Текст книги "The Assassin's riddle"

Автор книги: Paul Doherty

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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

‘Oh, I couldn’t care less about Peslep,’ she replied. ‘But I want to be there when you visit Edwin’s lodgings.’

They continued across the great open expanse of Smithfield. A water-tippler, who had drunk too deeply, staggered about, the buckets slung over his shoulder slopping out, much to the merriment of a group of ragged-arsed urchins.

Athelstan made for the looming mass of St Bartholomew’s Hospital. At first he thought the crowd assembled there was waiting to make their devotions at the tomb of the Blessed Rahere in the nearby priory or, perhaps, seeking sustenance from the hospital until a shriek of pain curdled his stomach.

‘Oh lord, no!’ Cranston whispered. ‘It’s branding day!’

Athelstan walked more quickly. ‘Don’t look,’ he whispered to Alison. ‘When you pass the door of the hospital, turn away.’

He pulled his cowl over his head, half closed his eyes and recited a prayer. Cranston, walking more leisurely behind, stared over the heads of the crowd to a small platform set up beside the hospital door. Beside it a line of felons from the Fleet and Newgate prisons waited to be branded: an ‘F’ for forger, a ‘B’ for the blasphemer, a ‘T’ for the twice-convicted thief. Pickpockets would have their ears clipped; whores, caught plying their trade within the city limits for the fourth time, had their noses slit. Some bore it stalwartly, others shrieked and protested, crashing their chains about as they were held down by burly city bailiffs.

‘Come, Sir John!’ Athelstan called over his shoulder. ‘This is no place for a lady’

‘It’s no place for anyone,’ Cranston grunted. ‘Now, in my treatise on the governance of this city…’ He stopped, closing his eyes. ‘Yes, in Caput Decimus, in chapter ten, “On the inflicting of petty punishments”, I argue that these brandings should be carried out in the prison yard.’

He opened his eyes but Athelstan and the young woman were now twenty paces ahead, going down Little Britain. Cranston hurried to catch them up. Athelstan paused to ask directions from a stallholder, then they continued on until he stopped before a four-storey, well-furnished mansion, which stood in its own small plot of land with an alleyway at either side. He brought the iron knocker down on the door. A young maid opened it, her face thin and white under a small mobcap. Her eyes rounded in fear as she looked at Brother Athelstan and then at the huge bulk of Sir John.

‘Did Luke Peslep live here?’ the coroner boomed.

‘Oh yes, your grace.’ The young maid bobbed and curtsied. ‘He has two chambers on the second floor.’

‘Two?’ Cranston murmured. ‘A wealthy man our clerk. Do you have a key?’

‘The master’s out,’ the maid replied. ‘But,’ she added hastily as Sir John drew his brows together, ‘I have a key here.’

She led them into a sweet-smelling passage, up the brightly polished oaken stairs and into a small recess. She inserted the key and flung open the door. Sir John, followed by Alison and Athelstan, entered.

The room was dark so the maid opened some shutters. As she did so, Cranston whistled and Athelstan exclaimed in surprise. Peslep’s lodgings were no paltry chamber but two rooms, a small parlour and a bedroom. As the maid lit candles and opened more windows, Athelstan could see that Peslep had lived a most luxurious life: damask hangings on the wall; a velvet cloth-of-gold bedspread; tables, chairs, stools and chests. On the far wall were two shelves, one with silver and pewter pots, the other with three books and a collection of rolled manuscripts. On the wall facing the bed hung a small tapestry depicting a scene from the Old Testament showing Delilah seducing Samson. Delilah wore hardly any clothing and stood in the most delightful poses.

‘Even the devil can quote scripture,’ Cranston whispered in Athelstan’s ear.

The young maid hurriedly left.

‘Come back!’ Athelstan called.

The young girl did so. Athelstan pointed to the key. ‘You know Master Peslep’s dead?’

She just stared blankly back.

‘We found no key on his corpse,’ Athelstan explained.

‘Oh,’ the young girl replied, ‘he always left it with me, sir, so I could clean the chamber.’

