The Deadliest Sin

The Sixth Sin

The storytelling was now taken up by an individual called Nicholas Hangfield. It was he who had attempted to speak to Janyn Hussett, the veteran of Crécy, at the very beginning. He was a quiet, good-natured fellow in his thirties, stocky and with dark hair. He explained that he’d been born in Bristol but that he’d moved to London, where he worked as a shipping clerk. He liked being near the water and he liked the sight of boats, though you’d never have caught him actually boarding one. Bristol was one of the places in the west where the plague was supposed to have struck and people looked expectantly at Nicholas as though he might have news for them, but he said that he had no family living there now and thus was no better informed than any of them.

‘My father, William, God rest his soul, told me this tale many times, especially when I was a child – and when he was bed-fast for months, dying of a creeping inflammation of his lungs.

‘In his prime, he had been one of the serjeants of the Sheriff of Somerset, living in Bristol where I was born and brought up. Not yet thirty years ago, in the fifteenth year of the reign of the second Edward, he had been assigned by the sheriff to be an officer to the county coroner and he served him for a considerable time. My father came to know about all the violent, unusual and suspicious deaths in the city and regaled me with many remarkable tales. One story in particular intrigued me and every detail has stuck in my memory – so much so that in many idle moments, I contrived my own conception of the affair, seeing the people in my mind’s eye and hearing their voices in my imagination, until I built up a kind of play or masque in my head that was as good as reality. My theme is…

Envy

One sunny afternoon in late spring, Robert Giffard was lying on a bench in the garden behind his burgage in High Street, listlessly watching his servant place a goblet on a stool alongside him. It contained no fine wine, but a sour concoction that he himself had ordered the man to make up in his dispensary at the front of the house.

‘Had we enough mother-wort in stock, Edward? We were running low.’ Robert’s voice was weak as he reached for the glass, but Edward Stogursey nodded reassuringly.

‘Enough for another dozen potions, sir. And plenty of valerian, too.’

He was the physician’s house steward and personal servant, but also acted as his lay assistant in the practice. A stocky man with a square face and cropped brown hair, he had an impassive manner that rarely showed any emotion. As far as he knew himself, he was about thirty years old, but as he had been left as a foundling in the porch of Stogursey Priory, he had no knowledge of the date of his birth. A local widow had taken him in and given him the name of their village in the Quantock Hills, adding the royal Edward for good measure.

As he walked back to the house, he stood aside deferentially as his master’s wife hurried out of the door and made for where her husband lay in the sunny part of the long, narrow garden.

‘Robert, are you sure this is safe to drink?’ she asked anxiously, as she picked up the glass and sniffed at it suspiciously. Eleanor Giffard was a tall, slender woman, a decade younger than her husband’s forty years. Glossy black hair peeped from beneath a linen coif, framing a smooth, oval face that had a hint of Latin ancestry.

‘It was made to my own prescription, dear woman,’ he replied slowly, as she took a sip of the brown fluid, then made a grimace of disgust.

‘It’s horrible! You know how careful you must be. We should get an extra taster, after what happened in February.’

Her husband made limp gesture of dismissal. ‘Edward always tries everything first – and so far, he has remained hale and hearty.’

Somewhat reluctantly, she replaced the goblet on the stool and bent down to rearrange the pillow that cushioned Robert’s head.

‘You claimed then that someone was trying to poison you,’ she said accusingly, ‘and now you are ill again.’

‘This is quite different from that time,’ he countered, a hint of irritation strengthening his tone. ‘Then I had yellow jaundice from an excess of bile in my liver. This time, I have palpitations, cramps and trembling. If I am being poisoned, then I intend to defeat it by taking nothing but simple food and drink that cannot be adulterated.’

Eleanor delicately lifted her skirts from the ground and sat down at the end of the bench alongside his feet.

‘It seems beyond belief that anyone in Bristol would wish you harm, Robert! You do so much good in treating many people.’

‘Perhaps too many! That may be the problem,’ he murmured obscurely.

His wife’s smooth brow creased in perplexity. ‘Too many? How can that be?’

‘There are those who are jealous of my success, as you well know. They are envious of the number and quality of my patients and would wish to gather some of them for themselves.’

Eleanor shook her head dismissively. ‘You have said this before, Robert, but I can’t believe that your colleagues would contemplate murder just to further their own ambitions!’

The physician gave a wry smile. ‘They are not my colleagues, lady – they are my competitors! Just as a baker or a tanner competes for trade with his fellows, my medical brothers would cut each other’s throats to gain a dozen more patients.’

The handsome woman considered this for a moment. ‘I admit that I don’t like any of them much – though that scrawny William Blundus seems modest enough and popular with the common folk.’

‘Then he might have most to gain from having more patients, especially ones who could pay,’ said Edward, cynically. ‘But I wouldn’t trust the other two, either. Humphrey de Cockville is too full of his own importance and would kill to have some of my richer customers.’

‘What about Erasmus Crote?’ asked Eleanor. ‘He’s such a whining, miserable fellow that I could easily see him hatching some devious plot.’

Her husband shrugged and winced as his muscles cramped with the movement. ‘Of course, it may be someone who has nothing to do with doctoring. Maybe you have a secret lover who lusts after you and wants to get rid of an inconvenient husband!’

Eleanor reddened and stood up. ‘Don’t jest about it, Edward! I think we should get an experienced physician from outside Bristol to see you. Perhaps you are suffering from some obscure disease, and not being poisoned at all. That was your diagnosis, but even you are not infallible.’

‘Thank you for your confidence in my talents, lady,’ he replied rather sourly. ‘And who do you suggest we could consult?’

‘I hear that the new infirmarian at Keynsham Abbey is greatly to be recommended. The mayor’s wife told me that he attended the university in Bologna.’

‘Certainly one of the most famous schools,’ he admitted. ‘Even older than Salerno and Montpellier. I’ll think about it, before we decide.’

‘And I’ll watch the kitchen like a hawk,’ said his wife resolutely. ‘Nothing will go on your plate or in your cup that I have not tasted myself!’

The physician’s house on High Street was in the lower part, just above the bridge crossing the River Avon to Redcliffe. At the top of that street was the High Cross, the focal point of the city, from which four main roads radiated out to the gates set in the city wall. On one of them, Corn Street, three men sat in a back room of the Anchor alehouse. On a table before them stood a jug of wine, a fresh loaf and half a small cheese. They were not real friends, merely acquaintances, their only common bond being that they were members of the medical profession.

‘He’s no better. I saw him yesterday and he looks worse than last week,’ said William Blundus, wrapping his fingers around his wine-cup. ‘He has strange symptoms; I don’t know what’s wrong with him.’

Blundus was a thin man, slightly stooped and though hardly forty, had grey hair speckling his mousy thatch. A sad, lugubrious face was creased with worry lines and his down-turned mouth suggested that he was a chronic pessimist.

The man next to him was very different. A rotund fellow of about fifty, he had a puffy face with rolls of fat beneath his chin like a prize porker. Bald but for a rim of ginger hair around the back of his head, he had a pink complexion from which a pair of gimlet-like blue eyes stared aggressively at the world.

‘You don’t know what’s wrong him?’ he repeated in a rasping voice. ‘Well, diagnosis was never your strong point, William!’

Humphrey de Cockville’s sarcasm was ignored by the others, who were used to his waspish tongue.

‘I wish the man no harm,’ said the third doctor, Erasmus Crote, though the others knew full well that he was lying. ‘But it’s an ill wind that blows no good, for I’ve picked up three of his patients since he’s been indisposed.’

Humphrey leaned forward to cut a wedge of cheese with a knife he took from the pouch on his belt.

‘It’s unfair that profitable work for us in Bristol is spread so unevenly,’ he complained. ‘Robert Giffard must have twice the number of patients that I see – and he attends upon most of the important families in the city and county.’

‘And wealthy ones, as well as being important!’ Erasmus added enviously. ‘Most of the ships moored along The Backs belong to patients of his.’

Blundus nodded his scrawny head in agreement. ‘All my flock are as poor as a village priest – the richest man I have is a saddle-maker!’

There was a silence as they poured more wine from the jug and Crote hacked the loaf into three, putting the two ends in front of his companions, keeping the softer middle for himself.

‘I think I’ll call to see him today,’ he said. ‘We must all show a little concern for one of our medical brethren,’ he added piously.

Humphrey de Cockville cackled at his colleague’s hypocrisy. ‘You want to make sure he’s dying, eh? Then you can chisel away a few more of his patients before we get them.’

Erasmus scowled, his long face creasing in dislike of the fat physician. Crote was older than the other two, being in his early fifties. A sour, humourless widower, he always felt resentfully inferior to them. Blundus had trained in St Bartholomew’s in London and de Cockville in Montpellier, both prestigious medical schools, whilst Crote had been merely an assistant to a physician in his native Dublin. However, he considered himself equally skilful and prided himself on his ability to treat skin diseases better than anyone in the West of England.

‘I merely wish to show my concern for him and to offer any help I can,’ he growled.

‘And to ogle that beautiful wife of his at close quarters, no doubt!’ sneered Humphrey. ‘Though you’re a score of years too old to be thinking of bedding her if he dies.’

Crote’s sallow face flushed with annoyance, partly because there was some truth in de Cockville’s taunt. Eleanor Giffard was indeed very handsome, but he would have little to offer her if she became a widow, especially with a dozen rich merchants all eager to snap her up if she became available.

‘None of us has a chance there,’ agreed William Blundus. ‘I have heard that Jordan fitz Hamon has been a frequent visitor to the Giffard household and that the fair Eleanor looks upon him with some favour.’

Humphrey Cockville’s pale eyebrows rose up his podgy face. ‘Your long nose has been more active than usual, Blundus! The fitz Hamon family owns probably a third of the ships that ply their trade from Bristol.’

The three physicians were well aware that Jordan fitz Hamon was the eldest son of Sir Ranulf fitz Hamon, and would undoubtedly be the heir to his business, making him one of the most eligible widowers in the city, as well as one of the richest.

‘And he’s barely forty years of age, not like you two middle-aged paupers!’ continued Blundus waspishly.

‘You are just a younger pauper!’ countered de Cockville. ‘Being of the same age as Ranulf makes you no less unattractive to a woman like Eleanor Giffard!’

‘Stop bickering about fantasies,’ snapped Erasmus Crote. ‘It’s no concern of ours what happens to Giffard’s wife if he dies – we are only concerned with its effect upon our practices.’

This cooled the sniping between the other two physicians and they brought their minds back to the main issue.

‘At least there are no other doctors in Bristol and none nearer than Bath or Taunton,’ said Blundus. ‘So we will have no other competition, unless Eleanor marries some fashionable physician from London.’

‘We are talking as if the man is dead already!’ complained Crote, who, alone amongst the three of them, showed a vestige of decorum. He rose to his feet and placed a few coins on the table to pay for his ale and food. ‘As I said, I’m off to pay a call on the Giffards, both to see how the man is faring and to wish him a return to good health.’ He marched out of the room, pulling the door closed behind him to cut off the snide remarks that he knew would follow him.

Humprhey de Cockville glared at the closed door. ‘Two-faced hypocrite, he’s off to discover how to wean a few more patients away from Giffard, if the man can’t attend to his business.’

William Blundus looked thoughtful. ‘That man Stogursey that Robert Giffard thinks so much of – he’s been holding the practice together these past few weeks, even though he’s nothing but an amateur apothecary.’

De Cockville gave a rare nod of agreement. ‘It’s not right that a mere servant should pass himself off as a doctor. If we only had a proper guild for us physicians, we could put a stop to it. The tanners or the silversmiths wouldn’t tolerate such improper competition for half a day!’

Blundus sighed as he reached for the dregs in the wine jug. ‘Yes, it’s bad enough having the religious fraternity taking trade from us. If the common man can get free treatment from the nearest abbey infirmary, why should he pay a doctor’?

‘Let’s see what Crote discovers over in High Street,’ advised Humphrey. ‘Then maybe we can see how best to turn this to our own advantage.’

Erasmus Crote gained very little from his visit to the Giffard household. After barely five minutes there, he was back on High Street again and began walking aimlessly along the river bank outside the city wall as he considered the situation. He had not seen Robert Giffard, or even his wife, for he was courteously, but firmly barred at the front door by the Stogursey fellow.

‘I fear, sir, that the master has taken a turn for the worse since dinner-time. The mistress had him taken back to bed, after he had a species of fit.’

Erasmus did his best to gain admittance by energetically offering his services as another doctor, eager to provide help and advice, but the servile apothecary’s assistant was adamant.

‘I regret that Mistress Eleanor gave strict instructions that he was not to be disurbed, sir. She is with him now, though he has drifted into sleep.’

Crote’s argument that the sick man needed urgent medical attention fell on deaf ears.

‘I am sure that you are right, sir – and that is why we have sent for an eminent physician, who will visit us in the morning.’

Erasmus noted the ‘we’, which suggested that the servant was now on an equal footing with the lady of the house. He also jumped on the news that another doctor had been called and for a moment wondered if he had missed a summons, which in his absence might now have gone to Humphrey de Cockville or William Blundus. But common sense told him that this was highly unlikely in the mere half-hour since he had left them.

‘And who might that be?’ he demanded of Stogursey.

The servant, obviously eager to shut the door in Crote’s face, informed him that it was Brother Xavier, the new infirmarian at Keynsham Abbey and a man of high repute trained at the University of Bologna.

Before the door was finally closed on him, he managed to order Stogursey to give his felicitations to his mistress, hoping that her husband would rapidly improve and that if there was any possible help that he could give, she was to send a message to him at any time of day or night. The man, with a deadpan expression that conveyed a total lack of interest, said that he would do so, then Erasmus found himself staring at the oaken boards of a firmly closed door.

Now the physician was walking along the waterfront, the many ships that were tied up along the wharfs reminding him of Jordan fitz Hamon, who would probably benefit the most if Robert Giffard died and left his desirable widow available for remarriage.

As he loped along, he contemplated the city where he lived and earned a meagre living. Bristol was now the third largest city in England after London and York, due to the maritime trade that made it the busiest port after London. Erasmus looked ahead of him along the muddy river to where it curved northwards through a steep gorge before meandering down to the sea, some seven miles away. The banks were lined with ships, now tilted against the quays as they lay on the mud at low tide. Twice a day, they were able to descend to the sea at high water, to make money for the city and especially the fitz Hamons.

Once again, Erasmus felt it so unfair that while he worked so hard to scratch a living amongst the poorer folk of Bristol, the rich merchants lived off the fat of the land, sitting on their treasure chests of gold and silver, merely from having accumulated wealth. Such wealth begat even more, with no further effort than employing clerks to administer a fleet of ships, manned by sailors who risked their lives in order to line their masters’ pockets.

Erasmus Crote sighed and began retracing his steps back into the city, his melancholy being increased by the prospect of having to deal with a handful of patients when he got back to his dismal consulting room. No doubt it would be the usual collection of chronic coughs, scabies and suppurating sores that would bring in a few miserable pence. Just half a dozen of Robert Gifford’s rich patients would set him on the road to success.

Robert Giffard was in a bad way by the time that the infirmarian from Keynsham Abbey arrived next day. Late in the morning, a placid palfrey arrived at the physician’s house carrying the monk, a tall cadaverous man, accompanied by a groom on another horse. He was admitted to the house and at once taken by Edward Stogursey to the sickroom, where Eleanor Giffard was sitting alongside the bed.

