The Nightingale Gallery

by Paul Doherty

  Cranston watched her closely.

  ‘These riddles your husband used, when did they begin?’

  ‘The quotations from the Bible? About - oh, fourteen or fifteen months ago.’

  ‘And the shoemaker riddle?’

  Cranston noticed that Lady Isabella had become tense and anxious.

  ‘Shortly after Christmas? That’s right. He first made the riddle up during one of our mummer’s games at Twelfth Night.’

  Somehow Athelstan knew these riddles were important. The room had fallen deathly silent except for Cranston’s abrupt questions, the equally abrupt answers and the snapping and crackling of the logs in the fire. What did this group fear? he wondered. What was the meaning of the riddles?

  ‘Tell me,’ Athelstan spoke up, ‘did anything happen in the household to account for these riddles? Anything in Sir Thomas’s life? Sir Richard, Lady Isabella . . . you were the closest to Sir Thomas.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sir Richard muttered. ‘My brother liked to speak in riddles, refer to shadowy things, lectures and parables. He was a man who loved secrecy for secrecy’s sake and hugged such secrets to his chest like other men do gold, silver or precious stones. No, nothing special happened here.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Cranston turned and looked at him, resting his cup on one large, plump thigh. ‘Are you sure, Sir Richard? My memory fails me about specific details but was there not a death here eight months ago?’

  Lady Isabella’s face now paled and Sir Richard refused to look up.

  ‘No!’

  ‘Come, come, sir,’ Cranston barked. ‘There was something.’

  ‘Yes,’ Lady Isabella said softly, ‘Sir Richard’s memory fails him.’ She looked at Sir John more guardedly, as if realising the coroner was not the fool he liked to appear. ‘There was Eudo’s death.’

  ‘Ah, yes, Eudo,’ Cranston repeated. ‘Who was he?’

  Sir Richard looked up. ‘A young page boy. He fell from a window and broke his neck, out there in the courtyard. No explanation for the fall was ever given, though Sir Thomas believed he may have been involved in some stupid jape. The boy was killed outright, head smashed in, neck broken.’

  Cranston drained his cup and beamed in self-congratulation, giving a sly grin at Athelstan, who glared back. He wished the coroner had told him about this!

  ‘Yes, Eudo’s death. I was ill at the time with the ague but I remember the verdict being recorded. Poor boy!’ Cranston murmured. ‘This house has ill fortune.’ He stood and took in his audience with one heavy-lidded stare. ‘I urge you all to be most careful. There is a malignancy here, an evil curse. It may yet claim other lives! Lady Isabella, Sir Richard.’ He bowed and stepped out of the chamber.

  Athelstan stopped at the door and looked back. The group sat quite still as if bound by some secret.

  ‘Sir Richard?’ Athelstan asked.

  ‘Yes, Brother?’

  ‘May I have permission to visit the garret where Brampton died?’

  ‘Of course! But, as I have said, his corpse has been sheeted and removed to St Mary Le Bow.’

  Athelstan smiled. ‘Yes. But there is something I must see.’

  He asked Cranston to wait for him outside and went upstairs. On the first landing he stopped and stole a glance down the Nightingale Gallery, so engrossed he jumped when Allingham suddenly touched him on the shoulder.

  ‘Brother Athelstan, can I help you?’

  The merchant’s long face was even more mournful and the friar was sure the man had been crying.

  ‘No, no, Master Allingham, I thank you. You have heard of Vechey’s death, no doubt?’

  The merchant nodded sorrowfully.

  ‘Poor man!’ Athelstan muttered. ‘You know of no reason why he should take his life?’

  ‘His was a troubled soul,’ Allingham replied. ‘A troubled soul, vexed and tormented by his own lusts and pleasures.’ He paused. ‘The only puzzling thing was that he kept muttering, “There were only thirty-one, there were only thirty-one”.’

  ‘Do you know what he meant?’

  ‘No. When we went into Sir Thomas’s chamber yesterday, I heard him mutter.’ Allingham screwed up his eyes. ‘Vechey said, “Only thirty-one, I am sure there were only thirty-one.” I remember it,’ he continued, ‘because Vechey was puzzled, upset.’

  ‘Do you know to what he was referring?’

