The Butchers Funeral: A Medieval Murder by C. M. Harald Read Free Book Online

had brought her husband back.  Col had been in an awful state and once the two of them had taken him upstairs to bed, she had sent the muckraker to find Donald Alvin, the barber surgeon, who she knew was still in the city.  She gave the muckraker several coins for his trouble.  Albin, the apprentice, had been woken by all the noise and she had set him to making some nettle tea that she had forced Col to drink, it should bring down the temperature he was running.
    With the arrival of Donald Alvin, she was had step back into a less active role, deferring to his skill and experience.  Nevertheless, Dye continued to dab at Col's forehead with a cool, damp cloth, as the barber surgeon made his diagnosis.
    'Doesn't look like the booze.  Has he any recent cuts that may have got infected?'
    'No,' she replied, 'He's always careful with cuts and would have said something if one was playing him up.'
    'Where there other things were wrong with him?'
    'Just getting old.'
    'What else was he like when you last saw him?"
    'Well, when he left he seemed disorientated, clumsy.  He was slurring a bit as well and kept talking, not to me, to someone else.  If he weren't so ill, I'd have been worried he was seeing spirits.'
    As they talked, Col started convulsing again and they both had to hold him down.
    'Did you give him that potion I gave you?' Alvin asked as the convulsions passed.  He was beginning to suspect that the combination of symptoms could be linked to this.
    'He had it in a pie before bed, after he got in from the tavern.'
    'Had he been drinking a lot?'
    'Yes, but no more than usual when he's out.' She seemed to think about it, ‘Actually a bit less than normal as there wasn't much business to be had.'
    'Might be it though, that potion has belladonna in it and it doesn't go to well with lots of alcohol.  Did you only give him the dose I suggested?'
    'No, I put all of it in because I wanted a quiet night.'
    'A small dose would have helped him sleep through, but the whole lot with alcohol isn't so good.  Didn't you realise that a large dose might not be good for him?'
    Dye briefly looked blank before her face crumpled 'I did, I thought a good dose would do him in.  But look at him, it's not worked.'
    'Oh it's working all right.  Sometimes the potion is weak, sometimes strong, but all of it will be more than enough to put him in his grave.'
    'Please, you can't tell.  Anything, don't tell.' She begged.
    Alvin looked at her thoughtfully.  She was desperate, but he had no intention of taking advantage.  If anything, she could easily blame him, claiming he recommended the full potion.  As an itinerant worker, his reputation was everything and the truth would not matter if he were accused.  Besides, there was that time when they had shared something else.  She had clearly liked him then and he still felt fondly toward her and somewhat protective, hence why he had given her the potion in the first place, so that she could have some peace and quiet from the attentions of her husband.
     
    Much later, a while before dawn, Alvin returned to his lodgings having exhausted his treatments for Col Butcher.  Time would tell.  Alvin had purged him to clear out as much of the poisonous overdose as possible.  Dye had been instructed to give her husband strong spirits every few hours to stimulate his humours.  The alcohol would probably not be a complication at this stage, it was more important to rebalance the humours.  He had heard that the Moors used pape to counteract belladonna poisoning, but pape was not easily come by in England and he had mixed all he had left to make a small amount of dwale, and in that potion it would probably not be sufficient.  He had already tried to obtain pape from the apothecaries in the city, but they had none, nor had they had any for a while.
    The dwale might still be a possibility, but as Alvin thought it through he discounted the idea because the hemlock in the potion would not be ideal and it