The Assassin's Riddle

by Paul Doherty

  Stablegate sat down. Sir John moved away. The room fell quiet except for the squeaking of Stablegate’s quill.

  ‘Oh, by the way,’ Cranston called out. ‘If anything happens to Flinstead before you leave England, you will have violated the law of sanctuary and you can be killed on the spot.’

  ‘As the Book of Ecclesiastes says, Sir John,’ Stablegate scoffed over his shoulder, ‘there’s a season and a time under heaven for everything.’

  ‘And the clerks of the Green Wax?’ Athelstan asked. ‘What business did you have with Alcest?’

  ‘Safe passage from the kingdom, but ask him yourself!’

  Stablegate got to his feet, the parchment now crumpled into a ball. ‘I have your word, Cranston?’

  ‘You have my word. Drop that parchment on the floor. You and Flinstead can flee. Flaxwith will follow.’

  Stablegate threw the parchment on to the ground. He made a rude gesture at Sir John and ran for the door; Flinstead needed no second bidding but followed. The coroner and the friar stood and listened to their feet pounding down the passageway, the front door being opened and slammed shut behind them.

  ‘Is that just?’ Flaxwith asked.

  Cranston grinned evilly.

  ‘You can’t break your word, Sir John.’ Flaxwith’s eyes rounded in alarm. ‘Holy Mother Church is most zealous about the law of sanctuary.’

  Sir John picked up the parchment and tossed it from one hand to the other. ‘Oh, they can stay forty days in St Mary Le Bow on bread and water. Then I’ll have the two bastards marched down into Queenshithe. Now, Henry, you may think I’m a bastard but I have a friend, Otto Grandessen, half merchant, half pirate, a real bastard. Otto owns a cog which does business in the Middle Seas, sailing to Aleppo and Damascus. He’ll take those two beauties aboard. By the time Otto’s finished with them, they’ll wish they had died at Tyburn. He’ll put them ashore at Palestine. There’s not much mischief they can do in the desert surrounded by Saracens who would love to take their heads.’ Cranston opened the piece of parchment. ‘Go on, Henry, make sum where they have gone.’

  The bailiff hurried off.

  ‘Well?’ Athelstan asked.

  ‘The insolent . . .!’ Cranston looked up ‘Oh, he’s told us where the money is: they never took it out of the house. It’s buried in the cellar.’

  Athelstan made to follow him out but the coroner waved him away. ‘No, sit there, Brother, I’ll find the bloody silver! If I know this house correctly, the floor will be beaten earth. When Henry comes back, tell him to join me.’

  Cranston marched off Athelstan sat down. He felt pleased: Stablegate and Flinstead were evil men. Whatever Drayton’s crimes, he died a miserable death and Sir Johns agreement to the criminals was more than just. Athelstan leaned back and closed his eyes. He felt a small glow of satisfaction and realised that, in their own way, he and the coroner had done God’s work, as necessary and demanding as preaching and ministering to the parishioners of St Erconwald’s. Athelstan’s eyes flew open. Any feeling of goodwill disappeared as he recalled Watkin marching up and down.

  ‘God knows what trickery they are up to,’ Athelstan declared. ‘But how and why?’

  ‘I beg your pardon, Brother?’

  Flaxwith stood in the doorway.

  ‘I’m sorry, Henry, I’m just speaking to myself. Our two felons?’

  ‘Headed into the porch of St Mary Le Bow like rats down a hole’

  ‘Good. Sir John wants you in the cellar.’ Athelstan smiled ‘Yes, that’s where they hid the silver. Stablegate must have put it there, planning to return at his own convenience. You’d best hurry.’

  Athelstan cocked an ear at the string of colourful oaths he could hear from below. Flaxwith left and, for a while, Athelstan wondered how he could deal with the miraculous cross of St Erconwald’s. He thought of Alison. She must be allowed to leave soon, Athelstan concluded: Sir John could not keep her here for ever. His mind wandered further: he recalled what Stablegate had said about the clerks of the Green Wax. Athelstan was now certain that Alcest, his companions and possibly Chapler had been involved in some subtle trickery, forging licences and letters. A very serious crime: the Vicar of Hell would have known about it, any wolfshead or outlaw who needed a letter or an official writ would pay a heavy price. Alcest probably had a forged seal. Lesures might well suspect it but because of Alcest’s blackmail he dared not investigate or protest. But why the killings? Athelstan scuffed at the floor with the toe of his sandal. All the clerks involved had died grisly deaths, starting with Chapler. Was it a question of thieves falling out? Had Alcest become greedy and decided to keep their ill-gotten wealth for himself? He heard Cranston’s voice in the corridor. The coroner, specks of dirt on his robe, strode into the counting room with two mud-covered sacks which jingled as he shook them.

