‘Provisions,’ Norreys called out as they walked across. ‘Never buy in an Oxford market, it’s cheaper and fresher from outside.’
‘Have you just returned?’ Corbett asked.
‘Oh yes, I left well before dawn,’ Norreys replied, his face flushed and covered in a sheen of sweat. ‘I’ve made a handsome profit.’
Corbett was about to continue when a group of students burst into the yard, led by David Ap Thomas. The Welshman, stripped to his waist, flexed his muscles and swung a thick quarterstaff in his hand, much to the admiration of his henchmen. Ap Thomas was well built, his chest and arms firm and muscular; he played with the staff as a child would a stick, skilfully and effortlessly turning it in his hands.
‘An accomplished street brawler,’ Corbett murmured.
‘I’d ignore them and go in,’ Norreys warned.
Corbett, however, just shook his head. The Welshman was now staring across at them. Corbett glimpsed the amulet round his neck.
‘I think this is meant for our entertainment and amusement,’ Ranulf muttered. ‘As well as a warning.’
Suddenly the door was flung open and a garishly dressed figure came bounding out. One of Ap Thomas’s henchman, clothed in black tattered rags, a yellow beak stuck to his face, with boots of the same colour on his bare legs. He, too, held a staff and, for a while, jumped about flailing his arms, cawing like the crow he was so aptly imitating.
‘I’ll cut the bastards’ throats!’ Ranulf said hoarsely.
‘No, no,’ Corbett warned. ‘Let them have their laugh.’
The ‘crow’ stopped its antics and squared up to Ap Thomas, and both scholars began a quarterstaff fight. Corbett decided to ignore the insult. He stood, admiring the consummate skill of both men, Ap Thomas particularly. The quarterstaffs were thick ash-poles wielded with great force, and a blow to the head would send any man unconscious. Nevertheless, both Ap Thomas and his opponent were skilled fighters. The staffs whirled through the air, as both men ducked and leapt. Now and again the sticks would clash as a blow to the head or stomach was neatly blocked or there would be a jab at the legs in an attempt to tip the opposing fighters over by a vicious tap to the ankles. Ap Thomas fought quietly with only the occasional grunt as he stepped back, chest heaving, face and arms coated in sweat, waiting for his opponent to close in once again.
The fight lasted for at least ten minutes until Ap Thomas, swiftly moving his pole from hand to hand, stepped back and, with a resounding thwack to the shoulder, sent his opponent crashing to his knees.
Corbett and Ranulf walked across the yard, ignoring the raucous crowing. Ranulf would have gone back but Corbett plucked at his sleeve.
‘As the good book says, Ranulf, “there’s a time and place under heaven for everything: a time for planting and a time for plucking up, a time for war and a time for peace.” — Now it’s time to rouse Maltote, he’s slept long enough!’
Ranulf shrugged and followed. He also recalled a phrase from the Old Testament: ‘Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life’, but he decided to keep his own counsel.
They found Maltote had just woken up. He was sitting, scratching his blond, tousled hair. He blinked owlishly at them, then winced as he stretched out his leg.
‘I came back here half asleep,’ he explained, ‘and caught my shin on a bucket Norreys had left out after he’d been cleaning the cellars.’ Maltote limped to his feet. ‘I heard the noise from below,’ he said. ‘What was happening?’
‘Just fools playing,’ Corbett retorted. ‘They were born foolish and they’ll die foolish!’
‘Are we to eat?’ Maltote asked.
‘Not here,’ Corbett said. ‘Ranulf, take Maltote, explain what has happened and how careful he has to be. Go to Turl Lane, where there’s a tavern, the Grey Goose. I might meet you there after I’ve visited the Hall.’
They went downstairs into the lane. A whore, her face painted so white the plaster was cracking, flounced by, shaking her dirty, tattered skirts at them. In one hand she held her red wig, in the other a pet weasel tied by a piece of string wrapped round her wrist. She grinned at them in a display of yellow, cracked teeth but then turned, cursing in a string of filthy oaths, as a dog came out of an alleyway snapping and snarling at her pet. Whilst Ranulf and Maltote helped to drive it away, Corbett crossed and knocked at the door of Sparrow Hall. A servitor let him in. Corbett explained why he was there and the man took him upstairs to Churchley’s chamber. Master Aylric was sitting at his desk beneath an open window, watching the flame of a candle burn lower. He rose as Corbett entered, hiding his irritation beneath a false smile.
‘How does fire burn?’ he asked, grasping Corbett’s hand. ‘Why does wax burn quicker? Why is it more amenable to fire than wood or iron?’
‘It depends on its properties,’ Corbett replied, quoting from Aristotle.
‘Yes, but why?’ Churchley asked, waving him to a stool.
‘It’s about natural properties I have come.’ Corbett abruptly changed the conversation. ‘Master Aylric,’ he continued. ‘You are a physician?’
‘Yes, but I’m more of a student of the natural world,’ Churchley teased back, his narrow face becoming suspicious.
‘But you dispense physic here?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘And you have a dispensary? A store of herbs and potions?’
‘Of course,’ came the guarded reply. ‘It’s further down the passageway, but it’s under lock and key.’
‘I’ll come to the point,’ Corbett said briskly. ‘If you wished to poison someone, Master Aylric — it’s a question, not an accusation — you wouldn’t, surely, buy it from an apothecary in the city?’
Churchley shook his head. ‘That could be traced,’ he replied. ‘One would be remembered. I buy from an apothecary in Hog Lane,’ he explained, ‘and all my purchases are carefully noted.’
‘You never gather the herbs yourself?’
‘In Oxford?’ Churchley scoffed. ‘Oh, you might find some camomile out in Christchurch Meadows but, Sir Hugh, I am a busy Master. I am not some old woman who spends her days browsing in the woods like a cow.’
‘Exactly,’ Corbett replied. ‘And the same goes for the assassin who killed Passerel and Langton.’
Churchley sat back in his chair. ‘I follow your drift, Sir Hugh. You think the poisons were taken from the dispensary here, yet that would be noticed. The poisons are all held in jars carefully measured. It’s not that we expect to be poisoned in our beds,’ he continued, ‘but a substance like white arsenic is costly. Come, I’ll show you.’
He took a bunch of keys from a hook on the wall and led Corbett to a door further down the gallery. He unlocked it and they went in. The room was dark. Churchley struck a tinder and lit the six-branched candelabra on the small table. The air was thick with different smells, some fragrant, others acrid. Three walls of the chamber were covered in shelves. Each bore different pots, cups or jars with its own contents carefully marked. On the left were herbs: sponge-cap, sweet violet, thyme, hazelwitch, water grass, even some basil, but others, on the right, Corbett recognised as more deadly potions such as henbane and belladonna. Churchley took down a jar, an earthenware pot with a lid. The tag pasted to its side showed it to be white arsenic. Churchley put on a pair of soft kid gloves lying on the table. He took off the stopper and held the pot up against the candlelight. Corbett noted how the jar was measured in half ounces.
‘You see,’ Churchley explained. ‘There are eight and a half ounces here.’ He opened a calf-skin tome lying on the table. ‘Sometimes it is dispensed,’ he continued, ‘in very small doses for stomach complaints and I have given some to Norreys as it can be used as a powerful astringent for cleansing. But as you see, eight and a half ounces still remain.’
Corbett picked up the pot and sniffed.
‘Be careful,’ Churchley warned. ‘Those skilled in herbal lore say it should be handled wisely.’