by Paul Doherty
'Sir John Cranston!' he bellowed, tapping his own round belly. 'You must be pregnant. What will it be, boy or girl?'
That was too much for the coroner. He reined in his horse and glared at his cheery-faced tormentor.
'If I was pregnant by you,' he shouted back, 'then it would be a bloody great Barbary ape!'
And, amidst the raucous laughter which greeted this repartee, Athelstan and Cranston continued on their way to London Bridge. They crossed over quietly enough, Athelstan smiling as he passed through the gateway at the far end on to Fish Street Hill. He wondered how the little man was coping, remembered the heads and concluded it was an acquaintance he would not wish to renew.
The fine day had brought the crowds pouring into London, varlets, squires, and men-at-arms accompanying knights north to the great horse fair at Smithfield, after which there would be tournaments and tourneys. The streets were packed with men, helmeted and armed, and great destriers caparisoned in all the colours and awesome regalia of war moved majestically along Fish Street Hill. High in the saddle rode the knights, resplendent in coloured surcoats, their slit-eyed helmets swinging from saddle bows, bannered lances carried before them by squires. Hordes of others followed on foot; retainers gaudy in the livery of great lords, and the bright French silks of young gallants who swarmed into the city like butterflies under the warm sun and blue skies. They thronged the taverns, their coloured garments a sharp contrast to the dirty leather aprons of the blacksmiths and the short jerkins and caps of the apprentices.
As Cranston and Athelstan turned into Cheapside they saw the festive spirit had spread. Stalls were out and there were mummers performing miracle plays. Men shouted themselves hoarse proclaiming cock fights, dog battles, and savage contests never seen before between wild hogs and mangy bears. The crowds had impeded the dung carts and the piles of rubbish and refuse were everywhere, the flies rising in thick black swarms.
'God's teeth!' Cranston said. 'Come, Athelstan.'
They had to dismount and force their way through, past the Conduit and the Tun and up a small alleyway which led into the Bear and Ragged Staff. They stabled their horses and did not enter the tavern but passed into a pleasant garden beyond. A private place with a chessboard garden, a square divided into four plots by small gravelled walks and paths. These were fringed by a hedge of varying shrubs and small trees – white-thorn, privet, sweetbriar and the occasional rose – all entwined together. They sat against the wall on turfed seats in the shade, looking out over raised herb banks of hyssop, lavender and other fragrant shrubs. «A slattern brought a small table for Athelstan to rest his writing tray on, and of course a jug of wine and two goblets, though Athelstan shook his head and asked for water. They sat enjoying the fragrant smells and the coolness after their dusty ride through the city.
'I could stay here all day,' Athelstan said, leaning back against the wall. 'So quiet, so peaceful.'
'You would prefer to be back in your monastery?'
Athelstan smiled. 'I didn't say that!'
'But you do not like your work?'
'I did not say that either.' He turned and looked at Cranston, noting how the fat coroner's face was dewed with drops of sweat. 'Do you like yours, Sir John? The murder, the lies, the deceits? Do you remember,' Athelstan asked, 'I once quoted Bartholomew the Englishman?'
Cranston looked expectant.
'He wrote a book entitled The Nature of Things,' Athelstan continued, 'in which he described the planet Saturn as cold as ice, dark as night, and malignant as Satan. He claims that the planet governs the murderous intent of men.' Athelstan squinted, watching the bees hover round a succulent rose. 'I often think it governs mine. You heard Fortescue refer to my own brother?' Cranston nodded. 'My father owned a prosperous farm to the south, in Sussex. I was intended for the religious life. My brother was destined to till the soil. Now there's a road which goes by our farm down to the coast. We used to see the men-at-arms, the crossbow men on their way to the ports for the crossing to France, then we'd watch them return laden with booty. We heard the legends and romantic stories about knights in shining armour, war horses moving majestically across green fields.
'One spring I left my noviciate and came back to the farm. The next party of soldiers which passed, my brother and I joined. We sailed from Dover, landing at Honfleur, joining one of the many bands plundering across France.' Athelstan stared up at the sky. 'We were under the command of the Black Prince with his general Walter de Manny and others. Our dreams soon died. No chivalrous knights, no majestic armies moving according to rules, but horrible deeds, towns gutted and burnt, women and children slain. Then one day my brother and I, serving as archers, were caught outside a town by a group of French horsemen. We took up our positions, driving stakes into the ground in the usual pattern. The French charged sooner than we thought. They were amongst us, hacking and killing.'
