The Medieval Murderers - The Deadliest Sin

‘Back again, sir? I told you all I knew last time,’ he lisped, having some slight impediment in his speech.

‘This is different, I want to learn more about who might have wished your master sufficient ill will to want to deprive him of life.’

Black’s pale blue eyes widened in surprise. ‘How would I know anything about that, sir? I’m only the cook in this place.’

William slid his backside on to the corner of the table. ‘But you seem to know a lot about what goes on in this household. What about visitors? Who comes and goes?’

‘This is a physician’s house, Serjeant. People are in and out every day.’

William became irritated by the man’s evasions. ‘You know damned well that I don’t mean patients! Anyone of note, friends of the late doctor and his wife? There seems to be one such person here at this moment – don’t tell me that servants’ gossip hasn’t reported it to you?’

Cowed by the change in Hangfield’s tone, the cook nodded. ‘You mean the prince of shipmasters? He’s a new one. I’ve never seen him visit before. No doubt bringing his commiserations to the mistress at her grievous loss.’

‘But no doubt you’ve seen his son here?’ snapped William.

John Black smiled, exposing his horrible teeth. ‘Oh, certainly. He came often to visit the master and his good wife.’

‘But sometimes just his good wife, eh?’ demanded the coroner’s man.

This time, the cook leered, rather than smiled. ‘Well, quite often, the master happened to be away from home, visiting sick patients, if you get my meaning.’

William frowned; he did not trust this man to tell the truth.

‘I have to ask you this, did you ever hear of any impropriety between them.’ John Black looked over his shoulder and yelled at the kitchen skivvy to leave the onions and go outside to fetch carrots from the garden. As soon as she had scurried away, he looked back at Hangfield.

‘Too many ears flapping and tongues wagging in this house, sir. As to your question, it is not my place to tell tales on my employers, but I would guess that the man in question would dearly like to have taken Robert Giffard’s place in my mistress’s bed.’

‘What evidence do you have for that bold statement?’ demanded William.

‘Oh, none at all other than idle gossip, sir,’ said Black hastily. ‘But perhaps Evelyn, my lady’s maid, might know more – though as she is so devoted to her mistress, I doubt she would tell you, other than under torture.’

Privately, William tended to agree with him, and saw no advantage in pursuing the matter at the moment, as it did not help in determining how and by whom the death of Giffard had been accomplished. Let someone else grasp that particular nettle if it came to making accusations against anyone in the fitz Hamon dynasty.

After John Black had stone-walled a number of other questions with his repeated claims that as a lowly servant he knew nothing of the goings-on in the upper reaches of the Giffard household, William sought out the remaining servants to question and got precisely nothing useful from them. As expected, the lady’s maid, now released from her chaperone duties as Ranulf fitz Hamon and his horse had left, maintained total ignorance of any improper liaison between Jordan fitz Hamon and Eleanor Giffard.

‘That one occasion when I was sent out of the room was because of her state of desolation because of the death of her husband that day,’ she claimed indignantly. William left it at that, knowing that he was wasting his time. Similarly, the stableboy, the groom and the housekeeper had nothing useful to offer – and as for Betsy the kitchen skivvy, she was too frightened of him to answer even a single question, put however gently.

By this time, Matthew Herbert had arrived, and the coroner’s officer took him directly to the chamber where Edward Stogursey was still making his preparations. The steward left immediately, not saying a word to the apothecary, his scowl speaking volumes about the professional man’s intrusion into what he considered his private domain.

‘I assume that this room and the one next door used by the physician would be where all the medicaments were stored,’ said William, waving a hand at the rows of shelves and drawers around them.

Matthew nodded. ‘I can soon check the names on each jar and drawer, though of course whether that is actually in them may be another matter. I’ll do that within the hour and let you know if anything unusual is kept here, though I doubt it will help, as many substances, innocuous in medicinal doses, can be harmful or even fatal in excessive amounts.’

As this was exactly what Stogursey had told him, William had little expectation of anything useful coming from the exercise, but if the coroner wanted it done, so be it. He left Matthew to his task and made his way back to the castle, to get the old clerk to write a short account of his activities to present to Ralph fitz Urse, when he arrived back from the Great Hall where he had gone for his midday dinner.

Then, thankfully, William made his own way back to his house in Vine Street, where he could enjoy an hour’s rest and a good meal prepared by his wife Marion. Then, with a mug of ale in one hand, he sat his small son on a stool in front of him and told him of what he had been doing that day.

The funeral of Robert Giffard took place two days later, after the coroner had held a brief inquest over it in a side room of the castle chapel. This merely identified the body and allowed the dozen jurors, dragooned from the Giffard servants and castle retainers, to parade solemnly past the corpse and note that there were no visible injuries. Ralph fitz Urse called a few witnesses, including the widow, Edward Stogursey, the cook, the bottler and, rather surprisingly, Humphrey de Cockville. The latter, having pushed himself forward as the spokesman of the three doctors, merely concurred that the symptoms of the final illness were consistent with poisoning, but that the nature of it could not be determined. After the inevitable verdict of murder by persons unknown, the coroner announced that the record of the inquest would be presented to the King’s judges at the next Eyre of Assize and that any further information would be considered if and when it arose.

The funeral cortège set off towards St Augustine’s Abbey, across the River Frome, and a considerable number of the city’s great and good walked behind the cart pulled by a plumed black horse. The widow, supported by her maid and flanked by several of her female friends, walked immediately behind, with a score of well-dressed citizens following. Chief amongst them were her parents, the Earl of Berkeley and his lady, then the sheriff and the mayor, then Ranulf and Jordan fitz Hamon, with a number of prominent churchmen and a gaggle of the more important ship-owners plodding behind.

Quite a number of Giffard’s patients made up the tail of the procession and the three other physicians were spread amongst them, not being averse to canvassing for business as they walked, as there was yet no sign of the new doctor allegedly coming from London.

Once Robert Giffard had been reverently put to rest in the graveyard of the abbey, the investigation seemed to come to an end. There was no new information in the following two weeks and though there were rumbles of discontent from Berkeley Castle and to a lesser extent from the fitz Hamon household, there seemed nothing that the coroner or sheriff could do to move things forward.

Gradually, the public interest in the death waned and was replaced by news of King Edward’s increasing problems. The new doctor arrived from St Bartholomew’s Hospital and virtually all of Giffard’s patients resumed their attedance at his consulting room. Even the few who had drifted to the three lower-level doctors returned to the High Street practice as soon as good reports came of the younger and more energetic physician now installed there.