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‘But you know what this means, don’t you?’ Athelstan accused, picking up the piece of yellow parchment.
‘By heaven, we do not!’ Fitzormonde replied.
‘Sir,’ Athelstan retorted, ‘I think you do, as you also know about the seed cake.’
The two hospitallers shook their heads.
‘Oh, come,’ Athelstan continued. ‘Let’s not be coy. You are monks and knights. Your Order fights for the cross in Outremer. My Order, too, has brothers who serve there. They bring back tales which they relate over the di
‘What tales?’ Mowbray challenged.
‘How in the mountains of Palestine live a secret sect of infidels called the Assassins, ruled by a chieftain called the Old Man of the Mountain. This coven deals in secret assassination. They are fed on drugs and despatched by their master with golden daggers to kill whomever he has marked down for destruction.’
Cranston watched the two knights tense and, for the first time, show a flicker of nervousness, Fitzormonde particularly.
‘Now these assassins,’ Athelstan continued, ‘always give their victim fair warning. They do not leave a picture but a flat seed cake as a sign that violent death will soon be upon them.’ Athelstan stood up and stretched to ease the cramp in his thighs and legs. ‘I ask myself, why is this secret sect which flourishes in the Middle Sea, carrying out murder in the cold and sombre chambers of the Tower of London?’
‘Are you accusing us?’ Mowbray shouted. ‘If so, do it!’
‘I am not accusing anyone, just remarking on a strange coincidence.’
‘Rastani is from Palestine!’ Mowbray cried. ‘Sir Ralph did distance himself from his so-called faithful servant.’
Why do you say “so-called”?’ Cranston quickly asked.
‘Because I do not believe Rastani’s conversion to our faith was genuine. Such men bear grudges, they wait years to settle accounts.’ ‘But Rastani was absent from the Tower?’
‘He could have slipped back.’
‘No, no, no!’ Athelstan sat down and shook his head.
‘Sir Ralph’s death is more complex than that. You served with him?’
‘Yes, we did. The Caliph of Cairo hired us to crush revolts in the city of Alexandria.’
‘And after that?’
‘Sir Ralph came home. We stayed a while longer before returning to our house in Clerkenwell.’
‘Have you ever returned across the seas?’ Cranston asked.
Mowbray shook his head. ‘No, Fitzormonde is slightly wrong. When we served with Sir Ralph we were not hospitallers. We joined after we left him. The Order sent us back to England. I am at Clerkenwell, Fitzormonde in our house at Rievaulx near York.’
Athelstan stared at the closed, set faces of both knights.
‘Forgive me,’ Athelstan said quietly, ‘I do not wish to call you liars but there is a great mystery here and you are party to it. ‘He leaned over and suddenly pulled back Mowbray’s cloak. ‘You wear chained mail? And you, too, Sir Brian. Why? Do you also fear the assassin’s dagger? How well do you sleep at night? What secrets did you share with Sir Ralph?’
‘By the Rood!’ Sir Brian suddenly stood up. ‘I have heard enough. We have told you what we can. Leave it at that!’
Both hospitallers swept out of the room. Cranston slumped on the stool and stretched out his legs.
‘A pretty mess, eh, Friar? What have we here? Treason by persons unknown or foul midnight murder?’
‘I don’t know.’ Athelstan replaced the stopper in the ink horn as he rearranged his writing materials. ‘But we do have the buckle we found on the icy moat, and I know who it belongs to.’
‘By the sod!’ Cranston cried. ‘For a monk you are sharp-eyed, Athelstan.’
‘For a friar I am very quick, My Lord Coroner, and so would you be if you drank less claret!’
‘I drink to drown my sorrows.’ Cranston looked away. What would Maude be doing now? he fretted. What was she hiding? Why wouldn’t she just tell him instead of giving those long, mournful glances? Cranston glared at the small statue in a niche, the Virgin and Child; secretly, the coroner hated Christmas. Yuletide always brought back the memories of little Matthew, taken by the plague, but not before the mite had shown Sir John the wonder with which every child greeted Christmas. Did Maude also have her memories?
‘Sir John!’
Cranston blinked to hide his tears and gri
‘I have a need of refreshment, monk!’
Athelstan saw the pain in his friend’s face and looked away.
‘In a while, Sir John. First, let us see Sir Fulke. I wish to search Sir Ralph’s bed chamber here in the White Tower.’
Cranston nodded and lumbered off whilst Athelstan packed his writing tray away. The friar sat for a while admiring the beauty of St John’s Chapel, comparing it to the grimness of St Erconwald’s. He thought of Benedicta. How lovely she had looked at the early morning Mass. He wondered if Huddle would use her in the painting of the Visitation he was pla
‘Brother Athelstan! Brother Athelstan!’ Cranston stood, leering down at him. ‘You drink too much claret, priest,’ the coroner mockingly a
Sir Ralph’s quarters were up a polished wooden staircase in one of the turrets of the White Tower, a pleasant, sweet-smelling chamber in sharp contrast to the grim cell over in the North Bastion. Two small bay windows with cushioned seats below and an oriel window, glazed with stained glass depicting the Agnus Dei, provided light. The walls were of plaster, painted soft green and decorated with silver and gold lozenges. A thick tapestry hung just above the small canopied fireplace, the floor had been polished smooth, and the great bed was covered by a gold-tasselled counterpane. At the foot of the four-poster, with its lid thrown back, stood Sir Ralph’s huge personal coffer.
‘It’s luxurious,’ Cranston whispered. ‘What terrified Sir Ralph so much he had to move from here to that bleak prison cell?’
Cranston and Athelstan squatted down before the coffer and began to go through Sir Ralph’s personal papers, but they found nothing about his years in Outremer. Every document concerned his office as constable or his service in the retinue of John of Gaunt. They must have spent an hour sifting through letters, indentures and memoranda. Only a Book of Hours caught Athelstan’s attention. Each page was decorated with delicate filigree-like scrollwork in a range of dazzling colours: on one page lightly drawn angel figures, on another a priest sprinkling a shrouded corpse with holy water as he committed it to the grave. The Nativity, with Mary and Joseph bowing over a sleeping child; Christ’s walk through Limbo, driving away black-faced demons with the power of his golden eye. Athelstan became engrossed, fascinated by its beauty. He looked inside the cover and noticed how Sir Ralph had scrawled prayer after prayer to St Julian. ‘St Julian, pray for me! St Julian, avert God’s anger! St Julian, intercede for me with Christ’s mother!’ Each of the blank pages at the back of the book was filled with similar phrases. Athelstan read them all, ignoring Cranston’s mutterings and the angry boot-tapping of Sir Fulke. Finally Athelstan closed the coffer and stood up.
‘You are finished, friar?’ the kinsman snapped.
Athelstan looked sharply at him: Sir Fulke was apparently a man who hid behind a veil of bonhomie and good humour but now he looked angry, suspicious, and resentful of their intrusion.