by Mel Starr
I rapped upon Sir John’s chamber door. There was no response. I thought the residents might have already sought their beds. I banged my knuckles against the door again, more firmly this time. If Sir John and his lady were abed they would not thank me for this disturbance. No matter – Prince Edward’s wishes outranked theirs.
The second thumping upon the door produced the same result as the first. If Sir John and Lady Ardith were within they did not wish to be disturbed. Or perhaps, I thought, they were sound sleepers.
A third time I belabored the door. Chamber doors in Kennington Palace are oaken and substantial. Their hinges are well made, so even when struck firmly the doors do not rattle and they make little noise. When the third pounding produced no response I gave up, assuming that I could learn from the knight next day where Roger might be found.
I sought my own chamber, where I found Arthur already snoring. This is not conducive to my own slumber, but wakefulness upon my bed can be a useful thing if it allows me to review what I have learned, and what next I might seek to learn, of felons and their misdeeds. So I lay awake for a time, considering hemlock and Hornsey and horsemen riding from a wood.
Prince Edward and his knights and their ladies were to go hawking next day, so an early dinner was laid on. Fulk appeared, but Roger did not. I assumed that Sir Harold had been told that the squire was not to take meals in the hall, and had so instructed the youth. Oddly enough, Sir John and Lady Ardith were also absent. I thought that perhaps they were so ashamed of their squire’s deportment they did not wish to be with other folk.
Prince Edward seemed in high spirits during the meal. He has ever enjoyed hawking and the hunt, as does Lady Joan. Although if the duchess continues to enjoy nourishment as much as she does, she will soon find it difficult to sit a horse. Perhaps I should not write of such matters.
When the gentlefolk had departed the hall for their sport I collected Arthur and we went to the marshalsea, where I felt sure I would find an unhappy Roger de Clare, perhaps with a pitchfork in his hands. I did not.
Prince Edward’s marshal was present at the stables. While the gentlefolk were away with their beasts he could direct repairs and alterations to the stalls. I interrupted his work and asked of Roger.
“I’ve not seen him since that business in the hall last eve,” Sir Harold said. “Prince Edward told him to go to his lodging and leave Kennington at dawn this day. I suppose he has done so.”
“Prince Edward has not spoken to you since yesterday concerning Roger?” I asked.
“Nay. Last I knew he and that other lad were sent away. I saw the other at dinner, though, a short time past. Did the prince change his mind?”
“Aye. Prince Edward relented when he learned that Fulk was not the aggressor last night. And Roger is no longer required to leave Kennington, but he must assist in the stables, and sleep there, for a fortnight, and may not take meals in the hall.”
“If I see him I will inform him.”
Perhaps Roger had departed Kennington the previous night, preferring to escape any further ignominy. I asked of his horse.
“Just four stalls that way,” the marshal replied.
“The beast is yet here?”
“Aye. If Roger did as Prince Edward demanded, he walked. Not likely, that.”
I agreed, thanked the marshal for his time, and sought the squires’ chamber again. It was empty. The squires and pages, even Fulk, were with their lords at hawking. What lad would choose to neglect an opportunity for such sport? Where, then, was Roger de Clare? For that matter, where was Sir John Pedley? Neither Sir John nor his lady had been at dinner. I had not been able to rouse the knight from his chamber last eve. Was he hawking with the prince on an empty stomach? I should have asked of his horse at the marshalsea.
“Sir John’s beasts are stabled, all four of them,” Sir Harold replied when I returned to the marshalsea. “Neither he nor his lady asked to have a horse prepared for use this morning.”
Arthur and I exchanged puzzled glances. Something was very much amiss. I told Arthur that I intended to again seek the knight and his lady at their chamber. He accompanied me there.
“You suppose they took ill an’ lie dead in their beds?” he offered. “There’s been poison about this place.”
“This has occurred to me.”
