by Paul Doherty
‘Mistress Swinbrooke?’
Kathryn turned to the old man and gasped as she suddenly realised his entire gown was purple. She had seen him in the abbey wearing the full vestments of Church and State, and Kathryn immediately curtsied to kiss the amethyst ring of Thomas Bourchier, Cardinal Archbishop of Canterbury. The Archbishop, despite his advanced years, helped Kathryn back to her seat. His face would have been forbidding for it was broad and fleshy, but his eyes were young and happy, as if he was genuinely pleased to be in the company of a young woman.
‘It was good of you to come,’ Bourchier murmured, his voice deep and rich-sounding. He tugged at the fleshy lobe of one ear. ‘You must not be afeared. I am not here to excommunicate or interrogate.’ His hand, vein-streaked and spotted with age, was warm and reassuring as he gripped Kathryn again. ‘When I was a monk I knew your father. A good doctor, God rest him!’ He looked with mock solemnity at Thomasina. ‘And you must be physician Swinbrooke’s maid? And Kathryn’s nurse? I remember him once talking about you.’
Thomasina just simpered and for once kept her mouth shut.
‘Sit down, please, sit down,’ Newington fussed, gesturing at the chairs.
The little man beside the Archbishop scratched his nose with ink-stained fingers and glowered at the two women.
‘Yes, sit down!’ he snapped. ‘Do you wish refreshment?’
Kathryn shook her head and smiled back at the fellow. She could tell from his dusty robe and ink-stained fingers, his writing-tray and ink-horn with quills resting on a small stool beside him, that he was probably one of the Archbishop’s clerks, perhaps his principal one. A celibate who probably disliked women and resented her presence.
‘Hush, Simon,’ the Archbishop murmured. ‘Not so harsh. We need Mistress Swinbrooke’s help.’
Kathryn suddenly felt relieved that she was not here to answer questions about her father or the whereabouts of her missing husband. Bourchier leaned back in his chair, staring up at the hammer-beamed ceiling, gently rocking himself, his hands folded cherub-like across his broad girth. In contrast, his clerk Simon leaned forward, fingers clasped together, gazing at the ground, as if he refused to acknowledge Kathryn’s presence. Newington fussed whilst beside him the soldier lolled in his seat, half-asleep. Kathryn gazed at him under half-closed eyelids; the fellow probably was dozing. She noticed his hands and face were dirty and his boots and leggings travel-stained.
‘Master Newington.’ She leaned forward. ‘You asked to see me this morning?’
The alderman fussed with his robe. ‘His Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop’ – he bowed nervously at the prelate – ‘is well-known. Simon Luberon’ – he flicked his hand at the secretarius – ‘is the Archbishop’s principal clerk.’ Newington smiled thinly. ‘You know me. And this’ – he half-turned to the soldier – ‘is Colum Murtagh, marshal in the King’s household. And now . . .’ Newington swallowed nervously.
‘And now,’ Murtagh suddenly spoke up, his speech low and tinged with a musical accent. ‘And now,’ he repeated, ‘Keeper of the King’s horses, stables and pastures in Kingsmead and Special Commissioner to the city.’
Kathryn stared at Murtagh. She knew Kingsmead, where the horses of the royal messengers were housed and fed. She’d heard the gossip of how, due to the recent civil war, both the small manor and its stables and outhouses had fallen into disrepair. Local farmers were even using the royal meadow to graze their own cattle. Murtagh looked as if he would soon put a stop to that. She heard Luberon angrily clicking his tongue.
‘Why am I here?’ she abruptly asked. ‘Why am I summoned from my house?’
Newington laced his fingers together, licked his lips and glanced nervously at the Archbishop.
‘Mistress Swinbrooke, there have been murders.’
Kathryn’s blood chilled.
‘Terrible murders, of pilgrims.’
Kathryn opened her mouth to speak.
‘You have heard of them?’ Luberon the clerk interrupted.
‘I heard a rumour about a physician being poisoned in the Checker Board Tavern.’
‘That’s the fourth murder,’ Bourchier interrupted. ‘All were pilgrims, and all were poisoned.’
The Archbishop sighed. ‘At first we did not notice, so many died due to the sweating sickness, but then we remembered a message pinned to the cathedral door.’
Bourchier turned and nodded at Luberon, who handed Kathryn a piece of parchment, greasy and thumb-marked.
