by Paul Doherty
‘Sir John, Brother Athelstan!’ a voice interrupted.
‘Our master summons us,’ Cranston whispered. ‘Remember, watch your tongue!’
They entered the Golden Hall, the great taproom of the brothel: a dark, sombre chamber where guests could sit at tables and be served from the food bench close to the kitchen, the doors to which were now flung open. The air was savoury with cooking fragrances from the bread ovens either side of the mantled hearth, carved in the shape of a gaping dragon’s mouth. Athelstan noticed how the fire irons hanging close by were priapic in shape, a motif repeated in the torch brackets and candle-spigots around the hall. Here and there were replicas of the huge sign hanging outside, a golden Oliphant, or a curved drinking horn, encased in precious metal, the actual cup covered by a lid surmounted by a bejewelled cross. The ‘Oliphant’ was a subtle title for a brothel, the horn symbolizing good wine, cheer and all the pleasures of both bed and board. The friar had learnt from his parishioners how the word ‘horn’, cornu in Latin, was a priapic symbol often used to describe the penis.
The Golden Oliphant undoubtedly did a prosperous trade: its taproom walls were strangely bare but its floor was of waxed, scented wood with rope matting placed to catch the slops. They passed through this into the heart of the brothel: a sumptuously decorated parlour with its adjoining ‘betrothal chamber’ as it was called, where guests could meet the ladies of their choice and negotiate what they wanted and how much they would pay. Rooms ranged either side of the grand gallery, similar accommodation being on offer above stairs. Mistress Elizabeth Cheyne, along with her hard-faced assistant Joycelina, walked in front, leading Athelstan, Cranston and Thibault and his escort up an extremely steep staircase and on to the top gallery. Narrower, its ceiling rather low, this gallery contained only two chambers, their doors set back in a slight recess. One of these lay open, the door, wrenched off its leather hinges, resting against the inside wall. A bleak, low-ceilinged room, with a broad bed of stuffed straw supporting a thick mattress, the starched, homespun linen sheets thrown back. Nevertheless, all the chamber’s meagre comfort was shattered by the corpse swinging slightly from the oiled hempen rope which had been lashed to a lantern hook on the ceiling beam. Nearby lay an overturned stool. Thibault ignored the corpse. He went and stood at the door window, all its shutters pulled back, staring at the oiled pigskin covering which allowed in a yellowish light. Athelstan gazed swiftly round at the elmwood coffer and cloth poles, the chancery satchel and saddle bags heaped in the corner. The air smelt foul and Athelstan glimpsed a half-covered chamber pot beneath the table close to the bed.
Albinus, Thibault’s henchman, drew his dagger and moved to saw at the hempen rope. Athelstan told him to stop. Albinus half smiled and glanced in the direction of his master, who weakly raised his hand as a sign to let Athelstan have his way. The friar stared up at the corpse. Amaury Whitfield’s plump face was a hideously mottled hue under a mop of reddish hair, a stout man, his belly bulging out. Athelstan wrinkled his nose; the dead man’s bowels and bladder must have emptied as he died his choking death. The friar swiftly blessed the corpse and whispered words of absolution followed by the requiem before returning to his study. He noted Amaury’s bulging, watery eyes, the swollen tongue twisted through bloodless lips, the dried saliva on the corner of the gaping mouth. Athelstan pulled back the cuffs of the dead man’s dark green jerkin; he could find no marks to the wrists. Athelstan picked up the stool and placed it beneath the dangling feet, allowing the soft-soled boots to brush against it. He took this away and his gaze was caught by the scarlet gown and blonde wig hanging on a wall hook. He walked across, took these down and glanced at Mistress Cheyne standing in the doorway.
‘The Festival of Cokayne,’ she declared, her harsh face betraying a smile.
‘Ah, yes, Cokayne,’ Athelstan replied, ‘the world turned topsy-turvy! Where hares hunt hounds, males become female, piglets roast themselves and birds land on your plate fully cooked.’ Keeping a watchful eye on Thibault, who was still standing with his back to him, Athelstan gestured at the gown and wig. ‘Master Amaury’s?’ he queried. Mistress Cheyne nodded. Athelstan walked slowly around the chamber, observing the different items: an old sack full of clothing, a jerkin of dark murrey which bore the fading insignia of the royal chancery, a finely stitched leather belt with Amaury’s name etched on it and other items.
