The Medieval Murderers - The Deadliest Sin

‘None of us has a chance there,’ agreed William Blundus. ‘I have heard that Jordan fitz Hamon has been a frequent visitor to the Giffard household and that the fair Eleanor looks upon him with some favour.’

Humphrey Cockville’s pale eyebrows rose up his podgy face. ‘Your long nose has been more active than usual, Blundus! The fitz Hamon family owns probably a third of the ships that ply their trade from Bristol.’

The three physicians were well aware that Jordan fitz Hamon was the eldest son of Sir Ranulf fitz Hamon, and would undoubtedly be the heir to his business, making him one of the most eligible widowers in the city, as well as one of the richest.

‘And he’s barely forty years of age, not like you two middle-aged paupers!’ continued Blundus waspishly.

‘You are just a younger pauper!’ countered de Cockville. ‘Being of the same age as Ranulf makes you no less unattractive to a woman like Eleanor Giffard!’

‘Stop bickering about fantasies,’ snapped Erasmus Crote. ‘It’s no concern of ours what happens to Giffard’s wife if he dies – we are only concerned with its effect upon our practices.’

This cooled the sniping between the other two physicians and they brought their minds back to the main issue.

‘At least there are no other doctors in Bristol and none nearer than Bath or Taunton,’ said Blundus. ‘So we will have no other competition, unless Eleanor marries some fashionable physician from London.’

‘We are talking as if the man is dead already!’ complained Crote, who, alone amongst the three of them, showed a vestige of decorum. He rose to his feet and placed a few coins on the table to pay for his ale and food. ‘As I said, I’m off to pay a call on the Giffards, both to see how the man is faring and to wish him a return to good health.’ He marched out of the room, pulling the door closed behind him to cut off the snide remarks that he knew would follow him.

Humprhey de Cockville glared at the closed door. ‘Two-faced hypocrite, he’s off to discover how to wean a few more patients away from Giffard, if the man can’t attend to his business.’

William Blundus looked thoughtful. ‘That man Stogursey that Robert Giffard thinks so much of – he’s been holding the practice together these past few weeks, even though he’s nothing but an amateur apothecary.’

De Cockville gave a rare nod of agreement. ‘It’s not right that a mere servant should pass himself off as a doctor. If we only had a proper guild for us physicians, we could put a stop to it. The tanners or the silversmiths wouldn’t tolerate such improper competition for half a day!’

Blundus sighed as he reached for the dregs in the wine jug. ‘Yes, it’s bad enough having the religious fraternity taking trade from us. If the common man can get free treatment from the nearest abbey infirmary, why should he pay a doctor’?

‘Let’s see what Crote discovers over in High Street,’ advised Humphrey. ‘Then maybe we can see how best to turn this to our own advantage.’

Erasmus Crote gained very little from his visit to the Giffard household. After barely five minutes there, he was back on High Street again and began walking aimlessly along the river bank outside the city wall as he considered the situation. He had not seen Robert Giffard, or even his wife, for he was courteously, but firmly barred at the front door by the Stogursey fellow.

‘I fear, sir, that the master has taken a turn for the worse since dinner-time. The mistress had him taken back to bed, after he had a species of fit.’

Erasmus did his best to gain admittance by energetically offering his services as another doctor, eager to provide help and advice, but the servile apothecary’s assistant was adamant.

‘I regret that Mistress Eleanor gave strict instructions that he was not to be disurbed, sir. She is with him now, though he has drifted into sleep.’

Crote’s argument that the sick man needed urgent medical attention fell on deaf ears.

‘I am sure that you are right, sir – and that is why we have sent for an eminent physician, who will visit us in the morning.’

Erasmus noted the ‘we’, which suggested that the servant was now on an equal footing with the lady of the house. He also jumped on the news that another doctor had been called and for a moment wondered if he had missed a summons, which in his absence might now have gone to Humphrey de Cockville or William Blundus. But common sense told him that this was highly unlikely in the mere half-hour since he had left them.

‘And who might that be?’ he demanded of Stogursey.

The servant, obviously eager to shut the door in Crote’s face, informed him that it was Brother Xavier, the new infirmarian at Keynsham Abbey and a man of high repute trained at the University of Bologna.

Before the door was finally closed on him, he managed to order Stogursey to give his felicitations to his mistress, hoping that her husband would rapidly improve and that if there was any possible help that he could give, she was to send a message to him at any time of day or night. The man, with a deadpan expression that conveyed a total lack of interest, said that he would do so, then Erasmus found himself staring at the oaken boards of a firmly closed door.

Now the physician was walking along the waterfront, the many ships that were tied up along the wharfs reminding him of Jordan fitz Hamon, who would probably benefit the most if Robert Giffard died and left his desirable widow available for remarriage.

As he loped along, he contemplated the city where he lived and earned a meagre living. Bristol was now the third largest city in England after London and York, due to the maritime trade that made it the busiest port after London. Erasmus looked ahead of him along the muddy river to where it curved northwards through a steep gorge before meandering down to the sea, some seven miles away. The banks were lined with ships, now tilted against the quays as they lay on the mud at low tide. Twice a day, they were able to descend to the sea at high water, to make money for the city and especially the fitz Hamons.

Once again, Erasmus felt it so unfair that while he worked so hard to scratch a living amongst the poorer folk of Bristol, the rich merchants lived off the fat of the land, sitting on their treasure chests of gold and silver, merely from having accumulated wealth. Such wealth begat even more, with no further effort than employing clerks to administer a fleet of ships, manned by sailors who risked their lives in order to line their masters’ pockets.

Erasmus Crote sighed and began retracing his steps back into the city, his melancholy being increased by the prospect of having to deal with a handful of patients when he got back to his dismal consulting room. No doubt it would be the usual collection of chronic coughs, scabies and suppurating sores that would bring in a few miserable pence. Just half a dozen of Robert Gifford’s rich patients would set him on the road to success.

Robert Giffard was in a bad way by the time that the infirmarian from Keynsham Abbey arrived next day. Late in the morning, a placid palfrey arrived at the physician’s house carrying the monk, a tall cadaverous man, accompanied by a groom on another horse. He was admitted to the house and at once taken by Edward Stogursey to the sickroom, where Eleanor Giffard was sitting alongside the bed.

She rose to greet the figure dressed in the robes of an Augustinian canon, a black cloak over a white habit.

‘My husband is sinking fast, sir,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I fear he will not see out this day.’

Brother Xavier went to the bedside and looked down at the sick doctor, who lay deathly pale as he lay on his pillow. ‘Has he spoken to you today?’ he asked Eleanor. ‘Has he shown any signs of consciousness?’