The Assassin King

‘It’s not as surprising as you might think,’ said Royston. ‘The two orders were extremely close, constantly in and out of each others’ properties. You might even say that the Templars were the Cistercian’s military wing. Monks of a sort, yes, but warrior monks, with the emphasis very much on the warrior bit. Not just allowed to kill, but positively encouraged. It was their raison d’être. Going on crusade earned them dispensation for their sins, however grave. Slit a man’s throat and you could still be saved, so long as you took the cross.’

‘Not a king’s throat,’ said Anna. Even unpopular ones like John had been considered sacred, making their murder a grievous and shocking sin. ‘That would have required approval from the very top. But the Pope was backing John to the hilt, while the head of the Templars in England was Aymeric de St Maur, who wasn’t just one of John’s closest advisors, he was literally bankrolling his war. Why would either want him dead?’

‘I’m not saying the theory’s perfect. Merely plausible.’

‘Is it, though?’ asked Anna. ‘Wouldn’t toad venom have caused completely different symptoms.’

Royston raised his eyebrows. ‘Quite correct, my dear.’ He turned again to Oliver. ‘It’s called bufotoxin, which sounds terribly scientific until you realise it’s just Latin for toad poison. A dangerous dose would make you convulse and vomit and gasp for breath. But should you survive a nasty first few hours, you’d likely recover fine. Which was very unlike the dysentery that killed John, which took several days of severe abdominal pain, bloody diarrhoea and dehydration.’

‘Well, then,’ said Anna.

‘Yes. Not skin of toad, I grant. But there is one poison that fits perfectly. Arsenic.’

‘Arsenic?’ frowned Oliver. ‘Was that even around back then?’

‘Oh yes, for sure,’ nodded Royston. ‘Hippocrates wrote about it. Nero murdered his stepbrother Britannicus with it. It dropped out of sight for a while, it’s true, but it had certainly been rediscovered by John’s time. Take King Baldwin III of Jerusalem, for example. He succumbed to dysentery some fifty years before John’s time. Suspicion fell on his doctor, who’d been giving him strange tablets. They fed one to a dog, which promptly died.’

‘Not a great look for the defence,’ admitted Anna.

‘Quite. Arsenic can’t be proven, not without his remains to test. But if not arsenic, then a substance with identical effects, which essentially amounts to the same thing. Tasteless, odourless, colourless, soluble and producing the exact same symptoms as a very common and often lethal condition. What more could an assassin ask? The king of poisons and the poison of kings, as we English called it, though the French gave it a typically pithier name. Poudre de succession. Inheritance powder. Hah!’ He slid Anna a sly look. ‘Odd, don’t you think, for it to have earned such a fearsome reputation despite no English or French king ever having been killed with it?’

‘What are you getting at?’

‘Come, my dear. You must know the ditty: “Treason never prospers. What’s the reason? Because if it prospers, none dare call it treason.” Think of all those Anglo-Saxons toppling over so soon after their coronations. And is it really plausible that so many twelfth-century English kings went out the same way?’

‘That’s pretty circumstantial.’

‘Of course, of course. After all this time, how could it be anything else? But it’s not just the manner of their deaths, it’s the context. Has a king ever died quite so conveniently as Stephen, for example? Or Young King Henry. I’d put my house upon him being poisoned. One of my houses, anyway. One wouldn’t want to leave oneself entirely homeless. The poor lad was only twenty-eight, and in rude health. But he and his mates would insist on trying to knock off his dad. What was the poor man to do? Your uncle agreed with me on that, for what it’s worth. In fact, I’m pretty sure he knew more about it than he let on.’

‘Alas, he didn’t share. But he suddenly had this look in his eye. He got to his feet and made his excuses. I asked him what was up. He said there was something he needed to check, and that he’d let me know. But of course…’

‘Arsenic, eh,’ said Oliver. ‘You seem to know an awful lot about it, if you don’t mind me saying.’

Royston laughed good-naturedly. ‘You’re righter than you know. I grew up in Plymouth, you see, just a few streets from where a woman known as the Dark Angel once lived. She murdered a good two dozen people with it, including three husbands and several of her own children, god rest their souls. Unluckily for her, the first reliable test for arsenic was then developed, and that was that. Being kids, naturally enough, we told each other stories about her to spook ourselves. Then, for my sins, I patented a process using arsenic to manufacture semiconductors. The Americans offered me an obscene amount of money for my company, along with assurances they’d keep me on as boss. Only they fired me the first moment they could, to replace me with a marketing executive from Wichita.’ He spread his hands. ‘So here you find me, enjoying a short sabbatical while I consider my next move.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Anna. ‘This all just happened?’

‘Nine years ago, come December.’ He paused a moment to contemplate the flight of time, but quickly cheered up again, and rubbed his hands together. ‘Anyway. That Richebourg you’ve been pestering me for. It’s hardly going to uncork itself, is it?’