Paul Doherty - The White Rose murders

[Ever since Montfaucon I have always dreaded executions. I mean, sometimes, as Lord of the Manor, I have to order one but my court is well known for its leniency. Of course, I pay the price. At night my fields are more alive with poachers than rabbits. I will grant the most hardened criminal a reprieve rather than see him hang. The chaplain is nodding his little, bald head. Of course, the idiot now understands the reason for my mercy. He probably thought I had a soft heart. Well, he learns something every day, including why I can never bear anything tight round my throat. Even the touch of smoothest silk reawakens the horrors of my journey to Montfaucon.]

Anyway, back to Le Coq d'Or where I lay on the truckle bed and drifted off to sleep.

When I awoke Benjamin was leaning over me, his eyes bright in a face more pallid than usual.

'Roger, I have returned.'

'Of course, you have, you bloody idiot! Just in time!' I snarled. 'Where in Hell's name have you been?'

Benjamin sat on the stool next to my bed and wiped the sweat from his face. He looked paler and thinner.

'I'm sorry, Roger,' he mumbled. 'It's a long story. I went to Kelso in Scotland.' He looked away, lost in his memories. 'A lonely monastery surrounded by a sea of dark purple heather and deserted, haunted moors. A grey-slated, dark-stoned building.' He smiled thinly. 'Oh, I was safe enough. Agrippa gave me a safe conduct and the Lord d'Aubigny arranged for moss troopers to guard my every step.'

'What did you find?' I asked crossly.

Benjamin rubbed his eyes on the back of his hand. 'Nothing,' he replied. 'Nothing at all. Many Scots fled to Kelso after Flodden, but you know something, Roger? No one could remember a single event from those stormy days.' He furrowed his brow. 'Even stranger, the prior, the sub-prior, all the officials of that monastery, had been changed. Some had died in rather mysterious circumstances, others been sent abroad on this task or the other. The rest,' he shrugged, 'were as silent as the grave. Only one old lay brother, a hoary old man, mumbled about the abbey being the dark pit for the evil deeds of the Great Ones of the land.'

He sighed. 'Then I came south to Royston but Queen Margaret and her party had already returned to London to collect all their possessions so I followed in hot pursuit. I visited the Lord Cardinal at the Palace of Sheen. He already knew about our mission to Nottingham being successful and welcomed my visit to Kelso and your journey to Paris.' Benjamin took a deep breath. 'Then I fell ill. At first I thought it was some ague but it proved to the Sweating Sickness. Uncle sent me to St Bartholomew's and Agrippa brought an old lady who fed me on a concoction of crushed moss mixed with the leavings of sour milk. The fever broke but I was weak.' He patted me gently on the shoulder. 'The Lord Cardinal sent an envoy but the fellow was ambushed, apparently killed by robbers outside Dover.'

'I don't think so,' I tartly retorted. 'He was killed by assassins just like the bastards nearly murdered me at Le Coq d'Or!'

'What do you mean?' Benjamin asked.

I told him my story in sharp, succinct phrases. Benjamin listened carefully.

'I'm sorry,' he apologised. 'I have been in Paris a week. The landlord here swears he knew nothing of you.'

'He's a liar!' I interrupted.

'He may well be. Anyway, I went to the Provost of Paris. I invoked all the Lord Cardinal's power to organise a search for you. Actually, the pardon was issued last night.' He grimaced. 'But you know officials.'

'Yes, I do!' I snarled. 'Only too well. The bastards had me hanged!'

Benjamin bit his lip. 'I agree with you, Roger, but your troubles began with that piece of red silk. It was the signal for your murder. Undoubtedly the demon who dogs our footsteps has agents in Paris.'

'That may well be so,' I answered, 'but Moodie gave me the cloth, so he must be the assassin.'

[Ah, there goes my chaplain again, jumping up and down on his stool. 'I told you! I told you!' he cries. I just tell him to shut up and give him a sharp rap across the knuckles. The little turd doesn't know what he's talking about.]

'Tell me,' Benjamin continued, 'you say the silk had a fragrance. Did you recognise it? Was it like this?'

