The Book of Fires Read online

  Athelstan walked out of the house and into the garden. Flaxwith and his bailiffs still patrolled there, searching the ground around the Keep, but he could he tell from their expressions that they had discovered nothing. As usual, Flaxwith’s mastiff, Samson, was sniffing about. Athelstan noticed the mastiff had a fairly large piece of parchment between its jaws which must have floated out of a window or door. He gently prised this loose and put it in the pocket of his robe. He heard Cranston and Picquart talking behind him and turned.

  ‘Master steward,’ he asked, ‘earlier you mentioned one trouble following another. What did you mean?’

  ‘I was just questioning him about that,’ the coroner replied.

  ‘Well?’ Athelstan asked. The fat-faced, gimlet-eyed steward shrugged.

  ‘Brother Athelstan, I am not too sure if it is of relevance here but Lady Anne’s household has already suffered a grievous loss. One of her retainers, Wickham the ostler, left the house two nights ago. He was slain in a violent street robbery only a few streets away, his corpse thrown into a laystall.’ Picquart shook his head. ‘Poor Wickham – a simple-minded young man, totally devoted to Lady Anne and her horses.’

  ‘So a member of the household was slain two nights ago. A possible intruder in the garden last night and now the murder of Turgot and the burning of the Keep.’ Athelstan paused. ‘Are they all connected?’

  ‘Violent street robberies,’ Cranston remarked mournfully, ‘are increasing. The ostler’s death might be the Ignifer’s doing.’

  ‘No.’ Athelstan shook his head. ‘Our assassin likes to burn. Moreover, the ostler had no involvement in Lady Isolda’s arrest and execution and neither did Turgot.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Picquart snapped, ‘though Turgot supported Lady Anne through that mournful time.’

  Athelstan thanked him. He could make little sense of what he had seen and heard. Had Turgot and the Keep been destroyed by Greek fire from within? Had the Ignifer coaxed his way in, struck Turgot down and set both the corpse and Keep alight? Or, as with Sir John, did the assassin prise open a window or door and cast in one of those damnable clay pots followed by a flame? Yet if that was the case, Turgot would have noticed and hastened to protect himself. Athelstan took a deep breath. According to the evidence the most probable explanation was that the Ignifer had persuaded Turgot to admit him. He then struck and fled, which must mean that either the door or one of the windows had been left open, whatever Picquart claimed.

  Athelstan turned and walked across the garden. Dawn had broken and the strengthening light made it easier to see. Inside the Keep the air had turned fresher, the smoke thinning but the entire chamber and all within it had been truly devastated. Athelstan picked up a stick and sifted amongst the ashes. He unearthed scraps of scorched leather and stiffened blackened ash. The dust swirled up to make him cough and splutter. Athelstan wiped his hands. There was nothing here for him. He left and decided to walk the garden to cleanse his throat and breathe in the morning air. He followed the pebbled path which twisted between herbers, flowerbeds, shrubs and bushes, flower arbours with turfed seats, neatly cropped grass plots and raised soil beds all glistening white and frozen hard, waiting for spring. At the very centre of the garden, on a gorgeous red and gold plinth, stood a statue of St Anne with the Virgin Mary as a young girl standing beside her. The soil around the skilfully sculptured statue and exquisitely painted plinth was rich, black and recently turned. The winter rosebush, planted just before the statue, was in full flower despite the harsh weather. Athelstan crossed himself, put his hand in his robe searching for a set of Ave beads and felt the piece of parchment he had rescued from Samson’s jaws. Curious, he held it up to the light: the carefully calligraphed writing proclaimed a verse from the scriptures: ‘Worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power, riches, glory and blessing.’ Athelstan peered closer. He stared and gaped, catching his breath as his heart skipped a beat. He sat on a turf seat before the statue, reading that scrap of parchment time and again. Had it been dropped by the Ignifer? Samson had apparently picked it up from outside. Athelstan stared at the winter rosebush. He rose, walked across and crouched down. Stretching out his hand, he touched the six-sided cross, like that of a Hospitaller, carved on the plinth, the symbol used whenever a church or statue was formally consecrated. He returned to his seat, staring at both the winter rosebush and the statue as he swiftly constructed one hypothesis after another. He sifted through all the possibilities until he reached the most compelling, which transformed into a strong probability. To prove it, Athelstan recalled different individuals, their conversations and whereabouts at certain times. The friar, hunched in his cloak, brooded deeply, lost in thought, impervious to the cold and Cranston shouting. Eventually the coroner had to come and shake him by the shoulder.

