by Paul Doherty
‘And the leaden sheath?’ Athelstan queried.
‘The best way to seal a corpse in once and for all. Any attempt to open such a shroud would allow in the humours and elements to decay the remains. Mortimer and Isabella, or so they thought, had sealed the past.’
‘Accordingly,’ Athelstan held up a hand for silence, ‘whether that leaden sheath truly contained the mortal remains of Edward II is a matter of speculation. The case that it did not is based on Edward II being freed and being seen here and there. The only people who know the full truth are those who attacked Berkeley Castle in the summer 1327: the coven led by the two Dominicans, Thomas and Stephen Dunheved. What happened to them?’
‘I am searching our records here at Blackfriars.’ Matthias the secretarius lifted his head, twirling the quill pen between his fingers. ‘Well, I and my learned friend here, chronicler Roger. According to the evidence, the Dunheveds were later caught and flung into Newgate prison.’
‘Even though they were clerics?’ Athelstan asked sharply.
‘Oh, Holy Mother Church protested, as did the Dominican Order. Apparently the Dunheveds came from our house at Oxford, young men who had been scholars there, totally devoted to the memory of Edward II. They led a considerable coven of like-minded priests, yeomen and others.’
‘And the Dunheveds’ fate?’
‘Brother Athelstan,’ Roger replied, ‘you have visited the Hell pit at Newgate. By the time the church lodged its protests, along with those of the Dominican Order, the Dunheveds were dead of jail fever: their corpses were brought here, viewed, cleansed, blessed and buried out in God’s Acre. You will find their tombstones in the Dominican cemetery, their names enrolled in our Book of the Dead.’ He paused. ‘The prison chaplain at Newgate was Brother Eadred, a member of our order.’
‘I know of him,’ Anselm intervened. ‘A good, saintly priest.’
‘I knew him too,’ Roger declared. ‘I met him once. Eadred ministered to the prisoners and their families. He later became Prior of our house at Oxford and, indeed, Provincial of the Dominican Order in England. Gone to God now,’ Roger sighed, ‘like so many of our brothers.’ Brother Roger’s voice trailed away yet, watching him closely, Athelstan wandered what else this skilful chronicler had discovered: he could almost sense Brother Roger’s tension, as if the chronicler knew something but was most reluctant to share it.
‘What I cannot understand,’ Matthias declared, ‘is the obvious: if Edward II escaped from Berkeley. If there is a suspicion that an imposter lies buried beneath the flagstones of St Peter’s in Gloucester, why did his son build that splendid tomb and send hunters after those accused of being involved in his father’s murder, creatures like Gurney?’
‘And I could add,’ Roger declared, ‘if Edward II definitely lies buried at Gloucester, why should his successor, his own son, pay good money to meet someone claiming to be his father?’
‘There is the possibility,’ Fieschi declared. ‘We have the reality and the pretence. Isabella received that heart taken from the corpse at Berkeley to heighten the impression in that it truly was from her husband’s body. Secondly, Edward III paid public homage to his father’s memory by building that tomb and despatching hunters to capture the likes of Gurney. All this was to sustain the illusion that Edward II did die at Berkeley, lies buried at Gloucester and that his son is determined to punish his murderers as well as honour the dead king. In such a situation the Crown of England would find it easier to manage the illusion and life could move on rather than to have to publicly concede that Edward II is still alive, wandering the byways of England or elsewhere.’
Fieschi took a deep breath. ‘If Edward II was truly murdered at Berkeley and buried in Gloucester, we could proceed with the process of canonisation; those who advocate it could do so from a position of strength. However,’ he shook his head, ‘if, on the balance of probability, evidence can be produced which demonstrates that Edward II escaped, what can we do? For all we know, the old king might have survived for years after his escape. In which case how did he live? Godly, righteously, or did he indulge in every form of vice? It would be foolish to canonise someone, prince or not, when the greater part of his life, not to mention the details of his death, are hidden from even the most superficial scrutiny.’ Fieschi spread his hands on the table and stared around. ‘Brethren, that is why we are here and that is the problem which confronts us.’
