Herald of Hell

by Paul Doherty

  ‘Brother Athelstan, the hour is passing, I must be gone. I have demonstrated, as much as I can, my good faith. Now I must tell you the reason for this meeting.’ Grindcobbe moved the ale jug and platters from between them. ‘The Great Community of the Realm have decided they are ready. The chosen day is fast approaching. Once upon a time the leaders of the Upright Men were united. Now, as the stirring time approaches, sharp divisions have appeared. We have always protested our loyalty to the boy-king; it is his evil councillors we wish to remove and punish. I am personally loyal to Richard. I fought as a captain of hobelars for his father the Black Prince.’ Grindcobbe drew breath. ‘Cranston may already have some intelligence about what I am going to say; a similar warning has been despatched to the court party with one significant omission …’

  ‘What is all this?’

  ‘Brother Athelstan, may God be my witness, but I truly believe a most senior captain amongst the Upright Men intends to meet the young king and draw him into negotiation. This will only be a ploy to allay Richard’s suspicions before the captain kills him and all members of the royal party.’

  ‘Impossible!’

  ‘No, listen,’ Grindcobbe held up a hand, ‘there are some amongst the Upright Men who want the entire court party, all the lords spiritual and temporal, slaughtered. I and the others have always regarded them as hotheads, who could be restrained on the day.’

  ‘I am not too sure,’ Athelstan whispered. ‘Once the bloodletting begins, killing begets killing.’

  ‘True, but there’s more. This is my suspicion and mine only. I have very little proof; it is more conjecture than anything else. My Lord of Gaunt is quitting London for the northern march. He claims he must deal with Scottish incursions across the border. Nonsense! Why, I ask, is Gaunt leaving London and the southern shires when the young king and the royal family need both his protection and that of his troops?’

  ‘I agree.’

  ‘Hence my suspicion of a plot forged in Hell. One of our leading captains has been suborned by Gaunt with promises and assurances.’ Grindcobbe paused. Athelstan felt a fear grip his belly; he half suspected what Grindcobbe was about to say.

  ‘Gaunt wants the young king dead. He will then come hurrying south to crush the revolt. More importantly, if Richard dies he leaves no heir.’

  ‘And the Confessor’s crown,’ Athelstan murmured, ‘will go to the next in line, away from the Plantagenets, to John of Gaunt, uncle of the King, brother of the Black Prince, head of the House of Lancaster and next in line to the throne. Do you have proof of this?’

  ‘None, just a deep, gnawing apprehension as well as the whisperings of my most skilled spies.’

  ‘And so?’

  ‘Sir John Cranston may well be alerted to the warning I have already sent to the Queen Mother, but I did not voice my full suspicions. After all, not everybody in the court party can be trusted. Tell Cranston the threat is even more dangerous than he thinks. Young Richard must not meet any of our leaders, for if he does, royal blood will be shed.’

  ‘Why not accuse Gaunt publicly?’ Athelstan paused and sighed. ‘I can guess your response. If any specific allegation is laid, then where is the proof?’

  Grindcobbe nodded in agreement.

  ‘I suppose,’ Athelstan continued, ‘Gaunt will be forewarned about what you know, whilst your spies who helped you reach this conclusion would be left vulnerable. In the end Gaunt would brush it off as just another devious stratagem to blacken his name and reputation. He would protest his innocence, his years of service, and then wait for some other occasion.’ Athelstan stared at the dancing candle-flame. Grindcobbe was telling the truth. The friar recalled Lebarge’s demand for a pardon for any crimes he may have committed or be accused of. If Whitfield knew the truth behind Grindcobbe’s allegation and shared it with Lebarge, little wonder both men were desperate and wished to flee for their lives: such knowledge was highly dangerous and could engulf them in the most heinous treason.

  ‘Brother Athelstan?’ Grindcobbe brought him back to the present.

  ‘Do you think Whitfield knew such secrets?’ Althelstan asked.

  ‘There is a very good chance he did, Brother, but,’ Grindcobbe pushed back his stool, ‘the hour is passing. I must be gone. It’s only a matter of time before Thibault’s soldiers return. Benedicta will walk you back to your house.’

  Athelstan rose and crossed to the door.

  ‘Brother?’

  The friar turned.

  ‘Athelstan, I doubt if we will meet again this side of Hell. Pray for me and, if I fail, pray that my death be swift.’

