Susanna GREGORY - A Poisonous Plot

Edith considered the question carefully. ‘It is possible. She was an awful shrew, always whining about her poor health and demanding to be waited on. Both of them grew to resent her.’

‘I do not suppose you know anything about Frenge’s relationship with Shirwynk and Peyn, do you?’ asked Michael, rather desperately. ‘Did you ever hear them fighting, for example?’

Edith was thoughtful. ‘No, but I was always under the impression that Frenge was wary of them. Perhaps that is why he liked to go out with the cart – to avoid their company. I never saw any violence between them, though.’

‘Nor did I, but that does not mean it did not happen,’ put in Yolande. ‘Shirwynk is a brute, and Peyn is no better. Perhaps they murdered Frenge, to stop King’s Hall from suing him.’

‘Then their ploy misfired,’ said Edith. ‘King’s Hall just shifted their suit to the brewery.’

At that moment, the door opened and Anne de Rumburgh minced in. She was wearing another low-cut bodice, and when she bent to retrieve a woad ball from the floor, Bartholomew was certain she was going to fall out. She was with her husband, older than her by two decades.

‘Matt is here to berate us for spilling waste in the river,’ said Edith, shooting her brother a cool glance. ‘While Michael wants our opinion of the brewers next door.’

‘I like the brewers,’ said Anne with a sultry smile. ‘They are all very fine specimens. Their wares are delicious, too.’

‘Then you are very easily pleased,’ said Rumburgh with a grimace that revealed his painfully inflamed gums. ‘Their apple wine is too sweet, while their ale is only palatable with a cake to take away the bitter taste. I am almost glad Frenge is dead, because now we shall not have to accept all those free samples he would insist on bringing.’

‘He gave you ale and wine for nothing?’ asked Edith, startled. ‘Why would he do that?’

‘I really cannot imagine,’ said Anne with a sly smile.

‘So Anne bestowed her favours on Frenge,’ mused Michael, as he and Bartholomew left the dyeworks – by the back door, so as to avoid the protesters at the front – and began to walk towards Hakeney’s home. ‘Do you think Rumburgh poisoned him, and he is only pretending not to realise that the free gifts were just Frenge’s excuse to visit?’

‘It is possible. Poor Rumburgh is impotent, and his wife is a … restless woman.’

‘More harlot than most Frail Sisters,’ agreed Michael. ‘She could not take her eyes off me. Did you notice?’

‘Not really.’ Bartholomew thought she had spent more time looking at him .

‘Then watch her more closely next time. She ogled me shamelessly, and it was clear that she was desperate to get her hands on my person.’

It was not far to Hakeney’s home, which stood on Water Lane, sandwiched between Zachary’s elegant grandeur and an inn. It was by far the shabbiest building on the street: weeds sprouted from its thatch, and the paint on its window shutters was old and peeling.

‘He used to be a respected vintner,’ said Michael, while they waited for their knock to be answered. ‘But now all he does is haunt taverns. He hates the University, because our physicians were unable to save his wife and children from the plague. You might want to stand behind me when we go in.’

The door was opened eventually by a small man with the bloodshot eyes and the broken-veined cheeks of the habitual drinker. Hakeney was unhealthily thin, and his clothes were dirty.

‘If your sister sent you here in the hope of currying favour among townsfolk, then she is going to be disappointed,’ he snarled when he saw Bartholomew. ‘You are not coming anywhere near me. It is her fault I am ill anyway – her filthy dyeworks.’

‘You are sick?’ asked Bartholomew politely.

‘My innards have been blocked these last ten days. It is breathing all the fumes that did it.’

‘I can prescribe something to ease that,’ offered Bartholomew, aiming to inveigle an examination to see if Hakeney was right. If so, Edith would have to move the dyeworks to a place where they could do no harm.

The vintner immediately began to bray about why he would never permit a scholar, especially a physician, inside his home, but his constipation was painful and Bartholomew represented possible relief. The tirade petered out, and the Michaelhouse men were invited to enter on condition that they did not touch anything.

‘That will not be a problem, I assure you,’ said Michael, looking around with a fastidious shudder. ‘My hands will remain firmly tucked inside my sleeves.’

While Bartholomew palpated the vintner’s abdomen and asked the questions that might help him determine the cause of Hakeney’s discomfort, Michael made a nuisance of himself by interrupting with queries about Frenge.

‘Poor Frenge,’ the vintner said sadly. ‘He lost his wife to a physician’s incompetence during the Great Pestilence, too, which is what drew us together as friends. He liked to drown his sorrows in ale, after which he often became boisterous.’

‘So he was drunk the night he invaded King’s Hall?’ probed Michael.

Hakeney shot him a sour look. ‘He would hardly have done such a thing if he had been sober. He was not a complete fool, and breaking in there was dangerous.’

‘So why did he do it?’

‘Because false friends put the idea into his head, knowing he was too tipsy to see that it was a stupid thing to do. He told me afterwards that he wished he had not listened to them.’

‘Then why did he refuse to apologise to King’s Hall? A little contrition would have gone a long way to soothing troubled waters.’

‘Because Wayt annoyed him by blowing the matter out of all proportion. And besides, the town thought him a hero, and would have reviled him if he had recanted.’

‘He frightened Cew badly,’ said Bartholomew, looking up from his examination. ‘That is hardly the act of a hero. Neither is terrorising pigs and geese.’

Hakeney shrugged. ‘Well, it is done now, and King’s Hall has made him pay dearly for it.’

‘There is no evidence that they are responsible for his death,’ cautioned Michael.

‘Then perhaps you should look at the matter a bit harder,’ Hakeney flashed back.

‘Do you know anything about the ale that Frenge was going to take there yesterday?’ asked Michael, manfully keeping his temper. ‘Peyn told us that he went to deliver a barrel.’

‘If he had, it would have resulted in a sore stomach or two,’ smirked Hakeney. ‘However, he would not have wasted his time: he knew they would have tipped it straight down the drain.’

‘Is there anyone else who might have meant him harm? Shirwynk, perhaps? Or Peyn?’

‘Of course not. They were not friends, but they had worked well together for a decade.’

‘Did Frenge own a boat?’ asked Bartholomew, writing instructions to the apothecary for a syrup that should ease Hakeney’s problem. Unfortunately, he was not sure what had caused the attack – it might have been the dyeworks, but it might equally well have been too much wine, a poor diet, a lazy lifestyle or a host of other factors.

Hakeney blinked his surprise at the question. ‘No, why?’

‘How well did he know the Austins?’ Michael turned to another subject without giving Bartholomew the chance to explain.

‘He did not know them at all – at least, not the ones in the convent. He was good friends with your colleague Wauter, though – Wauter’s old hostel is not far from the brewery, you see.’

‘You say he was drunk when he launched his foolish assault on King’s Hall,’ said Michael. ‘But what about when he went to the Austin Priory?’

Hakeney raised his hands in a shrug. ‘There was a lot of ale on his cart, and he was a scrupulous man – he would not have wanted to sell his customers sour wares, so of course he would have sampled them first.’