The Book of Fires Page 4

  ‘Fire!’ Cranston replied. ‘A tangled tale about fire and how it can be used. First let me regale you with what you will define as the facts.’ He took a sip from his tankard and made himself more comfortable in the deep window seat of the tavern. ‘Listen, Brother, and listen well. Walter Beaumont was born in York, the son of a mercer. He left the family home and served as a soldier beyond the Narrow Seas. He travelled to Florence, ostensibly involved in the wool trade; secretly he wanted to become a peritus, an expert in the use of cannon and culverins. More importantly, he strove to learn the secrets of the different powders which fire these machines of war. He became a captain of one of those mercenary companies, they called themselves the “Luciferi”, or the “Light Bearers”. Beaumont’s free company was different from the rest, they brought cannon fire to the battlefield.’

  ‘I saw the same in France,’ Athelstan murmured, ‘such machines are becoming more numerous …’

  ‘And more deadly, Brother. Three years ago, at the siege of St Malo, Gaunt mustered more than four hundred cannon; some, weighing over a hundredweight, could cast heavy stone balls, quarrels or even lead bullets. The old king and the Black Prince,’ Cranston sniffed, ‘loved these machines of war. They held a dreadful fascination for our royal princes.’

  ‘They were used at the battle of Crecy?’ Athelstan asked.

  ‘Yes, yes they were. Now, from a very early age, Walter Beaumont recognized the value of such terrible machines and steeped himself in their use. He acquired the name of “Black Beaumont” for his love, knowledge and skill of gunpowder. On his return to England, he imported great supplies of saltpetre, sulphur, colophony, amber powder and turpentine. He established foundries to manufacture cannon and create the powder and missiles they would need. Beaumont became Master of the King’s Cannon, Master of the Royal Ordnance at the Tower and elsewhere. He served with great distinction in the royal array. The Black Prince himself knighted Beaumont outside Calais.’ Cranston waved a hand. ‘You can guess how such a life story unfolds. Beaumont married, his wife died in childbirth. A childless widower, Sir Walter married again, a great beauty, the Lady Isolda. I suppose Sir Walter thought he lived in some romance; wealthy, well patronized with a beautiful wife. Sir Walter, as you may know, owned an extensive and well-endowed manor – a veritable mansion.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ Athelstan intervened. ‘Firecrest Manor, lying between the city and Westminster. It possesses spacious meadows, gardens and orchards which front the river. I have seen its majestic water gate with its own wharf and quay.’

  ‘The same,’ Cranston agreed. ‘A veritable Eden, a seeming paradise.’

  ‘And the serpent?’

  ‘Sir Walter fell ill. He was a goodly age. Nothing serious. A flux in the bowels, bile in the stomach. He had no children: his brother, Sir Henry, also a merchant, together with Henry’s young wife, Rohesia, live with him.’

  ‘And there are others?’

  ‘Thomas Buckholt, Sir Walter’s steward, a man devoted to his master. Reginald Vanner, mark that name, Sir Walter’s chancery clerk, of the same age, or thereabouts, as Lady Isolda. Oh, yes, and Rosamund Clifford, Lady Isolda’s waiting maid. Now, suspicion began to hint, whisper, even gossip that Sir Walter was being poisoned.’ Cranston paused, staring round the warm taproom savouring the mouth-watering odours seeping out of the kitchens where Mine Hostess was preparing strips of ham glazed with mustard. ‘Lovely place.’ Cranston smacked his lips just as a cohort of corpse-bearers bustled in, doffing their dark worsted cloaks and peeling off white face masks decorated with small black crosses.

  ‘Sir John?’

  ‘Ah, yes. On the twenty-first of February past, the eve of the feast of the Chair of St Peter, Sir Walter was in his bedchamber. He slept alone in a very comfortable room with its own hearth and garderobe. Buckholt the steward believed Sir Walter was resting for the night and brought up the usual goblet of highly spiced hot posset. He reached the top of the stairs leading to the gallery where Sir Walter’s chamber stood. Lady Isolda swept out of her room. At the same time the clerk, Vanner, came pounding up the stairs saying he needed to talk to Buckholt urgently. Lady Isolda offered to take the goblet in to her husband. Flustered, Buckholt agreed. He handed the goblet over and went downstairs with Vanner. Now let me hasten to add that Buckholt, by his own admission, was deeply suspicious of both Isolda and Vanner.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Lady Isolda had been married for five years. Sir Walter had fallen ill. According to Buckholt, she and Vanner were playing the two-backed beast, enjoying a deeply adulterous relationship. Buckholt believed, and still does, that Lady Isolda was a demon incarnate, a succubus who fastened on any man she wished to use.’

