by Paul Doherty
‘And the symptoms?’ Athelstan asked.
‘A stiffening of the limbs.’
‘You mean paralysis?’
‘That’s right, Brother, feet and hands first. It’s the same poison Socrates drank. So,’ Stapleton wiped his nose with the back of his hand, ‘for coming here, four shillings, one shilling for inspecting the corpse, and two for discovering a murder.’
Cranston pulled the door aside.
‘Master Stapleton,’ he smiled sweetly, ‘put your bill into the Guildhall, no more than five shillings, mind you. It was Brother Athelstan who discovered the murder.’
The physician sighed heavily and, hitching his robe, went out into the gallery to continue his argument with Master Rolles, loudly demanding he be given food and drink for his trouble.
‘I doubt if it was suicide,’ Athelstan mused. ‘Sir John, pull back that door. I want Master Rolles and the rest in here now.’
Cranston pushed the door to one side, and strode out bellowing names. Athelstan went and sat on the great chest at the foot of the bed. Rolles and Sir Maurice led the knights back in. Cranston sat down on the heavy oaken chair against the far wall, taking a generous slurp from his miraculous wine skin.
‘Can’t the corpse be removed?’ Sir Maurice protested. ‘It seems as if Sir Stephen is lying there staring at us.’
A short discussion followed. Athelstan agreed to the request and Rolles organised some of his bully boys, who stripped the bed of a sheet, lifted the corpse out, wrapped it up and removed it.
‘Put it with the others,’ Cranston shouted, ignoring the gasps of the knights.
‘I object,’ Sir Maurice declared.
‘Don’t object, sir,’ Athelstan replied. ‘You’ve read your Scripture: leave the dead to bury the dead. Sir Stephen’s body will be given an honourable burial wherever you choose, but his soul has been dispatched to God before its time, and God, not to mention the Crown and our Lord Coroner, would like to know the reason why.’
Rolles stood near the doorway, whilst the knights resigned themselves to Athelstan’s questioning. Some sat on stools and chairs. Sir Maurice stood by the door, his hand on the small coffer. Brother Malachi, having accompanied the corpse downstairs, returned with an ale pot in his hand.
‘I believe Sir Stephen was murdered,’ Athelstan began. ‘The poison was offensive and strong. It wasn’t in the wine jug but in the cup. Who brought that up?’
‘I did,’ Rolles declared. ‘And before you mention it, I had nothing to do with that man’s death. Ask my servants in the kitchen. Sir Stephen came back from Mass, he was complaining he felt hot, he had the rheums, and a slight fever.’
‘Sir Stephen often suffered from them.’ Sir Laurence Broomhill, a narrow-faced man clearly agitated by his comrade’s death, played with the Ave beads wrapped round his fingers.
‘So he had a fever?’ Athelstan confirmed. ‘His nose was full of mucus?’
‘He was coughing,’ Sir Maurice agreed.
‘So,’ Athelstan chose his words carefully, ‘Sir Stephen comes back to the tavern, orders a hot bath and a jug of claret. The tub is brought up and filled with hot water. You, Master Rolles, brought a tray with a jug of wine and a cup?’
‘Yes.’ The taverner nodded.
‘And when you came in here?’
‘Sir Stephen had begun to strip. He had complained about his boots being muddy. I told him to leave them in the basket outside, one of my pot boys would clean them.’ Rolles spread his hands and blinked. ‘Brother Athelstan, Sir John, I swear the cup was clean. The wine was the best Bordeaux. If I meant to poison Sir Stephen I would hardly have brought it up myself, would I?’
Athelstan agreed, but his searching stare disconcerted the taverner, now fearful of this quiet friar with his sharp eyes and pointed questions.
‘Did that cup of wine leave your care?’ Athelstan asked.
‘Never, I took the cup from the shelf, I rinsed it out with clean water, dried it with a napkin, put it on a tray and brought it up. I placed the tray on the table, talked to Sir Stephen about his boots and left. I heard him draw the bolts and turn the key behind me.’
He paused as Cranston gave a loud snore. The coroner’s head was going down. Athelstan quietly prayed that Sir John was not going into one of his deep slumbers. One of the knights laughed quietly.
‘Did anyone come into this chamber?’ Athelstan asked. ‘After Master Rolles had left?’
