by Paul Doherty
‘Sir Henry was not like that,’ Marston snapped.
‘Aye,’ Cranston said drily. ‘And cuckoos don’t lay their eggs in other birds’ nests.’
The coroner paused at a tap on the door. A young woman entered, her face as white as a sheet, her corn-coloured hair loose. She was agitated, her fingers lacing together, and she played nervously with the silver-tasselled girdle around her slim waist. Her red-rimmed eyes flitted to the great four-poster bed. Marston rose as she entered.
‘I am sorry,’ she stuttered. She wiped her hands on the tawny sarcanet of her high-necked dress.
Athelstan strode across the room and took her hand. It was cold as ice.
‘Come on,’ he said softly. ‘You had best sit down.’ He took her gently to the stool Marston had vacated. ‘Do you wish some wine?’
The young woman shook her head, her eyes still fixed on the great four-poster bed.
‘It’s Lady Aveline, Sir Henry’s daughter,’ Marston explained. ‘She was next door when Ashby was in here.’
Athelstan crouched down and stared into Aveline’s doe-like eyes.
‘God rest him, my lady, but your father’s dead.’
The young woman plucked at a loose thread on her dress and began silently to cry, tears rolling down her cheeks.
‘I don’t want to see him,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t bear to see him, not in a nightshirt soaked in blood.’ She looked at Marston. ‘Where’s Ashby?’
‘He’s taken sanctuary in a church.’
Suddenly there was a commotion in the passage outside. The door was flung open and a tall woman with steel-grey hair swept into the room. Behind her followed another woman, rather similar in appearance but more subdued. Both women wore heavy cloaks with the hoods pushed back. The innkeeper followed, waving his hands in agitation.
‘You shouldn’t! You shouldn’t really!’ he spluttered.
‘Shut up!’ Cranston roared. ‘Who are you?’
The first and taller of the two women drew her shoulders back and looked squarely at Sir John.
‘My name is Emma Roffel, wife to the late Captain Roffel. I came here to see Sir Henry Ospring.’
Cranston bowed. ‘Madam, my condolences on your husband’s death. Was he a sickly man?’
‘No,’ she replied tartly. ‘As robust as a pig.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘I know you. You’re Cranston, Sir John Cranston, coroner of the city. What has happened here? This fellow’ – she indicated the innkeeper – ‘says Sir Henry has been murdered!’
‘Yes,’ Athelstan tactfully intervened, seeing the look on Cranston’s face. ‘Sir Henry has been murdered and we have the culprit.’
Emma Roffel’s face relaxed. Athelstan studied her curiously. She was rather pretty, he thought, in a tired-looking way. He was always fascinated by women’s faces and Emma’s struck him as a strong one, with its high-beaked nosed and square chin. Its pallor emphasised lustrous dark eyes, though these were now red-rimmed and tinged with shadows. She let her cloak fall open and he glimpsed her black widow’s weeds. She smiled at Athelstan.
‘I apologise for my entrance but I couldn’t believe the news.’ She pointed to the other woman, quiet and mousey, standing behind her. ‘This is Tabitha Velour, my maid and companion.’
Aveline still sat on the stool, her face white with shock. Emma Roffel went over and touched the girl gently on the shoulder.
‘I am sorry,’ she murmured. ‘Truly sorry.’ She glanced up at Cranston. ‘How did this happen?’
‘Stabbed by his squire,’ Cranston said. ‘Nicholas Ashby.’
Emma Roffel pulled her face in surprise.
‘You find that difficult to believe, madam?’ Athelstan asked.
The woman pursed her lips and stared at him. ‘Yes,’ she said slowly. ‘Yes, I do. Ashby was quiet, more of a scholar than a soldier.’
‘But he sailed with your husband?’
Emma Roffel smiled cynically. ‘God forgive me and God rest him but Sir Henry was a suspicious man. Yes, squire Ashby was often sent by his master to make sure his investment gained a just return.’
‘And you came here to inform Sir Henry of your husband’s death?’
‘Yes, yes, I did. But there’s little point,’ she said with a half-smile, ‘for I suppose they can talk to each other now.’
‘Madam,’ Cranston barked, ‘I need to talk to you about your husband’s death!’
