‘One other matter.’ Athelstan smiled. ‘We have touched upon it before. You went to rouse Sir Ralph. What happened?’
‘The guards opened the passageway door and locked it behind me as Sir Ralph had ordered. I went down and tried to rouse the constable. There was no answer so I went back. I told the guards and took the key to Whitton’s chamber. I was going to open it myself but changed my mind and went for Colebrooke.’
‘Why did you do that?’
Geoffrey pulled a face. I knew something was wrong by the silence, not to mention the cold draught under the door of Whitton’s chamber.
Athelstan remembered the gap under Sir Ralph’s door and nodded. Someone standing outside the room would have felt the powerful draught and know something was wrong.
‘Why didn’t you open the door yourself?’ Cranston asked
The young man smiled weakly. ‘Sir John, I was frightened. Sir Ralph was not a popular man. Looking back, I suppose I was worried someone might be in the chamber.’
‘And the night Mowbray died?’
‘I was with Mistress Philippa, drunk as a lord. Ask the others.’
‘And you never left?’
Geoffrey grimaced. ‘Like the rest, I went to use the privy along the corridor. When the tocsin sounded I lurched out with the others to see what was wrong. I didn’t do much. I was drunk and I hate those parapet steps. I wandered around, looking busy, and found Fitzormonde and Colebrooke standing over Mowbray’s body.’ The young man paused and looked sharply at Athelstan. ‘I know why you are here. There’s been another death in the Tower, hasn’t there?’
‘Yes, yes,’ Athelstan murmured and gave Parchmeiner the details of Horne’s death.
Geoffrey leaned back in his chair and whistled softly. ‘I suppose,’ he said wearily, ‘you wish to question me about that?’
‘It would,’ Cranston observed, ‘be helpful to know where you were last night.’
Parchmeiner shrugged. ‘I worked in my shop, then I got drunk as a bishop in a nearby tavern, the Golden Griffin. You could ask there.’
Athelstan smiled. What would be the use? the friar thought, Horne could have been killed at any hour. He studied Parchmeiner’s girlish face. ‘You are London-born?’ he queried, trying to look at the parchment lying on Geoffrey’s desk.
‘No, Brother, I am not. My family are Welsh, hence my colouring. They moved to Bristol. My father traded in parchments and vellum in a shop just beneath the cathedral there. When he died I moved to London.’ Geoffrey picked up the piece of parchment. ‘My sister, now married, still lives there; she has just written inviting herself to town for the Yuletide season. She, her husband,’ his face grew mock solemn, ‘and their large brood of children will bring some life to the Tower.’ He turned to Sir John. ‘My Lord Coroner, you have more questions?’
Sir John shook his head. ‘No, sir, we have not.’
They rose, made their farewells, and stepped out into the cold, icy street
‘What do you think, Brother?’
‘A young man who will go far in his trade, Sir John. He has his roots.’ The friar grinned. ‘Yes, Sir John, like you I wondered if he could be Burghgesh’s son. But I am sure he is not.’ Athelstan stopped and stared hard at the coroner. ‘We are looking for a killer without ties, Sir John. Someone who is pretending to be something he or she is not. Someone who knows about the great act of betrayal so many years ago. The question is, who?’
‘Well!’ Cranston clapped his hands together. ‘We’ll not find it here, Brother, but perhaps in Woodforde…’ The coroner wiped his nose on the back of his hand and stared up at the sky. ‘I don’t want to stay in London,’ he murmured. ‘The Lady Maude needs a rest from me. And you, Brother?’
‘My parish,’ Athelstan drily replied, ‘will, I think, survive the continued absence of their pastor a little longer.’
They separated at the corner of Friday and Fish Streets, agreeing to meet within two hours at a tavern outside Aldgate on the Mile End Road. Sir John stamped off, leading his horse, whilst Athelstan continued down Trinity into Walbrook, along Ropery to London Bridge. Thankfully, he found St Erconwald’s fairly deserted except for Watkin to whom he gave strict instructions about the custody of the church, and Ranulf the rat-catcher who had come to remind him of his promise that if a Guild of Rat-Catchers were founded, St Erconwald’s could be their chantry church.
