me out at my age. I know Cecily was well gone, because she spent all her time whining with pain beforehand. After she’d drunk it, she went quiet.”
“Was Moll served first?”
“No. I asked Constance to give Cecily hers first. The poor girl was in terrible pain, and I couldn’t sleep with the row. Then Constance brought me mine and Moll last.” She shifted slightly, and now her face was turned to the fire. Her features were lighted by it, and the benign flickering of the flames tended to smooth some of her wrinkles, lending her a more youthful aspect, but the sadness of old age was upon her. Although she had no apparent regret, her life was almost over, and she was contemplating the life to come. She had little interest in earthly matters.
Baldwin glanced at the beds. When he asked, Joan pointed at the bed nearest the door. “That was hers – my bed is that one.”
There was a third bed between them, Baldwin noticed. “Did you fall asleep soon after drinking?” he asked.
“Very soon,” Joan agreed. “As I say, Constance had made the potion strong and I remember Constance smiling at me as I drank, then going to Moll. I saw Moll take a sip before putting the cup on her table, but then I began to feel drowsy. Soon I was asleep and I didn’t wake until morning.”
Simon frowned uncomprehendingly. “But shouldn’t you have gone to Nocturns?”
Joan shrugged. “I often miss them. So do many others. Even the prioress herself is sometimes too tired to go.“
“You usually sleep through the whole night?” Baldwin asked.
“No, Sir Knight. I am usually too wakeful. I’ve been living here in this convent for most of my life, and the horarium has eaten its way into my soul. When I am bored I will often walk about the cloisters, and I find my bed a tedious place at night. As I get older I need less sleep. But Constance believes that I need to rest. That was why she made me drink her strong dwale.”
Baldwin nodded slowly and he saw her face light as if with amusement.
“Sir Knight, there’s no need to look at me in that suspicious manner. If you doubt my word ask Constance, the infirmarer. She stood over me to ensure I drank her potion. She’ll tell you that I was dead to the world all that night.”
Baldwin smiled and rose to his feet, knees cracking. “Thank you for your help.”
She gave him a sharp look. “Help? I didn’t think I told you anything new. Are you as foolish as that visitor?”
“I hope not.“ Baldwin beckoned Simon and the two men walked out to the small curtained chamber at the far end of the room. Inside they found another locked chest, and a shelf or two set into the wall, on which were placed bottles of powders and liquids.
None looked appetising to Simon, but he distrusted most of the potions given out by tooth-pullers and other quacks.
Baldwin pulled half-heartedly at the lid of the chest, but it was locked. “Everything in this place is stowed away, hidden from sight,” he complained. “They must know it’s against their own ordinances, so why is it allowed?”
“Why shouldn’t they be allowed to store their own goods apart from each other’s?” Simon asked. “It sounds daft to expect everyone to leave their stuff out on show.”
“Men or women joining a convent give up their worldly possessions. As soon as they enter the cloister they reject material things, taking nothing with them. All they have is owned by the institution. These chests point to the heart of whatever is wrong here.”
Simon gave him a sidelong glance. “Really? I’d have thought that the lay sister and old Joan there being utterly intoxicated would be more to the point. If they were all so heavily drugged, is that because the murderer chose to silence them all? Which begs the question of whether the infirmarer was told to drug them.”
“Or whether the infirmarer herself was the murderer,” Baldwin mused thoughtfully, absently shaking a glass beaker with a pale white powder inside. He set it back on the shelf. “If she was, then why should she have bothered to smother Moll? All she needed do was give the girl a stronger dose of dwale, enough to make her, unconscious, and then open her vein.”
“Perhaps she got the quantity wrong,” Simon suggested. “Anyway, why should the infirmarer wish to kill the girl?”
“An excellent question,” Baldwin said. “And yet if Margherita is right and a man did come up these stairs, he could have gone into the infirmary. Drugging the patients would guarantee they wouldn’t see him.”
Lady Elizabeth sat in the chapterhouse and watched as Simon and Baldwin left the building and strolled to meet the visitor. Bertrand was bitter at being frustrated in his wish to see her. His anger would have increased if he had known how his dramatic gestures, intended to demonstrate his irritation, only served to make her smile broaden.
Chapter Eleven
“Where on God’s good earth is that woman?” demanded Bertrand. “God’s balls, but she’ll regret this! I’m tempted to go and wait in her room; force her to see me. She’s avoiding us, and that’s a clear enough sign of her guilt.”
“I feel we should seek her down here rather than waiting in the nuns’ dorter. Were we to be found in the nuns’ sleeping area, I think it might give rise to talk,” Baldwin mentioned with a twinkle in his eye.
Bertrand was not of a mood to see the humour of the situation, but at last he gave his ungracious agreement. The last thing he needed was an accusation of impropriety against himself. Glancing about the quadrangle, he saw two novices walking to the frater.
“If I know the religious mind at all,” Baldwin said, following his gaze, “they will be drinking until Compline.”
“Well, they can’t object to our joining them,” Bertrand said with determination, and set off after the two girls.
“Baldwin,” Simon said quietly. “The visitor has obviously made up his mind. If he could, he’d have the prioress strung up for murder.”
“Yes,” Baldwin agreed. “And to be fair, he may well be right. But I want to give the woman the benefit of the doubt. And even if she were guilty in some way, that doesn’t mean no one else helped and was not equally to blame. Is it conceivable that the prioress helped mix the dwale, or helped pass it to the invalids?”
“If the infirmarer was her accomplice, yes. You’re quite convinced it was murder?”
Baldwin nodded. “There is no doubt. Moll had something thrust over her face, and her arms kept still while her artery was opened. She died of asphyxiation, but someone wanted to cover their tracks. There was a clear
