Paul Doherty - The White Rose murders

'Yes and no!' Benjamin joked back. 'However, the game is not yet over and, if you'll accept my apologies, we still cannot discern friend from foe.'

That enigmatic little magician ignored this possible insult and deftly turned the conversation to other matters. We stayed one night in Dover, then travelled across a frost-hardened countryside back to London. Only God knows how he knew but Agrippa insisted we arm ourselves. He also warned us that, once we were back in London, we were to be careful where we went, to whom we talked and what we ate and drank.

His warnings proved prophetic. We were on a lonely stretch of road just outside London: it was late in the afternoon, darkness was about to fall and we were arguing about whether we should hurry on to the city or stay at some roadside tavern for the night. Our assailants, muffled and cloaked, seemed to rise out of the ground, running swiftly towards us, armed with dagger and sword. Now, in the ladies' romances, such encounters are full of brave oaths and heroic stances. However, I consider myself an expert in the art of assassination and murder and, I tell you this, violent death always comes quietly.

One minute we were riding our horses, the next we were surrounded by five villains intent on murder. Benjamin and Agrippa drew their hangers and set to with a will, the eerie silence of that lonely road shattered by grunts, muttered oaths and the scraping clash of steel. I drew my own sword, shouting defiance and encouragement to the rest. But, oh, Lord, I was frightened! These were not your ordinary footpads, they would never attack three well-armed, mounted travellers. Oh, no, these were assassins, despatched by the arch murderer we were hunting.

'Roger!' Benjamin shouted. 'For God's sake, man!'

Now I had been hanging back, attempting to develop some strategy.

[No, that's a he! My chaplain's right, I was petrified. Now you talk to any coward, a real coward like myself, and he'll tell you there's a point where fear becomes so great it actually turns into courage, not out of anger or fury but that marvellous innate desire to save your own skin. On that London road I reached such a point.]

Two assailants were pressing Agrippa whilst the other three had apparently forgotten me and were intent on bringing my master down. I closed my eyes and spurred my horse forward, my huge sword rising and falling as if I was the Grim Reaper himself. It's a wonder I didn't kill Benjamin but, when I opened my eyes, two of the rogues were dead of huge gashes between shoulder and neck whilst Benjamin was on the point of driving his sword straight through the breast of a third. Agrippa, his fat face covered in sweat, had already despatched one but now had lost his sword and kept turning his horse sharply to counter his final opponent. I waited until the fellow turned his back, charged and felt my sword sink deep into his exposed shoulder. The fellow whirled and, as he did so, Agrippa finished him off, plunging his dagger firmly into the man's back.

Death is so strange: one minute noise, blood, screaming and retching; the next, a terrible silence. You old soldiers who read my memoirs will realise I speak the truth. So it was on that fog-bound, lonely London road. Benjamin and Agrippa, chests heaving, cleaned their weapons. I sat like a Hector until I suddenly remembered my stomach and began noisily to vomit. Nevertheless, both my master and Agrippa were loud in their praise of my martial prowess. Naturally, I can resist anything but flattery and lapped it up like a hungry cat does milk. Of course, I glimpsed the wry amusement in Agrippa's eyes but Benjamin looked at me oddly.

'You're a strange one, Shallot,' he murmured. 'I'll never understand you.'

I dismounted and searched the corpses. I found nothing noteworthy except on one, possibly the leader, who had a considerable amount of silver which I pocketed for distribution to the poor. We then continued our journey, pushing on until we reached the city walls and lodged at one of the fine taverns on the Southwark side of the river. Oh, it was good to be back in London! To see and smell the greasy rags of the poor; the silk-slashed, perfumed doublets, velvet hose and precious buckled shoes of the rich. The pompous little beadles; dark-gowned priests; the lawyers from Westminster Hall with their fur tippets; and, of course, my favourites, the ladies of the night, with their hair piled high, low-cut dresses and heels which clicked along the cobbles. A bear had broken loose amongst the stews; a whore was being whipped outside the gates of St Thomas's Hospital; two butchers who had sold putrid meat were riding back to back on some old nag, their hands tied behind them, the rotten offal they had sold fastened tightly under their noses.

[Ben Jonson is right, London is a wondrous city! Within its walls you can see the whole spectrum of human behaviour: the splendour of the rich moving through the streets on damask-caparisoned palfreys and the bare-arsed poor who would slit your throat for a crust of bread.]

Strangely, Benjamin did not wish to visit his uncle who was wintering at the Bishop of Ely's inn just north of Holborn. He insisted we went direct to the Tower. We took the route through Cheapside because the Thames was frozen from bank to bank, past the mansions of the rich, the stalls full of fripperies, the mouldering Eleanor Cross and the great Conduit which was supposed to bring fresh water into the city. I say 'supposed to' for it had been frozen over and, beneath the ice, I glimpsed the scrawny corpse of a dead dog. The city was just recovering from one of the usual bouts of plague which come in late winter; its citizens, however, sensed the worst was over and the streets buzzed like an overturned hive. We reached the Tower through Poor Jewry, passing the house of the Crutched Friars and then through a postern gate which stands near Hog Street. Benjamin and Agrippa had fallen strangely silent.

Only as we entered the Tower did Benjamin lean over and whisper, 'Roger, pretend we discovered nothing. Keep your thoughts hidden and your counsel concealed until we find the truth about this party of knaves.'

Benjamin's 'party of knaves' had re-established themselves in the Tower waiting for spring to dry out the roads so they could travel north. Sir Robert Catesby greeted Agrippa warmly, taking him aside for secret consultations whilst ignoring Benjamin and me. At last I grew tired of such rudeness. The grooms had taken away our horses and I did not wish to stand like a servant on the freezing forecourt of the tower.

'Doctor Agrippa!' I called out. 'What is the matter?'

He apologised and walked back to us arm-in-arm with Catesby, who now gracefully bowed to both of us.

'Welcome back, Master Benjamin, Shallot. I apologise for any offence given but there has been another death, though one which may resolve the mysteries which have plagued us.'

'Moodie's dead!' Agrippa flatly announced. 'Not murder this time,' he added quickly. 'He died the Roman way.'

Benjamin cocked his head quizzically.

'He killed himself,' Catesby declared. 'Asked for a bowl of warm water from the kitchen, locked his chamber and slashed his wrist.' 'When was this?' I asked.

'Yester evening. His body was not found until late at night.'

I stared up at the grey sky and the black ravens which circled above the battlements like the souls of men condemned to wander the earth forever.

'You said his death may resolve the mysteries?' Benjamin abruptly asked.

I stamped my feet on the cobbles as a sign that I was freezing. Catesby took my point, smiled, and led us up to his own warm, spacious chamber in the Lion Tower. He served us mulled wine sprinkled with cinnamon and heated with a red hot poker and then emptied the contents of a saddle bag on to the table; it contained a few faded white rose petals and pieces of parchment. The latter were passed around for us to examine. Most were notes, drafts of letters or memoranda concerning secret Yorkist plans as well as proclamations written anonymously to be nailed on the doors of churches up and down the kingdom. They were full of the usual childish nonsense about the Tudors being usurpers and that the crown, by right and divine favour, should go to the House of York – in reality a pathetic bundle of faded dreams and failed aspirations. Agrippa studied them with a smile. Benjamin just dismissed them, tossing the documents back on to the table.