by Paul Doherty
Cranston broke the ensuing silence by drinking noisily from his goblet, then held up the Regent’s letter.
‘Worse and much worse to come, little friar.’
‘Sir John?’
‘The Regent must be obeyed on this,’ Cranston declared. ‘Crispin and I will leave for the city. Yes, we’ll go now even though it is dark. The city guard will let me through. In truth, I prefer to sleep in my own bed with my plump wife beside me.’
‘And me, Sir John?’
‘You, Friar, have drawn the short straw on this. His Grace insists that you stay here until this business be finished.’
Athelstan, his cowl pulled well over his head, stood by the gate which led from the abbey gardens overlooking Mortival meadow. It was certainly a morning for a hanging: sombre, grey and mist-filled. The sounds of the abbey remained muffled and distant, be it the clanging of bells, the lowing of cattle or the strident cries of geese and cockerels. Sir John and Crispin had left immediately the night before, the coroner borrowing a mount from the abbey stables. Cranston was visibly shaken by the Regent’s apparent temper and, as he whispered to Athelstan in the stable yard where they made their farewells, there was much to reflect upon about this abbey, especially Eleanor Remiet. Athelstan had watched Cranston go. Later in the evening the friar had been given a warm chamber in the abbot’s own guest house. There he tried to marshal his thoughts but tiredness overtook him and he fell asleep to dream about his own sojourn in France. Awake long before dawn, Athelstan sang prime with the brothers and celebrated his Jesus Mass in a side-chapel. Now he was here to glimpse the anchorite, who also served as the abbey hangman.
A bell began to toll the death-knell, booming solemnly, announcing to the world that another soul was about to meet its God. The refrain of the ‘De Profundis’ wafted on the breeze. The glow of candle sparked through the swirling mist. Out of this came the crucifer grasping a wooden cross, either side of him the acolytes carrying their capped candles, followed by a thurifer filling the air with incense. Prior Alexander followed. A cowl concealed both his head and face, hands pushed up the sleeves of his gown. He recited the death psalm which was repeated by the group of brothers huddled behind him. The anchorite, garbed in a monk’s robe, came next; the thrown back hood revealed a cadaverous, clean-shaven face framed by straggling hair the colour of straw which fell down to his shoulders. In one hand this sinister-looking individual carried a crucifix and in the other a coil of rope. Behind him lay brothers on either side bore a coffin and a set of ladders. The closely guarded prisoner came next, his mask now removed. Athelstan stared at that reddish, furrowed face, scrawny hair and the scars along his neck.
‘Fleischer the fisherman!’ he exclaimed. The prisoner paused and stared at the friar, who pushed back his cowl.
‘Brother Athelstan, you’ve come to see me dance on air.’
The entire procession stopped. Prior Alexander, intrigued, walked back. ‘You know this felon, Brother?’ the prior asked.
‘Oh, yes.’ Athelstan gazed at Fleischer. He certainly knew the fisherman. A bosom friend of Moleskin the boatman, Fleischer sometimes appeared on the shabby quaysides of Southwark to participate in the rich harvest of mischief to be found along its filthy runnels and alleyways: robbery, smuggling and counterfeiting. Fleischer was as attracted to such devilry as Bonaventure to a dish of cream.
‘I would like words with you, Brother?’
Athelstan glanced at Prior Alexander, who nodded. The anchorite pushed Fleischer across.
‘Your prisoner, Brother.’
‘Pax et bonum.’ Athelstan stared into the glassy, blue eyes of the anchorite. Was he mad, touched by the moon? No, Athelstan reckoned, the anchorite was only agitated. Athelstan also caught the glint of humour in the man’s strange, pallid face.
‘For a short time he is yours.’ The anchorite stood back. ‘And then he’ll be mine again.’
Athelstan gently led Fleischer out of hearing.
‘You want to be shriven?’
‘I’ve confessed,’ Fleischer replied. ‘Give me your blessing.’
Athelstan did so.
‘Will you sing a Mass for me, Brother, that my journey through the flames won’t be too long?’
‘Of course.’
