by Paul Doherty
Sir John’s lower lip came out, a sign that he was seriously considering Athelstan’s theory. He held the friar’s bright-eyed gaze and winked.
‘You’re correct, little monk.’
‘Friar, Sir John.’
‘Whatever, you’re still right. I wonder what Moleskin would think of your theory?’
‘Res ipsa loquitur – the matter speaks for itself. Now let’s look for the proof. I know Moleskin is not far, he’ll be plotting with Merrylegs.’
Athelstan hurried out through the main door and down the steps. Cranston heard him shouting at Crim, who was playing hodman in the cemetery. When the friar returned, Cranston was pleased at Athelstan’s ill-concealed excitement. He started walking up and down, fingering the vow knots on the cord round his waist.
‘It can’t be the Oyster Wharf,’ he kept exclaiming, ‘it just can’t be, not with a parish like this nearby.’
So distracted, Athelstan ignored Cranston’s questions about Moleskin and went off to fill the situla with holy water. Only then did he return to sit opposite Sir John.
‘Benedicta has left to deliver the letter,’ he declared. ‘We must question the Regent whether he likes it or not.’
‘Is he behind this mystery? Oh, Jesu miseieie, I hope not.’ Cranston lowered his voice. ‘He’s a veritable salamander. Everything he touches becomes tainted.’
‘Salamander or not,’ Athelstan retorted, ‘he has a finger in this pie.’
Athelstan was about to go and trim the candles on the high altar when Moleskin, garbed in sajreen green, the coat of his guild, fashioned out of the untanned skin of a horse and dyed a rich hue, came running through the door.
‘Oh, Brother,’ he gasped, ‘I was with Merrylegs. He’s a marvellous cook and had some pastry to sell to my wife . . .’
‘Never mind.’ Athelstan was unusually sharp. ‘Moleskin, you’ve heard the rumours about the great robbery? I ask you in confidence, would you bring a treasure, even in the dead of night, to the Oyster Wharf in Southwark?’
‘No, Father, I wouldn’t, and I’ve often thought about that—’
‘Twenty years ago,’ Athelstan continued, ‘who would be found at the Oyster Wharf at the dead of night?’
‘Well, Father, the usual, whores, a few fishermen, beggars looking for scraps or a place to sleep. Oh!’ Moleskin’s fingers went to his lips. ‘This was twenty years ago?’
‘Yes.’
‘The year of our Lord 1360 – the thirty-third year of the old King’s reign?’
‘Yes,’ Cranston barked.
‘Ah!’ Moleskin blithely ignored the coroner’s anger. ‘That would be three years after the year of the Great Stink.’
‘The what?’ Athelstan asked.
‘The Great Stink,’ Cranston explained, ‘occurred in the summer of 1357, after a very dry, hot summer. There was no rainfall, the brooks and the canals of the Thames became polluted and full of rubbish. The smell carried as far north as the great forest of Epping.’ He wagged a finger at Moleskin. ‘I know what you are going to say.’
‘That’s right, Sir John, the Stink lasted for years – at least two, I think. Many pious old ladies thought the Second Coming was due and the Seventh Seal on the Judgment Book of God about to be removed, so they formed the Vespertines. Every night after vespers, these pious old creatures would form a torchlight procession, whilst their husbands would carry statues of the plague saints; you know, Sebastian and the rest. They walked along the quaysides of Southwark, praying that God would send fresh rain and a cleaning wind. I was a young man then but I’m sure the Vespertines were still busy about the same time as the great robbery. I can still remember their chanting and prayers, asking God to repel the demons and the foul airs and vapours they’d brought up from hell.’
‘Thank you, thank you.’
Athelstan dismissed Moleskin and slowly began to put away his writing implements.
‘So, it wasn’t the Oyster Wharf after all, Sir John. I want to visit the Chancery room in the Tower. I want to see what the documents published at the time actually said. I’ll tell Malachi where we are going . . .’
