by Paul Doherty
‘And the money?’ Thorne broke in. ‘How was I supposed to—’
‘I wondered about that, Master Thorne, I really did. It was far too dangerous to carry a clinking sack across the Palisade and into the tavern. For a while I suspected you concealed it in the piggery or somewhere along the Palisade, but that would be highly dangerous. You suspected Thibault and others might come hunting for the lost treasure. If it was found outside the Barbican, somewhere in your tavern or the land around it, suspicion would naturally fall on you. So I concluded that the treasure is still in the Barbican.’
‘Nonsense! The fire …’ Thorne fell quiet, almost squirming in the chair.
‘Oh, Master Thorne, what did you just nearly say? That you wouldn’t hide your plunder in a place you tried to burn?’
‘You are tricking me. You trip me up with words.’
‘No, Thorne, you stumble over your own lies. You started that fire. I saw the scorch marks against the wall where it began. I smelt the oil. I asked myself then who could so easily bring oil into the Barbican?’
‘Someone coming in from the river. Many people wander here, trespassers on tavern land. Anyone of these could have brought in the oil.’
‘But you did realize that the fire was deliberately started by oil being poured?’ Athelstan asked.
‘Well, yes.’
‘But on the afternoon when the fire occurred, when I escaped and came here into the Dark Parlour, you claimed it must have been an accident.’
‘Yes, yes, of course.’
‘But even then, as owner of the Barbican, you must have wondered what caused a fire to rage so violently.’ Thorne just glared back. ‘Anyway,’ Athelstan continued serenely, ‘you must have searched the Barbican after the fire and, like me, smelt the oil?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you, the owner, must have realized that there was no oil in the Barbican to begin with. I certainly didn’t see any. It must have been specially brought in, so the fire was no accident but an attempt to murder me.’ Thorne just blinked, wetting his lips.
‘In which case,’ Athelstan spread his hands, ‘why didn’t you inform me, send an urgent message to St Erconwald’s or to Sir John at the Guildhall? After all, you did assure me it was probably an accident, then you discovered that the opposite was the case.’
‘I am sorry, I made a mistake.’ Thorne blinked. ‘I am not too sure whether I really did know it was oil.’
‘Master Thorne, your attempt to murder me was a terrible mistake. You didn’t think it through, or perhaps you did but wagered I would never survive to question you. I will go back to the beginning. You must have gone into the Barbican to satisfy your own curiosity about why your property had been burnt. In fact, you did more than that; a great deal of the wreckage had been removed.’
‘I hired la-labourers,’ Thorne stammered.
‘Which labourers?’ Cranston roared as the realization dawned on the coroner that the accused had almost murdered his beloved Athelstan. ‘Which labourers, Thorne, and I want every detail!’
‘I forget, I forget,’ Thorne mumbled. He sat, head down, and, when he glanced up, Athelstan caught the man’s sheer desperation. ‘Brother Athelstan, Sir John, I am confused. If I, as you allege, stole Marsen’s treasure and hid it in the Barbican, where, according you, it still remains hidden, then why should I deliberately start a fire in the same place?’
‘Oh, for many reasons. Never mind my murder, you deliberately made the Barbican a ruin, derelict, a place of little use to anyone. After the fire, who would go there? Which is why you insisted on clearing the wreckage yourself. You didn’t bring in any labourers, Mooncalf has informed me of that and Mooncalf would dare not lie to me. Oh, before the fire you allowed the likes of Paston and Brother Marcel to climb to the top of the tower to view the river.’ Athelstan pulled a face. ‘To try and stop them would have created suspicion, but of course,’ Athelstan lowered his voice, ‘I was different. You resented my snooping, my prying and, above all, me going anywhere near the Barbican, where the gold and silver you stole, held in a leather sack, has been pushed deep into that latrine, the ancient sewer beneath the garderobe.’
‘But the fire?’
