by Paul Doherty
For a while Sir Laurence recalled those arrows, wrapped in flaming cotton, shooting through the air. Scaling ladders all ablaze, the men on them, small black figures trapped by the inferno, dropping like pieces of soot to the ground below. The hideous song of the mangonels, catapults, the ominous battering of the rams, the creak of siege towers and that chilling climb to the parapets . . . Sir Laurence had been there, one of the first, eager to seek the absolution promised, in the heart of the fight, all around him the hiss of the sword, the clang of the axe and the dire music of those arrows let loose against the fiery sky before dropping like a deadly rain. On either side of Sir Laurence men went down as they fought to advance the great white banner with its red cross further along the battlements. They were all maddened, the noise of battle pulsing fiercely through their blood, made worse by the fever brought on by the pitiless heat and myriad flies. Their opponents, men in turbans and billowing cloaks, fell like scythed corn before them, blood splattering out.
Sir Laurence opened his eyes. Even now he could recall their snarling faces as well as those of the innocent, cut down as the Crusaders advanced deeper into the city: the young, the women, left broken with sightless eyes and blood-dripping mouths. Sir Laurence would never forget the exquisite beauty of those fountain courts, all awash with red water. Gardens, heavy with scent, turned into battlefields, the blood-chilling screams, and afterwards? Sitting on ebony-inlaid chairs, sleeping on low-cushioned divans, drinking sherbet and wine, stuffing his mouth with dried dates, and clothing himself in the soft fabrics found in the chests of the treasure houses of their enemies. Sir Laurence sighed deeply. Whatever the bloodshed, he, and the other Knights of the Golden Falcon, had taken that victory as a sign of God’s favour. They had all survived, returned home to enjoy the fruits of their endeavours.
Sir Laurence stiffened at the knock on the door. He pulled himself up and swung himself off the bed. He walked across the room. He was about to draw the bolts when he glimpsed the scrap of parchment pushed beneath the door. He snatched it up, read it quickly and paled at what was written. He strode across and swiftly pushed the small scroll deep into the brazier, losing it amongst the burning coals. For a while he paced up and down, wondering whether to rouse the rest, only to reject this idea. The note had been quite explicit, promising to reveal the truth behind Chandler’s death and warning him to come alone. Sir Laurence pulled on his boots, fastened on his war belt, took his cloak and went out down the stairs. The passageways were fairly deserted. The tap room had yet to fill for the evening revelry, whilst it would be some time before he and the rest of the knights gathered in the solar for a feast of roast swan and whatever other delicacies the taverner could offer.
Sir Laurence paused. He stared across the tap room, watching a scullion mop at a table. All pleasure had gone out of this visit, with Chandler’s death, and that olive-skinned Dominican and his harsh remarks about sin and absolution. He reached the cellar door, lifted the catch and went down into the musty darkness. Candles glowed in the gaps between the old red brick-work. It was still frighteningly dark, made worse by the scampering and squealing of vermin. Sir Laurence reached the bottom step; all was dark, except the candle which was glowing at the far end. He screwed up his eyes; was it a lantern or a lamp? He could make out the tuns and vats stacked at either side, and the wine-soaked path between.
‘Who’s there?’ His voice echoed. His hand fell to his dagger. Perhaps he should go back? The cellar had now fallen very silent. The rats and mice were cowering in the dark, as if they too were aware of what evil might lurk there. Sir Laurence stepped down, and his booted foot hit something hard. In a few heartbeats he heard a click, a snap, and his leg shattered as the cruel claws gripped and dug deep. He screamed as tongues of pain shot up his leg, forcing him back, coursing like flames through his body. He tried to move but could not, and in his agony he recalled the lush papyrus groves along the great river near Alexandria, those huge water beasts with their long snouts and cruel teeth which could drag a man down, sever a limb with a snap of their jaws. Was this happening? Sir Laurence found he couldn’t move at all. The pain was intense. That dreadful chill, the words of the Dominican echoing about sin . . . Had the past leaped forward like a panther to punish him? Sir Laurence screamed as a fresh wave of excruciating pain swept through him . . .
