The House of Shadows (20 page)

‘Next we come to the Lombard treasure. It disappeared without trace. If Sir Maurice and the rest stole it, surely they’d try and sell it? And yet.’ Athelstan paused so abruptly Cranston bumped into him. ‘I’m sorry, Sir John. There was undoubtedly mischief planned that night, some subtle plot. Remember what Mother Veritable told us, how Guinevere had hinted and boasted that one day she would escape her life of drudgery? I wonder what did happen to her? Is it possible Culpepper and Mortimer are still alive, lurking somewhere in the City, hiding behind different names? Then there’s the business of the Regent. Why is he so interested in our investigation? Could the Judas Man be involved? Where was he twenty years ago? Is there any connection,’ while Athelstan chattered on, Cranston stopped to drink from the miraculous wine skin, ‘between a man who has no proper name and the conspiracy to steal the Lombard treasure?’

Athelstan paused whilst Cranston thrust back the stopper to his miraculous wine skin.

‘I’m certainly going to ask him the next time we meet,’ Cranston grumbled.

‘There’s one further problem, Sir John. If those knights stole that treasure but didn’t try and sell it, where did they hide it whilst they were in Outremer? They could hardly conceal it on a war cog or some military camp!’

Athelstan returned to his reflections as they passed St Mary of Bethlehem and continued down Portsoken, to the limestone buildings of the Minoresses. A porter let them through a postern gate and took them across neatly laid-out gardens and herbers into the guesthouse, a long, whitewashed chamber, starkly empty except for a table, a high-backed bench, two chairs and a stool. At the far end was the Franciscan cross of San Damiano, with its richly coloured texture and finely etched images, each of which told a story. Whilst they waited, Athelstan described it to Cranston, explaining how it was the cross St Francis had prayed before when he received his mission to rebuild Christ’s Church.

‘Brother Athelstan?’

Athelstan turned. Edith, accompanied by Sister Catherine, stood in the doorway.

‘Is everything well?’ She hastened towards him. ‘Is my brother safe?’

‘No, he is not.’ Brother Athelstan grasped her hands, moved by the stricken look on the young woman’s face.

‘Is he taken?’ she gasped.

She had gone so pale Athelstan thought she was about to faint and guided her gently towards a chair. He introduced Sir John and pulled up a stool to sit opposite her.

‘Your brother has been captured and taken to Newgate. There is hope for him yet. He has told us certain things which may well earn him a pardon.’

Edith put her face in her hands as Sister Catherine hastened across the room, patting her gently on her head, murmuring how all would be well and that she would pray for it to be so.

‘What you did last night,’ Athelstan declared, ‘was foolish.’ He gestured to Sir John to sit in the other chair. ‘You helped your brother to escape, didn’t you? A change of clothing, money, even a weapon. He was captured trying to come here. I am sorry to bring you the ill news, but—’

‘I had to help him,’ Edith interrupted, glaring at Athelstan. ‘You don’t understand, Brother Athelstan, how much I hate that old bitch, that evil harridan.’ She ignored Sister Catherine’s glare of disapproval. ‘If my brother had stayed in your church she would have had him murdered. She hates him for refusing to hand me over to her and her filthy ways.’

‘Your brother was friendly with two of the girls who worked in Mother Veritable’s house.’ Athelstan grasped Edith’s hands again. ‘You may not know their story, about their mother disappearing so many years ago. They claimed that they stumbled on a secret, a clue to what had happened. When your brother asked them what it was, they replied that it could be found upon your person.’

Edith withdrew her hands, staring in disbelief.

‘My brother once,’ she whispered, ‘came here and asked me a similar question. What of significance did I have upon my person. But,’ she spread her hands out, ‘I wear the brown robe and white wimple of a Franciscan novice, I have a troth ring on my finger,’ she touched the Celtic cross hanging on a chain round her neck, ‘and this is all. What on earth would I have in common with two prostitutes or their long-lost mother?’

‘Is there anything,’ Athelstan persisted, glancing quickly at Sir John, making sure he hadn’t fallen asleep, ‘you can tell us?’

Edith sat for a while, shaking her head. ‘Ever since I came here this is all I have worn. Isn’t that true, Sister Catherine?’

