House of the Red Slayer

CHAPTER 9

As Athelstan and Benedicta rode slowly back across the dark, choppy waters of the Thames, Adam Horne left the Crutched Friars monastery near Mark lane just north of the Tower. He’d arrived just after Vespers to collect the message he had been told would be waiting for him. The grizzle-haired lay brother had smiled toothlessly and waved Horne into the door-keeper’s lodge.

‘It’s been here all afternoon,’ the lay brother murmured, handing him a thin roll of vellum. Horne anxiously unfolded the parchment and, begging the brother to bring a candle, hastily read the contents.

‘Oh, my God!’ he groaned as his hopes were dashed. Earlier in the morning he had received a piece of parchment with a sketch of a crudely drawn ship, and a flat sesame seed cake. He had tried to hide his fears from his poor wife and gone down to his warehouse where another message had been awaiting him: he was not to return home, the short letter instructed, but to go to the House of the Crutched Friars where his anxieties would be resolved. He should fear nothing but put his hopes in the sender who wished him well. Now this short note cruelly dashed his hopes: the mysterious writer apologised for not meeting him but asked him to wait amongst the ancient ruins to the north-west of the Tower. Horne shredded the note, left the friary and made his way through the dark, ice-covered country lanes which cut round farms and smallholdings. He stared up at the starlit sky and shivered, not only from the biting cold but his own sombre fear of what might await him. Horne’s commonsense told him to run but he had waited too long. The threat had hung like a sword over his head for years and he wanted to confront it once and for all. A self-confident merchant, Horne also believed the meeting might end his fears for good. He could then go home, absolved from his part in that terrible crime committed so many years ago.

The line of trees ended and Horne stood on the edge of the common, in the far distance the lowering mass of the Tower. Perhaps he should go there? He sighed despairingly. Who could help him? Sir Ralph was dead and the surviving hospitaller would have no time for him. Horne gulped quickly at the realisation of his own guilt. Should he go on? He stared at the ice-covered ground and half listened to the cold wind moaning gently amongst the trees. Above him a raven cawed as it flew to hunt over the mudflats along the river. A fox barked. The sound was strident and made the hair curl on the back of his neck. Horne felt uneasy. He turned and stared back down the muddy track. Was someone there? Had he been followed?

Horne’s face twisted into a snarl. He might be a fat, wealthy merchant now but fifteen years ago he had fought as a knight, shoulder to shoulder with men who feared nothing on earth. Yes, he had been guilty, even as much as Whitton, Fitzormonde and Mowbray had always been soft, they could whine and moan that they had not been to blame, but Horne had agreed to Whitton’s plan and built a thriving business on the proceeds.

He fondled the long dagger he’d pushed through his wallet, drawing comfort from its metal-coiled handle. If there was an assassin about, he reassured himself, best to confront him now rather than be taken in the dead of night. An owl hooted. Horne snarled. ‘Let all the hell hounds come from Satan’s dark abyss! I will match blow for blow!’ His empty words comforted him as he walked across to the ruins, a collection of snow-covered boulders. The old ones said the great Caesar once had a palace there. Horne, deeply agitated by a mixture of fear, terror and forced bravado, went and sat in the middle. He felt safer; despite the darkness, the white, snow-covered common and brittle ice would give him warning of any assassin’s approach.

The merchant stared round the ruined Roman villa. A few yards away was a half-raised wall. Horne glared at it contemptuously. If any murderer lurked there, they would have to cover the ground and he had brought something special. A small arbalest or miniature crossbow swung from his belt, a bolt already in place. The darkness grew deeper. Horne studied the lights of the city. The wine he had drunk earlier in the day, his exertions and fear, made him feel warm and sleepy. A short stab of icy wind made him huddle deeper into his cloak and he stirred to keep the hot blood flowing through his veins. The merchant stared around into the gathering darkness and his courage began to ebb as he wondered who his strange benefactor might be. Horne closed his eyes, half sleeping, dozing. That’s what Bartholomew Burghgesh had always told him to do.