Wat Tyler, leader of the Upright Men of Kent, felt he had sated his rage that day as a thirsty man would slake his throat. Thursday 13th June had marked a change. Everything Tyler had plotted had broken down. He and John of Gaunt had entered into a secret compact. The self-styled regent would withdraw from London, taking the royal army north to the Scottish march. London and, above all, the Crown would be left unprotected. Tyler would sweep into the city, storm its fortifications and seize the court party. In the violent, bloody mêlée that followed, Richard would die, an unintended casualty. Gaunt would then come hurrying south. He and Tyler would be masters of the city and the realm.
Now all this had been overturned. Gaunt had marched north but King Richard, advised by the likes of Cranston and his cunning helpmate Athelstan, had checked Gaunt. The regent and his wily henchman Thibault must have realised that Cranston and Athelstan had discovered their murky alliance with Tyler, so the regent and his Master of Secrets had decided to take another path. Any alliance or understanding with the rebel leader was now null and void. Gaunt had marched north but Thibault had disappeared from both the Tower and the city. According to Tyler’s spies, Thibault had not panicked and fled but was hiding somewhere in the wild countryside of Essex, feverishly plotting. He was now acting the fervent supporter of the Crown, persuading the great lords of the Soil to whistle up their retinues to unite and march on London. And then what? How long would the Upright Men’s peasant levies stand against the mailed might of knights on horseback, of professional mercenaries and phalanx after phalanx of bowmen and hobelars?
Tyler drank deeply from the plundered goblet and stared around the luxurious chamber; a truly opulent room with its exquisitely carved furniture, and thick turkey cloths lying edge to edge on the polished floor to deaden sound. The chair Tyler was sitting on was cushioned with the purest flock pushed into gold-fringed satin cushions. Tapestries of brilliant light-catching hues decorated the pink-washed plaster above shimmering wooden panelling. Once the mansion of Roger Leggett, an assizer, questmonger, professional lawyer and, by public repute, a rogue and enemy to the True Commons, the house stood in its own grounds near St Katherine’s Dock. Yesterday it had been Leggett’s pride and joy, now it was Tyler’s, the new lord of London. Roger Leggett had no need of this splendid mansion. He had gone to his eternal reward.
At first Leggett thought he would escape by fleeing for sanctuary at St Martin’s le Grand. Leggett had reached its high altar and wailed for protection. Tyler had stormed the church with drawn sword. He’d threatened the priests and made them step aside. Once he had them kneeling in obedience and begging for their lives, Tyler had marched up the nave with his henchmen and dragged the weeping Leggett out of the church. Tyler had thrown him into a horse trough and crowned him with stinking manure. He then had the unfortunate lawyer stripped to his loin cloth, beaten, pushed along West Chepe and placed in the stocks which stood at the junction of Milk and Bread Street. The mob had then hurled insults and filthy sewage at Tyler’s unfortunate prisoner, dancing around and toasting him with the wine and ale they had plundered from nearby taverns. This macabre dance lasted until the Kestrel, Tyler’s leading captain amongst the Upright Men, had released Leggett from the stocks and forced him to lie down, fastening his head against a log before hacking it off with a flesher’s axe.
Tyler walked out of the solar and along the passageway leading to the gardens. In a chamber above, the Kestrel was now enjoying the plump, glorious charms of Leggett’s young mistress, a buxom wench whose cries of protest had been replaced with growing moans of pleasure. The great four
-poster bed she was now bouncing on was rattling against the floor. In other parts of the mansion, Tyler’s men were hunting for precious items, their leather sacks open, ready to receive goblets, mazers, platters, cups and drinking jugs, as well as Leggett’s collection of precious relics, including the lantern Judas allegedly used when he betrayed Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Tyler walked out into the paved garden. Darkness was closing in, but flickering flambeaux and lanternhorns bathed the garden in light, a true pleasance with its herbers, grassy plots, cultivated flower beds and richly stocked vegetable garden, as well as a small orchard. The garden had been transformed into a place of bloody slaughter and gruesome display. Eighteen poles, each bearing the severed head of an enemy of the True Commons, had been thrust into the fresh, black soil. Leggett’s head was in the front row; the blood had long since stopped pumping. The scraggy neck, with its bony strip of vertebrae hanging down, looked ghastly set against the velvet glow of an English summer evening. The fruit trees in the small orchard had also been decorated, festooned with dangling corpses, necks tied fast, heads to one side, faces all horrid in death. Tyler called them ‘his harvest of rotten fruit come to ripen’: lawyers, officials and court flunkies seized in the streets and hanged out of hand.