Athelstan returned to his house to find the kitchen and scullery scrubbed and cleaned. Benedicta, who had a key, had also left a pie and freshly baked doucettes. The fire was banked, fresh green logs on the top to keep the flames down, but the heat from the charcoal beneath was refreshing. Bonaventure, stretched out, lifted his head disdainfully as the Dominican came in. Athelstan cut the pie and took pewter, tranchers, horn spoons and napkins across to the church, telling the Misericord to wait a little longer. Then he visited the stables where Philomel, belly full, was snoring loudly.
Athelstan locked his house and stared up at the church tower. The mist was spreading, rolled in by a biting breeze from the river. In a few hours it would hang like a thick blanket, shrouding everything. He looked up at the sky. The stars seemed so distant. He would have loved to go up and spend the last hours of the night watching the stars wheel and wondering if that comet he’d recently glimpsed would be seen again. Athelstan loved to spend such evenings suspended, as he had described it to Cranston, between heaven and earth, watching the glory of God, whilst Bonaventure sprawled out beside him. Did the earth move? Athelstan wondered. Or was it the stars? He had read certain new treatises collected by his mother house at Blackfriars. Was Aristotle right? Did the planets give off music as they turned? What force, apart from the power of God, held stars in their position? Yet why did comets fall?
He felt a movement against his leg and stared down at Bonaventure. ‘Great assassin of the alleyways,’ he whispered. He stood for a few seconds watching the fire of the braziers and half listened to the men crouched around him. Their raucous singing made him smile. Watkin must have drunk deeply. He would only sing when his belly was full of ale. Athelstan hurried back to the church. He arranged the firing of a small brazier and filled two chafing dishes with burning charcoal. Once they were warming the sanctuary, he and the Misericord sat either side of the rood screen door, leaning against the wood as they shared out the food and wine. The Misericord ate ravenously, gulping the pie and two doucettes even before Athelstan had finished Grace. Afterwards, one hand over a chafing dish, the other holding a goblet, the Misericord stared down the nave.
‘How old is this place, Brother?’
‘Some say two, others three hundred years old. A few even claim it was built before the Conqueror came.’
‘Does it hold anything valuable?’
Athelstan recalled the ring and quickly felt his wallet, his fingers brushing the small case.
‘It contains very little,’ he conceded. ‘According to canon law we should only have a missal, a complete set of vestments, a fine linen cape, a pyx on a silver chain and a corpus case.’
‘What’s one of them?’
‘The leather pouch in which you put the pyx. You have never stolen from a church?’
The Misericord shook his head. He was about to say something but changed his mind.
‘Look.’
The Misericord pointed at the mist now curling under the doorway.
Athelstan had lit two of the wall torches but, with the mist seeping in and the shadows shifting, they made the church even more sombre.
‘Do ghosts walk here?’
‘Perhaps,’ Athelstan teased.
The Misericord gave a low groan.
‘Don’t worry,’ Athelstan assured him. ‘Ghosts can’t come into a church. Watkin claims that sometimes, early in the morning, a young man with dark red-rimmed eyes in a snow-white face can be seen on the top step outside, one arm around a dog. The parishioners claim it was a young apprentice who hanged himself on a yew tree in the cemetery. And of course,’ Athelstan continued, ‘a former parish priest dabbled in black magic. He w
as called Fitzwolfe. I met him once, a tortured mind with a soul as black as midnight. Oh, and by the way,’ Athelstan pointed further down the church, ‘over there, see the leper squint? Once upon a time a leper hospital stood nearby. The poor souls who lived there were not allowed to come into church, so if they wanted to hear Mass, they looked through the squint holes in the church wall from outside. The ghost of a poor leper woman is sometimes seen kneeling there. She has fiery red hair and liverish scaly skin. She is supposed to have mocked the Mass, but I think that is only a story meant to frighten the children.’
The Misericord refilled his goblet.
‘And what ghosts do you harbour?’ Athelstan asked. ‘I know you are a scholar and a singer, so what brings you here?’
