by Paul Doherty
‘The truth,’ he insisted, ‘because if you lie it will be the press yard in Newgate. Now, you are a member of my Lord Clarence’s household, or once were, yes?’
‘I worked in his kitchen. I was a purveyor of food and his principal cook – a very good one.’ Tiptree tried to hide his fear behind a blustering preening.
‘I am sure you were, and my Lord Clarence used this tavern when he comes to London?’ Tiptree nodded. ‘And last night or this morning did you notice anything untoward?’
‘No, no. Yesterday evening the four gentlemen assembled in the taproom, around a special table overlooking our garden which is well-stocked—’
‘Yes, yes,’ Urswicke intervened. ‘They dined then adjourned?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did they receive any visitors?’
‘No.’ Tiptree shook his head. ‘We left them be except, sometime after the Compline bell had rung for the lanterns to be lit, they ordered food, bread and chicken in a creamy sauce, along with a jug of my best Bordeaux. I took the tray up. I entered the chancery chamber. The four gentlemen, I thought them to be so because they were always courteous.’ Tiptree shrugged.
‘They were kindly to you?’ Urswicke asked.
‘Aye. And so was Oudenarde, but he was not always with them. Sometimes he’d come by himself. On other occasions he would bring people to see the clerks.’
‘Which people?’ Urswicke demanded, recalling what he’d glimpsed during his visits to The Sunne in Splendour.
‘I don’t know, sir. Always hooded and cloaked they were, even on a fine evening. Master, I am a tavern keeper,’ Tiptree tapped the side of his nose, ‘discretion is my main virtue. I see nothing wrong, I hear nothing wrong, I say nothing wrong.’
‘Aye, and one stay in prison is bad enough,’ one of the scullions scoffed, rubbing his mouth on the sleeve of his shabby jerkin. He opened his mouth to speak again but Tiptree glared at him.
‘Tell the gentleman what happened this morning,’ the landlord snapped.
‘And who are you?’ Urswicke turned to face the dirty scullion.
‘I am Snotnose, or that’s what they call me.’ The boy wiped his face on his sleeve again. ‘My first task of the day is to invite guests down to the taproom to break their fast. I knock on the bedchamber doors.’ He paused at the change on Urswicke’s face as the clerk realised he had overlooked the rooms where the Three Kings slept, but then comforted himself: as with the shop under the sign of ‘The Red Keg’, Mauclerc would have cleared the chambers of anything he did not want Urswicke to see.
The clerk glanced over his shoulder at the window; the hours were passing and he had not forgotten Spysin. He would love to return to the countess’s house to consult with Bray, but time was of the essence and he did not wish to provoke any suspicion about his commitment to Clarence. He wondered about what Mauclerc had said? How the murders here could be the work of the countess? Urswicke chewed the corner of his lip. That was too fanciful! Nevertheless, it demonstrated that if Clarence and his coven could level accusations against his mistress and threaten her with the full rigour of the law, they would hasten to do so.
‘Master?’ Snotnose’s voice was almost a screech.
‘Continue.’
‘I knocked then opened the door to all three chambers. They were empty, the beds not slept in. So I thought they must have spent the night in the chancery chamber. I hurried there and knocked on the door but no one answered. I tried again. I pushed hard but it was locked and bolted. I shouted and knocked again, nothing! I ran down to the taproom, into the kitchen garden and stared up. As you know, Master, the windows to the chancery chamber are narrow, but I could see the shutters had not been opened to greet the day …’
‘By then,’ Tiptree spoke up, ‘we were all upset with Snotnose running around like a mad March hare. I knocked on the chancery chamber, shouted and yelled. No answer. Of course the entire tavern knew something was wrong. I sent Snotnose here to seek Lord Clarence and Mauclerc. Some of their,’ Urswicke was sure Tiptree was going to say ruffians, ‘some of their retainers,’ the landlord corrected himself, ‘lodged nearby. I decided to break down the door and, what you have seen, so did we.’
‘The door was locked and bolted on the inside, the key turned?’
‘Yes, we burst in. The chamber was dark. The candles had guttered out. The shutters were still pulled closed. I almost stumbled over the corpses. I called for light,’ Tiptree spread his hands, ‘and glimpsed the mayhem. I decided not to touch anything but left telling the others to stay well away.’
