by Paul Doherty
They reached a narrow flight of steps leading down to the waterside. The stranger waved Meg on before him. Clinging to the tarred help-rope, the whore carefully went down. She reached the bottom, turned and smiled. Meg’s pretty head went back, exposing her swan-like neck and throat to the serrated dagger that the stranger thrust deep into her flesh: he gashed the snow-white skin, slicing deep, rupturing the blood in a matter of heartbeats. The assassin, unaware that he too was being watched, peered closer. He watched the woman die, gargling and choking on her own blood as the life light faded in her eyes. Meg slumped to the ground. The murderer moved swiftly. Meg was stripped naked, her clothing flung into the river, which was lapping hungrily against the narrow quayside ledge. A red wig was pulled over the dead woman’s head, her corpse tipped into a narrow skiff boat, one of those river craft used by anyone who had the courage to travel along the banks of the Thames. The skiff was pulled closer, Meg’s corpse carefully positioned in it. Once satisfied, and humming a tune, the assassin pushed the boat out to be caught by the river swell. The skiff bobbed for a while then floated away, disappearing into the rolling bank of mist.
Athelstan made himself comfortable in the canopied stern of Moleskin’s new barge, The Glory of Southwark, rowed by the bargeman’s constant companions. These helpmates rejoiced in the names of the four archangels, Michael, Raphael, Gabriel and Azuriel. All the crew had dressed well for the bitterly cold crossing, their woollen hoods pulled close, leather jerkins and hose stiffened with pitch and tar. They bent over the oars, kept in order by Gabriel, who began to chant a song, deliberately chosen because of Athelstan, about a fresh young maid and a friar as hot and lecherous as a sparrow. They stopped their singing in surprise when Athelstan joined in, his powerful voice initiating the second ditty about a meeting between the friar and his leman in some green-wooded dale. The four archangels abruptly changed their song as they left Southwark steps and braced themselves against the surging tide. Athelstan leaned forward and peered round the canopy; the river was mist-hung, swollen and forbidding. Lanternhorns winked through the murk. Horns and trumpets brayed across the water, signals from other craft desperate to avoid any mishap in such a harsh season. Athelstan leaned back and took out his ave beads. He was about to intone the ‘Pater Noster’, when Moleskin, ‘The Great Navigator of the river’, as he styled himself, sat down on the bench opposite his parish priest. Athelstan sketched a blessing. Moleskin pushed back his cowl, blessed himself, and stared sadly at his priest, as morose he had been from the moment they had met earlier in the day.
‘What is the matter, Moleskin? You look as if you have lost a pound and found a farthing. You have been so since I first glimpsed you at the Jesus Mass. Is trade bad? Are you earning good coin? Has this weather affected you badly?’ Athelstan gestured at the river, even as the barge pitched and swung from side to side. A horn shrieked. Raphael screamed a warning and The Glory of Southwark lurched to the side, moving swiftly to avoid a narrow cockle boat.
‘Well?’ Athelstan was keen to chat with Moleskin, even if it was only to divert his attention from the turbulent, fast-running river. ‘Well?’ Athelstan insisted. ‘Is it trade?’
‘No, Father, it’s the past. It’s …’ Moleskin, hands on knees, leaned forward. ‘The past, Father. Always the past! You have given sermons about how what you do in your youth can, like some viper, slide through your life and lurk, waiting to strike. This viper is choked with the poison of your sins and will eventually spit a deadly venom into your soul. Memories return; they bring a deep unresolved guilt of sins not truly forgiven or atoned for.’
‘In heaven’s name,’ Athelstan, astonished, wiped the river spray from his face, ‘you have truly turned philosophical, Moleskin. Indeed,’ Athelstan smiled, ‘deeply spiritual and reflective.’
‘I was a scholar once, Father. I attended school in the transepts of St Paul. Good with my Horn Book, I was. I even spent a year at the halls of Oxford.’ He shrugged. ‘Then I threw it all away when the old King’s commissioners of array visited the university. They wanted to raise a troop of scholars, promising us glory and ransoms in France. And so they did and I was one of them.’