‘Rest whenever you can, my dear Adam. A true soldier always eats, drinks, sleeps and takes a wench whenever the opportunity presents itself’

Horne smiled to himself. Brave, redoubtable man! A veritable paladin! Horne had liked him but Ralph Whitton had always been jealous of Bartholomew for being a better soldier than he. But surely there had been more than that?

Something about Whitton’s wife being rather sweet on the young Bartholomew when he had, for a time, served as a knight banneret in the Tower. Horne sniggered to himself. Strange coincidence, the same place where Whitton had met his death. Horne looked up. Was that a sound he had heard? He sat still, his ears straining, but only the cawing of the ravens and the distant bark of some farm dog broke the chilling silence. Horne moved his feet restlessly. He would wait a few more minutes and then he’d go. He stared at the ground. Who was the murderer? he wondered. Could it be the hospitaller, Fitzormonde? Or Fulke, Sir Ralph’s brother? He’d known Burghgesh quite well. Or someone else who believed he was God’s vicar on earth to dispense justice and retribution? Or had Burghgesh survived, been taken prisoner, and then years later slipped back into England to reap bloody havoc on his foes? Or perhaps his son and heir? Had he really died in France, or else learnt about his father’s terrible fate and secretly returned to stalk his sire’s killers?

Horne chewed on his lip. He had to face the fact that he was a killer, he had been party to Burghgesh’s murder. Sometimes at night this thought would rouse him screaming from his sleep. And was that why God had given him no son or heir? Was his wife’s barrenness due to divine justice? Horne heard a sound, jumped up in terror and stared at the apparition just next to the old wall.

A man clothed in knight’s armour, on his breast the red cross of the crusaders, his face hidden by that helmet! The same steel, conical shell with eagle’s wings on either side and blue tufted crest on top. A chilling terror gripped Home’s heart. ‘My God!’ he whispered. ‘It’s Burghgesh!’ Or was it an apparition from hell? The armoured, visored figure just stood there, feet slightly apart, mailed, gauntleted fists gripping the handle of the great, two- edged sword with the blade resting on one shoulder.

‘You are Burghgesh?’ Horne hissed.

The apparition moved closer. Only the crunch of mailed feet on the hard ice broke the silence.

‘Adam! Adam!’ The voice was Burghgesh’s though it sounded sombre and hollow. ‘Adam!’ the voice repeated. ‘I have returned! I come for vengeance! You, my comrade in arms, my friend for whom I would have given my life.’ One mailed hand shot out. ‘You betrayed me! You, Whitton and the rest!’

Horne moved suddenly, his hand going to the small arbalest which swung from his belt

‘You’re no phantasm,’ the merchant snarled. ‘And, if you are, go back to Hell where you belong!’

He brought up the arbalest but, even as he did, the great two-edged sword scythed the air, neatly slicing the merchant’s head from his shoulders. The decapitated head spun like a ball in the air, lips still moving; his trunk stood for a few seconds in its own fountain of hot red gore before crashing on to the blood-stained ice. Horne’s mailed executioner carefully cleaned the sword, drew his knife and knelt beside the blood-gushing torso of his victim.

Some hours later Sir John Cranston, muttering and cursing to himself, made his way from Blind Basket Alley up Mincing Lane into Fenchurch Street. Dawn had just broken and Sir John, unable to sleep, had risen early to confer with Alderman Venables about the continued disappearance of Roger Droxford, still wanted for the murder of his master whose decapitated corpse Cranston had found. Sir John had spent a restless night, tossing from side to side in his great double bed. He had tried to remain calm but still seethed with fury at Maude’s continued intransigence in the face of his pleadings and questions: her only answer would be to bite her lip, shake her head and turn away in floods of tears. At last Cranston had risen and gone to his personal chancery but, finding himself unable to concentrate, had finished dressing and gone to rouse Venables. Cranston grinned wickedly. He’d enjoyed that, letting the good alderman know what it was like to be awoken just before dawn. The sleepy-eyed alderman however, could give him no further information on Droxford.

