The Relic Murders

by Paul Doherty

'We visited four times,' Oswald replied. 'We never noticed anything amiss.'

  'Tell us again,' Benjamin declared.

  'We always arrived just before three. Master Cornelius would lake us up to the door and let us in. The manor was dark, it was not a pleasant place. The galleries and rooms were gloomy yet the soldiers were friendly enough, even the Noctales. Sometimes one or two would flirt with Imelda but they were no trouble.'

  'Did you go to any other part of the house?' Benjamin asked.

  'Only once,' Oswald replied. 'Well, no, perhaps on two occasions, we used the latrines, a small closet down the gallery near the cellar.'

  'Most of the time,' Imelda intervened, 'we were in the kitchen. We would bake bread

  'How many loaves?'

  'Twenty-eight to thirty,' she replied. 'We took nothing with us. Lord Egremont insisted on that. The meats and other ingredients were already there.'

  'We baked and cooked,' Oswald explained. 'Cut up vegetables, cleaned the traunchers and platters: prepared oatmeal for breakfast the following morning and set the table for the meal at nine o'clock.'

  'Were you always together?' I asked.

  'I insisted on that,' Cornelius retorted.

  'And you never noticed anything amiss?' Benjamin asked.

  'No, sir!' Oswald and Imelda shook their heads.

  'How was Jonathan?' Cornelius asked.

  'Silent, preoccupied. Rather nervous,' Oswald replied. 'I heard one of the guards say he would take a lot of food but never finish his meal.'

  'They were all nervous,' Imelda offered. 'Nervous?' I asked.

  'They didn't like the manor. They claimed it was haunted. One guard even said he heard sounds at night.' 'Sounds?' Cornelius asked.

  'I don't know what they meant,' she replied. 'But the old manor did creak. You should stay there yourself, sir. You'll find out.'

  'But there couldn't have been anyone hidden away?' Oswald added. 'I noticed when the guards were walking up and down, the floorboards groaned, the stairs creaked. Master—' He glanced anxiously at Cornelius. ‘We have been told that they are all dead. One of the soldiers at the gate said their throats had been cut. It would take a small army to do that.' He laughed nervously. 'Not a cook and his wife. Look—' He opened a small, leather bag he carried. 'There are our draft bills: we have the finished accounts at home.' He pushed the scraps into Benjamin's hand. 'We were promised they would be paid.'

  'And they will be,' Benjamin reassured him, getting to his feet

  He thanked the couple and they left. Cornelius stretched out his legs, folded his arms and leaned against the wall: with his heavy-lidden eyes half closed, he looked as if he were sleeping.

  'What was Jonathan like?' Benjamin asked.

  'A former officer in the Imperial Guard,' Cornelius replied.

  'And he would take orders from you?'

  'No, from Lord Theodosius, as I am supposed to.'

  'Supposed to?' Benjamin asked.

  'I'm different from the rest.' Cornelius smiled wryly. 'I am the Emperor's man in peace and war: his personal emissary. The rest are Egremont's men. Why do you ask?'

  'There's no chance,' I volunteered, grasping the drift of my master's questions, 'that Egremont would give separate orders to Jonathan?'

  'Why should he?' Cornelius retorted. 'How could Jonathan be part of anything which led to his own death and those of his companions, not to mention the theft of the Orb. Whatever you are thinking, Master Benjamin, Lord Egremont has a great deal of explaining to do when he returns to the Imperial Court. No, no.' Cornelius shook his head. 'The real problem is how fifteen men, armed and dangerous, were all executed one after the other with no sign of resistance or any form of struggle. No one raised the alarm. No one saw anyone enter or leave.' Cornelius got to his feet.

  He walked to the window. Castor padded up and began to lick at his hand.

  'This is a cursed place,' Cornelius muttered, staring out at the manor. 'I need to think, reflect.' He opened his pouch and tossed two keys on a ring at Benjamin. 'Malevel Manor is now yours.'

  'The Orb could still be there,' Benjamin offered.

  Cornelius shook his head. 'I doubt it.' He picked up his cloak. 'I have to return to the city, to take counsel with Lord Theodosius. Will you see to the removal of the corpses?'

  Benjamin agreed. Cornelius went back up to his chamber and, a few minutes later, we heard him leaving.