‘Is there anything else?’ Urswicke demanded. They all shook their heads. Urswicke stared at Tiptree; the landlord was still deeply agitated, terrified. Was there something else? Urswicke wondered. Did Tiptree fear punishment from a lord who was notorious for his vindictiveness?
‘If you do recall anything,’ Urswicke demanded, ‘you will tell me.’ He then rose, thanked them and returned to the death chamber. He sat in the principal chancery chair, trying to make sense of it. The guard returned to report that the rats had eaten the food but seemed as hale and hearty as ever. Urswicke smiled at the gentle sarcasm and asked the guard to remove the corpses to one of the outhouses. They were to be stripped and any valuables, Urswicke repeated his instruction, were to be collected, piled together and handed over to Master Mauclerc. Urswicke continued to reflect on what he’d seen and heard whilst the four corpses were sheeted, put on makeshift stretchers and taken away. Tiptree and his minions came up with mops and buckets to clear the bloody mess.
Urswicke watched them for a while and left the chamber ostensibly to view the four corpses. In truth, he was searching for Spysin, but Mauclerc’s courier seemed to have completely disappeared. Urswicke recalled how Spysin had mentioned something about sailing on the evening tide. Urswicke wondered whether he should go straight down to Queenhithe quayside but decided to wait. He did not want to provoke suspicion: he knew he was being watched and it would be more logical to inspect the corpses and then return to his hunt for Spysin.
The stable outhouse had been turned into a makeshift mortuary. The four corpses, completely naked, lay stretched out on old sacking rolled across on the shit-strewn, soggy floor. A lanternhorn glowed beside each cadaver. One of the soldiers had inveigled a wandering Friar of the Sack to come into this filthy death house and administer extreme unction, a pattering of prayer above the dead with a cross of wet wax etched on each forehead. Urswicke waited until the friar had finished, taken his coin and left.
‘Did you find anything untoward?’ he asked the soldier, who’d organised the removal of the corpses and was now going through belts, purses and pockets.
‘Nothing.’ The soldier pointed across to an upturned barrel. ‘Some coins, daggers which they’d drawn, rings and a bracelet. See for yourself.’
Urswicke walked over and began to sift through the tawdry items. He pushed aside the four blood-encrusted daggers, pulling across the belts and purses the soldier brought; they were now empty. Urswicke could see no coins but he didn’t care if the soldiers had helped themselves. He recalled the Three Kings gleefully participating in the blasphemous desecration of the old King’s corpse; in death they had been given more respect than they’d shown the Lord’s Anointed.
Urswicke picked up one wallet, he shook this and a piece of parchment fell out. It was only a plain strip of writing, though Urswicke noticed the vellum was of the highest quality, used solely in the chanceries of the Crown and the great lords. The strip was quite long, its edges even, and Urswicke suspected that it had been expertly cut by a parchment knife from a page which had measured too long in comparison with the other pages in some folio or book. The writing was that of some very skilled calligrapher, the verse it bore was written in Latin.
‘And the captain of archers,’ Urswicke whispered the translation to himself, ‘lay with the wife of Duke Uriah the Hittite and she conceived a son.’ Urswicke noticed how certain words were written in a different-coloured ink. He w
as about to peer closer when he heard shouts outside and hastily hid the strip of parchment in his own wallet. The door to the outhouse was thrown open and Mauclerc stormed in.
‘Master Urswicke, come, come now.’
Urswicke followed Mauclerc and a group of his ruffians out across the stable yard and into the narrow runnels of Queenhithe. Clarence’s henchmen swept through the streets like a violent windstorm. Pedlars, tinkers and traders fled. Women grabbed their children and retreated back into the shelter of shabby doorways. Dogs and cats scurried away. Carts and barrows were hastily pulled aside. Here and there, protests and raucous shouts echoed about the ‘power of the great ones of the land’. A window was thrown open and a chamber pot emptied, the slop narrowly missing members of Mauclerc’s retinue. This was followed by shrieks of laughter. Clarence’s retinue drew their swords. The shutters slammed shut and silence descended. They entered the quayside where the fish markets were closing down, the cobbles littered with all the rubbish of a day’s trading. The heads and innards of the morning catch turned the cobbles slippery, though the legion of beggars, hunting for scraps, moved nimbly enough, filling their sacks with what they found. The air reeked of salt and brine and other harsh smells.
