A Shrine of Murders

by Paul Doherty

  ‘Your business is finished?’ Cotterell’s wife asked archly.

  ‘As well as it can be,’ Newington replied.

  ‘The servants will now lay out dinner,’ Darryl announced. ‘Marisa, tell one of the maids to put the children to bed.’

  Kathryn, eager to get away from this rather hostile group, handed her wine-cup to Colum.

  ‘Whose children are they?’ she asked.

  ‘The two boys are mine,’ Darryl replied, ‘whilst the little girl, Marie, is Chaddedon’s child.’

  ‘Let me speak to them,’ Kathryn asked. ‘I’ll bring them in.’

  She walked quickly across the lawn, gently moving her neck and shoulders to relieve the strain of the recent meeting. The children stopped playing as she approached and stood watching her. Kathryn crouched at the end of the path. The little girl with blonde curls and a pretty little face was no more than a baby. The boys, both black-haired, gazed dourly at her, clasping small wooden swords in their hands.

  ‘You have to come in,’ Kathryn said quietly.

  ‘Who are you?’ one of the boys asked.

  ‘My name’s Kathryn. Kathryn Swinbrooke.’

  ‘Are you a physician?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I suppose I am.’ She held out her hand, and the little girl grabbed her with her fingers and smiled shyly at her. ‘And you are Marie?’

  The girl nodded.

  ‘Grandfather has told us about you,’ the boy continued. ‘He says you are a good physician but you ask silly questions.’

  Kathryn smiled. ‘Perhaps I do.’

  ‘Grandfather always talks to us,’ the boy said. ‘Not like the rest.’ He glared at the group of adults at the far end of the garden.

  ‘Well, you’d best come in,’ Kathryn repeated.

  ‘We haven’t finished our game yet.’

  ‘What are you playing?’

  The boy tapped his chest. ‘My name’s Arcite, and he’ – he pointed to his brother – ‘is Palamon, and she’s the Princess Emelye.’

  ‘Well,’ Kathryn said, taking the little girl by the hand, ‘tomorrow is another day and even soldiers have to sleep at night.’ She pointed down the garden at Colum. ‘Ask him, he’s one of the King’s soldiers.’

  The boys ran excitedly across the lawn, as swift as greyhounds. They besieged and embarrassed Colum with a string of questions until Darryl announced that enough was enough. A maid took the children away whilst the adults went in for supper.

  The meal proved to be a veritable banquet: royal venison cooked in red wine, lemon juice and black pepper; boiled chicken stuffed with grapes; a salad made of parsley, sage, spring onions, garlic and rosemary. This was followed by rastons, small loaves made out of sweetened dough enriched with eggs, and honey-date slices, spiced wine, and pears in a sweet syrup. The servitors kept filling their cups. Colum drank deeply enough, but Kathryn limited herself to one cup, and between sips kept filling the goblet with water.

  Cotterell soon fell asleep. At first, the atmosphere was rather formal and tense, but the wine soon proved to be a great leveller, and Colum was besieged with questions about the recent war, the politics of the court and the personalities of the King and his brothers. The Irishman cordially responded, giving graphic accounts of the recent campaign in the West Country, the summary execution of the Lancastrian generals and the King’s determination to wipe out the House of Lancaster, both root and branch. He told droll stories about a soldier’s life and its sharp contrast to the silken luxuries of the court. Nevertheless, he kept a wary eye on Kathryn, and Chaddedon’s frequent attempts to draw her into a private conversation. At last, realising he was monopolising the conversation, he abruptly asked if they were all Canterbury born and bred.

  ‘I’m not,’ Newington expansively declared, ‘but the rest are. I was born in Canterbury but was orphaned young and sent to a kinsman in London to learn the art and skill of the cloth trade. Twenty years ago I returned with my wife and little Marisa.’ He glanced down at Kathryn. ‘I have made my wealth both here and in London. I will not travel again. This city is the grandest in Europe.’ His words were greeted with a quiet chorus of approval. ‘Which is why,’ he added sourly, ‘these terrible murders must be stopped.’

  Chaddedon, conscious that the conversation could provoke further discord, turned to Kathryn. ‘You have heard of our library?’ he asked. ‘Would you like to see it?’

  Kathryn glimpsed the humour in his eyes.

  ‘You should,’ he continued. ‘Master Straunge here and I have collected many texts which even the monks of Canterbury would envy.’

