Murder Most Holy (2 page)

Cranston picked up his goblet and slurped noisily from it, relishing the way the wine’s full-bodied taste drenched his mouth with sweetness. His good humour began to fade. Should he be party to these junketings? And why exactly had Gaunt invited him? Cranston stirred restlessly. The banquet was over, and what a meal! Swan, venison, boar’s meat, beef, veal, fish fresh from the river, lampreys cooked in a cream sauce, marchpane, jellies carved and sculpted in the most extraordinary forms. The jugglers had come and gone, as had the acrobats, the fire-eaters and the dwarfs who made everyone laugh. The musicians in the gallery at the far end of the hall were now half-asleep and the pure-voiced choir of young boys had long been dismissed. Cranston shook himself alert and looked down the hall with its two tables set side by side. There must be no fewer than sixty great lords attending this banquet. Why was he among their select number?

Before the banquet, Gaunt had spoken to the Italian lord of Cranston’s skill in solving notorious cases of murder.

‘Is no such problem beyond your grasp?’ Cremona had asked.

‘None!’ Cranston had drunkenly boasted, beaming round at a group of gaping bystanders. Now Sir John began to regret his own vainglory.

‘Sir John, you are well?’

Cranston turned. Gaunt was looking at him speculatively as if trying to discern Cranston’s frame of mind.

‘My Lord, I am happy to be here,’ he replied. ‘You do me great honour.’

Both he and Gaunt suddenly looked down the hall at the tumult which broke out as a large rat, startled by one of the greyhounds, scampered on to the table. The guests rose in uproar, stabbing at the rodent with their knives until it jumped off the table into the jaws of a waiting dog. A general fracas then occurred amongst the pack, only broken up by huntsmen with whips who drove both dogs and their mangled quarry out of the hall.

‘Enough is enough,’ Gaunt whispered.

He rose and gestured to the heralds standing in the gallery who raised their silver trumpets and issued three long blasts which stilled the clamour in the hall. All eyes turned towards Gaunt.

‘Your Grace . . .’

Gaunt nodded imperceptibly at his stony-faced nephew.

‘. . . My Lord of Cremona, and you, my friends and guests, this day we have been honoured at our humble feast with the presence of one of Italy’s great rulers – Signor Gian Galeazzo, Lord of Cremona and Duke of the surrounding territories.’

Gaunt paused to allow a ripple of applause which he stilled with one beringed hand.

‘But my Lord of Cremona has a problem which he wishes to share with us. A great mystery which no one can solve. And that is why I have asked for the august presence of our noble Coroner of the City, Sir John Cranston.’

Gaunt paused and Cranston gazed quickly down the hall. He saw the suppressed smiles, the grins hidden behind raised hands, and sensed the waiting trap. He was no friend of Gaunt’s, tolerated by him but not liked, for he had no time to emulate the Regent’s court dandies and fops who lavished the nation’s wealth on their own soft, white bodies. Nevertheless, he smiled and nodded at Gaunt’s words, wary of what was to come.

‘Sir John Cranston,’ Gaunt continued, ‘is well known in the city and in the courts of law for his deductive reasoning, his subtle questioning, his ruthless tracking down of criminals, and his skill in solving intriguing mysteries. My Lord of Cremona has such a mystery which has defied the best minds and most probing intellects of Europe’s courts.’ Gaunt paused and Cranston felt how still the hall had become. ‘My Lord of Cremona,’ Gaunt continued, ‘has wagered one thousand gold crowns that no one can resolve this mystery. My Lord Coroner,’ Gaunt half-turned to Cranston, ‘will you accept the wager?’

Cranston stared speechlessly. One thousand gold crowns was a fortune! If he accepted the wager and lost, it would impoverish him. If he refused the wager, he would be mocked as a coward. Moreover, if the Lord of Cremona’s subtle mystery was so intriguing, there was very little chance of his winning such a fortune. Cranston smiled whilst his mind raced through the possibilities. He wished the Lady Maude was here. Above all, he wanted Athelstan: the monk would have seen some graceful way out. Now Cranston had no choice. What could he do – publicly retract on his earlier boast?

‘My Lord Cranston,’ Gaunt repeated, ‘will you accept?’

Cranston slurped from the wine cup. ‘Of course,’ he replied boldly, to a wave of cheering, good-natured catcalls and shouts of encouragement. The coroner lumbered to his feet, half-cursing the rich wine racing through his blood and dulling his brain. After all, he was Cranston. Why should he lose face before these nincompoops, these women in men’s clothes? He was Sir John Cranston, Coroner of the City of London, husband to the Lady Maude, father of Francis and Stephen. He had held castles against the French and single-handedly charged against many a foe.

