Herald of Hell

by Paul Doherty

  ‘Exactly, Sir John, a London possibly with no Thibault, no secret chancery, no threat. Whitfield was gambling on that. All Whitfield wanted was to put as much distance between himself and London as possible until the season of slaughter came and went.’

  ‘And yet, Brother, we need more evidence to justify our suspicions.’

  ‘Sir John, I concede: all I nourish is a deep and jabbing suspicion. I also admit that the obstacles to a logical conclusion about Whitfield’s death appear unsurmountable.’ Athelstan spread his fingers to emphasize his points. ‘Primo: Joycelina reported the door was locked and bolted. We know from the testimony of others and the scrutiny I made of the door, that this is correct. Secundo: entry to and from that chamber was nigh impossible. Tertio: every scrap of evidence collected demonstrates that entry from the garden through the window must be ruled out for many sound reasons which I accept. Quarto: there are no other secret entrances. Quinto: we can account for the movements of all the possible suspects being outside that chamber when its door was broken down. Sexto: we have a man hanging by his neck. I suspect he was murdered, but how did he get himself placed on that stool with a noose around his throat? How did the assassin gain entry and, more importantly, leave as both door and window were clearly sealed, locked and barred? Oh, very, very clever,’ Athelstan whispered. ‘Sir John, we are confronting a most subtle assassin but …’ He gathered up his chancery satchel. ‘The day is drawing on, the hour passes. Soon, my large friend, we shall be for the dark.’

  PART THREE

  ‘Murdrum – Murder.’

  Cranston and Athelstan exchanged the kiss of peace and the friar left Sir John to his reflections and his wine and made his way out into Cheapside. The crowds had now broken up as the sun began to set. The market horns were blowing and the stall-beadles insisting that the day’s trading be completed. The denizens of the night were also slinking out: nightwalkers and shapeshifters in tattered clothes and cheap hoods with their harsh, pocked faces, glittering eyes and fingers which constantly hovered over the wooden hilts of stabbing daggers and dirks. Beggars whined for alms. Children, enjoying the last hours of daylight, screamed and chased each other, causing the skinny street dogs to yip and bark. Athelstan, his cowl covering both head and face, turned down an alleyway. He had to stand aside for a funeral party making its way down to one of the churches to conduct the death watch, the vigil of prayer before the requiem Mass was sung the following morning.

  He retreated into a shabby tavern and was immediately accosted by the ale wife, an ugly-looking harridan with a hooked, dripping nose and skin rough as a sack. Bleary-eyed, she munched on her gums as she glared at Athelstan, one hand on her waist, the knuckles of her fingers glistening with grease. Beside her another woman, face wrinkled as a pig’s ear, blowsy and hot-eyed: Athelstan pulled back his cowl, smiled and sketched a blessing in their direction. The ale wife nodded and pointed to a greasy stool where the friar could sit while the noisy funeral party, which had stopped to drink, and already had done so deeply, organized itself to continue. Athelstan took his seat and stared round the dingy taproom. Hens roosted on the open ale-tubs; his stomach pitched as he saw droppings from the birds fall into the drink, but this did not concern the ale wife, who began to strain the dung through a hair net.

  Customers came and went. Many had no money but brought a rabbit, a pot of honey, a spoon or a skillet in lieu of payment. One woman carried a jug but she first sat down to cut a piece of leather off the sole of her tallow-smeared shoe to stop a hole in the jug. Athelstan watched all this with deepening unease. Just a walk away rose the stately mansions of Cheapside hung with silks and brightly coloured cloths, chambers crammed with precious objects. Outside of these stood stalls heaped with goods imported from abroad: oranges, barrels of fruit, glass goblets, rolls of damask and satin, pipes of wine, ornamental needles, mantles of leopard skin. Yet here thrived a different world, one which plotted the bloody destruction of everything Cheapside represented. Athelstan pulled his cowl back over his head as he swiftly scrutinized the other customers grouped around the overturned ale casks and wine tuns, shadowy figures in the poor light from the smelly tallow candles. Here undoubtedly thronged the Upright Men of the ward with their foot soldiers the Earthworms. Here, once the hush of evening descended and the dark gathered, so would the plotters. When the day of the Great Slaughter dawned and the strongholds began to fall, the flame of rebellion would burst out in places such as this. Hidden caches of bows, arrows, spears, clubs and swords would be opened and the inhabitants of this narrow lane would burst out to plunder the wealth of Cheapside.

