The Medieval Murderers - The Deadliest Sin

‘I cannot – not now the King has issued that writ. I am afraid it will have to become a cell of Hempsted. But it should fare well enough if you keep Gilbert away from it.’

‘Why did you summon me?’ asked Cole. ‘What crimes do you want to confess?’

Walter eyed him coolly. ‘I may not have lived a blameless life, but I have done nothing to interest a constable. The reason I called you here is to witness a few deeds for me, ones I do not want the other canons to know about. They are private, you see.’

Cole gaped at him. ‘You dragged us here to help with your personal affairs? I thought you were going to tell us who killed Martin, Roger and Asser!’

Walter grimaced irritably. ‘I will – after you have helped me with these deeds.’

Cole turned sharply on his heel. ‘Good day, Prior Walter. You are-’

‘Wait!’ Walter sighed gustily. ‘Very well. We shall discuss murder first, if we must. I am not the culprit – I am dying, and I am not so foolish as to stain my soul now. And despite what I might have said before, Cadifor is innocent, too. I ordered him watched, as I considered him a danger to my plans. He did not poison the marchpanes.’

‘So we have eliminated Londres, Belat, Henry, Walter, Cadifor, Stacpol and the bishop,’ said Cole, oblivious to Geoffrey’s surprise that he should have been on such a list. ‘There is only one suspect left: Gilbert. No wonder you do not want him to succeed you!’

‘That is not the reason,’ said Walter. ‘It is because I just caught him tampering with my medicine. I have been ailing for years, and he is the reason why. He confessed it all just now – he has been poisoning me, because he likes being my right-hand man. He thinks I would not need him if I was hale and hearty.’

‘So Oswin was wrong,’ mused Gwenllian. ‘He thought you, Gilbert and the clerks were plotting murder when you huddled together. Instead, you were merely planning your assault on Carmarthen.’

‘Oswin?’ asked Walter. ‘Who is he?’

Gwenllian supposed she should be glad that Gilbert was under lock and key, but the whole affair had been distasteful, and she was in a sombre mood as she sat in the solar that night. Gilbert had screeched, fought and spat when he was arrested, and everyone had been relieved when the cell door had been closed on his curses. Walter had been equally abusive when he had learned he was not dying after all, and that he would make a complete recovery once he stopped taking whatever Gilbert had been feeding him – especially now that he no longer needed to bear the strain of running Hempsted.

‘He was livid,’ mused Cole. ‘I thought he was going to explode.’

He spoke absently, because he was watching Geoffrey teach Alys a game that involved a long piece of twine and a knife. Her brothers were in bed, but she had claimed more bad dreams in a brazen attempt to secure extra time with the adults. Her ploy had worked, because first Cole and then Geoffrey had fussed over her.

Gwenllian smiled. ‘It serves him right for including Carmarthen on his list of conquests. All I hope is that the King will accept the bribe of ten marks from Cadifor.’

‘He will,’ predicted Geoffrey wryly. ‘But the money must be presented to him directly. Cadifor will need a lot more if he recruits corrupt clerks to help him – men like Belat and Henry, who will demand a sizeable commission for themselves.’

Alys began to drowse on his knee. The bishop stared at the fire, rubbing the table with the knife, an unconscious gesture akin to the random scribbles Gwenllian made with ink when she was pondering the castle accounts. But Geoffrey’s scraping made a faint pattern in the wax coating, and it was one that Gwenllian had seen before. Her stomach lurched in horror.

‘Oh, no!’ she breathed. ‘The killer made marks like that when the marchpanes were poisoned. We saw them etched on the table in the priory kitchen.’

Geoffrey glanced at the scratches as if seeing them for the first time. ‘What?’

‘It was you,’ said Gwenllian, standing slowly, and acutely aware that the prelate was holding her daughter. Cole was frozen in mute horror. ‘You poisoned the marchpanes. You know all about soporifics, because you are interested in medicine.’

‘I am,’ acknowledged Geoffrey. ‘But I use my knowledge to heal, not to harm. Besides, I did not reach the priory until after Asser was dead. I had no opportunity to tamper with them.’

‘Yes, you did – when Dafydd first gave them to you,’ said Gwenllian. ‘You ate half and poisoned the rest.’

‘But that was before Walter arrived,’ objected Geoffrey. ‘How could I know that he and his entourage would appear the following day?’

‘Because Londres wrote to tell you,’ replied Gwenllian. ‘He admitted it before he left. I should have guessed that there was a reason for your visit: you never usually travel in January, when the roads are poor – you come at Easter. But you made an exception this year, because you wanted to be here when Walter arrived.’

‘But why would I-’

‘You knew no one at the monastery would touch the sweetmeats, as they would not want to incur Dafydd’s wrath. But Roger was a greedy man, and you guessed he would visit the kitchen and take what he fancied. Unfortunately, you reckoned without Asser.’

Cole found his voice at last, but it was unsteady. ‘Asser knew what you had done. With his dying breath, he whispered the words that you had etched on Martin’s coffin, and he told me to look for the “incongruously sharp knife”. Alys, come here.’

‘Everyone has sharp knives,’ said Geoffrey, tightening his grip on the sleeping child. ‘Including you.’

‘Yes, and that was Asser’s point,’ said Cole. ‘He told us to look for the incongruously sharp one – no churchman should need a blade with as keen an edge as the one you are holding now. Please be careful it. My daughter is only-’

‘It is for slicing bandages,’ explained Geoffrey. ‘A blunt one is no good.’

‘It does not matter why you have it,’ said Gwenllian. ‘The point is that you are a monk, and Asser thought it was a peculiar thing for you to have. He must have seen the scratches when he stole the marchpane, and he, unlike us, realised their significance when he fell ill.’

‘If Asser thought I was a killer, why did he not just say so?’ asked Geoffrey with quiet reason. ‘These riddles make no sense.’

Cole’s eyes were fixed on Alys and the knife; Gwenllian had never seen him so white. ‘He knew you were nearby, and that you would deny it,’ Cole said, his voice unsteady. ‘He spoke in code, certain that Gwenllian would work it out. Please release my daughter.’

‘Stay away!’ Geoffrey brought the knife to rest on the pale, soft skin of the girl’s neck. Alys shifted in her sleep but did not wake. Cole retreated until his back was against the wall, holding his hands in front of him in a gesture of surrender.

‘Asser was an accident, but Roger was not,’ said Gwenllian, aiming to distract the bishop for the split second it would take Cole to leap forward. ‘When Roger was dead, you removed the plate from the kitchen, and brushed the crumbs from his habit and the floor. You expected his demise to be deemed natural.’

‘It might have been,’ snapped Geoffrey, breaking at last, ‘if your greedy friend had not eaten the damned things, too.’

His angry voice woke Alys, and confusion filled her face as she tried to sit up and found she could not move. She did not struggle, but only looked at Cole in mute appeal.

‘And I know why you did it,’ said Gwenllian. ‘You killed Martin for losing Hempsted, and you dispatched Roger for failing to ensure that Walter did his duty. They were-’