Talbot’s face became guarded. ‘Now and again,’ he mumbled. ‘He used to meet here every Yuletide — he, two hospitallers, and others.’
‘Oh, come, Miles. I’m not your enemy, you can trust me. What did they talk about?’
Talbot tapped the table with his stubby fingers. ‘They sat here like you do, Sir John, well away from the rest. When I or any of the servants came near, they always fell silent.’
‘And their demeanour? Were they sad or happy?’
‘Sometimes they would laugh but they were generally very secretive. Often the two hospitallers would be locked in argument with Sir Ralph, and he would become quite hostile and snap back at them.’
‘Anything else?’
Talbot shook his head and turned away. Cranston made a face at Athelstan and shrugged. Suddenly the taverner came back to the table.
‘One thing,’ he announced. ‘Only one strange thing: about three years ago, around Christmas, a stranger came here.’
‘What did he look like?’
‘Oh, I can’t remember his appearance but there was something about him. He was cowled and hooded, but he spoke like a soldier. He wanted to know if Sir Ralph drank here. I told him I knew nothing. He went on his way and I never saw him again.’ Talbot smiled apologetically. ‘Sir John, on my oath, that’s all I know.’
The coroner sat with lips pursed, staring down at the empty platters and dishes as if wishing the food he had devoured would magically reappear. Athelstan studied him carefully, rather concerned, for by now Sir John would usually have been shouting for more claret or sack.
‘My Lord Coroner?’
‘Yes, Brother Athelstan.’
‘We must formulate some conclusions about Sir Ralph’s death.’
Cranston blew noisily through his lips. ‘What can we say?’
‘First, you will agree that Sir Ralph was not murdered because he was Constable of the Tower. I mean, by peasant knaves plotting treason and rebellion?’
‘I agree, Brother, but the assassin might have come from outside. He could have been a professional. There are plenty of ex-soldiers for hire in the city who would cut their mothers’ throats if the price was right.’
Athelstan skimmed the rim of the wine goblet with his finger.
‘I would like to believe that, Sir John, but it strikes me as false.’ He shrugged. ‘Yet, for the sake of argument, we will accept that the assassin crossed the frozen moat, climbed the North Bastion, undid the wooden shutters and quietly slashed Sir Ralph’s throat.’
‘It can and has been done, my good priest.’
‘Of course,’ Athelstan continued, ‘the assassin may have been someone in the Tower who knew where Sir Ralph lay, and seized the opportunity of the moat freezing over to gain access to the footholds on the North Bastion. Accordingly either the murderer did this himself or paid someone else to do it.’
Cranston took a deep gulp from the wine bowl. ‘Let us put the two together,’ he said, cracking his knuckles softly. ‘Let us say, for the sake of argument, that the plotter and the assassin are one and the same person. Virtually everyone we questioned, including Mistress Philippa, who may be plump but is very light on her feet, young and agile, could have climbed that tower.’
‘Yet, in the main, they all have stories to explain their whereabouts.’
Cranston nodded. ‘So they have. And it would be the devil’s own job to prove any of them a liar. Moreover, have you noticed how each, apart from the chaplain, has someone to confirm their tale? Which means,’ Cranston concluded, ‘we could be hunting two murderers not one; the two hospitallers, Sir Fulke and Rastani, Philippa and her young swain, Colebrooke and one of the guards.’
Athelstan stared idly up at one of the hams turning on its skewer from one of the rafters. ‘In reality, we know nothing,’ the friar concluded. ‘We have no idea who the murderer is or how he or she gained access to Sir Ralph, though we did find Sir Fulke’s buckle.’
‘And yet he claims he walked on the frozen moat this morning before our arrival.’
‘I believe him,’ Athelstan answered. ‘But remember how he said he lost the buckle the previous day.’
‘What are you saying, friar?’
‘Either he lost it as he crept across the moat to kill Sir Ralph or else someone put it there. I believe the latter. Sir Fulke’s honesty in admitting he walked on the frozen moat saved him from suspicion. If he had denied it, and we later proved he had been on the moat, then it would have been a different matter.’
‘How do we know he’s honest?’ Cranston barked. ‘Did you notice the postern gate we used to gain access to the moat? Its hinges were rusty. Before we did, no one had used that door for years. Sir Fulke could be lying.’
‘Or he could have used another postern gate.’
‘An interesting thought, Brother, but let’s look at motives.’
Athelstan spread his hands. ‘There are as many motives as there are people in the Tower, Sir John. Was Sir Fulke greedy? Was the chaplain angry at being called a thief? Did Colebrooke want Sir Ralph’s post? Did Philippa and her lover see Sir Ralph as an obstacle to their marriage or to Mistress Philippa’s inheritance?’
‘Which brings us,’ Cranston concluded, ‘to the two hospitallers. Now we know they are not telling the truth. Somehow or other that piece of parchment and the seed cake lie at the very heart of the murder and they must know something about both. Sir Ralph’s death note bore the impression of a three-masted ship, the type often used in the Middle Sea, whilst the seed cake is the mark of the Assassins. Ergo, Sir Ralph’s death must be linked to some mystery in his past, something connected with his days as a warrior in Outremer.’
Athelstan put his blackjack down on the table. He opened and shut his mouth.
‘What’s the matter, friar?’
‘There’s only one conclusion we can reach, Master Coroner — Sir Ralph might not be the first person to die in the Tower before Yuletide comes.’
CHAPTER 5
They stayed in the tavern a little longer. Athelstan expected Cranston to mount his horse and ride back to Cheapside but the coroner shook his head.
‘I want to go back to your damned graveyard,’ he snorted. ‘You need a keen brain to plumb the mysteries there.’
‘But Lady Maude will be waiting.’
‘Let her!’
‘Sir John, tell me, is there anything wrong?’
Cranston scowled and looked away.
‘Is it Matthew?’ Athelstan asked gently. ‘Is it the anniversary of his death?’
Cranston stood up and linked his arm through Athelstan’s as they went out to stand at the door whilst the ostler saddled their horses. ‘Tell me. Brother, when you ran away from your order as a novice and took your younger brother to the wars in France, were you happy?’
Athelstan felt his own heart lurch. ‘Of course.’ He smiled thinly. ‘I was young then. The blood boiled in my veins for some great adventure.’
‘And when you found your brother dead, cold as ice in that battlefield, and trailed back to England to confess your deeds to your parents, what then?’
Athelstan looked across the darkening yard. ‘In the gospels, Sir John, Christ says that at the end of the world the very heavens will rock and the planets fall to earth in a fiery blaze.’ Athelstan closed his eyes. He sensed Francis’s ghost very close to him now. ‘When I found my brother dead,’ he continued, ‘my heaven fell to earth.’ He shrugged. ‘I suppose it was the end of my world.’
‘And what did you think of life then?’
Athelstan rubbed his mouth with his thumb and gazed directly at Cranston’s sorrowful face. ‘I felt betrayed by it,’ he whispered.
Cranston tapped him gently on the shoulder. ‘Aye, Brother, always remember the carmined kiss of the traitor is ever the sweetest. You remember that, as I shall.’
Athelstan gazed speechlessly back. He had never seen Cranston like this before. By now the coroner should have been singing some lewd song at the top of his voice, bellowing abuse at the landlord, or urging Athelstan to come back to his house in Cheapside.