The Tarnished Chalice (48 page)

Hugh grinned. ‘Yes, and it was a good one – from the best baker in the city.’

He scampered away, and Bartholomew watched him dart to Christiana’s side. She smiled at him, but did not stop her prayers.

‘I will go and drag him away from the poor lady,’ said Gynewell with a sigh. ‘She will have no peace if he is hovering like a fly. What will you do now? Go to see Langar?’

‘We have no choice,’ said Michael unhappily. ‘It is the only way forward.’

‘Well, there is your Welshman with his sword,’ said Gynewell, nodding to where Cynric was waiting. ‘I strongly advise you to take him with you.’

‘We should give Gynewell that poison we found,’ said Bartholomew, as he and Michael walked along the South Choir Aisle. ‘He can dispose of it, because we cannot leave it here another day.’

Michael agreed, and watched as Bartholomew knelt by the Shrine of Little Hugh and pushed his arm through the gap at the back. He frowned when the physician drew his dagger and used it to fish about, lying full length on the floor to extend his reach. ‘Hurry up, Matt. We do not have all day, and I want to get this interview with Langar over with as soon as possible.’

‘I knew we should have taken the time to deal with the flask yesterday,’ said Bartholomew, standing empty-handed, covered in dust and thoroughly alarmed. ‘Because now it is no longer here. Someone has taken it.’

Bartholomew and Michael left the Close and walked to Miller’s fine house in Newport. Remembering what he had seen the last time he had been there, Bartholomew was grateful Cynric was with them. As they moved farther north, an increasing number of weavers and their families thronged the streets. They spoke in low voices, and there was a distinct aura of fear and uncertainty. Miller’s house and enclosure was like a castle under siege. Armed guards lurked outside, and there were even archers on the roof, training their weapons on passers-by. The grinning Thoresby patrolled the grounds with a black dog that snarled at anyone who came too close.

‘I do not like this,’ whispered Michael. ‘Miller has helped the weavers over the years, and it looks as though they are going to show their appreciation by massing against the Guild.’

‘And the Guild is ready to resist,’ said Cynric. ‘The two sides are fairly evenly matched.’

‘You are wrong,’ said Michael, surprised. ‘The Commonalty’s supporters outnumber the Guild by at least five to one – there are far more poor in Lincoln than merchants.’

‘The guildsmen have better weapons, though,’ argued Cynric. ‘And they have horses and hired mercenaries. I would not risk a single penny by betting on the winner: the outcome is too uncertain.’

He led the way across Miller’s yard, ignoring the way
the dog slathered at him, although Bartholomew made sure Michael was between him and the creature; it did not look as if Thoresby had it fully under control. No one spoke as they approached the door, although dozens of eyes watched. Cynric rapped with his dagger, and when it was whipped open, Miller’s face was as black as thunder.

‘I told you not to come back, physician,’ he snarled, ‘or have you come to gloat over sending Chapman a few steps nearer the grave?’

‘He is worse?’ asked Bartholomew, concerned. A fever was often the outcome with dirty wounds – and then there was the poultice of henbane. Perhaps he had not cleaned it all out.

‘Bunoun said Chapman would have recovered by now, had you not meddled,’ said Miller furiously. ‘We sent for you at dawn, when he became sicker, but the Gilbertines said you were not to be disturbed, so we summoned Bunoun instead. Thank God we did.’

‘Is there a suppuration?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘That is always a danger with—’

‘Do not blame it on the wound,’ snapped Miller, hand dropping to the dagger in his belt. ‘Bunoun said you poisoned him. You are lucky I do not run you through!’

Cynric drew his hunting knife, daring him to try, while Bartholomew’s hand slipped into his medical bag and the various implements it contained. He had forgotten his sword again.

‘Young Hugh brought a message last night,’ said Michael, before Bartholomew could embark on a complex explanation of wounds and their consequences that Miller would not understand. And Cynric had been right: the looming riot would bring an abrupt end to his investigation, and time was short. ‘It was for Chapman, and asked him to meet Simon in the Church of the Holy Cross.’

Miller regarded him frostily. ‘Do not be stupid. You know
Chapman could not go to Holy Cross or anywhere else. He is too ill.’

‘So you have said,’ said Michael. ‘But I want to know about the note. When was it delivered?’

‘There was no note from Simon,’ said Miller firmly. ‘I would have remembered, since he so seldom bothers to acknowledge me these days. After all I have done for him, too.’

Langar had heard the shouting, and came to see what it was about. Ink stained his fingers, and he carried a quill in one hand and a sword in the other. Behind him were the hefty Lora Boyner and Sabina. Lora carried a bowl of water, and her blunt features were tear-stained.

‘Master Langar,’ said Michael. ‘Did you see a note from Simon last night – for Chapman?’

