‘And what happened to these?’
‘On our way home, the fleet docked in Genoa. The Genoese were only too pleased to buy whatever treasure the Crusaders had seized.’
‘Did you receive a portion of this wealth?’
‘No,’ Malachi smiled, ‘but my order did.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, let’s leave here.’ Cranston picked up a coverlet and draped it over the corpse. ‘Master Rolles, I want to see where he was wounded.’
Malachi stayed in the chamber whilst Rolles took them down to the cellar, Athelstan gingerly following the coroner down the stone steps, where a few candles glowed in wall-niches. At the bottom they paused as Rolles lit lantern horns slung on hooks to reveal a long, low-ceilinged cavern with vats and barrels stacked down either side. In the corner, to Athelstan’s right, were garden implements: mattocks, hoes and spades.
‘I did my best to clean the blood,’ Rolles muttered, and gestured at the great oval-shaped mantrap now resting against the wall. He pulled this out and prised apart the teeth.
‘A simple contraption,’ Athelstan conceded, ‘yet so deadly.’
The trap opened up and was kept apart by a spring. When Rolles touched this with a stick, the teeth came together with such a clash Athelstan jumped.
‘I need this,’ Rolles explained, sensing Athelstan’s horror. ‘Brother, ask Sir John, anyone! I have carp ponds, stables and outhouses which must be protected. A gang of rifflers can take your livestock in a night. Just knowing the traps are here will keep them away.’
‘You need a licence,’ the coroner snapped.
‘I have that. I know the law, Sir John, I can only use this when I can prove I am in danger of being robbed.’
‘More importantly,’ Athelstan crouched down, ‘why was it left open down here last night? And why did Sir Laurence come down here?’
He picked up the metal jug.
‘Was this from his chamber?’
‘I don’t know.’
Athelstan stared down the narrow passageway of this gloomy cellar, trying to imagine what had happened. Undoubtedly the Knights of the Golden Falcon would have been upset by Chandler’s death, as well as their own forced confessions about consorting with prostitutes. They might have drunk deeply. Sir Laurence, eager for more wine, took a jug from his own chamber or the kitchen and came down here.
‘This cellar is always in darkness, isn’t it?’
‘Of course,’ the taverner replied. ‘Candles are lit only when necessary.’
‘What if Sir Laurence came down here expecting to see somebody. He didn’t know this place. What do you do, Sir John, when you walk downstairs in the dark, particularly if you have been drinking?’
‘Take great care; those small candles in the wall-niches provide scanty light.’
‘And we don’t know,’ Athelstan mused, ‘if Sir Laurence was carrying a lantern.’
He closed his eyes, trying to recall how he came down the steps of the bell tower at his church. He hated that spiral staircase; he was never too sure when he reached the bottom. Wouldn’t Sir Laurence have felt the same? Athelstan got to his feet. The area around the steps stank of the brine and vinegar Rolles had used to clear up the blood; here and there splashes still stained the wall and the ground at the foot of the steps.
‘Sir Laurence must have been distracted.’
Athelstan pulled the mantrap over, placing it closed at the bottom of the steps. He then walked down between the vats and barrels to the far wall. The brickwork here was uneven and Athelstan noticed, just above his own gaze, a rather large gap.
‘Sister Wax,’ he murmured, recalling his discovery at the squint hole at the church earlier that day. ‘Sister Wax, you’ve helped me again!’
The wax on the brickwork was soft and clean, freshly formed.
‘Master Rolles, come here.’ The taverner came down to join him. ‘Did you place a candle here?’
The taverner brushed the wax with his fingers.
‘No, no, I didn’t. By the amount of wax, a candle must have been burning here for some time.’
Athelstan asked Rolles to bring a tallow candle down. The taverner took one from the box beneath the staircase, lit it and placed it in the niche. The cellar lanterns were doused. Athelstan went back up the steps, ignoring Cranston’s moans about the darkness, then turned and came slowly down again. Even though he was aware of the small lights in the wall-niches, he was still attracted by that solitary candle burning at the far end of the cellar. He reached the bottom step.
‘Sir Laurence was murdered.’ His voice echoed sombrely through the darkness. ‘Master Rolles, please light the lanterns. Sir John, if you would…’
They left the cellar and walked out into the stable yard, well away from any eavesdropper.
‘I’m sure Sir Laurence was murdered,’ Athelstan repeated. ‘That’s how it was done. Somebody, somehow primed that trap and invited him down to the cellar. I wonder what the lure was? Perhaps a revelation about the mysteries now besetting us, or something else?’
‘It was dangerous,’ Cranston declared. ‘Somebody else could have been killed.’
‘I don’t think the assassin cared. The real question is, who is it? The taverner? Any of those knights? And the Judas Man and Mother Veritable seem to be able to come and go as they wish.’
Athelstan stared across at the hay barn.
‘Do we have one assassin, Sir John,’ he asked, ‘or two? Even more? Think of these mysteries as lines. We have the Misericord’s strange doings; we have that infamous robbery twenty years ago; we have the death of those two young women; now we have the murder of two knights. It’s a question of logic, Sir John. Do the lines run quite separate and parallel, or do they meet, tangled up with each other?’
He was about to continue when the Judas Man came swaggering through the gate, his face bright with pleasure.
‘I’ve found him!’ He clapped his leather-clad hands. ‘Brother Athelstan, I apologise for my earlier rudeness, but the Misericord’s been caught.’
‘Whereabouts?’
‘Just near Bishopsgate. I had men on the road leading out.