Again I thumped vigorously upon the chamber door and again received no reply. I was reluctant to enter a knight’s chamber uninvited but thought Prince Edward’s warrant would, under the circumstances, sanction entry.
I tried the latch, but it did not move. The door was locked. I knelt and peered into the keyhole. I should have seen light in this chamber, as all those assigned to Prince Edward’s knights had glass windows and the afternoon was bright and sunny. The keyhole was blocked. The key was yet in place.
If Sir John and his lady had locked their chamber door before they sought their bed they were yet in the room. No one leaves a chamber with the door locked from the inside, unless they depart through a window. This I thought unlikely. Lady Ardith was as buxom as Lady Joan, and Sir John was past the age when a man might easily climb through a window.
Since pounding upon the chamber door did nothing but cause me sore knuckles, I had to think of another way to enter the room.
“Remain here,” I said to Arthur. “If any man approaches explain your presence and tell him I will return anon. If Sir John or his lady should appear, tell them I must speak to them upon an urgent matter.”
I left Arthur and went in search of a stick. I needed something about the diameter of my little finger and as long as my hand. A brief search at the verge of a wood beyond Lady Joan’s privy garden brought me a slender green shoot from a coppiced beech stump. With my dagger I also cut a longer shoot about the length of my arm.
“What’s that for?” Arthur asked when I returned to him and held my prizes before him.
“Watch.”
I took the smaller of the beech twigs and pushed it into the keyhole. When I met resistance I twisted the shoot one way and another, all the while pushing gently upon the key. I felt the blockage suddenly give way and a heartbeat later I heard the clang of the iron key upon the flags. I dropped to my knees and pushed the longer of the two coppiced shoots under the door. I swept the twig about until it made contact with what I assumed was the key. It was, and with the shoot I worked it to and fro and under the door. Kennington Palace’s carpenters had left a space nearly the width of my thumb between the floor and the bottom of the door, else I would not have been able to slide the key from inside the door to the outside.
The key was nearly as large as the palm of my hand. I pushed it into the keyhole and twisted. I heard a satisfying “click” and when I lifted the latch the door swung open on well-greased hinges.
Nearly all of the knights and their ladies and squires, valets, pages, and such were hawking, or observing the sport, so Kennington Palace was silent but for my gasp as I saw what had become of Sir John and Lady Ardith. Sir John lay bloodied upon the chamber floor, his wife was dead upon the bed. Both were fully clothed. They had been slain before they could disrobe for the night.
I held out a hand and told Arthur not to enter the chamber. He did not need to do so to see the carnage there. I could not know if there was evidence in the chamber to explain who had done this evil deed, or why. I wanted no more folk than necessary in the bloody place until I and Prince Edward’s marshal had had a chance to view it closely.
And bloody it was. Lady Ardith had but one wound which I could see. She had been pierced through the heart. Her blood, now dried, had soaked the bedclothes. Sir John was another matter. His arms and hands were slashed, and a gruesome laceration laid bare a cheek. Spatters of dried blood flecked the stones of the chamber wall and the flags near where the knight lay. He had fought his assailant. His dagger lay near him, and I saw blood dried upon the blade. Perhaps some of the blood specks I saw came from whoso had done these murders.
Did they not cry out when their lives
were taken from them? Was the oaken door so stout that a lady’s screams would not penetrate it? Or did they retire from the dancing before all others, humiliated by the violence of their squire Roger, so that no others were nearby to hear the shrieks and curses of combat and murder?
I dropped to my knees to better see what I might of Sir John’s corpse. The day had dawned bright, but now, past noon, clouds obscured the sun, and the window above the dead man did not offer much illumination.
But there was light enough to see that ’twas Sir John’s right cheek which had been so cruelly gouged, and his right arm was lacerated in four places, whereas his left arm bore but one wound. As with his wife, the fatal blow was a thrust to the heart. This stroke had pierced his cotehardie from near his right arm. Whosoever slew Sir John was likely left-handed. And where was Roger de Clare?