  Kathryn agreed and was rather relieved when Colum, who had kept a sharp ear on the conversation, abruptly invited himself, as did Thomasina, who had sat strangely silent during the entire evening, lost in her own thoughts. When the meal was over, Chaddedon and a slightly swaying Colum left the solar together, followed by Kathryn, who plucked Thomasina’s sleeve.

  ‘You have been very quiet,’ she whispered. ‘Is there anything the matter? Are you all right?’

  Thomasina pursed her lips. ‘Yes, yes. Strange folk, aren’t they, Mistress? But I have just been thinking.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Oh, this and that.’

  ‘Come on, Thomasina.’

  ‘Be careful!’ Thomasina hissed, trying to divert the conversation. ‘Chaddedon has hot eyes for you. And I think the Irishman is jealous.’

  Kathryn laughed softly and linked her arm through that of Thomasina.

  ‘Perhaps it’s all for the good,’ she whispered.

  Thomasina glared at her, though she was pleased to see the glow in her mistress’s face and the sparkle in her eyes. The maid looked grudgingly at the back of the stumbling, laughing Irishman, who was going up the wooden stairs before them. Perhaps he’s not such a bastard, Thomasina thought. Maybe the Good Lord sent him to bring this change about, but I’ll still watch him, as well as the likes of Chaddedon.

  The library the physician led them into was both opulent and well stocked. He quickly lit a long line of wax candles in a candelabrum in the centre of a wooden table, as well as the cresset torches fixed high in the wall, well away from the shelves. The room had been carpeted, the windows glazed with coloured glass; there was an alcove seat at one end and tables ranged down along one wall, above which hung more woven cloths. One entire wall, however, was taken up with shelves containing books of various sizes, some chained to the shelf, others lying stacked on top of one another. Kathryn had never seen so many books since her father had taken her to Duke Humphrey’s library at Oxford. She clapped her hands and cried out in surprise.

  ‘Are all these yours?’

  Chaddedon basked in her praise. ‘Well, not really. Straunge is the collector, especially of medical texts. We have Garnerius’s Tractatus de Matricibus.’ Chaddedon took a book from the shelf. ‘And this is our most precious.’ He laid the heavily embossed leather book on the table.

  Kathryn reverently turned over the pages of a work her father had always longed to possess, Gerard of Cremona’s Chirugia. She had seen a copy at Oxford, and the book brought memories flooding back of her father standing beside her, pointing to the paintings depicting women physicians. Kathryn turned to one of these and stroked the carefully etched drawings.

  ‘You have seen this before, Kathryn?’

  ‘Yes, yes, it was my father’s favourite.’

  ‘He was a good doctor?’

  ‘My father visited Salerno and Padua and studied the physic of the Arabs.’

  ‘And passed this knowledge on to you?’

  ‘Yes, my father stayed a few months in Hainault, where he saw how they educated young girls. When he and my mother moved from London to Canterbury he hired a priest as my teacher, an old man from the Poor Priests’ Hospital. A former scholar at the Halls of Oxford, until he was found to be infected with Wycliffe’s doctrines.’ She was conscious of Colum moving down the table, jealously watching her and Chaddedon.

  ‘You said you had a copy
of Chaucer?’ the Irishman bluntly intervened.

  ‘Ah, yes.’ Chaddedon brought another book to the table, very similar to the one Colum had brought to Ottemelle Lane. Colum drew closer as Kathryn turned the pages over: the text had been well-thumbed, but there was nothing to indicate that the assassin had used it as a guide to select his victims. Kathryn turned a few more pages, then closed the book with a sigh.

  ‘Nothing,’ she whispered and gazed appreciatively round the library. ‘I would love to come here,’ she murmured. ‘Perhaps when all this is over?’

  ‘Mistress Swinbrooke, it would be an honour.’ Chaddedon began to extinguish some of the candles. ‘Finally,’ he offered, ‘may I show you where we keep our potions?’

  He led them down the stairs, past the solar where the others sat chatting quietly amongst themselves, to a large room at the back of the house. Taking a key from his belt, Chaddedon unlocked the door, struck a tinder and carefully lit the oil-lamps. The room was a perfect square, the four walls covered in shelves, and along these were stacked pots and bowls, each with a parchment tag tied round its neck.

  ‘Who goes to the library?’ Colum abruptly asked before the physician could begin a conversation with Kathryn.

