‘Remember this, Sir John,’ Athelstan pointed to the braziers, one to his right, the other to his left, ‘the explosions occurred in each. Nearby stood Lettenhove and, across the chapel, Oudernarde. Along the transepts, the tapestries had been pulled up to reveal the food tables, servants were milling about. Now look at the rood screen: Hell’s mouth seals its entrance, on either end of it hangs an arras of heavy damask.’ He sighed. ‘Remember that as I surely will.’ The friar refused to say any more; he left the chapel with Cranston hurrying behind.
‘Brother . . .?’
Athelstan waited till they had left the keep. Once out in the blistering cold, he paused and stared up.
‘The sky blossoms are hidden, Sir John. We’ll have snow tonight and it will lie thick.’
‘Is Barak the murderer?’
‘He was no assassin,’ Athelstan whispered. ‘God have mercy on him. He did not slip from that rope, he was hurled from that window, or that is what I suspect.’
‘Why?’
‘Gloves and wrist guards, Sir John, or the lack of them, but now I am famished.’
PART THREE
‘Ursus Marinus: Sea Bear’
They returned to their chamber, the snow falling in heavy flakes. Athelstan recalled the legend of souls tumbling from Heaven seeking a dwelling in human flesh.
‘It will lie swift and rich,’ Cranston declared, stomping up the steps. He was startled by a figure stepping out of a shadow in the stairwell inside. ‘In God’s name!’
‘Aye, Sir John, in God’s name surely.’ The black-haired harpist pushed back his hood, the corner of his harp peeping out between the folds of his threadbare cloak. ‘Sir John, good evening. Like you, I’m trapped here. I cannot leave till the morrow, and even then I will need a maintainer. You will vouch for me?’
‘Of course.’ Cranston grasped the harpist by the shoulder and pulled him into the pool of shifting torchlight. ‘Brother Athelstan, let me introduce the Troubadour, former cleric, former soldier, a teller of tales and quite a few lies.’ Athelstan, staring at the hollow eyes and pinched, sallow features beneath an untidy mop of hair, could well believe Sir John’s description. The Troubadour, or whatever his real name, looked crafty and devious – indeed, the ideal choice to play Renard the Fox in any mystery play.
‘Yet a most skilled harpist.’ Cranston took out a silver coin and handed it over. ‘He plucks the strings and they pluck at your heart. But, my friend, it’s your eyes I need now. What have you seen?’
The Troubadour bit on the coin and slid it beneath his robe. ‘I have wandered the Tower, when I can. Thibault has taken it over. There’s great secrecy over the prisoner kept in Beauchamp. I tried to draw as close as I could. I even spent some money but to no avail. Those archers are Thibault’s men in peace and war, body and soul. No one will speak about the prisoner – well, not openly.’
‘And yet you have discovered something?’
The harpist grinned; his teeth were remarkably white and even. ‘Definitely a woman, Sir John – she still has trouble with her monthly courses according to a servant who empties the slop jars. Another says she spends her days embroidering and requires needle, thread and thimble.’
‘And?’
‘She is definitely Flemish. She finds London food not to her taste, though she is partial to eel pies and lightly grilled fish cakes. However, she is no damsel in distress; she’s not fair of face or lovely of form.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Again, servants have glimpsed her with her veil pulled back. Sir John, they say she reminds them of someone, but they cannot actually place her.’
‘Someone? Someone who?’
‘This was an old servant who has worked here for many a year; she glimpsed the prisoner’s face, it sparked a memory, but she cannot say which.’ The Troubadour spread his hands. ‘More than that I cannot say.’
‘And the severed heads?’ Athelstan asked.
The Troubadour’s strange eyes blinked. ‘Again, Brother, very little. I heard a whisper, just a rumour, that the heads really belonged to Master Thibault and were taken from his care when the Upright Men attacked him on his journey to the Tower. They also say that Thibault was looking for something, perhaps the severed heads, when he laid siege to the Roundhoop.’
‘And the attack in the chapel?’
‘Again, very little, Brother except, immediately after the second attack, the Flemings’ secretary, the Mousehead?’
‘Cornelius?’
‘Yes, he and Thibault’s bully boy, Rosselyn, abruptly left the chapel as if they were pursuing somebody. Remember I was with the minstrelling in the recess. They went down the stairs then Cornelius hurried back.