Athelstan stopped to compose himself before continuing: 'When it was over, my brother was dead and I had aged a hundred years. I might as well tell you, Cranston. I returned home. I'll never forget my father's face. I'd never seen him like that. He just stared at me. My mother? All she could do was crouch in a corner and sob. I think she cried till the day she died. My father soon followed her to the grave. I went back to my Order. Oh, they accepted me but life was harsh. I had to do private and public penance, take a solemn vow that, after I was ordained, I would accept whatever duties my superiors gave me.'
Athelstan snorted with laughter and leaned forward, his arms crossed, as if he was talking to himself and had forgotten the coroner sitting beside him. 'Whatever duties! Hard study and the most menial work the house could provide; cleaning sewers, digging ditches and, after ordination, I must go here, I must go there! Eventually I protested so Father Prior took me for a walk in the meadows and said I was to prove my worth with one final task.'
He leaned back against the wall. 'My final task was St Erconwald's in Southwark.' Athelstan stared across at Cranston. 'My father prior chose well. My parents accused me of the murder of my brother. Every day in Southwark someone dies. Men and women drenched with drink, quarrelling and violently fighting each other. In some alleyway or runnel a man hacked to death for stealing ale. A woman slashed from jaw to groin found floating in a ditch. And then you, Sir John! Just in case I should forget, or withdraw, or hide behind my church walls, you are here, ready to lead me along the streets, remind me that there is no escape from murder, from witnessing the greatest sin of all – a man slaying his brother!'
Cranston drained his cup of wine and said, 'Perhaps your father prior is wiser than you think.'
'What do you mean?'
'I am writing a treatise, have been for years, on the maintenance of the king's peace in London. The most terrible crime is murder. The belief that a man can kill someone, walk away, and say, "I am not responsible". I am no theologian, Athelstan, nor a scripture scholar, but the first crime committed after Eden was one of murder: Cain plotting to slay his brother Abel and afterwards claiming he knew nothing about it.' Cranston grinned. 'The first great mystery – I mean murder. But nothing like what happened to your brother.' He turned and spat. 'That wasn't murder. That was young dreams and hot blood, minds crammed with stupid stories about Troy and Knights of the Round Table. No, murder is different. And why do men commit murder, Athelstan? For profit? And what will stop men murdering? Hanging, torture?' He shrugged. 'Go down to Newgate, as we will do later. The prison is packed with murderers, the gibbets are heavy like apple trees in the autumn, the branches bend with their rotten fruit.'
Cranston moved closer, his face more serious than Athelstan had ever seen it. 'What will prevent murder, robbery, arson, is when the perpetrator knows, believes, accepts in his heart, that he will be caught and he will be punished. The more vigilant we are, the fewer murders, the fewer deaths. The fewer women slashed from jaw to groin, the fewer men with their throats cut, hanging in a garret or swinging from some beam under a bridge. Your prior knows, Athelstan, that with y
our guilt and deep sense of justice, you are well suited to such a task.'
He laughed abruptly and went back to this wine cup. 'If your order produced more men like you, Athelstan, and fewer preachers and theologians, London would be a safer place. That's the reason I have brought you to this quiet garden, not to some tavern where I would drink myself senseless. No, I want to plot and catch an evil murderer. A man who has slain Thomas Springall and blamed it on poor Brampton, afterwards making his death look like suicide. I believe the same villain executed Vechey and strung his corpse up like carrion under London Bridge.'
Athelstan drank greedily from the water cup, refusing to look at Cranston. He had talked about his brother's death, and for the first time ever someone had not laid the blame at his door. Athelstan knew it would make no immediate difference but a seed had been planted in his soul. The possibility that he had committed a sin but no murder. That he would atone for it and so the slate would be wiped clean. He put down the cup.
'You say Springall was murdered by someone else, not Brampton?' he asked abruptly.