  Allingham pursed his lips.

  ‘No, I don’t, Brother. But if I find out, I shall tell you. I bid you adieu.’

  He proceeded down the wooden stairs and Athelstan went along the gallery and up to the garret. He pushed the door open and wished he had asked for a candle. The chamber was dark and dank. Athelstan shivered. There was a sinister atmosphere, a feeling of oppressive malevolence. Were the church fathers right, he wondered, when they claimed that the soul of a suicide was bound eternally to the place where he died? Did Brampton’s soul hover here, as he would for eternity, between heaven and hell?

  He stepped in and looked around. The table was now clear of its ghastly remains, the floor had been swept clear of its litter. It looked tidier, neater than it had the previous day. What had he seen here that afterwards had jolted, pricked against his memory? Something which had been out of place? He leaned against the wall desperately trying to clear his mind but the memory proved elusive. He sighed, looked round once more and went back to rejoin Sir John.

  The coroner was fretting, hopping from foot to foot, standing close to the wall of the house, well away from the crowds which now thronged the entire thoroughfare of Cheapside. He pulled Athelstan closer.

  ‘They are lying, aren’t they, Brother? There’s something wrong, but what?’

  ‘I don’t know, Sir John, but there may be many logical explanations. Something may be wrong but they may not realise it. Something may be wrong but only one or two may know the truth. Or, finally, something may be wrong but known to someone outside the household.’

  ‘Such as who?’

  Athelstan looked round and lowered his voice. ‘My Lord of Gaunt or even Chief Justice Fortescue. After all, he did lie; the Chief Justice said he left the house about curfew but Sir Richard claims it was much later.’

  Sir John rubbed the side of his face.

  ‘Yes, Chief Justice Fortescue. We don’t even have a good reason for his being there. Why should he be visiting a London merchant?’ The coroner grinned evilly, biting his lower lip with his strong, white teeth. ‘I look forward to putting that very question to our Lord Chief Justice, but now for refreshment. Oh!’ Cranston grinned and tapped his wallet. ‘I’ve taken the small phial of poison Brampton’s supposed to have used.’ He tapped the side of his nose. ‘I’ve an idea, but not now. What I need now is a drink!’

  CHAPTER 4

  Athelstan cringed. He had hoped Sir John’s appetite had been curbed but he seemed both insatiable and unable to learn from previous experience. The friar followed him dolefully across the street as Sir John scampered direct as an arrow for the Holy Lamb of God. Cranston took to its dry, dark warmth as a duck to water. He waddled amongst the customers, using his not inconsiderable bulk to force a way through pedlars, tinkers, labourers and farmers fresh from the countryside, spending the profits of their produce on large stoups of ale.

  Sir John commandeered a table in the corner, greeting the ale wife as if she was a long lost sister. The lady looked like a female incarnation of Satan. She had a hooked, perpetually dripping nose, skin as rough as a sack and bleary, bloodshot eyes. She munched continuously on her gums and her fingers were dirty and greasy down to the knuckles. Her cloak of Lincoln green covered a red kirtle which hung a few inches above tallow-smeared shoes. Athelstan looked at her and prayed to God to forgive him for all he felt was disgust. She, with her wide hips, dirty grey hair and face as wrinkled as a pig’s ear, looked as blowsy as any harridan from hell. Athelstan sat looking at her in wonderment, constantly marvelling at the difference in women, contrasting this hag to the beauty of Lady Isabella. He grimly re
minded himself that his vow of celibacy had certain consolations.

  Cranston, however, acted as if she was an old friend, flattered and fussed her. She winked wickedly back at him, slyly insinuating that she would satisfy all his wants.

  ‘Enough of that, you wicked wench!’ Cranston teased. ‘Food and ale first, then other comforts perhaps.’ He dropped one eyelid. ‘Later.’

  The ale wife went away cackling and came back to serve both of them huge tankards slopping over with ale and a shared platter of meat mixed with onions and leeks swimming in a sea of grease. Cranston stuffed his mouth. He downed one tankard and, when the friar nodded, helped himself to the second.

  ‘You are not eating, Brother?’

  Athelstan toyed with the food on the platter in front of him.

  ‘I don’t feel hungry. I am wondering what we do next.’

