Paul Doherty - The House of Shadows

Cranston promptly dismissed them, and they were followed by another fortune-teller, Richard the baker, who believed he could predict events by cutting up a loaf. He was fined and dismissed, as were two pastry cooks who had tried to sell pies as venison when they contained rancid beef. Flaxwith cleared the room and Cranston sank back in his chair.

‘Satan’s tits! I’ve had enough of this. I am going to pray.’

‘The usual church, Sir John?’

‘Yes,’ Cranston replied. ‘The usual church.’

The coroner went down the stairs and out across the courtyard into Cheapside. It was a fine day. The clouds had broken, the sky was blue, and the clamour in the marketplace was almost drowned by the clear tolling of church bells. For a while Cranston stood at the entrance of the Guildhall courtyard. He loved this scene. The market horn had sounded and another day’s trading had begun. On either side of Cheapside’s great thoroughfare, stalls and shops were open and apprentices were already shouting, eager to catch the eye of citizens who flocked in for the day’s trading. The cookshops were busy and the sweet smell of baked pastry and spiced meat curled everywhere, mixing with the more unpleasant odours of horse dung, wet straw, and the piled midden heaps awaiting the dung carts. A group of knights rode by, sitting arrogantly in their high peaked saddles, a glorious array of colour, gleaming harness and the glint of spur, dagger and the bits of their horses. Alongside them ran huntsmen and dog whippers leading the hounds out to the fields to the north of the City. Troops of prisoners were being escorted by bailiffs of the Corporation eager to deposit their charges at the Fleet, Marshalsea, or the prison barges waiting on the Thames to take them downriver for trial at Westminster.

Cranston walked across Cheapside. Stall owners shouted and boasted; already a quarrel had broken out regarding a barrel of salt from Poitou, whilst further down Cheapside, the Pie-Powder Court, which governed the marketplace, was arbitrating over whether a piece of leather was bazen, sheepskin or, as the trader claimed, from Cordova in Spain. People were being fastened to the stocks or led up to stand in the cage above the Great Conduit. Two ungainly figures hobbled towards Cranston. He groaned and tried to quicken his pace but his pursuers were relentless and blocked his passage.

‘Good morrow, Sir John. And how is the Lady Maud?’

Cranston glared at these two professional beggars, Leif the lame, who had one leg but could move swifter than many a man with two, and Rawbum who, many years previously, drunk as a sot, had sat down in a pan of burning oil and lived never to forget it.

‘Sir John, we have composed a new song.’

Cranston stared unblinkingly, and without further invitation, Leif, one hand on his chest, scarred face staring up at the sky, began the most awful singing, while Rawbum played a tune on a reedy flute.

‘Very good, very good,’ Cranston intervened, thrusting a coin into each of their hands. ‘I’ve heard enough, now bugger off.’

The two beggars, chorusing their thanks, would have pursued Sir John even further, but the coroner turned threateningly, and they took the hint and headed back towards a pastry shop, whilst Sir John, like an arrow from a bow, sped across Cheapside and into the welcoming warmth of his chosen tavern, the Lamb of God. Once ensconced in his favourite window seat overlooking the herb garden, Sir John welcomed the loving ministrations of the ale-wife, who placed in front of him a tankard of frothing ale and strips of bread covered with honey. He drank and ate staring out into the garden, its bright greenery hidden by a sharp frost. The broad carp pond was still covered with a skin of ice and Cranston realised that it would be some time before the sun’s warmth was felt. He chatted about this to the ale-wife as he stared around the tavern. A second tankard was brought. Sir John sipped this whilst listening to a boy in the street outside sweetly singing a carol, ‘The Angel of the Lord Announced to Mary’.

‘I wonder,’ Cranston reflected, ‘if God’s good angel will reveal the truth to me?’

He sat back in his seat cradling the tankard and recalled the events of the previous evening. He had left Athelstan and returned to the Night in Jerusalem for a cup of warm posset, where he had engaged Tobias the cask man in conversation. Tobias had been full of horror at the hideous murder of Toadflax, Chandler and the two whores. Cranston sipped at the tankard, distracted by the cowl-cloaked individual who sat huddled in the inglenook. The coroner prided himself on knowing everyone who came into the Lamb of God, but he marked that one down as a stranger and returned to his reflections. Tobias had also been angry on behalf of Master Rolles.

‘He was in the kitchen all the time with me,’ the cask man had protested, ‘and I know who did it.’ He had tapped his nose knowingly.

Cranston had bought him a drink, and Tobias confessed how he had seen Chandler, plump as a plum, coming in from the yard.

‘More importantly,’ he whispered, ‘I glimpsed blood on his hands.’

Tobias then went on to explain how his curiosity was so provoked he visited the tavern washerwoman, responsible for the linen in the guest chambers. They had both sifted amongst the cloths and found napkins from the dead man’s chamber with stains which looked suspiciously like dried blood. The washer-woman was not certain; she pointed out how Chandler had tried to wash the napkins himself. Tobias immediately reported his findings to Master Rolles. The tavern keeper was gleeful, crowing like a cock on a dung hill, exclaiming that, according to an ancient law, he could not be fined the ‘murdrum’, an ancient tax levied on all hosteliers and taverners on whose premises a mysterious death occurred. Rolles, still happy with this news, had also joined Cranston, repeating what Tobias had said and triumphantly producing the stained napkins. Cranston examined them carefully and concluded that both Rolles and Tobias were correct. The stains did look suspiciously like dried blood. So had Chandler killed those two whores, hidden his crossbow and returned to his chamber to wash his hands? But why should a powerful landowner, who could more than pay for the likes of Beatrice and Clarice, murder them in such hideous circumstances? And Chandler’s own death? Was that revenge? Was Chandler feverish that morning because of what he had done? Had he taken that bath to wash away any evidence of his crime? Sir John absent-mindedly ordered another ale pot.

‘I’ll pay for that.’

The figure crouched in the inglenook rose and, taking off his cloak, walked across to join Sir John.

‘Well I never!’ Cranston’s hand went out to shake his visitor’s. ‘How did you know I would be here?’

Matthias of Evesham clasped the coroner’s hand and slid on to the bench next to him, turning slightly to face Cranston, his beringed fingers laced together like some benevolent priest waiting to hear confession. The ale-wife brought two further tankards. Matthias lifted his, toasted Cranston and sipped carefully. The coroner moved slightly away so he could study the newcomer more closely. Matthias of Evesham was newly appointed as Master of the Chancery of Secrets in the Office of the Night, which had its chambers in the Tower. With his round, cheerful face, sparkling blue eyes and pleasant, smiling mouth, he assumed all the appearance of a benevolent monk, an impression he deliberately fostered with his soft speech and ever-present good humour. The only obvious betrayal that he was no ascetic was his love of jewellery: the gold collar around his neck, the costly rings which bedecked every finger, not to mention the gold bracelet on his left wrist.

A man of secrets was Master Matthias, a scholar of logic and philosophy who had lectured in the schools of Oxford and Cambridge, even those of Paris, before entering the service of the Regent John of Gaunt. Many mistook him for a priest, but Master Matthias was married — a good match — with the Lady Alice, who owned a pleasant mansion between the Temple and Fleet Street. Married or not, he was still a man for the ladies, as well as a great ferreter of secrets. He organised Gaunt’s spies both at home and abroad and advised the Regent privately as well as at the Great Council meetings at Westminster.