Paul Doherty - The Devil's domain

Cranston got up and walked round the chamber. He stopped to inspect the wooden panelling placed against the far wall.

‘A veritable warren!’ he exclaimed. ‘Eh, Vulpina? When I was a lad, the Mulberry Tree was known for its secret passageways and hideouts. People could come and go in the dead of night and not be noticed. I don’t think it’s changed. Who has visited you recently, Vulpina?’

‘If I told you, Sir John, you’d only blush. Come and sit down. You have no warrant or licence to enter here.’

‘I could get one.’ He came back and lowered himself into the chair. ‘Now that would be a good day’s work, eh, Vulpina? Me and a dozen burly lads from the city. I wonder what we’d find here?’ He pulled across the silver salt cellar. ‘I am sure this once graced a house in Cheapside.’

Vulpina snatched it back.

‘What do you want, Cranston?’

‘I want you to tell me about poisons.’

‘Do you wish to buy one?’

‘Yes.’ Athelstan spoke up. ‘I want you to sell me a poison.’ He paused. ‘Which I can take but will do no harm. However, if I poured it into Sir John’s ale he would be dead within an hour.’

‘Impossible!’ she snorted.

‘You are sure?’

‘Brother, there’s nothing grown under the sun, of a noxious nature, which won’t harm everyone who takes it.’ She shrugged. ‘To be sure, some will affect you more than others: just like ale or wine will render one man sotted before another.’

‘And you know of no such poison?’ Athelstan persisted.

‘If I did, Brother, I would be very interested. Why do you ask?’

‘Hawkmere Manor,’ Sir John said.

The coroner had hit the mark; Vulpina tried to school her features but a shift to her eyes, a flicker of her tongue betrayed her.

‘I’ve heard its name, an old, gloomy place.’

‘It houses French prisoners,’ Sir John explained. ‘One of them was poisoned.’

‘Ah!’ Vulpina smiled, clicking her tongue noisily. ‘So you put the blame on old Vulpina? Sir John, I tell you the truth. I sell potions and philtres to lovelorn ladies, to men who may wish to get rid of a rival. I do not ask them who they are or where they come from. I am an apothecary.’

‘You are a killer! A red-handed assassin!’ He got to his feet and leaned over the table. ‘One day, when I have time and the necessary warrants, I’ll come back here.’ He went to the door. ‘We are going to leave this lovely place.’ He waited until Athelstan joined him. ‘And I don’t want to be followed. No fracas or sudden affray in the streets below. You’ve been no help, Vulpina, and I’ll remember that!’

‘Sir John!’

He walked back into the room.

‘You are here on Gaunt’s orders, aren’t you? You’re his messenger boy.’

‘I’m no one’s boy!’

Vulpina sneered, her head going back. She studied Sir John under half-closed lids. Athelstan repressed a shiver. He did not like this place: the more he stayed, the more certain he became that he was in the presence of real malevolence, that this woman was steeped in evil. He was used to the rapscallions and rogues of Southwark, people like Pig’s Arse and Godbless who stole and thieved because they had to. Vulpina, however, enjoyed the evil she distilled, revelling in the chaos and the sorrow it caused.

‘I’m waiting, Hotpot!’

‘You are Gaunt’s man.’ She clicked her tongue again and lifted her hand. Athelstan noticed that she wore a skin-tight leather gauntlet on her right hand. ‘I can give you a list of customers, Cranston!’ she hissed. ‘They’d include the so called mighty and good who would have little time for your nose-poking and querulous questions and that includes my Lord of Gaunt! Or rather his lovesick knight. What’s his name? Maltravers? I understand he’s the laughing-stock of the city. He’s taken a couple of French ships so he thinks he can slip between the sheets with Lady Angelica Parr, does he?’

‘What are you saying?’ Sir John took a step threateningly forward.

Vulpina lifted a whistle which hung on a silver cord round her neck.

‘Come on, Fat Jack!’ she taunted. ‘One blast from this and we’ll see how you and your priestly friend can cope with my legion of rats from below!’

He drew sword and dagger. Vulpina’s face lost some of its arrogance.

‘Go on!’ he said. ‘Let’s go at it, Vulpina. Heaven or hell, but you will be dead.’

The Queen of Poisons took a deep breath and let it out noisily.

‘Fine, fine, Sir John. I want you out of here and I don’t want your enmity.’ She let the whistle fall. ‘Gaunt’s man has been here.’

‘Maltravers?’

‘The same.’

‘What did he want?’

‘A love philtre.’

‘For what?’

‘I didn’t ask him. He also bought some poison. I asked him why. It was nothing exceptional, some henbane, a little belladonna.’

‘And did he give the reason for that?’

‘He said it was rats. In his own chamber. He asked for it as an afterthought.’ Vulpina smiled. ‘But I saw your quick-eyed Dominican friend, when you mentioned Hawkmere Manor. I’ve had visitors from there. Limbright for one, Sir Walter constantly comes here, takes a little digitalis he does, and a few other potions, St John’s wort for a start.’

Athelstan studied this woman and wondered how many secrets she held.

‘Oh, and the list goes on. The good physician Aspinall? He, too, is in my book.’ She realised what she had said and quickly tapped the side of her head. ‘My ledger is between my ears, Sir John. And, Sir John, that’s all I can tell you.’ Vulpina waggled her fingers in mock farewell.

‘Thank God we are out of there!’ Athelstan breathed as they walked back up the main alleyway out of Whitefriars. ‘Sir John, what a tangle of weeds we’ve got here.’

‘It’s a tangle all right.’ The coroner stopped and scratched his head. ‘We really should visit the Lady Angelica, but Brother…’

‘No need to apologise. My legs are tired and my belly’s empty. I want to go back and talk to Bonaventura.’

‘Not to mention Judas the goat!’

‘Thaddeus,’ Athelstan corrected him. ‘It’s Thaddeus now, Sir John. But, what about this?’

‘We frightened Vulpina. And so she threw us morsels. Don’t forget, my good friar: Lady Maude visits an apothecary up Cheapside and buys poisons for the rats in our cellars, but that doesn’t make her a murderess.’

‘Yes, but she doesn’t hide it, Sir John. Limbright, Maltravers and Aspinall have questions to answer.’

Sir John chewed on the corner of his lip then abruptly turned and stared down the alleyway.

‘What’s the matter, Sir John?’

‘Vulpina’s a murdering bitch, Athelstan, but she’s no fool.’ The coroner scratched his whiskers. ‘Earlier, when we stopped to talk to the scrimperers, I had the feeling of being followed. Now I am certain of it. A shadow down the lane moved a little too slowly.’

He took a step forward but Athelstan caught at his arm.

‘Sir John, let us go home.’

Athelstan stared about at the dingy houses, the lean, pinched faces which peered out from behind shabby doors, the clusters of beggars in alleyways. He saw one of them move and caught the glint of steel.

‘Let’s go home, Sir John,’ he repeated. ‘This is all a tangled web and we have truly entered the Devil’s Domain!’

Athelstan sat at his table and moved the candle a little closer. The evening had turned surprisingly chill so he had lit a fire which now crackled merrily in the hearth. Bonaventure, not yet ready for his nightly hunt, sat on the table delicately lapping a dish of milk. Every so often he would lift his head, his one good eye fixed curiously on his strange, eccentric master. Athelstan tickled the cat’s nose with the tip of his quill. Bonaventure didn’t flinch. He blinked and turned, staring into the far corner.