‘He can’t have fled far. Sir John,’ Venables murmured sleepily. ‘God knows, in this weather only a fool would try to flee the city limits, and both the description and the reward have been circulated.’ Venables had grinned. ‘After all, Sir John, he’s a man you would remember.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, he had two fingers missing from one hand and his face was covered in hairy warts.’ The alderman pulled his fur-lined bed robe around him, moving restlessly on the stone-flagged corridor and making it obvious the coroner should leave. ‘What’s so special about Droxford, anyway, Sir John?’

‘He’s special, Master Venables, because he’s a murderer, a felon who has stolen over two hundred pounds of his master’s monies, and it looks as if he has got away Scot free!’

Venables took one look at Cranston’s angry face and agreed. Sir John had then stamped off, muttering curses about public officials who didn’t seem to care. Yet, in his heart, Cranston knew he was a hypocrite. The business at the Tower was still shrouded in mystery. The fugitive Droxford, not to mention the easy-going alderman, were the nearest butts for Sir John’s foul temper.

He turned into the still-deserted Lombard Street and up to the great stocks just before the Poultry. A group of beadles were standing around a beggar who sat imprisoned there, feet and hands tightly clamped, face frozen, eyes open.

‘What’s the matter?’ Cranston bellowed.

The beadles shuffled their feet

‘Someone forgot to release him last night,’ one of them shouted. ‘The poor bastard’s frozen to death!’

‘Then some bastard will pay!’ Sir John bellowed back, and continued up the wide thoroughfare, past a group of nightbirds, whores and petty felons now manacled together and being led down to the great iron cage on top of the Conduit. A frightened-looking maid let him in. Sir John suddenly stopped, eyes narrowing. Hadn’t he glimpsed a shadow in the alleyway beside the house? He went back. Nothing. Cranston shook his head and, vowing he would drink less sack, brushed past the anxious-looking maid, down the passageway and into the stone-flagged kitchen. He thanked God Maude wasn’t there, he was tired of their encounters.

‘Any messages?’ he barked at a subdued-looking Leif, still sitting in his favourite place in the inglenook of the great fireplace. The one-legged beggar lifted his head from his bowl of vegetables and spiced meat and shook his head.

‘No, Sir John,’ he replied. ‘But I have polished the pewter pots.’

‘Good,’ he growled. ‘At least someone in this city is working.’

Cranston poured himself a generous goblet of wine and seized a small white loaf the cook had left to cool on the kitchen table. The coroner stood snatching mouthfuls of bread and gulping noisily from a goblet whilst he stared angrily at the fire. What should he do? he wondered.

Whitton’s and Fitzormonde’s deaths at the Tower were still as unfathomable as ever. He had also failed to find Horne. Sir John knew it would only be a matter of time before his masters at the Guildhall or, worse still, the Regent at the Savoy Palace, asked for an account of his stewardship. He heard a sharp knock at the door.

‘Go on, Leif,’ he growled. ‘I’m too bloody cold to answer it.’

Leif looked self-pityingly at him.

‘Go on, you idle bugger!’ Cranston roared. ‘There’s more to this house than sitting on your arse and stuffing your mouth with every bit of food you can lay your sticky little fingers on!’

Leif sighed, put down the bowl and hobbled out of the kitchen. Cranston heard the front door open and the man limping slowly back.

‘What is it?’ Cranston asked, winking good-humouredly at the maid who had also hurried down to see who was at the door. The girl smiled anxiously back and Cranston quietly cursed himself. He was frightening everyone with his foul temper. He must take a grip on himself. Perhaps he should ask Athelstan to intervene? ‘Well, man?’ he repeated. ‘Who was there?’

