by Paul Doherty
‘And you rehung the ruby?’
‘At about four o’clock. Let me explain, just wait.’
Prior Barnabas left the chantry chapel and hurried off up the nave, leaving his visitors nonplussed.
‘I think he’s gone to fetch the sacristan,’ Brother Ralph stammered.
Prior Barnabas returned, Simon the sacristan beside him, red-faced and out of breath.
‘Explain to Mistress Swinbrooke,’ the Prior said, ‘how the chantry chapel was secured.’
‘Oh, very easy.’ Brother Simon drew himself up, pleased to lecture these important visitors. ‘Before the Lacrima Christi arrived, I hired a locksmith, a craftsman from the city. He fashioned a new lock for the chantry chapel. It’s very intricate and cannot be copied, nor can the keys . . .’
‘Who is this craftsman?’ Luberon demanded.
‘Thibault Arrowsmith in Culpeper Lane.’
‘Ah yes.’ Kathryn smiled. ‘Thibault is a Guild Master. You mentioned keys?’
‘Yes,’ Brother Simon agreed, ‘I did. Two keys: one is held in trust by Master Thibault, the other by me.’ He pursed his lips. ‘I handed that to Father Prior to open and lock the chantry door, and he would immediately hand it back. The opening, locking and handing over the key was always witnessed by myself and other members of the community.’
‘And after four o’clock yesterday when the Lacrima Christi was rehung, that key was always with you?’
‘Secured by a metal clasp,’ the sacristan agreed. ‘It was seen by other members of the community. Prior Barnabas had to send for me to unlock the door when the Lacrima Christi went missing.’
‘You are sure?’
‘Mistress, I know what I know. After the chantry chapel was locked, I kept that key very safe.’ Brother Simon smirked. ‘And, before you ask, I’ve visited Master Thibault: the other key has never left its strong box, I’ve seen it myself. Master Thibault never visited the Lacrima Christi, whilst he said he’d go on oath before the Council, those keys couldn’t be copied.’
Kathryn nodded: Thibault was a craftsman, the lock and keys to the chantry would be unique whilst it was common practice to have one key held in the strongbox of its maker. She stared up towards the rood screen. She needed to think, reflect.
‘May I . . .?’
Kathryn’s question was interrupted by a figure bursting through the half-open main door to the church.
‘Mistress Swinbrooke! Mistress Swinbrooke!’
Rawnose the beggar, arms and legs flying, rags flapping, hands flailing, hurtled up the nave like a man possessed. His disfigured face was red and sweaty. Kathryn noticed with amusement that he had forgotten both his limp and his crutch.
‘Ah, Mistress Swinbrooke.’ Rawnose sank to his knees like a supplicant before an altar. ‘Oh, Mistress Swinbrooke, thanks be to God I have found you! A messenger has come to Ottemelle Lane looking for Master Murtagh and . . .’
‘What is it, Rawnose?’ Kathryn crouched down.
The beggar man scratched the large scar on his nose, blinked his watery eyes and rubbed his beer-sodden face.
‘Mistress Swinbrooke,’ he breathed, ‘Master Murtagh, horrible murder!’
Kathryn’s heart skipped a beat.
‘Oh no, not in Ottemelle Lane,’ Rawnose breathed out, and Kathryn flinched at the stench of ale. ‘A messenger from Ingoldby Hall was sent by Father John, Sir Walter’s chaplain. Sir Walter has been beheaded.’ Rawnose’s eyes widened at the exclamations of those standing around. The beggarman relished his importance before such an audience. ‘Hideously hewn.’ He stumbled on the words. ‘Head shorn off his shoulders, his blood-soaked corpse still lies at the centre of the maze.’ He leaned closer. ‘And the head’s gone!’
Kathryn told him to calm down. Colum was already refastening his sword belt. Luberon was clicking his tongue and shaking his head in disbelief. At last Kathryn obtained the facts. A servant had come from Ingoldby Hall with the horrid news. Thomasina had sent him back and given Rawnose a penny to bring the news to Kathryn. She patted the tufts of hair on the beggarman’s head, opened her purse and pushed a coin into his hand.
‘Drink if you must, Rawnose, but eat a hearty meal.’ She got to her feet. ‘Prior Barnabas, I have other business to attend to.’