‘I was a member of the Society of Pui. The name comes from the French town Puy-en-Vale. It is a society dedicated to music. Its purpose . . .’ The Misericord screwed up his eyes. ‘Oh yes, that’s what its charter says: “For the increasing of joy and love and, to that end, the spreading of mirth, peace, harmony and joyousness, that they all be maintained.”’ The Misericord opened his eyes. ‘I hail from the Halls of Cambridge. I was a good singer, a poet . . . The society used to meet in St Martin’s in the City. You had to pay sixpence for admission, and every year you had to compose a new song. A contest was held, and the winner would be crowned with a gilded chaplet.’
‘And what happened?’
‘Well, when we met, one of us was given money, to buy a fifty-pound candle of pure beeswax. On one occasion I was given the money, but I had fallen on hard times so I bought a cheap candle and filled the centre with fat, turpentine, cobbler’s wax and resin.’
‘Oh no!’ Athelstan groaned.
‘Oh yes!’ the Misericord declared. ‘I brought the candle back and gave it to our leader. When he was halfway down the nave of the church, the candle . . . well, the flame reached the turpentine and fat, and it all disappeared in a shower of flame. I was expelled from the society.’ He shrugged. ‘And one thing led to another: thievery, trickery, filching, clipping coins. At first I was successful, until the sheriff’s men discovered who I was. I was proclaimed a wolfshead and went into hiding.’
‘Why?’ Athelstan asked. ‘You have a keen mind and nimble wits.’
The Misericord put his face into his hands. He muttered something inaudible.
‘Why are you hiding now?’ Athelstan asked.
‘I don’t know.’ The Misericord took his hands away. ‘I’m a cunning man. I have deceived many. It’s happened before. Some powerful official whose wife I have bedded, or a merchant I have tricked. It’s not the first time that I have had the hunters of men tracking me as if I am a deer.’
‘And this time?’
The Misericord shook his head.
‘Whoever it is,’ he confessed, ‘the malice runs deep. The Judas Man has pursued me all over Southwark. I know him by reputation. He had two of my friends hanged.’
‘And last night?’ Athelstan asked. ‘At the Great Ratting?’
‘I had to be there. I know all about your parish, Brother Athelstan. Amongst those who live in the twilight world, Ranulf the rat-catcher has a fearsome reputation. I decided to wager on him and won a good purse.’
‘But you suspected the Judas Man would follow?’
‘Oh yes, that bastard is worse than a hunting mastiff. So I decided to play a trick. I looked around the tap room and glimpsed poor Toadflax, with his red hair and pale face. He had more than a passing resemblance to me, so I paid him a coin and gave him one of my misericord daggers. I didn’t intend the poor man to be killed. I thought he would delay the Judas Man.’
‘Did you see the Judas Man enter the tavern?’
‘I knew he was there but I hid in the shadows. I was determined about my wager.’
‘Did you see him speak to anybody?’ Athelstan asked. ‘You must have wondered who had hired him.’
‘I don’t care who hired him. Whoever it is cannot catch me. It’s the dog he’s hired which worries me.’
‘And you saw the fight?’
‘I saw it begin, but then fled.’
‘Do you know Master Rolles?’
‘Know him? He is a distant kinsman. He often shelters me. He told me to be careful.’
‘So you often stay at the Night in Jerusalem?’
‘Yes, out in the stables or the hay barn.’
‘And the two girls who were killed?’ Athelstan pressed on with his questioning. ‘Beatrice and Clarice?’
The Misericord glanced away and shrugged.
‘I know them by sight. Rumour has it that they were garrotted.’
‘No, they were killed by crossbow and dagger.’
‘I did see them talk to that fat knight.’ The Misericord glanced at Athelstan out of the corner of his eye. ‘Pike’s a good source of knowledge – there’s been another killing at the tavern, hasn’t there? Anyway,’ he continued, ‘that pricked my memory. The fat knight was talking to the two girls. They were teasing him how they had enough custom for the night, and he would have to wait.’ The Misericord blew his cheeks out. ‘That’s all I know, Brother. I watched the Great Ratting, collected my purse and fled. I tried to cross London Bridge but the Judas Man had his spies there. The hue and cry was raised . . .’ His voice trailed off.
