by Paul Doherty
Sir Maurice nodded.
‘So, why did you come to this tavern yesterday?’ The Dominican held up a hand. ‘No, let me tell you: a messenger came to the Savoy Palace and asked for you?’
‘One of the oldest tricks in the book,’ Sir John observed.
‘It was a beggar boy,’ Sir Maurice replied. ‘He arrived at the Savoy about two hours after I left you. The guards stopped him but he said he had an important message. I came down, and the boy, a little street urchin, said that, at the Golden Cresset, there was a messenger waiting for me from the Lady Angelica.’
‘Ah!’ Athelstan exclaimed. ‘That would confirm my suspicions. Go on!’
‘I didn’t think twice. I came here, bought a blackjack of ale and stayed for over an hour.’
‘Didn’t you bother to ask anyone?’ Sir John asked.
‘By the time I reached the Golden Cresset, my ardour had cooled. I wondered if I had been deceived. Was it a trap? I told the tavern wench my name and said I expected someone. Time passed. I finished the ale and I left, angry at such trickery.’ He scratched his head. ‘I didn’t know whom to blame. Such pettiness was beneath Sir Thomas Parr. I thought it might be one of my companions in the Lord Regent’s household inventing a jest, a jape to while away the time.’
Sir John came across and, moving the blankets, began to cover up the corpse.
‘But you can see I’m innocent!’ Sir Maurice cried.
‘Oh, I’ll change my verdict. But don’t you understand, Sir Maurice? Brother Athelstan and I know the truth but what will the world think? A woman lies here dead! The letter! The gossip will seep out like wine from a cracked vat. Sir Thomas Parr will hear about it.’ The coroner gazed sadly at him. ‘Worse still, the Lady Angelica too.’
‘Sir John has the truth of it,’ Athelstan agreed. ‘Even if we change the verdict, they’ll accuse us of covering up a crime of one of Gaunt’s henchmen. Can’t you see, Sir Maurice, the assassin probably knew we’d discover the truth but the damage is done. If you throw enough mud, some always sticks!’
Sir Maurice’s hand went to his dagger, his face white with fury. ‘I’ll kill any man who accuses me! I’ll call him out!’
‘Oh, for the love of God!’ Sir John cried. ‘What are you going to do, Sir Maurice, fight every man in London?’
‘Sir Thomas Parr knows the truth,’ Sir Maurice spat back. ‘He arranged all this.’
‘Sir Maurice! Sir Maurice!’ Athelstan grabbed his hand. ‘I could prove in a court of law that this young woman was murdered and did not commit suicide but we still don’t know who she is or where she came from.’ Athelstan paused. ‘We have no proof that Parr or anyone else is guilty of her death. The finger of suspicion still points at you. It blemishes your reputation and tarnishes your honour.’
‘It creates a doubt,’ Sir John said. ‘And that was the whole purpose of this terrible crime. Is Sir Maurice Maltravers who he claims to be? It could take months to comb the records of Dover, and even longer to find out where this young woman actually comes from. And in the end the gossip will be through the city. Sir Maurice seduced some young gentlewoman, secured her body, after marriage celebrated by some hedge-priest, then he rejected her so the young woman took her own life.’
Sir Maurice’s face was now white as a sheet, beads of sweat coursed down his cheeks.
‘I’m a fighting man,’ he whispered. I see my enemy and I meet him honourably on the field of battle: shield against shield, sword against sword. I cannot deal with this.’
‘Oh yes you can.’ Athelstan pushed him towards a stool and made him sit down. He then stood over him, one hand on his shoulder. ‘We have other questions.’ He paused.
Footsteps sounded up the stairs and along the gallery followed by a knock on the door.
Athelstan had met the Harrower of the Dead before but he still flinched as the man came into the chamber. A tall, black cowl was pulled over his head, his face covered by a death mask. He came into the room, black leather leggings creaking. In one hand he carried a canvas sheet neatly folded, in the other a length of rope.
‘My lord coroner, we meet again.’ The Harrower’s voice was low, soft, well modulated.
‘Aye, sir, death is always busy. And his leavings are scattered throughout the city.’
The Harrower moved across to the bed. In a businesslike manner he moved the corpse, gently wrapping the canvas sheet round it, tying it secure with his piece of rope. The taverner stood in the doorway, his face ashen.
