Dunheved murmured in agreement. Demontaigu sat tense. I returned to my writing.
‘Secondly, Leygrave. Despite being wary and cautious after his close comrade’s death, he fell in the same way from the same place. He too took off his war-belt. More mysteriously still, he actually climbed on to the ledge, but why? Who else was there?’
‘You are sure of that?’ Dunheved asked. ‘You saw the imprint of his boots?’
‘Yes, yes,’ I replied absent-mindedly.
‘Is it possible,’ Demontaigu asked, ‘that both men were in the tower with someone they trusted, and were simply pushed from behind and fell over the ledge?’
‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘We’ve been there. The ledge is broad. I could understand if they were standing on the edge of a precipice. In the belfry, however, if they were shoved, they would simply grasp the ledge and turn around; they would fight, resist, raise the alarm. There is not much room in that tower. A struggle would mean one person, sooner or later, hitting one of those bells. Yet both Leygrave and Lanercost fell without a sound. No disturbance was heard, no mark of conflict found.’
‘Yet you claim Brother Eusebius saw something?’ Demontaigu asked
‘Oh, I don’t think it’s a claim.’ I turned and glanced at them both. ‘Eusebius did see something. He was a magpie; he liked silver pieces. He was waiting for his moment to confront the killer himself and secure a reward. He also revelled in his knowledge. Eusebius loved to portray himself as a fool, then try and prove that he was as sharp-witted as the next man. He made some drawings in the bell tower, rough etchings carved on the wall, but what are they? An eagle, a bat? A dog, a wolf or the royal leopard of England? And his remark to the prior that a bat could be as cunning as a dog? Or those two words he had the Pilgrim scrawl on the white-plastered charnel house — lux et tenebrae — light and darkness. What does all that mean? Whom did he see? Who followed Eusebius down into the charnel house and staved in his skull?’ I turned back to the piece of vellum and wrote down my questions. Behind me, Dunheved muttered a prayer to himself.
‘Thirdly: Kennington and his two guards.’
‘Now that’s a great mystery,’ Demontaigu broke in. ‘Those men were armed and alert, watching the seas as well as Tynemouth itself. They knew a hostile force was lurking outside. I have wondered. .’ Demontaigu snapped his fingers and stared around. ‘Duckett’s Tower had a secret entrance. We know that. The queen used it to escape. Is it possible that someone came up that secret entranceway? Don’t forget, it was the dead of night.’
‘He’d have to pass other chambers,’ Dunheved broke in. ‘He might alert them.’
‘No,’ Demontaigu shook his head, ‘not if he was moving stealthily.’
‘True, true,’ I murmured. ‘Remember what the Castellan showed us. Outside each door there was a hook and a latch. As the assassin passed he could have secured each door, as well as the one to the tower top itself, to give him enough time if the alarm was raised.’
‘But this is where my theory fails.’ Demontaigu pulled a face. ‘The assassin, and there must have been more than one, would go through that doorway, but Kennington and his two guards were there. They’d draw their swords and daggers and raise the alarm, yet no one heard a sound. Nevertheless, someone definitely went on to that tower, overcame those three warriors then hurled them to their deaths on the rocks below.’
I busily wrote this down. Behind me Dunheved and Demontaigu were discussing in hushed whispers what might have happened in Duckett’s Tower.
‘Fourthly,’ I called out, looking over my shoulder at them, ‘Tynemouth itself. Bruce was clearly informed about the queen: where her residence was and how vulnerable she would be if she tried to leave through that tunnel on to the beach. Now, such an entrance was not secret, which explains the timing of the assault. As the castle was attacked from the front, the Scots dispatched a war party on to the beach.’
‘Deus solus,’ Dunheved whispered, ‘et Maria ancilla Trinitatis — only God and Mary, the handmaid of the Trinity, saved her.’
Demontaigu murmured in agreement as I turned back to the vellum.
‘Fifthly: the Pilgrim from the Wastelands. He arrives in York hungry for justice and revenge, bringing a scurrilous story about the king.’
‘But was it scurrilous?’ Demontaigu asked. ‘If our noble lord was powerful and vigorous, such a tale would be dismissed as a ribald fable, tavern talk, but now all are prepared to believe anything about him.’
I didn’t object.
‘Sixthly: Ausel. He confirmed our suspicions about what happened at Tynemouth. He also made the heinous suggestion that the queen and the child she carried were not only to be captured and held hostage, but even killed. .’
I was surprised by Dunheved’s reaction, as if my words kindled the rage twisting silently within him. He sprang to his feet, lips bared like a dog, eyes darting to the left and right.
‘A filthy abomination,’ he whispered. ‘Whoever plotted that deserves the death of Simon the Magus.’ He walked up and down the room, rubbing his hands, muttering in Latin to himself. I watched him curiously. Dunheved could act the calm priest but really he was a firebrand. He had that flame of fanaticism so common in his order; little wonder the Dominicans were used as the inquisitors of God, to root out heresy and schism.
‘Calm yourself, Brother,’ Demontaigu murmured. ‘For the love of God, a clear mind and a sharp wit will resolve these mysteries, not rage.’
‘But it’s still treachery, Bertrand.’ Dunheved sat down on his stool. ‘Treason of the most vile kind. The innocent queen and her child seized by Scottish raiders, humiliated, violated perhaps. .’
‘But let us think coolly,’ I declared. ‘Let us argue the case like a question in the schools. Would Bruce have done that? How would he answer to the courts of Europe, to the Holy Father in Avignon and, more importantly, to Isabella’s father Philip in Paris?’
‘Oh, I am sure,’ Demontaigu brusquely intervened, ‘that he would make his excuses. An unforeseen accident. How he’d given strict instructions for this not to happen. The fortunes of war. Who would he really blame? His men attacking an English fortress, or Edward of England and Gaveston his catamite leaving a young queen, enceinte, in a lonely fortress on those brooding, bleak cliffs.’
I had to agree with Demontaigu’s logic. In the final conclusion Edward and Gaveston would have been held responsible by all. Dunheved noisily took a deep sigh to calm himself.
‘What is the root of this source? Now look, mistress, I was in the rose garden when you and Demontaigu came to inform Lanercost. Rumours later swept the court of how a party of Templars had been massacred out on the moors. Lanercost’s brother was one of these. Only after that massacre did these murderous mysteries begin.’ Dunheved glanced out of the corner of his eye at Demontaigu.
‘I know where you are leading, Dominican,’ Demontaigu declared tersely, ‘but I swear on the Gospels, even the sacrament itself: my brothers were not responsible for Lanercost, Leygrave or Kennington’s deaths.’
‘Who could it be?’ Dunheved’s voice held a hint of challenge. ‘The murders began then. Mistress Mathilde, you and I were in church. I was celebrating mass when the alarm was raised about Lanercost. You and I were with the king’s chamber council when Leygrave fell to his death. We were all with the queen in the Prior’s Lodgings at Tynemouth. .’
‘One other item,’ I declared. ‘The Pilgrim told us about Lanercost and Leygrave going to the Pot of Fire in Pig Sty Alley; both Aquilae were aggrieved, deep in their cups. They talked of treachery and treason, which makes me ponder the conclusion: was Gaveston himself responsible for the deaths of those close retainers, and if so, why and how?’