by Paul Doherty
‘What you say is true, Brother,’ the Fisher of Men called out. ‘These boats are not the safest at the best of times. When the river becomes choppy, they take on water.’
‘And where did you see him?’ Athelstan asked the bargeman: the fellow refused to meet the friar’s gaze. Instead, mumbling beneath his breath, he took Athelstan around through the water-gate and onto the narrow quayside which ran along the base of the Tower wall.
‘Lonely and bleak!’ Athelstan observed. The friar also noticed the deep enclaves in the Tower wall all caked with the dirt swept in by both wind and water: places where people could huddle waiting for boats – now moored halfway down the quayside attached to ropes lashed around iron poles.
‘Few people use these boats now,’ the bargeman murmured. ‘They are not very safe and, above all, you have to row yourself, which is not recommended on this river.’ Athelstan agreed: he would never dream of oaring a boat along the Thames. Moleskin the boatman had begged him never to do this.
‘But you saw Master Gaddesden come out here and take a boat?’
‘Yes, I did.’
Shaking his head in disbelief, Athelstan returned to the chapel. He moved a bench and set it before the rood screen then stared at the others gathering around. The friar wondered about the ghosts lurking in the encircling shadows of the church and shivered as his gaze caught a row of ugly gargoyle faces clustered at the top of one of the pillars. He glanced up at the lancet window. The light pouring through it illuminated the various carvings but it also showed that the day was beginning to die. It must now be late afternoon and Athelstan wondered how much longer they would have to stay here. He needed to return to Southwark. He had pressing business in his parish. There were panniers to be packed, matters to be settled, letters and instructions to be drawn up – yet, Athelstan conceded to himself, the mysteries now confronting him here held their own macabre attraction …
‘Brother?’ Cranston called out.
‘Yes, yes. My apologies.’ The friar beckoned the bargeman who stood nearby. ‘What did you see?’
‘That dead clerk in his livery. Well, he was very much alive then. He had his hood pulled up but that’s usual on the river where a strong breeze carries a spray. People often protect their hair and face. Anyway, he clambered into the boat and pushed off, rowing out towards midstream.’
‘This man here?’ Athelstan pointed at the corpse.
‘The same. I am sure of it.’
Athelstan stared hard at the bargeman, who seemed agitated and frightened.
‘What is the matter?’ Athelstan got to his feet and walked over. ‘What’s your name?’ he demanded.
‘Maulkin.’
‘Maulkin, are you frightened?’
‘No. Yes. Well …’ The boatman fingered his lips. ‘I mean, I saw the clerk, the one who lies murdered here. I followed him onto the quayside. I saw him get in and row away. At the time there was nothing out of the ordinary. However, who or what followed him out onto the river and cut off his breath, I don’t know. I mean, is it a devil?’
Athelstan could see the man was truly frightened, so he dismissed him, though he felt Maulkin had not told him the truth. The friar had no evidence for that, nothing but a nagging suspicion. Once he was gone, Athelstan turned to the Fisher and Ichthus sitting close together on one of the wall benches. He then stared quickly around. Gregorio, still and silent as a shadow, sat on the steps leading up into the sanctuary. Cranston leaned against a pillar staring into the darkness. Athelstan walked over to the corpse. Once again he scrutinised it from head to toe and, just for a brief moment, Athelstan felt a profound chill, a nameless fear, a spasm of sudden terror as if his own soul was brushing real evil. Was the assassin here in the chapel hovering close by? Or was it the realisation that once again the Angel of Death, the Lord Azrael, a true demon in human flesh, had struck, guttering out a life as you would a candle flame? Athelstan took a deep breath and walked over to the Fisher.
‘Tell me, what did you actually see?’
‘We were busy on the river.’ The Fisher’s voice was clipped with tension. ‘There are those who say we kill people to increase our revenue. Down near the water-gate I heard whispers that we’d done the same to this poor soul …’
‘Nonsense!’ Cranston barked. ‘A farrago of lies!’
‘I would agree with my learned coroner,’ Athelstan murmured, ‘so do continue.’
‘Brother, we are very busy. We are still finding corpses of those killed during the Great Revolt, river-soaked and heavy. Some of these were drowned with weights in their clothing, but as the cadavers begin to rot the weights slide away …’
‘Yes, yes.’ Athelstan soothed.
