Herald of Hell

by Paul Doherty

  ‘Well, Brother?’

  ‘Well, Master Foxley. I thought the hounds were kennelled?’

  ‘They were.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Brother, anyone could have slipped out of the kitchen, drawn the bolts and lifted the latch. You were lucky. The mastiffs are tired after a night’s prowling. They have also eaten.’ He smiled. ‘They probably recognized the smell of the Golden Oliphant on you. But,’ he slipped the arbalest on to the hook on his belt, ‘still very, very dangerous.’

  ‘And you just happened to take a walk in the garden with a crossbow, a quiver of quarrels and some biscuit for your two friends?’

  Foxley laughed and drew closer.

  ‘You are the Upright Men’s representative here, aren’t you?’ Athelstan demanded. Foxley just hunched his shoulders.

  ‘I asked a question,’ Athelstan insisted.

  Foxley came and sat beside Athelstan. ‘I am what you say I am. Yes, I followed you into the garden because I am under strict orders. My masters in the Great Community of the Realm want you kept safe in this place of sudden, mysterious death. I watched you go out. I was in a chamber on the third gallery; I saw Gaudete and Laetare slipping through the garden like demons on the hunt. And, before you ask, Brother, no, I do not know who released the mastiffs. It could be anybody here.’

  ‘Did you question Whitfield?’

  ‘Of course, the Upright Men gave Whitfield silver and gold. We suspected he was about to flee. We were keen to retrieve the cipher he carried and any other secret information.’ Foxley eased off his warbelt and sat watching the first bees of the day cluster above a flower bed. He pointed up to the window of Whitfield’s chamber. ‘I know the clerk was supposed to leave in the early hours to meet a captain of the Upright Men, but I was ordered not to show my hand or interfere in any way, so I didn’t. Once Whitfield left the Golden Hall that evening I lost interest in him and became deep in my cups. I tell you this, Brother: Whitfield was frightened as any coney being hunted in a wheat field. He refused to talk. The only people he really conversed with were the moppets, the ship’s captain and Matthias Camoys. Why he paid attention to that dream-catcher, I do not know. I believe the Upright Men would have let him go provided he returned the secret manuscripts he carried.’ Foxley rose, gripping the heavy warbelt. ‘Now my questions, Brother. What were you doing in the garden – not just watching the sun rise, I assume?’

  ‘Oh, very much so.’ Athelstan gestured for Foxley to accompany him back into the Golden Oliphant. ‘Indeed, I have a task for you, several in fact. First,’ he pointed back at the sign, ‘I want that taken down and brought to the court chamber of Sir John Cranston at the Guildhall.’

  ‘Is that really necessary?’

  ‘Yes, it’s very necessary. Tell Mistress Cheyne to comply or I will return with bailiffs and a writ. She also must accompany her property to the Guildhall, where she will joined by other people.’ Athelstan waved a hand. ‘Of course she will object, but she either comes of her own accord or faces an official summons and all that entails. Do you understand?’ Foxley grimaced but agreed. ‘However,’ Athelstan continued, ‘do not say anything until I have gone. Now …’ He turned to face the Master of Horse. ‘I am truly grateful for what you did. If it had not been for you I might have been wounded or even killed.’ He pointed towards the Golden Oliphant. ‘Somebody there wants me silenced, which only deepens my suspicions about these horrid deaths.’

  ‘Murders?’ Foxley queried.

  ‘Yes, my friend, heinous murder, which is why my last question to you is so important. Did you see, hear or learn anything suspicious on the evening before Whitfield died?’

  ‘No, Brother, I did not. True, like many of the others I became drunk, but not blind to what was happening around me. I glimpsed and heard nothing untoward.’

  ‘And the morning after?’

  ‘It was as I described. Whitfield’s chamber was bolted, barred and locked both door and window. When the chamber was forced it was as black as pitch inside, but I shall never forget that dangling corpse. If it wasn’t suicide, how did the assassin enter and leave so easily? I know the Golden Oliphant. There are no secret entrances, the chamber doors hang heavy and sturdy. No one heard or saw anything amiss.’

  ‘You did.’

