The herald of hell, p.6
The Herald of Hell, page 6
‘Did the knights pursue Reginald?’
‘No, never. A few years after the brothers left, the Easterlings overran the garrison town. I think the Teutonic Knights had to move their treasury. Chaos ensued there…’
‘And in England?’
‘Sir Everard settled down to become a mercer, a prosperous goldsmith. He married, but his wife died giving birth to their scapegrace son Matthias.’
‘And Reginald?’
‘A painter. He embellished the chantry chapel at St Mary Le Bow, dedicating it to St Stephen. He also used his skill to become one of the finest sign writers in the city. Go down Cheapside, those magnificent shop signs, guild markings, escutcheons, heraldic devices are, in the main, the work of Reginald Camoys.’
‘And he never married?’
‘No. According to Everard, who served with me in France, Reginald returned a broken man. We talked of coitus, lying with a woman – in a word, Reginald became impotent.’
‘Kyrie Eleison – Lord have mercy on him.’
‘Yes,’ Cranston smiled, ‘the Lord certainly did have mercy on Reginald Camoys. He met Elizabeth Cheyne, our Mistress of the Moppets. Heaven knows her skills and devices, but she apparently cured Reginald of his impotence. He became deeply smitten with her – hardly surprising. He bought this tavern, the Golden Oliphant. When he died his will divided his wealth: one third to his brother and one third to the maintenance of the chantry chapel at St Mary Le Bow for the singing of requiems for the repose of his soul and Simon Penchen’s.’
‘And a third to Mistress Elizabeth Cheyne?’
‘Yes, the tavern, all its moveables and the garden. Mistress Elizabeth found the maintenance of such an establishment, not to mention keeping herself in her accustomed luxury, beyond all income, so she decided to supplement her revenues with the most ancient trade available.’
‘And the Cross of Lothar, did Reginald Camoys have that buried with him?’
‘No, no…’ Cranston paused as a young girl came breathlessly clattering up the stairs and into the chamber.
‘Mistress Cheyne asks how long?’
‘Tell Mistress Cheyne,’ Athelstan replied, ‘that we appreciate her patience and that of the others.’ The girl stood chewing the corner of her lip.
‘Tell your mistress,’ Cranston declared, ‘we will be down soon enough.’
‘Oh, child?’ Athelstan pointed to the window. ‘If I climbed through that, is there a ladder long enough to take me down to the garden?’
The girl shook her head. Athelstan recalled the recent murders at the Candle-Flame tavern. ‘Is there a cart high enough to place a ladder on and so lean it on the window ledge outside?’ The girl stood, fingers to her mouth, then again shook her head and clattered off.
‘You suspect the assassin used this window?’
‘I don’t know, Sir John, but to return to Lothar’s Cross, what did happen to it?’
‘It disappeared. Reginald always maintained that it would not be buried with him but displayed in a most appropriate place. What that is, or where, no one knows. People still come here looking for it, pilgrims searching for a precious relic.’
‘Or treasure hunters?’
‘Yes, above all Reginald’s own nephew, Matthias. I understand from Sir Everard that Matthias and the Golden Oliphant are almost inseparable. Sir Everard does not know if his son comes here for the delights of the ladies or for Lothar’s Cross. Matthias also haunts St Mary Le Bow and the chantry chapel there.’
‘And the relic has never been found?’
‘No, but, come, little friar, the world and his wife await.’
‘This chamber,’ Athelstan walked over to the door, ‘was definitely forced. Look, Sir John, the bolts at the top and bottom of the door have been roughly wrenched, the lock has bulged and snapped…’
‘Surely it must be suicide?’ Cranston whispered. ‘Whitfield locked and bolted the door from within, he intended to die. Perhaps his wits had turned, that’s why he was dressed: he was leaving and, in his own befuddled way, he was preparing to quit life.’
‘Perhaps, Sir John. However, let’s say it was murder. The assassin must have come by this window and yet he could not use the fire rope – that was impossible – so it would have to be a ladder if there was one long enough. Secondly, even if he used a ladder, how could he release the clasp on the outside shutters or lift the bar, or those inside? Only someone within could do that. Then there’s the window itself – its handle can only be lifted by someone inside. No one could slip a hand through. I am sure the pigskin covering was intact until Thibault’s would-be assassin loosed his crossbow quarrels.’ Athelstan pulled up the latch, opened the window and glanced down.
