Sir John stopped and slouched against the wall, staring upwards at the great beams resting on their corbels of stone.
‘God forgive me, Athelstan,’ he whispered. ‘My apologies to Sir Brian. I shall wait for you downstairs.’
The friar re-entered the room. Fitzormonde still sat, cradling his head in his hands. Athelstan touched him gently on the shoulder.
‘Forget Cranston.’ He smiled. ‘A man whose bark is much worse than his bite. Sir Brian, you wanted me to hear your confession? So Burghgesh was murdered. Surely the blame rests squarely with Sir Ralph?’
Fitzormonde shook his head and looked up. ‘Don’t patronise me, Father. Ralph told us what he had done. We could have stopped it. We could have brought Sir Ralph to justice. We could have searched the seas to see if Bartholomew had survived.’
‘Was that possible?’
‘Perhaps. Sometimes the Moors sell prisoners in the slave markets. But we didn’t look there for him. We could have looked after Bartholomew’s widow and his little son but we failed to do that.’ Fitzormonde drove one of his fists into the palm of his hand. ‘We should have executed Sir Ralph. Instead, we became his accomplices and shared out his ill-gotten wealth.’
‘What happened to Bartholomew’s widow?’
‘I don’t know. We went our separate ways. Eventually guilt caught up with Mowbray and myself so we joined the hospitallers, handing over what wealth we had left to the Order. Horne came back to the city and grew powerful on his riches. Whitton entered the service of John of Gaunt.’ Fitzormonde placed the goblet on the ground before him. ‘Do you know, Father, it wasn’t until Whitton was dead that I realised how he had held us in his evil thrall.’ Fitzormonde paused. ‘You have seen the great bear in the Tower bailey?’
‘Yes.’
‘Every afternoon I am here,’ Fitzormonde continued, ‘I go to stare at it. The beast is a killer, but I’m fascinated by it. Whitton was like that. Sir Ralph made his guilt a bond between us all. As the years passed, we became more confident that our crime had been forgotten and began the custom of every year meeting to celebrate Christmas. We never discussed Bartholomew.’
Athelstan nodded. ‘That’s the terrible thing about sin, Sir Brian. We let it become part of us, like a rotting tooth which we tolerate and forget.’
Fitzormonde rubbed his face with his hands.
‘But what happened,’ Athelstan asked, ‘three years ago?’
‘I don’t know. We came to the Tower as Ralph’s guests for Yuletide, supping as usual at the Golden Mitre in Petty Wales, but when we met Sir Ralph that particular time, he looked as if he had seen a ghost. In fact he said he had, and that’s all he would say.’
Athelstan seized the man’s wrist and forced him to look up. ‘Have you confessed all, Sir Brian?’
‘Everything I know.’
‘And the piece of parchment?’
‘A reminder of the ship Bartholomew was sailing on.’
‘And the four crosses?’
‘They represent Bartholomew’s four companions.’
‘And the seed cake?’
Fitzormonde sighed and blew his cheeks out ‘A reminder of how Bartholomew saved us from the assassins, and a warning of our own deaths.’
‘Do you know who murdered Sir Ralph and Sir Gerard?’
‘Before God, I do not!’
‘Could Bartholomew have survived?’
‘He may have.’
Athelstan stared at the lime-washed walls. ‘What about Bartholomew’s son? He would be a young man now.’
Fitzormonde shrugged. ‘I thought of that but I have made some enquiries. Young Burghgesh was killed in France. Now, Father, my penance?’
Athelstan raised his hand and pronounced absolution, making the broad sweep of the sign of the cross above Fitzormonde’s bowed head. Sir Brian looked up.
‘My penance, Father?’ he repeated.
‘Your penance is the guilt you have borne. You are to pray for Burghgesh’s soul and for those of Sir Gerard and Sir Ralph. And one more thing!’
‘Yes, Father?’
‘You are to go downstairs and repeat your confession to Sir John.’
‘He’ll arrest me for murder.’
Athelstan grinned. ‘Sir John is an old soldier and, when sober, a keen student of the human heart. He has more compassion in his little finger than many a priest. He’ll hear you out and probably roar for a cup of sack.’
CHAPTER 8
Fitzormonde left, closing the door quietly behind him. Athelstan went to gaze out of the window, staring absentmindedly at the great tocsin bell which hung so silently on its icy rope above the snow-covered green. The sun, now beginning to set, made the bell shimmer like a piece of silver. Athelstan turned and glimpsed Fitzormonde talking quietly to Cranston. The coroner was nodding, listening intently to the hospitaller’s confession.
Athelstan wandered back to Philippa’s chamber but it was deserted. He stayed for a while reflecting on what Fitzormonde had told him; first, both Sir Ralph and Mowbray’s murders were connected to that terrible act of betrayal in Cyprus so many years earlier. Secondly, and Athelstan shivered, there would be other murders. He packed his writing tray away whilst speculating on other possibilities. First, Burghgesh could have survived and come back to wreak vengeance. Secondly, someone else, possibly Burghgesh’s son, had returned to make his father’s murderers atone for the death. But, if it had been either of these, how would they get into the Tower, mysteriously ring a tocsin bell and then arrange for Mowbray’s fall? Athelstan sighed. Sir Ralph Whitton’s murder was simple compared to the complexities surrounding Mowbray’s.
Athelstan rubbed his chin with the palm of his hand and remembered he’d promised Benedicta to meet her at the Fleet prison where Simon the carpenter would spend his last evening on earth. The thought of Benedicta made him smile. Their relationship had become calmer, more gentle, then he remembered Doctor Vincentius and hoped the physician would not ensnare her with his subtle charm. Athelstan’s smile broadened. Here he was, a friar, a priest, a man sworn to chastity, feeling twinges of jealousy about someone he could only claim as a friend.
He shook himself free from his reverie and looked around the chamber. The murders… What other possibilities existed? Was it one of the group? Not Fitzormonde, but perhaps Horne the merchant? Or could it be Colebrooke, who had discovered Sir Ralph’s murky past and was promoting his own ambitions under the guise of revenge for past misdeeds? Athelstan swung his cloak around him, picked up his writing tray and examined the beautiful embroidery of the dorsar draped over the back of one of the chairs. Of course, terrible though it might be to imagine, Mistress Philippa had the cool nerve and composure to be a murderess, and Parchmeiner might well be her accomplice. Hammond the chaplain had the spite, whilst Sir Fulke had everything to gain.
Athelstan heard Cranston bellowing his name so left the chamber and went downstairs where the coroner stood kicking absentmindedly at the snow.
‘You feel better, Sir John?’
Cranston grunted.
‘And Fitzormonde told you all?’
The coroner glanced up.
‘Yes, I believe he did, Athelstan. You think the same as I do?’
He nodded. ‘Our sins,’ he murmured, ‘always catch up with us. The Greeks call them the Furies. We Christians call it God’s anger.’
Cranston was about to reply when Colebrooke came striding across the green. The lieutenant looked white-faced and tense.
‘My Lord Coroner!’ he called out. ‘You are finished here?’
‘In other words,’ Cranston half whispered to Athelstan, ‘the fellow is asking us when we are going to bugger off!’
‘We will leave soon, Master Lieutenant, but may I ask one favour first?’
Colebrooke hid his distaste behind a false smile.
‘Of course, Brother.’
‘You have messengers here. Will you send one to the widow Benedicta at St Erconwald’s in Southwark? Ask her to meet Sir John and me at the Three Cranes tavern in Cheapside. And, Master Lieutenant?’