Benedicta left, and Athelstan returned to the house. Thankfully Malachi hadn’t returned. Athelstan quickly unlocked the chest, took out the casket and St Erconwald’s ring. He banked the fire, made sure that everything was in order and left for the church, where he locked and bolted the doors behind him. Then he prepared himself, laying out the parchment, quills, ink horn and other writing materials. Going into the sanctuary, he prostrated himself before the high altar. He quietly recited the Veni Creator Spiritus, but stumbled on the words, so he recalled the famous hymn ‘In Laudem Spiritus Sancti’: ‘Spiritus Sancte, pie Paraclete, Amor Patris e Filii, Nexus gignentis et genitï, O Holy Ghost, O faithful Paraclete, Love of the Father and the Son…’
Once he had finished, Athelstan lit more candles around the chantry chapel and concentrated on his task. Slowly but surely he teased out the facts, listing the various killings one after the other, trying to find a pattern, basing his theory on the hypothesis that one person, and one person alone, was responsible for the murders, only to quickly realise that that was futile. He then tried various combinations, listing the incidents in different categories, but eventually he changed this to three: the great robbery; the murder of the knights, Chandler, Broomhill and Davenport; and finally, the murder of the rest. The great robbery he ignored, and concentrated on the latter two, but the problem became even more vexatious, particularly Davenport’s death. For a while Athelstan concentrated on that blood-soaked corpse, until eventually he closed his eyes and whispered, ‘Deo Gratias!’ At last he was able to impose some order, a harmony on these apparently disjointed facts, before returning to the great robbery.
‘The radix malorum, the root of all evil,’ Athelstan whispered. He left the desk, warmed his hands over the brazier and walked up and down the nave, turning the problem over and over in his mind, looking for the weakness, preparing what he called his bill of indictment. He could see the logic of what he proposed, but where was the evidence? He had very little except for that ring, the casket and those two lists of jewellery. He returned to his writing desk and re-examined the evidence. He now understood the Misericord’s scratchings on the wall of his Newgate Prison cell, what he was truly shouting as he died, as well as the veiled allusion that the clue to Guinevere the Gulden’s death was something which could be found on his sister’s person. It all made sense. He also understood the Judas Man’s strange scribblings, which, in turn, took him back to the night of the Great Ratting.
Athelstan sifted amongst the evidence he had collected; what else was there? He picked up his quill and wrote a few words. The real problem was the Lombard treasure. Where had it gone? And those four men who’d disappeared off the face of the earth twenty years ago? Athelstan closed his eyes. He thought of the desolate stretch of bank south of the Thames, the dark, lonely night. Other images came to haunt him: John of Gaunt, with his glib tongue and sharp eyes; Sir Stephen Chandler’s pitiful prayer for mercy; Rolles the taverner, a knife in one hand, in the other a letter from the Castle of Love; the hay barn; the great cart standing in the tavern yard; Davenport sitting all alone in that garden. Athelstan felt thirsty, so he took a gulp of watered wine. If he could only make sense of the robbery. He recalled the axiom of one of his masters: Nihil ex Nihilo, ‘Nothing comes from Nothing’. He paused in his pacing, so surprised by his conclusion he threw his head back and guffawed laughter. He had his proof; the hypothesis was firm, the bill of indictment was ready!
Athelstan went across to the side door, unbolted it and peered out. The priest’s house was shrouded in darkness. Malachi must have retired, so Athelstan vowed to do the same. For a short while he knelt in front of the high altar and gave thanks for the help he had received. As he stared up at the Crucifix, the words of the old Crusader song came drifting back:
They have crucified their Lord of flesh
Upon another Cross
His wounds are new again
The tree of life is lost.
He sighed, blessed himself and, extinguishing all the tapers except one, lay down on the narrow cot bed and drifted off to sleep.
He woke before dawn with Bonaventure nuzzling his ear. ‘I know, I know,’ Athelstan murmured, and, picking the cat up, staggered across to the corpse door to let Bonaventure go hunting in the cemetery. Athelstan then stripped, washed himself at the lavarium in the sacristy and put on a new robe. He tidied the chantry chapel, preparing the high altar for morning Mass. At the first streak of light he tolled the bell three times, and by the time he had vested and knelt before the high altar, Benedicta and Cecily, the latter as fresh and pert as a sparrow, had come into the sanctuary, followed by a rather disgruntled Pike. ditcher spent most of the Mass scratching himself and yawning loudly, grumbling under his breath. He soon cheered up when Athelstan met him in the sacristy afterwards, and gave him a silver coin and a message which Pike had to learn by rote.
‘Go to the Lord Coroner’s house,’ Athelstan warned, ‘and tell him he must be at the Night in Jerusalem by the ninth hour. He is to bring Master Flaxwith and all his bailiffs. Oh yes, and some guards from the Guildhall. Mark me now, you are to go directly to the Lord Coroner’s. Only afterwards visit a tavern.’ He made sure the