  Cranston, his mouth full of food, stared up at the blackened ceiling, coveting the leg of ham hooked there to be cured in the smoke.

  ‘There’s nothing much to do,’ he replied. ‘We have our suspicions but no proof. Oh, there’s something wrong, we all know there is. Two suicides, one murder . . . but no proof whatsoever, no evidence. We should file our record, send copies to the sheriff, go back and tell Chief Justice Fortescue that whatever secret Springall had died with him, and then return to our normal business.’

  ‘There’s something wrong,’ Athelstan repeated. He peered across the tavern, watching a group of men busy baiting a relic-seller who claimed he had Aaron’s beard in a sack and was prepared to sell it to them for a few coins.

  ‘It’s like grasping a slippery fish or a greasy pole. You think you have it, then it slips away.’

  Cranston stuck his red, bulbous nose into a tankard, took one slurp and slammed it down on the table.

  ‘Very well, Brother, what is wrong? What do you think?’

  ‘I believe there were no suicides. I think all three deaths were murder, and I think the murderer still walks!’

  ‘And your proof?’

  ‘Nothing, just a feeling of unease.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Cranston bellowed. ‘What do we have here? A merchant who likes riddles is murdered by his servant, who later hangs himself; a small, fat, morose man who thinks he is a Hector with the ladies and, when he realises he is not, goes out and hangs himself. A few riddles written on paper. Let’s face the truth. That group over there,’ he nodded in the direction of the Springall mansion, ‘do not mourn for anyone. I suspect they are glad Sir Thomas is dead! And Brampton! And Vechey! More money, less fingers in the pot and a larger portion of the spoils. All you can feel, Brother, is human greed. Look around, there’s a whole sea of it lapping at us everywhere we walk, sit, eat, and pray!’ He glared at the friar. ‘Come, Brother,’ he concluded wearily, ‘let us tie the ends of this and call it suicide.’

  ‘In a while,’ Athelstan murmured.

  He asked for a cup of water, finished it, and leaving Cranston to his drinking, went outside. It was now mid-afternoon. The stalls and booths along Cheapside were plying a busy trade, the shouts of their keepers and the bold imprecations of the apprentices creating an unbearable din. A knight broke through on his way to a local joust or tournament, his steel codpiece carved as large as a bull’s whilst the helmet which swung from his saddle bow was fashioned in the macabre mask of a hangman. The helmet gave Athelstan an idea. He was curious and, shouldering his way through the crowd, made his way to St Mary Le Bow.

  Father Matthew was resting, Athelstan suspected he was half drunk, but he welcomed the friar cheerily enough, trying to force a cup of Rhenish into his hand. Athelstan promptly refused, for the few mouthfuls of ale he had already drunk bit at his stomach. He also felt rather sick when he recalled how in the ale house he had just left, he had seen a hen roosting on the brim of an uncovered beer tub. He just hoped the ale wife strained the ale before she served it to Sir John! Chicken dung would not do even the coroner’s innards any good.

  The priest listened to Athelstan carefully.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he murmured. He knew the Springalls, a good but rather secretive family. They attended Mass on Sundays, they gave generously to the poor, the chancery priest sometimes celebrated Mass at St Mary’s. They were always generous at Christmas, Epiphany and Maundy.

  ‘And the funeral of Sir Thomas?’ Athelstan asked.

  ‘It will take place tomorrow morning. Once the Requiem Mass is sung, the coffin will be buried here.’

  ‘And Brampton, the suicide?’

  The priest, lounging in his chair, shrugged, wiping his greasy hands on his gown.

  ‘What can we do? Brampton has no relatives and he is a suicide. Canon Law has laid down . . .’

  ‘I know what Canon Law says,’ Athelstan snapped back. ‘But for God’s sake, man, Christ’s mercy!’

  The priest made a face. ‘Oh, he will be given a burial.’

  ‘Where is the body?’

  ‘In the death house, a small hut behind the church near the graveyard.’

  ‘May I have a look?’

  ‘The man is sheeted already with a canvas cloth.’

  Athelstan dug in his purse and took out a silver coin. ‘If I rip the cloth open, you will have it resewn. Surely some old lady in the parish?’

