House of Shadows (35 page)

If so, they hadn't gained much by it, as Michael had pointed out. They would shortly be buried in the graveyard. But Mistress Morton was still alive…

And at once Geoffrey Chaucer turned around and half-ran through the inner court and then the outer one. As he passed through the gateway, two thoughts flashed through his head: firstly, that he was not created for running and was already out of breath, and,
secondly, that he must reach the Morton house before Mistress Morton, too, was murdered.

 

The man slipped along behind the raised path, which ran parallel to the workers' dwellings. He was not completely concealed from anyone working on the garden patches, but fortunately no one was about at the tail end of the afternoon. This was the second time in a single day that he had made a foray outside the priory and to the same house. On the first occasion he had waited until the woman and the lad had left the place. They were going fishing, the boy carrying a net. That meant they would be gone for some time.

The man waited until they were no more than tiny figures on the foreshore before he crept through the back entrance to the house. Inside, the air was fusty and sickly. Simon Morton was lying on the bed, scarcely breathing, it seemed. For an instant the man debated leaving nature to take its course. But, no, that was too risky. Giving himself no time for further thought, he heaved the bolster from where it lay by the sick man's side and pressed it down over Morton's face. The body under the blanket twitched and there was a sound somewhere between a groan and a gurgle, and then nothing more. But the man kept his hands firmly in place until there could be no chance of Morton ever waking up again. Then he retreated by the route he had come, forgetting in his haste to remove the bolster from the dead man's face. He strode back in the direction of the priory, heart beating hard and breath coming short, but curiously satisfied. Duty done, and for the second time.

He had already overseen the death of Adam, the man with the crooked hand whom he had hired to dispose of John Morton. He had met Adam in the monks' graveyard. It had been comparatively simple to catch
Adam off guard, to slip the girdle over his head and pull it tight and tighter yet. An unholy glee filled him during the act. His legs were shaking as Adam's slack body fell to the ground. Then he had hurriedly set the scene to make it appear as though Adam had killed himself.

The man would not have believed that he could have found the strength to kill another human being and then arrange his body just so. Yet in an hour of crisis strength comes from somewhere. Had the prior not said that men in despair can accomplish great and terrible things? It was a gift from above…or the other place. The man dismissed the thought. He had done his duty, that was all. When this was finished he would get absolution, he would cleanse himself.

With the deaths of John Morton, then Adam and now Simon, all those who knew the story of the cross were dead. All, that is, apart from the very few Cluniac brothers who were privy to the secret. And they would not talk.

When the man had heard the story, the supposed true story, of the origins of the cross, he had been outraged. It was as if a segment of the sky had fallen to earth. At all costs, the cross must be defended and the story of its origins suppressed. Those who had uncovered the secret must be silenced. The priory was in mortal danger and all measures were justified. Even God himself would wink at the act. Unwilling at first to do the necessary work himself, the man had approached Adam, recognizing his desperate and bitter character. He had envisaged a silent act, a killing conducted with decorum. But Adam had disposed of John Morton in the crudest and most public manner. Therefore it was necessary to deal with Adam. Once the man had surprised himself by finding the deed easy enough, the killing of Simon Morton followed naturally.

And with that the man thought it might be over. Absolution alone remained. Cleansing.

But then he turned to puzzling over how it was that two simple masons had understood the words of a Latin document uncovered in a vault. Too late, he recalled the gossip, familiar enough in the priory, that Mistress Morton was the bastard child of a priest. Too late, he considered that having such a man for a father – a wicked man who had defaulted on his duty – might mean that it was the woman who was at the root of all this trouble. Women were at the root of the world's ills, beginning with Eve. And now there was this one, the offspring of a priest. Susanna Morton, well named after the woman in the Book of Daniel whose beauty had tempted the elders into gazing on her naked, bathing body. Susanna might have unpicked the secrets of Brother James's testament. No sooner had the thought occurred to the man than it hardened into a certainty. It was Mistress Morton who was responsible. She had read what she shouldn't have read. She, too, would have to be dealt with. Even as he strode along, the man fingered his girdle, which he would use around the woman's white throat. Something in him relished the close quarters he would have to engage in to dispose of Susanna.

