by Paul Doherty
‘Which reflects what you have seen in that so-called treasure chart?’ Athelstan tightened the white cord around his waist so it displayed the three knots, symbols of the vows he’d taken to observe poverty, chastity and obedience. ‘So why the alarm now?’
‘Godbless never wakes early, Father. The old death house is firmly shuttered, its great door with its two locks hangs fast. Yet we could see the glow of lantern light through the chinks of a shutter. If Godbless did rise early, he would be clattering about, but we heard nothing. We banged on the door, there was no reply.’
‘Very well.’
Athelstan swung his cloak around him. ‘Get a message to Mauger, no more bell tolling! Come!’
The friar, followed by his two parishioners, hastened into the shifting mist, making their way towards the heavy lychgate and so into God’s Acre. The toscin had certainly aroused the parish; shadowy shapes carrying lanterns, capped candles and fiery flambeaux were already making their way through the murk. Athelstan shouted that they should go home and that there was no real danger. Eventually they reached the death house. The windows either side of the fortified entrance were firmly shuttered. Athelstan pushed against the door and both shutters, but they all held fast. He noticed the gleams of light and reckoned that at least two of the ancient lanternhorns within were burning fiercely. Athelstan asked Watkin and Pike to shoo away the other parishioners, except for Benedicta, Crispin and Mauger. Once he was satisfied his parishioners were returning to their beds, the friar walked slowly around the death house, trying to curb the fear twisting inside him. Something was very wrong. The harmony of God’s Acre had been disturbed. Some evil had swept in, taken up residence like some ferocious lurcher lurking in the dark. Athelstan had visited such scenes before and he sensed the desolation caused by lives brutally snatched away.
Athelstan completed his walk around the mortuary. He knew there were no other entrances except for its door and windows. He pointed to the shutter on the left and asked his companions to break it down. Watkin and Pike, assisted by Crispin, began to smash at the thick oaken slats. Benedicta, shrouded in a woollen blue robe, came to stand beside Athelstan, sliding her hand into his. At last the shutters were wrenched free.
Watkin pulled himself up and went in through the gap. He immediately began to scream and yell in horror. Athelstan shouted at him to remain calm and open the door. Pike swiftly clambered through. Again, cries of alarm, but the lean ditcher was of sterner stuff. Athelstan heard him curse as he turned the two locks in the door and pulled it open to allow Athelstan full view of the abomination awaiting him. The old death house was a long, barn-like hall with low rafters, its walls painted white though most of the plaster was flaking. At either end of the chamber hung a stark black crucifix, in the centre of the wall facing the door was a huge hearth, the fire long spent, and above this another crucifix. However, as if in mockery of such religion, the long mortuary table now served as a gruesome altar. On this, like some offering to an angry war god, sprawled Godbless’s naked body, his white, scabby, vein-streaked corpse drenched in the blood which had poured from his cut throat. On his head a fiery red wig. The beggar man lay embracing his pet goat, Thaddeus the Younger. The creature’s throat had also been slit before its blood-soaked cadaver had been thrust into Godbless’s dead hands.
‘An offering to Moloch!’ Athelstan whispered. ‘That’s what it is like. The table is the altar, Godbless and Thaddeus the sacrificial victims. Some demon has been here.’ Athelstan paused. Benedicta had knelt down, hands clasped, ave beads around her long, lovely fingers. The widow-woman crossed herself and intoned the ‘De Profundis’. Watkin and Pike also knelt. Athelstan blessed himself and, once Benedicta had finished, hastily performed the rites for the dead. He recited the ‘Confiteor’ – the ‘I Confess’ – and bestowed absolution, adding that he would anoint the body later.
Benedicta and the others grouped around the table. The widow-woman had found dirty sheets and tattered blankets from the simple trestle bed to cover the gruesome sight. Crispin offered to fashion a coffin. Athelstan nodded, staring down at the mangled remains, helping Benedicta to pull up the sheets.
‘Who?’ he whispered. ‘And why? What harm, if any, did Godbless or his little goat offer to anyone?’ He heard a sound and turned. Senlac stood in the doorway.
‘Good morning, Father. I heard about poor Godbless and his pet goat, their throats cruelly slashed. Why?’
‘Why indeed?’ Athelstan replied.