‘Sir, you can. I live in Old Fish Street off Trinity on the corner of Wheelspoke Alley. But now I must go. My husband lies coffined before the altar of St Mary Magdalene. Sir John, Father.’ And Emma Roffel spun on her heel, leaving the chamber as dramatically as she had arrived.
‘What will happen now?’ Marston grated.
Sir John walked slowly over to him. ‘Ashby can have sanctuary for forty days. After that he has two choices – he either surrenders himself to the king’s justice or he walks to the nearest port and takes ship abroad. If any attempt-’ Cranston glared at Marston. ‘If any attempt is made to take him by force from St Erconwald’s, I’ll see the perpetrators dangle on the end of a noose at Smithfield! Now, I suggest you look to your master’s corpse and secure his belongings. I want the dagger removed and sent to my office at the Guildhall.’ Cranston turned to where Aveline sat. ‘Madam, please accept my condolences. However, I must insist that you stay here until my investigation is finished.’ Then, gesturing to Athelstan, Cranston left.
‘What’s this business about the ship God’s Bright Light?’ Athelstan asked once they had left the Abbot of Hyde’s courtyard.
‘As I said,’ Cranston answered between swigs from his wineskin, ‘the ship’s at anchor in the Thames. Last night the first mate and two other members of the crew disappeared whilst on watch. We also have the strange business of Captain Roffel’s death. The murder of Sir Henry Ospring and the flight of Nicholas Ashby have muddied the waters even further.’ He popped the stopper back in and hid the wineskin beneath his cloak. ‘I am hungry, monk.’
‘I’m a friar and you’re always hungry, Sir John,’ Athelstan replied. ‘So, you came to collect me, to go where?’
‘Downstream to the good ship God’s Bright Light. The admiral of the eastern seas, Sir Jacob Crawley, is waiting to grant us an audience, but’ – Cranston sniffed the air like a hunting dog – ‘I can smell pies.’
‘Round the corner,’ Athelstan said wearily, ‘is Mistress Merrylegs’ pie shop. She’s the best cook in Southwark.’
Cranston needed no second bidding and was off like a greyhound. A short while later, as he and Athelstan fought their way back through the thronged, narrow streets of Southwark, Cranston chomped greedily on one of Mistress Merrylegs’ rich, succulent beef pies.
‘Lovely!’ he breathed between mouthfuls. The woman’s a miracle, a genuine miracle!’
Athelstan smiled and stared around. Now and again he shouted greetings to members of his parish. Ursula the pig-woman was sitting on a stool in the doorway of a house, her large pet sow crouched beside her. Athelstan could have sworn the sow smiled back at him. Tab the tinker was beating out pots on an anvil just inside his shop. Athelstan would have liked to have stopped but Sir John pushed his way, true as an arrow, through the crowd, returning with vigour the usual cat-calls and good-natured abuse.
‘Father! Father!’ Pernell the Fleming, her hair dyed a grotesque red, bustled up in a shabby black dress, a necklace of cheap yellow beads around her scrawny neck. Pernell reminded Athelstan of a rather battered crow.
‘Father, can you say a Mass?’
A thin, dirty hand held out two farthings. Athelstan closed the fingers of the hand gently.
‘A Mass for whom, Pernell?’
‘For my husband. He died sixteen years ago today. The Mass is for the repose of his soul.’ The woman smiled in a display of yellow teeth. ‘Oh yes, Father, and in thanksgiving.’
‘For his life?’
‘No, that the old bugger’s dead!’
Athelstan smiled. ‘Keep your pennies, Per
nell. I’ll say a Mass tomorrow morning. Don’t you worry.’
They turned off the alleyway into St Erconwald’s church. Athelstan unlocked the door and, with Cranston beside him greedily licking his fingers, walked down the nave and through the rood screen to find Ashby curled up fast asleep on the altar steps.
‘On your feet, lad!’ Cranston growled, kicking the young man’s muddy boots.
Ashby woke with a start, his eyes full of panic.
‘Have they gone?’
‘Yes, they’ve left.’ Athelstan sat down beside him. ‘Don’t worry about that. But they will be back. They might not invade the church but they will certainly keep a watch. So, if I were you, my lad, I’d stay where you are, at least for the time being.’
‘What will happen now?’ Ashby asked anxiously.
