Paul Doherty: The poisoned chalice

Clinton suddenly put his face in his hands. When he took them away, I felt a twinge of pity at the dreadful look in his eyes. There was no hatred, nothing except a silent, eerie deadness as if his very soul had shrivelled up inside him.

'This diplomat,' Benjamin continued, 'plotted a terrible revenge. He removed his wife to their family home, treated her most solicitously, yet all the time he was secretly poisoning her, so that she died a painful, lingering death, not from some abscess or tumour but due to the grains of poison he sprinkled in this dish or that cup. Once she was dead, or perhaps just before she died, this diplomat went to the French enemies of his king and offered to betray every secret he could. He would call himself Raphael, a mocking use of his wife's maiden name as well as the term he had once used about her, for Raphael is an angel of great beauty.' Benjamin looked down the hall, following Sir Robert's gaze, as if the murderer could see the ghosts of his victims moving through the shadowy darkness towards him.

'Now, Sir Robert, most men would have felt their revenge complete but this diplomat was a scholar with some knowledge of medicine and the ravages of disease. Whilst in the service of his French masters, this man met a young noblewoman at a convent. Ostensibly, she had been put there to complete her education but she, too, harboured a dreadful secret. The only daughter of aged parents, she had the misfortune to fall in love with a young French nobleman who fought in Italy. Like others he came back not knowing he carried the traces of a ravaging venereal disease, syphilis. So virulent an infection that hundreds died of it on their return, but not before they had transmitted it to their wives and loved ones. The young French nobleman died a lingering death and his betrothed too showed traces of this disease, so she was sent to the nunnery, not only for education but for the nuns' tender care and expertise with the sick.' Benjamin paused. 'Sir Robert?'

Clinton turned and stared like the man marked for death he was.

'Sir Robert, you are that diplomat, Henry of England is the king, and the Lady Francesca the young girl from the convent.'

'It's true!' she burst out. 'It's true! My betrothed returned from Italy ardent for me.' She looked up, tears brimming in her eyes though her lips curled in anger. 'He died but I'd already caught the disease. Sir Robert was kind. He chose to ignore it, married me, but said we would not live like man and wife.' She crumpled the dark fabric of her dress between her fingers. 'At first, my marriage to Sir Robert soothed my anger at the injustice of it all, but only for a while.' She wiped her eyes. 'You are quite right, Master Daunbey, about Sir Robert's final revenge. He took me to court and introduced me to the king who dallied with me. I was flattered.' She drew back her lips. 'We made love,' she snarled. 'And why not?

Gaston would not have died if it hadn't been for the ambition and greed of kings.' She caught her breath. 'I suspected Sir Robert was not what he claimed to be for he connived at his royal master's dalliance with me.' She fell back in her chair, laughing hysterically. 'Now Henry of England has what I have. May it rot his corpulent carcase!'

I stared in utter disbelief at the change in this beautiful young woman, her face white and haggard, her eyes filled with hatred and anger. I also realised what dreadful things we do to each other. I am a rogue, a villain born and bred, but I think Satan himself must weep at the cruelties we inflict on each other. Of course, it was Lady Francesca whom I had seen Henry cavorting with on the bed at Hampton Court. The woman's legs had appeared white whereas the Lady Francesca was golden-skinned. I smiled at my own innocence. She had been wearing her flesh-coloured stockings and our royal killer was no gentleman. (Anne Boleyn once told me he scarcely gave her time to undress!)

'How did you know?' Lady Francesca asked. She gestured maliciously at her husband. 'Did he tell you?'

Sir Robert just ignored her, lost in his own thoughts, his lips moving wordlessly.

'No,' Benjamin replied, turning to glance at Agrippa who had suddenly brought a roll of parchment from beneath the table. 'No, we gleaned it from scraps of information, little pieces of a puzzle which eventually fitted into place. First, the good nuns at the convent were so solicitous of your health and so appreciative of Sir Robert. Secondly, the attitude of King Francis. I thought he just disliked you but he knows of your disease. In his eyes, you simply don't exist. Thirdly, Shallot here saw you carrying a bottle marked with the letters sul. This contained sulphur which, used with mercury, is one of the ways of halting that disease. I am sure this is what Throgmorton saw when he was snooping in your chamber. He baited you with it just as we left Fontainebleau. You told your husband and Throgmorton had to die.'

Lady Francesca glared at me and I shuddered at the darkness in her eyes.

'Dear Roger,' she murmured. 'I did consider seducing you, but you are too sharp. You even escaped the Luciferi plot to kill you in the boar-pit at Fontainebleau. One day, Master Shallot, you'll cut yourself.' She glanced back at Benjamin. 'I liked you, Master Daunbey. You are kind and sensitive. I told Sir Robert that you suspected I was ill.'

Benjamin looked away, embarrassed.

'I went back to your village,' I spoke up. 'They gave me further information about your betrothal to Gaston, and your sudden departure to the convent. My master became intrigued by the way messengers to the English envoys here in Paris always regularly stopped at the convent. Now, we knew you sent them gifts and wondered if Raphael could have used these gifts to send messages. Of course, we were wrong. It wasn't what the messengers took to the convent but what they brought back from it. Medicines for you.'

'That's why those two other messengers were killed,' Benjamin interrupted. 'I don't know how or why, Lady Francesca, but I suspect they stumbled upon your secret. I am sure the good nuns always kept the medicines well hidden in whatever gifts they sent. Those messengers, however, pried too much, questions may have been asked before they left the convent. The nuns, under strict orders from Monsieur Vauban, passed this information on and the messengers had to die.' Benjamin gripped the table top with his hand. 'To test my hypothesis, I sent two messengers to the convent, pretending they took a gift from you. I instructed one of them to be talkative and say that you were not feeling well. The good nuns fell into a trap. They sent a present back: a quilted cushion. When I cut it open, I found a phial containing a mixture of mercury and sulphur.'

Doctor Agrippa leaned forward out of the shadows. 'Sir Robert, do you deny these charges?'

Clinton just sat stock-still, staring down the hall.

'Sir Robert,' Benjamin repeated, 'you are Raphael, you are the master murderer. You were trading the king's secrets to the French. You did not interfere with the despatches or the letters. You just passed the information on to Vauban's agents in London with strict instructions that the French were only to act on this information once the letters had arrived at the English embassy in Paris. That's why the saddle-bags and the despatches of the dead messengers were so readily handed over. You and Vauban wished to sustain the pretence that only after secret documents reached Dacourt were they leaked to the Luciferi.'

Clinton suddenly stirred, shaking himself. 'Yes, you are right,' he murmured. He glanced at Benjamin. 'Master Daunbey, you are brilliant. Vauban said that. He wanted you and your minion – ' Clinton stared at me – 'he wanted you killed immediately.' He patted his wife gently on the hand but this time she flinched as though in pain. 'She's innocent, twisted but innocent. I used her. I loved Clare but the king abused me and now he will exist in the living hell I have created!'