Over the door a painted sign showed the serpent coiled around a staff that denoted the apothecary’s trade; beside it the name Wm. Fitch. A bell chimed above the door as I entered and the front room was surprisingly cool inside, shaded from the heat of the day by the overhanging eaves, its small casements open to a vague breath of air from the street. I inhaled the sour-sweet smell that reminded me for a poignant moment of the distillery belonging to my friend Doctor Dee; a mixture of leaves and spices and bitter concoctions preserved in spirits. The apothecary was nowhere in sight so I closed the door behind me and called out a greeting as my gaze wandered over the shelves and cabinets lining the walls from floor to ceiling. Here great glass conical flasks containing potions and cordials in lurid colours vied for space beside earthenware jars of tinctures and pots stuffed with the raw ingredients for poultices and infusions, all balanced precariously alongside bunches of dried herbs, dog-eared books and other curiosities that may or may not have belonged to the man’s trade (on one shelf, a piccolo; on another, the skull of a ram). On the ware-bench in front of me, a pestle and mortar containing a greenish paste had been left as if in mid-preparation. Next to it stood a little brass balance, its weights scattered round about beside a quill and inkwell. I was peering up at one jar, trying to ascertain whether it really did contain a human finger, when the door at the back of the shop opened and a small, florid-faced man with receding hair appeared in a cloud of steam, wiping his hands on his smock. He flapped his hand as if to disperse the humid air.
‘Sorry about that,’ he said cheerfully, nodding towards the back room. ‘Had to check on my distillery. It’s like a Roman bath-house in there today.’ He paused to mop sweat from his forehead with a sleeve. ‘I’m a firm believer that steam purges the body of excess heat, though there are those who believe it has the opposite effect. Now, what can I do for you, sir? You have a choleric look about you –’ he waved a finger to indicate my face. ‘Something to balance the humours, perhaps?’
‘I’m just hot,’ I said, pushing my damp hair back from my face.
‘Ah, you are not English!’ he exclaimed, his eyes lighting up at the sound of my accent. ‘But not French either, I venture? Spanish, perhaps? Now, your Spaniards are naturally choleric, much more so than your Englishman, whose native condition tends towards the phlegmatic –’
‘Italian,’ I cut in. ‘And I have an upset stomach, though I think that has less to do with my birthplace than with drinking stale water. I was hoping you might have some infusion of mint leaves?’
‘My dear signor, I can do better than that,’ he beamed, grasping a little wooden ladder that leaned against the back shelves and moving it to the cabinet to my left. ‘I can offer you a most efficacious decoction of my own devising for disorders of the stomach, combining the benefits of mint leaf with hartshorn, syrup of violets, rosewater and syrup of red poppies. You will be thoroughly purged both upwards and downwards, I promise.’
‘It sounds tempting. But I’d prefer the mint leaves, I think.’
‘Really?’ He paused, a bottle of something thick and dark green held aloft. When I shook my head firmly, he replaced it on the shelf with a theatrical sigh. ‘Ah, you disappoint me, signor,’ he said, descending and shuffling his ladder to the right. His hand hovered over the shelves for a moment before plucking down a small packet, which he laid on the ware-bench and began to unwrap. ‘But you are right, it is a brave man or a desperate one who will experiment on himself with a stranger’s cures. I tell you what – if you are staying in Canterbury awhile and your problems do not resolve themselves, please do me the honour of coming back and at least giving my cordial a chance. I’ll do you a special price. Meanwhile you may ask around for testimony – I provide for some of the highest men in the city.’ He nodded enthusiastically. ‘Yes, including the physician to the Dean and the Mayor. Ask who you like – there’s not a man of means in these parts who doesn’t swear by Will Fitch’s remedies.’
I was beginning to like this Fitch, despite the fact that I had never met an apothecary who was not also a terrible fraud, and I suspected this one to be no different. If ever their remedies did work, it was entirely by lucky chance or guesswork; more often they knowingly sold wholly useless concoctions to the poor and credulous, who were too easily persuaded that the higher the price of a medicine, the more effective it would be.
‘The Dean’s own physician?’ I affected to look impressed. ‘No doubt aldermen and magistrates of the city too, eh?’
He puffed out his chest and patted it with the flat of his hand.
‘Doctor Sykes, he’s physician to them all – trained in Leipzig, you know – and he won’t buy his supplies anywhere else but my shop. Mind you,’ he added, with another heavy sigh, ‘there’s some things even he can’t cure. Our poor magistrate was horribly murdered not a month past and they have not appointed a new one yet, nor will they in time for the assizes. Mayor Fitzwalter has his hands full trying to do the job of two men preparing for the visit of the Queen’s Justice next week. You’ll have noticed the constables on every corner.’ I had not, but he did not wait for me to respond, shaking his head as if in sorrow at the state of the world. ‘Forgive me – I have a tendency to run on, and we are all much preoccupied with our civic affairs at the moment.’
‘I quite understand – murder is no small matter. Though I suppose that is a hazard of being a magistrate,’ I said, conversationally, as I watched him measure a quantity of dried leaves in his little scales. ‘The family of some felon he had convicted, out for revenge, I guess.’
‘Ah, not in this case,’ Fitch said, leaning closer over the bench, his eyes bright. ‘It was the wife – all of Canterbury knows it. She ran away the very same day and took a good deal of his money too.’
‘Really? What reason would she have to kill him?’
He put his head on one side and looked at me oddly, then gave a bleat of laughter.
‘From that remark, I deduce you have no wife, signor.’ He laughed again at his own joke, then shrugged. ‘They say she had a lover, but then they always like to say that. Pretty thing, she was. But she’s led the law a merry dance, I can tell you – they’ve had the hue and cry out for her since it happened, but they can’t find so much as a hair of her head. No, she’s long gone – over the water, if she’s any sense.’ He grinned, as if delighted by the audacity of the crime. ‘Now – do you want to take the leaves as they are or shall I make you up an infusion while you’re here? If you take it here, I’ll add a few fennel seeds – good against cramps of the gut. I have some spring water heating in the back room, it won’t take a moment.’
‘Thank you, I’d be grateful,’ I said, thinking that the man’s evident love of gossip could prove useful. He emptied the mint leaves into a small dish and disappeared through the door into the back of the shop. I wiped a trickle of sweat from my temples with the sleeve of my shirt and waited. Eventually he emerged carrying an earthenware beaker wrapped in a cloth.
‘Careful, it’s hot. That’s sixpence for the whole – I haven’t charged you for the fennel,’ he added.
I fished in my purse for the appropriate coin, which he examined closely, holding it up to the light.
‘No offence,’ he said, seeing me watching, ‘but we get all sorts of foreign types passing through from the Kentish ports, and I can’t trade with their coins. Not that I have anything against you lot, though many do. I like variety – keeps life interesting, doesn’t it?’ He tucked the coin into a moneybag at his belt. ‘I’d have liked to travel myself, if I’d had the means.’ He reached to a shelf under the bench and produced a large ledger, which he opened and thumbed through to the current page. Dipping the pen in the ink, he recorded the transaction meticulously. ‘May I take your name?’
‘My name?’
I