by Paul Doherty
‘I’m sure that bloody dog has a mind of its own!’ Cranston murmured. He glared at Moleskin sitting opposite him, pulling at the oars.
‘We meant well,’ Moleskin replied. ‘We did, Sir John. We can’t let Brother Athelstan leave.’
‘Silence now!’
Athelstan stared up at the darkening sky.
‘Master Colebrooke appears to have been too hard.’
‘No, no, I’ve heard it happen before,’ Cranston replied. ‘Alcest was a clerk. Sometimes it’s the young and apparently strong who succumb, not to the physical pain, but the mental torture. Alcest will not be the first, and certainly not the last, to die of fear.’
Cranston and Athelstan sat back as Moleskin guided his wherry past grain barges, fishing smacks, skiffs, some with lantern horns already hung against the gathering gloom. At last they reached the Tower. Moleskin, eager to please, took them along the quayside and promised he would wait for them. Cranston, Athelstan and Flaxwith clambered out but Samson refused to leave.
‘Treacherous cur!’ the bailiff whispered.
‘I don’t think so,’ Athelstan replied. ‘Moleskin always carries a sausage in his pouch and, if I can smell it, so can Samson.’
They made their way along the pebbled path and across the moat. The gates were closed but a sentry, carrying a torch, opened a postern door and then led them along the narrow lanes on to Tower Green. Colebrooke was waiting, sitting on the steps of the great Norman keep.
‘You were too hard on him!’ Cranston barked.
‘Sir John, we’d hardly begun,’ Colebrooke replied, getting to his feet. ‘I had him manacled to a wall. The questioners applied a burning iron to his arm and suddenly he jerked like a doll, blood pouring through his nose. He’s hardly conscious. I’ll take you to him.’
Cranston told Flaxwith to remain outside as they followed Colebrooke down mildewed steps into the dark, sprawling maze of the Tower dungeons. They found Alcest in one of these, lying on a bundle of clean straw. Athelstan crouched down by the makeshift bed. He noticed a bruise high on Alcest’s right cheek and the blood crusting around the nose at the corner of the mouth. The clerk’s hands and feet were cold as ice. Athelstan felt for the blood pulse in the man’s neck: it was slow and weak. The friar pointed to a tallow candle on the table.
‘Light that!’ he ordered.
Colebrooke did so, as well as the sconce torch on the wall above the door. He handed the candle to Athelstan, who let the flames burn for a while then blew it out, putting the wick under Alcest’s nose. The sharp, acrid fumes made the clerk stir; his eyelids fluttered.
‘Master Alcest,’ Athelstan whispered into his ear. ‘Master Alcest, you are very ill, perhaps even dying.’
‘A priest,’ Alcest murmured. ‘Father, I have such pains in my head. God’s judgement, such terrible pains! I have had them before. Sometimes at night,’ he stammered. ‘Father, I can’t feel my feet or hands, it’s so cold and dark.’ His eyes closed. ‘Shrive me, Father. Shrive me before I die.’
Athelstan looked over his shoulder. ‘Leave us,’ he ordered.
Cranston followed Colebrooke back along the passageway; they went out on to the green where Flaxwith was staring mournfully in the direction of the river.
‘I’m sorry, Sir John,’ Colebrooke confessed. ‘But I’ve seen it happen before. Sometimes, even before battle, a blood pulse breaks in the head or neck; there’s a loss of feeling in the lower limbs.’
‘Do you have a physician?’ Cranston asked.
‘A leech but he’s a drunken sot and at the moment is lying in his chamber. He could hardly open a door, let alone examine a man!’
Cranston walked across to study one of the heavy war machines. ‘Where’s Red Hand?’ he asked. ‘When I came here a few winters ago, I met him, a mad dwarf. He lived in the dungeons.’
‘Gone the way of all flesh,’ Colebrooke replied mournfully. ‘Died of a fever last spring.’ He pointed across to the little cemetery near the Tower chapel of St Peter ad Vincula. ‘Buried there he is, at peace at last.’
Cranston and Colebrooke stood chatting about people they both knew. The coroner heard his name called as Athelstan came up the steps from the dungeons.
‘You’ve shriven him?’ the coroner asked.
‘He’ll die a better death than the life he’s lived,’ Athelstan replied. ‘I don’t think it will be long, Master Constable. There’s no further need to question him. Give him some drugged wine, let him sleep. He’ll slip away. Don’t move him. The less movement the less pain.’
