The House of Shadows (14 page)

Athelstan went to the scullery and, from the small pantry, brought out a loaf, some cheese and a pot of butter. He half filled a cup of wine and sat in front of the fire, trying to make sense of the day’s happenings. He recalled the small coffer taken from Sir Stephen’s bedchamber. He unlocked this and emptied the contents on to the table, and was about to examine them when there was a knocking at the door.

‘By St Michael and all his angels,’ Athelstan whispered, ‘is there no peace?’

He drew back the bolts, half expecting to see the Judas Man; instead, a young woman, hood pulled over her head, stood just beyond the light, and beyond her another figure hidden by the darkness.

‘What is it?’ Athelstan kept the door only slightly open.

‘Brother, don’t you recognise me?’ The cloak was pulled back.

‘Why, it’s Donata!’ Athelstan greeted the young woman he had met at Mother Veritable’s.

‘Brother,’ she pleaded, ‘may I come in? I am freezing cold and frightened. I mean you no harm. Look.’ She turned to the person behind her, then came towards Athelstan carrying a small coffer. ‘I’ve brought you a present. I didn’t want to leave Beatrice’s and Clarice’s prized possessions with that old harridan.’

Athelstan took it. ‘And who is that with you?’

‘My name is Jocelyn.’

The young man stepped out of the darkness. He was tall and thin, but his face was open and kindly under unruly black hair. Athelstan caught the smell of sweaty leather.

‘I’m a journeyman from Colchester,’ Jocelyn explained. ‘I deal in leather goods.’ He pointed back into the darkness. ‘I have tethered my sumpter pony just outside the lych gate – one of your parishioners said he would guard it.’

Athelstan liked the look of the young man, whilst Donata was clearly agitated.

‘You had best come in.’

They stepped into the light. Athelstan barred the door behind them and ushered them to the table, where he served them some oatmeal, already prepared for the morning, and two small pots of beer drawn from the barrel in the scullery. They were both hungry. Athelstan sat at the top of the table between them. Bonaventure scratched at the door and was also let in to bask in front of the fire.

‘A busy night,’ Athelstan murmured, ‘but why are you here?’

‘I’m fleeing Mother Veritable’s,’ Donata splurted out. ‘Jocelyn loves me and I love him. We are going to Colchester. We shall be married in St Luke’s Church.’

‘No, you are not going to Colchester,’ Athelstan smiled, ‘you are fleeing to Colchester; you’re indentured to Mother Veritable. Though,’ he added hastily, ‘I agree with what you are doing. But why?’

Jocelyn stretched across the table and grasped his beloved’s hand.

‘I can see you are in love,’ Athelstan remarked, ‘and what you are doing is right.’ He stared at the journeyman. ‘I have your word that you will act honourably?’

‘On my soul, Brother. We shall be married before Advent. We will exchange vows at the church door.’

‘I want to go,’ Donata explained. ‘Mother Veritable is truly wicked. She takes our souls and sells our bodies. Oh, we live in comfort, but we are at the beck and call of any man with his belly full of ale and his heart full of lust.’

The young woman rubbed her eyes.

‘I’m tired of the violence,’ she whispered, ‘of the searching fingers and foul mouths.’

‘What made you decide now?’ Athelstan asked.

‘Beatrice and Clarice’s deaths – murders.’ She looked directly at him. ‘I love Jocelyn, Brother, I want children,’ she clutched her stomach, ‘here, in my womb. I don’t want to drink Mother Veritable’s potions and powders. I don’t want to grow old raddled with disease, or die in some hay barn, my throat slashed from ear to ear, or stabbed in some stinking alleyway. I don’t want the silk and the costly perfumes, or men looking at me as if I am a horse at Smithfield.’

‘You are in love but you are also frightened?’ Athelstan asked.

The young woman nodded.

‘Mother Veritable found out about Beatrice and Clarice. How they had some secret plan to amass their own wealth and flee her house.’

‘Just like their mother?’

‘Yes, just like their mother,’ Donata agreed. ‘Mother Veritable was all in a rage – shouting dire threats.’