She rose to greet the figure dressed in the robes of an Augustinian canon, a black cloak over a white habit.

‘My husband is sinking fast, sir,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I fear he will not see out this day.’

Brother Xavier went to the bedside and looked down at the sick doctor, who lay deathly pale as he lay on his pillow. ‘Has he spoken to you today?’ he asked Eleanor. ‘Has he shown any signs of consciousness?’

She shook her head sadly. ‘Last evening he was fairly well and fell into what I thought was a normal sleep. But he has not responded to anything I say today.’

The infirmarian began examining his patient, lifting his eyelids and peering at the pupils. He gently felt the sides of the neck and probed the armpits, then pulled aside the bedclothes and placed his ear on the chest. Straightening up, he courteously suggested that Eleanor wait outside the room whilst he examined the more intimate parts of the husband’s body. With the aid of Stogursey, who stood patiently on the other side of the bed, they pulled down the blankets and Xavier carefully surveyed and palpated the belly and genitals. Then the servant gently pulled the body of his master towards him so that the monk could study the back, noting some small haemorrhages scattered over the skin.

‘Do you have a sample of his urine?’ he asked the doctor’s assistant. Stogursey produced a glass bottle from under a cloth and the Augustinian held it up to the light from the window, studying the colour and sniffing the odour. Realising that Stogursey had a considerable knowledge of medicine, he extracted a detailed history of Robert Giffard’s illness from the man. Eventually, with a resigned shrug, he left the bedchamber and went into the hall of the house, where Eleanor Giffard had ordered the servants to bring food and wine for the visiting infirmarian.

‘I’m afraid I can’t be of much assistance, madam,’ said Xavier in a grave voice. ‘And I fear you are right about your husband’s condition; he is unlikely to live much longer.’

‘But what is it that is killing him?’ she demanded. ‘Could it be some miasma that he has caught from one of his patients? Some are shipmasters who have returned from far overseas.’

The monk shook his head. ‘I do not believe so, Mistress Giffard. I think he has been poisoned – but by what, I cannot tell. There are scores, if not hundreds of noxious substances, most derived from plants and herbs, which could cause such symptoms.’

‘Have you no antagonist to such an evil thing?’ she said tearfully.

Xavier sighed heavily. ‘Without knowing what manner of poison it is, that is impossible. I am afraid that many people are misled into thinking that every poison has an antidote, but that is not so. Most methods of treatment are purely arbitrary.’

‘Then what can be done? Is he to die without any attempt at saving him?’

‘The problem is to discover how the poison has been adminstered,’ replied the infirmarian. ‘You say that all his food and drink has been tasted these past weeks since you suspected some evil doing?’

Eleanor once again assured him that either she or Stogursey had strictly supervised everything made in the kitchen and had both sampled it themselves. Xavier spoke gently to her for some minutes, though he knew that there was little he could do. After prescribing some bland treatment such as trying to get the patient to swallow white of egg and crushed charcoal, he had little else to offer other than his prayers. Eventually, after taking some refreshment, he mounted his horse and began the journey back to Keynsham. He had promised Mistress Giffard that he would return in several days, but as he made his way to the bridge, he knew that Robert Giffard would be dead before then.

Bristol Castle was on the eastern edge of the city – or to be more accurate, the city was continuous with the castle whose wide moat was fed from the small River Frome, which lay to the north. Inside the curtain wall of the castle was a massive keep, but there were numerous other smaller buildings, both in stone and wood. The sheriff, as befitted the King’s representative, had his quarters in the keep, together with the numerous officers who administered both the city and the county of Somerset.

One chamber on the ground floor of this forbidding mass of grey stone was provided for the coroner, Ralph fitz Urse. Like the sheriff, a coroner was a royal officer, who had multiple functions, mostly of a legal nature. He was responsible for bringing cases before the Eyre, the perambulating court presided over by the King’s judges. As part of his duties, the coroner had to investigate all deaths that were obviously not natural.

Most of his day-to-day work was carried out by his serjeant, William Hangfield, who had his own small office, little more than a cubicle, just inside one of the side entrances to the keep. This was a small arched gate some fifteen feet above the ground, reached by a wooden ramp, which in case of siege could be thrown down to avoid offering a weak point in the defences.

At about the eighth hour of the morning, William Hangfield was enjoying a quart of ale and a hunk of bread and cheese in the Great Hall, which during the day acted as a central meeting place of both the sheriff’s staff and many of the citizens who came to transact business with the officials. Benches and trestle tables lined one wall and those with some influence in the kitchens could obtain food and drink to fortify themselves for the working day. William lived with his wife and small son in a small house on Wine Street, but as he had to deal with coroner’s cases in all of the eastern part of the county, he was often out of the city. Today, he had no such tasks, and having just delivered some inquest records to the clerks for copying, ready for the next visitation of the judges, he had decided on some refreshment. He sat at a table, gossiping with some of his fellow officers, feeling relaxed, looking forward to an easy day in this hot weather. A rather short and heavily built man, now in his fortieth year, he had a thick neck and a round, rugged face, with black hair cropped to a horizontal line, in the old Norman style, which was long out of fashion.

He was a sociable man, popular with his friends in the castle and able to get along with his superiors, both the coroner and the sheriff himself. Both of these were not known for their patience or good nature, but William Hangfield was able to avoid any serious brushes with their authority, whilst still managing to get much of his own way in the methods that he employed to go about his duties. He sat with his pottery beer mug in a large hand, discussing the latest news about the ongoing antagonism between King Edward and the barons, who were demanding the expulsion of his favourites, the Despensers.

William’s political conversation was suddenly interrupted by the arrival at his side of one of the door-wards. These were servants who stood guard at the entrance to the Hall, to prevent any undesirables from entering.

‘William, there’s a lad at the gate who says he must see you urgently about a death,’ he reported. ‘Shall I let him in?’

A few moments later, the door-ward brought a nervous youth to the table, a thin boy about nine years old in the plain but decent clothing of a house servant.

‘If it please you, sir, I have a message for the coroner from my mistress,’ he said quaveringly, awed by his surroundings. He held out a folded piece of parchment, sealed with red wax.

The coroner’s officer took it and broke the seal, rapidly scanning the brief contents.

‘Good boy, tell your mistress that someone will attend upon her very shortly. Understand?’

The boy nodded and quickly vanished, glad to be out of the castle, which to most of the citizens had an evil reputation for dispensing unwanted justice.

‘More trouble?’ asked his drinking partner, a senior clerk in the taxation office.

‘One of our prominent citizens has gone to meet his Maker,’ replied Hangfield. ‘I had heard that he was ill, but not that he was in danger of death.’

‘And who might that be?’ asked the clerk.

‘Our best-known doctor, Robert Giffard. He was very well-regarded, especially by the more eminent residents of the city.’

The clerk whistled through his teeth to express concern. ‘He was certainly the best physician in Bristol – not that any of them could do much good – and he was certainly the most expensive!’

William Hangfield finished his ale in one swallow and rose from his seat.

‘I had better tell the coroner straight away, as even in death people like Robert Giffard command priority.’

He walked across the hall to a doorway on the opposite side, where a man-at-arms stood guard with a pike. Nodding at the man, William opened the door and went along a passage from which opened a number of doors, one of which was the coroner’s chamber. Inside the familiar room, he greeted the old clerk sitting at a writing desk with a quill. This was Samuel of Redcliffe, who had been compiling the coroner’s records for longer than anyone could remember.

‘Is he in yet?’ asked Hangfield. ‘There was a Mercer’s Guild dinner last night, so I thought he might be a bit under the weather this morning.’

Samuel’s toothless mouth gaped in a grin. ‘He’s in, all right, but in a foul temper.’

The coroner’s officer walked to an inner door and, after a perfunctory knock, went inside. The coroner, Sir Ralph fitz Urse, was slumped in the leather-backed chair behind his table, on which were scattered various parchments concening current cases. He was a pugnacious man, built like a bull, with a florid face and nose covered in small blue veins, suggesting his fondness for the wine flask. He had thinning ginger hair and bushy eyebrows of the same colour. Beady eyes sat above drooping pouches of skin and his fleshy lips were down-turned in a permanent expression of bad temper.

William Hangfield was well used to fitz Urse’s unattractive appearance and repugnant personality, but for some reason the abrasive coroner seemed to tolerate his officer far more than most other people with whom he came into contact.

‘What do you want?’ he growled, peering suspiciously from his bloodshot eyes.

‘I’ve had a death reported,’ replied William blandly. ‘One that’s a bit out of the ordinary.’

‘Let me see,’ grunted fitz Urse, holding out an unsteady hand to grab the parchment that his officer held. Having read the brief message, he looked up at William, who stood in front of his desk.

‘I didn’t know the bloody man was even ill,’ he grumbled, getting laboriously to his feet. ‘I could have done with a decent doctor myself, the way I feel this morning.’

‘What do you want me to do about it?’ asked William. ‘I presume you’ll want me to go down there straight away?’

The coroner rasped his bristly chin. ‘With someone this important in the city, I’d better tell the sheriff. And you’d better see the family and find out why they think he’s been poisoned.’

He lumbered towards the door, heading for the offices of Sir Nicholas Cheyney, the Sheriff of Somerset, who occupied several chambers on the opposite side of the hall. As he reached it, he turned to give further orders to his officer.

‘A lot of important people in the city will be very put out by the loss of their favourite doctor.’ he grated. ‘So make sure you get this right, or we’ll both be in the shite!’

William Hangfield strode out of the castle and across the bridge over the wide western moat to the gate at the end of Wine Street. It was becoming warm already and he was glad that he had not worn his cote-hardie. He had on a loose brown linen tunic down to his thighs, being sufficient over his leggings. He had found his chaperon, a cloth headpiece with a tail on the side, too warm and had tucked it into his belt alongside his dagger and pouch. Pushing his way through the crowded street, now filled with porters, beggars, street musicians and goodwives doing their daily market, he reached the High Cross, the junction of the four main roads, and turned left down High Street. He knew every inch of the city and most of the county beyond, so he was able to walk unerringly to the Giffard house, a large stone-built burgage, its size and quality indicating the prosperity of the lately deceased owner.

He knocked on the heavy oak door from which Erasmus Crote had been turned away the previous day, but received no reply. As he was about to hammer it again, a small figure appeared around the corner of the house. It was the same lad who had delivered the message to the castle.

‘The household is all at sixes and sevens,’ the boy announced. ‘The mistress is too upset to organise the servants and Edward Stogursey is trying to deal with some of the master’s patients who have turned up for treatment.’

William put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘Never mind, lad, it will all settle down,’ he said kindly. ‘But I must speak to someone straight away about your master’s death. Do you know anything about it?’

The boy shook his head fearfully. ‘Nothing at all, sir. I am only a boot-boy here and am below the notice of anyone in the family. I think Edward is the one you should speak to.’

The coroner’s officer followed the lad around the corner of the house, through a gate into the garden. Behind the main house was a smaller building, which was used as the doctor’s consulting room. It had a separate entrance onto the street at the side.

‘Edward will be in there, dealing with patients,’ explained the lad, whose name was Henry. He led William Hangfield into an open lean-to, where three or four well-dressed people, who looked to be of the merchant class, were seated on a bench waiting to be seen.

An inner door opened and a man whom William recognised as the wealthy owner of a tannery came out. They nodded to each other as Henry darted inside and emerged with a short, dark-haired man. The coroner’s officer had seen him about the city and rightly assumed that this was Edward Stogursey. It was common knowledge that this household steward also acted as the doctor’s dispenser.

‘I think it was you who sent a note to the coroner by the hand of this boy?’

Stogursey nodded and invited the official to enter the physician’s room. Closing the door, he motioned William to a stool and stood before him in a slightly submissive attitude.

‘Things are very difficult, Serjeant,’ he began in a low voice. ‘My mistress is naturally beside herself with grief at the loss of her husband in suspicious circumstances and there is no one else in the household but me who can hold things together.’

‘Are there no relatives that you can call upon?’

‘None hereabouts, sir. My master came to Bristol from London a good number of years ago and his wife is, of course, the daughter of the Lord of Berkeley Castle. They have no children, so there is no one to direct what is to be done.’

‘You say “suspicious circumstances”, but what evidence is there for that?’ demanded the officer.

‘The mistress called the infirmarian of Keynsham Abbey to see the master yesterday. He said he was sure it was a case of poisoning, but had no idea by what – or how it could be treated.’

This was news to William Hangfield, and changed the whole nature of the case.

‘I will have to speak with Mistress Giffard at once,’ he declared in a voice that allowed no argument. ‘I realise she is distressed at the loss of her husband, but if what you say is true, then this is an allegation of murder.’

Edward Stogursey nodded his understanding. ‘Of course, sir. I’ll seek out my mistress now and advise her that she should speak to you.’

William wondered whether it was significant that this servant felt he should ‘advise’ his employer, rather than inform her. Before Edward could leave the room by an internal door, the coroner’s officer stopped him.

‘Before you go, tell me exactly how many people live in this house. I assume there are servants like yourself, as you say there are no other family members?’

‘There is myself, of course, the most senior servant and an assistant to the doctor in his professional duties, since I acquired some knowledge of the apothecary’s trade from him.’

William interrupted him with a question. ‘You have no medical training apart from that?’

Stogursey shook his head. ‘I have never been to any medical school nor have been apprenticed to a physician. All I know I picked up from working for Robert Giffard, God rest his soul.’

‘Who are the other servants?’ persisted the coroner’s officer.

Edward Stogursey held up his hand to count off the fingers. ‘There is Hamelin Beauford, the bottler, then John Black the cook, Edith the housekeeper, Betsy the skivvy, my lady’s handmaid, Evelyn – and of course, Henry, the messenger. Outside, we also have a groom, Hugh Furlang, and a stableboy.’

‘I will need to speak to them all in due course, but I first have to talk to your mistress.’

Edward Stogursey vanished and about five minutes later, returned to ask William Hangfield to accompany him to Eleanor Giffard’s parlour. This was an airy room on the first floor, overlooking the garden. She stood by the window to receive him, tall and elegant in a black gown. He knew her by sight from seeing her at various city functions as although Bristol had about fifteen thousand inhabitants, most officials were able to recognise the upper members of society.

‘I regret very much having to trouble you at this sad time, lady,’ said William after making a small bow. ‘But you will appreciate that this is a matter of urgency, if it is true that there are suspicions of foul play.’

Eleanor inclined her head to acknowledge his apology.

‘I understand that you are the servant of Ralph fitz Urse. I am slightly acquainted with him; I think he was a patient of my husband’s at one time.’

‘Probably for a drink problem,’ thought William, but held his tongue.

‘I am his officer, appointed to help him by the sheriff. It is my duty to collect facts and report them to him.’

Eleanor motioned him to sit on a stool, while she sank onto a padded chair at the side of the window. Edward Stogursey stood near the door, as if to act as a chaperon or a guard.

‘I was told that he had been unwell for some time.’ William began. ‘When did this begin?’

As he spoke, he assessed the lady’s manner, as he often did with people he was questioning. She was poised, elegant and showed no outward signs of grief in the form of reddened eyes from weeping. However, experience had taught him that this was no guide to a person’s true feelings. She sat impassively, her hands folded in her lap as she spoke.