Rosamund Clifford, she called herself. Of course, when they had held her over the font in St Mary-le-Bow Church, she’d been given another name, Mathilda, but that wasn’t a name used by the troubadours or minstrels. Rosamund Clifford had a romantic ring about it; she’d heard the legends, how once an English king had a mistress of the same name who was later foully poisoned at the centre of a maze. Well, that would not be her fate, she thought as she left Mother Veritable’s house and turned into a needle-thin alleyway. Rosamund: Mother Veritable said it came from rosa mundi – rose of the world. That was flattering, even though her rivals, who also knew a little Latin, called her ‘Rosa Munda’, the cankered rose. She would ignore such taunts! After the deaths of Beatrice and Clarice, as well as the sudden and mysterious disappearance of Donata, she was now Mother Veritable’s principal lady of the bedchamber.
Rosamund hunched her pretty shoulders in glee; she had received a message from what Mother Veritable called the Castle of Love at the Night in Jerusalem. Sir Thomas Davenport needed her services. Rosamund was delighted at the news, and had decked herself out in all her glory. Her fiery red hair was scooped up in an embroidered net, or reticule, whilst her low-cut gown, loaned by Mother Veritable, was of costly pers, a rich blue fabric from Provence. Beneath it, white lace-edged petticoats and stockings of dark blue with silver stars, on her feet Spanish pattens, and thick-soled high-heeled shoes over soft woollen slippers. Rosamund had visited Sir Thomas before; he always liked to see her in these. She fingered the silver brooch on her cloak, carved in the shape of a pear, a blatant symbol of sexual desire. She tripped down the alleyway oblivious to the lecherous glances and whispers; she was well protected by two of Master Rolles’ bully boys, armed with cudgels, only a shadow-length behind her. Rosamund felt hungry and her mouth was watering as she entered the Night in Jerusalem. Perhaps Master Rolles would give her a bowl of rapes and lentils mashed with a mortar along with breadcrumbs, spices and herbs, or perhaps a dish of pain-pour dieu, circlets of bread soaked in egg yolks, salted till golden and sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar. She was soon disappointed.
‘He’s upstairs.’ Rolles broke her reverie. The tavern keeper was standing at the entrance to the tap room. He certainly didn’t look well, Rosamund reflected. She climbed the stairs; he hadn’t even offered her a goblet of wine! She’d been informed that Sir Thomas was waiting for her in the Galahad Chamber and had to walk into the adjoining gallery before she spelled out the words painted in gold above the great oaken door.
‘Sir Thomas.’
No answer. Probably maudlin, she thought, as he did like his wine.
‘Sir Thomas!’
She knocked hard, and pressed her ear against the door. She tried the latch but the door held firm. She picked up a jug from the floor outside the room and used this to bang noisily.
‘What’s the matter?’ Sir Maurice Clinton, his thin face all cross, came out of the room next door, pulling a fur-edged cloak around him. ‘What’s the matter, girl, can’t you rouse Sir Thomas?’
‘No, sir, I cannot.’
Fair Rosamund would never forget what happened next. Master Rolles, also alerted by the noise, came thundering up the stairs. They were joined by Sir Reginald Branson as well as servants and other maids. Sir Thomas Davenport still could not be roused, and their agitation deepened as people recalled the brutal murders of Chandler and Broomhill. At last the door was forced, broken off its hinges, the locks and bolts snapping free. It fell back with a crash like a drawbridge going down, revealing a gruesome sight. Sir Thomas lay stretched on the floor with a pricket, a pointed candlestick, thrust deep into his heart. The floor around him glistened with blood, still curling and running, as it found its way through the turkey carpets. Nobody told Rosamund to stand back and fascinated by the horror, she followed the rest into the room.
‘He’s been murdered,’ the
head ostler whispered.
Rosamund gazed at the frightful sight. Sir Thomas lay crumpled, slightly to one side, as if he had fallen from the soft-backed chair beside him, face all pale, but the look on his face! As if his sightless eyes were about to blink and those gaping lips about to talk! Rosamund watched Sir Maurice pick up a solace stone, semi precious, its flashing rubies oval cut and polished, and place it on the table. He crouched down beside the corpse, turning it over gently.
‘We had best leave him,’ Rolles whispered. ‘That fat coroner and his snooping friar have to be called. No, don’t,’ he intervened as Sir Maurice went to pluck the pricket from Sir Thomas’ flesh.
‘Yes, leave it,’ Sir Reginald urged. ‘We should clear the room, leave everything until Cranston comes.’