‘He dressed for death,’ Athelstan murmured. He pointed to the sack bulging with clothing. ‘And why were these kept separate from the rest? And what’s this?’
He knelt and opened a chancery satchel, filled with writing materials including a pumice stone, ink horn, quills, wax and rolls of parchment. Athelstan shook his head and continued his scrutiny. He picked up an empty wine goblet from a dusty wall ledge, swilled the dregs and sniffed, but he could only detect the rich tang of Bordeaux. He walked back to the corpse, the rope creaking, boots toed down as if even in death Whitfield was desperate to secure a foothold.
‘What do you see, friar?’ Thibault still stood at the window.
‘Master,’ Mistress Cheyne broke in, ‘I have other business to …’
‘Get out!’ Thibault screamed over his shoulder. ‘Leave us, you painted bitches, you false-faced whores!’
Mistress Cheyne and Joycelina scurried off, their footsteps echoing down the stairs. Thibault was breathing noisily and Athelstan recalled stories of how this lord of intrigue loathed prostitutes with a passion beyond understanding. How once he had left here, Thibault would strip and cleanse himself, an act of purification more suitable to an ascetic than Gaunt’s master of mischief.
‘Why are you really here, Master Thibault?’ Athelstan asked softly. ‘Why have you graced this place?’
Thibault half turned and thrust a piece of parchment at Athelstan. In colour and texture this was very similar to that in the dead man’s chancery satchel. Athelstan held it up to the light and read the elegant, courtly hand. Its message was stark and brutal. ‘All is lost. The Herald of Hell has called my name, better to die in peace than live in terror. Pray for my soul on its journey, God have mercy on me and all of us.’ It was signed, ‘Magister Amaury Whitfield, clericus – clerk.’
‘Did Master Amaury Whitfield kill himself,’ Athelstan asked, ‘because of this Herald of Hell? I have heard rumours about him.’
‘A mysterious figure,’ Albinus said, his voice hardly above a whisper, ‘an envoy of the traitorous Upright Men. He appears at all hours of night outside the lodgings of loyal servants to the crown. He threatens them with doggerel verse and leaves a pot brimming with blood and stalks, onions on their tips, like heads spiked above London Bridge.’
‘And he visited Whitfield?’
‘About a week ago,’ Albinus confirmed. ‘Whitfield reported it the following morning in the chancery chambers at the Tower.’
‘Was he frightened?’ Cranston asked, sipping swiftly from the miraculous wineskin he deftly hid beneath his cloak.
Athelstan studied his great friend’s usually jovial face. Cranston looked thinner, the icy blue eyes no longer crinkled in merriment. The friar also glimpsed the light coat of Milanese mail beneath the coroner’s bottle-green cloak. Athelstan glanced at Thibault and Albinus; he suspected both wore the same. The terrors were closing in. The Upright Men and their soldiers the Earthworms openly roamed the city, waiting for the day of the Great Slaughter to begin, for the strongholds to fall, for the blood to stream along Cheapside like wine pumped through a conduit. Citizens were fleeing the city. Cranston’s wife, Lady Maude, together with their two sons, the Poppets, their steward, dogs and other members of the coroner’s household had joined the great exodus, disappearing into the green fastness of the countryside against the violence about to engulf the city.
‘He was terrified!’ Thibault declared.
‘So did he commit suicide?’ Athelstan wondered aloud.
‘Why, Brother,’ Albinus exclaimed, ‘do you suspect murder?’
Athelstan shook his head and tur
ned back to the corpse to scrutinize it more carefully. He then felt the pockets in the cloak and jerkin, which were slightly twisted. He found a few coins and the same in the unbuttoned belt wallet. Athelstan suspected someone had already searched the corpse.
‘Master Thibault, where did you find Amaury’s last letter?’
‘On the bed.’
‘Though you didn’t come here just to mourn your clerk?’ Athelstan retorted. ‘You have already searched his corpse, haven’t you? You sent someone up from the yard, that’s when you really found his last letter.’ Athelstan pointed at Thibault. ‘You crossed into Southwark to visit a brothel, a place you deeply detest. You took a risk. You are a marked man, my friend,’ Athelstan added gently. ‘The Upright Men must know you are here and,’ the friar pointed at the window covered with oiled pigskin, ‘I would not stand so close to that. Now, what are you really here for? What were you hoping to find?’
