The Medieval Murderers - The Tainted Relic

Hold-fast wasn’t planning to submit to questions from anybody. He seemed to duck out of sight. But he was only gone for an instant. Next, with a flap of his black wings, he was down at ground level, although careful to keep out of the reach of all of us. He paraded up and down a stretch of flagstoned floor, more cocksure than any Justice you’ve ever seen. Mind you, he looked a bit ragged. Even at a distance his plumage did not seem as glossy as it had earlier in the day. His feathers were, literally, ruffled. There were smudges around his head. Exactly the sort of marks you might expect to see if a pistol had exploded somewhere in his vicinity.

What gave added credence to Perkin’s tale was the fact that Hold-fast was not talking now. No commands to ‘shut up’ or to ‘jump to it’ issued from his mouth. He wasn’t speaking because he couldn’t. Tucked athwart his beak was a glass tube, which he must have temporarily deposited up aloft so as to give us the benefit of his voice. It was, for certain, the vial, which contained a piece of…well, you know what it contained. It was as if he’d brought this item to Pie-Powder Court for proof and waited up in the roof until the right moment came. Then he’d flown down from the beam to show us precisely what he’d done.

And, having shown us, Hold-fast flapped aloft once more and resumed his perch on the crossbeam. Still clutching the vial, he waddled sideways towards the point where the beam joined the wall. Being a monastic building, the refectory was well supplied with windows. In the old days, before the suppression, they were probably filled with fine coloured glass. Now they were mostly unglazed so that the winter winds and the airs of summer could come and go freely through them. On a hot August day it was pleasant to have unglazed windows. Useful too for Hold-fast, who wanted to make his exit as easily as he must have made his entrance. Reaching the end of the beam, and with one final cock of his head in the direction of his human audience, he slipped over the lintel of a window and apparently vanished into the afternoon. I’ve seen well-known players, especially the clowns among us, make their exits in just that way. With a knowing nod towards the crowd and a kind of aren’t-I-the-very-Devil air to their departure.

Nobody spoke. Nobody moved for an instant. I’m not sure that everyone understood what had just happened. Gog and Magog and the other constables stared as if the appearance of a guilty raven was an everyday occurrence in Pie-Powder Court. Poor old Ben Nightingale was still recovering from being struck by a constable’s staff. The aged clerk resumed his throat-clearing. But the quicker-witted among us-Perkin, Justice Farnaby, us players and even Wapping Doll-realized that we’d witnessed something very peculiar.

‘Well, go after it,’ said Walter Farnaby to no one in particular.

And, as if that was our cue, we rushed out of St Bartholomew’s Priory in the forlorn hope of laying hands on Hold-fast. Outside, the sun had slipped down a notch or two. The sounds of the fair-the cries and the songs and the raucous laughter-filled the heavy air.

Instinctively I looked up at the flank of the building, where we’d seen the raven make his exit. It was as if he’d been waiting for us to emerge, I swear, because at that moment Hold-fast lifted off from the window ledge. He must have been wanting one last glimpse of his pursuers, to taunt them finally. As he extended his wings, I observed a certain raggedness to one of them. Perhaps it was just his age ( he’s an old boy , Hatch had said) or perhaps it was the result of standing too close to an exploding pistol. And as Hold-fast flapped away, the sun glinted off what he held in his beak. Hold-fast was a good name for him. He’d not let go of that object before he had good cause.

‘And you followed him?’ said WS.

‘Not so much followed him,’ I said, ‘but we saw the general direction he was going in. He was heading for the river, flying south. Perhaps he was going to deliver it to Henslowe.’

‘A raven won’t deliver anything to anyone,’ said WS. ‘He is his own man.’

I was sitting in Shakespeare’s lodgings in Mugwell Street. They were good lodgings. We were drinking wine. It was good wine, fitting for one of the Globe shareholders. WS was all concern and solicitousness. He’d been appalled to hear of the trouble and to-do which Jack and Abel and I had tumbled into the previous day on his behalf and in pursuit of his Domitian foul papers. Although some of his concern was purely rhetorical, I knew WS well enough to recognize that he was being sincere, mostly.

The rescued foul papers now lay on a table beside their creator, an untidy little pile. He’d hardly glanced at them. The paper was old and yellow. The sheets were streaked red with Hatch’s blood, and they were creased from where they’d been nestling under my shirt the previous day. Nevertheless, all’s well that ends well…as it says somewhere.

‘According to Ulysses Hatch, there was a legend attached to the cross fragment,’ I said. ‘It was cursed. Whoever touched it would die. It seemed to work in his case.’

‘I’ve heard such stories before,’ said WS. ‘Also that the last person to possess such an item will perish when he parts from it. I wonder if the raven will let it drop from his beak now…?’

I visualized Hold-fast letting go of the glass vial, perhaps because (bright and shiny though it was) he could see no ultimate purpose for it. I visualized him dropping it somewhere on the remote wastes of the Thames foreshore, the vial landing in the soft mud or in the water.

‘So you think that Tom Gally was out to purchase the relic on Henslowe’s behalf?’ said WS.

‘That’s what it looked like. The story was that Hatch intended to sell it to some “players”. Gally made himself pretty scarce. There was no sign of him at the fair later on.’

‘He probably got wind of what happened to Hatch. And as for those other two, Nightingale and-’

‘Peter Perkin. I think they just blundered into the situation by chance. In fact, I don’t believe the ballad singer had much to do with it. He was the singing attraction, he just stood there and warbled while Perkin picked out the marks. Perkin was the cutpurse. He’d probably gone to Hatch’s tent to purchase some of his spicy wares. While he was there Hatch saw a selling opportunity. He told me he’d sell anything if the price was right. It wouldn’t matter if he’d already promised the item to Henslowe. And when Perkin glimpsed the relic, he must have thought he was going to make some easy money. His story was true enough. He was negotiating with Hatch for a second time when the bird hopped down and dislodged the gun, setting it off.’

‘Can that happen?’ said WS.

‘Abel Glaze has some knowledge of these things,’ I said. ‘Once when he was in the Low Countries he saw a fellow whose pistol dropped from his belt by accident. It hit the ground and went off, killing him stone dead.’

‘And so Ulysses Hatch died by his own weapon.’

‘Perkin claimed he was deafened and terrified. He fled from the tent, clutching the empty box. Later on he met up with Nightingale and they divided the day’s takings. He was showing him the empty box and telling him the story of what happened, flapping his arms like a bird. I don’t think Nightgingale believed him. Who would?’

‘Until the bird himself appeared to give evidence,’ said WS. ‘Naturally the raven picked up the glass vial. Bright and shiny and valuable.’

‘Then he must have waddled out of the tent,’ I said.

‘Did Justice Farnaby bring the humans to account for their thieving?’

‘He did not, William. I think that he was so…surprised by the turn of events that he had no appetite for relatively trivial offences. Besides, there wasn’t any evidence against Perkin or Nightingale. No one saw them stealing anything. The money they had could have been their own, honestly earned. No, they got off scot-free. And Hatch’s death is accounted a strange misadventure.’