Langar frowned. ‘There was no letter from Simon – for Chapman or anyone else. The man is a coward, afraid to put pen to parchment, lest the Guild wins the confrontation they are itching to provoke. He is too cunning to leave documentary evidence of his real allegiance.’

‘The Guild will not win,’ snarled Miller. ‘God is on our side. Chapman said so.’

Lora looked the scholars up and down. ‘You are brave. Miller promised to kill you if Chapman dies, and here you are on his doorstep, asking to be executed.’ Her eyes watered, and Bartholomew saw the relic-seller’s sufferings had pierced her tough façade. ‘It was the wine you sent yesterday afternoon that did the damage. You said he should not have claret, but then you had a flask delivered and ordered him to finish the whole thing.’

‘I did not send anything,’ said Bartholomew, puzzled. He jumped back when Lora emptied the bowl, narrowly missing him. ‘And I specifically told you not to give him wine – only ale.’

‘The prescription accompanying the jug was signed with your name,’ snapped Miller, not believing him. ‘One of the priests from the cathedral brought it. You left it with him, because you could not be bothered to walk the extra distance to hand it to us yourself.’

‘And you gave this potion to Chapman?’ asked Bartholomew, appalled. ‘After I expressly warned you against feeding him anything from outside?’

‘Do not blame it on us,’ said Sabina, indignantly. ‘You—’

But Bartholomew was livid, both by the slur on his skills and on behalf of his patient. He went on the offensive, startling them with the ferocity of his attack. ‘You ignorant fools! Chapman narrowly escaped the first time someone tried to poison him, and now you have let the killer strike again. I thought he would be safe here, among friends concerned for his welfare, but I was wrong. I should have taken him to the Gilbertines’ hospital, and tended him myself. You are—’

‘Easy, Matt,’ said Michael, afraid he might push them too far. ‘It is clear a mistake has been made, and yelling will not help us understand what has happened. Do you still have this flask, Master Miller? If so, then perhaps we can see it.’

‘You had better come in,’ said Langar reluctantly. ‘This is not a conversation we should have in the open, not with the city on the brink of civil unrest. We want to avert a riot, not encourage one.’

‘Do we now,’ sneered Miller, suggesting that Langar would have his work cut out for him if he intended to act as peacemaker. ‘Fetch that wineskin, Lora. I want to know what is going on here.’

While Lora went to find the offending container, Bartholomew looked around Miller’s hall. Changes had been made since their last visit. Window shutters had been
reinforced with planks of wood, and water-filled buckets stood in a row near the hearth, in case of fire. A pile of crossbows lay on the table in the centre of the room and several men were sharpening bolts. Uneasily, Bartholomew wondered whether they had defence or attack in mind.

‘Old models,’ muttered Cynric in Bartholomew’s ear. ‘Unreliable. These will not change the odds in their favour. They are still about even with the Guild.’

Michael surveyed the scene with monkish disapproval. ‘Perhaps you would tell me something while we wait, Master Miller. Yesterday, Ursula de Spayne was sent milk that was tainted with poison. She drank it, because she assumed it was a gift from you.’

‘Ursula likes milk, bless her,’ replied Miller. ‘It is bad for her innards, though, and I stopped sending it when Surgeon Bunoun told me it blocks her bowels. So you can accuse someone else—’

‘Ursula is not the only one who has been fed fishy poison,’ Michael went on. ‘First, there was Herl, then Flaxfleete, then it was in Telford’s wineskin.’

‘And now Chapman,’ said Bartholomew, taking the pitcher Lora handed him and sniffing it carefully. The poison did not smell as rank as it had in Flaxfleete’s barrel, but, like Ursula’s milk, it was still strong enough to be noticeable. He supposed it had come from the pot they had left at the cathedral – the one they should have destroyed.

Miller was confused. ‘This note is from you,’ he said, snatching a piece of parchment from Lora and waving it in Bartholomew’s face. ‘See your name signed at the bottom, nice and big?’

‘I never write it like that,’ said Bartholomew, regarding it in disdain. ‘And nor would my prescriptions encourage a sick man to “swallow the lot”, as is so prosaically written
there. I did not send Chapman the wine, just as you did not send Ursula the milk.’

‘This is Kelby’s doing,’ said Lora, turning angrily to Miller. ‘It must be. He killed Herl, then Aylmer, and now he is after Chapman. Where will it end? When he has dispatched the lot of us?’

Suddenly, there was a sword in Miller’s hand. ‘I will not wait meekly to be struck down by poison. Round up the men, Langar.’

‘Not yet,’ said Langar. ‘We should wait until Sunday, when we have a better idea of numbers—’

Spittle flew from Miller’s mouth as he spoke. ‘We could all be dead by Sunday.’

Langar scowled, angry in his turn. ‘Very well, we shall have a war, if that is what you want. However, I need an hour or two to take a few steps of my own – to increase the odds in our favour.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Michael nervously.

