The Grail Murders (2 page)

I met the stranger in my secret chamber behind the arras in the great hall. The captain of my guard stood beside me, his sword drawn, for though I am now well past my ninetieth year, old Shallot still has his enemies. The secret agents of many a crowned head still seek a reward for cutting my throat and letting my life-juice spill out. So you have to be careful when you approach me.

This man was: he stopped at the great gates leading to my estates. If he had entered without permission, my great Irish wolfhounds would have torn him to pieces and, if they hadn't, the jolly boys who serve in my troop of mercenaries would have strung him up from the nearest branch.

Anyway, I met him in my secret chamber, the only light coming from the braziers of glowing charcoal and the pure wax candles whose flames darted long and strong against the darkness. Enough light glowed for me to see him but not enough to reveal the coffers, chests, sealed packets and padlocked boxes full of old Shallot's papers, the legacy of a murderous past, which stand around the walls.

The fellow looked nondescript, old and balding, his skin the colour of darkened leather, but I liked his eyes, clear and bright. They reminded me of my old master, Benjamin Daunbey, nephew to that fat slob Cardinal Wolsey, in whose service we both toiled for many a year.

My visitor sat for a while and stared at me.

'You don't remember me?' he said.

His English was perfect though tinged with a slight accent.

'Sweet Lord!' I answered. 'Must I remember everybody?'

I looked at the warrants he'd brought, lying on the desk in front of me, bearing the seals of that lovely lass Elizabeth of England. Green-eyed Elizabeth, Boleyn's daughter. (I don't say Henry VIII's. That fat bastard. The Great Killer couldn't create any life. I know who Elizabeth's father really was but I'm not telling you. Well, at least not now. Perhaps some other time.)

'Why should the Queen,' I asked, 'give you these warrants?'

The man shrugged and leaned closer. The captain of my guard put his sword gently on the fellow's shoulder as a warning that he was close enough.

'Who are you?' I demanded.

The man unhitched his cloak, revealing the blood-red gown and white six-pointed cross of the Knights of St John, commonly known as the Hospitallers. I sighed and smiled.

‘
As I said,' my guest continued, 'you do not remember me, Sir Roger. I am John de Coligny, knight hospitaller, baili
ff in that Order, but I was born on the manor of Temple
combe in Somerset.'

Oh, sweet Lord! I just sat and stared at him as the memories came rushing back: overcast skies and the snow-laden trees and meadows of Somerset. Flames roaring round a bed. A maddened horse dragging its rider, pounding him to death. And the icy cold water of that lake as Benjamin and I fought against a most cruel assassin. I let the tears roll down my face.

'Sir Roger.' Coligny paused. 'I did not mean to upset you. Her Majesty the Queen said you would understand the need for secrecy. I am a Catholic and, by all rights, should suffer the supreme penalty for even setting foot in England. I have come to repay a debt, to fulfil a vow.'

He loosened his doublet and brought out a small stained leather pouch tied by a cord round his neck.

Oh, bitter-sweet memories! I knew what was coming but could only stare with tear-filled eyes at the small amethyst ring the fellow pushed across the desk.

'I was a child,' Coligny continued, 'only a babe-in-arms when you gave that to my mother. She always spoke of your kindness and courage.'

Do you know, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Here was someone paying homage to my courage! Me, Roger Shallot, who in his time was the swiftest runner in Christendom - and, believe me, I always proved it. When swords were drawn and blood was spilt, old Shallot, to quote my friend Will Shakespeare, was 'like a greyhound in the slips', ready to charge - always the other way. I picked up the ring and gazed at its brilliant sparkle.

'So long ago,' I murmured. 'So many horrible deaths. Such terrible murders.'

I lapsed into a reverie and de Coligny withdrew.

I later feasted him for a day, revelling in his praise and adulation, then I rewarded him well, furnished him with safe conducts to Dover and watched him leave. His coming was a sign. A grim reminder of the past. He could praise my courage but old Shallot knows the truth: the past is a pack of lies. My dreams would taunt me. The nightmare men would come.

