By Murder's Bright Light Read online

  ‘Mistress Roffel,’ Athelstan asked, ‘do you know what could have happened on board your late husband’s ship the night it docked to cause the disappearance of the mate and two sailors?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘As Father Stephen will testify, on that particular evening I was with my husband’s corpse in St Mary Magdalene church. However, if you ask me to guess, I would say all three men, somehow or other, abandoned ship.’

  ‘You met Bracklebury, the first mate?’

  ‘Yes, he brought my husband’s corpse to shore as well as a bag containing his few pathetic belongings, including the flask.’ She watched the priest’s dark eyes carefully. ‘Do you want to look at these?’

  Athelstan nodded.

  ‘But don’t put yourself out,’ he added anxiously. ‘Perhaps, if your maid Tabitha would be good enough to take me upstairs?’

  The mousey, grey-haired woman smiled at her mistress who agreed. Athelstan, leaving the coroner jovially accepting Mistress Roffel’s offer of wine, followed Tabitha upstairs. The rest of the house proved equally dismal, dark and rather dank. The furniture and hangings were tawdry – clean and sweet-smelling but battered and dingy. He passed the main bedchamber, where the door was ajar, and glimpsed a four-poster bed with clothing slung across the coffer at its foot. Tabitha took him into a small, dusty chamber with coffers stacked along the walls. The maid stood for a while looking around.

  ‘How long have you served your mistress?’ Athelstan asked quietly.

  The maid looked at him, crinkling up her eyes. ‘Oh, ever since the miscarriage sixteen or seventeen years ago.’

  ‘And she is good to you?’

  Tabitha’s face became hard. ‘Mistress Roffel is as harsh as her husband ever was. They richly deserved each other. She intends to return to Leith. I will be pleased to see the back of her!’

  Athelstan flinched at the venom in the woman’s voice. He watched, then helped, as she pulled a pair of leather, sea-stained panniers from behind a chest.

  ‘I slung it there after removing the flask. Shall we take it downstairs?’

  Athelstan put it over his shoulder and they returned to the parlour. Cranston, now on his second cup of claret, was describing to a bored but polite Mistress Roffel his own exploits at sea many years before.

  ‘You found what you wanted, Brother?’ she asked, stopping Cranston in mid-sentence.

  Athelstan put the leather bag on the floor, undid the buckles and emptied the contents out. They were not much: a pair of knee-high, woollen stockings; a needle and some thread; a quill; an inkhorn; some unused scraps of parchment; a shirt; two rings, scratched and rather battered; a St Christopher medal; a small compass; and a calfskin-bound book of hours. Athelstan picked the book up, undid the catch and leafed through the yellowing pages.

  ‘His only legacy from his priesthood days,’ Emma explained. ‘Wherever he went, he always took that with him.’

  ‘Yet,’ Athelstan observed, ‘he was not a man of prayer and neither are you. Father Stephen at St Mary Magdalene regarded you as strangers.’

  Mistress Roffel was about to reply when Cranston burped and emitted a loud snore. Athelstan looked at his fat friend, who slouched in the chair, nodding, his eyes closed.

  ‘Is Sir John well?’ Emma asked.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Athelstan replied sourly. ‘He’ll sleep like a babe and wake shouting for refreshment.’

  The friar turned over the pages of the book, noticing how the blank pages at the end carried strange entries which could perhaps be accounts – sums of money, sometimes followed by the note ‘in S.L.’.

  ‘What are these?’ Athelstan asked.

  ‘God knows, Brother. My husband was a secretive man. I am still visiting the goldsmiths along Cheapside to discover where he banked his monies.’

  Athelstan leafed over the pages and stopped to look at one fresh drawing; a squiggly line running across one page, small crosses carefully drawn alongside. The drawing looked fresh: the friar showed it to Mistress Roffel but she replied it made no sense to her. Athelstan sighed and placed the book back among the other possessions.

  ‘Your maid tells me that you are leaving the city,’ he said.

  ‘My maid knows too much for her own good,’ Emma retorted. ‘But, yes, once these matters are finished, I intend to collect my possessions, whatever monies my husband has left me, and return to Scotland.’

  ‘You hate London so much?’

  They all turned, surprised to see Cranston awake, blinking and smacking his lips.

  ‘Do you hate London, mistress?’ the coroner repeated.