‘You can read?’
Kathryn ignored the jibe. ‘Of course, Master Clerk.’
She studied the scrawling letters. The message was cryptic:
Becket’s tomb all dirt and crass
Radix maforum est Cupiditas.
Kathryn made a face. ‘What does it mean, avarice is the root of all evil?’
‘At first,’ Bourchier answered, ‘we thought it meant nothing, just a scrap of parchment pinned to the main door of the cathedral, but then a pattern began to emerge.’ Bourchier leaned back in his chair. ‘Other messages followed. The next read:
A weaver to Canterbury his way did wend,
And I to Heaven his soul I did send.
‘Sure enough, a weaver from Evesham was poisoned in Burgate.’ The Archbishop shrugged. ‘Other messages and killings followed. A carpenter, a haberdasher, and then a doctor.’ He stared at Kathryn. ‘Before each murder, a message was nailed to the cathedral door, a doggerel verse, like the one you’ve just heard, naming the profession of the next victim.’
‘And how does it concern me?’
‘It doesn’t.’ Bourchier replied quietly. ‘But can’t you see, Mistress Kathryn, Becket’s shrine is famous, it draws people from all over England as well as the rest of Europe.’
‘And there’s the profit,’ Murtagh interrupted.
Bourchier shifted his heavy-lidded gaze to the soldier.
‘Yes,’ Newington admitted, ‘there’s the profit. Our shops, our stalls, our taverns, meeting-houses, indeed the whole city thrives on the pilgrims’ trade. Can you imagine, Mistress Swinbrooke, if this news begins to spread?’ Newington waved towards the window. ‘People die like flies in battle or from disease, by accident or in a brawl in some tavern, but the poisoning of pilgrims is different. People come to Becket’s shrine to be cured. Can you imagine what would happen if this mystery was fanned into a blaze of scandal? How a poisoner, a murderer was stalking the pilgrims of Canterbury?’ He glared over his shoulder at the soldier. ‘Matters are bad enough with the recent civil discord, though the King’s victory in the west,’ he added quickly, ‘will soon put matters right.’ He leaned forward. ‘Mistress Swinbrooke, this poisoner has to be caught before other murders are committed.’
‘You have other doctors, apothecaries.’
‘There are a number of doctors in Canterbury and three apothecaries,’ Newington answered. ‘Though one of the latter is seriously ill.’
‘Can’t you see,’ Luberon interrupted, ‘why we have come to you? A woman!’ The last word was spat out.
‘Master Luberon, my father studied at the Saint Cosmos School of Medicine in Paris. Women doctors are recognised by the Guild in London. Queen Philippa of Hainault’s physician was Cecilia of Oxford.’ Kathryn trotted out the usual arguments espoused by her father. She shook her head wearily. ‘I make no claims for greatness.’ She appealed to the Archbishop. ‘I am an apothecary; sometimes a leech; sometimes a doctor.’
‘You should have been born a man,’ Luberon jibed.
‘In which case, Master Clerk, we have something in common!’
Behind her, Thomasina giggled. The soldier smiled, his face becoming young, quite attractive. Newington looked embarrassed, but the old Archbishop threw his head back and roared with laughter at Luberon’s discomfort.
‘Mistress Swinbrooke,’ pleaded Newington before the puce-faced clerk could snap back. ‘Can’t you see our problem? Our poisoner knows Latin. He is an educated man.’
‘How do you know he is a man?
’
‘Suffice to say we know he is. He is skilled in medicine. He must have access to potions and philtres. The very people you have listed, these,’ he coughed, ‘one of these doctors or apothecaries could be our murderer.’
‘So could I!’
The Archbishop leaned forward in his chair. ‘I don’t think so.’ He snapped his fingers at Luberon. ‘You have the documents?’
‘Yes, Your Grace.’ The clerk handed Kathryn a small scroll wrapped in a piece of red silk. ‘These are all the details we know.’ Luberon preened himself. ‘One of my clerks drew it up.’
Archbishop Bourchier suddenly stood up and gestured at the soldier. ‘Master Murtagh here is an Irishman. He served Edward of York’s father as a page, becoming marshal of the royal household and chief of the King’s messengers. He now has responsibility for the royal stables at Kingsmead. He is also a Commissioner of the Peace in Canterbury. I asked the King for Murtagh’s help in tracking down this murderer. I have chosen you to assist him.’
