The House of Shadows (32 page)

‘What is wrong, Brother? You have work to do? You seem agitated.’

‘That’s because I am.’ Athelstan shook his head. ‘So much to do,’ he murmured, ‘so little time to do it. Brother Malachi, you must excuse me, I have accounts to finish, certain business of Sir John’s, and of course,’ he forced a smile, ‘there’s always my parish council.’

Athelstan continued going backwards and forwards, praying quietly that Brother Malachi would not question him any further. He turned the chantry chapel into a small chamber, with writing desk, chair, bed; it even included a tray bearing a jug of watered wine and three goblets. Malachi, as if he sensed Athelstan’s growing agitation, politely excused himself and said he would go down and sample the ale at the Piebald tavern. Once he had gone, Athelstan immediately relaxed, feeling the tension drain from his back and legs. Bonaventure appeared, following the friar like a shadow, getting under his feet and making himself a genuine nuisance. Only when the cat heard the scurry of mice in the far transept did he decide his bowl of milk could wait, as he loped across to investigate. Athelstan wheeled out two cupped braziers from the church tower and filled each with a small sack of charcoal.

‘Can I help, Father?’

Benedicta had appeared suddenly in the doorway. Athelstan clutched his stomach.

‘Benedicta, you made me jump! If I had been drinking, I would have thought I was having a vision.’

‘You don’t have visions, Brother!’

Benedicta pulled back her hood. Her black hair hung loose to her shoulders.

‘And don’t try to distract me; the bells will soon ring for vespers. The hour is growing late. Why are you lighting two braziers? You intend to spend the night here, don’t you? You are not going to study the stars? And don’t tell me,’ Benedicta drew close, ‘you are going to lie in front of the high altar and pray for our parish council.’

Athelstan went over and closed the church door. ‘No, Benedicta, I’ll tell you the truth. I am hunting the sons of Cain. I want to trap men who have done great evil, who believe that they can wipe their mouths on the back of their hands and face God as if they were innocent.’ He walked out of the shadows and grasped her cold hands.

‘Why, Brother Athelstan?’ Benedicta kept her face serious, but her beautiful eyes smiled.

‘You’re cold.’ Athelstan let her hands slip.

‘I’ll help you light the braziers.’

He brought out the tinder box and a bundle of dry bracken, which they pushed into the small gap under the charcoal. Benedicta found the bellows in the church storeroom. For a while, laughing and chattering, they attempted to fire the braziers, at first unsuccessfully, but eventually the charcoal caught and began to glow, as Athelstan remarked, ‘like the fires of hell’. Benedicta went out and brought back sweet-smelling weeds which she sprinkled on top, then helped Athelstan wheel the braziers up the nave and into the chantry chapel. She insisted that they dine together and hurried off to Merrylegs’ cookshop. On the way she met Crim and persuaded the altar boy to help her, and together they brought back a large meat pie.

‘Freshly baked,’ Benedicta announced. ‘Merrylegs went on oath to tell me the meat was no more than a month old. I also stopped at the Piebald.’ She gestured at Crim. ‘Jocelyn sent that free of charge, and Crim hasn’t spilt a drop, have you?’

The altar boy, holding the beer jug as he would the sacred pyx, shook his head.

All three sat at the entrance to the sanctuary, Athelstan sharing out the pie and ale, regaling Crim with stories about how the ghost of the leper woman had helped him solve a recent mystery. Crim sat round-eyed, and once the meal was finished, left, taking the jug back to the Piebald and the cookshop’s bowl for Merrylegs.

Athelstan washed his hands and face in the small lavarium in the sacristy.

‘You were talking about the sons of Cain?’ Benedicta stood in the doorway.

‘He killed his brother, Benedicta, and when God questioned him, shouted back a question which has rung down the ages: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Like Pilate he didn’t wait for an answer, but, also like Pilate, received one whether he liked it or not. God hunted Cain down, seized him and marked his head. Tomorrow,’ Athelstan sighed, ‘God willing, I am going to see that sign myself.’

‘Can I help?’ Benedicta offered.

Athelstan folded his napkin and put it over the arm of the lavarium.

‘Not now, but tomorrow. I’ll celebrate Mass just after dawn. I’ll ring the bell so you will know. I want you to bring Cecily here. Oh, and tell Pike the ditcher not to drink too much tonight, I also want him at Mass. He must take certain messages for me.’

