Murder Most Holy (25 page)

‘You are certain, Sir John?’

‘As certain as I am that my belly is both big and empty.’

‘Then, My Lord Coroner, perhaps I should test my hypothesis.’

After supper that evening Athelstan took Cranston back to their bedchamber.

‘Now, Sir John, let us begin again. We have a chamber containing no secret passageways or trap doors, yet four murders are committed there: of a young man, a chaplain, and two soldiers. None of the victims ate or drank anything and it is part of the mystery that no one entered that room so no foul play by a third party is suspected.’ Athelstan shrugged. ‘Now, in logic we are taught to search for the common denominator. One factor common to all things. So, this is my solution.’ He undid his saddle bags and laid out certain items on his bed. Cranston watched intently as Athelstan, using their bedchamber as the murder room, played out the manner in which each man died whilst giving the astonished coroner a lucid description of why the deaths had occurred.

‘It can’t be!’ Cranston breathed. ‘It’s impossible!’

‘Sir John, it’s the only explanation. And this time, using you as a possible victim, I shall prove it to you.’

An hour later Cranston had grudgingly to agree that Athelstan’s conclusion was the only acceptable one.

‘I hope it is,’ he remarked cheerily. ‘For before God, Sir John, it’s the only answer I can think of.’

‘What happens if you are wrong?’ Cranston muttered. ‘What happens if there is something we have forgotten? What then, eh? Where do I get the money to pay My Lord of Cremona?’

Athelstan put his face in his hands. He loved Cranston as a brother but sometimes the coroner reminded him of a petulant child. Nevertheless, Sir John was right. This was no simple mind game, one of those riddles loved by the philosophers of Oxford or Cambridge. Cranston’s reputation, his standing as a principal law officer, was at stake. The friar got up.

‘I can’t answer that, Sir John. I need to see Father Prior. I must tell him that we intend to leave tomorrow and will not return till Sunday.’ He patted Sir John on the shoulder. ‘Get some sleep. You will need your wits about you tomorrow.’

Of course, when Athelstan returned two hours later, Cranston was still up, cradling the miraculous wineskin in his arms as if it was one of the poppets.

‘You were a long time,’ he slurred.

‘I had to speak to Father Prior about some other business.’ ‘What’s that in your hand?’ Cranston pointed to the small roll of parchment Athelstan was pushing into his saddle bag.

‘Nothing, Sir John.’

Cranston let out a sigh. ‘You’re a secretive bugger, Athelstan, but I am too tired.’

Cranston shook off his clothes and fell with such a crash on to the bed, Athelstan considered it a miracle that both he and it did not go straight through the floor. The good coroner was snoring within minutes. Athelstan said his prayers, not so much the Divine Office of the church as a plea that the solution he proposed to Cranston’s puzzle was the correct one.

They spent the next day rehearsing the conclusion they had reached. Cranston sent Brother Norbert to his house in Cheapside to see if the messenger had returned from Oxford as well as to convey his felicitations to the Lady Maude and the two poppets. Norbert returned full of praise for the gracious Lady Maude and admiration for Cranston’s bouncing, baby boys. But, no, he declared, no messenger had arrived.

Cranston and Athelstan left the monastery of Blackfriars early in the evening. The coroner wished to refresh himself in one of the riverside taverns, then they hired a wherry to take them upriver to John of Gaunt’s palace. Even as the barge pulled in from mid-stream, they could see Gaunt’s household was waiting for them. The news of Cranston’s wager had apparently spread throughout the court. Silk-garbed barges were already pulling into the private quayside where retainers, wearing the livery of Gaunt, stood waiting with lighted torches. Above them the banners bearing the royal arms of England, France, Castile and Leon snapped in the breeze from the river.

As Cranston and Athelstan arrived, a chamberlain bearing a white, gold-tipped wand of office and dressed resplendently in cloth-of-gold, greeted them and led them through the throng along lighted passageways into the Great Hall, splendidly prepared for the occasion. On the black and white marble floor benches had been arranged, covered in soft testers for spectators to sit on; the walls were hung with vivid, resplendent tapestries. Just in front of these, men-at-arms dressed in silver half-armour stood discreetly, their swords drawn. On the dais the huge oaken table glowed in the light of hundreds of beeswax candles so that the far end of the room was almost as bright as it would be on a glorious summer’s day.

The chamberlain took them on to the dais and ushered them to chairs grouped behind the table in a broad semicircle.

‘You are to wait here,’ he announced. ‘His Grace the Duke of Lancaster and other members of the court are dining alone.’

Cranston caught the snub implicit in the man’s words.

‘What’s your name, fellow?’

