Paul Doherty: The Mysterium

Beatrice began to cry quietly. She settled back in the chair, giving way to her memories and the cloying heat. If she half closed her eyes in this chamber of dappled light, she might catch her beloved staring at her as he always did with that lovely smile. She closed her eyes then startled at the knocking on the front door. She picked up a candlestick and went out into the icy passageway, the cold from the flagstones seeping through the soft warmth of her buskins.

‘Who’s there?’ she called.

‘Mistress, it’s only Parson John. I’ve come to ensure all is well, to show I bear no ill favour.’

Beatrice bit her lip, pulled back the bolts at top and bottom and opened the door. The light was swiftly fading. Parson John, muffled in a great cloak, stamped his feet, pulled down the muffler from his mouth and smiled as he showed her the small stoppered flask in his right hand. ‘Mistress, I am freezing, but this is rich claret, the best from the vineyards of Gascony. Heated with a burning poker and sprinkled with some crushed apple and nutmeg, it would make a heart-warming posset.’

‘Come in, Father, come in.’

The priest passed by her and she closed the door.

‘You’ve bolted it?’ he asked.

‘No, Father.’ Beatrice smiled. ‘Now you’re here that’s protection enough. Do. .’ She gestured at the door to the solar. ‘Go in and warm yourself.’ She bustled in after him, pulling out a stool so the priest could sit by the fire. Parson John undid his cloak, pulled off his gloves and sat down, hands towards the heat.

‘Mistress,’ he smiled, ‘unstopper the flask, let’s drink some warmth.’

She hastened to obey, taking down two pewter goblets from the shelf above the mantle. She placed these on the table, broke the seal of the flask and filled both cups, then busied herself thrusting two narrow pokers into the burning logs, before going towards the scullery to search for her nutmeg sprinkler. She was almost there when the door to the solar opened and she whirled round with a start. Sir Hugh Corbett, followed by his two henchmen, Ranulf and Chanson, entered. Parson John sprang to his feet.

‘Sir Hugh, I never heard you. .’

‘You were not supposed to.’ Corbett pressed the priest’s shoulder, forcing him to retake his seat. ‘Ranulf, help Mistress Beatrice make us all comfortable.’ He gestured at the quilted seat. ‘I’ll sit here, next to our good Parson John.’ His voice, rich with sarcasm, made the priest turn abruptly. ‘Oh, by the way,’ Corbett pointed at the belt around the priest’s waist with its long sheathed dagger, ‘unbuckle that, sir.’

Parson John obeyed. Corbett took the belt and placed it on the other side of his chair. Ranulf had pulled up another stool so that he could sit on the parson’s right. Chanson, armed with a small arbalest, stayed near the door. Corbett sniffed the air appreciatively.

‘Sweet herbs, good meat and fine wine.’ He picked up the flask. ‘You brought this, Parson John?’

‘Yes, a gift to share with Mistress Beatrice. I wish to comfort her.’

‘I was about to make a posset,’ Beatrice snapped peevishly from where she stood next to the door to the small scullery.

‘Why waste such good wine on a posset?’ Corbett picked up one of the goblets and thrust it at the priest. ‘Drink.’ His smile faded. ‘Drink!’ he repeated.

Parson John, face all tense, just stared back.

‘Drink,’ whispered Ranulf, bringing up the dagger concealed in his hand. He pricked the priest under the chin with its point, and Beatrice gave a small scream of protest, which died as Parson John pushed the goblet away.

‘I don’t feel like wine, Sir Hugh, not now. I should leave. .’

Again Ranulf’s dagger came up.

‘Mistress,’ Corbett warned, ‘do not even think of drinking such a gift. I am sure it’s poisoned, death-bearing.’ He clapped Parson John on the shoulder. ‘You are in so many ways your father’s true son. You came here as a wolf in sheep’s clothing to finish the game, to kill the last person on your murderous list.’

‘Lapwing is the murderer.’ Parson John retorted. ‘Lapwing is in the Tower for his crimes?’

‘And he can stay there,’ Corbett retorted. ‘Master Escolier has a great deal to answer for, unless his grace the King decides otherwise, and I think he might. Certain questions about the riot in Newgate have to be put to him, but as for what happened recently in St Botulph’s, that, in the main, was mummery. I recognised that something was wrong. Lapwing always denied he was the writer from the Land of Cockaigne.’

‘What?’

‘Oh don’t act the innocent. There are so many unresolved questions. I never really understood why Lapwing should kill Mistress Clarice and her lover Richard Fink.’

‘I don’t-’

‘I asked myself one constant question,’ Corbett continued softly. ‘Who knew the truth about Evesham’s evil doings? Most likely Mistress Beatrice. She, in turn, admitted that the only person she ever told was her son, the clerk who calls himself Lapwing. She was not lying. She simply overlooked one important fact, a sin that has haunted her over the years.’ Corbett glanced at Beatrice. ‘Isn’t that true, mistress?’ He didn’t wait for an answer, but turned back to the priest, watching those eyes dart and shift like those of all murderers did when they searched for a path out of the trap opening before them. ‘She was with your mother the night she was murdered. Only a slip of a girl, Mistress Beatrice fled, your mother died. She was always haunted by a deep sense of guilt, which harrowed her soul. Now last Advent, in preparation for Christmas, Beatrice made a full confession. You recall the occasion, surely, Parson John? The Dean of St Paul’s, as is customary, invites the citizens of London to receive absolution. Priests gather from all over the city. They sit the length and breadth of the nave behind curtained screens so that penitents, ashamed of what they have to confess, can whisper their sins anonymously. Now, as often in life, chance or God’s own grace can create the most extraordinary coincidences. Mistress Beatrice went to confess her sins at St Paul’s. She did so in great detail and told the priest everything: the murder of Emma Evesham, her own flight, her suspicions about Sir Walter, his possible connivance in his wife’s death, his evil alliance with the likes of Waldene and Hubert the Monk. Most importantly, she still felt she was a coward who’d betrayed her mistress.’

‘She did not confess to me.’

‘Oh Parson John, I think she did. There’s no evidence for that,’ Corbett tapped the wine, ‘except this, your one and only terrible mistake. True?’ He pulled himself up in the chair. ‘I did suspect you, despite your fearful, tremulous way. You always had a story, an excuse for being elsewhere when these hideous deeds were committed.’ He lifted a hand. ‘Except for one, which was too glib, too smooth.’

‘What do you mean?’ Parson John protested.

‘That attack on you in St Botulph’s.’ Corbett paused as Beatrice went into the scullery and brought back a stool to sit on and watch fascinated. ‘According to you, Parson John, your attacker entered the sacristy by the outside door. You were struck down and bound.’

‘Sir Hugh, I was bruised, you saw the marks on my face.’

‘No, no,’ Corbett countered, ‘they were caused during your struggle with Master Fink. We’ll leave that for a while. You were not struck down. You did not wander into St Botulph’s. You went into that church as a murderer with the severed heads of your victims Clarice and Master Fink. You placed those in that font as a rejection of everything you once believed in. You then went back into the sacristy and waited for Master Fleschner. You’d invited him at a certain time to act as your witness; he was as much your victim as anyone else. You had the ropes ready in a tangle to slip over your ankles and wrists. It’s easily done. When Master Fleschner came to your rescue, he would not notice, not poor, nervous Fleschner in that cold, desolate sacristy, desperate to free the hapless Parson John. You certainly prepared well.’ Corbett leaned over and touched the small, fading scar on Parson John’s forehead. ‘You’d even cut yourself, as if the assassin had marked you down for death and was about to carve the letter M.