by S. W. Perry
But when he kneels to get a better look, the nature of the stain is clear to him in all its sanguinary awfulness.
Nicholas pushes against the door. It swings inwards with a rasp of its hinges. He is inside before the wisdom of entering even registers.
A narrow wedge of daylight shows him a low-ceilinged chamber, its limits lost in darkness. The room is cold enough never to have been lived in, though Nicholas knows that not to be true. ‘Is anyone there?’ he calls softly. ‘It’s me, Nicholas.’
A moan of pain would tell him there was at least hope. He would settle for that; be grateful for it. But he hears nothing.
He seems to be walking on sand. He can feel his boots sliding on it. Looking down, the light from the half-open door shows him that the dirt floor is covered in a fine dark powder. The pungent smell of nutmeg rises from where his feet have trod.
They have smashed the little chamber as though it were a papist chapel and everything in it an abomination to them. The ash from the brick oven in the corner has been scooped out and cast onto the floor. The torn-up pages of books lie scattered everywhere. Sacks of spices that were once stacked neatly against one wall now loll about like the disembowelled victims of a massacre. The meagre contents of a clothes chest are strewn about, as if the men who did this abandoned their own shadows out of guilt.
Only the simple bed in the corner has been left intact, because they needed a platform on which to perform the more intricate and personal of their efforts.
Nicholas wonders how the neighbours could not have heard the killers going about their business. Then he remembers that many in this lane are regulars at the Jackdaw. They would have been at the celebrations. For the rest, perhaps they were at church. Or visiting friends. Or just so accustomed to the beating of servants, apprentices, dogs, children, whores and wives that a scream or two of torment here and there is nothing to get overly excited about.
In death, Solomon Mandel has a surprising grace about him. His old face bears the stoic certainty of a martyr’s, as if the agony of death was little more than a temporary trial to be endured and then forgotten. His beard, matted with blood, is the beard of an Old Testament prophet, not an elderly man with nostalgia for the bread of his childhood. He lies naked and bound, oddly straight, given how they have tortured him. Nicholas marvels at how he has not twisted himself into a posture reflective of the pain he has endured. His white arms are the limbs of an effigy carved in plaster on a tomb. The wrists – bound tightly with cords – lie meek and pious at the groin, as though protecting his modesty.
To Nicholas’s shame, the anger that surges in his breast is matched ounce for ounce by relief – relief that the ruined body on the bed isn’t Farzad’s.
6
Unusually for a public notice raised by the parish authorities on Bankside, the warning tacked to the door of Solomon Mandel’s house – within an hour of Nicholas discovering the body – is still there a day later. As warnings go, it is unequivocal. For attempting entry: confinement in the Clink and a forfeit of twenty shillings. For taking away souvenirs from the site of the murder, with intent to sell them to the morbidly curious: branding upon a part of the body to be decided by the magistrate.
‘Last murder we had on Bankside, I caught some fellow trying to hawk the victim’s boots for a half-angel outside the Tabard,’ says parish constable Willders. ‘Still had the blood on them. There’s some as would sell the corpse itself for an ornament, if they thought they could find a buyer.’
Constable Willders is a short, barrel-chested fellow in a leather jerkin. He wears a perpetual frown and carries his official cudgel slantwise across his chest with the solemnity of a monarch carrying a golden sceptre.
‘You know Bankside, Constable Willders,’ Nicholas says with a sigh of resignation, ‘where there’s money to be made…’
Willders points to the little square of wood with its painted hand, set just above the lock, the symbol Nicholas had noticed when the trail of blood led him here. ‘What do you make of this, Dr Shelby? Could it be devilish?’
‘It’s a talisman for protection, that’s all. Mandel told me so himself.’
Bianca looks closer. ‘I’ve seen these before, in Padua,’ she says, ‘on the front doors of the Jewish houses behind the Piazza delle Erbe. My father often took me with him when he went to see his customers there. I think they were mostly Jews who’d fled from Spain and Portugal.’
‘I wonder if that’s where Solomon Mandel came from.’
‘I don’t know; he never spoke much about himself,’ Bianca says. ‘And this being Southwark, no one asked.’