‘The fire did not reach it. The bag is thrust down deep in a pit, sunk amongst the most filthy refuse. No one would think of searching for it there, especially now after the Barbican has been reduced to a ruin. Time would pass and, when all was quiet and memories faded, you would dig deep and remove what you had stolen.’ Athelstan stared at the taverner, who now kept glancing over his shoulder at the door. The friar had wondered if Eleanor Thorne was implicated but he concluded that she was not, which is why Thorne had told her the tale about searching for the intruder in the stables. However, did Eleanor herself secretly suspect her husband?
‘No one will come here, Master Thorne,’ Athelstan declared softly. ‘We have no need, as yet, to question your wife, so let us return to the Barbican the night you committed these murders. All your victims lay dead; both chambers left in chaos, the proclamation has been pinned, the gold and silver hidden away. Now you prepare to leave. You ensure that you have everything with you – you return to the lower chamber to check for the final time. The door is locked and bolted. You take the ladder into the upper storey, you secure the trapdoor and move swiftly. All lights are doused as you prepare to leave through the window.’ Athelstan held up a hand at a knocking at the door. He rose, crossed and opened it. Burley stood there holding a crossbow, three small quarrels and a wristguard. The knight put the quarrels and wristguard on the floor and held up the arbalest.
‘Found in Friar Roger’s chamber,’ he declared. ‘But very clever, look.’ The knight banneret swiftly unpinned the apparatus on the crossbow: the hand-drawn chord and the studs which held everything in place, the metal groove and release clasps could all be taken off. Burley did this swiftly and Athelstan smiled. The hand-held arbalest was no longer a deadly weapon but a Tau, the symbol beloved of the Franciscan order: a T-shaped cross which took its name from the Greek letter ‘Tau’, the symbol used by St Francis Assisi to sign his letters.
‘It can be assembled very swiftly,’ Burley explained, ‘and then just as speedily be stripped of all its war-like paraphernalia.’
‘And the quarrels?’
‘Found in his chamber. Again very cunning. All three can be taken apart, watch.’ Burley picked up one of the quarrels, removed the metal clasp with the miniature stiffened feathers which served as its flight, then the barbed steel tip. ‘All three were kept separate,’ Burley explained, ‘and unless you knew what you were looking for, it would be very difficult to realize that hidden amongst clothing, manuscripts, beads and other items, were these different pieces which, when brought together, would form a deadly hand-held arbalest and crossbow bolts.’ Athelstan took the flight and studied it carefully. He was certain that a similar bolt or quarrel had killed Thibault’s henchman. He recalled leaning over Lascelles to administer the last rites; the crossbow quarrels were the same and, more importantly, that could be proved. Lascelles’ corpse had been removed for burial; the quarrels, as the law laid down, would be stored away as evidence. It would be enough to despatch Brother Roger to the gallows, if he had not been a cleric.
‘Brother?’ Athelstan looked up at Burley’s lean, saturnine face.
‘You told me,’ the knight banneret declared, ‘to search his possessions but to forget that he was a friar and more probably a very skilled assassin. Everything we found we laid out on the floor of the chamber. It was like a puzzle, deciding which pieces would go together. I suspect when he travelled, as he was apparently preparing to do, the weapon would be dismantled. At other times, and it’s only a hand-held one, the arbalest would be readied, primed and hidden away.’
Athelstan thanked Burley, instructed him to keep the evidence safe and returned to the Dark Parlour. Thorne sat staring moodily into the goblet of white wine Cranston had poured for him. The coroner slouched stock-still in his judgement chair,
watching the taverner as closely as a terrier would a rat hole.