  Athelstan nodded, gave his blessing and left, going down the stairs to where Benedicta was waiting in a now deserted taproom. They left the Piebald, walking in silence for a while. Benedicta slipped her hand into his.

  ‘I never lied, Athelstan. I am what I truly am. I do what my heart tells me is right. I have made my confession to you at the mercy pew. You have sat in the shriving chair and absolved my sins. I have dedicated myself to you and this community.’ She stopped and faced him squarely now, grasping his other hand. ‘Well,’ she added impishly, ‘what would the parish gossips say about us standing, hands clasped, in the moonlight?’

  Athelstan stepped closer; her smile faded. ‘You could have told me, Benedicta.’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I kept it hidden from you because, my dear friar, you would have worried, worried and worried yet again. I am telling you now as it is the truth, but tomorrow when I rise, I shall put on my mask to meet the others who hide behind their masks, though not from you, beloved Brother.’ And, leaning forward, Benedicta kissed him on both cheeks, pressed his hands and disappeared into the night.

  After a troubled night’s sleep, Athelstan finished his dawn Mass attended by Benedicta, Mauger, Crim and the ever vigilant Bonaventure, who seemed very interested in what might be lurking in the sanctuary, though Crim kept shooing him away. Athelstan was divesting in the sacristy afterwards and wondering what to do when the green-garbed Tiptoft slipped like a moonbeam into the church to whisper that Sir John sent his greetings and would Athelstan meet him in the Lamb of God as a matter of great urgency.

  ‘I surely will,’ Athelstan replied. He collected his belongings and whatever else he needed and followed Tiptoft with a small escort of Flaxwith’s bailiffs down to London Bridge. The day was mist-hung. The swirling white cloud masked both sight and sound, though as they approached the gallows and stocks near the entrance to the bridge, Athelstan glimpsed the pole set up with Radegund’s head spiked on the top, and beneath it a colourful scrolled proclamation which publicized the stark, brutal message: ‘Radegund the Relic Seller, adjudged a traitor, condemned to death’, followed by the date and the phrase, ‘by order of the Upright Men and the Great Community of the Realm’. Athelstan murmured a prayer, pulled his cowl closer over his head, took his beads out and began a decade of aves as his escort led him across the mist-strewn bridge and up into the city. Cries and shouts rang out. Figures passed like wraiths, except for one of the numerous preachers of doom, garbed in animal skins, walking up and down with a torch in each hand, quoting texts from the Apocalypse.

  At last he reached the Lamb of God. Mine Hostess had opened specially for Sir John who, all trimmed and freshly garbed, was sitting in his favourite window seat eating newly baked bread and drinking a stoup of ale. Athelstan and Cranston exchanged the kiss of peace whilst a heavy-eyed servant brought more bread and ale. The friar had hardly blessed this when Cranston started to describe the previous night’s meeting at St Edward’s shrine. Athelstan did not interrupt but, once the coroner had finished, he gave an equally terse account of all that happened: the murder of Lebarge, the confrontation with Radegund, the relic seller’s swift and brutal execution and the information Grindcobbe had shared with him.

  ‘Satan’s tits!’ Cranston grumbled, staring quickly around. ‘We know enough treason to really set the pot bubbling. We have been given halves of the same coin, Brother.�
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  ‘And we will put them together when the time comes, though that is not now, Sir John.’ Athelstan bit into the bread, eager to break his fast, chewed quickly, then continued. ‘When that hour does come, my Lord High Coroner, you will know it. God forgive me, I am supposed to be a man of peace, but we are talking about the Lord’s anointed, our king, an innocent boy. So, when the danger threatens, Sir John, strike hard and may God’s angel strengthen your arm.’

  Cranston sipped at his ale. He and his colleague, Walworth the Mayor, had already decided what to do when what Athelstan called ‘the hour’ arrived. He put his cup down.

