by Paul Doherty
Athelstan tensed, trying to hide that inner tingle of excitement, the deep curiosity aroused in a priest who, in confession, has the unique opportunity to see a soul bare itself.
‘Whose murder?’ he asked softly.
Sir Brian shook his head, sobbing like a child.
‘Sir Brian.’ Athelstan tapped him gently on the shoulder. ‘Sit down, man! Come, sit down!’
Sir Brian slumped on the bench. Athelstan looked round the chamber and saw the wine jug and goblets on the chest. He got up, filled one of these and thrust it into Fitzormonde’s hand.
‘There’s nothing in Canon Law,’ Athelstan smiled, ‘which says a man cannot have a drink during confession.’ He wiped his sweat-stained hands on his robe. ‘Or,’ he continued, ‘as St Paul says, “Take a little wine for the stomach’s sake”.’
Sir Brian sipped from the goblet and smiled. ‘Aye, Father,’ he replied. ‘And, as the Romans put it, “In vino veritas”. In wine there is truth.’
Athelstan nodded, pushed the stool nearer and sat down. ‘Tell me, Sir Brian, in your own words and at your own time, the truth about this murder.’
‘Many years ago,’ Fitzormonde began, ‘I was a wild, young man, a knight with visions of becoming a crusader. My friends were of a similar disposition. We all served in London or hereabouts: Ralph Whitton, Gerard Mowbray, Adam Horne, and…’ The man’s voice trailed off.
‘And who?’
‘Our leader, Bartholomew Burghgesh, of Woodforde in Essex.’ Fitzormonde took a deep breath. ‘The war in France was finished. Du Guesclin was reorganising the French armies, our old king was doddering and there was no need for English swords in France, so we sailed for Outremer. We offered our swords to the King of Cyprus. We spent two years there, becoming steeped in blood. Eventually, the Cypriot king dispensed with our services and we had nothing to show for it but our clothes, horses, armour, and the wounds of battle. So we became mercenaries in the armies of the Caliph of Egypt’
‘All of you?’ Athelstan asked.
‘Yes, yes. We were still a band of brothers. David and Jonathan to each other.’ Fitzormonde smiled to himself. ‘We feared nothing. We had each other and we always shared. Now there was a revolt in Alexandria. Our leader, Bartholomew, was hired by the Caliph to join his satraps in suppressing the uprising.’ Fitzormonde stopped and gulped from the cup. ‘It was a bloody business but eventually a breach was forced in the defences and Bartholomew led us through.’ The hospitaller’s eyes caught Athelstan’s. ‘We hacked our way through a wall of living flesh. Do you know, the cobblestones couldn’t be seen for the blood which swilled like water? The Caliph’s armies followed us in and the real killing began. Men, women and children were put to the sword.’ Fitzormonde paused and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. ‘That, too, Father, I confess, though we were not party to it. Bartholomew led us away. We found a merchant’s house full of treasure.’ Fitzormonde licked his lips and closed his eyes tightly, trying to remember events in that sun-drenched city so many years ago. ‘Now the Caliph’s rules were strict,’ he continued. ‘As mercenaries we were allowed no plunder, so most of the treasure was useless to us, but Bartholomew found a heavy purse of gold.’ The knight stopped speaking and pointed to the cord tied round Athelstan’s waist. ‘Think of that ten times thicker, Father. Two heavy pieces of leather sewn together and stuffed with money. Every coin was of pure gold. A king’s ransom in a leather belt. There must have been thousands.’
Fitzormonde paused again. He was back in time, standing battered and blood-stained, gazing open-mouthed at the belt Bartholomew had found hidden beneath the tiled floor.
‘What happened?’ Athelstan asked.
Fitzormonde smiled. ‘Bartholomew did a brave thing. He said he would wait to see if the Caliph would reward us for forcing the breach. He didn’t so Bartholomew kept the purse.’
‘Why was that brave?’
‘Well, if he had been caught, Bartholomew would have been sliced from neck to crotch, his genitals ripped off and stuffed into his mouth, and his decapitated head placed on a spike above the city gates. Now Bartholomew agreed to conceal the purse on condition that he had half the treasure whilst we shared the rest. We agreed, and by night fled the Caliph’s armies and crossed the sea to Cyprus.’
‘Is that the connection with the ship?’ Athelstan asked.
‘Oh, no. We reached Cyprus safely but the Caliph sent assassins after us. These were the Hashishoni, the followers of the Old Man of the Mountain, skilled killers who came by night. They were so confident they even sent us fair warning of their arrival.’
