‘These are the aisles or transepts. On that day they were busy, food and drink tables stood here, guests and servants moved about. The same is true here.’ Athelstan grasped the end of the table. ‘This is the entrance – guards stood there. Musicians were busy in the recess, people were coming and going.’ He shook his head. ‘So where did our assassin lurk and successfully and secretly loose two crossbow bolts?’ His question was greeted with silence. The friar shrugged. ‘Sir John, my apologies but my sermon may have proved too long. I am even sorrier that all it did was pose questions.’
The coroner grinned, picked up his cloak and bowed at the assembled company. ‘Gentlemen, Mistress’ Rachael and Judith, I thank you for your attention.’ And the coroner, taking a sip from his wine skin, headed for the door. Athelstan swiftly sketched a blessing and hurried after him.
‘Sir John?’ Once they were outside Athelstan plucked at the coroner’s sleeve. ‘I apologize, but this mystery hounds me…’
‘No need to apologize.’ Cranston clutched Athelstan’s hand and squeezed it. ‘I am baffled, you are baffled, we are baffled. All that you said in there is what I was trying to express.’ He let go of the friar’s hand. ‘Anyway, what brought you up? I thought you were busy with Warde’s manuscripts. Did you find anything which might explain the massacre of him and his family?’
‘No,’ Athelstan replied evasively. ‘Perhaps the Upright Men were involved? But come, Sir John, while we are braving the cold, let us visit Eli’s chamber.’ They trudged through the snow. The guard inside the Salt Tower allowed them up to the death chamber. Carpenters had been very busy. The door had been rehung on new freshly oiled leather hinges with gleaming bolts and a new lock. Cranston remarked on the speed and skill of the repairs as Athelstan began to search around. There was very little. Eli’s possessions had been removed. The chamber was cold, empty and bleak. Athelstan returned to the door. He closed it over, drew the bolts and turned the well-greased lock. He then crossed the chamber to examine the window shutters but swiftly deduced that these had not been opened since late summer or early autumn: the bar was secure and covered in dust. Athelstan, puzzled, stood chewing his lip. This chamber has no secret entrance, so how had Eli been killed? He returned to the door and examined the eyelet. The slit looked unchanged, about six inches long and the same in breadth; the small wooden shutter had been replaced and now slid easily backwards and forwards. Athelstan pulled this open and stared into the darkened stairwell.
‘An assassin with a small hand arbalest could loose a bolt quite easily through that slit,’ Athelstan remarked. ‘Except…’
‘Except what, my dear friar?’
‘Except when Eli was murdered that shutter was firmly stuck.’ Athelstan stamped his feet against the gathering cold. ‘And even if it hadn’t been, Eli would have surely been cautious. I mean, that’s the whole purpose of an eyelet, isn’t it, to determine friend or foe? Eli was young, alert and vigorous; even if that shutter could slide back, problems remain. Let us analyse it,’ Athelstan wagged a finger, ‘causa disputandi – for the sake of argument. Let us suppose that the shutter could be moved. Now, logically the assassin standing outside would have knocked, perhaps even called out, yes?’
Cranston nodded.
‘Eli must have asked who it was? Satisfied with the answer, Eli pulled back the shutter. He would certainly flinch at an arbalest being pushed up to the slit and move very swiftly out of danger. Yet in the end all this is fiction,’ Athelstan closed the door, ‘that couldn’t have happened, as the shutter was held fast, stuck.’ Athelstan laughed sharply. ‘Even if it hadn’t been, and Eli was satisfied with his visitor, why not just open the door? Why bother peering through the eyelet in the first place?’
‘Brother, one question?’
‘Yes, Sir John?’
‘Can we resolve these mysteries?’
‘At first sight, Sir John, no, though logic dictates, and God demands we do so.’
The mournful tolling of the Newgate bell was answered by that of the nearby church of St Sepulchre; the bells boomed out across the sleet-swept, blood-strewn concourse in front of the soaring iron-bound gates of London’s greatest and grimmest prison. Despite the harsh winter’s day, fleshers, butchers and their minions were busy hacking and hewing the carcasses of cattle, pigs and birds of every kind. Apprentice boys raced about with tubs and buckets crammed with steaming entrails, giblets and offal. The morning air was rich with the raw stench of slaughter, heavy with the tang of salt and brine. Scavengers, human, animal and bird, flocked to fight over globules of flesh and the occasional chunk of meat. Around these surged a crowd, leather boots, wooden sandals and, in some cases, bare feet squelching in the gory mess of blood, snow and filthy mud. Citizens hoped to buy a bargain though at the same time the great gates of Newgate were kept under close watch. When these abruptly swung open, people surged forward to greet the death carts which came rumbling out, escorted by men-at-arms wearing the city livery. Cranston and Athelstan, who’d been sheltering in the porch of the aptly named tavern The Roast Pig, stepped out and waited. Duke Ezra had insisted that the pardon for the three plungers be served here.
‘So everyone can see his power,’ Cranston whispered. ‘A better mummer than any of the Straw Men, Ezra loves a spectacle. We have to do what he says – the Herald of Hades will be watching, hah!’ Cranston pointed at the black-garbed executioner, his face concealed by a red mesh mask, sitting by the driver