So now the man crossed over the path at the point behind the Morton house. It was fortunate, he told himself again, that the place was set a little apart from the other dwellings. But what was this? Far from the quiet of the afternoon, there was a throng of people around the Morton hut. Neighbours and even a couple of monks. Her foolish son was there too. Too late, the man recalled that Mistress Morton would have returned to find her husband dead. He almost giggled to think how fast he had forgotten that earlier murder. These people had come to condole with her. He could do
nothing to her at present. He'd have to wait for a later opportunity.

He made to turn round and came face to face with Geoffrey Chaucer.

 

‘Brother Ralph,' said Geoffrey.

Chaucer just about managed to pant the words out. He was red-faced and running with sweat.

The young man paused indecisively. Guilt and rage were written across his usually placid face like the mark of Cain.

‘What are you doing?' said Geoffrey.

The monk seemed to consider the question before saying: ‘I am doing my duty. What are you doing?'

‘You were in on the secret, weren't you?' said Geoffrey after a time. ‘The true secret of the Bermondsey cross.'

‘I heard about it from Brother Peter. He was deeply troubled.'

‘But not as deeply as you,' said Geoffrey, reflecting on how he'd recently thought of himself as a good judge of men. But there really was no way to winkle out a man's inner self from his appearance. Here was Brother Ralph, innocent and bland-seeming but with the fire and fury of a fanatic. He already knew the answer, but for form's sake he said: ‘Why did you carry out the killings?'

‘I have already told you. Duty. To defend the cross and the priory.'

‘They do not need defence of the kind you have given.'

‘I should have left you shut up in that vault. The chances were that you wouldn't have been found for several days. Nobody goes down there. It is a cursed place.'

‘Why did you let me out?'

‘Not you, Master Chaucer. It was Magnus the cat. I knew I must have left him shut inside. He should not be shut in to starve.'

Geoffrey did not know whether to laugh or weep in the face of this murderous man who had already done two others to death and was undoubtedly on his way to kill a woman but who could still care about the life of a cat. He was about to call out to the cluster of individuals around Mistress Morton's hut for assistance in apprehending Brother Ralph. But the monk anticipated him and took to his heels, running not in the direction of the low houses nor back towards the priory but eastwards towards the river. As he went he shouted out something about ‘cleansing waters'.

Chaucer set off in pursuit, but Ralph was younger, fitter and faster. He reached the edge of the shore. The mud was thick here, and he waded across it with difficulty, sploshing through the incoming tide. Geoffrey stumbled and fell on his face. Above him he heard the beating of wings and a shadow passed across. He glanced up but the bird, which he couldn't identify, was already flying higher. He watched as Brother Ralph reached the end of his glutinous passage across the mud and stones and then, deliberately, waded into the fast-flowing water. His black garb billowed out, then only his head and a single arm were visible. The man's white hand was the last of him that Geoffrey saw, a white and delicate hand.

 

Returning at the end of this long and murderous day to his lodgings in the gatehouse, and after supper in the refectory, Geoffrey noticed that the quill pen remained where he'd placed it at the start of the morning on a block of stone. He wondered who'd complete the work on the wall cavity now. He had said nothing about the details of the death of Brother
Ralph, though it transpired in conversation with Prior Dunton that the young monk had the reputation of being ‘odd'.

‘His mind must have been turned by all the deaths we have witnessed here today,' said Dunton. ‘In a frenzy he threw himself into the waters of the river. Pray heaven that Ralph's death will be the last.'

‘I think it will be,' said Geoffrey.

‘We will say a Mass for his soul,' said the prior, ‘and for those others who have died in Bermondsey today, of course.'

Nor did Chaucer mention the great bird that had passed overhead as Brother Ralph reached the waterline. A gull, probably. What else could it have been on the Thames foreshore? In fact, he mentioned nothing at all at supper in the refectory (there are advantages sometimes to eating in silence). Instead he slipped inside the great church after supper and before the hour of compline. Once again the church was almost empty, the summer evening fading in bright colours beyond the great west window. He went to gaze on the cross behind its grille. The cross was small, barely significant. As Brother Michael had said, its value lay not in itself but in the tale of its discovery.

Geoffrey Chaucer reflected on the two stories, the legend of the miraculous bird which had dropped the object from its beak and the more prosaic account of a band of monks who'd wanted to bring some fame and credit to the priory. Did it matter which was true? Not to him perhaps, but it was important enough to have caused a string of deaths. And now he alone was in possession of the secret. That Brother Ralph had hired Adam to dispose of John Morton, then himself killed the claw-handed man before going on to stifle Simon Morton. And no doubt Ralph would have done the same for Susanna Morton if he hadn't been inter
cepted by Geoffrey. He remembered Ralph's parting words about ‘cleansing waters'. God knows, if you cannot read a man's face, how can you interpret what goes on in his head? Well, the fast-flowing Thames received everything and everybody cast into it, the pure and the impure, the innocent and the sinful, without distinction.

