A Flight of Arrows A.J. MacKenzie (black authors fiction TXT) 📖

of the priory next door came the sound of chanting; the king and his court were attending mass.

‘I must speak to Master Clerebaud,’ the herald said.

‘Very well, but please do not detain him for long.’

Glancing around the crowded kitchen, Merrivale could see no sign of Curry. Clerebaud was at work at the sauce table, chopping herbs with manic energy and stirring them into a pot over a low fire. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and straightened as Merrivale approached. His eyes were guarded. ‘How may I help you, herald?’

‘How much do you owe them?’ Merrivale asked.

‘How much do I… what are you talking about?’

‘Nicodemus and his friends. You play dice with them almost every night.’

Clerebaud looked around for a moment, then back at the herald. ‘I gamble with a few friends. I don’t know what you mean about Nicodemus.’

‘How much do you owe?’ the herald repeated.

‘…Thirty marks, or thereabouts. A trifling sum. I can easily win it back.’

Thirty marks, or twenty pounds, was more than even a skilled professional cook like Clerebaud earned in a year. ‘What sauces are you making for the banquet?’

Clerebaud looked startled by the question. ‘Cameline for roasting the beef. Sorrel verjuice for the carp. Saffron sauce, ginger sauce, garlic sauce, and a honey mustard glaze for the swan.’

‘Show me what you are putting in them.’

The sauce-maker indicated the table where his ingredients were laid out. Merrivale sifted through them, picking up bunches of herbs and examining them, sniffing a bowl of chopped garlic, dipping his finger in a crock of honey. He could see or smell nothing out of the ordinary. ‘Mauro? What do you think?’

‘Everything seems in order, señor.’

The herald turned back to Clerebaud. ‘The scullion who watches the pots, Curry. Where is he?’

Sudden terror crept into Clerebaud’s eyes. ‘I don’t know. He was here last night, but I haven’t seen him this morning.’

The herald remembered what Nell had said. ‘Has Curry threatened you?’

The terror increased. After a moment, Clerebaud nodded. ‘He said if they don’t get their money, they’ll skin me alive.’

Merrivale watched the other man’s eyes. ‘Curry also made you an offer, didn’t he? He asked you to do something in order to pay off the debt. What was it?’

The air in the kitchen was hot and full of steam and smoke, and sweat streamed down Clerebaud’s face. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Tell me where Nicodemus is.’

‘I don’t know. I swear by the blood of Jesus, I haven’t seen him.’

‘You remember what happened at Lammas,’ Merrivale said. ‘The poisoned juvert.’

‘That was nothing to do with me!’

‘No. But if something happens today, it won’t be Curry and his men coming to flay you. It will be the king’s executioners.’

Back in the courtyard, they could hear singing again, the words of the Gloria echoing off stone walls.

Domine Fili unigenite, Iesu Christe,

Domine Deus, Agnus Dei, Filius Patris,

qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis;

qui tollis peccata mundi, suscipe deprecationem nostram.

Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris, miserere nobis.

‘He is lying, señor,’ Mauro said.

‘Of course he is. Stay here, and do not let him out of your sight.’

‘Yes, señor.’

Courcy had arrived, Gráinne inevitably at his elbow. Tiphaine was with them, standing what she judged was a safe distance from Gráinne; Matt and Pip lingered silently a few yards away. ‘Sir Nicholas,’ the herald said, ‘I need your knowledge of alchemy. How many kinds of poison are there?’

‘Christ knows,’ said Courcy. ‘Wolf’s-bane, belladonna, arsenic, strychnine, hemlock, opium, to name just a few. Do you want me to recite the entire pharmacopoeia?’

‘At Lisieux, you said the poison might have been acquired from an apothecary’s shop. Is there such a shop in Poissy?’

‘Yes, in the square by the church of Notre-Dame.’

‘Take me there, if you please.’

The looters had been thorough; every door in the square had been forced open and every building plundered, including the church. The windows of the apothecary’s shop had been smashed, fragments of glass and lead crunching under their boots as they entered. Cabinets and chests stood open, but by and large their contents had been left untouched; the looters had been looking for gold and silver or goods they could sell, and powders and tinctures were not considered valuable enough to take away.

Leaving Matt and Pip on guard outside, they searched the shop. ‘What are we looking for?’ Tiphaine asked.

‘Every box or bottle will have a label,’ Courcy said. ‘That’s so the ’pothecary doesn’t get the ingredients mixed up and accidentally sell a love potion when he was meant to provide a hair restorer.’ He paused for a moment, looking at her. ‘Sorry, I should have asked. You do know how to read?’

‘I was educated at the finest convent school in Normandy,’ Tiphaine snapped. ‘I know how to read.’

‘Sweet Jesus, you’re an idiot,’ Gráinne told her husband, cuffing him with one gauntleted hand.

‘Not every country believes in educating women, mo grá. I wasn’t sure how they did things in Normandy.’

They searched the shop, looking into cabinets and lifting the tops of majolica jars to smell the contents, Courcy checking the labels and muttering under his breath in Latin. Finding nothing, they moved through to the storeroom at the rear of the building. Almost at once they discovered what they were looking for, a wooden cabinet full of jars of dark treacly syrup and cloth packets containing roots and seeds. ‘Lachryma papaveris,’ Courcy said, pointing to the syrup. ‘And here we have Aconitum napellus, Atropa belladonna, Nux vomica and Arsenicum trisulphide. These are the poisons.’

‘Is anything missing?’ asked Merrivale.

‘It is hard to tell without an inventory. But the cabinet is well stocked. If someone did steal anything, they can’t have taken much.’

‘Where else might someone find poisons?’

‘Well, we’ve looted half a dozen towns since Lisieux. Or the poisoner might still have the stock he picked up in Caen.’

Merrivale shook his head. ‘They wouldn’t carry the poison this far in their baggage. The risk of discovery is too great. They will look for stocks near to hand.’

‘Where else in Poissy could they find aconitum?’ asked