Paul Doherty - The poisoned chalice

'Is there anyone else?'

'What do you mean?'

'Has our royal bull met his cow?'

'No, not yet.'

Benjamin was speaking the truth. Henry had a string of mistresses: Bessie Blount, Mary Boleyn, and the occasional court wench who caught his eye. However, by the time they lowered Fat Henry's rotting corpse into a special, lead-lined coffin (you see, his body had burst and they had almost to pour it in), he had murdered three of his six wives and was intent on killing the last when death claimed him. In that musty chamber at Maubisson, so many years ago, the first few scenes of that dreadful play were about to begin.

Benjamin took the book and hid it under the wooden lavarium.

'Now we know why the king wanted that book back. And the French, of course, would love to hold it. They suspect our king's intentions: can you imagine Henry protesting the invalidity of his marriage when his opponents could produce such irrefutable proof written in Henry's own hand that Catherine was "virgo intacta"

We both started at a loud rap on the door.

'Come in! Come in!' I snapped.

I expected a servant or Dacourt but the benevolent Doctor Agrippa waddled into the room, swathed in his usual black cloak, his fat face smiling like some friendly friar.

'Good morrow, gentlemen. I come from Calais to find the chateau like the Valley of the Dead.'

He unclasped his cloak and sat down beside me, relishing our dumbstruck looks. He stretched out his short, fat legs. His leather riding boots were covered in a fine dust.

'Well,' he announced, 'aren't you pleased to see me?'

Of course we weren't but we didn't say that.

'For heaven's sake!' he shouted good-naturedly. 'Don't I get a cup of wine?'

I hastened to obey whilst Benjamin, regaining his wits, leaned over and clasped the doctor's hand.

'Why are you here?' Benjamin asked.

‘I was sent by the cardinal.' Agrippa took the brimming cup and smiled his acceptance. 'So, what progress has been made?'

'None.'

'Do you know who Raphael is?' 'No.'

'And the murderer of Falconer and others?' Benjamin smiled wearily. 'Yes and no.' 'Which means?'

'The good news is that we are sure the murderer is Raphael.'

'And the bad news.' Agrippa finished, the smile fading from his face, 'is that you do not know who Raphael is.' He sipped from the wine goblet. "And the ring?'

'I am afraid not.'

'And the king's book? His gift to the Abbe Gerard?* 'No,' Benjamin lied, with a warning glance at me. Agrippa stirred restlessly; his eyes changed to the colour of small, black pebbles and his fragrant perfume of musk and ambergris was masked by that hot. molten smell you sometimes catch in a kitchen when an empty pan is left over the flames too long. The good doctor's body tensed with fury.

'This is not pleasing,' he grated. 'His Eminence the Cardinal is most perturbed, and someone,' he glanced sideways at me, 'will feel the royal wrath.' He smiled as if trying to shake off his irritation. 'The cardinal is most anxious,' he continued wearily. 'The king cannot fart without the French knowing about it. God knows what might happen!'

'Such as?' Benjamin asked.

Agrippa shrugged. 'Let us speak candidly. We all know our royal master. He will not be brooked in any matter. If he thinks the spy is here he will send troops from Calais. Everyone will be arrested, accused of treason, and face summary execution.'

"But we could all be innocent!' I yelled.

'King Henry will leave that to God to decide.'

I stared through the sunlit window and shivered. Agrippa was right. Henry had the malice to do that. (I always remember his instructions to old Thomas Cromwell about the abbot of a large monastery who resisted royal oppression. 'Give him a fair trial!' Henry had snapped. Then hang him high over his own main gate!')

'Does that include you, good doctor?' Benjamin asked.

Agrippa grinned. 'Let me put it this way, Master Daunbey. I am certainly not going to go home to report such failure. If the worst comes to the worst, I'll saddle my horse, slip out of some postern gate and go.' He raised his head and screwed up his eyes. 'Yes, I could follow the sun south to Italy and take ship to Byzantium.'

'Byzantium's gone.' I remarked. 'The Turks took it seventy years ago.'

Agrippa stared at me. his eyes now liquid clear. 'I know," he replied. 'I was there.' I gazed back in disbelief.

'I was there,' he said, 'when the Turks found a gate open and stormed into the city. I stood beside Michael Palaeologus, the last Roman Emperor. He died drenched in his own blood and that of his attackers.'

(By the way, I half-believed Agrippa. Only two years ago when I was in London I saw him waving at me from an upstairs window; he hadn't aged a day but, when I looked again, he had gone.)

'Lackaday!' Agrippa murmured. 'We have little time left. The king has sent letters under secret seal to his captain at Calais. We have a month to clear this business up.'

'But Dacourt and Clinton are his friends,' Benjamin stammered. 'Surely the king wouldn't hurt them? Dacourt fought with him at the battle of Spurs, and Clinton and his first wife were often Henry's hosts at their manor in Hampstead.'

'King Henry VIII has only one friend,' Agrippa answered, 'and his name is Henry VIII. Never forget that. Master Daunbey.' He rose. 'If you do, like others you will pay for it with your life. I leave you to your plotting, gentlemen. If there is anything I can do to help?' He let his words hang in the air, gathered his cloak and slipped out of the room.

'Is Clinton one of the king's friends?' I asked.

'Of course. My uncle told you that.'

'And his first wife?'

'Sir Robert loved her to distraction. She died of a tumour, a malignant abscess, some years ago. Our problem,' Benjamin continued evenly, 'is what do we do next?'

'We could challenge Millet?'

'And prove nothing.' Benjamin licked his lips. 'There is one loose strand,' he said. ‘Which is?'

'The Lady Francesca. When we visited the convent on our way to Paris we noticed how the sisters there adored Sir Robert and were very fond of their former pupil.'

'What's suspicious about that?'

'Nothing, except they gave her a gift just before we left. I have talked to the messengers. They not only take presents from Lady Francesca to the nuns, but carry their gifts to her.'

'You think there's something wrong in that?'

Benjamin shuffled his feet. 'I don't know. I would like to know more about her.'

(My heart sank to my boots. I had a suspicion what would come next.)

'Would you go, Roger?'

'Go where?'

'To the Lady Francesca's home town, St Germain-en-Laye. It's only a few miles south of Paris.' 'And do what?'

'Ask a few questions about her.' Benjamin shrugged. 'Who knows? Perhaps the woman we know is not the same Lady Francesca who lived there.'

'That's impossible,' I snapped.

'Stranger things have happened.' Benjamin leaned forward. 'You must go. At the moment it's all we have, that and the book.'

'And what about the bloody ring?' I asked.

Benjamin just gazed blankly back and my despair deepened.

After an uneventful journey I arrived in St Germain late in the afternoon of the following day. The village was a rambling, sprawling place, a high-steepled church at the centre with cottages and the houses of the more prosperous peasants around it. Each stood in its own plot of ground guarded by rickety fences. The streets were dusty, full of screaming children, some of them almost naked, and the women dressed so alike in their grey gowns that they looked like members of some religious order. Most of the men were working in the fields but the auberge, or tavern, a two-storeyed building with a bush pushed under in its straw eaves, was doing a brisk trade.