‘Be careful, Brother: you do not like heights.’
‘I stand on the top of St Erconwald’s tower to study the stars. Yes, heights can frighten me, but only if I let them, as I do on London Bridge. No, Sir John, anyone who used this window would need a long ladder and, even from here, I can see the garden below has not been disturbed. This window and its shutters only deepen the mystery around a possible intruder and, of course, there’s those dogs.’ Athelstan came away and stared down at the floor, tapping his feet. ‘You’re right, it’s time we went below where, as always, we will have to sift the truth from the lies…’
* * *
‘Newgate is truly the gateway to Hell.’ So preached John Ball, hedge priest and leading captain of the Upright Men. ‘The very antechamber of Satan and all his fallen angels, the deepest pit of brooding despair and the veritable anus of this wicked, filthy world…’
Reynard, principal courier to the Upright Men, could only agree. He had been lodged in Newgate three years ago over the question of a pyx stolen from a church. In the end he had managed to escape the gallows, though he had been branded as a suspect felon. He lifted his manacled hands and traced the outline of the ‘F’ burnt deep into his right cheek. Leaning against the slimy wall, he felt the flies and lice crumble between the stone and his back. He moved his bare feet and curled his bruised toes against the muddy mush of rotting straw, decaying food and the filthy contents of the common close-stool which had brimmed over to drench the floor with its slops. The air was thick with corruption. The stench would have offended a filthy sow, whilst the only light came from a needle-thin window high in the wall and the flickering cheap oil lights which exuded more foulness than light. Shapes lurched through the gloom to the clink and heavy scrape of chains. Other prisoners, groaning and cursing, were groping their way to the common hatch for their bowl of scraps and stoup of brackish water. Reynard could not be bothered. His entire being ached from the beatings he had received, the burn marks to his legs and the scalding to his arms where the Newgate gaolers had poured boiling water; his back was one open wound from being wedged under that heavy door in the press yard.
Reynard was now lodged in the condemned hold which lay at the very heart of the grim, battlemented, soaring mass of dark dwellings built into the ancient city wall and given the mocking title of Newgate. There was nothing new, clean or fresh about the prison. However, Reynard ruefully conceded, he would not be here for long. Master Thibault had given him a choice. He could stay and rot in the condemned hold until the Hangman of Rochester came with his execution cart for that last, grim journey to Smithfield or Tyburn. He would be dragged up the steps of mourning into the chamber of the damned, where a priest would offer to shrive him before being thrown into the execution cart. Or… Master Thibault had made him another offer. Confess! Confess to everything he knew. Well, he had been caught redhanded over the slaying of Edmund Lacy, the bell clerk at St Mary Le Bow, whose death the Upright Men had ordered for their own secret purposes. Reynard had tried to discover what these purposes might be, but found nothing. Lacy had to die and Reynard had been instructed to make sure this happened. He had done so, knifing Lacy in the Sun of Splendour tavern, and had then fled to Whitefriars, only to be recognized there and arrested. He had slipped whilst trying to escape; a filthy pool of ale had brought him down! If this had happened to anyone else, Reynard would have scoffed and jeered, but all he felt was shame that the great Reynard, famed for his cunning and guile, had been trapped so easily. And as for the documents he’d been carrying, he’d been told to leave them at St Mary Le Bow within a cleft in the window of the chantry chapel dedicated to St Stephen, which housed the tombs of Sir Reginald Camoys and Simon Penchen. He had failed to do so, being arrested before he could complete his task. Reynard, despite his pain, smiled to himself. Who, he wondered, were these documents for? Reynard could not say, nor did he understand the cipher. He could read, of course, educated in his previous life before he had fallen from grace, never to rise again. Reynard, or Peter Simpkins as he had been baptized, had been a friar at the Order of the Sack, but now…
Reynard moved restlessly as one of the huge rats, a swarm of which haunted this hideous place, slunk out of a congealed mass of dirt and refuse. Nose twitching, its ears flat against its knobbly head, back haunched as if ready to spring, the rat sloped across a pool of light. One of the feral cats brought in to contain such vermin as well as provide fresh meat for the prisoners, sprang out from the dark. Reynard watched the life-and-death struggle reach its inevitable bloody climax in a long drawn-out screech. The cat loped away, prey in its teeth, and Reynard returned to his reflections. What could he confess to? He could provide the names of the leading Upright Men of Essex, yet Thibault knew these already. Reynard had been asked for other names, including the identity of the Herald of Hell. Reynard could not reply to that. All he could say was that the Herald was a will-o’-the-wisp with no true substance.