Sir Maurice and the rest shook their heads.
‘We wouldn’t,’ one of them declared. ‘If Sir Stephen was having his bath, he was most particular about his comforts.’
‘So, here we have Sir Stephen,’ Athelstan summarised, ‘alone in his chamber. When the cup and wine are left here there is no trace of poison in them. So someone must have come into this room and, whilst Sir Stephen was distracted, poured poison into that goblet. There’s no secret passageway, no one could come through the window and we have no reason to believe that Sir Stephen would take his own life. Now the claret was rich, it has a strong smell.’
‘A fragrance all of its own,’ Cranston abruptly declared, shaking himself and blinking.
‘Sir Stephen also has the rheums,’ Athelstan added, ‘mucus in his nose, so his sense of smell would not be so sharp. He climbs into the tub, drinks the wine and dies.’
‘He must have opened the door again,’ Cranston interposed.
‘Of course.’ Athelstan smiled. ‘Master Rolles, the boots weren’t placed outside when you left?’
The taverner shook his head.
‘So, it must have happened afterwards. There are two chambers, one on either side,’ Athelstan continued. ‘Who occupies them?’
‘One is a storeroom,’ Rolles replied. ‘Sir Maurice occupies the other.’
Athelstan sat staring down at the floor. He could only accept what the taverner had said; Rolles had no obvious grievance or grudge against Sir Stephen, and if he was involved in the poisoning, he certainly would have not brought up the wine himself. He asked Rolles again about the cup and jug never leaving his care. The taverner was adamant. Athelstan was convinced of his innocence, especially as Rolles made no attempt to pass the blame on to anyone else.
‘Was Sir Stephen in good humour? Was he anxious about anything?’
Athelstan’s questions only provoked a chorus of denials.
‘I must search the chamber,’ Athelstan declared. He was surprised by the reaction his statement provoked.
‘Sir Stephen is a lord,’ Sir Thomas Davenport shouted, ‘not a common criminal; his goods are not being distrained.’
‘I must search this chamber,’ Athelstan insisted.
Cranston rose to his feet and was glaring at the knights, challenging them to question his authority. In a moment of taut silence, Athelstan walked across to the coffer with the three locks.
‘What is this for?’
‘Private papers,’ Sir Maurice spluttered. ‘Keepsakes. Brother Athelstan, is this necessary?’
Athelstan patted the wallet which swung at the end of the cord around his waist.
‘Sir Maurice, I have found the keys. I wish you to leave now.’ He smiled thinly. ‘I have kept you long enough from your midday meal. Sir John and I still have business here.’ Athelstan paused. ‘Now, as for this casket, Master Rolles, have two of your men deliver it into the sanctuary of St Erconwald’s Church.’
‘Will it be safe there?’ Sir Maurice demanded.
‘I have the keys,’ Athelstan answered, ‘and not even my parishioners will steal something I place in the sanctuary.’
Sir Maurice and the other knights left, Cranston shouting out that he would not join them at table.
‘What do you think?’ the coroner asked once they were alone.
‘I don’t think anything, Sir John, except that I must search this chamber.’
They went through the dead knight’s possessions, which were stored in the great chest at the foot of the bed, as well as the aumbry built in the far corner, b
ut found nothing remarkable except finely cut clothes, jerkins, hose, boots of cordovan leather, spurs, a sword and two daggers in decorated scabbards attached to an embroidered war belt. Beneath the table, beside the bed, Athelstan found a psalter and leafed through it. The parchment pages were of the finest quality. Athelstan was intrigued that the psalter book was not regularly used except for one page, where Chandler had copied the words of a prayer. This page was well thumbed, the parchment black and shiny due to constant use. Athelstan read the first line aloud.
‘Have pity on me as you had pity on the possessed whom you saved from the power of the Devil.’
He glanced up. ‘I wonder what sin weighed so heavily on Sir Stephen’s soul that he had to recite this prayer time and time again?’ A question he posed to himself as much as Sir John Cranston.
