The Godless

by Paul Doherty

  Athelstan also made his farewells and, lost in his own deep thoughts, made his way absent-mindedly back across the river to St Erconwald’s where he celebrated a late Mass. He then had words with Benedicta about parish business and declared that he would appreciate fresh food and a good sleep. Afterwards he would become a hermit and, for a while, withdraw from the hustle and bustle of parish life. Once he had assured Benedicta that all was well and that he just needed to be alone, Athelstan closeted himself in his priest’s house. He sat at his table, staring down at the smooth square of parchment before him.

  ‘This will become my world,’ he whispered, ‘here, I will try and resolve this problem.’

  The friar felt coldly furious. He regarded the man calling himself Ambrose Rookwood as probably the most evil soul he had ever encountered. The friar also realized that this demon might very well take wing and fly away to fresh meadows of murder.

  ‘I cannot allow that,’ Athelstan observed to Bonaventure, who had joined him at the table. ‘I cannot and I will not leave here until I have resolved this.’

  Athelstan kept to his word, only leaving to celebrate morning mass. For three full days he sat reflecting on that hideous sanctuary man, gloating and gleeful in St Olave’s. How could he be lured out? Athelstan turned this question over time and again as he kept in constant touch with Cranston, sending messages through Tiptoft or Benedicta.

  On the fourth day after his return, Athelstan decided to go for a walk in God’s Acre. He visited the old death house. All of its flagstones had been lifted. Any treasure found had been placed in a sack and sent to Cranston, whilst the mortal remains of Roughkin’s victims had been coffered and taken to the death house at St Mary’s Overy where the parish priest had promised to give them honourable burial. Athelstan stared down into one of the pits. Cranston had seized Roughkin’s corpse and carted it off to the cellars of Newgate. The friar closed his eyes and whispered a prayer for the dead. He was about to walk away, making sure he kept clear of the pits, when he remembered something at St Olave’s and stood stock still in surprise.

  ‘I wonder,’ he murmured, ‘I truly do.’

  He returned to the priest’s house and sat for a while, scribbling on that piece of parchment. Once he’d finished, he made sure all was well, collected his cloak and chancery satchel and hurried down to the quayside, where he ordered a grim-faced Moleskin to row him across to Queenhithe. The bargeman wanted to question him, but the friar put a finger to his lips.

  ‘Not here,’ he declared gently, ‘and certainly not now.’

  Moleskin nodded and, once his barge reached the quayside, Athelstan hastened up the steps and through the rabbit-warren of lanes and arrow-thin alleyways to The Leviathan, where Sir John had set up camp. They clasped hands and exchanged the kiss of peace. Athelstan had a few words with the coroner then both hurried into St Olave’s. They walked down the nave and Athelstan heaved a sigh of relief as he scrutinized the battered paving stones in front of the ancient rood screen.

  ‘Very good, Sir John, very good.’ Athelstan rubbed his hands. ‘Are you sure Master Tuddenham does not know?

  ‘Brother, I am certain of it. The trapdoor was closed, sealed, and I made no mention of it. The church beadles,’ Cranston pointed at a knot of liveried ruffians squatting on the floor near the ancient baptismal font, ‘never mention it. They keep an eye on the criminal and one on us. Brother, they are over-confident and, more especially, they love their drink.’

  ‘Good, good, Sir John, so let us prepare our Trojan horse. This is what I suggest …’

  Later that day, when the bells of other churches were tolling the end of Compline, the last great prayer of the day, Athelstan slipped into St Olave’s with a basket of food and a jug of The Leviathan’s best Bordeaux. He was immediately confronted by the two church beadles assigned to stand on guard inside the church that night. They acted all officious, holding their hands up as Athelstan made to go towards the rood screen.

  ‘No, Brother,’ one of them warned, ‘the bell has tolled. This church is to be emptied except for us and the fugitive we guard.’

  Athelstan nodded understandingly, placing the food basket and wine jug on the floor. He blessed the beadles and left to rejoin Sir John in The Leviathan. The coroner greeted him merrily and they made the final preparations, organizing Flaxwith and his bailiffs, gathered in the large kitchen, where everything was laid out for them. Athelstan scrutinized the hour candle and, when two rings had been burnt off, he opened the trapdoor.

