by Paul Doherty
Once Athelstan had finished, Gaunt and Thibault questioned them closely. The friar remained firm in his conclusion. He had as yet no explanation or evidence even to speculate on the murders at The Candle-Flame. Cranston added that he would issue writs immediately all over the city for the arrest of Hugh of Hornsey, if he was still alive.
‘My officials, royal archers, have been brutally murdered.’ Gaunt’s words hissed like the serpent he was. ‘My treasure,’ he beat his breast, ‘my treasure has been stolen. My name besmirched. My reputation ridiculed.’ He brought his fist down on the table. ‘For that, Sir John, Brother Athelstan, someone is going to die, and only after he has experienced the full horrors of Hell. Now there is more. Master Thibault show them.’ Thibault rose and opened a chancery pouch on a side table beneath an arras depicting the execution of England’s first martyr, St. Alban. Bearing in mind Gaunt’s threat, Athelstan was amused at the gory and gruesome picture, which reflected all the hidden menace of the Regent’s threat. Sir John had now closed his eyes, softly snoring, so Athelstan kicked him gently. The coroner sighed and pulled himself up. Thibault slid two pieces of parchment on to the table. The first was water-stained, the ink had run, the letters blurred. The second, on the costliest chancery parchment, was clerkly and clearly inscribed. It provided a list of stores, military impedimenta, siege machinery and war carts being brought to the Tower; also an estimate of the garrison there, the number of troops around London, river defences, the condition of the bridge and a list of the war cogs, caravels and hulkes being gathered in the estuary and further up river, their tonnage, armaments and what crews they carried. At the top of the costly sheet of vellum were the words, ‘To the Lord High Constable’, and at the bottom, ‘I reside at The Candle-Flame, 16 February.’
‘What is this?’ Athelstan asked.
‘A report from a spy,’ Thibault replied, going back to his seat. ‘Yesterday afternoon Ruat, a sailor from the Rose of Picardy, a Hainault merchantman bound for Dordrecht, was returning to his ship at Queenhithe when he was attacked, robbed and killed. Ruat’s two assailants were caught red-handed by the wharf master, their plunder seized. Both were hanged immediately on the river gallows. The wharf master looked at that document, now water-soaked. He could not make sense of the cipher.’ Athelstan picked it up and studied it; the words appeared to be pure nonsense.
‘Now,’ Thibault continued, ‘all port officials have been alerted against spying. The wharf master was suspicious; he passed the document to the sheriff, who of course delivered it to me. The document is stained, badly so because the sailor in question was thrown into the water.’
‘But he was only a messenger?’ Cranston asked.
‘Ruat carried a report written in a Latin cipher where the vowels AEIOU were replaced by five random numbers. In this case A is six, E is nine and so on. I broke the cipher and transcribed it. The report must be from a very high-ranking spy as he relates directly to the High Constable of France, Oliver de Clisson. More importantly, it gives us some clue to the identity and whereabouts of the spy. The last line in the cipher in clear Latin reads as follows, if I remember it correctly: “Apud Candelae Flammam XVI Febr, Resideo, I reside at The Candle-Flame, sixteenth of February.”’ Athelstan looked at both the stained manuscript and the clear Latin translation and nodded in agreement.
‘The sixteenth of February was yesterday,’ Thibault continued. ‘Consequently, is someone at that tavern not only an assassin but a traitor?’ Thibault held Athelstan’s gaze. ‘Is it the same individual or two different persons? I don’t know. I cannot say except the spy must be learned and skilled. He is also very good. He was only stopped, thanks be to God, by mere accident from supplying his masters in the Secret Chancery at the Louvre with a very detailed description of our river defences from the estuary to the Tower. Look again at the translation, Brother Athelstan.’ He waited until the friar did so. ‘You see the names of ships and other information but notice that enigmatic phrase which I have transcribed.’ Athelstan did. ‘“Et intra urbem et extra urbem populi ira crescit” – both within the city and outside,’ Athelstan translated, ‘the anger of the people grows.’ The friar kept a still tongue in his head even though he was inclined to agree with the spy’s sentiments. Cranston just coughed rather noisily, fumbled for his miraculous wineskin then thought otherwise.
‘We believe,’ Thibault continued, ‘the French are planning a landing along the Thames, a true chevauchée, a great assault on our city. They hope to break our defences and count on the unrest you have witnessed to render these defences even weaker.’
‘Why admit he was residing at The Candle-Flame?’ Cranston queried.