Chapter 11
Athelstan and Cranston sat blowing on their fingers in the freezing Chancery room of the Tower. Athelstan’s throat felt slightly sore and his back sweaty and cold. He wondered if he was about to suffer an attack of the rheums. He quietly promised himself a boiling cup of posset before he retired that day and tried to forget the symptoms. He stared round the circular room high in one of the towers, just a short walk from the Norman Keep. The lancet windows had been boarded up, a fire burned in the cavernous hearth, braziers crackled and glowed, yet the chamber was still freezing cold. Colebrook, the surly lieutenant, with whom Cranston and Athelstan had done business before, had greeted them at the Lion Gate, and taken them immediately up to the Chancery room. Hubert, the chief clerk, had reluctantly left his beloved filing and recording of memoranda, writs, letters and proclamations. A small, curiously bird-like man, in both appearance and movement, Hubert had gestured at the various great coffers and chests arranged neatly around the room by regnal year. At first he gave Cranston a lecture on the storage, preservation and filing of parchment and, ignoring their interruptions, insisted on showing them how documents were recorded and stored. He then proudly demonstrated the new invention he had found in Hainault, what he termed a ‘Rotulus’, a small wheel with a handle on the side. The roll of vellum was attached to a clasp on the rim and the wheel cranked round so that a searcher could scrutinise the different membranes twined to each other.
‘If a letter is sealed by the Great or Privy Seal,’ Hubert pompously announced, ‘it is copied and brought here. Oh, I heard you before, Sir John, I remember the year of the Great Stink, and who can forget the robbery of the Lombard treasure?’ He creased his face into a look of sharp condemnation. ‘I was in the Chancery at that time; letters of proclamation were issued, north, south, east and west. Come, I’ll show you.’
He searched amongst the coffers and brought out a small roll of parchment, its contents summarised in Latin shorthand on the back. He inserted this on the Rotulus and Athelstan began his search.
‘Very curious,’ Athelstan remarked, turning the wooden handle. ‘There’s no doubt His Grace the Regent,’ he nodded at Hubert, ‘although he wasn’t that then, there’s no doubt about his rage.’
‘Oh, very true,’ the clerk intoned. ‘Brother, I saw him the day after the robbery. Raging like a panther he was. Eyes bright with anger, he lashed out with his tongue.’
‘You’re sure of that?’ Athelstan asked.
‘Brother, I’m a skilled clerk. I have inscribed the letters of the old King, when he was lying in bed, ill with myriad ailments. On that day His Grace was angry. If he had caught the perpetrators he would have hoist them from the highest gallows.’
Athelstan, Cranston standing beside him, continued the search.
‘Most remarkable.’ Sir John pointed to one document. ‘The ships weren’t riding at anchor off Southwark but between the river fleet and St Paul’s Wharf.’
‘And look,’ Athelstan pointed to a line, ‘there’s no reference, well at first, to the Oyster Wharf. Simply to a great robbery along the river.’ He turned the handle again, moving the document forward. ‘Only a month after the crime is the Oyster Wharf mentioned. Remember what I said, Sir John, about Archimedes. We must go to the right place, and now we have it.’
He paused as Cranston took a deep draught from the miraculous wine skin, offered it to Athelstan, who shook his head, and then to Hubert who, despite his size, surprised Cranston with the generous swig he took.
‘What it means, Sir John,’ Athelstan continued, ‘and we shall have to ask His Grace this question, is why was the Oyster Wharf mentioned, when all the evidence indicates that the robbery took place on the south bank of the river, but much further down? Imagine, Sir John, if you can, the Southwark bank. You pass the Bishop of Winchester’s inn, the stews, the washing places, and then what?’
Cranston closed his eyes. ‘Muddy banks,’ he replied, ‘marshy fields, giving way to mud and shale. Lonely places.’ He opened his eyes. ‘The ideal spot.’
‘Exactly, Sir John, I think that’s where the robbery took place.’
Hubert the clerk was listening intently.
‘Ah, I see what you mean,’ he muttered. ‘By St Mary and all the angels, this is interesting.’
‘It will become common knowledge soon enough.’ Athelstan stood back. ‘Right, Sir John, in that fertile mind of yours, imagine the treasure barge, leaving the Tower. It goes directly across the river, following the bank along the Southwark side, past the Oyster Wharf, down to this lonely spot. Culpepper and Mortimer are waiting with their own barge. They use lanterns or torches to bring the party from the Tower in to where they are waiting. The treasure is exchanged. In the flickering light of the torches, Culpepper hastily signs the indenture.’
