by Paul Doherty
‘Do you know what this drawing means or the significance of the seed cake?’
Both knights shook their heads but Athelstan was sure they were lying. He leaned forward. ‘Why?’ he whispered. ‘Why should Sir Ralph be so terrified of this?’ He stared slowly round the rest of the group.
‘A cup of sack!’ Cranston muttered thickly.
‘Who found this?’ Athelstan quickly asked.
Sir Fulke pointed to Rastani who sat with his dark face fearful and anxious. Athelstan leaned forward. ‘What does this mean, Rastani?’
The eyes stared blankly back.
‘Where did you find it?’
The fellow suddenly made strange gestures with his fingers.
‘He can hear but not speak,’ Philippa reminded the friar.
Fascinated Athelstan watched the strange hand signs which Philippa translated for him.
‘He found it on a table in my father’s chamber,’ she announced. ‘Four days ago. Early on the morning of the ninth of December — that and the hard-baked seed cake.’
Athelstan caught and held Rastani’s glance.
‘You were a faithful servant to Sir Ralph?’
The man nodded in response.
‘Why didn’t you move with your master to the North Bastion?’ Athelstan continued.
The fellow’s mouth opened and shut like a landed carp’s.
‘I can answer that,’ Philippa said. ‘When the message was received, my father distanced himself from Rastani, though God knows why.’ She gently stroked the man’s hand. ‘As I have said, Father became strange. Even I did not recognise him from his actions.’
Cranston smacked his lips and suddenly stirred.
‘Yes, yes, very good!’ he bawled. ‘But did any of you approach the North Bastion Tower the night Sir Ralph was killed?’
A series of firm denials greeted his question.
‘So you can all account for your movements?’
‘I can,’ the kinsman spoke up. ‘Rastani and I were out of the Tower. We were sent to buy stores from a merchant in Cripplegate. Or, at least, that’s where the warehouse is. You can ask Master Christopher Manley in Heyward Lane near All Hallows.’
‘That’s near the Tower?’
‘Yes, it is, Sir John.’
‘And when did you leave?’
‘Before dinner, and did not return until after Prime this morning when we heard of Sir Ralph’s death. Rastani and I can vouch for each other. If you doubt that, speak to Master Manley. He saw us take lodgings at a tavern in Muswell Street.’
Sir John rose and stretched.
‘Well, well! Now my clerk and I,’ he trumpeted, ‘would like to question each of you alone. Though,’ he smiled at the girl, ‘Mistress Philippa and Geoffrey had best stay together. Master Colebrooke, there’s a chamber below. Perhaps our guests could wait there?’
There were mumbled protests and groans but Cranston, refreshed after his nap, glared round beneath thick furrowed brows. Led by Colebrooke, all left except for Philippa and Geoffrey.
‘Your chamber, Master Geoffrey?’ Athelstan asked. ‘Where is it?’
‘Above the gatehouse.’
‘And you stayed there all night?’
The young man smiled weakly. ‘You’re a perceptive man, Sir John. That’s why you asked me to stay, I suppose? I spent the night with Philippa.’
The girl looked away, blushing. Cranston smiled and tapped the man gently on the shoulder. ‘Why did you not rouse Sir Ralph yourself?’
The young man rubbed his eyes. ‘As I have said before, I didn’t have a key and, God be my witness, I knew there was something wrong. The corridor was cold, with no sound from Sir Ralph’s chamber.’ He smiled bleakly at Athelstan. ‘I am not the bravest of men, I’ll be honest I did not like Sir Ralph using me as a page boy but he distrusted the others.’
‘You mean Colebrooke and the rest?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
Cranston stared at Philippa. ‘Had your father been in such dark spirits before?’
‘Yes, about three years ago, just before Christmas. But it passed when he met his companions, as was their custom, and supped at the Golden Mitre.’
‘Who were your father’s companions?’ Athelstan asked.
‘Well, the two hospitallers, Sir Gerard Mowbray and Sir Brian Fitzormonde, and Sir Adam Home — he’s a merchant in the city.’
‘Did these include all your father’s comrades-in-arms?’
‘Oh, there was someone called Bartholomew. Bartholomew…’ the girl repeated, biting her lip ‘… Burghgesh, I believe. But he never came.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know.’ She half laughed. ‘I think he’s dead.’ ‘Why did your father insist on meeting his friends every year just before Christmas?’
‘I don’t know. Some pact they made a long time ago.’