Kathryn looked at the Irishman, now staring blandly back at her. She caught a look she didn’t like, cold, calculating, as if she were some mare in the market-place.
‘You will be retained by this Corporation and by me,’ Bourchier continued. ‘On this, and any other matter, for sixty pounds a year, fifteen pounds delivered each quarter.’
Kathryn gasped in surprise, while behind her Thomasina fidgeted with excitement. She needed the money to buy stock for the shop, carry out the necessary repairs for the home, have her father’s gravestone properly etched, and to hire a Jesus priest to sing chantry Masses.
‘Do you accept?’ the Archbishop snapped.
Kathryn nodded.
‘Good!’ Bourchier clapped his hands together. ‘The necessary letters will be delivered to your house. Let us keep the matter private and secret.’
‘And if I fail?’
Bourchier smiled thinly. ‘All murderers are caught,’ he murmured. ‘This one is no different. He is arrogant enough to over-reach himself.’
He took Kathryn by the hand and raised her to her feet. He quickly glanced to either side and Kathryn knew this cunning old priest had little trust in his companions. Indeed, the murderer could be anybody; Newington was a scholar, an educated man, as was Luberon. The Archbishop was warning her to be careful. Kathryn bowed her head and kissed his ring.
‘I will do my best,’ she said. ‘Sirs, I bid you adieu.’
She walked back across the great hall, Thomasina trailing behind her. Outside the room they both leaned against the door. Kathryn’s eyes widened.
‘To be hired by the Corporation!’ she whispered in mock pomposity. ‘To be greeted by the Archbishop. Father would have been proud.’
‘Of the money he would,’ Thomasina answered. ‘But he’d be more cunning than you.’
‘What do you mean?’
Thomasina took her mistress by the elbow and walked her back to the top of the stairs.
‘They call Bourchier a fox, and rightly so. He may be an Archbishop, but I wouldn’t buy a horse from him. Luberon’s a nasty piece of work, and Newington is probably frightened of his own farts.’
‘What about the Irishman?’
Before Thomasina could answer, Kathryn heard her name being called. She turned. Murtagh now stood outside the hall, arms folded.
‘Mistress Swinbrooke, a word.’
‘You can have two,’ Thomasina answered, ‘if you promise to be civil.’
Murtagh walked towards them. He carried his head high, moving like a cat, and Kathryn shivered. She was wary, frightened of this man with his dark face and his strange ways. The slight swagger, the way his knife and sword, pushed in rings round the broad belt, tapped against his leg reminded her and everyone else that he was a soldier, a killer, a cat amongst the pigeons. Yes, a cat, Kathryn thought as she remembered watching one stalk a bird in the garden just as slowly and carefully. Murtagh came closer, and Kathryn caught the smell of stale sweat and leather. She also noticed the dark rings round his eyes.
‘You should sleep, Irishman. You have travelled far?’
‘From Tewkesbury. It took three days. The King was insistent.’
Kathryn turned and went down the stairs, the Irishman following her.
‘Have you read this?’ she said, holding up the scroll.
‘I am a soldier, not a clerk.’
‘Can you read?’ Thomasina jibed.
Murtagh grinned and suddenly seized the maid by the hand.
‘And I suppose you can? It’s rare to find a woman like you, Thomasina, who combines both beauty and brain.’
Thomasina pulled her hand away as they reached the bottom of the stairs.
‘How do you know my name?’ she snapped at him.
‘Newington told me.’
‘Are all Irishmen liars?’
‘Perhaps, but if I called you a fat old hog,’ he jested, ‘would that be a truth or a lie?’
‘You are a bog-trotter,’ Thomasina snapped, ‘with the arse hanging out of your pants. My old father said never trust Irishmen; they love fighting, drinking and wenching!’
‘Thomasina!’ Kathryn intervened. ‘Master Murtagh, what do you know of these murders?’
Before Thomasina could object, Murtagh slipped beside Kathryn and led her out of the Guildhall down the steps. The sun shone fiercely and the din from the market in the High Street was deafening.
‘Very little,’ he replied. ‘But here is not the time nor the place.’ He moved closer and Kathryn glared at him.
‘Where is the time and the place?’ she asked warily.