Cranston went to thank the Constable.
‘One moment, Sir John,’ Athelstan intervened. ‘Master Colebrooke, the scrivener?’
‘He’s still in the Byward Tower,’ the Constable replied.
Athelstan promptly hurried off. A short while later he returned. Ignoring Cranston’s questioning looks, he thanked Colebrooke and, with Flaxwith almost trotting before them, they left the Tower and made their way back to the quayside. Darkness was now falling. The clouds were building up over the Thames, gusted by a strong wind. Athelstan stopped and stared up at the sky.
‘It will be a bad night for the stars, Sir John, but, there again, we’ve got business to do.’
‘What business?’ Cranston asked. ‘Brother, what have you discovered?’
‘I can’t tell you that, Sir John. I can’t tell anyone what I heard under the seal of confession.’
‘But Alcest’s the murderer?’
‘Alcest is a murderer, as guilty as Judas.’
Athelstan made his way towards the steps. He grinned; his prophecy had been proved right. Samson sat in the boat, a piece of sausage dangling out of his mouth.
‘Thank God you’ve returned!’ Moleskin exclaimed. ‘I was afraid that when he’d finished the sausage he’d start on me!’
They all clambered in. Samson sat on his master’s lap and began to lick his face. Moleskin pushed away and, straining at the oars, guided his wherry skilfully across the Thames. The swell of the river had become more noticeable in the evening wind so everyone was pleased to reach Southwark steps. Flaxwith wanted to return to the city but Athelstan asked him to stay.
‘It’s Lesures, isn’t it?’ Cranston asked, plucking at Athelstan’s sleeve as they walked up an alleyway.
‘Yes, yes,’ Athelstan replied absentmindedly. ‘Master Lesures has a great deal to answer for.’ He stopped as they passed the Piebald tavern and looked through a window. ‘Stay there a moment, Sir John, you are not to come in, I won’t be long.’
Before Cranston could protest Athelstan went through the doorway; when he returned, he was pushing something into his pouch. Cranston noticed how he held this carefully as if it was something precious.
They found the cemetery and the area around the church deserted. The air still bore the stench of burning and candle wax but the makeshift altar in the cemetery was now tumbled down and all traces of the ‘Shrine of the Miraculous Crucifix’ had disappeared.
‘I hope Benedicta’s here,’ Athelstan murmured.
‘I think she is,’ Cranston replied. ‘I can see candlelight through your window, Brother.’
They found Benedicta and Alison seated round the table. Cranston exclaimed delightedly at the huge earthenware pot of ale Benedicta must have brought from a nearby tavern. She carried in fresh tankards from the kitchen and laid out five traunchers, each with strips of dried meat, cheese and slices of apple. Samson, ears cocked, looked around him.
‘Oh God!’ Cranston prayed. ‘Don’t let Bonaventure come back, not now!’
‘He won’t,’ Athelstan replied. ‘He’s a very intelligent cat and will know Samson’s here. But, Henry, come here. I have a small present for you and your wife. It’s upstairs in my bed loft’
Athelstan ignored the curious looks from the rest and led Flaxwith up the ladder. A few minutes later the friar returned alone and sat down at the table. He blessed himself, dipped his fingers in a bowl of water, wiped them on the napkin provided, then si
pped at his ale. Cranston began to speculate about a change in the weather but Benedicta suddenly pulled at his hand.
‘Shush, Sir John, listen!’
They all did.
‘Oh no!’ Cranston groaned, half rising to his feet. ‘Do you hear that, Brother?’
The friar stopped eating.
‘It’s someone wearing spurs!’ Benedicta exclaimed. ‘He’s outside the house!’
‘It can’t be Alcest,’ Alison declared.
‘Oh no, it’s not Alcest, Alison.’ Athelstan leaned over and clasped her hand. And although Alcest is a murderer, he’s only guilty of one death, isn’t he, mistress?’
‘I beg your pardon, Father?’
‘You heard what I said,’ Athelstan replied. ‘Mistress Alison, Alcest killed one clerk but you’ve slain four!’
CHAPTER 14
Alison would have sprung to her feet but Athelstan leaned across and pressed her back.
‘What is your real name?’ he asked.
‘Why, Alison Chapler. I am Edwin’s sister.’
