The Nightingale Gallery (15 page)

‘Secondly,’ Athelstan continued writing, ‘we have Brampton, steward of Sir Thomas Springall, who died apparently by his own hand in the garret of Springall’s house.’

Cranston watched Athelstan’s pen race across the page.

‘We know it was murder not suicide, but how and by whom?’

Another question mark.

‘Finally,’ Athelstan concluded, ‘Sir Thomas Springall was murdered in his own bed chamber by a cup of poisoned wine which was placed there by Brampton. But we have Dame Ermengilde’s assurance that no one went up to Sir Thomas’s chamber after Brampton had visited him. Nor did anyone enter the chamber after he retired. We know Sir Thomas drank the poisoned cup inside the room and not at the banquet, otherwise his death would have been public and in company.’

Athelstan wrote carefully. Cranston, craning his neck, followed the words forming quickly in the blue-green ink.

‘So many questions, Sir John, so few answers. So where do we begin?’

Cranston jabbed one stubby finger at Athelstan’s last few words.

‘We will begin there. We have not fully scrutinised Springall’s death. That is the key. If we solve that, the rest will unravel like a piece of cloth.’

‘Easier said than done, Sir John, and you have only had one cup of refreshment!’

‘Enough for the day is the evil thereof, friar. You should know that.’

Athelstan picked up his quill again. ‘We have three riddles. First, Genesis, Chapter Three, Verse One; secondly, the Book of the Apocalypse Chapter Six, Verse Eight. And, thirdly, the shoemaker.’

‘The shoemaker means nothing to me,’ Cranston replied. ‘But the verses...apparently Sir Thomas liked to tease his colleagues, and they would be curious. Vechey probably carried the verses around trying to solve the riddle. Oh,’ the coroner grinned, ‘my apologies for not telling you about Eudo the page boy but, according to my memory, there was nothing suspicious, just a fall from a window.’

The friar made a face. ‘If Chief Justice Fortescue asked for a report, we could pose many questions and few solutions, Sir John.’

‘That is why,’ the coroner barked, getting up, ‘we are off to Newgate to see Solper.’ He grinned at Athelstan. ‘Every morning the Guildhall send me a list of those indicted to hang. Young Solper was on this list, not before time. A rat from the sewer, but one of my best informants. Let us see if he wants to live!’

He strode away, leaving Athelstan scrambling - to clear his writing tray, repack the leather bag and follow him out to the yard. Cranston had already ordered their horses to be brought out into Cheapside. They rode through the market place. The noise, clamour and dusty heat prevented any conversation. Cranston looked around him.

Yes, he would mention this in his treatise, he thought. There should be beadles placed at every corner, each covering his own section of the market place, and others mingling with the crowd. This would cut down on the number of naps, foists and pickpockets who plagued these places like the locusts of Egypt. His mind drifted and he let his horse find its path through the crowds. Athelstan pulled his hood over his head as he felt the heat of the sun on the back of his neck. He wondered what Sir John Cranston wanted at Newgate.

They moved out of Cheapside up towards the old city wall which housed the infamous gaol, past the small church of Nicholas Le Quern near Blow-Bladder Street and into the great open space before the prison. This was really no more than two huge towers linked by a high curtain wall. The area in front of Newgate, Athelstan thought, must be the nearest thing to hell on earth. There was a market down the centre, the stalls facing out, but the air and ground were polluted with the blood, dirt and ordure which ran down from the shambles where the animals were slaughtered and the gore allowed to find its own channel. Sometimes the blood oozed into great black puddles over which huge swarms of flies hovered. Athelstan was glad that Cranston had decided to ride.

The market place itself was full of people, jostling and fighting their way to the stalls, their tempers not helped by the heat, dust and flies. In front of the prison gate every type of disreputable under heaven was now thronging; pickpockets, knaves, apple squires, as well as the relatives of debtors and other people trying to gain access to their loved ones. Cranston and Athelstan stabled their horses in a dingy tavern and walked back, forcing their way through to the great prison door. Outside, standing on a beer barrel, a member of the ward watch rang a hand bell which tolled like a death knell through the noisy clamour of the place.

‘You prisoners,’ the fellow was shouting, ‘that are within for wickedness and sin, know now that after many mercies you are appointed to die just before noon tomorrow!’

On and on he went, shouting the usual rubbish about God’s mercy and justice over all. Cranston and Athelstan pushed by him and hammered at the great gate. A grille was opened, revealing an evil, narrow-faced, yellow-featured man with eyes of watery blue and a mouth as thin as a vice.

