The Poisoned Chalice (28 page)

'Now, Sir Robert, most men would have felt their revenge complete but this diplomat was a scholar with some knowledge of medicine and the ravages of disease. Whilst in the service of his French masters, this man met a young noblewoman at a convent. Ostensibly, she had been put there to complete her education but she, too, harboured a dreadful secret. The only daughter of aged parents, she had the misfortune to fall in love with a young French nobleman who fought in Italy. Like others he came back not knowing he carried the traces of a ravaging venereal disease, syphilis. So virulent an infection that hundreds died of it on their return, but not before they had transmitted it to their wives and loved ones. The young French nobleman died a lingering death and his betrothed too showed traces of this disease, so she was sent to the nunnery, not only for education but for the nuns' tender care and expertise with the sick.' Benjamin paused. 'Sir Robert?'

Clinton turned and stared like the man marked for death he was.

'Sir Robert, you are that diplomat, Henry of England is the king, and the Lady Francesca the young girl from the convent.'

'It's true!' she burst out. 'It's true! My betrothed returned from Italy ardent for me.' She looked up, tears brimming in her eyes though her lips curled in anger. 'He died but I'd already caught the disease. Sir Robert was kind. He chose to ignore it, married me, but said we would not live like man and wife.' She crumpled the dark fabric of her dress between her fingers. 'At first, my marriage to Sir Robert soothed my anger at the injustice of it all, but only for a while.' She wiped her eyes. 'You are quite right, Master Daunbey, about Sir Robert's final revenge. He took me to court and introduced me to the king who dallied with me. I was flattered.' She drew back her lips. 'We made love,' she snarled. 'And why not?

Gaston would not have died if it hadn't been for the ambition and greed of kings.' She caught her breath. 'I suspected Sir Robert was not what he claimed to be for he connived at his royal master's dalliance with me.' She fell back in her chair, laughing hysterically. 'Now Henry of England has what I have. May it rot his corpulent carcase!'

I stared in utter disbelief at the change in this beautiful young woman, her face white and haggard, her eyes filled with hatred and anger. I also realised what dreadful things we do to each other. I am a rogue, a villain born and bred, but I think Satan himself must weep at the cruelties we inflict on each other. Of course, it was Lady Francesca whom I had seen Henry cavorting with on the bed at Hampton Court. The woman's legs had appeared white whereas the Lady Francesca was golden-skinned. I smiled at my own innocence. She had been wearing her flesh-coloured stockings and our royal killer was no gentleman. (Anne Boleyn once told me he scarcely gave her time to undress!)

'How did you know?' Lady Francesca asked. She gestured maliciously at her husband. 'Did he tell you?'

Sir Robert just ignored her, lost in his own thoughts, his lips moving wordlessly.

'No,' Benjamin replied, turning to glance at Agrippa who had suddenly brought a roll of parchment from beneath the table. 'No, we gleaned it from scraps of information, little pieces of a puzzle which eventually fitted into place. First, the good nuns at the convent were so solicitous of your health and so appreciative of Sir Robert. Secondly, the attitude of King Francis. I thought he just disliked you but he knows of your disease. In his eyes, you simply don't exist. Thirdly, Shallot here saw you carrying a bottle marked with the letters
SUL
. This contained sulphur which, used with mercury, is one of the ways of halting that disease. I am sure this is what Throgmorton saw when he was snooping in your chamber. He baited you with it just as we left Fontainebleau. You told your husband and Throgmorton had to die.'

Lady Francesca glared at me and I shuddered at the darkness in her eyes.

'Dear Roger,' she murmured. 'I did consider seducing you, but you are too sharp. You even escaped the Luciferi plot to kill you in the boar-pit at Fontainebleau. One day, Master Shallot, you'll cut yourself.' She glanced back at Benjamin. 'I liked you, Master Daunbey. You are kind and sensitive. I told Sir Robert that you suspected I was ill.'

Benjamin looked away, embarrassed.

'I went back to your village,' I spoke up. 'They gave me further information about your betrothal to Gaston, and your sudden departure to the convent. My master became intrigued by the way messengers to the English envoys here in Paris always regularly stopped at the convent. Now, we knew you sent them gifts and wondered if Raphael could have used these gifts to send messages. Of course, we were wrong. It wasn't what the messengers took to the convent but what they brought back from it. Medicines for you.'

