Saintly Murders

by Paul Doherty

  ‘No, my lord, with men like you around I feel no danger.’

  Clarence’s smile faded. The others in the Royal Party just stared for a moment; then Richard of Gloucester smiled. Edward threw his head back and bellowed with laughter, and the rest of his companions joined in. The Vicomte shook his head slightly at Clarence, as if warning him to be careful. I’ll remember that, Kathryn thought, and by the look on Clarence’s face, so would he.

  ‘Mistress Swinbrooke! Mistress Swinbrooke!’ The King got to his feet, clapping his hands. ‘We thank you for what you have done.’

  The Duchess plucked at his sleeve, and Edward leaned down; she whispered to him, nodding at Kathryn.

  ‘Very well. Very well. Mistress Kathryn, my dear mother wants a private word with you.’

  Edward led the Royal Party out. Bourchier winked at Kathryn as he passed, tapping her gently on the shoulder. Colum said he would wait outside. Once the tent flap had fallen behind them, Cecily beckoned to Kathryn, tapping the chair of state her son had left.

  ‘You can sit here.’ She smiled. ‘My son will not object. He has, on a number of occasions, had to vacate his throne for someone else.’

  Kathryn obeyed. Duchess Cecily turned, her beautiful eyes scrutinising Kathryn.

  ‘I am grateful for what you have done, Mistress.’ She lifted her head and stared at the tent flap. ‘What else have you discovered, Mistress Swinbrooke?’

  ‘Your Grace, I need your help.’ Kathryn decided to be blunt. ‘Undoubtedly Roger Atworth lived a saintly life, but he was also a man of secrets. Others want to dig these secrets out.’

  Duchess Cecily’s face didn’t change.

  ‘I may assure you, Madam, that your late confessor is now in Heaven, but I can give no assurances that he took his secrets with him.’

  The Duchess’s eyes grew fearful.

  ‘Madam, why don’t you trust me?’ Kathryn insisted. ‘Do you know – ’ She bit her lip.

  ‘Do I know what?’

  ‘Why the French are interested?’

  ‘You’ve plucked up the thread and followed it far, Mistress Swinbrooke.’

  ‘Madam, do you know anything about Atworth’s death? I need to know for both our sakes.’ Kathryn forgot for a moment that this woman was the mother of the King of England. She touched the Duchess’s hand, which was ice-cold. ‘You are terrified, aren’t you, Madam?’

  Duchess Cecily’s lower lip began to quiver.

  ‘Prior Anselm assured me that Roger Atworth burnt my letters before he died.’ She sighed. ‘Not that there was much in them.’ The Duchess glanced away.

  ‘Is Jonquil your spy?’ Kathryn asked.

  Duchess Cecily didn’t reply but gazed down at her brocaded slippers peeping out from beneath her costly gown.

  ‘Not here,’ she whispered, ‘not now.’ She grasped Kathryn’s wrist. ‘And you walk safely, Mistress. My son George of Clarence’ – she shook her head – ‘does not take insults lightly. But now,’ the Duchess’s voice rose as if conscious of eavesdroppers outside, ‘I thank you once again, Mistress. You have my favour.’

  She rose to her feet and extended a be-ringed hand for Kathryn to kiss. As Kathryn did so, the Duchess leaned down and murmured in Kathryn’s ear. ‘Not here, not now!’

  And then she was gone.

  Kathryn left the pavilion to find Colum and Venables deep in conversation. The henchman broke off, made his hasty farewells, and followed the Duchess across the lawn to the wicket gate.

  ‘Well, well.’ Colum undid the buttons of his green jerkin and put his arm round Kathryn’s shoulder. ‘You made Clarence look a fool; he can be a bad enemy.’

  ‘His mother said the same,’ Kathryn remarked drily. ‘And you’ve been rebuked.’

  ‘Oh the King will forget. Unlike Clarence, he doesn’t bear grudges.’

  ‘Am I in any danger?’ Kathryn asked. ‘Clarence has the eyes and mouth of a spiteful child.’

  Colum stared up at the dark mass of the abbey buildings.

  ‘No. If I frightened you needlessly, it would be cruel. As they left, the King linked his arm through Clarence’s. I suspect he will be warning him to leave you well alone. But come, Kathryn, let’s be out of this silken web.’

