by Paul Doherty
At last Cranston’s authority prevailed and the Guildmasters, muttering amongst themselves and throwing black glances over their shoulders, trooped out of the chapel. Gaunt waited until the door closed behind them then lifted his face from his hands.
‘Sir John, Brother Athelstan, I thank you for that.’ He got to his feet. ‘But what shall we do? The Guildmasters are right. Each has lost a thousand pounds sterling. Mountjoy and Fitzroy are dead, and Ira Dei dances round me as if I was some bloody maypole.’ He gestured with his hand. Athelstan and Cranston sat down, Goodman and Lord Adam Clifford likewise. Gaunt covered his face with his hands then rubbed his eyes and looked at Cranston.
‘What do you propose, My Lord Coroner?’
Cranston shook his head. Athelstan caught a spark of anger in the Regent’s eyes. Sir John would have to move quickly or he might well become the scapegoat for the rage boiling in the Regent’s heart.
‘Your Grace.’ Athelstan rose to his feet. He tried to shake off his own tiredness, curbing his desire to flee back to his own quiet church in Southwark.
‘Your Grace,’ he repeated, ‘two men have been foully murdered, but all assassins make mistakes and we have yet to reflect upon the events of this calamitous day. However, the removal of the gold from a chest which could only be opened by six separate keys is most mysterious. I have a number of questions. First, who made the chest?’
‘Peter Sturmey,’ Clifford replied, ‘a trusted locksmith whose services are retained by the Crown. I doubt very much whether he would act the traitor in this. His own son is an Exchequer official who was recently in an affray at Colchester whilst trying to collect taxes.’
Athelstan held up his hand. ‘Then what about the chest itself? My Lord Regent, perhaps we might examine it?’
Gaunt grunted his assent and Athelstan, assisted by Cranston and Clifford, with Goodman looking on, turned the chest over, knocking at the wooden panelling, examining the locks.
Cranston shook his head. ‘Good and true,’ he breathed, getting to his feet. ‘The chest has no secret compartments.’ He studied the clasp and locks. ‘None of these has been tampered with.’
Athelstan flicked the dust from his robes. ‘Therefore, my third question. Could there have been a master key?’
‘Impossible!’ Clifford snapped. ‘Each lock is unique.’ He drew out two of the keys which the Guildmasters had left, I am no locksmith, Brother, but study these carefully. Look!’ He held both of them up against the candlelight. ‘See the curves and notches of each key? They are quite separate and distinct. Indeed, my Lord of Gaunt insisted that they be so.’
Athelstan rubbed his mouth to hide his dismay.
‘Your fourth question begs itself,’ Clifford added. ‘Did Sturmey make a duplicate of each key? But that,’ he continued hurriedly, seeing the Regent shake his head, ‘would make Sturmey a traitor who cheerfully handed over his keys to another for the locks to be opened.’
‘Devil’s tits!’ Cranston murmured. ‘How could it be done? Was the chapel guarded?’
Goodman shrugged. ‘No, why should it be? The chest was heavy with gold, and with six locks . . .’ His voice trailed off.
‘Who planned all this?’ Athelstan asked. ‘I mean, the gold ingots, the chest?’
Clifford pulled a face and looked at Goodman. ‘The idea of the chest and the gold being deposited there,’ he replied, ‘came from my Lord of Gaunt, though it was myself and Sir Gerard Mountjoy who chose Sturmey.’ He smiled. ‘The Guildmasters insisted on that.’
‘Because they didn’t trust me!’ Gaunt snapped. ‘I had nothing to do with the construction of the chest or the fashioning of its locks or the making of its keys. Both I and the Guildmasters decided we should best leave that to our worthy city officials here. They brought the chest and the keys direct from Sturmey’s shop this morning.’
‘And, before you ask,’ Lord Adam intervened, ‘never once did any of them hold all six keys together. My Lord Mayor bought three, Mountjoy the rest. The transaction was witnessed by both Fitzroy and Sudbury and the chest was carried by city bailiffs.’
Cranston looked, narrow-eyed, into the darkness, a gesture the Coroner always used when he was deep in thought.
‘Sir John Athelstan exclaimed. ‘What is the matter?’
Cranston smacked his lips, a sure sign that, even at this very late hour, he was beginning to miss his claret.