‘Will this take long?’ he moaned. ‘There are customers, my trade will suffer.’
‘It will do nothing of the sort,’ the Harrower replied, his voice muffled. ‘People will flock to you to ask what happened. You’ll sell more ale than you would on a Holy Day or May Day.’ He secured the corpse and lifted the sheeted body gently like a mother would a child. ‘It should be buried soon, my lord coroner.’
‘Today. The innkeeper will pay you all dues. A pauper’s grave in St Mary’s but not in the common ditch: by herself with a wooden cross bearing her name. The taverner will provide it. God rest her!’ The coroner turned away, waving his hand.
The Harrower left. The taverner crossed himself and closed the door behind him. Athelstan waited until the sound of footsteps faded.
Sir Maurice sat on the stool, arms folded, ankles locked, tense and watchful. Athelstan felt a pang of compassion.
‘Right, Sir Maurice!’ he began. ‘You claim you are innocent and I believe you, though later I will ask you to swear to that. However, first, you must not blame Sir Thomas Parr. Your betrothal to the Lady Angelica must have provoked resentment and jealousy, even hatred, from many others at daring to aspire so high. You are also a hero responsible for the capture and destruction of two marauding French privateers. You yourself said that you thought your visit here yesterday was some joke, a trick arranged by people in Lord Gaunt’s household. Moreover, there are others in the city, such as Monsieur Charles de Fontanel the French envoy. He, too, will have taken an active interest in your doings. So, I beg you, keep a quiet tongue; do not lash out and make accusations which cannot be resolved.’
‘In the meantime.’ Sir John came over and thrust the miraculous wineskin at him. ‘Go on, take some!’
He did, a generous swig which Sir John copied. He offered it to Athelstan but the Dominican shook his head.
‘I have not eaten yet, Sir John.’
‘Oh, well, please yourself. In the meantime we have other questions. Why did you go to the Lady Vulpina and buy a love philtre and some poisons?’
Sir Maurice coughed and put his face in his hands.
‘You did go there, didn’t you?’ Athelstan asked quietly.
The young man sighed noisily. ‘Vulpina is well known among the courtiers. I’ll be honest, when Sir Thomas drove me away, I thought I would die. I went to her for a potion. I was stupid enough to think it would soothe the passions boiling within me. I hated the woman, sly, cunning and evil. Laughing at me behind her eyes, smirking at the bully boys who guarded her while I traded. I felt so embarrassed. I also asked for some poison.’
‘To kill the rats in your chamber?’ Athelstan intervened.
‘Brother, please don’t try to trap me. My Lord of Gaunt has his own rat-catchers. I bought it because,’ he sighed, ‘I felt mortified to be there.’
I think you are two things,’ Athelstan smiled. ‘You are a brave warrior, Sir Maurice, and you are a hopeless liar. What you’ve told me is so fumbling, so ill prepared, it has to be the truth though God knows where we go from here.’
‘I must see Angelica.’ Sir Maurice grasped Athelstan’s hand. ‘Please, Brother, you must!’
Athelstan glanced at Sir John but the coroner looked mournful and shook his head.
‘If I were a Dominican . . .’ Sir Maurice said.
Athelstan let go of his hand and walked to the window. In the yard below the ostlers were beginning the day’s work, leading out horses and, with huge rakes, dragging the dirty straw from t
he stables. An idea occurred to him but the time was not yet.
‘We’ve examined the corpse,’ Athelstan said slowly. ‘We know the truth and there’s not much more we can do. Sir Maurice, did you buy provisions for the prisoners at Hawkmere?’
‘I’ve told you that, Brother. I go to Cheapside with one of the Regent’s stewards. I simply buy what has to be bought and then it’s taken by cart to Hawkmere.’
‘And you have nothing to do with the prisoners themselves?’
‘You’ve met them, Brother, they have as little time for me as I for them.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘My Lord Regent has held them for ransom but, in my eyes, they were pirates. They may have carried letters from their King in Paris but they attacked English cobs and killed their sailors. I’d have hanged all five out of hand.’
‘Sir John Cranston! Sir John Cranston!’
Athelstan looked down into the yard.
A tipstaff carrying his white wand of office stood under the window.
‘What is it?’ Athelstan asked.
