The Relic Murders (15 page)

'Only once,' Oswald replied. 'Well, no, perhaps on two occasions, we used the latrines, a small closet down the gallery near the cellar.'

'Most of the time,' Imelda intervened, 'we were in the kitchen. We would bake bread

'How many loaves?'

'Twenty-eight to thirty,' she replied. 'We took nothing with us. Lord Egremont insisted on that. The meats and other ingredients were already there.'

'We baked and cooked,' Oswald explained. 'Cut up vegetables, cleaned the traunchers and platters: prepared oatmeal for breakfast the following morning and set the table for the meal at nine o'clock.'

'Were you always together?' I asked.

'I insisted on that,' Cornelius retorted.

'And you never noticed anything amiss?' Benjamin asked.

'No, sir!' Oswald and Imelda shook their heads.

'How was Jonathan?' Cornelius asked.

'Silent, preoccupied. Rather nervous,' Oswald replied. 'I heard one of the guards say he would take a lot of food but never finish his meal.'

'They were all nervous,' Imelda offered. 'Nervous?' I asked.

'They didn't like the manor. They claimed it was haunted. One guard even said he heard sounds at night.' 'Sounds?' Cornelius asked.

'I don't know what they meant,' she replied. 'But the old manor did creak. You should stay there yourself, sir. You'll find out.'

'But there couldn't have been anyone hidden away?' Oswald added. 'I noticed when the guards were walking up and down, the floorboards groaned, the stairs creaked. Master—' He glanced anxiously at Cornelius.
‘
We have been told that they are all dead. One of the soldiers at the gate said their throats had been cut. It would take a small army to do that.' He laughed nervously. 'Not a cook and his wife. Look—' He opened a small, leather bag he carried. 'There are our draft bills: we have the finished accounts at home.' He pushed the scraps into Benjamin's hand. 'We were promised they would be paid.'

'And they will be,' Benjamin reassured him, getting to his
feet

He thanked the couple and they left. Cornelius stretched out his legs, folded his arms and leaned against the wall: with his heavy-lidden eyes half closed, he looked as if he were sleeping.

'What was Jonathan like?' Benjamin asked.

'A former officer in the Imperial Guard,' Cornelius replied.

'And he would take orders from you?'

'No, from Lord Theodosius, as I am supposed to.'

'Supposed to?' Benjamin asked.

'I'm different from the rest.' Cornelius smiled wryly. 'I am the Emperor's man in peace and war: his personal emissary. The rest are Egremont's men. Why do you ask?'

'There's no chance,' I volunteered, grasping the drift of my master's questions, 'that Egremont would give separate orders to Jonathan?'

'Why should he?' Cornelius retorted. 'How could Jonathan be part of anything which led to his own death and those of his companions, not to mention the theft of the Orb. Whatever you are thinking, Master Benjamin, Lord Egremont has a great deal of explaining to do when he returns to the Imperial Court. No, no.' Cornelius shook his head. 'The real problem is how fifteen men, armed and dangerous, were all executed one after the other with no sign of resistance or any form of struggle. No one raised the alarm. No one saw anyone enter or leave.' Cornelius got to his feet.

He walked to the window. Castor padded up and began to lick at his hand.

'This is a cursed place,' Cornelius muttered, staring out at the manor. 'I need to think, reflect.' He opened his pouch and tossed two keys on a ring at Benjamin. 'Malevel Manor is now yours.'

'The Orb could still be there,' Benjamin offered.

Cornelius shook his head. 'I doubt it.' He picked up his cloak. 'I have to return to the city, to take counsel with Lord Theodosius. Will you see to the removal of the corpses?'

Benjamin agreed. Cornelius went back up to his chamber and, a few minutes later, we heard him leaving.

The next few hours were confusing. Benjamin ordered the soldiers into the manor. A cart had been hired and the corpses, including that of the old lady Isabella, were piled on, and hidden beneath a canvas sheet. Already the camp outside was beginning to break up, the soldiers going back to the Tower or Baynards Castle. By sunset all were gone: only Benjamin, myself and Castor remained. We closed the gates and, at Benjamin's insistence, locked ourselves in Malevel Manor. We were armed, and Castor was with us. Nevertheless, I'll never forget that night. Malevel in the daylight was grim enough but, when darkness fell and the wind drove against the shutters, I believe I walked with, ghosts. The galleries and passageways were narrow and gloomy. The air became stale and every step we took made the floorboards creak. Both Benjamin and I were apprehensive, as if someone was watching us. Time and again, as we searched that house from cellar to garret, I would whirl round and look back down a shadow-filled gallery only to find there was nothing there. Even Castor lost his aggression. Now and again he would stop and whimper as if the animal could see things
we
did not. Nevertheless, Benjamin was thorough. We carried torches and searched every room, every fireplace. We found nothing! At last, long after midnight, we returned to the kitchen. We sat at the table, drinking some of the wine left, even cutting portions of the meat and bread but there was nothing amiss: no potion, no evidence that the garrison might have been poisoned. Benjamin sat, chin in hand.

'Twenty-four hours ago,' he began, 'some time, about now, Roger, fifteen men were brutally murdered and the Orb stolen. But how?'

'This place is haunted,' I replied. 'A gateway for demons. You saw the old woman's skeleton.'

'Ghosts may walk,' Benjamin replied. 'But they don't cut throats nor do they carry arbalests.'

'They walk silently,' I replied. 'Master, how could an assassin even walk round this place without being noticed? Every step he took would make a noise.'

Benjamin got up and walked to where the blackjacks had been cleaned and put on a table.

'One thing I did notice,' he mused. 'No food was left on the table. There were no dirty pots in the scullery.'

'Which means?' I asked.