‘I promise you, Ranulf, I will think on the matter,’ Athelstan replied, trying to hide his amusement at the thought of St Erconwald’s full of tarry-hooded rat-catchers, all looking like Ranulf. The fellow’s yellow, wizened face broke into a sharp-toothed smile. He skipped down the steps as happily as any boy.
‘Brother,’ Watkin mournfully moaned.
‘What is it?’
‘Well — ’ The dung-collector turned on the top step of the church and pointed towards the frozen cemetery. ‘We still haven’t set a watch.’
‘Why should we, Watkin? The grave robbers have moved on.’
The dung-collector shook his head. ‘I don’t think so, Brother, and I am afeared worse might happen.’
Athelstan forced a smile. ‘Nonsense. Now look, Watkin, I will be back late tomorrow evening. Take a message to Father Luke at St Olave’s. Ask him to be so kind as to come here and say Mass tomorrow morning. You will know where everything is? And tell the widow Benedicta to help you. You’ll do that?’
Watkin nodded and stumped off, muttering under his breath about priests who didn’t listen to tales of the dark shapes which did dreadful things in city churchyards. Athelstan watched him go and sighed. How could he deal with the cemetery when there was no evidence of any danger threatening? He checked the door of the church was locked and stood engrossed in his own thoughts about Cranston. The Lord Coroner was proving to be as difficult a problem as the dreadful deaths they were investigating. What was wrong with the Lady Maude? Athelstan wondered. Why didn’t Cranston ask her outright?
Athelstan smiled as he went across to his own house. Strange, he concluded. Cranston, who was frightened of nothing on two legs, seemed terrified of his little lady wife. Athelstan checked that the windows and doors of the priest’s house were locked, slung his saddle bags over a protesting Philomel, and both horse and rider wearily made their way along the icy track. He stopped at an ale-house to leave further messages with Tab the tinker for Benedicta and Watkin; they were to lock the church after morning Mass and, if the widow felt so inclined, she should take Bonaventura back to her own house. The friar then made his way back on to the main highway, past the Priory of St Mary Overy and across London Bridge. He stopped midway to say a prayer in the Chapel of St Thomas for the safety of their journey and then continued on his way.
Cranston was waiting for him at the small tavern just outside Aldgate in the Portsoken overlooking the stinking city ditch. The coroner seemed in good spirits. Athelstan concluded it was due to the large empty wine bowl in front of Sir John but Cranston, winking and burping, staunchly kept his hidden resolve not to vex Athelstan further with his own worries and anxieties. The friar joined Sir John in one last cup of mulled wine, heated with a red hot poker and spiced with cinnamon, before they reclaimed their horses from the stable and made their way along the darkening highway towards Mile End. Cranston remained full of good cheer, aided and abetted by an apparently miraculous wineskin which never seemed to empty. Athelstan, tired and saddle sore, prayed and cursed whilst Cranston, farting and swaying in the saddle, chattered about this or that. Finally Athelstan reined in Philomel and grasped the coroner by the wrists.
‘Sir John,’ he asked wearily, ‘this business at the Tower — we are making no headway. How long can we spend on the matter?’
‘Until we finish.’ Cranston’s eyes gleamed back. ‘By the sod, Brother! Orders are orders, and I don’t give a rat’s fart about mumbling monks, icy roads or cold journeys. Now, have I told you of the Lady Maude’s preparations for Christmas?’
Athelstan groaned, shook his head and kicked Philomel forward as Cranston regaled him with Lady Maude’s intended banquet of boar’s head, cygnet, venison, quince tarts and junkets of apple-flavoured cream. The coroner chattered like a magpie as the weak daylight died and dusk fell like a grey powder, shrouding the wide waste stretches of snow. The distant forest became obscured by a misty darkness which closed in round them, broken by the odd pinprick of light as they passed some hamlet or village. No wind blew but it was deathly still and bitterly cold.
