‘Good! Good!’ Cranston replied. He smiled falsely at the group. ‘In a while, I shall see you all there. Now I wish to inspect Sir Ralph’s body.’
‘In the North Bastion,’ Colebrooke retorted and, rising abruptly, led them out of the hall.
Sir John swayed like a galleon behind him whilst Athelstan hastily packed pen, inkhorn and parchment. The friar was pleased; he had names, first impressions, and Cranston had played his usual favourite trick of alienating everyone. The coroner was as crafty as a fox.
‘If you handle suspects roughly,’ he had once proclaimed, ‘they are less likely to waste time on lies. And, as you know, Brother, most murderers are liars.’
Colebrook waited at the bottom of the steps of the great hall and silently led them past the soaring White Tower which shimmered in the thick snow packed around its base, traces of frost and slush on every shelf, cornice and windowsill. Athelstan stopped and looked up.
‘Magnificent!’ he murmured. ‘How great are the works of man!’
‘And how terrible,’ Cranston added.
They both stood for a few seconds admiring the sheer white stone of the great tower. They were about to move on when a door at the foot of the keep, built under a flight of outside steps, was flung open. A fantastical hunchbacked creature with a shock of white hair appeared before them. For a moment, he stood as if frozen. His face was pallid, his body covered in a gaudy mass of dirty rags with oversized boots on his feet. Finally he scampered towards them on all fours like a dog, sending flurries of snow flying up on either side. The lieutenant cursed and turned away.
‘Welcome to the Tower!’ the creature shrieked. ‘Welcome to my kingdom! Welcome to the Valley of the Shadow of Death!’
Athelstan looked down at the twisted white face and milky eyes of the albino crouching before him.
‘Good morrow, sir,’ he replied. ‘And you are?’
‘Red Hand. Red Hand,’ the fellow muttered. He parted his blue-tinged lips, dirty yellow teeth chattering with the cold. ‘My name is Red Hand.’
‘Well, you’re a funny bugger, Red Hand!’ Cranston barked.
The mad eyes slyly studied the coroner.
‘Madness is as madness does!’ Red Hand muttered. ‘Twice as mad as some and half as mad as others.’ He brought his hand from behind his back and shook a stick with a dirty, inflated pig’s bladder tied on the end. ‘So, my darlings, you want to play with Red Hand?’
‘Piss off, Red Hand!’ the lieutenant growled, taking a threatening step towards him.
The albino just glared at Colebrooke.
‘Old Red Hand knows things,’ he said. ‘Old Red Hand is not as stupid as he appears.’ Grimy, claw like fingers stretched out towards Athelstan. ‘Red Hand can be your friend, for a price.’
Athelstan unloosed his purse and put two coins in the madman’s hands. ‘There,’ he said softly. ‘Now you can be both Sir John’s friend and mine.’
‘What do you know?’ Cranston asked.
The albino jumped up and down. ‘Sir Ralph is dead. Executed by God’s finger. The Dark Shadows are here. A man’s past is always with him. Sir Ralph should have heeded that.’ The madman glared at the lieutenant. ‘So should others! So should others!’ he exclaimed. ‘But Red Hand is busy, Red Hand must go.’
‘My Lord Coroner, Brother Athelstan,’ the lieutenant interrupted, ‘Sir Ralph’s corpse awaits us.’
‘Off to see the gore and blood, are we?’ Red Hand cried, jumping up and down. ‘An evil man, Sir Ralph. He deserved what he got!’
The lieutenant lashed out with his boot but Red Hand scampered away, shrieking with laughter.
‘Who is he?’ Athelstan whispered.
‘A former mason here. His wife and child were killed in an accident many years ago.’
‘And Sir Ralph let him stay here?’
‘Sir Ralph hated the sight of him but could do very little about it. Red Hand is a royal beneficiary. He was a master mason to the old king and has a pension and the right to live here in the Tower.’
‘Why Red Hand?’ Athelstan asked.
‘He lives in the dungeons, and scrubs the torture instruments and the killing block after executions.’
Athelstan shivered and wrapped his cloak more firmly about him. Truly, he thought, this was the Valley of Shadows, a place of violence and sudden death. The lieutenant was about to walk on but Cranston caught him by the arm.
‘What did Red Hand mean about Sir Ralph being an evil man who got his just deserts?’
Colebrooke’s bleary eyes looked away. ‘Sir Ralph was a strange man,’ he muttered. ‘Sometimes I think he had demons lurking in his soul.’
CHAPTER 3
Athelstan and Cranston followed Colebrooke around the half-timbered sheds and outbuildings, under the archway of the inner curtain wall and across the frozen yard to a huge tower which bulged out over the moat. He stopped and pointed.
‘There are dungeons beneath ground level, and above them steps leading to the upper tier which has one chamber.’ He shrugged. ‘That’s where Sir Ralph died.’
‘Was murdered!’ Cranston interrupted.
‘Are there other chambers?’ Athelstan asked.
‘There used to be a second tier but the doorway was sealed off.’
Athelstan looked up at the snow-capped crenellations and drew in his breath quickly.
‘A tower of silence,’ he murmured. ‘A bleak place to die.’
They walked up the steps. Inside two guards squatted on stools round a brazier. Colebrooke nodded at them. They climbed another steep staircase, pulled back the half-open door, and a dark, musty passageway stretched before them. Quietly cursing to himself, Colebrooke took a tinder from a stone shelf and the sconce torches flared into life. They walked along the cold corridor. Athelstan noticed the pile of fallen masonry, loose bricks and shale which sealed off the former entrance to the upper storey. Colebrooke searched amongst some keys he had brought out from beneath his cloak, opened the door and, with a half-mocking gesture, waved Athelstan and Cranston inside.
The chamber was a stone-vaulted room. The first impression was one of brooding greyness. No hangings or tapestries on the walls, nothing except the gaunt figure of a dying Christ on a black, wooden crucifix. Pride of place was given to a huge four-poster bed, its begrimed, tawny curtains tightly closed. There was a table, stools and three or four wooden pegs driven into the wall next to the bed. A cloak, heavy jerkin and broad leather sword belt still hung there. On the other side of the bed stood a wooden lavarium with a cracked pewter bowl and jug over which a soiled napkin had been placed. A small hooded fireplace would have afforded some warmth but only cold powdery ash lay there. A brazier full of half-burnt charcoal stood forlornly in the centre of the room. Athelstan was sure it was colder in here than outside. Cranston snapped his fingers at the open shutters.
‘By the Devil’s tits, man!’ he exclaimed. ‘It’s freezing!’
‘We left things as we found them, my Lord Coroner,’ Colebrooke snapped back.
Athelstan nodded towards the window. ‘Is that where the assassin is supposed to have climbed in?’
He stared at the huge diamond-shaped opening.
‘It could have been the only way,’ Colebrooke muttered, going across and slamming the shutters firmly together. Athelstan stared round the room. He recognized the fetid stench of death and noticed with distaste the soiled rushes on the floor and the cracked chamber pot full of night stools and urine.
‘By the sod!’ Cranston barked, tapping it with his boot. ‘Get that removed or the place will stink like a plague pit!’
The coroner crossed to the bed and pulled the curtains back. Athelstan took one look and stepped away in horror. The corpse sprawled there, white and bloodless against the grimy bolsters and sheets; rigid hands still clutched the blood-soaked bedcovers and the man’s head was thrust back, face contorted in the rictus of death. The