  ‘In the name of the King and the esteemed council of this city,’ a voice roared from outside, ‘move on and move away.’

  ‘Meryen the bailiff!’ one of the customers cried. ‘He’s warning that drunken funeral cortege. I’d recognize his trumpet voice across the city.’

  Athelstan glanced sharply at the door as Meryen the bailiff swaggered into the alehouse. ‘All clear now,’ he roared.

  Athelstan grabbed his chancery satchel and made his way out. He hurried along the streets, past the stocks crammed with miscreants fastened by the neck, wrist and ankle, and the moveable gibbets with their grisly burden of tarred corpses. He reached London Bridge and whispered a prayer as he made his way along the thoroughfare which cut between the lines of houses on each side. He always found the giddying height disconcerting, the rattle of nearby watermills, the roar of the water through the starlings, but he was determined to conquer such fears as he did when he climbed to the top of St Erconwald’s tower to view the stars at night. He thought of the mummer’s play his parish council was rehearsing and their use of the tower as well as Crispin the Carpenter’s repairs. He paused, fingers to his lips; he also recalled the bell clerk of St Mary Le Bow. Athelstan blinked furiously. Wasn’t St Mary one of the saints in that strange litany written out by Whitfield? What was that a reference to?

  ‘Saints and bell towers,’ he murmured, ‘I must remember that.’

  ‘Brother, are you moonstruck?’

  Athelstan turned and smiled at the young courtesan whom he’d glimpsed earlier sidling along beside him.

  ‘No,’ he grinned, ‘just struck by your beauty.’ The young woman simpered. Athelstan blessed her and hurried on. He had almost reached the end of the bridge when he heard his name called. He recognized the voice and quietly groaned but turned to stare up at Master Robert Burdon, Custos of the Bridge and Keeper of the Heads. A true mannikin scarcely five feet tall, Burdon was a diminutive, barrel-bellied man who gloried in always being garbed in blood-red taffeta, the colour of the Fraternity of the Shearing Knife, the Worshipful Guild of Executioners and Hangmen. Burdon was standing on the top step of the side gatehouse, the iron-studded door behind him half open. He gestured at Athelstan to join him.

  The friar forced a smile and, hiding his weariness, climbed the steep steps into a gloomy, narrow chamber lit only by a few candles. The floor was scrubbed clean, as was the long table running down the centre of the room. On shelves against the wall were ranged rows of recently severed heads, each washed in brine and tarred at the neck. A truly macabre scene, their glassy eyes staring blindly from beneath half-closed lids; blood-crusted mouths gaping as if about to speak. Athelstan tried to ignore the gruesome sight as he was ushered to a stool. From the chamber above he could hear Burdon’s brood of children readying themselves for bed.

  ‘What is it, Robert?’

  ‘Brother, I am terrified.’ Burdon gave vent to his fear in a rush of words. ‘Rebels from the southern shires will seize the approaches to the bridge. They will storm this gatehouse, they will put me and mine to the sword, they will …’

  ‘Hush now.’ Athelstan seized the mannikin’s small, gloved hand. ‘Robert, you are the King’s officer, you must do your duty, but the rebels mean you no harm.’ He fought to keep the doubt from his voice.

  ‘Yes, they do,’ Burdon replied mournfully. He rose, crossed to a shelf and brought back a cra
cked beaker brimming with blood; it also contained a number of sharpened sticks, each with an onion on the end, two large, the rest small. The message was blunt and stark.

  ‘The Herald of Hell?’ Athelstan asked.

  Burdon closed his eyes. ‘He left a warning.’ The mannikin lisped:

  ‘Brother Burdon be not so bold,

  For Gaunt your master has been both bought and sold.

  Listen now and listen well

  To this final warning from the Herald of Hell.’

  ‘Quite the poet,’ Athelstan retorted but softened as the panic flared in Burdon’s eyes. ‘Now, Robert, peace, when did this happen?’

  ‘A few nights ago, in the early hours, before the bell for matins tolled.’

  ‘The Herald talked of a final warning?’

  ‘Oh, yes. The Upright Men have asked me before where my allegiances lie, but nothing so threatening as this.’

