Paul Doherty - Herald of Hell

Athelstan smiled as Cranston, shaking with laughter, his eyes brimming with tears, rose and clapped him on the shoulders.

‘Oh, little monk!’

‘Friar, Sir John!’

‘What did you do then?’

‘I explained that she had me wrong. I was there to see the sights …’

Cranston threw his head back and roared with laughter.

‘I asked if she would like to accompany me, did she wish to be shriven? I …’

Sir John turned away and slumped back on the stool.

‘She became very angry.’ Athelstan drew a deep breath. ‘So I thought it best to leave.’ He went and stood over Cranston.

‘I often think of her, Sir John, her exquisitely decorated chamber, the bed with its snow-white sheets …’

‘Have you ever been with a woman,’ Cranston asked, ‘having lain with one?’

Athelstan coloured and turned away. ‘I know what it is to love, Sir John, to love and lose and nurse a broken heart. As for the sex act, strange to say, my good friend, and you can ask many a priest, it’s not the coitus, the little death of the bed which haunts your soul. No, being celibate, remaining chaste bites deeper than that. It’s the loneliness, Sir John, the yawning, empty solitude. Bonaventure, not my cat but the great Franciscan theologian, had it correct. He claimed the greatest friendship in the world should be that between husband and wife.’

‘And the good Lord does not fill that emptiness, Brother?’

‘We worship a hidden God, Sir John, an elusive one. We search for him, the hidden beauty, and that search can lead us down many strange paths. In the village where I was born an old widow woman lived in a well-furnished cottage surrounded by a garden overlooked by a small rose window filled with coloured glass. Turtle doves nested beneath this. Now the old woman lived by herself. Her husband had left an eternity ago to fight in Normandy. He promised he would return: the first she would know about it was when he tapped at that rose window. He never came back, killed by a crossbow bolt at Crecy. Nevertheless, every evening that old lady, just as dusk fell, waited for the turtle dove to begin its passionate pattering against the darkening glass. Love, Sir John, manifests itself in so many strange ways. The human heart is a hungry hunter; it starves for love, for acceptance and deep friendship, and the road it follows twists and turns. Sometimes it can bring you to a place like this. They say a man who knocks on the door of a brothel really wants to knock on the door of God. He is searching for that hidden beauty and joy.’

‘You are a strange one, friar.’

‘Then I am in good company, Sir John.’

‘You deal with sin but never commit one?’

‘I did not say that, my portly friend. Yes, I sit in the shriving chair and listen to souls pattering their sins. However, the more you listen, the more you realize that you and your penitent have so much in common.’ Athelstan laughed. ‘They often confess what you would love to do yourself, which, Sir John, brings us back to Perugia and what I saw there compared to what we have here, a stark bareness, which is not what I expected.’

‘Brother, any house openly proclaiming itself a brothel would be condemned, raided and closed. So the Golden Oliphant masquerades as a wealthy tavern.’

‘Where other appetites are discreetly served?’

‘Precisely, little friar. Now we should go down and meet those other guests.’

‘They will wait, they have to,’ Athelstan murmured. ‘It’s good for their souls. Rest assured, Sir John, The Golden Oliphant now houses the deep, curdling mystery of Whitfield’s death. Logically therefore it also holds the solution which, I suspect, is already known to one or more of its occupants. So, let us get the measure of this place.’

Athelstan crossed to the door then came back.

‘Thibault claimed there was a story to this house. He mentioned an old comrade of yours, Sir Everard Camoys, his brother Reginald and the Cross of Lothar. I have heard of the latter; an exquisitely beautiful, bejewelled cross of great antiquity. Come, Sir John, there is a story behind the Golden Oliphant?’

The friar gazed expectantly at the coroner, who just stared back. You are, Cranston thought, a little ferret, you gnaw away at a problem until you reach the truth. The coroner half-cocked his head, listening to the sounds from below: the archers leaving, Whitfield’s cadaver being loaded on to a sled, the clatter of pots, all drowned by the deep growling of dogs.

‘What are those?’ Athelstan asked.

‘Hunting dogs, mastiffs, Mistress Cheyne lets them loose at night to roam the gardens. Well, there is one less now, thanks to Master Thibault.’

‘So those mastiffs must have been prowling last night?’

Cranston raised his eyebrows. ‘Brother, we should go down and begin the questioning.’

‘In a while, Sir John. Thibault said that you have a story and, as I have said, I want to hear it. I need to capture the very essence of this place. We must summon up all our wit.’

‘Why?’

‘Because a very clever, subtle murder has been committed here.’

‘You are sure of that?’

‘Sir John, I feel it here.’ Athelstan beat his breast. ‘Something is very wrong and we must uncover the truth. We must listen, reflect and pray. Eventually that truth will emerge like light from a candle, the pool will spread and strengthen. So,’ Athelstan spread his hands, ‘the Golden Oliphant?’

‘Many years ago,’ the coroner began lugubriously, ‘when I was young and handsome …’

‘Sir John, you still are!’

‘And my hair was golden, my body svelte. I was like all the others after our great victory at Crecy, we flew on eagle’s wings, young warriors, Brother. English knights and English bowmen were needed here, there and everywhere. Many of my comrades hired themselves out to form companies and fight for this prince or that. Everard and Reginald Camoys, together with their bosom shield companion, Simon Penchen, were leaders amongst the Black Prince’s eagles. They journeyed into Eastern Europe where they were hired by the Teutonic Knights to fight the Slavs. Everard was the real soldier; Reginald was a dreamer, an artist who valued beautiful objects. He and Everard were close but Reginald was totally devoted to his childhood friend, Simon Penchen. They had served as pages, squires and household knights in this noble retinue or that. Two young men who saw themselves as David and Jonathan from the Old Testament or Roland or Oliver at Roncesvalles.’ Cranston paused to drink from his miraculous wineskin. Athelstan listened to the sounds of the tavern, dominated by the deep growling of those mastiffs. Another strand to this mystery, the friar reflected. If Whitfield was murdered, the assassin must have entered from the garden. The door to this chamber had not been forced, so the murderer must have used the window to get in and get out, but how? The chamber was at least eight yards up from the ground. What ladder, if any, could reach that height and, above all, those mastiffs would surely tear any intruder apart?

‘Brother?’

‘Ah, yes, Sir John: Simon Penchen and Reginald Camoys?’

‘Two peas from the same pod. Penchen was killed fighting the Easterlings; Reginald Camoys was distraught. He had the mortal remains of his comrade embalmed and brought home and buried in a chantry chapel he founded at St Mary Le Bow. Later he erected an ornate table tomb for Penchen and eventually one for himself. Reginald died just a few years ago. Now listen, Brother,’ Cranston wagged a finger, ‘Reginald loved the beautiful, the work of skilled craftsmen. When he and his brother left the Teutonic Knights and hastily brought Penchen’s corpse back to England, Reginald was so distraught that, to compensate himself for his grief, he stole a precious relic from the chapel where the Teutonic Knights had their treasury, the Cross of Lothar, a priceless precious object, only six inches high and about the same across. Nevertheless, it is fashioned out of pure gold and decorated with pearls, gems and precious enamels. At the centre of the cross piece is a medallion of the purest glass and ivory delineating the head of the Roman Emperor Augustus. A rare object indeed, Athelstan, blessed, sanctified and bestowed on the Teutonic Knights by the Emperor Lothar.’