Athelstan scrutinised the girl carefully. He was sure she was hiding something. ‘Tell me,’ he said, changing tack, ‘is there more than one postern gate on to the moat?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Philippa replied. ‘Quite a number.’
Athelstan glanced at Cranston, ‘My Lord Coroner, do you have any questions?’
‘No,’ Sir John replied. ‘Enough is enough! Ask Master William Hammond to come in.’
The priest entered in a surly, disgruntled way, biting his thumb nail to the quick as he gave curt answers to Athelstan’s questions. Yes, he had been in the fortress that evening, but in his chamber in the Beauchamp Tower near the Church of St Peter ad Vincula.
The two hospitaller knights were more courteous but equally adamant. They had chambers in Martin Tower and spent most of the evening drinking or trying their hand at chess.
‘I assure you, Sir John,’ Mowbray rasped, ‘we can hardly find our way around the Tower in the full light of day, never mind on a freezing winter’s night.’
‘But you know what this means, don’t you?’ Athelstan accused, picking up the piece of yellow parchment.
‘By heaven, we do not!’ Fitzormonde replied.
‘Sir,’ Athelstan retorted, ‘I think you do, as you also know about the seed cake.’
The two hospitallers shook their heads.
‘Oh, come,’ Athelstan continued. ‘Let’s not be coy. You are monks and knights. Your Order fights for the cross in Outremer. My Order, too, has brothers who serve there. They bring back tales which they relate over the dinner table at Blackfriars.’
‘What tales?’ Mowbray challenged.
‘How in the mountains of Palestine live a secret sect of infidels called the Assassins, ruled by a chieftain called the Old Man of the Mountain. This coven deals in secret assassination. They are fed on drugs and despatched by their master with golden daggers to kill whomever he has marked down for destruction.’
Cranston watched the two knights tense and, for the first time, show a flicker of nervousness, Fitzormonde particularly.
‘Now these assassins,’ Athelstan continued, ‘always give their victim fair warning. They do not leave a picture but a flat seed cake as a sign that violent death will soon be upon them.’ Athelstan stood up and stretched to ease the cramp in his thighs and legs. ‘I ask myself, why is this secret sect which flourishes in the Middle Sea, carrying out murder in the cold and sombre chambers of the Tower of London?’
‘Are you accusing us?’ Mowbray shouted. ‘If so, do it!’
‘I am not accusing anyone, just remarking on a strange coincidence.’
‘Rastani is from Palestine!’ Mowbray cried. ‘Sir Ralph did distance himself from his so-called faithful servant.’
Why do you say “so-called”?’ Cranston quickly asked.
‘Because I do not believe Rastani’s conversion to our faith was genuine. Such men bear grudges, they wait years to settle accounts.’ ‘But Rastani was absent from the Tower?’
‘He could have slipped back.’
‘No, no, no!’ Athelstan sat down and shook his head.
‘Sir Ralph’s death is more
complex than that. You served with him?’
‘Yes, we did. The Caliph of Cairo hired us to crush revolts in the city of Alexandria.’
‘And after that?’
‘Sir Ralph came home. We stayed a while longer before returning to our house in Clerkenwell.’
‘Have you ever returned across the seas?’ Cranston asked.
Mowbray shook his head. ‘No, Fitzormonde is slightly wrong. When we served with Sir Ralph we were not hospitallers. We joined after we left him. The Order sent us back to England. I am at Clerkenwell, Fitzormonde in our house at Rievaulx near York.’
Athelstan stared at the closed, set faces of both knights.
‘Forgive me,’ Athelstan said quietly, ‘I do not wish to call you liars but there is a great mystery here and you are party to it. ‘He leaned over and suddenly pulled back Mowbray’s cloak. ‘You wear chained mail? And you, too, Sir Brian. Why? Do you also fear the assassin’s dagger? How well do you sleep at night? What secrets did you share with Sir Ralph?’
‘By the Rood!’ Sir Brian suddenly stood up. ‘I have heard enough. We have told you what we can. Leave it at that!’
Both hospitallers swept out of the room. Cranston slumped on the stool and stretched out his legs.
‘A pretty mess, eh, Friar? What have we here? Treason by persons unknown or foul midnight murder?’
‘I don’t know.’ Athelstan replaced the stopper in the ink horn as he rearranged his writing materials. ‘But we do have the buckle we found on the icy moat, and I know who it belongs to.’
