A Plague of Poison (26 page)
But, Bascot pondered, if it had been Mauger, why had he not taken a more direct method to wreak retribution? It was said he was a big man and so would presumably be strong; he was aggressive and possessed of a violent temper. He had used a blade on Cooper, an instrument of death that seemed a likely tool for such a man as had been described by the potter and his family. Why had he used such an unreliable means as poison on the others?
The Templar thought back over the poisoning deaths in the castle and town. If he was right in his assumptions about the bailiff’s elder son, Mauger would have had no surety that the people responsible for his brother’s capture and death would ingest the venom. The sheriff had not even been in Lincoln when the adulterated honey pot had been placed in the castle kitchen. While it was true that all of the people that had been killed had been connected with those involved in Drue’s capture and subsequent hanging, it seemed a haphazard scheme for Mauger to employ.
Bascot ruminated once again on the little he knew of Mauger’s personality. Wilkin told how Mauger had laughed when John Rivelar had laid his blackthorn staff across the potter’s back and had seemed to derive enjoyment from the pain his father had caused. The manner of Cooper’s death would seem to indicate the potter’s opinion was accurate; a quick thrust to the heart would have easily killed the fishmonger’s assistant, but instead, he had been disembowelled and made to linger in excruciating agony until his throat was finally cut. Both of these facts seemed to indicate that the murderer was a man who derived pleasure not only from the infliction of pain but from watching it. As he thought about the manner of the deaths, a pattern began to emerge—one that he had seen before.
When he had been a prisoner of the infidels in Outremer, the Saracen lord who had captured him had been at war with a neighbouring emir and they had often engaged in battle. One day the Saracen’s soldiers had returned with a captive, a proud-faced infidel who had stood boldly in front of his enemy and shown no fear. The next morning, all of the lord’s household, including his slaves, were assembled in the courtyard and made to watch as the captive was subjected to a most appalling torture; he was secured between two posts and the skin had been slowly flayed from most of his body and then, still conscious and screaming with the pain of his ordeal, he was spread-eagled on the ground and left to die in the heat of the broiling sun. It was five hours before he did so. Sickened by the cruelty, Bascot had asked one of the other slaves, a Jew who had a smattering of the French tongue but a good understanding of Arabic, if he knew why the captive had been put to death in such a sadistic manner, and the Jew had explained, “That man was the only son of the emir with whom this Saracen lord is at war. When the emir learns of the great pain that his son went through before he died, the Saracen will not only derive much pleasure from the greatness of his enemy’s grief, it will also unman the emir and make him weak with sorrow. He will, therefore, be much easier to defeat.”
The reason why poison had been employed to murder people connected with those responsible for Drue Rivelar’s death came to the Templar with undeniable certainty, and he knew beyond any doubt that Mauger was the one that had used it.
His elation, however, was short-lived. There was no means of proving his conviction. Without substantiation, Gerard Camville would give no credence to a claim that his official declaration of the potter’s guilt had been an error and that the true culprit was, instead, a man who had not been seen in Lincoln for ten years. And Nicolaa de la Haye would also doubt Bascot’s assertion; it had been on her authority that Wilkin had been accused, and she was still convinced that her charge had been a true one. Both of them would dismiss his allegation about Mauger as being unsupported by real evidence, and it was highly unlikely that either the sheriff or his wife would agree to a search being made for Rivelar’s elder son.
The Templar looked out over the town of Lincoln. Mauger was out there somewhere, he knew. He could be one of the people walking through the crowded streets below, or a servant in the castle ward or Minster, safe behind the facade of his false identity as he pretended to share in the horror that the poisonings had provoked amongst those with whom he lived and worked. He was resourceful and he was clever and Bascot had no doubt that he would kill again. It was imperative to find him before that happened. But how?
He needed evidence linking Cooper’s murder to Mauger before either the sheriff or Lady Nicolaa would believe that John Rivelar’s elder son was the poisoner. The only person left who might be able to give him information that would enable him to do that was Cooper’s cousin, Mary Gant. Although Roget had questioned her on the morning that the body of the fishmonger’s assistant had been found, the captain had not, at that time, yet spoken to Mistress Marchand and so was not aware that the murderer had been someone Cooper had not seen for many years. And even after the draper’s wife had given the captain that additional bit of information, Roget believed it to be a brigand who was responsible and would not have thought to return to the glover’s wife and question her again.