  ‘It holds bitter memories: it’s best if I forget the past.’

  ‘And you know nothing to resolve these mysteries?’ Cranston asked.

  She shook her head.

  ‘And you, Sir John, do you know who murdered my husband and desecrated his corpse?’

  Cranston lumbered to his feet, shaking his head.

  ‘No, mistress,’ he breathed. ‘However, if I do find out, believe me, you’ll be the first to know.’

  They made their farewells and left the house. Both jumped as the Fisher of Men, with two of his gargoyles trailing behind him, slunk out of the shadows.

  ‘Satan’s futtocks!’ Cranston swore. ‘What the bloody hell are you doing, creeping up on good Christians like that?’

  ‘Sir John, you gave me and mine some money, so me and mine will earn it!’

  ‘What have you found?’

  ‘We saw the light gleaming.’ The Fisher of Men turned and patted one of his creatures.

  ‘Yes, I know about the lights!’ Cranston growled. ‘The ships pass signals between each other.’

  ‘Oh, no, not those. Something else. A lamp winked from the ship God’s Bright Light every hour until just before dawn and someone on the quayside answered it with a lamp.’

  ‘Do you know who it was?’

  ‘No, it was someone in the shadows. When we find out, Sir John, we’ll let you know.’ The Fisher of Men stepped back and disappeared as silently as he had arrived.

  Athelstan, aware of the drizzle beginning to fall, pulled his cowl well over his head. ‘Bernicia said that,’ he remarked.

  ‘Said what?’ Cranston asked testily.

  That there was someone in the shadows of the warehouses watching the ship.’

  ‘Satan’s balls! I have had enough of this!’ Cranston grumbled. ‘I’m hungry, I’m cold and wet!’

  He stamped down the alleyway, Athelstan hurrying behind him. The coroner sped, direct as an arrow, past the door of his own house, across a deserted Cheapside and into the Holy Lamb of God. He stopped abruptly, Athelstan almost colliding with him. Cranston glared angrily at the two men dressed in brown robes who sat at his favourite table.

  ‘Who the sod are you?’ Cranston snapped.

  The men smiled in unison and waved them over to the waiting stools.

  ‘Sir John, Brother Athelstan, please be our guests. We have already ordered blackjacks of ale.’

  Cranston and Athelstan sat down as the landlord’s wife placed tankards before them.

  ‘Your good health, Sir John.’ The brown-robed men raised their tankards in a toast to the coroner.

  Athelstan gazed at the strange pair. They looked like peas out of the same pod – merry-faced, balding, dressed the same, they seemed to do everything in unison. They would have passed as two merry monks from one of the city monasteries, with their soft skin and easy smiles, but for their eyes, hard and watchful. The friar shivered. These men were dangerous. They followed the coroner of London around the streets and did not give a damn. Now they sat waiting for him in his favourite tavern as if they knew his every movement.

  ‘Your names?’ Cranston growled.

  ‘Oh, you can call me Peter,’ the taller of the two replied. He smiled at his companion. ‘And that is Paul.

  Yes, call us Peter and Paul, the holders of the keys. What a nice touch!’

  ‘I could call you a lot of things,’
Cranston said grimly.

  ‘But you wouldn’t, Sir John,’ the one who had been given the name Paul replied. ‘We are like you; we may not be Children of the Light but we are their servants.’ He turned and smiled cheerily at Athelstan. ‘You have been busy, haven’t you, Brother?’

  Cranston swung his cloak back, touching the long stabbing dirk sheathed in his belt. Peter watched the movement, grinned and held his soft, white hands up in a gesture of peace.

  ‘Sir John,’ he lisped. ‘You are in no danger. We only wish to help.’

  ‘What with?’ Cranston snapped. ‘My marriage, my boys, my treatise, my bowels?’

  ‘God’s Bright Light!’ Peter snapped back, the good humour draining from his face.

  Athelstan spoke up, leaning across the table. ‘We appreciate your help, but who are you?’

  ‘We are the scrutineers. Do we work for the king’s council?’ Peter smiled and shook his head. ‘For the king himself?’ Again the shake of the head. ‘Brother Athelstan, we work for the crown. Princes and councillors come and go. We do not serve individuals, or noble families or a certain blood line but the crown itself.’ He leaned his elbows on the table, steepling his fingers, and gazed quickly around the warm, cheery tavern. The life blood of the crown,’ he continued, ‘is its money. We scrutinise what should be the crown’s, its taxes, rights, prerogatives, levies and dues.’

