The Nightingale Gallery (19 page)

Athelstan let his mind drift, back to Cranston and the startled, frightened face of Lady Isabella. Athelstan shook his head free of such images. He wondered what the evening sky would be like and if Father Prior would send him a copy of the writings of Richard of Wallingford. Once Abbot of St Albans, Richard had invented the most wondrous instrument for measuring and fixing the stars. Athelstan had talked to another friar who had seen Wallingford’s ingenious clock, the wheels within it fixed as if by magic, which not only measured the hours but indicated signs, the phases of the moon, the position of the sun, the planets and the heavens. Athelstan licked his lips. He would give a fortune for one of those. Everything he owned just to have it in his hands for a few hours. Perhaps Father Prior would help? He’d already asked for a copy of the calendars of the Carmelite, Nicholas of Lyn.

The ceiling reminded him about the church, the roof had been mended but really it was little more than a pig sty. He heard voices outside his door, rose in just his robe, peered out of the window and groaned quietly. Of course, he had forgotten, the meeting with his parishioners! They were to assemble in the nave and discuss the pageant for Corpus Christi.

Athelstan’s premonitions about the occasion proved correct. The meeting was not a happy one. Foremost among his parishioners were Watkin the dung-collector and his wife, a woman built like a battering ram, hard-faced, with iron grey hair hanging down to her shoulders. Cecily the courtesan made constant barbed remarks, hinting she knew more about Watkin than his wife did. Ranulf the ratcatcher, Simon the tiler, and a host of others thronged the nave, sitting facing each other on the church’s two and only benches with Athelstan sitting between them on the sanctuary chair.

The occasion was marred by bickering. Nothing was resolved and Athelstan felt he had failed to take a decisive role. The meeting ended with all his parishioners glaring up at him accusingly. He apologised, said he felt tired, and promised they would meet again when some decisions could be made. They all trooped out, mumbling and muttering, except Benedicta. She remained sitting on the end of one bench, her cloak wrapped about her.

Athelstan went to close the door behind his parishioners. When he returned he thought Benedicta was crying, her shoulders were shaking so. But when she looked up, he realised she was laughing, the tears streaming down her face.

‘You find our parish meetings amusing, Benedicta?’

‘Yes.’ He noticed how low and cultured her voice was.

‘Yes, Father, I do. I mean —’ She spread her hands and giggled again.

Athelstan just glared at her but still she could not control her mirth. Her shoulders shook with laughter, her alabaster cheeks flushed with warmth. Athelstan could not prevent his smile.

‘I mean,’ she said, ‘Cecily the courtesan’s ambition to act the role of the Virgin Mary! And the face of Watkin’s wife!’ She laughed so infectiously that Athelstan joined in and, for the first time since he had arrived at St Erconwald’s, the nave of his church rang with laughter. At last Benedicta composed herself.

‘Not seemly,’ she observed, her eyes dancing with merriment, ‘for a widow and her parish priest to be laughing so loudly in church at the expense of his parishioners! But I must say, never in my short life have I witnessed anything so funny. You must regard us as a cross to bear.’

‘No,’ Athelstan replied and sat down beside her. ‘No cross.’

‘Then what is it, Father? Why are you so sad?’

Athelstan stared across at the blue, red and gold painting now being formed on the wall. What is my cross? he thought. A large burden, a veritable mortal sin of the flesh, with balding head, shrewd brown eyes, and a face as red as a bloody rag. Sir John Cranston, lord of the stomach, master of the sturdy legs and an arse so huge that Athelstan secretly called it ‘Horsecrusher’. But how could he explain Cranston to Benedicta?

‘No crosses, Benedicta. Nothing, perhaps, except loneliness.’

He suddenly realised how close he was to her. She stared calmly back, her jet black hair escaping from underneath the wimple. Her face was so smooth. He was fascinated by her generous mouth and her eyes, beautiful and dark as the night. He coughed abruptly and got up.

‘You stayed back, Benedicta! Do you wish to talk to me?’

‘No.’ She, too, rose as if sensing the sudden chill between them. ‘But you should know that Hob has died. I visited his house before I came here and saw his widow.’

‘God save him!’ whispered Athelstan. ‘God save us all, Benedicta! God save us all!’

The next day Athelstan refused to think about Sir John and the terrible murders in the Springall household. Instead, he busied himself about his parish duties. The new poor box was replaced and padlocked near the baptismal font. He tried to settle matters between Cecily and Watkin the dung-collector’s wife and achieved some accord: Cecily would be the Madonna provided Watkin’s wife could be the Virgin’s cousin, Saint Elizabeth. Watkin would have pride of place as St George while Ranulf the rat-catcher eagerly agreed to put on a costume and act the role of the dragon.