There was also the need to discover whether Mistress Gant had visited the alehouse in her childhood and had been there on the occasions that Mauger and his father had stopped to sup ale. If she had, it was possible that she, like Cooper, would recognise him and know that the name he was using was not his own. She, along with the beekeeper’s family, could be in great danger and must be provided with protection.
Bascot turned away from the parapet and went back down the stairs to the bail. He would visit the glover’s wife without delay. The need to institute a search for Mauger became more urgent with every passing moment.
R
OGET HAD TOLD HIM THAT MARY GANT LIVED In A house on Clachislide, which was a street that branched off Mikelgate near the church of St. Peter at Motston. Bascot took Gianni with him, but they did not go directly to it, taking a circuitous route by walking down Danesgate until they came to Claxledgate before turning onto Clachislide. With every step that he took, Bascot wondered if Mauger was keeping watch on the approaches to Mary Gant’s house, waiting to see if anyone connected with the sheriff came to question her again about her cousin’s death. As they walked, he told Gianni the reason for their journey, and to keep a sharp eye out for any who seemed to be loitering without purpose near the glover’s home.
OGET HAD TOLD HIM THAT MARY GANT LIVED In A house on Clachislide, which was a street that branched off Mikelgate near the church of St. Peter at Motston. Bascot took Gianni with him, but they did not go directly to it, taking a circuitous route by walking down Danesgate until they came to Claxledgate before turning onto Clachislide. With every step that he took, Bascot wondered if Mauger was keeping watch on the approaches to Mary Gant’s house, waiting to see if anyone connected with the sheriff came to question her again about her cousin’s death. As they walked, he told Gianni the reason for their journey, and to keep a sharp eye out for any who seemed to be loitering without purpose near the glover’s home.
They found the premises without difficulty, since the open-fronted shop on the lower floor was still open for custom. As Ernulf had said, it seemed that Gant had a good business, for there were quite a few customers crowded around the goods displayed on the counter that lay open to the street. Bascot scrutinised the customers carefully. Most were women, some accompanied by a child or a maidservant, and although there were three men amongst them, these all appeared to be well over the age of thirty. Deciding it would be safe to assume that none of the men could be Mauger, Bascot approached the shop and spoke to the middle-aged man behind the counter, telling him he wished to speak to the glove maker.
The man nodded and went to the back of the premises and disappeared through a doorway, returning a few moments later accompanied by a short, spare man with a kindly face. His brown eyes were gentle and his shoulder-length hair was liberally sprinkled with grey.
He introduced himself to Bascot as Matthew Gant and asked the Templar politely how he could be of service.
“I want to ask you and your wife a few questions concerning the death of her cousin, Fland Cooper,” Bascot told him.
Gant nodded and, opening a small wooden gate that allowed entry into the shop, led Bascot and Gianni through the door that the glover’s assistant had used and into a workshop strewn with pieces of leather, soft linens and wool. On the work surfaces were many wooden lasts in the shape of a hand, all of different sizes, and numerous pairs of scissors as well as large spools of thread and a quantity of needles. Square wooden frames that were used for stretching the materials before they were cut and sewn were hanging from the walls. Motioning to a flight of stairs that led to the second storey, and explaining that his wife was above, they followed the glover up the narrow staircase to the living quarters and into a large chamber where Mary Gant sat at a table sewing tiny beads into a decoration on the back of a woman’s glove. She was older than her cousin Fland, about thirty years of age, and some ten or fifteen years younger than her husband. Her face and figure possessed little beauty, for her dull brown eyes were set close together and lines of irritability curved alongside lips that wore a pursed expression.
“My wife tends to the finer work,” Gant said proudly. “She has a deftness that is rare.” That explained why the glover must have married her, Bascot thought; she had no other attribute to recommend her.
