The Tainted Relic

by The Medieval Murderers

  ‘They say truth will out, don’t they,’ he said, half to himself. ‘Well, Master Revill, it appears as though you at least were telling the truth. The trouble is that a grain of truth is wrapped up in a tissue of lies.’

  I nodded, though I hadn’t the slightest notion what he was talking about.

  ‘This person here,’ continued Farnaby, indicating Perkin the cutpurse, ‘has made a deposition to Pie-Powder Court. My clerk here will read out the salient features of it.’

  The clerk, elderly, with grey hair straggling from under his cap, bent his head to the topmost sheet of paper and cleared his throat in a way that might have been thought excessive onstage.

  ‘Witness Perkin deposes…let me see…deposes that he is in the habit of attending Bartholomew Fair, sometimes in company with his good friend Benjamin Nightingale, ballad singer of Tooley Street…because he enjoys the honey tones of his friend’s voice when he sings…witness deposes that his mother, that is Ben Nightingale’s mother, knew what she was about when she married a man called Nightingale and that she must have had foreknowledge that her son would grow into a fine—’

  ‘Never mind all that nonsense,’ said Farnaby. ‘Get to the quick of the matter.’

  Put out, the clerk snuffled. He coughed to clear his throat and moved his pen down the page.

  ‘…er…witness Perkin acknowledges that he is a dealer in small items…he calls himself a, er, “snapper-up of trifles”…this is his sole trade…Perkin says that he went to the tent of one Ulysses Hatch, publisher and bookseller, because he had purchased items from the aforesaid Hatch on other occasions. Once in the tent, Perkin was shown a box which contained a glass tube which contained, in turn, a piece of wood which the aforesaid Hatch claimed to be a fragment from the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Witness states that he enquired as to the price of the item but then left the tent because his pockets were not deep enough for the item in question. Asked to explain this, he said that he didn’t have the cash. Furthermore, he said, he was somewhat alarmed by the presence of a talking raven in the tent. Outside the tent witness saw three gentlemen who from their shifty expressions he judged to be players…’

  We stiffened at this but Justice Farnaby shot us a warning glance.

  ‘Perkin deposes that he later thought better of his rejection of the item and, after consulting with his good friend Nightingale, returned to the tent to make another offer to Ulysses Hatch, publisher and bookseller…’

  At this point the clerk was overcome by a fit of coughing and lost his place in the text. Farnaby looked on with pursed lips. Presumably what we were listening to was what the Justice had recently referred to as a tissue of lies. Perkin as a snapper-up of trifles, eh? Well, that was one way of describing a cutpurse. The only accurate parts of the statement related to Perkin’s account of his two visits to Hatch’s tent. Whether he was there by chance on the first occasion or whether he was on the lookout for what he could filch, he’d been shown the glass vial. Hatch had obviously been as prepared to sell it to the cutpurse as to Tom Gally. Hadn’t he said he’d sell to anyone if the price was right? Perkin had left the tent, bumping into us on the way out. With or without consulting Nightingale, he’d gone back in an attempt to steal the relic. Perhaps he’d sneaked into the tent somehow, been surprised by Hatch and a struggle had followed. Perkin had wrested the pistol from Hatch’s grasp…so that it detonated at close quarters…but if that was so, surely he’d be covered in burns or scorch marks?

  The clerk gave a final cough, expelling a bolus of phlegm into a filthy handkerchief. Then he resumed his, or rather Perkin’s, account.

  ‘…witness deposes that he entered Master Hatch’s tent to negotiate over the sale of the relic. There was a pistol lying to one side on top of a chest. Witness says he does not know whether he was more alarmed by the sight of the pistol or by the presence of the raven which told him to, er, jump to it. For a second time, the aforesaid Hatch produced the box which contained the glass vial which contained, in turn, a piece—’

  ‘Oh, get on with it, man,’ said Farnaby. ‘We know what it contained. To the quick of the matter.’

  ‘Yes, sir…witness Perkin states that the next thing which happened was…was that…’

  But we were never destined to learn what happened next from the clerk’s own mouth for he was again seized by a coughing fit. His thin frame shook and he unfolded the filthy handkerchief again preparatory to expelling whole flights of phlegm.

