A Poisonous Plot

Bartholomew only just managed to counter the furious swipe that Peyn aimed at the monk’s vitals, although Michael did not flinch, perhaps because there had been no time. The resulting clash made Peyn yelp in pain and he fell back, nursing a wrenched elbow.

‘King’s Hall,’ he hissed between gritted teeth, flexing his damaged joint. ‘How dare they refuse me! And they were followed by Gonville, Peterhouse and all the hostels.’

‘Even Zachary!’ said Michael tauntingly. ‘A place with no academic standards whatsoever. You must have cut a miserable figure indeed for them to turn you down.’

Bartholomew was hard-pressed to fend off Shirwynk’s indignant assault, and was aware that if father and son attacked together, he and Michael would be dead. Shirwynk fell back eventually, circling as he considered his next move. Peyn had recovered sufficiently to try a jab or two, but he was tentative, unwilling to risk further injury.

‘If you must antagonise them, Brother, then at least grab a weapon,’ hissed Bartholomew urgently. ‘I cannot defend you indefinitely.’

Michael picked up a ladle from the floor and feinted at Peyn, who staggered backwards with an alarmed squeak.

‘You should have accepted my son,’ said Shirwynk coldly. ‘He would have been an asset to you, and I had set my heart on him becoming a lawyer. But his talent is such that he does not need your paltry degrees anyway. Not now he has won his post in Westminster.’

Confident in his father’s devotion, Peyn began to gloat. ‘It was so easy to fool you! I read how to make lead salts when I was preparing my application for King’s Hall — Stephen let me use his library. No one guessed it was me making and selling the sucura.’

‘Peyn!’ barked Shirwynk, horrified. ‘Say no more.’

‘Why?’ shrugged Peyn. ‘They will never repeat this conversation to anyone else, and they should know that their stupid University made a mistake by declining to take me.’

‘So I am beginning to understand,’ murmured Michael, ‘given that you promptly turned around and started to poison everyone.’

‘I have been making sucura for months,’ said Peyn tauntingly. ‘At first, I only sold it in Barnwell, thinking to keep the venture modest, but it was so successful that I could not resist expanding into Cambridge. People want it so badly that they pay stupidly high prices, and it has made me rich. How do you think I got my post at Westminster?’

Shirwynk blinked. ‘Because the Treasury heard about your remarkable abilities and invited you to join them, just as I have been telling everyone.’

Peyn laughed, although it was a bitter sound. ‘Nothing is free in this world, Father. I bought the position — with money from my sucura.’

‘But if the stuff has been causing the debilitas, as these scholars say, then it means you killed Letia,’ breathed Shirwynk, shocked. ‘Your mother.’

‘She was dying anyway,’ shrugged Peyn. ‘Or so she claimed. Personally, I thought it was just an excuse to lie around in bed eating cakes.’

‘You did not know your sucura might be dangerous,’ said Shirwynk. It was a statement, not a question, and there was a pathetic desperation in his eyes. ‘You sold it in all innocence.’

Peyn grinned malevolently, a response that made his sire’s face crumple in dismay. ‘I had my suspicions, which is why I never touch it myself. Not the sucura or the apple wine.’

‘But you let me drink it.’ Shirwynk’s voice was low and strained.

Knowing where his best interests lay, Peyn abandoned his air of gloating insouciance and became ingratiating. ‘I would not have let you come to harm. And I am not responsible for the deaths anyway. All the victims were old, ill or overly greedy.’

‘Was Frenge overly greedy?’ asked Michael. ‘I assume you poisoned him as well?’

Peyn shook his head. ‘His death was a nuisance, actually, because he was the one who took the sucura out to sell.’

‘No!’ snapped Michael. ‘I questioned any number of people who bought the stuff — Agatha, Cynric, Mistress Tulyet, Dodenho, Chancellor Tynkell — and none of them got it from Frenge.’

‘Stephen did,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He told me so a few months ago.’

Peyn shot them both a pitying glance. ‘Frenge did not deal with the bulk of our customers himself, stupid! He hired petty criminals to do it — men who are used to hawking goods of dubious origin around the town’s taverns.’

‘Then it was all Frenge’s idea,’ said Shirwynk, still unwilling to see his beloved son in the role of arch villain. ‘He was a thief … there was a rumour that he stole cattle-’

‘He did not have the wits to devise a scheme of this audacity and cunning,’ interrupted Peyn. ‘Only I did.’ He smirked challengingly at Michael. ‘And incidentally, he never delivered ale to King’s Hall on the day he died. I made that up to confuse you.’

‘But you told me that tale as well,’ said Shirwynk hoarsely. ‘And I repeated it to others …’

‘Just as I intended,’ said Peyn, all smug triumph. ‘It put suspicion on King’s Hall, which serves them right for suing us.’