Paul Doherty: The Straw Men

‘There are two of them!’ Athelstan exclaimed, shaking off his cloak and sitting down at his chancery desk.

‘Most chickens do have two.’

‘No, no, no,’ Athelstan laughed, ‘two assassins, Sir John, not one. Stupid, stupid friar,’ Athelstan continued. ‘I did think of this before but dismissed it too soon. I forget my logic: never dismiss a possibility until it’s proved to be impossible.’

‘Ah, well,’ Cranston murmured. ‘Perhaps perfection can never be found beyond a well-roasted chicken. Brother, are you sure?’

‘Yes,’ Athelstan smiled over his shoulder. ‘Two killers, but which two?’ Athelstan concentrated on building a logical argument based on the syllogism that there were two assassins. He worked late, absent-mindedly informing Cranston that he would eat and drink anything the coroner brought from the Tower buttery. Athelstan did so and returned to his studies, working until his eyes grew so heavy he began to nod off over the scraps of parchment littering his desk. The following morning he celebrated his Jesus Mass, broke his fast and returned to his syllogism. Sir John tried to question him but Athelstan kept bringing the conversation back to the ‘steps’ he’d constructed, urging Sir John to recall all the details he could.

Eventually, as early evening crept in, Athelstan made his decision. He stared at the names of possible culprits, yet what evidence could he produce? Moreover, he had failed to resolve how Eli and Rosselyn had been murdered or if Master Samuel had truly committed suicide. Athelstan now realized what had happened at the Roundhoop, the attacks on himself both here and St Erconwald’s, the massacre of the Wardes, the freeing of the great snow bear and the Upright Men’s assault on the Tower. Yet Eli and Rosselyn’s murders remained an enigma. How had that young man been killed by a crossbow bolt in a locked, barred chamber? No opening could be found. The eyelet had been fastened shut, stuck hard in an ancient door by the passage of time, the chamber shutters barred so the assassin could not have escaped by the window. Or Samuel’s apparent suicide. If he had been murdered, why was there no mark or violence in his chamber or on him? The assassin could have climbed down using both rope and corpse to reach the chamber below but what then? And Rosselyn, found sitting in that lower chamber with a dagger piercing his left eye? The evidence pointed to Rosselyn’s eyes being closed. Was he sleeping? Yet as a veteran soldier he would have been very alert to any danger. He could have been drugged with some opiate, yet there wasn’t a shred of evidence for this. And why had the assassin drenched him in that filthy water which reeked like a midden heap? Why did Rosselyn close his eyes? When did anyone close their eyes? Athelstan recalled the children playing Hodman’s Blind. Athelstan then wrote on a scrap of parchment: When would any adult close his or her eyes outside of sleep? When did he? Athelstan began to list these and abruptly paused at a surge of excitement. He had it! He returned to Eli’s murder and that of Rosselyn. Yes, he had it! He was sure. He had unmasked the culprits, the two assassins, except for why they had been killed.

Athelstan waited until Sir John returned from his ‘devotions’ in the buttery; he asked him to search out the surveyor of the King’s works in the Tower and make enquiries about the door to Eli’s chamber. Athelstan now concentrated on drawing up what he called his bill of indictment. Cranston returned with the answer Athelstan already expected. He quietly congratulated himself and continued his summation, steeling his will against the heinous consequences of his conclusions. Once finished, Athelstan revised his ‘billa’. He did this time and again then turned to the coroner.

‘Now,’ he said quietly. Cranston, sitting on the edge of his bed, put down the book of plays and stared at the friar.

‘Now what, Brother? Soon it will be dark.’

‘And we must be gone, Sir John, the sooner the better from this benighted place. Do not cause any alarm or provoke the suspicions of Magister Thibault or his henchmen. Quietly seek out the Straw Men and bring them to me, please.’ Cranston dressed and swept out through the door. Athelstan prepared the chamber, placing a stool in the centre of the room between the two beds. He cleared the chancery table, pushing the sheets and scraps into his chancery satchel, and waited. Cranston returned with the four woebegone players. Athelstan could only secretly marvel at the sheer skill of the assassin’s acting. He greeted all of them, warmly asking Samson, Gideon and Judith to leave and wait in the refectory until he’d finished asking Rachael a few questions about Master Samuel. All three looked puzzled but shrugged and left. Athelstan waved at the stool, asking Rachael to sit while he took her cloak, offered her wine and complimented her warmly on her fresh gown of dark murrey. The young woman, her glorious red hair falling thickly either side of her lovely white face, watched intently, her green eyes slightly slanted, hard and unblinking despite the smile on her pretty lips.

‘Mistress Rachael?’

‘Brother Athelstan?’

‘When did we first meet?’

‘Why, Brother, here in the Tower, Saint John’s Chapel.’ She rounded her eyes. ‘Remember?’

‘Oh, I do. As I remember the plump whore in the Roundhoop all dressed, or rather disguised, in her orange wig and tawdry finery. That was you, wasn’t it? Yes, that’s when we truly first met.’

‘Brother, why should I be there?’

‘To meet your lover, Boaz.’

The smile on the woman’s lips faded.

‘Boaz,’ Athelstan continued evenly. ‘That was his name. Your lover, a former member of the Straw Men who had grown sickened of what he saw and heard. He’d become tired of being Samuel’s lackey who, in turn, was that of Magister Thibault, My Lord of Gaunt’s Master of Secrets. A true serpent, Thibault, using a troupe of strolling mummers to spy on the villages and communities they entertained.’

‘I told you that they also. .’

‘Oh, by the way, I don’t believe that Samuel had anything to do with the Upright Men. He was always Gaunt’s man; that was your lie to distract me. The Upright Men left your company alone, satisfied to have two of their following in it — you and Boaz.’

‘My confession to you,’ she glanced sharply at Cranston, ‘was under the seal of the Sacrament.’

‘And it remains so. I am just commenting on the possibility that Boaz was an Upright Man who slipped away to join his comrades. He and you formed a pact. He would leave while you would remain with the troupe to keep everything under watch. The Upright Men would be pleased with that. You truly loved Boaz, didn’t you? He took his name from the Book of Ruth in the Old Testament. In that story Boaz falls deeply in love with the Moabite woman, Ruth, and she with him. They met when Ruth was gleaning Boaz’s fields behind his reapers. In both your eyes, their story was being re-enacted in your lives. You were his Ruth, weren’t you?’ Athelstan stared at this young woman, a true killer, yet her great tragedy was that a fiercely fatal and frustrated love had turned her so.

‘You both played your part in a deadly masque even as you staged the Bible story here and there and, above all, in the convent of Saint Bavin’s at Ghent where the woman Eleanor, now Thibault’s prisoner in Beauchamp Tower, was sheltering. She had seen the play before but was much taken by your interpretation. Indeed, she identified herself with one of the characters, Naomi, Ruth’s mother-in-law. Like Naomi, Eleanor changed her name to Mara, meaning “bitterness” because God,’ Athelstan touched the side of his face, ‘had marred her skin. She had also become the plaything of those who wished to meddle in My Lord of Gaunt’s murky and very dangerous pool of politics.’