  The next few hours were confusing. Benjamin ordered the soldiers into the manor. A cart had been hired and the corpses, including that of the old lady Isabella, were piled on, and hidden beneath a canvas sheet. Already the camp outside was beginning to break up, the soldiers going back to the Tower or Baynards Castle. By sunset all were gone: only Benjamin, myself and Castor remained. We closed the gates and, at Benjamin's insistence, locked ourselves in Malevel Manor. We were armed, and Castor was with us. Nevertheless, I'll never forget that night. Malevel in the daylight was grim enough but, when darkness fell and the wind drove against the shutters, I believe I walked with, ghosts. The galleries and passageways were narrow and gloomy. The air became stale and every step we took made the floorboards creak. Both Benjamin and I were apprehensive, as if someone was watching us. Time and again, as we searched that house from cellar to garret, I would whirl round and look back down a shadow-filled gallery only to find there was nothing there. Even Castor lost his aggression. Now and again he would stop and whimper as if the animal could see things we did not. Nevertheless, Benjamin was thorough. We carried torches and searched every room, every fireplace. We found nothing! At last, long after midnight, we returned to the kitchen. We sat at the table, drinking some of the wine left, even cutting portions of the meat and bread but there was nothing amiss: no potion, no evidence that the garrison might have been poisoned. Benjamin sat, chin in hand.

  'Twenty-four hours ago,' he began, 'some time, about now, Roger, fifteen men were brutally murdered and the Orb stolen. But how?'

  'This place is haunted,' I replied. 'A gateway for demons. You saw the old woman's skeleton.'

  'Ghosts may walk,' Benjamin replied. 'But they don't cut throats nor do they carry arbalests.'

  'They walk silently,' I replied. 'Master, how could an assassin even walk round this place without being noticed? Every step he took would make a noise.'

  Benjamin got up and walked to where the blackjacks had been cleaned and put on a table.

  'One thing I did notice,' he mused. 'No food was left on the table. There were no dirty pots in the scullery.'

  'Which means?' I asked.

  'Either they were killed before the evening meal or long after. However, if they were killed after, the remains of their dirty traunchers and blackjacks would have been left out for the cooks to wash the following day.'

  'So they must have been killed before?'

  'But that can't be,' Benjamin replied. 'The cooks told us they set the tables for the evening meal, yet we found no trace of that.'

  'Unless Jonathan ordered it to be cleared himself?' I declared. 'I have another theory.'

  I explained about Lord Charon and my meeting with him: the initials 'I.M.' on the hangings in his chamber were identical to those on the locket buried with the remains of poor Lady Isabella. Benjamin, eyes closed, heard me out.

  'It's possible.' He opened his eyes. 'It's possible that in his own devilish way, Lord Charon had a hand in this business.' He tapped my hand. 'You didn't tell me about your meeting in the sewers?'

  'You never asked,' I retorted. 'And it's something I'd best soon forget.'

  Benjamin walked over towards where we had laid out our bedding for the night.

  'Ah, that is not a matter for us, Roger, but for the authorities. The capture of Lord Charon will need troops.' He took off his boots, lay down on the bedding and pulled a blanket up to his face. 'A house of secrets,' he murmured then fell asleep.

  I sat for a while listening to the house creak. I grew agitated as I realised the Great Beast would soon make his anger felt. I went out
into the passageway, took a torch from its sconce and stood at the entrance to the cellar. Castor, who had been asleep in the corner of the kitchen, roused himself and followed me out. He stood silently beside me as I stared into the darkness.

  What had taken Castor down there in the first place? My master's questions about the setting out of the table and the cleaning of cups bothered me as well but I was too tired to think. I returned the torch, went back into the kitchen and lay down on the bedding with Castor sprawled beside me. I fell into an uneasy sleep thronged by nightmares, bloody-mouthed spectres in ghostly galleries and other terrors of the dark. (Oh, don't laugh at poor Shallot. I have seen ghosts! I have been at Hampton Court on the anniversary of Catherine Howard's arrest, and heard her scream as she did in life, as her ghost ran down to the royal chapel to beg the Great Beast's forgiveness for having slept with Thomas Culpepper. Once, following a wager with Master Walsingham, the Queen's master spy, I spent a night in the Bloody Tower. I was locked away in a cell - the result of some stupid remark or jest at court. I felt the ghosts throng around me: Thomas Cromwell, Henry's great minister who fell from power after taking lunch with the Duke of Norfolk. Or the poor Princes stifled in their beds. True, I never saw anything but, the next morning, when the captain of the guard came to open the cell and take me to the officers' quarters to break my fast, he stopped me on the stairs and said, 'Sir Roger, you will have to pay your wager.' 'Why?' I asked.