‘Until recently, Robert has always been in good health. He loved hunting and riding and his appetite for his medical work was unlimited.’ She paused and looked over at Stogursey. ‘Edward, remind me when it was that your master first appeared to be ill?’

‘Late in January, or perhaps early February, my lady. One day I remarked to him that he looked slightly bilious, and during the following week this became obvious. His eyes became yellow and he had pains in his belly.’

‘But he recovered?’ asked Hangfield.

This time Eleanor Giffard provided the answer. ‘He had to go to London for some meeting of physicians at St Bartholomew’s Hospital. He was away for almost two weeks and when he returned, he was free from the disturbances of bile and felt quite well. But within two months, other signs began to appear and it was this that made him think he was being poisoned back here in Bristol.’

‘Why should anyone wish to poison a well-known doctor, who does nothing but good in the city?’ asked William, in genuine puzzlement.

Eleanor turned up her hands in bewilderment. ‘My husband claimed that other doctors in the the city were envious of his prime position as the most favoured physician, but I can hardly believe that.’

‘Did he have any evidence of that?’ asked the coroner’s officer.

She shook her head. ‘I doubt it, but he seemed wedded to the idea. It would be a most extreme means of disposing of a professional rival.’

William also thought it an outlandish theory, but he had to pursue all avenues, however bizarre.

‘When he fell ill, was he treated by one of these doctors?’

Edward Stogursey spoke up here: ‘My master said that he knew more medicine himself than the other three physicians combined and would not let them near him.’

This sounded more than a little arrogant to Hangfield, but again he kept his peace.

‘So what happened? Surely he must have made some effort to receive treatment.’

‘He prescribed what drugs and potions he felt useful,’ said the widow. ‘Then Edward here made them up and administered them.’

‘They were bland and empirical salves, the accepted treatment for trying to get rid of toxic substances,’ said the dispenser. ‘Charcoal to absorb noxious material and general supportive treatment. There is little else one can do, especially if the nature of the poison is unknown.’

‘Did your master suggest what the poison might be?’

Stogursey nodded. ‘We spoke at length about it, sir. But there are scores of plants and fungi in the countryside that can maim and kill. There is not enough difference between their effects to identify them.’

‘Though, at the first bout of illness in February, he did wonder if something like ragwort might the cause,’ cut in Eleanor Giffard. ‘That is well-known to cause disorders of the bile, especially in livestock.’

Edward looked dubious. ‘Though I defer to my master’s far greater knowledge, it seemed unlikely. Firstly, because ragwort, that yellow weed that abounds in the countryside, flourishes and flowers in high summer, so would not be available in February. Also, how could it be administered? For a horse or donkey to be poisoned by it, they have to eat considerable quantities.’

Eleanor was not going to let her husband’s opinion be dismissed so lightly, especially by a servant.

‘He said, when faced with these objections, that ragwort was even more poisonous when the plant is dried, making it dangerous for beasts to eat hay that contained the dead weed. So it could be collected in the summer and used in the winter.’

‘But if large quantities were needed, how could it be administered?’ asked William.

‘It could be markedly strengthened by extraction as a tincture,’ admitted Stogursey, somewhat grudgingly.

Eleanor became impatient. ‘But we waste time and breath, sir. The jaundice passed off and the symptoms of the latest illness was quite different.’

‘How so, madam?’ asked the officer.

‘My poor husband developed palpitations of the heart, sometimes so severe that he fainted. He also had tremors of the limbs and feelings of great coldness.’

‘Unfortunately, such symptoms are so common in a whole range of poisonings that they do not help much in identifying the cause,’ added Edward Stogursey.

William pondered the answers for a moment. ‘You say he refused to be seen by any of the other doctors in Bristol – but did he not seek an opinion from elsewhere? He must have known some eminent physicians who might be able to help.’

The elegant widow nodded at this. ‘I sent for one myself, only yesterday. We had good reports of the new infirmarian at Keynsham Abbey, a man well-qualified at one of the finest schools in Europe.’

‘And what was the result, madam?’

Eleanor shook her head sadly. ‘We had left it too late, I fear. He came and agreed that some form of poisoning was the most likely cause, but said that the effects had gone too far. He held out no hope for my husband’s survival – and tragically, his opinion was proved right within a day.’

Hangfield noticed that the widow’s iron resolve appeared to be weakening. She became pale and her strong voice faltered.

‘I have troubled you too much at this time of melancholy, Mistress Giffard.’ He rose from his stool and bowed again to the woman in black. ‘I will leave you to your grief and return to make my report to the coroner. It will be necessary for me to speak to all your servants later – and I will have to hear what the physician at Keynsham has to say, but I will not trouble you again, unless some new matter arises.’

Stogursey accompanied him out of the room and down to the front door, where a portly man, whom he presumed was the bottler, opened it for them. William hesitated, wondering whether he should start interrogating the other servants now, but decided he had better report back to the coroner without delay, as this was likely to become a major issue in the city, given the influential people who knew the physician.

When he arrived at the castle, he went straight to Ralph fitz Urse and told him what he had learned at the Giffard house.

‘They seem convinced that Robert was poisoned, but with what, and by what means is unknown,’ he finished.

The coroner, hunched over his table looking like a bad-tempered bear, scowled at him. ‘Are you sure they are not suffering from some delusion, some fantasy about a conspiracy, born of their bereavement?’

Hangfield shook his head. ‘It has been going on for some months – and this renowned infirmarian from Keynsham is said to have confirmed it only yesterday.’

Fitz Urse grunted, still doubtful about the story. ‘You’d better get up the river and see this monk. When I told the sheriff about this after you left, he was most agitated – Robert Giffard was so well known and well-regarded in the city that everyone who matters will be seeking an explanation.’

‘I expected that, sire, but we can only do what is possible in seeking into it,’ said William, slightly aggrieved that his efforts went unappreciated.

The coroner ignored his tone. ‘And what about this tale that the three physicians in the city may have wanted Giffard dead?’

His officer shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘Seems far-fetched to me! The widow said that it was her husband’s idea that his competitors were envious of his success and of his monopoly of rich patients.’

The coroner scratched the stubble on his jowls; he shaved only on Fridays and it was already Wednesday. ‘So these rich patrons will have to go elsewhere now. At least Giffard was right there.’

‘I’m not so sure about that,’ said William dubiously. ‘This Stogursey fellow has been acting as the physician’s righthand man for years. Perhaps he can keep the practice going until Mistress Giffard arranges for another doctor to take over, if that’s what she desires.’

‘She’s a fine-looking woman, from what I’ve seen of her at feasts in the Guildhall and elsewhere,’ muttered fitz Urse ruminatively. ‘Much younger than Giffard himself, though he was comely enough.’

William could not see where this line of thought was going, but in spite of the coroner’s appearance and uncouth manners, he was a wily fellow, with much experience of human nature gleaned from years as a soldier and even more as a coroner.

‘It occurs to me, William, that since the world began, wives have been getting rid of their husbands when they desire a different man. Who better has the opportunity to poison their spouse than a wife?’

His officer was reluctant to accept that this elegant woman could be a killer, but part of his mind recalled her dry eyes and her lack of obvious grieving, even though he had earlier told himself that such outward sins were not to be trusted.

‘But how would she gain anything by that?’ he said defensively. ‘Robert Giffard was a successful man, looked upon with favour by the aristocracy of this city – and he was undoubtedly rich. His grand house and many servants confirm that.’

Ralph fitz Urse’s reply was cut short as the door of his chamber was thrust open to bang against the wall and a corpulent figure strode in.

‘The news is all over the town!’ howled the new arrival. ‘What are you doing about it, fitz Urse?’

This was the Mayor of Bristol, Richard de Tilly, the leader of the civic and merchant community of the city, who vied with the sheriff for pride of place as the most important figure in the county. A fat, self-opinionated man with a face as fleshy as the coroner’s, but one that was more podgy and soft. Piggy eyes peered out suspiciously at the world, always looking for slights and offence. He was over-dressed in a red velvet cotta down to his knees, the flowing sleeves and green leggings too hot for the day’s weather. On his head was a green brocade creation, which flopped down into a wide curtain on one side, reaching his shoulder. He was always to be seen with his gold chain of office hanging around his neck, and William sometimes wondered if he wore it to bed.

The coroner, who despised the mayor for a self-seeking tyrant, glowered at him. There was little love lost between the King’s men and the civic authorities at the Guildhall.

‘What are you talking about? Has the river dried up?’ he snapped. This was a gibe at the city merchants, whose wealth depended almost totally on the free passage of trading ships down the Avon to the sea.

‘You know damned well what I mean!’ stormed de Tilly. ‘Our physician suddenly dies and you ask what’s wrong! How are we all to survive without his expert knowledge?’

‘There are three other doctors in the city – use them,’ grunted fitz Urse indifferently, seeking to annoy the other man.

‘Those incompetents? I wouldn’t take my dog near any of them. So what’s happened and what’s being done about it?’ he demanded. ‘It’s barely an hour since I heard of the death and already half a dozen of the most influential merchants have been invading the Guildhall, demanding to know what happened and asking who are they going to find to treat them and their families!’

As Richard de Tilly continued to berate the coroner, William Hangfield took the opportunity to sidle towards the open door and vanish into the passage outside. He knew from experience that the coroner and mayor would argue until they started to trade insults, fitz Urse pointing out that the administration of justice was the King’s business and de Tilly countering with blather about his responsibility to the citizens of Bristol. The sheriff would sometimes be drawn into the altercation, as a royal servant always taking the coroner’s side, the whole fracas usually ending in the mayor stalking away, muttering under his breath.

It was still only mid-morning and as Ralph fitz Urse had specifically instructed him to speak to the physician at Keynsham Priory, William decided to go there straight away and leave the Giffard house servants until later. Making his way to the castle stables, he had his horse saddled and thankfully crossed the bridge into the country beyond, to enjoy the green woods and pastures of the Avon valley.

At noon that day, Bristol’s three remaining physicians met again at the Anchor alehouse in Corn Street. Erasmus Crote, who had heard the news first from a patient who was one of the city watchmen, had sent a couple of urchins around to Humphrey de Cockville and William Blundus, calling an urgent meeting to discuss the passing of Robert Giffard. They sat in a corner this time, pots of ale before them, but no bread and cheese.

‘There are all sort of rumours going around already,’ announced Erasmus. ‘Whispers that he was poisoned!’

Blundus nodded his agreement. ‘I heard the same from a fellow in the street,’ he said anxiously. ‘No doubt the town crier will be yelling it abroad in the next couple of hours.’

Fat Humphrey de Cockville slurped his ale, wiped his thick lips and sneered at their concern.

‘What of it? It’s nothing to do with us, unless one of you two has been lacing his victuals with deadly nightshade!’

Blundus scowled at him. ‘Robert Giffard was a good, upright man – and a good physician. We are his only professional colleagues in the county, we cannot just ignore his passing.’

Humphrey leered at the others. ‘Then we will all attend his funeral and shed reptile’s tears – before rushing off and stealing his rich patients.’

‘That’s what concerns me,’ said Erasmus, in a voice loaded with worry. ‘Why should anyone murder a doctor, unless there was something to be gained? Suspicion must fall upon us, sooner or later.’

William Blundus, looking more stooped and emaciated than usual, grunted a disclaimer. ‘I know I’m innocent of anything, so what’s the problem? If one of you sent Giffard to his death, that’s your look-out, but I’m not feared of any probing by the law.’

‘Of course none of us did!’ snapped Humphrey, impatiently. ‘But are you so naïve as to think that the arrogant bastards that run this city care about justice? Giffard was so popular and useful to them and their families, that they need to find a scapegoat and to hell with any firm evidence!’

They pondered this, as they drank some of their ale, Humphrey motioning to the skivvy to bring another jug.

‘So what do we need to do?’ asked Blundus, looking to Erasmus Crote as the eldest of them and presumably the wisest.

‘What can we do, other than sit tight and play the innocents – which is what we are?’ grunted Erasmus.

Humphrey had other ideas. ‘We need to go down to the Giffard house and pay our condolences to the widow – and discover what’s going to be done about his patients,’ he said decisively. ‘It’s an ill wind that blows no good – and I intend to pick up any good that’s going!’

The coroner’s officer covered the few miles to Keynsham in an hour and a half, having a good horse, a decent road and dry weather. The village was near a double bend in the River Avon and depended for its existence on the large abbey founded a hundred and fifty years earlier by the Earl of Gloucester at the request of his dying son. Hangfield knew this much about the place, but was not prepared for its large size and obvious wealth. A huge church was adjacent to cloisters, courtyards and many subsidiary buildings, one of which must be the infirmary.

He reined in at the main gate and enquired of the porter about seeking Brother Xaxier, the name given to him by Edward Stogursey. His horse was taken to the stables for watering and feeding, whilst the porter called a young novitiate to guide Hangfield to the infirmary. The outer courtyard was thronged with local people, lay brothers and a few Augustinian canons regular in their white habits, but further inside the warren of buildings and cloisters only a few monks were to be seen.

The infirmary was a large building at the back of the complex, and here some villagers and travellers were sitting on benches outside waiting for their ailments to be dealt with.

The young postulant took William to a doorway and into a passage, where an alcove on one side appeared to be a treatment room, as a lay brother with a linen apron over his cassock was vigorously applying some salve to the legs of an old man lying on a table. Watching the process was a tall man of middle age with a solemn hollow-cheeked face. He wore the same vestments as the other Augustinian monks, but also had a white apron to both denote his status and protect his clothing. The novitiate bobbed his knee to the infirmarian and told him of the visitor from Bristol. With few last words of instruction to his assistant, Xavier came out of the alcove and greeted William, giving him the customary blessing.

The coroner’s officer, who was religious from habit rather than conviction, bent his knee briefly, then explained the reason for his visit.

‘The poor man died, then, as I expected, God rest his soul,’ responded Xavier. He crossed himself, then led William to an adjacent room, little more than cubicle, which from the scrolls, books and pieces of medical equipment on a table, was the infirmarian’s office. Seating himself behind his table, he motioned the officer to a stool.

‘How can I help you and your coroner?’ he asked. ‘I saw the deceased only once and that very briefly. By then, he was unable to speak, so I could not discover anything about his symptoms, other than from the household.’

‘I realise that, Father, but the widow seems convinced that he has been poisoned and I understand that you did not disagree.’

Xavier nodded. ‘I am sure of it, my son. It did not show any of the signs of a disease – and the fact that there was a previous episode that abated as soon as he went away from home is good confirmation.’

‘But Mistress Giffard said that you could not tell what noxious substance was involved – nor how it was given to the victim?’

The Augustinian nodded. ‘That is true. The symptoms were common to many poisons. The obvious route of administering them is through the mouth, in food or drink, but the lady was adamant that for weeks past, all food had been tasted, much of it by herself.’

William Hangfield could see that he was not going to learn much that he didn’t already know. He tried to extract a little more to make his journey from Bristol worthwhile.

‘If this does prove to be a deliberate poisoning, we will have to try to find any residue of the evil substance, which may lead us to the person who used it. So can you suggest what we may have to seek?’

The canon considered that for a moment. ‘As I have said, a number of poisons can cause the symptoms that the poor man suffered. But we can also eliminate others that would have led to signs he did not have, such as wolfsbane, hemlock, belladonna or foxglove, though there are many others.’

‘What about any other means of the poison being given to the victim, Father?’ asked William, as he prepared to leave. ‘Could there be any way other than by swallowing it?’

