Paul Doherty - House of the Red Slayer

‘I am Gilbert Colebrooke, the lieutenant. Sir John, you are most welcome.’ His bleary eyes swung to Athelstan.

‘My clerk,’ Cranston blandly announced. The coroner nodded to the group round the fire. ‘The constable’s household, I suspect?’

‘Yes,’ Colebrooke snapped.

‘Well, man, introduce us!’

As they moved across, the people crouching on stools near the fire rose to greet them. Introductions were made, and inevitably Cranston immediately dominated the proceedings. As usual Athelstan hung back, studying the people he would soon interrogate. He would dig out their secrets, perhaps even reveal scandals best left hidden. First the chaplain, Master William Hammond, thin and sombre in his dark black robes. He moved with a birdlike stoop, his face sallow with an unhealthy colour, balding head covered with greasy grey wisps of hair. A bitter man, Athelstan concluded, with a nose as sharp as a dagger point, small black eyes and lips thin as a miser’s purse.

On the chaplain’s right stood Sir Fulke Whitton, the dead man’s brother, sleek and fat, with a pleasant face and corn-coloured hair. His handshake was firm and he man curved his considerable girth with the grace and speed of an athlete.

Beside him was the dead constable’s daughter, Philippa. No great beauty, she was broad-featured, with pleasant brown eyes and neat auburn hair. She was rather plump and reminded Athelstan of an over-fed capon. Next to her stood, or rather swayed, her betrothed, Geoffrey Parchmeiner, hair black as night though oiled and dressed like that of a woman. He seemed a pleasant enough fellow, strong-featured though his smooth-shaven face was slightly flushed with the blood-red claret he slopped around in a deep-bowled goblet A merry fellow, Athelstan thought, and gazed with amusement at Geoffrey’s tight hose and protuberant codpiece: the shin beneath the tawny cloak dripped with frills under the sarcenet doublet, and the toes of the shoes were so long and pointed they were tied up by a scarlet cord wound around the knees. God knows how he walks on ice, Athelstan thought. He recognized the type — a young man who aped the dandies of the court. A parchment seller with a shop in some London street, Geoffrey would have the money to act like a courtier.

The two hospitaller knights whom Cranston had mentioned, Sir Gerard Mowbray and Sir Brian Fitzormonde, could have been brothers, each dressed in the grey garb of their Order, cloaks emblazoned with broad white pointed crosses. Athelstan knew the fearsome reputation of these knight monks and had on occasion even acted as confessor at their stronghold in Clerkenwell. Both Gerard and Brian were middle-aged, and every inch soldiers with their neat clipped beards, sharp eyes and close-cropped hair. They moved like cats, men conscious of their own prowess. Warriors, Athelstan mused, men who would kill if they thought the cause just.

Between them stood a lithe-figured dark man, his hair and beard liberally oiled. He was dressed in blue loose-fitting trousers and a heavy military cloak over his doublet. His eyes moved constantly and he watched Cranston and Athelstan as if they were enemies. The coroner barked a question at him but the fellow just looked dumbly back, opened his mouth and pointed with his finger. Athelstan looked away in pity from the black space where the man’s tongue should have been.

‘Rastani is a mute.’ The girl, Philippa, spoke up, her voice surprisingly deep and husky. ‘He was a Muslim, though now converted to our faith. He is…’ She bit her lip. ‘He was my father’s servant.’ Her eyes filled with tears and she clutched the arm of her betrothed, though the young man was more unsteady on his feet than she.

Once the introductions were made Colebrook shouted for more stools and, catching the greedy gaze of Sir John directed towards the young man’s wine cup, goblets of hot posset. Cranston and Athelstan sat in the middle of the group. Sir John had no inhibitions but threw back his cloak, stretched out his log-like legs and travelled in the warmth from the fire. The posset he drained in one gulp, held out his cup to be refilled and slurped noisily from it, smacking his lips and staring around as if all his companions were close bosom friends. Athelstan muttered a silent prayer, as he rearranged the writing tray on his lap, that the good Lord would keep Cranston both sober and awake. Geoffrey sniggered whilst the two knights stared in utter disbelief.

‘You are the King’s Coroner?’ Sir Fulke loudly asked.

‘Yes, he is,’ Athelstan intervened. ‘And Sir John is not always as he appears.’

Cranston smacked his lips again.

‘No, no, I am not,’ he murmured. ‘And I suspect the same is true of everyone here. Always remember a useful dictum: every man born of woman is three persons; what he appears to be, what he claims to be and,’ he beamed round, ‘what he really is.’ He grinned lecherously at Philippa. ‘The same is true of the fairer sex.’ He suddenly remembered Maude and the thought sobered him quicker than a douche of cold water. ‘The same,’ he continued crossly, ‘is true of the murderer of Sir Ralph Whitton, Constable of this Tower.’

‘You suspect someone here?’ Sir Fulke said, his face now drained of good humour.

‘Yes, I do!’ Cranston snapped.

‘That’s an insult!’ the chaplain blurted out. ‘My Lord Coroner, you are in your cups! You swagger in here, you know us not…’

Athelstan placed his hand on the coroner’s arm. He sensed Sir John was in a dangerous mood and noticed how the hospital had both opened their cloaks to display the daggers hooked in their belts. Cranston heeded the warning.

‘I make no accusations,’ he replied softly. ‘But it usually transpires that murder, like charity, begins at home.’

‘We face three problems,’ Athelstan diplomatically intervened. ‘Who killed Sir Ralph, why, and how?’

The lieutenant made a rude sound with his tongue. Cranston leaned forward.

‘You wish to say something, sir?’

‘Yes, I do. Sir Ralph could have been killed by any rebel from London, by a peasant from the hundreds of villages around us, or by some secret assassin sent in to perform the ghastly deed.’

Cranston nodded and smiled at him.

‘Perhaps,’ he replied sweetly, ‘but I shall return to your theory later. In the meantime, none of you will leave the Tower.’ He looked around the sombre hall. ‘After I have viewed the corpse, I wish to see all of you, though in more suitable surroundings.’

The lieutenant agreed. ‘St John’s Chapel in the White Tower,’ he announced. ‘It is warm, secure, and affords some privacy.’

‘Good! Good!’ Cranston replied. He smiled falsely at the group. ‘In a while, I shall see you all there. Now I wish to inspect Sir Ralph’s body.’

‘In the North Bastion,’ Colebrooke retorted and, rising abruptly, led them out of the hall.

Sir John swayed like a galleon behind him whilst Athelstan hastily packed pen, inkhorn and parchment. The friar was pleased; he had names, first impressions, and Cranston had played his usual favourite trick of alienating everyone. The coroner was as crafty as a fox.

‘If you handle suspects roughly,’ he had once proclaimed, ‘they are less likely to waste time on lies. And, as you know, Brother, most murderers are liars.’

Colebrook waited at the bottom of the steps of the great hall and silently led them past the soaring White Tower which shimmered in the thick snow packed around its base, traces of frost and slush on every shelf, cornice and windowsill. Athelstan stopped and looked up.

‘Magnificent!’ he murmured. ‘How great are the works of man!’

‘And how terrible,’ Cranston added.

They both stood for a few seconds admiring the sheer white stone of the great tower. They were about to move on when a door at the foot of the keep, built under a flight of outside steps, was flung open. A fantastical hunchbacked creature with a shock of white hair appeared before them. For a moment, he stood as if frozen. His face was pallid, his body covered in a gaudy mass of dirty rags with oversized boots on his feet. Finally he scampered towards them on all fours like a dog, sending flurries of snow flying up on either side. The lieutenant cursed and turned away.