‘No one, Sir John.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, there was no one there.’ Leif steadied himself against the lintel of the door. ‘Only this.’ He held up a battered, leather bag tied at the neck and stained with watery dark marks around the base. ‘I answered the door,’ Leif ponderously repeated, ‘no one was there, only this bag.’

‘Then open it, man!’ Cranston said testily.

The coroner turned away to refill his wine cup. He whirled around at Leif s horrified cry and the bump as the maid fell in a dead faint to the floor. The beggarman just stood there, eyes wide in horror, mouth slack; in his upraised hand he held by the hair the decapitated head of Adam Horne, alderman and merchant.

Now Cranston had seen decapitated heads, be they of murdered taverner or some lord executed on Tower Hill, but this was truly gruesome; it was not so much the half-closed eyes and still blood-dripping neck but the mouth forced open and, thrust inside, the mangled remains of the dead merchant’s genitals.

Cranston grabbed the head from the horror-struck beggar’s hand, thrust it back into the bag, stepped over the still prostrate maid and, roaring for Maude, dashed down the passage-way to the door. He flung it open, rushing like an angry bull down Cheapside, but the snow-covered thoroughfare was still deserted, with no trace or sign of their mysterious, grisly visitor. Cranston stopped and, half crouching, retched violently as the true horror of what he had seen seized his mind and wrung his stomach as if it was a wet rag.

‘Oh, the bastard!’ he whispered. ‘Oh, Lord help us!’

He staggered back inside the house. Maude, white-faced, stood at the foot of the stairs.

‘Sir John, what is it?’

‘Go back to your room, woman!’ Cranston roared. ‘Stay there!’

He turned to the grooms and servants now huddled together near the kitchen door.

‘You,’ Cranston barked at one, ‘go for a physician! You,’ he pointed to the cook and her assistant, ‘take the maid into the solar!’

The poor, half-unconscious girl was hustled to her feet. Cranston walked back into the kitchen. Leif sat on the stool like a man pole-axed. The bag and its gruesome contents still lay where Cranston had dropped it. The coroner busied himself around the house. He shaved, changed his doublet, put on his sword belt and took his heaviest cloak from its hook outside the buttery. He found a heavy flour sack in one of the outhouses and placed the battered leather bag carefully in it.

‘Leif,’ he ordered, ‘tell Lady Maude I am going to the Guildhall, then on to Southwark.’

The beggar, usually so garrulous but still dumbstruck at what he had seen, just stared and nodded, open-mouthed. Cranston swung the sack over his shoulder.

‘Oh, Leif.’ Cranston turned and grinned evilly at the beggar. ‘There’s more of that rich stew if you want it.’

Leif turned away, retching, whilst Cranston stalked out of his house muttering vengeance against all and sundry.

In St Erconwald’s church, Athelstan had just finished the Mass for the dead and was now blessing the corpse of Tosspot, an old drunkard who’d lived in the cellars of the Piebald Horse tavern. Tosspot had been found dead the previous afternoon. Pike the ditcher and Watkin the dung-collector had, in the absence of any relatives, sewn the body into a canvas sack, placed it on a wooden trellis and brought it to lie in front of the chancel screen. Athelstan had always given strict instructions on this; any poor man or woman found dead in his parish was to be given honourable burial, so this included Tosspot. Athelstan sketched the sign of the cross above the corpse and sprinkled it with the Asperges rod. Around him the usual Mass-goers, Benedicta included, watched fascinated as Athelstan urged the soul to go out to meet his Christ whilst he, Athelstan, priest of that church, summoned God’s army to meet this unfortunate man’s soul; they were to lead it into Paradise and ensure it did not fall into the hands of Satan. Athelstan paused. And what about the body? he thought. Would that be safe? He looked down at his fingers and noted the chalk dust on their tips. Where had that come from? he wondered. It had not been there during Mass.

‘Father,’ Crim the altar boy whispered.

Athelstan, startled, looked up.

‘Father,’ the boy repeated, his face creased in a mischievous grin, ‘you’ve suddenly stopped praying!’