The canon pursed his lips in doubt. ‘It is hard to think of any that could be practically carried out. Noxious gases, such as from a volcano in Italy or even a lime kiln, could not apply here. I suppose that a pessary or enema could carry a poison into the bowels, but again that is out of the question here.’

Having drawn a blank on this line of questioning, the coroner’s officer thanked the learned monk and took his leave, gratefully accepting the suggestion that he called at the abbey guest-house for some food and drink before riding back to Bristol.

He doubted whether he would have the chance to go to his home until later than evening, given the fuss the city leaders were making over the loss of their favourite doctor. However, his wife and son were used to him being away at all hours – or sometimes even days, if a case arose elsewhere in Somerset. Sighing, he clambered on to his horse and set off for Bristol.

That afternoon, the three physicians, having seen the dismal collection of patients at each of their doctor’s shops in the middle of the city, met at Blundus’s premises, ready to set off together to visit the Giffard household. Humphrey wanted each to go separately, but the others, suspicious of any purloining of patients being made by another, insisted on a communal approach.

‘I wonder if Mistress Giffard will even see us?’ asked Blundus.

‘And if she does, what are we going to ask her?’ added Erasmus.

Humphrey de Cockville, who always tried to assume the leadership of any group, was scathing of their doubts. ‘We express our sincere sympathy, ask if there anything we can do to help her and then raise the matter of who is going to look after the sick and injured of this city!’

Still muttering doubts, the other two let Humphrey lead the way to High Street. He looked like a fat cockerel, with a red-feathered velvet hat and a bright blue surcoat over his black tunic. His companions were much more soberly dressed in greys and browns – and Erasmus Crote looked definitely shabby. When they reached the house, the front door was answered by the bottler, Hamelin Beauford, who seemed to double as a general factotum in the household, as well as looking after the supply of ale and wine. He was a big man, but was pasty-faced and looked unhealthy to the trio of physicians who now confronted him.

‘You will know that we are your late master’s medical colleagues in the city,’ Humphrey began imperiously. ‘We have come to express our condolences to your mistress and to offer any assistance we can.’

Hamelin looked distinctly unimpressed and made no attempt to invite them across the threshold. ‘I will fetch Edward Stogursey to see what he has to say about that,’ he grunted. He vanished into the house, leaving them on the doorstep, with the door almost closed upon them.

‘Insolent fellow, he needs a clip around the ear!’ snarled Humphrey. ‘We are professional men, not some poxy apothecary,’

‘This Stogursey is not even that; he is a servant with ideas above his station,’ agreed Erasmus. However, short of barging into the house uninvited, they had little choice but to wait, and in a few moments Edward appeared, the bottler standing behind him as if to repel any invasion.

‘We have come to offer our felicitations to Mistress Giffard at this sad time, my man,’ said Humphrey in his grand manner. ‘Please conduct us to her.’

Stogursey made no reply at first. He stared at the three men, then his eyes returned to Erasmus Crote.

‘You were here yesterday,’ he stated flatly. ‘I conveyed your good wishes to my mistress then.’

This exhausted Humphrey’s limited patience.

‘Listen, fellow! We are the only other physicians in this city and it is a matter of civic importance that the citizens can all have the benefit of our skills. We need to speak with Mistress Giffard.’

Edward Stogursey regarded them for a long moment, until it was almost insolent. Then he shrugged and raised his hands. ‘She is in no mood to receive visitors, but I will enquire.’

He grudgingly allowed them into the hallway and told them to wait, though there were no chairs or benches in evidence.

‘That insolent bastard treats us like servants,’ growled Blundus. ‘It’s a wonder he didn’t make us go around to the tradesmen’s gate at the back!’

They fretted for another ten minutes before Edward returned and grudgingly told them that Mistress Giffard had agreed to see them, but that they must not detain her for longer than a few minutes, as she was sorely distressed over the loss of her husband.

With Hamelin Beauford still lurking behind them, Edward led them to a staircase and then to a solar at the back of the house, which looked over the garden. Eleanor Giffard sat on a chair near the glazed window, gazing through it at the bench upon which Robert had rested during his illness. In a long black gown with widely flared sleeves, she possessed an elegance that the perceptive Erasmus thought was the reason why so many young widows were soon remarried. Seated on a stool in a corner was Evelyn, a stout middle-aged woman who was her personal maid and now apparently acted as her chaperone.

Eleanor stared coldly at the three men, who now stood awkwardly in the centre of the room. She recalled what her husband had said about them, their poor showing as physicians and their envy at his monopoly of the medical trade in Bristol.

‘You wished to see me?’ she asked stonily.

This time, Erasmus Crote hastened to reply before Humphrey.

‘As you probably know, madam, we are the other three physicians in this city – now, alas, the only three since the tragic loss of your husband. We wished, as his colleagues, to offer our most sincere condolences at this unhappy time and to offer you any professional assistance that you might require.’

Mistress Giffard unbent a little and gave a slight nod in acknowledgement.

‘That is considerate of you, sirs. My husband was taken from me by foul intent, but the coroner and sheriff will doubtless find the murderer and he will pay the ultimate penalty.’

Humphrey shouldered his way back into the conversation. ‘We came not only to offer you sympathy, mistress – but to see how we can best assist you in the continuation of your husband’s medical services to the citizens – if indeed, you desire to continue it.’

William Blundus, afraid of being left out of any negotiations, stepped in hastily. ‘We are ready to accept any of Robert’s patients who are in need of attention – it can be harmful and indeed dangerous for there to be an interruption in treatment.’ He saw the lady exchange a look with the Stogursey before she replied.

‘That will be no problem, thank you. Tomorrow, I am sending a messenger by the fastest route to the prior of the hospital of St Bartholomew in London. My husband, who trained and worked there for some years, was well known to him and he will undoubtedly find a worthy physician who can take over this practice.’

‘But that might take many weeks, madam!’ protested Humphrey, aghast at the proposition. ‘What is to happen to your patients in the meantime?’

‘Edward here knows all of them and is well acquainted with their diagnosis and treatment, as he worked alongside my husband every day. Until permanent arrangements are made, he can tide us over the problem.’

Erasmus made an attempt at protesting: ‘But with respect, Mistress Giffard, this man is totally unqualified. He has never attended a medical school nor walked any wards – nor even mastered the art of an apothecary. It is unseemly for such a person to masquerade as a physician, especially to such eminent people who are some of your late husband’s patients.’

Edward Stogursey glowered at this naked insult, but Eleanor was dismissive of Erasmus Crote’s objections.

‘Perhaps he has no formal credentials, but our patients know him and trust him as a faithful assistant to my husband. It is up to them whether they cleave to his ministrations in this urgent situation. I suspect most will, but if not, they are free to seek the aid of common apothecaries in the city or transfer their trust to one of you gentlemen.’

She sat down again and, pulling a kerchief from her sleeve, buried her face in it. Her tire-woman, Evelyn, at once moved to her side and put an arm around her shoulders.

‘The lady is overwrought, sirs!’ she protested, throwing an urgent glance at Edward, who immediately stepped forward.

‘I think you should leave now,’ he said harshly. ‘My mistress is no state for further conversation.’

He made it an order, not a request and, opening the chamber door, stood by it until they filed out. Hamelin, the bottler, received them outside with a sour face and escorted them down the stairs and out of the front door, which closed firmly behind them.

In the street, Humphrey, unaccustomed to such slights, turned furiously to his companions. ‘Getting rid of us was arranged beforehand! That woman is as hard as iron. She put on that weeping fit just to get rid of us.’

They began slouching their way back towards the High Cross, dispirited and annoyed at their lack of success.

‘She did say that their patients were free to choose someone else to treat them,’ offered William Blundus, to salvage something for their pride.

‘Ha! Did you notice that she put apothecaries before us in that choice?’ he snarled. ‘That was a calculated insult!’

Erasmus raised a placatory hand. ‘We’ve done all we can… now we can only hope that common sense will prevail amongst at least some of their customers. When they find that they have a charlatan as their only recourse when they’re ill, maybe they’ll see that a proper doctor is preferable.’

Though the three discomforted physicians assumed that they would never be allowed to darken the door of the Giffard house again, circumstances dictated otherwise. As soon as William Hangfield had returned from Keynsham, he went straight to the coroner and reported the meagre information that he had gained from Brother Xavier.

‘Doesn’t take us much further,’ grunted Ralph fitz Urse grudgingly. ‘I’ve had the sheriff and that fat bastard of a mayor on my back while you were away. They want this matter settled as quickly as possible, for it seems that some of the high and mighty of the city have taken the loss of their favourite doctor very badly.’

‘Why should that be?’ asked his officer. ‘After all, he was only a physician.’

Fitz Urse shook his grizzled head. ‘You did realise that his wife, the fair Eleanor, was a daughter of Maurice, Lord of Berkeley Castle? It seems he’s been stirring it up since he heard that his son-in-law has been murdered.’

Hangfield knew only too well how the ruling classes still held sway over the public servants when anything went wrong. The kicking began at the top and ended with the lowest men, of which he was one.

‘There’s an even further complication,’ muttered the coroner, morosely. ‘Ranulf fitz Hamon, who as you well know is the commercial king of Bristol, owning almost half the ships that trade out of here, was a close friend of the Giffards. Not only did Giffard look after the health of all his ship-masters, but gossip has it that Ranulf wanted his son Jordan to marry Eleanor, the daughter of an earl, but Robert Giffard got in there first.’

William could hardly see the relevance of this in a murder investigation.

‘You’re not suggesting that could be a motive for getting rid of Giffard – to make his widow eligible for Jordan, are you?’

The burly coroner shrugged. ‘I’ve learned in this job that nothing’s impossible, though I admit it’s a bit far-fetched.’

He suddenly stood up and slammed his big fist down on the table, making his ale-cup and inkpot rattle.

‘Anyway, these people are nagging at the sheriff and he’s nagging at me, so now I’m nagging you to get something done! First of all, as coroner, I’m obliged to view the body – for God’s sake, we only have hearsay that Giffard is even dead!’

‘I don’t think there’s much doubt about that, sir,’ said William, trying to avoid one of fitz Urse’s rages.

‘Well, we’ll go and make sure! I have to hold an inquest and so far there’s damn little evidence to present.’

Hangfield was looking forward to going home to see his wife and son and have a meal and some rest, but it looked increasingly unlikely that this would be for some time. The coroner was already reaching for his surcoat and flat hat.

‘We need a doctor to see if there are any signs of any violence on his body – and to suggest what sort of poison was used,’ he rasped. ‘Who can we call upon?’

‘There are three others in the city, sir. Which one would you prefer?’

‘I don’t give a damn!’ snarled fitz Urse. ‘Call them all. Three minds may be better than one, especially if they are idiots or charlatans, like most physicians.’

On the way out, William called urgently for one of the castle messengers and gave orders that he find the three doctors and order them, on pain of dire penalties from the sheriff, to come to the Giffard house without delay.

The coroner and his officer stalked across the castle bailey and into the city, fitz Urse shouldering aside any luckless pedestrian who got in his way in the narrow streets. Though most trading had ceased, as it was now early evening, there were still plenty of people about, many going in and out of alehouses and eating shops. They marched down High Street in the direction of Bristol’s only bridge across the Avon, until William indicated the large house that was the Giffards’.

‘Must be plenty of money in doctoring, by the look of it,’ growled the coroner. ‘Though if the woman is from the Berkeley dynasty, maybe they bought it for her.’

William banged the front door once again.

‘They’re not a very welcoming lot in here,’ he warned fitz Urse. ‘Even the bloody servants think they are royalty.’

The coroner soon saw that for himself, but he was the wrong man to try to obstruct. Hamelin the bottler opened the door and was about to make some obstructive remark when fitz Urse pushed past him and demanded to be taken to Mistress Giffard. Hamelin’s attempted protests were met with an offer to take him to the castle dungeons if he didn’t comply instantly with the order of a King’s officer. Brushing him aside, they went upstairs to the door of Eleanor’s solar, but here they met another obstacle, which was harder for the coroner to overcome.

Sitting on a stool outside was Evelyn, the mistress’s hand-maiden, though it was many years since the elderly woman had been a maiden. She rose as the two large men clumped up the stairs and along the passage, followed by an outraged Hamelin.

‘You can’t go in!’ cried Evelyn in a wavering voice. ‘The mistress has a visitor.’

‘I tried to tell you, sir,’ cried the bottler. ‘But you wouldn’t listen.’

‘This is King’s business!’ snapped the coroner. ‘I’m the only visitor that matters at the moment.’

‘Who is it?’ asked William Hangfield in a more moderate tone. ‘We need to speak with your mistress urgently.’

Another voice came from their rear, that of Edward Stogursey who had followed them up the stairs.

‘It is Jordan fitz Hamon, come to convey the condolences of himself and his father, Sir Ranulf!’ he said in acidulous tone. ‘And the Earl of Berkeley is expected at any time, to comfort his daughter in her hour of bereavement.’

This was name-dropping on a massive scale, designed to dissuade fitz Urse from intruding on their private affairs, but it had no effect on the pugnacious coroner.

He gave a perfunctory rap on the solar door and without waiting for a reply, pushed it open. William, peering past his master’s bulky body, saw Eleanor Giffard in the centre of the room, again dressed in black, but this time in an even more elegant gown of silk, with a filmy black veil covering her hair. But what was more interesting was the back view of a tall man who had been facing her in close proximity, but who had stepped back suddenly when the coroner intruded.

This man now swung round to demand to know who had disturbed them. As soon as he and the coroner saw each other, there was mutual recognition, if not pleasure.

‘Do you always blunder into a lady’s chamber without her permission, fitz Urse?’ he demanded.

A slim, athletic man of about thirty-five, Jordan fitz Hamon had the haughty air of a man whose family could have bought and sold most of the local nobility, if he chose. A long face with a straight nose, which usually seemed to pointing above the heads of lesser mortals, he was dressed in the latest fashion. A scarlet cote-hardie came to his thighs, belted with an elaborate band of embossed leather. His breeches were tight-fitting and ended in soft leather shoes with long toe-points. He wore no hat indoors, but William saw a green velvet creation with a vivid peacock feather, lying on a chair.

The coroner, who knew both Jordan and his father by sight – and had little wish to deepen the acquaintance – ignored him and addressed the new widow.

‘I regret the necessity of troubling you on a day like this, mistress, but I have legal duties to perform.’

This was as near an apology as fitz Urse was ever likely to make.

‘Damned insensitive and unnecessary, if you ask me!’ snapped Jordan, but no one was asking him, as the coroner continued to speak to Eleanor. ‘A King’s coroner is obliged to view the body and to hold an inquest, madam. I also need to have the corpse examined by a physician, in circumstances such as have been alleged here.’

Mistress Giffard frowned and looked to Jordan fitz Hamon for support. ‘But the best doctor in this part of England examined him only yesterday, coroner – Brother Xavier from Keynsham Abbey. Is it necessary to further disturb my poor husband?’

‘Intolerable interference, fitz Urse!’ brayed Jordan. ‘I shall complain to the sheriff about this unwelcome intrusion into a lady’s grief.’

Ralph briefly acknowledged Jordan’s existence with a curt nod.

‘It was the sheriff who insisted that we leave no stone unturned to find the perpetrator who has deprived this good lady of her husband!’ he growled. Then he turned back to Eleanor. ‘I presume that Robert’s body is still in the house, madam?’