Did Sir John berate his squire so that the headstrong youth lost his temper and slew both knight and lady? I dismissed the thought. Had Roger done such a thing he would surely have fled. And not afoot. His horse, Sir Harold said, was yet in the stables. No man, be he ever so witless, would slay two others and wait near the scene of his felonies to be apprehended. But where was Roger?
Prince Edward must be told immediately, and the marshal also. Sir Harold must allow no man to enter the chamber until the prince was able to see what had happened, and heard my view of these felonies under his roof.
I assigned Arthur to remain at the chamber door and see that no man entered. It was unlikely that anyone would try, as all but grooms and a few valets were hawking, and no groom would come unbidden to this part of the palace. But Arthur frowning in the passageway would guarantee no disturbance.
I found Sir Harold with a groom and a farrier dealing with one of Lady Joan’s amblers. The beast, the marshal said, was old but a favorite of the duchess. It had been off its feed, and one hoof was oozing pus.
But I had not sought the marshal to discuss his duties at the stables. He had other duties to perform, and when he finished his brief summary of his concern for Lady Joan’s ambler I told him of them.
“Sir John? Dead in his chamber?”
“And his lady wife,” I said. “Both slain. My man stands at the door so that no one will disturb the scene of the felonies. Come, I will show you. Meanwhile, send a stable groom to seek Prince Edward. He must know immediately of murders under his roof.”
Sir Harold did as I suggested with alacrity. A youthful groom hastily saddled a runcie and set off after the hawkers, while the marshal followed me to the bloody chamber.
“Put up a fight, did Sir John,” the marshal said when he inspected the corpses. “Whoso did these murders may have a wound or two himself.”
“I agree,” I said. “See where Sir John’s dagger lies upon the flags. There is blood upon the blade. ’Tis possible but unlikely that Sir John slashed himself.
“And see where most of the wounds are,” I continued. “What do you make of their location?”
Sir Harold considered Sir John’s corpse, chin in hand. “He fought off his assailant with his right hand – so the cuts upon his arm say. He would have had trouble defending himself and striking a blow with his dagger at the same time… Ah, I see what you are thinking. His slayer was left-handed, else ’twould be his left arm slashed.”
“So I believe, although we cannot know this for certain. What knights or squires or valets who dine at the prince’s table are left-handed?”
The marshal scratched at his beard for a moment. “None that I recall. Mayhap one or two that I’ve not given heed to.”
“I know of one,” I said. “Roger de Clare.”
“Sir John’s squire?”
“Aye. And he is now not to be found.”
“Prince Edward commanded that he leave Kennington. Perhaps he fled the palace before the prince in his wrath could punish him more.”
“You said Roger’s beast is yet in the stables.”
“Oh, aye. Not likely he’d depart without his horse. The lad must be somewhere nearby. You suppose he did these felonies?”
“If he did he is a great fool. Would he flee these murders afoot? No. I think that only if he stole some other man’s horse has he left Kennington. Is any beast missing from the marshalsea?”
“Nay. All are accounted for.”
“I left the hall last evening behind the two squires and the prince,” I said. “You were in the hall. What transpired after Prince Edward went to the privy chamber? Did all or most then depart the hall, or did some remain and dance to a few more tunes?”
“Most stayed. Few danced. Stood in circles and talked of the squires’ quarrel and Prince Edward’s anger. Best not to experience that, I can tell you.”
“What of Sir John and his lady? Did they also remain in the hall to dance and gossip?”
“Nay. Followed the squires from the hall.”
“Did any other follow them?”
“Not that I recall. Not on their heels. Some folk forsook the hall soon after, but not immediately. Not that I remember.”
The sound of a multitude of hooves upon packed earth and cobblestones interrupted our conversation. The din came clearly to our ears through the window, to which I had paid little attention, the two corpses heretofore occupying my thoughts.
