The House of Shadows

by Paul Doherty

  Chapter 7

  They found the Night in Jerusalem eerily quiet. Rolles had kept the door shut, refusing to allow customers inside the stable yard. Ostlers and grooms lounged about, whispering amongst themselves. The passageways and tap room lay silent. Sir Maurice Clinton and the rest were already waiting in the solar. Cranston and Athelstan greeted them and were halfway up the stairs when they met Rolles.

  ‘You are too late, sir.’ Rolles pointed back at the chamber. ‘Broomhill’s dead. Stapleton the physician has just left – there was nothing we could do.’

  The taverner looked strangely agitated. Athelstan regarded him as a man with a soul as hard as flint, which not even the most dire of circumstances could weaken; now his fleshy face was pale and unshaven, eyes red-rimmed.

  ‘I am not a well man, Brother.’ The taverner gestured at his clothes, which were soaked in blood. ‘I am losing custom. I do not want these knights here ever again.’

  He paused as Brother Malachi came up the stairs, a stole round his neck, in his right hand a phial of holy oils, in his left a beeswax candle.

  ‘I must anoint him,’ murmured the Benedictine.

  They let him by. Rolles continued on his way down; Athelstan and Cranston went up on to the gallery and waited outside the Morte D’Arthur Chamber.

  ‘You may come in.’

  Brother Malachi was standing by the bed, the candle snuffed, the holy oil replaced in its small leather bag.

  Cranston whistled as he looked round. ‘It’s like a battlefield!’

  The bed drapes, linen, coverlets and rugs were drenched in blood. Bandages, linen pads, as well as the poultices Stapleton had used to try and staunch the bleeding lay everywhere. The corpse, its skin as white as a leper’s, sprawled on the bed, naked from the waist down. Athelstan went across whilst Cranston, grasping his miraculous wine skin, turned away in disgust. Broomhill’s right leg was shattered midway between knee and heel. The wound exposed raw flesh, muscle and vein, and, peering down, Athelstan could see even the bone beneath was gashed. The smell was offensive; infection had already set in.

  ‘He must have been in agony,’ Athelstan remarked, staring at the dead man’s face, contorted by his last convulsions.

  ‘Stapleton gave him an opiate,’ Malachi replied.

  ‘There was nothing we could do.’ Rolles stood in the doorway like a prophet of doom. ‘Nothing at all.’

  ‘Did he say anything before he died?’ Athelstan asked.

  ‘He babbled about the past.’ Rolles came into the chamber. ‘He talked of a great river beast which could swoop up and gulp a man’s body. He was feverish, he didn’t know what he was saying.’

  ‘What was he doing in the cellar?’

  ‘He went down in the evening. I found a jug nearby; perhaps he was going to fill it from one of the vats?’

  ‘Aren’t there servants, scullions, tap boys?’ Athelstan asked.

  ‘Of course,’ Rolles snapped, ‘but sometimes the galleries are deserted, and I do not object to favoured customers helping themselves. The knights always pay well.’

  ‘Pay well.’ Athelstan echoed the words. ‘Brother Malachi, what is the source of these knights’ wealth?’

  ‘Estates, some of the most fertile land in Kent, flocks of sheep, fishing rights. You could fill a charter with the sources of their profit.’

  ‘But once they were poor.’

  ‘Poor men become rich when their fathers die. Moreover, the knights brought plunder back from Egypt. They stormed palaces and treasures. Sir Maurice Clinton seized a box of mother-of-pearl, exquisite in their beauty, called the Pearls of Sheba; supposedly they once belonged to the great Solomon’s lover.’

  ‘And what happened to these?’

  ‘On our way home, the fleet docked in Genoa. The Genoese were only too pleased to buy whatever treasure the Crusaders had seized.’

  ‘Did you receive a portion of this wealth?’

  ‘No,’ Malachi smiled, ‘but my order did.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, let’s leave here.’ Cranston picked up a coverlet and draped it over the corpse. ‘Master Rolles, I want to see where he was wounded.’

  Malachi stayed in the chamber whilst Rolles took them down to the cellar, Athelstan gingerly following the coroner down the stone steps, where a few candles glowed in wall-niches. At the bottom they paused as Rolles lit lantern horns slung on hooks to reveal a long, low-ceilinged cavern with vats and barrels stacked down either side. In the corner, to Athelstan’s right, were garden implements: mattocks, hoes and spades.

