by Paul Doherty
‘Isn’t it strange, Sir John,’ Athelstan murmured, ‘how we men take such a delight in the humiliation of others?’
Cranston remembered Lady Maude, blinked and looked away.
Athelstan stirred. ‘So, Sir John, do we question Horne or go to the Tower?’
Cranston rose. ‘My office is to enquire as to the cause of death,’ he announced pompously. ‘Not to run errands for the powerful ones of this city. So we go to the Tower. After all, as the good book says, “Where the body lies, the vultures will gather”.’
‘Sir John?’ Athelstan scratched his head. ‘This warning – the seedcake and the ship, still troubles me.’
‘What do you mean?’ Cranston slurred, swaying dangerously against the table.
‘Well, apparently Horne, for example, recognised the seed cake as a death threat, but why does the crude drawing of a ship hold such terrors for him and others?’
‘All men are fearful because they’re liars!’ Cranston snapped. ‘No one tells the truth!’ He glared at Athelstan under bristling brows.
‘What’s wrong, Sir John?’ Athelstan insisted. ‘I can feel the fury and the hurt seething within you. You must tell me.’
‘In a while,’ the coroner muttered. ‘Let’s go!’
They collected their horses from the stables and led them through the cold, bustling streets. Every Londoner seemed to be out of doors: the stall-holders were busy making up for lost trade and the air was thick with savoury smells from taverns and cookshops. They went to Cornhill, past Leadenhall and into Aldgate, pausing where a crowd had gathered round a speaker on the corner of Poor Jewry. He was a striking figure with a long, dour face, the head completely shaven, his thin body clothed from head to toe in a black gown and cloak. The speaker paused as he glimpsed Cranston, and his mouth and jaw tensed with fury. The anger in his face made his eyes glow, reminding Athelstan of the figure of St John the Baptist in a mummer’s play. The man’s eyes never left Cranston’s as he drew a deep breath, one bony finger pointing upwards to the clear blue sky.
‘Woe to this city!’ the preacher rasped. ‘Woe to its corrupt officials! Woe to those they serve who are clad in silk, loll on couches, and fill their bellies with the best of food and the richness of wine. They will not escape the fury which is coming! How can we eat and drink when our poor brothers starve? What will their answer be then?’
Cranston angrily stepped forward but Athelstan caught him by the sleeve.
‘Not now, Sir John!’
‘Who is it?’ Cranston rasped.
‘The hedge priest, John Ball. A great preacher,’ Athelstan muttered. ‘Sir John,’ he advised, ‘the man is well liked. This is neither the time nor the place!’
Cranston took a deep breath, spun on his heel and walked on. The preacher’s fiery words pursued them as they passed the house of Crutched Friars and turned left down an alleyway towards the Tower.
‘One day,’ Cranston grated, ‘I’ll see that bastard hang!’
‘Sir John, he speaks the truth.’
The coroner turned. His face and body sagged as the fury drained from him.
‘What can I do, Athelstan? How can I feed the poor of Kent? I may eat too much, I know I drink too much, but I pursue justice and do the best I can.’ Cranston’s great fat hands flapped like the wings of a wounded bird and Athelstan saw the hurt in his eyes.
‘By the sod, Brother, I can’t even govern my own house.’
‘Lady Maude?’ Athelstan queried.
Cranston nodded. ‘I fear she has met someone else,’ he blurted out. ‘Perhaps a fop from the court.’
Athelstan stared back in disbelief.
‘Lady Maude? Never! Sir John, you are a fool!’
‘If any other man said that, I’d kill him!’
‘Well, I say it, Sir John. Lady Maude is an honourable woman, she loves you deeply. Though,’ Athelstan snarled in genuine anger, ‘sometimes I wonder how she can!’ He grasped the fat coroner by his cloak. ‘What proof do you have?’
‘Last night I saw her coming across London Bridge from Southwark, yet when I asked her where she had been, she replied no further than Cheapside.’
Athelstan was about to snarl a further retort when the coroner’s words suddenly quickened his own memories. Sir John might be right. A week ago, just before the feast of the Virgin, Athelstan had seen the Lady Maude near the Tabard in Southwark. At the time he’d thought it strange but then forgot about it. Cranston narrowed his eyes.
‘You know something, don’t you, you bloody monk?’