‘No mystery,’ he bellowed, ‘is beyond my wits! If a problem exists,’ he added, quoting his help-meet Athelstan, ‘then it is logical that a solution must also exist.’

‘Nobody denies that!’ Gaunt slapped him on the shoulder, pushing him gently back in his chair. The coroner saw the Regent’s sly smile, glimpsed the young king’s pitying stare and the flash of triumph in Cremona’s glittering eyes.

‘The solution is known?’ Cranston asked.

‘Of course!’ Cremona replied. ‘As is customary, I shall choose one person – such as His Grace the King. If your theory is incorrect, he will, after solemnly swearing to silence, be shown part of the solution.’ Cremona laughed. ‘Though no person has yet offered a solution, not even an incorrect one.’

Gaunt turned to the Italian nobleman. ‘My Lord,’ he said silkily, ‘you have issued the challenge and Sir John has picked up the gauntlet. We wait with bated breath for your mystery.’

Galeazzo, Lord of Cremona, pulled back his silken sleeves and stood up, his robes billowing about him, exuding a faint delicious fragrance unknown in England.

‘Your Grace the King, My Lord of Lancaster, and you other noble English lords and barons – the lavish hospitality of my host has deeply impressed us and will never be forgotten.’

Galeazzo leaned on the table, threw one significant look at Cranston, then turned back to address the hall. His speech was perfect though his mellow voice was tinged with a slight accent.

‘I will not waste your time. The hour is late and we have all drunk deeply.’ He moved his hands and the rings on his fingers caught the brilliance of the light and flashed like the clearest stars. ‘Sir John Cranston has accepted my wager, a challenge to solve a problem no one has yet fathomed. Only I myself, and I have written the solution down in a sealed document. I have posed the problem to doctors in Paris, lawyers in Montpellier and professors in Cologne and Nantes, but to no effect.’ Galeazzo paused and drew a deep breath. ‘Many years ago my family owned a manor house outside Cremona – a large, three-storeyed building of great age and sinister reputation. Once, when I was a boy, I spent Yuletide there with my aged aunt, its owner.’ He smiled around the assembled company. ‘No matter what the place or its reputation, when the Yuletide log is burnt and we Italians celebrate Christ’s birth, an evening banquet is held.’ He laughed. ‘Not as lavish as this one but, as is customary, once the wine jug circulates, every guest has to tell a ghost story.

‘Now, I remember that evening well. It was the coldest Christmas anyone could remember. A biting north wind brought sheets of snow down from the Alps, the manor house was cut off by deep drifts and icy roads. Nevertheless, we had warm fires and plenty to eat and revelled in this time of shadows. Outside no sound was heard except the moaning wind and the haunting howls of the wolves as they came down from the mountains to hunt.’

Galeazzo stopped and looked around. Cranston admired his prowess and skill: his audience was no longer aware of this lavish hall on an English summer’s evening but thinking of a lonely haunted manor house in faraway Cremona. Nevertheless, the coroner was anxious. He wished the Italian nobleman would come to the point so his own wily brain could seize upon the problem posed.

‘Once the storytelling ended, my venerable aunt was challenged by one of the guests. Were there not ghosts in that very house? At first she refused to answer, but when the guests insisted, explained about the scarlet chamber – a room at the top of the house kept barred and locked because anyone who slept there died a violent, mysterious death.’ Galeazzo stopped and sipped from a mother-of-pearl-encrusted goblet.

‘My Lords, you can imagine what happened. Everyone was full of wine and itching with a curiosity which had to be satisfied. To cut a long story short, my aunt was urged to show the guests the room. Servants were summoned, torches lit, and my aunt led us out of the hall and up the great wooden staircase. I was only a small boy and went unnoticed amongst the others. Now, I knew the top storey of that ancient manor house was always barred but this time servants removed the padlocks and chains and my aunt led us up a cold, deep staircase.’ He stopped speaking and shook his head. ‘I will always remember it: the rats slithering and squeaking, the moonlight shining on the motes of dust. We reached the top of the staircase and turned. The guests milled about, their excitement now tinged with fear for it was dreadfully cold and dark. Servants went ahead and lit the flambeaux jutting out from the wall: the passageway came to life and all eyes were fixed on the door at the bottom. Barred, padlocked and chained, it drew us like some awful curse.’ Again Galeazzo stopped, sipped from his wine cup and smiled quickly at Cranston.