Moleskin stared down at his mud-stained boots. Athelstan closed his eyes. In his youth, the bargeman had turned and followed a path thronged by other young men, including himself. The friar felt the same feelings of guilt. He had run away to war, encouraging his beloved brother to accompany him. In the end, there was no glory, no ransoms, just bitter hard fighting in the towns, villages, meadows and fields of France. Days without food or water. Freezing nights, when he would sleep with one eye open, weapons clutched in his hands. Stinking latrines, makeshift refuges and, for the wounded, the ministrations of men more skilled in butchering meat than healing wounds. The chevauchée had proved to be a veritable descent into hell. His brother had been killed and Athelstan had brought his corpse back for burial in a Carmelite church, close by the pilgrim road to Canterbury. Athelstan had then returned home to give his parents the dire news and the agony had only deepened. Both his father and mother were utterly distraught and, Athelstan would believe this until his own dying day, their hearts were broken by a searing grief which sent both of them to an early grave.
‘Father? Father?’
Athelstan opened his eyes. Moleskin was staring at him beseechingly.
‘I am sorry, Father, were you asleep?’
‘Oh no, far from it, Moleskin. I was thinking about what you said. Anyway,’ the friar added briskly, ‘what has caused this change of mood?’
‘The corpses, Father. Those whores who had their throats slashed, bodies stripped, a red wig pulled over their heads, before being despatched along the river in some skiff.’
‘And?’
‘Memories, Father, of the past; of Le Sans Dieu, a war barge I served on along the Seine. The barge was well named. “The Godless”! We were all Godless! What has sharpened my memories is that we dressed in the same garb as those dead whores.’
‘What?’
‘We dressed like whores in garish gowns, our faces painted white or hidden behind masks of the same colour. Red wigs adorned our heads, but we weren’t whores. On no. We were killers, slaughterers, Father. Men of war; men of blood. We terrified the French to the very marrow of their souls. They called us “The Flames of Hell”. We were led by a captain, a master of array, who proclaimed himself “The Oriflamme”. A mocking reference to the sacred banner of the French, kept in its tabernacle behind the high altar at St Denis. But that was the past.’ Moleskin turned and spat over the side of the boat. He was about to continue when his son, popularly known as Brass-Nose, who acted as poop-boy, blew hard on his hunting horn, shouting at the oarsmen to swing to port. The mist parted. Athelstan glimpsed the north bank of the Thames as The Glory of Southwark turned to aim like an arrow towards the desolate, deserted quayside, just past La Réole. Athelstan caught the ever-pervasive stench of the river: salt, brine, fish, and the rank smell of the filth swilled in by the different sewers of the city. The friar readied himself, pulling his cloak more tightly around him and making sure his leather chancery satchel was firmly buckled. Tiptoft, before he’d left St Erconwald’s on other business of the Lord High Coroner’s, had informed Athelstan that Sir John would be waiting for him in the Chapel of the Drowned Men, the abode of the Fisher of Men. Athelstan had visited this place on many occasions; a magnificently refurbished mansion, the former property of a long-dead former merchant overlooking the derelict quayside.
Moleskin guided his barge into its berth and helped his parish priest up the greasy, narrow steps, where the Fisher of Men’s gargoyle-like retainers were waiting. Athelstan knew them well; a group of deformed, misshapen dwarves, rejected by society but warmly welcomed by their master. The Fisher provided them with comfortable lodgings in his mansion in return for their work on his magnificent death barge, as well as in the timber long hall, which served as his mortuary and chapel. Here lay the exposed, mortal remains of those who had died on
the river due to accident, suicide or, as in many cases, murder.
The Seraphim, as the Fisher called his henchmen, warmly greeted the friar. They knelt down, heads bowed, hands outstretched, as Athelstan came onto the quayside. The friar, touched by their profound humility, intoned a solemn blessing, and the hooded heads bowed even further as they chanted the ‘Deo gratias – thanks be to God’. Once Athelstan had finished, the Seraphim crowded around him. Two of them clutched his hands, others tugged on his cloak, whilst Hackum, a red-faced dwarf with no nose, jumped up and down in front of Athelstan, begging the friar to carry his chancery satchel. The excitement of his escort was almost tangible. Athelstan heaved a sigh of relief when they entered the mortuary chapel, lit by candles and lanterns, its plastered walls decorated with scenes from the scriptures. All the frescoes had one theme in common: God’s use of the sea and the mysteries of the deep, for his own secret purposes, be it the story of Jonah, or the Final Resurrection, when all earth’s waters would give up their dead. Athelstan was fascinated by this lurid painting, which depicted the rising souls as ghostly tongues of flame. The hall’s low ceiling and the constantly shifting light made this a truly ghostly place, with its two long lines of mortuary tables; each had its own grisly burden covered by a black burial pall edged with silver. A candle flickered on each end, head and foot. Beneath the tables, pots of soaked herbs exuded sweet fragrances against the pungent stench of the river, as well as the rank odour from the corpses. On the far end wall hung a huge crucifix; the tortured figure of Christ seemed to rise like a swimmer from the deep, a scene of turbulent waters and grotesque monsters. Athelstan bowed to this, sketched a blessing towards the row of mortuary tables, and followed his escort along the hall into a well-furnished chancery chamber.
