The Field of Blood (12 page)

‘Brother, I really can’t.’ Pike’s voice faltered at the look in Athelstan’s eyes. ‘I’ll do what I can, but I’m not the only one.’

‘I’ll wager you are not. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ursula’s sow also attends the meetings though she’s too busy in my cabbage patch to do me that favour. Now, cross yourself and go!’

Pike did so and Athelstan closed his eyes.

‘I’m sorry, Lord,’ he prayed. ‘I really am but, one of these days, Pike is going to get his neck stretched.’

He heard the door crash open behind him.

‘Good morning, Sir John.’

‘How did you know it was me, Brother?’

‘Only one person opens that door as if he were the Angel Gabriel.’

‘Oh, don’t talk about angels. It brings back memories of those madcaps in Black Meadow.’ Sir John knelt beside Athelstan and made a quick sign of the cross.

‘And what brings you here?’ Athelstan got to his feet and genuflected.

Sir John followed him into the small sacristy.

‘Mistress Vestler is committed at Newgate. What is today, Tuesday? On Thursday she is to appear before Justice Brabazon in the Guildhall.’

Athelstan studied his friend. Sir John’s bonhomie was forced, the coroner looked deeply worried.

‘What is it, Jack?’

Sir John drew out a small scroll of parchment. He tapped Athelstan on the shoulder with it. The friar felt a shiver of cold run up his back.

‘You know what it is, Athelstan. Don’t ask stupid questions!’

Athelstan undid the scroll: the seals at the bottom were of the chief justices, the mayor and justices sitting in session at the Guildhall. They proclaimed, in the name of the King, that Miles Sholter, ‘piteously slain by person or persons unknown in the parish of St Erconwald’s Southwark, was a royal messenger carrying the King’s insignia and coat-of-arms. An attack upon him was an attack upon the Crown. Accordingly, the parish of St Erconwald’s and all its inhabitants must, within forty days, surrender the person, or persons unknown, into the hands of the King’s officers or suffer a fine of two hundred pounds sterling.’

‘I am sorry,’ Sir John said. ‘It’s the best I could do. I personally went to see John of Gaunt. If Brabazon had his way it would have been six hundred pounds.’

Athelstan found he couldn’t stop trembling.

‘It’s still onerous, Jack. We are a poor parish!’

‘There are ways and means. There are ways and means.’

Sir John took a sip from his wineskin. ‘We’ll catch the killer, Brother, while I know merchants in the city. We’ll raise the monies. Meanwhile, that must be nailed to the door of the church, and I mean securely, Brother.’

‘It will be.’

Athelstan regained his composure and wrapped the roll up. He stared at the crude wooden crucifix fastened to the wall above the vestry table.

Please, he prayed silently. Please do not let this happen.

The coroner was still looking woebegone.

‘And there’s something else, isn’t there, Sir John?’

Cranston shook his head and sat down on a stool.

‘I stride around, Brother, bellowing good mornings, quaffing ale, laughing and joking but, as God knows, I am deeply worried.’

‘Kathryn Vestler?’

‘It goes from bad to worse. Kathryn is now in Newgate gatehouse. She’s stopped weeping, I find her stronger than I thought and she’s become hard-eyed, evasive. Last night I questioned her again regarding the enquiries about Margot Haden, and others who visited the Paradise Tree, but she shrugged them off. She can find no explanation. Brabazon is now threatening to dig the whole meadow up.’ Sir John clutched his beaver hat in his hands. ‘I loved her husband Stephen like a brother. I owed him my life. I know, I know, I talk about Poitiers but there were other occasions. What happens if Stephen and Kathryn were killers? Murdering poor travellers, looting their possessions and burying them in that field of blood?’

‘Alice Brokestreet is the key,’ Athelstan countered.

‘She is a murderess, desperate to save her neck. I’ve been to see her as well. She’s obdurate in her story, hinting at other things, other crimes.’

‘Such as?’ Athelstan asked.

‘What I thought.’ Sir John scratched his chin. ‘Let us say Kathryn Vestler is a murderess and she does plunder her victims. Now I can accept that she destroyed the goods of a poor chambermaid . . .’

‘I follow your reasoning, Sir John. If Vestler was a robber, as well as a murderess, she killed for gain. What would happen to the goods she stole?’

‘Precisely. Now Vestler couldn’t very well go into the markets with baskets full of plunder. People would become suspicious. It’s my feeling that she would sell them to someone else who would take them to a different part of the city, even to another market beyond the walls, and sell them there.’ Sir John’s light-blue eyes caught Athelstan’s change of expression. ‘What is it, Brother?’