  ‘I did my best to clean the blood,’ Rolles muttered, and gestured at the great oval-shaped mantrap now resting against the wall. He pulled this out and prised apart the teeth.

  ‘A simple contraption,’ Athelstan conceded, ‘yet so deadly.’

  The trap opened up and was kept apart by a spring. When Rolles touched this with a stick, the teeth came together with such a clash Athelstan jumped.

  ‘I need this,’ Rolles explained, sensing Athelstan’s horror. ‘Brother, ask Sir John, anyone! I have carp ponds, stables and outhouses which must be protected. A gang of rifflers can take your livestock in a night. Just knowing the traps are here will keep them away.’

  ‘You need a licence,’ the coroner snapped.

  ‘I have that. I know the law, Sir John, I can only use this when I can prove I am in danger of being robbed.’

  ‘More importantly,’ Athelstan crouched down, ‘why was it left open down here last night? And why did Sir Laurence come down here?’

  He picked up the metal jug.

  ‘Was this from his chamber?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Athelstan stared down the narrow passageway of this gloomy cellar, trying to imagine what had happened. Undoubtedly the Knights of the Golden Falcon would have been upset by Chandler’s death, as well as their own forced confessions about consorting with prostitutes. They might have drunk deeply. Sir Laurence, eager for more wine, took a jug from his own chamber or the kitchen and came down here.

  ‘This cellar is always in darkness, isn’t it?’

  ‘Of course,’ the taverner replied. ‘Candles are lit only when necessary.’

  ‘What if Sir Laurence came down here expecting to see somebody. He didn’t know this place. What do you do, Sir John, when you walk downstairs in the dark, particularly if you have been drinking?’

  ‘Take great care; those small candles in the wall-niches provide scanty light.’

  ‘And we don’t know,’ Athelstan mused, ‘if Sir Laurence was carrying a lantern.’

  He closed his eyes, trying to recall how he came down the steps of the bell tower at his church. He hated that spiral staircase; he was never too sure when he reached the bottom. Wouldn’t Sir Laurence have felt the same? Athelstan got to his feet. The area around the steps stank of the brine and vinegar Rolles had used to clear up the blood; here and there splashes still stained the wall and the ground at the foot of the steps.

  ‘Sir Laurence must have been distracted.’

  Athelstan pulled the mantrap over, placing it closed at the bottom of the steps. He then walked down between the vats and barrels to the far wall. The brickwork here was uneven and Athelstan noticed, just above his own gaze, a rather large gap.

  ‘Sister Wax,’ he murmured, recalling his discovery at the squint hole at the church earlier that day. ‘Sister Wax, you’ve helped me again!’

  The wax on the brickwork was soft and clean, freshly formed.

  ‘Master Rolles, come here.’ The taverner came down to join him. ‘Did you place a candle here?’

  The taverner brushed the wax with his fingers.

  ‘No, no, I didn’t. By the amount of wax, a candle must have been burning here for some time.’

  Athelstan asked Rolles to bring a tallow candle down. The taverner took one from the box beneath the staircase, lit it and placed it in the niche. The cellar lanterns were doused. Athelstan went back up the steps, ignoring Cranston’s moans about the d
arkness, then turned and came slowly down again. Even though he was aware of the small lights in the wall-niches, he was still attracted by that solitary candle burning at the far end of the cellar. He reached the bottom step.

  ‘Sir Laurence was murdered.’ His voice echoed sombrely through the darkness. ‘Master Rolles, please light the lanterns. Sir John, if you would . . .’

  They left the cellar and walked out into the stable yard, well away from any eavesdropper.

  ‘I’m sure Sir Laurence was murdered,’ Athelstan repeated. ‘That’s how it was done. Somebody, somehow primed that trap and invited him down to the cellar. I wonder what the lure was? Perhaps a revelation about the mysteries now besetting us, or something else?’

  ‘It was dangerous,’ Cranston declared. ‘Somebody else could have been killed.’

  ‘I don’t think the assassin cared. The real question is, who is it? The taverner? Any of those knights? And the Judas Man and Mother Veritable seem to be able to come and go as they wish.’