  ‘We are ready, Sir John. God be with us.’

  Carrying a lanternhorn, Athelstan led Sir John down along the secret passageway and up into the church. They moved silently, bracing themselves against the icy coldness of the nave. Athelstan crouched cautiously. He stared around before stealing across the nave to where the two beadles lay sprawled fast asleep. He collected the wine jug and goblets.

  ‘As we thought,’ he said, handing the cup and jug to Sir John who carried a sack containing identical goblets and a flagon from the tavern kitchen. The coroner used his miraculous wineskin to pour a little into the fresh jug as well as into the two cups. Athelstan took these back to where the bailiffs lay sprawled. He strained his hearing, listening to any sound from Ambrose sheltering in the mercy enclave which was concealed by both the rood screen and high altar; he could detect nothing amiss. Athelstan returned to the raised trapdoor.

  ‘Very good, Sir John, summon up the ghosts.’

  The coroner, grinning from ear to ear, put a finger to his lips and went down the passageway. A short while later, a macabre procession made its way up. Flaxwith and his bailiffs were now garbed in grey gowns, faces covered by ghostly white masks, their heads crowned with fiery red horsehair wigs. This nightmare cohort made their way up the steps to gather outside the rood screen. There were twelve in number. At Athelstan’s direction, they entered the sanctuary and parted to go either side of the high altar. Athelstan, now hiding in the shadows, watched the masque unfold. The cleverly disguised bailiffs were armed with metal-tipped staves and they beat these on the ground as they entered the apse, six from one side, six from the other. Athelstan heard Ambrose’s screams as he woke and stared at the hideous vision facing him, his yells echoing eerily through the church.

  Athelstan heard the sound of a struggle, more screams and curses then, as planned, Ambrose came hurrying around the altar, pursued by the grotesquely garbed figures of the night. Holding his cloak and belt, Ambrose fled across the sanctuary and into the nave where Cranston, similarly garbed as the bailiffs, stood on guard. Ambrose had no choice; he was given little time to think. Roused from his sleep, confronted with his own macabre nightmare, Ambrose had lost all that arrogant sheen which cloaked his personality and actions. There was no escape. Confronted and blocked by another dreadful apparition, Ambrose fled down into the secret passageway, Cranston and his bailiffs following in hot pursuit. Athelstan carefully checked the sanctuary and nave before moving back to the beadles, but these still lay snoring after drinking the heavy Bordeaux generously laced with a strong opiate. The friar decided all was well and went down into the secret passageway, making sure the trapdoor was securely closed behind him. By the time he reached the taproom in The Leviathan, Ambrose – roped and shackled – lay slumped on a stool guarded by bailiffs.

  ‘Very well, very well,’ Athelstan beckoned Flaxwith and Cranston to follow him into the shadows.

  ‘So what happened here?’ the friar demanded.

  ‘As you planned, Brother,’ the chief bailiff replied. ‘The fugitive was not caught by those you sent into the sanctuary but the small cohort we left here.’

  ‘And Ambrose never saw you remove your disguises?’

  ‘No, by the time we reached here, the small comitatus waiting in the taproom had seized him and pulled a hood across his head so he never actually realized who was pursuing him.’

  ‘Good, good,’ Athelstan mused, ‘so the trap has been sprung. The nightmares which created Ambrose’s soul are
also responsible for his downfall and capture. Sir John, the prisoner is yours.’

  ‘In which case my happiness is complete.’ Cranston led them across to the prisoner, the coroner pulling the hood from the fugitive’s head.

  ‘Ambrose Rookwood,’ the coroner intoned, ‘or whoever you are, false priest and outlaw, have been apprehended whilst fleeing sanctuary.’ He clasped the prisoner on the shoulder. ‘So I arrest you in the King’s name for sentencing before the royal justices.’

  Ambrose just moaned to himself, not even bothering to look up. Cranston snapped his fingers. ‘Master Flaxwith, lodge the prisoner deep in Newgate’s pit.’

  Once the bailiffs and their prisoner had left, Cranston insisted on broaching a small cask and served both himself and the friar generous goblets of winking red wine. Athelstan sipped at his whilst Cranston, ushering the friar to a table, slurped his noisily, raising the cup in toast to his companion.

