The Assassin's Riddle (9 page)

He made his way past the shabby stalls, the little hovels and cottages of his parishioners. The air was thick with the pungent smells from the tanning yards but the aroma from Merryleg’s pie shop was as sweet and savoury as ever. The day seemed busy enough: dogs and children ran about, thin-necked chickens dug into the midden heaps. Lurching out of an alleyway, ears flapping, flanks quivering with fat, trotted Ursula the pigwoman’s favourite sow. The beast stopped, snout up, and stared at Athelstan. The friar was sure that, if a pig could grin, this one did.

I’d love to have a stick, Athelstan thought, quietly mourning the succulent cabbages this great beast had plucked from his garden. Instead he sighed, sketched a blessing in the direction of the sow and continued up the alleyway. The church steps were deserted except for Bonaventure, the great one-eyed tomcat who lay sprawled there like some dissolute Roman emperor. He cocked his good eye open as Athelstan came and crouched beside him.

‘Oh, most pious of cats,’ Athelstan breathed, gently rubbing the cat’s tattered ears between his fingers.

He opened the door of the church and went inside, relishing the cool, incense-filled air. The nave was empty. Athelstan felt guilty because there should have been a school today. He checked the sanctuary lamp, a little red beacon in the darkness glowing under the silver pyx hanging from its chain above the high altar. About to go back down the steps, Athelstan sniffed. ‘Fresh paint,’ he murmured.

Then he remembered how Huddle the painter, together with Tab the tinker, had finished a new crucifix to hang in the small alcove behind the baptismal font. Athelstan went to inspect it. The wall behind the font had been covered with a vivid garish painting depicting souls, in the form of worms, being pushed into a fiery furnace by a devil which had the body of a monkey and the head of a wild goat.

‘It’s too savage,’ Athelstan murmured, studying the flames Huddle had painted devouring the black imps and the grotesque beasts of the underworld. However, it was the new crucifix which caught his attention. Huge, at least three foot high and two foot across, the rood was black with the figure of Christ in alabaster-white. This twisted in agony, the head covered with thorns, the face drooping, whilst Huddle had vividly painted the blood pouring out of the wounds in the hands, feet and side. Beneath it, the work of Watkin the dung-collector, leader of the parish council, was a new candelabra made of wrought iron with little spikes for devotional lights to be placed on.

Athelstan studied the scene carefully. ‘A little too vivid,’ he commented but, there again, he admired Huddle’s consummate skill and knew that every aspect of the cross would be carefully studied by each and every one of his parishioners at the parish council tonight. Athelstan genuflected towards the sanctuary, closed the door and, followed by an inquisitive Bonaventure, went across to the priest’s house.

He first checked on Philomel, the old destrier he had bought. The horse seemed happy enough, leaning against the wall, eyes closed, munching the remains of what was left of his oats. Athelstan went into the house. The small kitchen and parlour were clean and swept, the rushes changed and sprinkled with spring flowers and herbs. The wooden table before the kitchen hearth had been scrubbed whilst fresh bread, cheese and a small jar of comfit were in the buttery. Athelstan closed his eyes and thanked God for Benedicta, the widow woman. He took the food and returned to the parlour, filling Bonaventure’s bowl with milk. The great cat sat on the table, sipping at it, now and again raising his head to study his master. Athelstan’s thoughts were elsewhere. He chewed his food carefully, eyes half closed, remembering the problems which had confronted him earlier in the day. He could make no sense of the moneylender’s murder.

Think, Athelstan. For the love of God there must be a solution.

He put the piece of cheese down, closed his eyes and recalled Drayton’s counting room. No entrances, a square of stone, walls, ceiling, floors all sealed in by that great oaken door with its metal studs, locked and barred. How had the assassin got in and out with the stolen silver? If he had knocked at the door, Drayton might have admitted him, but who would have locked and bolted the door behind him? And Athelstan recalled the house: how did the murderer leave, making sure every window and door was locked behind him? Athelstan opened his eyes and shook his head. When he looked down, the piece of cheese had gone. The friar wagged a finger at the cat.

‘Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s cheese, Bonaventura.’

