The Assassin's Riddle (10 page)

‘Sorry, Father, but the water-tippler gave me a free drink, cool and sweet it was. Where are you going, Father? I did chase the sow from your garden! It’s a good job you didn’t come earlier.’ Crim chattered on, running alongside Athelstan and looking over his shoulder at Benedicta. ‘Cecily the courtesan has been here!’

‘What?’ Athelstan paused. ‘And who was with her?’

‘I don’t know,’ the boy mumbled, his face crestfallen.

Athelstan ruffled the boy’s hair. ‘Go and bring a lighted candle,’ he said kindly.

‘Oh, there’s a woman in the death house,’ Crim retorted. ‘Is there a corpse there? Can I see it?’

‘Get a candle.’

Athelstan continued down the narrow path which wound by the burial mounds, battered crosses and worn gravestones. The small corpse house stood under the shade of a yew tree in the far corner of the cemetery. The door was open. Inside, Alison knelt beside the corpse which lay in a wooden casket. She’d already lit a candle and put it on a niche in the wall. The air was sweet, not the usual stale, rather dank odour. Alison got up as Athelstan entered, her cheeks soaked in tears.

‘I’m sorry,’ Athelstan apologised. ‘I came back and I forgot.’

‘It’s all right, Father,’ Alison replied. ‘I bought a coffin from a gravedigger who lives near Crutched Friars. He also brought it across for me.’

She went to lift the lid of the coffin. Athelstan helped her to take it off. Chapler’s corpse did not look so ghastly now. Even the hair had been combed, whilst Alison had filled the coffin on either side of the body with crushed rosemary. She stood, hands joined, Benedicta behind her, as Athelstan began the service for the dead. He anointed the corpse, its forehead, eyes, nose, mouth, hands and chest. Crim stole in, a lighted candle in his hand. When Athelstan had finished, he recited the Office for the Dead and ended it with the Requiem.

‘Eternal rest grant to him, O Lord.’

Benedicta and Alison took up the refrain: ‘And let eternal light shine upon him.’

Once they had said the prayer, Athelstan ordered the lid to be replaced and screwed down. ‘It can now be taken into church,’ he declared.

‘No, Father, leave it here for the night.’ Alison’s sweet face puckered into a smile. ‘Edwin liked the grass, the loneliness, the flowers. It’s pleasant out here.’

‘You are sure you want him buried at St Erconwald’s?’ Athelstan asked.

‘Oh yes, Father.’

‘Then I’ll say a Requiem Mass tomorrow morning, just after dawn.’ He turned. ‘This is Benedicta.’

Both women exchanged smiles.

‘You can stay with her. I’ll have Pike the ditcher prepare a grave.’ Athelstan walked out and pointed across the graveyard. ‘Perhaps there in the corner? In summer it catches the sun.’

Alison tearfully agreed. Athelstan took off his stole. He handed that and the oils to Crim, asking him to take them back to his house.

‘So, Mistress Alison, will you accept my offer to stay?’

‘Yes, Father, I will.’

Benedicta came over and linked her arm through that of the young woman. ‘Do you have enough money?’ she asked.

‘Oh yes,’ Alison replied. ‘Edwin was a good brother. What he earned he sent to me.’

‘We have a parish council meeting now,’ Athelstan explained. ‘You can wait here or, if you want to join us . . .?’

Alison squeezed Benedicta’s hand. ‘I’d like to come, Father.’

Athelstan made to lead them down the path.

‘Brother Athelstan.’ Alison was now standing straight.

The friar was slightly alarmed at the expression in her face and eyes; there was something about this young woman, a steel beneath the velvet.

‘What is it, mistress?’

‘My brother’s assassins. You will apprehend them? They will hang for what they did?’

‘Them?’ Athelstan came back. ‘Mistress Alison, what makes you think there are more than one?’

‘Oh.’ Alison pulled a face. ‘Edwin was a vigorous young man. He would not have given up his life so easily.’

‘Do you suspect anyone?’ Athelstan asked.

‘One of those clerks,’ she replied. ‘Especially the arrogant one, Alcest. Edwin often talked about him: he didn’t like him and Alcest certainly didn’t like Edwin.’

‘But murder!’ Athelstan exclaimed. ‘Mistress Alison, sometimes I do not like some of my parishioners, yet that’s no excuse for the most terrible crime of all!’

‘Just a feeling,’ Alison replied, running a finger along her lower lip. ‘Something in the soul, Father.’