At first I ignored them but last night when I awoke, one hand on Phoebe's tits, the other on Margot's, I stared through the oriel window at the shadows crawling across the thick-capped snow and knew I would have to continue my memoirs. If I didn't the dreams would grow worse. It was time to start again.

I had drunk three cups of rich red claret and snuggled up between Phoebe and Margot. (Lovely lasses but violently jealous of each other.) We played a little game and I fell asleep. I don't know whether it was a dream or a vision but I found myself, face pressed against the oriel window, staring out into the darkness.

An animal skull appeared, moving through the air, hovering just beyond the glass. Then a knight dressed in the robes of a Templar, black-faced with a scarlet helm, on its crown writhing snakes tearing into the rotting belly of a chicken. In the knight's hands was a decapitated grey head with bandaged eyes, covered with a seething mass of insects.

Other visions came. They crowded round, so intense, so pressing, I screamed myself awake. I couldn't go back to sleep until Phoebe and Margot had brought me a cup of sack and performed the dance they had learnt at last May Day's mummer's play.

So here we are. Because it's winter I am not sitting at the centre of my maze but in my secret chamber, wrapped in rugs in my high-backed throne. On one side a jug of claret and a deep-bowled cup, on the other my black ash rod just in case my chaplain mocks too much. You see, this little sod thinks that I dream it all up. He thinks I drink too much wine and that I am a consummate liar. If I am, I am no different from people of his ilk, as he knows to his cost. Oh, yes, I know my chaplain's little sins. I see him steal glances at young Phoebe's rounded thighs or Margot's generous tits. I have heard the stories about how he likes to take young ladies into the hay loft of one of my barns. He must think I am as stupid as he looks! After all, a hay loft on a warm summer's evening is not the ideal place to instruct some buxom wench. Or, on second thoughts, perhaps it depends on what the instruction's about!

I think my chaplain is jealous of me. He prides himself on being a fine orator, able to give a pithy sermon. Two years ago he was invited up to court to dispute certain theological matters before Her Majesty the Queen. I forget the details - something about the existence of angels.

A venerable bishop began the debate and did quite well. He kept me awake for at least five minutes. Apparently, the old boy chattered on for an hour. I awoke just as he left the pulpit then it was my chaplain's turn.

I was sitting next to Elizabeth. I nudged her and declared in a loud stage whisper for all to hear, 'Here comes counsel for the other side.' A subtle joke, only the Queen and I realised its true significance, and she couldn't stop laughing. My chaplain gave his oration whilst the rest of his brother clerics just glared at me. When it was all finished, some elderly, snivelling bishop came over to me.

'It's easy to mock, Sir Roger,' he cried. 'But could you give a sermon?'

Well, you know old Shallot, in for a penny in for a pound! 'Of course I could!' I cried.

Her Majesty caught my eye, nodded, and the court reassembled. I was helped into the high pulpit. (I had drunk a little too much claret.) I leaned against the wooden rail and gazed blearily around.

'My text,' I began, 'is: Don't do to others as ye would have others do to you. After all, they may not like what you do to yourself.'

Well, gales of laughter greeted this. Up springs the red-nosed bishop who had sunk as much claret as I had.

'A proper sermon!' he screamed. 'Do not mock us, Sir Roger!'

Elizabeth nodded her red-wigged head and commanded me to continue.

'One with a moral!' a bishop shouted out.

'Yes,' another of his colleagues roared. 'Practise what you preach, Shallot! Something uplifting.'

I leaned drunkenly against the pulpit and looked at these two hypocrites, two cheeks on the same arse.

'All right,' I bellowed back, my mind racing through the possibilities.

The Queen, lovely girl, was biting her lower lip. Her face had gone puce-red and even her wig had slipped slightly askew as she tried to control herself. She clapped her hands and glared sternly at me.

