by Paul Doherty
Athelstan sensed Ashby’s growing tension. He patted the girl on the wrist.
‘Just tell me,’ he said gently
‘He said he hoped I was as good as my mother and tried to pull me across his lap. As he did so, I saw the hilt of his dagger sticking out from a pile of clothes on a chair. Everything moved so quickly. I grabbed the hilt, the next second the dagger was deep in his chest. He just stared at me as if he couldn’t believe what had happened, then he slumped to the floor. I must have stood for some time just staring down. I thought it was a dream. I kept pinching myself to wake up. It was so clean, so swift, not even a speck of blood on my hands or clothes. I heard a knock on the door—’
‘That was me,’ Ashby interposed quickly. ‘I was in the room next to Sir Henry’s. I heard Aveline go down the passageway and the sound of a faint disturbance, of something falling. I went into Sir Henry’s chamber. Only then did Lady Aveline tell me what had been happening.’
‘I daren’t say anything before,’ the young woman whispered. ‘Who would believe me? I knew Nicholas Ashby and I loved him but I kept everything a secret. Sir Henry would have killed us both.’
‘I just pushed her out of the room,’ Ashby continued. ‘Once she had gone, I tried to pull the knife out, but Marston came, banging on the door.’ Ashby nodded contemptuously down the church. ‘He’s all bluster. He could have stopped me but he just shouted "Murderer! Murderer!". I opened the window and fled.’
Athelstan rose. What Aveline had said did not really shock him. Time and again in confession he had heard the same sin in all its variations – brother and sister, father and daughter. It was the natural result of people living so close together. But who would believe Aveline? Sir Henry had been guilty of what the theologians called ‘the great and secret sin’, incest, much practised but never discussed. In a court of law it would look different. Some might even argue that both Aveline and Ashby were involved in killing Sir Henry for their own private ends. She must have known that Sir Henry would be against any such love match. Ashby had been found red-handed. If he kept quiet he would go to the gallows. If he tried to defend himself Aveline might well join him, pushed there by grasping relatives eager to get their share of Sir Henry’s wealth.
Athelstan stood at the foot of the sanctuary steps, staring at the two anxious, white-faced lovers.
‘Do you have any proof?’ he asked.
‘I thought you might ask that,’ Aveline replied.
Before Athelstan could stop her, she unbuttoned the top of her dress and pulled it down. ‘Only this,’ she said. ‘It came up later.’ And Athelstan glimpsed the purple bruise on her milky-white shoulder.
That’s where Sir Henry gripped me,’ she said, and, free of any embarrassment, pulled the dress back and re-tied the little thongs. ‘Am I guilty of a great sin, Father?’
Athelstan stared at her now-covered shoulder. That bruise could never have been self-inflicted. He believed both she and Ashby were telling the truth. He sketched a blessing in the air.
‘I absolve you,’ he said. ‘Though God knows what I am going to do now.’
‘You could speak for us,’ she said hopefully.
‘Who would believe me?’ Athelstan replied. ‘And what you have told me is bound by the seal of confession. No, no. What I must do is ponder carefully and coolly on a solution to all this. Look, let us leave that for the moment. I wish to question you on other matters. Sir Henry provided monies for Captain Roffel and the ship God’s Bright Light?
Ashby nodded.
‘And you joined the ship in September but left when it docked at Dover?’
‘Yes.’
‘During the voyage did anything happen?’
‘I have told you, Roffel was the same. Dour and secretive, except after taking that fishing smack.’
‘What else do you know about Roffel?’
‘He drank a great deal.’ Ashby smiled bleakly. ‘Not just wine or beer like the rest of us. He drank wine and beer, of course, but he also had a special flask containing a very fiery drink, usquebaugh he called it. Before every voyage he would go ashore and have his flask filled at the Crossed Keys tavern behind a warehouse at Queen’s hithe.’
‘He filled it himself?’
‘Oh, yes, Father. Where Roffel went so did that flask.’
Athelstan smiled as he thought of Cranston’s wineskin. ‘So, no one else was allowed to refill it?’