  ‘To those who knock, it shall be opened, those who seek shall find.’

  ‘The Regent’s silver?’

  ‘Precisely. Those impertinent villains had buried it deep beneath an old chest. Do you know who found it?’ Cranston shook the sacks as if they were bells. ‘Samson, he started sniffing and scuffling . . .’

  ‘That’s why I have him,’ Flaxwith announced proudly, coming in with the other valuables. ‘Now, Sir John, surely the dog deserves a small stipend, or a juicy bone or a piece of meat?’

  Cranston thrust the sacks into Flaxwith’s already laden arms. ‘The Corporation hires donkeys so why not dogs, eh, Henry?’

  The bailiff looked puzzled. Cranston crouched down and patted the dog on his head Athelstan was sure that, if dogs could smile, Samson did.

  ‘Right!’ Cranston got to his feet. ‘Henry, get your burly boys and take that silver, the gold pieces and the candlesticks down to the Bardi in Leadenhall Street. Tell them Sir John has sent it. They are to count it, weigh it and send it under guard to the Regent at the Savoy Palace.’ He pointed to the seals round the necks of the grubby sacks. ‘It’s all there and don’t worry, the Bardi wouldn’t dream of stealing a penny from John of Gaunt. Then go to the Guildhall, draw on the common purse.’ He clapped the bailiff on the shoulder. ‘You may take Samson to the Holy Lamb of God,’ he added in a reverential whisper. ‘And ask that good alewife for two blackjacks of ale and an onion pie for yourself as well as a nice piece of goose for the dog. I’ll pay.’

  Cranston watched as Flaxwith strode down the corridor as if he had just been anointed whilst Samson, who’d paused to cock his leg, wobbled behind as pompously as any Justice at Westminster.

  ‘There goes a satisfied man,’ Cranston murmured ‘Well, Brother, where to now? A word with Master Alcest?’

  ‘In time, Sir John. However, I believe the Vicar of Hell might be partial to one of your agreements, so a visit to Newgate wouldn’t be out of order.’

  ‘It’s Hanging Day there,’ Cranston warned darkly.

  ‘Good,’ Athelstan replied. ‘It will help concentrate the Vicar’s mind, won’t it?’

  ‘You think Alcest is the assassin, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, Sir John, I do. I believe he definitely killed Chapler, then, for his own obvious reasons, turned on his companions in crime.’

  He and Sir John walked down the corridor and out of the house. Athelstan slammed the door and, stepping back, looked up at the dirt-covered windows.

  ‘Avaritia, radix malorum, Sir John: the love of riches is the root of all evil. Or is it?’ he added as if to himself. ‘And is it the case now?’

  CHAPTER 12

  Athelstan crossed himself and murmured a silent prayer, as he always did when he approached the main gateway of Newgate prison. He and Sir John had just forced themselves through the press as the crowd assembled for Hanging Day. Six footpads who had preyed upon travellers along the old Roman road were now being dispatched as quickly as rats by a farmer. Newgate was a foulsome, horrid place. Athelstan could never decide which was the more offensive, the filth and dirt in which the prisoners were kept or the fawning attitude of the jailers and bailiffs: the
se smiled falsely and wrung their hands whenever Cranston appeared. Sir John had his own thoughts on the matter: whenever he entered the prison, the coroner never drank, joked or bothered to pass the time with any of its officials.

  ‘If I had my way,’ he growled as they followed the jailer across the great cobbled yard to the cells, ‘I’d burn this place to the ground, rebuild a new prison and put it under the governance of a good soldier. I’d certainly put an end to that.’ Sir John pointed to an unfortunate who had refused to plead before the Justices; he was stripped, ready to be pressed under a heavy, oaken door until he agreed to plead either guilty or not guilty.