Athelstan looked away. ‘I’m a friar,’ he replied softly. ‘Sir John, I know nothing except that I honour you and the Lady Maude. I also know she would never betray you.’
Cranston brushed by him. ‘Come on!’ he barked. ‘We have business to do.’
They reached the bottom of the alleyway, went up the hill and into the Tower through a rear postern gate. One of the sentries took their horses and led them across Tower Green, now ankle-deep in icy slush, to where a depressed-looking Colebrooke was waiting.
‘More deaths,’ the lieutenant announced mournfully. ‘Sir John, I wish I could say you were welcome.’ He took them out, stopped and stared up at the ravens cawing raucously against the blue sky. He pointed up at them. ‘You have heard the legends, Sir John? While the ravens are here the Tower will never fall. And that when they caw so stridently, it’s always a sign of impending death.’ Colebrooke blew on the tips of his fingers. ‘Unfortunately, the ravens’ song is turning into a constant hymn.’
‘Did anyone know that Mowbray had received the same warning as Sir Ralph?’ Cranston abruptly asked.
Colebrooke shook his head. ‘No. Mowbray was uneasy but, following Sir Ralph’s death, so were we all. He and Sir Brian kept to themselves. Last night Mowbray went for his usual walk on the parapet between the Salt and Broad Arrow Towers. He was still there when the tocsin sounded. Mowbray apparently heard the alarm, ran, slipped and fell to his death.’
‘There was no one else on the parapet with him?’
‘No. Indeed, if it wasn’t for the warning we found in his pouch, we would have assumed it was a simple accident.’
‘Was the parapet slippery?’
‘No, of course not, Sir John. You are a soldier. Sir Ralph was most strict on such matters. As soon as the weather worsens, sand and gravel are strewn on every step.’
‘Then who rang the bell?’ Athelstan asked.
‘Ah, that’s the mystery. Come, I’ll show you.’
They walked into the centre of Tower Green. The snow was relatively unmarked here, packed high around a great wooden post with a beam jutting out like a scaffold. The tocsin bell was balanced on an iron ring and from its great brass tongue hung a long piece of cord.
‘You see,’ Colebrooke said, pointing up to the bell, ‘this is only sounded when the Tower is under direct attack. If you touch the rope even, the bell is angled so as to sound continuously.’
Sir John looked up and nodded wisely. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I have seen such a mechanism before. If the guard is wounded, once he starts the bell, it will swing and toll until someone stops it.’
‘Exactly!’ Colebrooke exclaimed. ‘And that’s the real mystery. I stopped the bell myself. No one else was about.’
‘But someone could have rung it and run off?’ Cranston queried.
Colebrooke shook his head. ‘Impossible. I came out here with a sconce torch. I stopped the bell but, when I examined the snow, found no other footprints around.’
‘What?’ Cranston barked. ‘None at all?’
‘None, Sir John.’ Colebrooke pointed to the surrounding carpet of snow. ‘Because this bell is so important,’ he explained, ‘no one is allowed anywhere near it. Even the soldiers, when they are drunk, keep clear of the area in case they stumble and start the bell tolling.’
‘And nothing else was found?’
‘Nothing except the claw marks of the ravens.’
‘But that’s impossible,’
Athelstan said.
Colebrooke sighed. ‘I agree, Father, and what makes it even more mysterious is that we also had guards patrolling the green. They saw no one approach the bell. They found no foot prints.’ Colebrooke turned away and spat. ‘A time of death,’ he mourned. ‘The ravens’ song is the only one we hear.’
‘And where was everyone?’ Cranston snapped.
‘Oh, Mistress Philippa had invited us all for supper in Beauchamp Tower.’
‘All of you?’ Athelstan asked.
‘Well, the two hospitallers demurred. Rastani did not come, and I left occasionally to make my rounds. I’d just returned to Mistress Philippa’s when the bell began to sound.’
‘And you found no one?’ Cranston repeated.
‘No one at all,’ Colebrooke muttered. ‘Now the soldiers are uneasy. They talk darkly of demons and ghosts and the Tower is not a popular garrison. You know soldiers, Sir John, they’re worse than sailors. They repeat stories of how the Tower was built on a place used for ancient sacrifice. How blood is mixed with the mortar, and men were nailed to the earth in its foundation.’
‘Nonsense!’ Cranston barked. ‘What do you think, Brother?’
