Paul Doherty - Herald of Hell

‘Brother Athelstan?’ He turned away from the window.

‘Do you think my clerk committed suicide?’

‘At a guess, Magister,’ Athelstan replied swiftly, ‘I would say not.’

Thibault gave a loud sigh. Albinus walked to the door to shoo away the guards. Cranston moved to the window as Athelstan took a stool before Thibault, who was still sitting on the edge of the bed.

The Master of Secrets leaned forward. ‘Begin, Brother.’

‘No.’ Athelstan pointed at Thibault. ‘You tell me, Magister. First, Amaury Whitfield?’

‘A graduate from the schools of Cambridge, a scholar skilled in the Quadrivium and Trivium. A shrewd clerk who trained himself in cipher, secret alphabets and other chancery matters. He was highly skilled.’

‘Loyal?’

‘Undoubtedly.’ Thibault’s face turned more cherubic as he smiled to himself.

‘Magister?’

‘I have my spies, Brother. I call them my sparrowhawks and I loose them along the lanes and runnels of London. Naturally they collected information about Whitfield, a bachelor with comfortable lodgings in Fairlop Lane near the Great Conduit in Cheapside. A clerk who liked games of hazard and the soft flesh of whores. Oliver Lebarge was his scrivener, who lodged with Whitfield and shared his pleasures. They were both constant visitors here. Mistress Cheyne proclaimed that the Golden Oliphant would hold the Festival of Cokayne, so, naturally, Whitfield and Lebarge were included. I understand they arrived three days ago.’

‘He was missed at the Chancery?’

‘Of course, but, according to the indenture he sealed with me, Whitfield was granted Saturdays and Sundays as boon-free along with other such days in each quarter.’

‘You suspected nothing wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ Albinus replied, moving to sit beside his master.

‘Nothing?’ Athelstan demanded. ‘Except the summons from the so-called Herald of Hell that frightened him, yes?’

‘We thought he had taken his boon days to recover,’ Albinus pulled a face, ‘to wallow in his filthy pleasures and so forget all threats and menaces.’

‘You have visited his chambers in Fairlop Lane?’

‘No, not yet.’

‘Do not,’ Athelstan declared. ‘If you want me and Sir John to investigate this matter, then we need the truth as we find it. Yes?’ Thibault just shrugged.

‘The recent attack,’ Athelstan gestured at the window, ‘nothing or no one was found?’

‘If they had been,’ Albinus jibed, ‘they would have met the same swift fate as Whitfield.’

‘And the other guests?’ Athelstan asked.

‘Cheshire archers now ring the Golden Oliphant. No one is allowed in or out without permission.’

‘Good,’ Athelstan breathed. ‘I need to question Mistress Cheyne, her servants and the guests, as well as study those manuscripts. What are their origins?’

Thibault rubbed his hands. ‘Thank you, Brother, for finding them. As for their provenance, the Upright Men have a messenger who calls himself Reynard. God knows his true name; some claim he is a defrocked friar of the Order of the Sack.’

‘Reynard the Fox?’ Cranston interrupted. ‘Leading emissary of the Great Community of the Realm, a true miscreant who prides himself on slipping in and out of the city as easily as a fox does a hen coop?’

‘Well, this time he was trapped and caught,’ Thibault snapped. ‘Reynard murdered the bell clerk of St Mary Le Bow, Edmund Lacy, and fled. He was recognized and caught in the Hall of Hell – a disreputable tavern.’

‘A veritable mummer’s castle,’ Cranston agreed. ‘Deep in that filthy maze of streets around Whitefriars.’

‘Anyway,’ Thibault hurried on, ‘Reynard was arrested and lodged in Newgate, where he was searched and interrogated. We discovered the cipher on his person but not the alphabet to go with it. Under torture Reynard admitted he was to meet a leader of the Upright Men in London who styles himself the Herald of Hell.’

‘And where is Reynard now?’