  Justice Farnaby, despairing of his clerk, had to speak up loudly to drown out the sounds of hawking and spitting. ‘In short, witness Perkin here claims that he is quite innocent of the murder of Ulysses Hatch, publisher and bookseller. He says that the real killler is—’

  ‘Shut your gob!’

  As it happened, the clerk’s titanic throat-clearing ceased at the very moment that these heretical words rang out in Pie-Powder Court. Or rather, the words didn’t so much ring out as squawk out. Another oddity was that the words were delivered not from ground level, where a man might have been standing, but from many feet above our heads. The refectory was criss-crossed by beams.

  We all looked up. On a beam almost directly above Justice Farnaby was perched a bird that I recognized. So did Peter Perkin. He held out a trembling arm.

  ‘That’s him,’ he said. ‘That’s the bird that killed his master. He jumped on the pistol as it was lying there and the thing fell sideways and got discharged somehow and shot Master Hatch in the throat.’

  ‘Shut your gob!’ said Hold-fast, and then for good measure, ‘Jump to it!’

  The raven bent his head downward, assessing the effect of his instructions to the court. Nobody spoke. The Justice was silent. Even the clerk stopped examining the contents of his handkerchief to raise his head.

  For some reason I straight away believed what Perkin had said. It was too ridiculous not to be true. Who could make up such a tale? I’d seen for myself the primed pistol and the way in which Hatch laid it carelessly to one side when we were talking. It was quite plausible that the bird had landed–clumsily, accidentally, even intentionally perhaps (for who can tell what was going on inside that dark little head)–on the thing and had set it off. Men are always shooting at birds. Why shouldn’t it happen the other way about, and a bird shoot a man? Even with a bird that had adopted a man and might be presumed to be his special friend.

  Hold-fast wasn’t planning to submit to questions from anybody. He seemed to duck out of sight. But he was only gone for an instant. Next, with a flap of his black wings, he was down at ground level, although careful to keep out of the reach of all of us. He paraded up and down a stretch of flagstoned floor, more cocksure than any Justice you’ve ever seen. Mind you, he looked a bit ragged. Even at a distance his plumage did not seem as glossy as it had earlier in the day. His feathers were, literally, ruffled. There were smudges around his head. Exactly the sort of marks you might expect to see if a pistol had exploded somewhere in his vicinity.

  What gave added credence to Perkin’s tale was the fact that Hold-fast was not talking now. No commands to ‘shut up’ or to ‘jump to it’ issued from his mouth. He wasn’t speaking because he couldn’t. Tucked athwart his beak was a glass tube, which he must have temporarily deposited up aloft so as to give us the benefit of his voice. It was, for certain, the vial, which contained a piece of…well, you know what it contained. It was as if he’d brought this item to Pie-Powder Court for proof and waited up in the roof until the right moment came. Then he’d flown down from the beam to show us precisely what he’d done.

  And, having shown us, Hold-fast flapped aloft once more and resumed his perch on the crossbeam. Still clutching the vial, he waddled sideways towards the point where the beam joined the wall. Being a monastic building, the refectory was well supplied with windows. In the old days, before the suppression, they were probably filled with fine coloured glass. Now they were mostly unglazed so that the winter winds and the airs of summer could come and go freely through them.
On a hot August day it was pleasant to have unglazed windows. Useful too for Hold-fast, who wanted to make his exit as easily as he must have made his entrance. Reaching the end of the beam, and with one final cock of his head in the direction of his human audience, he slipped over the lintel of a window and apparently vanished into the afternoon. I’ve seen well-known players, especially the clowns among us, make their exits in just that way. With a knowing nod towards the crowd and a kind of aren’t-I-the-very-Devil air to their departure.

  Nobody spoke. Nobody moved for an instant. I’m not sure that everyone understood what had just happened. Gog and Magog and the other constables stared as if the appearance of a guilty raven was an everyday occurrence in Pie-Powder Court. Poor old Ben Nightingale was still recovering from being struck by a constable’s staff. The aged clerk resumed his throat-clearing. But the quicker-witted among us–Perkin, Justice Farnaby, us players and even Wapping Doll–realized that we’d witnessed something very peculiar.