She nodded wordlessly, holding a scrap of lace kerchief to her eyes, though William could see no sign of tears. ‘Edward will show you, if it is really necessary.’

The coroner nodded and had one last remark. ‘I have ordered the other three physicians to contribute their knowledge to the solving of this heinous crime – they will be here directly to assist me.’

Eleanor’s doubtful sorrow cleared up instantly. ‘What, those awful people from the town? They’ve already been pestering me today, trying to steal patients from us!’

William noted that she said ‘us’ rather than ‘me’, and wondered again what status Edward Stogursey had in this household.

‘Well, they’ll be here again shortly, though I’ll see that they do not bother you this time. But my officer here will be bothering all your servants to see what they know.’

With a perfunctory bow, the boorish coroner took his leave and as William Hangfield followed him, he saw Edward make a covert sign to Evelyn to enter her mistress’s chamber, presumably as a belated chaperone. The presence of Jordan fitz Hamon alone with her in the widow’s solar had not been lost on the coroner, for as they clumped along the upper corridor after Stogursey, he muttered to William, ‘What’s that dandy doing in her boudoir, eh?’

His officer had no answer to that and, in a moment, the sullen servant showed them into a small room that appeared to be a spare bedchamber. On a mattress lying on a low plinth was a sheeted body with two lit candles at the head end.

‘Did he die in here?’ demanded fitz Urse.

Stogursey shook his head. ‘He passed away in the main bedchamber, sir. But in this hot weather, we felt it better to remove him to this cooler room,’ he added meaningfully.

‘Let’s have a look at him, then,’ ordered the coroner.

William pulled back the linen sheet to the corpse’s waist, revealing the pallid features of Robert Giffard. He was dressed in a thin night shift, with his hands crossed over his breast. The face was peaceful and showed no signs of any obvious disease or injury.

‘Do you want to see the rest of him?’ asked William.

Fitz Urse shook his head. ‘May as well leave that for those medical fellows from town, so you can stay for that. All I needed to know was that he really was dead and to see the corpse, so that I can hold my inquest tomorrow.’

He turned to Stogursey, who had been lurking behind them, disapproval written large on his face.

‘I will hold my enquiry at the second hour after noon tomorrow, in the Shire Hall at the castle. See to it that every member of this household, from your mistress to the boot-boy, is present. I will send for the body around noon, as it must be before me during the proceedings.’

The servant-cum-physician looked shocked. ‘That is almost impossible, coroner! There are patients to see and a household to run, to say nothing of the strain upon my poor mistress!’

Fitz Urse was unmoved; he had heard it all many times before. ‘You will do as I say or you will all be amerced with heavy fines.’ As if sweetening his threats, he added, ‘You may make arrangements for the disposal of the body after the inquest.’

After the abrasive official had left, William got Edward to round up the servants one by one for him to interrogate them. He did this in the lean-to shelter used as the patients’ waiting-room. It was a quick and largely fruitless exercise, so he needed to take no formal statements, as no one knew anything of any value.

Edward had already explained what he knew of the illnesses of his master and neither the cook, housekeeper, lady’s maid, kitchen skivvy nor the outside servants had any knowledge that could throw light on the death. Even little Henry, the boot-boy and general dogsbody, who seemed to pick up more gossip than any of the others, had nothing to offer him.

Just as he had finished with the servants, the three physicians arrived, looking anxious and guilty, half-afraid that they were to be accused of something by the officers of the law. William knew them all by sight and had actually consulted Erasmus Crote some months earlier, when his small son had developed a skin rash, which had cleared up after applying some foul-smelling lotion provided by Erasmus.

He quickly set their minds at ease by explaining that the coroner wanted a further medical opinion upon the cause of Robert Giffard’s death, even though Xavier, the eminent infirmarian from Keynsham, had admitted being baffled by the death. Relieved, the three men immediately started arguing as to who should go first, but William firmly quashed this by telling them to examine the body together – and that this was a duty demanded by the King’s coroner, so there would be no fee.

He marshalled them up to the room where the cadaver lay, with Stogursey hovering in the rear, wearing his usual disapproving scowl. This time, he removed the sheet completely to allow them to view the whole body.

With much muttering and prodding, they examined the entire body surface, the intimate orifices and squinted into the mouth, ears and eyes, before allowing William to cover up the body once more.

‘Can you tell us exactly what was the progress of this affliction?’ asked the pompous Humphrey de Cockville.

The coroner’s officer explained the sequence of events, the attack of biliousness of the skin and eyes some months earlier and how it had cleared up as soon as Giffard went to London, then the recent attacks of malaise, tremors, palpitations and collapse, which ended in his death that very morning.

‘And it is said that there was no way in which poisoned food could have been taken in the recent past?’ asked de Cockville.

William shook his head. ‘Mistress Giffard and all the servants swear that recently, since he was taken ill again, every morsel and every glass has been checked. In the past few weeks, both Edward Stogursey and indeed, the wife herself, have tasted every item of food given to the deceased.’

The only comment was from William Blundus. ‘That’s all very well, but what if one of those who was responsible for the cooking and tasting, was the murderer?’

‘Don’t be a fool, Blundus!’ snapped Humphrey. ‘The lady of the house, his own wife, was one who put herself at risk by sampling everything he ate. And is it likely that she would kill her rich husband, the source of her comfortable life?’

‘Her father was far richer, remember,’ grumbled Blundus, but he was ignored. William was anxious to complete his tasks, then hurry back to the castle and eventually, to his home. ‘You three have now had an opportunity to examine him – and I’ve told you all we know about the circumstances. So have you any suggestions as to what the poison might be – and how it was administered?’

Again they went into a huddle, muttering amongst themselves, and eventually Humphrey de Cockville appointed himself spokesman, not that he had much to offer.

‘There are so many poisons to be extracted from the plants and herbs of the countryside that it’s impossible to be sure what it might be. It was certainly not deadly nightshade or any of the potent mushrooms. It could have been wolfsbane or foxglove, or perhaps extract of yew wood, which would fit with the symptoms, but there’s no way of knowing.

‘Possibly a good apothecary might make a better guess,’ suggested Blundus. ‘After all, we are physicians, dedicated to curing people, not killing them. Apothecaries spent more time collecting and extracting plants than us, so you could ask one of the better ones in the city.’

Humphrey, determined to keep the lead in any dialogue, nodded at this. ‘A reasonable idea, but surely it matters little what it was that killed Giffard – what you need to know is how it was given to him, for that should lead you to his killer. I see no other means other than through his mouth, so maybe those who claim that all his food was tasted are lying?’

‘Could it have been in an enema or an ointment?’ suggested William Blundus, in a glum voice that indicated he had little hope of this being true.

‘How could an ointment kill him?’ said the coroner’s officer, rather scathingly.

Blundus shrugged. ‘Just a suggestion. Many drugs are absorbed through the skin – otherwise it would be pointless in us prescribing salves, lotions and ointments.’

‘Well, I’ll enquire,’ replied Hangfield, in a tone that indicated he would be wasting his time. ‘But maybe the coroner will take up your idea that an apothecary might be able to help us.’

Within the hour, William was back in the castle, where he routed out their old clerk, Samuel, to dictate a brief résumé of what he had learned, which was almost nothing.

‘The coroner has gone somewhere, he’ll not be back here until the morning,’ announced Samuel in his quavering voice. ‘He said that he was having a meeting with the sheriff and the mayor before chapel to discuss the physician’s death.’ The old man snorted in disgust. ‘Just because the fitz Hamons and other wealthy merchants are upset over losing their doctor, we all have to run round in circles to appease them.’

William sighed, as it meant getting up early in the morning. He lived in a little house at the north side of the city and as it was obligatory for all the castle’s officers to attend early Mass in the chapel at the seventh hour in the summer, he would have to leave home before he was properly awake.

He trudged back to his house in the early evening, enjoyed a good meal of pork and beans that his wife prepared for him and told her of the day’s events. His six-year-old son, Nicholas, listened open-mouthed at the tale and, though he did not understand much of what his father was saying, he knew the dread implications of the word ‘murder’, which usually ended with a public ceremony at the gallows just outside the city wall.

It was an ill-tempered group that met in the sheriff’s chamber early next morning. Nicholas Cheney and Richard de Tilly had both been at a feast in the Guildhall the previous evening, and the notorious lavishness of the Guild of Vintners, especially when they were celebrating the inauguration of a new Master, had left them with aching heads from the abundance of wine provided. The coroner had been at a different, more private celebration after attending a cock-fight and was also feeling as if the drummer of a war galley was performing inside his skull.

They listened in silence as William Hangfield read out his report of his activities the previous day and elaborated on a few of the points, to make it sound as if there was slightly more substance than it actually possessed. When he had finished, the silence continued for a moment, until it was broken by a rustling sound as the overdressed mayor fished around in his belt-pouch and pulled out a crumpled piece of parchment.

‘Before we start discussing this shocking affair once again, what do you make of this?’

He slapped the parchment on to the sheriff’s table and smoothed it out with a podgy hand.

‘Some urchin slipped it into my under-clerk’s hand as he arrived at my chamber this morning. The boy ran off as if the Devil was chasing him, but even if we had caught him, he would only have said that some stranger gave him a penny to deliver it.’

The coroner, who had flashing zigzag lights in his eyes as a harbinger of a migraine, did not attempt to read it. ‘What does it say?’ was his only question.

Sheriff Cheyney picked it up, being proud of his literacy in a society where that was mostly confined to clerics and merchants. In fact, the mayor could not read or write and the contents of the note had been read to him by his under-clerk.

‘A scrawled hand, I suspect to disguise the penmanship,’ muttered the sheriff. ‘It reads, “Look to the killer in he who woos the lady.”’

‘And what in Hell’s name might that mean?’ growled the coroner, as the effort of thinking seemed to make his headache worse.

‘It’s blatantly obvious,’ said the sheriff impatiently. ‘Someone is claiming that Eleanor Giffard had a lover who wished to rid her of the encumbrance of a husband.’

The mayor had already worked this out for himself and the dangerous significance of it was not lost upon him. ‘We would be entering hazardous waters if we took any notice of this foul accusation. It is obviously nothing but some evil libel made up by some malicious enemy.’

Nicholas Cheyney was inclined to agree. ‘Even if only a breath of such scandal were to become common knowledge, Maurice, Earl of Berkeley, and his powerful retinue would descend upon us like avenging angels, to defend the honour of their kinswoman.’

‘To say nothing of the fitz Hamon family, if they became embroiled in this foul defamation,’ growled the coroner, the flashing lights in his eye becoming more aggravating.

‘Why should they be involved, for God’s sake?’ demanded the mayor.

Fitz Urse turned to his officer. ‘Tell them what we saw at the Giffard house yesterday, William.’

Rather reluctantly, Hangfield related how they had called upon the widow and found her closeted alone in her solar with Jordan fitz Hamon, the lady’s chaperone having been banished outside.

The sheriff, to whom this revelation was new, looked thunderous, while the mayor slammed his hand on the table and jumped to his feet.

‘I knew this would lead to trouble!’ he bellowed. ‘This must not be made public knowledge, whatever happens! Imagine the scandal if the son of our most prosperous ship owner – and most generous benefactor to the city – was suspected of murder.’

‘And even more if he was tried at the Eyre of Assize and hanged,’ added the sheriff, with grim satisfaction.

The coroner overcame his headache to add fuel to the flames of anxiety. ‘You are assuming that it is a man who is the culprit… but what if the wife wanted to be free to marry a younger man? Would it not be an even greater calamity if the daughter of Maurice of Berkeley was found guilty of poisoning her husband?’

The sheriff held up his hand for quiet. ‘Before we begin to rant and rave about the calamity that might happen, had we not better decide whether this scrap of parchment has any shred of truth in it? And if not, then let us forget it.’

His rational approach calmed the other two men.

‘If true, it is a serious allegation,’ said the mayor heavily. ‘For a man to be alone with a married woman, especially if her handmaiden has been sent out of the room, can only suggest some impropriety.’

‘So can we talk about who might have sent it – and why?’ agreed the coroner. ‘Either he has some knowledge of the poisoning – or is falsely trying to lay the blame for it on to another person.’

‘With what object?’ blustered the mayor. ‘Could it just be spite – or perhaps he is just a deranged madman, out of his wits?’

‘You keep saying “man”, but it could equally well be a woman,’ objected the sheriff. ‘They are well known for both their devious cunning and for being fond of poison for their murderous deeds.’

There was a silence as the men digested these alternatives, until William Hangfield ventured to enter the discussion.

‘You asked why he sent this missive, sirs,’ he said respectfully. ‘Surely, another motive might have been to divert suspicion from himself by falsely blaming others?’

His master, Richard fitz Urse, supported his officer’s remark. ‘It is certainly something to bear in mind. I suppose we have no notion at all who may have sent this?’

The sheriff looked at the creased strip of parchment again.

‘It looks as if it was torn from a larger document, but nothing remains of that to assist us. The writing is in ordinary black ink and the penmanship is very irregular, though individual letters seem well-formed.’

‘And what does all that tell us?’ demanded the mayor aggressively, partly because, being illiterate, he was suspicious of anything to do with pen and ink.

‘At least that he was educated enough to be able to write this, and was not some gutter-cleaner or wharf-labourer,’ retorted the sheriff, restraining his desire to add ‘or a mayor’ to his list.

‘Most merchants’ clerks, clerics and even many choirboys can read and write to some extent,’ countered Richard de Tilly irritably.

The others ignored him as the coroner addressed the sheriff.

‘And you suggested that he – or she – disguised their handwriting?’ Nicholas Cheyney waved the scrap of parchment.

‘It seems strange that though the lines of writing are uneven and ill-spaced, most of the individual letters are well-formed.’

‘Are you suggesting that we search a city of fifteen thousand people to find someone whose letters match these?’ demanded the mayor.

The sheriff shook his head emphatically. ‘That would not only be futile, but impossible! I suggest that we lock away this scurrilous note somewhere safe, but bear its allegation in mind in case any other evidence comes to light.’

The coroner looked dubious. ‘I feel I must at least make some very discreet enquiries about the relationship between the younger fitz Hamon and Eleanor Giffard,’ he said. ‘What other motive can we imagine for this death? It is useless us sitting here, pontificating about it like a bunch of priests arguing about how many angels can sit on the point of a needle!’

He turned to his officer, who sat patiently waiting for someone to talk some sense.

‘William, we need you to question those damned servants more rigorously. They must know something – possibly about the widow and Jordan fitz Hamon. And get a decent apothecary to look at the contents of the late doctor’s pharmacy, to see if anything is there that might have caused the symptoms from which Giffard suffered.’

‘And maybe a good look at the kitchen, the larder and the storeroom might reveal something,’ added the sheriff.

A bell began tolling to summon the faithful to the castle chapel, and with some relief William rose and waited for the other men to leave, before they could find him even more tasks to perform. As they filed out to attend the early Mass, he wondered if there would ever come a time when murders were investigated by more than one coroner’s officer in a city the size of Bristol.

William Hangfield was a devout man and he was bringing up his small son, Nicholas, to be the same, the family attending their local church of St Mary-le-Port every Sunday. However, at the castle chapel that morning, his mind was more on the tasks the coroner had given him, rather than on his devotions. As soon as the Mass was over, he hurried down Corn Street to the shop of Bristol’s best-known apothecary, Matthew Herbert.