Chapter 4
Cranston and Athelstan left the tavern. The coroner went into a scrivener’s to peer at an hour candle and came out loudly declaring for all to hear how it was past two in the afternoon and he was very hungry. Athelstan wanted to go back to his parish, but Cranston plucked at his sleeve claiming it was time to meet Mother Veritable, the Whore-Queen of Southwark. They made their way through needle-thin, filthy streets under the jutting storeys of houses which leaned so far out they blocked the sky and seemed about to crash into each other. Athelstan kept a wary eye on the windows as well as the creaking shop signs hung so low they were as dangerous as any axe or club. The streets were busy, packed with thronging crowds; they also reeked of sulphur as the scavengers were out, clearing the lay stalls, the Corporation’s refuse tips. The stench of the rubbish, which included the rotting corpses of animals, was so offensive Cranston bought two pomanders from a passing tinker. They held these to their noses, Athelstan firmly gripping his walking stick in his other hand as the poor of Southwark swirled about them, eyes and fingers ready to filch. Prostitutes, pimps, cunning men, the naps and the foists slunk back into doorways or alley mouths at Cranston’s approach. Now and again a piece of refuse was thrown – thankfully it always missed – followed by a curse or shout.
‘Watch out, watch out! Fat Jack’s about!’
Cranston growled deep in his throat but chose to ignore such taunts. The King’s justice was also very apparent along these grim streets. Cranston and Athelstan had to stand aside as a moveable gallows, a scaffold on a huge platform fixed on wheels, was pulled by oxen down one broad lane. Bailiffs guarded each side of the cart. On each branch of the four-legged gibbet hung a corpse, pitched and tarred. A placard nailed to the back of the cart proclaimed that the dead men were river thieves, hanged on the quayside just after dawn. After these came four women, wearing striped hoods, who had been caught playing naughty. They would be taken down to the stocks until their menfolk collected them and gave guarantees of future good behaviour. This macabre procession was followed by the bell man, dressed in the colours of the city livery. Every so often he would pause, ring his bell and proclaim how Miles Sallet, a cobbler, was to forfeit twenty-two pairs of shoes of good calfskin leather for knocking down a City beadle, and refusing to pay the fine.
Eventually Cranston led Athelstan off this broad thoroughfare and down Darkhouse alleyway. At the bottom of this, across a strip of common land, rose a fine but rather decayed mansion, its tiled roof, lead piping and red bricks peeping above a high grey curtain wall. Cranston marched up to the gate-house and pulled at the bell rope, hidden by a screen which looked curiously like a penis. He pulled at the cord again. Athelstan read the proclamation nailed to a piece of wood hanging from one of the gate pillars which declared that the ‘Garden of Delights’ beyond offered grapes, apples, pears, cherries, quinces, peaches, mulberries and apricots. Above the notice was a painting of a pale swan nesting, its long neck turned.
‘To the uninitiated, Brother,’ Cranston laughed, ‘that appears to be what any coster would sell from his stall. Take my word for it, you’ve never seen the type of gooseberries this house grows.’
Cranston hammered on the gate. The small grille opened, and eyes peered out.
‘Piss off,’ a voice snarled.
‘Is that you, Owlpen? Open up. It’s Jack Cranston. Either open up or I’ll return with warrants.’
The gate swung open and a little man with rounded eyes in a rounded face, two tufts of hair sticking up like the ears of an eagle owl, peered fearfully up at the coroner.
‘Oh! Sir John.’
‘Never mind that,’ Cranston snapped.
He pushed Owlpen aside and walked up the pebble-dash path. The garden on either side was cordoned off by a latticework fence. They went up some steps, through a half-open door and down a twisting passageway. The walls were lime-washed, the paving stones scrubbed clean. Owlpen tried to catch up but Cranston knew where he was going. He turned right and entered a small solar with two large windows overlooking a lovely garden. Athelstan glimpsed a lawn and raised herb patches as well as a small dovecote at the far end. The solar itself was more like a nun’s cell, plain with white plastered walls, dark furniture, no tapestries or pictures except for a great Crucifix above the mantled hearth. A woman sat beside the crackling fire, deep in a throne-like chair, feet resting on a small stool. She was busy with a piece of needlework, and hardly raised her head when Cranston doffed his beaver hat and gave a most mocking bow.
‘I thought you’d come, Cranston, like a fly from the dung heap.’