  ‘Amen to that, Brother,’ he declared. ‘Interesting, though, how the Upright Men, at the very time they need unity, are beginning to divide into at least three factions. There are those who wish to pull up everything, root and branch, and destroy the present order. The second group, like Grindcobbe, simply want the present order purged of all sin and reformed. And now a sinister third group. One, possibly more, of the leaders amongst the Upright Men have been suborned by Gaunt with a dream of a new king, a new royal house and fresh beginnings.’ Cranston shook his head. ‘No wonder Whitfield was murdered. Perhaps Thibault despatched his own assassins into the Golden Oliphant and all that rage and temper was just a pretext, a cover for his deep relief at the death of a clerk who knew too much and could no longer be trusted. The fact remains: we do not know who killed him, why or how. The list of suspects seems to be growing all the time. Mistress Cheyne is ruthless enough to hire killers. Grindcobbe correctly described the rest and it agrees with what we already know. Stretton enjoys a most sinister reputation. Odo Gray is no better. Foxley, and I truly suspect this, is an Upright Man. Did you notice the wrist guard on his left arm? I am sure he is skilled at loosing a crossbow. And of course there is Thibault’s assassin, Albinus. Did he, by himself or with others, slink back into that brothel at the dead of night and kill Whitfield?’ Cranston sighed noisily. ‘Nor must we forget young Camoys, who had enough sway with Whitfield to coax our hapless clerk, desperate to escape, into trying to resolve the riddles left by his uncle. Well, talking of riddles, Brother, what about the cipher?’

  Athelstan pulled a face, ‘I have hardly looked at it. I suspect the cipher itself cannot be unlocked. As for the triangles and the litany of saints, I suggest these are Whitfield’s workings, as much as he could deduce from the cipher. Well, Sir John, now I am in the city, I think it’s time I spent a period of reflection in our library at Blackfriars where I can pursue these matters a little further.’

  ‘Away from your parish and the likes of the lovely Benedicta?’

  Athelstan just smiled. He thought it best if he did not inform Cranston about Benedicta, or at least not for the time being.

  ‘Sir John?’ a voice interrupted them.

  Athelstan glanced up. Osbert Oswald, Cranston’s Guildhall clerk, had slipped into the tavern, two pieces of parchment clutched in his hands. The coroner took them and read them swiftly.

  ‘Well, Brother, one trouble after another. Physician Philippe has replied; copies have been sent to you whilst I have received what is due to the coroner. Lebarge was definitely poisoned. Some herbal plant. Our beloved physician believes it could be deadly nightshade.’

  ‘That’s no surprise,’ Athelstan declared. ‘The real mystery is how it was administered to a man so terrified that he would only eat what Benedicta brought and tasted.’

  ‘And more trouble!’ Cranston had unrolled the other parchment. ‘It’s back to the Golden Oliphant. Joycelina, Mistress Cheyne’s principal helpmate, has taken a tumble downstairs and lies dead of a broken neck.’

  They found the Golden Oliphant strangely quiet. The violent deaths which had occurred there seemed to have turned the brothel, as Athelstan remarked, into a place of deep shadow. Mistress Cheyne, face cleaned of paint, and garbed in a simple, dark brown gown, a veil covering her hair, ushered them across the Golden Hall into the refectory where all the guests and household retainers were assembled.

  ‘When can we leave?’ Stretton immediately shouted.

  ‘Keep quiet,’ Cranston snarled. ‘Another death has occurred. You, sir, are a suspect.’

  ‘And where is Mistress Hawisa?’ Athelstan looked round. ‘Hawisa?’ he repeated.

  ‘She is gone.’ Mistress Cheyne, red-eyed and wiping her hands on the apron she’d swiftly donned, gestured around. ‘People are very afraid.’

  ‘What about Hawisa’s belongings?’

  ‘Gone. I will show you her chamber.’

  ‘And Lebarge’s baggage? You know he is dead.’

  ‘So we heard,’ Foxley spoke up. ‘Slain in sanctuary, they said.’

  ‘And his baggage?’ Athelstan insisted.

  ‘Also gone,’ Mistress Cheyne replied. ‘Sir John, Brother Athelstan, I do not know why Lebarge fled and died, or where his baggage has been taken.’

  Athelstan nodded as if in agreement. He gazed round. The guests, household moppets and servants sat on benches along each table littered with the remains of their morning meal. The friar sensed their deep anxiety. Outside one of the mastiffs howled, an eerie, blood-tingling sound on the early summer morning. Stretton sat head down, playing with the hilt of his dagger. Odo Gray was fashioning a knot with a piece of rope. Matthias Camoys doodled with his finger in the drops of ale on the table top. Foxley sat back, staring up at the roof beam in patent exasperation. Master Griffin slouched beside him, eyes closed as if catching up on lost sleep. Whatever you appear, Athelstan reflected, you are all frightened. You wish to be gone. But … He clapped his hands.