Cranston, standing behind the girl, shook his head. Athelstan ignored him. Benedicta just sat with her mouth open. Flaxwith took Samson off and sat on a stool in a far corner; he pulled the dog on to his lap, stroking his ears.
‘I went to the Tower,’ Athelstan explained. ‘In that grim fortress there’s a muniment room with tax rolls going back decades. Interesting how tax-collectors are most assiduous in writing down details. They list people by tenement and occupation. Now, they list a family in Bishop’s Lynn, Norfolk, for 1362. Father, mother, their son Edwin and his sister Alison, no more than a child of three years.’
‘Well, you see, Father . . .’
‘No, no,’ Athelstan interrupted. ‘I then asked the scribe to look at the tax roll for 1365. By then two of the family had died: Edwin’s father and his sister Alison who was described as mortua, dead. Now, if you want, I can always ask Sir John to send one of the King’s cursitors to make careful inquiries into your background?’
Alison, her face drained of colour, just shook her head.
‘Oh, by the way,’ Athelstan remarked. ‘The jingling you heard was a pair of spurs I borrowed from the landlord of the Piebald tavern. Master Flaxwith went upstairs, tied a bit of string round them and lowered them out of the window. He gave them vigorous shakes so it sounded as if someone wearing spurs was walking up and down. Last night you did the same at Benedicta’s house. From the chamber above her parlour, you lowered those spurs out of the window, gave the string a vigorous twitch, but not before you had left the final riddle, as if it had been pushed under the front door.’
‘I think you are mistaken.’
‘Mistress, I am not. I was very intrigued how, in our discussion with the parish council, you knew all about a Norfolk legend, the “Kitsch Witch”.’
‘Edwin told me about it.’
‘I don’t think so, Mistress Alison. I have little proof of this, but with your art of being a seamstress, your knowledge of morality plays, as well as being so informed about mummers using fake blood, I suspect you are the daughter of travelling people. I believe Edwin met and fell in love with you.’
‘Then why didn’t we marry?’
‘Oh come, come, Alison, or whatever your real name is. You and I know that royal clerks who are married, unless they are very senior in position, do not get the preferment they want. At the same time I don’t know why,’ Athelstan paused and gathered the crumbs from the table, ‘Edwin wanted to keep your past a secret, to give you a new identity. I wonder why?’
‘Brother, I wasn’t in London when some of these men were killed.’
‘Let me start from the beginning.’ Athelstan pushed away the trauncher and sipped from his blackjack of ale. ‘Edwin Chapler is born in Bishop’s Lynn, Norfolk, his parents and sister died. I suspect he attended the Norwich Cathedral school; a very able and clever scholar, he was later sent to the Halls of Oxford or Cambridge. Which was it?’
‘Cambridge,’ the woman replied.
‘Either there, or shortly afterwards, he met you. You became his sister. A quiet, industrious couple, you moved into the small Essex village of Epping. Edwin would come armed with letters of recommendation, possibly from a Master in Cambridge, and secured a benefice in the Chancery of the Green Wax. You stay in Epping, Edwin takes a paltry chamber overlooking the city ditch but, now and again, you come up to London to meet him. Am I correct, mistress?’
Alison refused to answer.
‘Now, what should have been the beginning of a glorious career in the royal service,’ Athelstan continued, ‘turned into a nightmare. Chapler was a very honest man. He soon realised that, despite all the banter, the revelry and the riddles, Alcest and his companions controlled Lesures through blackmail whilst they dabbled in trickery, selling writs and licences to the outlaws, wolfsheads and denizens of London’s underworld. They invited Chapler to join them. Many a young man would have accepted such bribes joyously but Edwin was different, he was a man of integrity.’
‘He was a great man,’ Alison interrupted, tears rolling down her cheeks. ‘Never once did I see him lift a hand to hurt anyone but yes, Brother, he regarded Alcest and the rest as demons from hell: their gods were their bellies and their cocks!’
‘Chapler told you all about them, didn’t he?’ Athelstan asked. ‘He told you all their little customs and practices. How they dressed, what they drank, which brothel they attended. How they revelled in their wealth and their arrogance. Of course he had scruples, as any righteous man would: those clerks were committing a very serious crime and he, by his silence, was condoning it.’
Alison nodded as she wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand.