The cat’s little pink tongue came out. Athelstan then thought of the murders amongst the clerks of the Green Wax. Chapler’s was brutal, a bang on the head and tossed over London Bridge. But why? Who would kill a clerk? For what reason? And who was this mysterious young man whom Chapler had met and who was probably responsible for Peslep’s death? And the latter’s wealth, was it ill gotten? And his companions? Why had Athelstan caught that sense of . . .? He paused in his thoughts: yes, wickedness, that’s what it was, a sense of evil. And the riddles? What did it mean: a king vanquishing his opponents but, in the end, victors and vanquished lying together in the same place? And the riddle that was left on Peslep’s body?

My first is like a selfish brother.

Athelstan shook his head. ‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,’ he declared.

At least, thank God, Cranston had not questioned him. What the coroner did not know, nor did anyone here in Southwark, was that Father Prior seemed intent on moving Athelstan to the Halls of Oxford. Athelstan had protested and, in doing so, realised how much he loved this small poor parish on the south side of the Thames. Moreover, despite the bloody murders they investigated, Cranston was his friend.

Athelstan sighed: his brooding would do no good. He let Bonaventure finish what was left of the cheese and climbed up the steps to the little loft which also served as his bedroom. He sat down on the bed and picked up the book his brethren at Blackfriars had so kindly lent him: the writings of Abbot Richard of Wallingford, the eminent scholar and instrument-maker who, a hundred years ago, had built a great clock at St Albans.

I must go and see it, Athelstan thought. He turned the pages of the folio and studied Wallingford’s drawing of the Albion, an elaborate astrolabe, but he couldn’t concentrate. His mind kept jumping like a flea. Drayton’s corpse locked and sealed in a vaulted chamber; Peslep stabbed whilst sitting on a privy; Chapler’s corpse; the riddles; something else he had seen or heard today which had escaped his tired brain. He put the book down and lay on the bed. He felt Bonaventure come and snuggle up behind him.

‘According to the laws of my order,’ he murmured, ‘a Dominican is supposed to sleep alone, Bonaventure! Whatever would Father Prior think?’

Athelstan closed his eyes and drifted into a dream about constructing, with the help of Sir John Cranston, a marvellous clock at the top of St Erconwald’s tower.

A few hours later, in the writing room of the Chancery of the Green Wax, the clerks were finishing the major tasks of the day. They had, Master Lesures reflected, been quiet, not the respectful silence due to the deaths of two of their colleagues, but something else, as if they were afraid. He walked into the centre of the room and rang his small handbell.

‘The day’s work is done,’ he declared. ‘So it’s time we took a little refreshment, a break from our duties. Perhaps toast the memory of our dead comrades?’

The others agreed, climbing down off their high stools. They left their quills on their desks, or pushed them into the pouches on their belts. They stood in a small group talking softly amongst themselves, almost ignoring him. Lesures shrugged and walked across to the table where their cups were kept. He picked up the jug of malmsey, removing the linen cloth which covered it, and filled the cups. He then took the tray round the room. Each clerk picked up the cup which carried the letter of their surname; they sipped appreciatively, savouring the rich, honey-fused drink. This evening, however, Lesures felt like a stranger. They looked at him out of the corner of their eyes and he could see that they wished him elsewhere.

‘Are we to attend the funerals?’ he asked.

‘Chapler was an acquaintance,’ Alcest retorted. ‘But he was not a friend. I don’t like Southwark and I want to keep far away from Brother Athelstan and that drunken coroner.’

‘And Peslep?’ Lesures asked.

‘I suppose he’ll be buried in St Mary Le Bow,’ Napham replied. ‘We’ll pray for a priest to sing a chantry Mass and watch his body being tossed into the grave.’

‘You’re rather hard,’ Lesures stuttered.

‘It’s what Peslep would have wanted,’ Elflain responded. ‘I don’t think he believed in God so why should we make a mockery in death of what he made a mockery in life?’

Lesures was about to object when Ollerton staggered back, the pewter cup dropping from his hand, his face contorted in pain. He clutched at his throat and stomach.

‘Oh my God!’ he whispered. ‘Oh heaven and all the . . .!’ He slumped to his knees.

His companions hurried to assist but Ollerton, the pain so intense, drove them off with his hand before crashing face down to the floor. He lay there convulsing in agony. Alcest managed to secure him, gripping him under the shoulders. All he could do, whilst the others shouted and exclaimed around him, was try to control the terrible spasms which racked his friend’s body. Ollerton was already losing consciousness, eyes rolling back, mouth open, jaw tense, a long line of saliva drooling down his chin. He closed his eyes and coughed, his body shaking again. Suddenly he went rigid and then slack, head falling away, eyes and mouth half open. Alcest put him gently back on the floor. The others stared, horror-struck.