  ‘I ask you to stay here a little longer.’ Athelstan ignored their groans and grumbles. ‘Sir John and I will soon finish our business. Mistress Cheyne, if you could show us Joycelina’s corpse?’

  She took them out across the stable yard, glistening after it had been sluiced clean by water from the great well, sunk in the middle of the yard beneath its tarred, red-tiled roof. She led them past the stable where Stretton’s destrier lunged, head back, lips curled as it banged sharpened hooves against the door.

  ‘Keep well clear of that one,’ Mistress Cheyne murmured. ‘A killer like its master.’

  ‘You know Master Stretton?’

  ‘I certainly know of him, Sir John.’

  ‘As you do Master Odo Gray, who was preparing to spirit away you, your moppets and all you hold dear?’

  Mistress Cheyne turned, her hand on the latch of the door to one of the outhouses. ‘I wondered when you would learn that, but so what? Has not your own wife fled London?’ She waved around. ‘I have removed furniture and heavy goods to Master Mephistopheles’ warehouses. Other movables are in the hold of the Leaping Horse.’

  ‘But you won’t be leaving now?’

  ‘No, Sir John, as you say, not until this business is finished.’

  ‘Why did Whitfield hire a chamber on the top gallery?’

  ‘I don’t know, Brother Athelstan, I asked him that myself. I believe I’ve told you, he just wanted it that way.’

  ‘Was Whitfield wealthy?’

  ‘He had coins. Whitfield was not the most generous of men.’

  ‘And his favourite moppet?’

  ‘Why, Joycelina. She had certain skills.’

  ‘Did Whitfield need these?’

  Mistress Cheyne smiled coldly. ‘Most men do. Whitfield had problems with potency. He was fat and drank too much.’

  ‘Were you party to his plot to fake his own death?’

  ‘Sir John, all I know is that Odo Gray made a great deal of money. He offered to take us to foreign parts. Whitfield and Lebarge were part of that, but why they wanted to flee from London, where they were going and what they were planning to do is not my business. I had troubles of my own.’

  ‘Did you know that Whitfield was a holder of great secrets?’

  ‘You mean just like us whores?’ Mistress Cheyne pulled a face. ‘What was that to us?’

  ‘And Lebarge?’

  ‘Whitfield�
�s shadow? Or so it seemed to young Hawisa. A greedy man. He had a passion for my simnel cakes.’

  ‘What about Hawisa?’

  ‘As I said, she has fled, taking her baggage and probably Lebarge’s with her. Now, gentlemen, Joycelina awaits you.’

  They entered the outhouse. Joycelina’s corpse lay on a battered table covered by a canvas cloth; candles glowed at head and foot. Out of fear of fire all straw had been cleared from the mud-packed floor and some heavy herbal concoction poured out to provide a pleasant odour. Mistress Cheyne pulled back the cloth. Joycelina lay head strangely askew, her face a mass of bruises. Athelstan blessed the corpse, took out his phial of anointing oil and administered the last rites with Cranston reciting the refrain. Once finished, Cranston and Athelstan inspected the corpse. The broken neck, the cause of death, was easily identified, as well as the mass of bruising from the fall down those very steep, sharp-edged stairs leading to the top gallery.

  ‘What actually happened?’ Athelstan asked.

  ‘I was baking bread. I went out into the yard to collect some sheets left over the stand close to the well. One of the moppets, Anna, the one Thibault almost hanged, came with me. She went back into the kitchen to fetch something and noticed the bread was burning. She ran out and told me. I ordered her to fetch Joycelina. She went back inside and I could hear her calling. Joycelina was on the top gallery cleaning Whitfield’s chamber. Anna went up and shouted for her. She was on the stairs leading to the third gallery when she heard Joycelina’s answer followed by a scream, a yell and a hideous crash. Anna ran up and found Joycelina had tumbled down. She realized it was very serious and came calling for me. The rest of the household, together with the guests, were having their meal in the refectory. I ran.’ She crossed herself. ‘Joycelina was dead. That was obvious. Anna and I went to the top of the stairs but we could see no reason why Joycelina had slipped, except I noticed one of her sandals had become loose. Now,’ she spread her hands, ‘whether this was due to the fall or not …?’