The Prior, lost in his own reverie, simply nodded.
‘But I was out there,’ Brother Ralph declared. ‘I went out to Ingoldby Hall this morning to convey Father Prior’s apologies. . . .’
‘Did you see Sir Walter?’
The infirmarian shook his head. ‘No, I was told he was busy, that he was not to be disturbed on a Friday afternoon, so I came back. Oh, Kyrie Eleison,’ he prayed. ‘Oh Lord, have mercy.’
Colum was already striding down the church, Luberon padding behind like a faithful mastiff. Kathryn made her farewells and joined them out near the lych-gate. Rawnose followed and pointed to the bailiffs camped among the gravestones.
‘I don’t like the look of them,’ he muttered.
Kathryn agreed. The bailiffs looked tough, bully boys hired by the Pie Powder Court to enforce good order in the market. There would be a bounty on Laus Tibi’s head and these men were determined to collect it. Kathryn shooed Rawnose away and stood with Luberon in the shade of the lych-gate. She heard the door of the church being closed behind them.
‘Strange,’ Luberon mused. ‘First the Lacrima Christi disappears, now its owner has been foully murdered.’
‘Do you know anything of Sir Walter?’ Kathryn asked.
‘A soldier, a crusader.’ Luberon shrugged. ‘But otherwise . . .’
He started to chatter about Ingoldby Hall and its spacious estates. How Sir Walter had bought it over two years ago. How his wife was a great beauty. He was still chattering when Colum returned with the horses. They mounted and, with Colum leading the way, rode down towards the city lanes to Southgate. The sun was beginning to set. From the bells of the city Kathryn reckoned it must be six o’clock in the evening. Traders and merchants were putting away their stalls. Heavy-eyed apprentices, their throats raw with shouting all day, were busy drinking and relaxing in the shade. Kathryn found it hard to concentrate on the mystery of the Lacrima Christi or this hideous murder. Now and again the lanes became clogged with carts as farmers and peasants made their way home after a good day’s trading. Pilgrims from Thomas a Becket’s shrine and other holy places were either returning to their hostelries or going down to the green banks of the river Stour to enjoy the evening breezes. A prostitute, caught soliciting during the market hours, was standing in the stocks, a placard round her neck on which the words ‘Laced Mutton’ were scrawled. A man accused of breaking the peace was fastened to a door-hatch next to the stocks. Nearby, a chaunter pleur – travelling musician – sang the most sorrowful songs and wept at the same time. He faced stiff competition from a sly-eyed rat-rhymer who had memorised doggerel poetry and was bawling out the lines whilst a boy went round to solicit pennies from anyone who bothered to listen. Kathryn kept her eyes down. Luberon tried to push his horse up beside her and chatter but the lane was too narrow and few people were prepared to give way. Kathryn glimpsed the sharp white face of a Dominican preacher peeping out from a black cowl, and this jogged her memory. Who, she wondered, had been responsible for that robbery at Greyfriars? And how had it been done? Two knights, their leather jerkins stained with sweat, made their way up from the tourney ground; behind ran their squires, leading pack ponies from which their armour and weapons dangled. Men-at-arms, in quilted jerkins, roistered outside ale houses, cheering at a drunken woman who danced to the beat of a tambour whilst the ale wife fixed a corn cross under the eaves as protection against evil spirits.
At last they reached the city gates. The crowd thronged about, and the din and noise were deafening. People shouted farewells. Pedlars and chapmen tried to catch the eye of customers. Three bailiffs bundled out a group of roisterers, forbidding them to stay in the city after nightfall. At one point Colum had to produce his royal commission a
nd demand that people step aside. They continued on, houses on either side, the noise fading – then they were into the countryside, following the twisting, rutted tracks. Kathryn had often travelled this way to Dover. Now it was full summer, the time of the harvest; she relished the cool breeze and the different shades of green.
‘We should come here more often,’ she called out. ‘Eh, Irishman? Some wine, some dried meat and bread?’ She glanced slyly at Luberon. ‘You can come too, Simon.’
The little clerk just blushed and flicked away some mud from his cloak.
‘They are bringing the harvest in,’ Kathryn declared.
In the fields on either side of the trackway, men, women and children worked, taking full advantage of the beautiful weather. The men worked with their scythes, the women and children tossing and raking, or running backwards and forwards with the glee-cup to the water wagon.
