Paul Doherty - House of the Red Slayer

‘He is here?’ Geoffrey shouted. ‘Bartholomew’s body is here?’ Parchmeiner suddenly went limp. ‘Oh, God!’ he whispered. ‘If only I had known!’

Athelstan crossed to his side. All the hatred and arrogance in the assassin’s face had now fled and the friar felt a twinge of compassion at the tears brimming in the young man’s eyes.

‘Who are you?’ Athelstan whispered. ‘Tell me! You have my promise, you will see Bartholomew’s last resting place.’

Parchmeiner looked down at the floor. ‘Burghgesh was not my father,’ he replied in a faraway voice. ‘But I wish to God he had been. I was on the same ship as him when it was taken. I was only an orphan so I clung to Sir Bartholomew.’ Geoffrey smiled faintly. ‘He protected me,’ he whispered. ‘He put me behind him and fought like a paladin until the Moors promised both of us our lives if he surrendered.’ The young man looked up and blinked. ‘They kept their word but Bartholomew was beaten with the bastinado until the soles of his feet turned to raw flesh. Then we were sold as slaves to a merchant in Alexandria. Sir Bartholomew tended the garden and I was put to work in the scriptorium, curing and storing parchment. The years passed. Sir Bartholomew never gave up hope. He looked after me, treated me as a son, protected me against those who would have preferred to treat me like a woman. One night Bartholomew cut our master’s throat and rifled his treasure room. We fled across the desert to Damietta, bribed a merchant and took ship to Cyprus, thence to Genoa and across Europe to Southampton.’

‘How long ago was this?’

‘Three years ago. Sir Bartholomew had told me about Whitton and the treasure but,’ the young man’s voice almost broke, ‘my master was good and true. He still couldn’t accept that his comrades — ’ the words were spat out ‘- his comrades had betrayed him!’ The young man shook his head, mouthing oaths quietly to himself. ‘We travelled to London. Sir Bartholomew still had the treasure he had stolen from the merchant in Alexandria, gold and silver coins, so we lived like lords in a tavern near Barbican Street.’ Geoffrey now stared at Athelstan. ‘Can you believe that, Brother? He wouldn’t accept he had been betrayed. He left me in the tavern and went to Woodforde, but returned disconsolate. His wife and son were both dead and the manor house in disrepair. We stayed for a while until Sir Bartholomew said his comrades would meet as planned near the Tower every Advent before Christmas.’ The young man licked his lips. ‘Sir Bartholomew made enquiries as to what had happened to each of his comrades. Two were hospitallers, one a merchant.’ Geoffrey laughed. ‘Sir Bartholomew, God bless him, was even pleased to hear that Whitton was now Constable of the Tower and told me all about this fortress, every nook and cranny.’

The murderer stirred restlessly between his captors, now lost in his own memories. ‘Bartholomew went to meet Whitton. He said he would find out the truth, whatever it cost.’ The young man made a grimace. ‘But he didn’t return and my own suspicions were proved correct. Whitton, who had betrayed him fifteen years ago, had now used his position to have Bartholomew killed.’ He glared at Athelstan. ‘I am glad I killed them! I gave them fair warning. I used the same sign Bartholomew always shared with me in our captivity — the three-masted ship which brought us together.’

‘And me?’ Philippa cried. ‘What about me?’

‘What about you?’

‘Didn’t you love me?’

The young man laughed. ‘You need a heart to love, Philippa. I have no heart, no soul. Bartholomew was my life.’ He dismissed the girl with a contemptuous glance. ‘I used you,’ he continued, ignoring her loud sobbing. ‘I took Bartholomew’s gold to plot Whitton’s downfall. I knew about manuscripts and vellum so I became Geoffrey Parchmeiner. Oh, by the way, Geoffrey is my Christian name. Geoffrey Burghgesh, you can call me. I sold the best parchment for a pittance to the Tower. I became friendly with the constable’s daughter and wheedled my way into her affections.’ The murderer smiled to himself.

‘You studied the constable? His movements? His moods?’

‘Oh, yes, Brother. I knew that each Advent he and the other murderers met to feast and glory in their sin. I became what he wanted me to be — a rich young merchant besotted with his rather plain daughter. You see, Brother, if you spend your youth as a prisoner of the Moors, you learn how to act. You have to in order to survive.’

‘Why now?’ Cranston barked. ‘Why not a year ago?’

The young man shook his head. ‘Sir John, I had to plan. I had to study my quarry, and when the Thames froze over I struck. Oh, I enjoyed it I would have been successful if it hadn’t been for you, Brother. I sent Horne’s head to Sir John to show justice had been done.’

The young man grinned at Cranston as if relating a good story, and Athelstan realised for the first time that Geoffrey’s mind was disturbed.

‘Of course,’ he continued, ‘my scheme might have gone awry, but if so I would have plotted something else. After all, there’s more than one road to Hell. And I waited because revenge, as you can all appreciate, is a dish best served cold.’

‘You bastard!’ Sir Fulke shouted.

‘A limb of Satan!’ Hammond cried.

‘Perhaps,’ Parchmeiner retorted. ‘But they all deserved to die.’

‘No, they didn’t,’ Athelstan said quietly. ‘They did wrong but at least two of them were genuinely sorry. You could have brought an appeal against them at King’s Bench. The very accusation would have destroyed Sir Ralph.’

‘I am God’s judgment!’ Parchmeiner yelled, glaring round the room. ‘I am their doom! Horne knew that when he saw me dressed in armour similar to that Sir Bartholomew had worn.’ He turned and spat in Sir Fulke’s direction. ‘God damn you and all your family. I even took the buckle from your shoe and left it on the ice. It would have been a nice twist, eh? To be hanged for the murder of your own brother?’

Sir Fulke turned his back.

‘The rest was so easy,’ Geoffrey continued. ‘The letters were sent. Sir Ralph moved to the North Bastion. I oiled both the hinges and lock of the chamber door, and hid a dagger in the rubble in the passageway. I changed the keys when I helped the drunken bastard to his last resting place.’

‘And the rest?’ Athelstan asked.

‘Oh, Mowbray was easy, sulking in the darkness. I’d been up to the parapet before and he’d never noticed. I did place an arbalest in the corridor and hit the tocsin bell then threw it down the sewer hole.’ Geoffrey giggled. ‘Horne was a victim of his own fears, a veritable fool, and I did warn Fitzormonde about that bear.’ The assassin bit his lip. ‘I could have killed them by other means but, once Whitton accepted me, the game had to be played.’

Cranston walked up to face him. ‘Geoffrey Parchmeiner,’ he intoned, ‘also known as Burghgesh, I arrest you for murder. You will be taken to Newgate prison and, at a fixed time, answer for your terrible crimes in the court of King’s Bench.’ He looked round and nodded at Colebrooke. ‘Take him away.’

‘I want to see Bartholomew’s last resting place!’

‘Yes, you may,’ Athelstan replied. ‘Master Lieutenant, let him look at what we discovered this morning, but bind him well!’

The murderer threw one ferocious look at Fulke before Colebrooke and his soldiers hustled him out of the door. Athelstan sighed and looked round.

‘Sir Fulke, Mistress Philippa, I am sorry.’

Philippa buried her face in her uncle’s shoulder and silently wept. Sir Fulke just looked away.

‘Sir John,’ Athelstan said, ‘we are finished here.’ He put his writing implements back into the canvas bag, bowed to Sir Fulke and followed Sir John down the now darkening steps.