The coroner’s officer entered his shop, which opened directly on to the street, the shutter of the front window hinging down to provide a counter for the public display of pots of salve, bunches of herbs and bottles of lotions. Within the large room behind, several journeymen and apprentices sat at counters, busy grinding powders and mixing ointments. The walls were lined with shelves and rows of small drawers, each with a Latin name or cabbalistic sign painted on them to mark the contents. Bunches of herbs and even dried reptiles hung from the ceiling, and at the back of the shop, at a high desk set on a raised plinth, was the apothecary himself.

He was a grey-haired man in his mid-fifties, the most respected of his profession in the city. Matthew was the leader of the small apothecary group in the Bristol lodge of the Guild of Pepperers, which, through its monopoly of the spice trade, also embraced the purveyors of drugs and medicines.

William had met him several times, usually when he required some cure for his wife or son. Most of the city’s inhabitants went to an apothecary when they were ill, as doctors were too expensive. Probably, yet more people sought the help of ‘wise women’ than even an apothecary – and in the countryside, this was universal, as there was usually no one else in a village, other than some widow or midwife, who could deal with ill health.

Matthew Herbert recognised the coroner’s officer and came down from his high chair to greet him. When he discovered that William was there in his official capacity, rather than as a patient, he took him into a more private back room, which was a store filled with boxes, jars and bales, redolent with the aromatic scents of herbs.

‘You have no doubt heard of the sad demise of Robert Giffard?’ began William. ‘The coroner would be grateful for your professional assistance in the matter.’

Matthew’s bushy grey eyebrows rose in surprise. ‘I have heard of the untimely loss of our best physician, but how can I be of any help in that?’

The coroner’s officer explained the problem, leaving out any hint as to possible suspects in the case. ‘We have no idea what poison was used nor how it was given, but we wish to know if it might have been some substance already within the household, as naturally a physician will hold his own stock of healing drugs and potions.’

The apothecary was an intelligent and perceptive man.

‘You wish to know if some evil person within the household might have been responsible – or whether the vile act came from outside?’

William agreed that this was the general idea, but Matthew was not optimistic about a useful result.

‘I know that Robert Giffard held a wide variety of medicaments, as I have provided some of his patients with repeat prescriptions. Every physician will have a range of such materials to hand, as they tend to dispense themselves, rather than send their patients to an apothecary.’

He said this without any rancour, though William knew that it meant competition for his own trade.

‘If that infirmarian from Keynsham, of whom I have heard glowing reports, did not know what killed Giffard, I doubt that I can do any better,’ he continued. ‘But I am willing to look through his stock to see if anything fits the symptoms he suffered. Having said that, many substances in a doctor’s house can be lethal, just as the contents of this shop could kill half of Bristol if used improperly.’

He swept his hand around the room to make his point, as William wondered if he knew anything about Edward Stogursey.

‘The mainstay of that household appears to be a man who acted not only as a servant, but as the physician’s dispenser and even medical assistant. Mistress Giffard has indicated that she wishes this man to carry on dealing with their patients until a new physician can be found, which seems very irregular.’

The apothecary shook his head sadly. ‘You meant that fellow Stogursey? We in the Guild have been concerned about him, as he is usurping our professional status in the city. And to hear that he has also been “acting the physician” is even more disturbing.’

‘Can nothing be done about it?’

‘It is difficult since he is not – and could not be – a member of the Guild, as he is unqualified and has served no apprenticeship. Thus there is no way of disciplining him, other than by physical violence and ejection from the city. As far as the physicians are concerned, they have no professional organisation, being so small in numbers outside London. So there is no one to say him nay!’

The coroner’s officer arranged with Matthew to go down to the Giffard house in an hour’s time, giving William the opportunity to speak further with the servants before he arrived. As he arrived at the physician’s home, he saw a fine horse with an expensively decorated harness standing in the yard that led to the stable behind the house. It was being tended by a groom, who had his own pony tethered a few yards away, and William guessed that a man of substance was visiting the house. Was this person going to be the subject of the anonymous note, he wondered. As a lowly public servant, he felt he could hardly tackle Jordan fitz Hamon, the heir to the richest fortune in Somerset, to ask him whether he had been committing adultery with the dead man’s widow. He walked over to the groom, who wore a smart uniform, rather than the usual nondescript tunic and breeches.

‘That’s a fine mare. Does he belong to Jordan fitz Hamon?’ he asked bluntly.

The man, seeing the small badge bearing a crown on the jacket of Hangfield’s jerkin that denoted a King’s servant, touched his forelock.

‘No, sir, it’s his father’s steed. My master is Ranulf fitz Hamon.’

Surprised, William gave a grunt and moved on rapidly. What was the significance of this, he wondered. He must tread carefully, as he had no wish to be caught up in some inter-family intrigue amongst the upper echelons of Bristol society.

Going into the house through the servants’ door at the back, he came across Henry, the young boot-boy, who was struggling to drag a large bundle of clothing tied up in twine. As the lad was a thin, weedy weakling, who looked as if a substantial meal would do him good, William picked up the bundle for him, conscious that the lad was only a few years older than his own son, Nicholas.

‘And where were you trying to take this, Henry?’ he asked amiably.

‘Outside the back door, sir. It is to be collected by someone from St James’s, as clothing to be given to the poor.’

The coroner’s serjeant hefted the bundle back to the entrance and as he dropped it outside, noticed that the clothing appeared to be of the best quality with no signs of wear.

‘Good stuff to be given away so readily,’ he remarked.

‘That is the last bundle, sir. The mistress is getting rid of all my dead master’s clothing. No doubt it reminds her too much of the great loss she has suffered.’ William felt that it might also be a token of ridding herself of the last vestiges of someone she wished to replace. If so, she had acted quickly, as her husband had only died on the previous day. Then he chided himself for his cynical thoughts, as Henry might have been correct with his more charitable version of Mistress Giffard’s motives.

‘Is she ridding the house of all of his belongings?’ he asked, knowing that he may well get better information from the more lowly servants than the likes of Stogursey or Hamelin the bottler.

‘I don’t know about everything, sir, but I have had to tie up three bundles of his garments and several pairs of boots and shoes, which have already gone to the priory.’

The coroner’s officer used the opportunity to pursue another matter.

‘That’s a very fine horse I saw in the yard. The groom told me it belonged to the father of the gentleman I saw here yesterday. Is he a frequent visitor?’

Henry, always ready for a gossip, shook his head. ‘I’ve never seen the older man here before. The cook said he is a rich man who owns many of the ships along the riverside.’

‘Did his son, the younger man, come often?’ Henry’s ingenuous expression did not falter.

‘Quite often, sir, John Black said he was especially helpful to the mistress when Master Giffard was away in London after his first illness.’

It sounded as if the cook was the fount of gossip in the household and William marked him down as the next to be interviewed in more depth. Having squeezed all he could from the boot-boy, William went further into the house, looking for Edward Stogursey. He found him in a small chamber next to the room where the physician used to see his patients. The servant-cum-apothecary was sitting at a table cluttered with bottles and boxes of powders, grinding something in a pestle and mortar.

When he saw who his visitor was, his face clouded in annoyance, but no one could risk offending the coroner or one of his serjeants, on penalty of being dragged to the castle and fined, or worse.

‘A senior apothecary will be coming very shortly to examine these premises, looking for anything that might have caused the symptoms your late master suffered,’ he announced brusquely. He saw no reason to defer to this man, who was only a house servant, however much he thought he was above that station in life.

Stogursey shrugged indifferently. ‘Very well, but it’s a waste of everyone’s time. All doctors’ houses have a score of substances that could cause death, given a sufficient quantity.’

‘Well, I’ll let Matthew Herbert be the judge of that. You will give him your full co-operation – understand?’

From the deepening of the man’s scowl, William guessed that the leader of Bristol’s apothecaries was not Stogursey’s favourite person, but he continued his questioning.

‘I see that Ranulph fitz Hamon’s horse is outside. I assume that he is visiting your mistress?’

‘I would not know that; it’s none of my business,’ Edward said sullenly.

‘Does he visit often, like his son?’ demanded William, being deliberately provocative.

‘Again, I don’t know. My mistress’s affairs are of no concern of mine.’

And if you did, you wouldn’t tell me, said William to himself, though he admitted that it was the proper attitude for a loyal servant to take.

‘Mistress Giffard seems to depend heavily upon you, from what I heard at my last visit.’

‘Only in professional matters to do with the medical practice!’ snapped Stogursey. He began pounding the white granules in his pestle with renewed vigour.

‘I see that the lady has been generous enough to give away many articles of clothing for distribution to the poor and needy,’ persisted Hangfield.

‘My mistress performs many charitable acts in the city – and as her departed husband has no further need of them, she felt that the friars could find a better use for them.’

‘But your late master has not yet been put into the earth.’

‘That is none of my business, Serjeant,’ said Edward, in a tone of finality. ‘If you wish to know more of my mistress’s personal affairs, you will have to ask her yourself.’

‘Oh, I will, never fear. But first, I wish to speak to John Black. Where will I find him?’

‘In the kitchen, as befits a cook,’ muttered Stogursey, bordering on the insolent, but William ignored him and left to seek the nether regions of the house. He found John Black not cooking, but sprawled in a chair in the large kitchen, a quart pot of ale on the table nearby.

A young girl, little more than a child, was chopping onions in a far corner, the tears in her eyes presumably not because of the death of her employer. The cook was a big, fat man who obviously took sampling his dishes seriously. William thought cynically that if the doctor had been poisoned through the food in the household, John Black would have succumbed much earlier than his master. A florid-faced man with thinning fair hair, he was less than forty years of age, but his teeth were already reduced to a couple of blackened stumps.

‘Back again, sir? I told you all I knew last time,’ he lisped, having some slight impediment in his speech.

‘This is different, I want to learn more about who might have wished your master sufficient ill will to want to deprive him of life.’

Black’s pale blue eyes widened in surprise. ‘How would I know anything about that, sir? I’m only the cook in this place.’

William slid his backside on to the corner of the table. ‘But you seem to know a lot about what goes on in this household. What about visitors? Who comes and goes?’

‘This is a physician’s house, Serjeant. People are in and out every day.’

William became irritated by the man’s evasions. ‘You know damned well that I don’t mean patients! Anyone of note, friends of the late doctor and his wife? There seems to be one such person here at this moment – don’t tell me that servants’ gossip hasn’t reported it to you?’

Cowed by the change in Hangfield’s tone, the cook nodded. ‘You mean the prince of shipmasters? He’s a new one. I’ve never seen him visit before. No doubt bringing his commiserations to the mistress at her grievous loss.’

‘But no doubt you’ve seen his son here?’ snapped William.

John Black smiled, exposing his horrible teeth. ‘Oh, certainly. He came often to visit the master and his good wife.’

‘But sometimes just his good wife, eh?’ demanded the coroner’s man.

This time, the cook leered, rather than smiled. ‘Well, quite often, the master happened to be away from home, visiting sick patients, if you get my meaning.’

William frowned; he did not trust this man to tell the truth.

‘I have to ask you this, did you ever hear of any impropriety between them.’ John Black looked over his shoulder and yelled at the kitchen skivvy to leave the onions and go outside to fetch carrots from the garden. As soon as she had scurried away, he looked back at Hangfield.

‘Too many ears flapping and tongues wagging in this house, sir. As to your question, it is not my place to tell tales on my employers, but I would guess that the man in question would dearly like to have taken Robert Giffard’s place in my mistress’s bed.’

‘What evidence do you have for that bold statement?’ demanded William.

‘Oh, none at all other than idle gossip, sir,’ said Black hastily. ‘But perhaps Evelyn, my lady’s maid, might know more – though as she is so devoted to her mistress, I doubt she would tell you, other than under torture.’

Privately, William tended to agree with him, and saw no advantage in pursuing the matter at the moment, as it did not help in determining how and by whom the death of Giffard had been accomplished. Let someone else grasp that particular nettle if it came to making accusations against anyone in the fitz Hamon dynasty.

After John Black had stone-walled a number of other questions with his repeated claims that as a lowly servant he knew nothing of the goings-on in the upper reaches of the Giffard household, William sought out the remaining servants to question and got precisely nothing useful from them. As expected, the lady’s maid, now released from her chaperone duties as Ranulf fitz Hamon and his horse had left, maintained total ignorance of any improper liaison between Jordan fitz Hamon and Eleanor Giffard.

‘That one occasion when I was sent out of the room was because of her state of desolation because of the death of her husband that day,’ she claimed indignantly. William left it at that, knowing that he was wasting his time. Similarly, the stableboy, the groom and the housekeeper had nothing useful to offer – and as for Betsy the kitchen skivvy, she was too frightened of him to answer even a single question, put however gently.

By this time, Matthew Herbert had arrived, and the coroner’s officer took him directly to the chamber where Edward Stogursey was still making his preparations. The steward left immediately, not saying a word to the apothecary, his scowl speaking volumes about the professional man’s intrusion into what he considered his private domain.

‘I assume that this room and the one next door used by the physician would be where all the medicaments were stored,’ said William, waving a hand at the rows of shelves and drawers around them.

Matthew nodded. ‘I can soon check the names on each jar and drawer, though of course whether that is actually in them may be another matter. I’ll do that within the hour and let you know if anything unusual is kept here, though I doubt it will help, as many substances, innocuous in medicinal doses, can be harmful or even fatal in excessive amounts.’

As this was exactly what Stogursey had told him, William had little expectation of anything useful coming from the exercise, but if the coroner wanted it done, so be it. He left Matthew to his task and made his way back to the castle, to get the old clerk to write a short account of his activities to present to Ralph fitz Urse, when he arrived back from the Great Hall where he had gone for his midday dinner.

Then, thankfully, William made his own way back to his house in Vine Street, where he could enjoy an hour’s rest and a good meal prepared by his wife Marion. Then, with a mug of ale in one hand, he sat his small son on a stool in front of him and told him of what he had been doing that day.

The funeral of Robert Giffard took place two days later, after the coroner had held a brief inquest over it in a side room of the castle chapel. This merely identified the body and allowed the dozen jurors, dragooned from the Giffard servants and castle retainers, to parade solemnly past the corpse and note that there were no visible injuries. Ralph fitz Urse called a few witnesses, including the widow, Edward Stogursey, the cook, the bottler and, rather surprisingly, Humphrey de Cockville. The latter, having pushed himself forward as the spokesman of the three doctors, merely concurred that the symptoms of the final illness were consistent with poisoning, but that the nature of it could not be determined. After the inevitable verdict of murder by persons unknown, the coroner announced that the record of the inquest would be presented to the King’s judges at the next Eyre of Assize and that any further information would be considered if and when it arose.

The funeral cortège set off towards St Augustine’s Abbey, across the River Frome, and a considerable number of the city’s great and good walked behind the cart pulled by a plumed black horse. The widow, supported by her maid and flanked by several of her female friends, walked immediately behind, with a score of well-dressed citizens following. Chief amongst them were her parents, the Earl of Berkeley and his lady, then the sheriff and the mayor, then Ranulf and Jordan fitz Hamon, with a number of prominent churchmen and a gaggle of the more important ship-owners plodding behind.

Quite a number of Giffard’s patients made up the tail of the procession and the three other physicians were spread amongst them, not being averse to canvassing for business as they walked, as there was yet no sign of the new doctor allegedly coming from London.

