‘Good.’ Athelstan patted her on the shoulder. ‘I’ll meet you there.’
Athelstan watched her go then, half listening to Sir John’s chatter, he followed the coroner through the afternoon crowds, past Newgate and down Holborn to the Chancery of the Green Wax. As they passed the old city gate on to the Holborn road, Cranston stopped, a hand on
Athelstan’s arm. The coroner stared fixedly at the mouth of an alleyway.
‘What’s the matter, Sir John?’
Cranston scratched his chin and took a swig from his miraculous wineskin. Athelstan followed his gaze. There were a few stalls; children played with an inflated pig’s bladder near a drunken juggler who was trying to ply his tricks much to the merriment of some labourers.
‘One of your villains, Sir John?’
‘Oh yes,’ Cranston breathed. ‘Lovely lad, lovely lad! William the Weasel. I know him of old. There’s not a window he can’t climb through. Show him a crack in a wall and he’ll slither through as swiftly as a river rat.’
‘But I can’t see him.’
‘No, no, you won’t, Brother. He’s gone in the twinkling of an eye. William was not up to villainy, he was watching me. The Weasel is one of the Vicar of Hell’s most ardent parishioners and, if young William’s watching me, that means the Vicar of Hell is very interested in where I go and what I do. So Flaxwith’s story is correct. Our Vicar must be greatly smitten by young Clarice. I think it’s only a matter of time before he rises to the lure.’
‘But he’ll know you’ll have Dame Broadsheet’s house watched?’
‘Yes, yes.’ Cranston gnawed on his knuckle. ‘I’ll have to think about that. But come, Brother.’
The Master of the Rolls met them in a small chamber at the back of the office of the Green Wax. He sat on a bench to one side of a table, Cranston and Athelstan sitting opposite.
‘Master Tibault, you seem agitated?’ Athelstan began.
The Master of the Rolls scratched an unshaven cheek and rubbed one red-rimmed eye. ‘All these deaths,’ he wailed. ‘Brother Athelstan, this is an important office of state. The Regent, the Chancellor, even the King himself has sent messengers down.’
‘The dead clerks have been replaced?’
Master Tibault pulled a cloth from the cuff of his robe and mopped his brow. ‘Oh Lord save us, yes. There’s no shortage of skilled men.’
‘We have come to talk about Chapler,’ Athelstan continued. ‘Master Tibault, describe him to me.’
The Master of the Rolls did and both the coroner and his secretarius recognised the young man who had been fished out of the Thames. Athelstan raised his eyes heavenwards as one theory crumbled to dust.
‘Why?’ Tibault asked, playing with the rag.
‘Oh nothing,’ Athelstan replied. ‘Sir John and I wanted to be sure: apart from his sister, no one identified the corpse taken from the Thames. However, the man you describe fits Chapler’s description exactly, from the colour of his hair to the small mole on his right cheek.’
‘Yes, yes, that’s so.’
‘What was Chapler like? As a person?’
‘Very shy, very secretive. He kept himself to himself. He did not carouse with the others.’
Athelstan watched the bead of sweat form on Lesures’ upper lip. You are lying, he thought; you are not just flustered because your clerks have been killed: there’s some great secret here.
‘So you know nothing about his private life?’ Athelstan asked.
Lesures shook his head.
‘And nothing happened untoward, before Chapler’s death, which would account for his murder?’
Again the shake of the head.
‘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.