'That's why those two other messengers were killed,' Benjamin interrupted. 'I don't know how or why, Lady Francesca, but I suspect they stumbled upon your secret. I am sure the good nuns always kept the medicines well hidden in whatever gifts they sent. Those messengers, however, pried too much, questions may have been asked before they left the convent. The nuns, under strict orders from Monsieur Vauban, passed this information on and the messengers had to die.' Benjamin gripped the table top with his hand. 'To test my hypothesis, I sent two messengers to the convent, pretending they took a gift from you. I instructed one of them to be talkative and say that you were not feeling well. The good nuns fell into a trap. They sent a present back: a quilted cushion. When I cut it open, I found a phial containing a mixture of mercury and sulphur.'

Doctor Agrippa leaned forward out of the shadows. 'Sir Robert, do you deny these charges?'

Clinton just sat stock-still, staring down the hall.

'Sir Robert,' Benjamin repeated, 'you are Raphael, you are the master murderer. You were trading the king's secrets to the French. You did not interfere with the despatches or the letters. You just passed the information on to Vauban's agents in London with strict instructions that the French were only to act on this information once the letters had arrived at the English embassy in Paris. That's why the saddle-bags and the despatches of the dead messengers were so readily handed over. You and Vauban wished to sustain the pretence that only after secret documents reached Dacourt were they leaked to the Luciferi.'

Clinton suddenly stirred, shaking himself. 'Yes, you are right,' he murmured. He glanced at Benjamin. 'Master Daunbey, you are brilliant. Vauban said that. He wanted you and your minion - ' Clinton stared at me - 'he wanted you killed immediately.' He patted his wife gently on the hand but this time she flinched as though in pain. 'She's innocent, twisted but innocent. I used her. I loved Clare but the king abused me and now he will exist in the living hell I have created!'

Agrippa got up slowly. 'Sir Robert Clinton,' he intoned, 'you are a self-confessed spy, traitor and murderer of the king's good friends and liege subjects. You are,' he continued, 'guilty of the following deaths: the agent slain in the alleys of Paris, Giles Falconer, the Abbe Gerard and the two messengers killed on the road to Paris. Richard Waldegrave, priest, Thomas Throgmorton, physician, and Ambrose Venner, your own manservant. You have betrayed your king, placing both his body and his realm in great danger. You have been responsible for other deaths and misfortunes.'

'Stop!' I shouted.

Agrippa looked round in surprise. 'Master Shallot, you do not agree with this?'

I went round the table and leaned over to stare into Sir Robert Clinton's soulless eyes. It was a moment I relished and one I had been waiting for.

'Sir Robert, you are guilty of other deaths; for instance, that of Bertrand de Macon, captain of the ship which was intercepted by French privateers. But, above all,' I gripped his shoulder until he flinched, 'you are guilty of the deaths of Monsieur and Madame Ralemberg, their manservant and my beloved, Agnes Ralemberg!' I glanced up at Agrippa. 'Oh, yes, my good doctor.' I turned my back so that Clinton wouldn't see my tears. 'I was always puzzled,' I said, over my shoulder, 'as to how the assassins from the Luciferi entered Monsieur Ralemberg's house. He was a canny man and would have barred the doors against all strangers, but someone must have knocked, someone with authority, someone who could be trusted. And who better than one of the king's own ministers?' I turned and pointed my finger at Clinton. 'You let the assassin in, you bastard! Oh, you can sit there and your pretty wife can sob her eyes out but I'll see both of you bastards dance at Tyburn! Both cut down half-alive and your bodies hacked into steaming chunks!'

(Actually I wouldn't have done, I can't stand executions, but on that night at Maubisson I felt so enraged I could have done the dreadful act myself.)

'There will be no executions,' Agrippa replied, speaking above Lady Francesca's sobs.

'My wife is innocent,' Clinton repeated flatly.

'Sir Robert, you have a choice.' Agrippa got down from the dais and faced him squarely. 'We might not get you to Calais alive, Vauban may interfere, though there's a good chance we could. In which case, you would return to England, be tried as a traitor in Westminster Hall and suffer the most dreadful death. Or, we can arrange the same at Maubisson, at dawn tomorrow morning. Or . . .' Agrippa paused and stared at my master.

