‘I know what happened. Rosselyn told me. It’s like a flesher’s yard out there. At least thirty heads. Those killed or executed already decorate poles along the Thames. Thibault is beside himself with glee.’ Cranston took a sip from his miraculous wine skin. ‘Stupid bastard! Tensions are rising among the garrison – you know why?’
‘I feel the same,’ the friar answered, dragging himself up on the bed. ‘I am a yeoman’s son, Sir John, a tiller of the soil, an earthworm. So are many of the archers and hobelars who kill their own kind to protect cruel lords.’ Athelstan put his face in his hands.
‘You are down in spirit, Brother.’ Cranston clapped him on the shoulder. ‘You deserve better. God knows I’ve been given that. Today I kissed the Lady Maude and cuddled my two poppets. After that the world didn’t seem so terrible.’
‘No, Sir John, it’s a beautiful world, just turned and twisted by our sins. Look,’ Athelstan paused as the bell of St Peter ad Vincula clanged marking the hour. ‘I don’t want to go out there,’ he whispered. ‘Not now.’
‘You were saying?’
‘Gaunt has enough wealth in his palace of the Savoy to ensure no one in London starves. There are enough empty comfortable chambers in this city to house all our vagrants. Enough food to feed the starving. Enough cloth to dress the naked. Sufficient religious houses to shelter the sick and witless but we human beings don’t think like that. We put the self first, second and third, an unholy trinity against anyone who happens to be our neighbour.’ Athelstan sighed. ‘Thus endeth of my homily, Sir John. Let us return to what we are good at. We hunt murderers, trap them, confront them and despatch them to judgement. So, let us begin.’ Athelstan got off the bed, picked up the sack and moved across to the chancery table. ‘As I said, I do not wish to leave. I have looked on enough blood. Sir John, I’d be grateful if you would visit the chapel in the White Tower. Summon whoever you can. Try to recreate what happened. I hope to join you there. Perhaps we might also visit the death chamber where Eli died.’
Cranston took another gulp from his wine skin, gathered his cloak and left. The coroner was pleased that his little friend wished to be by himself. That enigmatic friar, like any good lurcher, was casting about for a scent. The hunt had begun!
After Cranston had left, Athelstan emptied the contents of the sack on to the table, the manuscripts from Humphrey Warde’s house, ledgers, bills, memoranda and the beautiful calfskin-bound psalter. Athelstan opened this and was immediately intrigued. Warde had been a spicer, and had apparently commissioned this especially for himself. The author and illuminator of the psalter had described the history of spices, especially the mystical qualities of certain herbs and plants as well as the role spices played in Man’s constant war against the demons. The miniature bejewelled pictures depicted devils bubbling in a huge cauldron containing, according to the inscription written beneath, oil, resin, garlic, myrrh, cloves and cinnamon. In one picture a flying serpent-devil with scaly wings was being pierced by shafts of henbane and hemlock. Next to this a miniature displayed Satan’s eye, huge as a fist, open and luminous, flaring with malevolent life, being assailed by thick clouds of frankincense from a golden thurible. Another picture showed a demon in a shape of a huge slug tortured by the holy oil poured over him while a fellow demon was being showered with sacred chrism. Athelstan read on, fascinated, turning the stiffened leaves as he half listened to the sounds of the garrison and the eerie noises of the Tower. At one point he rose and pulled across the wheeled brazier for greater warmth. He glanced around. The juddering candlelight made the shadows shift and rise as if another world, a secret one, thrived here in this bleak stone chamber. Athelstan rubbed his fingers over the spluttering coals. ‘Yet there is another reality,’ he whispered to his own shadow. ‘This straight and narrow place shelters an assassin, a soul throbbing with hatred, who exults in dealing out sudden and mysterious death.’
The attacks on the Flemings he understood, the murder of Warde was brutal yet logical, but why the Straw Men? Athelstan returned to the psalter, leafing through the pages till his eye was caught by an exquisitely illuminated full page picture of Lucifer falling from Paradise. Athelstan stared, shivering at the chill which abruptly seized him. ‘Jesu Miserere.’ He prayed softly. ‘Jesus, have mercy on us. Is it possible?’ Athelstan put the psalter aside and pulled across the bills and memoranda. He sifted through these, searching for items bought and sold while listing Master Warde’s customers. Athelstan revised what he had written, looking for a pattern, and eventually found it. He threw the quill pen down, staring at what he had written. ‘Warde was a spy,’ he murmured. ‘He was sent into my parish to listen, collect and report, but he was not the hand which wielded the dagger – he was only the glove.’ Athelstan beat his breast. ‘Mea Culpa! Mea Culpa! Mea Culpa! My fault entirely, I was too quick to judge those two rogues, God bless them. Watkin and Pike were correct. A Judas man did, and is, sitting at the heart of our community.’ Athelstan rose and carefully collected his papers, now determined to join Sir John in the White Tower. ‘I will not tell him my suspicions,’ he murmured, ‘not here in this murky, treacherous place where the walls listen and deceit flourishes thick and rich as any tangle of weed.’