‘Sturmey,’ he said. ‘The name of Sturmey means something to me. Now why is that, eh? Why should a reputable locksmith, patronized by the great and the noble, strike a chord in my old memory?’
Athelstan grinned. Cranston’s memory was prodigious. He knew the names and most of the faces of London’s rogues and, even in a crowded Cheapside, could bellow out warnings to pickpockets and foists.
‘What does Sturmey’s name mean to you?’ Gaunt asked quickly.
The Coroner shook his head. ‘It will come.’ He bowed. ‘My Lord Regent, if you will excuse me and my clerk, it is imperative we call on this locksmith tonight. Where does he live?’
‘In Lawrence Lane, just off the Mercery,’ Clifford replied.
‘Then,’ Cranston grinned at Athelstan who just glared back in tired annoyance, ‘we’d best call upon master locksmith of Lawrence Lane near the Mercery and ask him a few questions, eh?’ He bowed to the Regent once more. Gaunt looked away. Cranston shrugged and walked down the church, a despondent Athelstan trailing behind.
‘Cranston!’
Sir John turned. Gaunt was now standing on the altar steps.
‘You know the Guildmasters will be back. Oh, they’ll be reasonable. They’ll demand their gold and their answers within a set time.’ He wagged a finger. ‘I need answers, too, my Lord Coroner, within ten days at the most.’ He left the unspoken threat hanging in the air as Cranston spun on his heel and walked out of the Guildhall chapel.
CHAPTER 5
Once out in Cheapside Cranston stopped and stared up at the moon. ‘The devil’s piss on them!’ he cursed. ‘Cock’s blood! What a stinking pot of turds! What a mess! The whoreson, beetle-headed, fat-bellied, treacherous bastards!’
Athelstan smiled. ‘You are, My Lord Coroner, referring to our brothers in Christ, the Guildmasters?’
‘Yes, monk, I am.’ Cranston plucked his miraculous wineskin from beneath his cloak and gulped heartily. ‘Lord,’ he breathed, ‘what a mess! How was Fitzroy killed, Brother? He didn’t take the poison before the meal, his food and all the cutlery bore no sign of any potion.’
Athelstan shook his head. ‘You are ahead of me, Sir John. I am still wondering about Mountjoy’s death.’ The friar stared across the darkened Cheapside, his gaze attracted by the lantern horns fixed outside the great merchants’ houses. He recalled the words of his old lecturer, Father Paul: ‘The root of all sin,’ the old friar had boomed, ‘is pride. And the opposite of love is not hatred or indifference but power. Power corrupts; the pursuit of it is the road to Hell.’
We are on that road now, Athelstan thought, thronged by powerful men with a raging thirst for the best things in life. We are all killers, he concluded, and despite the warm evening air, shivered. He felt like a masked swordsman being thrust into a pitch-black tourney thronged by killers, I want to go home,’ he whispered before he could stop himself.
Cranston looked at him curiously. ‘This is your home, Brother.’
Athelstan smiled and shook himself free from his reverie. ‘Aye, Sir John, but we have a locksmith to question. Tell me, why are. you puzzled by Sturmey’s name?’
Cranston blessed himself, took three more swigs from the wineskin, popped back the stopper and, linking his arm through Athelstan’s, guided him up the Poultry.
‘I don’t know,’ he muttered. ‘But the name rings a bell. It will take time, Brother.’
Athelstan pinched his nostrils for this part of Cheapside still stank of dead birds. He tried not to look at the rats racing between the cesspits in the centre of the street to forage amongst the juicy morsels of giblets
and decapitated heads of chickens, partridge, quail and plover. Two white feathers floated by and Athelstan thought of angels.
‘No angels here,’ he muttered.
‘You’re dead bloody right!’ Cranston retorted.
They jumped and stepped aside as two old ladies suddenly turned the corner, pushing a hand cart, the corpse of another old harridan sprawled over it. Athelstan sketched a blessing in the air. One of the old crones looked over her shoulder and cackled.
‘Gone she has,’ she screeched. ‘Died of the flux and it’s the lime pits for her.’
‘I wish I could stop that,’ Cranston observed. ‘They will dump the body on some church steps.’
The cart trailed away into the darkness and they continued into the Mercery. Two whores stood on the corner of an alleyway, their saffron dresses and red wigs shining like beacons in the gloom.
