A Plague of Poison (10 page)
T
HE NETTLEHAM APIARY APPEARED TO BE, AS Severtsson had implied, orderly and well run. The main building was a large cot with a thatched roof, alongside which were a few small sheds and a byre. Set a little distance away was a potter’s kiln, stone walled and topped with a domed roof of clay. Just inside the gate in the wattle fence that enclosed the main area was a large herb garden, and the bouquet of rosemary, thyme and marjoram was pungent in the air even though the plants were not yet in bloom. A series of niches set in the stone wall down one side of the garden contained beehives, with a few of the insects buzzing lazily about their entrances. To the south was an orchard filled with apple, pear and plum trees, and several large skeps of plaited straw formed two orderly rows beneath their branches. To the north, beyond the enclosure, was a stretch of woodland, mainly comprised of trees of alder and ash.
HE NETTLEHAM APIARY APPEARED TO BE, AS Severtsson had implied, orderly and well run. The main building was a large cot with a thatched roof, alongside which were a few small sheds and a byre. Set a little distance away was a potter’s kiln, stone walled and topped with a domed roof of clay. Just inside the gate in the wattle fence that enclosed the main area was a large herb garden, and the bouquet of rosemary, thyme and marjoram was pungent in the air even though the plants were not yet in bloom. A series of niches set in the stone wall down one side of the garden contained beehives, with a few of the insects buzzing lazily about their entrances. To the south was an orchard filled with apple, pear and plum trees, and several large skeps of plaited straw formed two orderly rows beneath their branches. To the north, beyond the enclosure, was a stretch of woodland, mainly comprised of trees of alder and ash.
As the Templars and Severtsson approached the gate, they could see a man loading earthenware vessels onto a two-wheeled wain, taking his supply from a shed that stood close to the kiln. A towheaded boy of about Gianni’s age who was tending a litter of pigs in a sty looked up at their approach and came running to the gate, a large black and white dog following on his heels and barking loudly.
“We are come to see the beekeeper, Adam,” Hamo said. “Open the gate and let us through.”
The boy did as he was told, his mouth dropping open a little as he gazed up at the two Templars on their horses, both clothed in thick leather gambesons with a cross pattee sewn on the shoulders. As they rode their horses up to a hitching rail and dismounted, two women came to the door of the cot. One was tall, thin and of middle age, dressed in a homespun kirtle and holding a distaff in her hand; the other, whom the older one held firmly grasped by the arm, was much younger and fair of face and figure.
“The older woman is the beekeeper’s daughter, Margot,” Severtsson said, gesturing towards them. “The other is her daughter, Rosamunde.” His voice dropped in tone slightly as he spoke the girl’s name.
The man who had been loading the wain came across to them and bobbed his head respectfully. He was about forty years old, with a sallow complexion, lank brown hair and deep-set brown eyes. His hands and nails were engrained with clay. With no more than a baleful glance at Severtsson, he addressed himself to Bascot and Hamo. “I am Wilkin, the beekeeper’s son-by-marriage,” he said. “I heard you ask for Adam, lords. He is in the orchard. I will send the boy for him.”
As the lad ran off, Wilkin asked if it would please them to be seated and take a stoup of ale while they waited. Bascot told him it would, and he and the others followed the potter into the cot.
The interior of the building was large enough to encompass living and sleeping quarters for the beekeeper and his family. An open grate in the center provided heat for warmth and cooking, and a rough-hewn table with benches alongside was set against one wall. In a corner sleeping pallets were piled in readiness for use and there was a sturdy open-faced cupboard lined with shelves along which a variety of jars was ranged. Strings of onions, garlic and herbs hung from the rafters and there were baskets of root vegetables on the floor below. It was all very neatly kept and clean.
The older woman that Bascot had seen at the doorway, Margot, came forward bearing a tray on which were set three wooden cups of ale, and Wilkin pulled one of the benches away from the table so that the visitors could be seated. Bascot looked around for the girl who had been with Margot at the door and saw her sitting on a stool in the corner, stirring the contents of a bowl placed on her lap with a wooden spoon. Seen close to, Bascot realised that she was more than fair; she was beautiful. Long braids of russet hair framed a heart-shaped face that bore a complexion as delicate as the petals of a flower. Her brow was wide and smooth, and her eyes were the blue green colour of seawater. If this was Rosamunde, the daughter of Wilkin and Margot that the bailiff had seemed embarrassed to speak of, her name surely suited her, for she was indeed a “Rose of the World.” She paid the visitors no mind, and just kept stirring the contents of the bowl and gazing into the distance as though she were in a dream. Sitting among the rushes at her feet was a small child of perhaps fifteen months, amusing itself by sucking on the cloth at the hem of her skirt.