Mauclerc’s arrival brought everything to a standstill. People became statues, frightened even to move or speak. Urswicke glanced to his left; the tide was turning. The river moving more swiftly. Mauclerc led them away from the quayside into a large, shabby tavern, The Prospect of Grimsby. This had now been emptied of all its customers. More of Mauclerc’s men gathered in the gloomy taproom, a dingy place with its floor rushes turned to a mushy mess and its tawdry tables strewn with the remains of food and drink. Mauclerc told his companions to wait and led Urswicke down a narrow, stone-paved passageway which led out into the yard and its jakes, an enclave built into the tavern wall and screened by a heavy door. Mauclerc opened this and waved Urswicke forward. The murdered Spysin, hose down around his ankles, lay back against the filthy wall, eyes popping, mouth gaping. The front of his jerkin was drenched by the blood which had poured from his cut throat, a deep slice running from ear to ear.
‘Sweet heaven.’ Urswicke crouched down, desperate to hide his own relief that at least this problem had been resolved. ‘Robbery?’ he asked, turning to Mauclerc.
‘His money belt, wallet and weapons have been taken.’
‘You do realise,’ Urswicke got to his feet, ‘Spysin’s throat has been cut; the wound is very similar to that of the four victims at The Sunne in Splendour. I strongly suspect Spysin’s murderer was the same person except,’ he held a hand up, ‘nothing appears to have been taken from the chancery chamber, whilst Spysin’s possessions have been filched.’ He turned to confront Mauclerc, and did not relish the look on that sinister man’s face.
‘Nothing was taken from the chancery room or any of the Three Kings’ chambers?’
Mauclerc, still holding Urswicke’s gaze, eyes and face as hard as stone, just shook his head.
‘And here’s a further problem,’ Urswicke fought to remain calm, ‘Spysin was a street fighter, a man of war, expert in dagger play, used to the cut and thrust, yes?’ Again that cold, hard stare followed by a nod. ‘So it would appear that Spysin left the tavern to relieve himself, comes in here, lowers his hose and squats on the jake stool. Now for someone to cut his throat like that, the assassin would have to be standing behind him, but,’ Urswicke continued, ‘that’s impossible. It cannot be done. The killer must have struck from the front, yet Spysin offered no resistance. There is no evidence that any form of struggle took place. Now …’ Urswicke broke off.
Mauclerc, resting his hand on his dagger hilt, leaned slightly forward. ‘What is the matter Christopher?’ he whispered.
‘You know full well, you look accusingly at me. For God’s sake, Mauclerc, your own henchmen will go on oath. I have been nowhere near this tavern or Spysin but busy elsewhere. You are not implying …’
‘No, no.’ Mauclerc relaxed and shrugged, as if his former mood was nothing at all. He pulled a face. ‘As I have said, I did – we did – wonder if Margaret Countess of Richmond had a hand in the murders at The Sunne in Splendour. If my Lord of Clarence hates her, she certainly detests us.’ Mauclerc poked Urswicke gently in the chest. ‘Christopher, you talk about street fighters and you can brawl with the best of them. You are her dagger man but, of course, I concede that today you have been busy on our affairs. My own henchmen, as you say, will attest to that. Yet who, Christopher? Who is responsible?’
‘Think, my friend,’ Urswicke replied, ‘who has the money, the power and the means to hire expert assassins?’
Urswicke gestured at Spysin’s corpse. ‘We are not dealing with footpads and felons but men of power and, of course,’ he glanced swiftly at Mauclerc, ‘you have not told me what Spysin was involved in. He did mention that he was about to take ship to foreign parts, sail on the evening tide.’
‘He was taking messages abroad, our master’s courier here and there.’ Mauclerc scratched his stubbled cheek. ‘He should have been more prudent. But I return to my question, Christopher, who is responsible for all this?’
Urswicke shook his head to hide his own relief. Mauclerc seemed genuinely mystified, his former hostility just a passing mood. Now he called him Christopher, almost suppliant in his search for answers that Clarence would certainly demand.
‘So Spysin was to be despatched to foreign parts, but what was he doing here?’
