Paul Doherty - The Book of Fires

‘Why?’

‘Lady Isolda had been married for five years. Sir Walter had fallen ill. According to Buckholt, she and Vanner were playing the two-backed beast, enjoying a deeply adulterous relationship. Buckholt believed, and still does, that Lady Isolda was a demon incarnate, a succubus who fastened on any man she wished to use.’

‘And the posset?’

‘Well, Buckholt went downstairs with Vanner but found that the issue about certain indentures waiting to be sealed and signed by Sir Walter could have easily waited for the following day. Alarmed, Buckholt hurried back up to his master’s chamber, where he found Lady Isolda feeding her husband the posset from the goblet but also taking sips herself. Buckholt did not like the way she was looking at him. Embarrassed and confused by his own suspicions, Buckholt waited until his master was asleep. He then insisted on taking the goblet back to the buttery.’

‘Where he also sipped what remained of the spiced wine?’

‘Yes, Brother, and suffered no ill effect. He drained the goblet completely and examined the goblet but could find nothing untoward.’ Cranston paused to glare across at the noisy corpse-bearers. Matters took a different turn when Mine Hostess swept in from the kitchen yard, screaming at them. Apparently they had not finished their task but had left the cadaver destined for St Michael and All Angels in an outhouse in the tavern. The mort cloth had slipped from the cadaver’s face and terrified the wits out of one of the maids. Cranston chuckled as the corpse-bearers hastily drained their tankards, grabbed their possessions and fled the taproom.

‘The next morning,’ Cranston continued, ‘Sir Walter was found dead in his bed. A local physician, Milemete, was summoned. He concluded that Sir Walter’s weak heart had given out. He could not say whether Sir Walter’s death was malignant. Buckholt was not convinced and neither was Sir Henry. They sent to St Bartholomew’s for the family physician, Brother Philippe. He also examined the corpse. He could detect possible malignancy though he could not determine what noxious herbs might have been in the posset. He certainly alerted suspicion that death was sudden, swift and unexpected. Naturally the finger of suspicion pointed at Lady Isolda, who had fed Sir Walter his last drink. She, of course, angrily denied it. She might have won the day. However,’ Cranston sipped from his tankard, ‘the finger of God intervened. The buttery clerk maintains the goblet Buckholt brought down from Sir Walter’s chamber – he was going to wash it and store it away with the rest-’

‘Was not the same cup?’

‘Yes. The buttery clerk had both prepared the posset, a veritable rich mixture, and poured it into a goblet. He then placed it on a silver tray with a napkin when he noticed a chip on the goblet stand. He decided not to change the cups but to deal with that later. However, the goblet Buckholt brought down did not have that mark.’

‘In other words, Lady Isolda changed cups?’

‘Yes. The buttery clerk informed Buckholt, who scoured his master’s chamber, indeed the entire house, especially the bushes and plants below the window of his master’s chamber.’

‘Nothing was found?’

‘Nothing. But Buckholt was persistent. He petitioned the Regent, John of Gaunt.’

‘Who was a close friend of Sir Walter’s?’

‘If Gaunt could be close to anyone, it was Sir Walter, a bosom friend of the House of Lancaster.’

‘And the supplier of powerful culverins and cannon to it?’

‘Of course, my dear friar.’ Cranston sniffed. ‘Gaunt would have turned to thee and me but we had just finished the business at the Candle-Flame and I was out of the city. So Gaunt summoned a Crown prosecutor, Richard Sutler, serjeant-at-law, a graduate, a very brilliant one from the Inns of Court, a most wily and seasoned prosecutor. Sutler swept into Firecrest Manor and began his investigation. He examined the pewter goblets, a set of twelve with a matching jug. Sutler took them out into the sunlight. He scrupulously studied each one. Firstly, he could not discover any splinter, crack or mark on any of the twelve goblets. Secondly, he noticed each goblet had a shiny finish but one of these looked more recent than the others. According to Mortice the buttery clerk, the goblets had been bought decades ago. Eleven of them would justify their age but one seemed much more recent. All the goblets bore the same potter’s mark but one of them was finely etched. Sutler consulted the Guild and they declared that the goblets were the work of one of their members, the Ramyer family. Sutler searched them out. The father had died but the son recognized the mark and, more importantly …’

‘Maintained one of them was a more recent product?’

‘True, learned friar. Even better for Sutler, Ramyer declared how his family only made these goblets in batches of twelve. More damning, Ramyer described a recent sale of twelve such goblets to a man whom Ramyer later identified as the clerk, Reginald Vanner. Sutler returned to the hunt. He failed to discover any extra new goblets nor could he discover the whereabouts of the alleged goblet Mortice the buttery clerk had identified. All he really had were Buckholt’s allegations that a goblet was substituted whilst he was distracted and that the poisoned goblet his master must have drunk from had disappeared.’

‘The garderobe,’ Athelstan spoke up. ‘The murderer had secreted a second goblet. When Buckholt went down stairs to deal with Vanner, a second goblet was produced. Some of the posset was poured into it and put aside. The original goblet was sprinkled with poison and administered to Sir Walter. Once the old knight had drunk what was needed, the original goblet was hurled down the privy sinking into the filthy cesspit beneath that part of the house.’

‘Excellent, my little friar. Sutler reasoned the same. He brought out dung-collectors from Cheapside, the clearers of the laystalls and dung hills. He also employed masons to open the garderobe and the cesspit beneath.’

‘And they found the goblet?’

‘They certainly did.’

Cranston was about to continue when Mine Hostess, still flustered and red-faced from her affray with the corpse-bearers, served the piping hot platter of ham, dishes of vegetables, bread and a pot of butter. Cranston ordered two cups of the best Bordeaux. Once the friar had blessed the meal Cranston fell on his food, determined to satisfy a hunger which, according to him, ‘still raged like a wolf inside his belly’. They ate in silence. Athelstan could only clear so much of his platter and the coroner devoured the rest. Once he had finished, Cranston leaned back, a cup in one hand and a piece of bread in the other.

‘So you can imagine the case, Brother?’

‘Yes, I certainly can.’ Athelstan used his fingers to emphasize the points. ‘Firstly, there is the altercation at the top of the stairs. Buckholt is distracted. Lady Isolda takes the cup. Buckholt finds the diversion was deliberately of no consequence. Secondly, by his testimony, Lady Isolda was the last person to give her husband any drink or food. Thirdly, why was the goblet thrown down the garderobe? The only explanation must be that Isolda wished to get rid of certain evidence and to create a pretence that all was well, hence her drinking from the same cup. Fourthly, the testimony of the buttery clerk that the cups were changed – the only person who could have done that was Lady Isolda. Fifthly, Sutler’s discovery that Vanner had bought a new set of goblets. Why did he do that? Why did he only keep one and why was that disguised as part of the old batch? Yes, yes,’ Athelstan nodded, ‘the case against Lady Isolda was most compelling.’

‘Sutler argued the same. Lady Isolda, because of her status, was committed to trial before the King’s Bench and a jury of citizens from Westminster hastily assembled. Sutler prosecuted the case before justices Tressilian, Gavelkind and Danyel. Believe me, Brother, three of the harshest and most grim judges, an unholy Trinity who have little love for their fellow men, and women in particular, high-born ladies especially. They regarded Isolda Beaumont as hawks would a coney. Little mercy was to be expected. The case against her was compelling. She was the last to hold the goblet, the last to feed her husband. Then there was the disappearance of the goblet, the purchase of a new one and the discovery of the old one in the cesspit. On these five issues, Sutler built his case then developed it with further evidence.’