Paul Doherty - Herald of Hell

Reynard moved restlessly as one of the huge rats, a swarm of which haunted this hideous place, slunk out of a congealed mass of dirt and refuse. Nose twitching, its ears flat against its knobbly head, back haunched as if ready to spring, the rat sloped across a pool of light. One of the feral cats brought in to contain such vermin as well as provide fresh meat for the prisoners, sprang out from the dark. Reynard watched the life-and-death struggle reach its inevitable bloody climax in a long drawn-out screech. The cat loped away, prey in its teeth, and Reynard returned to his reflections. What could he confess to? He could provide the names of the leading Upright Men of Essex, yet Thibault knew these already. Reynard had been asked for other names, including the identity of the Herald of Hell. Reynard could not reply to that. All he could say was that the Herald was a will-o’-the-wisp with no true substance.

He glanced up at a shrill yell. Dark shapes milled around Benedict Bedlam, a hedgerow priest sentenced to hang for the murder of a doxy outside St Bartholomew’s the Less. Bedlam was defending himself against Wyvern and Hydrus, wolfsheads hired by the Upright Men to attack a convoy of weaponry Thibault had organized at Queenshithe. Brutal scavengers, Wyvern and Hydrus had decided to take Benedict’s bowl of filthy pottage. They had returned too late to the condemned hole to collect their own meagre meal after they had been taken to a separate chamber to be searched for any knife or dagger. Reynard looked away. Perhaps he could advise Thibault how wrong the Master of Secrets was about the timing of the impending revolt? Indeed, it was already beginning. The black and red banners of anarchy, along with longbows, quivers crammed with arrows, swords, clubs, maces and spears were being taken from their secret hiding places behind parish altars or dug up in village cemeteries. Soon, very soon according to John Ball, the Armies of God would be marching. Finally there was that scrap of parchment Reynard was still carrying, hidden in the stitching of his clothing. Was that the key to the cipher? Would it make the other document intelligible and so provide Thibault with valuable information? If it did, Reynard could buy his life and his freedom. He would receive the promised pardon, be escorted to the nearest port with food, weapons and licence to be taken across the Narrow Seas. Once there, like the fox he was, he’d lie low until the storm blew over.

‘Brother! Brother!’ Reynard glanced up. Hydrus and Wyvern were crouching on either side of him. In the gloom Reynard could not make out their ugly faces, yet a spurt of fear gripped his belly.

‘Brother?’ Hydrus leaned forward. ‘The turnkeys who searched us support the Great Community.’

‘Liars!’ Reynard replied, his mouth turning dry, his tongue seeming to swell.

‘They say you are here to reflect, that you have been offered a pardon by Thibault the turd.’ Hydrus laughed at the crude joke. ‘You wouldn’t be thinking of leaving us, would you, Brother?’

‘No, of course not.’ Reynard pushed himself back against the wall.

‘Look up to the hills, Reynard,’ Hydrus exclaimed, ‘from whence our salvation comes. Look up! Look up!’ Reynard had no choice and Wyvern swiftly sliced his throat with the razor-edged dagger Benedict the Bedlam had slipped to him during their pretend quarrel.

Cranston and Athelstan left the death chamber. The friar was insistent on walking around the Golden Oliphant. They first visited the garden strip beneath Whitfield’s bedchamber. Both of them scrutinized the black-soiled flower plot but could find nothing to suggest a ladder or anything else had been placed there, or that anyone, though God knows how, had slipped down from Whitfield’s chamber. They then visited the kennels. Athelstan warily inspected the mastiffs, smooth-haired dogs with long legs, bulbous faces and powerful jaws: red-eyed with anger, the hounds threw themselves against the stout oaken palings, foam-flecked teeth snapping the air.

‘In the dark, certainly,’ Cranston murmured, ‘they wouldn’t distinguish friend from foe. Perhaps we should accept the obvious and the inevitable, Brother: Whitfield hanged himself.’

He grasped Athelstan’s shoulder and made the Dominican face him. ‘Why do you pursue this, little friar?’

‘God’s work, Sir John. God gives life and only God can take it away. The first sin committed outside Eden was Cain slaying his brother Abel. He then hurled the challenge which still echoes through all human existence, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” And yes, Sir John, I am, you are, we are.’ Athelstan paused, as if listening to the cooing from the dovecote. The dogs had fallen silent, so the birdsong carried strong and clear. ‘I just feel here in my heart that something is very, very wrong. But what,’ Athelstan sighed, ‘I cannot say. We have a saying where I come from: “The whole world is strange except for thee and me, and even we are a little strange sometimes.” So, just bear with me and let’s continue our survey.’

They visited the stables. Athelstan glimpsed a magnificent destrier in its stall and wondered who the warhorse belonged to. They inspected the other outhouses and entered the kitchen block, where a sweaty-faced galopin or spit-turner informed the ever hungry Sir John that the previous evening they had served leek and venison pie and jugged hare, followed by fresh cheese tartlet. The coroner smacked his lips and took a serving of fresh waffles and a small cup of hippocras for ‘refreshment’s sake’. They continued their tour, oblivious to the messages from an increasingly agitated hostess. Athelstan was insistent on learning all he could about the Golden Oliphant, from the cellar with its barrels, casks, earthenware jars and baskets of dried fruit and vegetables to its wet storeroom, where fish were salted and brined and pates placed along the shelves in their strong crusts or ‘coffins’.

Only then did Athelstan declare himself satisfied and moved into the spacious taproom where Mistress Elizabeth Cheyne, Joycelina, Foxley, the weasel-faced Master of Horse, and Griffin, Master of the Hall, were assembled along with others. Athelstan and Cranston’s arrival was greeted with grumbles and dark looks, despite the free stoups of ale and platters of lait lardel – beaten eggs cooked with lardons and saffron – which had been served. Athelstan gathered that some of those present were guests, others servants – slatterns or, as Cranston tactfully described them, moppets of the bedchamber. Athelstan stood on a bench and, having apologized and delivered a special blessing, issued a spate of questions about what had happened the night before.

He soon established that it had rained. The mastiffs had been loose in the garden but, in the end, nothing remarkable had occurred, or so they said. Master Whitfield, along with his comrade Lebarge, had eaten and drunk deeply here in the taproom before going their separate ways. Lebarge stayed to converse with Hawisa, one of the moppets, whilst Whitfield had climbed the stairs to his chamber. Apparently, Mistress Cheyne pointed out, the Festival of Cokayne was over; the dinner parties and topsy-turvy chamber games had finished, and Whitfield was due to leave the following morning. Eventually the explanations and answers petered out. Athelstan continued to stand on the bench and stare around. He realized he could not detain them for long but insisted that, for the time being at least, all retainers of the Golden Oliphant, together with those who had participated in the Cokayne festivities, should stay lodged under pain of arrest and confinement in Newgate. They could leave to do this or that but they had to return to the Golden Oliphant by nightfall.

Athelstan and Sir John then retired to what Mistress Cheyne called her ‘Exchequer Chamber’, where she kept accounts, a pleasant, wood-panelled room with a large window overlooking the sweet-smelling kitchen garden. The chamber boasted a chancery desk, chairs and stools all polished to gleaming like the waxed floorboards. Athelstan noticed, from the marks on both the wall and floor, that items such as pictures, painted cloths and carpets had been removed. He had observed the same elsewhere on his tour of the house.