'Sir Roger, you are commanded. Make your sermon short and give your gentle listeners at least three themes to reflect upon!' She winked quickly at me.

'Once upon a time,' I began, 'there was a little sparrow who started to fly south rather late in the winter.'

I stopped and stared round at my congregation gathered in the tapestry-hung chapel of Hampton Court. The clergy were glaring at me. Elizabeth had lowered her head, hiding her face behind her hand. I think she knew what was coming. Little Cecil, her secretary, stared fixedly at the ceiling.

'In a short time,' I continued, 'ice formed on this little sparrow's wings and he fell to earth in a barnyard. A cow passed by and crapped on this little sparrow. The sparrow thought he would die but the manure warmed him and thawed out his wings. Snug and happy, the little sparrow began to breathe and then to sing. A passing cat heard this, cleared away the manure, found the sparrow and promptly ate him.

'Your Majesty, brothers and sisters in Christ, that is my sermon!'

'What is the moral of this tale?' the bishop shrieked, jumping to his feet. 'Her Majesty commanded that there be three themes for us to reflect upon.'

'Can't you see them?' I bell
owed back. 'First, my lord, any
one who shits on you is not necessarily your enemy. Secondly, anyone who gets you out of the shit is not necessarily your friend. Thirdly, if you are warm and happy, even in a pile of shit, keep your mouth firmly shut!'

Well, that was it. The Queen swept out of the chapel and I was placed under house arrest at my London home until I wrote the bishop a fulsome apology. I did so and was promptly fined a further hundred crowns for saying he was one of the nicest old ladies I had ever met.

Ah, well, if you can't take a joke you shouldn't be a Christian!

(I see my chaplain's shoulders shaking. He'd better not be laughing at me, I'd wring his neck if he bothered to wash it! Good, he has sobered up. He taps his quill on the edge of the manuscript and it's time to begin.)

We must go back into the past. Think of it as a corridor with many rooms and each chamber thronged with murderers. I must go back to those golden days when I was in the service of Benjamin Daunbey, nephew to the great Cardinal Wolsey. We were both the Cardinal's special agents working for his good and that of the crown. The good of the crown! Fat, murderous, syphilitic Henry VIII, The Dark Prince, The Mouldwarp who drenched his kingdom in torrents of blood and sent the best and noblest of his court to the scaffold . . .

I am ready. I have opened the leather casket with the year '1522' inscribed in faded gold letters. We have taken out the relics of that bygone, murderous age. They lie before me upon the desk. Some are tinged with purple where a wine cup spilt, others bear a deeper scarlet, the traces of some poor bastard's life blood. The ring given back to me is not important. My eyes are drawn to the scarlet threads, strips of tough silk, so light, so pathetic, yet in their time they concealed mysteries which stretch back to the time of Arthur.

I half-close my eyes, summoning up the past. I can almost catch Benjamin's voice and, in my mind's eye, glimpse his dark sardonic face, gentle eyes and lanky, stooped figure which masked so many subtle skills. Ah, I was so different then. No great lord but a mere commoner, a jumped-up jackanapes rescued by Wolsey's nephew to plumb the dark treacheries of Henry's court.

I look at a picture framed in gold which hangs on the wall on the other side of my room. A fair replica of me in my golden youth. Will Shakespeare once asked me to describe myself.

‘
I was a hungry, lean-faced villain,' I replied.
‘
A mountebank, a threadbare juggler, a hollow-eyed, sharp-looking wretch.'

Will thanked me for it and, as always, used it in one of his plays. You'll find the same description in his
Comedy of Errors,
a subtle humorous piece which I sponsored with my gold.

Ah, well, no more dalliance or asides. The curtains are drawn so let the bloody drama begin. I will exorcise the ghosts in my mind. Purge the demons from my soul and order them to go back to hell and tell the Lord Satan I sent them there. (Oh, by the way, you'll find this same phrase in one of Will Shakespeare's plays. He borrowed that as well!)