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At last they went down slimy, cracked steps into the Hall of the Damned, the condemned hold, a massive, vaulted cellar with dungeons in the far wall.
‘Who is it you wish to see?’ the porter snapped.
‘Simon the carpenter.’
The porter hurried across, chose a key and unlocked one of the doors.
‘Come on, Simon!’ he bawled. ‘A rare treat! London’s own coroner, a friar and a fair lady. Who could ask for more?’
Simon crept from the cell. Athelstan hardly recognised him: his face was a mass of sores, his hair long and matted with filth and vermin. The man’s clothing had been reduced to rags and he was loaded with fetters. Simon shuffled awkwardly towards them, lifting his manacled hands to push his hair back. His lips were blue with the cold and his eyes, above sallow sunken cheeks, bright with fever.
‘Father, you have brought a pardon?’ he asked hopefully.
Athelstan shook his head. ‘No, I am sorry. I just came to visit you, Simon. Is there anything I can do?’
The carpenter looked at him, then at Benedicta and, throwing back his head, laughed hysterically until the porter struck him across the face. The condemned man slumped to the floor, crouching like a beaten dog. Athelstan knelt beside him.
‘Simon!’ he murmured. ‘Simon!’
The carpenter raised his head.
‘Do you wish to be shriven? I will hear your confession.’
The man looked up despairingly.
‘There’s nothing left,’ Athelstan whispered. ‘This time tomorrow, Simon, you will be with God.’
The carpenter nodded and began to cry like a child. Athelstan turned.
‘Sir John, Benedicta, please, give me a moment.’
They withdrew. The coroner bawled at the porter to follow them and, for the second time that day, Athelstan heard the confession of a man about to meet Death. At first, Simon spoke slowly and Athelstan had to fight hard to keep his composure as the chill of the dungeons seeped through his robe, turning his legs to blocks of ice, but then Simon allowed his emotions full rein. He talked of everything, a miserable litany of failure culminating in the rape of a child. Athelstan heard him out, pronounced absolution and rose, rubbing his stiff legs to make the warmth return. The porter came back.
‘Tomorrow, Simon,’ Athelstan whispered, ‘I shall remember you. And, Simon?’
The condemned man looked up.
‘You remember me before the throne of God.’
The carpenter nodded. ‘I didn’t mean to do it, Father. I was lonely, I’d drunk too much.’
‘I know,’ Athelstan murmured. ‘God help you and her!’ Athelstan turned to the porter and tossed him a silver coin. ‘One good meal, sir.’
The porter caught the coin and nodded.
‘One good meal,’ Athelstan warned. ‘I shall check on that.’
He was about to leave when Simon called out: ‘Father!’
‘Yes, Simon?’
‘Ranulf the rat-catcher came to see me earlier today. He had been hired by a butcher in the Shambles. He said you were at the Tower because of Sir Ralph Whitton’s death.’ The carpenter gri
Athelstan nodded. He felt Simon was only trying to prolong the visit ‘I worked there once,’ the carpenter called out. ‘A strange place, worse than this!’
‘Why is that, Simon?’
‘Well, at least here the cells have doors. In the Tower there are rooms, dungeons, where you go in, the doors are removed, and you remain until death behind a bricked wall.’
‘Is that so?’ Athelstan smiled. ‘God be with you, Simon.’
Athelstan went back up the steps to rejoin Cranston and Benedicta. They never spoke until they were out of the prison, the wicket gate slamming shut behind them.
‘The antechamber of Hell,’ Athelstan murmured as they made their way down Bowyers Row under the dark mass of St Paul’s. At Friday Street Sir John made to leave. Athelstan took him aside and stared into the bleary-eyed face.
‘I thank you for coming, Sir John. Be at peace. Go home and talk to the Lady Maude. I am sure all will be well.’
Cranston scratched his head. ‘God knows, Brother, but I feel the only good I did today was to listen to Fitzormonde and help that child. ‘You know, the one who stood over the beggarman?’
‘You came with us to the Fleet.’
‘Aye,’ Cranston muttered. ‘I could not get a pardon for Simon, you know that, Brother, but I showed him one last mercy.’
‘What’s that, Sir John?’
‘I left a coin for the executioner. Simon won’t dance. He will be taken far up the ladder.’ Cranston snapped his fingers. ‘His neck will snap and it will all be over quickly.’ The coroner stamped his feet and looked up at the star-filled sky. ‘You had best hurry home, Brother. The stars await you.’ He turned and tramped up the street. ‘I only wish,’ he called out ‘we’d found Alderman Horne!’
CHAPTER 9
As Athelstan and Benedicta rode slowly back across the dark, choppy waters of the Thames, Adam Horne left the Crutched Friars monastery near Mark lane just north of the Tower. He’d arrived just after Vespers to collect the message he had been told would be waiting for him. The grizzle-haired lay brother had smiled toothlessly and waved Horne into the door-keeper’s lodge.
‘It’s been here all afternoon,’ the lay brother murmured, handing him a thin roll of vellum. Horne anxiously unfolded the parchment and, begging the brother to bring a candle, hastily read the contents.
‘Oh, my God!’ he groaned as his hopes were dashed. Earlier in the morning he had received a piece of parchment with a sketch of a crudely drawn ship, and a flat sesame seed cake. He had tried to hide his fears from his poor wife and gone down to his warehouse where another message had been awaiting him: he was not to return home, the short letter instructed, but to go to the House of the Crutched Friars where his anxieties would be resolved. He should fear nothing but put his hopes in the sender who wished him well. Now this short note cruelly dashed his hopes: the mysterious writer apologised for not meeting him but asked him to wait amongst the ancient ruins to the north-west of the Tower. Horne shredded the note, left the friary and made his way through the dark, ice-covered country lanes which cut round farms and smallholdings. He stared up at the starlit sky and shivered, not only from the biting cold but his own sombre fear of what might await him. Horne’s commonsense told him to run but he had waited too long. The threat had hung like a sword over his head for years and he wanted to confront it once and for all. A self-confident merchant, Horne also believed the meeting might end his fears for good. He could then go home, absolved from his part in that terrible crime committed so many years ago.
The line of trees ended and Horne stood on the edge of the common, in the far distance the lowering mass of the Tower. Perhaps he should go there? He sighed despairingly. Who could help him? Sir Ralph was dead and the surviving hospitaller would have no time for him. Horne gulped quickly at the realisation of his own guilt. Should he go on? He stared at the ice-covered ground and half listened to the cold wind moaning gently amongst the trees. Above him a raven cawed as it flew to hunt over the mudflats along the river. A fox barked. The sound was strident and made the hair curl on the back of his neck. Horne felt uneasy. He turned and stared back down the muddy track. Was someone there? Had he been followed?
Horne’s face twisted into a snarl. He might be a fat, wealthy merchant now but fifteen years ago he had fought as a knight, shoulder to shoulder with men who feared nothing on earth. Yes, he had been guilty, even as much as Whitton, Fitzormonde and Mowbray had always been soft, they could whine and moan that they had not been to blame, but Horne had agreed to Whitton’s plan and built a thriving business on the proceeds.