Roseblood (4 page)

At the bottom of the alleyway stood a tavern; the peeling sign above a narrow doorway proclaimed it to be the Key to Heaven. The fugitives disappeared inside. Sevigny, following, kicked the door open and entered the dingy low-beamed taproom. Rush lights gleamed on overturned barrels. An oil lamp, slung on a wall hook, glittered through the gloom. Shadows jerked and vermin scuttled through the mush of filthy reeds on the floor.

‘Where?’ Sevigny walked across to the common table squeezed between stacks of barrels.

‘Where what?’ replied the lean-faced tapster.

‘Hang him!’ Sevigny stepped back. ‘Put a rope over the rafters and hang him for being caught red-handed sheltering fleeing traitors. Hang him!’ he repeated, pointing to one of the rafters.

Skulkin hastily found a rope; one end was sifted over a blackened beam, the onions and hams dangling there knocked aside. A noose was slipped around the hapless tapster’s neck as he struggled, fighting the bailiffs who hoisted him on to one of the barrels. Skulkin kicked this away, and for a few heartbeats the man danced in the air. Then Sevigny sliced the rope with his sword and the fallen tapster, face all red and sweaty, eyes popping, gestured at a door across the tavern.

‘There,’ he gasped. ‘I will take you.’

Skulkin hustled him to his feet. They went through the cellar door, down stone steps. The floor below was sloppy with wine and ale seeping from barrels and casks. A filthy cobwebbed path ran between these; at the far end stood a huge rounded vat. The sweating, gasping tapster pulled this aside to reveal a darkened tunnel. Even from where he stood, Sevigny could hear the clatter of those he pursued.

‘Release Caradoc!’

Skulkin obeyed. The mastiff’s muzzle was removed, the leash untied and Caradoc darted like a demon into the darkness. Sevigny and the others followed, carrying fluttering lamps, pausing to light the sconce torches fixed into wall crevices. The tunnel was narrow, its ceiling just above their heads, and the walls either side glistened with damp mould. An offensive stench caught mouth, nose and throat. One of the bailiffs murmured that it was an old sewer built by the ancients, a truly macabre place. Now and again they would pass mounds of bones glistening white like snow, tangled skeletons that rattled as the horde of rats nesting there fled from the light.

The gasps and groans of Sevigny’s escort were abruptly silenced by a deep bell-like bellowing.

‘Caradoc’s trapped them,’ Skulkin explained.

As if in answer, further chilling growls echoed, followed by hideous screams. The bailiffs hastened on, a mob of men in the dim flickering light. Sevigny followed cautiously. He and his uncle, Sir Philip Malpas, had discussed Candlemas’s apparent disappearance from the city. The sheriff’s lurchers, the two bounty hunters Cosmas and Damian, had informed him about these tunnels that ran under Smithfield and led directly to the Great Sanctuary in St Paul’s graveyard; they were the refuge of outlaws and wolfsheads, who could claim ancient privileges against officers of the law. Candlemas and his two companions must have thought they were safe down here, but Caradoc had neatly trapped them, forcing them like fleeing sheep into an enclave. The only protection they carried was torches and knives. Caradoc now lay crouched before them, ready to spring at any aggressive move by his quarry. One of the three had apparently tried to resist and been ferociously savaged, his belly ripped open. The wounded felon lay in a brimming pool of blood, groaning and pleading.

‘Well, my friends.’ Sevigny stepped into the torchlight. ‘Master Candlemas, former priest, is it not? You’re well known for your disguise as a Friar of the Sack. I did wonder whether you would let members of your coven die alone. You couldn’t resist the challenge, could you? And these two must be your accomplices. Devil-Drawer, a failed painter, and Cross-Biter, one of London’s finest pimps and panders. All three of you have a bounty on your head. Silence!’ he shouted at Devil-Drawer; the wounded felon was now screaming in agony. ‘All three of you are wanted dead or alive, and you can’t claim sanctuary. Oh, for the love of silence.’

Sevigny drew his dagger, bent over Devil-Drawer and swiftly sliced the wounded man’s throat from ear to ear. Devil-Drawer kicked and gargled, choking on his own blood until he fell silent.

‘As I was saying…’ Sevigny stared at the remaining two terrified felons. ‘You can join your friends on the scaffold, or I could let Caradoc rip you to shreds. Or…’ He paused.