The old nun could offer no help, pointing out that she was dressed the same as Edith: a ring symbolising her union with Christ, the cross around her neck, and the girdle around her middle, one of the ends being tied with three knots symbolising her vows of poverty, obedience and chastity. Sister Catherine left them for a while and returned with a tray bearing a jug of buttermilk, four goblets, and a dish of marzipan. Sir John helped himself to the sweetmeats, but politely refused the buttermilk, claiming his miraculous wine skin was sufficient.

Suddenly there was a pounding on the door and one of the convent maidservants came in, shouting Athelstan’s name. The Dominican followed her outside. He’d heard the sound of horses in the yard but was surprised to find the Keeper of the Netherworld from Newgate Prison, face soaked in sweat, leaning down from his saddle.

‘Brother Athelstan, I had to come. I heard you say to Sir John that you were going to the Minoresses and so, when it happened, I had to tell you myself.’

‘What is it?’ Athelstan asked.

The keeper closed his eyes and drew a deep breath.

‘The prisoner, the Misericord, he’s dead! I found him poisoned in his cell.’

Brother Malachi, of the Order of St Benedict, opened the door to St Erconwald’s Church, closed it behind him and leaned back, staring up at the vaulted roof. Malachi was frightened. There was so much to think about, so much to do, yet dangers pressed on every side. He drew a deep breath and stared round the church. He needed to talk to Brother Athelstan, but the priest’s house was locked up and the only inhabitants of God’s consecrated ground were Bonaventure the cat, that old warhorse browsing in the stable, and Thaddeus, the mournful-looking goat, who was staring out across the cemetery. Thaddeus obviously missed its owner, God-Bless. The beggar man, fast as a rabbit, had joined the rest of Athelstan’s parishioners in the Piebald tavern, summoned there by Pernel the Fleming, who seemed to have come into a mysterious inheritance. Crim the altar boy, playing on the lychgate, had told Malachi all this before running off to join the other children in the stable yard of the Piebald, where they too hoped to profit from the revelry with a slice of roast duck or a cup of mulled wine.

Malachi tapped his foot. He had come here many years ago with his beloved brother, Richard Culpepper. He closed his eyes. Even now, twenty years on, he still felt the heart-pulling pain, a deep sense of loss which haunted his soul, and beneath that, a seething anger, a curdling rage. Sometimes in his monastery Brother Malachi could not sleep; he’d go out and stare at the pale-faced moon and wonder, yet again, what had really happened. Richard must be dead, he had proof of that, unless something equally hideous had happened. Malachi opened his eyes. He tried not to remember the old days, the glory time when Richard’s heart was full of passion, his tongue ever ready to chatter about the brave deeds of valiant knights. He still missed Richard. He cursed the day when that whore Guinevere the Golden had come into his life, pestering him for favours, hinting at what might be. Richard, gullible as ever, had thought a pretty face meant a fair heart. How wrong he had been!

Richard’s fate vexed Brother Malachi, but two other questions dogged his soul. What was Richard planning the night he disappeared, and what did truly happen after darkness had fallen? Over the years Malachi had collected and sifted the information, yet the truth still remained hidden behind the blackness of that night twenty years ago.

‘
Tenebrae facta est
,’ he whispered to the gloomy nave. ‘And darkness fell.’ Wasn’t that how the Gospel writers described the time of Judas’ betrayal of Christ?

Malachi licked his dry lips. He had come here to think, as well as to see the ring he had given Athelstan. He wanted to draw strength from it. He did not want to think of the others, of Chandler lying like a stinking carp in his dirty bathwater or Broomhill jerking on the bed as the blood spilled out of him like claret from a cracked vat. He heard the squeak of mice and a dark shape shot across the ill-lit nave, scurrying from one transept to another. If Bonaventure was here, Malachi reflected wryly, there would be another death. But wasn’t that how all life was? If he could only discover what Richard had truly planned . . . Malachi sighed in exasperation and walked up the nave, footsteps echoing hollow. He went to the rood screen and genuflected; he found it hard to look at the pyx hanging from its chain in the sanctuary. He stared round the sanctuary. No Misericord now – he did feel sorry for that rogue. Didn’t they say he was rotting in some cell at Newgate?