‘You said I left by a ladder from the window,’ Thorne protested, ‘but that was locked from within and we have no ladder long enough …’
‘Silence, Master Thorne. This is how matters proceeded. You went up into the upper storey, locking the trapdoor from that side. You doused the candles and opened the shutters. Before you entered the Barbican you wheeled a handcart beneath the window. You dropped the ladder down on to the barrow; the hooks at either end of the ladder are secured on the sill which runs beneath the window. In fact, as I shall prove, the way you went down is the same way you later went up – that was an essential part of your plan.’ Athelstan stared down at the notes he had made. ‘You climbed out. You pull the inner shutter back; you slammed it shut to bring the hook down on the other side. Whether it did or not, I admit, is debatable because in the end it’s all pretence. The inner shutter looked sealed. You also closed the horn-covered window by simply loosening the horn and slipping your hand through to bring down the latch. You then repair the horn as well as you can before closing the outer shutters. Again the hooks could have swung down into their clasps just by the force of it being closed. If it did, all to the good. Whatever happened, for someone staring up through the murk with no light within and certainly none without, that window would appear sealed and locked as the main door of the Barbican. More importantly,’ Athelstan stared at the taverner, ‘you only had one person to convince.’
‘Who was that?’
‘You know full well. The ostler Mooncalf, who would go out to rouse them, stare up through the darkness and, full of panic, hasten back to raise the alarm. I shall come to that. You came down the ladder, the arbalest hooked on the war belt beneath your cloak. The night is pitch black. The Palisade stretched desolate, you are its owner, you know every inch of the ground. You move the barrow and ladder back to the nearby tangle of carts and other items stored under that tarpaulin. You then hurry across to the campfire. The archers lie fast asleep. What you have fed them would take hours to fade; anyone who did wander out would only see two very tired men who’d drank too much. In a few heartbeats you changed that. You primed your crossbow and loosed the killing shaft at close quarters into the heart of each of your victims. You return to the tavern and, in some narrow chamber, you would inspect yourself, hide your weapons, clean your boots. Oh,’ Athelstan held up his hand, ‘other matters. First, you are a very greedy man, Thorne, avaricious to the bone. You plundered the purses of your victims, stole every coin they owned. I suspect this lies with the rest. Secondly, you filched some of Mauclerc’s documents, his scribbles about what he’d discovered during his travels and stay at The Candle-Flame. You took care of these documents, burning them here in the tavern after you’d returned. You wanted everything to be safe!’
‘But Hugh of Hornsey?’
‘Really, Master Taverner? What could Hornsey say? That he had abandoned his post to meet his male lover? He’d either have to tell the truth or be swiftly cast as the killer – possibly both. You know what ensued. Hornsey returned and did what you, I and Sir John would expect – he panicked and fled. At first Hornsey was bound by terror; only later did he begin to reflect. Whatever happened, in your eyes, Hornsey was still dangerous. He had wandered round the Palisade. God knows what he might have glimpsed, which is why you killed both him and Ronseval.’
‘I didn’t—’
‘Let me finish. You returned to the tavern and your bed. Sure enough, early the next morning, Mooncalf raised the alarm. You were expecting him. You get up and go out to the Barbican. What happened then was crucial to your plan. You wanted to create the impression that the Barbican was totally sealed from within, both its door and window shutters. You make great play that the window is too high for any tavern ladder. Everyone is bustling around. You ask for a cart and ladder to be brought and up you climb. You prise open, or pretend to, the shutters and door window. Any suspicious indicator that they were loosed already is now removed. Once satisfied, you declare you are too bulky to enter. In fact, you are not, but you have accomplished your essential task. Mooncalf can now be used as the first witness to the horrors within. He climbs in, opens the door and you sweep in with the fresh opportunity to ensure you have not overlooked anything. Now,’ Athelstan picked up a scroll and let it drop, ‘Mooncalf has been terrified by me, and rightly so. I asked him, on his life, to reply to certain questions. He certainly recalls how you directed him to that tangle of carts and barrows under their canvas sheeting. He distinctly remembers you asking for the items which could be found there.’ Athelstan pulled a face. ‘I do wonder how you could be so precise on a freezing cold February dawn, that both cart and ladder are stored away there? Anyway, you climb that ladder. Mooncalf cannot say if the shutters were sealed, though, on reflection, he reports how you seemed to open them rather swiftly and made little attempt to climb inside. Again, I concede, I may be too suspicious.’ Athelstan paused and stared down at his sheet of vellum where he had constructed all these questions. ‘You see, Master Thorne, for the life of me, I cannot understand why you didn’t enter. Thanks to you, I stood in that window trying to escape the flames. There is plenty of space. Why didn’t you go in? You are a former soldier accustomed to danger?’ Thorne refused to reply. ‘After all, this is your Barbican, your tavern? Important guests have been beset by grave danger; two of their guards lie dead and no one appears to be alive in that tower? You have climbed a shaky ladder, perched perilously at the top, painstakingly opened shutters and windows yet you make no real attempt to enter? Mooncalf was certain of that. I would have gone in even if it was just to satisfy my own curiosity. Finally, and Mooncalf is very direct on this, you do not peer inside, nor do you call out. Why? That was the logical thing to do but of course you know there will be no answer, not from the horrors which lurk in the darkness.’