  ‘In the early hours, you said?’

  ‘Yes, Brother, and I know what you are going to say! The bridge is sealed after the curfew bell so, whoever the Herald was, he must have swum the river, climbed the starlings and left the same way.’

  ‘Or he lives on the bridge,’ Athelstan made a face, ‘but, there again, that would create other problems. How does he get off the bridge at night to appear elsewhere in the city?’

  Athelstan recalled Meryen the bailiff roaring outside that alehouse near Cheapside. He lifted his head and his gaze caught the sightless glare of one of the severed heads. The friar swiftly glanced away. He fully understood Burdon’s panic and fear and how this was being exploited by the likes of the Herald of Hell. The dark was truly rising. Time was flittering on. The harrowing of Hell was fast approaching. The chalice was cracked, the wine of life draining into the soil. Athelstan grew even more aware of impending disaster, conscious of a creeping, crawling malevolence seeping out to envelop the city. He had recently visited his mother house at Blackfriars and listened to the brothers who had been out amongst the villages in the surrounding shires. According to them, an eerie restlessness could be felt. ‘Nature’s struck and Earth is quaking,’ was how Brother Cedric described it, quoting a line from the ‘Dies Irae’. Owl hoots, prophecies of imminent disaster, haunted the night whilst during the day, birds of such ill-omen clattered around the high-branched trees before swirling darkly over sun-washed fields. The rebels were massing, gathering like some malevolent fruit coming to fullness. They kept well away from the main highways but slipped like ghosts along the coffin lanes, pilgrim paths and other ancient byways. Burdon was right to be fearful, Athelstan conceded to himself. When the rebels reached London their very first task would be to seize the bridge.

  ‘Brother?’

  Athelstan smiled even as his heart sank at the sheer fear in Burdon’s face.

  ‘Robert, as I said, you are the King’s officer.’

  ‘My wife isn’t, or the beloveds. They are not the King’s officers.’

  Athelstan sighed and opened his chancery satchel. Taking out a piece of parchment, he set up his writing tray and carefully wrote his message to Prior Anselm of Blackfriars. He then signed and sealed the piece of vellum and handed it to Burdon, who read it slowly, lips mouthing the words. The mannikin’s face became transformed, all anxiety draining from it.

  ‘Pax et bonum,’ Athelstan whispered. ‘Be at peace, my friend. If the terrors …’ He shrugged. ‘When they come, do your duty, Robert. However, at the first sign of real trouble, send your family to Blackfriars. Prior Anselm will provide them and you, once you have done what your conscience dictates, with safe and holy sanctuary. No one will dare touch you there.’

  Athelstan gathered his writing material back into his chancery satchel. ‘Now I must go …’

  He made his way down the alleyway leading to the concourse which fronted St Erconwald’s. He passed Merrylegs’ cook shop but the pastry maker and his many sons had apparently locked up for the day and adjourned to the Piebald Tavern, to sample the ale of its one-armed owner Joscelyn. The tavern door hung open, its shutters flung back. As he hastily walked by, sniffing the ale-fumed air, Athelstan heard the laughter and the doggerel chants of the Upright Men. Something had happened but he did not stay to find out what. He reached the precincts of his parish church, skirting the cemetery wall, then stopped and groaned. Godbless the beggar, together with his omnivorous goat Thaddeus, stood lurking in the shade of the lychgate. The only consolation Athelstan could thank heaven for was that neither Godbless nor Thaddeus appeared drunk; moreover, the goat was still firmly tethered, even though it still managed to lunge at Athelstan’s chancery bag.

  ‘Pax tecum,’ Athelstan murmured. ‘Peace be with you.’

  ‘God bless you too, Father,’ the beggar man replied, pulling on the goat’s rope. ‘Rest assured, Father: Philomel your horse sleeps safely in the stable and Hubert the Hedgehog rests in the hermitage.’

  ‘And all is well here?’ Athelstan pointed across the cemetery at the old death house converted to a comfortable cottage for Godbless and his equally smelly companion.

  ‘Invaded, Brother! Invaded by nuns and felons, all followed by dark shapes from Hell.’

  ‘Godbless,’ Athelstan soothed, ‘now is not the time.’ He stared beseechingly at the beggar man, who the friar secretly considered to be as mad as a box of drunken frogs.