Athelstan knew the young woman was right. The clerks of the Green Wax had a great deal to answer for, but what? Murder? How, if they had spent the night Chapler had been killed carousing in some tavern chamber? Athelstan walked down the cemetery path; behind him Benedicta consoled Alison, listening to details about her brother’s murder and reassuring her that Sir John Cranston, for all his love of claret, had a mind as sharp as a razor and a passion for justice.

They went round to the front of the church and Athelstan smiled at his parish council.

‘We’ve been waiting, Father. You’re late!’ Hig the pigman bellowed, his dark-set face made even more ugly by a scowl.

‘I had to anoint a corpse,’ Athelstan explained. He introduced Alison.

‘Don’t you go lecturing our priest.’ Watkin the dung-collector came down the steps, almost knocking Hig the pigman flying. Watkin’s bulbous face was red, his eyes popping and, even from where he stood, Athelstan could smell his ale-drenched breath. ‘I am leader of the parish council.’ Watkin turned. ‘I am the one who speaks to Father.’

‘Not for long!’ Pike the ditcher’s wife called out from the back.

Athelstan clapped his hands. ‘Come on! Come on!’ The friar intervened before a fight broke out.

Ranulf the rat-catcher, dressed in his black tarred hood and jerkin despite the weather, opened the church door and ushered them in. Athelstan plucked the sleeve of Cecily the courtesan. She was climbing the steps slowly, clutching at her dress and swinging her bottom provocatively at Pike the ditcher.

‘Cecily,’ Athelstan whispered.

‘Yes, Father?’ The woman’s cornflower-blue eyes and lovely girlish face, framed in a mass of golden curls, looked more angelic than ever.

‘Cecily, when will you learn,’ Athelstan whispered, ‘that only those who are dead are supposed to lie down in the graveyard?’

‘Why, Father.’ Cecily’s eyes rounded even further. ‘I only went to pick some flowers.’

‘Is that the truth?’

‘No, Father, but that’s all I’m going to tell you.’ And the minx scampered off.

The parish council met near the baptistry, sitting on benches formed in the shape of a square. Watkin took the place of honour on Athelstan’s right, Pike the ditcher on the left, followed by the usual fight for places amongst the rest. Benedicta and Alison found seats on the bench opposite Athelstan and he began the meeting with a prayer. There were the usual items of business: the grass in the cemetery needed cutting; the arrangements for tomorrow’s funeral. Everyone looked sympathetically at Alison. Pike offered to dig the grave, Hig and Watkin to carry the coffin. Athelstan asked who had been drinking raucously two nights previously just outside the church. No one answered, though Bladdersniff the bailiff, Pike and Watkin stared at the floor as if they had never seen it before.

‘Now,’ Athelstan continued. ‘The preparations for Holy Rood Day. In about a month’s time, on the fourteenth of September, we celebrate the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.’

That was the signal for everyone to get up and admire Huddle’s new crucifix. The painter, his long, horsy face bright with pleasure, described how he had achieved his masterpiece. Everyone ‘oohed’ and ‘aahed’, followed by general agreement that, this time, Huddle had surpassed himself.

‘Now,’ Athelstan continued when they had resumed their seats. ‘Rood Day is a holy day. We will have Mass followed by a solemn blessing of the crucifix.’

‘I will carry it,’ Watkin bellowed.

‘You bloody won’t!’ Pike roared back. ‘You do everything, Watkin!’

‘I don’t lie down in the cemetery,’ the dung-collector hissed spitefully.

‘What’s that?’ Pike’s virago of a wife leaned forward.

‘Hush now.’ Tab the tinker, sitting next to her, grasped her hand. ‘You know Pike has to dig the graves and look after them.’

Pike smiled across at the tinker and Athelstan sensed there were new shifting alliances on the parish council.

‘After the blessing,’ he continued, ‘we will have church ales and some games, followed by the parish feast in the evening.’

‘What about the ceremony?’ Pernell the Fleming pulled her hair away from her face.

Athelstan quietly groaned: he’d hoped they had forgotten that.

‘You know, Father,’ Pernell continued, ‘a cross is always taken round the cemetery. Who’ll be Christ this year?’

After that came the descent into hell, as bitter words were exchanged about who would do what. Athelstan stared across at Alison. She, like Benedicta, was desperately trying not to laugh. At last peace reigned but only after Athelstan had got up, clapped his hands and glared around. Ranulf the rat-catcher would carry the cross, he decided; Watkin and Pike would be Roman soldiers; other roles were shared out. In the end, only one person didn’t have a part, Pike the ditcher’s wife. She boiled with fury as she paid the price for her spiteful tongue and malicious comments. Time and again Athelstan tried to reallocate or introduce a new role but the woman refused to be mollified. More dangerously, the virago was glaring malevolently at Cecily the courtesan who, of course, smiled sweetly back.

