The House of Crows smoba-6 Read online

  ‘Tell Sir John what happened next.’

  ‘Well-’

  ‘Excuse me,’ Athelstan intervened. He’d studied the lass carefully and quietly wondered if she was a little simple: she chattered like a child without any reflection or fear.

  ‘Did you see the priest’s face?’ Athelstan asked.

  ‘Pull up your cowl, Father,’ Christina replied.

  Athelstan shrugged and pulled his hood up to conceal his face.

  ‘Oh no, Father,’ Christina said. ‘It was like this: put your face down.’

  Athelstan obeyed and Christina pulled the hood closer across his head, then lifted the front part of the mantle to cover his mouth.

  ‘You see, Father, he looked like that.’

  Athelstan pulled back the hood, and a little embarrassed, tugged the black mantle down, away from his mouth and chin. In the dark even he, dressed like that, would not be recognised by many of his parishioners. Indeed, only recently the master-general of his Order had issued an instruction to all Dominicans to be careful about their use of the hood and cowl lest people mistake them for an outlaw or footpad. ‘Continue,’ he told her.

  ‘Well, a little later,’ Christina chattered, ‘I went up the stairs. I heard a sound from Sir Oliver’s room, chanting, a prayer.’ She closed her eyes. ‘Something about, something. .’ Her voice faltered. ‘Yes, that’s it.’ She opened her eyes. ‘About a day of wrath.’

  ‘A day of wrath?’ Cranston asked.

  ‘You recognised the voice?’ Athelstan interrupted.

  ‘No, it was deep, muffled, as if the speaker had something across his mouth. But, there again,’ Christina’s eyes moved quickly, and Athelstan wondered whether she was sharper than he judged, ‘I thought the priest, perhaps with his head bowed, was praying.’ The girl shivered. ‘It was eerie. The passageway was lit by one torch and the shadows were dancing. I was frightened: I knew about the corpse and wondered about ghosts and that voice talking about wrath, God’s anger and the earth burning.’

  ‘The “Dies Irae”!’ Athelstan exclaimed. ‘O day of wrath, O day of mourning!’ He stared at Cranston’s bewildered face. ‘“O day of wrath, O day of mourning, See fulfilled the prophet’s warning,”’ Athelstan chanted. ‘“Heaven and earth in ashes burning.” It’s from the Mass for the dead; the priest always chants it before he recites the Gospel.’ Athelstan grasped Christina’s hand. ‘And you are sure it wasn’t Sir Henry Swynford’s voice?’

  ‘Oh no, this was different, deep, muffled.’

  ‘What does it mean, Brother?’ Cranston asked.

  Athelstan rubbed his face with his hands. Despite the warmth and cheer of the taproom, he felt cold and frightened. Most assassins killed quickly and quietly.

  He replied slowly. ‘What it means, my lord Coroner, is that the chantry priest, and I do not think he was the one hired by our good host, was the assassin. As Sir Henry knelt before his companion’s coffin, this assassin quickly garrotted him but, as he killed him, the assassin chanted those words, not in prayer but as a terrible cry of vengeance.’

  CHAPTER 3

  The taverner, shaking his head, led them up to the first-floor gallery. He stopped on the stairwell, his dark face framed by the mullioned glass window behind him. Athelstan smelt the fragrant pots of herbs on the small sill and, from the yard below, heard the strident crowing of a cock. For some strange reason Athelstan recalled the words of the Gospel, about Peter’s betrayal of Christ before the cock crowed thrice. He steeled himself: he and Cranston were about to enter a dark, tangled maze of murder and intrigue amongst the wealthy lords of the soil. Swynford’s and Bouchon’s deaths were certainly no accidents, nor were they the victims of unhappy coincidence.

  ‘Well, what are we waiting for?’ Cranston snapped.

  Banyard lifted a finger. ‘Listen, Father.’

  Athelstan strained his ears and heard the faint mumbling.

  ‘It’s Father Gregory,’ the taverner explained. ‘He came this morning to anoint the corpses. After that,’ he continued cheerfully, ‘they’ll be taken down to the local corpse-dresser, an old woman on the far side of the palace. She will remove the bowels and stuff the bodies with spices. I understand Sir Edmund Malmesbury is hiring a small retinue to escort them back to Shrewsbury.’

