‘Not even Chapler’s sickness?’
Lesures gulped, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.
‘He was sick, wasn’t he?’ Athelstan continued. ‘A slight contagion of the belly, so his sister told me: vomiting, a flux in the bowels.’
‘Oh yes, yes,’ Lesures gabbled. ‘He was ill for a few days.’
‘Did he fall ill suddenly?’ Athelstan grasped the old man’s hand: it was cold and clammy. ‘Master Lesures, you are wasting our time. I am becoming very suspicious about the doings of your clerks in the Chancery of the Green Wax.’
Athelstan glanced sideways at Cranston, he sat dozing, eyes half closed.
‘Would you please answer our questions?’ Athelstan insisted. ‘Either here or in the Tower.’
Lesures licked his lips. ‘I’m just frightened,’ he whined. ‘That is all, Brother Athelstan. My mind is clogged, my wits numb. I go home and lock myself in…’
‘You live by yourself?’ Cranston opened his eyes.
‘I am a bachelor, Sir John.’
And you do not join your clerks when they carouse the midnight hours away?’
‘Sir John,’ Lesures simpered, ‘I may be a bachelor but I am also quite vulnerable.’
‘We were talking about Chapler’s illness,’ Athelstan intervened. ‘He became ill here, didn’t he?’
‘Yes, yes, he did.’ Lesures swallowed. ‘After I had served the malmsey, Chapler suddenly fell sick: clutching his stomach he ran down to the privy in the small garden.’
‘And no one else showed similar symptoms?’
‘No.’
‘And you didn’t think that was suspicious?’
‘I…’
‘Come, come, Master Tibault.’ Cranston hammered on the table. ‘A healthy young man takes a cup of malmsey like the rest, but only he has gripes in his belly’
‘I thought it was suspicious,’ Lesures bleated. ‘But the clerks are always playing tricks upon each other. They did not like Chapler,’ he continued in a rush. He put his face in his hands. ‘Some madcap scheme. I asked Peslep but he just laughed.’
‘I wish you had told us,’ Athelstan replied. ‘How do you know, Master Tibault, it was some witless trick? Chapler could well have been poisoned. Sometimes the poison works but if you are fortunate, depending on your belly, the body can expel it. It would leave you weak but not dead.’
Lesures’ face went as white as a sheet.
‘What is happening here?’ Cranston asked softly. He gripped Lesures’ wrist. ‘Master Tibault, you are one of the Crown’s principal clerks yet you shake like an aspen leaf. What do these young rapscallions know about you? You should be their master, but look, you sit here more like their minion. Bring down the seal,’ Cranston continued.
‘I don’t need to bring it down.’ Lesures unbuttoned the cords of his gown.
Athelstan glimpsed the chain and the small round box on the end. Lesures took this off, opened the clasps and handed the seal across. Cranston held it as if it was some holy relic: dark green in colour, on one side it showed the young King Richard II on horseback, sword in hand; on the other a crown and the arms of England, France, Scotland and Castille quartered on a shield.
‘Sir John, what are you hinting at?’ Lesures asked, taking the seal back. ‘You know no one holds that seal except me. No one can use it to impress a document except me.’ Lesures made to rise as if to walk off in disgust.
‘We haven’t finished,’ Athelstan remarked. ‘But you may go and ask Napham and Alcest to join us. We have something to tell them.’
Lesures hurried off. He returned with the clerks. Both men look subdued, pale-faced, not a touch of their old arrogance and swagger.
‘Did you like Chapler?’ Cranston began abruptly.
‘No, we did not,’ Alcest retorted. ‘I’ve told you, he was not one of us so we let him be. He came to work here then he went home. We knew nothing about him except that he had a sister in Epping.’
‘How long did Chapler work here?’ Athelstan asked.
‘Two years,’ Lesures answered from where he stood nervously by the door. ‘He came highly recommended from a merchant in Cambridge.’
