The Medieval Murderers - King Arthur's Bones

Almost despite myself I was impressed by her cold dignity. There was nothing more we would be allowed to discover here. I said farewell to Mrs Leman, and Martin Barton made a more elaborate goodbye to her. We nodded to the steward called Corner and ignored Davy Owen, who was still keeping watch over his bone-box. No one tried to stop us leaving.

Martin and I said nothing until we’d made our exit from Pride House, crossed the courtyard and passed under the gaze of the supercilious gatekeeper.

‘We shall get no further with them,’ said Martin when we were back in the Strand. He was echoing my thoughts. ‘Maybe it is as Mistress Leman says: her husband walked too close to the lions and paid for it with his life.’

‘It’s a story that would suit everyone. But there was mischief going on in the Tower. Edmund Shakespeare did not beat himself up.’

‘And then there is that Welsh bookseller and his box of bones. You saw them, Nicholas?’

‘Indistinctly – but they were bones, yes.’

‘Human bones?’

‘I suppose so. How could I tell?’

How could I tell? They might have been not human but animal. It was rumoured that what passed for the relics of saints in their crystal or metal settings were often no more than bones of sheep. I thought of the bone that Edmund Shakespeare had given to William and which had been supplied by Davy Owen, the large bone I’d assumed came from a human limb, even one of King Arthur’s. I remembered the unicorn horn hanging from the ceiling in Scoto’s den. That was nothing human. So where would one go for large, queerly shaped items of bone?

‘What?’ I said. Martin Barton had made some comment.

‘I said, I would like to cause trouble for Mr Owen.’

‘Because he is Welsh? Because he referred in a less-than-respectful way to your trade of writing?’

‘I do not rise above malice,’ said Barton as if claiming some special virtue.

There was certainly something unsettled, as well as unsettling, about the situation. We returned to Barton’s lodgings and found Edmund recovered from his bad night and ready for action.

A notion was taking shape in my head, and I outlined to the others what we might do.

A few hours later we were sitting in the Black Swan, the tavern close to the narrow-windowed house at the corner of Tower Street. From our position in the front room of the Swan we could keep watch on Scoto’s place. We were not rewarded until late in the afternoon, when we saw our old friend Davy Owen approaching the house. I half-expected him to be bearing books or bones, but he was carrying nothing.

Owen must have been a very welcome visitor for instead of knocking he was about to let himself in with a key which he retrieved from his jerkin. He would have done so had not I, closely followed by Martin and Edmund, raced out of the tavern to intercept the bookseller at the front door.

Davy Owen looked alarmed and, rather than fumble with the key, he banged on the door to be let in. That was a mistake, because it was opened almost straight away by Nano, the dwarfish attendant. Together with Owen, we jostled ourselves inside and stood in the hallway. There was an awkward silence. I had impressed on the others that we must not resort to force. Now I said, not to the little servant but to the bookseller: ‘Forgive this intrusion, but we must speak to Scoto of Mantua. Tell him that we know the truth, about the bones and the king and the Lemans. Tell him that we have uncovered a plot and that we must see him now, even if he does claim to be a creature of the night.’

Owen nodded and scuttled off down the passage, disappearing into its far shadows. Meantime, Nano planted himself across our path and folded his arms. The three of us could have bowled him over, but it would have felt like attacking a child. Besides, he looked as though he might have put up a good fight.

After a time, and as if he were obeying some hidden signal, Nano stood to one side and with mock ceremony bowed us through. Once again, Edmund, Martin and I approached Scoto’s den at the end of the passage. We knocked and were bidden to enter. Inside, there was no way of guessing the time of day from the smoky, ill-lit interior.

The Italian was sitting at his desk as before, his head covered with a cap and his shape largely concealed by the mantle with its cabbalistic symbols.

‘You ’ave something to tell me,’ he said. ‘ Il segreto .’

‘It is to do with King Arthur’s bones,’ I said, appointing myself as speaker. ‘As you know, this gentleman here purchased one from a bookseller friend of yours – where is Davy Owen, by the way?’

‘Signor Owen?’ said Scoto, as if he’d never come across the name before. ‘’e is about the ’ouse.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I think he is sitting right in front of us.’

I took a couple of steps forward and, greatly daring, snatched the cap off Scoto’s head. He clapped his hand over his scalp but not before the distinctive arrow-shaped pattern of hair was revealed.

It was Davy Owen. He stood up. His eyes flicked from one to another of us. Seeing that denial was useless, he said in an accent that substituted a Welsh lilt for the Italian cadence: ‘My congratulations, Mr Revill. How did you guess?’

‘The fact that the two of you were never seen together, the fact that Martin Barton here said that your voice was wrong for a citizen of Mantua, the fact that I’m a player and can usually tell when someone’s acting a part. Your speech was seeded with Italian phrases, Mr Owen, like flowers in a garden, all carefully set out for the sake of ornament.’

‘Well, well,’ said Owen. ‘I am uncovered in both senses. You may give me back my cap now.’

I did so. Martin and Edmund were looking at Owen (or Scoto) in surprise. Whatever turn of events they’d expected, it wasn’t this. I was surprised too, for I had only been half-convinced by my own reasoning.

Owen resumed his cap and became Scoto once more. He went back to his place behind the desk while we three stood before him, half-suppliants, half-accusers.

‘What is the point of this deception?’ said Martin.

‘Deception? Can a man not have two lives, can he not pursue two trades? Due mestieri . As a bookseller I have something of a line in herbals, while as a practitioner of the art I prepare and administer them. Under one name I stand with my own race and am proud to be Welsh. In the other part I assume the guise of an Italian. It’s better for trade, you see.’

‘Trade must be pretty good, judging by this house and your premises in St Paul’s yard,’ I said. ‘But you don’t just deal in herbs and remedies, Signor Davy; you also handle stolen goods.’

‘Nothing stolen. Only what is rightfully acquired.’

‘Then, if not stolen, you are attempting to pass off one thing as another. It’s a type of forgery. You get bones from the dead animals in the Tower and you claim that they are the remnants of fabulous creatures – the unicorn up there, for example, or the mermaid’s ribs.’

I gestured overhead, where the bones were suspended. The man in the cap and cloak raised his arms.

‘Where is the harm in that? It is no great imposture. Have you never visited a fair where the monsters are exhibited, Mr Revill? Do you think that woman behind the curtain really has two heads or that the fish-man is covered with genuine scales?’

‘The harm comes when you try to pass off some animal bones not as a unicorn’s or a mermaid’s but as a great king’s. When you are selling them to Leonard Leman because he wishes to curry favour with King James and knows that one sure way of doing that would be to present the monarch with Arthur’s remains.’

‘I had those bones from a different source,’ said Owen. ‘I know that they are real. For I am Welsh, you know, and Arthur was of our tribe.’