‘A document,’ Albinus answered. ‘A manuscript holding a great secret which Master Amaury was striving to decipher. We have not found it.’
Athelstan gestured at the corpse. ‘Cut it down.’
Albinus hurried to obey, helped by the Captain of Archers who held the swaying corpse. Albinus severed the rope and they both lowered Whitfield’s mortal remains to the floor. Athelstan knelt down and, taking the phial of holy oils from his own satchel, swiftly anointed the corpse. He scrutinized it again for any mark of violence but, apart from the purplish mark around the throat caused by the noose as tight as any snare, he could detect nothing untoward.
‘A manuscript?’ Athelstan glanced at Thibault, who now sat on a stool well away from the window.
‘A manuscript,’ Thibault mockingly replied.
Athelstan searched the dead man’s clothing for any secret pocket. He was about to give up when he recalled how his own order, the Dominicans, conveyed important messages. He drew off the dead man’s boots and smiled as he searched the inside of the left and felt the secret pocket sewn into the woollen lining. He deftly opened this and drew out two scrolls of parchment. The first was greasy, worn and slightly tattered, the second the costliest any chancery could buy. Athelstan, ignoring Thibault’s exclamations, insisted on studying both. The first was simply an array of signs and symbols, numbers and letters. Some of these were from the Greek alphabet, a common device used in secret ciphers. The second was a triangle with a broad base, alongside it a litany of saints with a second triangle inverted so the apex of each met. Athelstan studied the litany of names. He could not recall seeing the likes before: St Alphege, St Giles, St Andrew and others. He curbed his temper as Thibault greedily plucked the parchments from his hand.
‘It makes no sense!’ the Master of Secrets whispered hoarsely. ‘I will …’ Thibault whirled around as a crossbow bolt shattered the pigskin-covered window and slammed into the opposite wall.
Athelstan leapt forward, dragging Thibault to the floor as a second bolt thudded against the window frame, followed by a third which whirled through to sink deep into the broken chamber door. Athelstan crawled across as if to open the window and peer out. Cranston roared at him to lie still. The coroner, despite his bulk, crept swiftly towards the door, bellowing at the Cheshires, now alarmed by Thibault’s cries, to remain outside. One of the archers opened the door to the adjoining chamber. Athelstan heard the coroner shout, yells echoed from the garden below followed by the clatter of armour and the braying of horns as the alarm was raised to shouts of, ‘Harrow! Harrow!’
Athelstan lay face down next to the corpse, staring at Whitfield’s swollen, mottled features all hideous in death. Did the dead speak to the living? Athelstan suppressed a shiver at the half-open, sightless, glassy eyes. Had Amaury Whitfield written that despairing letter and, his wits turned by fear and wine, taken his own life here in this chamber? Athelstan turned and stared across at the far corner where the fire rope lay half coiled. Whitfield must have cut some of this off to fashion a noose. He’d then stood on the stool and lashed the other end over a beam hook before stepping off into judgement. Or so it seemed. Nevertheless, Athelstan nursed a growing suspicion that Whitfield’s suicide was not so simple or so clear. Had fear of the coming revolt truly turned his wits? Certainly the Master of Secrets was marked down for destruction by the Upright Men, yet Whitfield had lived with that fear for months, even years, so why now? And why had Master Whitfield apparently brought all his possessions to this brothel – baggage, chancery satchel and other objects – only to commit suicide?
‘They are gone.’ Cranston strolled back into the room. ‘I suspect the Upright Men. They entered the garden and must have escaped the same way.’
‘Who told them which chamber Master Thibault was in?’ Athelstan asked, getting to his feet.
‘Brother,’ Cranston shrugged, ‘the Upright Men’s spies are as thick as lice on a Newgate cloak. They know Master Thibault’s here and the reason for it: their assassins must throng in and around this blessed place.’
‘More like the sty of a filthy sow,’ Thibault retorted, sitting down on the bed. The Master of Secrets began to brush his clothes and whisper to Albinus. Athelstan walked to the door window. There were shutters both within and without. These had now been flung open, the bar to the inside one lying on the floor; the window was narrow but big enough for a slender man to enter. Athelstan stepped closer to continue his scrutiny. The pigskin covering, now in tatters, had been stretched out and fastened over small hooks. The hinges of the door window were of the hardest leather, the wood and paint tarred against the elements, and the handle was a clasp which fitted neatly into a metal socket on the frame. The window looked stout and in good repair except for the damage done by the crossbow bolt.
