Candle Flame (9 page)

‘There is something else,’ Athelstan declared. ‘We have told you about the murder of Scrope. Master Thibault, did you know that Marsen was a housebreaker in Coggeshall, the murderer of an innocent woman and manservant?’

Thibault shook his head.

‘I would be the first to concede,’ Gaunt declared, ‘that not all royal officials are angels in disguise.’

‘They may well be demons!’ Athelstan retorted. ‘The murder of Marsen and the others could be the work of Beowulf, or even this spy. I also concede that the assassin and the spy might be the same person or …’ Athelstan paused.

‘Or what?’ Thibault asked.

‘There may be a number of strands here.’ Athelstan counted them out on his fingers. ‘The Upright Men, the spy, Beowulf or someone quite distinct with his or her own motive.’

‘Sir Robert Paston is one of the guests.’ Gaunt’s mouth creased into a fake smile. ‘He is my enemy – this could be his revenge.’

‘Brother Athelstan, Sir John,’ Thibault declared hastily, ‘we have no information to give you, no further assistance.’ He pointed to the two sheets of parchment. ‘Take them, study them. Is there anything else you need?’ Athelstan put the parchments into his chancery satchel then explained about the corpses being brought to the Guildhall. Thibault agreed, saying Lascelles would assist Flaxwith in hiring the finest physician in Cheapside, the cadavers would be scrutinized and Athelstan informed of his conclusions. Thibault then signalled to Lascelles, who left and returned with Brother Marcel.

‘I believe,’ Thibault smiled expansively, ‘that you and Marcel know each other. We are pleased to welcome the Pope’s legate, a member of the Holy Inquisition, here to London.’

‘What for?’ Athelstan demanded.

‘Heresy does flourish, Brother, whatever the soil.’ Marcel bowed to Gaunt and Thibault before sitting down on the chair pulled back by Lascelles. ‘We have spoken already, Your Grace,’ Marcel continued, ‘about the teaching of the Leicestershire priest John Wycliffe and the beliefs of the Lollard sect, who do not accept the authority of our Church or the Holy Father’s interpretation of scripture. They apparently do not understand the divinely revealed truths—’

‘That is because,’ Athelstan interrupted hastily, ‘most of them can’t read. They are just too poor, too hungry, too tired and too oppressed.’ Athelstan bit his tongue as Cranston kicked his ankle.

‘The Inquisition has no authority in England,’ the coroner offered. ‘Our Archdeacon’s court is weighty and powerful enough.’

‘Sir John, Sir John,’ Marcel winked at Athelstan as he held his hands up in a gesture of peace, ‘I am not here to interfere or probe. The Holy Father simply wishes to learn more about a kingdom where the papacy itself, the Blessed Gregory, sent its own apostle Augustine to convert and preach.’

Athelstan nodded understandingly though he strongly suspected the truth was that John of Gaunt was looking for papal support, and if licence issued to the Inquisition to meddle and interfere in the English Church brought him favour at the papal court, then so be it.

‘Brother Marcel had been in the city,’ Thibault explained. ‘Now he wishes to move to Southwark and what better place than a fellow Dominican’s parish at St Erconwald’s?’

Athelstan coughed to hide his surprise.

‘Do not worry, Brother,’ Marcel asserted, ‘I will not trouble you or yours or even lodge in your little house. I shall hire a chamber at The Candle-Flame, even though, unfortunately, that tavern seems to be the setting for murder and treason.’

‘We approve of that,’ Thibault added. ‘Brother Marcel may discover, see or learn something of interest to us as well as the Holy Father.’

‘Of course,’ Athelstan retorted. He paused. ‘Your Grace, Master Thibault, one more question.’ He gestured at Marcel. ‘What I have to say will, I am sure, be only of passing interest to the Papal Inquisitor. I speak in confidence which I know he will respect.’ Athelstan paused as Marcel agreed to what he’d said; the friar did not wish to alienate his visitor by asking him to leave.

‘Your question?’ Gaunt insisted.

‘How much, at a swift reckoning, was Marsen carrying in that exchequer coffer? You must know,’ Athelstan insisted. ‘You sent Lascelles here to visit him the night before his murder?’ The friar glanced at the henchman who just smirked and stared at his master.

‘Yes, Lascelles was sent to The Candle-Flame. He was under strict instruction to check on all monies. Marsen gave a proper accounting, as he would at the Exchequer of Receipt at Westminster.’

‘There is something else,’ Athelstan chose his words carefully, ‘Master Thibault, I would like the truth. Marsen collected taxes. I suspect Mauclerc was there to watch Marsen, a man with a highly unsavoury history and a malignant soul.’

‘You use the cruellest mastiff, Brother, to bring down a bear.’

‘I believe Mauclerc had other duties, didn’t he?’ Athelstan glimpsed the surprise in Thibault’s eyes.

‘What duties, Brother?’