Malachi climbed the steps to the high altar. He lifted the heavy green gold-lined coverlet, pushed back the linen altar cloth and stared at the relic stone. In the poor light he glimpsed the red cross carved there and felt the rim of the stone. It was still firmly set, which meant that Athelstan had not yet removed it to insert the ring. Malachi replaced the cloths, and recalled the chantry chapel of St Erconwald’s. A taper candle glowed in the Lady Chapel, so Malachi took this, lit another one, and carried both through the wooden partition door and placed them on the altar where he had celebrated Mass. The chantry chapel, despite the statue to St Erconwald, the candles and white linen cloth, did look rather bare and gaunt; no wonder Athelstan wished to furnish it more fittingly. Perhaps when all this was finished, Malachi promised himself, he would donate some money as reparation for what had happened.

Malachi moved across and stared up at the statue of St Erconwald, which gazed sightlessly back from its plinth. He didn’t really have any special devotion to a Bishop of London who’d lived and died hundreds of years before the great Conqueror came. No, Malachi reflected, his devotion was more personal, stemming from those glory days when he and his brother Richard had come into Southwark with the rest. They had often come to this church and lounged in the long sweet grass, resting against the gravestones as they shared wine and food, before that great bitch Guinevere the Golden had swept into their lives and everything had changed. Richard no longer met his brother, he became closeted with his paramour, secretive and withdrawn, often being absent for days and returning without any excuse or explanation.

After the great robbery and Richard’s disappearance, as the Fleet was about to leave, Malachi had come to this church and vowed to its patron saint that if he ever discovered the truth, he would make a special offering. Now he lifted the taper candle to study the relic statue more carefully, feeling beneath the linen cloths. He sighed with relief. Here, too, the relic stone held firm; Athelstan still had the ring in his possession. He was about to sit down on the small stool to continue his plotting when he heard a sound, a door opening or closing. He strained his ears. Was it the cat? He was sure he’d closed the door fully and leaned against it. Another sound, the slithering rasp of a soft boot. Malachi left the chantry chapel, holding up the taper light.

‘Who’s there?’ he called. The murky light deepened the shadows in the corners and transepts. ‘Who’s there?’ he repeated.

Malachi’s skin went cold. Was he, too, to become a victim of brutal murder? Surely not! But someone was in the church, slinking through the darkness, watching him like some gargoyle of the night. Again, a sound. Malachi drew back just in time. Something hard and glittering spun through the gloom and embedded deep into the polished wood of the chapel screen. His heart skipped a beat at the sinister glitter of the blade, the dagger’s dark brown handle. Another sound. He stepped back into the chapel, hastily dousing the taper lights. He felt beneath his robe and drew out his own small cutting knife. He didn’t want to become trapped here. He stared across the nave and sighed in relief at the glint of daylight – the side door was off its latch! Malachi tried to control his breathing, the beating of blood in his ears and those trickles of fear which made him want to scratch his neck and back. He had to get out of here before whoever was hunting him trapped and killed him here where he had made his vow. For Richard’s sake, he had to fulfil that vow!

Malachi’s hand went across the altar and snatched up the calfskin-bound missal. He edged to the door of the chapel and hurled the book down the nave. Another dagger whistled through the air, but Malachi was already racing across, even as he heard a third dagger smash against a pillar. He reached the door, opened it and threw himself out. He pulled the door closed and ran across to the priest’s house. The door was still locked and bolted. Malachi ran to the window. Thankfully, the two shutters were wide apart. Malachi quietly prayed to whoever was protecting him; the Dominican must have great trust in his parishioners. He slipped his knife through the slit, prising up the bar beyond. He heard it clatter to the floor, and gathering his black robe, clambered through the window, bruising elbow, arm and knees as he tumbled to the floor. Desperate to escape his pursuer, he forgot his pain as he pushed the shutters closed, seized the bar and replaced it in its iron clasps, wedging it tight with a horn spoon taken from the table.

For a while he stood listening. The silence was broken by the sound of voices of a woman and children approaching the church. Sweat-soaked, Malachi slid to the floor, trembling as the deep anger at what had happened overcame the fear seething within him.

‘Death comes in many forms, yet terrifying all the same.’

Cranston, standing by Athelstan, stared down at the Misericord, his corpse sprawled on the muck-strewn cell floor. In the flickering light of the lantern horn the cunning man’s face was truly ghastly, the eyes no longer merry but half shut in their glazed, sightless stare. The lips, once ever ready to laugh, were now a strange bluish colour, gaping to show the swollen tongue and the dribble of white saliva across the unshaven liverish skin. The cheeks looked puffy, as if swollen.