‘Recovering in Newgate, he, ah …’ Thibault pulled a face. Athelstan held his gaze. Reynard, or whoever he truly was, would have been harshly tortured, probably crushed beneath an iron door until he began to plead. Thibault’s cruelty was a byword in the city.

‘Master Thibault has shown great compassion,’ Albinus lisped. ‘The traitor Reynard could have been immediately condemned, hanged, drawn and quartered.’

‘Great compassion indeed!’ Cranston murmured drily.

‘Reynard,’ Albinus continued, ‘has been given the opportunity to reflect and mend his ways.’

‘By helping to decipher that message?’ Athelstan intervened.

‘As well as informing us of other secret matters affecting the Crown and its business.’

Athelstan studied this precious pair. Thibault and his eerie henchman were royal officials who could expect no mercy if the Upright Men stormed London and assumed power. The punishments threatened to Reynard would be nothing compared to what the Earthworms would inflict on both these men at Smithfield or Tyburn.

‘And now?’ Athelstan asked.

‘Reynard is still reflecting. We await his answer by Vespers tomorrow evening, Brother Athelstan.’ Thibault thrust both documents back into the friar’s hands. ‘Sir John will be officially commissioned to investigate the mysteries here at the Golden Oliphant. We expect you to assist with this secreta negotia – secret business – and, in doing so, win the approval of the Crown, not to mention its undying gratitude.’

‘Of course, what could be more pleasing?’ Athelstan murmured. Thibault smiled with his eyes.

‘We also ask you, as we know you are peritus – skilled in these matters – to unlock the secret of the cipher and so tell us the messages being carried to this Herald of Hell.’ Thibault wagged a finger. ‘I suspect the other manuscript, displaying the triangles and saints’ names, represents Whitfield’s workings before he died, but what they mean …’ Thibault shrugged. ‘In the end that cipher, I am sure, refers to matters which are most important, crucial to the rebels when they raise the black banner of treason against our sovereign lord …’

‘And that includes yourself and His Grace, my Lord of Gaunt?’

‘But more especially the person of our young king Richard,’ Cranston intervened swiftly, fearful that this little friar might provoke Thibault too far.

‘Traitors, Brother Athelstan,’ Thibault hissed, ‘thrive on their dunghills. I have, and will leave alone, those who burrow deep in certain parts of Southwark.’ He shrugged. ‘What difference does it make now? Why hunt sparrows when more dangerous birds of prey circle overhead?’ He abruptly recalled himself. ‘Unlock the cipher, Brother Athelstan, and you will have my usual gratitude.’

Athelstan held Thibault’s gaze. The Master of Secrets had raised this matter before and, to be fair to him, had kept his word. St Erconwald’s had its own coven of Upright Men – Watkin, Pike and the other miscreants – and, though Thibault knew this, none of them had suffered some violent raid on their dwellings in the dead of night. No mailed horsemen had clattered into yards, damaging property, seizing goods whilst none of the parish’s young men had been seized and hustled away to rot in the Bocardo, Southwark’s filthy prison or those other hellish pits in Newgate, the Fleet or the Tower.

‘Good, good.’ Thibault clapped his hands like a child, rocking backwards and forwards on the bed. Athelstan glanced quickly at Albinus and was surprised. Thibault’s henchman was gazing sadly at him with those pink-rimmed, glass-coloured eyes, then he winked slowly and pulled a face. Athelstan went cold. Albinus, for his own private reasons, was warning him that Thibault may well leave the parish of St Erconwald’s alone because he did not need to bother himself. Thibault already knew what the Upright Men were plotting there, which meant that the Master of Secrets had a traitor, someone deep in the parish. Shocked and yet certain of the warning given, Athelstan abruptly rose to his feet and walked across to the window. He leaned against the ledge, watching the tattered pigskin flutter in the breeze as he recalled Albinus’ warning. Athelstan knew Thibault’s henchman was most amicable towards him: the friar had done good work for Gaunt and never indulged in the cheap insults others directed Albinus’ way, either about his strange looks or sinister status. Nevertheless the possibility of a spy in St Erconwald’s would have to wait. Other matters demanded his attention.