Tyler clenched his fist. He had certainly wreaked vengeance that day, especially against Gaunt. The rebel leader had turned his full fury at Gaunt’s duplicity on the regent’s pride and joy, his magnificent palace of the Savoy: a veritable treasure house with its warren of luxurious chambers; the great hammer-beam hall; its jewel of a private chapel surrounded by cloisters, gardens and elegant courtyards. Tyler had plundered the palace from cellar to loft. Everything; furniture, tapestries and a hoard of precious items, beds, tables, chairs and stools, had all been piled on to a soaring bonfire in the great hall. Tyler himself had thrust in the first flaming torch. The fire had spread swiftly as the looters brought barrels of gold and silver, caskets of jewels and coffers full of precious cloth of gold.
Some of the pillagers became drunk and one of them had hurled three tuns of gunpowder on to the bonfire. The immediate explosion had brought timber and masonry tumbling down to block the steps to the palace wine cellars. Thirty of Tyler’s followers, feasting on the sweet wines they had found there, were trapped and burnt alive. The rebel leader still had the stench of burning flesh in his nostrils, whilst he was sure he could still hear the shrill cries of the men being scorched to death. Nevertheless, it had all been worth it, and the dance had scarcely begun.
Tyler had decided to throw in his lot with the radical Jack Straw. The kingdom would be purged of princes and prelates, and London burnt to the ground to clear the rat nests of privilege. The destruction of the Savoy was only the beginning. Tyler was determined to teach Gaunt a lesson in ruthlessness. He would make the regent pay for his treachery and double-dealing. And the rest? Tyler raised the jewel-encrusted goblet to his mouth and drank deep of the late Leggett’s best Bordeaux before offering a mocking toast to the severed head. ‘Farewell,’ Tyler whispered. ‘I hope Master Thibault’s head will soon join yours.’ He sipped again, letting the wine wash the dirt from his mouth. Thibault was beyond his reach, but the Master of Secrets’ daughter Isabella was sheltering in Blackfriars, along with two others Tyler wished to settle scores with: Cranston and the meddling Athelstan. Tyler had anticipated this. Where else provided safer sanctuary for Thibault’s brat or indeed Athelstan, not to mention others, than the sacred precincts of Blackfriars?
Tyler drained the goblet, half listening to the squeals of the dead Leggett’s woman. He had his own adherents in those sacred precincts and it was time he paid them a visit. And afterwards, once Cranston and Athelstan were gone? Tyler smiled. He would deal with them all: Gaunt, Thibault and, above all, Richard the King.
PART THREE
‘True Love Is Away.’
(The Letters of John Ball)
Cranston and Athelstan met in the friar’s chamber after the requiem Mass for Alberic and the others ready for burial in God’s Acre. Benedicta joined them just as a kitchen scullion served roo broth with chunks of venison, blanche porray, peppered toast, creamed leeks and tankards of what the servant called ‘Blackfriars’ best ale’. Once he had left, Athelstan described what he had learnt in the friary library about the reign of Edward II. Most of it was already known to Cranston. Benedicta was especially interested in Isabella, Edward’s wife.
‘They called her the She-Wolf of France,’ Cranston declared. ‘They say she went mad with grief at Castle Rising. Isabella believed she was haunted by her dead husband’s ghost.’
‘Whatever that might mean,’ Athelstan intervened, ‘because on the balance of probability, there is every reason to believe that Edward II escaped from Berkeley.’ He rubbed his face in his hands. ‘I must admit, I am exercised not so much by this mystery but by the violence it seems to have provoked here at Blackfriars. Benedicta, I have news for you …’ Athelstan told the widow woman what had happened: Fieschi’s mission, Alberic’s mysterious murder, the attacks on him and poor Pernel’s death. Benedicta heard him out, eyes softening at his description of the Fleming’s drowned corpse.
‘It may have been a simple accident,’ she murmured. ‘Pernel was much distracted. I have seen her stagger and stumble along the nave at St Erconwald’s.’