‘Give Moleskin and the rest greetings.’ Fleischer tried to curb his tears. ‘I was born into wickedness, Brother, no mother or father, alone with all the other rats.’ He stared around. ‘I didn’t mean to kill the monk but I was desperate. Strange.’ Fleischer ignored Prior Alexander’s cough as he shuffled from foot to foot. ‘Here I am,’ Fleischer stepped closer, his ale-tinged breath hot against Athelstan’s face, ‘being hanged by the Lord Almighty Abbot — you’re here for the murders, to probe and snout for the killer?’
‘You could say that, my friend.’
‘Then take a good look at these shaven heads. I’ve seen the Frenchman Richer meet boatmen from foreign ships — what is that, treason? And as for Prior Alexander, he so likes being with his good friend the sub-prior, even if it means travelling along a freezing river in a barge. Or shall we talk about those good monks who don disguises and visit the stews and bath houses of Southwark? For me retribution is close but theirs is also approaching. When the great revolt breaks out and it will, like pus from a sore, believe me, all the Marybread and Marymeat distributed on a Sunday won’t save them. They’re all as rotten and wicked as I am.’
‘Scurrilous rumours, my friend?’
‘Perhaps, Brother.’ Fleischer looked over his shoulder. ‘As for Lord Walter! Sharing the kiss of peace with the Upright Men who gather at All Hallows won’t protect him.’ Fleischer grinned bleakly. ‘Ask any of the river people. Anyway, these mumbling mouses now want to hang me.’ He nodded back at the anchorite, standing like some sombre statue. ‘At least they say he’s good. He can do it in a splice — he’s not some cow-handed peasant. Ah well, I’m getting cold and it’s time I was gone.’ He bowed his head. Athelstan made the sign of the cross over him and stepped back as the anchorite came over.
‘I would like words with you, sir,’ Athelstan murmured, ‘when this business is finished. I shall be waiting for you in St Fulcher’s chantry chapel.’
The anchorite simply darted a look, grasped Fleischer by the arm and took him back to join the others. The procession reformed. Prior Alexander intoned the opening words of the sequence, ‘Dies Irae — Oh Day of wrath, Oh Day of Mourning, See fulfilled heaven’s warning. .’ The sombre sight disappeared into the thick veil of mist. The candle light dimmed, the words faded, nothing but silence. Athelstan sighed, blessed himself and walked back through the murk into the abbey church. All lay quiet. This hymn in stone closed around him, evoking memories of his motherhouse at Blackfriars. Athelstan compared its magnificence with the simple crudeness of St Erconwald’s and felt a pang of homesickness. He would love the likes of Huddle, Watkin and all that boisterous throng to come tumbling through the porch. Athelstan reached the chantry chapel. He went in under the latticed screen with its fretted carving and sat down on a stool staring up at the painted window, marvelling at the sheer subtlety of it all. A demon had been drawn into its intricate tracery. Red stain had first been applied to the blue glass whilst the glowing left eye of the fiend had been formed by simply drilling the actual glass. The devil’s yellow, spiky hair was depicted against a background of flaming red which reflected the very fires of hell.
Athelstan glanced down at the floor. He must concentrate on why he was here. He must summarize what he’d learnt then revise and draft it as he used to before debating a theological problem at Blackfriars.
Item: Sir Robert Kilverby had apparently retired to his chamber hale and hearty. The Passio Christi was safely locked away in its coffer and kept in that chamber.
Item: No one entered that room. Sir Robert certainly never left it.
Item: No poisonous taint or potion could be found in the room, neither in the wine nor the sweetmeats.
Item: The door to that chamber had to be
forced. Members of the household, very hostile to each other, had discovered Kilverby’s corpse. They were certain nothing had been interfered with or taken away.
Item: Nevertheless, Kilverby had been poisoned by some slow-acting potion, perhaps the juice of almond seed. Athelstan was well acquainted with that venom — even a few grains were deadly. Traces of a poison had been found on Kilverby’s lips and elsewhere on the corpse.
Item: After Kilverby’s two monkish visitors had left, the Passio Christi was placed back into its casket and made secure. Witnesses had seen the ruby returned to its casket, which Kilverby and Crispin had then taken to the chancery chamber. Kilverby surely would have personally assured himself of the bloodstone’s security? After all, he alone carried the keys on that chain around his neck. He would have certainly raised the alarm if anything was amiss.