He undid the neck of a small pouch and held it under my nose. I sniffed. It was the same fragrance I had noticed around Madame Eglantine's gift. 'Yes. What is it?'

Benjamin smiled and spilled the faded white rose petals which fell soft as snowflakes to the floor.

'Les Blancs Sangliers!' I murmured. 'Moodie must be one of them. He killed Selkirk, Ruthven and Irvine, though God knows why or how.'

Benjamin shook his head. 'No, it's more subtle than that.' He looked at me quizzically. 'What are you smiling at, Roger?' The anxiety drained from his face. 'You know something, don't you?'

I grinned.

' "The truth Now Stands In the Sacred Hands of the place which owns Dionysius' bones!" '

'You know what it means?' Benjamin whispered.

'Oh, yes, and it's not far from where we're sitting. Dionysius is not some Greek god!' I cried, forgetting the bruise which racked my neck and the heavy fatigue which still held my limbs in a vice-like grip. 'He's St Denis, the Roman martyr beheaded on Montmartre Hill, who carried his head, so legend says, to where the Abbey of St Denis now stands.'

Benjamin got up, kicking over the stool behind him in his excitement.

'Of course!' he breathed. 'Dionysius is Latin for Denis. The monks there must have Selkirk's secret!'

I swung my legs off the bed. 'Yes, we'll find it there in a battered casket.'

Benjamin looked at me suspiciously. 'Why didn't you go to St Denis yourself?'

I rubbed the weal where the rope had chafed my neck. 'Oh, yes,' I replied sarcastically. 'An English beggar dressed in tatters swaggers up to the abbey gates, asks for a casket to be handed over, and the monks cheerfully comply.'

Benjamin grinned. 'They will now!' He tossed a bundle of clean clothes at me. 'These will not make you a courtier, Roger, but at least you won't be a beggar!'

'I'm tired,' I moaned. 'My neck still hurts. I want food, wine, proof that I'm still alive.'

Benjamin crouched down beside me, his long, dark face drawn with anxiety. 'Roger,' he insisted, 'we must hurry. Time is important. No doubt the murderer already tracks our footsteps, and we must resolve this mystery before Queen Margaret leaves for Scotland. We have to go to St Denis, find Selkirk's secret and return to England as soon as possible.'

I nodded glumly.

Benjamin brought a fresh cup of wine and a bowl of greasy soup. I ate, gulping like a dog, and then changed my clothes. The evil turd of a landlord, a vacuous smile on his slack face, came up to enquire after my health. I grinned wickedly back and told Benjamin to wait for me in the street outside. I made my preparations and joined him as quickly as I could. We walked up the beaten trackway, slipping and cursing on the icy ground underfoot. Behind me, the candle I had so carefully placed in the dry straw in the garret of Le Coq d'Or kindled into life and the flames turned the evil tavern into a blazing inferno. Oh, yes, revenge is never so sweet as when it's deserved.

Although I had escaped from Montfaucon, the ice cold day soon curbed my elation. The city was still held fast by winter and the journey was cruel and hard. I ached from head to toe and the wound in my throat, inflamed by the cold, created a circle of pain around my neck and shoulders.

We passed the gallows, the corpses of the less fortunate now freezing hard at the end of their ropes, then through the gateway of the city and towards the Abbey of St Denis. God knows, it's an awesome, inspiring place; soaring gables of stone, grinning gargoyles, huge windows full of coloured glass, towers which pierce the sky and fretted stonework with a carving on every cornice, turret and pillar. St Denis is the royal mausoleum of France where the white alabaster tombs of the kings lie in quiet hope of Christ's Second Coming. A strange place, cold and sombre. The abbey is a veritable city in itself; its granges, buildings and outhouses sprawl across the countryside, circled by a huge curtain wall which is guarded by soldiers wearing the livery of the royal household. Of course, alone I would have been turned away. Benjamin, however, with his fluent grasp of French and armed with the personal recommendation of the Lord Cardinal of England, soon gained admittance. An austere prior welcomed us into his chamber and listened carefully to Benjamin's request.