by Paul Doherty
(Oh, excuse me a minute, my little chaplain is jumping up and down, splattering the parchment with ink. Tell me!
Tell me!' he whines. 'There are no clues, no indication, no resolution to the mystery.' I pick up my black ash cane and rap him smartly across the knuckles. Hasn't he read the Book of Ecclesiastes? 'There's a time and place under heaven for everything.' So let me tell my tale. The little turd would never dream of standing up during one of Will Shakespeare's plays and shouting, 'Tell us what happens! Tell us what happens!' He would be pelted with fruit. In fact, that's not a bad idea… If he's not careful, he'll get my empty wine goblet on the back of his little noddle. Ah well, good, that settled matters.)
Suffice to say we spent two fruitless days at Glastonbury and left as we came with only two scraps of information: first, Hopkins had been a monk at the abbey, and secondly had discovered his famous riddle there. Brother Eadred rode with us for a while, two or three miles from the abbey gates. At the crossroads he bade us adieu and warmly clasped Benjamin's hand. My master then turned to us.
'Please ride on,' he asked, 'all of you. I wish to raise a personal matter with Brother Eadred.' I was a little hurt, Mandeville outraged. 'What is it?' he spluttered.
'Sir Edmund,' Benjamin quietly insisted, 'it is a matter of conscience, a confessional matter!'
Well, who could object? Sir Edmund made a sign and the soldiers, myself included, followed him further down the track. I looked round and saw my master in earnest conversation with the monk. Whatever he was saying clearly discomfited the librarian. Even from where I stood, I glimpsed Eadred's agitation. After a while Benjamin caught up with us. 'What was it, Master?' 'Not now, Roger,' he whispered. We continued on our journey to Templecombe. No snow had fallen during our stay at Glastonbury but the sky was growing overcast and threatening. Once we were past the village on the road up to the major, Sir Edmund, recalling my story about the ambush, ordered the soldiers to fan out before us. We made our way slowly. A biting wind tore at our cheeks, turning our fingers to blocks of ice, whilst our horses scrabbled to maintain a secure foothold. Suddenly, just as we rounded the bend and were able to glimpse the gables and turrets of Templecombe above the trees, one of the soldiers came riding back so fast his horse, slithering and clattering on the path, almost crashed into Mandeville's mount. 'What is it, man?' Southgate snarled.
The soldier's face was like a ghost's. The fellow opened his mouth soundlessly and pointed back down the track. Mandeville pushed his horse forward and we rounded the corner. At first, in the fading light, we could see nothing but the icy path, the snow-covered trees on either side -but then the flicker of a candle flame caught our eyes. It seemed to be standing in the snow, a little metal cap protecting it against the biting breeze, but as we approached closer, my stomach turned. Our horses became skittish. Mandeville and Southgate loudly cursed for the dirty white candle was held in the snow by a greyish-green, severed hand. 'Witchcraft!' Mandeville breathed. 'I'm not passing that!' one of the soldiers exclaimed. 'Remove it!' Mandeville ordered Southgate. 'In this matter, Sir Edmund, I would prefer not to act.' 'Come on, Roger,' Benjamin ordered.
We both dismounted and went to examine the obscenity. The hand was decomposing, the bloody stump of its wrist had turned into a black, congealed mess. The nails were discoloured, the fingers beginning to flake. The breeze shifted and we caught the stench of putrefaction. 'What is it?' Benjamin asked. (Oh, I knew what it was! Even though I was still an innocent youth, Old Shallot had met the most fierce and sinister of warlocks, magicians and witches: men who used dark powers to unhinge the mind of their opponents. You take Shallot's advice on this: the power of witchcraft lies in what you can make other people think. I recently recounted such a theory when I met Will Shakespeare and Richard Burbage at the Globe. Old Will, God bless his kind eyes, was really taken with the idea: in a play he is now busily writing, he has a scene where witches, on a blasted heath in Scotland, put insidious ideas into the mind of a murderous nobleman called Macbeth.)
On that frozen trackway, however, I just stared at the grotesque thing lying in the snow; the hand seemed to be thrusting up through the earth as if some ghoul was struggling to rise from its grave. 'It's the Hand of Glory,' I explained. Benjamin looked puzzled.
'A powerful talisman, Master,' I continued. 'The witch cuts the hand from a murdered man then fashions a candle out of human grease which is lighted and put into the hand. It's a way of calling up demons, a curse as well as a warning.' Benjamin edged nearer. 'Do you think it works?' I shrugged. 'Oh, I could call Satan up from hell, Master.' Benjamin glared at me. 'But whether he'd come is another matter.'
