The poisoned chalice

open and we passed through these into the inner bailey, stopping before the great four-towered keep which soared up to the skies. Someone had quite recently built a wing on either side of this huge donjon but at each corner of the central building was a tower. Clinton said they were named after four ladies: Yolande, Mary, Isabel and Jeanne. 'From which did Falconer fall?' Benjamin asked. Clinton pointed to the one on the right nearside. We all stared up at the great tower which soared six storeys above us.
    'So, the castle belongs to the English embassy?' Benjamin asked.
    'Yes,' Clinton replied. 'Beyond this tower there is a garden laid out in the French style – some herb banks, a small rabbit warren, and a few hundred bushes of boxwood.' He waved his hand airily. 'Beyond the walls are some vineyards but the weather blights them. Some marshland, then of course the forest.'
    He was about to continue when officials of the embassy came down the steps to greet us. There was the usual confusion of grooms taking horses, porters carrying chests, and a sea of faces as haphazard introductions were made. A servant took Benjamin and me off into the main hall, past the great chamber where meals were served, and up a spiral staircase to the third floor above the solar. The chamber given to us was spacious and clean, the walls freshly painted, the wooden floors covered with thick but clean-looking carpets. Two pallet beds had been erected, fresh torch sconces placed in the walls, some stools, a chair, a table and an aumbry, a heavy cupboard for our clothes, provided. Some thick, tallow candles, and jugs and bowls completed the furnishings. The windows were shuttered but one, glazed with horn, afforded a pleasant view of the boxwood garden and a glimpse of the forest-edge.
    We spent that afternoon taking our bearings. The chateau was like many of its kind, stained by war here and there when the English (or the Goddamns, as the French call us) had tried to conquer Northern France, nothing remarkable. We met the officials of the embassy at dinner that same evening.
    Now, the hall of the chateau was a simple affair, a great hearthed fire in the centre with some shields and antlers on the wall for decoration. There was a small gallery at one end which musicians would use and, at the other, against a wooden panelled wall, the dais and high table. Once supper was over and the retainers had withdrawn, the wine jug was passed round and introductions were made. Sir John Dacourt, the ambassador, was squat and florid, with frizzed white hair, light blue eyes, and the most luxuriant curling moustache I have ever clapped eyes on. He was dressed simply in the old-fashioned way with a cote-hardie which fell beneath his knees. He was a soldier of the old school who believed the only good Frenchman was a dead one.
    ‘I don't trust the damn' Frogs!' he boomed. 'Turn your back and the bastards will have you!'
    Walter Peckle, the chief clerk, was a young man grown old before his time, with a complexion sallow and unhealthy, sunken cheeks, and eyes which never stopped blinking. His fingers were stained with blue-green ink and he constantly kept scratching what was left of his wispy, greasy, grey hair. Thomas Throgmorton, the physician, was thin as a pikestaff. Of indeterminate age, he had moist grey eyes set in a pale, thin face. His close-cropped hair was hidden under a black velvet skull cap. Michael Millet, Sir John Dacourt's secretarius, was strikingly good-looking. A young man with thick, blond hair which rose in waves from his forehead, and blue liquid eyes. Many a woman would have paid a fortune to have had his eyelashes, thick, long and curling. He was a proper fop: his roses and cream complexion was clean-shaven and a silver pearl dangled from a small gold chain in his right ear lobe. He sat like a woman and talked like one, sending coy glances at all of us. Waldegrave, the chaplain, was small, fat and balding, with the coarsened features and bright red nose of an inveterate drinker. By the time the meal was finished we were all in our cups but Waldegrave had staggered to the meal as drunk as any bishop. He sat next to me and I wrinkled my nose at the sweaty odour emanating from the long, black, food-stained gown he wore.
    At first our after-dinner conversation was on general matters but when Lady Francesca withdrew, throwing Benjamin a smile which cut me to the heart, Clinton soon brought matters to order.
    'Falconer's death,' he announced