  ‘Athelstan, for the sake of Satan’s tits, little friar, you are freezing to death.’

  ‘Sir John,’ Athelstan gripped his chancery satchel tighter, ‘I need your assistance to let me think There are certain tasks to be done.’ He got to his feet. ‘It’s time we left. We will give our condolences and adjourn to Blackfriars. Our refectorium, Brother Wilfred, brews a tangy ale. They say it’s the best in London, whilst our cook, Brother Geoffrey, creates a meat stew pie second to none.’

  ‘Brother, you have bought me body and soul!’

  ‘Sir John, be my guest. Whilst you eat I will be busy in our library and scriptorium, then I must hasten back to St Erconwald’s to ensure that calm has returned. I also need to talk to my little altar boy, Crim. Yes, that’s very important.’

  Mystified, the coroner agreed. They left Lady Anne’s house, out through the noisy streets of Poultry and down to the city now cloaked in one of those thick river fogs. Cranston made sure their escort kept close. Athelstan, however, was not concerned about this, his mind tumbling like dice in a cup. They reached Blackfriars and entered the hallowed serenity of its cloisters. Athelstan relaxed. He ensured Sir John was safely ensconced in the prior’s parlour where the cook and refectoriam were eager to serve the coroner their tastiest achievements and listen once again to Sir John’s amazing exploits in France.

  Athelstan excused himself and retreated into the comfortable darkness of the library and scriptorium. On a polished oaken desk lighted by candles he laid out his writing materials, weighed down a neatly cut square of vellum, and sat staring into the darkness. His gaze was caught by the lectern, carved in the shape of a soaring eagle, on which rested the priory’s principal Bible – a work of art copied out by the Benedictines of Glastonbury and presented to the Dominicans when they first set up house in London. Athelstan rose and walked over to it. He opened the Bible and turned to the place where he had read that extract from the scorched piece of parchment. He went back to his desk, grasped his sharpest quill pen and began to itemize certain salient points in a series of questions to himself. Item: the attacks by the Ignifer on himself and others were easy enough – all his victims had been taken by surprise. Who had been where and when? Item: apparently the Ignifer had also communicated his secrets to Parson Garman and the Upright Men. Why? Item: those letters, ‘SFSM’, scrawled on the walls of Isolda’s death cell – what did they mean? Item: what did Isolda have when she died apart from food and drink? Item: why did Isolda have that heated dispute with Lady Anne, who was doing nothing but trying to comfort her? Item: who had been a member of the Luciferi? Item: why had Sir Walter constantly boasted that the secrets of ‘The Book of Fires’ would be a revelation to anyone who ever found them and that they were safe on Patmos? Item: the Ignifer was someone passionately devoted to Isolda. At the same time this assassin was apparently the holder of the secret of Greek fire, so why didn’t the Ignifer try to trade such secrets for a pardon for Isolda? Item: a man claiming to be Vanner came to Smithfield to collect the charred remains of Lady Isolda. Who was this? Why did he call himself Vanner when that clerk lay murdered, his corpse deep in the mere at Firecrest Manor? Item: why did the Ignifer give off the fragrance of a rat
her costly perfume, the scent of crushed lilies? Item: what was the true source of the poison given to Sir Walter used first in those figs coated with an almond sauce and later in that fateful cup of posset? Item: Isolda went into the city to meet Nicephorus but also someone else. Who was this? Why the secrecy? Item: on the night he, Cranston and Lady Anne had been attacked, Turgot had been trailing behind them. Why had Turgot now been killed? Was there a connection between Turgot’s death and that of Lady Anne’s ostler? Item: the Ignifer certainly had a relationship with the Upright Men. Who favoured them – Buckholt, Sir Henry? Did Master Falke? Item: why was it so important for the Ignifer that Gaunt’s barges be burnt? Why was the Ignifer so determined to remove both Cranston and himself from this investigation?

