did not have the courage to face him. Bascot knew that the anger he felt would be a detriment to clarity of thought and resolutely put his wrath aside, deciding to replace it with the solace of prayer.
He began a repetition of the prayer of a paternoster, holding the words steadily before him in his mind’s eye. It was a practice that all Templars were encouraged to follow as a means of strengthening their resolve, and it was one that Bascot had often used, especially when he had been a captive of the Saracens in the Holy Land. On the day that an infidel lord had ordered his eye to be put out with a hot poker, he had used the prayer to sustain him through the pain and humiliation of the ordeal, focusing especially on the passage that asked God for deliverance from evil. His supplication had been answered when he had been given the opportunity to escape from his heathen captors. Now he ended each repetition of the litany with a heartfelt plea for heavenly aid in discovering the identity of the poisoner and hoped that, once again, God would look on his appeal with favour. The exercise brought him comfort, and slowly he felt his tense muscles relax.
Sleep was just beginning to reclaim him when he heard Gianni stir on his pallet and the rustle that accompanied the boy as he rose and used the chamber pot in the corner of the room to relieve himself. Dawn was beginning to show its light through the one small casement the room possessed, and Bascot decided to get up. If he was going to get to the bottom of this matter, there was a lot of work ahead of him and no time for delay. Pushing into place the leather patch that covered his missing right eye, he pulled on his boots and shoved his arms into the padded gambeson he had discarded before retiring. Telling Gianni to follow him, he had just left the chamber and was standing at the top of the stairs leading down to the bail when he heard one of the gatewards blow his horn three times, the alarm that signalled an emergency.
Ordering Gianni to return to the chamber and fetch his sword, the Templar descended the stairs as quickly as his injured ankle would allow. When he emerged into the bail, he saw that it was the gateward on the eastern gate-the one that led out into Ermine Street-that had sounded the alarm. Ernulf and two of his men-at-arms were running in that direction. As Bascot followed them, the lanky figure of Gilles de Laubrec appeared at the door to the stables, and he hastened to join the Templar.
“I just sent off one of the grooms with a letter to the sheriff from Lady Nicolaa,” the marshal said as he came up. “Let us pray there is no more trouble astir, else there will be need to send another messenger on his heels.”
The gateward had come down from his post at the top of one of the two towers that flanked the huge entrance, and he was standing with a man that Bascot recognised as a member of the town guard under the command of Roget, a former mercenary and now their captain. The guard was out of breath and had obviously been running. As the others reached him, he struggled to make his voice steady enough to speak clearly.
“There’s been more poisonings-in the town. A spice merchant and his family. They’re all dead. Captain Roget sent me to inform Lady Nicolaa and request her orders. He’s put the house under guard, but some of the neighbours are becoming fearful for their own safety.”
“I’ll go down there, de Laubrec,” Bascot said to the marshal. “Inform Lady Nicolaa of what has happened. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Leaving Gianni with Ernulf, the Templar accompanied the guard back through the gate and out into Ermine Street. They followed it down into the town, passing through Bailgate and onto the deep incline of Steep Hill, moving as quickly as they could on the slick cobblestones that were still wet from a shower of rain that had fallen during the night. The guard led Bascot down past the Skin Market and the Church of St. John and into the upper end of a street called Hungate, which was mainly inhabited by merchants, with the more affluent of the residents living in houses at the far end of the thorough-fare, at the point where it intersected with Brancegate. The guard led Bascot towards the intersection, and they had almost reached it when he stopped and pointed to a dwelling near the corner.
“That’s the spice merchant’s house, over there,” he said.
Despite the earliness of the hour, a crowd was gathered in the street, most of them in various stages of undress, wearing cloaks and hats that looked as though they had been hastily thrown on. They were muttering amongst themselves and giving anxious glances at the door to the spice merchant’s home.
Roget came forward as Bascot and the guard pushed through the group of spectators. The captain was a fearsome-looking man, black visaged and with the scar of an old sword slash running down the side of his face from temple to chin. His dark brown eyes were alight with anger as he yelled at the crowd to move back, and the copper rings that were threaded through his beard danced with the movement.
His greeting to Bascot was terse. “It seems this cursed empoisonneur has struck again. The spice merchant and his wife are both dead, as well as their little girl. She was only a child, de Marins, barely six years old.”
“How long since their deaths, Roget?” Bascot asked.
“A couple of hours. Their old cook came running out into the street just after midnight, screaming that her master and his family had become violently ill and needed help. One of the neighbours fetched an apothecary who sent for Alaric, the physician. That’s him over there. He can probably tell you more about the manner of their deaths than I can.”
The man that the captain had indicated was garbed in a flowing black gown and was engaged in earnest conversation with one of the bystanders, a well-built fellow wearing an expensive cloak trimmed with fur that had been carelessly tossed over his shoulders.
A man of middle years, with an unlined countenance and bushy eyebrows, the physician came forward when Bascot beckoned to him. A scholar’s cap sat firmly on top of his thatch of sandy-coloured hair.
“Are you sure the deaths in this household are due to poison?” Bascot asked.
The physician nodded solemnly. “I am. The whole town has heard of the two recent deaths in the castle and that it is believed they were due to ingesting a poison that is commonly used to exterminate vermin. The symptoms that Master le Breve and his family suffered are exactly those that such a poison would cause.”
“Were you with any of them before they died?”
“Yes. All were still breathing when I first came, but purging dreadfully. There is no antidote for this type of venom. I could only make them as comfortable as possible and wait for them to die.”
“How was the poison administered?”
“It seems the old woman who is the household cook made a dish of stewed plums and covered them with a custard that had been sweetened with honey. It would appear that the honey she used had been, as it was at the castle, liberally laced with a poison made from the plant Helleborus niger.”
The physician’s last words were pompous in tone. Bascot had never met him before but had heard him spoken of as a man of great learning, one of the few who had completed a rigorous course of nine years’ study at the great medical school at Montpelier and had his licence to practice granted in the name of the pope.
“Where is the pot that contained the poisoned honey?” Bascot asked tersely, disliking the man for his overweening pedantry.
“It is still inside. I thought it best not to remove it for examination until Lady Nicolaa had been informed of the deaths.”
Bascot gave him a curt nod and motioned for Roget to accompany him into the house. As they went in through the door, Roget said, “I have already been in here, de Marins. One of my men was on his rounds when the old cook’s commotion started. He sent for me immediately but they were already dead when I arrived.” His eyes darkened. “Sweet Jesu, it was terrible. The man and his wife were covered in vomit, their eyes open and staring as though they had witnessed the depths of hell, and the little girl…” His voice broke as he told Bascot of the child. “ La pauvre petite, she was curled up at her mother’s side, her little hands clutching at the arm of her ma-man, as though beseeching the poor woman to save her. I tell you, de Marins, this poisoner is more foul than an imp of Satan. Only a man without a soul would willingly cause the death of such an innocent.”
The smell that invaded their nostrils when they entered the home was the same foul stench that had been in the scriptorium when Ralf died. The old servant who had raised the alarm was sitting on a stool just inside the entrance, her hands clasped together and tears streaming down her cheeks as she rocked herself to and fro and moaned in distress. The sleeves and front of her kirtle were stained with vomit and blood.
“Her name is Nantie,” Roget said. “The neighbours told me she has been in the household many years and was wet nurse to the spice merchant’s wife at the time of her birth. When the wife grew up and married, Nantie came with the young bride to her new home and stayed on as maid and cook.” He lowered his voice as he added, “I fear that what has happened has unhinged her mind.