  ‘A good night’s work, little friar,’ Cranston leaned across the table. ‘Ambrose is a ruthless, cold-hearted assassin, a killer to his very marrow, but how did you know he would panic? He might have stayed, resisted?’

  ‘I told you this before, my friend,’ Athelstan replied. ‘My guiding light is St Augustine, who lived in the twilight years of Ancient Rome. A bishop in North Africa, Augustine proved to be a brilliant theologian and the most astute observer of human nature. He argued that we human beings are a mixture of both the divine and the demonic. Deep inside us we house phantasms, deep fears and sharp frustrations. Even if we try to ignore them, these emotions play a vital role in our lives.’ Athelstan sipped at his wine. ‘So it is with our killer. Try Sir John, for a short while, to forget his murderous ways, difficult though that might be. Think of a small boy in that bleak house on the corner of Slops Alley. Imagine those hideous harridans garbed in grey, their heads festooned with dreadful wigs. They had the likes of our prisoner to torture and abuse over the years. A mere boy, already bereft of his parents or any kin. Such cruelty inflicted a deep and dire deadly soul wound that was never healed. Indeed, it festered and produced its own poison. Over the years Rookwood, or whatever his true name is, tried to forget, to ignore what had happened, but the humours of his soul were cracked and the infection broke out. He could indulge his phantasms, vomit the poison by turning on his tormentors, namely women. He did this in France and, when he returned here, he chose his victims from amongst the most vulnerable, the whores and prostitutes of London.’

  ‘And yet he acted as a priest?’

  ‘Sir John, the perfect disguise. Rookwood loved disguises. We know that, switching between the caring devoted priest and the hideous monster known as the Oriflamme. He indulged his murderous passions in Normandy both before and after he joined Le Sans Dieu company. However, once the war was over, he again tried to restrain himself, but the news about the French hunting him stirred up a violent tempest within him. He wanted revenge, so he returned to his killing days: seizing whores, murdering them, stripping their bodies, ridiculing them with those wigs before they were sent floating along the Thames for all the world to see.’ Athelstan sipped his wine. ‘Ambrose indulged his murderous fantasies, he never dreamed they would turn on him. Sweep out of the darkness to seize him, as happened tonight. When they did, he reverted to being a small boy and tried to flee.’ Athelstan sighed and pushed away the cup. ‘And so it is,’ he whispered, ‘and so it was.’

  Ten days later, Athelstan joined Cranston on the great execution scaffold overlooking Smithfield. On that particular morning, execution day, the broad stretch of common land used for fairs, markets and horse-trading, teemed with London citizens. The crowds thronged, flocking in their thousands to watch a felon, now proclaimed as Satan’s own assassin, receive just punishment for treason, murder and robbery. Ambrose Rookwood, condemned under the name he had assumed before royal justices at the Guildhall, had been spared the full rigour of the penalty for treason: his sentence was not reduced on any compassionate grounds. Thibault, Gaunt’s Master of Secrets, had insisted that the criminal be subject to English courts and English law. In a sense, Thibault had added wryly, there should be no problem. After all, the kings of England also styled themselves kings of France, so it didn’t really matter where the felon was actually executed. Monseigneur Levigne, present at the meeting held in the Jerusalem chamber at Westminster, had just smiled, shrugged and murmured the usual French diplomatic response to such an outrageous claim.

  Cranston and Athelstan had also been present to receive the regent’s thanks, as well as listen to what was decided. In the end, a compromise had been reached. The Oriflamme would be executed at Smithfield; his accomplice Roughkin would hang gibbeted beside him. After execution, both corpses, suitably prepared, would be handed over to Levigne. He could transport these to Paris to decorate the majestic but macabre gibbet at Montfaucon. Levigne also insisted that Godbless’s remains should be handed over, but Athelstan pleaded that the beggar man had been truly lunatic whilst his corpse, mangled and corrupted, was in no fit condition to be transported anywhere, so it should be left deep in the soil in God’s Acre at St Erconwald’s. Levigne had promptly agreed, pleased at the outcome.

