The Godless Read online

  ‘You are …?’ Athelstan stepped closer.

  ‘Senlac, Roughkin’s son.’ The man pointed back down the passageway. ‘A slattern told me what was happening here.’

  ‘You are a parishioner but you do not come to Mass?’

  ‘If you had seen what I have seen, priest, you wouldn’t believe in the good Lord or his mercy.’

  ‘That’s why we need both,’ Athelstan retorted, stretching out his hand for Senlac to clasp. ‘But at least we have met. You have served abroad in the King’s array?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘And you have come home to claim your father’s wealth? Was he a miser, a hoarder? Did he have a pot of gold which he hid away?’

  Senlac leaned against the passage wall, a look of sadness softening his harsh face. ‘My mother died when I was a boy. I miss her more than I can say. My father had grasping, grubby ways. He ruled this tavern as a despot would his kingdom. He was free with his punches, slaps and kicks. A man who buried the dead in your cemetery, Father, and never gave them another thought or a pattered prayer.’ Senlac wiped his mouth on the back of his wrist. ‘But to answer your question, my father was paid by his priest. He also had his mortuary fees from parishioners and, of course, there was revenue from this tavern.’ Senlac pulled a face. ‘Money enough yet …’

  ‘Yet what?’

  ‘There were times, priest, when my father seemed very wealthy, his purse heavy with silver coin to buy the best wine and food, as well as to purchase whores for both his taproom and bedchamber. I could never fathom the true source for such wealth. Anyway …’ Senlac pushed himself away from the wall and stood as if listening intently to the sounds drifting from the taproom. He turned back to Athelstan.

  ‘I hated my father,’ he hissed. ‘I was glad to run away. I was picked up by the commissioners of the array and became a hobelar as well as a skilled bowman. I have seen the days, priest. I have fought the length and breadth of Normandy. In the end, like the rest, I became sick of the filthy food and even filthier whores.’ Senlac’s face abruptly suffused with hate, a look of deep revulsion and Athelstan wondered what nightmares gripped this man’s soul. ‘So I came home. I recalled my father’s wealth, his secrecy, his love of intrigue. On a number of occasions he mentioned a treasure chart, a confused, jumbled reference to angels staring down at treasure in the earth, but I couldn’t understand a word of it—’

  ‘Nor do I,’ Athelstan interrupted.

  ‘I am sorry, priest, but that’s what my father mumbled on a few occasions when deep in his cups; there again, my father said many strange things. He hated to sleep here. On occasion he would awake screaming, claiming demons and other evil spirits were haunting him.’ Senlac shrugged. ‘But that was the drink. God knows what he really meant. Yes, he may have hidden treasure away but it might be just one of his nasty tricks. Anyway, I came here to find out.’ Senlac paused as Joscelyn, Watkin and Pike lurched from the taproom. Even from where he stood, Athelstan smelt the heavy ale fumes on their breath. ‘I’d best go,’ Senlac said and disappeared, flitting like a stealthy shadow back up the passageway.

  ‘So you have met our guest?’

  Joscelyn, swaying slightly on his feet, peered through the poor light. ‘I know Senlac’s angry. Angry with himself. He alerted us to what he was looking for. He didn’t find it but we have.’

  ‘What?’ Athelstan demanded.

  Joscelyn tapped the side of his fat, sweaty nose. He beckoned the friar to follow him up to a dimly lit gallery, then up another set of loose stairs to a passageway. The gallery was gloomy and cold, lit only by the flickering glow of tallow candles under their caps. A place of deep darkness, with only slivers of light around which shadows curled and twisted. Athelstan shivered. He had attended a number of exorcisms and now he experienced that same nameless dread which afflicted him on such occasions. A mysterious terror, a real feeling that he’d left ordinary human experience and entered into a domain of spiritual darkness. As he walked along the gallery, Joscelyn shuffling before him, Watkin and Pike trailing behind, Athelstan sensed that he’d entered a truly evil place. Something really wicked had happened here, unforgiven, mouldering mortal sin which demanded to be confronted and resolved. In a word, this tavern had the stink of Hell about it and Athelstan wondered why?