Geoffrey wondered whether the widow Morton would be without a mate for long. He didn't think so. She had too many attractions. But he did not intend to stay in Bermondsey Priory to find out. He'd had enough. He'd make his excuses to the prior and leave Bermondsey tomorrow morning and get back to the domestic bustle of the Aldgate gatehouse. Get home for a bit of peace and quiet. Why, he might even be able to do a bit of writing without the distractions of murder.

And as he was retrieving his pen, Geoffrey Chaucer remembered that early that morning before the murders started he'd had an idea for a poem. The subject had slipped his mind now. What was it he intended to write?

I

April 1663

Bermondsey House was a jagged black mass against the night sky when Captain John Browne arrived for his clandestine meeting with the conspirators. It had rained all day, though the deluge had petered out after dusk, and the air was rich with the scent of damp earth and wet blossom. The house, built on the site of a once-powerful monastery, had fallen on hard times. Its stocky Tudor chimneys listed at odd angles, its roof sagged, and boards replaced the glass in many of its windows. Its grounds were in an equally sorry state. What had been a stately avenue of oaks was now a dismal tunnel of dead wood and ivy; the fish ponds had decayed into treacherous bogs, and the ornamental gardens were a chaotic sea of nettles, brambles and weeds.

Browne shuddered as he rode along the driveway. He was not an impressionable or a sensitive man – the long-suffering crew on his ship
Rosebush
could attest to that – but there was something eerie and forlorn about the house. When the wind whispered through the trees, Browne thought he could hear voices, and that they were those of long-dead medieval monks, hissing accusations and recriminations. He took a deep breath, pushing such fanciful notions from his mind, and turned his thoughts to the night's business. What he
was about to do was wildly dangerous, but he trusted his friend and fellow sea captain Dick York – and if York said it was important for him to meet the powerful shipping magnate William Hay, then that was good enough for Browne.

He jumped in alarm when an owl hooted nearby, and wished a more respectable time had been chosen for the assignation. Then he grinned at his own foolishness. That was impossible, given the subject that was to be aired – the hours of darkness were the only time for such treacherous transactions. The location was perfect too – this desolate, lonely, half-forgotten place that looked as though it was already full of brooding secrets. Browne considered what he had managed to find out about Bermondsey House before agreeing to the meeting.

William Hay did not own it – that honour went to some wealthy nobleman, who lived elsewhere and who never bothered to visit. Instead, it was rented to the Castell family, members of whom had been tenants for decades. Old Will Castell had been a talented shipwright, and he had originally leased the mansion as a statement of his commercial success. After his death, his fortune passed to his grandson, who promptly lost everything to his penchant for gambling. Creditors now snapped at the younger Castell's heels, and Bermondsey House was falling into decay for want of basic maintenance. To make ends meet, Castell hired out his home to men like Hay, who paid handsomely for the privilege of conducting devious business away from prying eyes.

And if anyone did ask questions about what went on inside Bermondsey House, then there were always the ghosts to blame. Browne had been told tales involving ancient coroners, ex-Templar Knights, Oxford scholars and even the poet Chaucer, who had delved into dark
matters involving murder, theft and deception. People were superstitious about the site and perfectly willing to attribute odd happenings to the shadowy world of spirits and demons.

Yet even so, Browne was uneasy. He had never met Hay or Castell and did not know if they could be trusted, so he had brought two sailors from
Rosebush
to protect him, should matters turn nasty. He did not trust them, either, if the truth be told. The navy had not been paid since the Restoration of the monarchy three years before, and the only men left in it were those incapable of getting decent work elsewhere. Browne glanced at the two men who jogged along beside his horse. He had chosen his cooper, Ned Walduck, and a big, stupid sailor called Tivill, both surly villains who knew how to fight. He was under no illusions regarding their loyalty to him, though – they had agreed to come only because he had promised them two shillings apiece. Browne had never bothered to make himself a popular captain – he believed that winning the affections of his men was a waste of time – and it was the money that would induce Walduck and Tivill to defend him, should the need arise that night.