‘Simon, Sir John. Simon de Bellamonte.’

‘Then, Simon,’ Cranston answered sweetly, ‘while we wait we are not here to be stared at. You will keep the hall door closed and serve my clerk and myself two large goblets of my Lord of Gaunt’s famous Rhenish wine which he keeps chilled in the cellars below!’

The chamberlain pulled his lips into a vinegarish smile.

‘The door must remain open,’ he squeaked in protest.

‘Oh, piss off!’ Cranston hissed. ‘Bring us some wine at least or I’ll tell my Lord of Gaunt that his guests were ill-treated.’

‘Master Bellamonte,’ Athelstan murmured, ‘Sir John has a terrible thirst so your kindness in this matter would be deeply appreciated.’

The chamberlain drew himself up to his full height and stalked away with all the grace of an ambling duck. The courtiers remained in the hall but at least Sir John got his wine, a large pewter cup, winking and bubbling at the rim. Sir John downed the wine in one gulp, smacked his lips and held out the cup.

‘More!’ he ordered, and smiled at Athelstan. ‘Oh, my favourite friar, I could well become accustomed to this luxury and wealth.’

He watched the servitor hurry off. Cranston glared once more down the hall at the courtiers who were surreptitiously staring up at him.

‘The old days are gone,’ he murmured. ‘Look at them, Athelstan. Dressed like women, walking like women, smelling like women and talking like women!’

‘I thought you loved women, Sir John?’

Cranston licked his lips. ‘Oh, I do, but Lady Maude is worth a thousand of these.’ He stamped his foot. ‘Lady Maude is England!’

Athelstan stared at the coroner warily. Nothing was more dangerous than Sir John in one of his maudlin, nostalgic moods.

‘I remember,’ the coroner continued in a half-whisper, ‘when I stood with the fathers of these men, shoulder to shoulder at Poitiers, and the French crashed against us like a steel wave.’ He patted his stomach. ‘I was slimmer then, sharper, like a greyhound. Speedy in the charge, ferocious in the fight. We were like falcons, Athelstan, falling on our enemies like a thunderbolt.’ He breathed noisily through his nostrils and his white whiskers bristled. ‘Oh, the days,’ he whispered. ‘The lechery, the drunkenness.’ He shook his head, then glared quickly at Athelstan who sat with head bowed so Cranston wouldn’t see the smile on his face.

‘What’s the matter, Sir John?’ he asked abruptly.

‘God knows! I suppose being brought here, being baited by the likes of Gaunt. I knew his father, golden-haired Edward, and his elder brother, the Black Prince, God rest him!’ Cranston wiped away a tear from his eye. ‘A fierce fighter, the Black Prince. In battle no one would dare come near him! He would kill anything that moved, anything he saw through the slits of his terrible helmet. He killed at least three horses under him. He thought their heads and ears were enemies coming at him.’

‘Sir John,’ Athelstan persisted, ‘forget the past. You remember what we agreed? You must tell the story yourself.’

Cranston flicked his fingers. ‘Fairy’s tits! I’ll tell them a tale.’ He glared fiercely at Athelstan. ‘I only hope it’s the right one.’

The servitor brought back another cup of wine. Athelstan closed his eyes and breathed a prayer that the fat coroner would not become too deep in his cups to resolve the riddle. Sir John, however, eyes half-closed, sipped from the goblet now and again, glaring contemptuously down the hall. Athelstan realised he was still quietly bemoaning the decadence of the younger generation. Suddenly a shrill bray of trumpets broke out. A party of young squires entered the hall carrying multi-coloured banners. They stood on either side of a herald dressed in the red, blue and gold of the Royal House of England. He blew three sharp fanfares on a long silver trumpet and cried for silence for ‘His Grace the King, his most noble uncle, John Duke of Lancaster, and his sweet cousin, the Lord of Cremona.’

King Richard entered, dressed in a blue gown bedecked with golden lions and the silver fleur de lys of France. To one side of him walked Lancaster in a russet-gold gown, a silver chaplet round his tawny hair, whilst on the other side walked Cremona dressed in black and silver, a smile of smug satisfaction on his dark face. Behind them members of the court, resplendent in their peacock gowns, jostled for position. The young king clapped his hands when he saw Cranston and, like any child, would have run forward if Gaunt had not restrained him with one beringed hand.

‘My Lord Coroner,’ the boy king called, ‘you are most welcome.’

Cranston and Athelstan, who had risen as soon as the herald entered, sank to one knee.

‘Your Grace,’ Cranston murmured, ‘you do me great honour.’