Once Robert Giffard had been reverently put to rest in the graveyard of the abbey, the investigation seemed to come to an end. There was no new information in the following two weeks and though there were rumbles of discontent from Berkeley Castle and to a lesser extent from the fitz Hamon household, there seemed nothing that the coroner or sheriff could do to move things forward.

Gradually, the public interest in the death waned and was replaced by news of King Edward’s increasing problems. The new doctor arrived from St Bartholomew’s Hospital and virtually all of Giffard’s patients resumed their attedance at his consulting room. Even the few who had drifted to the three lower-level doctors returned to the High Street practice as soon as good reports came of the younger and more energetic physician now installed there.

‘What is the town gossip saying about this new fellow?’ demanded the coroner of William Hangfield one morning. ‘Is he living in Giffard’s house now – and possibly in Giffard’s bed?’

His officer grinned at his master’s salacious mind.

‘I doubt that very much, sir! He has taken lodgings in Queen Street and, though he is apparently a good-looking fellow of about Eleanor Giffard’s age, the gossips still have their money placed on Jordan fitz Hamon as the next occupant of her bed.’

The routine of coroner’s work soon displaced the death of the physician as the centre of discussion between the coroner and his officer. As well as the usual run of fatal stabbings in the wharfside alehouses, deaths under millwheels or the occasional hanging, William’s time was occupied by a collision of two vessels in the narrow Avon Gorge during a gale, which led to the drowning of a dozen seamen. Recovering and identifying the bodies from the several miles of tidal mud and turbid water then took him several days. It was at the end of this that the Giffard murder reared its head once again.

When William arrived at the castle one morning, the old clerk said that one of the city watchmen was waiting in the Great Hall to report a death. The Watch was the rudimentary police force of Bristol, a handful of men each armed with a staff and a cudgel, who attempted to keep order in the city streets, especially at night when drunken sailors were brawling outside every alehouse. The coroner’s officer knew them all and he soon found Egbert, a tall blond man of Saxon descent, sitting at a bench in the hall, drinking from a pint pot of cider.

‘What have you got for us this time?’ he asked. ‘Not another boatload of drowned shipmen, I hope.’

The watchman shook his head. ‘Just a dead beggar, William. As usual, it was a boy with a dog who found him, in a hovel along Welsh Back.’

This was part of the long quayside along the river, between the city walls and the bend in the Avon where it turned down into the gorge.

‘He’s gone off a bit, but no signs of violence,’ he added.

William decided he had better look for himself and the two men set off for the riverside. They crossed the entry of the Frome stream into the Avon, dug out in the last century to divert the smaller river, to act as an additional defence to the city and to give some extra space for the burgeoning number of ships coming up from the sea. This was the maritime heart of the city, the second busiest port in England. An unbroken line of ships lay against the wharfs, riding high on the flood tide.

Labourers ran up and down gangplanks with sacks of merchandise on their shoulders, taking them either in or out of the warehouses set back from the quayside. Wooden derricks craned bales and barrels from the ships’ holds, and the scene was one of prosperous activity. For a moment, William was reminded of Jordan fitz Hamon and his wealthy father, who probably owned many of these vessels.

As well as storehouses and barns behind the quay, there was a variety of other buildings, a few alehouses and some private dwellings, mostly small and often semi-derelict, to the point of being little more than heaps of rotting timber. Many of the stevedores working the ships lived there in mean circumstances and it was towards one of these that Egbert made his way.

‘He’s in that one, probably been dossing down in there for weeks,’ he said, leading William to a ramshackle hut, which still had a sagging roof of mouldering thatch on walls of rotting wood. There was a door, but it was half open, tilted back on the one remaining hinge.

‘Stinks in there, mainly due to the corpse itself,’ warned the watchman.

Once inside, Williams saw that the single room was half-filled with rubbish, but on the beaten-earth floor a figure lay on its side. It was fully clothed but the skin visible on the back of the neck was swollen and greenish in colour. Several dead rats lay on the floor a few feet away.

‘He’s been dead a couple of days, given this hot weather,’ said Egbert. Both men were well used to visiting corpses in all states of decay, and the sight and smell did not cause them any distress, The coroner’s officer pulled on the dead man’s shoulder to roll him face up, when an elderly man with grey hair was exposed. The features were distorted by pressure against the floor as well as early putrefaction and a number of rat bites, but the watchman immediately said that he knew the man.

‘Don’t know his name, but I’ve seen him about the city for years, usually rooting in rubbish middens for something to eat.’

William crouched to make a cursory examination of the neck and head to exclude obvious injuries, but given the state of the flesh, he made no effort to look at the rest of the body under the clothing.

‘Best get him taken on a handcart up to the dead-house in the castle, where we can have a better look, before he gets a pauper’s burial,’ he said, rocking back on his heels. He looked around the derelict room and then frowned. ‘It’s strange that he has such good clothing upon him. This cote-hardie is of best wool under the dirt. Odd that such a beggar as this would be so well-dressed, unless he stole the clothing.’

Egbert agreed, pointing to the man’s footwear. ‘Those boots are very fine, if you like toes as pointed as that. They must have cost a few shillings – and they are hardly worn, if you ignore the rat bites.’

William looked more closely at the boots, which were of fine soft leather. In a number of places, this had been nibbled away, the edges being serrated, typical of rat bites, which were also present on the old man’s face and hands. The woollen hose underneath was exposed in places, ripped and torn by the rodents’ sharp teeth.

Something in William’s memory clicked into place as he recalled helping the boot-boy shift some of his master’s clothing.

‘I wonder if he got these from the monks in St James’s?’ he said to Egbert. ‘The widow of Robert Giffard gave away a lot of clothes for charity.’

The watchman shrugged. ‘Maybe, but this poor old soul didn’t enjoy them for long.’

He suddenly turned away and stamped hard on the floor with his heavy boot. William saw that he had crushed the head of a rat, which had still been moving slightly.

‘May as well put the thing out of its misery,’ he said laconically, showing a compassion that was unusual in that day and age.

William looked more closely at the rats on the floor. There were three that were obviously stone-dead, though not decomposed in any way. Then his eye caught a movement under a pile of rubbish and he saw another rodent, twitching and jerking slightly, its back arching spasmodically. Then it sudden went limp and lay still, obviously dead.

‘What’s killing these vermin?’ asked Egbert. ‘Is there something poisonous amongst this rubbish?’

The coroner’s officer rubbed his stubbly chin thoughtfully. ‘You may be nearer the truth than you imagine, Egbert. Let’s get this old fellow’s cadaver taken back to the castle dead-house as soon as we can, before he goes off any further.’

The watchman went off to the quayside to commandeer a handcart to shift the corpse up to the castle, where a leanto shed in the outer bailey was provided as a temporary mortuary for bodies awaiting burial. While he was away, William found an old sack amongst the debris in the hut and dropped the four dead rats into it, carefully picking them up by the tails, using a piece of rag to protect his fingers from any noxious substance that might be exuding from them.

An hour later, they had pulled the clothing from the beggar, not without a few choice oaths at the smell both of the putrefaction and of the filthy state of the old man, whose last wash must have been long before the King’s coronation. The boots and brown woollen hose were placed in a clean sack, the rest bundled up and put on a shelf in the deadhouse.

After thanking Egbert for his help, William went off to report to Ralph fitz Urse about his suspicions that there might be a connection between the beggar’s death and the tragedy at the Giffard household. At first, the surly coroner ridiculed even the faint possibility that the two events might be related, but in the absence of any better explanation, fitz Urse grudgingly agreed to his officer following up any leads that might strengthen the suspicion.

The first place that Hangfield went was St James’s Priory, to enquire what happened to the clothing that the compassionate Eleanor Giffard had caused to be sent to them. He found a lay brother who worked for the almoner, who dealt with alms and all other charitable activities. This man, himself a Bristolian, knew at once who had been given some of the clothing.

‘So old Gilbert is dead, is he?’ he exclaimed. ‘May God rest his soul; he deserves it after the poor life he had. He was an archer in the King’s army years ago, but fell on hard times.’

William, anxious to strengthen his tenuous case, cut short the brother’s reminiscences. ‘So you say it is certain that the boots and hose, together with a cote-hardie that you gave him, came from Mistress Giffard?’

The other man nodded. ‘No doubt at all. It was I who received the bundle from that young lad who brought it from the physician’s house – and I handed some of it on to old Gilbert.’

Satisfied that he was at least confirming some of the links in the chain, William’s next stop was the apothecary’s shop in Corn Street. He carried the sack containing the boots and hose in one hand and, because of the stink, left it outside the door whilst he went in to seek Matthew Herbert.

The apothecary listened patiently while William explained the events of the morning and his idea that there might be some connection between the clothing and the death of both the beggar and the physician.

‘It was the dead rats and especially the way one of them died that struck me,’ he said earnestly. ‘The spasms and the twitching, then suddenly dropping dead, was similar to what happened to Robert Giffard. Surely, the fact that the clothing came from that house and was given to the beggar, who died soon afterwards, could be significant?’

Matthew was too polite a man to have the same scathing reaction that the coroner had shown, but he wondered if Hangfield’s devotion to his duties was stronger than the evidence he was proposing. However, he was intrigued enough to humour the officer.

‘You say you have brought these boots and the hose with you?’

William nodded. ‘I left them outside on the street – I doubt anyone will have stolen them, as they smell quite badly.’

‘Bring them through to the back yard, where we can stay in fresh air.’

When William brought the sack through, he found Matthew sitting on a bench in the small cobbled area behind the shop. He had brought a metal tray, which he placed on the ground and asked the coroner’s officer to place the boots and hose upon it. The smell was not too bad in the open air and William first lifted out the boots to show Matthew.

‘See the way those rats had devoured parts of the softer leather of the uppers?’ he said, pointing with a finger. ‘They must have found it tasty, as about a quarter of the boot has gone.’

‘And you say the hose was poking out of the holes?’

William nodded, pulling out one thigh-length stocking from the sack. ‘Those vermin had chewed part of this as well; there’s a hole in the toe where it was sticking out of the shredded boot.’

The apothecary studied the items, peering into the boot, apparently oblivious of the slimy state of the inside. He poked around with his finger, then studied its tip short-sightedly.

‘I’ll have to get one of my apprentices to look at this stuff; he’s got far keener sight than me.’

Then, Matthew picked up the stocking, made of fine brown wool, and peered at the ragged edges of the holes made by the rats. He took a small wooden spatula from a pocket and scraped around inside the boot, then turned the hose inside out and scraped some of the slimy mess from the foot. William watched this with interest.

‘Is there something there?’ he asked.

The apothecary grunted. ‘I’m not sure. There is so much slime from the sloughing of the dead man’s skin that it’s hard to tell. As I said, I’ll get my lad, Stephen, to go through it with his sharp eyes. Come back in the morning and I’ll tell you if I’ve found anything significant.’ With that, Hangfield had to be content, though he was not sure if the apothecary really was hoping to make some discovery or whether he was just humouring him.

‘Do you want to see the dead rats?’ he said hopefully. ‘In case there is anything you can tell from the way they died?’

Matthew Herbert shook his head. ‘I don’t need dead rats, but I may have a need for some live ones,’ he said enigmatically.

Given the coroner’s lack of enthusiasm for William’s latest theory, the officer did not report his visit to the apothecary and carried on with his normal work, checking on witnesses for an inquest next day on a boy who had been crushed by a collapsing wall in the city, a not infrequent accident, given the cramped building conditions and often the shoddy workmanship.

That evening, he went home and again regaled his family with the day’s events. His small son, Nicholas, was fascinated by his account of the dead rats and chewed boots, asking for more details of each morbid episode from the hovel on Welsh Back. His mother was afraid that this might give him nightmares, but with the resilience of the young, Nicholas slept like a log all night.

Early next day, his father escaped from the castle chapel as soon as possible and made his way down to the apothecary’s shop, hoping against hope that Matthew Herbert would have found something to bolster the conviction that the clothing had something to do with Giffard’s death. The apothecary left his desk and motioned him into the back room.

‘See those? Dead as mutton,’ he said, pointing at three dead rats on the floor.

‘But I didn’t leave them with you,’ said William, puzzled at the sight.

Matthew shook his head. ‘No, they’re not your rats, they are ones my apprentices caught for me yesterday. I needed them for a test.’

He explained that he had locked the three rodents in a large box, giving them some cheese and meat mixed with a substance he had scraped from the inside of the boots and soaked from the lower part of the hose.

‘It killed them overnight, with the same symptoms of twitching and fits that you saw in your hovel on the quayside!’

Hangfield stared at the dead rats with fascination. ‘So what was it that killed them?’ he asked excitedly.

‘That was the hard part,’ said Matthew with satisfaction. ‘I thought I saw something in the slime in the boot when you were here yesterday, but my apprentice did much better and picked out a few of these.’

He held out a small dish on which was a smear of brownish slime, embedded in which were a number of tiny yellowish spheres, each the size of a pin-head.

‘What the devil are they?’ demanded William, whose fairly good eyesight could just about see them.

‘You may well call upon the Devil, for these little things killed those rats – and maybe killed that poor beggar, as well as your physician,’ announced the apothecary firmly. ‘They are the seeds of the yew tree, and are extremely poisonous.’

Hangfield felt a wave of exultation that his intuition had proved correct, though he soon tempered this with thought of the difficulties that still lay ahead, such as how was it done and by whom?

‘But how could seeds in hose and boots kill a man?’ he pleaded. ‘The death of the rats I understand – you gave it to them in food. That could not have happened to either the beggar or to Robert Giffard.’

‘The seeds did not kill them,’ Matthew replied. ‘It was the substance around them that conveyed the poison, though that was originally made from the seeds.’ He sat on the edge of a box in the storeroom. ‘Look, everyone knows – certainly all country folk – that the yew tree is very dangerous. Branches lopped from yew are never left on the ground, because if livestock eat them, they may well die. All parts of the yew contain this poison, except the pulp of the berries. Yet the tiny seeds in the centre of the berries is very poisonous indeed!’

William still failed to see where this lecture was going. ‘So what killed the rats and the others?’

The apothecary patiently continued his explanation. ‘I gave the rats some scrapings from inside the boots and on the hose – it was virtually a paste, but that was because the rotten skin of the beggar, together with dirt from his feet and sweat, had probably softened what I suspect was originally a dry powder made from pounding a large number of seeds extracted from yew berries.’

William was still confused. ‘But how could that kill a man – in fact, two men, if you count the beggar?’

‘In my profession, we very often apply our medicaments through the skin – apart from giving cures by mouth, that is about the only other route available, other than by a clister through the back passage. Rubbed into the skin, especially with some kind of fatty base, some of the drug gets absorbed into the body.’

William Hangfield frowned as he digested this information. ‘So someone would have to sprinkle the powdered yew seeds into the boots and hose undetected, if he – or she – wanted to cause harm to the victim?’

Matthew nodded his agreement. ‘It would be a brownish colour and as the clothing was the same hue, it might well go unnoticed.’

‘Would this be effective in a single dose or would the effect only work over a long period?

‘I have seen two cases of yew poisoning in my lifetime, both in children who ate the attractive berries. Thankfully, both survived after forced vomiting and energetic purging, but they became very ill within a few hours, again with twitching and fits and a very irregular pulse. So a single large dose can kill quickly, but I doubt that could be achieved through the skin, so a more long-term application would be needed, which could build up to dangerous or fatal levels.’

