The Medieval Murderers - The Deadliest Sin

‘No one was there?’ she asked.

‘Someone was,’ he replied. ‘I just could not catch him.’

That night, Gwenllian’s mind raced with questions, and she lay staring at the ceiling until the small hours of the morning, when exhaustion finally claimed her. She started awake not long after, when little Alys came to complain about bad dreams. It was a ploy to gain attention, but Cole doted on his only daughter, and obediently went to calm her.

‘Eight years old and already your master,’ remarked Gwenllian when he returned. ‘What will she be like at eighteen?’

‘Beautiful,’ he murmured drowsily, closing his eyes. ‘Just like her mother.’

‘I cannot stop thinking about the murders,’ said Gwenllian, resenting his intention to go back to sleep while she only tossed and turned. ‘I find myself hoping that Londres is responsible, simply because exposing him would see him gone from our town.’

‘I suppose it would,’ he mumbled. ‘But you will solve the case, Gwen. You always do.’

His faith was simultaneously touching and annoying. She liked the fact that he appreciated her intelligence, but there was something lazy about his willingness to abrogate the responsibility to her. He was constable of Carmarthen, and it should be him fretting for solutions, not her. She prodded him awake. Perhaps discussing it would help her see sense in the muddle of facts they had accumulated.

‘The poison killed the mouse after a few nibbles,’ she began. ‘Asser also succumbed quickly, and so probably did Roger. That means the toxin was very strong. How could the killer have laid hold of such a deadly substance?’

‘Not from an apothecary.’ Cole sat up to prevent himself from nodding off. ‘They know better than to sell that sort of thing. However, I can tell you that it was a soporific, because both closed their eyes and drifted gently into death. In the Holy Land, surgeons dispensed soporifics to dying crusaders.’

She blinked. ‘What are you saying? That a medicus poisoned the marchpanes?’

‘Or someone with access to or knowledge of such potions.’

‘Who?’ She peered at him in the gloom. ‘Not Bishop Geoffrey! I know he said he would have been a physician if he had not entered the Church, but he is more interested in healing than killing. He is no murderer.’

‘Then perhaps someone raided his supplies. If he was the intended victim, using his own medicines to dispatch him would have a certain ironic appeal to the culprit.’

‘Yes, but he does not have any with him, which is why he was unable to furnish Walter with a remedy for his bad stomach.’

‘No, he did not have any at the priory,’ Cole corrected, ‘because he had left his bag in the castle. So someone could have stolen it from here, although it would have been a daring move.’

She nodded agreement, then began to list her suspects, although she received short shrift when she reached Stacpol. She did not press her case, knowing they would quarrel if she did.

‘So of your original eight we can eliminate Stacpol, the bishop, Cadifor, Walter and Gilbert,’ he said when she had finished. ‘Stacpol is no poisoner, while the others are monks, and would be too concerned for their immortal souls to kill.’

She gaped at him. ‘We have encountered plenty of murderous clerics in the past! Besides, Walter and Gilbert are not very devout men.’

‘No, but Walter is clearly unwell, and I doubt he would commit a mortal sin so close to death, while Gilbert will do nothing on his own initiative. We have already discounted Geoffrey, and I like Cadifor. So your list now comprises three: Belat, Henry and Londres.’

She wished it were that simple. ‘It is not-’

But her words were lost as he bounded off the bed, suddenly full of energy. ‘That was time well spent, Gwen. The murders will be easy to solve now.’

It was another pretty winter day, with a pale sun shining in a light blue sky, and hoarfrost sparkling on the rooftops. Gwenllian spent an hour with the children while Cole dealt with urgent castle business, after which they spoke to the scribe who had taken notes at the hearing. The man began to cry the moment he was summoned, and quickly confessed that Londres had paid him to write an account that would favour Hempsted.

His confession allowed Gwenllian to summon Londres for questioning – it would have been awkward to use the discussion she had overheard between Belat and Henry. The bailiff refused to come, but Iefan was more than happy to use force. The delighted grins of the townsfolk who witnessed him frogmarched to the castle did nothing to soothe his furious indignation, and he was seething by the time he was shoved into Cole’s office.

‘You have no right,’ Londres snarled. ‘I am a royally appointed official, and I answer to no one but the King.’

‘Symon is also a royally appointed official,’ Gwenllian reminded him. ‘One with the power to arrest and execute those he considers dangerous to Carmarthen’s security.’

Cole chose that moment to draw his sword and inspect the blade. Gwenllian knew there was no deliberate intention to intimidate – he was just tired of being indoors, and itched to be about more manly pursuits – but she said nothing as Londres eyed him uneasily. The bailiff grew more nervous still when Cole took a whetstone and began to hone the edge.

‘You cannot execute me,’ he declared in an unsteady voice. ‘The King will-’

‘The King will hear that you conspired to do Carmarthen harm,’ snapped Gwenllian. ‘And he will be grateful to us for ridding him of a traitor.’

‘I am not a traitor!’ cried Londres. His face grew hard with spite. ‘That honour belongs to Cole, who will either ignore a royal writ or let hostile troops invade his domain. He is the one who will have to answer for his decisions, not me.’

Gwenllian smiled coldly. ‘The scribe you corrupted has made a full confession, so do not lie.’ She treated him to a dose of his own medicine by adding an untruth of her own. ‘He also said that Belat and Henry plan to renege on the sly agreement you made – they will keep what you paid them, but will fail to do what they promised. You are in very deep trouble, Londres.’

The bailiff’s defiant resolve began to crumble. ‘Everything I did was for the King.’ He gulped. ‘No one can condemn me for that. If you execute me, you will have to explain yourself to an angry monarch.’

‘Perhaps, but it will not matter to you, because you will be dead,’ Gwenllian pointed out. ‘It is a crime to falsify official documents, and you have been caught red-handed.’

Cole began swishing the sword through the air, to test its balance. Again, it was innocent, but she did not blame the bailiff for thinking that Symon was preparing to hack off his head then and there.

‘No,’ gulped Londres. ‘You cannot-’

‘You have chosen the wrong confederates,’ she continued relentlessly. ‘Belat and Henry will deny all knowledge of this deception, and you will bear the blame alone. You could have carved a nice niche for yourself here, but instead you plotted, connived and bled our people dry with illegal fines.’

‘What choice did I have?’ bleated Londres. ‘The King stopped paying me after a few weeks, so how else was I to live? And as for the Hempsted business – I had to do something to regain John’s affection, or he would have left me here for the rest of my life.’

‘So you hatched a plot to see Symon discredited, using Walter’s greed to facilitate it. You do not care that the priory will suffer as a result.’

‘I hate Cadifor,’ said Londres sullenly. ‘It would not surprise me to learn that he killed Roger. After all, Cadifor left Llanthony in protest when Roger became prior. He probably murdered Martin, too, then left that message about sloth. It is a vice he deplores.’