Paul Doherty - The House of Crows

Athelstan let out a sigh of relief. ‘Sir John, I do not like some of your acquaintances.’

‘In keeping the king’s peace, dear monk, you end up having some very strange bedfellows. The Harrower is not as fearful as he looks.’ Cranston called over to the ale-wife to refill their blackjacks. ‘What really concerns me is what Sir Francis Harriett, knight of the shire from Shropshire and a member of the Commons, would have to do with young Perline Brasenose.’

Athelstan stared through the doorway: the light was dying, dusk was beginning to fall.

‘Sir John, are you refreshed?’

‘For what?’ Cranston asked.

‘A walk to the Tower.’

Cranston stretched his great legs until the muscles cracked. ‘Why there? Yes, I know Perline was a member of the garrison, but what could we learn?’

‘About Perline, Sir John, very little.’ Athelstan sat up in his seat and rubbed his eyes. ‘Remember, Sir John, on the Sunday before Sir Oliver Bouchon was killed, all the representatives from Shropshire were taken by Coverdale to see the king’s beasts at the Tower. Harnett was amongst them. Since that visit, Perline Brasenose has disappeared and these murders have taken place.’ He plucked at the coroner’s sleeve. ‘Please, Sir John, I have drunk enough, we should be there before dark.’

Cranston hid his annoyance and agreed, calling for the ale-wife to leave his order for another time. They left the Holy Lamb of God, walking briskly along Cheapside, down Lombard Street, into Eastcheap and towards Petty Wales. The evening proved to be warm. The ale-houses were full, doors and windows open, the babble of voices and laughter pouring out. Bailiffs and wardsmen patrolled the narrow alleyways. Athelstan felt safe as they threaded through these, under the overhanging houses disturbed by little more than a barking dog or children chasing each other in wild, antic games of Hodsman Bluff. They walked into Tower Street, past a church where two beadsmen knelt on the hard stone steps, hands clutching their rosary beads as they prayed in atonement for some sin. Further along, a group of men sat in the doorway of a tavern idly watching two puppies play. They called out as Athelstan passed and the friar blessed them. They went down an alleyway and into Petty Wales: a young boy’s voice, clear and lilting, broke into song from a window high above them. They paused for a while to listen. Athelstan closed his eyes; the song was one of his favourites. He remembered how his dead brother Stephen had sung it as they helped their father bring the harvest in during those long, sun-drenched autumn days before he and Athelstan had gone to the wars. Stephen had been killed, only Athelstan had returned.

The friar’s heart lurched with sadness: the boy’s voice was pure and clear, just as Stephen’s had been. Everyone had praised his brother’s singing, especially at Christmas, when he would stand before the crib in the village church and make the rafters ring with some merry carol.

‘Brother?’

Athelstan opened his eyes. Cranston was staring down at him curiously. The song had finished.

‘Are you well?’ Cranston asked solicitously.

Athelstan shivered and crossed his arms. ‘Nothing, Sir John, just a ghost from the past.’

They crossed a deserted square. Above them soared the sheer crenellated walls, turrets, bastions and bulwarks of the Tower. A mass of carved stone, a huge fortress built not to defend London but to overawe it. They followed the line of the wall round and crossed the drawbridge: beneath them the moat was full of dirty, slimy water. They went through the black arch of Middle Tower, whose huge gateway stood like an open mouth, its teeth the half-lowered iron portcullis. The entrance was guarded by sentries, who stood in the shadows wrapped in brown serge cloaks.

‘Sir John Cranston, Coroner,’ Athelstan explained to one of the guards. ‘We need to see the constable.’

The man groaned, but one glance at Cranston’s angry eyes and he scampered off up the cobbled trackway as his companion took them into the gatehouse. Cranston and Athelstan sat on a bench and cooled their heels until the guard returned, accompanied by a fussy little man dabbing at his face with the hem of his cloak.

‘What’s this?’ What’s this?’ the constable asked, bustling in. ‘Sir John, you have no jurisdiction here.’

‘Oh, don’t be so bloody pompous,’ the coroner snapped. ‘You have a guardsman Perline Brasenose?’

The constable must have been eating; he stood, cleaning his teeth with his tongue in a most disgusting fashion. Cranston pushed his face closer. ‘I have no jurisdiction here,’ he whispered sweetly, ‘but I am on business from His Grace the Regent.’

The constable’s head came up. He forced a smile. ‘Sir John, Sir John. I am sorry,’ he blustered. ‘But Perline Brasenose is a member of the garrison, or I should say was. He’s been absent from his post for days.’

‘And so he is a deserter?’ Athelstan asked anxiously.

The constable patted him kindly on the shoulder. ‘Don’t fret, Brother. The French haven’t landed and the Tower is safe. It’s common for a young man to disappear.’ The constable’s face became grave. ‘Well, within reason. If he isn’t back within the week, I’ll have him proclaimed as a deserter, yes.’

‘Was he on duty?’ Athelstan asked. ‘Last Sunday when members of the Commons visited the Tower?’

The constable pursed his lips together and stared up at the wall behind him. ‘Yes, yes he was. He was one of those who escorted them as they went round the Tower, inspecting the royal muniments, the siege machines and, of course, the royal beastery.’

‘Did anything untoward happen?’

The constable shook his head. ‘The Tower’s a lonely place, Brother. All we do is wait here for an enemy who never attacks. We guard some prisoners lodged in the dungeons and, now and again, make a foray into the city or countryside.’

‘You should be more vigilant,’ Cranston urged. ‘If you go into the countryside, you must have heard about the plots and conspiracies amongst the peasants?’

The constable made a rude sound with his lips. ‘Sir John, the Tower has stood for three hundred years. No one has ever taken it, let alone a bunch of ragged-arsed peasants. If they come, our drawbridge will go up, and they can sit outside until the Second Coming. That’s as far as they’ll get.’

‘And the menagerie?’ Athelstan asked.

‘The royal beastery. .’ the constable scoffed. He stuck his thumbs in his belt and leaned closer. ‘It’s nothing more than a collection of pits and cages at the other end of the Tower. An elephant, bears, some mangy cats, monkeys and baboons.

Since the old king died there’s very little been done to care for them.’ He smirked. ‘But, there again, they impress our visitors. One knight in particular, Sir Francis Harnett, was much taken by what he saw.’

‘And nothing untoward happened?’ Athelstan repeated.

‘Brother, they came and they went. I have nothing more to add. Now, I must go!’ And he bustled off back to his meal.

Athelstan and Cranston walked back through an alleyway into Petty Wales.

‘Not very helpful,’ Athelstan observed.

Cranston stared back at the Tower through narrowing eyes. He had not liked what he had seen: sleeping guards, a constable more interested in his belly, the way they had been kept in the gatehouse and allowed no further in.

‘Next time I see Gaunt,’ he growled, ‘I’ll have a chat about the Tower. He needs to send the royal commissioners in to check the stores and the muster roll. Our little fat constable is, I believe, not above taking bribes; not only for people to see the royal beastery, but also from members of his own garrison in order that they can slip away.’