‘Why indeed,’ Senlac echoed, crossing himself and staring around. ‘This is as I remember it, a long, dank, dark, hellish hall.’ He gestured at the shelves fixed to the wall and the pots of pine juice ranged along them. ‘Nothing,’ Senlac declared, ‘nothing can ever disguise the smell of death. I just wonder …’
‘What?’
‘Well, my father often talked about God’s Acre being plagued by warlocks and witches. Could they be—’
‘No, no. Not now.’ Watkin came round the table. ‘We keep a close and sharp eye on our cemetery. Isn’t it strange?’ The dung-collector pointed at the door. ‘That’s nothing more than a thick, oaken slab. There’s no bolts to rust and it’s held fast by two locks. The work of a craftsman, in fact, one of the best picklocks I have ever met, till he was caught and hanged over Tyburn Stream.’
‘Does the same key fit both locks?’
‘Yes, Father,’ Watkin replied. ‘You must remember before the new death house was built? How you insisted that both locks be turned? You wanted to keep wanderers out.’
‘Of course, of course. And the key was in one of the locks?’
‘Yes, yes it was,’ Pike declared. ‘And those shutters Father, they are both very sturdy and closely barred, whilst there’s no secret entrance.’ Pike beat the battered heel of his boot against the ground. ‘Only hard paving stone, with narrow gulleys to take away the slops from the corpses when they were lodged here.’
Athelstan was now being watched by a growing number of parishioners, who clustered in the doorway murmuring their shock. Watkin and Pike hoarsely informed them about the dreadful slaughter carried out in that place of death. Athelstan half listened as he scrupulously scrutinized the doorway, the window shutters, and even the narrow fire stack, as well as the rusty braziers, moving with the toe of his sandal, the ale jug, platter and pewter goblet.
‘It’s all a mystery,’ the friar declared.
‘It certainly is,’ Watkin agreed. ‘We all know Godbless would never allow anyone in after dark. Only you, Father. If Godbless told us that once, he did so a dozen times, isn’t that true?’
Athelstan nodded his agreement. Godbless was always fearful of warlocks, wizards, and those other denizens of the night who liked nothing better than to set up a makeshift altar and sacrifice to their own hell-born demons. Men and women who furrowed the earth for human remains to use in their macabre midnight celebrations.
‘Ah well,’ Athelstan beckoned Watkin and Pike closer. ‘See to the dead. Clear this place up. God knows,’ Athelstan sighed, ‘what truly happened here. I will now wash, change and celebrate my Jesus Mass. Afterwards, I want to meet the parish council outside the rood screen.’
Once the Mass was over, Athelstan swiftly divested himself of his purple and gold vestments. He left the sacristy and sat down in the celebrant’s chair, placed close to the doorway through the rood screen. Mauger perched at the small scribe’s desk to the friar’s immediate right. The rest of the parish council ranged on benches on either side of their priest. Athelstan intoned the ‘Veni Creator Spiritus’, blessed his parishioners and stood up.
‘We all know what happened to Brother Godbless,’ he began, ‘and his poor little goat. A true abomination. I, we, have a duty before God to discover the truth and bring to justice those responsible. So, what happened yesterday?’
At first Athelstan’s question created chaos, as the friar had expected, but he immediately recognized by the vociferous replies from his parishioners that Godbless had been truly dis
turbed. All the witnesses confirmed, once Athelstan had imposed order, that Godbless had been deeply agitated, wandering the parish and God’s Acre, as well as striding up and down the church. Apparently he kept muttering gibberish no one could understand. The only sense they could get from him was that he babbled about ghosts from the past, evil spirits haunting him, and how he and Thaddeus the Younger needed God’s protection. On one matter Godbless had been very insistent and clear: Thaddeus was to stay close to him. Athelstan heard his parishioners out. He let them chatter, then raised his hands for silence. Once he had this, the friar loudly listed a number of questions. First, was any stranger glimpsed closeted with Godbless? Secondly, did anyone see anything untoward in God’s Acre, around the old death house or, indeed, anywhere in the parish? Silence greeted both his questions.
‘Very well,’ Athelstan folded back the cuffs of his gown and glanced up as the copse door opened. A figure slipped through the shadowy transept and into the nave. Athelstan peered through the murk and raised a hand in greeting at Tiptoft, Cranston’s green-garbed courier, calling out that they would soon speak. Tiptoft nodded and squatted down close to the base of one of the drum-like pillars.
‘One further question,’ Athelstan continued, ‘was anyone, and I mean anyone, seen entering God’s Acre last night?’
