‘What happened?’ asked Heslarton in a taut, strained voice.
‘Alice was sitting in here with Odelina,’ replied the maid. ‘She was trying to sew, but the light was poor, and she kept complaining that she could not see. I was stoking up the fire.’
‘Was she eating or drinking anything?’ asked Bartholomew urgently, putting out his hand to prevent Emma from sipping the brew Meryfeld had just poured her.
‘Wine,’ replied the maid. She pointed to the goblet Emma held. ‘That wine.’
Gyseburne took it and poured it into his urine flask. ‘It is as I thought,’ he said, holding it up to the light, then sniffing it carefully. ‘It stinks of wolfsbane – a very deadly poison.’
‘Where is Odelina?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Was she drinking this wine, too?’
‘Odelina!’ cried Heslarton, looking around in concern. ‘My poor child! Where is she? Find her! Search the house!’
The servants raced to do his bidding, while Heslarton paced in tiny circles, as if he did not know what else to do. Emma stretched a hand towards him, for comfort, but he ignored it. Gyseburne leaned closer to Bartholomew.
‘Perhaps Odelina fed the wolfsbane to her dam,’ he suggested. ‘And then fled. I have heard they were not good friends – not like she is with her father.’
There were two half-full goblets on the table, along with a jug of milk. Bartholomew could not detect the odour of wolfsbane in any of them, but Gyseburne said it was in the wine, and there was no reason to disbelieve him. Clearly, Odelina had imbibed the poison, too.
‘I did not see her leave the room,’ said the maid, frightened. ‘She was here when her mother…’
There was only one place the missing woman could be. Bartholomew dropped to his hands and knees, and looked under the bed. Odelina was curled into a ball, beginning the strange shuddering movements that had killed her mother. He grabbed her arm and dragged her out. She was still conscious, although terrified and unable to speak. Distraught, Heslarton flung himself on her, and it took both Bartholomew and Gyseburne working together to prise him off.
Meryfeld stepped forward to hold him while they tended the stricken woman, and Bartholomew thought he would be unequal to the task, but the little physician deftly secured him in the kind of headlock employed by wrestlers. Heslarton wept and howled until his energy was spent, then dissolved into quiet sobs. Emma, meanwhile, regarded her stricken granddaughter with horror.
Hoping Gyseburne’s identification of the poison was correct, Bartholomew grabbed a cup and a bowl of water, and forced Odelina to drink. She groaned and tried to push him away, but he persisted until it was all gone. Then he put his fingers in her mouth until she retched. When she was done, he repeated the process, ignoring Emma’s clamouring objections at his roughness.
Gyseburne understood what he was trying to do, though. He added oil to the next cup of water, along with a few drops of something Bartholomew assumed was an emetic.
‘Foxglove,’ said Bartholomew urgently, when he pressed his ear to Odelina’s chest and heard her heart pumping sluggishly. ‘There is some in my bag.’
He administered the dose Gyseburne handed him, and was gratified to detect a more normal rhythm a few moments later. Odelina began to shiver, so he wrapped her in a blanket.
‘Please,’ she whispered. ‘I am thirsty.’
‘Oh, thank God!’ breathed Emma. ‘It is a good sign, is it not? For her to speak coherently?’
Bartholomew nodded. ‘A very good sign.’
While the maid went to fetch fresh water from the kitchen, Odelina indicated that she wanted to sit up. When she reeled, Meryfeld released Heslarton, who dashed to support her. Odelina clung to him tearfully. He tried to lift her into the bed, but the task was beyond him, so he was obliged to enlist Bartholomew’s help. Once she was settled, sipping water brought from the kitchen, Bartholomew began to relax, knowing she was going to recover.
‘When my mother and I were first struck down, I tried to call for help,’ Odelina whispered, as Heslarton fussed about her with blankets. ‘But I could not speak. I crawled under the bed because I was frightened. I heard her … Is she…’
‘She is dead, child,’ said Emma, patting her shoulder comfortingly. ‘Even with three physicians in the house, she was beyond saving. Fortunately, they had better luck with you.’
Heslarton sat next to his daughter, holding her hand in a grip that looked tight enough to be painful, and it was left to Emma to arrange the removal of his wife’s corpse from the room.
‘Your quick thinking saved Odelina,’ said Gyseburne in Bartholomew’s ear. ‘She would be dead, if you had not thought to look under the bed.’
‘But it was you who identified the poison,’ Bartholomew pointed out. ‘I would not have made her vomit without your diagnosis.’
Gyseburne gave what was almost a smile. ‘Then we make a fine team, you and I. Perhaps we should work together more often.’
Bartholomew smiled back, thinking it would be pleasant to have a colleague with whom to confer sometimes. He had avoided doing so thus far, lest it led to more accusations of heterodoxy.
‘She will live?’ asked Heslarton unsteadily. ‘All that roughness paid off ? She will be well now?’
‘We believe so,’ replied Gyseburne. ‘Although someone should stay with her tonight.’
‘I will,’ offered Meryfeld immediately. ‘A physician is better than a layman. And I am the Colvyll family’s medicus now.’
Bartholomew was only too happy to pass the responsibility to Meryfeld, sure the worst was over anyway. He turned to leave, but Odelina caught his sleeve.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘I shall always be grateful.’
‘And so will I,’ said Emma, addressing all three physicians. ‘I am sorry for Alice, but I shall not hold it against you. Clearly, you were called too late.’
‘We had better throw away all the wine in the house, to ensure no more of this poison lurks,’ said Heslarton grimly. ‘And then I shall find out who put it there.’
‘It was that yellow-headed thief,’ declared Emma. Her black eyes flashed with fury. ‘I have been wondering why he did not make off with more of my valuables. It was because he was busy tampering with our wine, and my box was all he had time to grab before he was obliged to flee.’
‘Theft and murder are two very different–’ began Bartholomew uncertainly.
‘It was him,’ declared Emma firmly. ‘Other than you, he is the only person – outside family and staff – to have set foot in my house this month.’
‘What about Celia Drax?’ asked Meryfeld, somewhat out of the blue. ‘She visits you a lot.’
Heslarton regarded him in surprise. ‘Celia is our friend, and I doubt she knows about poisons!’
‘Of course she does not,’ agreed Emma. ‘The culprit is that thief, and I shall not rest until he is caught. Thomas will resume the hunt as soon as Odelina no longer needs him. However, given the seriousness of the crime, we should tell Brother Michael and the Sheriff to look for the murdering scoundrel, too.’
Bartholomew offered to inform them, then took his leave, Gyseburne trailing at his heels.
‘Meryfeld is mad,’ said Gyseburne. ‘Wild horses would not encourage me to physic a family like that – something will go wrong, and they will kill him for it.’
Bartholomew sincerely hoped he was wrong.
The next day dawned bright and clear. It was a glorious winter morning, where the sky was blue, the frost brittle and white on rooftops, and the sun a pale gold orb rising over the distant horizon. It was cold, though, and the wind that sliced in from the north-east was bitter. Bartholomew shivered all through mass in St Michael’s Church, and then shivered as Langelee led his scholars home along St Michael’s Lane. He said nothing as Michael fell into step beside him, lost in a reflection on whether he might not feel so chilled if he were not so hungry.