The friar told him how the Four Gospels had described dark shapes coming off a barge and slipping, either through Black Meadow or beyond.

‘There’s only one place they could be going,’ Athelstan concluded. ‘The Paradise Tree.’

‘Oh, Lord save us!’ Sir John put a hand to his mouth. ‘I can see how this will go, Vestler was hand-in-glove with a band of robbers. She’d kill a traveller and sell the goods to others.’ He sighed. ‘In which case she’s lying. I asked Kathryn if there was anything she knew. Had she been involved in anything against the law? Even when she replied, I suspected she was lying.’

‘And there’s more!’ Athelstan told Sir John about the Wizard Gundulf and the treasure ‘which lay under the sun’. ‘It’s a riddle,’ he concluded. ‘But what can it mean?’

‘Bartholomew was a clerk in the Tower,’ Sir John replied. ‘Let us say, for sake of argument, and remember Brother, I am writing a treatise on the governance of the city, that Bartholomew was a historian. Now, there are supposed to be treasures buried all over London. Every year the Crown lays claim to treasure trove, either from the river or dug up in some field or cemetery. Bartholomew may have stumbled on such a story. Is it possible he was murdered for that?’

Athelstan closed the small cupboard fixed to the wall which contained the sacred species. He absentmindedly took the key out and put it into his purse.

‘And what if,’ he continued Sir John’s theory, ‘Bartholomew believed the treasure was buried somewhere under the Paradise Tree? He goes to Mistress Vestler and shares the secret with her?’

‘So she decides to kill him? I have a friend,’ Sir John continued. ‘Richard Philibert. He’s an old clerk who once worked in the royal treasury. He sat at the Exchequer and audited the sheriff’s accounts when they were presented at Westminster.’

‘What has he got to do with this?’ Athelstan asked.

‘Well, Brother, yesterday as I sat sunning myself in the garden, I had a close look at the Paradise Tree. The garden is beautiful: the eaves, the roof, the furnishings within, everything is in a pristine state.’

‘But Mistress Vestler does a good trade?’

‘Aye, but Hengan said something interesting: how Kathryn had gold and silver salted away with the bankers.’ Cranston got to his feet and patted his stomach. ‘My friend Philibert will look at the accounts of the Paradise Tree. I’d wager a wineskin against a firkin of ale that Kathryn’s income is excessive and Brabazon will swoop on that like a hawk. I’ve seen him before in court. A man for minutiae is Chief Justice Brabazon. He can pick at a prisoner like a raven does a corpse; he’ll wonder whether she and Bartholomew found this treasure.’

‘Will Hengan defend her?’

‘Oh yes, but he’s troubled. I called at his house this morning on my way here. He looked as if he hadn’t slept. So, what shall we do, Brother?’

‘First things first.’ The friar rubbed his hands. ‘Sir John, we face an army of troubles, but it’s not for the first time. If Mistress Vestler is a killer then there is little we can do to save her from the scaffold. What we must ask is, if she didn’t kill Bartholomew or Margot, then who did?’

Sir John stared bleakly back.

‘Think of it as a tapestry, Sir John,’ Athelstan insisted, ‘which tells a story. We have Mistress Vestler. We have the victims. Who else could have killed those people? Be responsible for the grisly remains in Black Meadow? Come on, Sir John, think! Because if you don’t answer that question, Chief Justice Brabazon will make sure he hangs your friend on it!’

‘We have Alice Brokestreet,’ the coroner replied slowly. ‘It’s possible she could have killed them.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘I asked the gaoler at Newgate,’ Sir John continued, ‘if Alice Brokestreet had any visitors. He claimed a friar had visited to give her solace and shrive her. Now the priests come from many of the houses in London. There are more friars in London than there are flies upon . . .!’

‘Thank you, Sir John! Your opinion of friars is well known!’

‘Well, Newgate is near Greyfriars House so I went in to see Father Prior. They’re Franciscans aren’t they, not one of your coven?’

‘Thank you, Sir John.’

‘According to his records, the friars are responsible for the prisoners in Newgate. They provide comfort and consolation. However, not one of his brothers seemed to have any knowledge of Alice Brokestreet.’

Athelstan smiled. ‘So, Brokestreet has an accomplice?’

‘It’s possible.’