‘That’s what I said, Father. But we knew he drank from it. Well, not all the crew, but I did. His breath used to smell. He’d take it in very small doses. He once told me it was five times as powerful as any wine and kept him warm at night against the sea chill.’
‘And Roffel was in good spirits at the beginning of the voyage?’
‘Oh, yes. Sir Henry gave me a sealed package to hand to him, but I don’t know what it contained.’
‘Do you, Lady Aveline?’ Athelstan asked.
‘No, no, though my stepfather seemed very pleased with himself.’
Then what?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t really know.’
‘I often took such packages,’ Ashby interrupted. ‘Roffel would read what was in them then toss them into the sea.’
‘Wait!’ Aveline leaned forward. ‘Yes, now I remember. When the God’s Bright Light began its voyage my stepfather was very, very pleased, but when Nicholas returned his temper changed. I heard him say that he didn’t trust Roffel. He claimed the captain was cheating him. He was coming to London to confront Roffel when . . .’ Her voice faded away.
‘Is there anything else?’ Athelstan asked.
She shook her head.
Athelstan crouched down and gripped her hand.
‘You are now your stepfather’s heir,’ he said. ‘Your secret is safe with me and I will think about what I can do. For the moment, however, you should return to the Abbot of Hyde inn. Go through your stepfather’s papers, everything and anything. See if you can find anything that will give some hint, however faint, of the secrets he may have shared with Roffel.’
‘How will that help us?’ she pleaded.
‘God knows!’ Athelstan said. ‘God only knows!’ He genuflected before the altar. ‘You may stay here for a while but, Master Ashby, on no account leave the sanctuary! I have your word on that?’
Ashby nodded just as the church door crashed open and Watkin the dung-collector rushed in.
‘Father! Father! The cart’s arrived!’
Athelstan, breathing heavily and slowly, prayed for patience.
‘Good man, Watkin. Have the other door opened and bring it up into the nave.’
The dung-collector trotted off. The doors opened and, after a great deal of crashing and banging, a huge, four-wheeled cart pulled by Watkin and other parishioners rolled up a makeshift ramp on the steps and into the nave. Athelstan went down to help. His anger at being so rudely disturbed was soon dispelled by the good humour and generosity of his parishioners, who had left their trades to ensure that this cart arrived in time for their mystery play. Panting, shouting, sweating and shouting instructions to each other, the parishioners heaved the cart until it stood in the centre of the nave.
‘There!’ Watkin wiped the sweat from his face. There you are, Father. And,’ he added quickly, his hairy nostrils quivering in the full fury of his self-righteousness, ‘in the play, I’m going to be God, aren’t I?’ He lowered his voice. ‘Pike can’t be God. I am leader of the parish council.’
Pike the ditcher came round the cart. Athelstan sensed that, despite the impending marriage between Pike’s son and Watkin’s daughter, the old animosity between these two men was beginning to reappear.
‘I heard that, Watkin!’ Pike snapped. ‘I’m to be God in the play!’
‘No, you’re not!’ Watkin shouted back childishly.
Both men looked at Athelstan to arbitrate. The priest groaned quietly to himself.
‘Well, Father?’ Pike demanded. ‘Who is God?’
Athelstan smiled. ‘We
all are. We are all made in God’s image so, if we are like God, God must be something like us.’
‘But what about the play?’ Watkin insisted.
‘Yes, what about it?’ Hig the pig-man, square-jawed and narrow-eyed, came around the cart and stood beside Watkin. Hig worked in the fleshing yards and his brown gown was stained with offal and blood from the carcases he cleaned. He always wore the same gown and his thick hair was cut as if the barber had just thrust a bowl on his head and trimmed around it. Athelstan didn’t like him. Hig was a born troublemaker, very conscious of his rights and ever ready to shatter the peace of parish-council meetings by fishing in troubled waters.
‘Hig, you stay out of this!’ Athelstan warned.
The pig-man’s close-set eyes narrowed.
‘I know what we can do.’ Athelstan looked at Watkin and Pike. ‘As I said, we are like God. So, Watkin can be God the Father, I can play God the Son and you, Pike, dressed in a white gown with the wings of a dove attached to your back, can be God the Holy Ghost. Now, remember what Holy Mother Church teaches, there are three persons in God and all three are equal.’ He lowered his voice and looked darkly at them. ‘Unless you are going to contradict the teaching of Holy Mother Church?’