‘How many miles?’ she asked.
‘About three,’ Colum replied over his shoulder. He reined in and stared up at the overhanging branches of the great oak tree. ‘It is good to be away from the city. To feel the sun and breeze, eh? They say this weather will last long, though we’ll pay for it with a harsh winter.’
‘So speaks the voice of doom,’ Kathryn retorted.
Colum laughed and, digging his heels in, moved on. They reached the crossroads, past the black-tarred, empty gibbet and along the track leading to Ingoldby Hall. They arrived at its high, redbrick curtain wall and followed this round to the main gates. These were shut and guarced by armed retainers under a master-of-arms, a cropped-haired, stern-faced man in a black leather jerkin with a war belt strapped across his chest. He apparently recognised Colum from what he called ‘the war years’ and shook the Irishman’s hand.
‘This, Mistress Swinbrooke, is Gurnell,’ Colum explained. ‘A good soldier and a reasonable swordsman.’
The two men engaged in banter until Gurnell remembered himself.
‘You’d best go on.’
They went through the gates and up the winding path lined by ancient sycamores onto the smooth green field stretching in front of the manor house. Ingoldby Hall was built of grey stone under a black slate roof; it rose three stories high, a majestic mansion with its pointed gables, mullioned glass and elegant bay windows. Already the servants were proclaiming the death of their master. Some of these windows were open and black drapes hung out. The main entrance door, reached by a flight of steps, also had black cloth pinned to it with ashes strewn on either side.
‘A wealthy place,’ Kathryn murmured.
‘It’s really four houses in all,’ Luberon explained, ‘each constructed round a central courtyard. The first owner fought with Henry the Fifth at Agincourt and built Ingoldby with a war chest full of ransom money.’
‘He must have captured many Frenchmen,’ Colum joked, dismounting.
‘War has its own profits,’ Luberon quipped. ‘There are fine oak galleries whilst the ground floor is of hard stone and tiled.’
Liveried servants hurried up to take their horses. The main doors opened and Manciple Thurston came out, his face tear-streaked, hands all a-flapping. Apparently distracted, he half-listened to Colum’s instructions.
‘Do you want refreshments? Do you want refreshments?’ he spluttered. ‘The mistress is within, but she is in her chamber. The shock, the brutality, oh so much blood!’
Kathryn grasped Thurston’s hand; it was ice cold.
‘You should drink some warm wine yourself,’ she soothed. ‘Now, sir, take us to this maze.’
The Manciple led them around the side of the house. They crossed a well laid out garden with stone benches, latticed fences, fountains, beehives and a dovecote: it boasted a herber and a small apple orchard, flower arbours and gaily decorated pavilions, all bound by a high wickerwork fence. They went through a side gate, along a path and round to the back of the house. Kathryn caught her breath: there was a bank, cut by steps in the centre, which ran down to a wide open meadow, as broad as any market place, circled by trees which rose darkly against the blue-red sky.
‘This must have been the demesne,’ Luberon murmured. ‘The manor lord’s own estate.’
The meadow was rich with lush grass. Kathryn reckoned it must be at least a mile wide and perhaps a little longer in breadth. In the centre stood the maze. Kathryn had never seen anything like it before. The maze rose like a dark green square, at least three yards high, each hedge as broad as any footpath in the city.
‘The entire maze,’ Luberon explained, ‘covers a square ninety yards by ninety. The builder of Ingoldby Hall used box and hawthorn to create it.’
The Manciple started offering refreshments again but Kathryn, fascinated by the sight, went down the steps. She had heard of similar mazes in Normandy where French knights, unable to go on Crusade to Jerusalem, would build a maze and use it as a means of resolving their vows. Some would go through on their knees, dressed in sackcloth, heads stained with ash and dust. Others would stay at the centre of the maze for two or three days living on water and dry bread. She had been in stone mazes but these had been constructed as childish affairs, nothing like this.
Kathryn walked across the grass, Colum and Luberon hurrying behind her. A priest came out of the entrance to the maze. He was dressed in a simple robe of dark blue, a purple stole around his neck, ivory ave beads wrapped round his gnarled fingers. He had a tired, lined face, he spoke softly to the retainers, telling them to step aside.