Willders tucks his cudgel under one arm and fishes a large key from his belt. ‘I’m not sure Mistress Merton should accompany us, Dr Shelby. The body has been removed, but what remains is not a meet sight for a woman. There’s rather a lot of blood.’
Before Nicholas can answer, Bianca says, ‘Do I recall rightly, Constable Willders, that last summer you came to Dr Shelby much troubled by an aposteme under your groin?’
Willders stares at his boots. He says nothing.
‘Dr Shelby prescribed a soothing plaister, which I applied after he had lanced the aposteme and let out the pus. Remember it?’
Willders permit himself the barest nod.
‘I can assure you, Constable Willders, compared to that experience, whatever is in there can hold absolutely no horrors for me whatsoever.’
It’s at times like this, Nicholas thinks, as he tries not to grin, that I really do want to take you in my arms and kiss you – whatever Eleanor might have to say about it.
Taking a sudden deep interest in the blade of the key, Willders unlocks the door and leads Nicholas and Bianca inside.
Save for the body, nothing has been moved. The room is still a ruin of upturned furniture and ripped-open spice sacks, the contents cast around like a minor sand dune. The air is heavy and dust-laden. Bianca can smell cinnamon and mace, pepper and nutmeg – and the flat metallic tang of spilt blood. She can see it, too, spread liberally around the now-empty bed, as though someone has smashed a wine bottle over it.
‘You’ve taken him to the mortuary crypt at St Thomas’s, I presume,’ Nicholas says.
‘Aye, and we’ve sent word to coroner Danby at Whitehall. He’s coming across the bridge tomorrow to arrange the inquiry. I suppose you’ll want to speak to him.’
‘If I must.’
Willders give him a curious look. ‘He’ll want to hear the nature of the Jew’s injuries from your own mouth, Dr Shelby. I would not be qualified to report on such matters.’
‘If I know Danby, he’s already reached a verdict without lifting his arse off his chair.’
‘Do you require further sight of the body, Dr Shelby? Only the parish would like it interred as soon as is decent. With contagion across the river, they want to keep Bankside as clean and tidy as they can.’
‘No, I’ve committed what I saw to paper.’
Bianca says, ‘He may not wish to be buried with Christian rites, Constable Willders. Has the parish thought of that?’
Willders seems confused. ‘Why would anyone wish for other than a Christian burial, Mistress Merton – unless he had a hankering to wander for eternity in the fires of hell?’
‘Because Solomon Mandel was a Jew,’ Bianca says. ‘Perhaps he would wish to go to God with the appropriate orisons of his own faith.’
‘Solomon Mandel was a Christian man, Mistress Merton – whatever else his ancestors may have been,’ Willders says with unshakeable conviction. ‘He would not be suffered to remain in this realm otherwise.’
‘How do you know what was in his heart?’ Bianca says, trying not to step into the dunes of intermingled spices. ‘In Padua, his people lived in their own quarter, practised their religion in their own temples, were buried with their own ceremonies.’
By the look on his face, Constable Willders seems unable to comprehend such a place. ‘Padua lies in the lands of the Pope, does it not, Mistress Merton?’ he says
solemnly. ‘We do things differently here in England. There is no place here for a heretic, be he Catholic or Hebrew. Master Mandel will be buried according to God’s laws, as revealed by the one true, reformed faith – the queen’s faith. If he lied at prayer, he will have to answer for it in the hereafter.’
Bianca invokes a subversive prayer that the summer will be a hot one, and Constable Willders’ apostemes will return with a vengeance.
‘Would you allow Mistress Merton and I some time here alone, Constable Willders?’ Nicholas asks. ‘I need to refresh my memory, for coroner Danby.’
‘I’ll be in the Tabard, Dr Shelby,’ Willders says, seemingly grateful to have the responsibility taken off his shoulders. ‘Send Mistress Merton with the key when you’re done.’