‘Don’t drink,’ Elflain whispered, putting his own cup back on the table.

‘Apoplexy?’ Lesures asked.

‘Apoplexy!’ Alcest sneered. He turned Ollerton’s face over; it was now a garish white, dark rings under the staring eyes. ‘This is no
coup de sang.
Ollerton has been poisoned.’

He edged across the floor and picked up the fallen cup, whose contents had now soaked into the floorboards. Alcest sniffed at the rim but realised the sweet honey taste could hide any potion. He went across to the jug.

‘You poured the cup, Lesures?’

‘I . . .’ The Master of the Rolls lifted his hand in alarm. ‘We should send for a physician,’ he wailed.

‘Unless,’ Alcest sneered, ‘you know one who can bring the dead back to life, Master Lesures, perhaps a priest would be better? One of the good brothers from St Bartholomew’s. I’d be grateful.’

Lesures took the hint and fled. Once the door closed behind him, the rest grouped round the corpse.

‘Three now!’ Napham whispered. ‘Three dead!’

Alcest was already going through the man’s wallet and purse.

‘Is that necessary?’

‘Yes, it is,’ Alcest snarled. And tonight, before the snooping coroner arrives, we visit his chambers.’

He paused at the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Lesures hurried in, clutching a piece of parchment. He thrust this at Alcest. The clerk read aloud the riddle scrawled there.

‘“My second is the centre of woe and the principal mover of horror.”’ He glanced at his companions. ‘We are being hunted,’ he said. ‘Ollerton’s death will not be the last!’

Athelstan was standing on the top of St Erconwald’s tower looking through a huge telescope. Bonaventure was talking to him but Cranston was calling from below. Athelstan opened his eyes; roughly woken from his dream, he gasped and looked around. Bonaventure was gone. The sunlight in the small window above his bed was fading. He swung his legs off the bed and realised that what had woken him was the knocking on the door below.

‘Father, Father, are you all right?’

Benedicta had now come into the kitchen.

‘I’m up here, Benedicta,’ Athelstan called, rubbing his face. ‘I went with the cat for a nap.’ He paused. ‘That’s witty,’ he whispered. ‘For a man just woken up.’

‘Athelstan, are you all right?’

The friar rose and looked down the ladder at Benedicta. She was dressed in a summer smock made of light green cloth. She had a small silver chain round her neck. Someone, probably one of the children, had made a daisy chain; she still had this over her jet-black hair. She had such a look of concern in her beautiful dark eyes that Athelstan’s heart skipped a beat. Deep in his soul he loved this widow, but never once would he dare tell her. I love you passionately, he thought, and ruefully recalled the advice of his novice master.

‘It’s not the body, Athelstan, that hungers, it’s the soul. Physical desire is like a flame. Sometimes it leaps up, at other times it burns low. The love of the soul, however, is a raging fire that is never quenched.’

‘Athelstan!’ Benedicta stamped her foot. ‘Have you lost your wits? You are staring at me!’

‘I was thinking.’ Athelstan smiled. ‘I know what it’s going to be like in heaven.’

Benedicta sighed in exasperation. ‘Athelstan, the council will be meeting soon. You know what Watkin is like. If you’re not there, he’ll start saying Mass. We also have a visitor, a young woman, Alison Chapler. I didn’t know there was a corpse in the death house!’

Athelstan’s fingers flew to his lips and he groaned. ‘Oh Lord save us!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’d forgotten about that, Benedicta. I’ve been with Cranston. You know what it’s like.’

He hurried down the ladder, grasped Benedicta by the shoulder and gave her a kiss on each cheek.

‘What’s that for, Father?’

‘One day I’ll tell you. That poor woman.’

Athelstan quickly grabbed his stole and the phial of holy oils he kept in the cupboard in the far corner of the kitchen. He tightened the girdle round his robe and hurried out. The evening was a gorgeous one; the sun not so strong and bright whilst a refreshing breeze bent the grass and flowers in the cemetery. Crim the altar boy was having a pee in the corner just inside the gate.

‘Hello, Father!’ he called out over his shoulder.

‘Pull up your hose!’ Athelstan ordered. ‘I’ve told you not to do that in God’s acre.’