Eventually, Nesta found a few moments to come and sit close to him on his bench, the two old soldiers tactfully moving off in search of Edwin for refills. She pressed her soft hip against him and laid her head against his shoulder. ‘Thank God the Archbishop of Canterbury doesn’t come to Exeter too often,’ she said. ‘Though the money is welcome, the work is just too much, without an able man about the house.’ She looked up at him mischievously. ‘Any chance of you changing the post of King’s crowner for tavern-keeper, John?’
He put an arm around her shoulders and squeezed her to him. ‘Don’t tempt me, lady. The way these deaths and assaults are piling up, I might consider it. Rather than lose you, I’d certainly leave home – but as for being an innkeeper, I might drink all the profits.’
They flirted and joked for a few moments, until a yell from upstairs brought Nesta to her feet to scream back at one of her maids, who was complaining that one of their lodgers was lying dead drunk and vomiting on one of their palliasses. ‘I’d better go and put the silly fool to rights!’ she snapped, and ran off to settle the girl’s problems.
Almost immediately, the door to Idle Lane opened and Gwyn and Thomas came in, looking damp and cold from the inclement weather outside. The little ex-priest, dressed in a frayed brown cloak, went off to order some food from Edwin, while Gwyn came and sat in the place just warmed by Nesta’s bottom.
‘Did you find Bearded Lucy?’ demanded the coroner.
The Cornishman held out his hand towards the fire and rubbed them together vigorously. ‘We did indeed – and she improved on what she told us last time.’
‘You didn’t do her any damage, I hope?’ asked John, knowing of Gwyn’s frequent over-enthusiasm.
‘No, I didn’t lay a finger on her. Didn’t want to catch her lice, for one thing.’
‘But he threatened to push her hut into the leat if she didn’t talk,’ said Thomas, who had appeared with two wooden dishes of pork leg and bread. Edwin hobbled up behind with a quart of ale for Gwyn and a smaller jar of cider for Thomas, who claimed that ale tasted like donkey’s water.
Thomas sat at the end of the bench while Gwyn told his tale. ‘The old hag stuck to her story at first, that she had sent Adele de Courcy away the second time, when the pills she gave her didn’t cause a miscarriage.’ He tore a piece of pork from the bone and spoke through a mouthful of meat. ‘I persuaded her a bit then, suggesting she might like to spend a week or two in the South Gate gaol before being tried as a witch and burned at the stake. That didn’t seem to worry her too much.’ He washed down the pig meat with a great swig of ale. ‘Then I punched my fist through the front wall of her miserable dwelling, probably frightening the rats inside. When I suggested that a good push would probably send it all floating down the Exe, she decided to talk.’
John was used to Gwyn building up his story to a satisfactory climax and avoided the temptation to hurry him. ‘So eventually, with bad grace and many vile words about my character, she admitted that she had directed Mistress de Courcy to someone who might help her more directly in getting rid of the unwanted burden in her belly.’
‘And who was that?’ asked John, sensing that the dénouement had arrived.
‘Our favourite leech, Nicholas. It seems that he had a reputation for helping such ladies in Bristol some years ago, but one almost died and the Guild of Apothecaries there forbade him from practising his trade.’
John turned this over in his mind with interest. Nicholas might then have been the cause of Adele de Courcy’s death, though it would be almost impossible to prove without his confession. If he had introduced the slippery elm into the neck of her womb, then undoubtedly, according to Dame Madge, the fatal bleeding had been a direct consequence. ‘Drink up and eat your food. We’ve another call to make at the leech’s shop.’
While they were hurriedly finishing their refreshment, John went to the foot of the ladder to the upper floor and called for Nesta. She came down and he related what Gwyn had told her. ‘Have you ever heard of Nicholas of Bristol being involved in performing miscarriages?’ he asked her.
She shook her head. ‘No, but I suspect that any leech might help a woman out on occasions, either for money or for pity. So it doesn’t surprise me.’
He kissed her, and then hustled his two assistants out into the lane. They made their way through the narrow streets with their jumble of wooden and stone houses and crossed the road leading down to the West Gate to reach the leech’s shop.
A man with a huge abscess on his face, which closed one eye and puffed up the whole of his cheek, was buying a pot of salve as they entered. ‘Give that one more day and I’ll lance it for you,’ ordered the apothecary, as the man, groaning with pain, felt his way to the door. When it had shut behind him, Nicholas produced the tray with the platter of food, the wine flask and the silver chalice from Fitzosbern’s house and placed them on his counter. Then he went into his store room behind and returned with two small wooden cages, one containing a brown rat, the other, a cat, which he also put on the bench.
John, who had come mainly to accuse him of manslaughter, was momentarily nonplussed. ‘What’s all this?’ he demanded.
Nicholas wiped saliva from the sagging corner of his mouth with a rag. ‘My examination for poison, as you requested, Crowner. I find no evidence at all. Look at these.’ He poked a finger between the withies that formed the bars of the cat’s cage. The scrawny tabby looked at him fearfully. ‘I gave it a large piece of the fowl from the platter and then forced down more than an egg-cupful of the wine.’ He turned to prod the smaller box containing the rat, which sat unconcernedly preening its whiskers. ‘The same for this, though it was more difficult to get wine down its throat.’
Gwyn looked at the two animals. ‘You mean they suffered no ill-effects?’
‘Nothing, they seemed glad of the sustenance.’
The quick-witted Thomas questioned the results. ‘How long ago did they eat the food – and how do we know that such beasts are as susceptible to poison as men?’
The apothecary lifted the two cages back to the floor behind the counter. ‘I gave it to them within an hour of your coming this morning, so they consumed it at least six hours ago. Ample time for it to affect such small animals. As to the effects on humans, there is only one way to test.’ He grabbed the chalice from the tray and before they could protest, drained the wine that had half-filled the goblet. ‘There! If I collapse and die, then you know that I was wrong.’ The trio was silent for a moment. Thomas crossed himself and watched Nicholas intently, as if to detect the first sign of his dropping into a twitching coma.
‘So what was wrong with Godfrey Fitzosbern?’ grated the coroner.
Nicholas shrugged. ‘Either he had some poison from elsewhere, maybe other rotten food, or his affliction was an Act of God, an apoplexy or some other natural disease. It can happen.’
This was what Brother Saulf had said, John recalled, even though he considered it unusual. ‘Fitzosbern may tell us himself soon, he seems to be recovering his senses,’ he said somberly. ‘Now then, Nicholas of Bristol, I have another serious matter to put to you.’
‘Of course, he flatly denied it, it’s to be expected.’ John was telling Matilda of the events of the day, as they got ready for the banquet at Exeter Castle. Once again, his wife had been attended for half the day by the ferret-faced Lucille and was now arrayed in a new kirtle of yellow silk, the round neck revealing a chemise of white lawn. Huge sleeves, tight at the armpit and bell-shaped at the wrist, had tippets hanging almost to the ground. Tonight Matilda wore a white linen wimple at her throat, which framed her face under a cover-chief. This was a large head veil held around her forehead by a barbette, a linen band made popular by the old queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine.