‘Did you strike your assassin?’ Athelstan murmured aloud. ‘How could such veterans be so easily despatched?’ Athelstan steeled himself against the agony of death which contorted their faces in a last hideous grimace as they fought for their final breath. The barrel tables and stools had been overturned. The corpses lay in different positions across the chamber, indications of an assassin who had managed to divide his opponents. Athelstan walked around the room tapping at the wall, stopping to inspect the chafing dish full of spent ash. The archer’s cloaks and bundles of clothing had been spread out to form makeshift beds. He could tell by the creases and folds that they had been lying there when the assassin struck. Athelstan crouched and went quickly through their saddlebags and pouches. He found nothing untoward, just the paltry remnants of professional soldiers – men who had wandered far from their woodland villages to serve in the royal array then stayed to seal indentures for military service in this castle or that. He rose and continued his inspection. On a bench table near the wall empty platters were stacked, stained horn-spoons, a small tun of ale, still quite full, and bowls of dried fruit and congealed spiced capon. Athelstan stooped and sniffed the platters but could detect only the sharp tang of spices and herbs. Around the room lay tankards; he picked one of these up and observed the dregs, but he could smell nothing tainted. Meanwhile, Cranston and Thorne remained deep in conversation whilst Mooncalf stood rubbing his arms and stamping his feet. Athelstan called him over.
‘Fetch a wash tub.’ He smiled at the ostler’s blank gaze. ‘A wash tub,’ he repeated. ‘An empty one. I want you to collect the tankards, the ale-tun, bowls and platters and put them in it along with any scraps or dregs.’ Athelstan dug into his purse and handed over one of his precious pennies. ‘Do that,’ he urged, ‘and keep them safe. Collect the same from the camp outside and, once I have inspected it, the upper chamber. Do you understand?’ Mooncalf nodded and hurried off, ignoring his own master’s shouted questions.
‘He has got work to do,’ Athelstan called out. ‘Now, Master Thorne, Sir John.’ Athelstan paused, his gaze caught by a large bowl of water with ragged napkins beside it. He went across and stared down at the dirt-strewn water.
‘The lavarium,’ Thorne called out. ‘The water was once clean and hot. Brother, what do you want me to do?’
‘Master Thorne, Sir John?’ Athelstan picked up a dagger and weighed it in his hands. ‘You have fought in battles. Each of you is, I suppose, a master-at-arms. Have these weapons been used recently in a fight?’ Cranston and Thorne needed no second bidding. Taking up some of the fallen blades they pointed to the scrapes, the streaks, the nicks on the steel and the flecks of blood around their hilts and handles. Athelstan nodded as Cranston explained his conclusion that the weapons had been used very recently. Athelstan shook his head in amazement.
‘Why, Brother?’ Cranston asked. ‘Do you think all this,’ he gestured around, ‘is a mummer’s play, some masque staged to mock and hide the truth?’
‘It’s just a thought,’ Athelstan replied. ‘But that’s impossible. So, let us view the upper storey.’ They climbed the ladder through the trapdoor into the more luxurious solar of the Barbican. The rounded walls were plastered white, rope matting covered the floor and there were cushioned stools, candle holders and a triptych celebrating the Passion of St Sebastian. Nonetheless, the chamber reeked of the same hideous stench as the chamber below, whilst the ghastly sight of four corpses, brutally cut and hacked, chilled the blood and darkened the soul. Athelstan blessed the room before walking around. He noted the wine jugs, goblets, tankards and platters of congealed food; the tankards were clean, whilst the small cask of ale stood untouched.
‘Marsen cursed me,’ Thorne declared. ‘Said he did not want my stinking ale, only the best Bordeaux out of Gascony.’
