Paul Doherty - Candle Flame

‘Come, kindly light,’ Athelstan whispered. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and recited the ‘Lavabo’ psalm, ‘“I will wash my hands among the innocent and encompass thy altar O Lord …”’

Athelstan dozed for a while and started awake at a heart-cutting shriek which echoed through the tavern. He jumped to his feet and entered the sweet-smelling Dark Parlour, where Thorne, standing on a barrel, was busy hanging fresh herbs and flitches of bacon from the smoke-stained rafters. He just stood gaping; the shriek was repeated and the taverner swiftly clambered down. He and Athelstan hurried out into the main hallway and up the stairs into the gallery. They pushed their way through the slatterns and servants milling about. Thorne shouted at them to be quiet. He and Athelstan strode down the gallery which ran past chambers on either side to another narrow stairwell at the far end. Eleanor Thorne stood stricken outside one of the chambers. She glanced up, her face white as snow, pointing at the blood seeping out from beneath the chamber door.

‘Scrope’s chamber,’ Thorne whispered, gathering his wife in his arms, comforting her and pushing her gently back down the gallery to the waiting maids. Athelstan tried the door but it was locked. He hammered on the dark oaken wood but realized it was futile. Thorne took a ring of keys from his apron pocket and tried to insert the master key but failed.

‘The lock’s turned on the other side.’ Thorne, his craggy face now sweat-soaked, tried to push back the eyelet high in the door, a small square of wood hinged on the inside, but this was firmly closed. Other doors in the gallery opened, faces peered out. Athelstan glimpsed Father Roger’s fearful and wary face just before Cranston came pounding up the stairs shouting at everyone to stand aside or keep to their chambers. The coroner stared at the thick bloody plume still spreading out from beneath the door.

‘The window is open!’ Mooncalf shouted as he threw himself up the other set of stairs. ‘The shutters are pulled back, it would be easy to enter from the stableyard.’

‘Off and up you go lad,’ Cranston shouted, twirling a penny at the ostler, who deftly caught it. Athelstan turned and tried the latch on the door to the chamber facing Scrope’s.

‘Empty,’ Thorne murmured. The taverner inserted a key and opened it. Athelstan went in. The room was neat and tidy, the window opened to air it. Everything was in order. The four-poster bed was made up, its curtains drawn back. There was a high-back chair, two stools, tables and an open aumbry for clothes, although the pole between the uprights had been taken down. Athelstan shivered at the draught created by the open door and hastily retreated back into the warmth of the gallery. He heard movement in Scrope’s chamber. Mooncalf’s exclam-ation followed by gasps and cries. The bolts on top and bottom were pulled back and the key turned. The door swung open. Cranston immediately ordered the white-faced ostler to stand with his master in the gallery as he and Athelstan stepped over the physician’s body into the chamber. Athelstan glanced quickly around. The room was very similar to the one he had just visited, though the physician’s clothing and possessions lay scattered about. In order to open the door Scrope’s corpse had been pulled back and rolled on to one side. Athelstan crossed himself and pulled the corpse further into the room, turning it over so they could see the crossbow quarrel embedded deep in Scrope’s chest. The dead physician’s pallid face, twisted in agony, was caked with the blood which had erupted through his nose and mouth. Athelstan felt the corpse’s hand: it was still slightly warm.

‘He was murdered very recently,’ Athelstan murmured. ‘Sir John, a moment, please.’

Athelstan took out the holy oils and anointed the corpse, reciting the absolution, followed by the final prayer for the departed. Once he had finished, Athelstan scrutinized the chamber door but could detect no interference with the bolts, lock and eyelet. He walked to the window, which was very similar to the one in the Barbican, with shutters on either side of a horn-covered door window. Athelstan pushed this back and stared down. The stableyard below was busy: yard ser-vants and customers were staring open-mouthed up at the chamber. Athelstan asked one of them to remove the ladder Mooncalf had used.

‘Did you see anything?’ he shouted. A chorus of denials answered his question.

‘Obviously not,’ Athelstan murmured, turning away. Anyone trying to climb into Scrope’s chamber would have been noticed. Athelstan went to the corpse and knelt by it, half-listening to Cranston’s theories. He noticed a manuscript, a small book, its pages tightly bound together by red twine. It had been opened and lay half-hidden by Scrope’s robes. He held this up.

‘Brother?’

‘A vademecum , Sir John.’ Athelstan leafed through the bloodstained pages. ‘A pilgrim’s book listing all the great relics at Glastonbury Abbey: Arthur’s tomb, Joseph of Arimathea’s staff. The Stella Cristi, the Star of Christ, a beautiful ruby. The Holy Thorn and other items. Scrope must have been clutching this when he died. I wonder why.’ Athelstan rose as Cranston opened the door and began to question others outside. The friar quickly sifted through the dead physician’s possessions: clothing, most of it very costly, two purses containing silver and gold coins, a set of spurs and a war belt finely stitched with gold thread. He emptied Scrope’s chancery bag on to the bed and sifted through the billae, memoranda, lists of herbs and other medicines as well as letters of attestation from different universities. He opened a bronze chancery cylinder, shook out a small roll of documents and went through these. His exclamations of surprise brought Cranston back in from the gallery. Athelstan handed over what he had found.

‘True bills, Sir John, drawn up by a notary in Coggeshall, Scrope’s home town. They contain a confession of one Alain Taillour, housebreaker. Apparently, about ten years ago, around the Feast of Michaelmas, Scrope’s house in Coggeshall was burgled and ransacked. Scrope was attending a guild meeting in town. On his return he found his house a place of mayhem and murder. Scrope’s wife and their manservant had been brutally slain. During the first week of Advent last, Taillour was caught red-handed breaking into a warehouse. He turned king’s approver; applying for a pardon he named all his confederates in his life of robbery.’ Athelstan drew a deep breath. ‘He clearly accused Edmund Marsen as the person responsible for the murder of Scrope’s wife and manservant. Taillour swore this on oath before a local justice providing the names of other witnesses. Apparently Scrope made his pilgrimage to Glastonbury in grateful thanks and as well as to seek divine help …’

‘To indict Marsen,’ the coroner interrupted. ‘Of course,’ Cranston whispered, ‘Marsen is, or was, a royal official. Scrope was planning to appear before the Court of King’s Bench in Westminster Hall. He would swear out a true indictment which Marsen would have to answer before a jury and three royal justices.’ Cranston sat down on a stool, cradling the miraculous wineskin. ‘Now both are dead,’ he continued, ‘sent to appear before Christ’s Assize. But how was Scrope murdered? Who was responsible and how? Friar Roger claims he was sure he heard a loud knocking on Scrope’s door and that this was repeated, but that is all. Father Roger opened his door but could see nobody. The assassin could not have entered by the window as the entire tavern would have seen him. So how could the assassin enter this room, kill Scrope then leave, locking and bolting the door behind him?’ He pointed to the corpse. ‘The same quarrels were used in the Barbican, loosed from a hand-held arbalest.’ Cranston got to his feet. ‘Brother, what is the matter – what are you staring at?’