Book 7: Chapter 7: Condemnation
Soon after, all the villagers assembled in the hall that just yesterday had housed their festivities and now held a corpse in its cellar. Some sat on benches, others remain standing, but all of them kept their eyes locked on Martel.
Standing in one end, the wizard cleared his throat. “I have made my investigations, and I believe I know what happened. The dead man, Master Harold, was known to have a weak heart. Your own priestess made remedies regularly for him to ameliorate his condition.”
Martel pointed to one of the jars on the table in front of him, once more sealed with the hide of a goat stretched to cover the opening.
“But she also made a second jar, meant for Master Harold’s wife.” He looked at the mousy woman, who seemed to shrink under his gaze, before he grabbed the other pot, sealed with cowskin. He shook it in his hand. “Empty.” He put it down and grabbed the first, holding the yeoman’s medicine, and shook it as well. “Still full. So what happened last night?”
Nobody dared speak or in any way interrupt. They all stared at him with a mixture of emotions, anticipation chief among them.
“Our good yeoman is celebrating. Plenty to drink, dancing, and other strenuous activities to get his heart racing. No doubt feeling the strain, he staggers over to his pack to take his medicine. But in his hurry, he forgets that he has two kinds, and he does not check the skin that distinguishes between them. He grabs and empties the wrong one.” Once again, Martel raised up the pot with the cowskin already in his hand. “Naturally, being an entirely different remedy, it accomplishes nothing for him. He stumbles away, thinking he has averted this crisis, when in fact, it is only getting worse. Soon after, he collapses on the floor, his heart having given up.”
The villagers exchanged looks. “So it was accidental?” someone exclaimed. “Nobody is to blame?”
“Nobody is to blame for this man’s death but himself,” Martel concluded, glancing at the wife.
“Master mage, you gave us all such a fright!” The alderman released relieved laughter. “What a fretful night we’ve all had, thinking a murderer was loose in our little town.”
“More of a village,” Martel mumbled. “Well, my apologies for having unnerved you all. As you can see, there’s no need to call for the local magistrate. I hope the new year treats you better than the end of the last.” He looked at Eleanor. “Still half a day’s sunlight if we leave soon.” “Sure. I shall get the horses ready.”
Once on the road again, the village soon disappeared from sight, as they rejoined the great thoroughfare that connected the cities of the Empire. For a while, they continued in silence until broken by Eleanor. “How strange it all turned out to be just an accident. I suppose that is the lesson never to rush to judgement.”
“To be honest, I’m all but certain the wife manipulated the jars to ensure her husband’s death,” Martel admitted.
Eleanor gave him a shocked look. “And you said nothing? On the contrary, you erased any suspicion towards her! Wait, why do you suspect her?”
“The jars. The yeoman didn’t drink the wrong remedy by accident.”
“You really have to start explaining this,” she demanded forcefully.
“Look, the good yeoman was a brute, probably towards his wife in particular. She was getting remedies from the priestess to avoid becoming pregnant, perhaps hoping he would throw her out if she was barren, or perhaps she could not stomach the thought of him fathering a child with her.” Martel shrugged.
“She told you this?”
“She told me enough. She was hiding in the village, but she must have feared that could not last – especially if the villagers were willing to send her back in order to appease the yeoman and once more be allowed on the meadow. And given the bruise he gave her on his last attempt to drag her back, she had good reason to fear how he would treat her. So she dared not wait but figured out a way to get rid of him.”
Despite her indignant outbursts, Eleanor seemed enthralled. “So what happened? What did she do?”
“The yeoman arrived just before the bonfire was lit. I suspect she snuck away while we were all staring at the flames. Perhaps she only meant to empty his medicine, but finding the other jar, she thought of a better plan. He would not call for help or alert anyone, such as the priestess, if he believed he had taken his remedy. So she switched the animal hides that distinguished his medicine from hers,” Martel explained. “And during the feast, she made sure to dance with him, probably plied him with plenty to drink, ensuring that his heart would be overworked.”
“But when you presented your findings to the villagers, his foxglove remedy had the right seal,” Eleanor pointed out.
“Oh yes. While I assume it was the wife who switched the seals, I made sure to switch them back before showing them to the locals, leaving them none the wiser.”
Eleanor pulled the reins of a horse and brought it to a halt. “Why?” She stared at him in disbelief.
Stopping his own mount, Martel looked back at her. “Who am I to judge this woman?”
“She is a murderer!”
“So are we. And rebels, outlaws, and probably a lot of other things I’ve already forgotten.”
“That is obviously different.” Eleanor probably meant to place both her hands on her hips in a defiant gesture, but since one had to hold the reins, she could only do it with the other. “We rebelled against a tyrant, and we saved many lives by doing so. She killed her husband, and now she stands to inherit everything he owned.”
“If she had killed him when he attacked her, would we have deemed it self-defence? Given that she was half his size, she clearly never stood a chance in such a fight. So she fought back using the only weapon available to her. She killed a tyrant to save herself.” Martel turn again to look at the road ahead. “I will not condemn another for doing what I did.”
“And what if she kills again?”
“Presumably, she only had the one husband to kill.”
“We left her there with those villagers, who have no knowledge of who she truly is.”
“They all knew who the yeoman was, and they were still willing to make deals with him.” Martel gave a shrug. “Besides, what if I’m wrong? What if the priestess had simply sealed the jars wrong, and the man’s death was truly an accident? Just because this other explanation is more enticing, it isn’t necessarily true. I’m not going to gamble a woman’s life on it, given she already seems to have suffered her share of hardships.”
Eleanor gave him a long look before she finally set her horse into motion again. “Next time, we are advising them to fetch the local magistrate, and we will be on our way without delay.”
Martel made his own steed fall into pace next to hers. “Fine by me. So, how did you enjoy your first solstice outside Morcaster?”