  'Well, sir,' the fellow replied. 'You said you would be alone, but when I looked through the grille at midnight you were asleep in your bed.’

  4Of course I was,' I scoffed. 'I was drunk.'

  'But there was someone with you.'

  My blood ran cold. 'Who?' I asked.

  'I don't know,' the soldier replied. 'Just a cowled and hooded figure sitting on a chair beside your bed staring down at you.'

  Oh yes, I believe in ghosts and that's the last night I ever slept in the Tower!)

  The next morning the terrors of the living woke us: Doctor Agrippa, Kempe and Cornelius pounding on the door. I have never seen the Doctor so agitated. He brushed by me and swept into the kitchen: clutching his broad-brimmed hat, he looked like a country parson ready to pray, except for those eyes, which had turned pebble-black.

  'The King wants your heads.' He glared at Benjamin. 'Either that or his Orb back.'

  'I didn't steal it!'

  (Always the same old Shallot! Make sure you whine and protest your innocence!)

  'He doesn't give a fig for that,' Kempe intervened. He looked dreadful; unshaven, with black shadows under red-rimmed eyes. 'His Grace,' he continued, 'held a banquet last night in Lord Egremont's honour. He drank deeply to restore his good humour but, beforehand, his rage can only be believed.' Kempe pointed to his ear which was red and swollen. 'He hit everyone he could!'

  'And he'll not get my master's ships!' Egremont stood in the doorway. 'No ships for the English king,' he continued, walking into the kitchen. 'No favours for you, Sir Thomas. Master Benjamin, being the Cardinal's nephew will not save you!'

  'Our heads are our own!' Benjamin snapped back. 'It won't be the first time the King has been displeased with us.' He shrugged one shoulder. 'At least for a while. Anyway, why are you here?'

  Egremont sat himself down at the table. 'To see if anything new has been discovered.'

  'Yes and no,' my master replied.

  He described our stay in the house the previous night, how every sound and footfall seemed to echo like a bell, and how difficult it would be for even the most soft-footed assassin to steal along the galleries.

  'Naturally,' Egremont scoffed. 'That's why this house was chosen. It's lonely, off the beaten track and easily guarded, or so I thought. Is that all, Master Daunbey?'

  'No, the discovery of Lady Isabella's remains yesterday has opened one interesting possibility. Isn't that so, Roger?'

  I then described my meeting with Lord Charon and his ownership of one of the Malevel tapestries.

  'It's possible,' I concluded, 'that Lord Charon heard, as he does everything in London, that the Orb had been moved here. He might well have organised the bloody onslaught to kill the guards and steal the relic'

  'I have heard of Charon,' Kempe intervened. 'The sheriffs of London would dearly love to finger his collar and those of his coven.'

  'Is it possible to trace him?' Cornelius asked. 'This wolfshead, this outlaw? And, if he has the Orb, what will he try and do with it?'

  'Break it up,' Kempe replied. 'Sell the diamonds. Cut the Orb into gold pieces.'

  Egremont hit the table with his fist.

  Sir Thomas continued, 'Or he might try to find a buyer, either here or abroad.'

  The door opened and one of Kempe's men came in and thrust a small scroll into his hands. Sir Thomas unfolded and studied it.

  'It's begun,' he announced. 'The news that the Orb has gone is already having effect. Sir Hubert Berkeley is missing from his shop. Apparently, he left last night and has not been seen since. Moreover, yesterday evening, a well-known seller of relics, Walter Henley, visited a chamber in the Rose and Crown tavern. He met a stranger, cowled and hooded. They went upstairs to the chamber, and the landlord took up a tray of food and drink. Henley was heard laughing. The stranger then left. They thought Henley was staying the night but a servant maid, going round to check the candles, noticed a pool of blood seeping out under the door. When the landlord opened it, Henley was found with his throat slit from ear to ear.' He breathed in. 'Since the Orb has disappeared, my men have had their eye on the likes of Henley.'

  Egremont got to his feet, indicating Cornelius to join him.