He dismounted, tossing his reins to Tivill, and was about to knock on the front door when it was hauled open. The man who stood there was probably in his thirties, but a life of debauchery made him look older. He reeled drunkenly, a mass of courtly ruffles, collars and lace, as he slurred a welcome. Castell, thought Browne in distaste, the man who had squandered his inheritance on vices and pleasure. Behind Castell was an elderly, shabbily dressed crone who was smoking a pipe. At first he assumed she was a servant, but when she shoved her lantern into Castell's hands and barked an order, Browne realized she must be Margaret, wife of the old shipwright and grandmother of the dissi
pated creature who tottered and grinned on the doorstep like a halfwit. Browne's misgivings intensified. Could such folk be trusted? After all, treason
was
a capital offence. He looked around for evidence that York had arrived, but it was too dark to tell.

‘Come in, come in,' hiccuped Castell. ‘I would offer you wine, but I have just finished it.'

‘Why does that not surprise me?' muttered Browne, making no move to enter. His horse, sensing his unease, began to prance. Tivill struggled hopelessly to control it, while Walduck sniggered at his shipmate's ineptitude. Then Browne heard footsteps hurrying towards them, coming from the direction of the darkened grounds.

‘Walduck,' snapped Browne, furious when the cooper made no effort to defend his captain but continued to laugh at Tivill. ‘Your two shillings is set to become nothing, unless you tend to your duties. Draw your sword, man, and be ready to fight.'

‘There is no need for that,' said Castell soothingly, while Walduck glowered resentfully at the reprimand. ‘We are all friends here – you do not need men to protect you.'

‘I shall make up my own mind about that, thank you,' snarled Browne. He squinted into the darkness, hand on the hilt of his sword, as he tried to see what kind of person was approaching. The figure came closer, revealing itself to be short, plump and obsequious. It wore a tight-fitting long-coat that was absurdly out of date and a wide-brimmed hat with a feather stuck in it, as if the man imagined himself to be a youthful Cavalier. Browne felt his jaw drop in astonishment as he recognized the fellow. ‘Jesus wept! Is that Thomas Strutt?'

Walduck was equally shocked, chagrin forgotten. ‘It is! Our old purser, God rot his thieving soul!'

‘Shall I run him through?' asked Tivill, abandoning the horse to draw his sword with one hand and a dagger with the other. His eyes gleamed at the prospect of violence. ‘He supplied
Rosebush
with rancid meat and stale biscuits last year, and we had no choice but to eat them.'

Walduck shuddered at the memory. ‘
And
he cheated us over gunpowder. He said we had thirty barrels, but there were only ten – and the lie almost saw us killed when we met them Dutch pirates.'

They were right, and Browne's misgivings about the night's venture intensified. Hay probably
did
need all the men he could get to help him remove the king and his government from power, but surely he knew better than to recruit a dishonest, unreliable fellow like Strutt?
Rosebush
's old purser would sell his own mother for a cup of wine, so would think nothing of betraying would-be conspirators. Abruptly, Browne decided he wanted no more to do with Bermondsey House and its secrets.

‘There has been a misunderstanding,' he said to Castell. He turned towards his horse. ‘I should not have come here tonight – I
would
not, had I known villains like Strutt were involved.'

Strutt started to object to the insult, but someone emerged from the shadows near the door, where he had been listening unseen. William Hay, owner of the Hay's Wharf Company, was a small, neat man, who wore a massive yellow wig – a headpiece almost large enough to verge on the ridiculous. His clothes were made of dark red satin, cut tight to the waist to show off his figure and then flaring out into a froth of lace and frills around his knees. His shoes were small, buckled and elegant, and as far from Browne's practical riding boots as it was possible to be.

‘You should hear what I have to say before you leave,
captain,' he said softly. ‘It will be worth your while, I promise. Come, the others are waiting.'

Against his better judgement, Browne followed Hay along a weed-infested path that skirted the house's east wing. The two sailors were at his heels, and Strutt trailed behind them; it was too dark to see whether Castell or his grandmother had joined the procession. Tivill was again trying to soothe the agitated horse, although with scant success, because he was attempting to do it without sheathing either of his weapons. Walduck was scowling, because the purser's unexpected appearance had put him in a black and dangerous mood.