  ‘Brother?’

  ‘You said Whitfield did not look so fat in death.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I thought. Strange, especially as I’ve seen enough people hang – their bellies always swell out. Why do you ask me that?’

  ‘Oh, the answer is quite simple, Master Foxley. Whitfield may have been wearing a money belt,’ Athelstan tapped the warbelt Foxley carried, ‘thick and heavy with small pouches or wallets along the side, each crammed with coins.

  ‘Of course,’ Foxley whispered, ‘if he was fleeing abroad he would need every silver piece he could seize and he would carry it like that.’

  ‘Which is why,’ Athelstan pointed across at the brothel, ‘he and Lebarge chose chambers on the top gallery, safer, more secure against any attempt to seize his ill-gotten wealth. Now, Master Foxley, I thank you again. I would like to continue my wandering. Once I leave, please carry out my instructions.’

  Foxley promised he would and Athelstan watched him go. Much as he was grateful to the Master of Horse, Athelstan remained deeply suspicious. Was Foxley protecting him or just creating the opportunity to curry favour? The Master of Horse could still be involved in Whitfield’s murder. After all, the Upright Men, like Stretton’s master Arundel, had probably lavished Whitfield with bribes. Was the clerk’s death an act of revenge, or an attempt to reclaim money spent? How many people would know that Whitfield would strap a veritable treasure about his waist? Whitfield would surely hide this from any whore or the likes of the pirate Odo Gray, so who else? The belt must have been fastened tight, hence the marks Brother Philippe had found on Whitfield’s corpse.

  Athelstan entered the kitchen, now a hive of activity, and heads turned but little acknowledgement was made. He went down a passageway and had to almost push past Odo Gray and Stretton, who, surly faced and mice-eyed, were making their way along to the refectory. Once he was free of them, Athelstan paused at the foot of the staircase to recall everything he had been told about what had happened the morning Whitfield’s chamber was forced. He imagined Mistress Cheyne, Foxley and the two labourers going up to the gallery, Joycelina quietening the maids and the rest supposedly kept in the refectory under the watchful eye of Griffin. All except for Lebarge, who had apparently slipped away and climbed to the third gallery to listen to the door being forced. Athelstan concentrated on recalling everything Lebarge had told him and felt a tingle of excitement at one fact which did not fit in with the rest.

  He climbed the staircase until he reached the third gallery, then stood in the recess as Lebarge must have done and half-cocked his head, as if listening to the sounds from the gallery above. In his mind he listed all he had learnt, comparing and contrasting accounts. He glanced at the sharp-edged, steep set of stairs and imagined Joycelina at the top. Did she trip, was she pushed, or rendered unconscious then thrown down to smash her head and break her neck? He murmured a requiem, crossed himself and made to leave, slipping out of the tavern as quietly as he had arrived.

  Athelstan walked quickly down to the riverside, moving into the seedy world of Southwark’s stews and brothels, serving every kind of taste: shabby cook shops and even shabbier alehouses lined the narrow, dark, evil-smelling alleyways. The sun had risen, so the denizens of the mumpers’ castles, the hideaways, secret cellars and dank dungeons were hurrying home, all the night walkers and dark dwellers fleeing from the light. Athelstan glimpsed white, bony faces peering out of tattered cowls or battered hoods. Strumpets of every variety, shaven heads hidden beneath colourful wigs, retreated back into shadow-filled doorways. Traders and hucksters who sold rancid meat, green-tinged bread and rotting vegetables to the very poor, now emptied their slops on to the midden heaps. By nightfall they would have
refilled them with whatever scraps they scrounged or stole from the stalls and shops in the city. Funeral processions formed to take their dead to the different requiem masses in this chantry chapel or that. Even in death money mattered. The poor had to club together to send a collection of corpses soaked in pine juice and sheathed in simple canvas or linen sheets on death carts pulled by a couple of old nags with black feathers nodding between their ears. Priests, clothed in purple and gold vestments, moved in clouds of incense whilst altar boys scurried either side ringing handbells as the celebrants intoned the dreadful words from the sequence of the requiem Mass:

