Paul Doherty - The poisoned chalice

He was about to continue when officials of the embassy came down the steps to greet us. There was the usual confusion of grooms taking horses, porters carrying chests, and a sea of faces as haphazard introductions were made. A servant took Benjamin and me off into the main hall, past the great chamber where meals were served, and up a spiral staircase to the third floor above the solar. The chamber given to us was spacious and clean, the walls freshly painted, the wooden floors covered with thick but clean-looking carpets. Two pallet beds had been erected, fresh torch sconces placed in the walls, some stools, a chair, a table and an aumbry, a heavy cupboard for our clothes, provided. Some thick, tallow candles, and jugs and bowls completed the furnishings. The windows were shuttered but one, glazed with horn, afforded a pleasant view of the boxwood garden and a glimpse of the forest-edge.

We spent that afternoon taking our bearings. The chateau was like many of its kind, stained by war here and there when the English (or the Goddamns, as the French call us) had tried to conquer Northern France, nothing remarkable. We met the officials of the embassy at dinner that same evening.

Now, the hall of the chateau was a simple affair, a great hearthed fire in the centre with some shields and antlers on the wall for decoration. There was a small gallery at one end which musicians would use and, at the other, against a wooden panelled wall, the dais and high table. Once supper was over and the retainers had withdrawn, the wine jug was passed round and introductions were made. Sir John Dacourt, the ambassador, was squat and florid, with frizzed white hair, light blue eyes, and the most luxuriant curling moustache I have ever clapped eyes on. He was dressed simply in the old-fashioned way with a cote-hardie which fell beneath his knees. He was a soldier of the old school who believed the only good Frenchman was a dead one.

‘I don't trust the damn' Frogs!' he boomed. 'Turn your back and the bastards will have you!'

Walter Peckle, the chief clerk, was a young man grown old before his time, with a complexion sallow and unhealthy, sunken cheeks, and eyes which never stopped blinking. His fingers were stained with blue-green ink and he constantly kept scratching what was left of his wispy, greasy, grey hair. Thomas Throgmorton, the physician, was thin as a pikestaff. Of indeterminate age, he had moist grey eyes set in a pale, thin face. His close-cropped hair was hidden under a black velvet skull cap. Michael Millet, Sir John Dacourt's secretarius, was strikingly good-looking. A young man with thick, blond hair which rose in waves from his forehead, and blue liquid eyes. Many a woman would have paid a fortune to have had his eyelashes, thick, long and curling. He was a proper fop: his roses and cream complexion was clean-shaven and a silver pearl dangled from a small gold chain in his right ear lobe. He sat like a woman and talked like one, sending coy glances at all of us. Waldegrave, the chaplain, was small, fat and balding, with the coarsened features and bright red nose of an inveterate drinker. By the time the meal was finished we were all in our cups but Waldegrave had staggered to the meal as drunk as any bishop. He sat next to me and I wrinkled my nose at the sweaty odour emanating from the long, black, food-stained gown he wore.

At first our after-dinner conversation was on general matters but when Lady Francesca withdrew, throwing Benjamin a smile which cut me to the heart, Clinton soon brought matters to order.

'Falconer's death,' he announced as soon as Lady Francesca's high-heeled step faded from the hall, 'was it an accident, suicide or murder?' His words cast a pool of silence. The warmth and cheer evaporated like mist before the sun. We all became aware how dark it was, the torches flickering and the shadows dancing against the bleak, white walls. At the centre of the table, Dacourt looked around.

'If it was suicide,' he trumpeted, 'it's a damn' strange way to go. If it was an accident, then it can't be explained. Check the tower yourself, Sir Robert, you know it well. The wall is crenellated but there are iron bars between the gaps. Falconer would have had to be standing on the very rim to slip and fall to his death. Why should a man do that?'

'Which leaves murder,' my master intervened smoothly.

'Impossible!' Throgmorton, the physician, spoke up.

Benjamin leaned forward and looked down the table at him.

'How, sir! Why do you say that?'

'Oh, our physician knows everything,' Millet quipped tartly. 'He's fond of snooping, especially through the half-open doors of any woman's bedchamber.'

The remark provoked faint laughter and Throgmorton flushed with embarrassment. (Well, as I say, never trust a doctor. It's surprising how many of them love to see a pretty wench stripped down to her shift.) Benjamin, however, refused to be diverted.

'Master Physician, I asked you a question.'

Throgmorton glared once more at Millet, composed himself and ticked the points off on his fingers. 'First, Falconer had the chamber you have now.'

Oh, thank you very much, I thought.

'I have a chamber on the floor above. I saw Falconer go up to the top of the tower. He seemed cheerful enough, with a cup of wine in his hand. I bade him good evening and he smiled back. No one else went up the stairs after him and certainly no one went before.'

'Are there other witnesses?' Benjamin asked.

'Do you doubt my word?' Throgmorton bellowed.

'Tush, Tom!' Millet spoke up, slouching against the table and admiring the cheap, tawdry rings on his fingers. 'I, too, heard Falconer go up.' Millet smiled dazzlingly at Benjamin. 'My humble abode is a garret at the top of this benighted tower.'

Benjamin grinned. 'And you would confirm what the good physician has said?'

'Of course!'

'There's one other matter,' Dacourt boomed, refilling his goblet. 'The top of the tower is covered with a fine coat of sand and gravel. Millet and I were the first to check that tower, after Falconer's body was discovered by a guard. It bore only the mark of Falconer's boots.'

'And the body?' Benjamin asked.

Throgmorton slurped from his goblet. 'The head was smashed open and the face badly bruised. The neck was so twisted you could lay the chin on either shoulder. Of course, there was bruising throughout his whole body.'

'And the wine he drank?'

'Good claret,' Dacourt boomed. 'Old Falconer liked his tipple. On Easter Monday, as the season of Lent finished and we need no longer abstain from wine, we opened a new bottle. Millet and I were present. We each had a cup before we left.'

'It's a custom here,' Millet added. 'During Lent, we all, as good sons of the Church, abstain from wine. On Easter Monday, we broach the best Bordeaux.'

'So there was nothing strange?' Benjamin asked.

Dacourt looked at me under lowered brows as if recognising my existence for the first time. 'No. Falconer was quiet and secretive but seemed in very good humour, laughing and talking rather garrulously. I did wonder if he had been in his cups before we opened the wine but he assured me he had not.'

'I scrutinised the corpse most carefully,' Throgmorton intervened. 'There was no real smell of ale or wine fumes nor of any other substance.'

'And the cup he drank from?' Benjamin asked, turning his chair slightly to look down the table at Dacourt.

'A pity,' the ambassador replied. 'Smashed to pieces.'

'Why do you say it's a pity?'

'Well, it was one of a set, wondrously carved from pewter. Falconer had four; people call them liturgical cups. You know, each cup bears a picture of one of the Church's four great feasts: Advent, Christmas, Easter and Pentecost.'

'And he was drinking from the Easter one?' I asked.

'Yes,' Dacourt replied. 'But now it's smashed to pieces.'