Paul Doherty - Candle Flame

‘So,’ Thibault whispered, ‘Brother Athelstan, Sir John, what say you? What has happened?’ He pulled a face. ‘I am sorry that your journey here, how can I say it, was eventful.’

‘Yes, you can say,’ Athelstan retorted. ‘Very eventful.’

‘My henchman,’ Thibault smiled at Lascelles, ‘has informed us about your quick thinking and courage at The Candle-Flame. My grateful thanks.’ His smile faded. ‘Beowulf shall hang at Smithfield. I shall be there to see his body ripped open, his entrails plucked out and his severed head balanced on a pole. Then we shall discover who has been found wanting.’

‘What do you know of him?’ Athelstan asked.

‘A traitor.’ Gaunt took his hand away from his mouth – even that was a delicate, studied movement. The Regent just sat staring at Athelstan with those strange blue eyes, as if he was trying to break into the friar’s very soul.

‘Your Grace,’ Athelstan leaned forward, ‘Beowulf’s origins … Who gave him that name?’

‘He assumed it himself,’ Thibault snapped, ‘at his very first murder. He left a message, “From Beowulf to Grendel, his enemy”. I suppose this Beowulf sees himself as a mixture of the pagan and the Christian, an Anglo-Saxon hero who can quote the sombre verses of the prophet Daniel from the Old Testament.’

‘Very good, very good,’ Athelstan mused.

‘What is, Brother?’ Gaunt snapped.

‘Well, Beowulf is a man who bestrides two traditions.’

‘He is a contagion, a pestilence.’ Gaunt’s voice thrilled with hatred. ‘He and his damnable proclamation appear here and there, as far north as Colchester and as far south as Richmond.’ Gaunt’s eyes slid to Thibault. ‘So far he has evaded capture. You, Brother, you and Sir John will trap him. Once you have, I shall kill him. So, what have you learnt?’

Athelstan faithfully reported all that happened: the mysteri-ous murders, the locked entrances, the plundered exchequer chest, the disappearance of Hugh of Hornsey and the murder of Scrope. He conceded that all the killings defied logic and explanation. Now and again he would turn to Cranston for confirmation. The coroner sat, eyes half-closed, calm and confident. Athelstan quietly prayed that he would remain so. There was bad blood between Gaunt and the Lord High Coroner of London stretching back years, when Sir John had been the Black Prince’s bannerman, body and soul. Cranston had resisted all approaches from Gaunt, be it through fear or favour. Sir John openly distrusted the Regent. On one occasion, deep in his cups, Cranston had confided to Athelstan how he suspected Gaunt secretly cherished and nursed dreams of seizing the crown. Sometimes the coroner feared for the safety and welfare of the young king.

Once Athelstan had finished, Gaunt and Thibault questioned them closely. The friar remained firm in his conclusion. He had as yet no explanation or evidence even to speculate on the murders at The Candle-Flame. Cranston added that he would issue writs immediately all over the city for the arrest of Hugh of Hornsey, if he was still alive.

‘My officials, royal archers, have been brutally murdered.’ Gaunt’s words hissed like the serpent he was. ‘My treasure,’ he beat his breast, ‘my treasure has been stolen. My name besmirched. My reputation ridiculed.’ He brought his fist down on the table. ‘For that, Sir John, Brother Athelstan, someone is going to die, and only after he has experienced the full horrors of Hell. Now there is more. Master Thibault show them.’ Thibault rose and opened a chancery pouch on a side table beneath an arras depicting the execution of England’s first martyr, St. Alban. Bearing in mind Gaunt’s threat, Athelstan was amused at the gory and gruesome picture, which reflected all the hidden menace of the Regent’s threat. Sir John had now closed his eyes, softly snoring, so Athelstan kicked him gently. The coroner sighed and pulled himself up. Thibault slid two pieces of parchment on to the table. The first was water-stained, the ink had run, the letters blurred. The second, on the costliest chancery parchment, was clerkly and clearly inscribed. It provided a list of stores, military impedimenta, siege machinery and war carts being brought to the Tower; also an estimate of the garrison there, the number of troops around London, river defences, the condition of the bridge and a list of the war cogs, caravels and hulkes being gathered in the estuary and further up river, their tonnage, armaments and what crews they carried. At the top of the costly sheet of vellum were the words, ‘To the Lord High Constable’, and at the bottom, ‘I reside at The Candle-Flame, 16 February.’

‘What is this?’ Athelstan asked.

‘A report from a spy,’ Thibault replied, going back to his seat. ‘Yesterday afternoon Ruat, a sailor from the Rose of Picardy , a Hainault merchantman bound for Dordrecht, was returning to his ship at Queenhithe when he was attacked, robbed and killed. Ruat’s two assailants were caught red-handed by the wharf master, their plunder seized. Both were hanged immediately on the river gallows. The wharf master looked at that document, now water-soaked. He could not make sense of the cipher.’ Athelstan picked it up and studied it; the words appeared to be pure nonsense.

‘Now,’ Thibault continued, ‘all port officials have been alerted against spying. The wharf master was suspicious; he passed the document to the sheriff, who of course delivered it to me. The document is stained, badly so because the sailor in question was thrown into the water.’

‘But he was only a messenger?’ Cranston asked.

‘Ruat carried a report written in a Latin cipher where the vowels AEIOU were replaced by five random numbers. In this case A is six, E is nine and so on. I broke the cipher and transcribed it. The report must be from a very high-ranking spy as he relates directly to the High Constable of France, Oliver de Clisson. More importantly, it gives us some clue to the identity and whereabouts of the spy. The last line in the cipher in clear Latin reads as follows, if I remember it correctly: “ Apud Candelae Flammam XVI Febr, Resideo , I reside at The Candle-Flame, sixteenth of February.”’ Athelstan looked at both the stained manuscript and the clear Latin translation and nodded in agreement.

‘The sixteenth of February was yesterday,’ Thibault continued. ‘Consequently, is someone at that tavern not only an assassin but a traitor?’ Thibault held Athelstan’s gaze. ‘Is it the same individual or two different persons? I don’t know. I cannot say except the spy must be learned and skilled. He is also very good. He was only stopped, thanks be to God, by mere accident from supplying his masters in the Secret Chancery at the Louvre with a very detailed description of our river defences from the estuary to the Tower. Look again at the translation, Brother Athelstan.’ He waited until the friar did so. ‘You see the names of ships and other information but notice that enigmatic phrase which I have transcribed.’ Athelstan did. ‘“ Et intra urbem et extra urbem populi ira crescit ” – both within the city and outside,’ Athelstan translated, ‘the anger of the people grows.’ The friar kept a still tongue in his head even though he was inclined to agree with the spy’s sentiments. Cranston just coughed rather noisily, fumbled for his miraculous wineskin then thought otherwise.

‘We believe,’ Thibault continued, ‘the French are planning a landing along the Thames, a true chevauchee , a great assault on our city. They hope to break our defences and count on the unrest you have witnessed to render these defences even weaker.’

‘Why admit he was residing at The Candle-Flame?’ Cranston queried.

‘Perhaps,’ Thibault replied slowly, ‘he expected a reply as well as to assure his masters that he had entered the city …’