by Paul Doherty
‘Why?’
‘Because a very clever, subtle murder has been committed here.’
‘You are sure of that?’
‘Sir John, I feel it here.’ Athelstan beat his breast. ‘Something is very wrong and we must uncover the truth. We must listen, reflect and pray. Eventually that truth will emerge like light from a candle, the pool will spread and strengthen. So,’ Athelstan spread his hands, ‘the Golden Oliphant?’
‘Many years ago,’ the coroner began lugubriously, ‘when I was young and handsome …’
‘Sir John, you still are!’
‘And my hair was golden, my body svelte. I was like all the others after our great victory at Crécy, we flew on eagle’s wings, young warriors, Brother. English knights and English bowmen were needed here, there and everywhere. Many of my comrades hired themselves out to form companies and fight for this prince or that. Everard and Reginald Camoys, together with their bosom shield companion, Simon Penchen, were leaders amongst the Black Prince’s eagles. They journeyed into Eastern Europe where they were hired by the Teutonic Knights to fight the Slavs. Everard was the real soldier; Reginald was a dreamer, an artist who valued beautiful objects. He and Everard were close but Reginald was totally devoted to his childhood friend, Simon Penchen. They had served as pages, squires and household knights in this noble retinue or that. Two young men who saw themselves as David and Jonathan from the Old Testament or Roland or Oliver at Roncesvalles.’ Cranston paused to drink from his miraculous wineskin. Athelstan listened to the sounds of the tavern, dominated by the deep growling of those mastiffs. Another strand to this mystery, the friar reflected. If Whitfield was murdered, the assassin must have entered from the garden. The door to this chamber had not been forced, so the murderer must have used the window to get in and get out, but how? The chamber was at least eight yards up from the ground. What ladder, if any, could reach that height and, above all, those mastiffs would surely tear any intruder apart?
‘Brother?’
‘Ah, yes, Sir John: Simon Penchen and Reginald Camoys?’
‘Two peas from the same pod. Penchen was killed fighting the Easterlings; Reginald Camoys was distraught. He had the mortal remains of his comrade embalmed and brought home and buried in a chantry chapel he founded at St Mary Le Bow. Later he erected an ornate table tomb for Penchen and eventually one for himself. Reginald died just a few years ago. Now listen, Brother,’ Cranston wagged a finger, ‘Reginald loved the beautiful, the work of skilled craftsmen. When he and his brother left the Teutonic Knights and hastily brought Penchen’s corpse back to England, Reginald was so distraught that, to compensate himself for his grief, he stole a precious relic from the chapel where the Teutonic Knights had their treasury, the Cross of Lothar, a priceless precious object, only six inches high and about the same across. Nevertheless, it is fashioned out of pure gold and decorated with pearls, gems and precious enamels. At the centre of the cross piece is a medallion of the purest glass and ivory delineating the head of the Roman Emperor Augustus. A rare object indeed, Athelstan, blessed, sanctified and bestowed on the Teutonic Knights by the Emperor Lothar.’
‘Did the knights pursue Reginald?’
‘No, never. A few years after the brothers left, the Easterlings overran the garrison town. I think the Teutonic Knights had to move their treasury. Chaos ensued there …’
‘And in England?’
‘Sir Everard settled down to become a mercer, a prosperous goldsmith. He married, but his wife died giving birth to their scapegrace son Matthias.’
‘And Reginald?’
‘A painter. He embellished the chantry chapel at St Mary Le Bow, dedicating it to St Stephen. He also used his skill to become one of the finest sign writers in the city. Go down Cheapside, those magnificent shop signs, guild markings, escutcheons, heraldic devices are, in the main, the work of Reginald Camoys.’
‘And he never married?’
‘No. According to Everard, who served with me in France, Reginald returned a broken man. We talked of coitus, lying with a woman – in a word, Reginald became impotent.’
‘Kyrie Eleison – Lord have mercy on him.’
‘Yes,’ Cranston smiled, ‘the Lord certainly did have mercy on Reginald Camoys. He met Elizabeth Cheyne, our Mistress of the Moppets. Heaven knows her skills and devices, but she apparently cured Reginald of his impotence. He became deeply smitten with her – hardly surprising. He bought this tavern, the Golden Oliphant. When he died his will divided his wealth: one third to his brother and one third to the maintenance of the chantry chapel at St Mary Le Bow for the singing of requiems for the repose of his soul and Simon Penchen’s.’
