Candle Flame (32 page)

‘Who was that?’

‘You know full well. The ostler Mooncalf, who would go out to rouse them, stare up through the darkness and, full of panic, hasten back to raise the alarm. I shall come to that. You came down the ladder, the arbalest hooked on the war belt beneath your cloak. The night is pitch black. The Palisade stretched desolate, you are its owner, you know every inch of the ground. You move the barrow and ladder back to the nearby tangle of carts and other items stored under that tarpaulin. You then hurry across to the campfire. The archers lie fast asleep. What you have fed them would take hours to fade; anyone who did wander out would only see two very tired men who’d drank too much. In a few heartbeats you changed that. You primed your crossbow and loosed the killing shaft at close quarters into the heart of each of your victims. You return to the tavern and, in some narrow chamber, you would inspect yourself, hide your weapons, clean your boots. Oh,’ Athelstan held up his hand, ‘other matters. First, you are a very greedy man, Thorne, avaricious to the bone. You plundered the purses of your victims, stole every coin they owned. I suspect this lies with the rest. Secondly, you filched some of Mauclerc’s documents, his scribbles about what he’d discovered during his travels and stay at The Candle-Flame. You took care of these documents, burning them here in the tavern after you’d returned. You wanted everything to be safe!’

‘But Hugh of Hornsey?’

‘Really, Master Taverner? What could Hornsey say? That he had abandoned his post to meet his male lover? He’d either have to tell the truth or be swiftly cast as the killer – possibly both. You know what ensued. Hornsey returned and did what you, I and Sir John would expect – he panicked and fled. At first Hornsey was bound by terror; only later did he begin to reflect. Whatever happened, in your eyes, Hornsey was still dangerous. He had wandered round the Palisade. God knows what he might have glimpsed, which is why you killed both him and Ronseval.’

‘I didn’t—’

‘Let me finish. You returned to the tavern and your bed. Sure enough, early the next morning, Mooncalf raised the alarm. You were expecting him. You get up and go out to the Barbican. What happened then was crucial to your plan. You wanted to create the impression that the Barbican was totally sealed from within, both its door and window shutters. You make great play that the window is too high for any tavern ladder. Everyone is bustling around. You ask for a cart and ladder to be brought and up you climb. You prise open, or pretend to, the shutters and door window. Any suspicious indicator that they were loosed already is now removed. Once satisfied, you declare you are too bulky to enter. In fact, you are not, but you have accomplished your essential task. Mooncalf can now be used as the first witness to the horrors within. He climbs in, opens the door and you sweep in with the fresh opportunity to ensure you have not overlooked anything. Now,’ Athelstan picked up a scroll and let it drop, ‘Mooncalf has been terrified by me, and rightly so. I asked him, on his life, to reply to certain questions. He certainly recalls how you directed him to that tangle of carts and barrows under their canvas sheeting. He distinctly remembers you asking for the items which could be found there.’ Athelstan pulled a face. ‘I do wonder how you could be so precise on a freezing cold February dawn, that both cart and ladder are stored away there? Anyway, you climb that ladder. Mooncalf cannot say if the shutters were sealed, though, on reflection, he reports how you seemed to open them rather swiftly and made little attempt to climb inside. Again, I concede, I may be too suspicious.’ Athelstan paused and stared down at his sheet of vellum where he had constructed all these questions. ‘You see, Master Thorne, for the life of me, I cannot understand why you didn’t enter. Thanks to you, I stood in that window trying to escape the flames. There is plenty of space. Why didn’t you go in? You are a former soldier accustomed to danger?’ Thorne refused to reply. ‘After all, this is your Barbican, your tavern? Important guests have been beset by grave danger; two of their guards lie dead and no one appears to be alive in that tower? You have climbed a shaky ladder, perched perilously at the top, painstakingly opened shutters and windows yet you make no real attempt to enter? Mooncalf was certain of that. I would have gone in even if it was just to satisfy my own curiosity. Finally, and Mooncalf is very direct on this, you do not peer inside, nor do you call out. Why? That was the logical thing to do but of course you know there will be no answer, not from the horrors which lurk in the darkness.’

Thorne was now deeply agitated; sweat drops coursed down his face, his breathing was laboured and he found it difficult to sit still.