Watkin and Pike just stared open-mouthed, then glanced at each other.
‘Agreed,’ said Watkin. ‘But God the Father always does more than God the Holy Ghost.’
‘No, he doesn’t.’
They both stamped off, merrily discussing the finer points of theological dogma. Athelstan heaved a sigh of relief. The rest of the parishioners milled around the cart, loudly talking to each other but never bothering to listen. Athelstan slipped out of the church and across to his house.
‘Father, a word?’
Athelstan, his hand on the latch, spun around.
The two cloaked women must have walked over quietly. They stood, white-faced, staring at him.
‘Emma Roffel.’ She pulled back her hood. ‘You remember me, Father?’
Emma’s face was drawn and her grey hair was unruly, as if she had hardly bothered to finish her toilet. Tabitha Velour, standing just a pace behind her, looked similarly drawn and tired.
‘You’d best come in.’ Athelstan led them into the kitchen and sat them down. He offered some bread and wine but they declined. He sat at the head of the table, gently stroking a purring Bonaventure, who had jumped into his lap.
‘Why are you here?’ he asked Emma. ‘I thought your husband was to be buried this morning?’
‘He is to be, within the hour,’ Emma replied. ‘I’m here because of what happened at St Mary Magdalene church last night.’ Her eyes widened. ‘I had to ask you, Father. Have you found the culprit? Why should anyone do so disgusting a thing?’
‘You have come across the river to ask me that?’ Athelstan asked. ‘Sir John and I did intend to visit you today.’
‘I went to Sir John’s house,’ Emma said, ‘but he was not there. He had been summoned to the Guildhall. I just want to know who did it.’
‘Madam, we don’t know who or why but your husband had few friends and many enemies.’
Emma sighed heavily.
‘He was a hard man, Father.’
Athelstan peered at her. That’s not really why you came,’ he said. ‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’
‘I will speak for her.’ Tabitha Velour leaned forward. ‘When we went to St Mary Magdalene church this morning, Father Stephen was still very upset. He overheard you tell Sir John that Captain Roffel may have been poisoned. Is this true?’
‘I think so,’ Athelstan replied. ‘Probably white arsenic. It’s cheap and easy to obtain.’
‘But how?’ Emma Roffel asked. ‘My husband was very careful on board ship, only eating and drinking what the crew did.’
‘That’s not quite true,’ Athelstan said. ‘Your husband was Scottish. He had a special flask which he filled at a tavern near Queen’s hithe with a fiery Scottish drink called usquebaugh.’
Emma Roffel put her finger to her lips. ‘Of course,’ she whispered. ‘Where he went, so did that flask.’ She stared at Athelstan. ‘But he always filled it at that tavern! He took it there himself, because he paid the landlord to import a special cask from the port of Leith in Scotland.’
‘Did he always carry the flask around with him?’ Athelstan asked.
‘He never drank from it on land,’ Emma answered. ‘But at sea, always. He would never leave it in his cabin but carried it on his person.’
‘And at sea, of course, he could not refill it,’ Athelstan mused.
Emma suddenly stood up. ‘Father, you must excuse us. The funeral Mass is at ten o’clock. There will only be the two of us there. We must go.’
‘We may visit you afterwards?’ Athelstan asked.
‘Yes, yes,’ she said impatiently and, followed by her maid, hurried out of the house.
Athelstan banked the fire. He collected the leather bag containing his writing materials, filled Bonaventure’s bowl with milk and went out to saddle the protesting Philomel.
‘Come on, old man,’ he whispered as he gingerly heaved himself into the saddle. ‘Let’s go and see old Jack Cranston, eh?’
Philomel snickered in pleasure. The old destrier liked nothing better than butting the fat coroner’s protuberant stomach or expansive backside. As they passed the church door, Athelstan glimpsed Marston and two other of Sir Henry’s retainers lurking in the alley opposite. Athelstan did not stop. His parishioners had now spilled out on to the steps. Neatly divided into two groups, one led by Watkin and the other by Pike, they were fiercely debating whether God the Father was, in fact, superior to God the Holy Ghost.