Again silence.
‘Next, who would Godbless, especially when he was so agitated, admit into the old death house once darkness fell?’
‘We’ve answered that,’ Watkin called out. ‘Only you, Father.’ A murmur of agreement echoed his words.
‘In which case we reach the heart of this mystery,’ Athelstan declared. ‘How did someone gain entrance, murder poor Godbless and Thaddeus, mock their corpses and leave as silently as any ghost? The death house being locked and barred from within?’
‘It must be the work of demons,’ Watkin bellowed, drawing a chorus of approval from the rest.
‘Oh, I am sure it was a demon,’ Athelstan replied, ‘but one in human flesh, and that is a matter for me and Sir John to discover so let us leave this for the moment.’ Athelstan gave the council a final blessing, collected his cloak and chancery satchel and hurried down to where Tiptoft rose to greet him.
‘You know why I am here?’ the courier lisped, his voice hardly above a whisper. The pallid-faced courier, his red, spiked hair generously greased with nard, plucked at Athelstan’s sleeve. ‘My Lord Coroner awaits you, Brother Athelstan. Some bloody affray in Queenhithe …’
On their journey across the Thames, being rowed by a morose Moleskin and his equally glum archangels, Tiptoft informed the friar in hushed tones how Sir John had received a message, anonymously, with the same to the French, that the Oriflamme and his henchmen had hidden themselves, along with other malefactors, in a derelict mansion. They had resisted any proclamation to surrender so Sir John had sent for Tower archers. In addition, another whore, Meg Tumblekin, had been found naked, her throat cut, a red wig pulled over her head, the corpse set adrift in a narrow cockle boat until it was found by local fishermen and brought to Queenhithe. Cranston had set up house in The Leviathan; as Lord High Coroner he could use any room or chamber in the city as his court. Cranston had the power to organize an inquest and the formal viewing of any corpse found in mysterious circumstances.
According to Tiptoft’s description, Athelstan realized this must be another hideous murder, a further outrage by the Oriflamme. Moleskin, who’d sat deliberately close so he could eavesdrop, raised a hand and said he’d already heard whispers about the whore’s murder as well as news of a bloody affray somewhere between St Olave’s and The Leviathan. Athelstan simply smiled thinly. Moleskin was one of his parishioners but the past was opening up and the bargeman, along with others, had a great deal to be ashamed of. Indeed, he must regard Moleskin and his comrades as possible suspects.
At last they reached Queenhithe. Tiptoft led Athelstan up along the tangle of filthy, reeking alleyways. The narrow streets were strangely silent. The usual hustle and bustle of the runnels leading down to the quayside had faded away. The overhanging houses were shuttered, doorways empty; even the tribe of beggars and counterfeit men had fled from the growing storm. The appearance of the Tower archers dressed in their war garb had imposed a watchful silence. People decided to stay indoors until the tempest had passed. Both messenger and friar reached the enclosure before St Olave’s. Athelstan noticed the church was closed as he followed Tiptoft into The Leviathan only a brief walk away.
Cranston had turned the tavern’s taproom into his coroner’s court. The dimly lit, heavy-beamed chamber seemed well suited to the grim proceedings about to take place. A fire burnt fiercely in the hearth, the leaping flames caught the shadows of those gathered around the table and sent them dancing. Athelstan peered through the murk, raising his hand in greeting to the sept of bargemen – Cromer, Desant, Falaise and Hornsby. They were now joined by Moleskin. Mistress Alice was also there, organizing the servants, who flitted in and out with platters of food and jugs of strong ale.
‘We will be with you soon enough,’ Cranston bellowed as he swept into the taproom. Cranston pulled down the fold of his tawny-coloured military cloak and exchanged the kiss of peace with Athelstan. The coroner hugged the little friar close. ‘Come,’ he whispered, ‘you might as well view the horror.’
Both coroner and friar left the tavern. They crossed the smelly stable yard into one of the outhouses. Meg Tumblekin’s corpse, with lanterns placed at head and feet, lay stretched out on a trestle table, a fiery red wig pulled drunkenly over the back of her skull. In life, Meg may have been comely, even pretty, but her nasty death had transformed her into a heart-rending horror. The dead woman’s corpse was puffed and slimed by dirty river water. The slit in her throat was like a gaping mouth, whilst her eyes, nose and lips had been sharply nibbled. The outhouse reeked of death and Athelstan gratefully accepted the scented pomander Cranston thrust into his hand.
