‘Course I do! Hanged him in November I did, a very expert job too, sir. He was on the cart, I pushed him up the ladder. I put the noose around his neck, the knot tied tight behind his left ear. I climbed down the ladder, then turned it. He dangled and kicked as they always do.’
‘Are you sure he died?’ Ranulf asked.
‘As sure as I am sitting here.’
‘How do you know that?’ Ranulf insisted.
‘I’ve seen enough men hang. I know when they are dead. They lose control over bladder and bowels. It’s a filthy business. John Le Riche died, his soul has gone to God. When I’m given a job, I do it well.’
‘You collected him from the prison,’ Ormesby asked, ‘on that morning?’
‘Yes, yes, I did.’
‘And he was the prisoner Le Riche?’ Corbett asked.
‘Oh, of course.’
‘What was his disposition?’ Corbett asked. ‘How was he?’ He explained. ‘Le Riche? Some men protest, others are quiet.’
‘Well, I tell you this.’ Ratisbon leaned an arm on the table and spoke in a gust of ale-sodden breath. ‘I like a drink, and so did Le Riche. Master, if he’d drunk any more he’d have fallen down.’
‘He was drunk?’ Corbett asked.
‘Drunk? He could hardly stand, but I tell you this, drunk or not, he’s dead.’ Ratisbon could say no more. Corbett thanked him, gave him a few pennies and the man shuffled from the hall.
Lady Hawisa arrived garbed in her widow’s weeds. She took the oath, sat down, lifted back her veil and immediately smiled at Ranulf, who became so solicitous Corbett glared at him.
‘Lady Hawisa,’ Corbett began, ‘I thank you for coming here despite these distressing times. Certain questions must be asked and the King requires answers.’
‘Sir Hugh, ask your questions.’
‘How long were you married to your husband?’
‘About eleven years.’
‘And you had no child?’
‘None whatsoever, Sir Hugh, God’s will.’
Corbett studied her pale face, eyes large and dark, lips pressed together. Lady Hawisa had a slightly nervous movement of the head as if the left side of her neck pained her. Despite the circumstances, Corbett decided bluntness was the best path to follow.
‘Did you love your husband?’
‘No, I hated him!’
Corbett ignored the gasps and muttering of his two companions.
‘Why did you hate him?’
‘He had a midnight soul, Sir Hugh, dark as the deepest midnight. He was cruel, he was cold.’
‘Lady Hawisa.’ Corbett stooped down for the leather sack under his chair and drew out the cup he’d taken from the death chamber. ‘You recognise this cup?’
‘Of course I do. I gave it to my husband as a present.’
‘It is fashioned out of elm?’ Corbett asked.
‘No, Sir Hugh, I think you know what it’s fashioned out of. Yew. I gave it to him as a curse. To bring yew into a house creates ill luck. I hoped ill luck would befall my husband.’
‘Lady Hawisa, you tend the manor herb garden. It’s richly stocked with all kinds of plants, some beneficent, others malevolent, yes?’
Lady Hawisa just stared back.
‘And in that herb garden you grow belladonna – nightshade?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve been down there.’ Corbett leaned forward. ‘I’ve looked at a certain plot where the nightshade grows; the soil has been disturbed, a plant has been plucked.’
‘It may well be, Sir Hugh, but I did not do that.’
‘You do know what was found in your husband’s chamber?’
‘I’ve heard the rumours: wine tainted with deadly nightshade.’ Lady Hawisa glanced quickly at Physician Ormesby. ‘Enough poison to kill him, but he never drank it and I never put it there! Neither the plucking of the herb nor the poisoning of the wine was my doing. Ask the servants. Lord Scrope took his own wine there.He chose it himself from his cellar, filled the jug and took it across; he would always sample it. Lord Scrope was a man with many enemies. He feared the past, God knows why; he was most cunning in all his dealings.’
‘Did your husband know you hated him?’