‘And a third to Mistress Elizabeth Cheyne?’
‘Yes, the tavern, all its moveables and the garden. Mistress Elizabeth found the maintenance of such an establishment, not to mention keeping herself in her accustomed luxury, beyond all income, so she decided to supplement her revenues with the most ancient trade available.’
‘And the Cross of Lothar, did Reginald Camoys have that buried with him?’
‘No, no …’ Cranston paused as a young girl came breathlessly clattering up the stairs and into the chamber.
‘Mistress Cheyne asks how long?’
‘Tell Mistress Cheyne,’ Athelstan replied, ‘that we appreciate her patience and that of the others.’ The girl stood chewing the corner of her lip.
‘Tell your mistress,’ Cranston declared, ‘we will be down soon enough.’
‘Oh, child?’ Athelstan pointed to the window. ‘If I climbed through that, is there a ladder long enough to take me down to the garden?’
The girl shook her head. Athelstan recalled the recent murders at the Candle-Flame tavern. ‘Is there a cart high enough to place a ladder on and so lean it on the window ledge outside?’ The girl stood, fingers to her mouth, then again shook her head and clattered off.
‘You suspect the assassin used this window?’
‘I don’t know, Sir John, but to return to Lothar’s Cross, what did happen to it?’
‘It disappeared. Reginald always maintained that it would not be buried with him but displayed in a most appropriate place. What that is, or where, no one knows. People still come here looking for it, pilgrims searching for a precious relic.’
‘Or treasure hunters?’
‘Yes, above all Reginald’s own nephew, Matthias. I understand from Sir Everard that Matthias and the Golden Oliphant are almost inseparable. Sir Everard does not know if his son comes here for the delights of the ladies or for Lothar’s Cross. Matthias also haunts St Mary Le Bow and the chantry chapel there.’
‘And the relic has never been found?’
‘No, but, come, little friar, the world and his wife await.’
‘This chamber,’ Athelstan walked over to the door, ‘was definitely forced. Look, Sir John, the bolts at the top and bottom of the door have been roughly wrenched, the lock has bulged and snapped …’
‘Surely it must be suicide?’ Cranston whispered. ‘Whitfield locked and bolted the door from within, he intended to die. Perhaps his wits had turned, that’s why he was dressed: he was leaving and, in his own befuddled way, he was preparing to quit life.’
‘Perhaps, Sir John. However, let’s say it was murder. The assassin must have come by this window and yet he could not use the fire rope – that was impossible – so it would have to be a ladder if there was one long enough. Secondly, even if he used a ladder, how could he release the clasp on the outside shutters or lift the bar, or those inside? Only someone within could do that. Then there’s the window itself – its handle can only be lifted by someone inside. No one could slip a hand through. I am sure the pigskin covering was intact until Thibault’s would-be assassin loosed his crossbow quarrels.’ Athelstan pulled up the latch, opened the window and glanced down.
‘Be careful, Brother: you do not like heights.’
‘I stand on the top of St Erconwald’s tower to study the stars. Yes, heights can frighten me, bu
t only if I let them, as I do on London Bridge. No, Sir John, anyone who used this window would need a long ladder and, even from here, I can see the garden below has not been disturbed. This window and its shutters only deepen the mystery around a possible intruder and, of course, there’s those dogs.’ Athelstan came away and stared down at the floor, tapping his feet. ‘You’re right, it’s time we went below where, as always, we will have to sift the truth from the lies …’
‘Newgate is truly the gateway to Hell.’ So preached John Ball, hedge priest and leading captain of the Upright Men. ‘The very antechamber of Satan and all his fallen angels, the deepest pit of brooding despair and the veritable anus of this wicked, filthy world …’
Reynard, principal courier to the Upright Men, could only agree. He had been lodged in Newgate three years ago over the question of a pyx stolen from a church. In the end he had managed to escape the gallows, though he had been branded as a suspect felon. He lifted his manacled hands and traced the outline of the ‘F’ burnt deep into his right cheek. Leaning against the slimy wall, he felt the flies and lice crumble between the stone and his back. He moved his bare feet and curled his bruised toes against the muddy mush of rotting straw, decaying food and the filthy contents of the common close-stool which had brimmed over to drench the floor with its slops. The air was thick with corruption. The stench would have offended a filthy sow, whilst the only light came from a needle-thin window high in the wall and the flickering cheap oil lights which exuded more foulness than light. Shapes lurched through the gloom to the clink and heavy scrape of chains. Other prisoners, groaning and cursing, were groping their way to the common hatch for their bowl of scraps and stoup of brackish water. Reynard could not be bothered. His entire being ached from the beatings he had received, the burn marks to his legs and the scalding to his arms where the Newgate gaolers had poured boiling water; his back was one open wound from being wedged under that heavy door in the press yard.