  They left the Cathedral grounds by a side entrance. Kathryn felt strange to be back on the streets of Canterbury after the silence of the friary and the gorgeous splendour of Edward’s Court. The day was now drawing to an end. People hurried home as stalls were being put away, the merchants, traders, and apprentices thronging the taverns and cookshops. Kathryn and Colum walked arm in arm. She noticed how the streets were cleaner, the sewers empty, the refuse piles few, whilst the scavengers’ carts were everywhere.

  ‘It looks as if Malachi’s war against the rats is succeeding.’

  ‘Holbech is still a-feared of them,’ Colum replied. ‘He claims to have seen one the other night in a tavern so big he thought it was a cat.’

  They went down alleyways pungent with the smell of boiled cabbage. Women sat at doorways in their dowdy gowns spinning wool. Children ran about screaming. At the corner of St. Peter’s Street, Rawnose the pedlar, his disfigured face grubby and dirty, crouched with an empty tray, hand out begging. As Kathryn and Colum approached, he leapt to his feet, tears streaming down his poxed cheeks. The ugly scar where his nose had once been seemed redder and angrier than usual.

  ‘What’s the matter, Rawnose?’

  ‘I have a demon in my belly.’ Rawnose’s eyes were frantic. ‘Tom of Bedlam and Hot Dance cavort in my soul! Oh, Mistress Swinbrooke, a foul demon haunts me with the voice of a nightingale. He has led me through fire and flame, fall and whirlpool, bog and quagmire.’ Rawnose scratched his cheek. ‘This demon within me does not live in the real world but beneath a dark thicket; at twilight he comes to haunt me.’

  Kathryn opened her purse and took out two coins.

  ‘Rawnose, you’ve sold all your ribbons and geegaws, and you’ve drunk the profits, yes? Here, take this. Now go down to Father Cuthbert at the Poor Priests’ Hospital; let him see you and do exactly what he tells you. You need bread and broth and, by the looks of you, a good night’s sleep.’ Kathryn squeezed the beggar’s fingers. ‘Promise, or I’ll not talk to you again!’

  Rawnose greedily took the coin. He lifted his hand as if taking an oath, swaying on his feet.

  ‘Not another word,’ Kathryn said.

  Rawnose shuffled off.

  ‘Good Lord!’ Colum watched him go. ‘He’s got a face as pitted as cheese, and he smells like a compost heap.’

  ‘Father Cuthbert will look after him.’

  A child ran up, dressed in a ragged smock.

  ‘Mistress,’ she asked in a piping voice, ‘can I have a coin?’

  The little girl’s eyes were cornflower blue and smiling.

  ‘Why should I give you a coin?’

  ‘I’ll show you a fairy and the carriage she travels in.’

  She giggled at Kathryn’s frown of disbelief and brought her hands from behind her back. In one hand the little girl held a cracked pot full of soap suds from her mother’s wash vat; in her other hand was a small stick with a ring on the end. She dug this into the suds, scooped them up, and began to blow bubbles. Kathryn laughed as the bubbles drifted up towards her. One landed on the corner of her nose, and she smelt the wood ash the girl’s mother must have used.

  ‘There are fairies inside,’ the little girl said. ‘I tricked you.’

  Kathryn handed across the requested coin and walked on.

  ‘I used to do that,’ she remarked, wiping the tip of her nose, and then stopped abruptly, sniffing at her fingers.

  ‘Kathryn, what is the matter? I want to be off these streets and out of these clothes. Holbech has been wondering where I am. I also want to pay my respects to Mafiach’s corpse before it’s buried.’

  Kathryn just stood staring at her fingers.

  ‘Kathryn’ – Colum grasped her by the hand – ‘are you well?’

  ‘Oh ye
s, I am.’ And she walked on as if in a daydream.

  ‘What did the Queen Mother want?’ Colum asked. ‘Does she know what you know?’

  ‘She suspects,’ Kathryn glanced up at him, ‘that there is more to Atworth’s death than meets the eye. One question she evades: Is Jonquil her spy? My mind’s a jumble. I need to sit, Colum, and think about what I saw and heard today. One other thing puzzles me – the Vicomte’s remarks about how the French would support Atworth’s canonisation.’

  They turned into Ottemelle Lane. Kathryn nodded at Goldere the clerk, who, as usual, scampered by, one hand clutching his codpiece, the other his shabby gown.

  ‘Did you tell the Duchess about the psalter?’

  ‘No.’ Kathryn paused, her hand on the latch. ‘The least I say in such silken, treacherous surroundings the better. Our Duchess will be reflecting. Perhaps we’ll meet again.’