  ‘Well, go after it,’ said Walter Farnaby to no one in particular.

  And, as if that was our cue, we rushed out of St Bartholomew’s Priory in the forlorn hope of laying hands on Hold-fast. Outside, the sun had slipped down a notch or two. The sounds of the fair–the cries and the songs and the raucous laughter–filled the heavy air.

  Instinctively I looked up at the flank of the building, where we’d seen the raven make his exit. It was as if he’d been waiting for us to emerge, I swear, because at that moment Hold-fast lifted off from the window ledge. He must have been wanting one last glimpse of his pursuers, to taunt them finally. As he extended his wings, I observed a certain raggedness to one of them. Perhaps it was just his age (he’s an old boy, Hatch had said) or perhaps it was the result of standing too close to an exploding pistol. And as Hold-fast flapped away, the sun glinted off what he held in his beak. Hold-fast was a good name for him. He’d not let go of that object before he had good cause.

  ‘And you followed him?’ said WS.

  ‘Not so much followed him,’ I said, ‘but we saw the general direction he was going in. He was heading for the river, flying south. Perhaps he was going to deliver it to Henslowe.’

  ‘A raven won’t deliver anything to anyone,’ said WS. ‘He is his own man.’

  I was sitting in Shakespeare’s lodgings in Mugwell Street. They were good lodgings. We were drinking wine. It was good wine, fitting for one of the Globe shareholders. WS was all concern and solicitousness. He’d been appalled to hear of the trouble and to-do which Jack and Abel and I had tumbled into the previous day on his behalf and in pursuit of his Domitian foul papers. Although some of his concern was purely rhetorical, I knew WS well enough to recognize that he was being sincere, mostly.

  The rescued foul papers now lay on a table beside their creator, an untidy little pile. He’d hardly glanced at them. The paper was old and yellow. The sheets were streaked red with Hatch’s blood, and they were creased from where they’d been nestling under my shirt the previous day. Nevertheless, all’s well that ends well…as it says somewhere.

  ‘According to Ulysses Hatch, there was a legend attached to the cross fragment,’ I said. ‘It was cursed. Whoever touched it would die. It seemed to work in his case.’

  ‘I’ve heard such stories before,’ said WS. ‘Also that the last person to possess such an item will perish when he parts from it. I wonder if the raven will let it drop from his beak now…?’

  I visualized Hold-fast letting go of the glass vial, perhaps because (bright and shiny though it was) he could see no ultimate purpose for it. I visualized him dropping it somewhere on the remote wastes of the Thames foreshore, the vial landing in the soft mud or in the water.

  ‘So you think that Tom Gally was out to purchase the relic on Henslowe’s behalf?’ said WS.

  ‘That’s what it looked like. The story was that Hatch intended to sell it to some “players”. Gally made himself pretty scarce. There was no sign of him at the fair later on.’

  ‘He probably got wind of what happened to Hatch. And as for those other two, Nightingale and—’

  ‘Peter Perkin. I think they just blundered into the situation by chance. In fact, I don’t believe the ballad singer had much to do with it. He was the singing attraction, he just stood there and warbled while Perkin picked out the marks. Perkin was the cutpurse. He’d probably gone to Hatch’s tent to purchase some of his spicy wares. While he was there Hatch saw a selling opportunity. He told me he’d sell anything if the price was right. It wouldn’t matter if he’d already promised the item to Henslowe. And when Perkin glimpsed the relic, he must have thought he was going to make some easy money. His story was true enough. He was negotiating with Hatch for a second time when the bird hopped down and dislodged the gun, setting it off.’

  ‘Can that happen?’ said WS.

  ‘Abel Glaze has some knowledge of these things,’ I said. ‘Once when he was in the Low Countries he saw a fellow whose pistol dropped from his belt by accident. It hit the ground and went off, killing him stone dead.’

  ‘And so Ulysses Hatch died by his own weapon.’