‘I have trained men to spread rumours that will shake our enemies’ confidence,’ explained Langar. ‘And one or two highly placed guildsmen have been in my pay for years. I shall summon them and learn Kelby’s secret plans.’

‘If he has any,’ said Sabina reasonably. ‘He may be like us, waiting to see what will happen.’

‘You would say that,’ said Langar, turning on her. ‘You abandoned us, and only returned when you became frightened for your life. You are not here for friendship or loyalty.’

‘That is not true,’ lied Sabina. ‘I came because Chapman is ill.’

‘Nicholas should never have married you,’ said Langar, working himself into a temper. ‘We were happy until you came along with your sordid offer of “marriage”. And you did not do it to save him from Kelby’s accusations of lewd
behaviour with me. You did it because you wanted to share his house and the money he had from his trade.’

Sabina shot him a look full of loathing. ‘His house was a hovel and he earned a pittance.’

‘He was not a dedicated silversmith,’ admitted Langar. ‘However, he was content until you started criticising his work, demanding to know why he did not make more money. You corrupted his mind, and it led him down a dark path.’

‘A dark path whereby he made copies of sacred relics?’ asked Michael guilelessly.

‘What?’ asked Langar, put off his stride by the question. He opened his mouth to resume his attack on Sabina, but she spoke before he could do so.

‘That is exactly what he did. And it was not right. The saints do not approve of that sort of thing.’

‘Are you saying Nicholas made copies of the Hugh Chalice?’ asked Langar. ‘Is that what he was doing, night after night in his workshop for the last month of his life, when he would not see me?’

‘He made bad replicas,’ said Sabina spitefully. ‘Only a fool would have been deceived by them – they are made of tin, for a start. And there are mistakes in the carving.’

‘He gave Jesus three fingers,’ said Michael.

‘Oh, he took that from the original,’ said Sabina scornfully. ‘He was not that inept.’

‘Where are they?’ asked Langar, looking around as though he expected them to appear. ‘I sincerely hope Chapman has not sold any. We do not want our Commonalty stained with that sort of thing. People have scruples where relics are concerned.’

‘Chapman did not sell them,’ said Lora disdainfully. ‘He believes the Hugh Chalice is sacred, and refuses to have anything to do with Nicholas’s work. Nicholas was so angry that he tried to scrape the mark off his arm.’

Langar frowned. ‘He told me Sabina caused that injury, by throwing a hot pan at him.’

‘How many did he make?’ asked Michael, while Sabina shot Langar a derogatory look.

‘A number,’ replied Lora evasively.

‘He died with four in a bag around his shoulder,’ said Sabina. Her expression was spiteful; she was enjoying Langar’s hurt shock as he learned things his lover had kept from him. ‘Tetford was kind, though: he helped me toss them in the Braytheford Pool, where they belong. As a reward, I gave him a cope, given to me by that horrible Canon Hodelston, as payment for—’

She stopped speaking abruptly. ‘As payment for providing him with information about the Commonalty?’ asked Langar softly. ‘We always did wonder how he and the Guild always seemed to know our plans. It almost saw us destroyed during the plague.’

‘That is the garment in which you will be installed, Brother,’ whispered Cynric, lest the monk had not made the connection. ‘Tetford’s tale about the chest in his tavern’s attic was a lie. And now we know how he came by the four chalices for his women, too.’

‘We do not have time for this,’ said Miller, pacing restlessly. ‘Kelby wants to slaughter us all, and the longer we stand here chatting, the more time he will have to organise it.’

‘Please,’ said Sabina, going to place her hand on his arm. ‘Do not walk the road to violence. Lives will be lost on both sides, and our town deserves better. Spend your money on helping the weavers.’

‘Sabina seems rather ready to persuade us to stand down,’ said Langar icily, ‘just as she was six years ago, when Canon Hodelston brought us to the brink of ruin. You should ask yourself why.’

‘Do not listen to him,’ said Sabina, while Miller and Lora
regarded her with sudden suspicion. ‘He wants to get rid of you, so he can take your place as head of the Commonalty. He is telling lies, to confuse you and make you look inept.’

‘I have no reason to doubt him,’ said Miller coldly. ‘And perhaps he is right about you.’

‘I am here to help Chapman,’ sighed Sabina impatiently, as if she was becoming tired of repeating herself.

‘Kill her,’ said Miller to a man with a crossbow. The response was so immediate that Bartholomew wondered whether summary executions had been ordered before. One moment, Sabina was opening her mouth to protest her innocence, and the next she was lying on the floor with a bolt in her throat. The room was silent except for an unpleasant choking sound, which stopped before Bartholomew could do more than kneel beside her.

‘Damn,’ breathed Langar, rubbing a hand across his mouth. He glanced uneasily at the scholars. ‘That was inopportune, Miller.’