‘And the attacks on me?’
‘You may have it wrong,’ Benedicta replied. ‘Apart from Pernel’s death, could such violence be the work of the Upright Men? I am sure they have their followers here: gardeners, scullions, even the servant who’s just served you.’
‘But why?’
‘Oh, it’s obvious, Brother, the disappearance of your parishioners. Sir John is coroner of London, an official marked down for death. Tyler must nourish a personal grudge against you. He must deeply resent your interference, your protection of the young king. I concede the revolt is not what I had hoped for. London is afire, the sky black with smoke. I have been up to the gatehouse. Earthworms now watch all the approaches to Blackfriars. They will also be seething about all the foreigners and lawyers and others who shelter here.’ She crossed herself. ‘Brother Athelstan, be assured, the likes of Tyler would love to do great violence to you and yours.’
Athelstan agreed. He had wondered about the possibility that the violence in Blackfriars might have nothing to do with the investigation into Edward II, yet he was not fully convinced.
‘So we are in great danger?’ Cranston demanded. ‘Is that what you are saying, Benedicta?’
‘Sir John, I think everybody is in danger.’
Athelstan held the widow woman’s gaze, noting how beautiful she really was. Those dark, lustrous eyes seemed larger, the skin of her face smoother, as if the soul within responded with all its energies to the dangers pressing close.
‘The rebels will turn on each other.’ She sighed. ‘Did you know they are now hunting Giles of Sempringham, our parish artist?’
‘But I thought he was one of the Upright Men?’
‘He is also known as the Hangman of Rochester. Some Earthworms maintain he is responsible for the execution of some of their comrades.’
‘He is,’ Athelstan interjected. ‘He had no choice. The men he executed were criminals, tried and judged worthy of death.’
‘I agree, Brother, but, as I have said, times have changed. Before this happened we all had to act our part, but now it’s harvest time. The reapers are here. Grudges have to be settled, grievances redressed. In your sermons and homilies you said it would come to this. How once the killing began the monsters would creep out of the darkness – well, they certainly have.’ She turned to the coroner. ‘So, yes, Sir John, you are in danger and you should not leave here.’
‘But I have to,’ Cranston retorted. ‘I must join the King …’ He paused at a pounding at the door. It swung open and John the gatekeeper almost fell into the room.
‘Brother Athelstan, please, it’s Friar Roger …’
The chronicle
r’s chamber stood just off the great cloisters, close to the writing desks where Roger could sit to make good use of the light. It was usually a place of serene study, but now agitated members of the community were thronging the enclave leading down to his chamber. Brother John pushed them all aside until they reached the entrance guarded by the burly sacristan, Brother Cuthbert, who let them in. The chronicler’s cell was large. The shutters on the lancet window had been thrown back. Athelstan was aware of a bed, chancery desk, chair, wall pegs and, above all, manuscripts stacked on shelves or spilling out of coffers, chests and chancery pouches. Prior Anselm was there along with Fieschi, Cassian and Isidore, Hugh the infirmarian and Brother Matthias. All seemed in shock, staring down at Roger, who lay stretched on the floor, head to one side, his left eye open, locked in an empty stare. The usual jovial face was drawn and discoloured, and even from where he stood, Athelstan could glimpse dirty-white foam coating the chronicler’s lips.
‘We found him so.’ Prior Anselm’s harsh face was drawn in sorrow. ‘We found poor Roger like this. We had to force his door. He was just sprawled, silent and cold, yet he was so merry, so learned. I have known him for years. He was my brother …’
Anselm slumped down on a stool, put his face in his hands and quietly sobbed. Athelstan crouched by the corpse. He too felt a deep pang of sorrow for this fat, rubicund friar who had bustled about Blackfriars, his head full of stories as he studied this manuscript or that, constantly compiling a chronicle of the mother house and all its doings. A friar who loved to regale anyone and everyone with a litany of stories and anecdotes. Roger had been one of Athelstan’s teachers, skilled in the use and treatment of manuscripts, a living authority on annals, chronicles and histories. He loved nothing better than to pore over old manuscripts, fingers twitching with excitement. Athelstan murmured a requiem and looked up.
‘Nothing has been disturbed?’