  They reached a chamber at the end of the gallery. Joscelyn unlocked the door, murmuring how he always kept it locked, and ushered Athelstan in. The taverner apologized for the dark as he stumbled around, opening the shutters across the narrow window and lighting a lanternhorn placed in the centre of a shabby chancery table. The room was dingy, with tawdry sticks of furniture, some stools, a bench, an unwashed jakes’ pot and two battered coffers. Joscelyn pointed to a hole, deep in the plaster above the chancery table.

  ‘There was a crucifix there, the Cross of San Damiano. When we searched the tavern, I wondered about that cross, bearing in mind that Roughkin couldn’t give a fig about God or man. So I took the cross down; a piece of plaster had been inserted and cunningly fixed to cover the cavity behind it. This is what I found.’ Joscelyn drew the same square of parchment from his wallet that he had produced in the church.

  ‘Let me see this.’

  Joscelyn reluctantly handed it over. Athelstan, with his three parishioners crowding around him, sat down on a rickety chair before the chancery table. He studied the parchment stained with streaks of dirt yet, rubbing its texture between his fingers, Athelstan concluded that Roughkin had used the best vellum for this mysterious chart. The friar carefully unfolded it, spreading it out on the table. The chart was a complete square of about nine to ten inches along each side. The ink was clear and distinct, as were the different words and symbols. He studied the message carefully written in dog Latin at the top of the manuscript. ‘Angeli spectant thesaurum terrae – Angels stare down at earth’s treasure.’ Athelstan paused over the translation before moving to the drawing beneath this cryptic message, a collection of roughly etched ovals containing small rectangles. In some of these rectangles was a small triangle.

  ‘Only God knows what this means,’ he murmured.

  ‘It’s God’s Acre,’ Joscelyn declared. ‘It must be. The rectangles must be tombstones or graves.’

  ‘And the triangles?’ Athelstan glanced up at him.

  ‘Perhaps special gravestones which hide the treasure?’

  ‘And you’ve tried to compare this,’ Athelstan smiled at his three parishioners, ‘with St Erconwald’s cemetery? You have, haven’t you? Don’t lie to your priest.’

  ‘We have, Father,’ Watkin confessed. ‘Believe me, we’ve walked our cemetery and spent more time with the dead than the living.’ The dung-collector tapped the chart that Athelstan held. ‘We had to. God’s Acre is an oval: there are grave slabs, but nothing similar to this drawing.’

  ‘We think the angels mentioned are those carved on the side of the church tower,’ Joscelyn offered. ‘But …’ His voice trailed away.

  Athelstan continued to study the chart. He also suspected it was a map of St Erconwald’s cemetery. Were the ovals burial pits and the rectangles gravestones? But why did some have triangles in the centre?

  ‘So you have compared this chart to our cemetery but discovered nothing?’

  ‘Yes, Father,’ they all chorused.

  Athelstan folded the chart and, ignoring the muted protests from his parishioners, slipped the square of vellum into his belt wallet. ‘Look. It will be safe with me,’ Athelstan reassured his companions. ‘I shall lock it away in the parish arca in our sacristy. I need to study it carefully. Moreover, if people get to know, as they surely will, that you no longer hold the chart, all to the good. But first,’ Athelstan sat back in the shabby chancery chair, ‘we have to think and reflect. I do not know what happened in the past. There is no chronicle of St Erconwald’s. None of the previous priests kept records or muniments, not even a blood book; well, nothing you can boast about. Manuscripts were destroyed or taken away. In some cases, no record was made. You know
that. So,’ he heaved a sigh, ‘what did happen here during Roughkin’s tenure? Do you know? Are there any personal memories which could help?’

  The three parishioners just stared back. Athelstan rose, walked to the window, and stared down at the cobbled stable yard. Benedicta was sitting on the wall of the small tavern well, deep in conversation with Joscelyn’s wife and others who helped her manage the kitchen.

  ‘Well?’ He turned and came back to sit in the chancery chair. ‘Joscelyn, can you help?’