‘I am not too sure what happened then,’ Athelstan continued. ‘But Edwin must have protested, perhaps even threatened them. Alcest and the rest responded with counter-threats and silence until one day they tried to poison him, putting a potion in his malmsey cup at the Chancery.’
‘How did Edwin keep his relationship with Alison so secret?’ Flaxwith, sitting in the corner, called out.
‘As I’ve said,’ Athelstan replied, ‘they kept up the pretence of being brother and sister. Alison would travel to London in man’s dress. A subtle enough game to fool the good people of Epping as well as anyone who knew them in the city. Moreover, it provided extra protection when she travelled. I’ve visited Chapler’s lodgings: they were mean and simple and yet his salary was good.’ Athelstan gestured round the kitchen. ‘Everyone deserves a home: you and Edwin had another chamber, didn’t you? As far away as possible from the Chancery of the Green Wax: beyond the walls at Holywell or to the west of Clerkenwell? However, when Edwin fell ill, you, dressed as a man, visited him in his lodgings. You then realised how serious the situation was: those clerks were going to kill Edwin. You begged him to resign, to leave the Chancery, but Edwin was stubborn and courageous. He recovered and returned to work, so Alcest and the rest decided to kill him. It was well known that Edwin Chapler liked to visit the little church of St Thomas à Becket on London Bridge. Alcest organised a revelry: food, wine, pretty whores, then, cloaked and cowled, he slipped out through the darkness to London Bridge. He lay in wait for Edwin. When the moment was right, Alcest killed him, smashing his skull and tossing his corpse into the Thames.’
Alison lowered her head, her shoulders shaking.
‘The wheels of God,’ Athelstan remarked, ‘move in inex-plicable ways. They thought they could kill a good man, that his death would not be laid at their door. They would all take the oath and have witnesses that when Edwin Chapler died, or at least on the night he disappeared, they were too drunk to walk, never mind kill. They didn’t count on Mistress Alison. You must have still been in London the night Edwin died and, when he didn’t meet you the following day, you sensed what had happened. Your love is so great, isn’t it?’ Athelstan continued. ‘You’d feel it in your soul and so you plotted your revenge.’
‘But I only arrived in London,’
Alison interrupted, lifting her tearstained face, ‘the morning you came to the Chancery of the Green Wax.’
Athelstan looked at Sir John, hoping the coroner would support him in his petty lie.
‘I don’t think so, mistress. Sir John here sent a messenger to Epping. We know you’ve been out of the village for some time. Ah no, you laid your plans very cleverly. On the morning we met, you’d already been busy. Edwin had told you about Peslep’s daily habits. You went to the Ink and Pot tavern dressed as a young man, imitating and mocking Alcest by having spurs on your boots. Peslep went out to the jakes; the tavern was noisy, he was by himself and so you struck. You went across and stabbed him twice, once in the belly and once in the neck whilst his hose was still around his ankles. You knew that.’
Athelstan pushed a blackjack of ale towards her. She sipped from it but her eyes never left his.
‘When I brought you here to Southwark the night we met William the Weasel you remarked on how Peslep had died, stabbed with his hose around his ankles. How did you know that?’
‘You told me.’
‘No, we didn’t, mistress,’ Cranston interrupted. ‘Brother Athelstan and I never tell anyone the exact details of a murder.’
‘Then someone else told me!’
‘No, no, they didn’t.’ Athelstan paused. ‘You also made another mistake: the day I anointed Edwin’s corpse in the death house, you talked not of one assassin but a group. You asked if “they” would be caught and punished. At the time, a slip of the tongue but, as more murders took place and we discovered the villainy of those clerks, I began to wonder.’ Athelstan sipped at his ale. ‘Anyway, you killed Peslep, returned to your private chamber, God knows where it is, changed into a travel-stained dress and made your way to the Silver Lute, as if you had just arrived in London. You then went to the Chancery of the Green Wax. The news of Edwin Chapler’s death had reached there. The clerks informed you, comforting you. They saw you as they saw every woman, a pretty face and an empty head. You are, however, most skilful and sharp-witted, a veritable Salome dancing amongst the innocents.’ Athelstan smiled grimly. ‘Or perhaps not so innocent! You knew all about their little pots of malmsey; they let you wander round the chamber, perhaps hold Edwin’s cup. At the appropriate moment you slipped a potion into Ollerton’s cup. You were going to pay them back in similar coin.’