(I once said the same thing to Will Shakespeare and, sure enough, it's in one of his plays. I think it's Henry IV Part 1, where Hotspur and Glendower are talking about magic.)
'Well,' Benjamin got to his feet, 'if it comes from hell, it can go back there!' And he kicked both the candle and the hand into the undergrowth. The flames sizzled out as Mandeville and Southgate dismounted and joined us. Both he and his companion looked pale and I could see all joy had gone out of their task. Mandeville stared into the darkness then up at the rooks cawing around us.
'This place is hell-touched!' he murmured, kicking the snow where the Hand of Glory had lain. 'Perhaps we should leave it, go back to London and return in the spring with soldiers?' He chewed his lip. 'I could deploy all my agents in the area, root out what is really going on.'
'And what will the King say?' Benjamin asked quietly. 'Above all, what will my dear uncle think if we now return, empty-handed, to report the deaths of Cosmas and Damien? I want justice, Sir Edmund, and you want vengeance. Murder is like a game of hazard. So far this silent assassin has won every throw, but sooner or later he will make a mistake.'
(It just shows you how times have changed. God rest them, Mandeville and Southgate could be wicked men, true minions of the King. Nevertheless, they had some kind of conscience. Not like Walsingham and the next generation of spies and 'agents provocateurs'. You take a man like Christopher Marlowe: I was with him when he was murdered in that private house. He and his killers, men like Frizier and Skeres, not to mention Poley, were devils incarnate who feared neither God nor man. Poor Kit! A bad man but a brilliant poet. He died far too young.)
We continued on our return to Templecombe. The Santerres were waiting for us with Bowyer who looked as if he had really settled in, shirt open at the collar, stubby feet enclosed in buskins whilst his fat face was flushed with drink and his breath smelt like a wine press. He and Sir John now appeared to be bosom friends and I secretly wondered if the Santerres had suborned this bumbling servant of the crown. Mandeville, however, was not at all pleased and gave the sheriff a scathing look.
'Was your visit to Glastonbury profitable?' Sir John asked as we warmed ourselves before the great fire whilst Lady Beatrice and Rachel served spiced wine. Mandeville just muttered a curse and Southgate would have launched a vitriolic attack upon the abbey if Sir Edmund had not told him to shut up and drink his wine. Sir John, full of himself, tried to humour them.
Tomorrow,' he said, 'let us take a break from affairs of state. There have been no fresh falls of snow and I know where my dogs could rouse a fine hart.'
Bowyer and Southgate immediately brightened at the prospect of a good hunt. Even Mandeville agreed and, from the discussion which followed, I gathered both agents were keen huntsmen with an inordinate love of the chase. I also wondered if Sir John Santerre, despite his bluff bonhomie, was skilled and well-versed in seeking out a man's weakness and pandering to it. Had he sought mine out? I wondered. Had Mathilda been deliberately sent to my room?
I stared at Rachel, whose fawnlike eyes were now smiling at Benjamin. Did she, too, play a role? Were we all being bought off? I with Mathilda, Benjamin with Rachel, Bowyer with good food and drink, and the Agentes with the prospect of a good day's hunting. I remembered Mandeville's words as we approached the house. Was the sinister influence of the Temple beginning to work its effe
ct?
Now, I tell you this, I am a rogue born and bred. I have great difficulty in distinguishing between my property and anyone else's, or at least I used to, but I do not like to be dismissed as stupid. True, we had discovered nothing at Glastonbury or of why Cosmas and Damien had been killed. I stared around. Bowyer was drunk, Benjamin lost in his own thoughts or seduced by Rachel's flattery, Mandeville and Southgate were revelling in the manor's hospitality whilst Santerre, whose conduct was suspicious to say the least, played the role of smiling host.
I slammed down my cup and stood up. Bowyer's and Southgate's conversation about the coming hunt faltered and died as I went to stand and warm my backside against the fire.
'Roger?' Benjamin looked at me, puzzled. 'What is the matter?'
I glared round. 'I'm tired,' I began. 'I'm cold and I'm exhausted.' I held my hand up, fingers splayed, and counted the points off like a teacher in front of a group of scholars. 'Cosmas is dead. Damien is dead.' I stared at Santerre. 'The old witch is dead. If you send men into the forest you will find her frozen corpse in that cave she called her home. Finally, on our return from Glastonbury, we were threatened with witchcraft.'