  ‘Oh day of wrath, oh day of mourning,

  See fulfilled heaven’s warning …’

  This simple plea for heaven’s favour was drowned by the cries and shouts of traders and tinkers, watermen and milkmaids. The screams of whores, the curses of bailiffs, the tramp of booted feet, the neighing of horses and the rattling of carts and barrows all filled the air. Southwark was coming to life. Justice was also making itself felt. The cages for drunkards, rifflers and sleep shatterers were filling rapidly under the strident orders of beadles. The stocks were already full of miscreants fastened tight to receive all the humiliation heaped on them by passers-by. Two hangings had already taken place. House breakers, caught red-handed, now dangled from a twisted tavern sign. Nearby the fraternity of corpse-collectors were busy cleaning up the grisly remains of the river thief, taken and summarily condemned to be decapitated on the corner of a cobbled lane leading down to the quayside.

  Athelstan sidestepped the mob gathering around this gruesome sight and strode purposefully on to the wharf. At least here the air was fresher. He eagerly breathed in the salty, fishy tang of the riverside, then found a waiting barge, agreed a price and clambered in. The craft pulled away. Sweaty and still slightly shaken after his confrontation with the mastiffs, Athelstan settled in the hooded stern to recite his rosary. The barge pulled alongside others bobbing on the swell. One drew very close. Athelstan paused in his prayers as a voice intoned: ‘St Dunstan,’ to be answered by a chorus of, ‘Pray for us,’ ‘St Bride,’ ‘Pray for us,’ ‘St Andrew,’ the litany continued. Intrigued, Athelstan stared around the canopy at the barge riding alongside with its small, fluttering banners of St Thomas Becket. He realized the passengers were pilgrims making their way across the river to visit the shrine to Becket’s parents.

  ‘What are they reciting?’ he asked an oarsman.

  ‘Why, Brother, the litany of London churches, or rather their patrons.’ He indicated with his grizzled head. ‘They pray for protection from all the churches which line the banks of the Thames, from St Dunstan’s in the west to All Hallows in the east. A common enough practice; the Thames is treacherous, even at the best of times.’

  Athelstan sat back, closed his eyes and breathed his own prayer of thanks. He believed that he would never break the cipher but at least he now understood why the saints’ names were listed on that second piece of parchment and the significance of those two triangles. By the time he reached the battlemented gateway leading into the great, cobbled bailey which stretched in front of the black and white timbered Guildhall, Athelstan’s speculations were hardening into a certainty. He disembarked at Queenhithe and strolled like a dream-walker through the streets leading up to Cheapside, so engrossed in his most recent discovery he was only dimly aware of what was happening around him. At first glance it was the usual Cheapside morning: market bailiffs with their white wands of office; scholars, horn-book in hand, making their way to schools in the transepts of different churches. The mixture of fresh, sweet odours from the bakeries mingled with the more pungent ones from the heaped mounds of refuse. This morning, however, was different. The Earthworms had carried out an attack on one of the Barbican houses where weapons were stored, so archers and pikemen still thronged the busy streets, grouped around knights in half-armour on their restless horses. The same was true of the City Council: the mayor and aldermen had whistled up their bully boys, who, dressed in city livery, now thronged the courtyards and buildings of the Guildhall.

  Athelstan pushed his way through until he found Cranston’s judgement chamber and chancery office, where Osbert Oswald, his clerk, and Simon Scrivener were busy over an indictment roll. They greeted him warmly enough, offered refreshments which he refused and took him into a small, stark ante-chamber. They assured him that Sir John had received and acted on his messages, but, for the while, the coroner was absent on royal business at the Tower. They both confirmed that certain individuals had been summoned to the Guildhall by mid-afternoon when the market bell signalled the beginning of the final hours of trading.

  Athelstan thanked them, content to be left to his own devices. He took out his writing materials and narrow sheets of good vellum, four in all, each with its title, ‘The Herald of Hell’, ‘The Cipher’, ‘The Cross of Lothar’ and one simply titled, ‘Homicide’. He ignored the third: what he had seen, heard and felt at the Golden Oliphant would be left to mature. Instead he turned to the other three but he could make little progress. Athelstan decided he would go and pray. He would sit in the Guildhall chapel and intone the ‘Veni Creator Spiritus’ and ask for divine guidance.