Athelstan shrugged. ‘The lieutenant may be right, Sir John. There are more forces under heaven than we know.’
‘So you believe the nonsense about ghosts?’
‘Of course not! But the Tower is a bloody place. Men and women have died horrible deaths here.’
Athelstan stared round the green and shivered despite the bright sunshine.
‘Fear is the real ghost,’ he continued. ‘It saps harmony of the mind and disturbs the soul. It creates an air of danger, of threatening menace. Our murderer is highly skilled and intelligent. He is achieving exactly what he wants.’
‘Who found the corpse?’ Cranston queried.
‘Fitzormonde did. When the bell was sounded, people were running around all over the place, checking gates and doors. Fitzormonde went looking for Mowbray and found his corpse.’
‘We’ll check the parapet walk,’ Athelstan muttered.
‘Master Lieutenant, I would be grateful if you could gather everyone in Mistress Philippa’s chamber. Please give my apologies and excuses to the lady, but it’s important to meet where you all were last night when the tocsin was sounded.’
Cranston and Athelstan watched Colebrooke stride away.
‘Do you think there’s any connection?’ Cranston asked.
‘Between what?’
‘Between the bell chiming and Mowbray’s fall.’
‘Of course, Sir John.’ Athelstan tugged him by the sleeve and they made their way across the deserted bailey to the steps leading up to the parapet walk. They stopped at the foot and stared up at the curtain wall rising above them.
‘A terrible fall,’ Athelstan whispered.
‘You said there was a connection?’ Cranston replied testily, ‘between the bell sounding and Mowbray falling.’
‘A mere hypothesis, Sir John. Mowbray went on to the parapet walk. Like many old soldiers he liked to be by himself, to reflect well away from others. He stands there staring into the darkness. He has already received warnings of his own impending doom so is lost in his own thoughts, fears and anxieties. Suddenly the tocsin sounds, proclaiming the greatest fortress in the realm to be under attack.’ Athelstan stared into Sir John’s soulful eyes. ‘If you had been Mowbray, what would you have done? Remember, Sir John,’ Athelstan added slyly, ‘you too are a warrior, a soldier.’
Cranston pushed back the beaverskin hat on his head, scratched his balding pate and pursed his lips as if he was a veritable Alexander. ‘I’d run to find the cause,’ he replied ponderously. ‘Yes, that’s what I’d do.’ He stared at Athelstan. ‘Of course, Mowbray would have done the same, but then what happened? Did he slip? Or was he pushed?’
‘I don’t think he slipped, Mowbray would have been too careful, and I doubt he would have let someone push him off the parapet walk without a struggle.’
‘So how?’
‘I don’t know, Sir John. Let’s study the evidence first.’
They were about to climb the steps when a voice suddenly sang out: ‘Good morrow, friends!’ Red Hand, his gaudy rags fluttering around him, jumped through the slush towards them. ‘Good morrow, Master Coroner. Good morrow, Sir Priest,’ he repeated. ‘Do you like old Red Hand?’
Athelstan saw the chicken struggling in Red Hand’s grip. The poor bird squawked and scrabbled, its claws beating the madman’s stomach, ripping his rags still further, but Red Hand held it firmly by the neck.
‘Death has come again!’ he chanted, his colourless eyes dancing with mischievous glee. ‘The old Red Slayer has returned and more will die. You wait and see. Death will come, snap, like this.’
And before Athelstan or Cranston could do anything, the madman bit into the hen’s neck and tore its throat out. The bird squawked, struggled and lay limp. Red Hand stared up, his mouth ringed with blood, gore and feathers.
‘Slay! Slay! Slay!’ he chanted.
‘Go away!’ Cranston barked. ‘Sod off, you little bugger!’
Red Hand turned and ran, the blood from the freshly killed chicken spraying the greying slush on every side. Cranston watched him disappear behind a wall.
‘In my treatise, Brother,’ he said softly, ‘I will suggest houses for such men. Though I do wonder . . .’
‘What, Sir John?’
‘Well, if Red Hand is as mad as he claims to be.’
Athelstan shrugged. ‘Who decides who is mad, Sir John?
Red Hand may think he is the only sane man around here.’