Benedicta left, and Athelstan returned to the house. Thankfully Malachi hadn’t returned. Athelstan quickly unlocked the chest, took out the casket and St Erconwald’s ring. He banked the fire, made sure that everything was in order and left for the church, where he locked and bolted the doors behind him. Then he prepared himself, laying out the parchment, quills, ink horn and other writing materials. Going into the sanctuary, he prostrated himself before the high altar. He quietly recited the Veni Creator Spiritus, but stumbled on the words, so he recalled the famous hymn ‘In Laudem Spiritus Sancti
’: ‘Spiritus Sancte, pie Paraclete, Amor Patris e Filii
,
Nexus gignentis et genitï,
O Holy Ghost, O faithful Paraclete, Love of the Father and the Son . . .

Once he had finished, Athelstan lit more candles around the chantry chapel and concentrated on his task. Slowly but surely he teased out the facts, listing the various killings one after the other, trying to find a pattern, basing his theory on the hypothesis that one person, and one person alone, was responsible for the murders, only to quickly realise that that was futile. He then tried various combinations, listing the incidents in different categories, but eventually he changed this to three: the great robbery; the murder of the knights, Chandler, Broomhill and Davenport; and finally, the murder of the rest. The great robbery he ignored, and concentrated on the latter two, but the problem became even more vexatious, particularly Davenport’s death. For a while Athelstan concentrated on that blood-soaked corpse, until eventually he closed his eyes and whispered, ‘
Deo Gratias
!’ At last he was able to impose some order, a harmony on these apparently disjointed facts, before returning to the great robbery.

‘The
radix malorum
, the root of all evil,’ Athelstan whispered. He left the desk, warmed his hands over the brazier and walked up and down the nave, turning the problem over and over in his mind, looking for the weakness, preparing what he called his bill of indictment. He could see the logic of what he proposed, but where was the evidence? He had very little except for that ring, the casket and those two lists of jewellery. He returned to his writing desk and re-examined the evidence. He now understood the Misericord’s scratchings on the wall of his Newgate Prison cell, what he was truly shouting as he died, as well as the veiled allusion that the clue to Guinevere the Gulden’s death was something which could be found on his sister’s person. It all made sense. He also understood the Judas Man’s strange scribblings, which, in turn, took him back to the night of the Great Ratting.

Athelstan sifted amongst the evidence he had collected; what else was there? He picked up his quill and wrote a few words. The real problem was the Lombard treasure. Where had it gone? And those four men who’d disappeared off the face of the earth twenty years ago? Athelstan closed his eyes. He thought of the desolate stretch of bank south of the Thames, the dark, lonely night. Other images came to haunt him: John of Gaunt, with his glib tongue and sharp eyes; Sir Stephen Chandler’s pitiful prayer for mercy; Rolles the taverner, a knife in one hand, in the other a letter from the Castle of Love; the hay barn; the great cart standing in the tavern yard; Davenport sitting all alone in that garden. Athelstan felt thirsty, so he took a gulp of watered wine. If he could only make sense of the robbery. He recalled the axiom of one of his masters:
Nihil ex Nihilo
, ‘Nothing comes from Nothing’. He paused in his pacing, so surprised by his conclusion he threw his head back and guffawed laughter. He had his proof; the hypothesis was firm, the bill of indictment was ready!

Athelstan went across to the side door, unbolted it and peered out. The priest’s house was shrouded in darkness. Malachi must have retired, so Athelstan vowed to do the same. For a short while he knelt in front of the high altar and gave thanks for the help he had received. As he stared up at the Crucifix, the words of the old Crusader song came drifting back:

He sighed, blessed himself and, extinguishing all the tapers except one, lay down on the narrow cot bed and drifted off to sleep.

He woke before dawn with Bonaventure nuzzling his ear. ‘I know, I know,’ Athelstan murmured, and, picking the cat up, staggered across to the corpse door to let Bonaventure go hunting in the cemetery. Athelstan then stripped, washed himself at the lavarium in the sacristy and put on a new robe. He tidied the chantry chapel, preparing the high altar for morning Mass. At the first streak of light he tolled the bell three times, and by the time he had vested and knelt before the high altar, Benedicta and Cecily, the latter as fresh and pert as a sparrow, had come into the sanctuary, followed by a rather disgruntled Pike. ditcher spent most of the Mass scratching himself and yawning loudly, grumbling under his breath. He soon cheered up when Athelstan met him in the sacristy afterwards, and gave him a silver coin and a message which Pike had to learn by rote.