‘Information, any information he could collect on the Great Community of the Realm and the Upright Men.’ Athelstan kept his voice steady. He believed certain records had been taken from Mauclerc’s chancery satchel but what he was saying was really a wild guess. ‘Indeed,’ he continued, ‘Mauclerc would have lists of possible sympathizers, rumours and gossip about who might be involved with the Upright Men?’

Thibault looked as if he was going to object. Brother Marcel now had his head down.

‘I also suspect …’ Athelstan realized this truly was a game of hazard, yet he had nothing to lose.

‘What else do you suspect, Brother?’

‘Well,’ Athelstan sighed, ‘if the Pope’s own Inquisitor is in London what better way of helping him than by providing him with a list of people tainted by the teaching of Wycliffe or even members of the Lollard sect?’

‘Very good,’ Thibault breathed, ‘very shrewd indeed, Brother. Yes, Mauclerc did have a list and yes, that list has probably gone but more than that we cannot say.’

‘And the money?’ Athelstan persisted. ‘Marsen must have boasted about what he had collected. He would be ever so proud of squeezing so much money out of those he taxed.’

‘Very proud, Brother,’ Lascelles replied. ‘When I visited him, he opened the coffer and it was crammed with gold and silver coins.’

‘How much?’ Cranston barked.

‘A king’s fortune. At least two thousand pounds sterling in the finest coin of the realm.’

Athelstan whistled in surprise.

‘Such a sum! Tell me now,’ Athelstan continued, ignoring Gaunt’s gesture of impatience, ‘Mauclerc and Marsen not only collected taxes but information which would be useful to you. Sir Robert Paston, as you have conceded, Your Grace, was – is – not your friend. Were this precious pair collecting titbits of gossip, slander about Paston and his family to, how can I say …?’

‘Blackmail him,’ Thibault interrupted. ‘Let us move to the arrow point, Brother. The answer is yes. I would not call it blackmail but the push and shove of fierce debate. Paston portrays himself as a protector of the people, a partisan of the truth, a merchant who gives to good causes, a master mariner cheated out of his dues.’ Thibault sneered and waved a hand. ‘Paston is no more a saint than I am. If he is going to climb into the pulpit to preach then perhaps he should make sure his own hands are clean.’

‘And are they?’

Thibault just twisted his mouth and stared away.

‘But that’s another reason why you despatched Lascelles to The Candle-Flame, isn’t it?’ Athelstan insisted. ‘You were impatient to find out what had been discovered about our worthy member of the Commons?’

‘Marsen said we would have to wait, that he hadn’t yet finished, whilst Mauclerc dare not oppose him,’ Lascelles replied.

‘And did Marsen know that Physician Scrope was hunting him, demanding justice?’

‘I suspect so.’ Thibault shrugged. ‘Marsen’s past was, as you say, highly unsavoury. He had applied to Chancery for a King’s Pardon for all past crimes and felonies. I told him that I might support this depending on the success he achieved in collecting the king’s taxes. On the night they met, Marsen informed Lascelles that I would be very pleased about what he had learnt.’

‘And Hugh of Hornsey?’

‘Most surprising, Brother. Hugh of Hornsey was a mercenary, a good captain of archers who kept to himself. I suspect he is dead. I cannot see him as an assassin. He is shrewd enough to know that flight is perhaps not the best protection. But,’ Thibault smiled falsely, ‘we all have our little secrets, Brother, only some of us are more successful at protecting those secrets than others …’

T
he Vault of Hell was a much decayed though magnificently constructed tavern at the heart of the deepest darkness around Whitefriars. Here one of the most notorious captains of the slums, a true Knight of the Knife, a Lord of the Dunghill, Humphrey Wasp, held court on behalf of even more sinister overlords. Sharp as a tooth on a finely honed saw was Humphrey Wasp. He usually sat enthroned on a velvet-draped throne chair, formerly a bishop’s but appropriated during a recent riot in Norwich and despatched south for Humphrey’s use. Indeed, most of the costly goods stolen from the shops and stalls along Cheapside and elsewhere were brought to the Vault of Hell – the finest plunder: rolls of velvet and damask from Venice, lace from Lille, leather from Castile, wood and furs from Cracow. Here the most elegant pieces of art and craftsmanship, filched from their owners, were offered for sale: leather caskets cleverly embossed with symbols brought to vivid life by incised scroll-work, ivory tablet covers from Paris, delicate bone caskets from Cologne carved at the seams with the legend of Tristram and Isolde. All these were offered for sale along with jewel-studded brooches with inscriptions such as ‘You have my heart’ or ‘Love conquers all’. Humphrey was particularly keen to collect mazers fashioned in Flanders from a rare speckled wood known as Bird’s Eye Maple and set on a silver-gilt stand. Naturally such plunder glowed as fierce as any beacon light, attracting in all the rogues: the children of the horn-thumb, the trillibubs, the cackling cheats, cock-pimps, tart-dames and other land pirates, the Fraternity of the Filch and the Foist, not to mention the Brethren of the Block, who rejoiced in names such as Blow Blood, Tickle Pitcher and Jack Pudding. They all assembled at the Vault of Hell to eat and drink the finest food, wine and ale stolen from the best establishments.