Athelstan shook himself free from his reverie.

‘We beg thee, Michael the Archangel,’ he intoned the final prayer, ‘to take the soul of this our brother.’ He paused. What could he call him? Tosspot? What would the angels think of such a name? ‘Take the soul of this our brother Tosspot,’ he continued defiantly, ‘into the bosom of Abraham.’

The friar glared at the congregation but they all knelt, heads wisely bowed to hide their grins. Athelstan, trying to conceal his embarrassment, signalled at Watkin and Pike to lift the bier and follow him and Crim, bearing a lighted taper, into the cemetery. Outside the cold wind snuffed the taper out. Crim slipped on the ice and fell on his backside, cursing so loudly Athelstan had to bite his lip to keep his face straight. They crossed the lonely, haunted cemetery to the shallow grave Pike had dug in the ground. Athelstan caught a glimpse of the two lepers, shrouded in their hoods near the charnel house. He suddenly remembered the twig he had used to push the Hosts through the leper’s squint for these two unfortunates to swallow. Athelstan smiled to himself. That’s where the chalk had come from. They reached the grave. Pike and Watkin unceremoniously rolled old Tosspot into the shallow hole and, whilst Athelstan muttered some prayers, hastily covered it with icy lumps of clay. Athelstan then blessed the grave and with Watkin darkly hoping the body would stay there, they all trooped back into the church. Athelstan chose to ignore the dung-collector’s dire speculation. The grave robbers, whoever they were, seemed to have disappeared. Perhaps moved on to vex some other unfortunate priest He swept up the nave under the chancel screen and into the small, icy sacristy. Athelstan jumped as a large figure loomed out of the shadows.

‘Sir John!’ he snapped. ‘Must you lurk like some thief in the night?’

Cranston grinned slyly. ‘I must have words with you, Brother, and not here.’

Athelstan looked at him carefully. ‘You’ve been drinking. Sir John?’

Cranston smirked. ‘Yes and no. Quick! I’ll wait whilst you divest.’

Athelstan hid his irritation. He doffed his chasuble, stole and cope, hastily hung them in the cupboard, gave a wide-eyed Crim a penny for his help then bustled Sir John back into the church. He beckoned to Benedicta who was standing near the baptismal font.

‘Lock the sacristy, please,’ he whispered to her. ‘And then clear the church.’ Athelstan looked around. ‘Watkin!’ he shouted. The dung-collector ambled slowly over, one eye on Sir John. ‘Watkin,’ Athelstan confided, ‘I will be gone for some time. You are to ensure the candles are doused and the church is kept safe and, if you are so concerned about the cemetery, keep a watch there yourself.’

The sexton looked hurt and Athelstan could have bitten out his tongue. He had not intended to be so sharp but Cranston’s secretive arrival had unnerved him. The friar led the coroner out of the church. Cranston saw Bonaventure fairly skipping along to greet him but he had no desire to have that bloody cat rubbing up against his leg, so hustled Athelstan out to collect their horses.

‘Follow me, my Mephistopheles,’ he murmured. ‘To a place of warmth and security.’

They crossed the beaten track, dodging between the heavy-wheeled carts, and led their horses down to London Bridge and into the welcoming warmth of the Piebald Horse tavern. Cranston loved this place, a veritable den of iniquity but one which sold good ales, fine wine and delicious food. Of course, the coroner personally knew Joscelyn, the tapster.

‘A real sinner,’ he had once described him as, ‘who will get into heaven because he has stolen the gates.’

Athelstan agreed; the landlord of the Piebald Horse was a one-armed, reformed sea pirate who had confidentially explained to the friar how he would love to go to church but the smell of incense always made him feel ill. Athelstan smiled to himself. He found it strange that he had just buried Tosspot who used to clean the platters and tankards in this very tavern. The friar gazed round. The place looked cleaner; fresh plaster on the wall, the beams newly painted, whilst the rushes underfoot were fresh and sweet-smelling. Joscelyn waddled towards them. The old rogue’s vein-streaked face was wreathed in smiles, his good hand scratching his chin as he relished the prospect of a fine profit. Sir John was a prodigious drinker and was well loved by the city’s tavemers.

