Paul Doherty - The House of Shadows

‘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.