And he did so this morning?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘And no one came here after he had left?’

‘No, sir, they didn’t,’ the maid replied. ‘But I saw Master Peslep go down the street. I was brushing the front step and, as I did so, I noticed someone else, another young man cloaked and cowled, spurs on his boots. He followed Master Peslep as if he’d been waiting for him.’

CHAPTER 4

‘Would you recognise him again?’ Cranston asked.

‘Oh no, sir, just a glimpse then he was gone, Master Peslep with him.’

The young maid left. They went back to their searches. Alison seemed bored. She sat on a quilted cushion, tapping her foot as if impatient to be gone. At last Athelstan found the dead clerk’s writing box. It was locked, so Cranston prised the clasp loose with his dagger and emptied the contents on to the table. Prominent amongst them was a roll of parchment containing a list of riddles. Athelstan scrutinised this.

‘These clerks really love puzzles,’ he murmured.

‘It’s more than a game.’ Alison spoke up. ‘My brother was always talking about it, asking me to search for fresh ones.’

‘And the assassin knew that,’ Athelstan replied. He picked up a smaller scroll, undid it and whistled under his breath. ‘Sir John, look at this.’

Cranston grasped it and studied the list of figures.

‘It’s from Orifab, the goldsmiths in Cheapside,’ he muttered. He looked at the total at the bottom near the date, given some two weeks previously. ‘Master Peslep was a very rich man.’ he remarked. ‘So rich I wonder why he worked as a Chancery clerk.’

‘Many of them are from wealthy families,’ Alison intervened. She came across and peered over Sir John’s shoulder. ‘The younger sons of nobles,’ she continued. ‘Their elder brothers either inherited the estates or entered the Church.’

Cranston tossed the roll back into the box. ‘I’ll tell my bailiffs to come and seal the room,’ he declared. ‘Is there anything else?’

Athelstan shook his head. ‘Personal effects but nothing remarkable.’

They left the chamber, Cranston turning the lock and telling the maid he would keep the key himself, and went back down into the street. Alison grew silent, hanging back as Cranston and Athelstan made their way through the midmorning crowds towards the city ditch. At last they reached the house where Chapler had lodged, a shabby, two-storeyed tenement which looked as if it had been pushed between the alehouse on one side and a vintner’s shop on the other. The timbers were crooked, the plaster sagging, the white paint flaking and falling like pieces of snow. A garrulous old woman was the doorkeeper; she smiled rheumily at them, chewing on her gums.

Yes, she gabbled. Master Chapler lived here. And the door to his chamber was open. After all, Chapler’s friend had also called.

‘When?’ Cranston asked.

‘Very early this morning,’ she replied. ‘Just as the bells were tolling for Matins.’

The old woman gave the same description as the maid: a young man, cowled and hooded, spurs clinking on his riding boots. He had kept his face turned away but had given the old crone a coin and who was she to object?

They climbed the rickety stairs, Athelstan wrinkling his nose at the stale odours. Mice scampered before them and the friar wondered what his great tomcat Bonaventure would have made of all this. The door at the top was half open. Athelstan went in first, crossing the room to open the shutters. Despite the house’s decay, this chamber was pleasant, the plaster freshly painted in a light, soothing green. The floor of both the parlour and the small scullery beyond was scrubbed, the furniture was roughly hewn but sturdy and clean. Alison looked around, put her face in her hands and sobbed quietly. Cranston lumbered across. He put one great arm round her.

‘There, there, my girl! There, there! My sister lost her husband. He was killed fighting the Spanish in the Narrow Seas. These things pass. You never forget them. You just live with them.’

Athelstan, sitting on the four-poster bed, caught his breath at Sir John’s words. He felt the same about his brother Francis when, what seemed like an eternity ago, they had both joined the King’s armies in France. Francis had been killed and Athelstan had returned to his novitiate. For his crime of desertion and for having had a hand in his brother’s death, he had paid a terrible price. His parents had died brokenhearted and his order had never forgotten. Now, instead of being a scholar, he was parish priest of St Erconwald’s in Southwark, but would he be for much longer?