William had by now grasped all the essentials of the method of killing, but the vital question now remained – who was responsible? He had one last question for the apothecary.

‘The previous illness, which cleared up when he left the house for London – have you any idea what that might have been?’

Matthew considered this for a moment.

‘It was certainly not the yew poison. He had an obvious excess of bile in his system and there are a number of poisons obtainable from plants in the hedgerows and woods that would do that. I would suggest it might have been an extract of ragwort, that tall yellow weed that grows everywhere. That sometimes kills horses and asses, even when they merely eat hay that contains the dried plant – but there is no way of being certain.’

William thanked Matthew Herbert sincerely for his help and asked him to keep the evidence safe until he knew how the coroner wanted to proceed. It was about time he told Ralph fitz Urse that the investigation had been revived, so he trudged back to the castle with the news.

As luck would have it – though possibly bad luck – he found the sheriff in the coroner’s chamber, sharing a jug of red Anjou wine as they chewed over the latest news of King Edward’s problems. It was not long since the humiliating defeat at the battle at Boroughbridge and though Bristol was a royal stronghold, the tide was turning against him, mainly from the Scots and his own barons, though even his wife was beginning to lose patience with her husband’s infatuation with the Despensers, both father and son.

The two men were arguing about the prospects of war when William came in, and he had some difficulty in bringing them back to the problems of the immediate present.

‘I know how Robert Giffard was murdered, sirs,’ he announced as soon as he had managed to get their attention. ‘But I have no idea who did it!’

Nicholas Cheyney stared at him as if he had suddenly lost his wits and the coroner glared at him ferociously.

‘What are you talking about?’ he barked. ‘We’ll never know what happened to Giffard. There’s nothing left to discover.’

His officer tried to keep a smug expression from his face. ‘But I’ve just discovered it, sir. He had poison put in his boots and hose!’

‘In his boots!’ yelled the sheriff. ‘Are you quite mad, William Hangfield?’

Hurriedly, the serjeant explained, before the others had apoplexy. He told them the whole story of the beggar, the dead rats and his involvement of Matthew the apothecary.

‘He says there’s no doubt about the yew being the poison, and though he has never heard of it being used through the skin, there is no medical reason why it shouldn’t work.’

Eventually, the two senior men grudgingly accepted that the officer was neither mad nor playing some inexplicable practical joke.

‘We must hear this from Matthew Herbert’s own mouth,’ growled the coroner. ‘Then discover who the culprit must be.’

‘It has to be someone in the Giffard household,’ snapped the sheriff. ‘No one else would have access to either his boots or, in the previous suspected poisoning, to his food.’

‘And it must be someone who knows a great deal about yew poison and how it could be absorbed through the skin,’ added William, sagely.

‘That servant who acts as an apothecary fits the bill best,’ grated the sheriff. ‘What was his name, Stogursey or some such?’

‘Remember that the lady Eleanor had the same access to his food and his boots,’ objected fitz Urse. ‘And there is this suspicion that she might be carrying on with Jordan fitz Hamon.’

‘But she would not have enough knowledge of poisons to pull off this yew-in-the-boots trick,’ scoffed Nicholas Cheyney, always ready to contradict the coroner.

Again, William threw in a reasonable contribution. ‘The one who knew about the yew seeds and was able to prepare them need not be one who actually administered them, sirs.’

The other two digested this for a moment. ‘If so, then even Jordan fitz Hamon could be behind the murderous plot!’ said the coroner.

The sheriff, who was ultimately responsible for law and order in the county of Somerset, turned to William with new orders.

‘We need to shake the tree of the Giffard household and see what falls out. Take a couple of men-at-arms with you and get to the truth of this affair, even if you threaten them with torture.’

Hangfield sincerely hoped it would not come to that, but he touched his forehead respectfully and left to carry out his orders.

At the house in King Street, he sought an audience with Mistress Eleanor, brushing aside any delaying tactics by Edward Stogursey. She was in the doctor’s chamber with the new physician, a pleasant-looking man of about thirty, but William, invoking the command of the sheriff, asked her to step into an empty living-room nearby.

‘Madam, we have now discovered how your husband died – he was murdered by the poison from yew berries,’ he announced bluntly. ‘The deadly substance could only have been administered by someone in this household – and his previous illness in February may have been from putting a tincture made from ragwort in his food, again obviously by someone in the house.’

The new widow paled and clutched at her throat in a typically feminine gesture of shock. ‘Are you sure of this? Who could have done such a terrible thing?’

‘No one is above suspicion, madam,’ said the serjeant, drily indicating that even the lady of the house herself was a candidate. ‘I need to interrogate every servant immediately, to get at the truth.’

The two soldiers that he had brought with him rounded up all the staff and drove them into the back yard, where they stood in trepidation. William, wearing his most ferocious expression, repeated the news he had given to Eleanor Giffard and then demanded that anyone who had any information must give it that instant or suffer the consequences, which included a hanging for conspiracy to murder.

Edward Stogursey typically protested that he objected to being humiliated like a common criminal, but William pointed out that he was the best candidate, due to his knowledge of herbs, plants and drugs generally – and as the most senior servant, his easy access to every household activity.

‘The poison was sprinkled or smeared into the victim’s boots and hose!’ he thundered. ‘I am going to discover who did that, even if it means putting everyone to the Ordeal!’

This was a blatant bluff, as the Ordeal as means of divining guilt had been abolished in the previous century, but his meaning was clear and there were moans from some of the men and muffled shrieks from the two women.

‘Who would have dealt with the master’s boots, such as cleaning them?’ rasped Hangfield, glaring around at the servants huddled in the yard.

A small voice piped up, hesitantly. ‘Me, sir, but I didn’t do anything bad, honest!’ It was Henry, who came forward and dropped to his knees in front of the coroner’s officer. ‘I loved the master, sir; he was always kind to me.’

Eleanor gave a sob and ran forward to pick up the little lad to comfort him. ‘Of course you did nothing wrong, Henry, we all know that!’

There was a sudden commotion at the end of the short line of servants as one man made a sudden dash for the back gate. One of the soldiers ran after him and sent him crashing to the ground before he could escape, dragging him back to throw him in front of William Hangfield.

‘So, you do more than cooking here, John Black! Since when do cooks see to their master’s boots and hose, eh?’

The fat man crawled to his knees and tried to embrace William’s legs in supplication. ‘I thought the powder was doing him good, sir, after his illness in the winter,’ he blubbered unconvincingly.

The serjeant gave him a kick that sent him sprawling.

‘You damned liar! And it must have been you that put the ragwort or whatever it was in his food that caused that disorder of bile!’

‘He said it would do him good… I did it from the best of intentions,’ wailed the cook, with the prospect of the gallows opening before his eyes.

‘And who was “he”, may I ask?’ shouted William, relentlessly. ‘Where did this evil powder come from, eh? And who paid you to put it in his hose and boots?’

The man grovelling on the ground whispered a name, and the officer gave him another kick.

‘Men-at-arms, come with me!’ he yelled. ‘And bring this wretch with you!’

At a shabby house in a side lane off Corn Street, the group that had left the Giffard residence came to a halt outside the door. William Hangfield hammered on it with his fist and when there was no response, repeated the action with the pommel of his dagger.

‘Open up in the name of the King’s coroner!’ he yelled, but again there was no reaction from inside the dwelling.

‘There’s someone in there, sir,’ called one of the soldiers, who had seen a shutter open slightly on a window to their right. ‘I saw a face looking out for a second, then it was slammed shut again.’

‘Right, give him another minute, then kick this door down!’ ordered the serjeant. As no movement was heard inside and the door remained firmly closed, one of the menat-arms relinquished his hold on John Black and began attacking the stout oak door. He had nothing but his foot to smash against it and it was soon obvious that he was making little impression.

William grabbed the other arm of the cowed cook so that the other soldier could join his companion. Using their shoulders and feet, they thundered against the planks for several minutes until eventually they weakened the fastenings of the bolt inside so that with a splintering noise the door swung open.

‘Find him! He’s here somewhere!’ howled William, still hanging on to the sagging John Black.

The two men rushed into the house and began searching the few sparsely furnished rooms on the ground floor. There was a shout from somewhere in the back and William answered with an urgent cry.

‘Hold him, don’t let him get away!’

However, when he reached the room, still dragging the cook, he saw his command had been unnecessary, as the fugitive was sitting calmly on a chair, his hands folded on his lap.

‘Erasmus Crote, you’ll hang for this!’ said Hangfield fiercely. The physician shook his head and held up a small empty flask.

‘I’ll not end on the gallows, unless revenge leads you to string up a corpse,’ he said mildly. ‘I’ve just swallowed all that remained of the poison that killed Robert Giffard. There’s no antidote. I’ll be dead within a couple of hours at most.’

William grabbed the bottle from his hand and stared at the yellowish-brown dregs that lay in the bottom. ‘We’ll make you vomit, wash your stomach out with water!’ he said wildly.

Erasmus shook his head and smiled at the officer. ‘It would be useless; I took enough crushed yew seeds to kill a dozen cows. It’s far better this way – better for us all.’ His eyes moved to the fat cook, cowering in William’s grip. ‘So you betrayed me, John Black! I suppose it was to be expected.’

The cook shook his head vigorously. ‘I had no choice. They were blaming it all on me. I would have hanged!’

‘You’ll hang anyway,’ grated William, ‘in place of this evil man, if what he says is correct about the poison.’

Black began blubbering again and Hangfield contemptuously pushed him back into the custody of one of the soldiers.

‘You still seem quite healthy, Crote!’ he snapped at the physician. ‘We’ll keep you locked up and, if you don’t die, you’ll swing from the gallows tree.’

‘Give it time, officer,’ replied Erasmus calmly. ‘Though already I can feel the first twitches and racing of my pulse.’

‘Why have you done this evil thing?’ demanded Hangfield.

The lean physician, his sallow face resigned to death, sighed. ‘Envy, officer! Just envy, pure and simple. You see, I loved my profession, yet have been dogged by ill luck and feelings of inferiority all my life.’

William frowned. ‘I don’t understand you, man.’

Erasmus gave a slight twitch as one of his shoulders had a spasm. ‘I was a good doctor, but never had a fair chance. I never was properly trained, I picked it up from years as an apprentice in Dublin, walking the wards of a poorhouse and following a drunken doctor around a public refuge. I never had the chance to study the theory or read the famous texts, and never had the opportunity to listen to learned teachers.’

He sighed again and in spite of himself, Hangfield began to feel a little sorry for this gaunt man.

‘Even those two buffoons who call themselves physicians in this city had the benefit of proper education, one at St Bartholomew’s and the other at Montpellier, which he never let us forget.’

‘What has this to do with murder?’ growled William.

Erasmus Crote suddenly put a hand over his heart, feeling a sudden racing of the beats. ‘It’s started, there’s not much time,’ he muttered. ‘There must have been more left in that flask than I expected – but all to the good.’

He brought his eyes up to meet Hangfield’s again. ‘I was better at treating diseases of the skin that all of them put together – including Giffard, though he was a good physician. But where did it get me? Nowhere! I scratched a living amongst the poor, treating sailors with scurvy, stevedores with sores on their jacks and urchins with ringworm, often for no payment at all. Yet in King Street, all the rich and notable citizens, as well as half the nobles of the county, beat a path to Robert Giffard’s door.’

His head jerked back as a rictus of pain shot through his neck muscles.

‘I was envious of his status, envious of the large fees his rich patients lavished on him! I was even envious of his comely wife, though God knows that, as a widow, she would never have looked twice at me. She was the daughter of a baron and Giffard himself came from a prominent family with high-placed friends in Westminster. What chance did I have of making a name – or even a living – for myself against such competition?’

He jerked again and sweat began glistening on his forehead as he felt a rush of palpitations in his chest. The coroner’s officer now knew that Crote was soon going die, but hoped that it would not happen until he had the complete story of this sorry tale of envy and professional jealousy.

‘And for that, you committed murder?’ he snapped, almost incredulous that a man who spent his life trying to heal the sick could take life so cold-bloodedly.

Erasmus Crote was now flushed and shivering, but quite rational.

‘You as a coroner’s assistant must have known many murderers who killed for gain, whether it be for money, lust, love or hatred. They were no different from my overweening ambition to be looked up to in my profession, just as Giffard was a friend to all in this county who were its leaders. What difference is there between a thief who robs a merchant for his purse, and a doctor who tries to wrest a good practice from another?’

William Hangfield pointed out the obvious fact to him that he had failed. ‘And what good has it done you, even if you had not been caught? Giffard’s widow has just imported another good physician from London and with her lofty social connections, all the grand patients will remain there – especially now that it looks as if she will soon be taken into the bosom of the fitz Hamon family.’

Erasmus seemed to droop in his chair, his inflamed complexion suddenly turning into a deathly pallor.

‘It is the story of my life, sir. Failure at everything, even the attempt to turn my life around. I wanted what Robert Giffard had and a growing obsession made me strive for it, without regard for the consequences. Envy overrode everything else – I was mad with envious ambition and it has brought me nothing, except death!’

‘Was it you who wrote that letter to the mayor, to mislead us by hinting that it was Mistress Giffard’s lover who committed this crime?’

Erasmus nodded, then with a groan, his head flopped on to his chest and his arms dropped to his sides.

‘Is he dead?’ asked one of the soldiers.

Hangfield pulled back Crote’s head by the hair and thumbed up his eyelids to look at his pupils, then placed a hand on his chest.

‘No, not yet, though his heart beats like a kettle-drum played by a madman. Lay him on the floor. There is nothing we can do for him.’

At the castle later that day, the coroner’s officer related the whole sorry episode to Ralph fitz Urse and the sheriff, while Erasmus Crote’s corpse lay in the dead-house and John Black was incarcerated in the cells in the castle undercroft to await his fate in front of the King’s justices when they next came to Bristol.

‘So why did this bloody cook agree to commit murder for the physician?’ demanded the sheriff.

‘Crote paid him money and the greed of John Black overcame any remorse at harming his own master,’ replied William. ‘He said he knew Eramus from often meeting him in an alehouse and eventually, for a bribe, he agreed to put a strong extract of ragwort into Robert Giffard’s food.’

‘Must have been a big bribe to get him to risk his neck for an attempted murder,’ said the coroner.

‘The excuse that Crote gave him was that he only wanted to make Giffard ill for a time, so that he would be unable to look after all his patients and Crote could gain by offering them his own services. However, Giffard going away for several weeks spoiled the plan, as his recovery, then the regime of the strict tasting of his food, restored him to health.’

The sheriff shook his head sadly, deploring of the evil of some men. ‘So then he decided to kill him, I suppose?’

The coroner’s officer nodded. ‘He devised the idea of placing yew poison in his footwear. Being a skin doctor, he knew it could be absorbed in that way, albeit slowly. Giffard again became ill, but the villains did not reckon on the wife and this Edward Stogursey managing to keep the practice going. He gave Black more money, but also threatened to denounce him as his accomplice if he refused to help.’

‘So he was determined to succeed or die, as he would be implicated if the cook was found out,’ summarised Ralph fitz Urse.

There was silence for a while as the sheriff and the coroner thought about this tale of jealousy and frustrated ambition that led to murder.

‘At least I’ll be able to finish the inquest on Giffard that should satisfy all the élite of Somerset,’ said the coroner. ‘A novel verdict, eh? Murder by envy!’