Thorne was now deeply agitated; sweat drops coursed down his face, his breathing was laboured and he found it difficult to sit still.
‘At the time,’ Athelstan continued, ‘you considered opening the Barbican as the most difficult problem you had to face. However, nothing in this vale of tears runs smoothly – certainly not murder.’ Athelstan pointed at the ceiling. ‘Physician Scrope had his own deep grievances against Marsen and, by mere coincidence, he was out on the Palisade that same night. We know that by the mud on his belongings. He certainly carried a lantern, so you must have glimpsed him. I cannot say whether he saw you, though he certainly entertained his own suspicions. He left us proof of that; anyway, only God knows what Scrope was trying to achieve but he certainly went out that night and for that alone he had to die.’ Athelstan rubbed his hands together. ‘What we see, hear and feel,’ the friar got to his feet, ‘is very strange. When it happens can be very different to what we later reflect upon. What we dismiss as ordinary or innocent can, in time, emerge as exceptional or even sinister. Scrope was a highly intelligent man. He went out that night full of hatred for Marsen and, as I have said, God knows what he came across. The dead archers? The sealed Barbican? Some dark shadow flitting through the night? In the end, he paid for it with his life and I will show you how.’ Athelstan walked to the door, opened it and ordered four of the royal crossbowmen to take Thorne under close guard up to the middle gallery. Once ready, they made their way to the stairs. Eleanor Thorne came out of the kitchen, face all stricken. She glimpsed what was happening and sank to her knees with the most heart-rending scream. The woman knelt, hands to her face, rocking backwards and forwards, refusing to be comforted by the slatterns and scullions around her. Thorne tried to break through the cordon of soldiers but was roughly pulled back and pushed up the stairs. Potboys and servants, all wide-eyed and open-mouthed at the grim spectacle unfolding before them, hastily scattered out of the way. They reached the chamber where Scrope had lodged. Athelstan ordered this to be unlocked as well as the one directly opposite. Once he had arranged things as he wished, Athelstan entered the empty chamber facing Scrope�
�s. He took the long pole from its two supports in the aumbry.
‘If I stand here within the doorway and lean forward,’ Athelstan did so using the pole to bang on the door of Scrope’s former chamber, ‘that was the knocking heard on the morning of Scrope’s murder, though no one was seen in the gallery. Master Thorne,’ Athelstan pointed at the taverner held securely by the crossbow men, ‘you did that. You unlocked this chamber and used it to lure Scrope to his death. You knocked on his door with this pole which you later left when you fled. Scrope first used the eyelet but saw no one. By then you’d swiftly closed the door to this chamber. Scrope walked away. Again the knocking. Scrope, already agitated and holding his vademecum, the pilgrim book on Glastonbury, hastens back. He opens the door and sees you standing here, hidden in the threshold of this chamber with an arbalest primed and ready. You are swifter than he. You loose and the quarrel strikes Scrope here.’ Athelstan tapped himself high in the chest. ‘Scrope staggers back. He is dying but the full shock of the attack has not yet had its effect. Scrope hastily closed the door, locking and bolting it. I later detected faint stains of dried blood on both lock and bolt. Scrope finally slumps to the floor. I cannot say if he meant this or it was just an act of chance, or perhaps divine providence, but Scrope died with the vademecum open on the page which lists the famous lists of Glastonbury. Amongst them, the Spina Sacra.’