  ‘And the posset?’

  ‘Well, Buckholt went downstairs with Vanner but found that the issue about certain indentures waiting to be sealed and signed by Sir Walter could have easily waited for the following day. Alarmed, Buckholt hurried back up to his master’s chamber, where he found Lady Isolda feeding her husband the posset from the goblet but also taking sips herself. Buckholt did not like the way she was looking at him. Embarrassed and confused by his own suspicions, Buckholt waited until his master was asleep. He then insisted on taking the goblet back to the buttery.’

  ‘Where he also sipped what remained of the spiced wine?’

  ‘Yes, Brother, and suffered no ill effect. He drained the goblet completely and examined the goblet but could find nothing untoward.’ Cranston paused to glare across at the noisy corpse-bearers. Matters took a different turn when Mine Hostess swept in from the kitchen yard, screaming at them. Apparently they had not finished their task but had left the cadaver destined for St Michael and All Angels in an outhouse in the tavern. The mort cloth had slipped from the cadaver’s face and terrified the wits out of one of the maids. Cranston chuckled as the corpse-bearers hastily drained their tankards, grabbed their possessions and fled the taproom.

  ‘The next morning,’ Cranston continued, ‘Sir Walter was found dead in his bed. A local physician, Milemete, was summoned. He concluded that Sir Walter’s weak heart had given out. He could not say whether Sir Walter’s death was malignant. Buckholt was not convinced and neither was Sir Henry. They sent to St Bartholomew’s for the family physician, Brother Philippe. He also examined the corpse. He could detect possible malignancy though he could not determine what noxious herbs might have been in the posset. He certainly alerted suspicion that death was sudden, swift and unexpected. Naturally the finger of suspicion pointed at Lady Isolda, who had fed Sir Walter his last drink. She, of course, angrily denied it. She might have won the day. However,’ Cranston sipped from his tankard, ‘the finger of God intervened. The buttery clerk maintains the goblet Buckholt brought down from Sir Walter’s chamber – he was going to wash it and store it away with the rest—’

  ‘Was not the same cup?’

  ‘Yes. The buttery clerk had both prepared the posset, a veritable rich mixture, and poured it into a goblet. He then placed it on a silver tray with a napkin when he noticed a chip on the goblet stand. He decided not to change the cups but to deal with that later. However, the goblet Buckholt brought down did not have that mark.’

  ‘In other words, Lady Isolda changed cups?’

  ‘Yes. The buttery clerk informed Buckholt, who scoured his master’s chamber, indeed the entire house, especially the bushes and plants below the window of his master’s chamber.’

  ‘Nothing was found?’

  ‘Nothing. But Buckholt was persistent. He petitioned the Regent, John of Gaunt.’

  ‘Who was a close friend of Sir Walter’s?’

  ‘If Gaunt could be close to anyone, it was Sir Walter, a bosom friend of the House of Lancaster.’

  ‘And the supplier of powerful culverins and cannon to it?’

  ‘Of course, my dear friar.’ Cranston sniffed. ‘Gaunt would have turned to thee and me but we had just finished the business at the Candle-Flame and I was out of the city. So Gaunt summoned a Crown pros
ecutor, Richard Sutler, serjeant-at-law, a graduate, a very brilliant one from the Inns of Court, a most wily and seasoned prosecutor. Sutler swept into Firecrest Manor and began his investigation. He examined the pewter goblets, a set of twelve with a matching jug. Sutler took them out into the sunlight. He scrupulously studied each one. Firstly, he could not discover any splinter, crack or mark on any of the twelve goblets. Secondly, he noticed each goblet had a shiny finish but one of these looked more recent than the others. According to Mortice the buttery clerk, the goblets had been bought decades ago. Eleven of them would justify their age but one seemed much more recent. All the goblets bore the same potter’s mark but one of them was finely etched. Sutler consulted the Guild and they declared that the goblets were the work of one of their members, the Ramyer family. Sutler searched them out. The father had died but the son recognized the mark and, more importantly …’

  ‘Maintained one of them was a more recent product?’