  ‘So, you are treasury officials?’

  Again the smile. ‘Oh and much more! We are particularly interested in the crown’s rights in France and, Sir John, you know what has happened there? The present king’s grandfather conquered and held the greater part of northern France. However, those of the same blood, but of a more feckless nature, are fast losing this patrimony. What does the crown hold now?’

  Cranston shrugged. ‘Parts of Gascony around Bordeaux.’

  ‘And in Normandy?’

  ‘Calais and the area around it.’

  Peter nodded. We have men working out of Calais to recover the lost lands.’

  ‘You mean spies?’ Athelstan asked.

  ‘Yes, yes, you could call them that. Now their task is to weaken the French.’ Peter shrugged and smiled at his companion. To keep them busy. You know – arranging the occasional accident to their ships, stirring up discontent, collecting information.’

  ‘And how does that concern us?’ Athelstan asked.

  Well, my dear friar, it really doesn’t, except that you are investigating Captain Roffel’s death and the disappearance of the watch from the God’s Bright Light. Yes? Now that doesn’t really concern us. What does concern us are the movements of Roffel’s ship during his last voyage. You see, two of our brethren sailing on a fishing smack from Dieppe to Calais never arrived. Their ship disappeared.’

  ‘And you think Roffel sank it?’

  ‘Possibly. Roffel was a bastard, a pirate, a robber sailing under the king’s colours. We know of his little business ventures. However, the killing of two of our agents is a different matter. Murder and piracy are serious crimes. More importantly, we want to discover just how did Roffel know where to intercept that fishing smack?’

  ‘He could have just been lucky,’ Cranston interrupted.

  ‘We don’t believe in luck!’ the scrutineer snapped. ‘Some traitor must have paid Roffel to intercept that ship and kill our messengers.’ Peter leaned across the table. ‘In other words, Sir John, we are talking about treason.’

  ‘In our investigations we discovered nothing like that,’ Cranston said.

  The scrutineers smiled in unison.

  ‘Oh, but you might,’ Paul purred, like a sleek cat. ‘You might very well, Sir John, and, if you do, we want to know.’

  ‘How can we inform you?’ Athelstan asked.

  The two scrutineers drained their tankards together, putting them back on the table in a single movement.

  ‘You know the great statue of Our Lady and the infant Jesus in St Paul’s?’ the taller of the two scrutineers asked.

  Athelstan nodded.

  ‘And before it stands a great iron-bound chest where the faithful place their petitions. Well,’ Peter got to his feet, indicating Paul to do the same, ‘if you wish to speak to us, put a petition in the chest – Saints Peter and Paul, intercede for us. Within the day you’ll hear from us. Good night, Sir John, Brother Athelstan.’

  The two scrutineers slipped out of the tavern. Sir John whistled softly under his breath, drained his tankard and roared for another.

  ‘And a bowl of onion soup!’ he shouted. ‘Brother?’

  ‘Just ale for me, Sir John.’

  ‘Well, well, well!’ Cranston said. ‘What do you make of that, eh, Brother? Piracy, murder, sailors who disappear and now treason.’

  ‘I cannot see the connection,’ Athelstan replied. ‘Why should Roffel put his neck on the block when he was doing so well out of piracy?’

  Cranston clicked his fingers and told a tapster to clear the table.

  ‘Out with your parchment and pen, monk!’

  Athelstan groaned but did what Sir John asked, taking a roll of parchment and smoothing it out on the table.

  Leif, the one-legged beggar, had been watching them from a far corner; he now hopped across, his tall, ungainly frame balancing precariously on a makeshift crutch.

  ‘What’s the matter, Sir John? Brother Athelstan? Why are you writing here?’ Leif shouted. ‘Sir John, Lady Maude said you should come home. She has baked two great pies and some pastries. The poppets are asleep and Lady Maude wants to see you. Have you had a good day, Sir John?’

  ‘Bugger off, you idle sod!’ Cranston shouted. ‘Bugger off and leave me alone!’

  Leif touched his forelock and grinned.

  ‘A man gets terribly thirsty, Sir John, carrying messages. Now I have to go back and tell Lady Maude where you are, what you are doing and what you’ve just said.’