‘Hello, ladies!’ Cranston shouted. ‘You know the law?’
‘What law?’ the taller of the two replied. ‘We are a prayer group.’
‘It’s Cranston!’ the shorter one hissed, and the two ladies of the night fled like fire-flies up the darkened alley.
Athelstan and Cranston turned into Lawrence Lane, a dark tunnel because the houses on either side leaned over so close, a person in the highest story could actually tap on a window opposite.
‘Mind your step!’ Cranston warned.
Athelstan looked down and realized the sewer in the centre of the street had overflowed, drenching the cobbles with all kinds of putrid filth. The street reeked of sulphur which some good citizen must have poured in to kill the stench. Dark forms edged out of alleyways. Cranston tugged his cloak over his shoulders and pulled out his long Welsh stabbing dagger.
‘Good evening, my buckos! I’m Jack Cranston, Coroner.’
The sinister shadows disappeared.
They continued on, Cranston stopping to look at the shop signs which hung on poles just above their heads. At last, just before Lawrence Lane ran into Catte Street, he stopped and pointed to a sign creaking on rusting chains. It bore the legend ‘Peter Sturmey, Locksmith’. Cranston stepped back and looked up. He could see candlelight glowing in one of the upper stories so began to hammer on the door.
‘Piss off!’ someone shouted from across the street.
Athelstan and Cranston moved quickly as the foul contents of a night pot were hurled down.
‘Sod off!’ Cranston yelled back. ‘I am an officer of the law!’
‘I couldn’t care if you were the King himself!’ the voice shouted back, but they heard the casement window snap shut and Cranston went back to his hammering.
At last his perseverance was rewarded. They heard footsteps, the door was pulled back on its chains and the pallid face of a maid, ghostly in the candlelight, peered out at them.
‘Who is it?’ she murmured. ‘What is the matter? Do you have news of my master?’
‘Open the door!’ Cranston murmured. ‘That’s a good lass. I am the city Coroner and this is Brother Athelstan. We must have words with your master.’
The chains were loosened and the maid, swathed in a cloak, stepped back to allow them in. In the candlelight the passageway came alive with dancing, flickering shapes.
‘I want your master,’ Cranston repeated gently.
‘Sir, he is not here. He left this afternoon and has not returned.’
Athelstan closed his eyes. ‘Oh, God!’ he breathed.
‘What is it?’
A tousle-haired boy, heavy-eyed with sleep but with the face of an angel, suddenly darted from a room off the passageway, a lantern almost as big as his head held high in one hand.
‘And who are you, sir?’ Cranston asked.
‘Perrot,’ he replied. ‘Master Sturmey’s apprentice.’
The boy came closer. Athelstan judged him to be about thirteen or fourteen summers old and, once again, was reminded of an angel Huddle had painted on the walls of St Erconwald’s.
‘The master’s gone,’ the boy said flatly. ‘He went out just after noon and he hasn’t come back.’
‘And the lady of the house?’
‘She’s gone too and won’t be back.’
‘Why not?’
‘She died five years ago.’
Athelstan grinned and plucked a penny from his purse. He spun it and the boy nimbly caught it.
‘And Sturmey’s son?’
‘He’s gone too,’ the maid and apprentice chorused.
‘He’s in York. Some important business of the King.’
Cranston nodded as he looked at the two solemn faces.
‘Look,’ he said reassuringly, ‘we can’t discuss things here. You, boy, you sleep in the shop?’
‘Aye, I do.’
‘Then let’s go there.’
The boy blinked and looked at the maid, who nodded.
‘Come on then,’ Perrot instructed. ‘But you mustn’t touch anything, otherwise the master will beat me.’
He led them into a room off the passageway, lit candles and pulled out two stools for his unexpected visitors. Athelstan sat down and stared around. He’d never seen so many keys. They hung in bunches on the wall or lay on benches around the whitewashed room, together with pieces of metal, casting irons, pincers. He glimpsed the small forge on the outside wall. The place smelt of burnt wood and charcoal and everything was covered in a fine grey dust. He looked under one table and saw the apprentice’s bed: a straw mattress, a bolster, a woollen blanket and a rather battered wooden horseman. Perhaps the boy’s favourite toy.