‘Brother?’

Athelstan shook himself free from his reverie and joined Cranston in his search. They found the usual riddles, letters, lists of provisions, but nothing remarkable. Certainly not the lavish wealth found at Peslep’s. Athelstan came back to where Sir John hugged a quietly weeping Alison.

‘There’s nothing here, Sir John. Nothing at all.’

Cranston dropped his arm and stepped away, catching at Alison’s hand. He cupped her chin gently, lifting her tearful face. ‘I’ll have this room sealed as well,’ he promised. ‘I’ll send a bailiff, a man called Flaxwith, he’s a trusty fellow. He’ll pack all your brother’s possessions away. Store them in chests in the Guildhall.’

The young woman thanked him. ‘I’d best go. As I’ve said, I’m at the Silver Flute on Milk Street. My brother’s possessions should be sent there.’

‘Do you want us to accompany you?’ Athelstan asked.

‘Oh no. I’ll find my own way.’ She stepped forward and kissed Athelstan lightly on the cheek. ‘If I may, Brother, I’ll come to St Erconwald’s later on to watch over my brother’s corpse.’

‘Of course,’ Athelstan replied.

Alison left. They heard her steps fade away on the stairs.

Cranston rubbed his face. ‘Brother, I need a beef pie: the crust gold and soft, the juices running fresh in my mouth.’ He grasped the friar by the arm. ‘And, by the power given to me, I must ask you to accompany me to the Holy Lamb.’

‘You have no power over Holy Mother Church,’ Athelstan joked.

‘Then come as a friend,’ Cranston whispered.

They found Sir John’s favourite tavern half empty, the air thick with fragrant smells from the buttery beyond. Leif the one-legged beggar was sitting in Sir John’s window seat overlooking the small garden. He leapt up as the coroner came in.

‘Oh, devil’s paps!’ Cranston swore.

The beggar, his red greasy hair pushed back from his white emaciated face, hopped like a grasshopper towards them.

‘Sir John! Sir John! A thousand blessings on you, Brother! Lady Maude has sent me! The table is set. Three cutlets of lamb cooked in rosemary! The twins have been fighting and Gog and Magog have stolen the beef you had hoped to eat this evening. Blaskett your manservant says he needs your key to clean your chamber. Master Flaxwith the bailiff has been looking for you. A young nobleman, Sir Lionel Havant, has called at your house. Two pickpockets have been caught in the market. Osbert your clerk…’

‘Shut up!’ Cranston roared, silencing even the clamour in the kitchen. ‘Leif, for the love of God, would you shut up!’

‘Very good, Your Grace.’ Leif bobbed and bowed. ‘I’ll go straight to Lady Maude to tell her you are here but you’ll be home shortly.’

Sir John’s great arm shot out. He grasped Leif’s shoulder. The beggar winced.

‘On second thoughts, Sir John, perhaps if I was given a penny for some ale, I’d sit in the garden and…’

He took the penny Sir John thrust into his hand and fled from the taproom. He took his seat above the herb garden, his back half turned; now and again he’d turn the glower in the direction of the coroner. Cranston, however, was now enthroned, rubbing his hands whilst the taverner’s wife fluttered round him like a solicitous chicken.

‘A blackjack of ale,’ Cranston boomed. ‘One of your meat pies, with the onions soft, blending with the meat. A cup of…?’ He looked at Athelstan.

‘Watered ale,’ the friar replied.

‘Some ale for my monkish friend and, if you come here, lady, I’ll give you a kiss on those red fat cheeks of yours.’

The landlord’s wife, fluttering and cooing, fled the tap-room for the kitchen.

Athelstan leaned back against the wall. The plaster felt cool on the back of his head. He half listened to Sir John’s chatter. Closing his eyes, he thought of all he had seen this morning. Those two young men: death had sprung like a trap upon them. Alison crying. Those smug clerks of the Green Wax, the sneering faces of Stablegate and Flinstead, and Drayton’s corpse in that lonely counting house. How had that moneylender been killed?

