The Relic Murders (20 page)

Laxton pointed at me. 'You wrote to Lucy. We found the letter on her.' His face grew sad.

My heart skipped a beat. 'She's dead, isn't she?' I asked.

Laxton nodded. 'I am sorry, master. She was found in a lane outside the village. She had been attacked, beaten sorely about the head.'

'What was she doing there?' I asked.

'We think she was going to the manor,' Laxton replied. 'She had a cloak and a pair of old battered boots on. She was carrying a small bag full of her possessions: some rosary beads, your letter and, I think, a lock of your hair.'

Hot tears scalded my eyes.

'Who attacked her? Why?' I whispered. 'Why Lucy? She was a merry soul.'

'She wasn't dead when we found her,' Laxton replied. 'One of the grooms from the White Harte was going into the fields with his sweetheart, and heard her groaning. Lucy had tumbled into a ditch at the side of the road. They dragged her out. They thought she was dead but then she opened her eyes. She left a message for you.' He closed his eyes. 'Tell Roger,' he repeated carefully. 'Tell Roger the cup . . .' He opened his eyes. 'She repeated that a number of times. The groom ran for help but, by the time we arrived, Lucy was dead.' He paused. 'What did she mean, master, about the cup?'

'"My cup is overflowing".' I brushed the tears from my eyes. 'It's a quotation from the Bible. She always said that, when I was with her, her cup of happiness overflowed. For some strange reason she thought this was funny.'

'Does anyone know
why
she was attacked?' Benjamin intervened.

'No. Since Master Roger left she had been working at the White Harte. She made no enemies, though she steered well clear of the Poppletons. I know she had a disagreement with them over you and refused to work at their house. After she died, we had a parish meeting in the taproom,' Laxton concluded. 'It was ' decided that I should come and tell you. I reached the city just before dawn.' He shook his head. 'It's years since I've been to London. I'm glad I found you.'

Benjamin, seeing I was upset, took Laxton away. For a while I just sat and cried. I then got up and walked out into the alleyway, knocking aside the costermongers and traders who thronged into the alleyway.

Now, you know old Shallot. I am not a man for prayer. I just like to sit and hope that God looks my way and, if he's in a good mood, smiles at me. I laugh and joke: it's the best way to hide the tears. However, Lucy was a soft young thing. She was a woman full of life with a keen sense of wit, lovable and kind. There wasn't a jot of malice in her beautiful body. She was born good and some bastard had killed her. I went down the narrow street and into the small church owned by the Crutched Friars, a little, dank place which suited my mood. I crouched on the floor before the statue of the Virgin Child and tried to pray for Lucy's soul. My usual prayer: 'This is Roger Shallot, sinner and stupid with it.' I was only halfway through when I heard the slither of footsteps. I was just thinking of fleeing when the club hit my head. I felt rough sacking and then it was down into the darkness. I woke up and, believe me, what a change! Not the Virgin and Child but Charon's ugly face peering at me. He didn't begin with some dramatic line like, 'Welcome to my abode.' He just kicked me in the groin and asked me what I was doing in church.

'I was praying,' I moaned.

I stared around and, trust me, I began to gabble my prayers. I was back in the Lord Charon's abode, full of the opulent luxury which contrasted so strangely with the filthy surroundings and, in the background, I could hear the ominous slop of water. Shadows moved into the candlelight; Cerberus and all the other beauties of Lord Charon's household, twisted, leering faces, garbed in tawdry finery and armed to the teeth. I did what I always do in such circumstances: I knelt, clasped my hands and hoped my bowels would not betray me.

(Honestly, I can never stop trembling in such situations. Once, when the Great Beast had me sent to the execution block, the headsman told me to stay still.

'What do you expect me to do?' I screamed back. 'Do a dance?'

And so I did a merry jig. I made the executioner chase me round the scaffold. God be thanked, Henry was playing one of his sick jokes and the courier bringing my pardon had taken a fall from his horse and been delayed!)

However, I did not jig that day. I just gazed beseechingly at Lord Charon.