Athelstan returned to the Rotulus and found the indenture. ‘Only one word, thesaurum, the Latin word for treasure, indicated the great wealth he received. The document had been drawn up by some clerk. The party from the Tower probably took writing implements with them. Culpepper scrawled his name, “Ricardus Culpepper”, with a cross beside it, and beneath that “Edwardus Mortimer”, who drew a roughly etched lion, his family symbol.’ Athelstan stared at the signatures. Something about them pricked his memory, but for the life of him, he couldn’t place it. ‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘the treasure is exchanged, the Tower barge leaves. I’m not too sure when the bargemen arrived, but there, on that dark lonely bank, the demon struck. Whatever people say, I truly believe four souls were sent into eternal night. The treasure chest is stolen, the barge is ransacked and pushed out into the river, where the tide takes it down to some reeds near Westminster.’
‘And the corpses of the four men?’ Cranston asked.
‘I don’t know, Sir John, I truly don’t.’
‘But why all this mention of the Oyster Wharf?’
Athelstan was about to answer when there was a knock on the door. Colebrook entered, grasping a tap boy from the Night in Jerusalem by the scruff of his neck. The lad broke free and hurtled towards Athelstan, almost colliding with him.
‘Brother,’ he gasped. ‘You have to come.’ He swallowed hard. ‘Sir Domus—’
‘Sir Thomas,’ Athelstan corrected.
‘Well, he’s dead,’ the boy retorted, ‘stabbed through the heart with a pricket. Master Rolles is fair raging like a hungry dog on a leash.’
‘When did this happen?’ Cranston asked.
‘This morning,’ the boy declared, eyes riveted on the coin in Athelstan’s hand. ‘A real mystery,’ he whispered. ‘The windows all shuttered, the chamber doors all locked and barred. Master Rolles wasn’t pleased with that either.’ His little eyes didn’t leave the coin. ‘A good door to the Galahad Chamber broken down, bolts and hinges all destroyed. Sir Thomas lying in his own blood like a duck on a stall, fair swimming in blood he was—’
‘Thank you,’ Athelstan interrupted, pressing the coin into the child’s hand. ‘Now lead on, Gabriel.’
‘My name is not Gabriel.’
‘It is today,’ Athelstan smiled.
They thanked Hubert and Colebrook and, with the lad scampering ahead like a monkey released from its chain, left the Lion Gate, up Tha
mes Street and into Billingsgate. They pushed their way through the fish market, thrusting aside the sharp-eyed apprentices eager to sell them the fresh catch of the day. The boy moved like a coursed hare, dodging round the stalls, making obscene gestures at anyone trying to stop him. On the approaches to London Bridge, Cranston had to roar at him to halt whilst he and Athelstan paused to catch their breath.
‘Another murder, Brother,’ the coroner gasped, ‘and it looks as mysterious as the last.’
And they were off again, threading their way through the narrow thoroughfare. They passed the shops and houses built on either side of the bridge, the gaps where the great laystalls stood, full of reeking rubbish from the midden heaps, wary of the makeshift sewer coursing down the centre of the thoroughfare. The stench was sickening. Athelstan hated the place. the bridge rails soared the long ash poles bearing the severed heads of traitors and criminals. The boy had to slow down here, as the crowds thronged, to look over the side and watch the water rushing through, gape up at the severed heads, visit the shops and stalls, or pray in the cold darkness of St Thomas’ Chapel, built in the middle of the bridge directly above the rushing torrent. Athelstan crossed himself as he passed the half-open door. He sketched a blessing in the direction of Bourdon, the diminutive Keeper of the Bridge, who was sitting on the steps of the chapel, between his feet a bucket of brine in which he was washing the severed head of a criminal. Athelstan kept his eyes on the ground. Such sights were offensive, and the dizzying height over the rushing water always made him feel nervous. He was pleased to be off the bridge and hurrying down the lanes and alleyways and into the courtyard of the Night in Jerusalem.
Rolles met them at the door and, like a prophet come to judgement, mournfully took them up the polished oaken staircase into the Galahad Chamber.
‘I told people not to move anything.’
‘Has Brother Malachi been sent for?’ Athelstan asked, staring down at the blood-soaked corpse.