‘We were in our own barge. Ichthus kept a sharp eye for anything untoward then we saw this little boat, the narrow skiff you inspected. It was just bobbing on the water with a man squatting, bending over slightly. He was seated on the middle plank. He was kept upright by the seat in the stern which basically trapped his legs. The boat seemed to be drifting, the oars, locked in their clasps, trailing the water either side. Now the river was very calm. Perfect weather for a crossing, Brother. The man was leaning against the oars but he never moved. Curious, I hailed him, but there was no reply. We approached and hailed him again; obviously something was very wrong. We rowed alongside, knocking the oars away, drawing in as close as we could. I pulled back the hood, it was ghastly, that garrotte string tight around his throat! Now, from the very start there was a mystery. I have heard of people dying quietly, the heart failing, even the effects of apoplexy. But how could anyone have strangled a man on a boat like that? Sir John, Brother Athelstan, have you seen it? If two people just sat in that boat it would be quite dangerous. If someone got in and began a violent struggle with its occupant, trying to strangle him, the boat would capsize and hurl both of them into the water.’
‘That’s the mystery,’ Athelstan murmured. He crouched down again and stared at the victim. ‘Luke was a fairly vigorous young man who knew he faced danger.’ He tapped the dead man’s belt. ‘He carried a dagger still in its sheath. He was probably used to the river with a liking to fish or snare birds. I recall him saying that he would do that today to while away the time. So he takes one of the small rowing boats or skiffs kept tied to the Tower mooring and off he goes. The bargeman saw him leave and no one has offered any evidence to the contrary. Sometime later the boat is found floating, Luke Gaddesden sitting there slightly stooped. There is no other sign or mark of violence except that this clerk has been silently garrotted to death in a narrow, shallow boat on a busy, swift-running river.’ Athelstan got to his feet, wiping his hands on his robes. ‘Azrael the assassin acts and strikes as if he has no body. He can kill, strangle, but leave no trace except that garrotte string around his victim’s throat. Now I recognise Azrael to be a man of sharp mind and wicked soul, but this?’
‘Brother Athelstan,’ Cranston stepped out of the shadows, ‘I would like urgent words with you and our good friend the Fisher of Men.’
Athelstan, accompanied by the Fisher and Ichthus, followed the coroner out. Cranston gave instructions to the archer on guard regarding Gaddesden’s corpse. Athelstan glanced up at the sky: it was now late afternoon and he wondered how long he would be delayed here. He breathed a prayer for patience and followed Cranston through the main door of King’s Lodgings. Cranston had a word with the porter, who ushered them into a small antechamber furnished with tables, chairs and a poorly painted triptych celebrating the life and martyrdom of Thomas a Becket.
‘Most appropriate,’ Cranston murmured, pointing to the painting. He closed the door and indicated that his three companions should sit on the stools placed around the table. Cranston made himself comfortable, offering the miraculous wineskin to his guests. Athelstan refused but the Fisher and Ichthus took generous slurps; the latter went to take some more. Cranston snatched the wineskin from his bony fingers, growling that it wasn’t so miraculous and he needed what was left to ease the labour
s of the day.
Athelstan tried to hide his exasperation. ‘Sir John, we are waiting.’
‘I received a message from our good friends here,’ Cranston replied, pushing the wine stopper back into place. ‘Then matters were overtaken by the corpse they found in that rowing boat on the Thames. Isn’t that correct, my friends?’
‘We’d heard about the slayings in Milk Street,’ the Fisher intoned. ‘After all, it’s in our interest to keep a sharp eye and ear on what is happening in the city and the surrounding shires. We sent a message to our noble coroner and, God be our witness, we then encountered the corpse of that strangled clerk.’ The Fisher leaned across the table, his skeletal face all taut. ‘You see, Brother, that’s not the first time we have come across such a murder victim. About eight days ago Ichthus found a corpse, all swollen and dirty with river water, floating in the reeds between Timberhithe and St Paul’s wharf. A fairly young man, an Iberian, I believe, with his face badly marked and pecked.’
‘Was he Spanish?’
