The Assassin's Riddle (22 page)

‘I think so,’ Flinstead mumbled. ‘Stablegate said he would take care of that.’

Athelstan tapped him under the chin. ‘Oh, I am sure he would, Master Flinstead, he would have also taken care of you. A knife in the back and another corpse is pulled from the Thames, eh?’ Athelstan got to his feet. ‘I think it’s time for Stablegate.’

The second clerk had hardly entered the room when he looked at Flinstead and realised what had happened.

‘You snivelling bastard! You caitiff! They have trapped you, haven’t they? I told them nothing.’

He would have lunged at Flinstead if Flaxwith, standing behind had not given him a firm rap across the shoulder with his cudgel. Stablegate, wincing with pain, fell to one knee. Flaxwith dragged him back to his feet; nevertheless, the clerk was still defiant.

‘You fat, red-faced bastard!’ he sneered at Cranston. ‘You and your little mouse of a friar. Well. I don’t mind. Drayton was a hard-nosed, avaricious bag of turds. Life is hard. It’s only a short dance at Tyburn.’ His face became contorted with rage. ‘As long as Flinstead dies beside me, I couldn’t give a fig!’ He shook his fist at Cranston. ‘You can tell that to the bloody Regent! He’ll never get his silver!’ Stablegate stopped and smiled maliciously. ‘Of course . . .’ His voice had fallen to a whisper.

‘Where’s the silver?’ Cranston took a step closer. He took his dagger out and pressed the tip into Stablegate’s chin.

Stablegate stretched out his hands. ‘What is it, Cranston? A journey downriver to the Tower? The King’s torturers? Do you think I’d give up the silver then? And if I die, what will His Grace the Regent say to that eh?’

‘You are an evil young man,’ Athelstan accused.

‘Piss off, priest! Sir John knows what I’m talking about. Don’t you realise, Flinstead,’ he raised his voice, ‘there’s hope yet. Now you can see why I hid the silver. You’d have blabbed all.’

‘What do you want?’ Cranston asked.

‘Sanctuary,’ Stablegate demanded. ‘Sanctuary for me and Flinstead The right to Bee to Mary Le Bow. We’ll stay there forty days.’

‘And then you’ll abjure the realm,’ Cranston said. ‘You’ll be taken to the nearest port, thrown on the first available ship and if you set foot in England again, you’ll hang.’ Cranston rubbed his chin. ‘The Crown will post a reward on your heads,’ he added. ‘One hundred pounds dead or alive. You can beg, across the Narrow Seas, but set foot in any English port and every harbour reeve looking for a quick profit will have your name and description.’

Cranston took Stablegate by the arm and marched him across to the counting desk. ‘Sit there,’ he said. ‘Take a quill.’ He pointed to a scrap of parchment. ‘Write down where you have hidden the silver. Then both of you can flee. Don’t be stupid! Don’t try and get beyond the city walls. We’ll ride you down. Flaxwith here will ensure you take sanctuary in St Mary Le Bow.’

Stablegate struggled but Cranston’s grip was vicelike. ‘You are a horrible young man,’ the coroner snarled. ‘And if that silver isn’t where you say it is, I’ll go across and, sanctuary or not, I’ll pull both of you out and watch you hang, be disembowelled and quartered! I’ll even do it myself!’

Stablegate sat down. Sir John moved away. The room fell quiet except for the squeaking of Stablegate’s quill.

‘Oh, by the way,’ Cranston called out. ‘If anything happens to Flinstead before you leave England, you will have violated the law of sanctuary and you can be killed on the spot.’

‘As the Book of Ecclesiastes says, Sir John,’ Stablegate scoffed over his shoulder, ‘there’s a season and a time under heaven for everything.’

‘And the clerks of the Green Wax?’ Athelstan asked. ‘What business did you have with Alcest?’

‘Safe passage from the kingdom, but ask him yourself!’

Stablegate got to his feet, the parchment now crumpled into a ball. ‘I have your word, Cranston?’

‘You have my word. Drop that parchment on the floor. You and Flinstead can flee. Flaxwith will follow.’

Stablegate threw the parchment on to the ground. He made a rude gesture at Sir John and ran for the door; Flinstead needed no second bidding but followed. The coroner and the friar stood and listened to their feet pounding down the passageway, the front door being opened and slammed shut behind them.

‘Is that just?’ Flaxwith asked.

Cranston grinned evilly.

‘You can’t break your word, Sir John.’ Flaxwith’s eyes rounded in alarm. ‘Holy Mother Church is most zealous about the law of sanctuary.’

