The House of the Red Slayer

matter, monk?’ he boomed. ‘Where the...?’ Cranston used an obscene word and glared at the knight. ‘You still wish to challenge me, Sir Brian?’
    Athelstan rose, grabbed Cranston by the arm and hustled him out of the room, closing the door behind him.
    ‘Sir John,’ he rasped, ‘I am hearing this man’s confession!’
    Cranston tried to push Athelstan aside. ‘By the sod!’ he roared. ‘I don’t give a shit!‘
    ‘Sir John, this is nothing to do with you.’
    Athelstan, using all his weight, pushed Sir John back and sent him tottering down the corridor. Cranston steadied himself, pulled his long, wicked-looking dagger from its sheath and walked slowly back, his red-rimmed eyes fixed on Athelstan. The friar leaned against the door.
    ‘What are you going to do, John?’ Athelstan asked softly. ‘Are you, the Lord Coroner, going to slay a priest, a colleague and a friend?’
    Sir John stopped and slouched against the wall, staring upwards at the great beams resting on their corbels of stone.
    ‘God forgive me, Athelstan,’ he whispered. ‘My apologies to Sir Brian. I shall wait for you downstairs.‘
    The friar re-entered the room. Fitzormonde still sat, cradling his head in his hands. Athelstan touched him gently on the shoulder.
    ‘Forget Cranston.’ He smiled. ‘A man whose baric is much worse than his bite. Sir Brian, you wanted me to hear your confession? So Burghgesh was murdered. Surely the blame rests squarely with Sir Ralph?’
    Fitzormonde shook his head and looked up. ‘Don’t patronise me, Father. Ralph told us what he had done. We could have stopped it. We could have brought Sir Ralph to justice. We could have searched the seas to see if Bartholomew had survived.’
    ‘Was that possible?’
    ‘Perhaps. Sometimes the Moors sell prisoners in the slave markets. But we didn’t look there for him. We could have looked after Bartholomew’s widow and his little son but we failed to do that.’ Fitzormonde drove one of his fists into the palm of his hand. ‘We should have executed Sir Ralph. Instead, we became his accomplices and shared out his ill-gotten wealth.‘
    ‘What happened to Bartholomew’s widow?’
    ‘I don’t know. We went our separate ways. Eventually guilt caught up with Mowbray and myself so we joined the hospitallers, handing over what wealth we had left to the Order. Horne came back to the city and grew powerful on his riches. Whitton entered the service of John of Gaunt.’ Fitzormonde placed the goblet on the ground before him. ‘Do you know, Father, it wasn’t until Whitton was dead that I realised how he had held us in his evil thrall.’ Fitzormonde paused. ‘You have seen the great bear in the Tower bailey?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Every afternoon I am here,’ Fitzormonde continued, ‘I go to stare at it. The beast is a killer, but I’m fascinated by it. Whitton was like that. Sir Ralph made his guilt a bond between us all. As the years passed, we became more confident that our crime had been forgotten and began the custom of every year meeting to celebrate Christmas. We never discussed Bartholomew.’
    Athelstan nodded. ‘That’s the terrible thing about sin, Sir Brian. We let it become part of us, like a rotting tooth which we tolerate and forget.’
    Fitzormonde rubbed his face with his hands.
    ‘But what happened,’ Athelstan asked, ‘three years ago?’
    ‘I don’t know. We came to the Tower as Ralph’s guests for Yuletide, supping as usual at the Golden Mitre in Petty Wales, but when we met Sir Ralph that particular time, he looked as if he had seen a ghost. In fact he said he had, and that’s all he would say.’
    Athelstan seized the man’s wrist and forced him to look up. ‘Have you confessed all, Sir Brian?’
    ‘Everything I know.’
    ‘And the piece of parchment?’
    ‘A reminder of the ship Bartholomew was sailing on.’
    ‘And the four crosses?’
    ‘They represent Bartholomew’s four companions.’
    ‘And the seed cake?’
    Fitzormonde sighed and blew his cheeks out. ‘A reminder of how Bartholomew saved us from the assassins, and a warning of our own deaths.’
    ‘Do you know who murdered Sir Ralph and Sir Gerard?’
    ‘Before God, I do not!‘
    ‘Could Bartholomew have survived?’
    ‘He may have.’
    Athelstan stared at the lime-washed walls. ‘What about Bartholomew’s son? He would be a young man now.’ Fitzormonde shrugged. ‘I thought of that but I have made some enquiries. Young Burghgesh was killed in