  They left the yard and entered a mildewed corridor which ran past cells, veritable hellholes. The air was gloomy and the stench made Athelstan gag. Paltry sconce torches fought against the murky air and Athelstan tried to ignore the terrible din, the oaths, rantings and ravings of mad prisoners and the filthy abuse hurled at the jailer going ahead of them. They passed cell chambers; in one the corpses of executed felons lay like slabs of meat upon a butcher’s stall. These would be placed in iron cages and taken out to be gibbeted along the roads leading into London. In another the corpses of executed criminals who had been hanged, drawn and quartered were being boiled and pickled before being given a coat of tar and placed over the gates of the city.

  ‘Never come here!’ Cranston warned ‘This is truly the abomination of the desolation. Every time I do,’ he added in a whisper, ‘I pray God will send fire from heaven to consume the place.’

  They entered a large room where bailiffs and beadles were drinking or playing checkers or hazard.

  ‘Good morning, Sir John.’ A pox-faced beadle, one eye hidden beneath a patch, waved them over. The man pointed to the chessboard. ‘Would you like a game, Sir John? King against king, bishop against bishop?’

  Cranston shook his head. ‘Some other time and certainly not here.’

  They were about to follow the jailer down another narrow passageway when Athelstan stopped.

  ‘Brother?’

  ‘Sir John, the first riddle about a king defeating his enemies but, when the battle is over, both victor and vanquished lying in the same place: it describes a game of chess.’

  Cranston told the jailer to wait. ‘Of course!’ he breathed. ‘A game of chess! What does it prove, Brother?’

  Athelstan rubbed his face. ‘I don’t know, Sir John. I think our assassin sees the murders as a game and, at the same time, is clearly proclaiming that he will play the game, even if he has to end up in the same place as the vanquished.’

  ‘And that’s the grave,’ Cranston replied. ‘It makes sense, Brother. If Alcest is our assassin, there’s no doubt that he’ll die as well.’

  ‘But why should Alcest be prepared to put his own life at stake?’

  ‘That I don’t know, Brother.’ They continued down the passageway until the jailer stopped at a door. ‘At the heart of Newgate, Sir John.’ His chapped, dirty face brightened with malicious glee. ‘The Vicar of Hell deserves the best and the best he will get.’

  He unlocked the door, swung it open and, going inside, fixed the sconce torch into a rusting clasp on the wall. The Vicar of Hell sat on a pile of straw in the corner; his ankles and wrists were loaded with chains which were clasped to iron rings in the wall. His face was covered in dirt and a large bruise darkened his right cheek, yet he still smiled cheekily.

  ‘Sir John, I would rise and bow but . . .’ He spread his hands in a rattle of chains. ‘I suppose you’ve come to tell me that the Bishop of London has decided to reinstate me as a priest or the Regent has issued a pardon?’

  ‘You’ll hang, me bucko.’ Cranston stood over him. ‘Yet, when you’ve gone, I’ll miss you.’ He waited until the jailer closed the cell door behind him.

  ‘Am I going to hang?’ the Vicar asked softly and stared piteously at Athelstan. ‘So many psalms yet to be sung. So much claret to be drunk.’ He sighed. ‘There again, I’ve seen the days and all good things must come to an end.’

  Cranston stepped back to lean against the wall. Athelstan went over to the door and stared through the grille; the jailer, eavesdropping on the other side, scampered off.

  ‘You are not a bad man,’ Cranston continued ‘Not a really wicked soul. You are a rogue born and bred. You are attracted to villainy as a cat to cream.’ He lifted a hand. ‘But I swear, I don’t wish to see you hang. Exiled from London, perhaps for two or three years.’ Sir John paused and scratched his chin.

  The Vicar of Hell was now all attention. ‘And the terms, Sir John? What are the conditions?’

  ‘The clerks of the Green Wax.’

  ‘Oh, Sir John, you couldn’t!’

  ‘Oh, Sir John, I can,’ Cranston quipped back. ‘What’s so special about them? Most of them are dead and have been replaced, whilst we know enough about Alcest to send him to do the hangman’s dance at Tower Hill or Tyburn.’

  ‘Agreed.’ The Vicar of Hell sat back in the corner. ‘If I tell you, Sir John, these chains are loosed?’

  ‘If you tell me,’ Cranston replied, ‘you’ll be a free man by dusk. However, if you are caught in the city again, it’s summary justice: down on your knees, neck against a piece of wood and off goes your head!’

  ‘It’s like this, Sir John,’ the Vicar began. ‘People like myself have to – how can I put it? – move around. Go to this city or that. Travel beyond the seas. Or, when the fire becomes too hot, seek retirement by gaining a position in some merchant’s household. To do that I need letters, warrants and licences. Now, what am I going to reveal will mean the closing of a loophole much loved by us villains. Tell me, Sir John, if I want such a letter or a licence what have I to do?’