Lord help us, Athelstan thought, perhaps I should be Three Persons in One and Watkin and Pike could be two of the archangels. He turned Philomel out of the church grounds and into the alleyway, smilingly sketching a blessing towards where Marston and his accomplices lurked. Then he forced his way through the smelly, noisy throngs in Southwark’s narrow alleyways. Outside the Piebald tavern, two of his parishioners, Tab the tinker and Roisia his wife, were engaged in a bitter verbal battle, much to the delight of a growing crowd of onlookers. Athelstan stopped to watch and listen.
‘We’ve been happily married for twenty years till this!’ Roisia, red in the face, shouted at her husband.
‘Yes,’ Tab retorted. ‘You’ve been happy and I’ve been married!’
This was too much for Roisia, who swung her tankard at Tab’s head. He ducked and she went sprawling in the mud.
‘Tab!’ Athelstan shouted. ‘Stop this nonsense! Pick Roisia up and go into the church! The cart for our pageant’s arrived.’
Roisia, kneeling in the mud, caught her husband’s arm.
‘You’re supposed to be St Peter!’ she shouted. ‘But Watkin will distribute the parts as he thinks fit.’
Husband and wife, now firm allies, headed off in the direction of St Erconwald’s. Athelstan continued on his way, past the priory of St Mary Overy to the approaches of London Bridge. At the roadside the beadles were busy meting out punishments. Two dyers, who had used dog turds to make a brown dye that washed out in the first shower, were standing, bare-arsed, with only a scrap of cloth covering their privy parts, tied hand and foot to each other. They would stand there until sunset. The stocks and pillories were also full with the usual malefactors – footpads and other petty villains who regarded capture and a day’s confinement as an occupational hazard. However, the death-cart had arrived and stood now beneath the high-beamed scaffold. A felon, the noose already around his neck, was proclaiming, to the utter indifference of the crowd, that he was an innocent man. The condemned man’s face, almost hidden by his ragged hair and beard, was sunburnt. When he saw Athelstan, he jumped up and down in the cart.
‘There’s a priest!’ he shouted. There’s a priest! I want to be shriven! I don’t want to go to hell!’
Athelstan groaned as Bladdersniff the bailiff came towards him, his vinegarish face
looking even more sour than usual.
‘We haven’t been able to find a priest to hear his confession,’ Bladdersniff said. ‘He killed a whore in a tavern brawl, was caught red-handed and spent the night in the compter drunk as a pig.’ Bladdersniff clutched Philomel’s reins and swayed dangerously.
You’re none too sober yourself, Athelstan thought. He dismounted, threw the reins at Bladdersniff and climbed up into the death-cart. The condemned felon was pleased, whether at the postponement of his execution or at the appearance of spiritual comfort Athelstan could not decide. The black-masked hangman, Simon, who also worked as a scullion in Merrylegs’s pie shop, pulled the noose from the man’s neck, smiled through his executioner’s mask at Athelstan, jumped off the cart and walked out of earshot.
‘Sit down,’ Athelstan said. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Robard.’
‘And where do you come from?’
‘I was born in Norwich.’
‘And how have you lived? What have you done?’
‘Oh, I was a sailor, Father.’ He pulled back the rags of his jerkin to reveal a shrivelled arm. ‘That’s until someone poured boiling oil over me.’
‘Did you know Captain Roffel?’ Athelstan asked.
‘Captain Roffel!’ Robard replied, his whiskered face breaking into a gap-toothed grin. ‘Yes, I knew him, Father – the biggest pirate this side of Dover. A real killer, Father.’ Robard belched a gust of stale-ale fumes into Athelstan’s face. ‘He was also a bugger.’ Robard looked apologetic. ‘I mean in the real sense, Father. He liked little boys and pretty young men. Always touching them on the buttocks, he was. But he never touched mine, more’s the pity. If he liked you, good rations always came your way.’
‘Your confession,’ Athelstan reminded him.
‘Oh yes, Father.’ The felon sketched the sign of the cross. ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s thirty years since I was shriven. I confess all.’
