by Paul Doherty
Gaunt pulled a face and shook his head. ‘Serriem had a wife and family in France, he was desperate to go home.’ Gaunt turned and snapped his fingers. ‘Maurice, if you will bring my Lord de Fontanel up here. Justice must not only be done,’ he added wearily, ‘it must also be seen to be done!’
Sir Maurice left. Gaunt sat staring moodily at the parchments on his table. He didn’t even move when Sir John got up and filled his wine goblet. Athelstan looked round the chamber. How much, he wondered, was the truth? Gaunt was as slippery as a fish and Athelstan knew that they were about to begin the pursuit of a red-handed son of Cain, an assassin, a murderer. They would enter the domain of demons, seek out the truth to bring about justice, but it was never simple.
Athelstan was about to ask his own questions when he heard footfalls outside and Sir Maurice entered the room. The man who swept in behind him was dressed in a long houpelonde, a long, high-necked gown which fell beneath the knee, bound round the waist with a silver belt. On his feet he wore soft buskins ornamented with silver buckles, and a jewelled fleurdelys, on a golden chain, hung round his neck. He had bright red hair, a white puffy face and a hooked nose; the eyes were arrogant, narrow and close-set, the lips thin and bloodless. A man of fiery temper, Athelstan considered, sly and cunning as the weasel he looked. A man who also stood on ceremony. De Fontanel bowed at Gaunt and waited while Sir Maurice brought up a chair so he could sit next to the Regent. He lowered himself carefully, moving the silver dagger pouch so it didn’t catch on the arm of the chair. Only then did he bother to notice Athelstan and Sir John. A quick, summary look then he stared above their heads while fiddling with the rings on his fingers.
‘My Lord de Fontanel.’ Gaunt moved sideways in the chair to face him. ‘May I introduce Sir John Cranston, coroner of the city, and his secretarius Brother Athelstan, a Dominican?’
De Fontanel’s eyes moved, snake-like. He looked quickly at Sir John and dismissed him with a flicker of contempt. He looked more intently at Athelstan as if he couldn’t make up his mind who the Dominican was. He took the silver goblet Sir Maurice passed and handed it to Sir John.
‘I do not wish to be poisoned,’ he lisped. ‘Not like poor Serriem! You, sir, will taste it!’
‘Certainly!’ Sir John grabbed the goblet, drained it in one gulp and thrust it back.
Anger spots glowed high in de Fontanel’s cheeks. Gaunt lowered his head to hide his snigger. Sir Maurice hastened to fill the goblet again.
‘My Lord de Fontanel,’ Gaunt intervened. ‘You are safe here.’
‘You gave the same assurances to poor Serriem and now he’s dead, poisoned.’
‘That is not our fault.’ Gaunt tapped the table and pointed at Athelstan and Sir John. ‘These are my two officers. They will investigate Serriem’s death. If it’s murder, they will capture the felon and he will hang. You have my word.’
Gaunt emphasised the last four words and de Fontanel had no choice but to accept. He sipped from the refilled cup then, raising his head, studied the two officers.
‘We are not what we appear to be,’ the coroner said slowly. ‘Monsieur, if you look into your battle rolls for the name of Cranston you will find it among the victors of many an affray against your country. There is a phrase: “A cowl does not make a monk and judge not a book by its cover”.’ His face creased into a smile. ‘I beg you to do the same.’
‘My lord,’ Athelstan intervened. ‘Do you ever visit Hawkmere Manor?’
The French envoy looked askance.
‘You want us to find the truth,’ Athelstan continued. ‘That means, Monsieur, we must question everyone.’
‘I go there,’ de Fontanel snapped.
‘And do you bring any food or drink?’
‘I am not allowed to. Only a prayer book, some rosary beads.’ De Fontanel put his cup down. ‘My Lord Gaunt, you know my master’s thoughts in this matter.’ He tapped the Regent on the shoulder. ‘We hold you personally responsible for the safe custody of our prisoners. So, let your officers investigate!’
He walked towards the door but paused until Sir Maurice hurried to open it for him. Gaunt waited till he had gone, his face mottled with fury.
‘Now there goes a pretty peacock,’ he said. ‘I’d love to take his head in battle so he doesn’t tap my shoulder again. Ah well.’ He sighed. ‘My clerk will have the commission ready for you. I would be grateful if you would go to Hawkmere Manor immediately. Maltravers will accompany you there.’