Sir John picked up the parchment and tossed it from one hand to the other. ‘Oh, they can stay forty days in St Mary Le Bow on bread and water. Then I’ll have the two bastards marched down into Queenshithe. Now, Henry, you may think I’m a bastard but I have a friend, Otto Grandessen, half merchant, half pirate, a
real
bastard. Otto owns a cog which does business in the Middle Seas, sailing to Aleppo and Damascus. He’ll take those two beauties aboard. By the time Otto’s finished with them, they’ll wish they had died at Tyburn. He’ll put them ashore at Palestine. There’s not much mischief they can do in the desert surrounded by Saracens who would love to take their heads.’ Cranston opened the piece of parchment. ‘Go on, Henry, make sum where they have gone.’

The bailiff hurried off.

‘Well?’ Athelstan asked.

‘The insolent . . .!’ Cranston looked up ‘Oh, he’s told us where the money is: they never took it out of the house. It’s buried in the cellar.’

Athelstan made to follow him out but the coroner waved him away. ‘No, sit there, Brother, I’ll find the bloody silver! If I know this house correctly, the floor will be beaten earth. When Henry comes back, tell him to join me.’

Cranston marched off Athelstan sat down. He felt pleased: Stablegate and Flinstead were evil men. Whatever Drayton’s crimes, he died a miserable death and Sir Johns agreement to the criminals was more than just. Athelstan leaned back and closed his eyes. He felt a small glow of satisfaction and realised that, in their own way, he and the coroner had done God’s work, as necessary and demanding as preaching and ministering to the parishioners of St Erconwald’s. Athelstan’s eyes flew open. Any feeling of goodwill disappeared as he recalled Watkin marching up and down.

‘God knows what trickery they are up to,’ Athelstan declared. ‘But how and why?’

‘I beg your pardon, Brother?’

Flaxwith stood in the doorway.

‘I’m sorry, Henry, I’m just speaking to myself. Our two felons?’

‘Headed into the porch of St Mary Le Bow like rats down a hole’

‘Good. Sir John wants you in the cellar.’ Athelstan smiled ‘Yes, that’s where they hid the silver. Stablegate must have put it there, planning to return at his own convenience. You’d best hurry.’

Athelstan cocked an ear at the string of colourful oaths he could hear from below. Flaxwith left and, for a while, Athelstan wondered how he could deal with the miraculous cross of St Erconwald’s. He thought of Alison. She must be allowed to leave soon, Athelstan concluded: Sir John could not keep her here for ever. His mind wandered further: he recalled what Stablegate had said about the clerks of the Green Wax. Athelstan was now certain that Alcest, his companions and possibly Chapler had been involved in some subtle trickery, forging licences and letters. A very serious crime: the Vicar of Hell would have known about it, any wolfshead or outlaw who needed a letter or an official writ would pay a heavy price. Alcest probably had a forged seal. Lesures might well suspect it but because of Alcest’s blackmail he dared not investigate or protest. But why the killings? Athelstan scuffed at the floor with the toe of his sandal. All the clerks involved had died grisly deaths, starting with Chapler. Was it a question of thieves falling out? Had Alcest become greedy and decided to keep their ill-gotten wealth for himself? He heard Cranston’s voice in the corridor. The coroner, specks of dirt on his robe, strode into the counting room with two mud-covered sacks which jingled as he shook them.

‘To those who knock, it shall be opened, those who seek shall find.’

‘The Regent’s silver?’

‘Precisely. Those impertinent villains had buried it deep beneath an old chest. Do you know who found it?’ Cranston shook the sacks as if they were bells. ‘Samson, he started sniffing and scuffling . . .’

‘That’s why I have him,’ Flaxwith announced proudly, coming in with the other valuables. ‘Now, Sir John, surely the dog deserves a small stipend, or a juicy bone or a piece of meat?’

Cranston thrust the sacks into Flaxwith’s already laden arms. ‘The Corporation hires donkeys so why not dogs, eh, Henry?’

The bailiff looked puzzled. Cranston crouched down and patted the dog on his head Athelstan was sure that, if dogs could smile, Samson did.

‘Right!’ Cranston got to his feet. ‘Henry, get your burly boys and take that silver, the gold pieces and the candlesticks down to the Bardi in Leadenhall Street. Tell them Sir John has sent it. They are to count it, weigh it and send it under guard to the Regent at the Savoy Palace.’ He pointed to the seals round the necks of the grubby sacks. ‘It’s all there and don’t worry, the Bardi wouldn’t dream of stealing a penny from John of Gaunt. Then go to the Guildhall, draw on the common purse.’ He clapped the bailiff on the shoulder. ‘You may take Samson to the Holy Lamb of God,’ he added in a reverential whisper. ‘And ask that good alewife for two blackjacks of ale and an onion pie for yourself as well as a nice piece of goose for the dog. I’ll pay.’