The window was cracked open about the width of a finger, allowing the sound of returning hawkers to fill the chamber. Here was how the felon had escaped the place of his crime. He had withdrawn through the window, then from the outside pushed it nearly closed, but of course could not latch it as he was outside and the latch was inside the chamber. He likely considered that a door locked from inside the chamber would allow him more time to escape than a window closed and latched. I wondered why the felon had not simply closed the door and locked it behind him. Perhaps he thought some other might then appear in the corridor and see him leaving the place. Or perhaps he was not thinking at all.
I heard further clattering of hooves and shouted commands through the window. I listened intently for Prince Edward’s voice, but could not hear it above the others. Perhaps the hawking this day had taxed his strength.
It had. I awaited the prince at the door to the chamber, Sir Harold at my side. When the prince appeared it was with two valets at his elbows, keeping him upright. They were needed. He tottered as he approached, and I feared he might need to return to his diet of boiled roosters.
“I am told Sir John and Lady Ardith are slain,” he said in a voice so soft ’twas little more than a whisper. “Is this so?”
“It is, m’lord.”
“Under my own roof, another of my knights slain!” The prince staggered, but whether this was due to his illness or to murder I cannot say.
Lady Joan had followed her husband to the chamber. Her face was creased and drawn with worry. A poor cotter may fret for his poverty in a way that knights and gentlemen likely do not. But the wealthy are often troubled also. In this life all men, and women also, will one day find something to cause them anxiety, regardless of the weight of their purse. Did the Lady Joan’s features reflect concern for her husband’s weakness, or for murder in the palace? Perhaps both.
Standing at the entrance to the chamber, it was not my intention to obstruct Prince Edward’s view, but I did so. He reached out a hand and motioned me aside, then brushed off the valets, reached for the jamb to steady himself, and entered the room.
From the door he walked unsteadily to a table which occupied a wall opposite the bed, rested his knuckles upon it, crossed himself, and stared at the corpses. For several moments no one spoke, awaiting the prince’s opinion. When he spoke it was not to deliver a conclusion of his own, but to ask of mine. A chair stood next to the table. Prince Edward collapsed upon it, turned to me, and asked, “Was it you who found these murders?”
“Aye, m’lord. I sought Roger de Clare last evening, after we spoke, but could not find him, so came here to ask of Sir John if he knew where his squire might be. I pounded upon the door but could rouse no one. This m
orning I again sought Roger, then Sir John, but could find neither. I knew from your marshal that neither had gone hawking. Their beasts were yet within the stables. This chamber was locked from within, the key yet in the lock.”
“How did you enter?”
“I found a twig, pushed the key from the keyhole, managed to drag the key under the door, unlocked the latch, and found this. All is as it was when Arthur and I entered an hour past.”
“Tell me,” the prince said, “what has happened here. What is your view?”
“Sir John and his lady were slain last evening, shortly after they came to their chamber, perhaps while we were talking in your privy chamber. They had left the hall immediately after Roger struck Fulk, so I learned, and had not begun to disrobe for the night. See where Sir John fought his assailant? His right arm is slashed. The man who did these murders is, I believe, left-handed.”
“Roger de Clare is left-handed, you said,” Prince Edward offered.
“Aye, and he is not to be found. But his horse is yet in your stables. If he did this, would he not flee?”
“Aye, and not afoot. How could these murders happen and Sir John and his lady not cry out?”
“All of your guests were yet in the hall when Sir John and Lady Ardith came here, embarrassed by Roger’s behavior. No others were near to hear them call for aid. And the walls and door are thick.”
“If the chamber was locked from within, how did the felon escape?”
“The window. He went through it, dropped some two yards to the palace courtyard, then pushed the window closed behind him. ’Twas dark when this happened. No man saw.”
“If Roger de Clare did not do these murders,” the prince said, “where is he and who could then have reason to do this?” He swept an arm over Sir John’s corpse.
“I do not know the answer to either question, but I may hazard a guess.”
“Do so.”
“Roger is dead. Somewhere nearby his corpse will be found.”
“Why do you say so?”
