The House of Shadows

alerted every sheriff, bailiff, mayor and port reeve throughout the kingdom. If he could have no success, why should I? I’m not lying. Ask His Grace yourself. The letters and writs ordering such a search are still enrolled in the Chancery, I’ve seen them with my own eyes. Now,’ Malachi got to his feet, ‘Brother Athelstan, I’ve brought down my possessions, I need to store them in your house.’ Malachi nodded at Athelstan, sketched a blessing in Cranston’s direction and left.
    ‘Is he staying here? Why?’ Cranston mopped his face on the edge of his gown.
    Athelstan told him in short sharp sentences everything that had happened since they’d parted the previous day. Cranston held his peace, then he, in turn, related all he had discovered. For a while both sat in silence.
    ‘Oh, by the way,’ Cranston shuffled his feet, ‘on my short but very cold journey across the Thames , I met Master Flaxwith. The Judas Man seems to have disappeared. I only wish I knew who had hired him.’
    ‘We keep asking the same questions,’ Athelstan replied, ‘and receive the same answers. The mystery always deepens. I have a special cask of the best Bordeaux hidden in my buttery. I can’t take you there because of Malachi. So, like Melchisedech of old, if you sit there, I will bring you gifts of bread and wine and, here, in the presence of God, we shall sit like master and scholar and dispute what we’ve found.’
    Cranston readily agreed. Athelstan brought across a small jug of claret, two pewter goblets and a trancher of buttered bread smeared with honey. While Cranston ate, Athelstan prepared his writing tray, and made himself comfortable on Mugwort’s stool.
    ‘So, let’s list the mysteries.’

    Item Sir Edward Mortimer and Sir Richard Culpepper disappear with the Lombard treasure from Oyster Wharf twenty years ago. At the same time, Guinevere the Golden is seen no more.
    Item The two boatmen also disappear, but they were only supposed to bring the barge to Culpepper and later meet them at the Oyster Wharf , yet they too vanished, their barge found floating downriver near Westminster .
    Item Despite a scrupulous search, by His Grace John of Gaunt, as well as Brother Malachi, no trace of the missing ‘persons, or the Lombard treasure, has ever been found.
    Item There is no doubt that Culpepper and Mortimer received monies for the secret task assigned to them. I thought this was just to pay for the boatmen and barge but there was considerable wealth. Mortimer could give gifts to his sister and buy her a narrow house in Poor Jewry.
    Item The Lombard treasure was held in trust by His Grace, John of Gaunt, who hired these two knights so that the movements of this treasure could not be traced. No one, apart from Gaunt and the two knights, knew when, where and how the treasure was being transported.
    Item Although Mortimer and Culpepper disappeared, Helena Mortimer receives, every quarter, five pounds sterling in a little pouch bearing the Mortimer crest. This is delivered to the goldsmith Lundy, who has no knowledge of who or why such a request is made. Again, that’s logical. There is no crime in giving a lonely spinster the means for a comfortable life. We also know that Guinevere the Golden was boasting of some unexpected wealth which would transform her life, but she too has gone into the dark.

    Athelstan paused, and sipped at the claret. ‘Now, Sir
    John, we move forward twenty years.’ He continued his writing.

    Item Who murdered those two unfortunates in the hay barn? Probably the same person who hired them. Was it Chandler , or did that dead fat knight merely stumble on the corpses? There is no proof of anyone else approaching the hay barn on that murderous occasion.
    Item Who hired the Judas Man? Who is the Judas Man?

    Athelstan glanced up. ‘We don’t even know his name. He was given the task of hunting down the Misericord. Why?’ He kept writing as he talked. ‘Because the Misericord was a rogue who had deceived Sir Stephen and composed a poem about him?’ He shook his head. ‘Definitely not.’

    Item The Misericord was a frequenter of the tavern the Night in Jerusalem . Twenty years ago, when the great robbery occurred, he vouched that all the others concerned, apart from Malachi, stayed in that tavern carousing all night. Again that is logical. Culpepper’s companions, not to mention Master Rolles and Mother Veritable, did not even know that the Lombard treasure was being transported along