‘A flat sesame seed cake?’ Athelstan interrupted.
‘Yes, but Bartholomew was waiting for them. One night they crept into our house but he had arranged for us to sleep on the roof whilst through a crack he could watch our sleeping chamber. Do you know,’ Fitzormonde said in a dream-like voice, ‘Bartholomew showed no fear? He trapped all three in that room and killed them.’ Sir Brian’s voice broke. ‘He was the best — Bartholomew, I mean — honourable and fair. I have never met a more redoubtable fighter, yet we murdered him!’
Athelstan rose, took the wine jug and refilled the man’s cup.
‘Continue, Sir Brian.’
‘Bartholomew wanted to go home, return to his manor at Woodforde. His wife was sickly and he also feared for his young son’s life. At the same time he had difficulties with Sir Ralph Whitton.’ Fitzormonde glared into his wine cup. ‘Ralph was the canker in the rose. I think he was secretly jealous of Bartholomew. He began to object to the way the treasure was being shared out, but Bartholomew failed to take him seriously. He said a bargain was a bargain; he had found the treasure, he had risked the Caliph’s wrath, and he had killed the three assassins. However, he said he trusted his blood brothers and left the treasure with us when he took ship from Cyprus.’ Fitzormonde stared at Athelstan and the friar began to suspect the true reason behind the drawing on the pieces of parchment.
‘What happened to that ship, Sir Brian?’
The knight emptied the wine goblet in one gulp. ‘A few days later we learnt Whitton had sent a secret message to the Caliph.’ He shrugged. ‘The rest is obvious. The ship Bartholomew was travelling on was intercepted and sunk.’
Athelstan whirled round as the door crashed open. Cranston stood there, foul-faced and bleary-eyed.
‘What’s the bloody matter, monk?’ he boomed. ‘Where the…?’ Cranston used an obscene word and glared at the knight ‘You still wish to challenge me, Sir Brian?’
Athelstan rose, grabbed Cranston by the arm and hustled him out of the room, closing the door behind him.
‘Sir John,’ he rasped, ‘I am hearing this man’s confession!’
Cranston tried to push Athelstan aside. ‘By the sod!’ he roared. ‘I don’t give a shit!’
‘Sir John, this is nothing to do with you.’
Athelstan, using all his weight, pushed Sir John back and sent him tottering down the corridor. Cranston steadied himself, pulled his long, wicked-looking dagger from its sheath and walked slowly back, his red-rimmed eyes fixed on Athelstan. The friar leaned against the door.
‘What are you going to do, John?’ Athelstan asked softly. ‘Are you, the Lord Coroner, going to slay a priest, a colleague and a friend?’
Sir John stopped and slouched against the wall, staring upwards at the great beams resting on their corbels of stone.
‘God forgive me, Athelstan,’ he whispered. ‘My apologies to Sir Brian. I shall wait for you downstairs.’
The friar re-entered the room. Fitzormonde still sat, cradling his head in his hands. Athelstan touched him gently on the shoulder.
‘Forget Cranston.’ He smiled. ‘A man whose bark is much worse than his bite. Sir Brian, you wanted me to hear your confession? So Burghgesh was murdered. Surely the blame rests squarely with Sir Ralph?’
Fitzormonde shook his head and looked up. ‘Don’t patronise me, Father. Ralph told us what he had done. We could have stopped it
. We could have brought Sir Ralph to justice. We could have searched the seas to see if Bartholomew had survived.’
‘Was that possible?’
‘Perhaps. Sometimes the Moors sell prisoners in the slave markets. But we didn’t look there for him. We could have looked after Bartholomew’s widow and his little son but we failed to do that.’ Fitzormonde drove one of his fists into the palm of his hand. ‘We should have executed Sir Ralph. Instead, we became his accomplices and shared out his ill-gotten wealth.’
‘What happened to Bartholomew’s widow?’
‘I don’t know. We went our separate ways. Eventually guilt caught up with Mowbray and myself so we joined the hospitallers, handing over what wealth we had left to the Order. Horne came back to the city and grew powerful on his riches. Whitton entered the service of John of Gaunt.’ Fitzormonde placed the goblet on the ground before him. ‘Do you know, Father, it wasn’t until Whitton was dead that I realised how he had held us in his evil thrall.’ Fitzormonde paused. ‘You have seen the great bear in the Tower bailey?’
‘Yes.’