  He took direction from a candle trimmer working on the wall spigots outside and climbed the staircase, along a narrow gallery where the dust motes danced in the air. He pushed open the chapel door and entered the warm, sweet-scented chamber. Sunlight lanced the casement windows on the far wall. Incense fragranced the air. Candles spluttered in front of a statue of the Virgin. Athelstan paused at the sound of voices. Two men crouched before the sanctuary rail working to replace floor tiles which had become loose. They paused and rose as Athelstan walked across to sit on a wall bench beneath one of the windows.

  ‘Do you want us to leave, Father? We can,’ the tiler called. Athelstan peered through the light. The man was oval-faced, beetle-browed with a noticeable harelip. His companion was almost girlish in appearance with long blonde hair, clean-shaven, though Athelstan noticed the sharp, sloe eyes; the young man carried a long stave, probably used for measuring, and on his left wrist a heavy archer’s guard.

  ‘We are just working on the floor.’ The tiler tapped his boots noisily, then grinned. ‘If you want, Brother, you can help us. Just tap your foot along the tiles and listen for an echo.’

  Athelstan smiled and shook his head. He sketched a blessing in their direction, left the chapel and returned to the room close to the coroner’s judgement chamber.

  Cranston eventually arrived, smacking his lips after a delicious repast in the Lamb of God, full of news about what he had been doing. The young king was now safely ensconced in the Tower. Most of the servants there had been dismissed and replaced with Cheshire archers. Only royal knights would be allowed into the King’s presence. War barges lay moored, guarding the river approaches to the Tower, whilst Cranston had despatched the best horsemen with fresh mounts to take up station at taverns along the main roads into Essex and Kent.

  ‘More than that,’ he declared, taking a generous mouthful from the miraculous wineskin, ‘I cannot do. Now, Brother …’

  Athelstan informed him of his conclusions on certain matters. Cranston listened carefully, wiping his moustache with his fingers.

  ‘Satan’s tits!’ he crowed when the friar had finished. ‘My little ferret, you have been busy.’ His smile faded. ‘Those war dogs at the Golden Oliphant …’

  ‘They will wait,’ Athelstan replied. ‘The person who released them will be caught, indicted and suffer a hideous death. Now, Sir John, let us prepare for our visitors. I will need a carpenter, a good one. I know building work is going on here, though,’ he stared around, ‘your chambers are as bare as any hermit’s.’

  ‘Everything is packed away,’ Cranston retorted, ‘stored in the arca in the cellars, great iron and steel chests; they now hold cloths, writing materials, records, pictures, crucifixes, virtually anything which can be moved.’ The coroner breathed in noisily. ‘The Guild
hall will come under attack; its gates have been fortified. You are correct. We have hired the best craftsmen.’

  He left the room then returned with a quiet-faced, sandy-haired man, Guibert Tallifer, a carpenter and leading member of the city guild. Athelstan began to explain why he needed him when there was a knock at the door and Flaxwith entered to announce the first of their visitors had arrived, along with the sign from the Oliphant, which would be laid on the great bench in Cranston’s judgement chamber. They promptly adjourned there, a bleak, stark room with its blank walls and heavy oaken furniture. The Golden Oliphant sign had been placed on the judgement bench and Athelstan explained what he wanted. Tallifer, his leather apron bristling with pockets for tools, scrutinized the sign carefully.

  ‘It’s a box,’ he declared, ‘a shallow box with about six inches between front and back. And, what is this?’ He placed his finger into a hole piercing the cross-piece of the crucifix which decorated the lid over the Oliphant’s cup. The drinking horn was delicately and accurately depicted and Athelstan had to concede that its artist, Reginald Camoys, had a God-given talent. The carpenter explained that the sides of the sign were held together by a very powerful glue. Skilfully, using hammer, wedge and chisel, Tallifer began to loosen one side. He was almost finished when Athelstan told him to pause and asked Sir John to bring up Sir Everard and Matthias Camoys along with Mistress Cheyne.