‘Mab’s tits!’ The Irishman caught her dislike and turned away. ‘Mistress Kathryn, I mean no offence, but I am not one for taverns or cook-shops, and the house at Kingsmead is derelict.’ He played with the hilt of his dagger. ‘Look, if you invite me to supper, I will pay for whatever you cook.’
Kathryn blushed. ‘I meant no offence,’ she stammered. ‘Of course you can come. The apothecary shop in Ottemelle Lane. An hour before sunset, as the bells toll for Vespers.’
The Irishman nodded and, turning on his heel, strode away.
‘He’s a bad bugger, that one,’ Thomasina whispered. ‘But I wager he’s good in bed.’
‘Thomasina, how do you know that?’
‘You can tell by his legs,’ her old nurse replied. ‘Good and strong. Just like my third husband’s. It’s the first thing I noticed about him. He helped to carry my second husband’s coffin down into church. I was walking behind and I thought, what a fine pair of legs, like tree trunks they were, and I was right!’
Kathryn smiled. She turned to go into the market but suddenly realised how tired she was, how little she had eaten and how relieved she was that there had been no talk about her husband. She was glad to have invited the Irishman to sup; whether she liked him or not, she and Murtagh were linked in hunting down a murderer who could be any one of the people milling in the market below.
Chapter 3
‘Sir Thopas’, as the murderer liked to call himself, stood in his Guild merchant’s wool-lined cowl and hood just off the Buttermarket and watched the pilgrims stream through Newgate, across the lay folks’ cemetery of Canterbury Cathedral, to visit Becket’s shrine. He felt the small phial in his wallet as he waited for the merchants to come down Palace Street past St Alphege’s Church, Turnagain Lane and into Sun Street. He had listened to their conversation in Burgate Lane Tavern the night before; just after noon, so one of them had remarked, they were to visit St Thomas à Becket’s shrine, having paid for the considerable privilege of being given a special tour by a sub-prior of Christchurch.
The assassin leaned against the greystone house and looked up Burgate Street. He felt uncomfortable, not just because of the warm weather and stink but because of the presence of so many soldiers wearing the tabard of Edward of York. Then he grinned to himself. All of Canterbury was in chaos. The mayor was a traitor and the city council suspended; such confusion would mask his activities
even further, and he had much to do. He gazed across where two beggars, crouching in the shadows of the boundary wall round the cathedral precincts, stretched out bony legs and rattled their copper dishes for pennies from the pilgrims. A group of scholars swept by shouting abuse at a butcher, who was trying to take a bull down to the baiting-post where it would be taunted and teased to make its humours run full and hot before it was slaughtered, for customers liked their beef full-blooded and rich. Thopas grinned; that’s how he felt. He liked to choose his victim, seek him out, mark him down, draw up a subtle plan, plot the ambush, dispense death, then savor the grisly aftermath. He idly chanted two lines of a poem but stopped as a passing monk stared at him curiously.
Thopas heard loud talk and laughter and looked back up Sun Street. The merchants he had spied on the night before were approaching, dressed in their beaver hats, which they wore despite the heat. They had silver chains across their chests, buckles on their dusty boots, tawdry jewellery adorning throat and cuff. Near Newgate, the entrance to the abbey, they stopped. One of them produced a wineskin and they passed it around, talking and joking noisily. Thopas watched them cynically.
‘They look more like a group of roistering youths,’ he muttered, ‘than pilgrims going to pray.’ He narrowed his eyes. What’s the use? he thought. Nobody could really believe in praying to a collection of dirty bones and pieces of filthy cloth. He studied the group, looking for his victim. Ah, there he was: fat and porky, chest and stomach stuck out like some pampered pigeon. His bald head and rubicund face were well-oiled, a fleshy nose jutted out over thick lips, and those eyes, hard as flint, never seemed at peace.
‘Well, well,’ Thopas muttered to himself. ‘What doth it profit thee, merchant, if thou gain the whole world and suffer the loss of thy immortal soul?’
The murderer liked these quotations. He leaned against the house looking up at the sky. ‘Fool,’ he whispered, still quoting from the Scriptures, ‘dost thou not know that this day, the demand has been made for thy soul?’ He looked once more at his intended victim, whose fat lips were now round a wineskin. ‘Drink deep,’ he muttered, ‘for the dark night cometh. You should have stored up riches in Heaven.’