‘My lord coroner is needed in Whitefriars. A message from the Guildhall: a woman’s house, Vulpina’s, was burned to the ground and her remains have been found.’
CHAPTER 9
Sir John Cranston mournfully surveyed the charred, reeking remains of what had once been his favourite tavern. Beadles and bailiffs kept back the crowd of beggars and alley people who thronged to gape at the site and look for any pickings. The three corpses pulled from the burned building now lay under a soiled canvas sheet.
‘What I’ve eaten will stay,’ he said. ‘Pull it back!’
The bailiff, a black vizard across his face, his eyes watering, grasped the sheet.
‘It’s not a pleasant sight, Sir John.’
‘She wasn’t when she was alive, so what’s the difference?’
The man pulled the sheet off. Athelstan turned away, his hand covering his mouth. The corpses were nothing but charred, mutilated flesh, black from head to toe. The eyes had watered, the skin round the face had shrivelled, making them look like grotesque gargoyles.
‘Were they dead?’ Sir John asked. ‘When the fire broke out?’
‘Dead or drunk. God knows what happened.’
The beadle turned one of the corpses over. The wooden bolt had burned but Athelstan could see the steel tip embedded deep in the charred flesh. Sir John walked away. Athelstan and Sir Maurice followed him, their boots crunching on the blackened ash. Sparks still floated up and the air was thick with acrid smoke.
‘And everything was burned with her?’ Athelstan sighed. Any records of potions and philtres all turned to ash.’ He walked back on to the cobbles.
‘What do you think, Sir John?’ the beadle asked.
‘Probably murder,’ he replied. ‘Brother?’
Athelstan gazed at the devastation.
‘Someone probably visited Mistress Vulpina last night but it’s pointless asking these what they know.’
The gallows men and wolfs-heads were watching them with narrow eyes, mournful that Vulpina, once the queen and patroness of these mean and foul alleyways, was now no more.
‘Somebody came and killed Vulpina and two of her henchmen.’ Athelstan shrugged. ‘Some oil, a firebrand; as you say, Sir John, these buildings are old and dry. They burn like stubble under the sun.’
‘My lord coroner.’
Sir John turned to see who spoke. The man standing behind him was small and pink-cheeked, with light blue eyes. With a shaven face and fluffy, white hair he reminded Athelstan of an ancient cherub. A short distance away three men-at-arms, wearing the royal livery, stood, hands on the hilts of their swords, their conical steel helmets gleaming in the sun, the broad nose-guards almost concealing their faces.
‘Well I never!’ Sir John stretched out his hand. ‘Brother Athelstan, may I introduce to you Gervase Talbot, a man who is not as innocent as he appears. A lover of fine claret, subtle and cunning as a fox. Once chief clerk in the chancery of Edward the Black Prince, God bless his memory.’
Talbot stood on tiptoe and exchanged the kiss of peace with the fat coroner. He then did the same with Athelstan. The Dominican caught a fragrance of Castilian soap as well as a woman’s perfume, light and sweet. Talbot’s hand was soft but his grip was firm.
‘Brother Athelstan, I’ve heard of you.’ Gervase spoke just above a whisper, as his eyes wandered to the destruction behind him.
‘So, Mistress Vulpina’s gone to meet her maker, has she? Then God assoil her, she’ll need all the mercy she can. A wicked woman . . .’
‘Gervase, it’s Sunday, you should be in your garden, tending your roses or singing one of your songs. A fine voice has Gervase,’ Sir John explained.
‘I’m still choir master in the church of St Oswald.’ Gervase’s hands disappeared up his sleeves. ‘But move away, Sir John, the smoke here sours my mouth and spoils my throat.’
Sir John and Athelstan followed him across to the mouth of an alleyway. One of the soldiers immediately wandered up the runnel to ensure all was safe. The other two stood between their master and the crowd of curiosity-seekers.
‘Gervase is Master of the King’s Secrets,’ Sir John explained.
Athelstan nodded. He’d heard of such an office, staffed by chancery clerks with a house just off Fleet Street. These clerks governed the spies and agents of the English court both at home and abroad. They listened to sailors and merchants, piecing together scraps and tidbits of information.
‘You’ve to come with me, Sir John, and you, Brother Athelstan. My Lord of Gaunt is waiting for you at the House of Secrets.’
‘Sir John groaned. ‘No rest for the wicked.’
