Paul Doherty - The Book of Fires

Athelstan paused in his writing. He closed his eyes, recalling different images and occasions. Walking the streets of Poultry after that meeting at Lady Anne’s house, the attack on them near Aldgate. He opened his eyes and studied the list he’d made, emphasizing each point in his mind like a preacher memorizing a sermon. ‘There are still gaps,’ he whispered. ‘I don’t have enough … too many gaps.’ He took a fresh square of parchment and hastily wrote out a number of requests for the coroner. Once finished, he studied both manuscripts. He was still lacking one vital piece of evidence and Crim would supply that. A floorboard creaked behind him. Athelstan whirled around. Cranston had tiptoed through the door.

‘Brother, are you finished?’

‘For the moment, Sir John.’ The friar picked up the second piece of parchment and held it out for the coroner to take. ‘We must go our separate ways, but I need answers to these questions before the vespers bell rings.’

‘And what then, little friar?’

‘Oh, we shall meet. Yes, perhaps the most appropriate place would be Newgate Prison. I need to have words with certain individuals there. But first,’ Athelstan rose to his feet, ‘my quarry is Crim …’

Athelstan stared around the cell where Lady Isolda Beaumont had spent her last days. He had re-examined the graffiti on the wall and paced that sombre chamber, measuring his footsteps and half-listening to the sounds from outside. He had spent the previous day, once he had left Blackfriars, in the priest’s house at St Erconwald’s as he gently questioned Crim and Benedicta and received Cranston’s replies through his messenger, Tiptoft. The coroner had simply confirmed what Athelstan had suspected, turning a strong probability into a virtual certainty. Athelstan believed he had trapped the killer; now he prepared for that fateful confrontation. He stopped his pacing as Cranston, swathed in his cloak, strode into the cell. He took off his beaver hat, stamping his booted feet against the cold.

‘Have you set up court, little friar? Those questions you sent me …?’

‘And you will soon learn the answers, Sir John. I ask for your patience-’ Athelstan broke off at a knock at the door. He strode across, opened it and ushered Parson Garman into the death cell. Almost immediately there was a second knock and the Carnifex swaggered in, breathing noisily, bowing and bobbing to both coroner and friar.

‘You asked to see me,’ the prison chaplain began. ‘I thought our business was finished.’

‘Parson Garman, we still have words – perhaps not here, not now. I want to repeat questions I have put to both of you earlier. First, Lady Isolda and Lady Anne Lesures quarrelled here in this cell about two days before her execution?’

‘Yes,’ both men chorused.

‘And before her death everything Lady Isolda ate or drank was examined carefully, so no philtre or potion was given to her?’

Again both men agreed.

‘And Lady Anne gave Isolda a set of Ave beads, which she later discarded. You, Parson Garman, returned the broken set to Lady Anne.’

‘That is the truth,’ the chaplain declared. ‘Why, Brother Athelstan?’

‘Hush, now.’ Athelstan nodded at the coroner. ‘Have you brought her with you, Sir John?’

‘Lady Anne is waiting below.’

‘Parson Garman, Master Carnifex,’ Athelstan gestured at the door, ‘we will speak again and there will be fresh business to do.’ Both men left. A short while later Lady Anne, dressed in widows’ weeds, a black gauze veil hiding her patrician face, was ushered into the cell.

‘Brother Athelstan.’ Lady Anne took the proffered seat by the table, pushing back more firmly her veil of black mourning crepe. Her face was thin and pallid; eyes black and rather sunken though still bright with what the friar considered to be a malicious light. ‘Brother Athelstan,’ she repeated, ‘why am I here? You said it was a matter of life or death. I am in deep mourning for Turgot, my apprentice, my godson, my-’

‘Your helpmate in murder,’ Athelstan intervened, gesturing at Cranston, sitting on a stool nearby, to remain seated and stay quiet. Athelstan glanced quickly over his shoulder at the door. The turnkey had locked it as Athelstan ordered. This chamber would become his tournament field, where he would challenge and confront this most malicious of souls.

‘Brother?’ The coroner’s voice was a hoarse whisper.

‘Mourning, grieving,’ Athelstan declared. ‘Who are you, Anne Lesures, Anne Lasido? The widow and the do-gooder but, in all things, the murderess? I cannot for the life of me understand souls such as you.’

‘I am leaving.’ She made to rise.

‘And I will have you arrested. Sit down!’ Athelstan shouted. ‘Sit down and listen.’ Lady Anne composed herself on the chair, joining her hands on the tabletop. ‘As I said,’ Athelstan continued, ‘I cannot understand souls such as you. Your devotion to St Anne, your constant do-gooding, yet deep inside you,’ Athelstan beat his breast, ‘in the marrow of your soul, at the centre of your heart stands a temple devoted to your one and only real God – yourself. You are determined on having your own will and way whatever the cost to others, whilst you wage the most horrid revenge against anyone who opposes, objects or frustrates you. Turgot was your demon, your familiar, your accomplice. He was not murdered. He accidently killed himself whilst mixing Greek fire. He went into the Keep, locking and barring both windows and door. He carried with him a copy of Mark the Greek’s “The Book of Fires”. He had, in that death chamber, everything he needed. He had all the time in the world to prepare more deadly pots and missiles. Who for, Lady Anne? Whom had you marked down for death? Buckholt, Mortice, Sir Henry Beaumont? Rosamund Clifford, or perhaps another assault on me and Sir John?’

‘Brother Athelstan, you are witless. You have lost your mind. You do not know what you are saying. Sir John, I beg you …’

She turned to the coroner, who just gazed bleakly back at her. Cranston knew Athelstan; ‘Friar Ferret’ was how he described him to his confederates. Once Athelstan began a prosecution, he was very rarely wrong. Moreover, Cranston could sense an atmosphere. Athelstan was incandescent with suppressed fury, whilst the coroner was becoming deeply suspicious about Lady Anne as he recalled what he knew of her but, more importantly, the way she acted now. Athelstan was pursuing the truth of it and they would not leave this cell until he achieved it.

‘Continue, Brother,’ Cranston murmured.

‘There is an English proverb, Lady Anne. Nicephorus the Greek, you know who he is, quoted it quite recently. “Do not play with fire”. Both Sir John and I have served at sieges. We have seen the most dire accidents as trebuchets are loaded, oil boiled and carried, fire missiles prepared. Turgot, to his eternal cost, also discovered this, though I think it was also an answer to my prayer. I very rarely pray for vengeance, Lady Anne, but on the night we were attacked I prayed then and the following morning in the chapel of Firecrest Manor for God’s justice, for God’s vengeance after the death of that poor, innocent torch-bearer.’

‘I also did the same.’ Lady Anne rested against the table, a small white cloth in her hand, which she used to dab her mouth.

‘Hush, now,’ Athelstan warned her. ‘Enough lies, protests of innocence. Do you know, Sir John,’ he turned to the coroner, ‘St Anselm said that we were two people in one – who we are and who we really are – and only God knows the difference. Lady Anne,’ he turned back, ‘I shall tell you with God’s help who you truly are and as much as I can about your real life. I shall produce evidence for what I say. I will press the case hard.’ Athelstan paused. Newgate had fallen silent, as if all the distressed spirits which haunted its clammy, ill-lit galleries and prowled those foul, filth-strewn tunnels had stopped, hands to ears, listening to what was happening here, where a greater demon than any of them was being arraigned before God’s bar of judgement.