A servant brought Sir John’s pie and ale. Athelstan sipped at his and let the coroner enjoy himself, exclaiming in pleasure at the fragrance of the beef and the sharp sweetness of the onions. Athelstan just prayed that Cranston would not return to the usual questioning: was Father Prior going to send him away from Southwark? Was it true Athelstan was bound for the Halls of Oxford? So, as the coroner wiped his hands on a napkin, Athelstan took the initiative.

‘I really should be going, Sir John. We have a bubbling pot of mystery here. I am sure Stablegate and Flinstead are as guilty as Judas but how they killed poor Drayton is a mystery.’ He sighed. ‘As for the murder of those two clerks of the Green Wax, their deaths are as puzzling as their lives.’

‘What do you mean?’ Cranston ignored the pun.

‘Well.’ Athelstan cradled the blackjack in his hands. ‘Here we have one clerk knocked on the head and thrown in the Thames; the other is stabbed to death whilst sitting on a privy. Riddles are left with the second corpse. Chapler was poor but Peslep rich. And who is this strange young man who apparently knew both of them?’

‘So, what do we do now?’ the coroner asked.

‘Get Flaxwith,’ Athelstan drained his tankard, ‘to check that Stablegate and Flinstead were where they claimed to be. And the same with those clerks of the Green Wax. Did they spend the night at the Dancing Pig? And where was Master Lesures, the Master of the Rolls?’

Anything else?’

‘Yes. Use your authority, Sir John, to question Orifab. Discover the source of Peslep’s wealth.’

Cranston looked at him mournfully. ‘You’ll stay for another blackjack of ale?’

‘No, Sir John, and neither should you. Lady Maude and the poppets are waiting.’

Athelstan rose, sketched a blessing in the air and left the tavern. He pulled the cowl over his head and, wrapping his hands in the sleeves of his gown, made his way through the crowds. He kept his eyes to the ground. As he turned up the Poultry to Walbrooke, he felt hot and sticky and wondered if he should go down to the riverside. Moleskin the boat-man might take him across to Southwark. The river breeze would be cool, fresh, and Athelstan liked its salty tang. Moreover, he was forever curious about what ships came into port. Sometimes, if there was a Venetian caravel, Athelstan would love to seek out the navigator, for there had been whispers in his order that the Venetians owned secret maps and were sailing seas where no English cog would dare to go. Legendary stories, about slipping out through the Pillars of Hercules and, instead of turning north into the Bay of Biscay, sailing south down the west coast of Africa.

Athelstan paused before a small statue of Our Lady placed near the London stone in Candlewick Street. He closed his eyes and said the Ave Maria but he was still distracted. He would love to talk to these navigators. If the earth was flat, why didn’t they ever reach the edge? And were the stars in heaven different the further south they sailed?

A child ran up, smutty-faced. ‘Give me your blessing, Father!’ he piped, jumping from foot to foot.

‘Of course.’ Athelstan pulled back his cowl.

‘A real blessing, Father.’ The young boy’s eyes were bright.

‘Why?’ Athelstan asked curiously.

‘Because I’ve just nipped my sister,’ the urchin replied. And my mother will beat me but if you’ve given me a blessing…’

Athelstan put his hand on the boy’s hot brow. ‘May the Lord bless you and protect you,’ he prayed. ‘May He show you His face and have mercy on you.’ He raised his right hand for the benediction. ‘May He smile on you and give you peace. May the Lord bless you and keep you all the days of your life.’ He still grasped the boy as he dug into his purse and took out a penny. ‘Now, buy your sister some sweet-meats. Give some to her and to your mother. Always be kind and the Lord will be kind to you.’

The young boy grabbed the coin and scampered off. Athelstan felt better. I won’t go to the river, he thought, I’ll go along to see old Harrowtooth.

He continued along Candlewick into Bridge Street. Near the gatehouse he met Master Robert Burdon, the diminutive constable of the bridge and the proud father of nine children. The little fellow was strutting up and down, gazing at long poles which stretched out over the river bearing the heads of executed traitors.