Item: Sir Robert Kilverby was a very rich man who’d undergone some form of conversion. He intended to go on a life-time pilgrimage to Santiago, Rome and Jerusalem. All his business affairs would be left to his daughter and her husband. Kilverby’s widow was not his heir, so why should she kill her husband? She profited little except, perhaps, a closer intimacy with her strange kinsman Adam Lestral. Finally, Crispin appeared to be his master’s most loyal servant, who was leaving his service anyway. Kilverby’s secretarius certainly did not profit from his master’s death.
Item: The Passio Christi was, by contract of indenture, to be shown to the Wyvern Company twice a year. Yesterday the Feast of St Damasus was one of those days. However, Kilverby intended the bloodstone to be taken to St Fulcher’s not by himself but his trusted secretarius and beloved daughter. Why? Athelstan squinted up at the devil’s face on the painted window. Kilverby seemingly did not want to meet the Wyvern Company. Had he learnt something highly distasteful about them? That they had sacrilegiously stolen the sacred bloodstone?
Item: Was Sir Robert planning to leave the Passio Christi at St Fulcher’s just before he left on pilgrimage? Was this an act of reparation, for what the Wyverns had done? On the one hand Sir Robert avoided their company but, on the other, he liked to visit this abbey and mingle with its community. Was all this part of Kilverby’s conversion?
‘But in the end,’ Athelstan whispered to himself, ‘Kilverby was poisoned in his own locked chamber with no evidence as to why, how or by whom. The Passio Christi has been stolen, but once more without a scrap of evidence to show how this was done.’
Athelstan rose, stretched and paced up and down the chantry chapel, half aware of the distant echoing sounds. He breathed out noisily. Then there were the murders here at St Fulcher’s. Again, the friar tried to organize his thoughts.
Item: The Wyvern Company had been comfortably lodged here for about four years. Master bowmen, veterans, they had served the late King and his son the Black Prince. Both King and heir now lay cold beneath their funeral slabs. The crown had descended to the Black Prince’s young son Richard, under the care of his uncle the Regent, John of Gaunt, a prince of deep deviousness who wanted that bloodstone.
Item: The old soldiers were lodged here because the Crown generously patronized St Fulcher’s. Moreover, because the Passio Christi was held in trust by Kilverby it was he, not the exchequer, who paid for the sustenance of the old soldiers. However, once all the Wyverns were dead, the Passio Christi reverted to the Crown; Kilverby, or his heirs, receiving a generous grant.
Item: Both the Wyvern Company and Kilverby, whatever they thought about each other, were apparently content with this business arrangement. John of Gaunt, however, was desperate for bullion. Could that arrogant, handsome yet so sinister a Regent be assisting all those with claims on the Passio Christi into the darkness?
Item: Who had killed Hanep and Hyde, two experienced swordsmen caught out in the open and cut down? Had Hyde been killed by one or two assailants? Neither of the slain men had been able to defend themselves. Did this indicate the works of a paid assassin, someone either despatched in from outside or hiding deep within the abbey?
Item: And why had they been killed? They’d apparently not alienated any of their confreres. And why should old comrades turn so viciously on each other? There was certainly no evidence of bad blood between them. . Athelstan paused in his pacing as a group of novice monks padded along the aisle and up into the choir stalls. Athelstan continued his reasoning.
Item: The Lord Abbot with his swan, his niece and the enigmatic Eleanor Remiet, was not exactly a mirror of monastic dedication. Was Isabella Velours his niece or something else? Athelstan was certain she was the former. Moreover, the abbot might be a priest consumed with lusts of the flesh. Some of his monks might frequent the pleasure pots of Southwark but, Athelstan smiled to himself, monks sinned, as did friars. Moreover, just because they were lecherous, did that mean the likes of Abbot Walter were murderers?
Item: More importantly, did Father Abbot go to All Hallows Barking? Was he secretly negotiating with the Upright Men and the Great Community of the Realm? What was really happening at the distribution of Marymeat and Marybread on a Sunday? Then there was Richer, the elegant, sophisticated Frenchman, certainly a man of mystery. Prior Alexander was much smitten with him. Athelstan pulled a face. Such a friendship, like that of David for Jonathan in the Old Testament, was common enough in monastic communities. Richer was the problem. Why was he really at St Fulcher’s? To secure the Passio Christi or was he a spy? Why did he, according to Fleischer, meet boatmen from foreign ships? What did he receive or give to these people?