‘My Lord Coroner,’ Joscelyn gave a mock bow, ‘you are most welcome to my humble abode.’

‘By the sod, you old bastard!’ Cranston roared. ‘Have you gone back to your old, wicked ways? Where did you get the sustenance to clean this sewer of iniquity?’

Joscelyn shrugged and spread his one good hand, fingers splayed out. ‘I have a new partner,’ he announced proudly, ‘who sold his own tavern near the Barbican and moved across the river to be free from the prying of certain coroners!’

Cranston roared with laughter and led Athelstan over to the far corner where a table and stools were set apart from the rest of the customers. Athelstan felt rather embarrassed. Near the wine tuns, he noticed Pike the ditcher, the clay of the cemetery still fresh on his hands, deep in hushed conversation with a group of strangers. The Great Community, Athelstan thought, peasants from the snow-covered fields outside the city, slipping in to talk sedition, plan treason and plot rebellion. Pike noticed him and, eyes guarded, raised his tankard. Athelstan smiled back but watched as, a few minutes later, Pike rose and led the rest of his companions out of the tavern.

Cranston squatted down with his back to the wall, smacked his lips and gazed hungrily up at the hams and other meats hanging from ropes on the rafters to be cured. He watched a pot boy broach a new cask and through an open door glimpsed the kitchen with its huge oven where Joscelyn baked his own bread. A dusty-faced boy was now raking the coal and wood from this into a tidy, white pile of ash. The bread would then be slipped in, the oven door sealed, and when the oven cooled, the bread would be baked. A curious place, Sir John reflected, at the heart of Southwark’s squalor, yet the ales and wine were always fresh and the food delicious. He glimpsed a table at the far end of the tavern with a huge silver nef or spice ship. Cranston scratched his head. So much new wealth. He idly wondered if Joscelyn had returned to his old ways and was engaged in some petty smuggling.

Athelstan studied Cranston out of the corner of his eye. Sir John’s temper had improved but Athelstan dreaded spending a day watching him guzzle one goblet of wine after another. The landlord waddled over.

‘My Lord Coroner, you are ready to order?’

Cranston gazed speculatively at the ceiling.

‘No fish!’ he barked. ‘Some pheasant or quail, cooked to a golden brown and stuffed with spices. I want the sauce thick. And some fresh bread!’

‘And the Reverend Father?’ Joscelyn asked sardonically.

‘The Reverend Father,’ Athelstan replied smoothly, ‘would like a bowl of thick leek soup, some bread, and a cup of wine with more water than claret.’

They waited until Joscelyn had walked away, roaring their order into the kitchen

‘Well, My Lord Coroner?’ Athelstan asked. ‘What has happened?’

Cranston outlined in sharp, succinct phrases the grisly events which had taken place earlier in the day. ‘I have also been to the Guildhall,’ he mournfully concluded. ‘The mayor told me in no uncertain terms how displeased His Grace the Regent Duke of Lancaster is at our lack of progress. Adam Horne was apparently a member of his retinue.’

‘And what was your reply?

‘I told him that I didn’t give a rat’s arse, and that I was doing the best I could.’

‘I suppose,’ the friar answered, ‘the mayor accepted your eloquent reply?’

Cranston slouched back against the wall. ‘Oh, we had a quarrel, but I have more sense than to seek a confrontation. I explained we had searched for Horne but could not find him.’ He glanced across at Athelstan, his face full of self-pity. ‘I must resolve the matter with the Lady Maude,’ he whispered. ‘It’s clouding my mind.’

Athelstan waited until the slattern had served them with goblets of wine.

‘Look, Sir John, let us take these events from the beginning.’ Athelstan raised a hand. ‘No, it is necessary. And, if you’ll accept my apologies, we must for the time being put the matter of Lady Maude to one side.’