‘Goodmorrow, Master Burdon, do I have permission to cross your bridge?’

‘You carry the warrant of Holy Mother Church,’ Burdon teased tack. ‘Not to mention the lord coroner’s. May the Lord bless his breeches and all that’s within them. What do you really want, Father?’

Athelstan took a deep breath but gagged at the stench from the corrupting pile of rotting fish piled high against the rails of the bridge. Burdon followed his gaze.

‘I know, Father. I’ll throw that lot over as well as the insolent bastard who put it there.’

‘Where does old Harrowtooth live?’ Athelstan asked.

Burdon clicked his fingers. Athelstan followed him along the bridge. He felt that strange sensation he always did: the bridge was really a street with houses and shops on either side, yet he was aware of the rushing water below, caught like some soul between heaven and earth. Burdon stopped at the side door to a clothier and rapped noisily upon it. Harrowtooth, her iron-grey hair streaming about her, flung open the door.

‘Go to hell!’ she screamed when she saw Burdon.

‘Only after you, you foulsome bitch!’ Burdon yelled back.

‘Now, now,’ Athelstan intervened swiftly. ‘Master Burdon, I thank you. Mistress Harrowtooth, a word?’

Burdon skipped away, turning to make an obscene gesture with his middle finger. Harrowtooth was about to reply but Athelstan grasped her hand.

‘Mistress, please, just a few minutes of your time?’

The old woman turned, eyes screwed up against the sun. ‘You are the Dominican from Southwark?’

‘Can I come in?’

‘No, you can’t. I don’t allow priests in here: thieving magpies they are.’

‘I really won’t steal anything.’ Athelstan held his hands up.

‘It’s a fine day,’ Harrowtooth replied. She pointed across the street. ‘Let’s go down the alleyway, it overlooks the river.’

Athelstan sighed, he had no choice. The alleyway was a sordid, stinking mess, rubbish piled on either side. He was pleased to stand against the rail of the bridge. The breeze was cool and from below he could hear the shouts of the watermen and wherry boys. Further down the river two huge cogs, royal men-of-war, were preparing to leave to patrol the Narrow Seas: bumboats and barges bobbed like little sticks around them.

‘I love this place,’ Harrowtooth said, coming up behind him. ‘My father used to bring me here.’

‘Father?’ Athelstan asked.

‘He was a priest.’ Harrowtooth grinned. ‘Mother died, so he made reparation by going on pilgrimage. The lazy bugger never came back.’

‘Edwin Chapler?’ Athelstan abruptly asked.

‘Ah, the young clerk who was flung over the bridge.’ Harrowtooth sniffed. ‘I sees him, you know. I was probably the last person to see him before he met God.’

‘Except for his murderer,’ Athelstan corrected.

‘Ah yes!’

‘So, what did you see, Mother?’

‘I am not your mother!’ Harrowtooth snapped but then, leaning against the rails, she told Athelstan of how she had visited the chapel of St Thomas, how Chapler had been praying there, how he looked agitated when she left him.

‘And you saw no one else?’

‘No one, father.’

‘Did Chapler often visit St Thomas a Becket?’

‘Oh yes. Oh yes. Sometimes he’d be by himself. I sees him once.’ She hurried on, eyes glinting at the penny in Athelstan’s hand. ‘I sees him, Father. Oh, and by the way, you can call me Mother any time you want. I sees him with a young man, well dressed. Here on the bridge.’

Athelstan pressed for a description but the old woman shook her head. ‘I told you what I can, Father.’

Athelstan handed over the penny. He followed Harrowtooth back across the bridge. She waited for a break in the carts and sumpter ponies being led across and scurried away like a spider hiding from the sunlight. Athelstan made his way to Southwark side. Near the priory of St Mary Overy, Mugwort the bell clerk and Pernell the old Flemish woman, her hair now painted a hideous orange, were standing talking to Amisias the fuller. All three parishioners turned to greet Athelstan. The friar would have liked to stop and ask why they’d had their heads together, talking so animatedly, but he walked on. He passed the house of Simon the carpenter, pleased to see that Tabitha, a widow, her husband recently hanged at Tyburn, seemed to be coping better. Athelstan wondered if the whispers were true, that the deceased carpenter had been too quick with his fists, and regularly beat upon his poor wife.

