Paul Doherty - House of the Red Slayer

The Moor just stared back, his eyes never flickered.

‘It’s true!’ Fitzormonde intervened. ‘It was over the Moor that the bad blood first surfaced between Burghgesh and Whitton.’

Fulke slumped back on the bench. ‘I’ve said enough,’ he snarled. ‘But I’m tired of these questions. Mistress Philippa, your father was a bastard and no one here will gainsay me.’

Cranston and Athelstan just stood amazed at this sudden outburst of hatred and animosity. Good Lord, Athelstan thought, anyone here could be Sir Ralph’s murderer. Burghgesh had been well loved. Did someone in this room believe he was God’s executioner to avenge a good man’s death? Athelstan looked around.

‘Master Parchmeiner will not be here today?’ he asked, taking advantage of the sudden lull.

‘No,’ Sir Fulke replied wearily. ‘For pity’s sake, Father, who would want to stay here? So many memories, so much hatred.’

Mistress Philippa sat huddled on one of the benches, her face in her hands. Sir Fulke went over to her and patted her gently on the shoulder. Cranston caught a smirk on Rastani’s face. Was he the murderer? the coroner wondered. He recalled Athelstan’s words, how the slayer of Adam Horne used a method practised in Moorish countries to desecrate the body of a criminal and traitor.

‘We have seen enough,’ Athelstan whispered. ‘We should go.’

‘Just one more thing,’ Cranston announced. ‘You knew Adam Horne the merchant?’

‘Another bastard!’ Sir Fulke hissed. ‘Yes, yes, Sir John. Horne was my brother’s friend.’

‘Well, he’s dead!’ Cranston proclaimed flatly. ‘Found murdered last night in the ruins just north of here.’

Fitzormonde swore quietly. The others looked up in alarm.

‘I wonder where you all were?’ Cranston asked.

‘Hell’s teeth, Sir John!’ Colebrooke snapped. ‘Now the thaw’s come, anyone could slip in and out of a postern gate.’

Cranston smiled wanly. The lieutenant was right: it would be nigh impossible to make everyone account for their movements. Horne could have been murdered any time between dusk and dawn.

‘Come, Sir John,’ Athelstan murmured.

They took their leave unceremoniously, Cranston waving Colebrooke aside. They hardly spoke a word until they had collected their horses and left the Tower, going up towards Eastcheap.

‘Oh, Lord save us!’ Cranston suddenly broke the silence. ‘What hatred exists in the human heart, eh, Brother?’

‘Aye,’ Athelstan replied, gently guiding Philomel away from the snow-covered sewer which ran down the middle of the street. ‘Perhaps we should all remember that, Sir John. Minor jealousies and misunderstandings can fan the petty flames of bickering into the roaring fires of hatred.

Cranston glanced at Athelstan out of the corner of his eye and smiled at the barbed reminder what was true of Fulke and others in the Tower was also true of his relationship with the Lady Maude.

‘Where to now, Brother?’ he asked.

‘To Master Parchmeiner’s shop opposite Chancellor’s Inn near St Paul’s.’

‘Why?’ Cranston asked.

‘Because, my dear Cranston, he was not present with the rest in the Tower and we must interrogate everyone.’

They rode up Candlewick Street and into Trinity, a prosperous part of the city Athelstan rarely frequented. The houses were spacious and grand; their lower storeys were built of solid timber, the projecting gables above were a framework of black beams and white plaster. The roofs were tiled, unlike the houses of many of Athelstan’s parishioners who had to be content with reeds and straw. Many of the windows had pure glass and were protected by wood and iron. Servants from these houses regularly flushed out the sewers with the water they used to wash clothes so the streets did not reek as they did in Southwark. Before several of the imposing entrances stood armed retainers wearing the gaudy escutcheons of their patrons: bears, swans, wyverns, dragons, lions, and even stranger beasts. Stocky, well-fed merchants walked arm-in-arm with their plump wives, clad in garments of silk and satin, decorated with miniature pearls of exquisite delicacy. Two canons swaggered by from the cathedral, clad in thick woollen robes lined with miniver. A group of lawyers in gowns of red, violet and scarlet, trimmed with lambswool, sauntered arrogantly by, their cloaks pulled back to display decorated, low-slung girdles.

Pigs wandered here with bells slung round their necks to show they were the property of the Hospital of St Anthony and couldn’t be slaughtered. Beadles armed with steel-pointed staffs dispersed fowl or curbed the yapping of fierce yellow-haired dogs, whilst bailiffs tried to move on a strange creature dressed like a magpie in black and white rags. The fellow loudly claimed he had in his battered, leather coffer some of the most marvellous relics of Christendom: ‘One of Charlemagne’s teeth!’ he yelled. ‘Two legs of the donkey that carried Mary! The skull of Herod’s servant and some of the stones Christ turned into bread!’

Athelstan stopped and restrained the beadles who were harassing the poor fellow.

‘You say you have one of the stones Christ turned into a loaf of bread?’ the friar queried, trying hard to hide his laughter.

‘Yes, Brother.’ The relic-seller’s eyes brightened at the prospect of profit.

‘But Christ didn’t change stones into bread. The devil asked him to but Christ refused.’

Cranston, also grinning, drew close to watch the charlatan’s reaction. The relic-seller licked dry lips.

‘Of course, he did, Brother,’ he replied in a half-whisper. ‘I have it on good authority that when Satan left, Christ did it but then changed them back to show he would not be tempted to eat. It will only cost you a penny.’

Athelstan dipped into his purse and drew out a coin.

‘Here.’ He pressed it into the fellow’s grimy paw. ‘This is not for your stone. Keep it. It’s your ingenuity I am rewarding.’

The man gaped, open-mouthed, and Athelstan and Cranston walked on, quietly laughing at the relic-seller’s quick response. They passed the Littlegate of St Paul’s where a lay brother was feeding a group of lepers with mouldy bread and rancid pork slices, as laid down by the city fathers who judged such food actually helped them. Cranston glared across in disgust.

‘Do you really think it does?’ he asked Athelstan abruptly.

‘What, Sir John?’

‘Such food, does it really help lepers?’

Athelstan gazed at the grey cowled figures with their staffs and bowls for alms. ‘I don’t know,’ he murmured. ‘Perhaps.’

The lepers made him think about the two who lurked in the cemetery of St Erconwald. A memory stirred but he could not place it so pushed the matter to one side. They turned into an alleyway off Friday Street and Cranston began to bellow at passersby for the whereabouts of Parchmeiner’s shop. They found it on the corner of Bread Street a narrow, two-storeyed tenement with a shop below and living quarters above. There was a stall in front but because of the inclement weather this was now bare so they opened the door and went inside. Athelstan immediately closed his eyes and sniffed the sweet odour of fresh scrubbed parchment and vellum. The smell reminded him vividly of the well-stocked library and quiet chancery of his novice days at Blackfriars. The shop itself was a small, white-washed room with shelves along the walls stacked with sheets of parchment, ink horns, pumice stones, quills, and everything else one would need in a library or chancery.

Geoffrey himself was sitting at a small desk. He smiled and rose to greet them.

‘Sir John!’ he cried. ‘Brother Athelstan, you are most welcome!’ He went into the darkness beyond to bring back two stools. ‘Please sit. Do you want some wine?’