‘Or what?’ Candlemas took a step forward, only to halt as this terrifying clerk raised his dagger.

‘You could turn King’s Approver and win yourself a pardon. Obtain some money and cross the Narrow Seas for ever.’

‘And whom do we accuse?’

‘Why,’ Sevigny smiled, ‘Master Simon Roseblood!’

London, April 1455

S
imon Roseblood, vintner, taverner and alderman of Queenhithe ward on the north bank of the Thames, rose from the great throne-like chair in the sacristy of his parish church of All Hallows. Roseblood had many titles. He had sealed indentures with the city council to manage, control and direct all the scavengers, rakers and gongmen in each of the city wards. His enemies called him Duke of the Cesspool and Lord of the Bum-Pit. They claimed that his family escutcheon should be a huge blue-arsed fly feeding on a turd. Naturally they dared not say that to his face. Simon Roseblood was a London lord, one with fingers in many pies, a man who filled his goblet at numerous fountains. Now he stopped in front of the great sacristy table and stared at his own reflection in the highly polished piece of metal that served as a mirror.

‘Recognise yourself, Roseblood?’ he murmured.

He stood for a while studying the lean lined face, the skin all shaven, the silver-threaded black hair combed back over his broad forehead, the slightly slanted green eyes, the stubborn mouth and chin. He patted the quilted russet jerkin and checked the points on his bottle-green hose. He fastened his sword belt and swung the pure dark blue woollen cloak about his shoulders. Then he eased off the soft buskins and, hopping from foot to foot, quietly cursing, put on his boots and straightened up.

The rest of the parish council had left. The day was drawing on. Soon the Vespers bell would toll and the beacon fires proclaiming the curfew would flare into life at the top of the church tower, to be answered by other beacons in steeples throughout the city. Roseblood stared around the sacristy, checking that all was well. The massive aumbry for storing vestments in all the varieties of liturgical colours had been clasped shut. The solid carved parish chest was firmly locked; Roseblood, as church warden and wine bearer, carried one of only three keys to it. Everything was in order: the polished card table, the caskets and coffers, the brilliantly hued triptych on one wall, a huge replica of the San Damiano Cross on the other. Roseblood quietly translated the Latin inscription on the polished oak tablet beneath the crucifix. ‘Sacred to the memory of John Beaufort, first Duke of Somerset, Captain General of the King’s forces in France… All gone,’ he murmured to himself.

He left the sacristy and wandered into the darkened sanctuary. He scrutinised the high altar with its heavy bejewelled velvet frontal; the polished oak chair and quilted stools for the celebrant and his assistants; the altar crucifix of gold and ivory flanked by two tall candlesticks of precious metal holding the purest beeswax candles. At each corner of the altar rose an oaken column, highly decorated, with a transverse beam above; along this stood silver-gilt statues of Christ, the Virgin Mary and Roseblood’s patron, Simon Peter. From the beam hung a rich tapestry, embroidered with gold and silver thread, portraying the Marriage at Cana. His gaze was caught by the dazzle of light from the stained-glass windows high in the sanctuary wall depicting scenes from the life of St Peter: fishing on the Sea of Galilee and confronting the warlock Simon Magus among them.

Roseblood flinched at an unexpected sound further down the darkened nave. The doors, except for the corpse door, should be locked. Eleanor would be praying in her anchorhold, the Swan’s-Nest, a converted chapel in the northern transept. Of course Ignacio, Roseblood’s deaf-mute henchman, that subtle shadow of a man, would be watching from the darkness; these were dangerously fraught times. Roseblood tapped his dagger hilt. He had heard the rumours. How those two miscreants Candlemas and Cross-Biter had been taken and hidden away. How Malpas, that conniving sheriff, had promised them a pardon if they turned King’s Approver. Roseblood’s spy had given him dire warnings about what was being planned. How the sheriff had been joined by his kinsman Amadeus Sevigny, York’s man, a mailed clerk with a reputation for being a ruthless blood-seeker.

Roseblood breathed in as he prayed for protection. He left the sanctuary, going under the exquisitely sculpted oaken rood screen. At the bottom of the sanctuary steps he genuflected towards the glowing red sanctuary light in its mother-of-pearl glass case hanging on the end of a silver chain next to the richly jewelled pyx under its silken canopy. He turned as the corpse door in the far transept opened. A figure stood against the light, a fearsome spectre, his cloak fanning out like the wings of a bat.