  ‘True, learned friar. Even better for Sutler, Ramyer declared how his family only made these goblets in batches of twelve. More damning, Ramyer described a recent sale of twelve such goblets to a man whom Ramyer later identified as the clerk, Reginald Vanner. Sutler returned to the hunt. He failed to discover any extra new goblets nor could he discover the whereabouts of the alleged goblet Mortice the buttery clerk had identified. All he really had were Buckholt’s allegations that a goblet was substituted whilst he was distracted and that the poisoned goblet his master must have drunk from had disappeared.’

  ‘The garderobe,’ Athelstan spoke up. ‘The murderer had secreted a second goblet. When Buckholt went down stairs to deal with Vanner, a second goblet was produced. Some of the posset was poured into it and put aside. The original goblet was sprinkled with poison and administered to Sir Walter. Once the old knight had drunk what was needed, the original goblet was hurled down the privy sinking into the filthy cesspit beneath that part of the house.’

  ‘Excellent, my little friar. Sutler reasoned the same. He brought out dung-collectors from Cheapside, the clearers of the laystalls and dung hills. He also employed masons to open the garderobe and the cesspit beneath.’

  ‘And they found the goblet?’

  ‘They certainly did.’

  Cranston was about to continue when Mine Hostess, still flustered and red-faced from her affray with the corpse-bearers, served the piping hot platter of ham, dishes of vegetables, bread and a pot of butter. Cranston ordered two cups of the best Bordeaux. Once the friar had blessed the meal Cranston fell on his food, determined to satisfy a hunger which, according to him, ‘still raged like a wolf inside his belly’. They ate in silence. Athelstan could only clear so much of his platter and the coroner devoured the rest. Once he had finished, Cranston leaned back, a cup in one hand and a piece of bread in the other.

  ‘So you can imagine the case, Brother?’

  ‘Yes, I certainly can.’ Athelstan used his fingers to emphasize the points. ‘Firstly, there is the altercation at the top of the stairs. Buckholt is distracted. Lady Isolda takes the cup. Buckholt finds the diversion was deliberately of no consequence. Secondly, by his testimony, Lady Isolda was the last person to give her husband any drink or food. Thirdly, why was the goblet thrown down the garderobe? The only explanation must be that Isolda wished to get rid of certain evidence and to create a pretence that all was well, hence her drinking from the same cup. Fourthly, the testimony of the buttery clerk that the cups were changed – the only person who could have done that was Lady Isolda. Fifthly, Sutler’s discovery that Vanner had bought a new set of goblets. Why did he do that? Why did he only keep one and why was that disguised as part of the old batch? Yes, yes,’ Athelstan nodded, ‘the case against Lady Isolda was most compelling.’

  ‘Sutler argued the same. Lady Isolda, because of her status, was committed to trial before the King’s Bench and a jury of citizens from Westminster hastily assembled. Sutler prosecuted the case before justices Tressilian, Gavelkind and Danyel. Believe me, Brother, three of the harshest and most grim judges, an unholy Trinity who have little love for their fellow men, and women in particular, high-born ladies especially. They regarded Isolda Beaumont as hawks would a coney. Little mercy was to be expected. The case against her was compelling. She was the last to hold the goblet, the last to feed her husband. Then there was the disappearance of the goblet, the purchase of a new one and the discovery of the old one in the cesspit. On these five issues, Sutler built his case then developed it with further evidence.’

  ‘And Lady Isolda’s motive?’

  ‘Freedom, liberty and the opportunity to seize her husband’s great wealth, not to mention her involvement with Vanner.’

  ‘Was he indicted?’

  ‘Certainly. Lady Isolda was arrested on a Friday but Vanner abruptly disappeared on the Thursday beforehand. He has been put to the horn with a price on his head, dead or alive. Every skull-cap, outlaw-hunter to you, Brother, in London is searching for him.’

  ‘And Lady Isolda’s defence?’

  ‘She was advised by one of the best attorneys this side of Hell, Nicholas Falke. If rumour be true, Master Falke was deeply taken, as most men were, by Lady Isolda, but to no effect. He could protest and argue but both judge and jury thought different.’

  ‘And her maid?’

  ‘Rosamund Clifford, although very loyal to her mistress, appears to have no dealings with her in this matter. I understand she was grievously sick, confined to her bed when Sir Walter was poisoned. She was not called to give evidence by either party.’ Cranston sighed noisily. ‘In the end Lady Isolda was found guilty by a jury of her peers. I suspect those three justices delighted in passing harsh sentence on her.’

  ‘And the ancient punishment for a wife murdering her husband,’ Athelstan murmured, ‘is death by burning.’