‘You’ve had the place searched?’
‘From cellar to garret,’ Sir Maurice intervened. ‘Nothing was found.’
‘Could Limbright be poisoning his visitors out of spite?’
‘Limbright has not got the imagination!’ Gaunt scoffed. ‘While his daughter is simple.’
‘And there are no poisons in the manor?’ Athelstan persisted.
‘None whatsoever. Weapons are strictly controlled, as are the prisoners. They cannot leave its grounds, visitors are searched. De Fontanel can only visit them once a week.’
Athelstan made to leave. He could see that Sir John was beginning to feel uncomfortable and was genuinely concerned lest the coroner doze off again.
‘One moment.’ Gaunt got to his feet and went and put his hand on Sir Maurice’s shoulder. ‘Sir Jack, Brother Athelstan, I think you know Sir Maurice Maltravers: a warrior and my most loyal retainer.’
Athelstan narrowed his eyes. Now he studied him, the young knight looked white and peakish, his eyes red-rimmed as if he had been crying or slept poorly.
‘Sir Maurice,’ Gaunt continued, ‘is a man deeply in love. He is much smitten by the Lady Angelica Parr.’
‘Oh no!’ Sir John groaned. ‘Not the daughter of Sir Thomas? Parr is tight-fisted and avaricious. We attended the Inns of Court together years ago. He is so mean there are cobwebs in his purse. Now he controls everything, ships, wool and wine. They even say half the Commons, not to mention the court, are deeply in debt to him.’
‘Sir John, as usual, you are succinct and truthful,’ Gaunt replied. ‘I am deeply indebted to Sir Thomas and he has great aspirations for his daughter. The hand of an earl, perhaps, even one of my own kinsmen, a member of the royal family?’
Gaunt turned and stared at Sir Maurice and, for the first time ever, Athelstan caught a genuine look of compassion in the Regent’s eyes.
‘Sir Maurice,’ Gaunt sighed, ‘is the younger son of a younger son of a younger son.’ He waved his hand. ‘He made the terrible mistake of courting the Lady Angelica, even trying to elope with her.’
‘Oh dear!’ Sir John breathed.
‘Oh dear, yes. He has been forbidden near the house and Lady Angelica is safely ensconced with the venerable sisters, the nuns of Syon on the Thames.’
‘Oh, heaven’s tits!’ Sir John groaned.
‘Precisely. A house ruled by the very venerable Mother Monica! A woman who strikes more terror in some of my court than the massed armies of the French. Sir Thomas has petitioned me,’ Gaunt continued, ‘to keep Maltravers away and to send to the convent a venerable father, a man of sanctity, to instruct his daughter in obedience and love for her father. You, Brother Athelstan, are the chosen one.’ He lowered his voice. ‘And that’s the problem. You are also to use all your powers to advance the cause of Sir Maurice.’
CHAPTER 4
Cranston and Athelstan, with a woebegone Sir Maurice in tow, left the Savoy Palace. They took a barge further along the Thames to Fish Wharf and threaded their way along the narrow runnels which wound through houses and shops towards St Paul’s. At first they had been too nonplussed to speak. They were accustomed to accepting the Regent’s commissions to investigate this or that, but the prospect of becoming heralds for this knight of the doleful countenance sitting opposite them in the barge truly confounded them. Athelstan’s mind teemed. How could he do anything? His knowledge of women, and he smiled to himself, well, the least said the better! Sir John broke the silence and leaned over and grasped the young man’s knee.<
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‘I know what it’s like, lad,’ he growled. ‘Years ago, when I pursued the Lady Maude, I wasn’t like this; sleek as a greyhound I was, fast as a swooping hawk, my heart and soul on fire. It was just poor old Jack Cranston then but courage and tenacity will achieve the desires of your heart.’
Sir Maurice thanked him. Athelstan could see the mirth in the young man’s eyes at the picture of a sleek and swooping Sir John.
‘Ah yes, those were the days,’ Sir John repeated as they made their way through the alleyways. ‘What a siege of love, and I tried every stratagem.’
Athelstan had to hang behind them because he’d begun to laugh so much his shoulders were shaking. He couldn’t really think of Lady Maude as a castle while the prospect of Sir John deeply in love was a thing of wonder.