‘Who are you?’ Roseblood caught his breath. Something about this stranger frightened him, as if he exuded a miasma of fear.

‘Amadeus Sevigny. Clerk and henchman of His Grace, Richard, Duke of York, special envoy to Sir Philip Malpas, sheriff of London, now his adviser on certain, how shall I say, delicate issues.’ Sevigny approached and extended a hand. Roseblood did not grasp it; he just raised his own as if in greeting and let it drop.

‘As you wish,’ Sevigny murmured. He jabbed a finger, ‘You sir, must be Master Simon Roseblood, alderman.’ He waved a hand. ‘Et cetera, et cetera. And you have just signalled to your constant shadow, the deaf-mute Ignacio, not to do anything foolish, which makes me think that both of you are wise men.’ He paused as the corpse door opened and a small, fat-faced man waddled into the nave. ‘This,’ Sevigny didn’t even turn, ‘is Walter Ramler, city official and personal scribe to Sir Philip Malpas.’

‘I know who he is,’ Roseblood retorted. He was wary of Sevigny. A raven, he concluded, darkly garbed, be it his boots, hose, padded doublet or cloak; the only relief was the collar and cuffs of the white cambric shirt beneath. Sevigny’s face was saturnine, sallow and lean, his black hair closely cropped. He was tall, slender and wiry. A handsome man, though his full lips seemed ready to sneer and those clever eyes eager to mock.

‘Ignacio is here, Master Roseblood?’

‘Very close.’

‘Italian, is he not?’

‘Castilian. Captured as a child by the Moors, trained as a Janissary. Rescued by me when—’

‘The late but not so lamented Duke of Somerset’s war cog intercepted a galley near the Pillars of Hercules, close to the entrance to the Middle Seas. He was chained, was he not? The galley was capsizing; you were on its fighting platform. You could not bear to see a chained man drown.’

‘He pleaded with his eyes,’ Roseblood answered. ‘You seem to know a great deal about me.’

‘Oh, I do, I do.’ Sevigny peeled off his leather gloves.

‘And your business?’

‘In a while, Master Roseblood, though I suspect you already suspect why I am here, which makes us all highly suspicious. Oh, by the way, I must inform you: like your good self and Master Ignacio, I know the sign language you learnt from the Carthusians, that unspoken tongue they use during their Magnum Silentium, the Great Silence.’ Sevigny was now so close, Roseblood could smell the clerk’s fragrant perfume whilst also noting the healed scars on that clever face.

‘A good cook, Ignacio.’ Sevigny raised his eyebrows. ‘Or so I understand. He buys well. He can tell an ancient hen or pheasant by its sunken eyes or the stink of its beak. A clean cook, who insists the spit be regularly scrubbed with sand and water. His speciality is a chine of beef or a fresh young capon—’

‘Master Sevigny, why are you here?’

‘The Chantry Chapel of the Doom? The place where your late departed brother—’

‘Murdered brother!’

‘Where your late brother lies buried.’ Sevigny spread his hands. ‘I would like to pay my respects.’

Roseblood stared at this sinister clerk, then led him into the darkness. He paused and stared down the nave, glimpsing a shadow deeper than the rest close to the baptismal font. Ignacio was watching. Roseblood nodded at Ramler, the scribe, and led Sevigny towards the side chapel that had been transformed into a chantry dedicated to his dead brother’s memory. Here, behind the ornately sculpted gleaming oak screen, with its carved bosses and geometric shapes, mass was offered for the repose of the soul of Edmund Roseblood, a daily occurrence just before the Angelus bell tolled.

Roseblood pushed open the heavy elm-wood door. The chapel inside was an island of peace and light, the air fragrant with the perfume of beeswax and incense. Immediately facing them was a table tomb surmounted by a carved life-size replica of the dead man in his guild robes. The Purbeck marble sepulchre was positioned just beneath a round rose window, which caught the light so that a vivid array of blues, reds, greens and golds bathed the square chapel in its own special glory. To the right of the entrance stood the altar, now covered in a silver-fringed purple mantle; above it hung a stark black crucifix, and two prie-dieux stood before the dais. On the far wall, a gorgeously painted fresco proclaimed the exploits of John Beaufort, first Duke of Somerset. In the corner, to the left of the altar, stood a replica of the statue of Our Lady of Walsingham, beneath its plinth a polished bronze stand for candles and tapers.