The House of Shadows (37 page)

‘Tell the good sisters to bring some wine, nothing too heavy, the juice of the Rhineland, so we can all slake our thirsts.’

Matthias hurried off. He brought back a tray of mugs and cups and Gaunt insisted on serving everyone. He then retook his seat, lifted his goblet and toasted both Athelstan and Cranston.

‘
Tu dixisti
, you have said it, Brother. Twenty years ago I was Keeper of the Tower. I had barely reached my twenty-first year. As Jack Cranston knows, I’d campaigned in France, but not long enough to harvest any wealth. In the May of that year the Treaty of Bretigny was signed. There would be,’ Gaunt sighed, ‘for the foreseeable future, no more armies in France, no more ransoms or plunder. My father and elder brother kept me on a tight rein. To put it bluntly, I hadn’t two sous to rub together. Then the crusading fleet arrived and Signor Tonnelli collected the Lombard treasure; the rest you know. I would take the treasure and return it to Signor Tonnelli for a secret loan, the bankers would take the treasure elsewhere, and nobody was to be really hurt. Signor Tonnelli considered it was a good business agreement. We advanced monies to Mortimer and Culpepper. They were sworn to silence and promised, in time, a lavish reward. My friends the Lombards would not lose their treasure, the crusading fleet wouldn’t have to repay a loan they had never received, but they would still give their bankers a percentage of their profits, whilst I, and Culpepper and Mortimer, became richer men. On the morning of the twenty-first of September 1360, the Feast of St Matthew, I accepted that something dreadful had happened. As God is my witness, Brother, I didn’t care about the treasure, but I scoured the City and the kingdom for Mortimer and Culpepper, even though I was forced to accept both were dead. I kept my vow and looked after Helena. The years passed, times changed and the Lombard treasure was forgotten.’

‘Until Brother Malachi appeared.’

‘Yes, he came to my palace at Sheen, and later to the Tower. He never dressed as a Benedictine but in the robes of a clerk; he always insisted that I call him by his family name, Master Thomas Culpepper. He told me about the ring, and questioned me most closely. He pricked my suspicions and, I think, suspected the truth. I told him to do what he had to and let me know the outcome.’

‘But you must have been concerned?’

‘Of course I was. If Culpepper’s comrades were guilty, they might, in court, describe what they found when they opened that chest.’

Gaunt laughed abruptly.

‘That must have been a soul-chilling shock for them. Oh, I knew about the knights gathering every year. I decided I would watch the events in the Night in Jerusalem very carefully. I heard about the murders.’ He shrugged. ‘Well, you know how it is, Brother? The names Cranston and Athelstan appeared. There, I thought, now the hawk will fly.’

‘And so it did,’ Cranston remarked. ‘What will you do, your Grace? You have two knights of the shire guilty of the most heinous crimes. If you bring them to trial before the King’s Bench at Westminster, they will hang, but they will also confess to what they found in that treasure chest.’

Gaunt stared up at the black rafters. ‘Do you know, Sir John, Brother Athelstan, we live in very strange times. They say great armies are moving in the east. Some people claim the Church has lost its mission; there are even people,’ his eyes rounded in mock innocence, ‘who claim that all men are equal, that Watkin the dung collector and Moleskin the boatman should enjoy the same rights as John of Gaunt.’

‘Jesus said the same, your Grace, and was crucified for it.’

‘True, but as you know, my relationship with the Spanish kingdoms is very close. They dream a great dream, of becoming united, of driving the Moors out of Spain, and in their conversations, the princes of Aragon, Castille and Portugal talk of sending ships into the great unknown seas down the west coast of Africa. Some people claim there are lost kingdoms, full of gold and silver. Anyway,’ Gaunt drained his cup, ‘I shall have Sir Maurice and Sir Reginald brought to the Office of the Night in the Tower, where we shall reach an agreement. I am going to send them as envoys to the Court of Lisbon. They are to join an expedition, a seaborne expedition, to charter unknown lands. They will, in fact, be given a choice: to go to Portugal under strict guard, or wait for trial at Westminster.’ Gaunt steepled his fingers. ‘I shall remind them about how many people die of prison fever, or even eating poisoned pies.’

‘And Brother Malachi?’

‘He doesn’t know the full truth about the treasure. I understand that the Order of St Benedict have a monastery, a small community, outside St Ives in Cornwall. I will personally ensure that he spends the rest of his days there. Holy Mother Church owes me a favour or two.’

He got to his feet, scraping back his chair, gesturing at Tonnelli and Matthias of Evesham to follow.

‘Sir John, Brother Athelstan, a good day’s work. The Night in Jerusalem will be sold by the Crown; after all, Master Rolles was a traitor and a thief, so all his property is forfeit. I think I will give it to the chief ostler on a lease. I will ensure that some of the profits go to the chantry chapel at St Erconwald’s.’

He bowed to both of them and swept through the door. Matthias of Evesham patted Athelstan’s and Cranston’s shoulders as he passed.

For a while, the friar just sat staring at the wall.

‘Do you know, Sir John, one of the great differences between good and evil is that good is so necessary and evil isn’t. Look at those assassins. When did they make the decision to rob and kill their friends? An afternoon? An evening over their cups? And when they did, they planted an evil, a malevolent shrub which took root and spread out to blight so many lives. Yet it was so unnecessary. They never got the treasure, and within a few years they were all rich, powerful knights of the shire.’ He crossed himself quickly. ‘All those hideous deaths for nothing.’

‘Come on, Brother.’ Cranston rose to his feet. ‘I’ll treat you to a pie and a blackjack of London ale in the Lamb of God, and we’ll take those two beautiful women for company.’

‘Why, Sir John, are you leading me into temptation?’

‘No, Brother, just delivering you from evil.’

The character of John of Gaunt is, I believe, accurately depicted in this novel. A man of great cunning, Gaunt was regent of the kingdom during the 1380s. The repressive policies of his government did eventually lead to a great revolt and the rebels burned down his beautiful palace at Savoy. A Crusade under Lord Peter of Cyprus did sail into the Mediterranean and meet with varying success, and although the great robbery is a matter of fiction, such outrageous crimes were not uncommon in medieval London. Many of the street scenes and the infringements of the law described in the novel spring directly from primary sources. The role of the Night in Jerusalem characterises the activity of many London taverns, which were often the centre of a great deal of law-breaking. Little wonder that, until the late twentieth century, the taverns, inns and pubs of England were constantly under the close scrutiny of magistrates. The Misericord reflects the myriad confidence tricksters who through the centuries have made London their home, whilst the bounty hunter (true historical characters like Giles of Spain) was as common in medieval England as in the Wild West.

One final note, about John of Gaunt’s declaration about sea voyages along the west coast of Africa. In the nineteenth century, British troops entered the West African kingdom of the Ashanti and found a jug which had actually been made in London during the fourteenth century (it can still be viewed in the excellent London Museum). How it got there, of course, is a matter of speculation!