  Athelstan paused in his writing. He closed his eyes, recalling different images and occasions. Walking the streets of Poultry after that meeting at Lady Anne’s house, the attack on them near Aldgate. He opened his eyes and studied the list he’d made, emphasizing each point in his mind like a preacher memorizing a sermon. ‘There are still gaps,’ he whispered. ‘I don’t have enough … too many gaps.’ He took a fresh square of parchment and hastily wrote out a number of requests for the coroner. Once finished, he studied both manuscripts. He was still lacking one vital piece of evidence and Crim would supply that. A floorboard creaked behind him. Athelstan whirled around. Cranston had tiptoed through the door.

  ‘Brother, are you finished?’

  ‘For the moment, Sir John.’ The friar picked up the second piece of parchment and held it out for the coroner to take. ‘We must go our separate ways, but I need answers to these questions before the vespers bell rings.’

  ‘And what then, little friar?’

  ‘Oh, we shall meet. Yes, perhaps the most appropriate place would be Newgate Prison. I need to have words with certain individuals there. But first,’ Athelstan rose to his feet, ‘my quarry is Crim …’

  oOoOo

  Athelstan stared around the cell where Lady Isolda Beaumont had spent her last days. He had re-examined the graffiti on the wall and paced that sombre chamber, measuring his footsteps and half-listening to the sounds from outside. He had spent the previous day, once he had left Blackfriars, in the priest’s house at St Erconwald’s as he gently questioned Crim and Benedicta and received Cranston’s replies through his messenger, Tiptoft. The coroner had simply confirmed what Athelstan had suspected, turning a strong probability into a virtual certainty. Athelstan believed he had trapped the killer; now he prepared for that fateful confrontation. He stopped his pacing as Cranston, swathed in his cloak, strode into the cell. He took off his beaver hat, stamping his booted feet against the cold.

  ‘Have you set up court, little friar? Those questions you sent me …?’

  ‘And you will soon learn the answers, Sir John. I ask for your patience—’ Athelstan broke off at a knock at the door. He strode across, opened it and ushered Parson Garman into the death cell. Almost immediately there was a second knock and the Carnifex swaggered in, breathing noisily, bowing and bobbing to both coroner and friar.

  ‘You asked to see me,’ the prison chaplain began. ‘I thought our business was finished.’

  ‘Parson Garman, we still have words – perhaps not here, not now. I want to repeat questions I have put to both of you earlier. First, Lady Isolda and Lady Anne Lesures quarrelled here in this cell about two days before her execution?’

  ‘Yes,’ both men chorused.

  ‘And before her death everything Lady Isolda ate or drank was examined carefully, so no philtre or potion was given to her?’

  Again both men agreed.

  ‘And Lady Anne gave Isolda a set of Ave beads, which she later discarded. You, Parson Garman, returned the broken set to Lady Anne.’

  ‘That is the truth,’ the chaplain declared. ‘Why, Brother Athelstan?’

  ‘Hush, now.’ Athelstan nodded at the coroner. ‘Have you brought her with you, Sir John?’

  ‘Lady Anne is waiting below.’

  ‘Parson Garman, Master Carnifex,’ Athelstan gestured at the door, ‘we will speak again and there will be fresh business to do.’ Both men left. A short while later Lady Anne, dressed in widows’ weeds, a black gauze veil hiding her patrician face, was ushered into the cell.

  ‘Brother Athelstan.’ Lady Anne took the proffered seat by the table, pushing back more firmly her veil of black mourning crepe. Her face was thin and pallid; eyes black and rather sunken though still bright with what the friar considered to be a malicious light. ‘Brother Athelstan,’ she repeated, ‘why am I here? You said it was a matter of life or death. I am in deep mourning for Turgot, my apprentice, my godson, my—’

  ‘Your helpmate in murder,’ Athelstan intervened, gesturing at Cranston, sitting on a stool nearby, to remain seated and stay quiet. Athelstan glanced quickly over his shoulder at the door. The turnkey had locked it as Athelstan ordered. This chamber would become his tournament field, where he would challenge and confront this most malicious of souls.