The woman looked up. In the poor light from both window and fire, Athelstan could not determine her age. She had a pale, hard face, quite beautiful, if it wasn’t for her glittering eyes and the slight twist to her mouth. She was dressed in a dark blue kirtle, with front lacing, a low girdle, and over this a velvet cloak lined with embroidered silk. Her dark hair was hidden by a headdress of fine gauffered linen cut in semicircles to hang down on either side of her face. Around her neck hung a gold chain with a jewelled cross, with a matching ring on the little finger of each hand.
Cranston didn’t reply to her insult. Instead he just stood over her, like some sombre shadow.
‘Roheisa,’ he whispered, ‘don’t make me act the bully boy.’
‘Mother Veritable to you, Sir Jack.’
She put down the embroidery on a side table, picked up a hand bell and rang it vigorously. A maid came in. Mother Veritable asked for two stools to be brought. Ignoring Cranston, she looked Athelstan over from head to toe.
‘A Dominican,’ she sneered. ‘Ah well, it takes all types. In this house, the cut of a man’s cloth means nothing. Why do you stand there, little priest? I’ve heard of you, with your sharp wits,’ she laughed, ‘and your snouting nose.’
‘God bless you, Mother Veritable.’ Athelstan sketched the sign of the Cross; she just made a dismissive gesture with her hand.
Owlpen and the maid returned with stools. Cranston and Athelstan made themselves as comfortable as they could.
‘I won’t offer you refreshment.’ Mother Veritable kicked the foot rest away. ‘You’ll take nothing in this house, will you, Cranston?’
‘I’ll take the truth.’
Mother Veritable sighed and raised her eyes heavenwards.
‘Here we go, my Lord Coroner, back into the world of men, eh? Two of my girls were killed last night, Beatrice and Clarice.’
‘Guinevere’s golden daughters.’
‘I remember Guinevere.’ Mother Veritable’s eyes looked sad, her face lost some of its hardness. ‘As I said, Sir Jack, the world of men, sharp and cruel. I loved Guinevere. Oh! She had a heart as black as her face was fair, but perhaps I loved her because of her treachery. You knew us both then, Jack.’
Cranston coloured with embarrassment and shuffled his feet. Mother Veritable leaned forwards and placed her jewelled white fingers over Cranston’s great paw.
‘You remember the glory days, Jack?’ Her voice was soft and sweet. ‘Guinevere loved, I loved, you loved, the City was full of young knights with their fair damsels. It wasn’t so hard then. My heart hadn’t turned to stone. I hadn’
t accepted the world for what it is, cruel and harsh. Do you remember the man I loved, Jack?’
‘Killed,’ Cranston replied. ‘Killed outside Bordeaux, wasn’t he?’ He withdrew his hand as if suddenly remembering why he was here.
‘Beatrice and Clarice?’ The woman sat back and shrugged. ‘Master Rolles, as usual, had sent for them, left a message in the tapestry of the Castle of Love; somebody wanted to hire them both. So they bathed and perfumed themselves, donned their best robes and went off to the Great Ratting. Oh, by the way, I’ve destroyed Rolles’ message.’
‘And you agreed?’ Athelstan asked. ‘To send two of your women out into the night?’
‘I had already received a silver coin, a token of what was to come.’ She held Athelstan’s gaze. ‘They didn’t come back. I thought they had been hired for the night. This is the only place they know. They would have returned and brought their silver with them.’
‘Every penny?’ Athelstan asked.
‘Little priest—’
‘Friar,’ Athelstan corrected. ‘I’m a Dominican friar.’
‘Whatever you are,’ she snapped, ‘I tell you this: woe betide the girl who returns here and holds back what she owes.’
Her gaze shifted, staring at a point behind Athelstan’s head. The Dominican turned: two great oafs dressed in leather jackets, hose pushed into high-heeled boots, sword belts strapped round their waists, stood silently at the door grasping cudgels.
‘Tell your lovely boys to go away,’ Cranston demanded. Mother Veritable gestured with her head. Cranston heard the door close behind him.
‘Master Rolles sent a message this morning. How the two girls had been found in the hay barn. Killed by a cross-bolt and dagger, wasn’t it? I went down to view the corpses,’ Mother Veritable continued matter-of-factly, as if describing a visit to a market stall. ‘Still beautiful, but dead.’ She half smiled. ‘Master Rolles had taken their jewellery.’