‘Castilian, Aragonese, Portuguese,’ the Fisher shrugged, ‘whatever, his skin was dark brown. A man raised under the hot sun of the south. He was naked except for a very thin linen undershirt which was tightly hemmed at the bottom. Despite being soaked I felt a weight. I undid the hem and found two newly minted coins bearing the royal insignia of Castile.’
‘So he was Spanish?’
‘Brother, I like to be precise. I would say Iberian. Whatever he was, he was definitely carrying Spanish coins. These had been sewn into the hem of that linen undergarment as some form of reserve if he ever lost the rest of his possessions.’
‘Yes, yes,’ Athelstan retorted. ‘It’s a common enough practice.’ He tapped his own robe. ‘I do it myself, a few coins hidden away to use if I have nothing else. But this man …?’
‘Murdered, Brother Athelstan. Garrotted, though there was no string around his neck like the one we found today. Ichthus believed the corpse was in the water probably a day and a night. In the end no one claimed the poor man’s mortal remains so we handed them over to St Peter’s the Less, which is the nearest church to where the corpse was found.’
‘So,’ Athelstan rose and walked slowly up and down the chamber, ‘we have an Iberian, probably Castilian, garrotted, stripped and thrown into the Thames. Mere chance or coincidence? Did he – and this is confidential – have anything to do with our other Spaniard, Brother Gregorio?’
Cranston rapped the table. ‘What is equally interesting, is that we have had no enquiry either at Westminster or the Tower about a subject of a Spanish prince, whoever that maybe, as missing in London. The victim certainly was a man of means – he wore a linen undergarment and he had two pure silver coins hidden away. Now if he was a merchant or the member of a visiting envoy’s household, you would agree, Brother, enquiries would have been made? Our sheriffs would have been instructed to search for a missing person, but in this case, I wonder …’
A knock on the door made him pause. Albinus sauntered into the room. ‘Sir John, Brother Athelstan, my Lord of Gaunt demands your presence in the Council Chamber.’
PART FOUR
Venenum: a Hideous Poison
As the bells of the Tower begun tolling in common with those in the hundreds of steeples throughout the city, Ralph Chobham, mine host and owner of the Sign of Hope, a magnificent tavern, the first on the pilgrim route from Southwark to Canterbury, was in a most jovial mood. Chobham lay back against the bolster in his own bedchamber on the first gallery of his splendid hostelry. Chobham’s heart sang with contentment. The Sign of Hope, despite all the recent troubles, was prospering. The marching of troops here and there, the thundering hooves of mail-clad knights, the surging hordes of rebel peasant armies; the great clouds of dust thrown up by this cavalcade or that, the raucous noise of battle chants and songs of protest were now relics of the past. The Upright Men had marched on London under their great, swirling black and blood-red banners. Wat Tyler, Jack Straw and Simon Grindcobbe had led their unruly hordes out of Kent up into Southwark. Eventually they had crossed the great bridge intent on victory only to meet fierce resistance, bloody defeat and vengeful pursuit. The Great Community of the Realm had collapsed and the rebels had fled like pigeons before marauding hawks. Ah well, it was all over.
Chobham swung his fat legs off the broad four-poster bed, truly a place of pleasure with its oaken columns and cream and rose counterpane with matching tester and curtains. He picked up the pure woollen robe from the chest at the foot of the bed and wrapped it around his plump, pink body. Chobham stared down at the bed, still creased from where young but nubile Marisa had given him such splendid sport. After a great deal of furtive pursuit and a hunt which had lasted for weeks, Chobham had at last brought the young chambermaid to bed. Oh, she had teased him till his mind was plagued and his dreams troubled, though she had done so carefully. Marisa only indulged in such games when Chobham’s sharp-eyed wife Margaret, who was even fatter than her husband, was not circling and watching as a buzzard would a cornfield. However, when she could, Marisa had acted all enticing, with her tightly fitting smock and bodice, or her hips swaying so provocatively as she climbed the stairs before the landlord. Or when she sat on a stool and leaned forward to display even more of her splendid breasts. Ah well, Margaret had insisted on visiting her brother, owner of the Mitre tavern in Farringdon ward, so Chobham had seized his opportunity. Marisa had brought him up a goblet of the finest Rhineland wine. She had closed the door and the merriment had begun. Marisa had acted all coy and reluctant, but the implicit threat of dismissal, along with the prospect of future enhancement – not to mention a silver coin and a few mouthfuls of cold, white wine – had won the day. Marisa had proved to be adept, skilled and enthusiastic in their games on the bed. Chobham certainly looked forward to future assignations.
