He walked shakily to his chair and waved to his servant. ‘Wine,’ he commanded. Watching while the apothecary shook his head, studying the youth, he was suddenly convinced that Adam would die and the only thing that he, Stephen, would be remembered for from now on was that he had served a meal that poisoned a Secondary. It would overshadow all his achievements, smothering reports of his financial probity, hiding his successes behind a veil of rumour and vicious slanders.
‘How could this have happened?’ he moaned.
Gervase moved to allow the apothecary to approach with his knife and a bowl. When he stepped out of the way, his foot touched something. Bending, he picked up a small flask of orpiment. He studied it with a frown, but then the apothecary was asking for help. On a whim, Gervase put the flask in his scrip. Both men gripped Adam’s arm firmly enough to let a little blood flow. The apothecary dipped a finger in it, holding his reddened forefinger up to the light, smelling at the bowl, then tasting a little on his tongue thoughtfully, stirring the blood as it thickened in the bowl and shaking his head.
‘I think that should be enough,’ he said and bound the arm, tightening a tourniquet and applying a styptic. He placed the bloody bowl on the table and reached into his bag again. ‘Fetch me salt and water, please.’
Gervase watched while the apothecary withdrew a long clyster tube and a pig’s bladder from his bag. ‘Right, first we have to force the salted water into his throat, to make sure he’s brought up all the poison, and then we need to empty his bowels as well,’ he said, in the bright tone of one who had never yet performed such an operation.
Jeanne and Edgar were in the High Street, passing down the long line of trestles upon which were laid all manner of choice goods.
They had not yet lunched, and as they walked along the road Jeanne became aware of a faint light-headedness. Looking up at the sun she realised how long it had been since she heard the Cathedral bells toll for the midday service. Her hand went to her belly and the growing child. She must try to remember to eat more regularly. That was one thing that Simon’s wife had told her, because the dizziness of hunger could attack at any time. ‘I need some food, Edgar,’ she said.
He grinned and led them back the way they had come to Carfoix, the meeting of the four main roads, then right along the street of cooks. The smells were enough to tempt the most jaded palates. Roasted honeyed larks and pigeons, pies of good beef and lamb, hot pies, cold pies, pies filled with vegetables, pies with strong spices, pies with sweetened custards filling them. Jeanne picked a roasted pigeon and a pie filled with sweetened almond custard while Edgar, who didn’t have a sweet tooth, selected a strong-smelling beef and onion pasty which had much garlic added, from the odour.
The smell made Jeanne wince. She had taken a dislike to garlic recently. Usually, like most people, she loved the flavour for, after all, it was one of the most common herbs used to strengthen a pottage or soup, but since becoming pregnant, she had found the stink of it turned her stomach. Accordingly she stood upwind of Edgar while he ate his pie with every appearance of relish.
While standing there, they were jostled by two clerks who erupted from St Petrock’s and ran past laughing. Shortly afterwards a red-faced porter came out of the church and glared up and down the streets before throwing up his hands as if in despair and returning.
‘I think the revels are beginning early this year,’ Edgar noted laconically.
Jeanne agreed and they made their way to a tavern. Jeanne was feeling a little chilled so she had a mulled cider, sweetened with honey and scented with cinnamon, ginger and galingale. It sent its heat shooting straight to her toes and fingertips, scalding as it passed down her throat, but filling her with glowing delight when it reached her belly.
Outside they strolled idly along the Northgate Street, and soon saw the two youths who had run from St Petrock’s. They were walking up behind two men, obviously important fellows, for they swaggered as they walked, their feet in step but at a pace too slow to be dignified as a ‘march’. Giggling, the two boys darted up to the two older men, there was a burst of angry shouting, and the youths pelted back past Edgar and Jeanne, laughing like idiots, one gripping a bowl, the other a handful of what looked like rags.
The two men looked at each other, shrugged, and continued on their way. And Jeanne saw that both had a large patch of coloured material stuck to their back. The boys were glueing patches of cloth on unsuspecting citizens as a joke.
Jeanne giggled to herself and glanced at Edgar. He too was smiling, but he wasn’t looking at the men. His attention was on a large copper pot hanging above a nearby trestle. Edgar had recently married, much to Baldwin’s oft-stated astonishment, for Edgar had been a noted philanderer ever since he and Baldwin had left the Knights Templar, but there it was: Edgar the bachelor was now Edgar the married man. He had given his vows before everyone. Jeanne saw his peering study of the pot and was touched that he should be thinking of his new wife even now, miles from home. Not that he or she had need of a pot that size. If he ever wanted something to cook in, there were plenty of large coppers in Baldwin’s kitchen.
Jeanne was about to suggest that he should borrow one of theirs, when Edgar whirled. Jeanne squealed with alarm as a boy in clerical garb fell in front of her, and when she turned to look, the second was wearing his bowl of glue, sitting unhappily in a large puddle.
‘Should we return now, do you think, my Lady?’ Edgar said imperturbably.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Once Gervase saw how professionally the apothecary was treating his charge, his mind flew to the question of how the lad could have been poisoned. He was no trained inquisitioner, but he was no fool either, and with his University training he felt sure he could learn something. In the kitchen he asked a fearful and defensive cook about the food.
‘There was nothing in that to hurt anyone. It was fine. All he had was a dish of thin pottage. I made it last week, and there wasn’t nothing wrong with it. Good lettuce, dried peas, some cabbage and onion, garlic, barley and a marrowbone to give it some body. I swear that pottage would do any man good.’
‘Where is it?’
‘Here,’ the cook said. He scooped up a ladleful and held it out. ‘Want to taste it?’
Gingerly, Gervase sipped a tiny amount. It certainly tasted all right. A little insipid, perhaps, but there was no bitterness or sourness such as he recalled the Arabic tracts warning of.
The cook was offended by his caution. He drank the whole ladleful and then a second. ‘See? It’s fine. If there was something wrong with my soup, it was done outside of my kitchen. The idea!’
He was still muttering as Gervase hurried back across the yard to Stephen’s door. Inside, the apothecary was kneeling by Adam. He had removed his clyster from the unfortunate clerk’s mouth, and was in the process of inserting it in Adam’s… Gervase delicately termed it Adam’s posterior orifice. The sight made Gervase wince.
Stephen had left the room, and now only the apothecary and Gervase remained to administer to the unfortunate invalid. Adam shuddered and winced as the tube was pushed deeper and deeper, and then Gilbert filled the bladder with salted water and began the process of pumping it into Adam.
To distract him, Gervase spoke, trying to ignore what was going on at the youth’s nether regions.
‘Do you have any idea what happened here?’
‘It was Luke, Succentor. He poisoned me.’
‘Why should a lad like him wish to poison you?’