When he’s gone, Nicholas retraces his steps around the room. Once again he takes stock of the devastation: the upended clothes chest with its contents strewn in a trail of ripped and tattered fabric, like the banners of a conquered army; the private documents, some written boldly in Hebrew, others in a weaker, English hand; the plain wooden cupboard with its doors hanging off their lower hinges; the humble collection of pewter bowls and plates lying about like grey boulders washed up on a beach. The only thing that seems not to have been scattered like so much chaff in a cruel wind is a Bible lying on a wooden stool by the bed, a battered leather strap holding down a page of the Book of Matthew: the parable of Jesus feeding the multitude with just five loaves and two fishes.
‘I wonder if the killer found what he was searching for,’ Bianca says, struggling to keep dark images from flooding her imagination.
‘Whether he found it or not, he wasn’t alone.’
‘How can you be certain?
‘One man alone could never have inflicted the wounds I saw on Solomon Mandel’s body. There must have been at least three of them: two men to hold him down, one to do the cutting.’
‘The cutting?’ Bianca’s voice cannot mask the horror she is seeing in her mind.
‘Strips of skin from his chest. They flayed him.’ He shrugs. ‘I’m sorry to be so brutal. There isn’t another way to say it.’
A glint of metal amongst the debris catches Bianca’s eye. She kneels, lifting an object out of the debris, a candle-holder with three curving branches either side of a central pillar. She shakes it, and a cloud of ochre cinnamon-dust hangs for a moment in the air before drifting to the floor.
‘Just like the talisman by the door, I’ve seen these before, too,’ she says. ‘It’s a menorah. They light candles in them during their holy observances.’
She hands it to Nicholas, who turns it over slowly, inspecting the finely crafted metalwork. The cinnamon-dust darkens the engravings like skeins of blood. ‘A Bible and a menorah,’ he says. ‘Was Solomon Mandel really a convert to Christianity, or was he practising his true faith in secret?’
‘It’s more common on Bankside than you might think,’ Bianca replies, a weary admission in her voice. Every waking day since her arrival in London she has whispered her own Catholic orisons to God, but only when there’s no one around who might betray her.
Knowing the coroner’s jury will very likely wish to view the scene of the murder, Nicholas says, ‘I think we should preserve this from coroner Danby’s eyes. What use would it be – other than to condemn the old man as a heretic?’
With a hint of gentle mockery in her voice, Bianca says, ‘For an Englishman, you really are developing a very dangerous habit: tolerance. Does Robert Cecil know?’
He gives her a brittle laugh in reply and looks around for something in which to wrap the menorah. His gaze lands on a length of hemp weave that’s been torn from one of the spice sacks. He has the vague notion of keeping the artefact in his chamber at Mistress Muzzle’s lodgings, until he can decide what to do with it.
‘It seems they set fire to some of his papers,’ Bianca says, crossing to the bed. ‘They must have done it while they were… while they were doing those unspeakable things to him.’
The coverlet is blighted with a whole delta of dried blood. In one of the pools, she can make out a little cluster of ashes and burnt fragments. They look like dark leaves scattered in a puddle after a storm. Some are no larger than a fingernail. Others are curled and blackened. Only two have survived incineration.
‘I noticed them, when I was inspecting the body,’ Nicholas says, joining her. ‘Perhaps they were burning something before his eyes – tormenting him in some manner.’
Tentatively he begins to work away at the surviving fragments, gentling them free of the pooled blood and ash. It takes him a while, but at last he holds them up for inspection; they have lost little but some charring on the edges.
On one, he sees penned the words ROUGE CROIX. The other contains just six letters – S-U-I-V-A-N – huddled meaninglessly between the charred edges.
‘Rouge Croix – red cross,’ he says to no one in particular. ‘Why would Solomon Mandel have a letter written in French?’
‘He was a merchant. He traded,’ says Bianca, as though he were the dullest country clod-pate imaginable, ‘with other countries.’
‘Of course,’ Nicholas replies, rolling his eyes in self-deprecation. ‘So SUIVAN could be suivant – following. A follower of the red cross?’
‘I’m not sure that translates,’ Bianca says. ‘But if it does, a follower of the red cross would be an English crusader, would he not?’