Santerre exclaimed in surprise. Bowyer looked at me drunkenly. I glared at Benjamin and the Agentes. 'Well, aren't you going to tell him?'
'Roger,' Benjamin intervened, 'it's best if you keep a still tongue in your head.'
'Bollocks!' I replied. 'As we came up the trackway of your house, Sir John, we found a Hand of Glory with a lighted candle in its fingers.' The Santerres just stared, open-mouthed, back at me.
'I'm bloody frightened!' I bawled. 'In the stinking alleys and runnels of Southwark and Whitefriars, the Hand of Glory is a powerful talisman, a warning to us all. Someone here wishes our deaths. Someone at Templecombe or on the estates around. And I for one don't intend to play coney in the hay!'
I stalked out of the hall, quite pleased with myself, and went back to my own chamber. A few minutes later Benjamin joined me. He slipped through the door and pulled up a stool as I lay on the bed. 'Roger, why the outburst?' I propped myself up on my elbow and looked at him.
'Outside, it's dark, cold and more snow has fallen. Bowyer's drunk as a lord, Mandeville and Southgate are scared, whilst you seem more absorbed in Rachel than anything else.'
Benjamin smiled and shuffled his feet. 'Is that the problem, Roger? Are you jealous?'
I threw myself back on the bed with a laugh. He grabbed my wrist.
'Tell me why you spoke Roger? You usually keep a still tongue in your head. The dutiful, sharp-witted servant who sees all and says nothing.'
I just stared up into the darkness. 'Perhaps you are right, Master, but I am frightened. We are threatened, attacked, two of our companions murdered. We go chasing around this frozen, benighted countryside and discover nothing. Yes, I wish Rachel would look at me as she does at you.' I gazed at him beseechingly. 'But here I'm like a duck out of water, Master. If these were the alleyways of Paris or the runnels of London I could hide or strike back. But what happens if we have been sent here to die, one by one?'
Benjamin shivered and folded his arms. 'We have found something,' he replied. ‘I saw the look on your face as we left Glastonbury.' 'What did Eadred tell you?' I countered.
‘I asked why Sir John Santerre had such close links with Glastonbury?' 'And?'
'At first Eadred tried to bluff, claiming Sir John was a local landowner, but then he confessed that Santerre was funding Abbot Bere's construction of the crypt but told me if I wished to know more, I should ask either Sir John or the abbot. So,' Benjamin smiled, 'what did you find, Roger?'
I told him of my discovery. Now, perhaps it was the poor light but Benjamin's face paled. (Excuse me for a minute, my little clerk is again insisting I furnish such clues immediately. No I will not! As Shakespeare says, 'Every tale has its own metre and beat.' He'll have to wait!) I'll be honest, at the time, I did not recognise the true value of my discovery but Benjamin did. 'Master,' I begged, 'does it mean anything to you?'
'Yes and no,' Benjamin slowly replied. 'When we searched Templecombe's rooms a vague suspicion of how Cosmas died occurred to me. I also thought of something in the church the afternoon Damien was killed.' He narrowed his eyes and shook his head. 'But they are only pieces, Roger. By themselves they mean nothing.'
He left me to sulk until a servant came to announce dinner was ready. I went down to the hall and found Santerre still intent on lavishing hospitality on his guests. The high table was covered in a silk sheet cloth, the best glass and silver had been laid out, whilst the savoury smells from the kitchen and scullery teased our nostrils and mouths with the sweet fragrance of roast duck, meat pies, quince tarts and the sugary odour of fresh marchpane.
Santerre had changed into a doublet and hose of grey-silver whilst his wife and daughter both looked resplendent in gowns of blue satin trimmed with gold. Santerre bubbled like a stream in spring. He assured the drunken Bowyer that he would always be welcome at Templecombe and I recalled the friendship formed between Pilate and Herod. Southgate was in his cups though Mandeville looked subdued and stared speculatively at me as if my outburst had revealed a side of my character he had not noticed before.
The meal was almost over and I had downed at least four deep-bowled cups of claret when the small red stain appeared on the table cloth. At first, I thought it was spilt wine but then it spread and I noticed little splashes coming down from the ceiling above. I gazed up into the darkness but the rafters were cloaked in blackness.
You've drunk too much, I thought, but then Benjamin noticed the spreading pool and splattered drops.