  Father Matthew nodded and the silver coin disappeared in the twinkling of an eye. ‘Do what you want!’ he muttered.

  He leant over to where keys hung on hooks in the wall and took a huge, rusting one down. ‘You will need this.’ He went into the small scullery and came back with a pomander, a ball of cloth stuffed with cloves and herbs.

  ‘Hold it to your nose. The stench will be terrible.’

  Athelstan took the key and the pomander, left the priest’s house and walked down the length of the church to the derelict hut beyond. The door was barred and bolted. The huge padlock seemed oddly out of pl ace for anyone could have broken in if they had wished. He inserted the key, released the padlock and the door creaked open. Inside it was dark and musty. A strange, sour smell pervaded the air. An ancient tallow candle stood fixed in its grease on one of the cross-beams, with a tinder beside it. Athelstan took it, lit the candle, and the room flared into life.

  Brampton’s corpse lay on the ground, covered in a dirty, yellowing canvas sheet, inexpertly sewed up. Athelstan carefully ripped the canvas open with the small knife he always carried. The stench was terrible. Putrefaction had already set in. Used to the sight and the smell of the dead, Athelstan did not feel queasy, though now and again he held the pomander to his nose for a welcome respite. Brampton now looked hideous. His face had turned a blueish-yellow and his stomach was swollen, straining against the thin linen shirt. The friar studied the body carefully; the shirt, the hose, but there were no boots. He looked at the soles of the feet, making careful note of what he saw. He then made the sign of the cross, said a Requiem for the poor steward’s soul, re-locked the hut, returned the key to the priest and wandered back into Cheapside.

  Athelstan stood there dreaming, wondering what was happening in St Erconwald’s. Who would feed Godric? Would Bonaventure return or take offence at not being fed by him and disappear forever into the stinking alleyways? He wished he was free of Cranston and this matter; free of Cheapside, back at the top of his tower, staring up at the stars. He leaned against the wall and analysed his guilt-laden thoughts. He missed Benedicta the widow. Her face, innocent and angelic, was always with him. How long had he known her? Six months? He breathed a prayer. He had sinned. Yes, he wished he was back in his church with his beloved sky and charts, standing on the tower, letting the evening breeze cool him as he stared up, lost in the vastness. Was he breaking his vows by wanting that? Should he have become a friar or a student? An astrologer, one of those cowled, bent figures who haunted the halls of Oxford.

  And what was the attraction of the planets in the sky? Athelstan bit his lip. There was order there. Order in time. Order in motion. Was Aristotle correct? he wondered. Did the planets and spheres give
off music when they turned in the universe? A cart crashed by, its driver mouthing oaths. Athelstan stepped back, free from his dreams, and looked around.

  There was no order here. A beggar, his face covered in sores, his legs cut off just beneath the knees, scampered about on wooden crutches. A whore tripped by, her eyes ringed with black paint, her thick painted lips lustrous and red like rotting fruit. She smirked and dismissed Athelstan with a flicker of her eyes. He walked across the thoroughfare. In the centre of Cheapside stood the stocks, empty except for one person, a large, fat man, his head securely clasped between the wooden slats. Beneath him were the charred remains of a small fire. Athelstan studied the notice posted above the prisoner’s head and gathered that he was a butcher who had sold putrid meat. The friar stopped a water carrier, took his ladle and gave the fellow a drink. The prisoner slurped noisily, thanking him, bleary-eyed. A mounted soldier trotted by and Athelstan remembered the knight’s helmet as well as something he had glimpsed in the garret and at the tower gate of London Bridge . . .

  Athelstan made his way north to the Elms near Newgate where a great three-branched scaffold stood stark against the sky; each bore its grisly burden, a corpse swinging by its neck, head askew, hands and feet securely tied. The crowd had gone and a serjeant-at-arms, wearing the florid livery of the city threw dice with his two companions, ignoring the grim carrion swaying just above their heads. The area around them was empty. Strange, Athelstan thought, how men liked to see their brothers die, yet feared the actual sight and stench of death. The serjeant looked up as he approached.

  ‘What is it, Brother?’

  Athelstan pointed to the three dangling figures, trying to ignore their empurpled faces, black protruding tongues, popping eyes and stained breeches.