Be sure that Nemesis had her revenge. Retribution was sharp and painful. I do not remember ever having been so ill either before or since.
‘I must have been poisoned,’ I moaned to Adela halfway through the following morning when, sitting up in bed, white, shaken and very weak, I was myself again and the ghastly consequences of the previous night seemed to be over.
‘Nonsense!’ she retorted. She was at her most unsympathetic, but I have discovered from long experience that wives usually are where strong drink is involved. ‘How could you possibly have been poisoned?’
‘Easily,’ I snapped, ‘if someone’s ale had turned sour. Kept in a dirty barrel for too long. I tell you, Adela, I’ve been sick in the past, and I’ve had some splitting heads, but never anything like I’ve experienced tonight. Fortunately, I’ve always been able to rid myself very quickly of anything bad. My mother maintained that I had one of the most sensitive bellies she’d ever known. I must have eaten or drunk something that was rotten last night.’
‘I’m all right,’ was the acid rejoinder, ‘and I ate and drank everything that you did.’
‘You couldn’t have done,’ I said positively.
I didn’t blame her for this lack of sympathy. As is a woman’s lot, she had borne the brunt of the clearing up, the emptying of slop buckets, the mopping up of the bedchamber floor, the extra washing and drying of sheets — and this in December — that such upsets entail. Moreover, I had no means of proving my theory, only a knowledge of my own body and, consequently, a growing conviction that this was no ordinary aftermath of drunkenness.
My suggestion of ale which had turned sour was, on the face of it, the most sensible one, but as I lay in bed, listening to the morning household sounds going on below me, the gnawing suspicion that someone might deliberately have tried to kill me gradually tightened its grip. It could so easily have happened. Something dropped in a beaker of ‘lamb’s wool’ which had then been handed specifically to me and the thing was done. There had been such a crowd of people not only in our own, but in every house and cottage we had visited that it would be impossible to guess where or when or by whom such an act was committed.
But who would want me dead? Whose toes was I treading on that he or she might feel it imperative to remove me? Was someone growing afraid that I was getting too close to the truth concerning Alderman Trefusis’s murder? If the killer were indeed this Miles Deakin, he could still be in the city in disguise, using another name, waiting to wreak his vengeance on Sir George. Maybe he had already taken his revenge: the knight was certainly missing and no one seemed able to find him. It was a time of year when nobody questioned the wearing of masks; when people ate too much and drank too much, so that sickness and even sudden death were rarely queried.
I dared not share these thoughts with Adela. On the one hand, they would alarm her and, on the other, in order to quell those alarms, she would do as she always did and accuse me of letting my imagination run away with me. And who was to say that she wasn’t right? I had no shred of proof that my suspicions had foundation. They were entirely without substance and it was only my instinct that warned me to tread carefully in the near future.
Today was the fifth day of Christmas, and from now until the eleventh day — the Eve of Epiphany or the Eve of Twelfth Night, whichever you preferred to call it — the celebrations abated and normal life temporarily resumed. There would be far less feasting and drinking; indeed, none at all for poorer folk like me and my family. I had plenty of time to recover my health and strength. Happily, I have always had great recuperative powers, and even at the advanced age of thirty-one I was still able to shrug off sickness with comparative ease; far more easily than most people.
Adela knew this as well as I did, so she was not surprised when I tottered downstairs just before dinner. ‘It’s only pottage,’ she said. ‘Do you feel you can eat it?’
‘I can try,’ I answered with forced cheerfulness. ‘Is there any news of Sir George? Has he been found yet?’
‘Not when I last saw Richard. He called about an hour ago to find out where you were and if you were going to join the search again today. I explained that you were at present laid low, but that, knowing you, you would most likely have recovered sufficiently to join him later.’
The older children arrived and took their places around the table looking rather subdued. They had been kept awake part of the night by the sound of my sufferings and were duly impressed by my capacity for regurgitation.
I wasn’t too certain about the pottage; it had a distinctly day-before-yesterday’s appearance. However, I manfully swallowed a mouthful and then gave a very loud belch. Luke, tied to Adam’s baby chair and being spoonfed by Adela, immediately imitated the noise. His foster brothers and sister were enchanted.
‘Do it again, Father,’ pleaded Elizabeth, clapping her hands.
‘Certainly not!’ I exclaimed indignantly. But then another involuntary gust of wind escaped me.
Luke beamed all over his sweet little face and once more repeated the sound. The other three were ecstatic.
‘How do you do it, Father?’ Adam wanted to know, plainly with a view to practising the art himself.
I frowned at him. ‘I don’t do it on purpose,’ I said. ‘It’s just wind escaping from my belly.’
My son nodded sagely. ‘You were ill in the night. I heard you. P’raps it was because of what that bird man put in your beaker.’
Adela, bending over to wipe Luke’s mouth, suddenly jerked upright, while I stared at Adam like someone in a trance.
‘What … What bird man?’ I asked as soon as I could command my voice. I waited while my son emptied his mouth of an over-large spoonful of pottage, then demanded again, ‘What bird man?’
‘The one who was here last night,’ he said. ‘Put something in your ale. I saw him.’
I leant across the table and grasped his wrist to prevent him filling his mouth again. ‘You mean here, in this house? A man wearing a bird mask?’
‘Yes.’
‘What sort of bird mask? What sort of a beak did it have?’
‘Big one. Like this.’ With his free hand, Adam drew a great curve in the air over his own little nose. ‘You’re hurting my arm,’ he added reproachfully.
I released him, recalling as I did so Dame Drusilla’s words. ‘A bird mask with a great beak.’
Adela was regarding me, eyes wide with fear. ‘Roger, do you really think that someone …?’ She couldn’t bring herself to say more.
‘It’s possible,’ I said grimly. I turned back to my son. ‘Adam,’ I asked sternly, ‘are you sure about this? Are you certain that the man in the bird mask put something in my ale?’
‘Yes, I’m certain.’ Adam stared at me with all the injured air of one whose word is being doubted.
‘Here? In this kitchen?’
‘I told you! There were some beakers on the table full of that frothy stuff you were all drinking. I saw the bird man drop something in one of them and then give it to you.’