Paul Doherty - The House of Shadows

‘But why not now?’ Cranston demanded.

‘Sometimes, Sir John,’ she pointed to the door, ‘just occasionally, I feel as though I’m being watched. Perhaps Edward knows that, if he was caught here or elsewhere, and I was with him, I could be accused of being his accomplice.’

Cranston sat back in his chair and stared across at the tapestry picture hanging on the wall: Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden under the Tree of Knowledge; a golden black-spotted serpent had wound itself around the trunk and the jaws of its great hydra head parted in a display of sharp teeth and thrusting tongue. I wonder, Cranston reflected, what was the serpent in Edward Mortimer’s life? He accepted the logic of what Helena was saying; to a certain extent it possessed its own truth. But where had Mortimer, a poor knight, managed to secure such money, and was he in hiding, still looking after his sister?

‘James Lundy, the goldsmith, surely you’ve gone to him?’

‘Of course, Sir John, but you know goldsmiths. Master Lundy is a kindly man but still a goldsmith. He will not reveal the secrets of his customers. “I don’t tell people I give you the purse,” he declares, “I don’t tell anybody that I pass it on to you.” All he will say is that at any hour of the day, though usually at night, a man hooded and visored, garbed like a monk, comes in, leaves the purse, receives Master Lundy’s signature and leaves.’

‘But Master Lundy must see the red lion emblem on the pouch. He’s a goldsmith, he must remember the great robbery and realise that a Mortimer was involved in it.’

‘I asked him the same.’ Helena went and refilled her cup, bringing back the jug to fill Sir John’s. ‘He informed me that all he receives is a sealed black pouch. He doesn’t know what is inside; that is what is passed on to me.’

Cranston sipped at the malmsey. The more he studied this mystery, the more perplexed he became. Perhaps he should have brought Athelstan here.

‘Did your brother,’ he made one last try, ‘say anything, mistress? Something you have reflected on over the years, which could provide some clue as to what happened?’

Helena closed her eyes, face tight with concentration. ‘Just one thing.’ She opened her eyes. ‘He told me I would never starve, and that perhaps, one day, I would be a great lady.’

‘And that’s what you are.’

Cranston drained the cup and got to his feet. He grasped Helena’s hands and kissed her fingertips, made his farewells and left. He was in the passageway smelling so sweetly of rosemary and rue when Helena came tripping behind him.

‘Sir John,’ she called breathlessly. ‘You have been so gracious. There is one other matter.’

She asked him to stay whilst she went upstairs and brought down a small coffer with artificial jewels studded in the casing. She opened this and took out a gold cross on a silver chain.

‘This was my mother’s.’

‘Very beautiful,’ Cranston agreed. ‘But what significance does it have?’

‘On the day before Edward disappeared, he came to see me, looking rather pale and agitated, which was unusual. I asked him what the matter was but he wouldn’t tell me. Now I know. Edward always wore this round his neck. He asked me to keep it safe but said that before he sailed for Outremer he would collect it again. Now isn’t that strange, Sir John? Why didn’t he wear it that night?’

‘Perhaps he was afraid of losing it.’

‘But the same could have happened on board ship or in the savage fighting before Alexandria. He always wore it.’

‘Mistress, I truly do not know.’

‘Now you must think I’m feckless,’ Helena continued, ‘that I live in a fool’s paradise. I won’t accept that my brother has died. The truth is, Sir John, as regards Edward I live in a fog of mystery. If he’s alive, why doesn’t he come and collect the cross, never mind see his beloved sister? Yet if he’s dead, who is sending me that money?’

‘I can’t answer that,’ Cranston replied, ‘but I do have one final question for you. After your brother’s disappearance, did anyone visit you?’

‘Oh, John of Gaunt came to see me. He brought me gifts, he said if I was ever in distress I was to write to him.’

‘Anyone else? Such as the knights, Culpepper’s comrades?’

Helena shook her head. ‘Only one, Richard’s brother, Malachi the Benedictine. After the English fleet returned he often visited me for a while, asking questions, but I didn’t tell him anything. He was so cold-eyed.’

‘What sort of questions did he ask you?’ Cranston asked.

‘Oh, the same as you.’ She pointed behind her. ‘He sat in the chamber fingering his beads. One thing he did say was had I ever truly searched for my brother? I told him a little of what I had done, how I had written to friends in Wales. I even wrote to Sir Maurice Clinton, but he never replied. Then he said a strange thing. Had I thought of hiring a man-hunter?’

‘Pardon?’

‘A man-hunter. You know, Sir John, often former soldiers, they hunt down criminals. I replied no.’

‘Did he now?’ Cranston smiled. ‘Mistress, I thank you!’

Cranston strode out of the house and left Poor Jewry, turning left into Aldgate, down past Leadenhall, the Tun and into Cornhill. He was so engrossed in his own thoughts that even the range of villains fastened in the Great Stocks opposite Walbrook failed to attract his attention with their raucous shouts and cries. Passers-by looked at him curiously as the large coroner, a well-known sight along this broad thoroughfare, seemed oblivious to their greetings and shouted questions. Cranston strode along the Mercery, thumbs pushed into his large war belt, only standing aside when the Cart of Shame, full of criminals bound for the stocks, forced him into a doorway. The late morning’s cargo was a bevy of prostitutes caught soliciting outside their marked corner around Cock Lane. They all knew Sir John of old, and made rude jokes or gestured obscenely at him. This time they were disappointed. Cranston did not react but stared back stonily. He leaned against a door post and gazed across at the various stalls under their coloured awnings. This part of the market sold leather goods, pots and pans and finely textured tapestries from abroad. As he watched the swirl of colour, even the appearance of a famous pickpocket, nicknamed ‘Golden Thumb’, failed to provoke him.

Cranston was fascinated by what Helena had told him. Was Edward Mortimer still alive? Was he still sending money to his sister? But, more importantly, had Malachi the Benedictine hired the Judas Man? Was Athelstan correct? Had the Night in Jerusalem become a spiritual magnet drawing in all the sins from the past? Cranston recalled his own schooling along the chilly transepts of St Paul’s Cathedral. His masters taught him about the Furies of Ancient Greece who pursued criminals down the tunnel of the years and always caught their victim. Everyone who had gathered at the Night in Jerusalem, as well as those who hadn’t, such as old Bohun and Helena, was linked mysteriously to that great robbery twenty years ago. Except one: the Judas Man hunting the Misericord, yet he had never made any reference to Mortimer or Culpepper. Had Malachi been searching for the Misericord because that rogue, now dead and rotting in a casket, did possess some knowledge about the Lombard treasure and the men who stole it? Yet there seemed to be no tie between Malachi and the Judas Man. He had never even seen them speak together. Cranston cursed his own memory, though he was certain Malachi had denied any knowledge of that ruthless hunter of men.

‘Don’t lurk here!’

Cranston whirled round and quickly apologised to the fierce-eyed old lady who had appeared in the doorway resting on a cane. He remembered why he was here and continued his journey to West Cheap and the shop of the goldsmith Master James Lundy. Two beautiful blonde-haired girls were playing outside, well dressed in their smocks of fustian. They announced that they were Master James’ daughters and pointed through the doorway where their father was instructing apprentices who manned the stalls outside. Cranston walked in. James Lundy was small, his black hair swept back. He looked up as Cranston entered, and his gentle face creased into a smile.