‘Perhaps,’ Thibault replied slowly, ‘he expected a reply as well as to assure his masters that he had entered the city …’
‘Or The Candle-Flame may be part of his task,’ Athelstan declared. Gaunt, who had remained passive throughout, leaned forward, rapping his fingers on the table. Athelstan listened to the silence abruptly broken by the piping voice of a young girl in an adjoining chamber. Thibault’s smooth, well-oiled face creased into a genuine smile. Athelstan recalled how this ambitious clerk, before taking minor orders, had fathered a child, a young girl, Isabella, who was the veritable apple of his eye.
‘Brother Athelstan,’ Gaunt demanded, ‘explain.’
‘Your Grace, if French galleys pierce the Thames they can go no further than London Bridge. True?’
‘Of course.’
‘And the north bank of the Thames is, and can be, heavily fortified and defended.’
Gaunt grunted his agreement.
‘Now, The Candle-Flame overlooks the river; it stands opposite the Tower and close to the approaches to London Bridge. The French might be plotting to control the southern bank whilst they direct attacks against the quaysides of the city. The Candle-Flame would be an excellent place to set up camp.’
‘Brother Athelstan,’ Gaunt jibed, ‘you should have been a soldier.’
‘Like you, Your Grace?’
Gaunt’s smile faded.
‘Brother Athelstan may be correct,’ Cranston intervened swiftly. ‘The Candle-Flame can be fortified, the Barbican easily defended, and it would also be an excellent location to survey both the river and all approaches to the bridge.’
‘Find him then!’ Gaunt snapped. ‘This business, Sir John, is the king’s matter. It cannot be set aside for anything else.’
‘There is something else,’ Athelstan declared. ‘We have told you about the murder of Scrope. Master Thibault, did you know that Marsen was a housebreaker in Coggeshall, the murderer of an innocent woman and manservant?’
Thibault shook his head.
‘I would be the first to concede,’ Gaunt declared, ‘that not all royal officials are angels in disguise.’
‘They may well be demons!’ Athelstan retorted. ‘The murder of Marsen and the others could be the work of Beowulf, or even this spy. I also concede that the assassin and the spy might be the same person or …’ Athelstan paused.
‘Or what?’ Thibault asked.
‘There may be a number of strands here.’ Athelstan counted them out on his fingers. ‘The Upright Men, the spy, Beowulf or someone quite distinct with his or her own motive.’
‘Sir Robert Paston is one of the guests.’ Gaunt’s mouth creased into a fake smile. ‘He is my enemy – this could be his revenge.’
‘Brother Athelstan, Sir John,’ Thibault declared hastily, ‘we have no information to give you, no further assistance.’ He pointed to the two sheets of parchment. ‘Take them, study them. Is there anything else you need?’ Athelstan put the parchments into his chancery satchel then explained about the corpses being brought to the Guildhall. Thibault agreed, saying Lascelles would assist Flaxwith in hiring the finest physician in Cheapside, the cadavers would be scrutinized and Athelstan informed of his conclusions. Thibault then signalled to Lascelles, who left and returned with Brother Marcel.
‘I believe,’ Thibault smiled exp
ansively, ‘that you and Marcel know each other. We are pleased to welcome the Pope’s legate, a member of the Holy Inquisition, here to London.’
‘What for?’ Athelstan demanded.
‘Heresy does flourish, Brother, whatever the soil.’ Marcel bowed to Gaunt and Thibault before sitting down on the chair pulled back by Lascelles. ‘We have spoken already, Your Grace,’ Marcel continued, ‘about the teaching of the Leicestershire priest John Wycliffe and the beliefs of the Lollard sect, who do not accept the authority of our Church or the Holy Father’s interpretation of scripture. They apparently do not understand the divinely revealed truths—’
‘That is because,’ Athelstan interrupted hastily, ‘most of them can’t read. They are just too poor, too hungry, too tired and too oppressed.’ Athelstan bit his tongue as Cranston kicked his ankle.
‘The Inquisition has no authority in England,’ the coroner offered. ‘Our Archdeacon’s court is weighty and powerful enough.’
‘Sir John, Sir John,’ Marcel winked at Athelstan as he held his hands up in a gesture of peace, ‘I am not here to interfere or probe. The Holy Father simply wishes to learn more about a kingdom where the papacy itself, the Blessed Gregory, sent its own apostle Augustine to convert and preach.’
