Paul Doherty - The Assassin's riddle

‘But you surely could send a message out to Epping? I am more than prepared to return. I don’t like it here.’ Tears sprang to her eyes. ‘Go ask mine host at the Silver Lute. Last night and today I’ve had a visitor, Brother Athelstan. He was very similar to the young man you described who was in the tavern where Peslep died. The landlord remembered him well: he was cowled and hooded, spurs jangling on his boots.’

‘Have you seen him yourself?’ Cranston asked.

‘No, Sir John, I have not. However, I remember you describing such a man when I first met you in the Chancery Office.’ Alison moved a loose hair away from her face. ‘I am afeared.’

‘Tell me.’ Athelstan took her gently by the hand and stroked her fingers. ‘Mistress Alison, you came into London to see your brother?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you do that often?’

‘Not as much as I would have wished. When the weather changed and the rains and snow clogged the trackways, no. But in summertime as often as I could.’

‘You came this time because you were concerned?’

‘Yes, I told you. Edwin fell suddenly ill. He was vomiting, his bowels were loose. Some contagion of the belly.’

Athelstan studied her closely. ‘This illness?’

‘It was sudden,’ Alison replied. ‘One afternoon at the Chancery. Edwin suspected his drink had been tainted.’ She pulled a face. ‘But there’s no proof for that and Edwin was so agitated.’

‘Did he say about what?’

‘Never!’

‘Did he have other friends in London?’

‘I think he talked of Tibault Lesures, Master of the Rolls.’

‘Any young women?’

Alison laughed. ‘If he did, he kept it a great secret. But Sir John,’ Alison turned back to the coroner, ‘I want to go. I should go, I have no business in London. My brother is buried. I have a trade in Epping, property to look after.’

‘Go back to the Silver Lute,’ Athelstan offered. ‘Pack your baggage, and come and stay with Benedicta.’

Alison looked down at the ground.

‘You’ll be safe there,’ Athelstan insisted. ‘No one will hurt you.’

‘I agree,’ she replied.

‘Good.’ Athelstan patted her on the shoulder. ‘I’ll meet you there.’

Athelstan watched her go then, half listening to Sir John’s chatter, he followed the coroner through the afternoon crowds, past Newgate and down Holborn to the Chancery of the Green Wax. As they passed the old city gate on to the Holborn road, Cranston stopped, a hand on

Athelstan’s arm. The coroner stared fixedly at the mouth of an alleyway.

‘What’s the matter, Sir John?’

Cranston scratched his chin and took a swig from his miraculous wineskin. Athelstan followed his gaze. There were a few stalls; children played with an inflated pig’s bladder near a drunken juggler who was trying to ply his tricks much to the merriment of some labourers.

‘One of your villains, Sir John?’

‘Oh yes,’ Cranston breathed. ‘Lovely lad, lovely lad! William the Weasel. I know him of old. There’s not a window he can’t climb through. Show him a crack in a wall and he’ll slither through as swiftly as a river rat.’

‘But I can’t see him.’

‘No, no, you won’t, Brother. He’s gone in the twinkling of an eye. William was not up to villainy, he was watching me. The Weasel is one of the Vicar of Hell’s most ardent parishioners and, if young William’s watching me, that means the Vicar of Hell is very interested in where I go and what I do. So Flaxwith’s story is correct. Our Vicar must be greatly smitten by young Clarice. I think it’s only a matter of time before he rises to the lure.’

‘But he’ll know you’ll have Dame Broadsheet’s house watched?’

‘Yes, yes.’ Cranston gnawed on his knuckle. ‘I’ll have to think about that. But come, Brother.’

The Master of the Rolls met them in a small chamber at the back of the office of the Green Wax. He sat on a bench to one side of a table, Cranston and Athelstan sitting opposite.

‘Master Tibault, you seem agitated?’ Athelstan began.

The Master of the Rolls scratched an unshaven cheek and rubbed one red-rimmed eye. ‘All these deaths,’ he wailed. ‘Brother Athelstan, this is an important office of state. The Regent, the Chancellor, even the King himself has sent messengers down.’

‘The dead clerks have been replaced?’

Master Tibault pulled a cloth from the cuff of his robe and mopped his brow. ‘Oh Lord save us, yes. There’s no shortage of skilled men.’

‘We have come to talk about Chapler,’ Athelstan continued. ‘Master Tibault, describe him to me.’

The Master of the Rolls did and both the coroner and his secretarius recognised the young man who had been fished out of the Thames. Athelstan raised his eyes heavenwards as one theory crumbled to dust.

‘Why?’ Tibault asked, playing with the rag.

‘Oh nothing,’ Athelstan replied. ‘Sir John and I wanted to be sure: apart from his sister, no one identified the corpse taken from the Thames. However, the man you describe fits Chapler’s description exactly, from the colour of his hair to the small mole on his right cheek.’

‘Yes, yes, that’s so.’

‘What was Chapler like? As a person?’

‘Very shy, very secretive. He kept himself to himself. He did not carouse with the others.’

Athelstan watched the bead of sweat form on Lesures’ upper lip. You are lying, he thought; you are not just flustered because your clerks have been killed: there’s some great secret here.

‘So you know nothing about his private life?’ Athelstan asked.

Lesures shook his head.

‘And nothing happened untoward, before Chapler’s death, which would account for his murder?’

Again the shake of the head.

‘Not even Chapler’s sickness?’

Lesures gulped, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.

‘He was sick, wasn’t he?’ Athelstan continued. ‘A slight contagion of the belly, so his sister told me: vomiting, a flux in the bowels.’

‘Oh yes, yes,’ Lesures gabbled. ‘He was ill for a few days.’

‘Did he fall ill suddenly?’ Athelstan grasped the old man’s hand: it was cold and clammy. ‘Master Lesures, you are wasting our time. I am becoming very suspicious about the doings of your clerks in the Chancery of the Green Wax.’

Athelstan glanced sideways at Cranston, he sat dozing, eyes half closed.

‘Would you please answer our questions?’ Athelstan insisted. ‘Either here or in the Tower.’

Lesures licked his lips. ‘I’m just frightened,’ he whined. ‘That is all, Brother Athelstan. My mind is clogged, my wits numb. I go home and lock myself in…’

‘You live by yourself?’ Cranston opened his eyes.

‘I am a bachelor, Sir John.’

And you do not join your clerks when they carouse the midnight hours away?’

‘Sir John,’ Lesures simpered, ‘I may be a bachelor but I am also quite vulnerable.’

‘We were talking about Chapler’s illness,’ Athelstan intervened. ‘He became ill here, didn’t he?’

‘Yes, yes, he did.’ Lesures swallowed. ‘After I had served the malmsey, Chapler suddenly fell sick: clutching his stomach he ran down to the privy in the small garden.’

‘And no one else showed similar symptoms?’

‘No.’

‘And you didn’t think that was suspicious?’

‘I…’

‘Come, come, Master Tibault.’ Cranston hammered on the table. ‘A healthy young man takes a cup of malmsey like the rest, but only he has gripes in his belly’

‘I thought it was suspicious,’ Lesures bleated. ‘But the clerks are always playing tricks upon each other. They did not like Chapler,’ he continued in a rush. He put his face in his hands. ‘Some madcap scheme. I asked Peslep but he just laughed.’