'Look!' he cried, pointing to the widening scarlet stain. The chatter and laughter died down. We all sat watching the drops fall and the scarlet blot widen. Benjamin was the first to recover his wits, standing up and pushing back his chair. 'What's above us, Sir John?'
'A small solar. A chamber with windows looking east. We only use it in summer.'
Benjamin ran out of the room and I followed. Behind us the shouts and exclamations grew as the scarlet stain spread. We ran upstairs, knocking aside startled servants. I glimpsed Mathilda's white face then ran into the gallery, pushing open the door to the solar.
The room was cold and dark, the windows shuttered. Benjamin cursed the darkness but, as in any good household, there were boxes right inside the door containing rushlights and candles. Benjamin lit one of these and we walked into the centre of the room. At first we could see nothing so crouched on our haunches, edging forward like crabs, feeling the soft woollen carpet. I touched something wet and sticky. Benjamin pushed the rushlight closer. God forgive me, I could have screamed in terror. Resting in the centre of the carpet, severed at the neck, eyeballs rolled up in their sockets, was the decapitated head of the witch.
Grotesque in death as it had been, now putrefaction tinged the face a greenish hue. The congealing blood from the severed arteries of the snow-soaked head drenching the carpet and seeping down between the floor boards. My stomach heaved. We heard the door behind us open but Benjamin shouted for everyone to stay out.
'Come on, Roger,' he whispered. "There is nothing we can do here.'
Outside in the gallery Benjamin told the rest of the group what we had found. Lady Beatrice became hysterical, crouching against the wall, covering her face, whilst Rachel tried to comfort her. Santerre was shocked sober whilst Sir Edmund and Southgate were torn between a mixture of anger and fear.
'Clean the mess!' Benjamin snapped at Santerre. 'Just roll up the carpet, take it and its grisly contents downstairs and have it burnt. The floor can be scrubbed.' He looked at Sir Edmund. 'Roger is correct. The Angel of Death walks this accursed house!'
'Who could leave such a thing there?' Southgate murmured.
'One of the servants, someone we don't know,' Benjamin replied. 'But the head and the Hand of Glory come from that poor hag. Oh, by the way, where's our noble Sheriff Bowyer?' 'Drunk as a bishop,' Mandeville snarled. 'Now sleeping like
a baby in his cot down in the hall.' Benjamin made to walk away.
'Master Daunbey,' Mandeville caught him up at the corner of the gallery. 'For God's sake, man, what am I supposed to do? My job is to trap conspirators, plotters… not stumble around in the dark after some secret assassin.' Benjamin muttered something to himself. 'What is it? What is it, Daunbey?'
My master looked up, his face as hard as stone, the skin drawn tight. 'I was just thinking of what you said, Sir Edmund. This is not poor Buckingham, is it? Or some pathetic tailor like Taplow being trapped in his little cage and taken off to the slaughter house. And Templecombe is not some abbey where you can tap your toe and play the great lord. So how does it feel, Sir Edmund, to be the hunted instead of the hunter?'
And spinning on his heel, my master stalked off to his chamber.
(My little clerk is muttering that Benjamin was acting out of character. That's not true! Benjamin was a kind, gentle man. He always hated bully-boys and was correct to do so. Mandeville and Santerre had arrived at Templecombe wanting to make everyone dance to their tune. Instead, they had stumbled into a veritable snake pit.) I wandered round the galleries for a while for the dinner was both spoilt and finished. Sure enough, after a while I caught sight of my quarry, little Mathilda, her chubby arms full of blankets, tiptoeing along without a care in the world. I followed her up to one of the other floors and caught her by the elbow. 'Mathilda, my sweet, a word.'
She whirled round but she was not frightened and I glimpsed the sparkle of triumph in her eyes. I drew her into a shadowy window embrasure. 'You weren't looking for gold, were you?' She pouted prettily.
'The money was secondary, wasn't it?' I continued. 'What were you looking for? Did you kill that clerk in the fire? What secret device did you use?' She sighed and sat down in the window seat.
'Master Shallot, you and your fellow clod-hoppers wander into Templecombe.' She looked out into the icy darkness. 'You are in a place hundreds of miles from London with a few paltry soldiers to guard your back. The Devil and his assistant trapped my Lord of Buckingham, a man much loved in these parts. He was hustled up to London to have his head cut off with less mercy than we would treat a chicken. His lands are seized and the monks at Glastonbury bullied as if they are the inmates of some prison.'