  Roughkin’s corpse, sheeted and bound, already hung from one branch of the great Smithfield gallows. The main arm of the scaffold was now being carefully prepared for the Oriflamme. Athelstan watched as the Hangman of Rochester, garbed from head to toe in his black leather costume, busied himself with the ladder and the dangling noose. The Oriflamme, Ambrose Rookwood as he was proclaimed, stood manacled and chained, staring dully out before him. Master Thibault had ordered that the condemned man be garbed as he had his victims, with a blood-red wig on his head, his body draped in a grey gown. The city mob, with their mordant sense of humour, had responded in kind. Many of them had turned up wearing red wigs with white linen masks over their faces, so it seemed a veritable army of Oriflammes had assembled to watch this gruesome pageant.

  Athelstan wondered why so many citizens were so fascinated by public executions. Sudden death was no stranger to London. The poor were dying by their hundreds along the narrow, filthy alleyways and runnels of both the city and Southwark. Perhaps, Athelstan quietly concluded, it was the sombre, grisly ritual, yet there was no denying the fascination. Certainly the city had emptied. The good burgesses and their portly wives, garbed in samite and fur, rubbed shoulders with the denizens of the underworld, the twilight-dwellers who robbed, tricked and murdered, fearful of ending up being part of the ritual they had flocked to watch. Athelstan stared out over the crowd. Pimps in their garish clothes milled about, snouting for business for their cohort of ladies. Minstrels, troubadours and chanteurs offered lurid descriptions of the condemned and his crimes. Others were present to offer comfort, be it the Guild of the Hanged or the Society of the Condemned. Friars of the Sack intoned hymns of mourning whilst a guild calling itself ‘The Good Women of Jerusalem’ pattered aves for the repose of the souls of both the killers and their victims.

  The noise rolled constantly and, despite the frosty morning, the crowd were patient, suitable customers for the itinerant cooks with their moveable ovens, grills and stoves. The air reeked of sweat, dung and different roasting smells, both sweet and foul. Athelstan glanced back at the Oriflamme. The condemned man had grown visibly agitated by the prospect of impending violent death, his eyes writhing in a face like that of a demon’s sick of sin. The hangman was now ready; everything was in place. The executioner lifted a hand and nodded at the Lord High Coroner. Cranston moved to the edge of the scaffold, ringed on all four sides by Cheshire archers. The coroner signalled to the trumpeters who blew a long, shrill fanfare, which was greeted by the blare of horns from the milling mob. Again, the powerful trumpet blasts, one after another. Silence descended and the tambours began to beat, a rolling, menacing sound which grew louder and louder. Athelstan felt someone come up beside him. He turned and smiled at Master Tuddenham.

  ‘That was very clever, Brother Athelstan.’

&nbs
p; ‘The ways of God are truly marvellous.’ Athelstan whispered back.

  ‘They talk of a secret passageway beneath St Olave’s?’

  ‘Do they now?’ Athelstan shrugged.

  ‘Did you want to take this man’s life so much, Brother?’

  Athelstan did not reply but pointed at the scaffold. The Hangman of Rochester had now hustled the pinioned Oriflamme up to the top of the ladder. He secured the noose round the condemned man’s neck and scrambled back down, staring across at Cranston who stood, hand raised. The drumbeat stopped. The coroner let his hand drop and the hangman twisted the ladder. The Oriflamme fell like a stone, the sound of his breaking neck, a sharp snap, echoing loudly across the platform. Athelstan turned back to the archdeacon’s man.

  ‘Master Tuddenham, I did not want this man’s life. God did, and now he has him!’

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The Hundred Years’ War in France was sharp and cruel. France was ravaged by English chevauchées out of Gascony, or from the English fortified camps along the Channel coast such as Calais and Boulogne. The devastation inflicted was widespread and grievous. Some historians maintain that the English occupation was more horrific than that of the Nazis during World War II. We tend to think of knights in shining armour riding forth to do battle, and so they did, but their main aim was plunder, booty and ransoms. A high-ranking nobleman such as Charles of Orléans spent years languishing in the Tower while his ransom was raised. Many great English lords literally made their fortune at the expense of the French. The soldiers these knights led might well be skilled archers or bowmen. However, they also included a fair proportion of jailbirds, murderers, thieves and other outlaws who, in return for a pardon, would agree to serve in the King’s array. Shakespeare captures this very cleverly in his play Henry V. Here we meet the followers of fat Sir John Falstaff, felons such as Nym, Pistol and Bardolph. If you have read the play, you will recall that Bardolph was hanged for stealing a pyx from a church.