‘So why St Bartholomew?’ asked de Wolfe, as they walked towards the arched entrance into the large walled enclosure. ‘Wasn’t he the apostle who was flayed alive?’
Thomas nodded eagerly. ‘You are indeed a learned man, master! But the monk Rahere named his hospital and priory after the island in the Tiber on which was the hospital that saved his life in Rome.’
The history lesson over, the coroner loped to the doorkeeper’s lodge inside the gates and made himself known to the lay brother inside.
‘The sheriff has informed me that a cleric, possibly from Westminster, was brought here and died yesterday.’
John dangled his precious piece of parchment with the impressive seal before the man’s eyes. It had the desired effect, though as usual the doorkeeper was unable to read it. ‘I need to see the corpse and then question whoever dealt with the poor fellow.’
The lay brother, dressed in a shapeless black habit, hastened to help the imposing visitor.
‘I did hear that a priest had died, sir. No doubt his body is in the dead-house behind the hospital. I will have to enquire as to who treated him, for we have eleven monks who care for the sick, as well as four sisters of mercy.’
He rose from his table and yelled at a young boy who was squatting outside the door, scratching marks in the dust with a stick. ‘Elfed, take these gentlemen over to the mortuary, then come back here.’
The coroner’s trio followed the lad across the huge enclosure, where each August, England’s largest cloth fair was held, with a horse fair outside on the heath. They had the impressive pile of the priory to their left, its large church towering over cloisters, dorter, refectory, chapter house and a small chapel. The usual infirmary was missing, however, as the place had been established specifically as a hospital, which lay to their right. Several stone-built wards lay at the southern end of the great yard, together with some storage and accommodation for the nursing nuns, who like the brothers, were of the Augustinian order.
As they walked, they passed or overtook a variety of people, from ones hobbling on crutches, to others being helped by relatives, some moaning and sobbing. A sister in a black habit and flowing cover-chief, tenderly held a small baby, the mother walking ashen-faced alongside. A small cart, pushed by a youth, carried a woman flat on her back, keening in pain, her anxious husband bent over her as they went.
‘Cheerful place, this,’ grunted Gwyn, looking askance at the plentiful evidence of pain and suffering around them.
‘Thank God it exists!’ countered Thomas sternly. ‘Or there would be even more distress without the efforts of these Austin monks and nuns. May Christ and all his saints bless them!’
Their barefooted guide took them past the end ward block with its stone-tiled roof and came to a small structure jutting from a low building, which from the smell must have been the reredorter, the latrines of the hospital.
‘The dead-house is always in the worst possible place!’ grumbled John, but he walked unhesitatingly to the door, leaving the boy to scamper back to the gatehouse. Inside, it was hot and gloomy and pervaded by the lingering smell of the thousands of corpses that had passed through it over the years.
When their eyes became accustomed to the dim light, they saw a row of four wooden biers, stretchers with handles at each end, standing on four legs. Two were empty, the other pair held shrouded bodies.
Gwyn lifted the sheet from the nearest, but replaced it quickly when he saw the face of a woman, grotesquely deformed by a great tumour that grew from the lower jaw. ‘It must be the other one,’ he muttered and moved to the next bier. The face that was revealed this time was familiar to them all — it was Simon Basset, one-time canon of Lichfield.
De Wolfe moved up to stand alongside his officer, with Thomas hanging well behind, fervently crossing himself and murmuring Latin blessings for the dead.
‘Well, we’ve found our Treasury man,’ said John, with melancholy satisfaction. ‘Now he’ll never be able to tell us anything!’
They looked down at the cadaver, whose face had a serene expression. He was dressed in a hospital shift of coarse wool, his hands crossed peacefully over his chest, with a small crucifix pressed between his fingers.
At a sign from the coroner, Gwyn pulled the sheet right down to the corpse’s feet and they studied the exposed legs, then lifted the shift and examined the belly and chest. With one powerful hand, the Cornish-man turned the body on to its side, so that they could look at the back.
‘He doesn’t seem injured, what we can see of him,’ ventured Thomas, peering round Gwyn’s bulk. ‘What can he have died from?’
A deep voice came from behind to answer him. ‘I fear he was poisoned, brother.’
They turned and saw a tall monk standing in the doorway. He wore the black habit and scapula of an Augustinian, though over his front was a white linen apron speckled with a few spots of blood. He signed a cross in the air and Thomas responded with a genuflexion and his inevitable reflex touching of his head, heart and shoulders.
John turned to acknowledge him with a brief bowing of his head. ‘I am Sir John de Wolfe, the Coroner of the Verge. I am charged with investigating the disappearance of this man — and now with his death, it seems.’
‘And I am Brother Philip, one of those charged with trying to help the sick,’ replied the monk, with no trace of sarcasm in mirroring the coroner’s words. He had a pale, sad face under a severely cut tonsure which left little but a thin rim of fair hair around his head. ‘No doubt you can tell us the identity of this poor man, for he was unable to speak after he arrived and all we know of him is that he was in holy orders, and from the royal insignia on his cassock must have been in the king’s service.’
John explained who Simon Basset was and the monk’s pale eyebrows rose when he learned that the dead man was a canon of a famous cathedral and a high official of the Exchequer. The coroner did not mention the matter of the missing treasure, but merely said that the priest had gone missing from home several days ago.
‘This poisoning, brother. Are you quite sure about that?’
The Augustinian nodded gravely. ‘I am in no doubt at all — and I know what the poison must have been, for we frequently use it as a medicament. Several of my brother physicians came to examine the patient and all agreed with me.’
‘What was it, brother?’ interposed Thomas, whose insatiable curiosity overcame his reluctance to stay in the dead-house.
‘A common herbal remedy for dropsy and a failing heart. It was an extract of foxglove, which in small doses slows and strengthens the beating of the heart, but in excess is a potent poison.’
They all looked at the still shape on the bier, free from any sign of injury. ‘How could you tell that?’ asked Thomas de Peyne.
‘The dramatic slowing of the pulse, which became erratic and finally ceased,’ answered Brother Philip. ‘And the rough fellows who brought him to the hospital, though they knew next to nothing about him, said that before his speech failed, he had been vomiting and rambling about his sight being yellow and green, which is a characteristic of foxglove poisoning.’
‘Did the men who delivered him here know anything more?’ asked de Wolfe. ‘Where were they from?’
The Austin canon shrugged. ‘I fear I do not know. I see scores of these unfortunate patients each day, but only in the wards. Unless there is a relative with them, I rarely learn anything about their circumstances. The gatekeepers might be able to give you some more information.’
The coroner considered this for a moment, then tried another tack. ‘Brother, if you are convinced that he died of poison, have you any idea how he may have taken it — or been given it?’