Paul Doherty - By Murder's bright light

‘" . . . the questions you don’t ask and the answers you don’t receive",’ Athelstan filled in. ‘Never once did Ashby try and explain how Sir Henry died. He protested his innocence but gave us no information whatsoever. All he says is that he came into the room, saw the corpse and had his hand on the dagger when Marston interrupted him.’

‘And what else, my dear monk?’

‘Friar, Sir John, friar. Well, the lady Aveline, in better days at least, must be a lovely, comely woman.’

‘And?’

‘Never once did our young squire ask after her?’

Cranston sniffed. ‘You think there’s something wrong?’

‘Of course there is.’

‘Ashby’s protecting someone?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Aveline?’ Cranston asked.

‘But why should she kill her own father?’ Athelstan sighed. ‘We are going to have to choose our moment and ask that lovely lady a few pertinent questions.’

Cranston gripped Athelstan by the shoulder. ‘The whole business stinks like a manure heap at the height of summer. But, come on, let’s see this bloody ship and the mysteries it holds.’

They went down to the quayside steps. Athelstan glimpsed one of his parishioners, Moleskin, an old, wiry man, forever smiling, who boasted he could pull the fastest skiff on the Thames. He waved Athelstan and Cranston over and led them down the slippery steps. Within minutes, arms straining, muscles cracking, he was pulling them out across the choppy, misty Thames, past Dowgate to where the fighting ships were anchored opposite Queen’s hithe. The river mist was still thick, cloying, shifting ghost-like above the river. Occasionally Moleskin pulled in his oars as other skiffs, barges and bumboats plyed their way down-river. Now and again the mist broke and they glimpsed fat-bottomed Hanseatic merchantmen making their way to the Steelyard. Cranston leaned over and gave Moleskin directions. The man grinned, hawked and spat into the river.

‘You just keep your eyes on the river, Sir John.’

Cranston peered over his shoulder. Suddenly the mist shifted. A big cog loomed above them.

‘To the right! No, I mean to your left!’ Cranston shouted.

The oarsman grinned, and skilfully guided his craft under the stern of the ship, on which Cranston glimpsed the name Holy Trinity. Then they came alongside another ship, its timbers painted black, its mast soaring up into the mist as it gently bobbed on the Thames.

‘This is the one!’ Cranston shouted.

Moleskin brought his small craft alongside. He yelled at Sir John to sit down before he put them all in the Thames, then, standing up, shouted, ‘On deck! On deck!’

Athelstan, gazing up, saw a man come to the side, a lantern in his hand.

‘Who’s there?’

‘Sir John Cranston, coroner of the city, and his clerk, Brother Athelstan. Sir Jacob Crawley is expecting us!’

‘About bloody time!’ the voice bawled back.

A piece of netting was thrown over the side of the ship, followed by a strong rope ladder. Moleskin brought the skiff closer in. Sir John grabbed the ladder and heaved himself up as nimble as a monkey. Athelstan followed more gingerly, helped by a smirking Moleskin.

‘Take it carefully, Father,’ the boatman advised. ‘Don’t look down, just take your time.’

Athelstan did, half-closing his eyes. As Sir John lurched over the bulwark the ladder swayed and Athelstan clung on for dear life. He moved upwards, then Cranston’s strong hands lifted him by the arms and dragged him on to the deck rail with as much dignity as a sack of oatmeal. Athelstan unslung his leather bag from around his neck, then lurched as the ship moved. He would have been sent sprawling if Cranston had not held on to his arm.

‘It takes time to get your sea legs,’ Cranston said. ‘But stand with your feet apart, Brother.’

Athelstan obeyed, blinked and stared around. The deck was cluttered with leather buckets, coils of rope, some sacks, balls of iron and two braziers full of spent charcoal. Athelstan glimpsed figures moving about in the mist. He looked to his left, down the deck towards the stern castle, then to his right where the forecastle rose up. A sailor, naked except for a pair of breech clouts, the same man who had first greeted them, studied Athelstan carefully.

‘You must be freezing,’ Athelstan commented. ‘No shirt.’

‘Aye, I am that, Father. But you had best come. Sir Jacob Crawley is fair bursting with anger.’

He led them along the deck and knocked at the door in the stern castle.

‘Piss off!’ a voice shouted.

The sailor shrugged, grinned over his shoulder and opened the door. He ducked as a tankard was thrown at his head.

‘Sir Jacob, Sir John has arrived.’

Cranston, grinning from ear to ear, brushed by the sailor.

‘Jacob Crawley, you dirty old sea dog!’

Athelstan followed cautiously. The cabin smelt musty and sweet. The man who half-rose from his chair at the table to greet Cranston was white-haired, small, lithe, and brown as a berry. He was dressed in a dark blue cloak tied around the middle with a silver belt. A cap of the same colour, with a feather stitched in the brim, lay on the table. Crawley grasped Cranston’s hand, beaming from ear to ear, and poked him gently in the stomach.

‘More of you than before, Sir John?’

Then all the more for the Lady Maude to hang on to when the going gets rough!’

Both men bellowed with laughter. Crawley shook Athelstan’s hand, patting him absent-mindedly on the shoulder. He indicated two empty stools at the table and Cranston and Athelstan joined the men already crammed around it. Crawley introduced them to the others: Philip Cabe, second mate; Dido Coffrey, ship’s clerk; Vincent Minter, ship’s surgeon; and Tostig Peverill, master-at-arms. A motley lot, Athelstan thought, in their sea-stained clothes – lean, hard-faced men with close-cropped hair, weather-beaten faces and unsmiling eyes. They sat, ill at ease, and Athelstan sensed their dislike and impatience at being kept so long.

‘We have been waiting for hours,’ Cabe snapped, his leathery, horsey face full of disapproval.

‘Well, I’m bloody sorry, aren’t I!’ Cranston shouted back. ‘I’ve been bloody busy!’

‘Now, now.’ Crawley clapped his hands like a child. ‘Sir John, some claret?’

Cranston, of course, accepted with alacrity.

‘Father?’

Athelstan smiled and shook his head. He unpacked his writing bag and laid out ink horn, quill and parchment. He stared around the low, crowded cabin, noticing the cot bed in one corner. He felt rather dizzy, especially when the ship moved and creaked as if the whole world was about to roll. Once Cranston had drained his cup, and Crawley had just as quickly refilled it, the king’s admiral of the eastern seas leaned forward and belched.

‘How many years, Sir John?’

‘Sixteen, sixteen years since we chased the French off the seas and now the buggers are back!’

Athelstan moved his arm and nudged Sir John – a reminder that this was business, not some drinking contest between old friends. Cranston coughed.

‘Master Cabe,’ the coroner began, ‘you are now the senior surviving officer of this unhappy ship. I understand Captain Roffel was taken ill and had died by the time the ship dropped anchor in the Thames?’

‘Yes. On the 14th October the captain complained of pains in his belly. He said it was like fire.’

Cranston turned to Minter. ‘Did you examine Roffel?’

‘Yes, I did. I thought it was some form of dysentery – violent cramps, putrid faeces, high fever, sweating.’

‘And what did you prescribe?’

‘I concocted some binding ointment, but nothing worked. By 20th October, Roffel was delirious. He died the night before we sailed up the Thames.’