‘What was this plan?’ Athelstan asked.

Donata shook her head. ‘I don’t truly know, but I think that cunning man the Misericord was involved.’

‘That’s not what Mother Veritable said this morning.’

‘She was lying. Those knights lusted after the two girls. I have seen them visit the house. It was always the same, Beatrice and Clarice, either individually or together.’

‘So Mother Veritable hates the Misericord?’

‘I think so, Brother, but I don’t know why.’

‘Could she have hired the Judas Man?’ Athelstan asked. ‘you’ve heard of him. He’s outside guarding the doors of my church.’

‘Everybody knows about him,’ Donata agreed. ‘Mother Veritable may have hired him.’ She gave a great sigh. ‘That’s why I was allowed out tonight. I was sent to comfort him, invite him to Mother Veritable’s solar. So I arranged to meet Jocelyn.’ She pulled back her cloak. ‘I left in what I was wearing. I had to seize this opportunity. I shall not return.’

‘Was Mother Veritable at the Great Ratting?’ Athelstan asked.

‘It’s possible.’

‘Could she have killed those two girls?’

‘Mother Veritable is violent.’ Jocelyn spoke up. ‘I visited her house, that’s how I met Donata. I have seen her with cudgel and knife. Brother, she is ferocious as any mercenary.’

‘So why have you come to me?’ Athelstan asked. He took the young woman’s hand, still cold, and gently caressed her fingers.

‘I want your absolution, Brother. I want to confess my sins.’

Athelstan let go of her hand.

‘You already have.’ He raised his own hand in blessing. ‘And I absolve you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.’

‘Is it as simple as that, Brother?’

‘As simple as that,’ Athelstan agreed.

‘Aren’t you supposed to give me a penance?’

‘You’ve already done that,’ Athelstan pushed back his chair, ‘but I’ll give you a fresh one: leave Southwark, never come back. Cling to Jocelyn, love him, close the door on the past, lock and bolt it . . . But there’s something else, isn’t there?’

The young woman gnawed at her lip.

‘You’ve left in your shift,’ Athelstan joked, ‘with just a cloak and a pair of sandals. You need money, don’t you?’

‘I have some,’ Jocelyn spoke up, ‘but Donata was insistent that she ask you for help. She said your eyes were kind.’

‘Is that why you brought the coffer?’ Athelstan asked.

Donata shook her head. ‘No, that’s my gift. Beatrice and Clarice were my friends, that’s all that is truly left of them. They loved this casket, I don’t know why. Mother Veritable shouldn’t have it.’

Athelstan stared at the small coffer with its faded blue leather cover and the black Celtic crosses painted there. It was certainly old, its locks broken, the lid not too secure, whilst the painted leather covering was faded and chipped. Athelstan tipped back the lid; the coffer was empty.

‘Why were Beatrice and Clarice so attached to this?’

‘I don’t know, Brother. They said it was a keepsake and entrusted it to me. They must not have wanted Mother Veritable to know they had it, but,’ she rubbed the side of her head, ‘if they had it so long, she must have known.’

Donata blinked away tears.

‘Brother, I’m sorry, but you can help me more than I can help you.’

Athelstan got to his feet, went up to his bed loft and, from its hiding place, brought out a small purse. He came back down and thrust this into the young woman’s hand.

‘Can you tell me, before you leave, how Beatrice and Clarice intended to escape Mother Veritable?’

‘I don’t know, I truly don’t. All I know is that the Misericord may have been involved.’

‘Would Mother Veritable resort to murder to keep such girls?’

‘Of course, Brother, she said they were worth more than a bag of gold.’

‘And she would kill them as a warning to the rest?’

Donata got to her feet. ‘Brother, I thank you, and to answer your question, yes, that’s why I am fleeing now. I must go,’ she pleaded. ‘Time is short.’

Athelstan opened the door and the lovers slipped into the night, whispering their farewells and thanks. Athelstan closed the door and bolted it, crossed himself and said a small prayer that both would be well.