  ‘Brother?’ The coroner’s voice was a hoarse whisper.

  ‘Mourning, grieving,’ Athelstan declared. ‘Who are you, Anne Lesures, Anne Lasido? The widow and the do-gooder but, in all things, the murderess? I cannot for the life of me understand souls such as you.’

  ‘I am leaving.’ She made to rise.

  ‘And I will have you arrested. Sit down!’ Athelstan shouted. ‘Sit down and listen.’ Lady Anne composed herself on the chair, joining her hands on the tabletop. ‘As I said,’ Athelstan continued, ‘I cannot understand souls such as you. Your devotion to St Anne, your constant do-gooding, yet deep inside you,’ Athelstan beat his breast, ‘in the marrow of your soul, at the centre of your heart stands a temple devoted to your one and only real God – yourself. You are determined on having your own will and way whatever the cost to others, whilst you wage the most horrid revenge against anyone who opposes, objects or frustrates you. Turgot was your demon, your familiar, your accomplice. He was not murdered. He accidently killed himself whilst mixing Greek fire. He went into the Keep, locking and barring both windows and door. He carried with him a copy of Mark the Greek’s “The Book of Fires”. He had, in that death chamber, everything he needed. He had all the time in the world to prepare more deadly pots and missiles. Who for, Lady Anne? Whom had you marked down for death? Buckholt, Mortice, Sir Henry Beaumont? Rosamund Clifford, or perhaps another assault on me and Sir John?’

  ‘Brother Athelstan, you are witless. You have lost your mind. You do not know what you are saying. Sir John, I beg you …’

  She turned to the coroner, who just gazed bleakly back at her. Cranston knew Athelstan; ‘Friar Ferret’ was how he described him to his confederates. Once Athelstan began a prosecution, he was very rarely wrong. Moreover, Cranston could sense an atmosphere. Athelstan was incandescent with suppressed fury, whilst the coroner was becoming deeply suspicious about Lady Anne as he recalled what he knew of her but, more importantly, the way she acted now. Athelstan was pursuing the truth of it and they would not leave this cell until he achieved it.

  ‘Continue, Brother,’ Cranston murmured.

  ‘There is an English proverb, Lady Anne. Nicephorus the Greek, you know who he is, quoted it quite recently. “Do not play with fire”. Both Sir John and I have served at sieges. We have seen the most dire accidents as trebuchets are loaded, oil boiled and carried, fire missiles prepared. Turgot, to his eternal cost, also discovered this, though I think it was also an answer to my prayer. I very rarely pray for vengeance, Lady Anne, but on the night we were attacked I prayed then and the following morning in the chapel of Firecrest Manor for God’s justice, for God’s vengeance after the death of that poor, innocent torch-bearer.’

  ‘I also did the same.’ Lady Anne rested against the table, a small white cloth in her hand, which she used to dab her mouth.

  ‘Hush, now,’ Athelstan warned her. ‘Enough lies, protests of innocence. Do you know, Sir John,’ he turned to the coroner, ‘St Anselm s
aid that we were two people in one – who we are and who we really are – and only God knows the difference. Lady Anne,’ he turned back, ‘I shall tell you with God’s help who you truly are and as much as I can about your real life. I shall produce evidence for what I say. I will press the case hard.’ Athelstan paused. Newgate had fallen silent, as if all the distressed spirits which haunted its clammy, ill-lit galleries and prowled those foul, filth-strewn tunnels had stopped, hands to ears, listening to what was happening here, where a greater demon than any of them was being arraigned before God’s bar of judgement.

  ‘The ghosts are gathering,’ Athelstan murmured. He held Lady Anne’s gaze. ‘All the souls have come to witness. Evil is like a snake,’ he smiled thinly, ‘or Greek fire. Eventually it turns and strikes back.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘So we begin. You were born Anne Lasido, daughter of a London merchant who strove to secure a good marriage for you. However, you were headstrong and wilful, indeed, very much like your daughter, Isolda.’