Cranston took a swig from his wineskin, then thrust it at Ashby. ‘Well, you can stay here for forty days. Once that’s up you either surrender to the sheriff’s officers or, dressed in the clothes you’re wearing now, walk the king’s highway to the nearest port, carrying a cross before you. If you drop the cross, or leave the highway, Marston and his men can kill you as a wolfshead.’ Cranston took the wineskin back. ‘Marston and his gang will probably follow you all the way. Unless they have powerful friends, very few sanctuary men reach port.’
Ashby’s head drooped.
‘Did you kill him?’ Athelstan asked abruptly.
‘No!’
‘But you had your hand on the dagger when Marston entered the chamber?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘I went in, I saw my master lying there, I . . . I tried to pull the dagger out.’
‘Strange,’ Cranston mused. ‘You tried to take the dagger out? Was it yours?’
‘No, no, it was Sir Henry’s own!’
‘But instead of screaming "Murder!" and looking for help,’ Athelstan put in, ‘you tried to remove the dagger from the dead man’s chest?’
Ashby looked away, licking his lips. ‘I’m telling the truth,’ he muttered. ‘I went into the room. I saw my master’s corpse. I tried to take the dagger out. Marston came in and I fled.’
‘Well, tell that to the king’s justices,’ Cranston said merrily, ‘and you’ll soon find yourself on your way to the scaffold.’
Ashby crossed his arms and leaned back against the altar.
‘What can I do? If I stay, I hang. If I flee, I die anyway.’
‘And there’s another matter,’ Cranston told him. ‘You seem mixed up in a great deal of murder, my lad. Do you know anything about the death of Captain William Roffel?’
CHAPTER 3
Athelstan went across to his house and brought back a bowl of oatmeal, two blankets and a bolster. He returned for a napkin, a bowl and a pitcher of water so that Ashby could wash himself. Then Cranston began his questioning.
‘You are Sir Henry Ospring’s squire?’
‘Yes, Sir John,’ Ashby replied between mouthfuls of oatmeal.
‘You also sailed on the God’s Bright Light with Captain Roffel?’
‘Aye. Sir Henry financed most of the crew’s wages and brought the armaments for the ship. In return he drew fifty per cent of all profits.’
‘And you were sent to keep an eye on things?’
Ashby smiled sourly. ‘You could say that. I left on the God’s Bright Light-’ Ashby screwed his eyes up. ‘What date is it today?’
‘It’s the feast of Simon and Jude,’ Athelstan replied. The 28th October.’
‘Well, we left the Thames two days before Michaelmas, so it would have been on the 27th September. The weather was good, the winds fair. We took up a position between Dover and Calais and began to attack the occasional merchant ship. The plunder was good and we soon had our hold full of foodstuffs, wine and cloths, not to mention the occasional precious object.’
‘What was Roffel like?’ Athelstan asked.
‘A hard man, Father. A good sailor, but brutal. He always attacked, never allowed an enemy to surrender. Fishing smacks, galleys, wine ships from the Gironde. The pattern was always the same. We would pursue, pull alongside and the archers would loose. After that a boarding party would cross and-’
‘And?’
Ashby looked down at the floor.
‘And?’ Cranston repeated.
Ashby muttered something.
‘Speak up, man!’
‘There were never any prisoners. Corpses would be thrown overboard. Captured vessels of poor quality would be sunk. The others would be towed back to the nearest English port.’
‘Did anything untoward happen? Anything at all?’
‘Yes, on about the 11th October we captured a small fishing smack which had been trying to slip from one French port to another. I think it was heading towards Dieppe, but the wind blew it out to sea. We attacked and the ship was sunk. Nothing untoward except-’ Ashby put the bowl down and wiped his lips on the back of his hand. ‘Captain Roffel seemed pleased, very pleased. You know, like a cat who has stolen the cream. Usually Roffel was a taciturn man, but I saw him walking on the poop and he was clapping his hands. It was the only time I ever heard him sing.’
‘And then what?’
‘A few days later he took to his cabin, complaining of stomach pains. However, the hold was full of booty so we put into Dover. I took Sir Henry’s share and came ashore. After that the God’s Bright Light put back to sea under Hubert Bracklebury, the first mate.’
‘Did Roffel send any letter ashore to Sir Henry?’
