The Medieval Murderers - The Lost Prophecies

‘And if you did,’ said Abel, ‘you would find only a channel going down to the main drain.’

‘There’s more,’ I said. ‘Next door is a bedroom, but it is large and somehow empty – apart from the bed. Anonymous too. We’re in a recusants’ house, Abel. They need somewhere to worship. Their priest needs somewhere to robe himself, and to live and sleep. I think this is where Gifford prepares for Mass – where he prepared for Mass, I should say – and next door is where the family assembles for it.’

‘I heard voices last night,’ said Abel. ‘The Mass would be said at a secret time, the middle of the night.’

‘Probably it’s also where Henry Gifford slept. We’re a long way from the main entrance to the house, and the doors are especially thick here and the locks are solid. If the priest needed to make a quick escape he only had to open the trapdoor and hide in the drains until the pursuivants left.’

‘And the bedchamber next door abuts on our room of last night,’ said Abel.

‘There’s probably a space between the walls. That’s how Gifford was able to spy on us last night. This place is a honeycomb of false walls and secret places.’

‘I haven’t told you of my own discoveries yet,’ said Abel.

Standing in the room with the close-stool, we leaned towards each other like conspirators.

‘I went to wash myself in the yard and then I asked the laundrywoman for a fresh shirt, since mine had got all dirty and bloody while I was down in that kitchen drain. I thought it was the least that Combe House owed me, a clean shirt, since I’d recovered a body for them.’

‘Wasn’t the laundrywoman willing to give you a shirt?’

‘Very willing. She handed me this,’ he said, indicating the shirt beneath his doublet. It looked too large for him. ‘But when I was in the washroom I noticed a pile of clothes that were due for washing. Some of them had spatters of blood on them.’

‘Difficult to get out, bloodstains,’ I said.

‘You can use salt and water, or milk or even human spit,’ said Abel. ‘I remember the tire-house man in the Globe telling us so. It may take a couple of washings, but the stains will fade eventually. But that’s not the point, Nick. Those items of clothing with the stains were good pieces, doublets and hose and women’s bodices. Fine pieces made of brocade, taffeta. They weren’t servants’ garments. They belong to the Shaws.’

‘Perhaps they got their clothes marked when they were attending to Gifford’s body.’

‘No, these things were already in the washroom. They must have been there before the body was found.’

‘So you’ve made a jump between the bloodstained clothes and a dead man.’

‘Wouldn’t you?’

‘You think the Shaws had a hand in Gifford’s death?’

‘Don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘William Shaw was very quick to declare it was an accident in front of the whole household. Too quick. In fact, I had the impression he was saying it for our benefit.’

‘The servants are loyal to the Shaws. They would accept whatever their master or mistress told them. They might even accept a violent death. They would not ask questions about blood-spattered clothes.’

‘The sooner we leave this house of murderers the better,’ I said.

‘There’s more,’ said Abel. ‘I said I’d made discoveries. The bloody clothes weren’t all.’

He paused. I thought he was doing it for effect. But he’d heard something in the passageway outside. The scrabbling of claws on the wooden floor. The sound of the spaniels. Then a shushing noise. A woman trying to silence the dogs. Abel and I had been so absorbed in our speculations that we hadn’t been conscious of anything beyond the close-stool room. The door was slightly ajar. I’d pushed it to, not latched it.

As one we made for the exit. Too late. In the passage outside was assembled the whole family. Mother and father, son and daughter, the sister-in-law, the steward Gully. How long had they been there? What had they overheard?

Curiously, they had the air of suppliants, as though they’d come not to surprise us but to make a request.

‘We must speak to you,’ said William Shaw.

We were ushered into the large empty bedchamber, the one that I’d speculated might have been used by the family for hearing Mass. Abel and I stood awkwardly in the middle of the room while the Shaws and Gully clustered about us in a half-circle. Incongruously, the spaniels Finder and Keeper scampered about their heels. I didn’t fear the family exactly – the three men surely would not attempt anything against Abel and me in the presence of three women – but it was a very uncomfortable moment. I felt my palms go clammy. Sweat ran down my sides. I cursed Tom Cloke, dead as he was, for ever having introduced us to this house.

‘Gentlemen,’ said William Shaw. ‘We have been listening to your conversation. I heard you, Master Revill, suggest that this was a house of murderers.’

I blushed, as if I was the one guilty of some offence. I opened my mouth to apologize, to justify myself, but Shaw gave an impatient wave of his hand.

‘You are wrong. The Shaws are not murderers. Hear me out. Say nothing until I have finished. Then you may decide on your next step. You have correctly understood the nature of Combe and of my family. We are followers of the old religion. We wish harm to no man or woman, we wish no injury to our country or its rulers. We are not plotters or conspirators, although some would like us to be. Such are the present times that we live under the shadow of suspicion and in constant fear of persecution like other houses in this part of the world.

‘Henry Gifford was here as a tutor to sister Muriel’s children. But he was principally at Combe to minister to our souls, in this very chamber where we are standing. He is – he was – a recent arrival in Combe, here only a matter of months. He replaced another… individual… who was a truly good man but who has been called to serve elsewhere. I will not conceal from you the fact that we did not care for Gifford. We felt obliged to give him shelter, however, because of what he was and who he represented.’

Shaw hesitated and glanced at his wife. She took up the story.

‘It is true that we have been harbouring a priest,’ said Elizabeth Shaw, speaking with more directness than her husband. ‘However, we came to believe that Henry Gifford had more worldly aims than the salvation of souls and the cause of the true religion. He talked easily about the death of tyrants and the ousting of lawful kings and encouraged us to talk of such things too.’

She glanced towards her son Robert. I remembered that he’d touched on the subject at yesterday evening’s meal. And that Gifford had quickly changed the subject.

‘Such talk is dangerous,’ said Elizabeth. ‘But it was not just talk. Gifford seemed to be in communication with other forces, external forces, who might prefer action to mere words. He received messages, visitors sometimes, that he would not tell us about. This is a quiet and godly house. We live secluded from the world.’

Gully was nodding vigorously. Elizabeth’s words were more or less what he’d said to me the previous day. Now William Shaw resumed.

‘We heard from a distant kinsman, Thomas Cloke, that he had an… object… of great value to deliver to us, or rather not to us but to Henry Gifford. That this was a secret affair was shown by the way the message was conveyed. Nothing was committed to paper, but all was done through hints and whispers. Then in due course you two gentlemen arrived here with Thomas. Alas, our fears were shown to be all too real by the attack on our very doorstep and the violent fate of our kinsman. Gifford seemed not at all concerned by the death but only troubled by the whereabouts of the… object.’