  Cranston made to go on, but Banyard put his arm across next flight of stairs. ‘I think we should wait,’ the taverner declared.

  ‘And I think we shouldn’t,’ Cranston growled.

  Up he went. Athelstan shrugged apologetically and followed. He glanced down the stairs where Christina was staring up at them, her mouth in a round ‘O’.

  ‘Don’t worry, child,’ Athelstan called back. ‘We’ll all be safe with Sir John.’

  They went along the gallery and into a chamber. Even though the windows were open and the shutters thrown back, the air reeked of death and decay. The two corpses lay in their coffins on a specially erected trestle-table at the foot of the four-poster bed. The priest kneeling on a cushion crossed himself and got up hastily. Grey-skinned, grey-haired, with a long, tired face, watery eyes and slobbery mouth, Athelstan took an instant dislike to Father Gregory. He looked a born toper; Athelstan, feeling guilty at his harsh judgement, walked forward, hands extended.

  ‘Father Gregory, we apologise for interrupting your orisons. I am Brother Athelstan from St Erconwald’s, this is my lord Coroner, Sir John Cranston.’

  The priest forced a weak smile and limply shook Athelstan’s hand, then winced at Cranston’s powerful, vice-like grip.

  ‘God have mercy on them!’ the priest wailed, his hands fluttering down at the corpses. ‘Terrible deaths! Terrible deaths! Here today and gone tomorrow, eh, Brother?’

  He swayed slightly on his feet, and Athelstan wondered if he had fortified himself with more than prayer.

  ‘Why didn’t you come last night?’ Cranston asked, squatting down on the stool and mopping his face with the hem of his cloak.

  ‘I was away you see. Every. .’ The man was gabbling. ‘Every week I visit my mother for a day. I came back this morning and found Master Banyard’s note. Terrible, terrible.’ He babbled on. ‘To think that a priest could garrotte a man so.’

  ‘If you wait downstairs,’ Banyard said kindly, ‘Christina will give you some food, Father. My lord Coroner here needs to inspect the corpses.’

  The priest threw a fearful look at Sir John, then scuttled from the room.

  ‘And you can join him,’ Cranston smiled at the taverner. ‘We no longer need you here.’

  Banyard pulled a face but walked out, slamming the door behind him. Wheezing and grumbling, Cranston got to his feet and stared down at the corpses.

  ‘It happens to us all, Brother, but death is a terrible thing.’

  Athelstan sketched a blessing in the air and squatted down beside the corpse on the left. A yellowing scrap of parchment at the top of the coffin proclaimed it was Sir Oliver Bouchon: a thin beanpole of a man, his harsh, seamed face made all the more dreadful by the slimy water of the Thames. The skin had turned a bluish-white, the lips were slack. Someone had pressed two coins on the eyes; Athelstan noted also the small red crosses dug into the forehead and each cheek. The corpse had been stripped of its clothes and dressed in a simple shift. Athelstan pushed this back and, swallowing hard, felt the cold, clammy flesh. Bouchon’s cold corpse was covered with scars and welts which Cranston identified as sword and dagger cuts: others were the marks of tight-fitting belts or boots.

  ‘An old soldier,’ Cranston declared. ‘He must have seen service abroad. Hell’s teeth, I need a drink!’

  ‘In a short while, Sir John, but please help me.’

  Cranston obliged and they turned the corpse over. Athelstan stared at the flabby buttocks, muscular thighs and hairy legs: he felt a strange sadness. Here lay a world in itself: what hopes, what joys, what fears, what nightmares permeated this man’s life? Was he loved? Did he have ideals? Would people mourn that he had died? Athelstan ran his fingers through the st
ill wet, thick black hair at the back of the man’s head.

  ‘Ah!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘What is it, Brother?’

  ‘Feel for yourself.’

  Cranston’s stubby fingers searched the back of the skull but stopped as he felt a huge, hard welt.

  ‘Bring me a candle,’ Athelstan said.

  Sir John handed him one of those Father Gregory had lit, and Athelstan held this down close to the hair. The hot oil from the tallow candle sizzled and spluttered as it slipped on to the still damp hair, yet it provided enough light for Athelstan to make out the huge, angry contusion.

  ‘If anyone says,’ Athelstan declared, ‘that Sir Oliver Bouchon slipped and fell into the Thames, then he’s a liar or ignorant. Someone gave this poor man a powerful whack on the back of his head.’