‘At the time,’ Athelstan continued, ‘you considered opening the Barbican as the most difficult problem you had to face. However, nothing in this vale of tears runs smoothly – certainly not murder.’ Athelstan pointed at the ceiling. ‘Physician Scrope had his own deep grievances against Marsen and, by mere coincidence, he was out on the Palisade that same night. We know that by the mud on his belongings. He certainly carried a lantern, so you must have glimpsed him. I cannot say whether he saw you, though he certainly entertained his own suspicions. He left us proof of that; anyway, only God knows what Scrope was trying to achieve but he certainly went out that night and for that alone he had to die.’ Athelstan rubbed his hands together. ‘What we see, hear and feel,’ the friar got to his feet, ‘is very strange. When it happens can be very different to what we later reflect upon. What we dismiss as ordinary or innocent can, in time, emerge as exceptional or even sinister. Scrope was a highly intelligent man. He went out that night full of hatred for Marsen and, as I have said, God knows what he came across. The dead archers? The sealed Barbican? Some dark shadow flitting through the night? In the end, he paid for it with his life and I will show you how.’ Athelstan walked to the door, opened it and ordered four of the royal crossbowmen to take Thorne under close guard up to the middle gallery. Once ready, they made their way to the stairs. Eleanor Thorne came out of the kitchen, face all stricken. She glimpsed what was happening and sank to her knees with the most heart-rending scream. The woman knelt, hands to her face, rocking backwards and forwards, refusing to be comforted by the slatterns and scullions around her. Thorne tried to break through the cordon of soldiers but was roughly pulled back and pushed up the stairs. Potboys and servants, all wide-eyed and open-mouthed at the grim spectacle unfolding before them, hastily scattered out of the way. They reached the chamber where Scrope had lodged. Athelstan ordered this to be unlocked as well as the one directly opposite. Once he had arranged things as he wished, Athelstan entered the empty chamber facing Scrope’s. He took the long pole from its two supports in the aumbry.

‘If I stand here within the doorway and lean forward,’ Athelstan did so using the pole to bang on the door of Scrope’s former chamber, ‘that was the knocking heard on the morning of Scrope’s murder, though no one was seen in the gallery. Master Thorne,’ Athelstan pointed at the taverner held securely by the crossbow men, ‘you did that. You unlocked this chamber and used it to lure Scrope to his death. You knocked on his door with this pole which you later left when you fled. Scrope first used the eyelet but saw no one. By then you’d swiftly closed the door to this chamber. Scrope walked away. Again the knocking. Scrope, already agitated and holding his
vademecum
, the pilgrim book on Glastonbury, hastens back. He opens the door and sees you standing here, hidden in the threshold of this chamber with an arbalest primed and ready. You are swifter than he. You loose and the quarrel strikes Scrope here.’ Athelstan tapped himself high in the chest. ‘Scrope staggers back. He is dying but the full shock of the attack has not yet had its effect. Scrope hastily closed the door, locking and bolting it. I later detected faint stains of dried blood on both lock and bolt. Scrope finally slumps to the floor. I cannot say if he meant this or it was just an act of chance, or perhaps divine providence, but Scrope died with the
vademecum
open on the page which lists the famous lists of Glastonbury. Amongst them, the
Spina Sacra
.’

‘The Holy Thorn,’ Cranston whispered. ‘A play on our taverner’s name.’

‘I think so but,’ Athelstan spread his hands, ‘the actual details I cannot say. Perhaps Scrope had enjoyed the pun before. I suspect he deliberately opened it on that page during those last few heartbeats of his life.’

‘Impossible!’ Thorne protested. Nonetheless, Athelstan could see the sheer desperation in the taverner’s eyes only deepened by the shrill cries of his wife which rang chillingly through the tavern.

‘If Scrope was struck he would have died instantly …’

‘Come now, Master Thorne,’ Athelstan retorted. ‘You have served in France and so have I and Sir John. Men, mortally wounded, may continue to act as if nothing had happened. Sometimes this can last as long as it would take to recite ten Aves. Some mortal wounds are instant; others afford a brief respite.’

‘I’ve seen that,’ one of the crossbowmen interjected. ‘I’ve seen it on more than one occasion.’

‘Even men who have lost a hand or arm,’ another added.

