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‘And you found no one?’ Cranston repeated.
‘No one at all,’ Colebrooke muttered. ‘Now the soldiers are uneasy. They talk darkly of demons and ghosts and the Tower is not a popular garrison. You know soldiers, Sir John, they’re worse than sailors. They repeat stories of how the Tower was built on a place used for ancient sacrifice. How blood is mixed with the mortar, and men were nailed to the earth in its foundation.’
‘Nonsense!’ Cranston barked. ‘What do you think, Brother?’
Athelstan shrugged. ‘The lieutenant may be right, Sir John. There are more forces under heaven than we know.’
‘So you believe the nonsense about ghosts?’
‘Of course not! But the Tower is a bloody place. Men and women have died horrible deaths here.’
Athelstan stared round the green and shivered despite the bright sunshine.
‘Fear is the real ghost,’ he continued. ‘It saps harmony of the mind and disturbs the soul. It creates an air of danger, of threatening menace. Our murderer is highly skilled and intelligent. He is achieving exactly what he wants.’
‘Who found the corpse?’ Cranston queried.
‘Fitzormonde did. When the bell was sounded, people were ru
‘We’ll check the parapet walk,’ Athelstan muttered.
‘Master Lieutenant, I would be grateful if you could gather everyone in Mistress Philippa’s chamber. Please give my apologies and excuses to the lady, but it’s important to meet where you all were last night when the tocsin was sounded.’
Cranston and Athelstan watched Colebrooke stride away.
‘Do you think there’s any co
‘Between what?’
‘Between the bell chiming and Mowbray’s fall.’
‘Of course, Sir John.’ Athelstan tugged him by the sleeve and they made their way across the deserted bailey to the steps leading up to the parapet walk. They stopped at the foot and stared up at the curtain wall rising above them.
‘A terrible fall,’ Athelstan whispered.
‘You said there was a co
‘A mere hypothesis, Sir John. Mowbray went on to the parapet walk. Like many old soldiers he liked to be by himself, to reflect well away from others. He stands there staring into the darkness. He has already received warnings of his own impending doom so is lost in his own thoughts, fears and anxieties. Suddenly the tocsin sounds, proclaiming the greatest fortress in the realm to be under attack.’ Athelstan stared into Sir John’s soulful eyes. ‘If you had been Mowbray, what would you have done? Remember, Sir John,’ Athelstan added slyly, ‘you too are a warrior, a soldier.’
Cranston pushed back the beaverskin hat on his head, scratched his balding pate and pursed his lips as if he was a veritable Alexander. ‘I’d run to find the cause,’ he replied ponderously. ‘Yes, that’s what I’d do.’ He stared at Athelstan. ‘Of course, Mowbray would have done the same, but then what happened? Did he slip? Or was he pushed?’
‘I don’t think he slipped, Mowbray would have been too careful, and I doubt he would have let someone push him off the parapet walk without a struggle.’
‘So how?’
‘I don’t know, Sir John. Let’s study the evidence first.’
They were about to climb the steps when a voice suddenly sang out: ‘Good morrow, friends!’ Red Hand, his gaudy rags fluttering around him, jumped through the slush towards them. ‘Good morrow, Master Coroner. Good morrow, Sir Priest,’ he repeated. ‘Do you like old Red Hand?’
Athelstan saw the chicken struggling in Red Hand’s grip. The poor bird squawked and scrabbled, its claws beating the madman’s stomach, ripping his rags still further, but Red Hand held it firmly by the neck.
‘Death has come again!’ he chanted, his colourless eyes dancing with mischievous glee. ‘The old Red Slayer has returned and more will die. You wait and see. Death will come, snap, like this.’
And before Athelstan or Cranston could do anything, the madman bit into the hen’s neck and tore its throat out. The bird squawked, struggled and lay limp. Red Hand stared up, his mouth ringed with blood, gore and feathers.
‘Slay! Slay! Slay!’ he chanted.
‘Go away!’ Cranston barked. ‘Sod off, you little bugger!’
Red Hand turned and ran, the blood from the freshly killed chicken spraying the greying slush on every side. Cranston watched him disappear behind a wall.
‘In my treatise, Brother,’ he said softly, ‘I will suggest houses for such men. Though I do wonder…’
‘What, Sir John?’
‘Well, if Red Hand is as mad as he claims to be.’
Athelstan shrugged. ‘Who decides who is mad, Sir John?
Red Hand may think he is the only sane man around here.’
They climbed the steep steps, Athelstan going first. Behind him followed Sir John, breathing heavily and muttering a litany of dark curses. The wind whipped their faces; halfway up Athelstan stopped and, stooping, picked up the thick sand mixed with gravel which carpeted every step.
‘This would stop anyone from slipping, Sir John.’
‘Unless he was drunk or careless,’ Cranston replied.
‘Aye, Sir John. A sober soldier is a rarity indeed.’
‘Aye, monk, very rare, but not as rare as a holy priest.’
Athelstan gri
‘Old age,’ he murmured.
‘Sir John?’
‘In media vitae, sumus in morte,’ Cranston replied. ‘In the midst of life we are in death, Brother. I do not feel too safe here, yet in France when I was younger but not so wise, I held one of these parapet walks against the best the French could send.’ Cranston felt self-pity seep through him. Did Maude also think him old? he wondered. Was that it? Sir John breathed deeply, trying to control the spasm of rage and fear which shot through him. ‘Go on, Athelstan,’ he muttered. ‘Make your careful, bloody study.’
‘Stay there, Sir John,’ Athelstan replied softly. The friar glanced despondently down at the sand and gravel. ‘I suppose so many have been up here since Mowbray’s fall, I doubt we will find anything.’
Athelstan walked gingerly along the parapet, using the crenellated wall as his guide. He walked slowly, not daring to look at the drop on his right and becoming ever more aware of the cold, biting wind and eerie sense of loneliness, as if he hung half way between heaven and earth. On either side of the parapet walk were two towers. Near the Salt Tower he found the gravel-strewn slush had been disturbed, indicating someone had stood there for some time. Athelstan studied this spot for a while.
‘What have you found, Brother?’ Cranston bellowed.
Athelstan walked carefully back.
‘Mowbray stood where I stopped. Now, Sir John, if you go first?’
Cranston went back to the top of the steps. Athelstan followed behind.
‘Go on, Sir John. Stand on the top step.’
Cranston obliged, closing his eyes for he had begun to feel rather dizzy.
‘What is it, Brother?’ he rasped.
Athelstan crouched and stared closely where the sand and gravel had been scattered. ‘I suspect Mowbray fell from here,’ he replied. ‘But why, and how?’ The friar examined the crenellations from which an archer would shoot if the wall was under attack. ‘Strange,’ he murmured. ‘There’s a fresh mark in the wall as if an axe has been swung against it. And look, Sir John.’ Athelstan carefully picked up some splinters of wood. ‘These are fresh.’