Cranston watched as Flaxwith strode down the corridor as if he had just been anointed whilst Samson, who’d paused to cock his leg, wobbled behind as pompously as any Justice at Westminster.

‘There goes a satisfied man,’ Cranston murmured ‘Well, Brother, where to now? A word with Master Alcest?’

‘In time, Sir John. However, I believe the Vicar of Hell might be partial to one of your agreements, so a visit to Newgate wouldn’t be out of order.’

‘It’s Hanging Day there,’ Cranston warned darkly.

‘Good,’ Athelstan replied. ‘It will help concentrate the Vicar’s mind, won’t it?’

‘You think Alcest is the assassin, don’t you?’

‘Yes, Sir John, I do. I believe he definitely killed Chapler, then, for his own obvious reasons, turned on his companions in crime.’

He and Sir John walked down the corridor and out of the house. Athelstan slammed the door and, stepping back, looked up at the dirt-covered windows.

‘Avaritia, radix malorum,
Sir John: the love of riches is the root of all evil. Or is it?’ he added as if to himself. ‘And is it the case now?’

Athelstan crossed himself and murmured a silent prayer, as he always did when he approached the main gateway of Newgate prison. He and Sir John had just forced themselves through the press as the crowd assembled for Hanging Day. Six footpads who had preyed upon travellers along the old Roman road were now being dispatched as quickly as rats by a farmer. Newgate was a foulsome, horrid place. Athelstan could never decide which was the more offensive, the filth and dirt in which the prisoners were kept or the fawning attitude of the jailers and bailiffs: these smiled falsely and wrung their hands whenever Cranston appeared. Sir John had his own thoughts on the matter: whenever he entered the prison, the coroner never drank, joked or bothered to pass the time with any of its officials.

‘If I had my way,’ he growled as they followed the jailer across the great cobbled yard to the cells, ‘I’d burn this place to the ground, rebuild a new prison and put it under the governance of a good soldier. I’d certainly put an end to that.’ Sir John pointed to an unfortunate who had refused to plead before the Justices; he was stripped, ready to be pressed under a heavy, oaken door until he agreed to plead either guilty or not guilty.

They left the yard and entered a mildewed corridor which ran past cells, veritable hellholes. The air was gloomy and the stench made Athelstan gag. Paltry sconce torches fought against the murky air and Athelstan tried to ignore the terrible din, the oaths, rantings and ravings of mad prisoners and the filthy abuse hurled at the jailer going ahead of them. They passed cell chambers; in one the corpses of executed felons lay like slabs of meat upon a butcher’s stall. These would be placed in iron cages and taken out to be gibbeted along the roads leading into London. In another the corpses of executed criminals who had been hanged, drawn and quartered were being boiled and pickled before being given a coat of tar and placed over the gates of the city.

‘Never come here!’ Cranston warned ‘This is truly the abomination of the desolation. Every time I do,’ he added in a whisper, ‘I pray God will send fire from heaven to consume the place.’

They entered a large room where bailiffs and beadles were drinking or playing checkers or hazard.

‘Good morning, Sir John.’ A pox-faced beadle, one eye hidden beneath a patch, waved them over. The man pointed to the chessboard. ‘Would you like a game, Sir John? King against king, bishop against bishop?’

Cranston shook his head. ‘Some other time and certainly not here.’

They were about to follow the jailer down another narrow passageway when Athelstan stopped.

‘Brother?’

‘Sir John, the first riddle about a king defeating his enemies but, when the battle is over, both victor and vanquished lying in the same place: it describes a game of chess.’

Cranston told the jailer to wait. ‘Of course!’ he breathed. ‘A game of chess! What does it prove, Brother?’

Athelstan rubbed his face. ‘I don’t know, Sir John. I think our assassin sees the murders as a game and, at the same time, is clearly proclaiming that he will play the game, even if he has to end up in the same place as the vanquished.’

‘And that’s the grave,’ Cranston replied. ‘It makes sense, Brother. If Alcest is our assassin, there’s no doubt that he’ll die as well.’

‘But why should Alcest be prepared to put his own life at stake?’

‘That I don’t know, Brother.’ They continued down the passageway until the jailer stopped at a door. ‘At the heart of Newgate, Sir John.’ His chapped, dirty face brightened with malicious glee. ‘The Vicar of Hell deserves the best and the best he will get.’