He made his way past the shabby stalls, the little hovels and cottages of his parishioners. The air was thick with the pungent smells from the tanning yards but the aroma from Merryleg’s pie shop was as sweet and savoury as ever. The day seemed busy enough: dogs and children ran about, thin-necked chickens dug into the midden heaps. Lurching out of an alleyway, ears flapping, flanks quivering with fat, trotted Ursula the pigwoman’s favourite sow. The beast stopped, snout up, and stared at Athelstan. The friar was sure that, if a pig could grin, this one did.

I’d love to have a stick, Athelstan thought, quietly mourning the succulent cabbages this great beast had plucked from his garden. Instead he sighed, sketched a blessing in the direction of the sow and continued up the alleyway. The church steps were deserted except for Bonaventure, the great one-eyed tomcat who lay sprawled there like some dissolute Roman emperor. He cocked his good eye open as Athelstan came and crouched beside him.

‘Oh, most pious of cats,’ Athelstan breathed, gently rubbing the cat’s tattered ears between his fingers.

He opened the door of the church and went inside, relishing the cool, incense-filled air. The nave was empty. Athelstan felt guilty because there should have been a school today. He checked the sanctuary lamp, a little red beacon in the darkness glowing under the silver pyx hanging from its chain above the high altar. About to go back down the steps, Athelstan sniffed. ‘Fresh paint,’ he murmured.

Then he remembered how Huddle the painter, together with Tab the tinker, had finished a new crucifix to hang in the small alcove behind the baptismal font. Athelstan went to inspect it. The wall behind the font had been covered with a vivid garish painting depicting souls, in the form of worms, being pushed into a fiery furnace by a devil which had the body of a monkey and the head of a wild goat.

‘It’s too savage,’ Athelstan murmured, studying the flames Huddle had painted devouring the black imps and the grotesque beasts of the underworld. However, it was the new crucifix which caught his attention. Huge, at least three foot high and two foot across, the rood was black with the figure of Christ in alabaster-white. This twisted in agony, the head covered with thorns, the face drooping, whilst Huddle had vividly painted the blood pouring out of the wounds in the hands, feet and side. Beneath it, the work of Watkin the dung-collector, leader of the parish council, was a new candelabra made of wrought iron with little spikes for devotional lights to be placed on.

Athelstan studied the scene carefully. ‘A little too vivid,’ he commented but, there again, he admired Huddle’s consummate skill and knew that every aspect of the cross would be carefully studied by each and every one of his parishioners at the parish council tonight. Athelstan genuflected towards the sanctuary, closed the door and, followed by an inquisitive Bonaventure, went across to the priest’s house.

He first checked on Philomel, the old destrier he had bought. The horse seemed happy enough, leaning against the wall, eyes closed, munching the remains of what was left of his oats. Athelstan went into the house. The small kitchen and parlour were clean and swept, the rushes changed and sprinkled with spring flowers and herbs. The wooden table before the kitchen hearth had been scrubbed whilst fresh bread, cheese and a small jar of comfit were in the buttery. Athelstan closed his eyes and thanked God for Benedicta, the widow woman. He took the food and returned to the parlour, filling Bonaventure’s bowl with milk. The great cat sat on the table, sipping at it, now and again raising his head to study his master. Athelstan’s thoughts were elsewhere. He chewed his food carefully, eyes half closed, remembering the problems which had confronted him earlier in the day. He could make no sense of the moneylender’s murder.

Think, Athelstan. For the love of God there must be a solution.