There were other more serious matters. Hob the grave-digger was buried late in the afternoon and Athelstan organised a collection, giving what he could to the poor widow and promising her more as soon as circumstances allowed. He slept well that night, getting up early to climb the wet, mildewed stairs to the top of the church tower where he saw the stars clear in the skies, studying their alignment before they faded with the dawn.

Later in the morning he was down in the church preparing the corpse of Meg of Four Lanes for burial. Meg of the flowing, black hair, white face and nose hooked like an eagle’s beak. In life she had been no beauty, in death she looked ugly, her greasy locks falling in wisps to her dirty shoulders. Her face was mere bone over which the skin had been stretched tight and transparent like a piece of cloth. Her pale sea green eyes were now dull and sunken deep in their sockets.

Her mouth sagged open and her body, dirty white like the underbelly of a landed fish, was covered in marks and bruises. The corpse had been brought in just after the morning mass by members of the parish. Athelstan had borrowed a gown from an old lady who lived in one of the tenements behind the church and dressed Meg’s corpse with as much dignity as circumstances would allow. The parish constable, a mournful little man, had informed him that Meg had been murdered.

‘A tragic end,’ he wailed, to a sad life!’

Athelstan had questioned him further. Apparently some villain, hot with his own juices, had bought Meg’s body and used her carnally before plunging a knife between her ribs. Just after dawn that day her corpse, cold and hard, had been found in a rat-infested spinney. No one would come forward to claim the body and Athelstan knew the parish watch would bury it like the decaying corpse of a dog. However, the morning Mass had been well attended and the members of the parish had decided otherwise. Tab the tinker, who had come in to be shriven, had agreed to fashion a coffin of sorts out of thin planks of wood. He had built this out on the steps of the church and placed it on trestles before the rood screen. Athelstan blessed Meg, sprinkling the open coffin with holy water and praying that the sweet Christ would have mercy on her soul. Then with Tab’s help he nailed down the lid, reciting the prayers for the dead, and entered her name amongst other deceased of the parish to be remembered at the weekly Requiem Mass.

After that Athelstan gave Tab and his two apprentices some pennies to take the coffin from the church and out to the old cemetery. Athelstan walked behind, chanting verses from the psalms. Meg’s coffin was lowered into a shallow grave packed in the dry, hard ground. Athelstan, distracted, vowed to remember to place a cross there and as soon as possible sing a Mass for her soul and that of poor Hob. He walked back to the church feeling guilty. He had spent time watching the stars whilst people like Meg of Four Lanes died horrible deaths, their bodies afterwards lowered into obscure graves. Athelstan felt angry and went to kneel before the statue of the Virgin, praying for Meg and the evil bastard who had sent her soul unshriven out into the darkness. He got up and was about to return to his house to wash the dirt from Meg’s grave from his hands when Cranston swaggered in, throwing the door open as if he was announcing the Second Coming.

‘It’s murder, Athelstan!’ he bawled. ‘Bloody murder! Foul homicide!’

Athelstan knew Cranston loved to startle him, delighting in dramatic exits and entrances, and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Cranston stood there, legs apart, hands on hips. The friar sat down on the sanctuary steps and stared into his fat, cheery face.

‘What are you talking about, Sir John?’ he said crossly.

The grinning tub of lard just stood there, smiling. ‘The Springalls!’ he bawled at last. ‘It’s happened again.

This time poor Allingham’s been found dead in his chamber, with not a mark on his body. Chief Justice Fortescue is hopping like a cat. By the way, where’s yours?’

‘Bonaventure probably left when he heard you coming!’

Athelstan muttered. ‘Why, what’s wrong with the Chief Justice? What’s he got to do with Bonaventure?

‘Fortescue is hopping like a cat on hot bricks, demanding something should be done, but he has no more idea than I what
can
be done. Anyway, we’re off, Athelstan, back to the Springall house!’

‘Sir John! I am busy with matters here. Two deaths, two burials.’

The coroner walked towards him, a wicked grin on his satyr-like face.

‘Now, now, Athelstan. You know better than that.’