Athelstan rose and cleared away the tranchers and spoons. Bonaventure slid through the half-open corpse door to begin his night’s hunting. Athelstan was about to retire when a clamour broke out at the main door. He hurried down and removed the bar. Two women stood there. Behind them, some distance away, the Judas Man and the bailiffs watched carefully.
‘Good evening, Brother.’ The voice was cultured and sweet-sounding. ‘May we come in?’
Athelstan stepped back. He thought the two women were cowled and hooded, but as they came through the doorway, he realised they were both dressed in the heavy brown robes and starched white wimples of nuns. The speaker was young and comely, smooth-faced, with wide-spaced gentle grey eyes. She wore a silver Celtic cross around her neck, a plain white girdle around her waist. The other was much older, wearing a ring on her vein-streaked left hand. Athelstan realised the younger was a novice, whilst the older was a fully professed member of the Minoresses from the Franciscan convent to the north of the Tower near Poor Jewry. The younger one gestured to her companion to stay near the door, whilst she stretched out her hands to exchange the kiss of peace with Athelstan.
‘My lady?’ Athelstan gently kissed her on each cheek.
‘This is Sister Catherine.’ The grey eyes smiled. ‘Whilst I am Edith Travisa.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I am Edith Travisa.’
Athelstan suddenly recalled the Misericord’s true name.
‘You are . . .?’
‘Edith!’
The Misericord came running down the church. Athelstan hastily closed the door and pushed the bolt back. He turned around. Edith and the Misericord were clasped in a tight embrace. The novice held the young man like a mother would a son, her white fingers gently patting him on the back.
‘Edith, you shouldn’t have come.’ The Misericord stepped back. ‘Brother Athelstan, this is my sister.’
‘I think we had best leave the doorway,’ Athelstan urged. ‘Sister Catherine, are you comfortable?’
The old nun gave a gap-toothed smile.
‘I’ll stay here,’ she said in a sing-song tone. ‘Mother Superior gave us an hour. We have left our porter outside. He’ll see us safely back.’
‘Do you want something to eat or drink?’
‘There’s no time, there’s no time.’ Edith’s voice was stern and the old nun nodded in agreement.
Athelstan escorted the brother and sister back up into the sanctuary. He brought a chair for the novice whilst he and the Misericord sat on the rood-screen step.
‘I heard you were taken,’ she began.
‘I’m not taken,’ the Misericord declared, ‘and you shouldn’t have come here. I’ll
escape, something will happen.’
‘I’ve brought you some—’
‘There’s no need,’ the Misericord interrupted. ‘Brother Athelstan, would you leave us alone?’
‘Only if you tell me what this is all about?’
‘Edith and I,’ the Misericord’s haste was apparent, ‘are full brother and sister. Our parents lived near Cripplegate. They were clothiers. They died when the plague returned. Other relatives, too, perished. I have to look after Edith. Now, she was betrothed to Henry Sturny—’
‘Ah, yes!’ Athelstan interrupted. ‘They are cloth merchants in Cheapside.’
‘Henry loves Edith, Edith loves Henry, but there was the question of the dowry.’ The Misericord took a deep breath. ‘I wasted my parents’ wealth. Now, Brother, you know the reason for my mischief. I placed Edith in the care of the good Minoresses, and have spent every waking moment of the last three years trying to raise her dowry. Five hundred pounds sterling in all.’
Athelstan could tell by the way this cunning man was staring at his sister how much he loved her. He made to go away, but turned back.
‘Do you know any of these knights, with their rather grand title of the Golden Falcon? They’d be known to you by their name and status in the shire of Kent.’
The Misericord blinked and cleared his throat. ‘I have,’ he chose his words carefully, ‘done business with them.’
‘You mean you’ve tricked them?’
‘What is this?’ Edith interrupted.
‘Your brother’s usual depredations,’ Athelstan explained. ‘You do realise he is well known to every law officer south of the River Trent?’