  ‘Why didn’t anyone else notice it?’

  ‘Because no one was looking for it, Sir John.’

  Athelstan got up and handed the candle back. ‘Sir Oliver here was knocked senseless and then thrown into the Thames. It’s a pity the corpse is undressed; I would have liked to have established that he was knocked unconscious whilst he was walking along the river bank.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  Athelstan turned the corpse over and gently grasped each hand, pointing at the dirty fingernails and the muddy marks on the palm of each hand.

  ‘If he was knocked unconscious elsewhere,’ Athelstan explained, ‘I would expect to see bruises where Sir Oliver’s body was either dragged along the cobbles or thrown into some cart. However, as you can see, apart from the bruise on the back of his head, there are no others. But there are the dirt marks under his nails and on the palms of his hands. Bouchon must have been near the river edge. His assailant knocked him unconscious and Sir Oliver fell face down, probably in some mud. His body was then lifted up and rolled into the river.’

  ‘But wouldn’t the water wash the stains off his hands and nails?’

  Athelstan shook his head. ‘It might from the clothes, even from the face.’ He knelt down and examined Sir Oliver’s stubby features. ‘Though even here, apart from these small red crosses, there’s no mark or contusion, which is strange. Whatever, to answer your question directly, Sir John, the river water would remove any superficial mud stains from the face and clothing. But tell me, my lord Coroner, have you ever seen a corpse, the victim of some brutal assault, where the hands are open and the fingers splayed?’

  Sir John smiled and shook his head.

  ‘Sir Oliver was no different,’ Athelstan continued. He held his own hands up, curling the fingers. ‘Next time you look at your poppets, or the Lady Maude when asleep, notice how they curl their fingers into their hands. The unconscious man is no different. After a short while, even in the river, rigor mortis sets in. The body stiffens, hence the faint dirt on the palms of his hands and beneath the nails from where he fell. What is more,’ Athelstan grasped Sir Oliver’s right hand, ‘notice how the dirt is deeply embedded. Sir Oliver must have fallen and, for a few seconds before he lost consciousness, gripped the mud as he fell, clawing it like an animal.’ Athelstan shook his head. ‘Poor man. May God grant him eternal rest! Now, for Sir Henry.’

  Sir John went across to the other side of Swynford’s coffin. Athelstan knelt down and loosened the shift tied under the dead man’s chin. The friar had to pause and close his eyes at the terrible rictus of death on the grey-haired knight’s face. The mouth was still contorted in a grimace, the eyes half open, the head slightly turned so that the coins placed on the eyes had slipped away. It looked as if the corpse was about to waken and utter some terrible snarl of fury at being thrust so swiftly into the darkness. Swynford’s face, too, had been disfigured by the red crosses gouged in his skin. Athelstan tilted the man’s chin back. He studied the angry weal around the throat, digging deep where his Adam’s apple now hung.

  Athelstan loosened the shift and pulled it down, but could detect no bruise or contusion; though Sir Henry, like Sir Oliver, bore the weals and scars of a soldier’s life. Then, with Sir John’s help, he turned the corpse over and stared at the bruise on the small of the man’s back.

  ‘How did that occur?’ he whispered.

  ‘Kneel down, Brother.’ Sir John smiled at his secretarius. ‘Go on, kneel down, and I’ll show you how he died.’

  Athelstan knelt.

  ‘No, no, on one knee only,’ Sir John declared. ‘That’s how a knight prays: one leg up, one down, ever ready for action.’

  Athelstan obeyed. He heard Sir John come up quietly behind him: suddenly his head went back as Sir John’s belt went round his throat, biting into his neck even as he felt Sir John’s knee dig into the small of his back. Athelstan spluttered, his hands flailing out, the belt was whisked away. Sir John pulled him to his feet and spun him round. He saw the alarm in the gentle Dominican’s face.

  ‘Here, Brother, have a sip from the wineskin!’

  This time Athelstan did not refuse: he took a generous mouthful and thrust the wineskin back to Sir John.

  ‘Well done, Coroner. You were so quick!’

  ‘The mark of a professional assassin.’ Sir John rewarded himself with two generous swigs. ‘The garrotte is much speedier than many people think. In France I saw young archers, no more than boys, do the same to French pickets when we went out at night. A terrible death, Brother; so quick, even the strongest man finds it hard to grasp his enemy.’