Reynard was now lodged in the condemned hold which lay at the very heart of the grim, battlemented, soaring mass of dark dwellings built into the ancient city wall and given the mocking title of Newgate. There was nothing new, clean or fresh about the prison. However, Reynard ruefully conceded, he would not be here for long. Master Thibault had given him a choice. He could stay and rot in the condemned hold until the Hangman of Rochester came with his execution cart for that last, grim journey to Smithfield or Tyburn. He would be dragged up the steps of mourning into the chamber of the damned, where a priest would offer to shrive him before being thrown into the execution cart. Or … Master Thibault had made him another offer. Confess! Confess to everything he knew. Well, he had been caught red-handed over the slaying of Edmund Lacy, the bell clerk at St Mary Le Bow, whose death the Upright Men had ordered for their own secret purposes. Reynard had tried to discover what these purposese might be, but found nothing. Lacy had to die and Reynard had been instructed to make sure this happened. He had done so, knifing Lacy in the Sun of Splendour tavern, and had then fled to Whitefriars, only to be recognized there and arrested. He had slipped whilst trying to escape; a filthy pool of ale had brought him down! If this had happened to anyone else, Reynard would have scoffed and jeered, but all he felt was shame that the great Reynard, famed for his cunning and guile, had been trapped so easily. And as for the documents he’d been carrying, he’d been told to leave them at St Mary Le Bow within a cleft in the window of the chantry chapel dedicated to St Stephen, which housed the tombs of Sir Reginald Camoys and Simon Penchen. He had failed to do so, being arrested before he could complete his task. Reynard, despite his pain, smiled to himself. Who, he wondered, were these documents for? Reynard could not say, nor did he understand the cipher. He could read, of course, educated in his previous life before he had fallen from grace, never to rise again. Reynard, or Peter Simpkins as he had been baptized, had been a friar at the Order of the Sack, but now …
Reynard moved restlessly as one of the huge rats, a swarm of which haunted this hideous place, slunk out of a congealed mass of dirt and refuse. Nose twitching, its ears flat against its knobbly head, back haunched as if ready to spring, the rat sloped across a pool of light. One of the feral cats brought in to contain such vermin as well as provide fresh meat for the prisoners, sprang out from the dark. Reynard watched the life-and-death struggle reach its inevitable bloody climax in a long drawn-out screech. The cat loped away, prey in its teeth, and Reynard returned to his reflections. What could he confess to? He could provide the names of the leading Upright Men of Essex, yet Thibault knew these already. Reynard had been asked for other names, including the identity of the Herald of Hell. Reynard could not reply to that. All he could say was that the Herald was a will-o’-the-wisp with no true substance.
He glanced up at a shrill yell. Dark shapes milled around Benedict Bedlam, a hedgerow priest sentenced to hang for the murder of a doxy outside St Bartholomew’s the Less. Bedlam was defending himself against Wyvern and Hydrus, wolfsheads hired by the Upright Men to attack a convoy of weaponry Thibault had organized at Queenshithe. Brutal scavengers, Wyvern and Hydrus had decided to take Benedict’s bowl of filthy pottage. They had returned too late to the condemned hole to collect their own meagre meal after they had been taken to a separate chamber to be searched for any knife or dagger. Reynard looked away. Perhaps he could advise Thibault how wrong the Master of Secrets was about the timing of the impending revolt? Indeed, it was already beginning. The black and red banners of anarchy, along with longbows, quivers crammed with arrows, swords, clubs, maces and spears were being taken from their secret hiding places behind parish altars or dug up in village cemeteries. Soon, very soon according to John Ball, the Armies of God would be marching. Finally there was that scrap of parchment Reynard was still carrying, hidden in the stitching of his clothing. Was that the key to the cipher? Would it make the other document intelligible and so provide Thibault with valuable information? If it did, Reynard could buy his life and his freedom. He would receive the promised pardon, be escorted to the nearest port with food, weapons and licence to be taken across the Narrow Seas. Once there, like the fox he was, he’d lie low until the storm blew over.