  ‘Brother Athelstan, Brother Athelstan!’

  The friar turned away in relief. Benedicta stood on the top of the church steps beckoning furiously at him. He hurried across and she led him into the shadowy porch.

  ‘Brother, there has been great excitement whilst you have been gone.’

  ‘There usually is.’ Athelstan smiled at the widow woman’s pretty face framed by a white, starched, nun-like wimple. He was glad that it didn’t hide all her lustrous night-black hair. He gently tugged a loose lock lying against her sweaty brow. ‘What is it, Benedicta?’

  ‘Rather what was it, Brother. You informed me that Pike the Ditcher was going to meet his cousin, Sister Matilda, a Poor Clare nun, here in our sacristy?’

  ‘Yes, I gave him permission to do so. He claimed he wanted to meet her in some private place, well away from the usual parish gossips. Apart from quietly thanking heaven that Pike’s family has some semblance of religion, I did wonder at the truth of it. She was to meet him about mid-afternoon. So, what happened?’

  ‘Sister Matilda,’ Benedicta grinned, ‘was portly, red-faced and rather stout. I glimpsed her going up the sanctuary steps. Anyway, she and Pike apparently met, then Thibault’s men turned up.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Led by Albinus. They entered the concourse outside. Watkin and Ranulf, along with Moleskin and others from the parish council, thought they had come to seize Lebarge and refused them entry.’

  ‘As they should have.’

  ‘But it wasn’t Lebarge they were after, Thibault would be too cunning for that.’ Benedicta forced a smile. ‘Brother, I know a little of him and what I’ve heard …’

  Athelstan noticed her quick change of expression but was too intrigued by her message to reflect upon it.

  ‘Apparently,’ Benedicta continued, ‘they intended to seize Pike and this nun. Albinus and his comitatus swept through God’s Acre to the sacristy door. By then the whole parish was alerted and so was Pike. He used the ancient tunnel, the one beneath the parish chest. He and Sister Matilda escaped down that.’ She smiled. ‘The tunnel was narrow, the nun was plump enough, but they were safe. They reached Godbless’ cottage. The Earthworms were lurking close by, and they hurried Pike and Sister Matilda across God’s Acre, over the far wall and to safety.’

  Athelstan shook his head in disbelief, staring at the fresh painting of St Christopher which the Hangman of Rochester had recently finished. He knew all about the trap door in the sacristy and the narrow passage beneath; the parish chest could be pulled away to reveal a shaft beyond it. He could picture Pike and the mysterious nun using it to escape. Sister Matilda, if that was who she really w
as, would have gone first, and Pike would have followed. Standing in the shaft, he would have pulled the chest back, then, on his hands and knees, followed the narrow tunnel to a trapdoor in the old death house. Once there, protected by the Earthworms, it would have been easy to use the broken ground, thick with sprouting gorse, not to mention the burial mounds, crosses and stones, to steal across the rest of God’s Acre. The tunnel had been dug years ago, so Athelstan had learnt, in turbulent times when the priest of St Erconwald’s had to hide and take with him all the precious and sacred objects. Now such turbulence was about to return.

  ‘Brother?’ Benedicta, hard-eyed, her pretty face all watchful, was staring quizzically at him.

  ‘And where is Pike and his beloved cousin now?’

  Benedicta just shrugged and raised her eyes heavenwards, a return to those pretty, feminine gestures which always intrigued Athelstan.

  ‘I will deal with Pike later, but I wonder …’ Athelstan murmured.

  ‘What?’

  ‘How on earth did Thibault know about Pike meeting his mysterious cousin in the sanctuary at that particular time?’ He glanced at the widow woman. Benedicta lowered her head as if to hide her face. Athelstan felt a chill of fear as he recalled his meeting earlier that day with Thibault and his realization that Gaunt’s Master of Secrets might have a spy deep in the parish of St Erconwald’s.

  ‘Benedicta?’

  She lifted her head and he caught a wary look in those beautiful, dark eyes.

  ‘Benedicta, what is happening?’

  ‘Nothing, Brother.’ She leaned forward to grasp his hands, but Athelstan turned and walked away to stare down the nave. The light coming through the roundel window above the sanctuary was fading to a dull grey.