  Chaddedon shrugged and looked narrow-eyed at the Irishman, as if he resented his presence. ‘For God’s sake, man, we all do!’

  ‘And to this room?’

  ‘Each of the physicians has a key, and there is a further key on the master ring of the house.’ Chaddedon went along the shelves, tapping the bowls and jars as if they were old friends. ‘We have ginger, ground elder, owl-hoof, hawthorn, hemlock, henbane, belladonna, valerian, foxglove. Enough poisons to kill the entire city.’

  ‘Have you noticed anything untoward?’ Kathryn asked, pointing to the table with its mixing bowls, scales, rods and jars.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Have you noticed any of the potions missing or interfered with?’

  ‘No, nothing remarkable.’

  ‘I did.’

  Straunge appeared in the doorway. His gaunt face looked even more sallow in the flickering lamp-light.

  ‘About a week ago,’ he said, walking into the room, ‘I came in here and found some white powder lying on the floor. Naturally, I was wearing gloves.’ He smiled at Kathryn. ‘I have a profound respect for some of these powders and believe they should never touch the skin. Anyway,’ he continued hurriedly, ‘I picked the powder up but it was nothing more than flour, white flour; yet that’s not kept here.’

  ‘This is the first I have heard of it,’ Chaddedon said.

  Straunge raised his eyebrows. ‘At the time I thought it was of little consequence, but now that we are in suspicion of these deaths, I consider anything out of place.’

  Kathryn gazed round the shelves. She couldn’t make sense of Straunge’s comment and, as in the library, she was caught between envy and admiration at what these physicians possessed.

  ‘Where did you buy these?’ she asked.

  ‘Some we collect,’ Chaddedon answered. ‘Others we buy from the spice merchants in London or from our own Guild in Canterbury. Why do you ask?’

  ‘My herbarium is a shop, nothing much, a small room at the front of my house in Ottemelle Lane. I have always dreamt of owning such stock.’

  ‘You will need permission from the Guild.’

  Kathryn winked mischievously. ‘As my father said, in life all things are possible.’

  They left the herbarium and joined the others in the solar. More wine was served, but Kathryn, now concerned at the sleepy look in Colum’s eyes and Thomasina’s restlessness, announced they really should take their leave. The ladies were cool in their farewells, making it very clear they would not object if they never saw Kathryn again. Darryl tried, without success, to rouse Cotterell, so only Chaddedon and Newington saw them to the door, the pressure of the physician’s fingers on Kathryn’s hand secretly conveying how much he had enjoyed the evening.

  They walked back down Queningate Lane, Thomasina linking her arm through Kathryn’s, whilst Colum, humming some song under his breath, walked in front, now and again dancing the odd jig, still very much under the influence of the deep bowls of claret he had drunk. Two members of the night-watch came by and told him to be quiet. Colum just laughed at them and continued past St Paul’s Church, following the line of the old city wall through a broken archway and into St Margaret’s Street. They passed the occasional beggar, whining for alms; a doxy in a doorway with her customer; and the crazed rat-catcher who grotesquely patrolled the streets, a long pole slung over his shoulder from which hung a freshly slaughtered line of rats and mice. Somewhere a dog howled at the full moon whilst cats fought over stinking mounds of refuse.

  Kathryn was lost in her own thoughts, trying to ignore Colum’s rather noisy ditty about the ladies of Dublin. They were just past the Crown Tavern, boarded and shuttered for the night, when three footpads sprang from an alley-way. They allowed Colum to pass, seeing the women as easy prey. They grabbed Kathryn by the sleeve of her dress whilst another tried to pinion Thomasina’s arms behind her back. The maid lashed out with all the venom of an angry mare, giving one of the footpads a nasty crack on the shin. Kathryn struggled with her own assailant, clawing at the leather hood over his face, frightened by the glittering eyes and sour stench of the man’s breath. Suddenly the man was pulled away. Kathryn was not certain of what happened, but Colum dragged the man towards him, pushing his stomach straight onto his long stabbing knife. Then the Irishman stood back, leaving the footpad to writhe and scream on the ground as his two companions gingerly edged towards him. In the light of a lantern-horn fixed on the tavern-door posts, Kathryn saw Colum was armed with a long dagger and a short dirk he had brought out from the top of his boot. The footpads, armed with pikes and sharp short stabbing knives, must have thought he was easy prey carrying no sword, and much the worse for drink. As they went forward, Colum retreated. One of the footpads rushed forward, his small pike aimed at the Irishman’s crotch, the dagger sweeping towards Colum’s face. Colum just ducked, knocked the pike aside, then lashed out with his dagger, causing the blood to spout from the man’s neck. The other assailant had had enough; he dropped his weapons and fled back up the alley-way.