  ‘Perkin claimed he was deafened and terrified. He fled from the tent, clutching the empty box. Later on he met up with Nightingale and they divided the day’s takings. He was showing him the empty box and telling him the story of what happened, flapping his arms like a bird. I don’t think Nightgingale believed him. Who would?’

  ‘Until the bird himself appeared to give evidence,’ said WS. ‘Naturally the raven picked up the glass vial. Bright and shiny and valuable.’

  ‘Then he must have waddled out of the tent,’ I said.

  ‘Did Justice Farnaby bring the humans to account for their thieving?’

  ‘He did not, William. I think that he was so…surprised by the turn of events that he had no appetite for relatively trivial offences. Besides, there wasn’t any evidence against Perkin or Nightingale. No one saw them stealing anything. The money they had could have been their own, honestly earned. No, they got off scot-free. And Hatch’s death is accounted a strange misadventure.’

  WS turned to one side and picked up the sheaf of paper from the table. He crossed to the fireplace and deposited the sheets there. He struck a flint and set the flame to the paper.

  ‘There,’ he said as he watched the fire catch hold and the sheets curl and blacken. ‘Sometimes flame is the author’s best friend. No one will ever see or hear of my Domitian again. You have done me no small favour, Nick.’

  ‘In return, I shall ask for some information.’

  ‘If I can give it.’

  ‘You were once familiar with someone called Doll. Wapping Doll?’

  WS had been crouching on his hams supervising the destruction of his script. Now he levered himself to his feet once more, groaning slightly and making some time-filling comment about old bones.

  ‘Wapping Doll? No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Ulysses Hatch said differently.’

  ‘Did he now?’

  ‘Said that you and he had once had a falling-out over her.’

  ‘Never contradict a dead man,’ said WS.

  ‘Was he right?’

  ‘Why so insistent, Nick?’

  Now it was my turn to feel uncomfortable.

  ‘Do you mean to ask,’ said WS, ‘whether I was once young and energetic and far from home in this great city, as you were yourself not so long ago? And glad of company?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ I said.

  ‘Young ravens must have food, you know. However, your question is a fair one, considering what you’ve done for me. I’ve never told you of my early years in London, have I?’

  ‘Not much,’ I said.

  ‘Then I shall tell you now.’

  And he did.

  EPILOGUE

  Greenwich, London, 2005

  The turbid waters of the Thames swirled around the bend in the river, like dirty cocoa in some gigantic drainpipe. Half a dozen workmen in their yellow hard hats fussed over the unlo
ading of steel girders from a barge that was moored to a landing stage on the south shore. A telescopic crane mounted on the back of a huge truck was swinging the two-ton girders around in a wide arc to deposit them on the ground behind the wharf. The Millennium Dome was undergoing yet another facelift to try to establish some enterprise that might at last allow the place to start making a profit.

  The foreman looked back at the unlovely hemisphere as he took out a narrow tin to roll himself a skinny cigarette. ‘Waste of time, this job. The bloody place is cursed!’ he muttered pessimistically.

  Yelling ‘Take five!’ to the other men, he gestured to the crane driver. Stefan Kozlowski locked his controls and left a girder swaying gently twenty feet above the ground. Clambering down, he gratefully arched his aching back and, lighting a cigarette, ambled along the debris-strewn foreshore beyond the landing stage to stretch his legs. After he had walked a few yards, a glint of yellow caught his eye, and he bent to pick up what he hoped was a gold coin.

  It was embedded in the old mud well above the high-tide mark, and when he pulled it, a small glass tube slid reluctantly from the filth with a sucking sound. When he wiped the top, it glistened, but when he scratched it with a fingernail, Stefan saw that what shone in the sunlight was just the peeling remains of gold leaf.

  Idly, he pulled out the tight-fitting bung from the mud-smeared tube and shook out what was inside. To his disgust, it was just a piece of rotted wood, sodden and crumbling. He poked it around his palm with a finger, then shrugged and put it back in the vial. Just above him on the bank was one of the large rubbish skips that dotted the construction site around the Dome, and with an overarm toss that would have done credit to a Test cricketer, he sent the disappointing object sailing up into the skip.