to leave and wait in the refectory until he’d finished asking Rachael a few questions about Master Samuel. All three looked puzzled but shrugged and left. Athelstan waved at the stool, asking Rachael to sit while he took her cloak, offered her wine and complimented her warmly on her fresh gown of dark murrey. The young woman, her glorious red hair falling thickly either side of her lovely white face, watched intently, her green eyes slightly slanted, hard and unblinking despite the smile on her pretty lips.
‘Mistress Rachael?’
‘Brother Athelstan?’
‘When did we first meet?’
‘Why, Brother, here in the Tower, Saint John’s Chapel.’ She rounded her eyes. ‘Remember?’
‘Oh, I do. As I remember the plump whore in the Roundhoop all dressed, or rather disguised, in her orange wig and tawdry finery. That was you, wasn’t it? Yes, that’s when we truly first met.’
‘Brother, why should I be there?’
‘To meet your lover, Boaz.’
The smile on the woman’s lips faded.
‘Boaz,’ Athelstan continued evenly. ‘That was his name. Your lover, a former member of the Straw Men who had grown sickened of what he saw and heard. He’d become tired of being Samuel’s lackey who, in turn, was that of Magister Thibault, My Lord of Gaunt’s Master of Secrets. A true serpent, Thibault, using a troupe of strolling mummers to spy on the villages and communities they entertained.’
‘I told you that they also. .’
‘Oh, by the way, I don’t believe that Samuel had anything to do with the Upright Men. He was always Gaunt’s man; that was your lie to distract me. The Upright Men left your company alone, satisfied to have two of their following in it — you and Boaz.’
‘My confession to you,’ she glanced sharply at Cranston, ‘was under the seal of the Sacrament.’
‘And it remains so. I am just commenting on the possibility that Boaz was an Upright Man who slipped away to join his comrades. He and you formed a pact. He would leave while you would remain with the troupe to keep everything under watch. The Upright Men would be pleased with that. You truly loved Boaz, didn’t you? He took his name from the Book of Ruth in the Old Testament. In that story Boaz falls deeply in love with the Moabite woman, Ruth, and she with him. They met when Ruth was gleaning Boaz’s fields behind his reapers. In both your eyes, their story was being re-enacted in your lives. You were his Ruth, weren’t you?’ Athelstan stared at this young woman, a true killer, yet her great tragedy was that a fiercely fatal and frustrated love had turned her so.
‘You both played your part in a deadly masque even as you staged the Bible story here and there and, above all, in the convent of Saint Bavin’s at Ghent where the woman Eleanor, now Thibault’s prisoner in Beauchamp Tower, was sheltering. She had seen the play before but was much taken by your interpretation. Indeed, she identified herself with one of the characters, Naomi, Ruth’s mother-in-law. Like Naomi, Eleanor changed her name to Mara, meaning “bitterness” because God,’ Athelstan touched the side of his face, ‘had marred her skin. She had also become the plaything of those who wished to meddle in My Lord of Gaunt’s murky and very dangerous pool of politics.’
‘We agree on some things, Brother.’ The reply was icy, belying the smiling mouth.
‘Once Samuel returned from Flanders,’ Athelstan continued, ‘he moved to the shires. Your beloved Boaz, however, could tolerate it no longer. He left the company of the Straw Men but not before swearing his love for you. Perhaps he quoted that marvellous hymn of loyalty from the Book of Ruth, how does it go?’ Athelstan closed his eyes.
‘Wherever you should travel, I shall travel,
Wherever you live so shall I,
Your kin shall be my kin,
Your God shall be my God,
I shall die wherever you shall,
There shall I be buried.
Let Yawheh send all kinds of ills against me,
And more if need be,
If anything but death should separate me from you.’
PART EIGHT
‘Dissultus: Severance’
Athelstan abruptly opened his eyes and caught a look of deep sorrow pass like a shadow across Rachael’s face before it hardened again.
‘You were his Ruth. She gleaned the fields, gathering ears of corn after the reapers. You did that. Master Samuel would spy on the Upright Men and you would spy on him, collecting what you could and passing it on to Boaz. Now and again he’d return to meet you secretly, as he did that January morning at the Roundhoop; a safe meeting, or so you thought. The Upright Men met. You joined them to provide whatever information you had gleaned as well as meet the love of your life. You went disguised as a city whore, a poor street strumpet, hair covered by a garish wig, face masked by thick, cheap paint, rags pushed up your gown to make you look fat, teeth blackened. You kept your head down and, when you did speak, mouthed the patois of the slums.’ Athelstan spread his hands. ‘You are, Mistress Rachael, a most skilled mummer, a player who can shift in both substance and shape. You have all the paints and disguises at your disposal. You not only posed as a city whore but as the strumpet of that friar of the sack who, in fact, was an Upright Man. Later that same day they visited me. I wondered why they took such pains to emphasize that you were just a common whore. They were in fact protecting you. All should have gone well except,’ Athelstan held a hand up, ‘the meeting had been betrayed, probably by spies in Saint Erconwald’s. The Roundhoop was surrounded. Thibault was desperate to defeat the Upright Men and retrieve those severed heads seized during the ambush at Aldgate. I was brought in to negotiate. In truth, I was only Thibault’s catspaw, a diversion. The Roundhoop was stormed. The Upright Men fought back; in all that carnage who would care for an ugly city whore? One of the Upright Men, I believe it was Boaz, could have killed me but he decided not to — an act of mercy. He was looking for you when he was struck down by an arrow. I tended to him as he died.’ Athelstan fought to keep the tremor out of his voice. ‘Poor Boaz could only think of his Ruth. In his final fever he talked of “gleaning” — he was referring to you. Even as he died he wanted one last look at his beloved. He searched past me, staring desperately.’ Athelstan paused. He was telling the truth. Despite her attempt to remain impassive, Rachael’s eyes filled with tears; her lower lip trembled slightly.
‘He died of his wounds,’ Athelstan added softly. ‘In the violent struggle you escaped. Only later did you discover what had actually happened. How your beloved was dead, his corpse further abused by the removal of his head so it could be thrust on a pole over London Bridge.’ Athelstan glanced at Cranston who sat on the edge of his bed, watching intently. The coroner was used to Athelstan’s ways and waited for the conclusion. ‘You were always sympathetic to the Upright Men.’ Athelstan sipped from his goblet of watered wine. ‘Now you changed. No longer a gleaner but a reaper, and a fearsome one indeed. You wanted revenge on Gaunt and all his ilk, as well as inflict vengeance on your comrades.’
‘Mistress,’ Cranston spoke up, ‘you have nothing to say to counter all of this?’
‘The play is not done yet,’ she retorted, her eyes never leaving Athelstan. ‘Every mummer has his lines.’
‘You entered into a solemn compact with the Upright Men,’ Athelstan declared. ‘They would trust you as Boaz’s helpmate, his lover. They would relish your hunger for vengeance, to wreak havoc however, whenever, wherever you could. They decided to bring you into close alliance with their own spy high in the councils of Master Thibault.’
‘Who?’
‘Why, mistress, you know, you killed him — Rosselyn, captain of archers.’
Rachael threw her head back and laughed. ‘Rosselyn!’ she exclaimed. ‘Thibault’s man body and soul. Brother,
