Paul Doherty - The Poison Maiden

‘Master Bertrand,’ he blustered, ‘a guard found this.’ He gestured at the corpse. ‘A hanging! Suicide! God knows why it happened.’ He rubbed his stomach. ‘Not a night for such hideous scenes.’

‘You’ve not entered my chamber?’ Demontaigu asked.

‘Of course not.’

‘It should be locked and bolted from the inside,’ Demontaigu murmured. ‘Master-at-arms,’ he turned to one of the soldiers, ‘bring a ladder. I will go up from the outside and unlock the door; you can join me there.’

The master-at-arms brought a long pole-ladder. Demontaigu insisted that for the moment the corpse be left. He laid the ladder against the palace wall and climbed up. Master Berenger left two of the men-at-arms on guard whilst we hurried round into the building and up the gloomy, freezing staircase. By the time we reached his chamber, Demontaigu had opened the door. He ushered us in.

‘Locked and bolted from the inside,’ he whispered to me.

I glanced quickly round. Nothing looked as if it had been disturbed. The drapes on the bed were slightly creased. The empty platter and goblet still stood on the table. I glimpsed the chancery pouch and hurried across to where it lay on the floor between the chair and the still gleaming charcoal brazier. I pulled back the flaps. It was empty. I glanced at the brazier and noticed the charred scraps of parchment littering the top coals. Chapeleys had apparently burnt whatever he’d brought. There was no sign of any struggle. The cup and platter smelled untainted. The lock and bolts on the door were untouched. I examined the ring in the wall. The thick hempen rope was securely tied to it. The bolts and bars of the wooden door looked unmarked, with no sign of force.

Berenger stood in deep conversation with Demontaigu. The king’s coroner eyed me darkly when he learnt who I was. In the end, however, he seemed satisfied with what Demontaigu had said and became very dismissive.

‘A highly nervous man,’ he declared. ‘Master Chapeleys’ humours must have been deeply agitated and disturbed by all these present troubles. He must have taken his own life.’ He shrugged. ‘God knows what Holy Mother Church will say about that.’ The fat coroner spread his hands, clearly anxious to return to the festivities. ‘There is little more I can say or do,’ he pleaded. ‘Perhaps. .’

Demontaigu offered to take care of the corpse. Berenger was only too pleased to agree and promptly disappeared. Demontaigu ordered the men-at-arms to go back to the corpse and guard it. Once the chamber was cleared, he bolted the door.

‘Nothing,’ he exclaimed, gesturing around, ‘nothing untoward.’

‘Except the contents of his chancery bag have been burnt.’

‘Chapeleys may have done that himself when he decided to take his own life. The door was locked and bolted.’ Demontaigu shook his head. ‘I cannot believe anything else. Chapeleys was under strict instruction not to open that door to anyone but ourselves or someone. .’

‘When you left him?’

‘I brought some wine and a platter.’ Demontaigu sighed. ‘I scarcely talked to him, then I left for the chancery office. I did some work there and went direct to Burgundy Hall.’

‘And Berenger?’

‘I told him Chapeleys was a clerk much agitated by the present crisis. A man, perhaps, given to morbid thoughts.’

‘Everything indicates suicide,’ I agreed, ‘yet we know that is not true. Chapeleys was truly frightened but he wanted to live.’ I walked over to the writing table. The quill pens had recently been used. The inkpot was unstoppered. I searched the chancery bag again but it was empty. I went down on my hands and knees. Chapeleys was a clerk. He would write and perhaps reject what he’d written. I was proved correct. Under the table near the far leg lay a twisted piece of parchment. I picked this up, smoothed it out and glimpsed the scrolled letters. I slipped it into the velveteen purse on my belt. Demontaigu hurried across but I held a finger to my lips and gestured at the door.

‘Not now. Let’s first tend to the corpse.’

Demontaigu went across to the window-door and shouted at the men-at-arms to be ready. He then told me to help him hold the rope. He sliced this expertly, took the strain and gently lowered the corpse. The soldiers, using the ladder, grasped the body and laid it out on the cobbles below. A macabre sight! The cadaver sprawled on its back. In the shifting pool of torchlight, Chapeleys’ white face seemed to stare up at me in reproach. I diverted myself by re-examining the knot in the noose which the soldiers passed to us.

‘A clerk’s doing,’ I murmured. ‘As they fasten the twine of a pouch containing a bundle of manuscripts, twice tied, the ends slipped back through the knot.’ I rose and scrutinised the chamber once more.

‘Nothing out of place.’ Demontaigu voiced my thoughts.

‘And that is the refrain the assassin wants us to repeat,’ I replied.

We left the chamber and joined the men-at-arms, who carried the corpse across the palace grounds into the mortuary chapel of St Margaret’s, the parish church of those who lived and served in the palace. The Keeper of the Death House was waiting. He merrily welcomed, as he put it, his new guest into the Chamber of the Dead: a long, barn-like structure lying between the corpse door of St Margaret’s and God’s Acre, the parish cemetery. The walls inside gleamed with lime-wash, studded here and there with black crosses. The carefully scrubbed floor, set with pavestones, was strewn with crisp, freshly cut rushes. Mortuary tables, neatly arranged in three long rows, stretched from the door to the far wall. Most of these were, in the words of the keeper, a lay brother from the abbey, occupied by his special guests.

‘It’s the gallows, you see,’ he intoned mournfully. ‘They have to be cleared before the great feast, felons and villains! All quiet now, washed and anointed, ready for God.’

Chapeleys’ corpse was laid on a table near the door. The men-at-arms were eager to be gone from such a gruesome place; it reeked of death and decay despite the pots of crushed herbs and boats of smoking incense placed on sills and ledges. Demontaigu also asked the keeper to withdraw. The lay brother would have objected, but the silver coin I drew from my purse and the promise of some lady bread and meat, the leftovers from the lavish royal banquet, sent him scrambling through the door, which he slammed noisily behind him.

We turned to Chapeleys. In the light of the oil lamps and guttering wall torches, his face had a livid hue, eyes popping, tongue jutting out of his protuberant mouth, the skin a hideous, mottled colour. Demontaigu crossed himself, leaned over and whispered the words of absolution into the dead man’s ear. Afterwards, with a phial of oil he must have taken from his chamber, he swiftly anointed Chapeleys from forehead to feet whilst whispering the solemn invocation to St Michael and all the angels to come out and meet the dead man’s soul. We then stripped the corpse down to its pathetic soiled linen undershirt and drawers. I carefully examined the flesh for bruises and cuts but could detect none. No binding or force to the fingers, hands or wrists could be traced; nothing but that deep, broad purple-red weal round Chapeleys’ throat and the slight contusion behind the right ear where the knot had been fastened. I studied the discarded noose I’d brought with me; the slipknot was expertly done, still tight and hard. I searched amongst the dead clerk’s possessions. His wallet held a few coins which I left on the mortuary table. The dagger was still in its sheath and slipped easily in and out. I sat down on a stool and stared in exasperation at Demontaigu, now covering the corpse with a death cloth.

‘Who knew Chapeleys had arrived at Westminster?’