Sir John, one hand on Sir Maurice’s shoulder, steered him through the crowds. Athelstan, trailing behind, realised that he had been sheltering in St Erconwald’s so long the crowds, the smell, the press made him feel uneasy. The sun was strong and the heat made his rough serge gown cling to his sweat-soaked skin. Sir John loved the city but Athelstan always found it strange, filled with images, pictures, which reminded him of scenes on a painted wall.
Two men on a corner of Old Bowyers Row were teaching their pet weasels how to kill a rat. Further along two beadles were making a whore fumigate herself by standing over a dish of burning coals, her dirty skirts pulled up under her breasts. Apprentices came out from behind stalls to catch Sir John’s arm. He shook them off as he did the greasy fingers of the owners of the cookshops who always regarded Sir John as a generous patron. The dung carts had not yet reached this part of the city and the lanes and alleyways were still full of rubbish from the previous day. The sewers down the streets brimmed with dirt. Cats, dogs, pigs and even a few chickens scrambled among the muck looking for tidbits. Street signs creaked in the light breeze which had sprung up. Above them, windows of the lean-to houses had been thrown open. People talked and shouted to each other. Now and again, if the street scavengers weren’t looking, they tossed out refuse on to the growing piles.
At Paternoster Row they had to stop. Sir John even paused in his advice to Sir Maurice as a strange procession of men and women, dressed in bright yellow, made their way up Newgate. These wore their hair long and untended and walked in unison; every so often a bell would ring. They would stop, clap their hands and leap into the air shouting ‘Hosanna!’
‘The Joyeurs.’ Sir John spoke over his shoulder at Athelstan. ‘Just look at the silly buggers!’
The Dominican did, fascinated. He had heard of these men and women who believed that the Second Coming was near and patrolled the city in feverish expectation. According to them, Jesus would appear at Blackheath and found the new Jerusalem.
‘There must be sixty of them!’ Sir John muttered.
The Joyeurs heightened Athelstan’s sense of unreality with their strange uniform walk, abrupt stops, the clapping of hands and raucous shouts.
Once they had passed, the three continued. They entered the Shambles, the beaten paving-stones awash with blood and gore from the butchers’ stalls and slaughterhouses. Outside Newgate, the stocks had been set up and the beadles were inviting citizens to throw rotten vegetables at the unfortunates fastened there, hands and heads clasped tightly between the wooden slats. Further up another crowd was waiting to visit relatives in the city prison. Turnkeys in their shabby leather aprons were moving among them taking bribes, choosing who should go in first.
At last they were free of the press, making their way up through the city gates and across Smithfield. Athelstan sighed with relief. The stench and the heat were not so intense and the great open expanse was deserted, although stall-holders were getting ready for the great horse fair the following day. They crossed some waste ground. Sir John paused to take a few gulps from his wineskin. Sir Maurice refused but Athelstan was only too grateful to wash the dust from his throat. They continued along dusty trackways which wound between the hedgerows, the noise and bustle of the city giving way to the chirping of birds and the hum of crickets. At last they reached Hawkmere Manor. The grey, forbidding curtain wall was dominated by a high timbered gate-house. Archers stood there, men-at-arms along the ramparts. Athelstan pulled at the great bell.
‘Piss off!’ one of the archers shouted down.
‘I’m Sir John Cranston!’ the coroner bellowed. ‘And, if you don’t open this bloody gate, I’ll hang you from the gatehouse!’
There were muttered curses followed by the sound of footsteps. A small postern door in the great iron-studded gate swung open and a shamefaced archer ushered them in. Sir John poked him in the chest.
‘Don’t ever tell me to piss off, lad!’ He pulled back the archer’s hood, revealing a mangled left ear. ‘Who did that?’
The narrow-faced archer forced a grin, revealing his black and bleeding gums.
‘The French caught me outside Calais.’
‘You are a bloody liar! The French would have taken two of your fingers off, not your ear!’
The archer looked crestfallen. ‘I stole a goose outside Calais,’ he muttered.
‘That’s better.’ The coroner glanced across the cobbled yard which stretched up to the main door of the manor. ‘Now, lad, run ahead and tell Sir Walter Limbright that Sir Jack Cranston is here.’
Athelstan opened his pouch and gave the archer the commission they had collected from one of John of Gaunt’s clerks. The archer hurried off. Athelstan looked up at the manor.