‘And so have I,’ Athelstan declared, ‘very recently. Lascelles received a crossbow bolt here, high in the chest. He still continued to walk forward almost unaware of his wound. Only a second crossbow bolt which struck him deep in his head brought him down. Physician Scrope, clutching that document, certainly had enough time to turn a key, draw a bolt and fumble for a page before collapsing. The poor man didn’t realize he was dying, so intent was he on protecting himself against further attack and trying to leave some sign as to whom his assailant had been. Finally,’ Athelstan pointed to the chamber opposite Scrope’s, ‘on the morning in question you had to unlock that: you used it as your murder place then hastily locked it again and,’ he gestured at the nearby stairs, ‘hurried up those, along the gallery above then down to act all busy in the taproom. Only you, Master Taverner, had the means to do that, no one else.’ Athelstan breathed in deeply. ‘Sir John, we are finished here.’

Cranston closed the doors to both chambers and ordered Thorne to be taken back to the Dark Parlour. Once again they had to pass Mistress Eleanor, who could only stretch out her arms and cry pityingly. Thorne’s deepening agitation was so intense that when they entered the Dark Parlour, Sir John ordered the taverner to be bound, whilst two of the crossbow men, with weapons primed, were ordered to stay with them.

‘Ronseval was killed just as swiftly,’ Athelstan continued, retaking his seat, ‘once you had lured him to his death. Some of this I cannot prove; I admit it is only conjecture, though it’s logical. Ronseval and Hornsey trusted you. I have demonstrated why. Now, on the night of the murders, Hornsey saw something, or guessed something but then fled. No one knows what he told Ronseval but the very fact that Hornsey had been out on the Palisade meant that he had to die and so had his lover. Ronseval, the sensitive but terrified troubadour, was easy prey. He was searching for his lover. You – Thorne – promised to help. You told him to pack all his possessions, slip out of the tavern and meet you along that lonely stretch of the Thames. Ronseval did so, walking causally towards you, only to receive his death wound.’

‘I was elsewhere the night he was killed!’ Thorne yelled.

‘Who informed you he was killed at night?’ Athelstan countered. ‘Where were you that night? You did leave the tavern. I want the times, the places and witnesses.’

Thorne kept his head down. Athelstan rose to his feet. ‘Sir John, excuse me. I need to fetch something.’ The friar pointed at the two crossbowmen. ‘Whilst I am gone you are to allow no one into this room except me.’ Cranston grunted; the two guards nodded in agreement. ‘Only me,’ the friar repeated and left. Cranston, mystified, glared at the door then shifted his gaze to Thorne. The coroner was convinced, as would any jury before King’s Bench, that Thorne was guilty of the most malicious murder. He was also a traitor because those he had slain were Crown officials, whilst the treasure had been stolen from the king. If that was the case, Thorne would be condemned to a most terrifying death here at the scene of his crimes. An execution platform would be set up in the Palisade. The Southwark Carnifex, together with his assistants, would carry out all the horrors of the legal punishment for treason. Thorne would be dragged on a hurdle from the Bocardo. He would be stripped, his body carefully painted to indicate where the executioner would plunge his knife. He would be half-hanged before being slit from throat to crotch, his belly opened, his entrails plucked out and burnt before his still-seeing eyes … Cranston’s reverie was broken by an insistent rapping at the door. He gestured at one of the crossbow men to answer it. The soldier pulled down the eyelet, grunted and swung the door open. Cranston glanced up. He immediately wondered why Athelstan had drawn his cowl over his head, then stared in disbelief as the cowl was pushed back to reveal the smiling face of one of the guards outside.

‘What on earth …’ Cranston roared. The crossbowmen were now laughing.

‘Peace, Sir John,’ Athelstan declared as he swept back into the room. Thorne, who had watched all this, just slumped in defeat. Athelstan thanked the guard and once the door closed behind him, retook his seat.

‘I have just demonstrated how Hornsey, a veteran soldier, a cunning man, was killed. He took sanctuary in St Erconwald’s. He thought he would be safe there. Perhaps his close proximity to me was a silent threat to you, Thorne. He sat in the mercy enclave. I retired to my house and the night wore on. Hornsey had no reason to leave and believed he was safe. He hears a knock on the door, leading from the sacristy to God’s Acre. He goes to answer, pulls back the eyelet and sees a Dominican standing there, head down, cowl pulled over, which is understandable as the night was very cold. Hornsey makes a most hideous mistake. He thinks it’s me. He draws the bolt, opens the door and you release the crossbow bolt, which sends him staggering back to collapse in the sacristy. You then flee. I’ve said this before and I will say it again: friars can walk the streets of Southwark in safety,’ Athelstan smiled grimly, ‘and in the dark I suppose we are like cats – one looks very much like another. Nobody would accost you.’