‘Every afternoon I am here,’ Fitzormonde continued, ‘I go to stare at it. The beast is a killer, but I’m fascinated by it. Whitton was like that. Sir Ralph made his guilt a bond between us all. As the years passed, we became more confident that our crime had been forgotten and began the custom of every year meeting to celebrate Christmas. We never discussed Bartholomew.’
Athelstan nodded. ‘That’s the terrible thing about sin, Sir Brian. We let it become part of us, like a rotting tooth which we tolerate and forget.’
Fitzormonde rubbed his face with his hands.
‘But what happened,’ Athelstan asked, ‘three years ago?’
‘I don’t know. We came to the Tower as Ralph’s guests for Yuletide, supping as usual at the Golden Mitre in Petty Wales, but when we met Sir Ralph that particular time, he looked as if he had seen a ghost. In fact he said he had, and that’s all he would say.’
Athelstan seized the man’s wrist and forced him to look up. ‘Have you confessed all, Sir Brian?’
‘Everything I know.’
‘And the piece of parchment?’
‘A reminder of the ship Bartholomew was sailing on.’
‘And the four crosses?’
‘They represent Bartholomew’s four companions.’
‘And the seed cake?’
Fitzormonde sighed and blew his cheeks out ‘A reminder of how Bartholomew saved us from the assassins, and a warning of our own deaths.’
‘Do you know who murdered Sir Ralph and Sir Gerard?’
‘Before God, I do not!’
‘Could Bartholomew have survived?’
‘He may have.’
Athelstan stared at the lime-washed walls. ‘What about Bartholomew’s son? He would be a young man now.’
Fitzormonde shrugged. ‘I thought of that but I have made some enquiries. Young Burghgesh was killed in France. Now, Father, my penance?’
Athelstan raised his hand and pronounced absolution, making the broad sweep of the sign of the cross above Fitzormonde’s bowed head. Sir Brian looked up.
‘My penance, Father?’ he repeated.
‘Your penance is the guilt you have borne. You are to pray for Burghgesh’s soul and for those of Sir Gerard and Sir Ralph. And one more thing!’
‘Yes, Father?’
‘You are to go downstairs and repeat your confession to Sir John.’
‘He’ll arrest me for murder.’
Athelstan grinned. ‘Sir John is an old soldier and, when sober, a keen student of the human heart. He has more compassion in his little finger than many a priest. He’ll hear you out and probably roar for a cup of sack.’
CHAPTER 8
Fitzormonde left, closing the door quietly behind him. Athelstan went to gaze out of the window, staring absentmindedly at the great tocsin bell which hung so silently on its icy rope above the snow-covered green. The sun, now beginning to set, made the bell shimmer like a piece of silver. Athelstan turned and glimpsed Fitzormonde talking quietly to Cranston. The coroner was nodding, listening intently to the hospitaller’s confession.
Athelstan wandered back to Philippa’s chamber but it was deserted. He stayed for a while reflecting on what Fitzormonde had told him; first, both Sir Ralph and Mowbray’s murders were connected to that terrible act of betrayal in Cyprus so many years earlier. Secondly, and Athelstan shivered, there would be other murders. He packed his writing tray away whilst speculating on other possibilities. First, Burghgesh could have survived and come back to wreak vengeance. Secondly, someone else, possibly Burghgesh’s son, had returned to make his father’s murderers atone for the death. But, if it had been either of these, how would they get into the Tower, mysteriously ring a tocsin bell and then arrange for Mowbray’s fall? Athelstan sighed. Sir Ralph Whitton’s murder was simple compared to the complexities surrounding Mowbray’s.
Athelstan rubbed his chin with the palm of his hand and remembered he’d promised Benedicta to meet her at the Fleet prison where Simon the carpenter would spend his last evening on earth. The thought of Benedicta made him smile. Their relationship had become calmer, more gentle, then he remembered Doctor Vincentius and hoped the physician would not ensnare her with his subtle charm. Athelstan’s smile broadened. Here he was, a friar, a priest, a man sworn to chastity, feeling twinges of jealousy about someone he could only claim as a friend.
He shook himself free from his reverie and looked around the chamber. The murders… What other possibilities existed? Was it one of the group? Not Fitzormonde, but perhaps Horne the merchant? Or could it be Colebrooke, who had discovered Sir Ralph’s murky past and was promoting his own ambitions under the guise of revenge for past misdeeds? Athelstan swung his cloak around him, picked up his writing tray and examined the beautiful embroidery of the dorsar draped over the back of one of the chairs. Of course, terrible though it might be to imagine, Mistress Philippa had the cool nerve and composure to be a murderess, and Parchmeiner might well be her accomplice. Hammond the chaplain had the spite, whilst Sir Fulke had everything to gain.