‘Would you like some wine?’ the maid invited, trying to act older than she was.
‘No, no.’ Atheistan smiled. ‘Sir John never touches wine, do you. My Lord Coroner?’
No, no,’ Cranston gruffly replied, narrowing his eyes at Atheistan. He drew himself up. ‘It sets a fine example.’
The boy peered at the large Coroner under lowered eye-lashes, as if only half-convinced.
‘Where did your master go?’ Cranston asked.
‘I don’t know, he just left the shop.’
‘And how was he?’
‘Very excited,’ the apprentice replied.
‘About what?’
‘Oh, making the chest for the great lords, and the keys.’
‘Tell me.’ Cranston leaned forward, trying to keep the wineskin concealed under his cloak. ‘Did you help your master make the chest, its locks and keys?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘And how many keys did he make?’
‘Six.’
‘Didn’t he make any more just in case one was lost?’
‘Oh, no, my master said that was forbidden.’
‘And,’ Atheistan intervened, ‘did he have any visitors to the shop? Someone mysterious, cloaked and hooded?’
‘No.’ The boy laughed. ‘Why should he?’
His eyes flickered and he looked away. You are hiding something, Athelstan thought, but nothing to do with this.
‘And which of the great ones came here?’
‘Well, they all came here yesterday,’ Perrot replied.
‘In their cloaks, boots and beaver hats, they nigh filled the house. They had to take the chest and keys to the Guildhall. There were soldiers outside with a cart.’
‘Yes,’ Athelstan continued. ‘But before your master finished the keys and the locks, did any of the great ones come to see him privately?’
‘I don’t think so,’ the boy replied. ‘I live here, and sleep here. Master always brings his visitors here except when he is working in his garden. He likes to go there by himself. Says he likes the change.’
‘But the visitors?’ Athelstan persisted.
‘Two large fat ones,’ the boy replied, ‘the Lord Mayor and the Sheriff. They always came together over the last two weeks to make sure my master was doing his work.’
‘And no one else?’
‘No, Father.’
Athelstan’s eyes turned to the young maid standing next to the boy. ‘And you saw nothing
mysterious or untoward?’
They both shook their heads.
‘What happened to the moulds?’ Cranston moved his feet. ‘The ones in which the keys were cast?’
‘They were destroyed,’ the boy replied proudly. ‘When the great ones came for the chest and keys, they stood around and watched me smash them with a hammer.’
Cranston gazed at Athelstan who shook his head.
The Coroner lumbered to his feet, stretched and yawned; fishing in his pocket, he took out two pennies which he handed to the boy and girl.
‘Very good!’ he murmured. ‘But when your master returns, tell him to find Sir John Cranston’s house in Cheapside. I have to speak to him.’
The maid and apprentice nodded. Cranston and Athelstan walked back into Lawrence Lane and down to the corner of the Mercery.
‘You know he’ll never come back, Sir John?’
Cranston blew out his cheeks. ‘Aye, tomorrow I’ll issue an instruction to the officials to search amongst the corpses found throughout the city.’ He stifled a yawn. ‘Brother, you are welcome to share my house tonight.’
Athelstan looked up at the starlit sky. ‘Thank you, Sir John, but I must return.’
He stood and watched as Cranston, shouting farewells, shuffled like some great bear up Cheapside. Suddenly he turned.
‘Brother, I’ll walk you to the bridge!’
‘No, no, I insist, Sir John. I’ll be safe. Who’d attack a poor friar?’
Cranston watched the priest cross the Mercery and go down Budge Row.
‘Aye!’ he whispered to himself. ‘Who’d attack a poor friar? This city is full of bastards who would!’
Cranston waited until Athelstan had disappeared out of sight then followed him along Budge Row, down the Walbrook into the Ropery and along Bridge Street. At the far end in a pool of light, their torches fixed on poles, guards stood at the entrance to the bridge. Cranston heard their indistinct voices as they questioned the friar. One of them laughed and Athelstan was allowed through. The Coroner sighed with relief but strained his ears once more as he heard the slither of footsteps behind him.
‘Listen, you nightbirds,’ he growled over his shoulder, ‘this is old Jack, city Coroner. If you don’t piss off I’ll have your balls round your necks!’ When he turned, the street was empty.
