Paul Doherty: The Gallows Murders

'Roger, I thought you were dead! We searched high and low'

'It's not time for Roger's death,' Agrippa murmured. He took off his black, broad-brimmed hat and gazed up at me, his cherubic face creased into the most benevolent smile. He looked like someone's favourite uncle, except for the black leather he wore from head to toe and those gauntlets which covered the secret red crosses on the palm of each hand.

'Roger will live for a long time,' Agrippa added. The Fates will not cut his life too short.' He got up and glanced at Prior Houghton who was watching us curiously. The devil takes care of his own, Roger.'

Agrippa grasped my hand: as he did so, the colour of his eyes changed. I don't know whether it was some shadow or trick of the light; suddenly they became like black pebbles and his face became white and drawn. He gripped my hand a little longer than he should have and my heart sank. Agrippa was warning me that we were about to enter the lair of the Great Beast.

Prior John Houghton became uncomfortable. He kept glancing sideways at Agrippa, even as he told Benjamin about my miraculous recovery. After that, the Prior left us, saying he would send out a lay brother with some white wine and pastries. I stayed, telling Benjamin everything that had happened. (Or, at least, what I thought he should know.) I accepted his teasing of my sudden conversion as a member of the Carthusian Order. For a while we just sat and chatted, sipping the wine and enjoying the fragrance of the flowers and the steady hum of the honey-hunting bees. Now and again, the bells of Charterhouse would toll, calling the Brothers to service, and I realised I could not stay there for ever. 'How did you find me?' I asked.

'Well, I went to Swaffham -' Benjamin pulled a face – 'and I guessed the rest. After that, with the good doctor's help, I searched the city. One of the corpse collectors recognised your description so I came here.' His face became sad. 'Roger, I have been searching for you for two weeks. I thought you were dead!'

'I was robbed!' I wailed. ‘I had no money, whilst the Poppletons were waiting for me in Ipswich.'

'Roger, Roger.' Benjamin leaned forward. The Cardinal has sent a letter to the Sheriff of Norfolk instructing the Poppletons to offer you no harm.' He smiled mirthlessly. They're so terrified they are running backwards and forwards to the jakes again!'

'And, if your dearest uncle had intervened,' I answered tartly, 'that means he needs us.'

'Dearest Uncle does need us,' Benjamin declared, putting his cup down. ‘We are to go to the Tower, Roger, then on to meet the King at Windsor.'

I stared round that peaceful, perfume-filled garden. 'I can't stay here,' I murmured, ‘but I don't want to go to Windsor.'

Benjamin opened his wallet: he drew out a writ, sealed with the Cardinal's own signet. I read it quickly. I had no choice: Benjamin Daunbey, the Cardinal's beloved nephew, and his manservant Roger Shallot, on their allegiance to the King, were to go in all haste to the royal castle of Windsor. I threw the letter back. On reflection the death-cart, the sweating sickness and those terrible burial pits didn't seem so dreadful! If Wolsey wanted me, then I was about to enter the House of Shadows! Murder and treachery would be my guides. I quickly packed my belongings and bade a fond farewell to Prior Houghton and his kindly brothers. I never saw Houghton again. Years later, when Fat Henry broke with Rome over dark-eyed Boleyn, Houghton, true to his own soul, refused to take the Oath of Supremacy. I was out of the country at the time, the unwilling guest of the Spanish Inquisition (splendid gentlemen!). I returned to learn that Houghton and some of his Brothers had been hanged over their own gatehouse: I sat in the darkness and wept. He was a good man. He deserved a better death…

Agrippa, Benjamin and I left, keeping well away from the city. We walked by Gray's Inn, skirting the Temple and Whitefriars to a barge waiting to take us up-river to the Tower. The oarsmen were all the good doctor's henchmen, a bigger group of flea-bags you never hope to meet. Cut-throats, rascals, scum of the earth! As usual they greeted me like a long-lost brother. I was glad of the rapturous welcome because, as we walked the hot, musty streets, both Agrippa and Benjamin had become strangely silent. Even when I told them about Quicksilver: raving against his perfidy, threatening to hunt him down, they just shook their heads, lost in their own thoughts. At first I thought they were frightened but, as the barge moved mid-stream, Agrippa's rascals pulling at the oars, the good doctor stirred. He pointed to each bank.

'How time goes!' he muttered softly. 'You know, Roger, I remember Claudius's legions trying to ford this river, when London was nothing more than mud-flats and wide stretches of moorland.'

I looked at him strangely. Now and again Agrippa would make these slips and talk about events which had happened hundreds of years ago as if they had occurred that morning.

They paid for it, mind you,' he continued. The river ran red with blood. The mud-banks further down were piled high with corpses, like faggots in a woodshed.' He put on his hat again and looked at me from under his brows. 'It will be scarlet once again!’ he declared, and pointed to the poles jutting out from London Bridge where the rooks and ravens fought over the severed heads of traitors. 'A time will come when all the horrors will appear.' 'Might it now?' Benjamin observed drily. ‘Why, what's the matter?' I asked. 'Show him, Dr Agrippa.'

Agrippa fished in his pouch and drew out a small scroll of white parchment. 'Read that, Roger.'

I undid the scarlet ribbon and stared curiously at the blue-green writing inscribed in an elegant hand. The first words made me laugh.

To Henry Tudor calling himself King. I, Edward, by the grace of God King of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, do denounce thee as a traitor, a usurper and the son of a usurper, who seized my father's Crown and Sceptre.' I looked up. 'What is this?' I exclaimed. 'Read on.'

‘Now we know,' the letter continued, 'and it is a matter of public knowledge how your usurpation has been punished by God. What you possess will not be passed on to a son. We deem this punishment enough. We are content to bide our time and wait for God's intervention. However, until then, our royal estate must be maintained. What you hold, you do as steward for us. I therefore demand that a thousand gold crowns be deposited just within the west door of St Paul's Cathedral. This gold is to be left at the hour of Nones on the feast of St Dominic. If not, a proclamation publicising your shame will be nailed to St Paul's Cross on the feast of St Clare. Heed ye this warning! Given at the Tower under our seal on the feast of St Martha, the twenty-ninth of July 1523.' I tossed the letter back at Agrippa. ‘London is full of madcaps and such tomfoolery’ I declared.

'Look at the foot of the letter,' Agrippa insisted, passing the parchment back.

I did so and gaped. Now, as you may know, when a letter is signed and sealed by the King, it carries two seals. First his own, the signet, often in green wax; then it is passed to the Chancellor who impresses the Great Seal of the Kingdom in red. This letter was no different, except that the seals were not those of Henry VIII but of Edward V. This is impossible,' I whispered. They are forgeries.'

Agrippa shook his head. ‘No, they are not. The vellum is the most expensive that can be bought in London. The ink is that used in the Royal Chancery, as is the wax. Those seals are no forgeries.'

'But Edward the Fifth died,' I declared. 'He perished in the Tower some forty years ago.'

Benjamin looked across at the river. He stared at a great, low-slung, Venetian galley as it came out from the quayside, its oars dipping and rising as it began to make its way down to the open sea. Around it, bum boats and wherries still bobbed, as the fishermen and poor people of London tried desperately to sell to this stately galley before it left.