Athelstan nodded understandingly though he strongly suspected the truth was that John of Gaunt was looking for papal support, and if licence issued to the Inquisition to meddle and interfere in the English Church brought him favour at the papal court, then so be it.
‘Brother Marcel had been in the city,’ Thibault explained. ‘Now he wishes to move to Southwark and what better place than a fellow Dominican’s parish at St Erconwald’s?’
Athelstan coughed to hide his surprise.
‘Do not worry, Brother,’ Marcel asserted, ‘I will not trouble you or yours or even lodge in your little house. I shall hire a chamber at The Candle-Flame, even though, unfortunately, that tavern seems to be the setting for murder and treason.’
‘We approve of that,’ Thibault added. ‘Brother Marcel may discover, see or learn something of interest to us as well as the Holy Father.’
‘Of course,’ Athelstan retorted. He paused. ‘Your Grace, Master Thibault, one more question.’ He gestured at Marcel. ‘What I have to say will, I am sure, be only of passing interest to the Papal Inquisitor. I speak in confidence which I know he will respect.’ Athelstan paused as Marcel agreed to what he’d said; the friar did not wish to alienate his visitor by asking him to leave.
‘Your question?’ Gaunt insisted.
‘How much, at a swift reckoning, was Marsen carrying in that exchequer coffer? You must know,’ Athelstan insisted. ‘You sent Lascelles here to visit him the night before his murder?’ The friar glanced at the henchman who just smirked and stared at his master.
‘Yes, Lascelles was sent to The Candle-Flame. He was under strict instruction to check on all monies. Marsen gave a proper accounting, as he would at the Exchequer of Receipt at Westminster.’
‘There is something else,’ Athelstan chose his words carefully, ‘Master Thibault, I would like the truth. Marsen collected taxes. I suspect Mauclerc was there to watch Marsen, a man with a highly unsavoury history and a malignant soul.’
‘You use the cruellest mastiff, Brother, to bring down a bear.’
‘I believe Mauclerc had other duties, didn’t he?’ Athelstan glimpsed the surprise in Thibault’s eyes.
‘What duties, Brother?’
‘Information, any information he could collect on the Great Community of the Realm and the Upright Men.’ Athelstan kept his voice steady. He believed certain records had been taken from Mauclerc’s chancery satchel but what he was saying was really a wild guess. ‘Indeed,’ he continued, ‘Mauclerc would have lists of possible sympathizers, rumours and gossip about who might be involved with the Upright Men?’
Thibault looked as if he was going to object. Brother Marcel now had his head down.
‘I also suspect …’ Athelstan realized this truly was a game of hazard, yet he had nothing to lose.
‘What else do you suspect, Brother?’
‘Well,’ Athelstan sighed, ‘if the Pope’s own Inquisitor is in London what better way of helping him than by providing him with a list of people tainted by the teaching of Wycliffe or even members of the Lollard sect?’
‘Very good,’ Thibault breathed, ‘very shrewd indeed, Brother. Yes, Mauclerc did have a list and yes, that list has probably gone but more than that we cannot say.’
‘And the money?’ Athelstan persisted. ‘Marsen must have boasted about what he had collected. He would be ever so proud of squeezing so much money out of those he taxed.’
‘Very proud, Brother,’ Lascelles replied. ‘When I visited him, he opened the coffer and it was crammed with gold and silver coins.’
‘How much?’ Cranston barked.
‘A king’s fortune. At least two thousand pounds sterling in the finest coin of the realm.’
Athelstan whistled in surprise.
‘Such a sum! Tell me now,’ Athelstan continued, ignoring Gaunt’s gesture of impatience, ‘Mauclerc and Marsen not only collected taxes but information which would be useful to you. Sir Robert Paston, as you have conceded, Your Grace, was – is – not your friend. Were this precious pair collecting titbits of gossip, slander about Paston and his family to, how can I say …?’
‘Blackmail him,’ Thibault interrupted. ‘Let us move to the arrow point, Brother. The answer is yes. I would not call it blackmail but the push and shove of fierce debate. Paston portrays himself as a protector of the people, a partisan of the truth, a merchant who gives to good causes, a master mariner cheated out of his dues.’ Thibault sneered and waved a hand. ‘Paston is no more a saint than I am. If he is going to climb into the pulpit to preach then perhaps he should make sure his own hands are clean.’
‘And are they?’
Thibault just twisted his mouth and stared away.
