Paul Doherty - House of the Red Slayer

Athelstan picked up the parchment and quickly gazed at the people sitting around him. He noticed the hospitallers suddenly tense. The friar smiled secretly to himself. Good, he thought. Now the mystery unfolds.

The parchment was greasy and finger-stained, a six-inch square with a three-masted ship crudely drawn in the centre and a large black cross in each corner.

‘Is that all?’ Athelstan asked, passing the parchment back.

The girl tensed. Her lower lip trembled, tears pricked her eyes.

‘There was something else,’ Athelstan continued. ‘Wasn’t there?’

Philippa nodded. Geoffrey took her hand and held it, stroking it gently as if she was a child.

‘There was a sesame seed cake.’

‘What?’ Cranston barked.

‘A seed cake like a biscuit, a dirty yellow colour.’

‘What happened to it?’ Cranston asked.

‘I saw my father walk along the parapet. He seemed very agitated. He brought his arm back and threw the cake into the moat. After that he was a changed man, keeping everyone away from him and insisting on moving to the North Bastion Tower.’

‘Is that correct?’ Cranston asked the rest of the group.

‘Of course it is!’ the chaplain snapped. ‘Mistress Philippa is not a liar.’

‘Then, Father,’ Cranston asked silkily, ‘did Sir Ralph share his secrets with you?’ He held up a podgy hand. ‘I know about the seal of confession. All I’m asking is, did he confide in you?’

‘I think not,’ Colebrooke sniggered. ‘Sir Ralph had certain questions to ask the chaplain about stores and provisions which appear to have gone missing.’

The priest turned on him, his lip curling like that of an angry dog.

‘Watch your tongue, Lieutenant!’ he rasped. ‘True, things have gone missing, but that does not mean that I am the thief. There are others,’ he added meaningfully, ‘with access to the Wardrobe Tower.’

‘Meaning?’ Colebrooke shouted

‘Oh, shut up!’ Cranston ordered. ‘We are not here about stores but about a man’s life. I ask all of you, on your allegiance to the King — for this could be a matter of treason — did Sir Ralph confide in one of you? Does this parchment mean anything to any of you?’

A chorus of ‘No's’ greeted the coroner’s demands though Athelstan noticed that the hospitallers looked away as they mumbled their responses.

‘I hope you are telling the truth,’ Cranston tartly observed. ‘Sir Ralph may have been slain by peasant leaders plotting rebellion. Your father, Mistress Philippa, was a close friend and trusted ally of the court.’

Athelstan intervened, trying to calm the situation. ‘Mistress Philippa, tell me about your father.’

The girl laced her fingers together nervously and looked at the floor.

‘He was always a soldier,’ she began. ‘He served in Prussia against the Latvians, on the Caspian, and then travelled to Outremer, Egypt, Palestine and Cyprus.’ She blinked and nodded at the hospitallers. ‘They can tell you more about that than I.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Fifteen years ago,’ she continued, ‘he was in Egypt in the army of the Caliph and then he came home covered in glory, a rich man. I was three years old. My mother died a year later and we entered the household of John of Gaunt. My father became one of his principal retainers; four years ago he was appointed Constable of the Tower.’

Athelstan smiled understandingly. He knew Sir Ralph’s type: a professional soldier, a mercenary who would crusade for the faith but was not averse to serving in the armies of the infidel. Athelstan stared round the group. How quiet and calm they appeared, though he sensed something was wrong. They were hiding mutual dislikes and rivalries in their over-eagerness to answer his questions.

‘I suppose,’ he remarked drily, ‘you have already been through Sir Ralph’s papers?’

Athelstan looked at Sir Fulke who nodded.

‘Of course I have been through my brother’s documents, household accounts, memoranda and letters. I found nothing untoward. I am, after all,’ he added, glaring round the room as if expecting a challenge, ‘the executor of Sir Ralph’s will.’

‘Of course, of course,’ Cranston assured him.

Athelstan groaned to himself. Yes, he thought, and if there was anything damaging it will have been removed. He stared at the young man next to Philippa.

‘How long, sir, have you known your betrothed?’

Geoffrey’s wine-flushed face was wreathed in smiles as he gripped her hand more firmly. ‘Two years.’

Athelstan noticed the conspiratorial smiles the two lovers exchanged. Cranston leered at the girl whilst he considered the incongruous couple. Geoffrey was outstandingly handsome and probably quite wealthy, yet Philippa was almost plain. Moreover, Sir Ralph had been a soldier and Geoffrey was not, at first glance, the sort of man likely to be welcomed into such a family. Cranston then remembered Maude and his own passionate courting of her. Love was strange, as Athelstan kept reminding him, and opposites were often attracted to each other.

‘Tell me, Geoffrey, why did you stay in the Tower?’

The young man belched and blinked his eyes as if he was on the point of falling asleep. ‘Well,’ he mumbled, ‘the great frost has killed all trade in the city. Sir Ralph wished me to stay during the Yuletide season — even more so after he became distraught and upset.’

‘Did you know the reason for his anxiety?’

‘No,’ Geoffrey slurred. ‘Why should I?’

‘Did you like Sir Ralph?’

‘I loved him as a son does a father.’

Cranston switched his attention to Sir Fulke who was beginning openly to fidget.

‘Sir Fulke, you say you are the executor of Sir Ralph’s will?’

‘Yes, I am. And, before you ask, I am also a beneficiary, after the will is approved in the Court of Probate.’

‘What does the will provide?’

‘Well, Sir Ralph had property next to the Charterhouse in St Giles. This and all of the monies banked with the Lombards in Cornhill will go to Philippa.’

‘And to you?’

‘Meadows and pastures in the Manor of Holywell outside Oxford.’

‘A rich holding?’

‘Yes, Sir John, a rich holding, but not rich enough to murder for.’

‘I didn’t say that’

‘You implied it’

‘Sir Ralph,’ Alhelstan hurriedly interrupted, ‘was a wealthy man?’

‘He amassed wealth in his travels,’ Sir Fulke snapped back. ‘And he was careful with his monies.’ Athelstan noticed the sour smile on the chaplain’s face. Sir Ralph, he thought, was probably a miser. The friar looked sideways at Cranston and quietly groaned. The good coroner was taking one of his short naps, his great belly sagging, mouth half-open. Oh, Lord, Athelstan quietly prayed, please make sure he doesn’t snore!

‘Why do you live in the Tower, a bleak dwelling place for any man?’ Athelstan abruptly asked.

Sir Fulke shrugged. ‘My brother paid me to help him in an unofficial capacity.’

Both he and Athelstan chose to ignore the snorting laughter of Colebrooke. Cranston was now quietly nodding, belching softly and smacking his lips. Mistress Philippa tightened her mouth and Athelstan cursed; he did not wish his interrogation to end in mocking laughter.

‘Sir Gerard, Sir Brian,’ he almost shouted in an attempt to rouse Cranston, ‘how long have you been in the Tower?’

‘Two weeks,’ Fitzormonde replied. ‘We come every year.’

‘It’s a ritual,’ Mowbray added, ‘ever since we served with Sir Ralph in Egypt. We met to discuss old times.’

‘So you were close friends of Sir Ralph?’

‘In a sense. Colleagues, veterans from old wars.’ Mowbray stroked his evenly clipped beard. ‘But, I’ll be honest with you, Sir Ralph was a man more feared and respected than loved.’