The taverner moved over to the oriel window, pulling back the shutters and staring down at the front of his tavern. The great rutted yard lay quiet. Chobham peered through the glass up towards the ancient road which ran past the curtain wall and majestic lychgate of the Sign of Hope. Chobham was very proud of the entrance to his tavern. He remembered standing there cheering the rebels as they streamed towards Southwark; ferocious Earthworms in their garish dress, faces painted, jostled with yeoman archers, veterans from the French wars and all the outlaws of Kent and Essex: the wolfsheads, peace-breakers, rapists, arsonists, fire-drakes and all the merry crew. Chobham had watched them go with their stupid dreams of establishing a new Eden along the banks of the Thames and a heavenly Jerusalem arising from the ashes of Cheapside and Farringdon. He congratulated himself on his cunning. Secretly he had assisted the rebels with money, provender and other purveyance. Of course, as he often now proclaimed in the tavern taproom, the revolt had been doomed from the start.
Chobham had stood under that fortified gateway and watched those same rebels, beaten and fearful, flee out of London back into the shires. He had closed both his soul and his door to their plight. No mercy, no compassion. Instead he openly supported the city council, the sheriff’s men and the great lords of the shire whose troops poured in and out of London to inflict cruel and vindictive punishment on all suspects. Chobham himself had witnessed many hangings on the great gallows at the crossroads further down the pilgrim path. Anyway, the revolt was over. Kent had been brutally pacified. The pilgrim path was now open for all and the faithful came flocking, eager to pray before Becket’s blissful bones, one large party after another. He was particularly pleased at the group coming out of St Erconwald’s in Southwark.
Chobham jumped and almost screamed as he felt the garrotte cord slip around his throat and begin to tighten.
‘Do not move,’ the voice hissed. ‘Do not turn.’ The garrotte string tightened slightly. ‘Do you understand? Nod if you do!’ The taverner hurried to obey. ‘Now listen, Master Chobham, and listen well. You are safe, you will not be hurt as long as you do exactly what I tell you to. Lift your right hand in agreement. Good! If yo
u disobey me, I will personally ensure that your good wife Margaret knows all about your bed sports with young Marisa and others.’ Chobham swallowed hard. He had not even heard the bedroom door open, not a sound. The tavern was full of guests. One of these must have been watching him. Chobham, terrified but his mind now whirling, recalled one individual sitting hooded and visored close to the inglenook. ‘Don’t worry about who I am, Master Chobham. I am the Lord Azrael, the Angel of Death who comes swooping and swift, eager to envelop you in his cold embrace. I know of your wicked ways, not only your dalliance with the doxy Marisa but the sustenance you supplied to the rebels. A bill of complaint could be submitted to the sheriff in Colchester or even my Lord of Gaunt’s minions at Westminster. You could still hang or, even worse, suffer the full rigour of the penalties for treason. Now,’ the cord tightened then relaxed, ‘all should be well, Master Chobham. Do as I say. Listen very carefully about those pilgrims coming from St Erconwald’s and what is to be done …’
Athelstan stared down the long oval table. At the far end Gaunt slouched in his throne-like chair. To the regent’s right sat Thibault, and Albinus on his left; both henchmen looked noticeably ill at ease. Gaunt had loosened the Lancastrian SS collar around his throat and sat playing with it, moving the gorget around his fingers. He looked as if he had drunk swiftly and deeply. He had staggered to his feet when Albinus had ushered them in and, swaying backwards and forwards, forcefully thanked the coroner for his help during the recent treasonable affray on Tower Green. He toasted Cranston with his goblet before wearily waving both of them to their chairs. The evangelists were already there, each with a brimming goblet before them, their faces stricken with grief. For a while, there was silence. Athelstan could even hear the soft strings of a harp and the melodies of other musical instruments as Gaunt’s household prepared to entertain the regent at supper immediately after sunset.