‘The door was unlocked and we entered a small square chamber. I mean a perfect square. There was a table, a stool, a fireplace, a small lattice window in the far wall, but the chamber was dominated by a huge fourposter bed. What really made us catch our breath was when my aunt ordered the torches lit and candles brought in. The room positively flared into life. Believe me, everything – the floor, the ceiling, the walls, the carpet, the bed – everything was bright scarlet, as if drenched in fresh blood.’ Galeazzo paused, leaned forward and selected a grape from the bowl.

‘The mystery!’ one of the guests shouted from down the hall. ‘What is the mystery?’

Cranston stared down the table. Gaunt slouched, his eyes half-closed, a slight smile on his face as if he knew what was coming next. The young king, like any child, sat round-eyed and open-mouthed. Yet Galeazzo, like the born storyteller he was, played his audience for a while. He chewed slowly on the grape.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘the mystery begins. One of the guests challenged my aunt. He declared he would spend a night in the room fully armed. He would take no drink or food. A thorough search was made to ensure there were no secret passageways or trapdoors. After that the room was cleaned, fresh bolsters and linen put on the bed. Some sea coal was brought up and a fire lit in the grate. We all left that young man, that very foolish young man, to his night’s sleep.

‘The next morning broke cloud-free, the sun shone and a mild thaw set in. So, before breaking our fast, we all went out into the snow for it is a rare phenomenon around Cremona. We had a brisk walk and someone wondered how the young man fared. We knew the scarlet chamber was at the front of the house and, looking up, saw him staring down at us. We waved and went back into the house. Only after we had eaten did we notice that the young man still had not appeared so servants were sent to the scarlet chamber. A few minutes later one of them came rushing back, his face white, his eyes filled with terror. He shouted at my aunt to come, and we all followed. We entered the scarlet chamber. The fire had died in the grate. The bed had been slept in but the young man was standing by the window.’

‘I tell you no lies, sirs, the man was dead. He stood with mouth gaping and eyes staring, as we had seen him from the front of the house. He had tried to open the window, digging his nails deep into the frame. All I can say, sirs, is that on his face was a look of absolute horror. One of the guests, a physician, confirmed that something evil, something terrible in that room, had stopped the young man’s heart with fright.’

Galeazzo stopped speaking and turned to Sir John. ‘You have my drift, Lord Coroner?’

‘Yes, My Lord.’

‘You have questions?’

‘Was the room disturbed?’

‘In no way!’

‘Were there any secret passageways or tunnels?’

Cranston called out his questions in a loud voice so all in the hall could hear and Galeazzo answered in a similar fashion. The Italian turned to the assembled company, hand waving.

‘I swear, on my mother’s honour, no one had entered that room. There were no concealed doors or windows. No food or drink were served. The sea coals were from the stores, and the candles the young man brought to the room had been used in the hall below.’

Cranston stared at him in disbelief and once more wished Athelstan was here.

‘Was it some demon, some evil spirit?’

‘Ah!’ Galeazzo, Lord of Cremona, addressed the hall. ‘My Lord Coroner asks if the room was possessed of some demon. My aunt thought so and sent for a holy priest from the nearby church to come bless and exorcise the room. This venerable father arrived late in the day. He blessed, he exorcised, every corner but with no visible result. So we left him there. He said he would pray, and locked the door behind us.’

Galeazzo turned and smiled at Cranston’s expression. ‘My Lord Coroner, I am sure you suspect what happened next. It was late in the evening before my lady aunt realised the venerable father had not reappeared so servants forced the door and found the priest lying dead upon the floor – on his face the same look of horror as on the young man’s who had died earlier.’ Galeazzo stopped to bask in the ‘oohs’ and ‘ahs’ of his audience.

Gaunt fingered his lower lip; the young king had now forgotten his hated uncle and watched the Italian nobleman attentively.

‘My Lord,’ the king cried in a shrill voice, ‘what happened then?’

Galeazzo smiled. ‘My lady aunt would not be satisfied. She called for two of her retainers, hardened warriors, one of them a good swordsman, the other a Genoese expert with the crossbow. They were bribed with gold to spend one night in the room. The men accepted and took up their posts that same evening. The door was unlocked as we’d had to force it to discover the body of the priest. The swordsman slept on a chair, the Genoese on the bed. In the middle of the night we were all wakened by a terrible scream.