Paul Doherty - House of the Red Slayer

‘My Lord Coroner,’ Joscelyn gave a mock bow, ‘you are most welcome to my humble abode.’

‘By the sod, you old bastard!’ Cranston roared. ‘Have you gone back to your old, wicked ways? Where did you get the sustenance to clean this sewer of iniquity?’

Joscelyn shrugged and spread his one good hand, fingers splayed out. ‘I have a new partner,’ he announced proudly, ‘who sold his own tavern near the Barbican and moved across the river to be free from the prying of certain coroners!’

Cranston roared with laughter and led Athelstan over to the far corner where a table and stools were set apart from the rest of the customers. Athelstan felt rather embarrassed. Near the wine tuns, he noticed Pike the ditcher, the clay of the cemetery still fresh on his hands, deep in hushed conversation with a group of strangers. The Great Community, Athelstan thought, peasants from the snow-covered fields outside the city, slipping in to talk sedition, plan treason and plot rebellion. Pike noticed him and, eyes guarded, raised his tankard. Athelstan smiled back but watched as, a few minutes later, Pike rose and led the rest of his companions out of the tavern.

Cranston squatted down with his back to the wall, smacked his lips and gazed hungrily up at the hams and other meats hanging from ropes on the rafters to be cured. He watched a pot boy broach a new cask and through an open door glimpsed the kitchen with its huge oven where Joscelyn baked his own bread. A dusty-faced boy was now raking the coal and wood from this into a tidy, white pile of ash. The bread would then be slipped in, the oven door sealed, and when the oven cooled, the bread would be baked. A curious place, Sir John reflected, at the heart of Southwark’s squalor, yet the ales and wine were always fresh and the food delicious. He glimpsed a table at the far end of the tavern with a huge silver nef or spice ship. Cranston scratched his head. So much new wealth. He idly wondered if Joscelyn had returned to his old ways and was engaged in some petty smuggling.

Athelstan studied Cranston out of the corner of his eye. Sir John’s temper had improved but Athelstan dreaded spending a day watching him guzzle one goblet of wine after another. The landlord waddled over.

‘My Lord Coroner, you are ready to order?’

Cranston gazed speculatively at the ceiling.

‘No fish!’ he barked. ‘Some pheasant or quail, cooked to a golden brown and stuffed with spices. I want the sauce thick. And some fresh bread!’

‘And the Reverend Father?’ Joscelyn asked sardonically.

‘The Reverend Father,’ Athelstan replied smoothly, ‘would like a bowl of thick leek soup, some bread, and a cup of wine with more water than claret.’

They waited until Joscelyn had walked away, roaring their order into the kitchen

‘Well, My Lord Coroner?’ Athelstan asked. ‘What has happened?’

Cranston outlined in sharp, succinct phrases the grisly events which had taken place earlier in the day. ‘I have also been to the Guildhall,’ he mournfully concluded. ‘The mayor told me in no uncertain terms how displeased His Grace the Regent Duke of Lancaster is at our lack of progress. Adam Horne was apparently a member of his retinue.’

‘And what was your reply?

‘I told him that I didn’t give a rat’s arse, and that I was doing the best I could.’

‘I suppose,’ the friar answered, ‘the mayor accepted your eloquent reply?’

Cranston slouched back against the wall. ‘Oh, we had a quarrel, but I have more sense than to seek a confrontation. I explained we had searched for Horne but could not find him.’ He glanced across at Athelstan, his face full of self-pity. ‘I must resolve the matter with the Lady Maude,’ he whispered. ‘It’s clouding my mind.’

Athelstan waited until the slattern had served them with goblets of wine.

‘Look, Sir John, let us take these events from the beginning.’ Athelstan raised a hand. ‘No, it is necessary. And, if you’ll accept my apologies, we must for the time being put the matter of Lady Maude to one side.’

Cranston nodded glumly.

‘Sir Ralph Whitton,’ Athelstan began, ‘received a warning that he was going to die because of a terrible act of betrayal committed in Outremer some years ago. I know,’ Athelstan quietly continued, ‘Sir Ralph was guilty of such an act. That’s why in the back of his Book of Hours, he scribbled those prayers to Julian the Hospitaller.

‘Who was he?’

‘A knight who committed terrible murders and spent his life in making reparation. Anyway,’ Athelstan continued, ‘Sir Ralph moves from his own chamber to the so-called security of the North Bastion tower. He is frightened and even refuses to take his Moorish servant, Rastani, with him. He drinks heavily the night before his death and retires to his bed chamber. What happened then?’ Athelstan asked, trying to draw Cranston from his own dark thoughts.

The coroner slurped noisily from his cup. ‘Well, my dear friar, according to all the evidence we have, Sir Ralph went to bed, and locked the door behind him, keeping the key with him. The door leading to the gallery on which his chamber stands was locked by the guards, whilst the other end of the passage is blocked by fallen masonry. The guards are on duty all night just inside the entrance to the North Bastion. They are both trusted men and the key to both the gallery door and another for Sir Ralph’s chamber hang on a hook beside them. We have established, on good authority, that neither sentry left his post nor did they see or hear anything untoward.

‘And now the murder?’ Athelstan prompted.

‘Young Geoffrey,’ Cranston continued, ‘whom Sir Ralph apparently doted upon, comes across early the next morning. The guards search him for weapons and open the door to the gallery. The same door is then locked, apparently on Sir Ralph’s orders, and Geoffrey goes to rouse him. The guards hear him knocking and shouting but then our young hero comes back. He announces his inability to arouse Sir Ralph, is about to return and unlock Whitton’s chamber himself, then changes his mind and goes for Colebrooke the lieutenant. They both return to Sir Ralph’s chamber and open it the room is undisturbed but Whitton is lying on his bed, his throat slashed, the corpse icy cold, and the shuttered windows wide open. That, my dear friar, is where our problem begins.’

‘Not if we accept our conclusion,’ Athelstan replied. ‘That someone crossed the frozen moat and, using the steps in the wall, climbed up to Sir Ralph’s chamber. The assassin prised open the lever on the shutters, entered and committed the crime. Nevertheless,’ he persisted, ‘our conclusion has its own problems. Why did Sir Ralph just lie there and allow his throat to be cut? He was a soldier, a warrior.’ The friar shook his head. ‘All we do know,’ he concluded, ‘is that the assassin must have been a member of the community at the Tower who knew Sir Ralph had changed his bed chamber, and he or she either committed the murder or hired a professional assassin to do it for them.’ Athelstan stared across at a group of dicers who sat playing noisily on the other side of the tavern.

‘And Sir Gerard Mowbray’s murder,’ Cranston observed, ‘is no clearer. Who rang the bell? How did Mowbray fall? Of course Horne’s murder,’ he continued, ‘was relatively easy. The assassin played upon his guilt and fear and probably lured the hapless man to his grisly death in that lonely place.’

‘Where did he die?’ Athelstan queried.

‘In the old ruins to the north of the Tower. And, before you ask, his murderer left no trace.’

‘And the suspects?’ Athelstan asked wearily. He leaned across and tapped Sir John on the arm. ‘Come on, My Lord Coroner, apply that sharp brain of yours!’