Susanna Gregory: A Deadly Brew

October 1352

The afternoon had been growing gradually darker as storm clouds massed overhead. The scholar glanced up at them and realised he would not be able to reach the abbey at Ely, still some nine miles distant, without getting drenched. In his saddle bags, he carried several finely illustrated manuscripts that had been given to him by the grateful parents of successful students; if they became wet, the ink would run and they would be ruined. He cursed softly to himself. The summer and autumn had been unusually dry, so why did the heavens have to choose now, while he was forced to travel, to soak the parched earth with rain? With an irritated sigh, he urged his horse into a trot along the raised causeway that snaked through the desolate marshes. Since the storm would break long before he could hope to claim refuge with the monks at Ely, he resigned himself to the fact that he would have to take shelter at the Franciscan convent of Denny Abbey, the ramshackle rooftops of which he could already see poking above the scrubby Fenland vegetation.

From a dense tangle of bushes at the side of the road, three men watched the scholar’s progress impatiently and heaved a sigh of relief when the sound of his horse’s hooves finally faded into the distance. They had no wish to be caught unsheltered in the storm that was brewing either. They clambered down the slippery bank of the causeway to the barge that was moored at the side of the canal, and seized the ropes by which it was drawn along. It was more usual for horses to be used for towing barges, but there was always a risk that the beasts might give away the presence of the boat to travellers on the road. And that would be unfortunate for everyone concerned.

The three men hauled on the ropes, and the barge was on the move, slipping soundlessly along the black, glassy waters of the channel that eventually meandered behind Denny Abbey’s walled gardens. They heard voices as the scholar was admitted into the nuns’ guesthouse, and then all was silent again except for the gurgle of water under the keel and the occasional sound of dead, dry reeds snapping under their feet as they walked. When the bargemen reached their destination, they coiled the tow ropes and began to unload their cargo — a number of roughly sewn sacks, the contents of which clanked together mysteriously as they were moved.

One of the men, younger than the others and curious, started to untie the cord that fastened the top of one particularly heavy sack. His friends, seeing what he was about to do, leapt forward to stop him.

‘Fool! We were told to deliver the sacks without asking questions. They will kill us if they think we have been prying into their business!’

The young man scowled angrily. ‘If the cargo is so valuable, why did you charge them so little to bring it here? And why did you agree to deliver it at all if you are so frightened of them?’

‘Because it was impossible to refuse once asked,’ said the other, lowering his voice, and glancing around him uneasily, ‘but when we have finished here, we will lie low for a while to make sure we are not hired for this again.’

The younger man treated his friends to a look of scorn for their timidity and returned to the heavy labour of removing the sacks from the barge to their hiding place. After a moment, the other two followed suit, straining and sweating under the weight of the irregularly shaped bundles.

Their voices, however, had carried across the otherwise silent Fens. Had they looked behind them, they would have seen the veiled head of a nun observing them from one of the upper windows of the convent. She stood unmoving, watching them struggle with their bundles until, with evident relief and a few final furtive glances around them, they finished and slipped away as silently as they had arrived. Within moments, the first drops of rain began to fall, lightly at first, but then harder until the lonely marshes were enveloped in a misty white pall as far as the eye could see. The nun tapped a forefinger on the windowsill thoughtfully before going to pay her respects to the scholar waiting in the guesthouse.

December 1352

The thief pressed back into the shadows as the soldiers of the night watch passed so close he could have touched them. He grinned to himself, guessing that they were more interested in returning to the fire in the guardroom than in checking the dark streets and alleyways for furtive figures who were breaking the curfew. Once the guards’ footsteps had echoed into silence, the thief continued his meticulous examination of the windows and doors of houses, hunting for a faulty lock that would let him inside. Just as he was beginning to despair, he discovered that a hatch leading to a cellar had been carelessly left open.

The thief looked both ways before easing himself through the hatch and pulling it closed behind him. The cellar was pitch black, but this did not deter the thief: he was used to working under difficult conditions. He groped his way around damp walls and a low ceiling with flaking plaster but, to his disappointment, found the cellar contained nothing he could steal to sell in the taverns. There were a few empty wooden boxes, all of them soft and rotten with mould, but the room smelt wet and stale and had evidently been disused and forgotten for decades. He flapped dispiritedly at a cobweb that brushed across his face and decided to try for richer pickings elsewhere.

As he began to make his way towards the door, his foot bumped against something hard. He crouched down, hands extended to assess whether it was something worth taking. A crate of wine! His fingers traced the smooth glass outline of bottles that the moist air of the cellar had rendered damp and cold. They had probably been there for years and their contents would doubtless be sour by now. But, reasoned the thief, whoever bought them from him in the Brazen George would not know that until they had paid, and by then he would be long gone. Deftly, he began packing the bottles into the sack he carried over his shoulder, wrapping each one in the rotting straw that littered the floor so they would not clank together and betray his whereabouts to the night watch.

Six bottles were wrapped and stowed away when the thief became aware that the hatch to the cellar was opening and someone else was entering. Frightened, he pulled the drawstrings of his bag tight and hefted it over his shoulder, abandoning the remaining half a dozen bottles. He stood up carefully and moved back among the crates, desperately hoping that the second intruder had not brought a lamp with him. The thief was small, quick and expert at gaining access to other people’s property, but he abhorred fighting and violence, and avoided any kind of confrontation with his victims if he could. Thus, when the second man moved silently into the centre of the room, the thief nimbly sidestepped him in the inky darkness and was out into the night as fast as his legs could carry him.

He darted towards the river and disappeared into the fringe of reeds that choked the banks, breathing heavily. Moments passed and there was no sound of pursuit: he was safe. He heaved a shuddering sigh of relief and lowered the sack of bottles to the ground next to him while he considered his next move. He could sell the wine for enough to keep him in bread for a week if he told people it was finest claret and charged a penny a bottle. He raised an eyebrow and allowed himself a grin of satisfaction: perhaps it had not been such a bad night after all.

Back in the cellar, the other man had lit a candle and was staring down at the half-empty wine box with a mixture of horror and fury. A rat slithered across the floor behind him and he spun round, a knife appearing in his hand as though by magic. He relaxed when he saw the rodent’s tail disappear behind the pile of crates, but did not sheath his dagger. He rubbed his chin with a hand that shook, and wondered who had stolen the wine and why. A glimmer of a smile flickered across the man’s harsh features: whoever it was would be in for an unpleasant shock when the bottles were opened. The certain knowledge that the crime would not go unavenged helped to counterbalance the intense and impotent anger he felt towards the thief.