  Cranston narrowed his eyes and tossed the beggar a halfpenny.

  ‘What you haven’t seen you can’t tell, can you, Leif?’

  That is true, Sir John, but lying is also thirsty work.’

  Another halfpenny was tossed over.

  ‘Drink your ale!’ Cranston ordered. ‘You lazy, sly bugger! Keep your mouth shut and you can join me for dinner. If you don’t, you will be dinner!’

  Leif grinned at Athelstan and hopped away, crowing with delight. Sir John sipped from his tankard, put it down, clapped his hands and stared at his patient clerk.

  ‘Right, you idle friar, what do we know?’ He stuck up one podgy thumb. ‘Item: on the 27th September, Captain William Roffel and his good ship the God’s Bright Light sailed from the Thames to scour the Narrow Seas. Roffel was highly unpopular, ruthless but a good captain. Young Ashby, now hiding in your church, sailed with him. He gave the captain a sealed package from Ospring.’

  Sir John watched Athelstan’s pen race across the parchment, admiring the clear, precise letters. The friar wrote in a code known only to him, a mixture of abbreviations and signs that would take a cipher clerk months to work out.

  ‘Item:’ Cranston continued, ‘Roffel takes a few ships, including one near the French coast. This may or may not be what those two pretties who have just left were talking about. Item: was Roffel a traitor? Did he take the ship deliberately? Did he know there were Englishmen aboard? Was he paid to kill them? Certainly he was very happy afterwards, actually smiling and singing. Item: Roffel begins to sicken. Item: the ship puts in at Dover and Ashby leaves. What else, monk?’

  ‘Friar, Sir John, friar!’

  ‘Whatever you say, friar!’

  ‘Item:’ Athelstan spoke as he wrote, ‘Captain Roffel’s illness worsens. He gets violent stomach pains which, we now believe, were due to arsenic. But how and why he was poisoned remains a mystery.’ Athelstan paused and looked up at Cranston.

  ‘Yes, yes, you’re right,’ the coroner continued. ‘We thought the poison might have been in the flask but Roffel, the cunning bastard, took that with him everywhere. He filled it
himself and drank from it in the alehouse and suffered no ill effects. Moreover, as we saw for ourselves, his wife did the same. So the flask seems untainted.’ Cranston took another gulp from his tankard. ‘Item: my dear friar, the God’s Bright Light returns to dock. Roffel’s body is taken ashore along with his personal possessions, which didn’t amount to much. They included a book of hours, probably Roffel’s secret ledger of ill-gotten gains. There’s a bad atmosphere on board the ship but the crew relax. In the afternoon the whores come aboard. At dusk, they and most of the crew leave. Only the first mate and two others are left as a night watch. Item: the real mystery begins. According to what we know, both the password and the signal light are passed to the watch of the God’s Bright Light from the admiral’s ship, the Holy Trinity, and on to the next ship in line, the Saint Margaret: one on the hour, the other on the half-hour. According to what we are told, the last signal was passed at half-past five. Just before dawn a sailor returns to find that the mate and the watch have disappeared without trace; there is no sign of violence or any disturbance. The God’s Bright Light is like a ghost ship. Everything, aboard is in order. Item:—’ Cranston scratched his head. ‘What else, Brother?’

  ‘According to Crawley no one approached the ship, but the Fisher of Men has now told us that signals were passed to the ship from someone on the quayside. By whom and to whom, however, is a mystery.’

  ‘We also know,’ Cranston added, ‘that the strange creature Bernicia came down to the quayside at around midnight. He, or she, distinctly remembers the first mate being very much alive and was conscious of someone lurking in the shadows. Item:’ Cranston continued, wiping his mouth, ‘contrary to what we were told, a boat did approach the ship, not from the shore, but from Crawley’s vessel. We also know the good admiral deeply resented Roffel and had a grudge against him. What else, Brother?’

  ‘Well,’ Athelstan replied, scratching his head, ‘the next morning, the captain’s business partner and backer, Sir Henry Ospring, who had arrived in London to have words with Roffel, is killed by his own daughter in his chamber at the Abbot of Hyde inn. Meanwhile,’ Athelstan concluded, ‘Roffel’s poisoned corpse is plucked from its coffin and left sprawling in the sanctuary chair of St Mary Magdalene.’