'I do,' said Cranston. 'And so do you. And how can we prove that? The loose thread in this rotten tapestry is Vechey. Now, you may remember when we inspected his corpse, we noticed the water had soaked him up to his knees?'
'Yes,' Athelstan nodded.
'We also know that if Vechey committed suicide he must have done it in the early hours, just before dawn. Correct?'
Again Athelstan nodded.
'But that is impossible,' Cranston continued with a self- satisfied smirk. 'You see, after midnight the Thames runs fast and full. The water rises and it would almost cover the arch. There would be, at the very most, a foot between the surface of the water and the beam Vechey used to hang himself.' He held up his stubby fingers. 'First, are we to accept that a man waded through water up to his neck to tie a noose to hang himself? Or that he hanged himself virtually under water? Yet when Vechey's corpse was found, somehow or other it had dried out except beneath the knees.'
Athelstan grinned. 'Mirabile dictu, Sir John! Of course the river would be full. Vechey would have had to swim out to hang himself and that is a logical contradiction. So what do you think happened?'
'Vechey was drugged or knocked on the head, the corpse being strung up for others to find.'
'But why such contrivance?'
'I have been wondering about that,' Cranston replied. 'Remember, we know very little about the man. Vechey was promiscuous, he liked soft and perfumed flesh but, being a respectable citizen, he would hunt well away from his home in Cheapside. So I think he went down to the stews and bawdy houses along the river. Somehow or other he was trapped, knocked on the head or drugged, and his body taken down to London Bridge. The noose was tied around his neck and strung over the beam. The murderer was very clever, the river bank was deserted. The bridge, as the man- nikin told us, was a favourite place for people to commit suicide. The murderer made one mistake. He probably inspected the area when the water had fallen well below the starlings. He forgot that when he came to hang up Vechey's corpse the river would have risen, covering any suitable platform for a suicide to stand on.'
'Yet he still went ahead. Why?'
'Because Vechey was probably dead, strangled before he ever reached that bridge, and what else could the murderer do with the corpse? Throw it in the river still bearing the noose-mark, or cart it round London and risk capture looking for a new gibbet!'
Athelstan smiled. 'Perfect, Sir John.'
'And Brampton?'
'You may remember, or perhaps not,' Athelstan replied, that Brampton's corpse was dressed in hose and a linen shirt. First, do we really accept that a man in the act of undressing suddenly decides halfway through that he will hang himself and goes up to the garret without his boots on to carry out the terrible act? Now, even if he had, the garret floor was covered with pieces of glass and dirt. However, when I examined the soles of Brampton's feet, there were no marks or cuts. Yet there should have been if he had walked across that floor without his boots on. In fact, there was very little dust on the soles of his hose. The only conclusion is that Brampton died like Vechey. He was carried up to that garret, probably in a state of stupor, drunk or drugged. The rope was tied round his neck. He fought for a while, hence the strands of cord found under the finger nails, but he was murdered and left there to hang so others would think he had taken his own life.'
Cranston pursed his lips and smiled.
'Most logical, Brother.'
'The other factor,' Athelstan continued, 'is that Vechey and Brampton supposedly hanged themselves. Now, I examined the bruise on each of the corpses. It is a remarkable coincidence that two men, relative strangers, put a noose knot in exactly the same place, Vechey copying Brampton in every particular when he hanged himself. I went down to the execution yard where I saw three corpses. The executioner himself said that each hangman has his own hall-mark. The three corpses I studied there had the noose placed in the same spot. Vechey and Brampton also had the noose placed in the same spot. The only logical conclusion is that Brampton and Vechey were hanged by the same person.'
Athelstan picked up a quill with a modest flourish, uncapped the inkhorn and dipped in his pen. Cranston leant nearer. Athelstan found himself relishing the closeness. He felt as if he was back in time with his brother, plotting some mischief.
'As the good book says, let us start with the last. Vechey -' Athelstan wrote the name' – hanged by the neck under London Bridge. It appears he took his own life but the truth is that he was murdered. By whom and how?' Athelstan drew a question mark and looked up at Cranston.
'Perhaps we will know soon,' Cranston observed. 'On my way down I sent a message to the sheriffs office at the Guildhall and asked for two cursitors to make diligent inquiries amongst the taverns and stews along this side of the river. Perhaps they will discover something. Vechey was a fairly well-known man, a goldsmith. He would dress the part, even though he wore a cloak or hood. Such places tend to know their customers.'