Cranston nodded glumly.

‘Sir Ralph Whitton,’ Athelstan began, ‘received a warning that he was going to die because of a terrible act of betrayal committed in Outremer some years ago. I know,’ Athelstan quietly continued, ‘Sir Ralph was guilty of such an act. That’s why in the back of his Book of Hours, he scribbled those prayers to Julian the Hospitaller.

‘Who was he?’

‘A knight who committed terrible murders and spent his life in making reparation. Anyway,’ Athelstan continued, ‘Sir Ralph moves from his own chamber to the so-called security of the North Bastion tower. He is frightened and even refuses to take his Moorish servant, Rastani, with him. He drinks heavily the night before his death and retires to his bed chamber. What happened then?’ Athelstan asked, trying to draw Cranston from his own dark thoughts.

The coroner slurped noisily from his cup. ‘Well, my dear friar, according to all the evidence we have, Sir Ralph went to bed, and locked the door behind him, keeping the key with him. The door leading to the gallery on which his chamber stands was locked by the guards, whilst the other end of the passage is blocked by fallen masonry. The guards are on duty all night just inside the entrance to the North Bastion. They are both trusted men and the key to both the gallery door and another for Sir Ralph’s chamber hang on a hook beside them. We have established, on good authority, that neither sentry left his post nor did they see or hear anything untoward.

‘And now the murder?’ Athelstan prompted.

‘Young Geoffrey,’ Cranston continued, ‘whom Sir Ralph apparently doted upon, comes across early the next morning. The guards search him for weapons and open the door to the gallery. The same door is then locked, apparently on Sir Ralph’s orders, and Geoffrey goes to rouse him. The guards hear him knocking and shouting but then our young hero comes back. He announces his inability to arouse Sir Ralph, is about to return and unlock Whitton’s chamber himself, then changes his mind and goes for Colebrooke the lieutenant. They both return to Sir Ralph’s chamber and open it the room is undisturbed but Whitton is lying on his bed, his throat slashed, the corpse icy cold, and the shuttered windows wide open. That, my dear friar, is where our problem begins.’

‘Not if we accept our conclusion,’ Athelstan replied. ‘That someone crossed the frozen moat and, using the steps in the wall, climbed up to Sir Ralph’s chamber. The assassin prised open the lever on the shutters, entered and committed the crime. Nevertheless,’ he persisted, ‘our conclusion has its own problems. Why did Sir Ralph just lie there and allow his throat to be cut? He was a soldier, a warrior.’ The friar shook his head. ‘All we do know,’ he concluded, ‘is that the assassin must have been a member of the community at the Tower who knew Sir Ralph had changed his bed chamber, and he or she either committed the murder or hired a professional assassin to do it for them.’ Athelstan stared across at a group of dicers who sat playing noisily on the other side of the tavern.

‘And Sir Gerard Mowbray’s murder,’ Cranston observed, ‘is no clearer. Who rang the bell? How did Mowbray fall? Of course Horne’s murder,’ he continued, ‘was relatively easy. The assassin played upon his guilt and fear and probably lured the hapless man to his grisly death in that lonely place.’

‘Where did he die?’ Athelstan queried.

‘In the old ruins to the north of the Tower. And, before you ask, his murderer left no trace.’

‘And the suspects?’ Athelstan asked wearily. He leaned across and tapped Sir John on the arm. ‘Come on, My Lord Coroner, apply that sharp brain of yours!’

Cranston shrugged.

‘Well, it could be Sir Fulke. His buckle was found on the ice and he stands to gain from his brother’s death. Sir Ralph’s servant Rastani was lithe and able enough to climb up that wall.’ Cranston made a face at Athelstan. ‘By the way, I checked on their story for the night Sir Ralph died; both Sir Fulke and Rastani were absent from the Tower and there are people who can guarantee their whereabouts.’