‘That might explain why they left the Bible where it was, untouched. Perhaps they’d found out that, in his heart, Solomon Mandel hadn’t really converted to the queen’s religion at all.’
‘Then why would he have a Bible by his bed?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps for show. He used this chamber for his work, as well as for his rest.’
‘So they tormented him for what they held to be heresy, and then killed him?’ Bianca postulates. She covers her eyes and shakes her head. When she drops her hands and speaks again, her voice cracks under the weight of such imagined heartlessness. ‘If they were that affronted, they could have denounced him to the parish. Let the law deal with him. They didn’t have to kill him!’
‘But I’m not convinced that is why they killed him.’
‘Then why?’
‘Perhaps they were trying to make him tell them something. And whether they were successful or not, they didn’t want him alive to identify who was asking the question.’
With gentle reverence Nicholas places the fragments back on the bed, as though he were laying flowers on a grave. Head down, he says, ‘I’ll let Constable Willders and the coroner know about these. They can tax their minds over what they might mean.’
‘And what of the menorah?’ Bianca asks.
‘I’ll keep it with me until I can think what to do with it. Perhaps I’ll leave it anonymously at the House of Converts on Chancery Lane. That’s where most of the other Jews in the city reside. They can decide what to do with it.’ He gives a forlorn shake of his head. ‘You know my view, Bianca. I care not how a man – or a woman – prays. Or even if they pray not at all.’
She smiles, her amber eyes brimming with gentle admonition. ‘Which, my dearest Nicholas, makes you a greater heretic than any of us.’
7
‘Shelby? The name is familiar to me, but I cannot rightly place it.’
William Danby is the Queen’s Coroner. The only reason he is here on Bankside is that the murder of the solitary Solomon Mandel has occurred within the verge, an arbitrary twelve-mile radius around the person of the monarch.
It is the day after Nicholas and Bianca’s visit to Mandel’s lodgings, and Danby has crossed the river to set in motion an inquest. He has brought a little of the court’s élan with him. He wears a fine maroon doublet, has garters on his hose and a bottle-green half-cape with fur trim upon his shoulders. He even sports a sword on his hip. But for all his fine apparel, Danby does not look a well man. His grey hair hangs in thin folds over his neat little ruff, and he has a grating cough that seems to have i
ts seat somewhere very deep inside him. Nicholas wonders if he will outlive the inquest that he’s come to Bankside to conduct.
‘Shelby,’ he says again, apparently no wiser for the repetition.
‘I came to you regarding a young boy pulled from the water by the Wildgoose stairs, back in August of 1590,’ says Nicholas softly.
They are in the parlour of Constable Willders’s house on St Olave’s Street, a few doors down from the hostelry at the sign of the Walnut Tree, and far enough from the river not to be troubled by the smell of tidal mud. In the presence of the Queen’s Coroner, Willders has lost much of his official bombast. He has developed the habit of deferentially tapping his right hand on his thigh whenever Danby finishes a sentence.
‘Did you really?’ says Danby, passing his cloak to Willders as if the constable were his manservant.
‘Yes, Master Coroner. You made the corpse available to Sir Fulke Vaesy for an anatomy lecture at the College of Physicians that I happened to attend.’
‘Now I remember you,’ says Danby, coughing into his gloved hand. ‘You’re the fellow who pestered everyone to distraction about the cause of death. You insisted – somewhat argumentatively, if I recall correctly – that the boy had been murdered, even though Sir Fulke told you he had not.’
‘I was mistaken,’ Nicholas says as humbly as he can contrive.
The lie comes so easily to him that he can almost think it true – that three years ago there never was a killer preying on Bankside’s most vulnerable. That Ned Monkton’s brother Jacob, and the crippled anonymous boy who ended up on Vaesy’s dissection table, died wholly natural deaths. That Bianca had never come within minutes of being the killer’s last victim. Or that in the years since, Nicholas himself has never wondered what the penalty might be for framing someone for a crime they’d never committed, in order to bring them to justice for several crimes they most certainly had.
Yes, he thinks, it would be all too easy to rub Danby’s nose in it. To tell him that murder was exactly what it had been. But he cannot. It would open too many doors that must remain locked.