  Athelstan nodded. Even though he had panicked, he realised he could not have fought against Sir John, who had kept him thrust away with his knee whilst swiftly choking him with the belt. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and stared down at Swynford’s corpse.

  ‘That’s how he died. He came in here and knelt. The assassin, pretending to be a priest, came up behind him. Sir John, how long would it take?’

  ‘Well, Brother, if you started counting to ten, very quickly, Swynford would have been unconscious by the time you’d reached five.’

  ‘And all the time the murderer was chanting, making a mockery of the “Dies Irae”.’ Athelstan stared round the chamber. ‘Sir John, we need to examine the possessions of these dead men.’

  Cranston agreed and went out of the gallery. Athelstan heard him at the top of the stairs shouting for Banyard. The friar stood between the two coffins, closed his eyes, and said his own requiem for these souls snatched so abruptly from their bodies.

  Cranston came back. ‘Come on, Brother, they are in the next room. The taverner has given me the key.’

  Athelstan followed him out into the adjoining chamber which had apparently been Sir Henry Swynford’s. The men’s clothing lay in two heaps on the floor. Athelstan went through these carefully. Bouchon’s was sopping wet, still marked and stained by the river, but he could find nothing amiss; even the knight’s dagger was still in its sheath. Cranston, meanwhile, was sifting amongst the other possessions: going through wooden caskets covered in leather, opening saddlebags, small metal coffers, each bearing the arms of the dead men: Bouchon’s, a black boar rampant against a field of azure; Swynford’s, three black crows against a cloth of gold, quartered with small red crosses. There were coins and purses, knives as well as several small, calfskin-covered books sealed with leather clasps. Athelstan opened these.

  ‘What are they, Brother?’ Cranston asked.

  ‘The Legends of Arthur,’ he replied. ‘You know, Sir John, Launcelot of the Lake. Tristram and Isolde.’ He picked up another tome. ‘The same here: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The Search for the Grail. It’s strange. .’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Brother! King Arthur and his Round Table are popular legends. Chaucer and other poets are constantly writing about them. When I was younger, it was quite common for young, fashionable knights to hold Round Tables where they could joust and tourney.’

  ‘I find it strange that two knights, albeit from the same shire, should enjoy the same stories. And here, look.’ Athelstan sifted amongst the jewellery on the bed. ‘Here are two chai
ns bearing identical insignia.’ He separated the items. ‘Each carries the image of a swan with its wings raised.’

  Cranston picked them up. Both medallions were identical, the swans exquisitely carved with ruffled, fluffed wings and arching necks.

  ‘They are no gee-gaws from some market booth,’ the coroner murmured. ‘These were the special work of a silversmith.’

  ‘And look,’ Athelstan added, picking up two rings. ‘Each of these, wrought in silver, also bears the image of a swan.’ He put them close together. ‘They are different sizes,’ Athelstan declared. ‘I saw the marks on the fingers of the corpses next door. What I am saying, Sir John, is that both Swynford and Bouchon belonged to some society or company with an interest in the legends of Arthur, and the badge of their company was a silver swan.’

  ‘Knights of the Swan.’ Cranston sat on the edge of the bed and chewed the corner of his lip. ‘During the wars in France…’ He smiled at Athelstan. ‘Well, you know about those, Brother, you were there. But do you remember the companies? Each, raised by some lord, included knights, men-at-arms, hobelars, archers, all wearing the same livery and sporting the same device: a green dragon or a red lion rampant.’

  ‘Aye, I remember them.’ Athelstan threw the rings back on the bed. ‘Colourful banners and warlike pennants. In reality just an excuse for a group of men to seize as much plunder as they could lay their hands on.’

  Cranston went back to his searches. ‘And, last but not least, Brother,’ he declared, going across to a small table which stood underneath a large black crucifix, ‘I asked Banyard where these were.’

  He came back carrying arrowheads, candles and small scraps of parchment. Athelstan examined these, then studied the dirty scraps of parchment with the word, ‘Remember’ scrawled across.

  ‘Each of the victims had these,’ Cranston explained. ‘But what do they signify?’ He shook his head. ‘And why were those red crosses carved on the dead men’s faces?’