‘A gloomy place to live in,’ he commented. ‘And a gloomy place to die!’
Hawkmere was built out of grey ragstone, four stories high. Chimneys had been added on at each end of the sloping, red-slated roof. The front door was black and forbidding. The steps leading to it were choked with weeds and crumbling. The windows were either arrow slits or small squares of wood, not filled with glass but protected by shutters from within and iron bars on the outside. It reminded Athelstan of the great block houses in France, built by the English to control crossroads, bridges and fords over rivers.
The archer had disappeared round the back. Athelstan could see now why Hawkmere had been chosen as a prison. On the other three sides of the house ran a great curtain wall which probably defended the outhouses and buildings behind it. He glanced at his companions; Sir John was standing, legs apart, eyes half-closed. Sir Maurice looked as if he were a thousand miles away and, once again, Athelstan wondered how they could possibly help this young man’s futile pursuit of his beloved. Sir John knew Sir Thomas and so did Athelstan. Sir Thomas had a reputation for being hard-fisted and stony-hearted. A man who lent monies to everyone and always demanded a good profit in return.
‘Come on, Athelstan,’ Sir John growled. ‘I’m not standing here baking in the sun.’
He marched across and up the steps, the other two close behind, and hammered on the great oaken door. It swung open and a servant ushered them in.
The inside of Hawkmere Manor was as gloomy as its exterior. The hallway was so dark, cresset torches spluttered in their iron holders. They were taken down a shabby passageway, their boots ringing hollow on the hard grey paving-stones. Sir Walter Limbnght was waiting for them in his chamber just near the Great Hall. A small, surly-looking knight, he had thinning grey hair, eyes close-set, a cynical cast to his mouth. He was unshaven and his dark-brown doublet was stained. He rose to greet them.
‘I was told of your arrival, Sir John. I was coming…’
‘We decided not to wait,’ Sir John snapped. ‘It’s hot outside.’
‘Would you like something to drink?’ Sir Walter became nervous as he realised he had been caught out in his bad manners.
‘Perhaps later,’ Athelstan intervened quickly.
Sir Walter handed the commission back.
‘It’s not my fault,’ he wailed. He picked at a stain on his tunic. ‘I’ve kept the prisoners safely housed and protected. No one comes in here apart from that arrogant fop de Fontanel and,
when he does, I watch him like a hawk. My Lord of Gaunt can’t…’
‘Where’s the corpse?’ Sir John demanded.
Sir Walter blinked. ‘Yes, yes, quite, you’d best come with me!’
He led them out of his chamber along a passageway which smelt of stale vegetables. He reached the foot of a wooden spiral staircase. A pale young woman with light brown hair was sitting on the bottom step. She was picking at the floor and didn’t look up as they approached.
‘Lucy! Lucy!’ Sir Walter glanced at Sir John. ‘This is my daughter.’
The young woman glanced up; her face was vacuous, her eyes empty, her lower lip hung loose and a trail of saliva ran down her chin. A pretty-looking girl but her soul was gone, her wits fuddled.
‘I’m going to press some flowers, Father.’ She became aware of the visitors and squinted up at them. ‘They are not supposed to be here.’
‘Hush now, Lucy! They are from my Lord of Gaunt.’
‘Have they brought some money?’ she asked.
‘It’s Sir John Cranston,’ Sir Walter replied. ‘He’s coroner of the city, come to view the corpse.’
‘All Frenchmen are corpses,’ she replied. ‘And one’s up there, stiffening and cold, smelling like a fish.’
‘God have mercy on her!’ Sir Walter said. ‘Her wits wander. Sir John, she has no great love of the French.’
They reached the second gallery. The passageway was narrow and dark, the floor boards unpolished, the white plaster battered and peeling. Nevertheless, the doors to the chambers they passed hung straight and secure. Sir Walter stopped at one of these and pushed it open. The room was large but poorly lit. The shutters on the windows were thrown back but the little sunlight which poured through did nothing to lift the gloom or the summer breezes soften the stench of death and decay. A crucifix hung on the far wall, a few sticks of furniture and two battered leather coffers stood scattered around. On the narrow cot bed lay the corpse. Athelstan glimpsed a protuberant nose, greying skin; the dirty sheet meant to cover it had slipped to one side. Although he had given the last rites to many people, Athelstan was always struck by how pathetic a corpse looked. This was no different.