He grasped Athelstan’s shoulder and made the Dominican face him. ‘Why do you pursue this, little friar?’
‘God’s work, Sir John. God gives life and only God can take it away. The first sin committed outside Eden was Cain slaying his brother Abel. He then hurled the challenge which still echoes through all human existence, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” And yes, Sir John, I am, you are, we are.’ Athelstan paused, as if listening to the cooing from the dovecote. The dogs had fallen silent, so the birdsong carried strong and clear. ‘I just feel here in my heart that something is very, very wrong. But what,’ Athelstan sighed, ‘I cannot say. We have a saying where I come from: “The whole world is strange except for thee and me, and even we are a little strange sometimes.” So, just bear with me and let’s continue our survey.’
They visited the stables. Athelstan glimpsed a magnificent destrier in its stall and wondered who the warhorse belonged to. They inspected the other outhouses and entered the kitchen block, where a sweaty-faced galopin or spit-turner informed the ever hungry Sir John that the previous evening they had served leek and venison pie and jugged hare, followed by fresh cheese tartlet. The coroner smacked his lips and took a serving of fresh waffles and a small cup of hippocras for ‘refreshment’s sake’. They continued their tour, oblivious to the messages from an increasingly agitated hostess. Athelstan was insistent on learning all he could about the Golden Oliphant, from the cellar with its barrels, casks, earthenware jars and baskets of dried fruit and vegetables to its wet storeroom, where fish were salted and brined and pates placed along the shelves in their strong crusts or ‘coffins’.
Only then did Athelstan declare himself satisfied and moved into the spacious taproom where Mistress Elizabeth Cheyne, Joycelina, Foxley, the weasel-faced Master of Horse, and Griffin, Master of the Hall, were assembled along with others. Athelstan and Cranston’s arrival was greeted with grumbles and dark looks, despite the free stoups of ale and platters of lait lardel – beaten eggs cooked with lardons and saffron – which had been served. Athelstan gathered that some of those present were guests, others servants – slatterns or, as Cranston tactfully described them, moppets of the bedchamber. Athelstan stood on a bench and, having apologized and delivered a special blessing, issued a spate of questions about what had happened the night before.
He soon established that it had rained. The mastiffs had been loose in the garden but, in the end, nothing remarkable had occurred, or so they said. Master Whitfield, along with his comrade Lebarge, had eaten and drunk deeply here in the taproom before going their separate ways. Lebarge stayed to converse with Hawisa, one of the moppets, whilst Whitfield had climbed the stairs to his chamber. Apparently, Mistress Cheyne pointed out, the Festival of Cokayne was over; the dinner parties and topsy-turvy chamber games had finished, and Whitfield was due to leave the following morning. Eventually the explanations and answers petered out. Athelstan continued to stand on the bench and stare around. He realized he could not detain them for long but insisted that, for the time being at least, all retainers of the Golden Oliphant, together with those who had participated in the Cokayne festivities, should stay lodged under pain of arrest and confinement in Newgate. They could leave to do this or that but they had to return to the Golden Oliphant by nightfall.
Athelstan and Sir John then retired to what Mistress Cheyne called her ‘Exchequer Chamber’, where she kept accounts, a pleasant, wood-panelled room with a large window overlooking the sweet-smelling kitchen garden. The chamber boasted a chancery desk, chairs and stools all polished to gleaming like the waxed floorboards. Athelstan noticed, from the marks on both the wall and floor, that items such as pictures, painted cloths and carpets had been removed. He had observed the same elsewhere on his tour of the house.
Cranston sat behind the desk with Athelstan next to him on a high chancery stool. The friar opened his satchel while Cranston summoned in Elizabeth Cheyne and her principal maid, Joycelina. The two women sat together on the high-backed cushioned settle which Cranston had moved in front of what he called his ‘judgement table’. Athelstan, under the pretext of laying out his writing instruments, closely studied these two ladies of the night. Elizabeh Cheyne, Mistress of the Moppets, was dressed in a dark blue gown fastened at the neck with a silver brooch carved in the shape of a leaping stag; her auburn hair was clamped with jewelled pins and hidden under a gauze veil. Despite her homely dress and head gear, she was harsh-faced and hard-eyed, her bloodless lips twisted into a sour pout. Nevertheless, Athelstan caught traces of her former beauty and grace: the way she sat and the delicate gestures of her long, snow-white fingers as she adjusted her headdress or the brooch on the neck of her gown. Joycelina, her principal maid, was equally demure in her light grey gown with white bands at cuff and neck; thin-faced and sly-eyed, Joycelina exuded the air of a woman very sure of both herself and her talents. She sat, legs crossed, skirts slightly hitched back; on her feet soft, red-gold buskins, well tied, with thickened soles.
‘You have kept us waiting, Sir John. We all have lives, duties and tasks …’
‘As I have mine, Mistress Elizabeth.’ Cranston spread his hands. ‘And principal amongst these is mysterious, violent death such as Master Amaury’s in that chamber on the top gallery of your, some would say, notorious establishment.’
‘Some say a great deal about you, Sir John.’
‘Why did Whitfield hire a chamber on the very top gallery?’ Athelstan asked brusquely.
‘He was a customer, a guest, that’s what he asked for. Perhaps he liked to be away from the sounds of the taproom to enjoy his games.’
‘What games?’
‘Brother, you are in the Golden Oliphant. During the last week of May we celebrate the ancient Festival of Cokayne.’
‘And?’
‘As the poem says.’ Cheyne closed her eyes.
‘We all make happy and dance to the sound
of lovely women being taken and bound.
Nothing to fear, nothing so tame,
but pleasure and laughter without any blame.’
She opened her eyes. ‘You have never heard of such pleasure, Brother?’
‘Oh, yes, it’s common enough in confession when penitants come to be shrived.’
‘But you are not a sinner, Friar?’
‘Greater than you think and one who constantly stands in need of God’s mercy.’
‘Mistress Elizabeth,’ Cranston interjected, ‘you held festivities here not just to make the rafters ring with merriment but for good coin and plenty of custom. Some would claim you run a bawdy house, a place of ill-repute. You host a bevy of whores and prostitutes.’
‘Then, Sir John, arrest me. Let Flaxwith and your bailiffs raid this house. I am sure,’ she added drily, ‘most of them, not to mention the justices I would appear before, will know all about what happens here.’
‘And what is Cokayne here?’ Athelstan insisted. ‘Feasting, music, dancing? The Lord of Misrule and his festive games in a world that’s gone topsy-turvy?’
Cheyne nodded, and Joycelina smirked behind a velvet-mittened hand.
‘Including,’ Athelstan continued, ‘men dressing up as women and women as men. Master Amaury did that, yes? We found a woman’s robe and wig in his bedchamber.’
‘Joycelina knows more about that.’ Cheyne sniffed.
‘I allowed Amaury to be what he wanted and do what he liked,’ the maid murmured, eyes rounded in mock innocence. ‘It brought him some satisfaction, eventually.’
Athelstan decided to change the thrust of his questioning. ‘When did Master Whitfield arrive here?’
‘Three days ago.’
‘He died on his last night here?’