Of course, the friar did. He knew he had no choice in the matter but cursed and muttered as he filled his saddle bags, harnessed Philomel and joined Cranston who sat slouched on his horse on the track outside the church. They stopped for Athelstan to leave messages with Tab the tinker, now drinking away the profits of Meg’s funeral at the nearest tavern, and began the slow journey down to London Bridge and across to Cheapside. Cranston was full of good cheer, aided and abetted by an apparently miraculous wineskin which never seemed to empty. Athelstan tried to apologise for his part in the quarrel at their last parting but the coroner just waved his words aside.

‘Not your fault, Brother!’ he boomed. ‘Not yours! The humours, the heat of the day. We all quarrel. It happens in the best of families.’

So, with Athelstan praying and cursing, and Cranston farting and swaying in his saddle, they cleared London Bridge and pressed on to Fish Street Hill. Of course, when the wine ran out, Cranston’s mood darkened. He announced that he didn’t give a rat’s fart for mumbling monks.

‘Orders were orders!’ he roared, looking darkly at the friar, before going on to regale both him and the horses with an account of the meal his poor wife was preparing for the coming Sunday.

‘A veritable banquet!’ Cranston announced. ‘Boar’s head, cygnet, venison, quince tarts, junkets of apple-flavoured cream . . .’

Athelstan listened with half an ear. Allingham was dead. He remembered the merchant, long, lanky, and lugubrious of countenance. How unsettled and agitated he had been when they last had visited the Springall house. He glared darkly at Cranston and hoped the coroner was not too deeply in his cups.

On their arrival at the house in Cheapside Athelstan was astonished to find how calm and collected Sir Richard and Lady Isabella were. The friar suddenly realised that Cranston’s claim that Allingham was murdered was really a piece of pure guesswork on his part. Sir Richard greeted them courteously, Lady Isabella beside him. She was dressed in dark blue velvet, a high white lace wimple on her head. She recounted how they had gone up to Master Allingham’s chamber and, finding the door locked, had ordered the workmen from the yard below to force the chamber.

‘Allingham was found dead on the bed due to a stroke or apoplexy,’ Sir Richard commented. ‘We do not know which. We sent for Father Crispin.’ He pointed to where the priest sat on a chair just within the hall door. ‘He examined Allingham, held a piece of glass to his lips, but there was no sign of the breath of life. So he did what he has become accustomed to doing - gave the last rites. You wish to see the corpse?’

Athelstan turned and looked at Cranston, who just shrugged

‘So you think that Allingham’s death was by natural causes?’

‘Oh, of course! What else? There’s no mark of violence. No sign of poison,’ Sir Richard answered.

Athelstan remembered Foreman’s words - how the lady who had visited his shop had bought a poison which could not be traced or smelt yet would stop the heart. He believed Sir Richard and Lady Isabella were speaking the truth, at least literally: in their eyes, and perhaps even those of a skilled physician, Allingham’s death was from natural causes, but Athelstan thought differently. He agreed with Sir John, Allingham had been murdered.

The young clerk, Buckingham, now dressed more festively, the funerals being over, took them up to the first floor, then up more stairs to the second storey of the house. The middle chamber on that floor was Allingham’s: the door had been forced off its leather hinges and a workman was busy replacing it. He pushed it open for them and they went inside.

The chamber was small but pleasant, with a window overlooking the garden. On the bed, a small four poster with the bolsters piled high, Allingham lay as if asleep. Athelstan looked round the room. There was a short, coloured tapestry on the wall depicting Simeon greeting the baby Jesus, two or three chests, a table, one high-backed chair, some stools and a cupboard with a heavy oak frontal pushed open. He caught the fragrant smell of herbs sprinkled across and stared down at Allingham’s body. He said a short prayer. Cranston sat on the bed just staring at the corpse as if the man was alive and the coroner wished to draw him into friendly conversation.

Athelstan knew that Cranston, despite all his bluster and drunken ways, was quite capable of making a careful, perceptive study of the dead man. Athelstan leaned over to perform his own examination. The dead merchant’s skin was like the cold scales of a fish. Rigor mortis had set in, but not totally. He pushed the mouth open and inhaled. A slight spicy smell but nothing unusual, and no discoloration of the skin, nails or face. He picked up the fingers. Again no smell except for chrism where the priest had anointed the dead man. Athelstan felt slightly ridiculous, he and Sir John sitting on the bed, Buckingham and Sir Richard looking down at them. Behind them, at the door, Lady Isabella peered on tip-toe over their shoulders, as if watching some masque or mummer’s play. And then, behind her, the dull dragging footsteps of Father Crispin as he, too, came up to join them.