  ‘Well, you can apply to the mayor, sheriff or Corporation of London.’

  ‘Yes, yes, Sir John, but you know me, as the good shepherd knows all the black sheep of his flock. So where else can I go?’

  ‘You could apply to the Chancery but such letters are only written at the behest of the Chancellor.’

  ‘And it takes time,’ the Vicar of Hell snapped. ‘So what we do is this, Sir John. We take the name of a dead person. We then get a clerk like Alcest to petition the Chancellor on our behalf . . .’

  ‘Of course,’ Cranston interrupted. ‘And if the petition has the recommendation of a clerk then it goes ahead and there’ll be no delay.’

  ‘Precisely, Sir John.’

  ‘So,’ Athelstan said stepping forward ‘if Philip Stablegate wishes to leave the country with a considerable amount of silver, he approaches Alcest. The clerk will then go through the records and extract the name of someone long dead. Let’s call him Richard Martlew. The petition goes to the Chancellor, who will undoubtedly grant it because it’s got a recommendation. Alcest will not even wait for the Chancellor to reply: he will draw up the document, Master Lesures seals it and the letter is issued. There are no forged seals.’

  ‘In a word, yes,’ Cranston replied. ‘Now, let us say this Martlew decides to leave England by one of the Cinque Ports. The reeve or harbourmaster probably can’t even read. He doesn’t give a fig if Martlew is Stablegate but he is trained to examine the seal. False seals can soon be detected but, if it’s genuine, he won’t even dream of stopping the person concerned.’

  ‘Isn’t a record kept?’ Athelstan asked. ‘I mean, the petition itself and the Chancellor’s reply endorsing it? And what happens if someone can prove that Richard Martlew is long dead?’

  The Vicar of Hell clapped his hands in a crash of chains. ‘What’s the use of that, Brother? Can’t you see the subtlety of the scheme? It was the Chancery office which authorised the letter to be written, not Alcest or Lesures. Moreover, Alcest could easily prove that he thought it was Martlew and that he didn’t even dream anything was wrong. He simply received a petition which he endorsed and sent to the Chancellor. Such requests are never refused: the letter, licence or warrant is drawn up and sealed. That’s what Alcest did. And who is going to betray him? To do that would b
e sealing your own death warrant.’

  ‘But stop! Surely,’ Athelstan asked, ‘there would be a discrepancy over the date? I mean, it’s issued almost immediately.’

  ‘No, Brother,’ Cranston retorted. ‘I can now see what our good friend means by a loophole. Let’s say you petitioned the Chancellor to travel to Calais: you put the petition in through Alcest, he would recommend or not recommend. He would also ensure the wrong date, perhaps ten days later, is put on the petition and dispatched to the Chancery Office. The Chancellor doesn’t see it, some clerk in his office simply writes “approved”, or the Latin placet, “it pleases”, and then it’s sent back. Alcest, meanwhile, has drawn up the licence, perhaps adding another two days on. Accordingly, a petition which looks as if it was drawn up on the tenth of August and issued, let’s say, on the twenty-second, really only took a day or two. It’s been done before, everybody abuses the system. What Alcest did was not just accept pennies, as other clerks have done for approval of a petition: he knowingly arranged for letters and licences to be issued to wolf-heads, outlaws and counterfeit men. Most clerks would certainly baulk at that. Alcest didn’t.’

  ‘And that was the source of their wealth?’

  ‘Of course!’ the Vicar of Hell scoffed. ‘And no one dared betray Alcest. For the first time, Brother, people like myself could travel freely, and protected by the law thanks to him.’

  He rattled his chains at Sir John. ‘Alcest and his coven are for the dark, if they haven’t gone there already. Our good coroner here will ensure the Chancery office strikes hard and either closes this loophole or cuts it off. There will also be some interesting times when the Chancellor orders the scrutineers to go through past records. I certainly don’t want it bruited abroad that it was I who betrayed Alcest. I may have my life but Sir John has received very valuable information in return.’

  ‘Aye, you’re right,’ Cranston sighed. ‘And it would have gone on. Alcest’s replacement would be approached and the offer of gold for a simple letter is very hard to resist.’ He squatted down before the Vicar. ‘Did Lesures know about this?’