  Athelstan stared across at the hay barn.

  ‘Do we have one assassin, Sir John,’ he asked, ‘or two? Even more? Think of these mysteries as lines. We have the Misericord’s strange doings; we have that infamous robbery twenty years ago; we have the death of those two young women; now we have the murder of two knights. It’s a question of logic, Sir John. Do the lines run quite separate and parallel, or do they meet, tangled up with each other?’

  He was about to continue when the Judas Man came swaggering through the gate, his face bright with pleasure.

  ‘I’ve found him!’ He clapped his leather-clad hands. ‘Brother Athelstan, I apologise for my earlier rudeness, but the Misericord’s been caught.’

  ‘Whereabouts?’

  ‘Just near Bishopsgate. I had men on the road leading out. They’ve sent a message; the Misericord is safely in Newgate and I shall visit him there.’ Chuckling with glee, the Judas Man tapped Athelstan on the shoulder and entered the tavern.

  ‘He’ll find little comfort there,’ Cranston murmured. ‘Brother, where are you going?’ Athelstan was already striding towards the gate.

  ‘Why, Sir John, to Newgate. I want to question the Misericord before the Judas Man pays him a visit.’

  This time Cranston found it difficult to keep up with Athelstan’s pace as they threaded through the needle-thin alleyways down to the quayside. They were delayed for a short while, as bailiffs with staves and clubs were trying to break up a small but very noisy crowd shouting, ‘Shovels and spades!’ the usual cry which went up along the riverside whenever any private individual tried to take over a stretch of the Thames.

  ‘It’s happening along both banks of the river!’ Cranston exclaimed as they climbed into Moleskin’s barge.

  ‘That’s right, Sir John,’ Moleskin agreed. ‘If the rich have their way they will buy up every plot of land along the Thames. I won’t be able to moor my barge without paying a tax, whilst you, Sir John, won’t be able to water your horse.’

  ‘And the women of the parish,’ Athelstan interrupted, ‘won’t have anywhere to wash their clothes. Water is a gift, Sir John; as the Gospel says, the Good Lord lets his rain fall on the just and the unjust.’

  ‘But the unjust gets more,’ Sir John quipped, ‘because he owns a bigger barrel.’

  ‘And has stolen the just man’s,’ Moleskin added, pulling back the oars and taking the boat out across the choppy tide.

  While Cranston and Moleskin badgered and teased each other, Athelstan stared moodily across the river. A bank of mist still hovered mid-stream. Athelstan quietly prayed that Moleskin would have his wits about him, as well as a sharp eye for the various wherries, fishing boats and barges of every description going up and down the Thames. To his right he could make out the lines of London Bridge, including the poles bearing the severed heads of traitors. He wondered how Master Burdon, the Keeper of the Bridge, was doing. Burdon was a mannikin, very proud of the trust shown to him, an engaging little man if it wasn’t for his rather macabre habit of combing the hair of the severed heads.

  Athelstan, reflecting on the tumult behind him, wondered how the likes of Burdon, Moleskin, Pike the ditcher, Ranulf and the rest would cope when the great revolt occurred. He had listened most attentively to Sir John, he had witnessed first hand the soul-wrenching poverty of London’s poor, aware of the stories flooding in from the countryside of how the peasants seethed at the taxes, levies and tolls imposed upon them. Would the revolt reach Southwark? Would his own parishioners join in? Would they achieve anything, or would it all end in murderous street fighting, and mass executions in Smithfield and elsewhere? He heard Moleskin mention the death of the two whores on the night of the Great Ratting, eager to find out if Cranston knew all the gory details. Was their journey across the Thames connected with this? Cranston replied evasively while Athelstan thought about the Misericord being trapped outside Bishopsgate.

  ‘Have you taken anyone suspicious across?’ he asked abruptly.

  ‘I am suspicious about all my passengers, Father.’ Moleskin nodded at Cranston.

  ‘You’ve heard how the Misericord escaped?’

  Moleskin shook his head, but his eyes betrayed him.

  ‘If you were fleeing London?’ Athelstan asked.

  ‘I certainly wouldn’t use the bridge or a barge,’ Moleskin replied, ‘but go south through the countryside.’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’ Athelstan pointed at the approaching bank. ‘So he must have been going to meet someone, and I know who.’