‘Alleluia, alleluia, O Sapientia Altissimi — Oh Wisdom of the Most High.’ The lucid voices of the novices intoned one of the Christmas ‘O Antiphons’. Athelstan stood, heart thrilling at the sheer passionate beauty of the sound.
‘Come,’ the choir chanted, ‘and teach us the way of truth!’
‘Aye,’ Athelstan whispered, tears pricking his eyes. ‘Come Everlasting Beauty whom we all desire, and will have no peace until we find you.’
Athelstan stood transfixed as the choir moved on to the second ‘O Antiphon’. The words, the exquisite loveliness of the chanting evoked so many bittersweet memories of his past — and his present! Athelstan beat his breast. St Erconwald’s! His parishioners? The choir and the ‘O Antiphons’? The bustling business of preparing the church for Christmas?
‘We need more holly,’ Athelstan murmured absent-mindedly.
‘Pardon, Brother?’
Athelstan glanced sharply to his right. The anchorite stood in the doorway to the chantry chapel.
‘He has gone.’
‘And may God give him eternal rest,’ Athelstan whispered, crossing himself. ‘Poor Fleischer.’
‘He made a good end.’
‘Nobody makes a good end.’ Athelstan walked towards this cadaverous spectre of a man, ‘At least not when you’re hanged.’
‘He died quickly.’ The anchorite plucked at the rope belt around his waist, curling one end with his strong fingers, ‘It’s best that way. If you topple your victim from the highest rung of the ladder the neck snaps, or so I think. Other hangmen strangle their victims. You could say the office for the dead before it’s truly over. Anyway, you want words with me, Friar?’
Athelstan indicated the bench against the wall beneath the painted window. The anchorite sat down next to him. Athelstan noticed how the man’s fingernails were neat and cleanly pared, though stained with dashes of ink and paint.
‘You’re a scribe?’
‘I am a painter as well as a hangman.’ The anchorite shifted and stared at Athelstan with his strange blue eyes. ‘I’m also a listener. I sit in my anker house and the brothers slip by me. They often forget I’m there. I hear their chatter and gossip. You’re Brother Athelstan, the consummate hunter, a lurcher in Dominican robes who seeks out his quarry. So, what do you want with me?’
‘First, who are you? Why are you here?’
The anchorite glanced away. ‘I was raised,’ the anchorite began slowly, ‘at the baptismal font in Sempringham as Giles, that
’s my real name. My doting parents despatched me to the cathedral school at Ely. I sat with the other scholars in the north aisle with my horn book, ink pen and quills. I studied the Latin of Jerome as well as that of Cicero. I was meant to be a cleric but my sin,’ the anchorite bared his lips in a mirthless grin, ‘to quote the psalm, was always before me. I fell in love with the wall paintings, frescoes and coloured glass of that cathedral. I would wander to marvel at all that I saw. After my apprenticeship in Norwich I became a painter. I travelled the roads to this church or that chapel. God heaped even more blessings on me. I met my wife Beatrice and she became my helper. We had a child but we still continued to wander the kingdom. I earned very good silver and gold. I was in much demand, be it depicting the Biblia Pauperum — the Bible of the Poor for parishioners to learn from, or the single solitary scene, be it a sinner being carted off to hell by a demon in a wheelbarrow or the Assumption of the Virgin. We lodged in taverns and guest houses until the Apocalypse occurred. .’
‘When the waters swept over your head?’ Athelstan intervened, recalling the anchorite’s interruption of compline the previous evening.
‘Too powerful,’ the anchorite whispered. ‘Still too powerful — such memories! Let me tell you. We were crossing the Weald of Kent; it was early autumn. I left Beatrice and the child to go and buy paint, brushes and pigment. When I returned outlaws, wolfsheads, creatures from the stinking blackness, fiends from the dungeons of hell had attacked our cart, pillaged it, ravished Beatrice then murdered both her and our child.’ He paused at Athelstan’s sharp gasp.
‘Wickedness,’ the friar murmured, clutching at the anchorite’s arm. ‘God have mercy on them, and on you. I shall remember them at Mass.’