‘No, none whatsoever. They were business partners rather than friends. Sir Henry provided the money, Roffel did the pillaging.’ Ashby kicked the bowl with his foot. ‘They were murderers. Ospring was a devil from hell, he squeezed every penny from his tenants. He didn’t give a fig about God or man.’
‘Is that why you killed him?’
‘No,’ Ashby replied. ‘I did not kill him.’
Athelstan got up and looked at Cranston. ‘Sir John, we have learnt enough here.’
Cranston sighed and lumbered to his feet. Athelstan pointed to a large niche in the sanctuary.
‘Rest there,’ he said. ‘You have some ale and a blanket and bolster. When I return I will make you more comfortable.’
‘Father, is there anything I can do?’
Athelstan grinned and pointed to two heavy wrought-iron candlesticks on the altar.
‘Yes, you can clean those and trim the wicks of the candles.’ He looked down at Ashby. ‘You have a dagger?’
Ashby smiled and patted it.
‘Well, I would consider it a great favour if you could also scrape the candle grease from the floor. I will see you on my return.’ He pointed to Bonaventure sleeping at the base of the pillar. ‘And, if you get lonely, talk to the cat. He’s not a great conversationalist but he’s a wonderful listener.’
Athelstan followed Sir John out of the church.
‘Stay there, Sir John.’
Athelstan checked the stable. Old Philomel stood leaning against the stable wall, happily chewing on a bundle of hay. The priest patted him gently on the muzzle. Philomel snickered with pleasure and snatched another mouthful whilst Athelstan hastened to his house. He collected his cloak and the leather bag that contained his writing instruments, then he and Sir John strode down to the quayside. It was now past midday. The skies were overcast but the streets and alleyways were as frenetic as ever. Children ran screaming around the stalls. Beggars whined for alms. Hucksters, their trays slung around their necks, offered ribbons, pins and needles for sale. Athelstan glimpsed Cecily the courtesan standing outside a tavern door.
‘Go to the church, Cecily!’ Athelstan shouted. ‘We have a visitor.’ He tossed a coin, which she deftly caught. ‘Buy him one of Mistress Merrylegs’ pies!’
They passed the stocks, strangely empty. The commissioners of gaol delivery would not meet for another week; when they did, the stocks would be full of a week’s harvest of villains. Bladdersniff the ward bailiff, drunk as a lo
rd, was sitting at the foot of the stocks chatting to Ranulf the rat-catcher, who kept stroking the pet badger that now followed him everywhere. Athelstan had even glimpsed it in church, the creature’s little muzzle peeping out from beneath Ranulf’s tarred, hooded cape. Both men shouted greetings. Athelstan replied, surprised that Sir John was so strangely quiet – usually the coroner commented on everything and everyone as they walked through the streets. Athelstan caught Cranston by the arm.
‘Sir John, what is wrong?’
Cranston took another swig from his wineskin and smacked his lips. He wrinkled his nose at the foul fish smell from the nets laid out to dry on the quayside.
‘I don’t know, Brother. This whole business is rotten. Ospring and Roffel were two murderous bastards and got what they deserved.’ He belched noisily. ‘But the disappearance of the watch from the God’s Bright Light, Roffel’s strange sickness and the unexplained stabbing of Sir Henry – it all adds up to nothing.’
‘Did you notice something strange about Ashby?’ Athelstan asked.
Cranston grinned wickedly and touched Athelstan gently on the tip of his nose with his finger. ‘You are a cunning, conniving priest, Athelstan. I have learnt a lot from you. What’s that saying you sometimes quote? "Four things are important: the questions you ask, the answers you receive and . . ."?’
‘" . . . the questions you don’t ask and the answers you don’t receive",’ Athelstan filled in. ‘Never once did Ashby try and explain how Sir Henry died. He protested his innocence but gave us no information whatsoever. All he says is that he came into the room, saw the corpse and had his hand on the dagger when Marston interrupted him.’
‘And what else, my dear monk?’
‘Friar, Sir John, friar. Well, the lady Aveline, in better days at least, must be a lovely, comely woman.’
‘And?’
‘Never once did our young squire ask after her?’
Cranston sniffed. ‘You think there’s something wrong?’
‘Of course there is.’