  'These are matters for you,' he declared. He put his bonnet on his head and looked even more like a falcon on its perch. 'If the King of England cannot protect his treasures, and those of other princes, against outlaws and cutthroats, if he cannot rule his own city, let alone his kingdom, how, in heaven's name, can he take armies abroad?'

  And, before any of us could reply, he and Cornelius swept out of the room. Benjamin immediately got to his feet, beckoning me to follow, and went out into the gallery.

  'Master Cornelius, a word, if you please?'

  The Noctale came back.

  'You do want the return of the Orb?' Benjamin asked. 'Of course.' Cornelius's eyes were as hard as flint 'And you will agree that we have been as honest and as open with you as possible?'

  Cornelius pulled a face. 'So it would appear.'

  'But you, Master Cornelius, have not been so open with us!'

  The Noctale's eyes widened.

  'Every day,' Benjamin continued, 'you took the cooks into the manor and at six o'clock collected them again, locking and unlocking the front door, yes?'

  Cornelius's face creased into a suspicion of a smile as if he knew what my master was going to ask.

  'Now Jonathan would show the cooks into the house and out, yes? And, while you stood at the door, Master Cornelius, you must have asked for a report, if anything was wrong or amiss?'

  Cornelius opened his mouth.

  'Of course,' Benjamin continued. 'You might say that Jonathan had nothing to report, but that wouldn't be true, would it? Come with me!'

  Benjamin took him down the passageway. Cornelius, ignoring Egremont's shouts, followed Benjamin and myself into the parlour where the corpses had lain. The weapons of the dead soldiers had been stacked against the wall. Most of them were gone but

  Benjamin opened a chest and took out a quiver and a long bow.

  'I noticed this,' he said. 'Count the arrows here. There are only six. However, in the other quivers, there were at least a baker's dozen. Now in the attack, only a dagger and arbalest were used, never a long bow.'

  'So?' Cornelius asked in mock innocence.

  'The English archers were put here by Kempe,' Benjamin replied. 'Jonathan would not have trusted them. He would have kept them under close watch. Now, the manor is well guarded from the front but, on both sides, it looks out beyond the walls to wild heathland.'r />
  Cornelius threw his head back and laughed.

  'Master Daunbey, if you ever wish to leave England, you will find employment with my master, His Most August Imperial Highness. You are sharper than you look. I'll be honest with you. Jonathan was suspicious, particularly of Kempe's archers. He believed that one of these archers was communicating with Sir Thomas by sending messages wrapped round the end of one of his arrows. Your English archers and their long bows are famous. A master bowman could send an arrow out across the walls, aiming at a certain tree or other pre-arranged landmark.'

  'Why should Kempe want information?'

  'I don't know,' Cornelius replied. 'But if Sir Thomas Kempe is going to watch us, I assure you, we will watch him.'

  And, patting Benjamin on the shoulder, Cornelius went out to where Lord Egremont waited.

  'You never told me about that?' I said, pointing to the quiver.

  Benjamin put it back in the chest.

  'It's one of the first things I noticed. What intrigued me about all this, Roger, is that there was no sign of a struggle, so a half-empty quiver soon caught my attention.'

  'What is Kempe up to?' I asked.

  'That,' Benjamin replied, 'like the rest of the mystery, remains to be seen.'

  'What are you whispering about?' Kempe stood in the doorway.

  'About the subtleties of life,' Benjamin replied enigmatically. 'Sir Thomas, this relic-seller?'

  'His corpse is still at the Rose and Crown,' Kempe replied. 'We would like to see it.'

  'And see it you shall.' Agrippa came out into the hallway, hat on his head, eyes twinkling.

  I went and opened the door, to see that Egremont, Cornelius and their entourage were now sweeping through the gatehouse.

  'What has happened to Lady Isabella's remains?' I asked.

  'The Friar Minoresses at St Mary of Bethlehem have agreed to inter her remains,' Kempe replied. 'The archers and Noctales are to be buried in Charterhouse. The King has agreed to give grants to their relatives.'

  'And the Orb?' I asked. 'The replica?'

  'Safely stowed away,' Kempe replied.

  I stared at this most secret servant of the King's. Why should one of his archers send messages to him? Was he involved in this knavery? Was the Great Beast's rage genuine? But if Kempe had stolen the Orb, to whom would he sell it? Some merchant who would pay a fortune to have it hidden in his vaults? Or some foreign power? The French? Or even the Papacy?