Sir John Cranston, resplendent in a tawny sarcenet, knee-length jerkin, was waiting for him. The coroner sat opposite the Fisher of Men, slouching as if hadn’t a care in the world in a majestic high-backed chair. Both men rose to greet the friar. A stool and small table were arranged, hands clasped, instructions issued to the Seraphim. During this exchange of courtly niceties, Athelstan swiftly studied his two companions. Cranston looked the very picture of health in his silver-trimmed sarcenet jerkin, bottle-green hose and cordovan riding boots, on which spurs tinkled and jingled. The coroner’s belt, cloak and beaver hat, together with his gauntlets, were draped over a coffer. Merry Jack’s rubicund, white bewhiskered face exuded bonhomie, and his constant touching of his well-trimmed hair, moustache and beard showed how the coroner must have been visited by the barber in the small washroom of Sir John’s house. The Fisher of Men was a complete contrast, being tall, thin, with a narrow, bony face which was closely shaved, as was his dome-like head. Severe, even grim looking, the Fisher of Men’s harshness was emphasized by dark, deep-set eyes and thin bloodless lips, although when he smiled, there was a genuine warmth. Garbed in black leather from head to toe, the Fisher enjoyed an eerie reputation as the Harrower of Corpses, patrolling the river with his Seraphim, led by his fish-like principal henchman Ichthus, who now stood still as a statue behind his master’s chair. Athelstan had never met any soul who so closely resembled a fish as Ichthus. He had a cod-like mouth, he was hairless in every aspect, whilst both fingers and toes were webbed together. In truth, he looked like a porpoise, and could swim as swiftly as one. The Fisher of Men leaned forward and tapped Athelstan on the knee.
‘You are well, Father?’ he asked. ‘I can see you are in one of your reveries?’ The Fisher gestured in the direction of the mortuary. ‘Sir John, shall we show our Good Brother the reason for your visit here?’
Cranston nodded, plucked at Athelstan’s sleeve, and both rose, following the Fisher into the mortuary. Cranston hung back. He tapped the friar on the shoulder, whispering greetings to his ‘beloved companion’, who worked so skilfully with his sharp eyes and even keener wits. The coroner asked after Athelstan’s health, and then hoarsely whispered how the Lady Maude, his twin sons the poppets, and all of Cranston’s household were in good spirits and fine fettle. He fell silent when the Fisher of Men reached a corpse table and pulled back the pall.
Athelstan’s heart lurched as he stared at the grisly remains exposed there, the cadaver of a young woman. In life, she may have been pretty, but her gruesome death marred all this: her corpse lay sprawled, head slightly turned, completely naked. A bruise had blossomed on her right shoulder but the cause of death was clearly the jagged cut across her throat. Athelstan reckoned she must have died swiftly, yet the shock of death was obvious in her glassy-eyed stare and gaping mouth. What was strikingly macabre was the thick red horsehair wig pulled down over her head, a mockery of the poor woman in both life and death.
‘Rohesia of the Crossroads,’ Cranston murmured. ‘A comely young whore who plied her trade in Queenhithe as well as near the Great Conduit in Cheapside. She was found … well,’ he gestured at the Fisher, ‘tell him.’
‘Two days ago,’ the Fisher’s voice was harsh with a tinge of a foreign accent. Athelstan recalled the stories about this enigmatic individual. How he might have been a leper knight in Outremer. Miraculously cured, the Fisher had journeyed back to London to dedicate himself to this gruesome trade.
‘Ah well, Brother,’ the Fisher of Men continued, ‘you know how it is. We were floating off Dowgate when we glimpsed the skiff, as we have others, drifting on the tide. A narrow cockle boat, and inside it …’ he gestured at the corpse.
‘How many of these have you found?’ Athelstan asked.