  She opened the door and went in. The air was thick with the smell of cooking from the kitchen. Agnes was in the apothecary room scrubbing down a counter. As soon as she saw Kathryn, she dropped the brush, her thin, pale face lit by a smile. Wulf appeared from behind a chest where he had been hiding, his blonde hair all spiked, his face sticky and dirty.

  ‘You’ve been stealing marchpane?’ Kathryn asked.

  ‘And a lot more.’ Thomasina came bustling down the passageway, arms naked to the elbows, covered in flour, her face brick-red from the fire. ‘I’ve been baking pies.’ She glowered at Colum. ‘And I am glad the mistress is home.’

  Thomasina led Kathryn into the kitchen, chattering volubly about what had happened and the patients who had called.

  ‘I sent those down to Father Cuthbert. Most of them are stomach ailments. People are not careful about what they eat and drink.’

  Thomasina brought the book of sales, and Kathryn was pleased at the purchases made. Thomasina, for all her hustle and bustle, had been well schooled in the horn book and knew more about the trade than she let even Kathryn know.

  Thomasina forced Kathryn to sit down in the chair at the top of the table, bringing her and Colum ale and slices of cherry pie. Kathryn smiled at Colum and winked. Whenever Thomasina was excited, she chattered like a magpie, making it difficult for anyone to get a word in edgewise; all the news of the parish, the gossip, the petty scandal tumbled out. And then she began the questions: What had Colum and Kathryn been doing? Why was the Irishman dressed like a popinjay? Had they seen the King? What did he look like?

  At last Thomasina, still talking over her shoulder, went down the corridors and dragged Wulf and Agnes in ‘for something proper to eat.’ Kathryn ate pie whilst Colum escaped up to his own chamber, claiming he had to change; but in truth he left to escape Thomasina’s barbed remarks and constant chatter. Kathryn, however, sat listening with half an ear whilst she tried to marshal her thoughts. She got to her feet and excused herself. Thomasina, midway through a sentence, paused and smiled at her.

  ‘I can see you are here in body, Kathryn, but not in spirit.’

  Kathryn ignored her and walked down to her writing office just beside the apothecary room. She sat down at her father’s table and stared out at the herb garden, then rose to open the door.

  ‘You’ve done a good job, Wulf. The plots look well weeded.’

  Wulf, his mouth full of pie, yelled something back. Kathryn closed the door. For a while she just sat, allowing the memories of the last two days to flit like birds through her mind. Gervase’s grisly corpse; Atworth, his body waxen, that beautiful perfume; the conspiratorial faces of Anselm, Simon, and Jonquil; Mathilda Chandler whispering at her through the Judas squint; the strange pictures in the psalter; and the tense atmosphere of that Royal Circle. She recalled the hawks, the pathetic bloody remains of the doves.

  ‘They are all hawks,’ Kathryn muttered.

  Yes they were, Edward, Richard, Clarence, and the rest: like peregrines on their perches, watching each other as well as the ground beneath them. She opened a small coffer and took out some parchment and a small writing tray.

  ‘Atworth,’ she wrote. ‘The miracles? The apparition? The stigmata?’

  ‘You certainly didn’t die in bed,’ Kathryn whispered.

  There was a knock on the door.

  ‘Oh, one thing.’ Thomasina pushed her head round. ‘Father Cuthbert sent a number of messages; he wants to see you.’

  ‘When did these arrive?’

  ‘This morning. He said it was rather urgent. Oh, and by the way, that Malachi Smallbones has been back: He’s a gallows bird if there ever was one.’

  No sooner had Thomasina closed the door behind her than Colum knocked and strode in. ‘I was thinking about Atworth’s canonisation. If he was acclaimed a saint, how would that benefit the French?’

  ‘What I am worried about,’ Kathryn replied, ‘is not whether Atworth is a saint or a sinner, but what Atworth knew about the Royal Family.’

  ‘Oh, sweet angels!’ Colum breathed. ‘You think it’s as bad as that?’

  ‘There are different sections to this puzzle,’ Kathryn answered. ‘Who is the spy at the English Court? Tonight, Colum, after I return from the Poor Priests’ Hospital, I am going to study that verse from Zephaniah. Then there’s Mafiach’s murder. I believe the Vicomte knew all about it. He was baiting Edward with his witticisms, and the King knew it.’

  ‘But what he doesn’t know,’ Colum interrupted, ‘is that Mafiach had a second copy of that message.’