Athelstan heard Mooncalf busy below. He went to the trapdoor and shouted that once the ostler was finished he must join them. The friar then moved from corpse to corpse. Thorne pointed out Marsen garbed in a costly gown. The tax collector was sprawled against the wall drenched in his own heart’s blood, an ugly white-faced, red-haired man with a thick moustache and straggly beard. He looked grotesque, all twisted, squatting in his own dried blood. Mauclerc lay on his back, fingers curled as if frozen in shock at the wounds which sliced his flesh. The two whores, their scarlet wigs askew, gaudy painted faces now hideous, had been despatched into the dark with deep lacerating cuts. The two women were unarmed. Mauclerc had drawn a dagger which lay near him, but there was nothing to suggest that Marsen had time to protect himself.
‘The exchequer coffer.’ Cranston pointed across to where the chest, its concave lid thrown back, perched on a table stool. ‘My Lord of Gaunt,’ Cranston grumbled, ‘will be furious, not to mention Master Thibault.’ Athelstan studied the coffer closely. It was fashioned out of sturdy wood reinforced with iron bands. He had seen similar in the exchequer and chancery of his own mother house at Blackfriars. The chest was slightly marked but sound, its heavy lid held secure by stout hinges: it would be difficult to force when clasped shut by its three locks, yet there was no sign this had happened.
‘A key to each of them, yes, Sir John?’ Athelstan queried.
‘Undoubtedly. One would be carried by Marsen; Mauclerc would hold the second.’
‘And the third?’
‘I would hazard a guess that would be Hugh of Hornsey, who seems to have disappeared.’ The coroner clapped his gauntleted hands. ‘Oh, Satan’s tits! This is a filthy, bubbling pot. My Lord of Gaunt will want answers.’
‘My Lord of Gaunt will have to learn patience.’ Athelstan now stood near the window shutters. So far he had avoided this. He recalled what Mooncalf had told him: the only real evidence left by the killer was a piece of costly parchment cut in a neat square and pinned with a slender tack to the wood. The writing was clerkly, that of a professional scribe. The letters carefully formed, the message most threatening: ‘“Mene, mene, teqel and parsin,”’ Athelstan murmured. ‘The same warning carved on the walls of the King of Babylon’s palace by the finger of God and translated by the prophet Daniel. ‘I have numbered, I have weighed in the balance and I have found wanting.’
‘Beowulf!’
Athelstan turned quickly.
‘Beowulf!’ the coroner grimly repeated. ‘You have not heard of him, Brother?’
‘Of course. The Saxon warrior hero, the keeper of the shield-ring, the slayer of the monster Grendel and its mother.’
‘It’s not that,’ Thorne declared, ‘is it, Sir John?’
Athelstan blinked and took the parchment down; it felt soft and yielding. ‘I’ve heard something …’
‘A skilled assassin,’ Cranston explained, ‘hired by, or certainly working for the Upright Men. He, she, they – whoever the demon is – has wreaked grievous damage.’
‘Of course.’ Athelstan breathed. ‘Justice Folevile and an escort of three men-at-arms at Ospring on the road to Canterbury. They stayed at The Silver Harp. All four were brutally murdered.’
‘Robert de Stokes,’ Cranston took up the story, ‘and his clerk collector of the poll tax in south Essex. Both were found dead, stripped naked in a filthy ditch.’ Cranston waved his hand. ‘And so on, and so on. A true will-o’-the-wisp, a sinister shape-shifter, a Hell-born wraith.’ Cranston warmed to his theme. ‘Beowulf being Saxon stands for the Great Community of the Realm against their Norman French masters. Gaunt, of course, is the monster Grendel, and his mother the power which spawned him.’
‘And Beowulf was responsible for all this murderous mayhem?’ Athelstan shook his head in wonderment. ‘Master Thorne, I would be grateful if you would help Mooncalf. I want every cup, platter and morsel heaped in that washtub. Meanwhile …’ Athelstan and Cranston searched the chamber as well as the panniers and chancery satchels of the murdered men. These were full of memoranda, billae, indentures and rolls of greasy thumb-marked parchment. The more he searched the more suspicious Athelstan became.