“Please excuse my daughter’s discourtesy in not rising, lords,” Margot said nervously, glancing at the girl as she did so. “She has not been in her right senses for a while now.”
Wilkin gave his wife an angry look, which seemed to include Severtsson. Bascot felt the undercurrents that were flowing about the room, and he was sure Hamo did, too, for the serjeant stiffened on the bench beside him.
At that moment, the boy who had opened the gate for the Templars appeared at the door, followed by a man the lad declared was “granfer” and who was, presumably, Adam, the beekeeper. His short, stocky frame was topped by tightly curled wiry hair the colour of the honey he gleaned from his bees. His beard was darker in hue and spread wide and thick across his chest. He was clothed all in brown and wore gloves, which he hastily removed as he entered the room and bowed his head to his two visitors.
“I am sorry to have made you wait, lords,” he said. “The bees will be swarmin’ soon, and I had needs to tell them I was leavin’ their presence so they will stay near the hives ‘til I return.”
Bascot remembered that Preceptor d’Arderon had mentioned the beekeeper was a little odd, so he paid Adam’s strange statement no mind and told him, and his daughter and her husband, why he and Hamo had come.
Adam’s response to the revelation that poison had been put in the honey from his apiary was anger. ” ‘Tweren’t no poison in the honey when ‘twas put into the pots,” he declared stoutly. “My bees wouldn’t stand fer it, and neither would I. ‘Twas pure and clear when it was stopped up and sealed, lords.”
Again Bascot ignored the beekeeper’s peculiar reference to his bees and said, “The honey that was poisoned was of the finest grade which is, I believe, put in pots that are glazed in a bright amber shade. Were any of those type of pots left unattended before they were either sold or collected by Severtsson?”
“After all the pots be poured and stoppered, we keeps ‘em in a shed until it be time for the fair,” Adam replied. “The ones for the bailiff was along with them. They was only there for a day or two before he came and collected them and then the rest was taken to town.”
“Was the shed kept locked while the honey pots were in there?”
Adam looked at him in amazement. “No, lord. There b’aint no need. Even if someone was of a mind to steal some, the bees wouldn’t let any but us ‘uns near their honey. ‘Twould be right dangerous for any who tried to pilfer it.”
Seeing Bascot’s impatience with Adam’s curious manner of speaking about his bees, Wilkin hastened to justify the beekeeper’s claim. “We have two dogs here, lord, and both of them keep a good guard. If anyone tried to come onto the property, they would soon alert us. They made no disturbance while the honey was in the shed.”
Bascot nodded his thanks to the potter for the clarity of his reply and said to the beekeeper, “Did you take the honey to the autumn fair yourself last year?”
“No, I never does,” Adam replied. “I hasn’t been in Lincoln for nigh on ten years. Wilkin allus takes it, and Margot goes along to keep the tally.”
Bascot turned his attention to the potter. “After you left here to go to the fair, was the honey left unattended by either you or your wife for any length of time?”
“No, lord,” Wilkin replied. “We did deliver some to the Priory of All Saints, but Margot stayed with the wain all the time that I unloaded the honey and took it inside.
Then we went straight to the fairgrounds and my wife set up our stall.”
“And when did you take the order to the castle, before or after the fair?”
“Before, lord. I took them while Margot was setting up the stall. One of us was with the pots all the time until they were either delivered or sold.”
Bascot then asked the potter if he made all the containers that were used for the apiary’s honey.
“Aye, lord, I do,” was the response.
“And where are the pots kept after you have fired them and before they are filled?” Bascot asked, trying to determine if there could be a chance that the poison had been placed in the adulterated jars before the honey was poured in.
“In the same shed as they’re kept in after they have been filled and stoppered,” Wilkin told him.