'You wanted to see me?'

This king of villains, that mad, moustached, purple-hued, malt-worm crouched down beside me.

'Well, ticklebrain?' He poked me in the shoulder. 'You want to see the Lord Charon?'

'I know where those tapestries come from,' I blurted out, pointing behind him. 'Lady Malevel's house. You broke in, cleared out all her valuables, cut her throat and buried her in the cellar, didn't you?'

(You young men, take note, whenever you are captured by the enemy, none of this stiff upper lip business. For goodness' sake, talk and talk fast. The longer you talk, the more hope there is and, where there's hope, there's life!)

'Now, here's a clever boy' Charon tapped me on the head.

'And you want to take it all back with you?'

'No! No!' I gabbled. 'But the Orb of Charlemagne, the relic you stole

'Stole?'

And, throwing his head back, Charon laughed. The rest of his coven guffawed in ghastly chorus.

I stammered, thinking of the replica that Kempe still held, 'I
...
I... I can get you the real Orb of Charlemagne.'

Charon started to laugh again, until the tears rolled down his cheeks.

He waggled a finger at me. 'We are not going to kill you just yet.' He sighed. 'Lord, I have never laughed so much since the Lady Isabella begged for her life.' He glanced round at his lieutenants and edged a little closer. 'Now, let me understand you, Shallot. On the one hand you think I stole the Orb, which I didn't. On the other—' One finger scratched at his blue, pockmarked face. 'You say you can get it for me: that means you stole it! And you know what happens to thieves,' he whispered. "They hang.'

'No, no, you misunderstand me!'

'No, no, you misunderstand me!' The entire devilish crew chorused back.

Oh, pity me, I was in a nightmare: Charon's ugly, stained face; his cutthroat coven chanting my line like a chorus in one of Marlow's plays. And what about poor old Shallot? I just prayed that one of Kempe's men had seen me. Yet where was I? How would they rescue me? I started to cry. (Another of Shallot's rules; if you can't babble, blurt. Crying wastes time.) Charon dragged back my head.

'Didn't you ever think,' he hissed, 'that I knew about the Orb of Charlemagne? Do you really think I would have attacked a manor full of armed men? Do you really think I'm stupid enough not to realise how many strangers have appeared in the alleyways around that tavern? You are bait, aren't you, Shallot? A lure to catch old Charon? And that is very, very foolish of you!'

He was now talking like a schoolmaster confronting one of his dimmer scholars.

'I don't need the Orb of Charlemagne,' he whispered. 'I have taken it and I have sold it.' He saw the surprise in my eyes. 'And for you, Roger, I have a special gift. Do you remember the rats?'

I moaned with fear.

After that Charon beat me around the head. The others joined in with kicks and blows before I was dragged out along the sewer side to another cavern, sealed by an iron grille. The small door was opened and I was thrown inside. I sat there wondering how in heaven's name I was to escape. I knelt and prayed. I vowed to become a monk but realised I was ly
ing so I just crawled into a corn
er and listened to Charon and his henchmen carousing a few yards away. I didn't know whether it was night or day, but, a few hours later, they returned carrying torches. I was dragged out, back to Lord Charon's cave. The table was littered with food, goblets of wine, pieces of meat strewn on the floor. One of the villains had been killed in some drunken brawl, and now leaned against the table, his throat slashed from ear to ear. No, I don't lie! They just left him propped there, eyes popping, mouth gaping. I was laid out on the floor and ropes attached to my wrists and ankles. Charon, much the worse for drink, came and knelt beside me.

'You are going to die, Roger, in a way you can never imagine. Cerberus, show him our friend.'

Dogface knelt on the other side. In his hand he held a cage. Inside was the longest and most ferocious-looking rat I have ever seen. This turd of iniquity was at least a yard long from the tip of his nose to the end of his tail; yellowing teeth jutted out, his belly sagged and his ribs showed through. He dashed himself against the cage and those eyes, pin-pricks of hell fire, glowered at me. I fainted.

I was roused by a bucket of filthy water.