‘And he was the last to join you?’
‘Yes, yes, he was,’ Alcest replied. ‘He came a stranger and remained as one.’
‘Is that why you tried to poison him?’ the coroner asked.
Napham sat back as if a crossbow bolt had hit him in the chest.
‘You did try to poison him or someone here did? A few weeks ago he drank some malmsey…’
‘We didn’t poison him,’ Alcest retorted. ‘That was Peslep’s idea of a joke. He put a purgative in Chapler’s cup. Peslep thought it was amusing. We did not.’
‘You have no proof of that,’ Athelstan said sharply.
‘I have spoken the truth.’
‘Ah yes, the truth,’ Cranston remarked. ‘Pilate also asked what is the truth. Brother Athelstan, tell him what we have already learnt.’
Athelstan explained the three riddles and how each of them was a reference to the first letter of the surname of the murdered clerks. Alcest and Napham became even more subdued, especially as Athelstan explained how there was little connection between the murder of Chapler and the other three clerks.
‘This makes us wonder,’ Athelstan concluded. ‘We have Peslep, Ollerton, Elflain: P O E. If we add the first letters of Napham and Alcest the word poena is formed, the Latin for punishment. Now,’ Athelstan leaned his hands on the table, ‘what have you five clerks done to deserve such punishment?’
Napham began to shake but Alcest abruptly got to his feet and, taking his Chancery ring off, threw it on the table.
‘Pray, sir, what’s the matter?’ Cranston barked.
‘I’m a royal clerk in the Chancery of the Green Wax,’ Alcest declared. ‘I work for the Crown. I am being threatened. Accordingly, unless we take the appropriate measures, both I and Master Napham will also be brutally killed whilst you, Sir John, fumble around!’
‘And so?’ Athelstan played with the Chancery ring lying on the table.
‘Sir John will tell you the custom.’ Napham also took his ring off. ‘In times of great danger royal clerks can demand the Crown’s protection.’
‘Of course!’ Cranston breathed. ‘And where will you go, sir?’
‘To the Tower, of course.’
Alcest picked up both rings and slipped them into his pouch. ‘I will go to the Constable of the Tower and demand that we be housed there.’ He jabbed a finger at Cranston. ‘Until you, the coroner of this city, discovers who the assassin is!’
Alcest, followed by Napham, walked to the door. ‘We will both stay in the Tower from where we will petition the Regent for his protection and complain about the bumbling doings of a drunken coroner!’
Cranston sprang to his feet. ‘And you, sir, can go down to hell and ask the Lord Satan for protection. If you seek it in the Tower, then go! Yet you have still not answered our questions.’ The coroner continued. ‘Why are you and your companions being hunted and killed? What have you done to merit such terrible punishment?’ He smiled bleakly. ‘My Lord Regent will be interested in your reply, as will I.’ He glanced at the Master of the Rolls. ‘Lesures, will you join them?’
‘No, no, my post is here!’
‘Good,’ Cranston breathed. ‘Master Alcest, you will be in the Tower by the morning, yes? I can visit you there.’
The two clerks were already pushing their way out of the door, slamming it behind them. Cranston took out his wineskin and swallowed a generous mouthful.
‘They should be careful,’ Athelstan warned. ‘They are not yet in the Tower and the assassin still hunts them!’
CHAPTER 9
Athelstan left Cranston in Cheapside. The coroner was growing tired, rubbing his face and murmuring about Lady Maude and the poppets. The day was drawing on. The market bell was tolling and already carts and barrows were being refilled as peasants prepared to leave the city before sunset. The air was ripe with rotting fruit and vegetables as Athelstan made his way along the streets. A beggar boy, for a penny, took him to the Silver Lute tavern, a broad-fronted hostelry with a small gatehouse which dominated its spacious cobbled yard. Athelstan walked into the taproom. The taverner, a great leather apron round him, came hurrying up, a cheerful, merry-eyed fellow.