Gant smiled at his wife and explained why Bascot had come. She had laid her sewing aside when she saw that their visitor was of knight’s rank and gave a deferential nod in response to her husband’s explanation, but her manner was far from welcoming. “I know nothing about any of the people my cousin associated with,” she said, her pinched features screwed up with disapproval. “I told Captain Roget so on the day that he came here.”
“I am aware of that, mistress,” Bascot said, tingeing his voice with sternness. “But since the captain’s visit, further information about your cousin has been received that you might be able to help clarify.”
The glover saw that the Templar was annoyed by his wife’s tone and hastened to offer Bascot some refreshment. Bascot shook his head and bade them both be seated. When they had done so, he asked Mary Gant if she had ever visited the alehouse her relatives had run out on the Wragby road.
She sniffed with condemnation. “No, I never went there,” she replied loftily. “It was a low place, even when my great-aunt ran it.”
“Fland’s grandmother and Mary’s were sisters,” her husband interrupted in explanation.
Bascot nodded his head in understanding, and although he was relieved to find that it was not likely the glove maker’s wife had ever seen Mauger, and so would not be a threat to him, he felt a pang of disappointment that she could not identify him. “I have been told that, in later years, Fland’s father often had brigands for customers,” he said to Mary. “Is that true?”
He wanted to find out if Cooper had ever spoken of Mauger’s brother, Drue, to his cousin. If he had, it was possible he had also mentioned Mauger. His question set the glove maker’s wife off into a tirade.
“That was all Fland ever talked about,” she said sharply.
“How he had met all those outlaws and of the tales they told him. I warned him more than once that he was not to tell his stories to people who knew myself and my husband, but he would not obey me. It was embarrassing to have all our neighbours know that members of my family kept such nefarious company.”
“Now, Mary,” Gant said in a conciliatory tone to his virago of a wife, “the boy meant no harm. And his customers found his stories interesting. You know that he was often given a fourthing or a halfpenny by some of them when he went to make deliveries of fish. He said it was because they liked to listen to his tales.”
Mary Gant clamped her lips together and made no reply to her husband’s comment.
“Did he mention any of these wolf’s heads by name?” Bascot asked her.
She waved her hand dismissively. “Often. Especially those that were hanged by the sheriff about two years ago, but I paid no attention to their names.”
“Do you remember of whom he spoke?” Bascot asked the glove maker.
Matthew Gant shook his head.
The Templar changed the direction of his questions. “Your cousin told someone who knew him that he was expecting to receive some money from a man he was once acquainted with. Did he tell you of this?”
“Money?” Mary Gant said explosively. “Never. He had none and no prospect of any. That is why we were forced to give him shelter.”
Bascot turned from the wife and looked at her husband. “And you, Master Gant, did he ever speak to you of this expectation?”
Gant looked at his wife uncomfortably before he answered. “Not specifically, no, but he did tell me just before he was killed that he would not be taking advantage of my generosity—and that of my wife, of course—for much longer.”
His wife glared at him. “He never said that to me. Why did you not tell me he was planning to leave us?”
Gant shrugged his shoulders helplessly. “He was killed before I could mention it, Mary. It did not seem important once he was dead.”
“What exactly did Fland say to you, Master Gant?” Bascot asked, feeling his hopes rise.
The glove maker took a moment to recall the conversation. “It was the night before he was killed,” he said and then gave a glance that bordered on defiance at his wife. “He and Mary had an argument earlier, while we were eating. It was, as usual, about him recounting some memory of the brigands he had known to a friend of ours the day before. They exchanged harsh words and I felt sorry for Fland.”
He looked up at the Templar with his soft brown eyes. “The boy had not had a very good life, but it was all he had known. It was only natural he wanted to talk of it.” Bascot nodded and bade him go on.
“After my wife went to bed, I tried to console him and told him that Mary only castigated him because she was concerned for his well-being and was worried that his tales might damage not only our reputation in Lincoln but his own. It was not her intent to be purposefully unkind, I told him, but he did not believe me. He said that I need not worry there would be any more arguments since he would soon be leaving our home and would no longer be here for Mary to rail at him.”
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