The Medieval Murderers - King Arthur's Bones

‘Perhaps some of the bones are real, but I think that you grew greedy and were prepared to use any old bones you came across. You sold one to my friend Edmund here and he in turn gave it to someone else. The Lemans found out you’d disposed of one and were angry with you. We saw you arguing the other day outside your shop. The argument continued last night at the Tower. Perhaps it turned violent. At any rate, Leonard Leman is dead.’

‘Not by my hand.’

‘Then whose?’

Davy Owen, who was also Bernardo Scoto of Mantua, hesitated for a moment. He looked wildly about the chamber. He was no longer the mysterious Italian mountebank or the canny Welsh bookseller. He was simply desperate to save his skin.

‘It was the good lady, Alice Leman! She and that steward of hers. You must have seen the way they were acting towards each other this morning. They could not wait until the husband was cold in his grave. They had no interest in Arthur’s bones or anyone else’s bones. No one’s bones except their own, which they want to grind against each other without let or hindrance.’

‘You are lying!’

The tapestry, which stood against the left-hand wall, stirred and for a moment I thought one of the strange, demonic figures on it had spoken. My hair prickled. But there must have been another, secret entrance into the room that way. And a recess behind the tapestry to allow for eavesdroppers. From behind the arras there entered Alice Leman. She strode across to Owen.

‘I have been listening to every lying word, Davy. Nano let me in, thinking I had come on business. I have always been a friend to Nano and so he is a friend to me. I heard voices coming from here and thought I would see who your visitors were. And hear what tales you were spinning. Just like the tales you spun to my husband. The king’s bones, indeed! It is a fable.’

‘No fable,’ protested Owen. ‘The bones – some of the bones – are real.’

‘As real as your accusation of murder. Gentlemen-’ she turned towards us ‘-what I told you this morning is the truth, if not quite all of it. We went to the Tower yesterday evening. I won’t conceal from you that my late husband had business there, business that I did not approve of.’

‘I was there too,’ said Edmund Shakespeare. It was the first time he’d spoken. ‘I was attacked. I bear the marks.’

Mrs Leman nodded. ‘I regret that. My husband was fearful of some trap and my… steward… believed he had caught a spy, who was set on rather ferociously.’

‘It was I,’ said Edmund. ‘I was dragged down to the animal yard.’

‘That was none of my doing. I and Mr Corner left soon afterwards. As I said, I was nauseous. Not so much because of the air in that place as because I wanted nothing more to do with what was happening. It is not I or Mr Corner who should be accused of murder but this gentleman here, this bookseller, this mountebank. I want nothing more to do with him. We are returning the fresh bones that he brought to Pride House this morning.’

She raised her voice slightly and, on cue, a second figure stepped out from behind the arras. Really, this was as good as a play for its disguises, surprises and improbable entrances. This time it was Jack Corner. He was carrying the battered wooden box. He walked across to Owen and tipped the contents into his lap.

‘I didn’t do it! It was the lions!’ said Davy. ‘They savaged Leman to death. We quarrelled, true, but it was the lions did for your husband!’

‘They may have done their own work,’ said the widow, ‘but be sure you led the way with your knife. I may not be in a great state of grief for my husband, but I would not stoop to murder.’

Davy Owen’s nerve broke. The presence of five accusers was too much. He leaped up, scattering fragments of bone, and bolted past us to the door. It was some moments before we gathered our wits and set off in pursuit. There was no sign of Nano, but the open front door gave clear sign of where his master had gone.

The sun was beginning to go down, but we saw the still-cloaked-and-capped figure running up Tower Hill and then swerving to the left down Petty Wales. I wondered why he was doing this, then realized that it was probably the most direct route to the river. He would have to run down the flank of the Tower, the same path I’d taken that very morning.

We – Edmund, Jack Corner and I – were a couple of hundred yards behind Owen, with Martin Barton and Alice Leman bringing up the rear. He could not escape us, unless he managed to get a ferry across the river and lose himself in the meadows on the far side.

In blind panic Davy Owen ran alongside the Tower wall and across the quay where I had been standing earlier that day. He disappeared over the edge, down the steps. We reached the brink and halted. The tide was going out again.

We saw Davy Owen blundering and squelching across the mud and stone, head down, scarcely conscious of where he was going but doubtless hoping to reach the river and a ferryman.

There were no ferrymen in sight, but the bear was there, sitting by the water’s edge, its yellowy-white coat distinct on the grey foreshore. For all I know it had been sitting there the whole day long, trying to catch fish. There was still no sign of any keeper.

We gazed, horrified, as Davy Owen blundered bear-wards. When he was almost on top of the creature he realized where he was and slid to a stop. Too late! He toppled back in the mud and slime and the animal reared up. Perhaps it was aggrieved that it had spent a day in the sun without a catch. Perhaps it craved human company. Perhaps it wanted vengeance for years of captivity or had been maddened by them. Whatever the reason, it started towards Davy Owen as if to pursue the unfortunate Welshman. It swung one of its mighty paws against his head and I swear we heard the dull clout from where we stood on top of the quay.

Davy Owen swayed and then fell face down in the mud and lay still. If the blow had not killed him, then he would surely be stifled in the mud. The bear dropped back on all fours and, as far as the chain securing it to the stake would permit, snuffed around the body. I could imagine its breath, hot and stinky. Davy Owen did not move. After a time the bear resumed its sitting position by the water, although it no longer splashed its paws in the water. For some reason I felt sorry, not for the (surely) dead man but for the bear.

We stayed where we were, now joined by Martin and Mrs Leman, not certain what to do next.

But there was nothing for us to do and, when a few passersby gathered to look at the dead man and the white bear, we walked away.

You may be interested to hear what happened to the few characters in this story. The death of Leonard Leman was accounted an accident. Maybe Davy Owen had killed him, maybe it was the lions. Rather like the famous Roman, Julius Caesar, the one-time favourite of Queen Elizabeth had been struck and gouged many times, and it was not possible to say who had done what, whether animal or human. All things considered, it was better to blame the lions. Nothing would happen to them; the king was too fond of his creatures. So the (more or less) blameless Alice Leman duly married her steward, Jack Corner, and they are established at Pride House. She took the dwarfish Nano into her employment.

Martin Barton continues to write his satires and grows more carping as he grows more successful. Edmund Shakespeare began to plough a kind of furrow as a player with his brother’s company, with us, with the King’s Men, and he was not doing too badly before things were brought to a premature close. Edmund had already been ploughing another kind of furrow. The woman I’d seen hanging about his ears at the Mermaid tavern bore him a child in the summer of the following year. You remember the one who was called Dolly or Polly, the one with dark curling hair and the big tits? Edmund was ready enough to acknowledge the child as his – which, in itself, marked him out as a decent enough fellow for a player – but the little thing lasted no longer than a few weeks. And the father followed a few months later, dying in the December of 1607. William Shakespeare paid to have the great bell at St Saviour’s in Southwark rung in his memory. I am not sure how far WS lamented his brother’s passing, and if Edmund hadn’t been a Shakespeare I don’t suppose anyone else apart from Dolly or Polly would have given him more than a passing thought or tear either.