‘At least five,’ Cranston murmured. ‘Yes, about five over the last two months. All had their throats slashed, corpses stripped, a ghastly wig pulled over their heads before being set adrift in a cockle boat.’ He paused. ‘As you know, Brother, such craft can be found either side of the river. They are donated by city merchants for those who want to travel from one quayside to the next. I concede there may well have been other such corpse boats; these may have capsized or become caught in the thick weeds in one of the many inlets down to the estuary. Believe me, Brother, once you have broken free of the city, you could hide a flotilla of cogs in the dense undergrowth and dense copses which fringe either bank.’
Athelstan stared at the corpse and muttered a prayer. He stretched down and, using his thumb, anointed the dead woman’s forehead before blessing her. He tapped his chancery satchel. ‘I will anoint her before I go. Recite a psalm that her poor soul be brought into the light.’ Athelstan crossed himself. ‘I believe a further corpse has already been discovered, but that is a matter for you, Sir John. May God bless such poor victims.’
‘And you will bless us too Father?’ the Fisher of Men demanded. ‘You know the Seraphim deeply appreciate that.’
‘I promise you my most solemn blessing,’ Athelstan smiled. ‘Then we will sing the “Ave Maris Stella” – “Hail Star of the Sea” in honour of the Virgin. But,’ Athelstan continued briskly, turning to the coroner who stood glaring morosely down at the corpse, ‘tell me,’ the friar demanded, ‘why is the Lord High Coroner of London investigating the deaths of poor whores? Not that you shouldn’t but …’
‘You are correct, little monk.’
‘Friar, Sir John.’
‘Whatever.’ The coroner sniffed. Taking the miraculous wineskin from beneath his cloak, Cranston pulled out the stopper and took a generous mouthful before offering it to Athelstan and the Fisher of Men.
‘Rohesia of the Crossroads,’ Cranston smacked his lips; he was about to take a second gulp when he caught Athelstan’s glare and hastily pushed back the stopper, ‘Rohesia worked for “The Way of all Flesh”, the Lady Alianora Devereux, who, though she dresses like a nun, is the greatest whore mistress in the city and manages a number of – how can I describe them …?’
‘Brothels,’ the Fisher of Men interjected.
‘Houses of delight,’ Cranston replied. ‘Now The Way of all Flesh has many patrons in both city and court. Some of these enjoyed Rohesia’s ministrations. She was very popular, hence t
he outcry at her murder and that of other daughters of joy.’
‘But there’s more?’ Athelstan retorted. ‘There is always something else?’
‘And there is,’ Cranston agreed. He heaved a deep sigh and stared at the Fisher of Men. ‘You must know something of this, and if you learn anything fresh from me, you must keep it sub rosa.’
‘Of course.’
‘Not here,’ Cranston said. He glanced pointedly over his shoulder at the Seraphim clustered in the doorway: Hackum, Corpse-Shifter, Sham-Soul and the rest. The Fisher of Men agreed and they returned to the chancery chamber, the Fisher closing the door behind him before offering cups of the most delicious Bordeaux. Athelstan gratefully sipped at his, wondering about Joscelyn and his other parishioners, eager to indulge in what was now being gleefully described ‘as the great treasure hunt of St Erconwald’s’. He also recalled Senlac, Roughkin’s son. There was something about the man which deeply troubled Athelstan, certainly a mummer who hid behind masks. Before leaving the parish, the friar had secretly instructed Crim the altar boy, along with his friend Harold Hairlip, to keep a sharp watch on their visitor. Athelstan also hoped that both boys would remember to look in on Philomel, Athelstan’s old warhorse. Earlier in the year, Athelstan had become alarmed at how thin-ribbed the ancient destrier looked, so he had sent his old companion off to graze during the summer and autumn seasons in meadow land south of the city. Philomel had returned, and Athelstan was pleased at how plump and sleek his old friend had grown. Athelstan startled as Cranston gulped from his goblet and set it firmly down on the pewter platter.
‘This is what I want to say,’ Cranston declared, ‘it is pertinent to what we have just seen. About a week ago, just before the Feast of All Hallows, an English war cog, The Knave of Hearts, slipped its moorings at Queenhithe and made its way downriver towards the estuary. The cog was to signal with its lanternhorn and dip its sails as it reached the entrance to the Narrow Seas before tacking south towards Calais. The signal houses had been warned to watch out for it, but the war cog never left the estuary.’