  Lady Anne started, clenched white fists coming up to her mouth.

  ‘You became,’ Athelstan continued, ‘involved with a young man. Now for the moment, indeed for the matter in hand, his name and status do not concern us. One thing I am certain of, it was not Walter Beaumont. Anyway, you had a romance, an affair, with this bachelor, and became pregnant.’ Athelstan gestured at the coroner. ‘Sir John here has provided a few details about your family life: after all, you consider him an old friend whom you’ve known for many years. Of course, that did not matter when our noble coroner became an obstacle to your plans. You truly are a Judas woman. In brief, your father was horrified. He did what many do in such circumstances. He hid you away until the girl child was born. Your father managed to secure a cloth bearing the Fitzalan arms to cover the baby in its swaddling clothes and the child was handed over to the Franciscan Minoresses at Aldgate. You fiercely protested. You truly loved that child with a passion as strong as, if not stronger than, any mother’s for her newborn child. You confronted your father. You insisted on having your way, naming the little girl Isolda, an anagram of your own family name, Lasido.’ Athelstan shrugged. ‘It was just a matter of playing with the letters of a word. Time passed. You matured into a ruthless, strong-willed woman who never forgot what had happened. You became betrothed to Adam Lesures and eventually exchanged vows with him at the church door and settled down to married life. Your husband was an apothecary, skilled in powders and potions, a worthy member of the Guild – but he also had a past. Adam Lesures had once served with Black Beaumont’s Luciferi. Adam was probably an officer, an ignifer, skilled in casting fires. At first he did not talk about his years abroad. This was common enough amongst seasoned veterans. The past was the past. Yet, Lady Anne, you are most persuasive and the truth would dribble out, a little here, a little there, whenever Sir Adam was in his cups and, I am sure, that was quite often.’ Athelstan stared at this ‘ferrea virago’, a woman undoubtedly of iron will and inflexible purpose. ‘Slowly,’ he continued, ‘your late husband divulged secrets about Beaumont. How he deserted his comrades and, above all, his monopoly of the secrets contained in Mark the Greek’s “The Book of Fires”. It would explain how Beaumont’s wealth was mainly rooted in that but, if Sir John here is to be believed, Adam Lesures was no match for Beaumont. He was fearful of him, wasn’t he? Too frightened to take arms against him. Too in awe of a man who had led an attack on the Imperial chancery in Constantinople. Your late husband would also whisper about much darker secrets. How some of those Black Beaumont had led had mysteriously disappeared. He may have even given you chapter and verse about those dreadful events on the island of Patmos. But what could he do? I suspect your husband was exhausted, weakened by his years abroad. If challenged, Black Beaumont would prove to be a most resolute foe and Sir Adam Lesures simply accepted things for what they were. You were different. Sir Adam was wealthy in himself and you acted as his lady, the wife of a powerful, rich burgess. Your husband undoubtedly drew a good profit as an apothecary, his experience abroad, his knowledge of strange powders and potions, the mixture of certain elements. You used your status under the guise of good work to return to the house of the Minoresses in Aldgate. Of course, your real task was to keep a close and solicitous eye on Isolda. You would single her out as your favourite good work. In truth, you watched her grow and mature. You noted her beauty. In your eyes Isolda was unique, very special, hence your devotion to your holy namesake, St Anne, mother of the Virgin. In your twisted soul, in that mind of yours which teems like a box of worms, you drew a comparison between St Anne and her child with yourself and Isolda. Your house is decorated with paintings and triptychs which proclaim this devotion. You are much taken with the verse “Sicut mater, sic filia” – “As the mother, so the daughter”. You taught that to Isolda, who learned at a very early age that you were her mother and that she must keep this secret. “Sicut mater, sic filia” in Isolda’s eyes became “Sicut filia, sic mater”, “As the daughter, so the mother”, which,’ he got to his feet and walked over to the graffiti etched on the wall, ‘would explain this last carving by Isolda – SFSM.’