“You told me your dogs gave no alarm of any intruder while the filled pots were in the shed. Was there any alert from them before that, while it contained only the empty ones?”
Both Adam and Wilkin shook their heads. Unless the beekeeper or one of his family was guilty, it seemed unlikely that any of the honey had been adulterated before it left the apiary, or while it was in transit. To be sure, he asked them if the honey was overseen at all times once it had been harvested from the combs and poured into the pots.
“The best grade is,” Adam said. “That be the one we gets from the first gleanin’. It be ready right away, so after we pours it into honey bags it goes straight from the bags into the jars. Then we leaves the bags to drip overnight on their own before wringin’ ‘em out for the second gleanin’ and then we washes ‘em out with water for the third.”
Bascot nodded absently. He was only interested in the best grade, for it was the type that had been poisoned, and it appeared that it could not have been tampered with while under the beekeeper’s care. The second grade, which was cheaper and usually purchased by people with lesser means, was of no interest to him, and neither was the last type, which was very thin and used mainly to make mead. He resumed his questioning of the potter and the vessels he made.
“Do you make any of the amber-glazed honey pots for another apiary’s use?” he asked.
“No, lord,” Wilkin told him. “I fashion many other vessels that I sell in Lincoln town, but not that kind.”
“I understand it is the practice for the pots, once they have been emptied by your customers, to be returned to the apiary so they can be reused. Are you the one that collects them?”
“Yes, but I only take back those that are not chipped or broken,” Wilkin explained. “We pay the customers a fourthing of a penny for each. I collect the empty pots once a year, in the late summer, so as to have ‘em ready for the next harvest.”
So, Bascot thought, all of the empty pots of the type that had been used by the poisoner were still sitting in the castle shed awaiting collection. The same would probably be true in Reinbald’s home; his cook would put them in an out-of-the-way place until the potter arrived to take them away. It would be a simple matter to steal one. A missing pot would not be noticed until Wilkin went to collect it and would even then be thought to have been discarded because it was damaged.
Since it seemed that the honey had not been tampered with while it was on the apiary property—or while it was in Severtsson’s possession—it was likely that the adulteration of the honey had been carried out recently, as had been suspected. Nonetheless, he asked Adam how many pots of that grade had been gleaned last year and if the beekeeper knew who had bought them.
” ‘Twere two score and four pots altogether,” Adam replied. “I don’t know who bought ‘em, but Margot does, she keeps the tally sticks for to show the bailiff.”
“A score went to the castle, lord,” the beekeeper’s daughter replied. “Then there were the eight given to Master Severtsson for his uncle, six that went to the priory and t’other ten were sold in ones and twos to customers in the town. I don’t know the names of the people that had those; I never goes to town except to sell the honey, and I only know their faces, not who they are.”
Bascot was relieved to hear that the remainder of the pots had been sold in small quantities throughout the town. It was likely that all of these had been opened and used throughout the winter months, and since no suspicious deaths had been reported during that time, all of that honey must have been pure. Deciding there was nothing further to be learned from Adam and his family, Bascot signalled to Hamo that he was ready to leave.
As they went towards the door of the cot, the bailiff, who was a little ahead of Bascot, hesitated and glanced at Rosamunde. The young woman was still sitting as she had been during the whole time they had been there, staring vacantly at the empty space in front of her, and made no sign of having noticed his, or anyone else’s, presence. Despite that, Wilkin quickly stepped into the space between the bailiff and his daughter in a protective manner and glared at Severtsson. Margot watched her husband’s defiant movement with an anxious face, her lips pressed tight together as though to stop her from crying out in alarm. The bailiff gave them both a disdainful stare and then, with a petulant shrug of his shoulders, turned and left the room.
Severtsson parted company with the two Templars at the junction of the apiary road with the main track, his journey back to Wragby taking him in the opposite direction to their own. As they watched his retreating figure disappear down the road, Bascot said to Hamo, “All is not well between the potter and the bailiff, and it would seem to have some connection with Wilkin’s daughter, Rosamunde.”
Hamo was alert at once, ever conscious of any wrongdoing which might impugn the integrity of the Order. “Severtsson said the girl was unmarried,” he observed. “Perhaps he is the father of her babe. If that is so, the preceptor must be told. The Order frowns on moral laxity among its lay servants.”
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