Paul Doherty - The House of Crows

‘And you can join him,’ Cranston smiled at the taverner. ‘We no longer need you here.’

Banyard pulled a face but walked out, slamming the door behind him. Wheezing and grumbling, Cranston got to his feet and stared down at the corpses.

‘It happens to us all, Brother, but death is a terrible thing.’

Athelstan sketched a blessing in the air and squatted down beside the corpse on the left. A yellowing scrap of parchment at the top of the coffin proclaimed it was Sir Oliver Bouchon: a thin beanpole of a man, his harsh, seamed face made all the more dreadful by the slimy water of the Thames. The skin had turned a bluish-white, the lips were slack. Someone had pressed two coins on the eyes; Athelstan noted also the small red crosses dug into the forehead and each cheek. The corpse had been stripped of its clothes and dressed in a simple shift. Athelstan pushed this back and, swallowing hard, felt the cold, clammy flesh. Bouchon’s cold corpse was covered with scars and welts which Cranston identified as sword and dagger cuts: others were the marks of tight-fitting belts or boots.

‘An old soldier,’ Cranston declared. ‘He must have seen service abroad. Hell’s teeth, I need a drink!’

‘In a short while, Sir John, but please help me.’

Cranston obliged and they turned the corpse over. Athelstan stared at the flabby buttocks, muscular thighs and hairy legs: he felt a strange sadness. Here lay a world in itself: what hopes, what joys, what fears, what nightmares permeated this man’s life? Was he loved? Did he have ideals? Would people mourn that he had died? Athelstan ran his fingers through the still wet, thick black hair at the back of the man’s head.

‘Ah!’ he exclaimed.

‘What is it, Brother?’

‘Feel for yourself.’

Cranston’s stubby fingers searched the back of the skull but stopped as he felt a huge, hard welt.

‘Bring me a candle,’ Athelstan said.

Sir John handed him one of those Father Gregory had lit, and Athelstan held this down close to the hair. The hot oil from the tallow candle sizzled and spluttered as it slipped on to the still damp hair, yet it provided enough light for Athelstan to make out the huge, angry contusion.

‘If anyone says,’ Athelstan declared, ‘that Sir Oliver Bouchon slipped and fell into the Thames, then he’s a liar or ignorant. Someone gave this poor man a powerful whack on the back of his head.’

‘Why didn’t anyone else notice it?’

‘Because no one was looking for it, Sir John.’

Athelstan got up and handed the candle back. ‘Sir Oliver here was knocked senseless and then thrown into the Thames. It’s a pity the corpse is undressed; I would have liked to have established that he was knocked unconscious whilst he was walking along the river bank.’

‘What makes you think that?’

Athelstan turned the corpse over and gently grasped each hand, pointing at the dirty fingernails and the muddy marks on the palm of each hand.

‘If he was knocked unconscious elsewhere,’ Athelstan explained, ‘I would expect to see bruises where Sir Oliver’s body was either dragged along the cobbles or thrown into some cart. However, as you can see, apart from the bruise on the back of his head, there are no others. But there are the dirt marks under his nails and on the palms of his hands. Bouchon must have been near the river edge. His assailant knocked him unconscious and Sir Oliver fell face down, probably in some mud. His body was then lifted up and rolled into the river.’

‘But wouldn’t the water wash the stains off his hands and nails?’

Athelstan shook his head. ‘It might from the clothes, even from the face.’ He knelt down and examined Sir Oliver’s stubby features. ‘Though even here, apart from these small red crosses, there’s no mark or contusion, which is strange. Whatever, to answer your question directly, Sir John, the river water would remove any superficial mud stains from the face and clothing. But tell me, my lord Coroner, have you ever seen a corpse, the victim of some brutal assault, where the hands are open and the fingers splayed?’

Sir John smiled and shook his head.

‘Sir Oliver was no different,’ Athelstan continued. He held his own hands up, curling the fingers. ‘Next time you look at your poppets, or the Lady Maude when asleep, notice how they curl their fingers into their hands. The unconscious man is no different. After a short while, even in the river, rigor mortis sets in. The body stiffens, hence the faint dirt on the palms of his hands and beneath the nails from where he fell. What is more,’ Athelstan grasped Sir Oliver’s right hand, ‘notice how the dirt is deeply embedded. Sir Oliver must have fallen and, for a few seconds before he lost consciousness, gripped the mud as he fell, clawing it like an animal.’ Athelstan shook his head. ‘Poor man. May God grant him eternal rest! Now, for Sir Henry.’

Sir John went across to the other side of Swynford’s coffin. Athelstan knelt down and loosened the shift tied under the dead man’s chin. The friar had to pause and close his eyes at the terrible rictus of death on the grey-haired knight’s face. The mouth was still contorted in a grimace, the eyes half open, the head slightly turned so that the coins placed on the eyes had slipped away. It looked as if the corpse was about to waken and utter some terrible snarl of fury at being thrust so swiftly into the darkness. Swynford’s face, too, had been disfigured by the red crosses gouged in his skin. Athelstan tilted the man’s chin back. He studied the angry weal around the throat, digging deep where his Adam’s apple now hung.

Athelstan loosened the shift and pulled it down, but could detect no bruise or contusion; though Sir Henry, like Sir Oliver, bore the weals and scars of a soldier’s life. Then, with Sir John’s help, he turned the corpse over and stared at the bruise on the small of the man’s back.

‘How did that occur?’ he whispered.

‘Kneel down, Brother.’ Sir John smiled at his secretarius. ‘Go on, kneel down, and I’ll show you how he died.’

Athelstan knelt.

‘No, no, on one knee only,’ Sir John declared. ‘That’s how a knight prays: one leg up, one down, ever ready for action.’

Athelstan obeyed. He heard Sir John come up quietly behind him: suddenly his head went back as Sir John’s belt went round his throat, biting into his neck even as he felt Sir John’s knee dig into the small of his back. Athelstan spluttered, his hands flailing out, the belt was whisked away. Sir John pulled him to his feet and spun him round. He saw the alarm in the gentle Dominican’s face.

‘Here, Brother, have a sip from the wineskin!’

This time Athelstan did not refuse: he took a generous mouthful and thrust the wineskin back to Sir John.

‘Well done, Coroner. You were so quick!’

‘The mark of a professional assassin.’ Sir John rewarded himself with two generous swigs. ‘The garrotte is much speedier than many people think. In France I saw young archers, no more than boys, do the same to French pickets when we went out at night. A terrible death, Brother; so quick, even the strongest man finds it hard to grasp his enemy.’

Athelstan nodded. Even though he had panicked, he realised he could not have fought against Sir John, who had kept him thrust away with his knee whilst swiftly choking him with the belt. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and stared down at Swynford’s corpse.

‘That’s how he died. He came in here and knelt. The assassin, pretending to be a priest, came up behind him. Sir John, how long would it take?’

‘Well, Brother, if you started counting to ten, very quickly, Swynford would have been unconscious by the time you’d reached five.’

‘And all the time the murderer was chanting, making a mockery of the “Dies Irae”. ’ Athelstan stared round the chamber. ‘Sir John, we need to examine the possessions of these dead men.’