‘Brother! Brother!’ Reynard glanced up. Hydrus and Wyvern were crouching on either side of him. In the gloom Reynard could not make out their ugly faces, yet a spurt of fear gripped his belly.
‘Brother?’ Hydrus leaned forward. ‘The turnkeys who searched us support the Great Community.’
‘Liars!’ Reynard replied, his mouth turning dry, his tongue seeming to swell.
‘They say you are here to reflect, that you have been offered a pardon by Thibault the turd.’ Hydrus laughed at the crude joke. ‘You wouldn’t be thinking of leaving us, would you, Brother?’
‘No, of course not.’ Reynard pushed himself back against the wall.
‘Look up to the hills, Reynard,’ Hydrus exclaimed, ‘from whence our salvation comes. Look up! Look up!’ Reynard had no choice and Wyvern swiftly sliced his throat with the razor-edged dagger Benedict the Bedlam had slipped to him during their pretend quarrel.
Cranston and Athelstan left the death chamber. The friar was insistent on walking around the Golden Oliphant. They first visited the garden strip beneath Whitfield’s bedchamber. Both of them scrutinized the black-soiled flower plot but could find nothing to suggest a ladder or anything else had been placed there, or that anyone, though God knows how, had slipped down from Whitfield’s chamber. They then visited the kennels. Athelstan warily inspected the mastiffs, smooth-haired dogs with long legs, bulbous faces and powerful jaws: red-eyed with anger, the hounds threw themselves against the stout oaken palings, foam-flecked teeth snapping the air.
‘In the dark, certainly,’ Cranston murmured, ‘they wouldn’t distinguish friend from foe. Perhaps we should accept the obvious and the inevitable, Brother: Whitfield hanged himself.’
He grasped Athelstan’s shoulder and made the Dominican face him. ‘Why do you pursue this, little friar?’
‘God’s work, Sir John. God gives life and only God can take it away. The first sin committed outside Eden was Cain slaying his brother Abel. He then hurled the challenge which still echoes through all human existence, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” And yes, Sir John, I am, you are, we are.’ Athelstan paused, as if listening to the cooing from the dovecote. The dogs had fallen silent, so the birdsong carried strong and clear. ‘I just feel here in my heart that something is very, very wrong. But what,’ Athelstan sighed, ‘I cannot say. We have a saying where I come from: “The whole world is strange except for thee and me, and even we are a little strange sometimes.” So, just bear with me and let’s continue our survey.’
They visited the stables. Athelstan glimpsed a magnificent destrier in its stall and wondered who the warhorse belonged to. They inspected the other outhouses and entered the kitchen block, where a sweaty-faced galopin or spit-turner informed the ever hungry Sir John that the previous evening they had served leek and venison pie and jugged hare, followed by fresh cheese tartlet. The coroner smacked his lips and took a serving of fresh waffles and a small cup of hippocras for ‘refreshment’s sake’. They continued their tour, oblivious to the messages from an increasingly agitated hostess. Athelstan was insistent on learning all he could about the Golden Oliphant, from the cellar with its barrels, casks, earthenware jars and baskets of dried fruit and vegetables to its wet storeroom, where fish were salted and brined and pâtés placed along the shelves in their strong crusts or ‘coffins’.
Only then did Athelstan declare himself satisfied and moved into the spacious taproom where Mistress Elizabeth Cheyne, Joycelina, Foxley, the weasel-faced Master of Horse, and Griffin, Master of the Hall, were assembled along with others. Athelstan and Cranston’s arrival was greeted with grumbles and dark looks, despite the free stoups of ale and platters of lait lardel – beaten eggs cooked with lardons and saffron – which had been served. Athelstan gathered that some of those present were guests, others servants – slatterns or, as Cranston tactfully described them, moppets of the bedchamber. Athelstan stood on a bench and, having apologized and delivered a special blessing, issued a spate of questions about what had happened the night before.