Paul Doherty: The poisoned chalice

On that particular Sunday my chaplain wouldn't shut up and I was getting hungry. On and on he droned about how we shouldn't fear death but welcome the joys of heaven, so I picked up my two horse pistols and gave the sod both barrels. You can still see the holes on either side of the pulpit. Well, I laughed myself silly. The chaplain went white as snow and fainted straight out of the pulpit. I didn't intend to kill him. I just wanted to see if he practised what he preached. Instead I concluded he was about as frightened of death as I am so why, in the good Lord's name, did he get up and bore us stiff telling us different?

He didn't know I always carry pistols under my cloak, and he may well ask why. For the same reason I dictate my memoirs in the centre of a maze. You see, old Shallot has many enemies and memories die hard. The secret order of the Templars still has a price on my life. The Luciferi of France (I'll come to those bastards later) would like to see my head on a pole. The Council of Ten in Venice have sent three assassins against me just because I borrowed some of their gold and forgot to repay it. The silly idiots came nowhere near me. The great Irish wolf hounds who roam my estate tore them to pieces. Marvellous animals! They lounge round my chair now, staring at the chaplain and licking their lips.

Of course, other assassins might come. Do you know, I once played a game of human chess against the Ottoman Emperor, Suleiman the Magnificent? Instead of pieces we played with human beings on a great white and black piazza. When we lost a 'piece', the 'gardeners', the Ottoman's mute executioners, immediately strangled the poor victim. Now I won that game, losing just two 'pieces', but only after I left with the comeliest 'piece' of all, a wench from the imperial harem, did Suleiman discover that I had cheated and publicly marked me down for death. Perhaps his 'gardeners' will come but I am not frightened. I have my maze, I have my secret chamber, my own silent guards, my wolf hounds and my beloved pistols. Moreover, I have seen it all. The knife, the sword, the rope, the garrotte – they don't chill my heart.

Poison, however, is a different matter. That's why I make my chaplain taste what I eat and drink. Everything, that is, except my best claret. I mean, the Bible does say we shouldn't throw our pearls before swine! Poison… That takes me back to my nightmare. Now I have met poisoners, dark, subtle souls who can strike at any time and in a million ways. You name a poisoner and I'll tell you all about him or her. By the way, have you noticed that? How the best poisoners are women? I mean, look at Agrippina, wife to the Emperor Claudius. If you have read your books you will discover that the Romans used to have tasters too and loved food so much they'd make themselves sick after each course by sticking a feather down their throats. Do you know what Agrippina did? She didn't poison the food. No, cunning bitch, she poisoned the feather and got rid of her husband.

She reminds me of Catherine de Medici, Queen of France, 'Madame Serpent' as I used to call her. I never accepted anything from Catherine, for what she didn't know about poisons wasn't worth knowing. I was talking about her last week when our Queen came to visit me -Elizabeth, with her white painted face, black teeth and red wig. The great Virgin Queen – don't you believe it! Well, she brought me sad news. How our love-child, Robin, had been captured at sea by the Spanish and taken to Madrid. I told her not to worry. If Robin was truly our child, the bloody Spanish wouldn't hold him long and, if they do, then he is not worthy of our blood. I made her laugh and she reminded me of how Robin had been conceived. You want to know? Fine, I'll tell you. I was once a Member of Parliament and one day in the chamber at Westminster, a Puritan, a lozenge of sanctified humility, got up from his arse and roared at me because I called him a blackened turd.

'Shallot,' he bellowed, 'you'll either die by hanging or die of the pox!'

'That, sir,' I coldly replied, 'depends on whether I embrace your principles or your wife.'

Well, the chamber was in an uproar. I refused to apologise to the Speaker so the Serjeant-at-arms hustled me to the Tower. Elizabeth (because I had been defending her) came to visit me. She insisted on seeing me alone, and you know Shallot! A cup of wine and a pretty girl in an empty room and anything could happen. On that occasion it certainly did! In her younger days Elizabeth was a passionate girl. She had a cloying sensuousness and, like her mother, Anne Boleyn, she could ride anything. (I see my chaplain snigger so a quick rap across the knuckles reminds him to keep his mouth shut and his thoughts clean about his betters.)

Ah, poison, the subtle murderer of my dreams. Well, I have now marshalled my thoughts, summoning memories from that summer over seventy years ago. Oh, Lord, it seems only yesterday when I and my master, Benjamin Daunbey, nephew to the great Cardinal Wolsey, were sent to the Chateau de Maubisson outside Paris to resolve certain mysteries. Ah, I have mentioned his name! Benjamin, with his long, dark face, kindly eyes and lawyer's stoop. When I think of him I always smile. He was one of the few really good men I have ever met. If you have read my earlier memoirs you will know how this occurred. We went to school together, I saved him from a beating and he rescued me from a hanging, twice; once in Ipswich and then again at Montfaucon, that great forest of gibbets which stands near the Porte St Denis in Paris.

Now, Benjamin's uncle, the great Wolsey, and his black familiar, the enigmatic Doctor Agrippa, used us both on countless errands in the sinister twilight world of treason, murder and lechery of the courts of Europe. Lackaday, they have all gone now! They're just shadows, ghosts who dance under the shade of the spreading yew trees which border the far end of the lawn in front of my manor house.

Ghosts they may be but they bring back memories of broken hearts, foul deeds, sinister minds, and souls stained with the blackness of hell. I'll tell you this as I sit in the centre of my maze and listen to the clear song of the thrush: the murderous soul I met at Maubisson was one of the most chilling I have ever encountered.

In the spring of 1520 Benjamin Daunbey and I were the proud occupants of a large manor house on the outskirts of Ipswich. Really, it was more of a pleasaunce than a manor with its white lathed plaster, ornamental chimney pots, squat black beams, with panelled rooms with carved furniture, and a cellar well stocked with a variety of wines. On our estate were granges, barns, a mill, carp ponds, lush fields and fertile meadows. We were the grateful beneficiaries of the largesse of Benjamin's uncle, the great Wolsey, who lavished rewards on us for resolving, only a few months earlier, the sinister White Rose murders.

Now success had not changed Benjamin. He still dressed drably. Indeed, I well remember him as he was then, long and lanky, his sombre, solemn face framed by jet black hair. At the time I was of the same colouring (there's a portrait of me hanging at Burpham). I was dark, my black hair cropped close, a slight cast in one eye, and a cheeky expression which many said would send me to the gallows. In a way they were right but, thankfully, I was never hanged though I was close to it on many occasions. What amuses me is that many of those who claimed I would hang, died violent deaths themselves in some pot-holed alleyway, bleak battlefield or gory execution yard. I was a bigger rogue then than I am now but Benjamin was as different as chalk from cheese. He had that irritating manner of believing all was well and trusting everyone completely.

In theory Benjamin was Lord of the Manor and I, a true man of the world, his steward, his trusted servant and bosom friend. I was wise beyond my nineteen years and kept a sharp weather eye on all the human kites and ravens attracted by Benjamin's generosity. You know the sort: wandering musicians, ballad mongers, sharp-eyed priests. (I see my chaplain's shoulders twitch with annoyance.)