He returned to the contents of Sir Stephen Chandler’s casket and eagerly sifted amongst them. There was a smell of mint from the quilted sachets placed there. The contents were personal possessions, relics of Sir Stephen’s past: a dark blue pennant, neatly folded, displaying a golden falcon, wings outstretched, talons curved to strike; a key; a Turkish dagger with a jewelled hilt in a purple silver sheath; a small reliquary, allegedly containing a piece of the True Cross; a velvet purse, heavy with gold and silver coins; a small Crucifix; a pouch of sand; two exquisite mother-of-pearls; scraps of parchment; a calf-skin-bound ledger and a cream-coloured roll of parchment. Athelstan scrutinised these. The first contained the accounts of Sir Stephen’s estates, showing income and expenditure, all neatly entered alongside each other. A quick survey proved how prosperous Sir Stephen was – the sale of livestock, corn, hay, fish and timber, not to mention the income from rents and leases as well as certain mercantile investments.

‘Truly a finger in every pie,’ Athelstan murmured.

The expenditure was equally lavish: offerings for Masses; the foundation of a chantry chapel in a Canterbury church; gifts to retainers at Christmas, spring, midsummer and Michaelmas; precious cloths brought from Flanders; furnishings, the work of craftsmen in London, Canterbury and Dover. The beautiful roll of parchment, soft and wrapped in strips of red silk, was a draft of Sir Stephen’s will. The writing was that of a professional scribe, the Latin that of a scholar, and its clauses, Athelstan concluded, the work of some high-ranking lawyer. According to this, Sir Stephen had left most of his estate and wealth to his children. Only one thing was left to his colleagues, namely this very coffer and all it contained.

The Dominican pushed the documents away and stared at Bonaventure, curled up comfortably on the floor. ‘Why,’ he murmured to himself, ‘would Sir Stephen bring these documents with him? His accounts, yes, but why his will?’

Athelstan cleared the table and took out his own writing tray. He studied the memorandum he’d written so quickly during Sir John’s interrogation at the tavern. From outside echoed the muffled cries of the Judas Man’s retinue, now settling down for the night.

Athelstan marshalled his thoughts.

Athelstan paused – he felt guilty. He crossed out the word ‘whores’ and wrote ‘women’.

Athelstan rubbed his nose with the end of the quill.

Athelstan suppressed a shiver. ‘Like time repeating itself,’ he whispered. Guinevere the Golden had tried to escape, only to disappear. Athelstan nursed a deep suspicion that the poor woman had been killed. Now the same fate had befallen her daughters.

Athelstan closed his eyes and tried to imagine that chamber. If someone came in, they would have to act very quickly to place powder in a goblet whilst that sharp-eyed knight was preparing for his bath. One mistake, the smallest of errors, and the murderer would have trapped himself.

Athelstan was beginning to believe there was a connection. He looked up, and from outside came the haunting cry of an owl. The Dominican recalled a lecture given by Prior Anselm on how unforgiven sin, ancient and reeking, never died, but lurked in the undergrowth of life, ready to trap you, to bring you down. Was that happening now? Some twenty years after the Lombard treasure disappeared, along with the boatmen and those two young knights from Kent? Were such ancient sins flocking back like carrion crows to pick over the bones of the present?

Athelstan put his quill down and carefully reread what he had written. One thing did puzzle him about that robbery so many years ago. Why had only two knights been chosen to guard the treasure? And why those two? He rose from the table, stretched and went to kneel beside Bonaventure. The cat hardly stirred. Athelstan crossed himself and, looking up at the Crucifix nailed to the wall, began to recite his evening prayers, concluding with the De Profundis for his brother Francis and his parents. Athelstan tried to ignore the sins of others as he concentrated on his own, and strove to make reparation for them: the meeting with those knights who had fought so many years ago reminded him of how he had lured Francis into the armies of the King and taken him to France only to be killed, coming back to break his parents’ hearts with the news about the death of their beloved younger son. Athelstan leaned back on his heels. Such sins, forgiven or not, never left him.