Paul Doherty - Murder Most Holy

D’Arques’s house was a two-storied, narrow building on the corner of a lane. It was half-timbered with a red-tiled roof, small windows on both storeys and a passageway down the side. Athelstan walked along this and looked over the small gate at the bottom. He glimpsed a huge yard, empty except for a few beggars crouched there. Surprised, he returned to the front of the house and knocked on the door, Cranston and Benedicta standing behind him. D’Arques’s pleasant-faced wife answered and welcomed them in with a smile.

‘Father Athelstan.’ She glanced quickly at Cranston and Benedicta.

‘Two friends,’ he replied. ‘Sir John Cranston, Coroner of the City, and Benedicta, a member of my parish council.’

The woman turned and walked back into the shadows of the house.

‘Come in,’ she said softly. ‘My husband is working. You have come to see him about the miracle worked at St Erconwald’s?’

‘Yes,’ the friar replied. ‘The news has spread throughout Southwark, even across the river.’

D’Arques was sitting in the cool, stone-flagged kitchen: the coins scattered across the table, the strips of parchment, ink horn and quill, and the small, black-beaded abacus, showed he was in the middle of doing his accounts. He pushed back his stool as they entered, and rose, inviting them to sit at either side of the table.

‘Brother Athelstan, you are welcome.’

The introductions were made; he clasped Cranston’s hand and nodded politely at Benedicta. Athelstan sat down and looked around. The kitchen was neat and tidy. A huge cauldron above a small log fire gave off a delicious odour. D’Arques caught his glance.

‘Beef stew,’ he commented, ‘but it’s not my wife’s cooking you’re interested in.’ He rolled back the loose sleeve of his gown to reveal a healthy arm. ‘You see, Father, the infection has not returned.’

Cranston and Benedicta stared at the wholesome skin, searching for any mark, but they were unable to find any. D’Arques’s wife sat at the other end of the table watching them intently.

‘Master D’Arques.’ Athelstan shifted uneasily as he felt he was now intruding on this happy household. ‘You’ve lived in Southwark all your life?’

‘I am Southwark born and bred.’

‘And you’ve been a carpenter?’

‘I’ve had various trades, Father. Why do you ask?’

‘Have you ever been married before?’

D’Arques threw back his head and laughed, then winked at his wife. ‘Once bitten, twice shy, Father! Margot Twyford,’ he nodded at his wife, ‘is my first and only wife. My first and only love,’ he added softly.

The woman looked away in embarrassment.

‘Twyford?’ Cranston interrupted. ‘Are you a member of that family?’

‘Oh, yes, Sir John. The famous Twyfords, the merchant princes. I am one of their kin. My father was most reluctant for me to marry outside the family circle and the great trade guilds which the Twyfords dominate.’

Athelstan felt he had gone as far as he dared. He was about to turn the conversation to more mundane matters when there was a sudden knock at the back door.

‘I am sorry,’ D’Arques muttered. ‘We have other tasks to attend to.’

His wife rose. Collecting a huge tray from a side table, she went and knelt before the fire, ladling the stew into small earthenware bowls.

‘Do you wish to eat?’ she asked over her shoulder. ‘Something to drink?’

‘No, thank you,’ Athelstan answered quickly, glancing at Cranston. ‘You have children, Master D’Arques?’

Again the man laughed. He rose and went to open the door. Athelstan glimpsed the beggars he had seen before now staring expectantly into the kitchen.

‘Go and sit down,’ D’Arques said quietly to them. ‘Sit against the wall and my wife will bring out the food.’

The beggars quietly obeyed as Mistress D’Arques rearranged the bowls so as to lay a huge platter of cut bread between them. She smiled at her visitors and disappeared through the door, to be welcomed by cries of thanks and appreciation.

‘You feed the poor?’ Benedicta asked, her eyes shining with admiration.

‘St Swithin’s is our parish, Mistress Benedicta. We all have our tasks. At noontime every day we feed the poor within the parish boundaries. It’s the least we can do.’

Athelstan nodded, rose, and went across to the door. He glanced quickly round and caught sight of a small, beautifully carved cupboard.

‘You made this, Master D’Arques?’

‘Of course, it carries my mark.’ D’Arques joined Athelstan and pointed to the small emblem just above one of the hinges, an elaborate cross with two finely etched crowns on either side.

‘Father,’ he murmured, ‘why are you here?’

Athelstan smiled. ‘Miracles are rare occurrences. I came to make sure yours had had lasting effects.’ Athelstan beckoned to his companions. ‘Sir John, Benedicta, we have wasted enough of Master D’Arques’s time. Sir, my regards to your lady wife.’

The carpenter ushered them out and Cranston at least waited until they turned the corner before giving vent to his feelings.

‘Athelstan, in the name of God, what on earth were we doing there?’

‘A wild guess, Sir John. D’Arques started the great mystery at St Erconwald’s. I thought, an unworthy suspicion, that Master Watkin had put him up to it.’

‘Do you believe that?’ Benedicta asked.

‘Of Watkin, and his ally and one-time enemy Pike the ditcher, I believe anything!’ Athelstan snapped. ‘But, come, one last call.’

They visited physician Culpepper in his musty, shabby house in Pig Pen Lane, but the old doctor could give little help.

‘Master D’Arques,’ he confirmed, ‘is a worthy member of the parish; an honest trader, who had a hideous infection on the skin of his arm. No,’ Culpepper announced, ushering them to the door, ‘you do not get the likes of Master D’Arques having anything to do with the shady dealings of Watkin the dung-collector and Pike the ditcher.’

All three walked slowly back to St Erconwald’s. Athelstan bade farewell to Benedicta and, taking a now reluctant Sir John by the arm, walked briskly down towards London Bridge.

‘Home is where the heart is,’ Athelstan quipped, trying to hide his own disappointment at his fruitless visits. ‘Now it is time to confront the Lady Maude.’

By the time they reached Sir John’s house just off Cheap-side both men were exhausted. The day proved hot, the streets were dusty and packed with traders. In Cheapside the crowd had been so dense, they almost had to fight their way through traders, apprentices, officious market beadles, beggars whining for alms and a line of malefactors being taken up to stand in a cage near the Great Conduit. Matters were not helped by a mummer’s group near the great market cross who had erected a makeshift platform and were busy enacting a miracle play about the fall of Jezebel. Unfortunately Cranston and Athelstan arrived at the play’s climax when the painted whore queen was being condemned by the prophet Elijah to be eaten alive by dogs. The crowd, drawn into the drama, ‘oohed’ and ‘ahed’ and decided to ‘help’ the prophet by throwing every bit of refuse they could on to the stage. Cranston had to send a pickpocket, whom he had glimpsed in the crowd, crashing to the ground with a blow to the ear.

‘Bugger off, you little foist!’ the coroner roared.

Unfortunately his trumpet-like voice carried to the stage where the man playing the role of the prophet thought Sir John was talking to him. If it hadn’t been for Athelstan’s intervention, an even greater drama would have been enacted as Cranston drew himself up to his full height and began to roar insults at the stage, dismissing the mummers as fiends from hell, claiming that they had no licence to perform. Others joined in and Athelstan was grateful when he managed to push Sir John through the crowd, past the coroner’s favourite drinking place, the Holy Lamb of God tavern, and up against the coroner’s front door.