'Now, this is what's going to happen.' Charon talked like some gentle priest. He pulled back my doublet and tapped my side. 'We are going to attach a pipe here, the rat scuttles down and we light a small fire at the open end. The rat is hungry, ravenous. There is only one way out, dear Roger, and that's through you. Now, what do you think of that?'

I screamed and yelled, begging for mercy. I might as well have whistled across a graveyard. The pipe was attached, the rat went in. I could hear it rustling about, its sharp claws and teeth scrabbling against my clammy skin. I screamed, sobbing for mercy. The bastards were so drunk they could not light the fire at the other end. As they fumbled with the tinder, I heard a sound which, to my ears, was like an angel singing. A deep
throated bark. Castor had arrived! Confusion broke out, and there was a scramble for arms as Castor burst into the cavern like a hell hound. Intelligent beast, noble heart, Shallot's saviour! He took one look at Charon and lunged. The cavern became full of a confusion of figures. I heard the roar of an arquebus, the clash of steel. The pipe was kicked away from me, the rat fled. Benjamin, a bloody sword in his hands, crouched down and cut my bonds. I jumped to my feet. Archers, bullyboys, Kempe's men, as well as those of Egremont and the Noctales were now locked in a fierce life and death struggle with the outlaws. Charon was screaming, his body one bloody wound: he stabbed at Castor with a dagger but the hound refused to let go. I rushed towards them but stumbled over a corpse. I heard a splash and both the Lord of the Underworld and my noble hound disappeared beneath the surface of the sewer.

I ran to the edge but the current was strong. I could see no sign of either of them and I turned to defend myself as a villain, blood streaming from his mouth, lurched at me. Benjamin caught him midway with a cutting slash to the neck and the fellow fell, tumbling sideways into the water. Now, I have been in bloody struggles, I have watched the most horrible of battles. I have seen Mars in all its terrors, thankfully from some safe vantage point, yet that struggle in the sewers of London is one of the most memorable. A recurring nightmare. You see, Charon's men had no illusions. This was no honourable chivalrous fight where prisoners could be taken, ransoms obtained. These were bullyboys, the scum and the filth of the city who lived off the fat of the land with a deep-seated hatred for all authority. They asked for no quarter and none was given. I crouched in the shadows and watched. Benjamin moved effortlessly: a swordsman, he stood with his back to the wall and took on all comers. Cornelius moved beside him, a thin silent, deadly killer with his broad stabbing sword and thin Italian stiletto. A man born to kill. Lord Egremont and Kempe swirled by me. Kempe shouting orders, trying to stop the villains fleeing into the darkness whilst Egremont, and you can always tell from a man's face when he likes blood and dotes on killing, was in his element.

At last the fighting subsided. Most of Charon's men were dead but Cerberus and at least a score of others were alive or nearly so: their hands were bound, and soldiers and archers were pushing them away. Egremont, Cornelius, Benjamin and myself went into Charon's cavern. Lord Egremont took the corpse from its seat at the table and, dragging it to the waterside, threw it in without a by your leave. He then cleared the table with his sword and sat down smiling, like a man who has done a good day's work.

'Your men are collecting the treasure?'

'We have clerks,' Kempe replied, wiping the sweat from his face. 'Everything will be collected and sealed.'

Benjamin got up and. despite Kempe's protests, walked out. I followed. The caverns were now thronged with soldiers and clerks of the Exchequer. That's one thing about the English, they love good administration and Henry's Exchequer officials were the best there were. Years later I'd see them sweep into a monastery like Charterhouse or the great Abbey of Bury St Edmunds and, in a day, everything that could be moved was bagged, casked and sealed. They would scramble like ants round Lord Charon's treasure trove and sniff out gold like a mouse would cheese. Benjamin watched them, ignoring Kempe's protests to return. He then moved amongst them, asking if they had seen the Orb or any special relic? The clerks just shook their heads. I went and stood by the fast-running sewer, one of London's underground rivers, staring into the darkness. I half expect
ed to see
that stupid dog with its great flapping ears and lolling tongue but he was gone.