  The taverner lifted his head sheepishly. ‘Years ago,’ he admitted, then winked at his associates who looked equally embarrassed, ‘fifteen to twenty years ago,’ he repeated, ‘we all ran wild.’

  ‘We were true roaring boys,’ Watkin interjected, ‘Some more than others. We didn’t give a bee’s turd about our priest or his church. Indeed, the priest was a bigger sinner than any of us. We didn’t go to Mass – not that he often celebrated one.’ Watkin wiped his mouth. ‘Now, as for Roughkin …’ He coughed, clearing his throat, and stretched. Athelstan tried not to flinch at the gusty stench of sweat mingled with that of the dung and rubbish that Watkin cleared. ‘Roughkin was cold and distant. A man who went bearded, hooded and visored, as if trying to hide his face. He married very young. They had a son, Senlac: you’ve met him. Then, about twenty years ago or more, it all changed. Senlac ran off to the wars. A short while later, Roughkin disappeared.’

  ‘And his wife?’

  ‘Oh, she’d died some years previous.’

  ‘And so Roughkin disappeared?’

  ‘Without a trace, Father.’

  ‘Many say,’ Pike blurted out, ‘well, they say Roughkin may have been murdered. Just a rumour, that his corpse lies buried in God’s Acre, or he was drowned in the river.’

  ‘Why should someone murder him?’

  ‘Father, Roughkin lived in the shadows, I mean deep in the shadows. It was only a matter of time before these shadows turned on him.’

  ‘So,’ Athelstan recapped, ‘Roughkin and Senlac disappear. The wife has died; all that’s left is this tavern. Yes?’

  ‘Not very prosperous at the time: the haunt of those who lurk along the river, it enjoyed a malignant reputation. I believe Roughkin made more money from mortuary fees, as well as digging and tending the graves.’

  ‘And his reputation as a miser, a hoarder?’

  ‘It was very well deserved. Roughkin had a mean soul. As you know, Father, many taverners give the poor the remnants of any food, be it rancid or not. Roughkin never did. A silent, sinister shadow of a man. A true wolf.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Well,’ Joscelyn replied, ‘he left The Piebald a poor place. I tell you this, Father, no silver or gold was ever found but, as for the rest, what the tax collectors call the moveables – furniture, chests, clothing and kitchen equipment – remained; not that they amounted to much.’

  ‘And who owned it next?’

  ‘Oh, it passed from hand to hand. Usually rented by those who wished to boast about being minehost of a bustling, prosperous tavern.’ Joscelyn shook his head. ‘That never happened. The Piebald had acquired a chilling reputation as a place of darkness. The gossips even claimed it was haunted by its former owner Roughkin.’

  ‘And you changed all that?’ Athelstan playfully poked Joscelyn in the chest.

  The former river pirate grinned and raised his good arm. ‘Well, life changed for me,’ the taverner declared. ‘I boarded a Hainault cog, greedy for its cargo, and a Genoese mercenary put paid to my fighting days. I’d managed to save a little gold and silver, so I sued for a royal pardon during the Time of Mercy leading up to the birth of our boy-king.’ Joscelyn pulled a face. ‘I bought this tavern and, I think, I made it an important part of our parish, Father.’

  ‘Yes, you certainly have,’ Athelstan laughed. ‘It’s more visited than our sanctuary chapel ever is!’ The friar paused. ‘Oh, by the way, did Roughkin ever clash with the law?’

  ‘No.’ Watkin shook his head. ‘When it came to Roughkin, it was more of a question of being much suspected but nothing proved. Anyway,’ Watkin gave a gap-toothed grin, ‘your good friend the Lord High Coroner would know more about that.’

  ‘Jack Cranston?’

  ‘The very same,’ Watkin agreed. ‘Big, merry Jack, though his face was not as red as it is now nor his hair and beard so snow-white.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘At the time Sir John was chief bailiff of the Bridge and its approaches. As you can imagine, he became the veritable scourge of the malefactors, confidence tricksters, and all the cunning men who ply their trade along the waterway. Sir Jack often came to St Erconwald’s, sniffing out mischief as keenly as Ranulf’s ferrets would a rat.’