‘What do you want?’ the fellow snapped, his lips curled back to reveal blackened stumps of teeth. Cranston pushed his face to the grille.

‘I am Sir John Cranston, king’s coroner in the city. Now open up!’

The grille slammed shut and they heard the noise of footsteps. A small postern door in the great gate opened. A guard stepped out with a club, forcing others back as Cranston and Athelstan were waved in. They shoved by, the stale odour of the gatekeeper’s body making them choke. They stepped into the lodge or small chamber where the keeper always greeted new prisoners.

‘I wish to see the keeper, Fitzosbert!’ Cranston snapped.

The fellow grinned and took them along a dark, smelly passageway into another chamber where the keeper of Newgate, Fitzosbert, was squatting behind a great oak table like a king enthroned in his palace. Athelstan had heard about the fellow but this was the first time he had met him. Indeed, anyone who had any business with the law in London knew Fitzosbert’s fearsome reputation. A very rich and therefore powerful man, as head keeper of Newgate, Fitzosbert had the pick of all the prisoners’ possessions as well as the sale of concessions, be it beds, sheets, coals, drink, food, even a wench. Anyone who entered the prison had to pay a fee and Athelstan recollected that one of his parishioners, too poor to pay, had been beaten up for his poverty whilst Fitzosbert had stood by, smiling all the time. The keeper, Athelstan concluded, was not a pleasant man and on seeing him the friar believed every story he had heard. He had a louse-ridden face, dirty blond hair and carmine-painted lips. Fitzosbert’s sunken cheeks were liberally rouged and this made his bulbous grey eyes seem even more fish-like. The friar just stared at him and concluded that Fitzosbert would have liked to have been born a woman. Only that would explain his short lace-trimmed jerkin and the tight red hose. Athelstan smiled, revelling in fantasies of revenge. One day perhaps, he thought, the bugger might be caught for sodomy and Athelstan vowed that for the first time in his life he might attend an execution. Fitzosbert, however, had already dismissed him with a flicker of his eyes and was staring coolly at Sir John as if to prove he was not cowed by any show of authority.

‘You have warrants, Sir?’

‘I don’t need warrants!’ Cranston snapped. ‘I am the king’s coroner. I wish to see a prisoner.’

‘Who?’

‘Nathaniel Solper.’

Fitzosbert smiled. ‘And your business with him?’

‘My own.’

Again Fitzosbert smiled though Athelstan had seen more humour and warmth on the silver plate of a coffin lid.

‘You must explain, Sir John.’ The fellow placed two effete ring-bedecked hands on the desk before him. ‘I cannot allow anyone, even the regent himself, to come wandering through my prison asking to see prisoners, especially such as Solper. He’s a condemned man.’

‘He’s not yet hanged and I wish to speak with him, now!’ Cranston leaned over the table, placing his hands over those of Fitzosbert and pressing down hard until the keeper’s face paled and beads of sweat broke out on his brow.

‘Now look, Master Fitzosbert,’ Cranston continued slowly, ‘if you wish, I will leave now. And tomorrow I will come back with warrants duly signed and sealed by the regent, and accompanied by a group of soldiers from the Tower. Then I will go through this prison, see Solper, and perhaps . . .’ He smiled. ‘We all have friends. Perhaps petitions could be presented in the Commons. Petitions demanding an investigation of your accounts. I am sure the Barons of the Exchequer would be interested in the profits to be made in the king’s prison, and in what happens to money entrusted to you.’

Fitzosbert pursed his lips. ‘I agree!’ he muttered.

Cranston stood back.

‘And now, Sir, Solper!’

The keeper got up and minced out of the room. Athelstan and Cranston followed him, the friar fascinated by the man’s swaying walk. He was about to nudge Cranston, congratulate him on his skills of persuasion, when he heard a sound and turned quickly. Two huge gaolers, with the bodies of apes and the faces of cruel mastiffs, padded silently behind them. Fitzosbert stopped and turned.

‘Gog and Magog!’ he sang out. ‘They are my bodyguards, Sir John, my assistants in case I am attacked.’

Cranston’s hand flew immediately to his sword. He pulled out the great blade, tapping the toe of his boot with it.

‘This is my servant, Master Fitzosbert! May I remind you that I carry the king’s warrant. If anything happens to me, it’s treason!’