At a point where the shadows were thickest, Hay opened a door to reveal a flight of steep, slime-coated stairs. Browne balked. He disliked enclosed spaces, and a cellar was not his idea of a suitable place for a meeting, seditious or otherwise. Anger began to replace nervousness. He was damned if
he
was going to be enticed underground in company with the likes of Thomas Strutt. He glanced behind him and saw other figures beginning to converge on the door, too, all cloaked and hooded. Evidently, other conspirators were beginning to assemble.

‘I have had enough,' he snapped, his nerve – and temper – finally breaking as he backed away. ‘Good night, Hay. Do not contact me again.'

Suddenly there was a sharp crack, and he felt himself stumble, although there was no pain. He was aware of falling to the ground and of blurred, indistinguishable voices echoing around his head. He tried to open his eyes, but all he could see was blackness. Then the voices faded, and he knew nothing at all.

II

Late June 1663

Thomas Chaloner, spy for the Lord Chancellor of England, was pleased when Captain Browne's widow provided him with an excuse to leave London for a few days. The weather was unseasonably hot, and the city's sewage-splattered streets baked and sizzled under an unrelenting sun. Streams and brooks ran dry, tar melted on the ships moored along the Thames, and Chaloner's attic rooms in Chancery Lane were like tiny furnaces. The Lord Chancellor was preoccupied with weighty affairs of state and barely looked up from his paper-strewn desk when Chaloner asked if he might spend a few days across the river on business of his own. He waved a chubby, lace-fringed hand, and said Chaloner could do what he liked, just as long as it did not involve another interruption.

So Chaloner packed a bag and left the sweltering metropolis for the cooler pastures to the south. Or so he thought. He soon learned that Bermondsey was every bit as torrid as the city, and because its inhabitants also used their streets as sewers and rubbish dumps there was no improvement on the stench, either. Furthermore, the reek of urine-soaked hides from Bermondsey's tanneries was pungent enough to make his eyes water and mingled unpleasantly with the more earthy aroma of heat-spoiled beer from the riverside breweries.

While he walked, Chaloner thought about Hannah Browne. They had met when Hannah had accompanied her husband on one of his voyages, and Chaloner had been a passenger, en route to one of his overseas
assignments. Ships demanded a lot of time from their captains, so Hannah was bored and had often sought out Chaloner's company. To pass the time, he had taught her to play the flageolet, though she had never been very good at it. Browne had been delighted with her new skill, though, and had encouraged her to play for him almost every night. It had revealed a softer, more attractive side to that cruel and uncompromising man.

Hannah Browne's letter had asked Chaloner to meet her at Jamaica House, a large, rambling inn with its own bowling green. He pushed open the door, then waited for his eyes to adjust from bright sunlight to the dimness of the room within. Although the window shutters had been thrown open in the vain hope of catching a cooling breeze, the tavern remained dark and gloomy. It smelled of spilled ale, smoke from its patrons' pipes, and sweaty, unwashed bodies.

Chaloner spotted Hannah immediately. She was sitting near the empty hearth, fanning herself with one of the newsbooks that had been left on the tables for customers to read. It warned loyal citizens about the threat of a new Parliamentarian uprising, although no one in Jamaica House seemed overly concerned about the notion of rebellion. Chaloner could not help but notice that the government's official publications had been variously used as beer mats, wedges to combat wobbly tables, and even as a plate for the large pig that obligingly disposed of any leftover food.

Hannah was staring at the ashes in the grate, grief and worry etched into her face. She was an attractive lady in her forties, with brown hair and pale blue eyes. Her flowing skirts and bodice – black, to indicate mourning – were patched and darned, albeit neatly, which was unusual for the wife of a successful and
prosperous sea captain. Chaloner wondered why she was willing to be seen in garments that would normally have been passed on to the servants. Did she think she had donned some sort of disguise? If so, then the ruse had failed, because she held herself in a way that would tell anyone that she hailed from a wealthy home. She did not notice Chaloner until he was next to her.

‘Thomas!' she exclaimed, resting a hand over her heart to indicate he had made her jump. ‘I thought working in England, instead of hostile foreign countries, might have cured you of your penchant for stealth.'

Although stealth
was
a talent Chaloner had honed during his decade employed as a spy, he had certainly not practised it on Hannah that day. He had approached her table openly, and it had been her own preoccupation that had led to her being startled. He was sorry she still mourned Browne so deeply, but not surprised. She had been devoted to her husband, despite his many shortcomings – the spy thought Browne gruff, impatient and opinionated, and he had not liked him at all.