'Secondly,' Athelstan continued writing, 'we have Brampton, steward of Sir Thomas Springall, who died apparently by his own hand in the garret of SpringalPs house.'
Cranston watched Athelstan's pen race across the page.
'We know it was murder not suicide, but how and by whom?'
Another question mark.
'Finally,' Athelstan concluded, 'Sir Thomas Springall was murdered in his own bed chamber by a cup of poisoned wine which was placed there by Brampton. But we have Dame Ermengilde's assurance that no one went up to Sir Thomas's chamber after Brampton had visited him. Nor did anyone enter the chamber after he retired. We know Sir Thomas drank the poisoned cup inside the room and not at the banquet, otherwise his death would have been public and in company.'
Athelstan wrote carefully. Cranston, craning his neck, followed the words forming quickly in the blue-green ink.
'So many questions, Sir John, so few answers. So where do we begin?'
Cranston jabbed one stubby finger at Athelstan's last few words.
'We will begin there. We have not fully scrutinised Springall's death. That is the key. If we solve that, the rest will unravel like a piece of cloth.'
'Easier said than done, Sir John, and you have only had one cup of refreshment!'
'Enough for the day is the evil thereof, friar. You should know that.'
Athelstan picked up his quill again. 'We have three riddles. First, Genesis, Chapter Three, Verse One; secondly, the Book of the Apocalypse Chapter Six, Verse Eight. And, thirdly, the shoemaker.'
'The shoemaker means nothing to me,' Cranston replied. 'But the verses… apparently Sir Thomas liked to tease his colleagues, and they would be curious. Vechey probably carried the verses around trying to solve the riddle. Oh,' the coroner grinned, 'my apologies for not telling you about Eudo the page boy but, according to my memory, there was nothing suspicious, just a fall from a window.'
The friar made a face. 'If Chief Justice Fortescue asked for a r
eport, we could pose many questions and few solutions, Sir John.'
'That is why,' the coroner barked, getting up, 'we are off to Newgate to see Solper.' He grinned at Athelstan. 'Every morning the Guildhall send me a list of those indicted to hang. Young Solper was on this list, not before time. A rat from the sewer, but one of my best informants. Let us see if he wants to live!'
He strode away, leaving Athelstan scrambling – to clear his writing tray, repack the leather bag and follow him out to the yard. Cranston had already ordered their horses to be brought out into Cheapside. They rode through the market place. The noise, clamour and dusty heat prevented any conversation. Cranston looked around him.
Yes, he would mention this in his treatise, he thought. There should be beadles placed at every corner, each covering his own section of the market place, and others mingling with the crowd. This would cut down on the number of naps, foists and pickpockets who plagued these places like the locusts of Egypt. His mind drifted and he let his horse find its path through the crowds. Athelstan pulled his hood over his head as he felt the heat of the sun on the back of his neck. He wondered what Sir John Cranston wanted at Newgate.
They moved out of Cheapside up towards the old city wall which housed the infamous gaol, past the small church of Nicholas Le Quern near Blow-Bladder Street and into the great open space before the prison. This was really no more than two huge towers linked by a high curtain wall. The area in front of Newgate, Athelstan thought, must be the nearest thing to hell on earth. There was a market down the centre, the stalls facing out, but the air and ground were polluted with the blood, dirt and ordure which ran down from the shambles where the animals were slaughtered and the gore allowed to find its own channel. Sometimes the blood oozed into great black puddles over which huge swarms of flies hovered. Athelstan was glad that Cranston had decided to ride.
The market place itself was full of people, jostling and fighting their way to the stalls, their tempers not helped by the heat, dust and flies. In front of the prison gate every type of disreputable under heaven was now thronging; pickpockets, knaves, apple squires, as well as the relatives of debtors and other people trying to gain access to their loved ones. Cranston and Athelstan stabled their horses in a dingy tavern and walked back, forcing their way through to the great prison door. Outside, standing on a beer barrel, a member of the ward watch rang a hand bell which tolled like a death knell through the noisy clamour of the place.