‘I am Father John.’ He blinked red-rimmed eyes and tried to steady his voice. ‘I am Sir Walter’s chaplain.’ He gazed at the sky. ‘Soon it will be dark, the corpse is still there. I have told everyone else to stay away. Oh.’ He forced a smile. ‘You must be Mistress Swinbrooke and . . .?’
Kathryn made the introductions.
‘Come, come.’
The priest was intent on not wasting time. He led them into the maze. Kathryn swallowed hard, as she had a slight fear of confined places and, although it was a warm August evening with the sun still strong, these narrow tunnels and lanes possessed a quiet brooding menace. Now and again she would start as some bird burst from the thicket on either side of her. She stopped and pressed a hand against the hedge and realised how clever the gardeners had been who constructed this maze: crouching down, she had to almost press the side of her face against the ground to glimpse the roots.
‘Oh yes.’ Father John stood and watched her. ‘The man who planted this maze knew what he was doing. The bushes are close together, so as they grew they interwove. You cannot tell one from the other. Have you seen the hedgerows in Normandy, Mistress? Sir Walter claimed they were better defence than a stone wall.’
Kathryn rose to her feet and brushed the grass from her gown.
‘At least three yards high,’ she murmured.
‘And a yard wide,’ Father John added.
‘Could you walk along the top?’ Kathryn asked.
‘No, you’d have to use planks,’ Father John explained. ‘Or you’d sink in, and the branches are sharp.’
He walked on, giving Kathryn no choice but to follow. Luberon trotted, gasping and spluttering, after her, determined not to be left behind. Father John twisted and turned. Kathryn noticed how scuffed the grass was. She was going to ask how Father John knew the maze so well when Colum nudged her sharply and pointed to the ground. A coil of thick rope snaked along the path.
‘Who put this down?’ Kathryn asked.
‘It was my idea,’ Father John replied, not stopping. ‘When the alarm was raised, nobody could find the centre. We had to use boards to cross the hedges and, once we reached the Weeping Cross, I ordered great coils of rope to be brought. We fastened them together and marked out the pathway; even then it took hours.’
Kathryn thought they’d never stop twisting and turning but, at last, one pathway led into a clearing. She glimpsed the cross, the steps and pebble-dashed path around it. The blood-caked cadaver lay like a bundle of soaked rags; here and there were footprints of spla
ttered blood. Father John followed her gaze.
‘I am sorry,’ he muttered. ‘When the servants found the corpse, they were upset, they didn’t know . . .’
‘Is that where it was found?’ Kathryn asked, lifting the hem of her dress and moving round to stand close to Sir Walter’s bare, grass-stained feet.
‘It was pulled slightly back,’ Father John said.
‘I’d be grateful,’ Kathryn gestured at the stone benches on either side of the entrance, ‘if you’d sit down.’
As her companions did so Kathryn stared at the severed cadaver: the hair shirt was soaked in blood, its arms out, slightly twisted. She knelt and examined the vein-streaked legs. The flesh was cold, the muscles hardening. The soles of the feet were marked with pieces of grass and twigs. Pulling back the sleeves of her gown, Kathryn turned the corpse over and tried not to flinch as more blood seeped out. The entire front of the corpse was soaked in gore. Kathryn took out the small wooden scraper she always carried with her. Leaning forward carefully, she cleaned the blood-encrusted knee, examined the scraper and sighed at the little fragments of soil and stone. She got up, placed the wooden scraper by the corpse, and walked over to Father John.
‘Tell me, chaplain, Sir Walter performed this ritual once a month?’
‘No.’ The priest shook his head. ‘Whenever possible, every week at noon on a Friday, the hour on which Christ’s Passion began. He would enter the maze dressed only in a hair shirt, a halter round his neck.’
‘Halter?’ Kathryn walked back and stared down. ‘I can see no halter. It must have been taken with the head?’
Father John nodded. He was shaking slightly.
‘Father John.’ Kathryn crouched down and rested a hand on his knee. ‘You are still filled with horror at your master’s death, and this will affect both your wits and your heart. He was murdered. I need to know what happened.’
‘Sir Walter came here every Friday.’ The priest put his head in his hands; his voice sounded hollow. ‘He was dressed in a hair shirt and halter, no sandals on his feet. He carried ave beads.’ He pointed towards the corpse. ‘They are still there somewhere about his person.’