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The chamber was a stone-vaulted room. The first impression was one of brooding greyness. No hangings or tapestries on the walls, nothing except the gaunt figure of a dying Christ on a black, wooden crucifix. Pride of place was given to a huge four-poster bed, its begrimed, tawny curtains tightly closed. There was a table, stools and three or four wooden pegs driven into the wall next to the bed. A cloak, heavy jerkin and broad leather sword belt still hung there. On the other side of the bed stood a wooden lavarium with a cracked pewter bowl and jug over which a soiled napkin had been placed. A small hooded fireplace would have afforded some warmth but only cold powdery ash lay there. A brazier full of half-burnt charcoal stood forlornly in the centre of the room. Athelstan was sure it was colder in here than outside. Cranston snapped his fingers at the open shutters.
‘By the Devil’s tits, man!’ he exclaimed. ‘It’s freezing!’
‘We left things as we found them, my Lord Coroner,’ Colebrooke snapped back.
Athelstan nodded towards the window. ‘Is that where the assassin is supposed to have climbed in?’
He stared at the huge diamond-shaped opening.
‘It could have been the only way,’ Colebrooke muttered, going across and slamming the shutters firmly together. Athelstan stared round the room. He recognized the fetid stench of death and noticed with distaste the soiled rushes on the floor and the cracked chamber pot full of night stools and urine.
‘By the sod!’ Cranston barked, tapping it with his boot. ‘Get that removed or the place will stink like a plague pit!’
The coroner crossed to the bed and pulled the curtains back. Athelstan took one look and stepped away in horror. The corpse sprawled there, white and bloodless against the grimy bolsters and sheets; rigid hands still clutched the blood-soaked bedcovers and the man’s head was thrust back, face contorted in the rictus of death. The heavy-lidded eyes of the corpse were half-open and seemed to be staring down at the terrible slash which ran from one ear to the other. The blood had poured out like wine from a cracked barrel and lay in a thick congealed mess across the dead man’s chest and bedclothes. Athelstan pulled the sheets back and gazed at the half-naked, white body.
‘The cause of death,’ he muttered, ‘is obvious. No other wounds or bruise marks.’ He silently made the sign of the cross over the corpse and stepped back.
Colebrooke wisely stood well away. ‘Sir Ralph feared such a death,’ he murmured.
‘When did this fear begin?’ Athelstan asked.
‘Oh, three to four days ago.’
‘Why?’ Cranston queried. ‘What did Sir Ralph fear?’
Colebrooke shrugged. ‘God knows! Perhaps his daughter or kinsman will tell you that. All I know is that before he died, Sir Ralph believed the Angel of Death stood at his elbow.’
Cranston walked across to the window, pulled back the shutters and leaned out into the chill air.
‘A sheer drop,’ he commented, drawing himself back, much to Athelstan’s relief. He alone realized how much the good coroner had drunk. Cranston slammed the shutters closed.
‘Who would make such a climb at the dead of night and in the depths of winter?’
‘Oh, there are steps cut in the wall,’ Colebrooke answered smugly. ‘Although few people know they are there.’
‘Why?’ Athelstan asked.
‘They’re really just footholds,’ Colebrooke answered. ‘A precaution of the mason who built the tower. If anyone fell in the moat, they could climb out.’
‘So,’ Cranston mumbled, slumping down on to the stool and wiping his forehead, ‘you are saying someone, probably a soldier or paid assassin, used these footholds and climbed to the window.’ He turned and looked at the shutters. ‘According to you,’ the coroner continued, ‘the killer prized a dagger through the crack to lift the catch, got in, and slashed Sir Ralph’s throat.’
Colebrooke nodded slowly. ‘I suppose so, Sir John.’
‘And I suppose,’ Cranston added sarcastically, ‘Sir Ralph just allowed his assassin entry, didn’t even get out of his bed but lay back like a lamb and allowed his throat to be cut?’
Colebrooke went across to the shutters, and, pushing the wooden clasp back into place, locked them shut. He then took out his dagger, slid it into the crack between the shutters and gently levered the clasp open. He drew the shutters wide, turned and smiled at Cranston.
‘It can be done, my Lord Coroner,’ he observed daily.
‘The assassin, quiet-footed, crossed the chamber. It only takes seconds to cut a man’s throat, especially someone who has drunk deeply.’
Athelstan reflected on what the lieutenant had said. It did make sense. Both he and Cranston knew about the Nightshades, robbers who could enter a house under cover of darkness and plunder it beneath the sleeping noses of burgesses, wives, children, and even dogs. Why should this be any different? Athelstan studied the chamber carefully; the heavy granite walls, the stone-vaulted ceiling and cold rag stone floor beneath the rushes.
‘No, Brother!’ Colebrooke called out as if reading the friar’s thoughts. ‘No secret passageways exist. There are two ways to enter this chamber — by the window or by the door. However, there were guards in the lower chamber, we passed them as we came up, and the upper storey is blocked off by a fall of masonry.’
‘Were any traces of blood found?’ Athelstan asked. He saw the lieutenant smirk and glance sideways at the gory corpse sprawled on the bed. ‘No,’ Athelstan continued crossly, ‘I mean elsewhere. Near the window or the door. When the assassin walked away, his knife or sword must have been coated with blood.’
Colebrooke shook his head. ‘Look for yourself, Brother. I found no trace.’
Athelstan glanced despairingly at Cranston who now sat like a sagging sack on the stool, eyes half-closed after his morning’s heavy drinking and vigorous exertions in the cold. The friar conducted his search thoroughly: the bedclothes and corpse were soaked in dried blood but he found no traces near the window, in the rushes or around the door.
‘Did you find anything else disturbed?’
Colebrooke shook his head. Cranston suddenly stirred himself.
‘Why did Sir Ralph come here?’ he asked abruptly. ‘These were not his usual chambers.’
‘He thought he would be safe. The North Bastion is one of the most inaccessible in the fortress. The constable’s usual lodgings are in the royal apartments in the White Tower.’
‘And he was safe,’ Athelstan concluded, ‘until the moat froze over.’
‘Yes,’ Colebrooke replied. ‘Neither I nor anyone else thought of that.’
‘Wouldn’t an assassin be seen?’ Cranston interrupted.
‘I doubt it, Sir John. At the dead of night, the Tower is shrouded in darkness. There were no guards on the North Bastion, whilst those on the curtain wall would spend most of their time trying to keep warm.’
‘So,’ Cranston narrowed his eyes, ‘before we meet the others, let’s establish the sequence of events.’
‘Sir Ralph dined in the great hall and drank deeply. Geoffrey Parchmeiner and the two guards escorted him over here. The latter searched this chamber, the passageway and the room below. All was in good order.’
‘Then what?’
‘Sir Ralph secured the door behind him. The guards outside heard that. They escorted Geoffrey out of the passageway, locked the door at the far end and began their vigil. They were at their posts all night and noticed nothing untoward. Neither did I on my usual nightly rounds.’
Athelstan held up his hand. ‘This business of the keys?’
‘Sir Ralph had a key to his own chamber, as did the guards, on a key ring below.’
‘And the door at the end of that passage?’
‘Again, both Sir Ralph and the guard had a key. You will see them when you go below, hanging from pegs driven into the wall.’
‘Go on, Lieutenant, what happened then?’