Athelstan pressed on the latch and pushed; the door window swung open on the outside. He peered down at the sheer drop to a well-cultivated flower bed, rich with spring flowers and ripening roses. Revelling in the fresh, breezy air, sweetened with fragrant garden smells, Athelstan turned his head to catch the strengthening sunlight and closed his eyes. This reminded the friar of his father’s farm and the sheer delight of a summer’s morning. Athelstan was convinced that such beauty could not be matched in any other kingdom, even in this place of ill-repute! He opened his eyes. The brothel was a wealthy house and its garden reflected this: the vegetable plots with sorrel, cabbage, spinach, lettuce, peas and broad beans; the numerous herb beds which undoubtedly produced marjoram, sage, snakeweed and rosemary amongst others. He glimpsed gooseberry and raspberry bushes as well as cherry, plum and apple trees. The garden was dissected by high walls against which black, wooden-trellis fencing was in the process of being fixed: long, narrow poles, the horizontal and vertical creating squares across which vines and rambling rose bushes would grow. Athelstan watched the soldiers move carefully through the garden, swordsmen first, a line of archers behind, the shouts of their officers clear on the morning air.
‘Brother Athelstan?’ He turned away from the window.
‘Do you think my clerk committed suicide?’
‘At a guess, Magister,’ Athelstan replied swiftly, ‘I would say not.’
Thibault gave a loud sigh. Albinus walked to the door to shoo away the guards. Cranston moved to the window as Athelstan took a stool before Thibault, who was still sitting on the edge of the bed.
The Master of Secrets leaned forward. ‘Begin, Brother.’
‘No.’ Athelstan pointed at Thibault. ‘You tell me, Magister. First, Amaury Whitfield?’
‘A graduate from the schools of Cambridge, a scholar skilled in the Quadrivium and Trivium. A shrewd clerk who trained himself in cipher, secret alphabets and other chancery matters. He was highly skilled.’
‘Loyal?’
‘Undoubtedly.’ Thibault’s face turned more cherubic as he smiled to himself.
‘Magister?’
‘I have my spies, Brother. I call them my sparrowhawks and I loose them along the lanes and runnels of London. Naturally they collected information about Whitfield, a bachelor
with comfortable lodgings in Fairlop Lane near the Great Conduit in Cheapside. A clerk who liked games of hazard and the soft flesh of whores. Oliver Lebarge was his scrivener, who lodged with Whitfield and shared his pleasures. They were both constant visitors here. Mistress Cheyne proclaimed that the Golden Oliphant would hold the Festival of Cokayne, so, naturally, Whitfield and Lebarge were included. I understand they arrived three days ago.’
‘He was missed at the Chancery?’
‘Of course, but, according to the indenture he sealed with me, Whitfield was granted Saturdays and Sundays as boon-free along with other such days in each quarter.’
‘You suspected nothing wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ Albinus replied, moving to sit beside his master.
‘Nothing?’ Athelstan demanded. ‘Except the summons from the so-called Herald of Hell that frightened him, yes?’
‘We thought he had taken his boon days to recover,’ Albinus pulled a face, ‘to wallow in his filthy pleasures and so forget all threats and menaces.’
‘You have visited his chambers in Fairlop Lane?’
‘No, not yet.’
‘Do not,’ Athelstan declared. ‘If you want me and Sir John to investigate this matter, then we need the truth as we find it. Yes?’ Thibault just shrugged.
‘The recent attack,’ Athelstan gestured at the window, ‘nothing or no one was found?’
‘If they had been,’ Albinus jibed, ‘they would have met the same swift fate as Whitfield.’
‘And the other guests?’ Athelstan asked.
‘Cheshire archers now ring the Golden Oliphant. No one is allowed in or out without permission.’
‘Good,’ Athelstan breathed. ‘I need to question Mistress Cheyne, her servants and the guests, as well as study those manuscripts. What are their origins?’
Thibault rubbed his hands. ‘Thank you, Brother, for finding them. As for their provenance, the Upright Men have a messenger who calls himself Reynard. God knows his true name; some claim he is a defrocked friar of the Order of the Sack.’