He put the piece of cheese down, closed his eyes and recalled Drayton’s counting room. No entrances, a square of stone, walls, ceiling, floors all sealed in by that great oaken door with its metal studs, locked and barred. How had the assassin got in and out with the stolen silver? If he had knocked at the door, Drayton might have admitted him, but who would have locked and bolted the door behind him? And Athelstan recalled the house: how did the murderer leave, making sure every window and door was locked behind him? Athelstan opened his eyes and shook his head. When he looked down, the piece of cheese had gone. The friar wagged a finger at the cat.

‘Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s cheese, Bonaventura.’

The cat’s little pink tongue came out. Athelstan then thought of the murders amongst the clerks of the Green Wax. Chapler’s was brutal, a bang on the head and tossed over London Bridge. But why? Who would kill a clerk? For what reason? And who was this mysterious young man whom Chapler had met and who was probably responsible for Peslep’s death? And the latter’s wealth, was it ill gotten? And his companions? Why had Athelstan caught that sense of…? He paused in his thoughts: yes, wickedness, that’s what it was, a sense of evil. And the riddles? What did it mean: a king vanquishing his opponents but, in the end, victors and vanquished lying together in the same place? And the riddle that was left on Peslep’s body?

My first is like a selfish brother.

Athelstan shook his head. ‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,’ he declared.

At least, thank God, Cranston had not questioned him. What the coroner did not know, nor did anyone here in Southwark, was that Father Prior seemed intent on moving Athelstan to the Halls of Oxford. Athelstan had protested and, in doing so, realised how much he loved this small poor parish on the south side of the Thames. Moreover, despite the bloody murders they investigated, Cranston was his friend.

Athelstan sighed: his brooding would do no good. He let Bonaventure finish what was left of the cheese and climbed up the steps to the little loft which also served as his bedroom. He sat down on the bed and picked up the book his brethren at Blackfriars had so kindly lent him: the writings of Abbot Richard of Wallingford, the eminent scholar and instrument-maker who, a hundred years ago, had built a great clock at St Albans.

I must go and see it, Athelstan thought. He turned the pages of the folio and studied Wallingford’s drawing of the Albion, an elaborate astrolabe, but he couldn’t concentrate. His mind kept jumping like a flea. Drayton’s corpse locked and sealed in a vaulted chamber; Peslep stabbed whilst sitting on a privy; Chapler’s corpse; the riddles; something else he had seen or heard today which had escaped his tired brain. He put the book down and lay on the bed. He felt Bonaventure come and snuggle up behind him.

‘According to the laws of my order,’ he murmured, ‘a Dominican is supposed to sleep alone, Bonaventure! Whatever would Father Prior think?’

Athelstan closed his eyes and drifted into a dream about constructing, with the help of Sir John Cranston, a marvellous clock at the top of St Erconwald’s tower.

A few hours later, in the writing room of the Chancery of the Green Wax, the clerks were finishing the major tasks of the day. They had, Master Lesures reflected, been quiet, not the respectful silence due to the deaths of two of their colleagues, but something else, as if they were afraid. He walked into the centre of the room and rang his small handbell.

‘The day’s work is done,’ he declared. ‘So it’s time we took a little refreshment, a break from our duties. Perhaps toast the memory of our dead comrades?’

The others agreed, climbing down off their high stools. They left their quills on their desks, or pushed them into the pouches on their belts. They stood in a small group talking softly amongst themselves, almost ignoring him. Lesures shrugged and walked across to the table where their cups were kept. He picked up the jug of malmsey, removing the linen cloth which covered it, and filled the cups. He then took the tray round the room. Each clerk picked up the cup which carried the letter of their surname; they sipped appreciatively, savouring the rich, honey-fused drink. This evening, however, Lesures felt like a stranger. They looked at him out of the corner of their eyes and he could see that they wished him elsewhere.

‘Are we to attend the funerals?’ he asked.

‘Chapler was an acquaintance,’ Alcest retorted. ‘But he was not a friend. I don’t like Southwark and I want to keep far away from Brother Athelstan and that drunken coroner.’

‘And Peslep?’ Lesures asked.

‘I suppose he’ll be buried in St Mary Le Bow,’ Napham replied. ‘We’ll pray for a priest to sing a chantry Mass and watch his body being tossed into the grave.’