‘But that’s another reason why you despatched Lascelles to The Candle-Flame, isn’t it?’ Athelstan insisted. ‘You were impatient to find out what had been discovered about our worthy member of the Commons?’
‘Marsen said we would have to wait, that he hadn’t yet finished, whilst Mauclerc dare not oppose him,’ Lascelles replied.
‘And did Marsen know that Physician Scrope was hunting him, demanding justice?’
‘I suspect so.’ Thibault shrugged. ‘Marsen’s past was, as you say, highly unsavoury. He had applied to Chancery for a King’s Pardon for all past crimes and felonies. I told him that I might support this depending on the success he achieved in collecting the king’s taxes. On the night they met, Marsen informed Lascelles that I would be very pleased about what he had learnt.’
‘And Hugh of Hornsey?’
‘Most surprising, Brother. Hugh of Hornsey was a mercenary, a good captain of archers who kept to himself. I suspect he is dead. I cannot see him as an assassin. He is shrewd enough to know that flight is perhaps not the best protection. But,’ Thibault smiled falsely, ‘we all have our little secrets, Brother, only some of us are more successful at protecting those secrets than others …’
PART TWO
‘Via Dolorosa’: the way of anguish.
The Vault of Hell was a much decayed though magnificently constructed tavern at the heart of the deepest darkness around Whitefriars. Here one of the most notorious captains of the slums, a true Knight of the Knife, a Lord of the Dunghill, Humphrey Wasp, held court on behalf of even more sinister overlords. Sharp as a tooth on a finely honed saw was Humphrey Wasp. He usually sat enthroned on a velvet-draped throne chair, formerly a bishop’s but appropriated during a recent riot in Norwich and despatched south for Humphrey’s use. Indeed, most of the costly goods stolen from the shops and stalls along Cheapside and elsewhere were brought to the Vault of Hell – the finest plunder: rolls of velvet and damask from Venice, lace from Lille, leather from Castile, wood and furs from Cracow. Here the most elegant pieces of art and craf
tsmanship, filched from their owners, were offered for sale: leather caskets cleverly embossed with symbols brought to vivid life by incised scroll-work, ivory tablet covers from Paris, delicate bone caskets from Cologne carved at the seams with the legend of Tristram and Isolde. All these were offered for sale along with jewel-studded brooches with inscriptions such as ‘You have my heart’ or ‘Love conquers all’. Humphrey was particularly keen to collect mazers fashioned in Flanders from a rare speckled wood known as Bird’s Eye Maple and set on a silver-gilt stand. Naturally such plunder glowed as fierce as any beacon light, attracting in all the rogues: the children of the horn-thumb, the trillibubs, the cackling cheats, cock-pimps, tart-dames and other land pirates, the Fraternity of the Filch and the Foist, not to mention the Brethren of the Block, who rejoiced in names such as Blow Blood, Tickle Pitcher and Jack Pudding. They all assembled at the Vault of Hell to eat and drink the finest food, wine and ale stolen from the best establishments.
A sumptuous banquet had been laid out along the common table of the great taproom called the Hall of Darkness, even though it was brightly lit by a myriad of pure beeswax candles stolen from churches the length and breadth of the city. The chamber was warmed by a great roaring fire in the massive hearth carved like a cathedral porch, as well as by clusters of braziers which crackled as merrily as the coals of Hell. However, on the night of 17 February, the eve of the feast of the Blessed Simeon bishop and martyr, there was a difference. Humphrey Wasp’s herald, the red-haired Chanticleer, had brayed for silence and no one dare disobey. The Earthworms had appeared, at least two score of them, dressed in dark leather and with their faces blackened, their hair dyed red and stiffened into plaits which stood up from their heads like devil’s horns. They were well armed with rounded shields, bows, clubs and arrows, and led by captains known as the Rook, the Jackdaw, Magpie, Hawk and Falcon. Fearsome in appearance, ruthless in reputation, the Earthworms were the envoys from the leaders of the Upright Men: Simon Grindcobb, Jack Straw, Wat Tyler and others. They had soon brought the midnight revelry at the Vault of Hell to an abrupt close. Their leader, the Crow, now stood on the dais next to a drunken Humphrey Wasp and drew out from a bucket of red wine the severed head of Grapeseed, former rope-dancer and mountebank, well-known for his drunken boasts that he had no fear of the Upright Men. The Crow just stood there grasping the roughly cut head whilst his companions around the Hall of Darkness nocked their bows.