The Grail Murders

the dead man's brother. At last I stopped retching and washed my hands and face with a cloth. When I turned Benjamin was standing there. 'What caused that?' I gasped.
    'Death by fire!' my master repeated. 'And it was no accident, Roger. Cosmas was murdered. Burnt alive!'
    Benjamin would say no more. I finished cleaning my mouth and hands and went back to the dead man's chamber. The flames were now extinguished, windows had been opened in the top gallery and the smoke was beginning to dissipate. Two servants, their mouths and noses covered by rags, removed Cosmas's remains in a canvas sheet. The burnt bed was broken up and pieces tossed through the window into the courtyard below. Benjamin seemed most interested in the charcoal braziers and sifted with his boot amongst the white ashes of the fire but, muttering to himself, claimed he could discover nothing untoward.
    By the time we returned to bed, dawn was breaking. A few hours later Benjamin shook me awake.
    'Come on, Roger, we have to break our fast. Mandeville's waiting for us in the hall below, talking about God's vengeance come to judgement.'
    I rubbed my eyes. 'You still say it was murder?' I asked. 'Why?'
    The door was locked from the inside,' Benjamin replied. 'Cosmas remained wrapped in the bedding and was burnt alive. He had only one candle which was not powerful enough to start such a blaze so quickly whilst the fire was whitened ash.' 'What about gunpowder?' 'What do you mean?'
    'Well, a trail of gunpowder from the bed under the doorway, then someone could have struck a tinder?
    Benjamin shook his head doubtfully. 'We didn't see any such marks on the floor.'
    (Now I see my little clerk shaking his noddle and giggling to himself. Oh, this master of the secret arts thinks my idea stupid. Well, let me tell you a short story. Many years later I was sent as emissary to Mary, Queen of Scots, when she was playing the two-backed beast with Bothwell. Mind you, I can't blame Mary: her husband Darnley was so pitted with the pox he had to drape a white veil over his face. Anyway, I told Mary about Cosmas's death then forgot all about it. That is, until a few months later when Darnley and his page boy, whilst staying at Kirk o' Fields Palace, were killed in an explosion. I often wondered whether Mary got the idea from me. Ah, well, that's another tale.)
    Benjamin was truly perplexed by Cosmas's death: he did admit there were rare cases of human beings bursting into flames. (At the time I thought the idea was ridiculous until many years later when I attended a church in Holborn where the vicar, giving a fearsome sermon, abruptly burst into flames. I have never seen a church empty so quickly.) Anyway, on that snow-laden morning as Benjamin and I went deeper into the Valley of Death, Cosmas's murder remained a mystery. Only one thing stood out: Benjamin said there was a scorch mark on the outside of Cosmas's door but claimed it could be old. No other evidence of anything untoward could be detected. He waved his hands despondently. 'Who knows?' he sighed. 'Perhaps it was an act of God.'
    I got up, washed, dressed, and Benjamin and I went down the great sweeping wooden staircase. We heard raised voices from the main hall but Benjamin insisted that we first walk out on to the porchway and take the morning air. We stood on the top step, an icy wind driving any sleep from our eyes and faces, staring out over the snow-carpeted grounds. Rooks cawed in the dark trees which ringed the house and I imagined demons nestling in the branches, mocking us. Southgate came through the door behind us. 'Sir Edmund Mandeville awaits you.' 'Oh dear,' I mocked. 'God can wait, but Sir Edmund…!'
    And, with a mocking haste, I rushed back into the house, Benjamin following more slowly. Southgate caught up with me as I entered the main hall and saw Santerre and others sitting round the high table.
    'One day,' Southgate hissed in my ear, 'your wit, Master Shallot, will take you to the scaffold. Or on to the point of someone's sword!'
    'One day, one day!' I jibed back. 'Isn't it strange, Master Southgate, you are not the first to say that. And, even stranger, those who do say it meet violent deaths themselves.' I turned and looked him full in the face. 'Don't threaten me,' I whispered in false bravado, 'I am a fighting man!' (Lord, the lies I told!)
    'Your looks are as crooked as your eyes,' Southgate sneered.
    (Oh, yes, I was a handsome rogue, tall with jet-black hair, olive-skinned but with a