  ‘True,’ Kathryn conceded. ‘Then we have the strange phenomena surrounding Atworth’s death, not to mention who Jonquil is and what happened to Gervase. Somehow or other, Colum, I believe they are all linked, closely connected.’ She smiled. ‘One thing I have learnt, that beautiful fragrance round Atworth’s corpse? Nothing more than bubbles in the air.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’ll wait for a while to tell you.’ Kathryn got to her feet. ‘First I need to sleep. Just a little rest, Colum. Once it’s dusk, we’ll visit Father Cuthbert.’

  Night was falling around the Friary of the Sack, the twilight time when, according to legend, hobgoblins, wood sprites, and all the creatures of the dark came into their own. It was a lonely time, with the whispering trees mourning the passing of the day. Those early hours of the night were specially hallowed by Holy Mother Church for special prayer, invocations to God against Satan and all his cohorts, who roamed the wastelands hunting men’s souls. The deep copse of woods at the end of the Gethsemane Garden in the friary became a lonely, haunted place, but the assassin, crouched beneath the outstretched arms of an oak tree, had no fear of God, man, or indeed the terrors of Hell. His face was now blackened, whilst the brown robe kept him well hidden.

  He stared across at the lights from the friary. Here and there a candle glowed in a window casement. A bell tolled, and he heard the distant sounds from the stables and kitchens. The assassin clutched the wineskin tighter. The deep pockets of his robes contained a piece of hempen string greased with oil and a sharpened tinder. Like a hunting animal, the assassin slunk forward, his sandalled feet creating no sound, his eyes sharp for any twigs or branches. As the trees and bushes began to clear, he passed the spot where Sub-Prior Gervase had met his hideous death.

  He glimpsed the glow of light through the Judas squint of the cell where the Accursed was imprisoned. He placed the winesack full of oil down on the ground and crept forward. He reached the cell and, raising himself up, peered through the squint. A candle glowed. He could see the outline of Mistress Chandler on her cot-bed, fast asleep. The assassin crouched back down and, edging his way round, found the steel sheet used to block the door. He inserted this back into its wooden wedges and returned to the Judas squint, picked up the wineskin, removed the stopper, and poured the contents through. The oil slopped and gurgled as it flowed out, an ominously dark stream. The assassin next took the hempen string and a piece of oil-soaked wood and threaded these through the Judas squint. He grasped the tinder, sharp and prepared. He struck once, struck twice, but the f
lame wouldn’t hold. He struck again and watched the flames race up the hemp through the Judas squint. The assassin withdrew. A crackling echoed through the gap, and fire spurted up. Satisfied, the assassin retreated deeper into the darkness.

  From his so-called eyrie, the Ancient One, Brother Timothy, stared out over Gethsemane. The old man was lost in wonderment. He prided himself on the fact that, despite his age, his eyesight and wits left nothing to be desired. Now he reflected that he could not recall Sub-Prior Gervase crossing Gethsemane that fateful afternoon. Or had he, but much earlier? And was there something else? On a night like this some weeks ago, around the Feast of the Annunciation, when Brother Roger had died, Brother Timothy was sure he had seen figures out there at the far end of Gethsemane, lanterns in their hands. Hadn’t that been Father Prior and the infirmarian? What had they been doing out in the dead of night? He must tell Eadwig this. The Ancient One chomped on his gums and peered out at the dark trees and starlit sky. The woman physician, Kathryn Swinbrooke, he had taken to her kind eyes and respectful ways. He suspected that the physician, who, according to rumour, had powerful friends, had released Mathilda Chandler from her cell. Brother Timothy was sure he had seen the Accursed walking amongst the trees and bushes earlier this evening. The Ancient One was pleased. He had been in the friary when the poor woman had been bound, fettered, and immured for life. Brother Timothy’s gaze caught the glow of light in the trees. More lanterns? No, a glow like that must be another fire! Had the devil and his demons returned? Brother Timothy picked up his handbell and began to ring it vigorously.

  Now that it was evening, the Poor Priests’ Hospital lay quiet. Father Cuthbert, the white-haired, anxious-eyed supervisor, had welcomed Kathryn and Colum and led them through the long, well-lit dormitory smelling of soap, polish, and fresh herbs. Most of his patients lay here, on pallet beds, tended by servitors. The hospital was really meant for priests who had fallen on hard times, but Father Cuthbert’s compassion was now famous: No man or woman who came through the hospital’s arched gateway begging for help was ever turned away. Brother Cuthbert paused so quickly that Kathryn and Colum nearly jostled him; then his grey, cadaverous face broke into a smile.