Paul Doherty: The Relic Murders

Mind you, the girl was as innocent as a dove. Of tender years and sweet demeanour. Her mother, a prosperous tenant of mine, came all afeared to me because my chaplain had taken her daughter out for a stroll on a balmy summer's evening. The poor woman knows my chaplain. He doesn't get the straw on his clothing from helping out at harvest time! Indeed, he spends more time in my hay loft than he does in the parish church.

'Oh, please, Sir Roger,' the poor woman pleaded. 'Find out what your chaplain did to my daughter last night?'

I had the girl brought by the captain of my guard to where I sit at the centre of my maze, protected by my two great wolfhounds.

(Oh yes, I may well be past my ninety-fifth year but it is surprising how few people forgive and forget. The secret agents of every crowned head of Europe, and a few beyond its borders, would pay good gold to have my old head on the tip of a pike. But enough of that for the time being. Soon I’ll come to my story: about the orb of Charlemagne, about the Noctales, the Men of the Night, and old Shallot's desperate fight to stay alive in the blood-chilling days of Henry VIII.)

Anyway, pleasant things first. The young girl was as sweet and brown as a nut. I sat her on a chair and gave her a silver piece. Tell me, my doucette,' I began. 'What did my chaplain teach you last night? Where did he take you?'

'Oh, he bought me some sweetmeats,' the little joy replied. 'And took me by the river bank.' Oh dear, I thought. 'And what did you do there?' I asked. 'He took me by the hand.' 'And what did you do?' 'I laughed.' 'And then what?' 'He touched me on the breast.' 'And what did you do?' 'I laughed,' she replied, eyelids all a flutter. 'And then?' 'He touched me on the knee.' 'And what did you do?' I asked. 'I laughed!'

Now the conversation went on like this for a few minutes until I stopped and said, 'Sweet one, why did you laugh every time my chaplain touched you?'

'Because the sweetmeats were hidden in the pocket of my cloak all the time.'

Innocent she was and simple so I gave my chaplain strict instructions to keep her that way. He should be cautious of marriage. Lust and love go hand in hand and both can wither like apples on a branch. Only the other day I was riding down a lane behind a funeral cortege: some poor woman's coffin being carried to the parish grave. The procession passed a tavern where a man sat drinking cheerfully from his tankard. As the coffin passed, I saw him put down his blackjack of ale, doff his cap and go down on his knees. Much touched by this, I rode up.

'Kind sir,' I said, leaning down from my horse. 'You show great respect for the dead?'

The fellow, bleary-eyed, red-faced, his nose burning like a coal in hell, just smiled back.

'Why, Lord Roger,' he slurred. 'It's the least I can do after forty years of marriage to her!'

Oh, I see my chaplain shake with laughter. The little noddle! The little sweet bag! My little marmoset!

'Come on. Come on.' He turns in his chair, quill poised. 'Sir Roger,' he expostulates. 'The Queen waits for the next extract of your memoirs.'

He is referring, of course, to Elizabeth – lovely girl, beauteous queen, my lover, my helpmate, mother of my son, apple of my heart.

Ah well, I suppose he's right. Here, as I sit in my chamber, perched on my gold stuffed cushions, at my ease, in the centre of my manor, I can revel in its wealth. A veritable palace with its bright red bricks, its master joints picked out in black and white; its galleries of flint chequer work. Within, the rooms are decorated with cloth of gold and ermine hangings, the works of great master painters, tapestries of silk, chests stuffed full of silver and gold pots. My shelves are lined with Italian Majolica, Delft from the Low Countries, Spanish lustre ware. No rushes cover my floor but polished Flemish tiles, and my windows are filled with green leaded mullioned glass. Warm stoves heat my kitchens and butteries whilst water is brought in along pure elm pipes. Oh, I lead a life of luxury, but it wasn't always like that. Time's hand draws back the curtain of the past I sneak a look down the gloomy, vaulted passageway of history, lined with skulls and laced with the blood of those I ate and drank and, God forgive me, sometimes slept with. I must speak clearly so my words do not come out like some tangled chain: in doing so, I'll exorcise the ghosts of my salad days when I was green in judgement yet had such horrors to face.

I do not have to walk far down the long, dusty passageway of time before I meet Murder squatting there, his silver skin laced with scarlet blood, his body riven by gashed stabs, face black and full of gore, eyeballs protruding further out than they should in a living man. He has that basilisk stare, ghastly, gasping like a strangled man. His hair is upstanding, his nostrils flared with struggling, his hands stretched out like someone tugging for life. That's Murder! I met him many a time in those turbulent days of Henry VIH when I and my great friend, tall, dark, angel-faced Benjamin Daunbey, nephew of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, were hired to hunt subtle murderers and crafty assassins. Let time be my witness, none of these was more cunning, more artful, more deceitful than those who planned to steal the Orb of Charlemagne and nearly sent old Roger to a watery grave. I cannot remain silent. Murder, though it has no tongue, will speak and I am duty bound to recall it. At Michaelmas the queen will come again. She will hear Mass secretly in my hidden chamber and, afterwards, sit at my table to drink claret and pluck at golden capon. Great Elizabeth will lean across and tweak my cheek.

'Come, Roger,' she'll whisper. 'Bring me the next chapter of your memoirs. Let me see those times again!'

And she will! Murder beckons me down time's sombre gallery, back into the golden, sun-filled, bloody autumn days of 1523 when King Henry, that murderous imp, still ruled England and Cardinal Wolsey, his brain teeming more than a boxful of vipers, tried to rule the king.

After that bloody business at the Tower in the summer of 1523, Benjamin Daunbey and I, now released from the services of Cardinal Wolsey, returned to our manor outside Ipswich. Benjamin took over the management of the estate and the running of the school he had set up for the ungrateful, snotty-nosed imps from the nearby village. I, of course, true to my nature, returned to villainy as smoothly as a duck takes to water. I was bred for villainy. I was reared on it. People shouldn't really object. I am not an evil man. I just like mischief as a cat does cream. 'Ill met by moonlight!' You could wager your last farthing that I was. When Benjamin slept, I'd quietly slip out to meet young Lucy Witherspoon. She was a comely wench who worked some time in the White Harte tavern and, at others, as a chamber maid for the Poppleton household across the valley. I have mentioned these Poppletons before: spawns of Satan! The family was dominated by a woman I called the Great Mouth, Isabella Poppleton, and her cantankerous, flint-faced sons led by Edmund. She hated me and I reciprocated in kind. May her lips rot off!

Now Lucy and I would spend those early, balmy autumn nights lying in the cool grass beside the river. Lucy was a lovely lass who, when I cradled her in my arms, would whisper, 'My cup overflows with happiness!' It was a quotation she'd learnt from the wall of the parish church. She said it always tickled her fancy and, I suppose, I did the same. When she left, with my sweet words ringing in her ears and a silver piece in her purse, I'd stay to pick mushrooms, herbs and plants. I still had a deep, abiding desire to be a great physician and make my fortune with miraculous cures. I'd always be back by dawn, sleeping like an angel in my bed, and would awake later in the day to wash, shave, dress and plot fresh mischief.