'Either they were killed before the evening meal or long after. However, if they were killed after, the remains of their dirty traunchers and blackjacks would have been left out for the cooks to wash the following day.'

'So they must have been killed before?'

'But that can't be,' Benjamin replied. 'The cooks told us they set the tables for the evening meal, yet we found no trace of that.'

'Unless Jonathan ordered it to be cleared himself?' I declared. 'I have another theory.'

I explained about Lord Charon and my meeting with him: the initials 'I.M.' on the hangings in his chamber were identical to those on the locket buried with the remains of poor Lady Isabella. Benjamin, eyes closed, heard me out.

'It's possible.' He opened his eyes. 'It's possible that in his own devilish way, Lord Charon had a hand in this business.' He tapped my hand. 'You didn't tell me about your meeting in the sewers?'

'You never asked,' I retorted. 'And it's something I'd best soon forget.'

Benjamin walked over towards where we had laid out our bedding for the night.

'Ah, that is not a matter for us, Roger, but for the authorities. The capture of Lord Charon will need troops.' He took off his boots, lay down on the bedding and pulled a blanket up to his face. 'A house of secrets,' he murmured then fell asleep.

I sat for a while listening to the house creak. I grew agitated as I realised the Great Beast would soon make his anger felt. I went out into the passageway, took a torch from its sconce and stood at the entrance to the cellar. Castor, who had been asleep in the corner of the kitchen, roused himself and followed me out. He stood silently beside me as I stared into the darkness.

What had taken Castor down there in the first place? My master's questions about the setting out of the table and the cleaning of cups bothered me as well but I was too tired to think. I returned the torch, went back into the kitchen and lay down on the bedding with Castor sprawled beside me. I fell into an uneasy sleep thronged by nightmares, bloody-mouthed spectres in ghostly galleries and other terrors of the dark. (Oh, don't laugh at poor Shallot. I have seen ghosts! I have been at Hampton Court on the anniversary of Catherine Howard's arrest, and heard her scream as she did in life, as her ghost ran down to the royal chapel to beg the Great Beast's forgiveness for having slept with Thomas Culpepper. Once, following a wager with Master Walsingham, the Queen's master spy, I spent a night in the Bloody Tower. I was locked away in a cell - the result of some stupid remark or jest at court. I felt the ghosts throng around me: Thomas Cromwell, Henry's great minister who fell from power after taking lunch with the Duke of Norfolk. Or the poor Princes stifled in their beds. True, I never saw anything but, the next morning, when the captain of the guard came to open the cell and take me to the officers' quarters to break my fast, he stopped me on the stairs and said, 'Sir Roger, you will have to pay your wager.' 'Why?' I asked.

'Well, sir,' the fellow replied. 'You said you would be alone, but when I looked through the grille at midnight you were asleep in your bed
.’

⁴
Of course I was,' I scoffed. 'I was drunk.'

'But there was someone with you.'

My blood ran cold. 'Who?' I asked.

'I don't know,' the soldier replied. 'Just a cowled and hooded figure sitting on a chair beside your bed staring down at you.'

Oh yes, I believe in ghosts and that's the last night I ever slept in the Tower!)

The next morning the terrors of the living woke us: Doctor Agrippa, Kempe and Cornelius pounding on the door. I have never seen the Doctor so agitated. He brushed by me and swept into the kitchen: clutching his broad-brimmed hat, he looked like a country parson ready to pray, except for those eyes, which had turned pebble-black.

'The King wants your heads.' He glared at Benjamin. 'Either that or his Orb back.'

'I didn't steal it!'

(Always the same old Shallot! Make sure you whine and protest your innocence!)

'He doesn't give a fig for that,' Kempe intervened. He looked dreadful; unshaven, with black shadows under red-rimmed eyes. 'His Grace,' he continued, 'held a banquet last night in Lord Egremont's honour. He drank deeply to restore his good humour but, beforehand, his rage can only be believed.' Kempe pointed to his ear which was red and swollen. 'He hit everyone he could!'

'And he'll not get my master's ships!' Egremont stood in the doorway. 'No ships for the English king,' he continued, walking into the kitchen. 'No favours for you, Sir Thomas. Master Benjamin, being the Cardinal's nephew will not save you!'

'Our heads are our own!' Benjamin snapped back. 'It won't be the first time the King has been displeased with us.' He shrugged one shoulder. 'At least for a while. Anyway, why are you here?'

Egremont sat himself down at the table. 'To see if anything new has been discovered.'

'Yes and no,' my master replied.

He described our stay in the house the previous night, how every sound and footfall seemed to echo like a bell, and how difficult it would be for even the most soft-footed assassin to steal along the galleries.

'Naturally,' Egremont scoffed. 'That's why this house was chosen. It's lonely, off the beaten track and easily guarded, or so I thought. Is that all, Master Daunbey?'

'No, the discovery of Lady Isabella's remains yesterday has opened one interesting possibility. Isn't that so, Roger?'

I then described my meeting with Lord Charon and his ownership of one of the Malevel tapestries.

'It's possible,' I concluded, 'that Lord Charon heard, as he does everything in London, that the Orb had been moved here. He might well have organised the bloody onslaught to kill the guards and steal the relic'

'I have heard of Charon,' Kempe intervened. 'The sheriffs of London would dearly love to finger his collar and those of his coven.'

'Is it possible to trace him?' Cornelius asked. 'This wolfshead, this outlaw? And, if he has the Orb, what will he try and do with it?'

'Break it up,' Kempe replied. 'Sell the diamonds. Cut the Orb into gold pieces.'

Egremont hit the table with his fist.

Sir Thomas continued, 'Or he might try to find a buyer, either here or abroad.'

The door opened and one of Kempe's men came in and thrust a small scroll into his hands. Sir Thomas unfolded and studied it.