'Or,' Benjamin continued, 'we can leave matters to you yourself.'

'My wife,' Clinton repeated, 'is innocent of everything but her own anger and hurt.'

'The Lady Francesca may return to her convent,' Agrippa stated. 'But if she ever sets foot on English soil, she will be arrested, tried and executed!' Agrippa stared at the guttering candle flame. 'You are a poisoner, Sir Robert. I suspect you carry the weapons of your trade upon you. We will leave you for a while.' He pushed the jug of wine nearer. 'You may need further refreshment.'

Chapter 13

Agrippa snapped his fingers and we all, the Lady Francesca included, walked out of the hall. Agrippa ordered the weeping woman to be taken immediately to her chamber. She did not demur or resist or ask to spend one minute longer with her erstwhile husband but, helped by a sleepy-eyed maid and escorted by two soldiers, was led off to her own chamber. Dacourt and the rest, who had been standing outside, hurried to greet us. It was rather ludicrous to see how they had regained their usual composure. Dacourt, the bluff soldier, damning the French and Clinton as their spy; Peckle once more the industrious clerk; and Millet recovered enough to have cleaned the dirt from his foppish face.

'What will happen now?' Dacourt barked.

Agrippa smiled. 'Patience, Sir John, patience!'

We stood in a silent circle outside the door of the great hall, undisturbed by any sound except the calls of the sentries on the parapet wall and the yapping of a dog. We must have stayed a quarter of an hour before Agrippa, followed by the rest of us, re-entered the darkened hall. Clinton still sat in his chair behind the great table on the dais. At first I thought nothing had changed but, as we drew nearer, I saw his staring eyes were glassy and empty.

The lips were parted, the white face twisted in the rictus of death, and the cup which had contained some deadly draught still rolled eerily on the table top.

'A tragic end to a tragic life,' Benjamin observed.

'So may all traitors die,' Dacourt intoned firmly.

Agrippa pronounced, 'Amen,' issuing instructions for Clinton's corpse, chamber and possessions to be rigorously searched and for the Lady Francesca to be returned to her convent as soon as day broke. Agrippa then came between Benjamin and myself, linking his arms through ours.

'Master Benjamin, Master Shallot, you have my thanks and you will receive those of His Eminence the Cardinal and His Majesty the King.' He stopped and smiled at each of us. 'Hand me over the good Abbe Gerard's book and this matter will be finished.'

Benjamin gave Doctor Agrippa what he wanted but Wolsey's enigmatic clerk had scarcely closed the door behind him when my master announced: 'We aren't finished, Roger.'

'You mean the ring?'

He made a face. 'No, our noble king must accept that he wagered and lost. He will never get the ring back. I mean Vauban.'

'What about him, master?'

Benjamin caught my fearful look and tapped me on the shoulder. 'Clinton may have led the assassin to Agnes, but Vauban's the assassin. I am going to kill the bastard!'

I stared at my master's closed face. I have never seen such a change in someone so gentle. Despite the uncovering of Clinton's treason, the fury still seethed within him.

'Why, Benjamin?' I asked.

'Because he killed Agnes.' 'But she was my betrothed.'

'Yes, exactly, and you are my friend.' Benjamin turned away to hide his face. 'I have been through the same hell as you, Roger, only in my case Johanna's mind died, not her body. I killed the man responsible and I shall do the same on your behalf!'

'No, I'll do it, master,' I lied glibly, hoping he wouldn't hear my bowels churn in fright.

Benjamin turned round and, though he blinked, I saw the tears in his eyes. 'Roger, Roger, don't be silly. Vauban's a swordsman. He would kill you in a minute.'

'Oh, thank you,' I replied sarcastically. 'And how are you going to do it? Like Clinton would, poison in a cup or a dagger in the dark?'

Benjamin sat down on the edge of his bed. 'No,' he replied evenly. 'Today is Wednesday, tomorrow the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul. As in England, all our court officials will observe the holy day. No business will be transacted at the French court. Vauban will be with his family in the Rue des Moines.' Benjamin smiled bleakly. 'After all, Roger, he did invite us to call on him!'

My master would not be dissuaded. Next morning he drew a new sword belt, hanger, wrist guard and dagger from the chateau's stores and at my request obtained the same for me.