‘No, I am afraid not, Sir John. My lord Regent will tell you all. Sir Maurice!’ he called out. ‘You too!’ His cherub face creased into a smile. ‘I’ve heard about the death at the Golden Cresset,’ he whispered. ‘Is Maltravers involved?’
‘A farrago of lies,’ Athelstan retorted. He was curious about this little man and what the Regent should want with him and the coroner on a Sunday morning.
Gervase took off in a quick walk, almost a trot, his bodyguards all around him.
‘What’s this, Sir John?’ Athelstan asked, plucking at the coroner’s sleeve.
‘I don’t know. But something has happened. Gervase loves his roses and very rarely misses an opportunity to sing in the choir on a Sunday morning. Therefore it must be serious, indeed. My Lord of Gaunt should be out with his hounds hunting the deer.’
They left Whitefriars, entering the more salubrious areas around Fleet Street. The lanes here sloped towards the sewers in the middle. Athelstan quietly thanked God that it hadn’t rained for the slope was quite precarious and the sewers brimmed with dirt. At the same time Athelstan kept an eye on the signs which hung out over the shops and could deal the unwary a nasty rap on the head. The ‘Cupid and Torch’ of the glazier, the ‘Cradle’ of the basket-maker, a naked ‘Adam and Eve’ for those who sold apples and ‘Jack in the Green’ for the brewers. On the corner of Bride Lane the collectors of dog turds, armed with small shovels, were filling their baskets for sale to the tanners and curers of skins.
‘For some people,’ Sir John observed, ‘there is no Sunday or day of rest.’
He stopped a water tippler and paid for a ladleful from his bucket but he threw the ladle back and spat noisily.
‘Your water’s brackish!’ he shouted at the small, mean-faced man. ‘Empty it in the sewer and obtain some fresh or I’ll have you whipped at the cart’s arse!’
The man hurried off, the bucket bouncing across his shoulders, its water slopping out.
‘In my treatise on the governance of the city . . .’
‘Come on, Sir John!’ Gervase Talbot stood on a corner of an alleyway.
‘Yes, quite!’ The coroner hurried on after him.
The House of Secrets stood in Rolls Passage which ran off Chancery Lane. It was a tall, narrow house with a red-bricked base, bla
ck beams and plaster on the upper stories. The windows were glazed with iron bars protecting the outside. The door was narrow but reinforced with great iron-studded nails. Gervase pulled at the bell. The door swung open and a clerk ushered them in. Inside the passageway was paved and clean swept. The walls were covered with polished panel work, above which coloured cloths and painted canvas sheets hung. The air smelled sweet with the smell of parchment, candles, sealing-wax and ink. On the ground floor were small chambers, most of them closed; but one was open and Athelstan espied the high stools and desks of the clerks, the latter covered in green baize cloth.
John of Gaunt was lounging in a room at the back of the house. He was sitting on a stool, sifting among the manuscripts on the floor. He smiled as they came in.
‘My lord coroner, my apologies, and you, Brother Athelstan. However, as you can see,’ Gaunt indicated his hunting jacket, leggings and boots, his spurs clinking at his every move, ‘I, too, was preparing for other business but Gervase here said that he had matters to share with me.’ He looked across at the hour candle beneath its glass. ‘Come then, let’s not waste time.’
Gervase called a clerk, more stools were brought in, their seats covered in quilted cushions. White wine was served, with fruits and nuts in small silver dishes. While Gervase was making his preparations Athelstan looked at his surroundings: there was a small mantelled hearth but virtually every wall in the room was covered in shelves and on these leather pouches, neatly tagged, were arranged in tidy piles. The large window at one end provided light. The candles in bronze brackets on the wall had hooded caps, protection against any spark.
‘This is my second home,’ Gervase remarked, following Athelstan’s gaze and sitting down. ‘Here, Brother, we have the gossip of the courts. Who’s in favour at Avignon? Which cardinal will take bribes? Who’s been elected to the Council of Ten in Venice? Which courtier is in the ascendant in Paris?’ He lifted his goblet. ‘I give you secrets.’
‘Before we begin,’ Gaunt interrupted, ‘Sir Maurice, I heard about the business at the Golden Cresset.’ He smiled. ‘Or rather, Master Gervase told me. Sir Jack, you’ve been there?’