Murder Most Holy (3 page)

‘This time I was barred from going but my aunt later told me that when she entered the scarlet chamber, she found the swordsman on the floor, a crossbow bolt embedded deep in his chest, whilst the Genoese, still clutching his arbalest, lay sprawled near him. He had died the same way as the rest, but something evil in that room, some demonic force, my aunt concluded, had forced this soldier to kill his own companion before he too perished.’

Galeazzo suddenly clapped his hands. ‘My aunt had done all she could. The corpses were removed, masses sung, and the scarlet chamber once again locked and barred. The years passed. I became a young man. Then, one day, an archivist from a local monastery heard of the terrible story. He demanded an audience with my aunt and said he could resolve the mystery of the scarlet chamber.’ Galeazzo shrugged. ‘Your Grace, fellow guests, I can proceed no further.’ He shook his head at the angry grumblings from the guests who felt cheated of a good story. ‘I leave that to the subtle wit of My Lord Coroner.’ He looked squarely at Cranston. ‘Sir John, do you have further questions?’

Cranston shook his head disbelievingly. ‘Four people died in that room and no one entered? No food or drink were given? And when there were two, one killed the other?’

Galeazzo smiled and nodded.

‘Unbelievable!’

‘My Lord Coroner,’ Cremona announced for all to hear, ‘what I tell you is the truth!’

Suddenly the young king rose to his feet. “The challenge has been given and accepted!’ he piped. ‘But, sweet Uncle, and My Lord of Cremona, there must be justice. How long has Sir John to solve this mystery?’

‘Two weeks,’ Galeazzo replied. ‘Two weeks from tonight I shall return to this hall and Sir John must present his solution.’

Cranston smiled at the young king for publicly supporting him. ‘How will I know the solution I offer is the correct one? My Lord, I mean no offence but there may be six solutions, all correct?’

Galeazzo stroked his silky, black moustache. ‘No, Sir John,’ he murmured, and snapped his fingers at a retainer standing behind him. ‘The documents!’

The squire handed them over. One was a roll of parchment which Galeazzo handed to Cranston.

‘This relates the mystery. You will find it as I have described it.’ He picked up a square piece of vellum, sealed with four purple blobs of wax. ‘This is the solution.’ Cremona handed it to the king. ‘Your Grace, I entrust it to your care so no foul play can be suspected.’

A hum of approval rose from the hall. The young king clapped his hands in glee whilst Gaunt grinned at Cranston.

‘Two weeks, My Lord Coroner,’ murmured Gaunt, and gripped Cranston by the arm. ‘Don’t worry, Sir John. If you lose the wager, I will pay the debt.’

Cranston’s jaw dropped at the terrible trap he had blundered into. It was not merely the loss of the gold or the disgrace of losing the wager, which he surely would; Gaunt had used this as a subtle device to please his Italian guest and, more importantly, to get the coroner into his debt. Cranston had the ear of the mayor, sheriffs and leading burgesses of London. The coroner was a man respected for his integrity and blunt criticism of the court. If he accepted Gaunt’s money he would be in the Regent’s debt and, within a year, would be regarded by everyone as Gaunt’s creature. Cranston’s rage boiled within him. He had to bite back a scathing reply and instead clenched the edge of the table until his fingers hurt, deaf to the conversations going on around him. He caught and held the Regent’s gaze. Cranston drew a deep breath.

‘My Lord of Lancaster, I thank you for your generosity, but I will not need your money. I will solve the mystery.’

Gaunt smiled and patted him on the arm.

‘Of course, Sir John. And I am going to enjoy hearing your solution.’

Gaunt turned to converse with his young nephew. Cranston could only sit, seething with anger at both himself and the subtlety of princes.

The banquet ended an hour later. Cranston collected his beaver hat and wool-lined cloak from a page boy and stamped through the narrow streets to the nearest tavern. He ordered a separate table, two good candles and the biggest jug of ale the tavern could furnish. For an hour he re-read the mystery posed by Cremona and, the more he read, the deeper his depression grew. At last, full of ale and self-pity, he left the tavern and made his lugubrious way home. Not even the prospect of seeing Maude’s cheerful face or his little poppets, Francis and Stephen, could penetrate the coroner’s deepening gloom.

