I’d been silently praying that Mistress Judith’s housekeeping routine hadn’t extended to a weekly clean of the shelves that were up high and out of her reach, and my prayer was answered: it hadn’t. On the topmost shelves there was a clear pattern in the dust that showed where vessels had been stored until very recently. Those that now remained no longer stood where once they had.
‘Something has been taken,’ I said softly. I looked round, expecting Jack and Henry to be exploring the rest of the storeroom, and jumped when I discovered they were right behind me.
‘Can you tell what’s missing?’ Henry whispered.
I made a rueful face. ‘Well, it’s much harder looking for something that’s not there than something that is,’ I said, ‘but I do have an advantage in that I know pretty much what an apothecary usually keeps on her shelves.’ Already I was picturing my aunt Edild’s store, visualizing the contents.
Jack gave a sort of groan. I guessed he’d realized what we were going to have to do. Henry wasn’t far behind, and, with the eagerness of youth, he said excitedly, ‘You’ll need writing materials. I saw quill, parchment and ink horn back there’ – he pointed to the scullery – ‘so shall I fetch them?’
‘Yes, please.’
Quite soon, I had made myself comfortable in Mistress Judith’s prettily carved chair, quill in hand. With my eyes closed, once more I brought Edild’s storeroom to mind. I wrote down everything she keeps on her shelves. I worked as swiftly as I could, but still I sensed Jack’s impatience. I ignored it.
When I was done, I said, ‘I’m ready. You can start.’
So Jack and Henry began working their way along the shelves, picking up bottles, pots and jars, finding labels where there were labels to find and reading them out for me to note down. Where there was nothing to say what a vessel contained, they would open it, bring it to me and I would have a look, or, more usually, a sniff. The task was slow and laborious, and we only had the faintest, most optimistic hope that it would lead anywhere.
We stopped for a short break. Bending over my piece of parchment and concentrating so intently was making my head ache, and it was good to stand up, stretch and take some good deep breaths. I glanced at Henry, who was standing in the scullery, gazing out through the little window on to the knot garden.
‘I was surprised to discover that he can read,’ I murmured to Jack.
Jack too looked at the lad. ‘He was raised by the monks,’ he replied. ‘They discovered he was bright and hauled him out of the monastery farmyard, where he’d been shovelling muck, then taught him to read and write instead.’
‘Why isn’t he still a monk?’
Henry had heard our voices, and turned to look at us. He was smiling, and clearly not at all offended that we had been discussing him. ‘I ran away,’ he said, the smile widening. ‘The monks were too ready with the beatings and, besides, I didn’t like the idea of celibacy. Know what I mean, miss?’ He gave me a cheeky wink. From a fully-grown man it might have been offensive. From Henry, it was delightful.
‘How right you were,’ I murmured. ‘Just think of all those poor girls who would have been left bereft and pining if you were still scribbling away in a cold scriptorium.’
Henry opened his mouth to reply, but whatever pertinent and probably rude remark he was about to make never came, for Jack, perhaps detecting rather too much frivolity in his team, ordered us back to work.
It was evening before I found what we were looking for. I found what the missing item was, at least, although I had no idea why anyone would go to such lengths to steal it; if indeed it had been stolen, and was not simply an item that Mistress Judith elected not to keep.
I was fairly certain she would have included it among her stores, however, for I had come across it on Gurdyman’s higgledy-piggledy shelves and Edild kept no more than a very small amount, maintaining that in general its toxicity outweighed its usefulness. Quite a lot of substances, I’d found, were common to healers and to… well, whatever Gurdyman was. Wizard, magician; I never quite know.
Gurdyman was very wary of this stuff and Edild kept it high on her top shelf, out of reach of curious hands. Both my mentors had warned me of its perils.
As we prepared to leave Mistress Judith’s house – Henry was on watch at the end of the garden, crouched on top of the wall and checking to make sure the alleyway was clear – I said to Jack, ‘I would wager that it was a consignment of the same stuff that was stolen from Robert Powl’s secret store. I was wondering if it would be an idea to go and check through his parchments, but then I realized that if it’s suddenly so precious and sensitive that he had to hide it away, he’s not likely to have kept any record of having had it in his possession.’
‘Yes, the same thing occurred to me,’ Jack said. We were outside now, and he was carefully securing the door. He sighed. ‘We’ll just have to hope that Walter or one of his men has discovered a link with one of the other victims.’
We were the last to arrive back at the tavern down on the quayside. Walter, Ginger, Fat Gerald, Luke and the man whose name I didn’t know were tucking into a generous bowl of stew, hunks of bread in their hands, mugs of ale close by. They all rose when Jack, Henry and I came in.
‘Don’t stop,’ Jack said. ‘Is there any more?’
There was, and the tavern-keeper quickly brought three more bowls and some extra bread, followed by three more mugs of ale. I was ravenously hungry, and the food and the ale were both excellent. The tavern-keeper – who seemed to be an old friend of the lawmen – tactfully melted away once he had ascertained we had all we needed.
When everyone, even Fat Gerald, had at last had enough, Jack asked each man for his report, beginning with Luke; Jack’s first concern, it seemed, was to see what progress Gaspard Picot was making.
‘He’s made a score of arrests and he’s promising a couple of floggings in the morning,’ Luke said lugubriously, ‘although the word is that, since he’s named no names, it’s just piss and wind. Excuse me, miss.’ He turned to me, touching his forelock. ‘Fact is, he’s come up with nothing better than this notion of keeping all the townsfolk inside their houses and hoping that’ll stop the killer. Naturally, people aren’t taking kindly to being prevented from carrying on with their everyday lives, and Sheriff up at the castle is now drowning in hundreds of requests from people demanding special leave, and a sheriff’s escort, to go about their legitimate business.’ There were several quiet chuckles at the idea of Sheriff Picot’s discomfiture.
‘But Gaspard hasn’t been questioning the victims’ families and acquaintances?’ Jack asked.
‘Not that I’ve heard,’ Luke replied.
Jack turned to the others. ‘What about those of you who have been doing just that?’
Walter was the first to respond. ‘Ginger and I have been finding out about the young priest,’ he said, ‘and neither of us saw any of Gaspard’s men, or heard anything to suggest they’d been sniffing around.’
Jack nodded. ‘Gerald? Matty?’ So that was the last man’s name. ‘Any evidence of Gaspard’s interest in either Gerda’s or Mistress Judith’s friends?’ Both men shook their heads.
Jack absorbed that in silence for a moment. I wondered what he was thinking. Then, turning back to Walter, he said, ‘What did you find out about the priest?’
‘He was an outsider, new to the town, studious, quiet, kept himself to himself,’ Walter said. ‘Liked his books better than his fellow men, according to his master at St Bene’t’s. I was allowed to have a quick look at his cell in the priests’ lodging house, and you’d have thought nobody lived there. Narrow little bed, sparse amount of blankets, big wooden cross on the otherwise bare wall, and that was about it.’ He jerked his head in Ginger’s direction. ‘Ginger has something to add, though.’