‘By the sod!’ Cranston cried. ‘For a monk you are sharp-eyed, Athelstan.’
‘For a friar I am very quick, My Lord Coroner, and so would you be if you drank less claret!’
‘I drink to drown my sorrows.’ Cranston looked away. What would Maude be doing now? he fretted. What was she hiding? Why wouldn’t she just tell him instead of giving those long, mournful glances? Cranston glared at the small statue in a niche, the Virgin and Child; secretly, the coroner hated Christmas. Yuletide always brought back the memories of little Matthew, taken by the plague, but not before the mite had shown Sir John the wonder with which every child greeted Christmas. Did Maude also have her memories?
‘Sir John!’
Cranston blinked to hide his tears and grinned over at Athelstan.
‘I have a need of refreshment, monk!’
Athelstan saw the pain in his friend’s face and looked away.
‘In a while, Sir John. First, let us see Sir Fulke. I wish to search Sir Ralph’s bed chamber here in the White Tower.’
Cranston nodded and lumbered off whilst Athelstan packed his writing tray away. The friar sat for a while admiring the beauty of St John’s Chapel, comparing it to the grimness of St Erconwald’s. He thought of Benedicta. How lovely she had looked at the early morning Mass. He wondered if Huddle would use her in the painting of the Visitation he was planning for one of the aisles. What, Athelstan wondered, would she do at Christmas? She had mentioned a brother in Colchester. Perhaps she might stay in Southwark and agree to go for a walk, or at least sit and share a goblet of wine with him and gossip about the past. Christmas could be so lonely… Athelstan’s eye caught a crucifix and he suddenly remembered the horrors being perpetrated in the cemetery at St Erconwald’s. He must get to the bottom of that matter. Who could it be, and why?
‘Brother Athelstan! Brother Athelstan!’ Cranston stood, leering down at him. ‘You drink too much claret, priest,’ the coroner mockingly announced. ‘Come, we must visit the late constable’s chamber. Colebrooke and Sir Fulke are on their way.’
Sir Ralph’s quarters were up a polished wooden staircase in one of the turrets of the White Tower, a pleasant, sweet-smelling chamber in sharp contrast to the grim cell over in the North Bastion. Two small bay windows with cushioned seats below and an oriel window, glazed with stained glass depicting the Agnus Dei, provided light. The walls were of plaster, painted soft green and decorated with silver and gold lozenges. A thick tapestry hung just above the small canopied fireplace, the floor had been polished smooth, and the great bed was covered by a gold-tasselled counterpane. At the foot of the four-poster, with its lid thrown back, stood Sir Ralph’s huge personal coffer.
‘It’s luxurious,’ Cranston whispered. ‘What terrified Sir Ralph so much he had to move from here to that bleak prison cell?’
Cranston and Athelstan squatted down before the coffer and began to go through Sir Ralph’s personal papers, but they found nothing about his years in Outremer. Every document concerned his office as constable or his service in the retinue of John of Gaunt. They must have spent an hour sifting through letters, indentures and memoranda. Only a Book of Hours caught Athelstan’s attention. Each page was decorated with delicate filigree-like scrollwork in a range of dazzling colours: on one page lightly drawn angel figures, on another a priest sprinkling a shrouded corpse with holy water as he committed it to the grave. The Nativity, with Mary and Joseph bowing over a sleeping child; Christ’s walk through Limbo, driving away black-faced demons with the power of his golden eye. Athelstan became engrossed, fascinated by its beauty. He looked inside the cover and noticed how Sir Ralph had scrawled prayer after prayer to St Julian. ‘St Julian, pray for me! St Julian, avert God’s anger! St Julian, intercede for me with Christ’s mother!’ Each of the blank pages at the back of the book was filled with similar phrases. Athelstan read them all, ignoring Cranston’s mutterings and the angry boot-tapping of Sir Fulke. Finally Athelstan closed the coffer and stood up.
‘You are finished, friar?’ the kinsman snapped.
Athelstan looked sharply at him: Sir Fulke was apparently a man who hid behind a veil of bonhomie and good humour but now he looked angry, suspicious, and resentful of their intrusion.
‘Am I finished?’ Athelstan echoed. ‘Yes and no, Sir Fulke.’
The knight blew out his cheeks. ‘The day is passing, friar,’ he observed tartly, glaring out of the window. ‘I am a busy man with matters to attend to. What more do you want?’
‘You wear boots, Sir Fulke?’