‘Spysin was a toper, a wine lover. He made a mistake and paid for it with his life. So never mind him. Let’s return to The Sunne in Splendour.’
‘No, no,’ Urswicke pulled at Mauclerc’s sleeve, ‘Minehost here at The Prospect of Grimsby? Now is the moment to question him before time passes and memories grow dim.’
Mauclerc agreed and they gathered the landlord and his servants in the taproom. They could say little about Spysin, except that he’d swaggered into the tavern, ordered a goblet of the best Bordeaux and had gone and sat in the furthest window seat. He was cloaked and booted and they suspected he was waiting to board a ship at the nearby quayside. One of the scullions reported how he’d glimpsed someone approach Spysin; it could have been a Friar of the Sack begging for alms, as these good brothers were accustomed to moving from one riverside tavern to another. The same scullion, a sharp-eyed urchin, glimpsed Spysin leave rather hastily carrying his fardel, and guessed the courier had an urgent call to the jake’s stool. Spysin hurried out into the yard and, as far as the scullion was concerned, that was the end of the matter. Urswicke repeated his questions, watching faces intently, but he could detect nothing suspicious and whispered the same to Mauclerc. They left The Prospect of Grimsby and returned to the closely guarded chancery chamber at The Sunne in Splendour.
Mauclerc ordered a jug of wine, two goblets and a platter of diced meat coated with a spicy sauce. Urswicke refused the food and only sipped at his wine. Mauclerc, looking deeply agitated, slurped his goblet, only pausing to ask Urswicke to describe his conclusions about the murder of the Three Kings and Oudenarde.
‘Very little,’ Urswicke replied. ‘We have a chamber locked and bolted within. As for the windows, if the shutters were pulled back, they are still too narrow even for a cat to climb through. No secret passageway or enclave exists except for the narrow jake’s room. But this is nothing much and useful for one thing only. The food and drink the victims consumed was untainted. I have established that as a fact beyond any doubt. Even more mysterious, the four victims were able-bodied men, used to violence on the battlefield, or elsewhere,’ he added drily. ‘They were armed, indeed all four had drawn their daggers, which is puzzling because the bodies were lying on the floor as if they were sleeping and there is not even a trace of a minor disturbance. Mystery twists the mystery even deeper. Four men, armed, giving up their throats to be cut without protest or cry, resistance or defence? And how can that happen in a room where the door was locked and bolted from inside? So how did the Angel of Death enter
? How did the assassins cut the throats of four vigorous men so silently, so softly, and how many assassins were there? One? Two, or even more? Let us say there were five or six, yet no one in that tavern saw, heard or suspected anything amiss until a scullion knocked on that chancery door.’
Urswicke fell silent; the full effect of this murderous mystery was making itself felt and, as Urswicke conceded to himself, he could find little way forward.
‘Who?’ Mauclerc demanded. ‘Who was responsible?’
‘In God’s name,’ Urswicke snapped, ‘I do not know.’
Margaret, Countess of Richmond, together with her steward Reginald Bray, sat in the Exchequer chamber of her husband’s house in Queenhithe. The mansion lay silent, its servants and retainers resting after a day’s work, eating and drinking in the well-furnished buttery. A time of peace and harmony. Once the noise and the clamour of the house subsided, all the servants would gather to taste the latest offerings of the countess’s cooks, who had an enviable reputation for baking the juiciest venison pie and roasting the most succulent chicken and duck.
Margaret had dined alone in her own chamber. Once the meal was over, she had adjourned to the Exchequer, eager to go through her household accounts and reports from her bailiffs. Bray had laid out all the necessary documentation on the long chancery table and was advising her on anomalies: these proved to be legion after the chaos of the last year when the quarterly returns to her Exchequer, as well as hers to the Crown, had been so severely disrupted. Margaret hoped to raise monies for the establishment of chantries where priests could sing requiems for the repose of all her kinsmen who had died during the recent wars. She was also fiercely determined to implement her plan to fund a new college or hall in Cambridge. Once she had secured a suitable building, the adjoining lands and outhouses, she would strive to attract the leading scholars of the day from both England and abroad. Margaret was particularly fascinated by the new scholarship emerging in Europe. She was also deeply intrigued by the developments in theology and was more than prepared to support direct study of the Scripture: indeed, one of her great dreams was to have the Bible translated into English.