Paul Doherty - The White Rose murders

'So glad to see you, Shallot,' he purred. 'Another errand, another failure, eh?'

Benjamin nudged me with his knee so I looked away. Scawsby leaned closer and I wrinkled my nose at his sour breath.

'You are a base-born rogue, Shallot!' he hissed. 'If I had my way you would be buried like your mother in a pauper's grave!'

Benjamin seized my wrist before I could grasp my knife.

'Come, Roger!' he murmured. 'We have eaten our fill.'

He dragged me away for I could have killed Scawsby on the spot and anyone else who tried to interfere. Outside the hall, I turned to Benjamin.

'You should have let me kill him!' I accused.

'No, no, Roger, they are full of wine and their own importance. They think the game is over and we are to be whipped off like hounds, back to Uncle.'

'If you could prove Scawsby was the murderer!' I hissed. 'After all, he knows poisons.'

Benjamin looked away. 'Scawsby,' he murmured, 'is he the murderer or just a spiteful man who rejoices in the humiliation of others? But I tell you this, Roger, Moodie was innocent of any crime. He no more committed suicide than Selkirk or Ruthven!'

My master still refused to share his thoughts. He spent the next day closeted in our chamber studying the manuscripts we had brought from Paris. I grew restless and said I would leave, so Benjamin warned me to be careful and stay well away from Queen Margaret's household. I left the Tower and went to the area known as Petty Wales, a maze of alleyways and streets which stretches down towards the Wool Quay. It was a cold day, late in February; a troupe of gypsies, Egyptians or 'Moon People', as the country folk call them, were holding one of their fairs. Of course, they had attracted every villain in London, including myself: cut-throats, palliards, pickpockets or foists, professional beggars, and all the scum of the underworld. I felt at home and wandered around the tawdry booths and stalls, seeing if I could catch the eye of some pretty wench or buy some trinket for one I had not yet met.

Now, as you know, I am a keen student of history and believe that chance and luck play a great part in the tapestry of life. If Harold had not been drunk before the battle of Hastings perhaps he would have won; or if Richard Ill's horse had not become stuck in the mud, the Yorkist royal line might well have continued. So it is with our petty lives. A fickle change of fortune can bring about the most momentous events. There I was wandering the alleys of Petty Wales whilst the hucksters and pedlars screamed for trade and the cookshops were busy serving hot eel pies and jugs of mulled wine. There were sideshows: the stuffed mummy of a Mameluke fresh from Egypt; a unicorn's horn; a dog with two heads and a lady with a long, flowing beard. What caught my fancy was a young boy screaming that, behind a tattered cloth, stood a giant from the far north.

'Almost three yards high!' he screamed. 'And a yard across! Tuppence and you can touch!'

Of course, it would be the usual trick, a very tall man standing on small stilts. The urchin plucked my sleeve, his eyes rounded in amazement, skeletal face alive with false excitement.

'Come, Lord,' he said, 'see this Cyclops. A veritable wonder!'

I smiled, tossed the lad a penny and asked: 'How come he's so big?'

The boy's master, sensing money, stepped forward.

'Because,' he lied, 'this giant was not nine months in the womb, as you or I, but eighteen!'

My jaw dropped and I turned away in amazement. Nine! Of course, every man born of woman lies nine months or thirty-eight weeks in his mother's womb. I remembered Selkirk's verse: 'Three less than twelve should it be', and his mutterings about how he could 'count the days'. I spun round and ran like a whippet, sliding, slipping and cursing on the wet cobbles back to the Tower. Benjamin, however, was missing and I suspected he had gone along the river bank to the convent at Syon. I had to curb my excitement and kept to my own chamber. I did not want Margaret or any of her household to sense any change in me. Early in the afternoon Benjamin returned, withdrawn and sombre-faced.

'Johanna?' I asked.

'She is well, Roger, as well as can be expected. Stretched,' he murmured, 'like a cobweb in the sun.' He scrutinised my face. 'But you have something to tell me?'

I told him what I had learnt in the fairground that morning and asked him to recall our conversation with Lord d'Aubigny in Nottingham Castle. Benjamin's gloom immediately lifted.

'And I have something for you, Roger!' he exclaimed and went across to his saddle bag. He pulled out the strange manuscript found in Selkirk's casket and picked up a small piece of polished steel which served as a mirror.

'What do the first words say?'

'We know that, Master Benjamin, a quotation from St Paul: "Through a glass darkly".'

He smiled. 'And you remember your Latin, Roger?' He passed the manuscript over to me. 'Hold this up, facing the mirror.'

I did so.

'Now, read the words in the mirror!'

Oh, Lord, it took a few minutes and I marvelled at Selkirk's ingenuity. He had written his confession in Latin but taken great pains to write each word backwards. I made out the first three words. 'Ego Confiteor Deo' -'I confess to God.' The rest was easy. In that cold, dark chamber of the Tower Benjamin and I plumbed the mysteries of Selkirk's poem and the terrible truths it contained.

'You see, Roger!' Benjamin exclaimed. 'In the end all things break down in the face of truth.' 'And the murders?'

Benjamin leaned back. 'Listen to this riddle, Roger!' He closed his eyes and chanted. 'Two legs sat upon three legs with one leg in his lap. In comes four legs, takes away one leg. Up jumps two legs, leaves three legs and chases four legs to get one leg back.' He opened his eyes and grinned. 'Solve the riddle!'

I shook my head angrily.

'Roger, it's a child's game yet only logic can solve it. So it is with these murders. We can resolve them by evidence but that is strangely lacking. We can reveal the truth by close questioning and subtle interrogation but that is impossible. Take Irvine's death: we could spend years asking who was where and what they were doing. Or,' he added, 'we can apply pure logic, meditation, speculation, and finally deduction.'

'Like the riddle you just told me?'

'Yes, Roger. Logically it can only have one meaning. Two legs is a man sitting on a three-legged stool with a leg of pork in his lap.'

'And four legs is a dog?'

'Of course, the only logical deduction. Now,' Benjamin leaned closer, 'let's apply logic to these murders.'

Well, it was dark by the time we finished and when we looked through the shutters, the Tower Bailey below was clouded in a thick, cloying river mist. I felt elated yet exhausted. Benjamin and I had not only demonstrated what Selkirk had hidden in his lines but how that poor Scottish doctor had died, along with Ruthven, Irvine and Moodie.

[There goes my little chaplain again, leaping up and down, shouting like a child, 'Tell me! Tell me!' Why should I? All things in due season. Will he reveal what Mistress Burton said in confession? Or would Master Shakespeare interrupt Twelfth Night to tell his audience what's going to happen to Malvolio? Of course not! As I have said, all things in due season.]

Benjamin did all the work, translating Selkirk's secret message. After he had finished I studied the transcript carefully whilst Benjamin watched me. I should have interrogated my master for I noticed that enigmatic look which used to flicker across his face whenever he has told the truth but kept something back for his own purposes. [Oh, don't worry, I'll tell you about that later.] However, in that dark, freezing chamber all that concerned me was that we knew who the murderer may be and the true nature of the dark secrets contained in Selkirk's poem.