  Once they had landed at Queenhithe, Athelstan reminded Cranston about his previous night’s visitor.

  ‘So he was going to meet his sister?’ Cranston asked.

  ‘I think so. One last visit, perhaps,’ Athelstan replied. ‘He made a mistake; the Judas Man knew more about the Misericord than his victim realised.’

  They walked up into Thames Street, making their way through the busy crowds. The thoroughfares and lanes were much broader here than in Southwark, the people better dressed in their fur-edged coats, mantles and ermine-lined hoods, the markets more prosperous, the stalls piled high. From the prices being bawled Athelstan understood how steeply the cost of everything had risen, be it cloths and leather goods from abroad, or vegetables from the garden estates outside the City. They passed the towering mass of St Paul’s, up Dyer Lane and into the shambles, where the fleshers and butchers had their stalls. The broad cobble-lined lane had turned slippery with the offal and blood strewn about. Packs of dogs vied with beggars and the poor in snapping up these morsels. The air was rich with the odour of raw flesh; even the butchers and apprentices were drenched in blood, their stalls slippery with the juices dripping off. For the price of a penny, the poor were allowed to place pots and pans underneath to collect these drippings. Cranston was well known here; he was greeted noisily by the bailiffs and beadles as well as the officials who guarded the chain in front of Newgate, its forecourt stretching up to the prison’s iron-barred black gates.

  Athelstan always hated the place; it was a veritable pit of misery. Outside the gate, prisoners thronged, manacled together, sent out to collect alms by their gaolers for both themselves and other inmates. Relatives of those held in the pits and dungeons fought to bribe guards and turnkeys with messages and gifts for their beloved ones within. A woman shrieked that she had children to feed but how could she do so whilst her husband was in chains? Athelstan pressed a coin into her hand; only when they had passed through the gate and into the prison yard beyond did Cranston, with some exasperation, explain how the woman was a mummer who often preyed on passers-by. The prison yard itself was also noisy. Lines of prisoners, shivering in their rags and unshod feet, waited to be taken down to the cells, whilst a tired-looking bear sat chained in a corner. One of the gaolers explained how its keeper had become drunk and attacked a spectator.

  ‘It seems a pity to punish the bear,’ Athelstan murmured, ‘it looks so tired and old.’

  The gaoler followed his gaze,
scratching the stubble on his cheek.

  ‘What do you suggest, Brother, a blessing?’

  ‘No.’ Athelstan pressed a coin into the man’s hand. ‘Make sure it’s fed and watered and looks a little happier before we leave.’

  The gaoler agreed, then escorted them into the foul-smelling prison. They walked along narrow, badly lit passageways, down mildewed steps, into what the gaoler called the Netherworld, a narrow, sombre passageway with dungeons on either side. They were introduced to its keeper, a burly, thickset man with a leather apron around his waist. He recognised Sir John and swiftly handed back the coroner’s seal of office which Cranston always carried to identify himself.

  ‘The Misericord is along here.’ He gestured with a sturdy finger. ‘The Judas Man paid me well to keep him secure.’

  He led them along the corridor. Occasionally Athelstan heard a groan, a scream, or raucous abuse hurled at them through the small grilles at the top of each door; occasionally he glimpsed mad, gleaming eyes staring out at them. The Misericord’s cell was at the end, built into what used to be the foundations of the ancient Roman wall, one of the most secure cells in the prison, the keeper explained, inserting a key and scraping back the rusting bolts. The dungeon inside was small, with no window or gap for air or light. It reeked like a latrine and the rushes on the floor had turned to a muddy slime. The Misericord, sitting in a corner, sprang to his feet. The keeper beckoned Athelstan in and handed him the small tallow candle he was carrying.

  ‘Brother, I thought . . .’

  ‘You thought I was the Judas Man.’

  The Misericord agreed and slunk back into the corner, gazing fearfully at Sir John.

  ‘Let’s make your guests as comfortable as possible.’

  The keeper took the candle from Athelstan and placed it on a rusty iron spigot jutting out of the wall. He brought in two stools for Cranston and Athelstan, then closed the door, but not before explaining that he would keep it unlocked; if they needed help, he would be just outside.