Paul Doherty - The Assassin's riddle

Athelstan was standing on the top of St Erconwald’s tower looking through a huge telescope. Bonaventure was talking to him but Cranston was calling from below. Athelstan opened his eyes; roughly woken from his dream, he gasped and looked around. Bonaventure was gone. The sunlight in the small window above his bed was fading. He swung his legs off the bed and realised that what had woken him was the knocking on the door below.

‘Father, Father, are you all right?’

Benedicta had now come into the kitchen.

‘I’m up here, Benedicta,’ Athelstan called, rubbing his face. ‘I went with the cat for a nap.’ He paused. ‘That’s witty,’ he whispered. ‘For a man just woken up.’

‘Athelstan, are you all right?’

The friar rose and looked down the ladder at Benedicta. She was dressed in a summer smock made of light green cloth. She had a small silver chain round her neck. Someone, probably one of the children, had made a daisy chain; she still had this over her jet-black hair. She had such a look of concern in her beautiful dark eyes that Athelstan’s heart skipped a beat. Deep in his soul he loved this widow, but never once would he dare tell her. I love you passionately, he thought, and ruefully recalled the advice of his novice master.

‘It’s not the body, Athelstan, that hungers, it’s the soul. Physical desire is like a flame. Sometimes it leaps up, at other times it burns low. The love of the soul, however, is a raging fire that is never quenched.’

‘Athelstan!’ Benedicta stamped her foot. ‘Have you lost your wits? You are staring at me!’

‘I was thinking.’ Athelstan smiled. ‘I know what it’s going to be like in heaven.’

Benedicta sighed in exasperation. ‘Athelstan, the council will be meeting soon. You know what Watkin is like. If you’re not there, he’ll start saying Mass. We also have a visitor, a young woman, Alison Chapler. I didn’t know there was a corpse in the death house!’

Athelstan’s fingers flew to his lips and he groaned. ‘Oh Lord save us!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’d forgotten about that, Benedicta. I’ve been with Cranston. You know what it’s like.’

He hurried down the ladder, grasped Benedicta by the shoulder and gave her a kiss on each cheek.

‘What’s that for, Father?’

‘One day I’ll tell you. That poor woman.’

Athelstan quickly grabbed his stole and the phial of holy oils he kept in the cupboard in the far corner of the kitchen. He tightened the girdle round his robe and hurried out. The evening was a gorgeous one; the sun not so strong and bright whilst a refreshing breeze bent the grass and flowers in the cemetery. Crim the altar boy was having a pee in the corner just inside the gate.

‘Hello, Father!’ he called out over his shoulder.

‘Pull up your hose!’ Athelstan ordered. ‘I’ve told you not to do that in God’s acre.’

‘Sorry, Father, but the water-tippler gave me a free drink, cool and sweet it was. Where are you going, Father? I did chase the sow from your garden! It’s a good job you didn’t come earlier.’ Crim chattered on, running alongside Athelstan and looking over his shoulder at Benedicta. ‘Cecily the courtesan has been here!’

‘What?’ Athelstan paused. ‘And who was with her?’

‘I don’t know,’ the boy mumbled, his face crestfallen.

Athelstan ruffled the boy’s hair. ‘Go and bring a lighted candle,’ he said kindly.

‘Oh, there’s a woman in the death house,’ Crim retorted. ‘Is there a corpse there? Can I see it?’

‘Get a candle.’

Athelstan continued down the narrow path which wound by the burial mounds, battered crosses and worn gravestones. The small corpse house stood under the shade of a yew tree in the far corner of the cemetery. The door was open. Inside, Alison knelt beside the corpse which lay in a wooden casket. She’d already lit a candle and put it on a niche in the wall. The air was sweet, not the usual stale, rather dank odour. Alison got up as Athelstan entered, her cheeks soaked in tears.

‘I’m sorry,’ Athelstan apologised. ‘I came back and I forgot.’

‘It’s all right, Father,’ Alison replied. ‘I bought a coffin from a gravedigger who lives near Crutched Friars. He also brought it across for me.’

She went to lift the lid of the coffin. Athelstan helped her to take it off. Chapler’s corpse did not look so ghastly now. Even the hair had been combed, whilst Alison had filled the coffin on either side of the body with crushed rosemary. She stood, hands joined, Benedicta behind her, as Athelstan began the service for the dead. He anointed the corpse, its forehead, eyes, nose, mouth, hands and chest. Crim stole in, a lighted candle in his hand. When Athelstan had finished, he recited the Office for the Dead and ended it with the Requiem.

‘Eternal rest grant to him, O Lord.’

Benedicta and Alison took up the refrain: ‘And let eternal light shine upon him.’

Once they had said the prayer, Athelstan ordered the lid to be replaced and screwed down. ‘It can now be taken into church,’ he declared.

‘No, Father, leave it here for the night.’ Alison’s sweet face puckered into a smile. ‘Edwin liked the grass, the loneliness, the flowers. It’s pleasant out here.’

‘You are sure you want him buried at St Erconwald’s?’ Athelstan asked.

‘Oh yes, Father.’

‘Then I’ll say a Requiem Mass tomorrow morning, just after dawn.’ He turned. ‘This is Benedicta.’

Both women exchanged smiles.

‘You can stay with her. I’ll have Pike the ditcher prepare a grave.’ Athelstan walked out and pointed across the graveyard. ‘Perhaps there in the corner? In summer it catches the sun.’

Alison tearfully agreed. Athelstan took off his stole. He handed that and the oils to Crim, asking him to take them back to his house.

‘So, Mistress Alison, will you accept my offer to stay?’

‘Yes, Father, I will.’

Benedicta came over and linked her arm through that of the young woman. ‘Do you have enough money?’ she asked.

‘Oh yes,’ Alison replied. ‘Edwin was a good brother. What he earned he sent to me.’

‘We have a parish council meeting now,’ Athelstan explained. ‘You can wait here or, if you want to join us…?’

Alison squeezed Benedicta’s hand. ‘I’d like to come, Father.’

Athelstan made to lead them down the path.

‘Brother Athelstan.’ Alison was now standing straight.

The friar was slightly alarmed at the expression in her face and eyes; there was something about this young woman, a steel beneath the velvet.

‘What is it, mistress?’

‘My brother’s assassins. You will apprehend them? They will hang for what they did?’

‘Them?’ Athelstan came back. ‘Mistress Alison, what makes you think there are more than one?’

‘Oh.’ Alison pulled a face. ‘Edwin was a vigorous young man. He would not have given up his life so easily.’

‘Do you suspect anyone?’ Athelstan asked.

‘One of those clerks,’ she replied. ‘Especially the arrogant one, Alcest. Edwin often talked about him: he didn’t like him and Alcest certainly didn’t like Edwin.’

‘But murder!’ Athelstan exclaimed. ‘Mistress Alison, sometimes I do not like some of my parishioners, yet that’s no excuse for the most terrible crime of all!’

‘Just a feeling,’ Alison replied, running a finger along her lower lip. ‘Something in the soul, Father.’

Athelstan knew the young woman was right. The clerks of the Green Wax had a great deal to answer for, but what? Murder? How, if they had spent the night Chapler had been killed carousing in some tavern chamber? Athelstan walked down the cemetery path; behind him Benedicta consoled Alison, listening to details about her brother’s murder and reassuring her that Sir John Cranston, for all his love of claret, had a mind as sharp as a razor and a passion for justice.