Paul Doherty - Candle Flame

Athelstan studied what he had written. ‘ Nono , Physician Scrope was fastidiously clean. According to witnesses he had been closeted in his chamber, yet his costly boots and cloak were splattered with blood. The same is true of the lantern horn, whilst the candle inside had burnt low. Scrope must have gone out on the night of the murder and didn’t have time to get the mud cleaned off his clothing. He must have, or might have, seen or heard something suspicious, so he was silenced. Decimo , the attack on Lascelles? Undoubtedly Beowulf, but was he also responsible for the other murders? Postremo .’ Athelstan paused. ‘Finally, the spy who declares he is residing at The Candle-Flame … is he only a spy or an assassin?’ Athelstan pulled across the sheets of parchment given to him by Thibault. ‘So many questions, Friar,’ he muttered, ‘and I am so tired.’ Athelstan kept reading but his eyes grew heavy and, putting his head on his arms, he slipped into a deep sleep.

oOoOo

Cranston had risen very early in the principal bedchamber of his now empty, rather desolate house. He’d stoutly resisted the temptation to mope and mourn the absence of the Lady Maude and the two poppets. Instead, he had washed thoroughly and clipped his hair, moustache and beard using an enamel-backed mirror, a Twelfth Night gift from the Lady Maude. Once satisfied, Cranston had dressed in one of his finest lawn shirts, a sea-green woollen hose, a blue jerkin and a dark-red mantle. He donned his silver chain of office, rubbed perfumed oil on to his face, collected his boots, cloak and sword then paused by the front door to recite a short prayer for his loved ones. He crossed himself, opened the door and went out to brave the freezing night mist which still cloaked Cheapside. Cranston strolled down the thoroughfare until he reached the Church of St Mary-le-Bow. He entered its incensed-hallowed darkness, which was lit fitfully by golden tongues of candle flame before the Lady altar. Cranston genuflected and entered the Chantry Chapel of St Alphege, where the Jesus Mass of the day was about to begin. Afterwards Cranston ambled across to what he called ‘his other chapel’ – The Holy Lamb of God – to be soothed by the tender ministrations of the landlady. Cranston dined on cormarie , a dish of the house: pork roasted in red wine, cloves, garlic and black pepper, served with freshly baked white bread. Cranston gave thanks to her and God as he ate and drank lustfully. Of course, within a heartbeat of entering the tavern the coroner was joined by two beggars, the constant bane of Cranston’s life: Leif the One-Legged and his comrade Rawbum, a former cook who, under the influence, had sat down on a pan of bubbling oil. Cranston was able to fend them off with a few pennies and so they left, shouting their praise and thanks.

At peace with God and man, Sir John then adjourned to his judgement chamber in the Guildhall where his two acolytes, Osbert the plump-faced clerk and Simon the meagre-featured scrivener had prepared the agreed schedule. The coroner ruefully conceded that the business of the day had begun. He listened to both men even though he was distracted by memories of what he had seen and heard the previous day. The murders at The Candle-Flame were truly baffling. Athelstan had left early in the evening equally mystified. Cranston had reviewed and scrutinized all he had learnt and wondered if Athelstan had reached the same conclusion as he had, a rather minor solution yet still interesting. Cranston had not bothered about Beowulf or the possible spy. He had been fascinated by the costly blue gauntlet and the expensive chainmail wristguard. Had these been deliberately left by the assassin, who had excelled himself in the deadly skill of his murderous enterprise? If the killer had been wearing these, and Cranston accepted Athelstan’s theory that neither item fitted any of the corpses in the Barbican, surely the killer would have noticed they were missing? He would have searched for them. Moreover, both items were quite difficult to take off, especially the wristguard. And why take one off and not both gauntlets and wristguards? If the items had been deliberately, left, for what purpose? The killer would not incriminate himself, so who was he trying to blame? Moreover, if those items belonged to an innocent party, how did the killer obtain them and why leave them in that murder chamber? Cranston was also intrigued by what they had found on the physician’s corpse. Why was Scrope clutching that vademecum , the pilgrim book about the wonders of Glastonbury? The book had been open at a certain page stained with the dead man’s blood. Was it a mere accident, a coincidence? Had the physician been reminiscing about his pilgrimage?

Cranston was roused from his reflections by Oswald and Simon who, helped by Flaxwith and his bailiffs, had now assembled the usual litany of offences with their perpetrators. Mooncurser, who believed demons, disguised as a gang of sparrows, were massing in the eaves of houses ready to strike. He and his comrade Hugh the Howlet, who believed he was Master of the Owls, had noisily proclaimed with trumpet and bagpipe such a message along the entire length of Cheapside well after the chimes of midnight. Eventually they had been arrested by the bailiffs, given a good thrashing and lodged in the cage on the tun. Cranston bellowed at them and let both go. Make-bait and Duck-legs appeared next, accused of drunkenness. They had the charges quashed in return for providing valuable information about the jakemen who issued counterfeit licences to the glimmers so the latter could go begging the length and breadth of the city. Cranston took careful note of these as he did the Queen of the Night, who claimed she ran a family of love in a chamber above a tavern in Dowgate. Cranston declared that she was a bawd supervising a brothel. He fined her as such and bound her over to keep the peace. Cranston sat as the whole sorry gaggle of petty malefactors appeared and disappeared before him as he issued his judgements. The market horn was braying for the start of business along Cheapside when Cranston noticed Muckworm, one of his most trusted informants, slide into the judgement chamber to stand statue-like in his long brown robe until the room emptied. Once it had, Muckworm, his bald head and girlish face all glistening with perfumed oil, sidled forward.

‘My Lord Coroner …’

‘Two shillings,’ Cranston retorted. ‘Four shillings if the information is useful.’

‘The business at The Candle-Flame?

‘What of it?’

‘None of the plunder has appeared on the streets. No one is saying anything. Rumour claims the Upright Men, though rejoicing in Marsen’s death, had no part in it.’

‘And?’

‘They have issued the ban against anyone who tries to profit from the stolen treasure. Any information about the murders and robbery must be conveyed to them. They have also issued their own warrant and posted a reward for the capture of Hugh of Hornsey.’

‘Have they now?’ Cranston breathed, stirring in his chair. ‘In other words, the Upright Men do not know what happened at The Candle-Flame. They had no part in it, which brings us back to the original question. Who did? Ah, well, Muckworm, see Osbert and collect three shillings.’

Muckworm bowed and left the chamber. Cranston sighed and pulled across a copy of an indictment: how Thomas Elan in Farringdon ward feloniously entered the close and house of Margaret Perman of the same ward, attempted to rape her feloniously, and feloniously bit the said Margaret with his teeth so that he ripped off the said Margaret’s nose with that bite and broke three of her ribs so that four days later the said Margaret died because of infection and pain of that bite … ‘Satan’s tits!’ Cranston swore quietly and immediately took a slurp from the miraculous wineskin. He grasped a quill and scribbled across the indictment that Elan be arraigned before the justices of oyer and terminer at Westminster.