  Kathryn stood staring at the fallen footpads. The one with the neck wound was already dead, but the other was clawing the ground, holding his stomach where the blood was now pumping out into a pool on either side of him.

  ‘Shouldn’t we . . .?’ Kathryn asked.

  ‘Of course,’ Colum replied. He knelt beside the fallen man, and before Kathryn could object, sliced the fellow’s throat from ear to ear.

  Kathryn was used to blood and the effects of violence, but Murtagh’s cool detachment twisted her stomach and made her legs tremble. She clutched a still wide-eyed, panting Thomasina and, deaf to the cries of the Irishman, the two women hurried on ahead. When they reached the house, Kathryn clawed feverishly at the small bunch of keys which hung from a piece of silken cord tied round her waist, opened the door and went in. She sat Thomasina down, rekindled the fire and, going to the buttery, poured three large goblets of wine. When she heard Colum come into the kitchen, Kathryn went out, pushed a cup at him and took the tray across to Thomasina. The maid had now regained her composure. She gulped the wine, peering over her shoulder at the Irishman, who just slouched against the table.

  ‘What did you expect me to do?’ he demanded. ‘They were footpads – soldiers, by the look of them, from the camp.’ He slammed the wine-cup down on the table and went over to confront Kathryn. ‘Look at me, woman!’ he demanded.

  Kathryn stared coolly back. ‘I’m looking, Irishman!’

  ‘They were villains,’ Colum persisted. ‘They would have killed me, raped you, then gutted you from crotch to neck!’

  ‘You kill so expertly.’

  Colum pushed his face closer. ‘Lady, they were trying to kill me. One took it in the throat, the other had a belly wound. And not even you, n
ever mind Chaddedon and the rest, could have done a damn thing for him! He would have taken hours to die and screamed every second for a drop of water.’

  ‘He’s right,’ Thomasina declared. ‘They were born bastards and they died bastards! What do you think they were after, Mistress, the time of day?’

  Colum smiled and patted Thomasina on the shoulder. The maid shrugged him off.

  ‘Keep your hands to yourself, Irishman! I am no Helen of Troy, and if I was, you’re no bloody Paris!’

  Colum, bellowing with laughter, picked up his wine-cup and moved towards the kitchen door.

  ‘Irishman!’

  ‘Yes, Mistress Kathryn?’

  ‘I am sorry. I am grateful for what you did. You were just so cold, so callous.’

  Colum walked back towards her.

  ‘I am a man of violence, Mistress. I was born fighting. I live by fighting. I did not like what I did, but it had to be done.’

  ‘And in the alley-way outside the Chequers, when you heard that Irish voice? Why then? What is your secret, Irishman?’

  Colum made a face.

  ‘No great secret. Years ago I ran wild with a rebel band in the glens outside Dublin.’ Colum snorted with laughter. ‘We called ourselves the Hounds of Ulster. We were roaring boys, hot for the blood of the English. Then one day I was caught, betrayed by a traitor and sent to the gallows. The present King’s father, the Duke of York, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, had mercy on me and I was pardoned. I forgot my past. My problem is my past has not forgotten me. The Hounds of Ulster now judge me as a traitor.’ He looked down at his wine-cup. ‘They fixed a price on my head. A bag of gold for its taking. It’s only a matter of time, Mistress, before someone tries to collect it.’ He smiled. ‘If they can.’

  Kathryn sighed and gestured at him to sit down. ‘I am sorry,’ she repeated. She sipped from her wine-cup. ‘Now the evening is ruined.’ She glanced quickly up at Thomasina. ‘I have never seen you so quiet.’

  The maid nodded at the Irishman. ‘When he’s around I keep my hand on my purse and my lips shut.’

  ‘But your ears open?’ Colum teased. ‘And what did we discover tonight?’ He ticked the points off on his fingers. ‘The Cotterells are a strange couple. He strikes me as a boy-lover and she’s hot-eyed. Chaddedon is charming.’ He winked at Thomasina. ‘Straunge and Darryl are a pair of cold fish. Newington’s enigmatic. We were their guests, but we did not like them. What else?’