Athelstan heard Cranston bellowing his name so left the chamber and went downstairs where the coroner stood kicking absentmindedly at the snow.
‘You feel better, Sir John?’
Cranston grunted.
‘And Fitzormonde told you all?’
The coroner glanced up.
‘Yes, I believe he did, Athelstan. You think the same as I do?’
He nodded. ‘Our sins,’ he murmured, ‘always catch up with us. The Greeks call them the Furies. We Christians call it God’s anger.’
Cranston was about to reply when Colebrooke came striding across the green. The lieutenant looked white-faced and tense.
‘My Lord Coroner!’ he called out. ‘You are finished here?’
‘In other words,’ Cranston half whispered to Athelstan, ‘the fellow is asking us when we are going to bugger off!’
‘We will leave soon, Master Lieutenant, but may I ask one favour first?’
Colebrooke hid his distaste behind a false smile.
‘Of course, Brother.’
‘You have messengers here. Will you send one to the widow Benedicta at St Erconwald’s in Southwark? Ask her to meet Sir John and me at the Three Cranes tavern in Cheapside. And, Master Lieutenant?’
‘Yes!’
‘Sir Ralph’s corpse — was it cold and the blood congealing?’
‘I’m a soldier, Brother, not a physician. But, yes, I think it was. Why?’
‘Nothing,’ Athelstan murmured. ‘I thank you.’
Colebrooke nodded and strode off. Cranston stretched lazily.
‘A pretty mess, Brother.’
‘Hush, Sir John, not here. I think these walls do have ears, and our boon companion Red Hand wishes an audience.’
Cranston turned and quietly cursed as the madman scampered across the snow to greet them, yelping like an affectionate dog.
‘Lots of
blood! Lots of blood!’ he screamed. ‘Many deaths, dark secrets! Three dungeons but only two doors. Dark passages. Red Hand sees them all! Red Hand sees the shadows creak!’ The madman danced in the snow before them. ‘Up and down! Up and down, the body falls! What do you think? What do you think?’
‘Sod off, Red Hand!’ Cranston muttered and, taking Athelstan by the arm, guided him past the great hall towards the gateway under Wakefield Tower. Athelstan suddenly remembered the bear, stopped and walked back to where the animal sat chained in the corner where curtain wall met Bell Tower. The friar was fascinated. He stared and hid a smile, hoping Sir John would not notice, for there was a close affinity between the shaggy beast and the corpulent coroner.
‘It smells like a death house,’ Cranston moaned.
The bear turned and Athelstan glimpsed the fury in its small, red eyes. The great beast lumbered to his feet, straining at the chain around its neck.
‘I don’t know which is the madder,’ Cranston muttered, ‘the bear or Red Hand!’
The animal seemed to understand Sir John’s words for it lunged towards him with a strangled growl; its top lip curled, showing teeth as sharp as a row of daggers.
‘I think you are right, Sir John,’ Athelstan observed.
‘Perhaps we should go.’
The friar watched with alarm the way the chain around the bear’s neck creaked and shook the iron clasp nailed to the wall. They turned left to collect their horses from the stables.
‘We could leave them here,’ Athelstan remarked, ‘and take a boat downriver.’
‘God forbid, Brother,’ Cranston snapped. ‘Have you no sense? The bloody ice is still moving, and I never fancy shooting under London Bridge even on the fairest day!’
They left the Tower and rode up Eastcheap, turning into Gracechurch, past the Cornmarket where St Peter on Cornhill stood, and into Cheapside. The roar from that great thoroughfare was deafening: traders, merchants and apprentices shouted themselves hoarse as they tried to make up for their previous loss of trade. The bailiffs and beadles were also busy: two drunkards, barrels placed over their heads, were being led through the marketplace, followed by a stream of dirty, ragged urchins who pelted the unfortunates with ice and snowballs. A beggar had died on the corner of Threadneedle Street. The corpse, now stiff, had turned blue with the cold. A small boy armed with a stick tried to beat off two hungry-looking dogs which sniffed suspiciously at the dead beggar’s bloody feet. Cranston tossed him a penny and, standing on an overturned barrel, bellowed for half the market to hear how he was Coroner of the city, and would no one help the poor lad have the corpse removed?