‘Yes, I wear boots!’ came the mimicking reply.
‘And there are buckles on your boots?’
The colour drained from Sir Fulke’s face.
‘Yes,’ he mumbled.
‘Well,’ Athelstan pulled from his wallet the buckle he had found on the frozen moat, ‘I believe this is yours. We found it on the ice outside the North Bastion tower, yet you said you were in the city all night.’
Sir Ralph’s kinsman paled, the arrogance draining from his face.
‘I lost the buckle yesterday.’
‘Were you on the ice?’
Sir Fulke suddenly smiled. ‘Yes, I was. I went there early this morning. You are not the only one, Brother, to think the assassins scaled the tower at dead of night to murder Sir Ralph.’
Athelstan tossed the buckle at him and Sir Fulke caught it clumsily.
‘Then, Sir John, we are finished here. Perhaps some refreshment?’
They met Colebrooke in the passageway outside, thanked him for his attentions and went down the outside steps into the Tower bailey. Athelstan gauged it to be about two o’clock in the afternoon and this was confirmed by a servant who bumped into them as they passed the great hall. They were on the point of going under the Archway of Wakefield when Athelstan caught sight of the great brown bear chained to the wall in the corner near Bell Tower.
‘I have never seen a bear so huge, Sir John!’ he exclaimed.
Cranston clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Then, my lad, it’s time you did!’
The friar was fascinated by Ursus. The bear scarcely repaid the compliment but sat on his hindquarters, hungrily stuffing his great muzzle from a pile of scraps thrown around him. Cranston clapped his hands and the beast raised his huge, dark head. One paw came up and Athelstan stood, riveted by the great, slavering jaws, the teeth — long, white and pointed like a row of daggers — and the insane ferocity blazing in those red-brown eyes. Th
e bear lurched slightly towards them, growling softly in his throat. Cranston grabbed Athelstan’s arm and pulled him back. The animal, alarmed by such rapid movement, now sprang to his full height, his great unsheathed paws beating the air as he strained at the massive steel collar around his neck. Both the coroner and his companion saw the chain fastened to the wall strain at its clasps.
‘That chain,’ Athelstan murmured, ‘is not as secure as it should be.’
‘Goodbye, Ursus,’ Cranston whispered. ‘Let’s go, Athelstan. Very softly!’
They collected their horses and made their way out of the Tower into Petty Wales. A few stalls stood uncovered and some brave souls made their way through the ankle-deep, mucky slush. Two beggar children, arms and legs as thin as sticks, stood beside a brazier singing a carol. Cranston tossed them a penny, and turned to watch as a woman condemned as a scold was led by a beadle up to the stocks in Tower Street, a steel brank fastened tightly around her head. Down the dirt-filled alleyways business was thriving for the red-wigged whores and their constant stream of clients from the Tower garrison.
Cranston asked directions from a one-eyed beggarman and came back beaming from ear to ear.
‘I have found it!’ he announced. ‘The Golden Mitre tavern! You know, the one Sir Ralph and the hospitallers went to every year for their banquet.’
The tavern was just near the Custom House on the corner of Thames Street, a grand, spacious affair with a green-leaved ale-stake pushed under the eaves from which hung a huge, gaudily painted sign. A red-nosed ostler took their horses. Inside, the tap room was airy and warmed by a fire. The rushes on the floor were clean and sprinkled with rosemary and thyme. The walls were lime-washed to keep off insects, and the hams which hung from the blackened beams gave off a sweet crisp smell which made Cranston smack his lips. They hired a table between the fire and the great polished wine butts. The landlord, a small, red-faced, balding fellow with a surprisingly clean apron draped across his expansive front, took one look at Sir John and brought across a deep bowl brimming with blood red claret.
‘Sir John!’ he exclaimed. ‘You remember me?’
Cranston seized the bowl by its two silver handles and half drained it at a gulp. ‘Yes, I do,’ he replied, smacking his lips and glaring over the rim. ‘You are Miles Talbot who once worked as an ale-conner in the taverns round St Paul’s.’ Cranston put down the bowl and shook the landlord’s hand. ‘Let me introduce an honest man, Brother Athelstan. Talbot always knew when a blackjack of ale had been watered down. Well, well, well!’ Cranston unclasped his cloak and basked in the sweet odours and warmth of the tavern. ‘What can you serve us, Master Talbot? And don’t give me fish. We know the river is frozen and the roads blocked, so anything from the water must be weeks old!’