‘My husband did not care a whit about what I felt, what I thought or what I did. I was a rich heiress, Sir Hugh. I did not marry out of choice. I was a ward of the Crown. My husband married me not because of my fair face but for my rich estates.’
‘Did you ever plot to murder your husband?’
‘In my mind, many, many times. Why not? As I’ve said, he had a soul as black and as deep as midnight. He was not brutal or cruel to me, just cold, dead! He had a heart of stone, no soul. He had no real lusts except for wealth. However, much as I loathed him, I did not kill him. I will not act the hypocrite, Sir Hugh. I will not swear on the Book of the Gospels and say we had a marriage made in heaven. We simply didn’t have a marriage. I was a stranger to him, as he was to me.’
‘And how can you explain the nightshade?’
‘I cannot. I had nothing to do with it. Anyone can enter that herb garden. Anyone can pluck a plant.’
‘Sir Hugh?’ Ormesby protested.
Corbett raised a hand. ‘Very well, and the night your husband was murdered?’
‘I was asleep in my bed. My husband had decided to withdraw to the reclusorium.’
‘Why did he do that?’
‘To think, to talk to himself. Yes, I think he conversed with himself as if another person was really with him. I suspect theconversation was about the past, though he never talked about that to me. As for my movements that night, Sir Hugh, you’ve seen the lake, for the love of God, yards wide, yards deep; the water is so icy, the very shock of it would kill you.’
‘And your husband’s past, did he ever refer to it, even obliquely?’
‘No, though I suspect it troubled him deeply. He was a knight. He fought in Wales, Scotland and Gascony, then he took the cross. He led a company from Mistleham. Sir Hugh, I swear I know nothing of what happened out there except that Acre fell, and my husband seized a great deal of treasure and brought it back to England.’
‘And these warnings?’
‘I can add nothing to what has already been told you.’ Lady Hawisa shook her head. ‘Nothing,’ she whispered. ‘Some hideous legacy, I suppose, from a hideous past.’
‘And the Free Brethren of the Holy Spirit?’
‘At first Lord Scrope tolerated them; he did so at my request and that of his sister. I was much taken by them, especially the leader, Adam, a merry soul with laughing eyes.’ She glanced archly at Corbett. ‘No, Sir Hugh, there was no dalliance. I regarded Adam as the brother I would have liked or the son I would have loved.’
‘Then your husband changed his attitude?’
‘God knows why. He never discussed the matter with me. I only knew about the massacre after it occurred. I remember him summoning the men in the courtyard below. They were armed, chattering about going out to Mordern to overawe the Free Brethren. As God is my witness I did not think he intended to slay any of them. On reflection it was inevitable; by the Feast ofAll Saints Lord Scrope truly hated the Free Brethren. He called them vermin in his barn and wanted to have done with them. My husband,’ Lady Hawisa laughed sharply, ‘kept his word. They were wiped out like you would a nest of rats.’
‘And Lord Scrope was pleased?’
‘Like any farmer who’d cleared his property of a nuisance. He celebrated with Master Claypole and Robert de Scott, a few more cups of wine than usual.’
‘And Master Le Riche, the thief?’
‘Again, Sir Hugh, I have told you what I know. My husband was summoned to the guildhall, where Le Riche had been seized and detained. I was with him because I wanted to make certain purchases from the market. We entered the guildhall; Le Riche was already bound. He looked a folorn, abject creature. I thought he was inebriated, drunk.’
‘You are sure of that?’
‘Sir Hugh, I tell what I saw.’
‘Lady Hawisa, your husband and Master Claypole?’ Corbett straightened himself in the chair, ignoring the disapproving looks of both Ranulf and Master Ormesby. ‘A delicate, sensitive matter …’
‘No, a rather feckless matter!’ Lady Hawisa retorted. ‘True, now that my husband is dead, the stories about Claypole being his legitimate son could play a prominent part in my life. I’ve heard all the rumours, but the truth? If Claypole is Lord Scrope’s son, then he’s a by-blow, illegitimate, with a bar sinister across his arms. He has no more right to these lands than the Great Cham of Tartary.’