He glanced up at a shrill yell. Dark shapes milled around Benedict Bedlam, a hedgerow priest sentenced to hang for the murder of a doxy outside St Bartholomew’s the Less. Bedlam was defending himself against Wyvem and Hydras, wolfsheads hired by the Upright Men to attack a convoy of weaponry Thibault had organized at Queenshithe. Brutal scavengers, Wyvem and Hydras had decided to take Benedict’s bowl of filthy pottage. They had returned too late to the condemned hole to collect their own meagre meal after they had been taken to a separate chamber to be searched for any knife or dagger. Reynard looked away. Perhaps he could advise Thibault how wrong the Master of Secrets was about the timing of the impending revolt? Indeed, it was already beginning. The black and red banners of anarchy, along with longbows, quivers crammed with arrows, swords, clubs, maces and spears were being taken from their secret hiding places behind parish altars or dug up in village cemeteries. Soon, very soon according to John Ball, the Armies of God would be marching. Finally there was that scrap of parchment Reynard was still carrying, hidden in the stitching of his clothing. Was that the key to the cipher? Would it make the other document intelligible and so provide Thibault with valuable information? If it did, Reynard could buy his life and his freedom. He would receive the promised pardon, be escorted to the nearest port with food, weapons and licence to be taken across the Narrow Seas. Once there, like the fox he was, he’d lie low until the storm blew over.
‘Brother! Brother!’ Reynard glanced up. Hydras and Wyvem were crouching on either side of him. In the gloom Reynard could not make out their ugly faces, yet a spurt of fear gripped his belly.
‘Brother?’ Hydras leaned forward. ‘The turnkeys who searched us support the Great Community.’
‘Liars!’ Reynard replied, his mouth turning dry, his tongue seeming to swell.
‘They say you are here to reflect, that you have been offered a pardon by Thibault the turd.’ Hydras laughed at the crude joke. ‘You wouldn’t be thinking of leaving us, would you, Brother?’
‘No, of course not.’ Reynard pushed himself back against the wall.
‘Look up to the hills, Reynard,’ Hydras exclaimed, ‘from whence our salvation comes. Look up! Look up!’ Reynard had no choice and Wyvern swiftly sliced his throat with the razor-edged dagger Benedict the Bedlam had slipped to him during their pretend quarrel.
* * *
Cranston and Athelstan left the death chamber. The friar was insistent on walking around the Golden Oliphant. They first visited the garden strip beneath Whitfield’s bedchamber. Both of them scrutinized the black-soiled flower plot but could find nothing to suggest a ladder or anything else had been placed there, or that anyone, though God knows how, had slipped down from Whitfield’s chamber. They then visited the kennels. Athelstan warily inspected the mastiffs, smooth-haired dogs with long legs, bulbous faces and powerful jaws: red-eyed with anger, the hounds threw themselves against the stout oaken palings, foam-flecked teeth snapping the air.
‘In the dark, certainly,’ Cranston murmured, ‘they wouldn’t distinguish friend from foe. Perhaps we should accept the obvious and the inevitable, Brother: Whitfield hanged himself.’
He grasped Athelstan’s shoulder and made the Dominican face him. ‘Why do you pursue this, little friar?’
‘God’s work, Sir John. God gives life and only God can take it away. The first sin committed outside Eden was Cain slaying his brother Abel. He then hurled the challenge which still echoes through all human existence, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” And yes, Sir John, I am, you are, we are.’ Athelstan paused, as if listening to the cooing from the dovecote. The dogs had fallen silent, so the birdsong carried strong and clear. ‘I just feel here in my heart that something is very, very wrong. But what,’ Athelstan sighed, ‘I cannot say. We have a saying where I come from: “The whole world is strange except for thee and me, and even we are a little strange sometimes.” So, just bear with me and let’s continue our survey.’