  ‘Sine misericordia,’ Cranston agreed, ‘without mercy. All three justices insisted no gunpowder pouch be hung around her neck to hasten death. Nor could the Carnifex, the Smithfield executioner, go through the smoke to strangle her or slit her throat.’

  ‘There is more?’

  ‘Oh, yes, my good friend, much more, a veritable maze of mystery. Lady Isolda was lodged in Newgate for almost a month before her execution. She met death bravely enough. I learnt this from Lady Anne Lesures. Lady Anne is the widow of a former comrade I stood shoulder to shoulder with in France. He used the ransoms gathered there to amass wealth as an apothecary and a spicer. Adam Lesures also served with the Luciferi and returned here with Sir Walter. He died some time ago. Since then Lady Anne has devoted herself to noble causes. She is Abbess of the Order of St Dismas, a secular order which visits the city prisons and ministers to those condemned to die – she and her mute servant, Turgot, who follows her everywhere like Samson does Flaxwith. Anyway, she visited Isolda virtually every day to give her comfort.’

  ‘Did she believe Isolda was innocent?’

  ‘No.’ Cranston paused. ‘Not really. Lady Anne is shrewd – she keeps her own counsel. I do respect her. Others, however, believe Lady Isolda to be a true innocent, such as Edward Garman, who also served in the Luciferi, a former Hospitaller and now prison chaplain, appointed to Newgate by the Bishop of London. Garman may have shriven Isolda. He certainly accompanied her to execution and always believed she was innocent. Like her lawyer, Falke, he worked desperately to obtain a pardon or some form of commutation but he was crying into the dark. Gaunt was obdurate. No pardon, no mercy.’ Cranston turned in his seat and lowered his voice, ‘Brother, have you ever heard of “The Book of Fires”, or to be more precise, “The Book of Fires attributed to Mark the Greek”?’

  ‘Yes,’ Athelstan replied slowly. ‘Our library at Blackfriars possesses a few extracts, though not very clear ones. A greatly prized manuscript?’

  ‘It certainly is! That book, together with the writings of the Franciscan Roger Bacon, provides a treasury of information about gunpowder and other such combustibles. Mark the Greek in particular describes what is known as
Greek, sea or water fire, supposedly invented centuries ago by Kallinikos of Heliopolis.’

  ‘Sir John,’ Athelstan exclaimed, ‘you have been very busy!’

  ‘Yes, and I will tell you why. I visited the great library in Westminster Abbey. Dominus Matthew the archivist was a treasure of information about secret manuscripts.’

  ‘Sir John, what were you pursuing?’

  ‘Beaumont had a copy of “The Book of Fires”, which went missing from his chamber either just before or after his death. He had promised to allow Gaunt’s chancery clerks to copy it for our noble Regent. We all know why Gaunt would want such information.’

  ‘As would others?’

  ‘Yes, Brother, so we come to Lady Isolda’s defence. She maintained she knew nothing about Vanner buying new cups. She could not understand why a goblet was found in the privy and believed it was placed there. She maintained that if her husband was poisoned it could have been administered by Vanner earlier in the day without her knowledge. More significantly, she maintained that her brother-in-law, Sir Henry, or Buckholt, or both, allegedly stole “The Book of Fires”, as they were secret adherents of the Great Community of the Realm and its leaders the Upright Men. She depicted Buckholt as a fervent adherent of the rebels, and Sir Henry as a rich merchant eager to appease them.’

  ‘A shrewd move.’ Athelstan nodded. ‘Gaunt and his henchman, Thibault, Master of Secrets, would be horrified at that.’

  ‘Sutler, however, openly ridiculed such an idea, as well as Lady Isolda’s attempt to argue that others, even Vanner, with whom she denied any tryst, could have been involved in her husband’s death. He dismissed her allegation that the story of the goblets was merely a pretence to entrap her.’

  ‘She actually argued that?’

  ‘Yes, as she did, time and time again, that Vanner might be the guilty party.’

  ‘Was any explanation offered about Vanner’s disappearance or flight? Sir John, Vanner has gone into hiding. That is proof of guilt. But of course,’ Athelstan scratched the side of his face, ‘Vanner might be guilty but that doesn’t prove that Lady Isolda was innocent and, I suppose, Sutler argued the same?’ He sipped from his cup. ‘Yes, I can see why Sutler’s prosecution held firm. He could prove everything: the goblet being handed over; Isolda making her husband drink; the goblets being exchanged; Vanner buying new ones. Did Sutler touch on the relationship between Sir Walter and his lovely young wife?’