They climbed the steep steps, Athelstan going first. Behind him followed Sir John, breathing heavily and muttering a litany of dark curses. The wind whipped their faces; halfway up Athelstan stopped and, stooping, picked up the thick sand mixed with gravel which carpeted every step.
‘This would stop anyone from slipping, Sir John.’
‘Unless he was drunk or careless,’ Cranston replied.
‘Aye, Sir John. A sober soldier is a rarity indeed.’
‘Aye, monk, very rare, but not as rare as a holy priest.’
Athelstan grinned and continued climbing. They reached the parapet walk. It was about four feet wide and as carefully coated with sand and pebbles as the step. They leaned against the curtain wall. Cranston, breathing heavily, looked down, curiously watching the figures below as they scurried around like black ants on the various tasks of the garrison. He then stared up at the blue sky. The clouds were now only faint wisps lit by the strong mid-day sun. The coroner suddenly felt rather giddy and quietly cursed himself for drinking so much.
‘Old age,’ he murmured.
‘Sir John?’
‘In media vitae, sumus in morte,’ Cranston replied. ‘In the midst of life we are in death, Brother. I do not feel too safe here, yet in France when I was younger but not so wise, I held one of these parapet walks against the best the French could send.’ Cranston felt self-pity seep through him. Did Maude also think him old? he wondered. Was that it? Sir John breathed deeply, trying to control the spasm of rage and fear which shot through him. ‘Go on, Athelstan,’ he muttered. ‘Make your careful, bloody study.’
‘Stay there, Sir John,’ Athelstan replied softly. The friar glanced despondently down at the sand and gravel. ‘I suppose so many have been up here since Mowbray’s fall, I doubt we will find anything.’
Athelstan walked gingerly along the parapet, using the crenellated wall as his guide. He walked slowly, not daring to look at the drop on his right and becoming ever more aware of the cold, biting wind and eerie sense of loneliness, as if he hung half way between heaven and earth. On either side of the parapet walk were two towers. Near the Salt Tower he found the gravel-strewn slush had been disturbed, indicating someone had stood there for some time. Athelstan studied this spot for a while.
‘What have you found, Brother?’ Cranston bellowed.
Athelstan walked carefull
y back.
‘Mowbray stood where I stopped. Now, Sir John, if you go first?’
Cranston went back to the top of the steps. Athelstan followed behind.
‘Go on, Sir John. Stand on the top step.’
Cranston obliged, closing his eyes for he had begun to feel rather dizzy.
‘What is it, Brother?’ he rasped.
Athelstan crouched and stared closely where the sand and gravel had been scattered. ‘I suspect Mowbray fell from here,’ he replied. ‘But why, and how?’ The friar examined the crenellations from which an archer would shoot if the wall was under attack. ‘Strange,’ he murmured. ‘There’s a fresh mark in the wall as if an axe has been swung against it. And look, Sir John.’ Athelstan carefully picked up some splinters of wood. ‘These are fresh.’
Cranston opened his eyes. ‘Yes, Brother, but what do they mean?’
‘I don’t know, but it would appear that someone took an axe and drove it hard against the wall, with such force the stone was marked and the wooden handle of the axe shattered.’
Cranston shook his head in disbelief.
‘What it all means,’ Athelstan murmured, ‘I don’t know. I cannot make the connection between Mowbray’s fall and these fragments of evidence.’ The Dominican looked suspiciously at the white, haggard face of Cranston, the bleary red eyes, and the way he was swaying rather dangerously on the top step. ‘Come on. Sir John,’ he said gently. ‘We are finished here and others await.’
They made their way gingerly down the steps. At the bottom Cranston immediately felt better, turned and beamed at Athelstan.
‘Thank God!’ he bellowed. ‘You don’t do that every day, eh, Brother?’
Thank God, Athelstan thought, you are not in such a mood every day. The friar looked around. The Tower garrison was now busy: soldiers in half-armour lounged on benches. Despite the cold they wished to revel in the sunshine. A few played dice, others shared a wineskin. A scullion ran across with a basket of fresh-cooked meat, taking it to one of the kitchens where it would hang to be cured, diced, salted and stored for the duration of the winter. The clanging from the blacksmith’s rang like a bell through the air, somewhere a child cried, the son or daughter of one of the garrison. In the outer bailey an officer was shouting orders about a gate being oiled. A dog barked and they heard laughter from the kitchens. Athelstan smiled and relaxed.