‘Found like this close to a cockle boat,’ the coroner declared, ‘no other sign or indication of who was responsible; why, when or where.’ Cranston paused as Tiptoft came into the outhouse. The courier took one glance at the corpse, gagged and hastily retreated back into the yard. Cranston and Athelstan followed. Tiptoft, busy cleaning his mouth, gestured at a figure, cloaked and cowled, standing outside the taproom door. The man came over, pulling back the deep capuchon to reveal a merry, olive-skinned face with pleasing features under bristling black hair. Athelstan immediately recognized Hugh Levigne the Candlelight-Master, leader of the Luciferi and the special envoy of Monseigneur Derais, the French ambassador residing at the Maison Parisienne just off Cheapside. He had the smooth face and courtly ways of a high-ranking chancery clerk, but Athelstan knew Levigne was more than this. The Candlelight-Master was a born street fighter, a true dagger man, whose choirboy looks masked all the virtues and strengths of a mailed clerk. Levigne pulled off his leather-studded gauntlets to clasp hands and exchange the kiss of peace with both Cranston and Athelstan. Levigne then stood back and pointed at the outhouse.
‘Another one, Sir John?’ The Frenchman’s voice was low, cultured with only the slight trace of an accent.
‘Another what?’ Athelstan queried.
‘Fille de Joie. Didn’t you know, Brother?’ Levigne’s hand fell to his sword hilt. ‘Every single girl killed, her corpse desecrated and mocked with those wigs, was patronized by our ambassador,’ Levigne gave a crooked smile, ‘and the ambassador’s people, including both myself and my companions.’
‘In God’s name,’ Athelstan breathed, ‘could that be the reason for their murder?’
‘Perhaps,’ Levigne shrugged, ‘but, just as importantly, their assassin could be the same evil soul who manifested himself on that war-barge, Le Sans Dieu, so many years ago.’
‘And why are you here now? I mean, at The Leviathan?’
‘Like you, Brother Athelstan, to view the abomination and to follow up certain information. Early this morning, both myself and Sir Joh
n received a message, a simple strip of parchment, informing Monseigneur Derais and Sir John that the criminal known as the Oriflamme, along with his principal henchmen, including Mornay, former tavern master of La Chèvre Dansante, were hiding in a derelict house overlooking the Court of Thieves here in Queenhithe. We received this memorandum at the Maison Parisienne; I understand Sir John’s was delivered at the Guildhall. Now Brother Athelstan,’ Levigne beat his gauntlets against his thigh, ‘as Sir John must have told you, our masters at the Louvre want these criminals delivered into our hands for just punishment on the gallows at Montfaucon.’
‘I ordered Flaxwith,’ Cranston declared, ‘my chief bailiff, to break into the house, but he and his men were beaten back. So,’ Cranston stamped his feet, ‘Monseigneur Levigne has brought some of his bullyboys whilst I sent for a cohort of Tower archers. These lovely lads must now be waiting for my orders, so come.’
All three made their way out of The Leviathan. Moleskin, Mistress Alice and the others had gathered near the main door with a litany of questions, but Cranston ordered them to hold their peace. The coroner was met outside by his chief bailiff, Flaxwith, accompanied as always by his mastiff Samson, whom Athelstan secretly considered to be the ugliest dog he had ever seen. Flaxwith had a hushed conversation with the coroner, even as Sir John gently kicked Samson aside, as the dog, as he always did, tried to embrace the coroner’s booted leg. After he finished whispering to Sir John, Flaxwith led them along a maze of twisting runnels and filthy alleyways into the Court of Thieves, an ancient square bounded by buildings with a cracked statue of St Dismas, the Good Thief, on a plinth in the centre. The court was cobbled, its stones glistening with dust, empty except for two corpses sprawled in ever-widening puddles of blood. Along all sides of the square rose tall, lofty mansions, much dilapidated and decayed, their doorways, porches and windows now crowded with Tower archers, bows at the ready. Cranston swiftly explained how the corpses were two of Flaxwith’s comitatus, slain as they tried to force an entrance to the soaring townhouse which dominated the far side of the square, a three-storey building of timber and plaster on a red stone base. Its paintwork, as with the other dwellings, was flaking heavily, the plaster sagging. Nevertheless, its shuttered windows and fortified doorway made it look impregnable enough.