‘Of course’ Fitzosbert’s smile made him look more hideous than ever. They walked on, wandering through a warren of tortuous passageways where the noise and stench grasped Athelstan by the throat. He had heard that Newgate was a hell-hole but now he experienced it first hand and understood why some prisoners went quickly insane. There were many who talked and sang incessantly, whilst others, particularly the women, who knew they were not there for too long, refused to clean themselves and lay about like sows in their own filth. Deeper into the prison they walked, past one open chamber where the limbs of quartered men lay like joints of meat on a butcher’s stall, waiting to be soaked with salt and cumin seed before being tarred. Deeper into the hell, Athelstan shivered, folding his arms into the voluminous sleeves of his robe. Mad faces pushed against the grilles in the doors, tortured ones begging for mercy. The guilty baying their hatred, the innocent quietly pleading for a hearing. At last Fitzosbert stopped at one cell door and clicked his fingers. One of the giants shuffled forward, a ring of keys in his huge fist. A key was inserted in the lock and the door opened. Fitzosbert whispered something and the giant nodded and pushed his way into the cell. They heard screams, kicks, the sickening thud of a punch, and the ogre roaring Solper’s name. He reappeared, grasping the unfortunate by the scruff of his shabby collar. Fitzosbert went up to the prisoner and tapped him gently on the cheek.

‘Master Solper, you are fortunate. You have important visitors. Someone I believe you know, Sir John Cranston, and his—’ he looked coyly at Athelstan ‘—companion.’

The friar ignored him, staring at Solper. The prisoner was nothing remarkable: young, white-faced, and so filthy it was difficult to tell where one garment ended and another began.

‘We need a chamber to talk to this man,’ demanded Cranston.

The head keeper shrugged and led them back up a passageway to a cleaner empty cell. The door was left open. Cranston waved Solper to a seat.

‘Master keeper!’ he called.

Fitzosbert came back into the room and Cranston laid some silver on the table.

‘Some wine, bread, and two of your cleanest cups!’

The head keeper scooped up the coins as deftly as any tax collector. A few minutes later one of the giant gaolers pushed back into the cell, carrying a tray with all Cranston had asked for. He placed it on the table and left slamming the door behind him. The young prisoner just sat nervously on a stool watching Athelstan. Cranston took one of the cups and a small white loaf and thrust them into his hands.

‘Well, Solper, we meet again.’

The man licked his lips nervously.

Cranston grinned wolfishly. ‘You have been condemned?’

‘Yesterday, before the Justices,’ the young man squeaked in reply, his voice surprisingly high.

‘On what charge?’

‘Counterfeiting coins.’

‘Ah, yes! Let me introduce you, Brother,’ Cranston said. ‘Master Solper, counterfeiter, thief, footpad and seller of relics. Two years ago, Master Solper could get you anything; a piece of cloth from the napkins used at the Last Supper, a hair from the beard of St Joseph, part of a toy once used by the Baby Christ. Master Solper has tried his hand at - well, God only knows! You are marked?’

The young man nodded and pulled down his dirty jerkin. Athelstan saw the huge ‘F’ branded into his right shoulder, proclaiming him a felon.

‘Twice indicted, the third time caught,’ Cranston intoned. ‘You are due to hang, and yet you may evade justice.’

Athelstan saw the hope flare in the young man’s eyes. He squirmed nervously on the stool.

‘What do you want? What do I have to do?’

‘The Sons of Dives, have you ever heard of them?’

The young man pulled a face.

‘Have you or haven’t you?’

‘Yes, everybody has. In the guilds,’ the young man continued, ‘there are always small groups or societies prepared to lend money at high interest rates to the nobles or to other merchants. They take names and titles: the Keepers of the Gate, the Guardians of the Coffers.’ He shrugged. ‘The Sons of Dives are another group.’

‘And their leader?’

‘Springall, Sir Thomas Springall. He’s well known.’

‘Now, another matter.’

Cranston delved into a small leather pouch he had taken from his saddle-bag, undid the cord at the neck and drew out a small vase containing the poison he had taken from Springall’s house. He unstoppered the jar and handed it over.

‘Smell that!’

The young man gingerly lifted the rim to his nose, took one sniff, made a face and handed it back.

‘Poison!’

‘Good man, Solper, poison. This is the real reason I came, I half guessed who the Sons of Dives were. But if I wanted to buy poison, a rare exotic poison such as belladonna, crushed diamond or arsenic, where would I go?’