‘Father.’ Alison Chapler got to her feet. ‘Father, I have a suggestion. My family originally came from Norfolk. We always celebrated Holy Rood Day. I notice you have one thing missing, the Kitsch Witch.’

‘Who?’ Athelstan asked.

‘According to legend,’ Alison continued, clearly enjoying herself, ‘the witch was a woman who lived in the Valley of Death near Jerusalem: she was despised by all.’

Athelstan just prayed that no one would make a comment.

‘Anyway,’ Alison continued, ‘when Christ was crucified she stood afar off and, because of her faith, she was transformed and became a saint.’

Everyone clapped and peace was restored.

In a small chamber on the ground floor of the Chancery of the Green Wax, Sir John Cranston surveyed the ruined corpse of William Ollerton, former clerk.

‘The poison must have been deadly.’ Cranston tapped the dead man’s boot with the toe of his own. ‘Pernicious and venomous, eh?’

The coroner drummed his fingers on his stomach. He had been sitting in his garden, watching the poppets play with Gog and Magog and reflecting on his learned treatise, ‘On the Governance of London’, when Bailiff Flaxwith had arrived with the news. Cranston had cursed but left: the report of Ollerton’s death would soon reach the Savoy Palace and the Regent would begin asking questions. Now Cranston had a few of his own. Beside him Master Tibault Lesures seemed to be on the point of fainting, his face pallid and sweat-soaked, eyes blinking. The Master of the Rolls licked his lips, making small, nervous gestures with his fingers. The three clerks Elflain, Napham and Alcest were more composed.

‘Let us begin again,’ Cranston said. ‘You have a cup . . .?’

‘Yes, Sir John,’ Lesures agreed. ‘Each of us has a cup with the first letter of our surname on it. Late in the afternoon, just before we finish, it is customary for us to have a goblet of malmsey. It washes away the dust and sweetens the mouth.’

‘And these cups were on a tray?’

Cranston left the corpse and walked over to a small table where all the cups, some still half full, stood on a pewter dish. He picked up Ollerton’s and sniffed at it. He caught the sweet smell of honey and a more acrid odour. Sir John recalled Athelstan’s words about arsenic and deadly nightshade.

‘They are both deadly in their effect,’ the friar had declared, ‘yet easy to disguise.’

Cranston picked up all the cups and sniffed carefully. He tried to stop the juices in his own mouth gathering by remembering the corpse now lying stretched out on the floor.

‘And who washed these cups every morning?’

‘We took it in turns, Sir John.’

‘And this morning?’

Napham lifted a hand. ‘But, Sir John, they were all clean.’

‘Fine, fine.’ Sir John leaned against the wall; he wished Athelstan was here.

‘And who entered the Chancery of the Green Wax today? Give me a list.’

‘Well, well.’ Lesures came forward, ticking the names off on his fingers. ‘Myself and the clerks, Sir Lionel Havant, yourself, Sir John, Brother Athelstan and Mistress Chapler.’

‘And anyone else?’

‘Oh, the occasional servant. They would come in with messages or bring fresh parchment and quills.’

‘But it’s interesting, isn’t it,’ the coroner continued, ‘that the poison was put in at the same time as this cryptic message arrives, about the second being the centre of woe and the principal mover of horror.’ Cranston glanced at the clerks. ‘I thought you liked puzzles and riddles. Do any of you know what it means?’

They shook their heads.

‘Let me continue,’ Cranston said. ‘Whoever put the poison in knew what time you drank the mead. He also arranged for the message to be delivered at the same time: that reduces the number somewhat, doesn’t it?’ He leaned forward.

‘What are you saying?’ Alcest snapped.

‘What I am saying, young man, is this. When Ollerton died, I was in my garden, Athelstan and Mistress Chapler were in Southwark. Havant was probably at the Savoy Palace – that takes care of the principal visitors here. In my view, Ollerton’s assassin works in the Chancery of the Green Wax and could very well be in this room.’

A chorus of hoarse denials greeted his words. Cranston clapped his hands for silence.

‘I am a man of law. I show where the evidence lies. Now I could ask for you to be searched: not everyone carries a small bag of poison around with them.’

‘Pshaw!’ Napham made a contemptuous gesture with his hand and walked to the door as if to leave.

‘Do so,’ Cranston shouted, ‘and I’ll have you arrested, sir! My bailiff’s in the street outside.’

Napham returned.

‘Anyone could have come in here!’ Alcest cried.