  ‘Well, well, well.’ Athelstan stood up as he heard his name being called from the stable yard. He rose, crossed to the narrow window and peered down. Benedicta stood staring up at him; beside her was Tiptoft, Sir John Cranston’s courier, immediately recognizable, being garbed completely in Lincoln green, his red hair spiked with nard, his pallid-white face all wreathed in concern. Tiptoft’s presence could only mean one thing: Sir John Cranston, ‘Merry Jack’, was summoning Athelstan to some heinous crime.

  PART TWO

  Cottereau: (Medieval French) Mercenary

  Meg Tumblekin, called that for reasons only known to herself, was a young whore and a very pretty one. Pert and confident, she plied her trade along Queenhithe ward, a frequent visitor to the many taverns and alehouses which served that quayside, especially The Leviathan in St Olave’s parish. Meg hoped to do good business that day. If she was fortunate, some merchant or the captain of a visiting cog would hire her and they would meet in a narrow tavern chamber where they could make merry and sport on the bed. If she pleased them, she would be given something to eat and drink as well as good coin for her ministrations.

  Meg prayed that would happen as she paused at the mouth of a needle-thin alleyway leading down to the quayside. The morning was dark, murky, made even more so by the thick river mist which rose, coiled and twisted around the buildings. Meg stopped and shivered. For some reason she was reluctant to go on. She felt a presence, as if she was being secretly followed and watched. A lonely gull came in low and shrieked above her. Meg, all startled, recalled childhood stories about lost souls struggling through a fog-bound purgatory searching for a path to heaven. Meg slowly made her way down the runnel. The walls on either side were blind: no windows, no gaps, no enclaves or doorways to shelter either beggar or footpad. Halfway along the alley she paused as she caught the fishy tang of the quayside. In truth Meg was frightened of the river, and tavern chatter had only deepened her fear. Stories about a war cog The Knave of Hearts being totally destroyed, along with its crew and precious cargo. People had seen the ship leave Queenhithe but it never reached the watchtowers close to the mouth of the estuary. Those on guard there had not seen it, only distant sheets of fire and flame which marked the cog’s destruction. The devastation had been complete, without explanation or reason for it. Nothing! Tavern gossip claimed that demon-ghosts which haunt the lonely reaches of the Thames had swept up from Hell and wiped the cog and all it contained off the face of God’s earth. Other stories were more chilling, more threatening. How prostitutes, riverside whores like herself, had been abducted, brutally slaughtered, stripped and set adrift in some narrow skiff, their heads festooned with the cheapest horsehair wigs dyed a deep blood red. Meg reached the end of the alleyway and almost screamed at the cowled figure who emerged from the swirling mist.

  ‘Meg Tumblekin?’

  The whore relaxed at the soft voice, the lower part of the stranger’s face not covered by the cowl was smooth. The touch on her hand, soft and warm. ‘Meg you must be going to The Leviathan? You are well known there and very welcome. You have a fine reputation, Mistress, that you tumble most prettily. They say you can tease the most jaded appetite. How your skin is soft and sweet-smelling. Now that’s what I like.’

  Meg, her cloak now thro
wn back, put hands on her hips and struck a provocative pose.

  ‘Come.’ The stranger stretched out a mittened hand, which Meg clasped. ‘First,’ the stranger leaned down, ‘first,’ the voice repeated, ‘I need to collect a present for Minehost Mistress Alice at The Leviathan; a tun of the best Bordeaux, a small barrel left by my friends who do not wish to pay the custom due.’ The stranger, grasping Meg’s hand, hurried from the mouth of the alleyway and across the mist-strewn quayside. Muffled sounds echoed eerily. Shapes loomed up then disappeared. Meg, feeling deeply excited at such an accosting, watched her step, as the battered cobbles were littered with the offal left after the fishermen had sorted their early morning catch. She would be glad to get away from here. Despite the thick, cloying mist, the stench of brine, salt, tar and rotting fish was almost overpowering. For a few heartbeats Meg imagined some warm, comfortable chamber at The Leviathan, with a jug of Bordeaux on the table and platters of piping hot meat.