He waited for Richard’s more decorous advance, took his small, alabaster-white hand and kissed it noisily, causing a ripple of sniggers from the onlooking courtiers. The coroner half-raised his head.

‘Your Grace, do you know my clerk?’

The young king, still holding Cranston’s podgy hand in his, turned, smiled and nodded at the Dominican.

‘Of course, Brother Athelstan. You are well?’

‘Yes, God be thanked, Your Grace.’

‘Good!’ The king smacked his hands together. ‘Sweetest Uncle,’ Richard called over his shoulder, and Athelstan caught the steely glint in the boy’s eyes and voice. The friar stared quickly at the floor. Richard hated his powerful uncle and one day the matter would be settled by blood.

‘Sweet Uncle,’ the young king repeated, ‘let everyone take their seats. Sir John, Brother Athelstan, you shall sit on my right, next to my uncle.’

Cranston and Athelstan rose. Gaunt silkily greeted them both, as did the Italian lord. Athelstan caught the mockery in their smiles. They had studied Cranston well; the coroner was in his cups and they believed the wager was already lost Again there was the usual commotion as courtiers fought for seats on the dais. The herald blew further blasts on his silver trumpet and the hall became full of din and shouting as people took their seats. The King, his eyes bright, his face alive with excitement, kept smiling down the table at Athelstan and Cranston who suddenly sobered up. There was more at stake than just a thousand crowns. Gaunt was waiting for him to fail whilst the king was determined that his uncle be brooked and this arrogant Italian lord be shown the true mettle of English wit.

At last the herald commanded silence and the king, not waiting for his uncle, stood up.

‘My sweet Uncle, my Lord of Cremona, Gentlemen – the wager is now common knowledge. Two weeks ago a mystey was posed,’ the king’s hand fell to the wrist of the Italian lord sitting on his left, ‘by our visitor. A mystery which has taxed the minds and subtle intellects of the learned at this court and elsewhere. Sir John accepted the wager of a thousand crowns.’ The young king clicked his fingers and a page hurried from the shadows bearing a scarlet cushion on which rested a sealed scroll. Richard picked this up. ‘The answer lies here Now, sirs, is there anyone in this hall who can solve the mystery?’

A murmur of dissent greeted his words. The Italian lord leaned forward, his smug smile evident for all to see. The king turned to Cranston. ‘My Lord Coroner, can you?’

Cranston stood, coming round the table to the front of the dais. He bowed low from the waist.

‘Your Grace, I believe I can.’

A deep sigh greeted his words. The king sat down, sending a mischievous glance at Athelstan. Gaunt leaned back in his chair, elbows on its arms, steepling his fingers, whilst the Italian lord began to chew nervously on his lip as Sir John, a consummate actor, slipped from one role to another – no longer the bombastic knight, the tippling toper or the angry law officer. Athelstan hugged himself. Cranston was going to demonstrate that beneath that fat red face and white grizzled head was a brain and wit as sharp as in any university hall or inn of court.

Sir John, warming to his part, walked up and down the dais with his hands held together before him, waiting for the murmuring to die away. He did not begin until he had the attention of everyone. He turned, and his blue eyes caught those of the young king.

‘Your Grace, I believe the mystery is this.’ Cranston licked his lips and raised his voice so all could hear. ‘A young man slept in the scarlet chamber and was found dead, staring through the window. A priest from a local village who had come up through the snow died the same day. However, the most mysterious deaths were those of the two soldiers placed on guard in the chamber.’ Cranston half-turned. ‘You may remember how one killed the other with his crossbow before collapsing and dying himself.’ He paused for effect. ‘No other person entered that room. No secret passageways or tunnels existed. No poisoned food or drink were served. Four men died, one killed by an arrow. Yet,’ Cranston held up a hand, ‘three of them were poisoned.’

‘How?’ Cremona asked.

‘My Lord, the killer was the bed.’

Athelstan caught the look of surprise on the Italian’s face. Cranston was hunting along the right track.

‘Explain! Explain!’ Richard cried.

Gaunt had his hand up to his mouth, his head slightly turned sideways. The rest of the people in the hall were deathly silent, the supercilious smiles fast disappearing. Athelstan gazed round. Even the knight bannerets, the men-at-arms in their royal livery, were now staring at Cranston. The Dominican realised that he had become so involved in the business of Blackfriars and at St Erconwald’s, he had failed to comprehend the deep interest in the wager Cranston had accepted. Now, at last, he fully understood Lady Maude’s concern, not just about Cranston’s losing a thousand crowns but, far more precious, his reputation; risking the fate of dismissal as a kind of court jester rather than being recognised and respected as the King’s Coroner in the City of London.