Brother Athelstan rose early. The previous night had been clear and he had enjoyed studying the heavens with Bonaventure, the ever-growing church cat, squatting beside him watching him curiously. Afterwards Athelstan had taken his telescope and charts back to the only lockable chest in the priest’s small house, gone across to St Erconwald’s to chant Vespers with Bonaventure still beside him, then back for some light ale, a piece of bread smeared with honey, milk for Bonaventure, and so to bed.

Brother Athelstan felt pleased with himself and softly sang a song from boyhood as he washed, shaved and donned his black and white robe. Beside him faithful Bonaventure stretched and yawned, licking his whiskers with his small pink tongue in hopeful expectation of a dish of fish and a bowl of milk. Athelstan re-arranged the small towel, looping it over the wooden lavarium, and crouched to stroke the cat, scratching it softly between its ears until Bonaventure purred with pleasure.

‘You are getting fat, master cat. The more I see of you the more I think of Cranston.’

Bonaventure seemed to smile and snuggled closer.

‘You are getting fat, Bonaventure,’ Athelstan repeated. ‘And I am not feeding you this morning. You will have to hunt for your breakfast.’

Athelstan gazed round his small, sparsely furnished bedchamber. He tidied the horsehair blanket on his trestle bed, emptied the water he had used out of the window and jumped as he heard an angry grunt from below. He looked down and found Ursula the pig woman’s fat sow staring up at him. Athelstan quietly swore and slammed the shutters closed. He hated that bloody pig: it seemed to have an almost demonic intelligence. As soon as the cabbages and other vegetables Athelstan had carefully planted began to sprout, that damned animal would come lurching along to help itself.

‘I wonder if Huddle would build a fence?’ Athelstan murmured. He shrugged. But there again, he had other jobs for Huddle and, despite the pig’s forays on to his small vegetable patch, Athelstan felt a small glow of triumph. Today, Sunday, the sixth after Easter 1379, the workmen would begin work on converting the sanctuary. They would take down the rood screen, lift the cracked, water-soaked flagstones and lay new ones, carefully cut and painted black and white. Athelstan didn’t care if it was Sunday, it was the best day for work and most appropriate for the beginning of a major attempt to beautify God’s house.

Humming the song, he checked that the coffer containing his astrological charts and telescope was firmly padlocked and went down the rickety stairs into the kitchen. Bonaventure, tail held high, followed as reverently as any acolyte at holy mass. The kitchen was as bare as Athelstan’s bedroom, containing a few cupboards, a table and some stools. A small fire still glowed in the hearth, slowly warming a pot of soup Athelstan had been cooking since Friday. Benedicta had advised him that stock from meat should not be discarded but boiled for a number of days, spiced and allowed to bubble until it provided the most appetising of soups. Athelstan, a hopeless cook, was delighted with the succulent smells now filling the kitchen. He went into the small scullery, cut himself a crust of bread and poured a cup of watered wine. Bonaventure followed him in and looked pleadingly up.

‘No milk, Bonaventure,’ Athelstan snapped.

The cat purred and brushed against his leg.

‘All right.’ Athelstan relented. He picked up an earthenware pitcher and poured the cream into a bowl on the floor. He admired the black sleekness of Bonaventure as this lord of the alleyways, this one-eared king of cats, daintily lapped at the milk. Bonaventure likes his milk, Athelstan thought, as Cranston likes his wine. The friar walked absentmindedly back into the kitchen, sat on a stool and gazed into the dying embers of the fire. He wondered how the good coroner was faring for he, like Sir John, had been mystified by the Regent’s invitation, Cranston being no friend of the court party.

‘I hope he’s careful,’ Athelstan murmured to himself. He looked into his wine cup and smiled. The coroner had a big belly, a big mouth and a big heart, but Athelstan feared Cranston’s forthright honesty would one day lead him into danger. He closed his eyes and said a short prayer for Cranston and his wife, dainty, quiet Lady Maude, the only person Cranston truly feared. Athelstan shook his head that such a petite lady could produce such sturdy twin boys as Francis and Stephen. True, she had experienced a great deal of pain in childbirth, a little fever afterwards, but now the Lady Maude even looked younger whilst Cranston went around proud as a peacock. The monk laughed softly to himself as he remembered how, only a few weeks ago, he had baptised the twin boys at the small font just inside the entrance of St Erconwald’s. The boys had roared their heads off and Athelstan had had to fight to keep a straight face for both of them looked like peas out of the same pod. No one could doubt they were Cranston’s sons: red-faced, bawling, bald-headed, burping and farting, when they weren’t howling for the generous tits of a now exhausted-looking wet nurse. During the entire ceremony, Cranston, the beaming father, swayed slightly backwards and forwards as he took the occasional nip from his miraculous wineskin – so-called because it never seemed to empty. The christening had ended in chaos when Ursula the pig woman’s sow had come into the church and Bonaventure had leapt into Cranston’s lap. Cecily the courtesan had her face slapped by Watkin the dung-collector’s wife who claimed the wench was ogling her husband. All the time Lady Maude’s relatives, and Sir John’s noble acquaintances from the city, had stared in open-mouthed horror at the mummery being played out.

