At other times Athelstan wandered that forest of stone, constantly aware of arches, columns and pillars all intricately decorated. Statues of saints, sinners, gargoyles and babewyns peered down at him from finely sculptured bushes, trees and foliage where mystical animals such as the salamander and unicorn sheltered. Athelstan became accepted as a fellow brother, though one to be wary of as the purpose of his visit became more widely known. Increasingly however, especially as daylight faded, Athelstan locked himself in his own chamber and tried to make sense of the jumbled bloody events which had occurred since St Damasus’ eve. He searched for the root, for the prime cause, to unpick all this tangle, a seminal event which would explain and clarify. Athelstan grew certain of one truth. Kilverby’s murder and those of the Wyverns were connected probably through the bloodstone, the Passio Christi. Yet, what was the prime cause of all this slaughter? The radix malorum omnium — the root of all evil? Kilverby’s pilgrimage to Outremer? But why should that open the bloody gate to the meadows of murder? The only person who might be affected would be John of Gaunt should the Passio Christi be handed over to St Fulcher’s but Gaunt, at least according to the evidence, had no knowledge of what Kilverby intended.
Athelstan’s puzzlement deepened. On the Saturday before the third Sunday of Advent he locked himself in his own chamber and pretended to be Kilverby. The merchant had sat at his desk poring over manuscripts, just thinking. He’d never left, not even to relieve himself. Athelstan had examined the covered jakespot in the far corner of the chamber. Kilverby had already supped and suffered no ill effects from that. The wine he’d carried in proved to be untainted as had the sweetmeats brought from the abbey. The Passio Christi was securely locked in its casket with the keys around Kilverby’s neck. No one had entered that chamber, yet by morning Kilverby was murdered and the Passio Christi gone. How? Why? Athelstan heard a noise, a tapping on the shutters. He rose and walked across to the lantern window. He pulled back the shutters and looked out over the frozen flower garden, its shrubs and rich soil gripped in a harsh frost. Warming his fingers over a nearby chafing dish, Athelstan glanced around and dismissed the tapping as a mere flurry of ice in the snapping breeze. He was about to turn away when a flurry of movement out of the corner of his eye made him start. A cowled figure moved from his left into full view — one of the brothers? The figure knelt as if studying the frozen ground. Athelstan caught the glint of metal as this sinister apparition brought up the arbalest. The friar sprang back, stumbling to the floor as the barbed quarrel whirred angrily above him, smashing against the plaster on the far wall. Athelstan murmured a prayer, sprang to his feet, unlocked the door and hurried out. He almost crashed into Wenlock coming into the guest house.
‘Brother,’ Wenlock gripped the friar’s arm with his maimed hand, ‘are you well? What is the matter? You look as if you are going to shout harrow and raise the hue and cry.’
Athelstan caught his breath as a cold sweat broke out.
‘Nothing.’ He breathed in deeply. ‘Nothing for the moment.’
FOUR
‘Jurat: a sworn man.’
On that same Saturday, Sir John Cranston sat in his judgement chamber in the great Guildhall overlooking Cheapside. He eased himself up in his leather-covered throne-like chair and glared around. He’d had tried to make this chamber as comfortable as possible. Triptychs from Genoa celebrating the scenes of the Lord’s Passion rendered in glowing colours hung alongside tapestries displaying the Arms of the city and the livery of the Cranston family. He caught sight of the Cross of San Damiano, a replica of the one St Francis of Assisi had prayed before. Cranston stopped his quiet cursing and blessed himself. He glanced at the claret jug and goblet on the polished dresser beneath the crucifix but shook his head. He would not drink, not now! Sir John opened the thick, leather-bound ledger before him and stared at the litany of human weakness and wickedness drawn up for his inspection by Osbert, his chancery clerk, and Simon the scrivener. One long, cream-coloured sheet listed the weapons seized that week: daggers, blades, cudgels and quarter staves, pike staves, crooked billets, pole-axes and halberds. ‘London’s like a battlefield,’ Cranston whispered.
The next folio contained grimmer entries. The murder of a poor girl by a man and his wife just for the clothes the young woman wore. Elena Hellebore, convicted for smashing a chaplain’s head after he’d called her a ‘tread-foul’, a slang term for a whore. Agnes Houdy, who’d strangled a drunk with his own belt so she could have his boots. Henry Staci, for causing the death of Margaret Privet ‘other than her own natural death’. Next was William Hammond.
‘You’re an interesting one,’ Cranston murmured. According to the entry William’s wife Marisa was burnt to death by a fire caused by the fall of a lighted candle as she and her husband prepared for bed. Both had escaped from the burning tenement but William was so angry at his wife for causing the fire through her own negligence he pushed her back into the flames and tried to flee for sanctuary to St Martin-Le-Grand. Beside each of these entries the scrivener had written ‘susp’ in red ink — ‘suspenditur — hanged’. The next page listed all the fatal accidents in the city. A robber at St Paul’s wharf who’d been recognized by his victims whom he’d attacked on the Brentwood Road. The outlaw had tried to escape, fallen into the Thames and drowned. Other entries listed victims being killed by a horse, falling timber, scalding water tossed from a window or arrows loosed at Stepney, not to mention the drunk who drowned after jumping into the great sewer near Fleet or the two carpenters who’d tumbled from ladders at the Savoy Palace. The final entry made Cranston groan. He’d returned from St Fulcher’s and presented himself at John of Gaunt’s inner chamber at the Savoy. The Regent had done his best to hide his smouldering temper. Dressed in red, gold and blue velvet boasting the snarling leopards of England, his fingers and chest glittering with gold rings and a jewel-encrusted collar, the Regent had been both magnificent and munificent. He had filled Cranston’s goblet to the rim and personally served the coroner with a dish of sugared fruit and a mazer of sweetmeats. Gaunt had listened attentively, those strange eyes crinkling, full lips pursed, yet his temper was obvious and his message was clear. The Passio Christi had been stolen and he wanted it back. Cranston and Athelstan would achieve that or. .
‘Or what?’ Cranston murmured to himself.
He wondered what Athelstan was doing, as well as the strange secrets that abbey held. The Regent had told him little and Cranston was still bemused by Eleanor Remiet. He was sure he’d done business with her before, but when and why?
‘Sir John, my Lord Coroner?’
Cranston glanced up. Osbert, his plump, cheery-faced clerk stood in the doorway fingering his lank brown hair. Next to him was Simon the scrivener, pasty-faced with ever watery eyes and dripping nose. Both clerks found Cranston a source of many droll stories though in his presence they acted most dutifully.
‘The Deodandum?’ Simon asked. ‘You must decide on the Deodandum.’
Cranston immediately did. He had the case written out on a piece of parchment before him. In brief, Ralph, Megotta Ugele’s husband, had been killed by a runaway horse and cart in Hogweed Lane. Megotta now claimed both horse and cart should not be sold and given to the church, who owned it anyway as a Deodandum, a gift to God, but handed over to her as compensation. Cranston decided with a sweep of his quill pen that the widow’s needs were more pressing than those of Holy Mother Church. Once done he rose to his feet, pushing back his chair.