‘Master Geoffrey could be the felon,’ Athelstan remarked. ‘But on the night Sir Ralph died he was in Philippa’s bed, and on the night Sir Gerard died, in his lady’s chamber. True, he went to rouse Sir Ralph but he was searched for any weapons, he had no key, and even if he had entered the room, favoured son or not, Sir Ralph would scarcely have offered his throat to be cut.’ Athelstan rubbed his face. ‘The possibilities are endless,’ he said. ‘Hammond, the felonious chaplain. Colebrooke, the envious Lieutenant. The gracious Mistress Philippa. Not to mention our hospitaller who may have told us a pack of lies.’ The friar narrowed his eyes. ‘We must check on them all,’ he murmured.

‘Or Red Hand,’ Cranston observed. ‘The mad man who may not be as insane as he appears.’

Athelstan looked up and smiled. ‘But we have made some progress, Sir John. If Fitzormonde is to be believed, we know the reason for the murders: Burghgesh’s death on that unfortunate ship in the Middle Sea so many years ago. The picture on the parchment is to remind his murderers of their foul act and the sesame seed cake a warning of their impending doom.’

‘And that — ’ Cranston almost shouted, glaring across at the landlord to bring his food for his stomach was growling with hunger ‘- leads us to another mystery. Did Burghgesh really die? Or is he back, hiding in London, even the Tower? Or is there someone else? Perhaps his son or some other friend?’

Cranston leaned back as Joscelyn brought across the steaming platters of food. The landlord served Sir John himself, cutting thick slices of pheasant breast and laying them deftly with his one hand on the pewter platter whilst a maid scurried up with a jug of steaming gravy in which the bird had been cooked. Sir John grinned his thanks, took his own pewter spoon from his wallet, drew his dagger and set to as if he hadn’t eaten for days. Athelstan watched in astonishment: Sir John’s permanent hunger always fascinated him. A slattern brought his own meal, a thickly spiced bowl of soup. Athelstan asked to borrow a pewter spoon and ate slowly.

‘They’ve forgotten the bread,’ Sir John grumbled.

Athelstan called the girl back and small, fresh white loaves, wrapped in a linen cloth, were immediately served. Whilst he ate Athelstan reflected on what they had discussed. He waited a while until Sir John had taken the edge off his appetite.

There is one matter we have overlooked.

‘What’s that?’ Cranston mumbled, his mouth full of food.

‘Horne’s murderer means the assassin knows us or why should he send such a grisly trophy to your house?’

‘Because the bastard’s mad!’

‘No, no, Sir John. It’s meant as a warning. This murderer sees himself as doing God’s work. He is sending a message: Keep well away until my work is done. Don’t interfere.’ Athelstan lowered his spoon. ‘Such a terrible thing,’ he whispered. ‘A man’s genitals hacked off and stuffed into the mouth of his decapitated head. Of course,’ he continued, ‘Fitzormonde mentioned that.’

‘What?’

‘Well, how the Caliph of Egypt would punish in such a way anybody who transgressed his command. The head and genitals hacked off and both exposed above the city gates in Alexandria. It’s obvious. Sir John,’ he continued, ‘our murderer must be someone who has lived in Outremer, someone who knows about the Hashishoni — the flat sesame seed cake, and that awful way of humiliating the corpse of an executed criminal.’

Cranston lowered his knife. ‘But who is the murderer, Brother?’

‘I don’t know, Sir John, but I think we should re-visit the Tower and speak to our group of suspects.’

‘And then?’

‘We go to Woodforde.’

Cranston groaned.

‘Sir John,’ Athelstan persisted, ‘it’s not far — a few miles through Aldgate and down the Mile End Road. We must find out if Burghgesh ever returned and what happened to his son. Moreover,’ he continued, ‘perhaps it may give you some time to reflect on the Lady Maude.’

Cranston jabbed the point of his knife into a piece of soft meat, mumbled his assent and continued to eat as if his very life depended upon it.