Paul Doherty - The House of Shadows

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 Richard no longer met his brother, he became closeted with his paramour, secretive and withdrawn, often being absent for days and returning without any excuse or explanation.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.

Athelstan had already performed the death rites; now he stood, as he always did on such occasions, fascinated by the dread of sudden death. He and Cranston had done their best to comfort Edith, taking her back up the very steep steps to her chamber on the third floor of the convent, and leaving her to the tender care of Sister Catherine before hurrying away. The keeper had left before them, riding back to the prison with Cranston’s order ringing in his ears that nothing was to be disturbed or touched before they arrived. Yet what was there to see? How could they explain this?

Athelstan picked up the half-eaten pie. Its crust was thick and golden, the mortrews within glistening and rich. Athelstan recognised one of the famous delicious Newgate pies from the cookshops which bought their meat direct from the nearby flesher stalls. A delicacy of the area, the hard-baked crust enclosed a savoury stew of crushed beef and vegetables. He also picked up the linen cloth in which it had been bound, now muddied and soiled. He wrapped the pie in this, lifted it to his nose and sniffed carefully. He caught the aroma of the savoury meat, but something else, very sweet, as if sugar had been added. Was it some form of arsenic? Or the crushed juice of some deadly herb? He placed the napkin and pie on a ledge.

‘Tell me,’ he turned to the keeper, ‘tell me again what happened.’

‘Well, you left.’ The keeper moved his bunch of keys from one hand to the other. ‘In fact, you had hardly gone when one of my bailiffs entered. He had been given a pie for the prisoner, allegedly bought by Sir John himself.’ The keeper pointed to the corpse. ‘What was I to do? A gift from the Lord Coroner is not to be filched. Thank God it wasn’t.’ He squeezed his nose. ‘Usually such gifts are taken by the gaolers, but as you had just left, Sir John, and had a special interest in this prisoner, we handed it over.’

The keeper walked to the door and shouted a man’s name. A sound of running footsteps, and a small, thickset man, garbed in the soiled black and white livery of the prison, came into the cell. He stared mournfully at the corpse, wringing his hands.

‘My Lord Coroner,’ he swallowed hard, ‘I didn’t even know. I thought it was a gift from you. I brought it here still warm.’

‘Who gave it to you?’ Athelstan asked sharply.

‘Brother,’ the man sighed, ‘I don’t really know. I was on duty outside the gates, men and women pushing, beggars whining for alms, prisoners’ wives screeching. All I remember is a black hood, the head turned to one side. The pie was thrust into my hand with a penny.’

‘And the voice?’ Cranston asked.

‘I couldn’t recognise it again, Sir John. Just a few words, “A present from the Lord Coroner to the prisoner known as the Misericord.”’

The bailiff joined his hands together as if in prayer.

‘Sir John, that’s all I can tell you. For the life of me, even on oath, I would not be able to recognise or recall the look of that man or his voice.’

Athelstan dismissed him.

‘So, Master Keeper, you brought the pie to the prisoner?’

‘Yes, of course I did, Brother. I thought the same as the bailiff. A gift from the Lord Coroner is not to be interfered with.’