Nevertheless, the day had ended well at a small banquet held in Cranston’s garden behind his large house across the river. Many of the parishioners had been invited and Athelstan had never laughed so much in his life, the climax being when Cranston, much the worse for drink, fell fast asleep on top of a manure pile, a sleeping baby son nestling gently in each arm.

Athelstan started as Bonaventure, quiet as a thief, jumped into his lap.

‘Come on, cat,’ the monk murmured. ‘We have mass to offer, prayers to be said.’

He took the small bunch of keys which swung from the hook on his belt and left to open the church. The sow gave him a friendly grunt as he passed and continued to chomp merrily at the cabbages. Bonaventure looked at the pig disdainfully and followed his master across. Crim, one of Watkin the dung-collector’s large brood, was waiting on the steps.

‘You’ve come to serve at mass, Crim?’

‘Yes, Father.’

Athelstan looked at his half-washed face. The lad was a mischievous angel but this morning he looked troubled, guilty even, refusing to meet Athelstan’s eye. The friar ignored this. After all, Crim’s parents were always fighting. There had probably been trouble at home. He unlocked the door and walked into the church, Crim and Bonaventure slipping in behind him. Athelstan rested against the baptismal font and gazed appreciatively around. Yes, this humble parish church was beginning to grow beautiful: the wooden rafters had been reinforced and the roof re-tiled, so it had bravely withstood the winter gales and rain. The floor of the nave was now even and well swept whilst Huddle the painter, a young man of indeterminate origin but with a Godgiven skill for etching and painting, was filling every available space on the walls and pillars with colourful scenes from the Old and New Testaments. All the windows were now filled with horn or glass and Athelstan was determined to win the favour of some powerful benefactor who would buy stained glass for the church.

Yet St Erconwald’s was more than a house of prayer. Here parishioners met to do business or celebrate the great liturgical feasts. The young people came to be married, brought their children to be baptised, attended mass, had their sins shriven and, when God called them, were laid out to rest in the great parish coffin, wheeled in front of the rood screen for their last benediction.

Athelstan drummed his fingers on the wooden top of the baptismal font and hummed the tune he had been singing earlier. At first he had hated the parish, been repelled by this dirty church, but now he had grown to love it and the colourful bustling characters who swarmed round him, touching his solitary life with the drama of their own. Crim, used to his parish priest’s reveries, skipped along the nave pretending to be a horse and Athelstan suddenly remembered Philomel, the former war horse, now his mount and constant companion.

‘God save us!’ he muttered. ‘The old man will be kicking the stable door down!’

He hurried out of the church and round the house to the small shed now converted into Philomel’s stable. The old horse snickered, shaking his head as soon as Athelstan appeared and kicking his foot softly against the door. Athelstan quickly fed him a mixture of oats and bran and threw a little hay into the stable, for Philomel, despite his ponderous gait and slow ways, had a voracious appetite. When he returned to the church, Leif the one-legged beggar was sitting on the steps.

‘Good morrow, Father.’

‘Good morrow, Leif, and how is Sir John?’

The beggar scratched his head and his horsy face became even more sombre.

‘My Lord Coroner is not in a good mood,’ he answered. ‘I told him I was coming across the bridge to beg so he sent a message. He hopes to see you this evening.’

‘Oh, bugger!’ Athelstan whispered under his breath.

‘Father,’ Leif pleaded, ‘I’m hungry and it was a long walk.’

‘The house is open, Leif. There’s some broth on the fire and wine in the buttery. Help yourself.’

Leif needed no second invitation and, despite his ungainly gait, rose and sped like a whippet into the house. Athelstan watched him go and thought about Cranston. Another murder? he wondered. Or was it something personal?