Cranston’s messenger, Tiptoft, had arrived just as they were leaving the cemetery, begging the friar to join Sir John in Bread Street, where ‘Another horrid murder has occurred.’ Athelstan now waited outside Thomas Pynchon’s house as bailiffs cleared the cellar strong room as well as purging the pungent smoke fumes. Athelstan, threading Ave beads through his fingers, stared down this prosperous street. He was always fascinated at the contrasts in human life. Two houses away maids and slatterns were waging their ceaseless war against fleas and bedbugs. On windowsills, tranchers of stale bread, covered with turpentine and birdlime with a lighted tallow candle in the middle, were being laid out to attract and kill such irritants. Chamber pots and jakes jugs were being emptied into the sewer. The different smells of houses, being opened to the day, mingled with those more savoury odours from nearby pie shops and pastry stalls. Athelstan sighed – such commonplace things, yet in Pynchon’s house gruesome murder had been perpetrated.
‘Brother, we can go in now.’ Cranston pulled down the muffler of his cloak and they followed Flaxwith into the house. The place reeked of fire and smoke. Athelstan and Cranston used rags soaked in vinegar to cover nose and mouth as they made their way carefully down to the cellar strong room.
‘Look at it!’ Athelstan gasped. ‘Apart from the furniture, everything is fashioned out of stone. Wooden beams and pillars are hidden under thick layers of cement, yet it would prove no defence for Pynchon. In fact, it became a trap where he was burnt to death.’ Athelstan looked around. The chamber was like a spent furnace. All the contents, except for the great iron arca, had been reduced to crumbling shards or feathery ash which floated through the air, carried by the still-curling tendrils of smoke. The whitewashed walls were blackened as was the crumbling cement over the roof beams. The friar walked back to the door, badly damaged by the fire. He noted the stout lock and heavy bolts. The stench was still intense. Cranston and Flaxwith were coughing so Athelstan insisted they leave, going up into the kitchen where the pathetic remains of the draper were laid out on a canvas sheet. The fire had been merciless. Pynchon was nothing but a blackened, twisted lump of charred flesh and bone. The face was unrecognizable; the bone grey with hardening nodules of fat. Athelstan swiftly recited the last rites, overcoming his feeling of nausea. He anointed what remained of the head, hands and feet with holy oil. He then pulled back the heavy horse blanket to cover the remains and followed Cranston and Flaxwith into the comfortable well-furnished solar.
‘What and how?’ Athelstan abruptly asked, accepting Sir John’s offer of the miraculous wineskin. He took a deep gulp, swilling the rich wine around his mouth to get rid of the taste of smoke and burning.
‘Pynchon,’ Cranston replied, taking back the wineskin, ‘was foreman of the jury which convicted Lady Isolda. He was very proud of what he had done and made no attempt to hide his glee at the verdict he and the others brought in. Once the murders started, he hired guards and moved to this strong room.’
‘They are now very common,’ Flaxwith declared, glancing down to where Samson crouched, tethered to a table leg. The mastiff held a piece of parchment between his jaws, something he always did. ‘All along Cheapside, Poultry and the rest,’ Flaxwith declared, ‘they are buying swords, hiring dogs and, when the revolt comes, they will hide in their strong rooms.’
‘And Pynchon died in his,’ Athelstan declared. ‘So what actually happened?’
‘He returned home last night deep in his cups,’ Flaxwith replied. ‘His guards saw him safely down to the cellar. They heard him lock the door, withdraw the key and pull across the four heavy bolts.’
‘And the grille high in the wall?’ Athelstan asked.
‘Fashioned by a master mason out of a hard rock, or so I am informed. It has square gaps for the air to seep through.’
‘Let’s examine that.’
Flaxwith led them out into the garden ringed by a red curtain wall. The garden lay frozen and bleak in the vice-like grip of a winter’s morning. Herb plots, flower beds and the patches of grass were all crusted white. The smell of burning hung heavy here. Flaxwith took them over to the grille just above the level of the hard, packed soil. Athelstan crouched down to examine it. The air holes were small, no more than an inch square. Satisfied, Athelstan returned to the strong room. Flaxwith fetched a ladder and Athelstan climbed up to inspect the grille from the inside. He came down shaking his head.
‘How did it all occur?’ Cranston asked. ‘Surely the Ignifer would create noise, I mean, the entire chamber set alight?’
Athelstan stood, fingers to his lips, staring up at the grille before making his way into the darkened far corner beneath it. He closed his eyes and thought of the grille. How could a liquid be poured through it? He opened his eyes and smiled as he recalled a tapster draining a cask of wine by inserting a tube and sucking on the end to draw up the dregs. Or a boy with a set of bellows, and the games he and the other urchins used to play with each other. They would fill the bellows with water then squeeze out a hard spurt through the metal tube on the end.
‘That’s what happened here,’ he declared.
‘What did, Brother?’
‘Oh, there’s only one way the Greek fire entered this room, and that’s through the grille. Think of a set of bellows, Sir John, with a tip which could fit through one of those gaps, its bags full of oil. The Ignifer simply stuck the metal end into a hole in the grille and gently squeezed the oil so it ran down the wall on to the floor. Pynchon made a most grievous mistake. I am sure he boasted about his strong room and so drew attention to it. The Ignifer would climb the garden wall, observe the grille and plan accordingly. He would keep Pynchon under strict observation and await his opportunity. Our linen-draper left his house last night deserted and returned deep in his cups.’ Athelstan indicated with his head. ‘The Ignifer gained entrance to the garden under the cover of night and squeezed in the oil. Pynchon returns, he is tired, drunk, and the far corner of this chamber is shrouded in darkness. He is unaware of what is happening. Perhaps he smells the oil or, if it was odourless, the reek from its container, but that does not alert him. Outside the assassin waits, quietly watching that grille. He sees the glow of lantern-light, hears the lock being turned, the bolts pulled, all the sounds of his drunken victim preparing for the night. The Ignifer then returns to his task: more Greek fire is poured through the grille. Pynchon may have heard it but it’s too late, he is trapped. One or more slender, lighted tapers, small glowing pieces of wax, are pushed through the gaps. Think of a needle with a fire on the end. Pynchon is alerted but the sparks fall. The oil is ignited. Greek fire blazes swiftly and greedily up. Remember the recent attack on us, Sir John, how speedily those flames leapt as if they had a life of their own?’
‘But the smell?’
‘Sir John, this is true Greek fire. I suspect it is both colourless and odourless. Again, after the attack on us, I knelt down to pray for that poor man. I also picked up a shard of the pot the killer had used which was not caught up in the fire. I smelt it. I could detect virtually nothing. As I’ve said, the only odour might come from the container it was kept in. Anyway, Sir John, I suspect that’s what happened to poor Pynchon.’
‘Rumour flies faster than a sparrow,’ Cranston observed. ‘The gossips maintain the fire comes from Hell. God’s judgement on those responsible for sending an innocent woman to her death. Already there are grumblings in the Commons about the justice of this, how the entire case should be reviewed.’