Athelstan was going to reply but paused as the bell began to toll for mid-morning prayer. He sighed and hid his exasperation. Sometimes Mugwort remembered his duty, other times he was too drunk to forget. Now, the way the bell was tolling it seemed as if Mugwort were summoning everyone in the city to prayer. He waited until the clanging had stopped.

‘Who could this accomplice be?’

‘I don’t know, Brother but I’ve got old Flaxwith and that damnable dog sniffing away. Remember Brokestreet worked in a brothel.’

‘Who are you looking for, Sir Jack?’

‘An old acquaintance of ours, the vicar of hell.’

‘Oh no!’ Athelstan groaned. ‘I remember that rapscallion!’

‘He may be able to help. Flaxwith will track him down. So, where to now, Brother? Hengan will meet us at the Tower . . .’

‘Sir Jack.’ Athelstan clapped him on the arm. ‘You have problems, so have I. Let me tell you a story about our murderers here in Southwark. But first . . .’

Athelstan led him back into the church and out through the main door. Members of the council were still standing around. Athelstan walked over and thrust the scroll into Bladdersniff’s hands.

‘You are the parish bailiff aren’t you, Luke? Nail that up and make sure it stays there.’

And, before anyone could ask questions, Athelstan walked round to the priest’s house. Benedicta was in the kitchen washing the goblets and traunchers from the night before. Bonaventure was helping her. He’d jumped on to a barrel and was busy trying to lick one of the platters. Athelstan handed her the keys of the church and the widow woman, once she had freed herself from Sir John’s bear-like embrace, agreed to look after the parish until he returned.

‘You are welcome to them all,’ Athelstan told her. ‘At this moment in time, I feel like running into the countryside and hiding beneath a tree.’

‘Strange,’ Sir John mused, winking at Benedicta. ‘I used to do the same when I was a little boy. And, if the truth be known,’ he added in a mock whisper, ‘I still do it when the Lady Maude is in one of her rages.’

Athelstan collected his cloak and chancery bag, absentmindedly made his farewells and, followed by a mystified Sir John, strode out of his house, taking the trackway down into Southwark. His parishioners shouted farewell but Athelstan walked on, lost in his own thoughts.

‘What’s the matter, monk?’

‘Friar, Sir John, I’m a friar and a very angry one. We have the Vestler business in London, God knows what the truth behind that is; I have a young maid, daughter of Basil the blacksmith, who wants to marry a young man but there are rumours that they are related by blood. Now I have the mysterious death of Miles Sholter, not to mention a heavy fine!’

‘You are not thinking of leaving, are you?’ Sir John caught him by the shoulder. ‘Oh, don’t say that, Brother!’

Athelstan stared up at his sad-eyed friend and felt his temper cool.

‘No, Jack, I’m not leaving you. I am just angry. Do you know what I think about evil, about the devil? He’s not some great beast, some fallen angel shrouded in hideous majesty. Ah no! To me, Sir Jack, evil is like a malicious child who plays a trick and then hides in the shadows and giggles with glee at the damage done. You are the coroner, responsible for law and order. I am a friar, a priest, answerable to God for the care of souls. Now we’re lost in a maze because people want to thwart God’s will. So, I’ll tell you: we’re off to the Silken Thomas tavern and, as we go, my dear coroner, I’ll tell you what happened last night and the reason for our visit.’

Sir John linked his arm through that of the friar.

‘Then, Brother, let’s proceed. I’ll hear your confession.’

And the lord coroner and his secretarius walked on through the mean trackways and runnels of Southwark, totally unaware of the shadowy figure, trailing far behind, watching their every step.

They crossed the brook and went up the hill to the derelict house.

‘What was his name?’ Sir John asked. ‘The old meanthrift who lived here?’

‘Simon the miser, but that wasn’t his real name. They say he was a priest, a Benedictine who escaped from his monastery and took some of its treasure with him. He died just after I arrived here. The house and this field were seized by the Crown. If I remember rightly, there’s some legal battle over whether it was common land or can be sold. Naturally the house has been stripped of lead, tiles, anything valuable.’

Sir John stopped, huffing and puffing, and mopped his brow. He looked up at the house; the walls were dingy, only battered gaps where there had once been windows. Of the roof only a few beams remained, sticking up like blackened fingers towards the sky.

‘It’s also haunted,’ Athelstan said. ‘They say by Simon’s ghost. A good place to hide a corpse. The assassin must have known few people came here.’

The two went through the ruined doorway and into the parlour where the corpses had been found. Athelstan described how he thought the murders had taken place. Sir John agreed.