They visited the stables. Athelstan glimpsed a magnificent destrier in its stall and wondered who the warhorse belonged to. They inspected the other outhouses and entered the kitchen block, where a sweaty-faced galopin or spit-turner informed the ever hungry Sir John that the previous evening they had served leek and venison pie and jugged hare, followed by fresh cheese tartlet. The coroner smacked his lips and took a serving of fresh waffles and a small cup of hippocras for ‘refreshment’s sake’. They continued their tour, oblivious to the messages from an increasingly agitated hostess. Athelstan was insistent on learning all he could about the Golden Oliphant, from the cellar with its barrels, casks, earthenware jars and baskets of dried fruit and vegetables to its wet storeroom, where fish were salted and brined and pâtés placed along the shelves in their strong crusts or ‘coffins’.
Only then did Athelstan declare himself satisfied and moved into the spacious taproom where Mistress Elizabeth Cheyne, Joycelina, Foxley, the weasel-faced Master of Horse, and Griffin, Master of the Hall, were assembled along with others. Athelstan and Cranston’s arrival was greeted with grumbles and dark looks, despite the free stoups of ale and platters of lait lardel – beaten eggs cooked with lardons and saffron – which had been served. Athelstan gathered that some of those present were guests, others servants – slatterns or, as Cranston tactfully described them, moppets of the bedchamber. Athelstan stood on a bench and, having apologized and delivered a special blessing, issued a spate of questions about what had happened the night before.
He soon established that it had rained. The mastiffs had been loose in the garden but, in the end, nothing remarkable had occurred, or so they said. Master Whitfield, along with his comrade Lebarge, had eaten and drunk deeply here in the taproom before going their separate ways. Lebarge stayed to converse with Hawisa, one of the moppets, whilst Whitfield had climbed the stairs to his chamber. Apparently, Mistress Cheyne pointed out, the Festival of Cokayne was over; the dinner parties and topsy-turvy chamber games had finished, and Whitfield was due to leave the following morning. Eventually the explanations and answers petered out. Athelstan continued to stand on the bench and stare around. He realized he could not detain them for long but insisted that, for the time being at least, all retainers of the Golden Oliphant, together with those who had participated in the Cokayne festivities, should stay lodged under pain of arrest and confinement in Newgate. They could leave to do this or that but they had to return to the Golden Oliphant by nightfall.
Athelstan and Sir John then retired to what Mistress Cheyne called her ‘Exchequer Chamber’, where she kept accounts, a pleasant, wood-panelled room with a large window overlooking the sweet-smelling kitchen garden. The chamber boasted a chancery desk, chairs and stools all polished to gleaming like the waxed floorboards. Athelstan noticed, from the marks on both the wall and floor, that items such as pictures, painted cloths and carpets had been removed. He had observed the same elsewhere on his tour of the house.
Cranston sat behind the desk with Athelstan next to him on a high chancery stool. The friar opened his satchel while Cranston summoned in Elizabeth Cheyne and her principal maid, Joycelina. The two women sat together on the high-backed cushioned settle which Cranston had moved in front of what he called his ‘judgement table’. Athelstan, under the pretext of laying out his writing instruments, closely studied these two ladies of the night. Elizabeh Cheyne, Mistress of the Moppets, was dressed in a dark blue gown fastened at the neck with a silver brooch carved in the shape of a leaping stag; her auburn hair was clamped with jewelled pins and hidden under a gauze veil. Despite her homely dress and head gear, she was harsh-faced and hard-eyed, her bloodless lips twisted into a sour pout. Nevertheless, Athelstan caught traces of her former beauty and grace: the way she sat and the delicate gestures of her long, snow-white fingers as she adjusted her headdress or the brooch on the neck of her gown. Joycelina, her principal maid, was equally demure in her light grey gown with white bands at cuff and neck; thin-faced and sly-eyed, Joycelina exuded the air of a woman very sure of both herself and her talents. She sat, legs crossed, skirts slightly hitched back; on her feet soft, red-gold buskins, well tied, with thickened soles.