‘Go to the Lord Coroner’s house,’ Athelstan warned, ‘and tell him he must be at the Night in Jerusalem by the ninth hour. He is to bring Master Flaxwith and all his bailiffs. Oh yes, and some guards from the Guildhall. Mark me now, you are to go directly to the Lord Coroner’s. Only afterwards visit a tavern.’ He made sure the ditcher had memorised the message, then Pike left, as swift as a whippet, and Athelstan took the two women down towards the main door of the church.

‘I want you to help me,’ he began. ‘Cecily, you know Mistress Veritable?’

‘Whore Queen!’ Cecily spat back. ‘A bitch steeped in villainy. She tried to get me into her house.’ She shook her head, blonde curls dancing, blue eyes angry.

‘Hush now,’ Athelstan warned. ‘Today you and Benedicta must pretend to be her friends. This is what you must do. You are to go to the Friar Minoresses near Aldgate and speak to a novice called Edith Travisa. You are to tell her to meet Mother Veritable and pretend to accede to all her demands. Tell her to negotiate to make it believable.’

‘Brother, what are you doing?’ Benedicta exclaimed. ‘I know Mother Veritable by reputation, a most unsavoury woman.’

‘And so does Edith,’ Athelstan replied. ‘She knows it’s only pretence, but she must be convincing. Once you have done that, you must return to Southwark. Act as though you are the Lady Edith’s messengers. You must tell Mother Veritable how Edith Travisa, now bereft of her brother, is seriously considering entering Mother Veritable’s house. You must pretend, you must convince that hideous woman. You must also persuade her to come back with you across the river this very morning to meet Edith to negotiate certain matters. She’ll ask you who you are. For the sake of the truth you must tell her you are Edith’s friends, and that you support her decision. Garnish your tale as you would a meal; emphasise Edith’s poverty, her lack of family; but one thing you must achieve is Mother Veritable’s departure from Southwark, before the ninth hour.’

Both women agreed and left. Athelstan continued with his cleaning of the church, interrupted now and again as parishioners drifted in. Satisfied, he went across to the priest’s house, where Malachi had just risen and was praying from his psalter before celebrating Mass.

‘Brother Athelstan, you have been up early?’

‘I have celebrated my Mass, Malachi. Now I have business to do.’ Athelstan kept his face impassive, closing his mind to what he now knew, as well as what he planned to happen before this day finished. ‘Once you have celebrated Mass,’ he continued, ‘I must insist you go back to the Night in Jerusalem. No, no, you will be safe. You must inform Master Rolles, Sir Maurice and Sir Reginald that I, and the Lord Coroner, must have words with them in the solar just after the ninth hour. If they are not there, Sir John will issue warrants for their arrest. I’m sorry, Brother, I cannot tell you the reason why, but all four of you have to be there.’

The Benedictine, mystified, left for the church. Athelstan finished his preparations. He donned his cloak, put the casket in a leather bag, collected his writing satchel and walked down through the early morning streets. He paused outside Merrylegs’ cookshop to eat one of the cook’s specialities, a sweet pie of apple and raisins. He stopped at the Piebald for a mug of ale, then continued down to the riverside to watch the mist lift and the fishing fleets come in. People passed him, Athelstan smiled or raised his hand in blessing, yet he was still very distracted. He kept turning over in his mind what he had planned for that meeting in the solar at the Night in Jerusalem. Church bells chimed, drowning the scream of the hunting gulls. Athelstan felt the cold seep through his heavy robe, and turning round, he walked up to the tavern.

Master Rolles greeted him in the doorway. Athelstan was equally courteous in reply.

‘I have received your message, Brother.’

‘Thank you, thank you. Master Rolles, do you have spades and mattocks? I would like to borrow them for my church field.’

‘Of course, quite a few.’

‘Good.’ Athelstan answered absent-mindedly, patting him on the arm. ‘I need to see you this morning, I assure you it won’t take long.’

Athelstan warmed himself in front of the tap room fire, listening to the chatter of the spit boy, who questioned the friar closely on how much he ate, and did he have a spit? Was it true that friars were forbidden to eat? Athelstan laughed and gave the boy a penny. The lad was still chattering when Athelstan heard a clamour outside, and Sir John, with his retinue of bailiffs and serjeants-at-arms, strode into the tap room.