A sumptuous banquet had been laid out along the common table of the great taproom called the Hall of Darkness, even though it was brightly lit by a myriad of pure beeswax candles stolen from churches the length and breadth of the city. The chamber was warmed by a great roaring fire in the massive hearth carved like a cathedral porch, as well as by clusters of braziers which crackled as merrily as the coals of Hell. However, on the night of 17 February, the eve of the feast of the Blessed Simeon bishop and martyr, there was a difference. Humphrey Wasp’s herald, the red-haired Chanticleer, had brayed for silence and no one dare disobey. The Earthworms had appeared, at least two score of them, dressed in dark leather and with their faces blackened, their hair dyed red and stiffened into plaits which stood up from their heads like devil’s horns. They were well armed with rounded shields, bows, clubs and arrows, and led by captains known as the Rook, the Jackdaw, Magpie, Hawk and Falcon. Fearsome in appearance, ruthless in reputation, the Earthworms were the envoys from the leaders of the Upright Men: Simon Grindcobb, Jack Straw, Wat Tyler and others. They had soon brought the midnight revelry at the Vault of Hell to an abrupt close. Their leader, the Crow, now stood on the dais next to a drunken Humphrey Wasp and drew out from a bucket of red wine the severed head of Grapeseed, former rope-dancer and mountebank, well-known for his drunken boasts that he had no fear of the Upright Men. The Crow just stood there grasping the roughly cut head whilst his companions around the Hall of Darkness nocked their bows.

‘Listen Ye!’ the Crow proclaimed. ‘Marsen’s death at The Candle-Flame is now well known, despatched to Hell as he deserves.’ He paused at the stifled cheer. ‘The plunder Marsen carried, the fruit of his wickedness has disappeared. Look on Grapeseed’s head and be warned. The Upright Men will not be trifled with. The treasure Marsen was taking to his satanic master Gaunt belongs to the people and the Upright Men are the true and only guardians of the people. Such treasure is ours and should be, must be, handed over.’ The Crow shook the severed head. ‘Know Ye also that Hugh of Hornsey, former captain of archers at the Tower and Marsen’s erstwhile helpmate in wickedness, has fled. Information about the stolen treasure, good, sound information, will earn you the protection of the Upright Men and five gold pieces. The apprehension of Hugh of Hornsey alive will bring you firmly within the love of the Upright Men as well as a reward of seven gold pieces. I have left with your self-proclaimed squire, Master Wasp, a description of the fugitive.’ He dropped the severed head to splash noisily into the bucket of bloody wine, wiped his hands and held them up. ‘I have now chanted my own vespers. I leave you our peace until the next time …’

oOoOo

Brother Athelstan left through the devil’s door built into the north wall of St Erconwald’s. He stood in the freezing darkness and peered up at the night sky swarming with stars – faint stars, bright stars, a maze of stars. The heavens sparkled brilliantly but, in the cemetery of St Erconwald’s, deep shadows clustered around the outlines of the winter-bound trees. Athelstan gazed up again.

‘I promise you, Brother,’ he murmured, ‘when spring erupts green, lovely and lush, I shall climb to the top of this tower and study those stars most closely, all to the glory of God. And will you join me, Bonaventure?’ Athelstan stared down at the one-eyed, fierce-looking tomcat who had adopted Athelstan and become his companion during the lonely watches of the night. ‘Holy cat, Catholic cat,’ Athelstan whispered. Bonaventure just glared imperiously back. ‘Many thanks for joining me.’ The cat had been his sole companion in church. Even the Hangman of Rochester who lived in the ankerhold Athelstan had constructed along one of the transepts was absent. The anchorite had joined the rest of Athelstan’s wayward flock in The Piebald tavern, where, after eating hot, juicy, pies from Merrylegs’ cookshop, they would be downing tankards of ale as they set the world to rights. Athelstan chewed the corner of his lip. The Hangman of Rochester had been a tragic figure when he arrived at St Erconwald’s. He had earned his name whilst serving as one of England’s finest hangmen after losing his wife and child to outlaws. The Hangman, who had been baptized Giles of Sempringham, had also proved to be a truly talented painter who had begun to sketch out a series of eye-catching tableaux, some of which troubled Athelstan with their stark message. The friar closed his eyes. ‘Giles of Sempringham,’ he murmured, recalling the Hangman’s long, yellow, straw-like hair framing that tragic, cadaverous face, ‘I am glad you have become a member of our community.’ He opened his eyes and stared down at Bonaventure, who gazed hungrily back. ‘I just pray my flock don’t draw you into their nefarious schemes.’