Candle Flame by Paul Doherty Read Free Book Online Page B

Athelstan opened his own chancery bag and passed round the gauntlet, the piece of chainmail and Beowulf’s proclamation. He found it difficult to judge their individual response to each item. Martha and young Foulkes simply passed these on, though Sir Robert appeared agitated. Athelstan could not decide whether the items were the cause of Sir Robert’s resentment at being detained here for questioning. Friar Roger, however, read the proclamation and laughed quietly to himself.
    ‘Marsen,’ he glanced down the table at Athelstan, ‘was truly found wanting.’ He crossed himself swiftly. ‘Though who found him so is a mystery.’
    Athelstan nodded in agreement.
    ‘If there is nothing else,’ the Franciscan rose to his feet, ‘search my chamber if you wish – there is little to find. I have business in the city, Brother …?’
    Athelstan nodded at Cranston.
    ‘You may all go,’ the coroner declared. ‘But you must return. No one is to leave this tavern without my written permission. By all means go about your business but this is your place of residence until these matters are resolved. If you disobey I shall have you put to the horn as a wolfshead, an outlaw.’
    The guests rose and left, followed by Thorne, his wife and Mooncalf, who had been standing on the threshold. Once they had left the refectory, Athelstan collected the items he had distributed.
    ‘Sir John, what do you think?’ Athelstan closed the door and rested against a metal milk churn.
    ‘They have, all of them, a tale to tell and a truth to hide. However, one thing unites them all: they hated Marsen.’
    Athelstan, lost in own thoughts, absent-mindedly agreed. Cranston said he would supervise the removal of the corpses and everything else and bustled out. Athelstan sat down at the table, staring at the painted cloth pinned to the far wall depicting a Catherine wheel, surmounted by a cross and crowned with lighted candles, which held off the darkness in which murky-faced demons could be glimpsed.
    ‘Come, kindly light,’ Athelstan whispered. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and recited the ‘Lavabo’ psalm, ‘“I will wash my hands among the innocent and encompass thy altar O Lord …”’
    Athelstan dozed for a while and started awake at a heart-cutting shriek which echoed through the tavern. He jumped to his feet and entered the sweet-smelling Dark Parlour, where Thorne, standing on a barrel, was busy hanging fresh herbs and flitches of bacon from the smoke-stained rafters. He just stood gaping; the shriek was repeated and the taverner swiftly clambered down. He and Athelstan hurried out into the main hallway and up the stairs into the gallery. They pushed their way through the slatterns and servants milling about. Thorne shouted at them to be quiet. He and Athelstan strode down the gallery which ran past chambers on either side to another narrow stairwell at the far end. Eleanor Thorne stood stricken outside one of the chambers. She glanced up, her face white as snow, pointing at the blood seeping out from beneath the chamber door.
    ‘Scrope’s chamber,’ Thorne whispered, gathering his wife in his arms, comforting her and pushing her gently back down the gallery to the waiting maids. Athelstan tried the door but it was locked. He hammered on the dark oaken wood but realized it was futile. Thorne took a ring of keys from his apron pocket and tried to insert the master key but failed.
    ‘The lock’s turned on the other side.’ Thorne, his craggy face now sweat-soaked, tried to push back the eyelet high in the door, a small square of wood hinged on the inside, but this was firmly closed. Other doors in the gallery opened, faces peered out. Athelstan glimpsed Father Roger’s fearful and wary face just before Cranston came pounding up the stairs shouting at everyone to stand aside or keep to their chambers. The coroner stared at the thick bloody plume still spreading out from beneath the door.
    ‘The window is open!’ Mooncalf