The Relic Murders

is on the rack.' He pointed across to the dungeon at the base of the Norman keep. 'He said he'll talk to no one but you, Shallot. You'd best see what the bastard wants before he dies.'
    'And we have a meeting with you, Sir Thomas,' Benjamin called out. Kempe glanced quickly at Egremont and then nodded.
    Benjamin and I left the execution ground and walked over to the Keep. I would like to say it was pleasant to be back in the Tower but I've always hated the place. Benjamin and I had been there only a few months previously, seeking out the mysterious assassin who had created such bloody havoc amongst the Guild of Hangmen.
    I wanted to flee. Nevertheless, I was intrigued that Cerberus wished to talk to me. We went down the steps and into a maze of corridors. A sentry took us into the torture room.
    Now this was a strange place, or at least it was when I visited. It looked more like a hospital with its white-washed walls. The floor was clean and swept and flowers, arranged in baskets, stood on small shelves beneath the open windows. A child's toy hung on a string from a hook on the wall. The chief interrogator was a kindly, soft-spoken man with watery eyes and slack lips. He came and shook our hands, waved us in, pointing across to a table where there was wine and sweetmeats. Perhaps it was all the more dreadful because of that. Nevertheless, nothing could detract from the terror of Exeter's Daughter: a huge rack in the centre of the room like a large four-poster bed with rollers at the top and bottom. (It was called Exeter's Daughter because a Duke of Exeter had introduced the rack into England in the fifteenth century. Oh, for you students of History, the English were racking and renting long before then, but this rack was regarded as a work of art. It pulled your arms and legs out slowly. It gave the torturers a chance to relax, take some refreshment before turning the wheels again. I'm not being brutish. You read my journals yet to come. I've been on that bloody rack! My arms became half an inch longer than they should be, before that bastard, John Dudley Duke of Northumberland, changed his mind and had me pardoned.)
    On that particular morning poor old Cerberus was Exeter's guest. He was stripped naked except for a loin cloth, his hands and feet lashed to the rollers, the poor man's body pulled as tight as a bishop's garter. He was unconscious when we came in, his ugly, ruddy face slack. The torturer tossed a bucket of water over him and held a piece of burnt cork beneath his nose. Cerberus began to shake and moan.
    'No, no,' the master torturer whispered. 'Master Doddshall, you have a visitor; the man you asked to see, Roger Shallot.'
    Cerberus turned his eyes. He tried to speak but his tongue was too large. 'For pity's sake,' I ordered. 'Slacken his legs and arms.' 'Anything to oblige,' the master torturer squeaked. 'And a cup of wine?' I asked.
    The wheel was pulled back. Cerberus relaxed. I went up and forced the wine between his lips. 'You wanted to speak to me?' I asked.
    'Damn you, Shallot!' he whispered, the blood bubbling on his lips.
    'If you've brought me here to curse,' I replied. 'I won't stay long.* 'No, no,' Cerberus shook his head. 'But I'll speak alone.' 'I don't want to leave,' the master torturer spoke up. 'This is my chamber and my responsibility.' 'Leave!' Benjamin ordered. 'But…?' the fellow stuttered. 'On the Lord Cardinal's orders!' Benjamin insisted. 'Oh well, if you put it like that,' the fellow replied. 'I am only too pleased.'
    Everyone, the watching soldiers, the torturer's apprentices scrambled out of the room, and Benjamin followed, closing the door behind him. I stood over Cerberus. 'We are alone.' 'I want to ask you a favour.'
    I stared back, surprised. 'A favour, a boon?' I exclaimed. 'You cheeky bastard! It's not so long ago you were trying to have a rat nest in my stomach!'
    'It's all the luck of the dice,' Cerberus replied. 'But, for what it's worth. Shallot, Charon did like you. He wouldn't have allowed the rat to dig deep, just a bite or two.' 'When you get to Hell,' I said, 'thank him for me.' 'I don't want to hang,' Cerberus replied. 'Neither do I but there's nothing I can do for you.'
    'I have a horror of hanging,' Cerberus insisted. 'Do this favour for me. Please!' 'And in return?' 'I'll tell you what I know. Oh, one thing more, Master Shallot, send my parents a letter.' I just stared in disbelief.
    'Please!' Cerberus insisted, 'To John and Christina Doddshall of the