by Paul Doherty
‘Did you know he was murdered?’ Sir John asked.
The taverner shook his head and wiped his face with a rag.
‘Who was murdered?’
‘The one who left.’
‘So, that’s what happened.’
‘What do you mean?’ Sir John demanded, glaring across at the group of chapmen whose shouts and curses shattered the peace of the taproom. The pedlars, who’d overheard that Cranston was a King’s officer, immediately fell silent.
‘Well, the taller one, Eccleshall, after his companion left, he came down here.’ He pointed to the inglenook. ‘He just sat there looking into the flames.’
‘And he never left?’ Athelstan asked.
‘Never.’
‘You are sure of that?’
Athelstan felt a surge of disappointment.
‘Well, you see, Brother . . .?’
‘Athelstan. I am Sir John’s secretarius. I am also parish priest of St Erconwald’s.’
‘Ah.’ The taverner tapped the side of his fat nose. ‘I’ve also heard of you. Look, I tell the truth. Eccleshall drank deeply that night. I could see he was worried. He had great difficulty climbing the stairs and that was long after closing. Now, like all taverners, I’m frightened of fire. I always go round and check that some drunken bugger has not left a candle alight. We deliberately do not put locks in our rooms because of that.’ He grinned. ‘If a man and his lady friend wish a little privacy, they can always put a stool against the door. Anyway, it must have been well after midnight. I opened the door to Eccleshall’s chamber, the candle was out and he was snoring like a pig on the bed. We also have a groom guarding the stables. No one disturbed him.’
‘And the next morning?’ Athelstan asked.
‘Eccleshall, rather heavy-eyed, came down to break his fast. He was very agitated, asking everyone had they seen his companion? Of course, we hadn’t. He ordered his horse to be saddled and left. Oh, it must have been about nine in the morning.’
‘And you are sure,’ Athelstan insisted, ‘that two came here?’
‘Of course! Eccleshall and the other, Sholter, slightly shorter, dark-haired, fresh-faced.’
Athelstan thanked him and the taverner went back to the kitchen, chuckling at the easy silver he had earned.
‘It seems you are wrong, Brother.’ Sir John patted him gently on the shoulder. ‘Sholter and Eccleshall came here. Sholter left but, if Eccleshall had anything to do with his murder, I can’t see how he could be in two places at once!’ He looked round the taproom. ‘Brother,’ he said quietly, leaning across the table. ‘What happens if the Great Community of the Realm were here? One of their so-called officers? You heard the taverner. Eccleshall and Sholter swagger in, loudly proclaiming who they are, then one abruptly leaves just before darkness falls.’
‘You mean he was followed out and killed?’
‘It’s possible.’ Sir John licked his lips. ‘That ale was nice.’
‘No, Sir John, you’ve drunk enough.’ Athelstan pushed his tankard across. ‘Or, at least I have, you can finish mine then it’s back to Southwark and across to the city!’
They left the Silken Thomas and made their way into Southwark. The streets were now busy, the small markets which stood on each street corner doing a busy trade in second-hand goods.
‘Or what they’ve stolen from the other side of the river,’ Sir John commented.
Many people recognised Athelstan and his burly companion. In the main, good-natured abuse was called but, on one occasion, the coroner had to draw his sword as some dried dog-turds struck the house wall beside him. The group of roaring boys gathered in an alehouse doorway quietly slunk back.
‘Let’s move on,’ Athelstan urged. He went down an alleyway.
‘Brother, I thought we were going to the bridge?’
‘No, Sir John, just bear with me. I have a little parish business to do. The Venerable Veronica.’
They found Dog Tail Lane. The Venerable Veronica lived in a mean, shabby tenement thrust between an old warehouse on one side and a dingy cook shop on the other. Her chamber was at the top of rickety stairs which stank of urine. The walls were cracked and split, the flaking plaster covering the shabby, wooden steps like a coating of snow. The Venerable Veronica, however, was welcoming enough and her chamber was neat and tidy. She was sitting on a stool, hand over a small dish of glowing charcoal fixed on a tripod. In a far corner stood a cot bed screened off by a tawdry cloak which hung from hooks fixed into the ceiling.
Despite her great age, Sir John was surprised how striking the old woman was. She was small, narrow-faced; her skin looked lined and seamed but her eyes were sharp and bright as a sparrow’s. She responded quickly enough, asking her visitors to bring across a bench so they could sit near her while she ‘warmed her poor hands’ over the charcoal.
‘I should go to church more often, Brother,’ she began. ‘But my old knees and back hurt.’
‘I could bring you the sacrament when I come,’ Athelstan offered. ‘It’s easy enough done.’
‘Would you really, Brother, and shrive me?’
‘Of course, whenever I visit, just ask.’
The old woman peered up at him, moving her hands as if washing them above the charcoal.
‘You are different from the other, Brother, the one who came before you. He was born in sin, he lived in sin and he died in sin. He took everything, he did: chalices, cups, breviary. William Fitzwolfe sold them all.’
‘Including the blood book?’ Athelstan asked.
The Venerable Veronica sighed and nodded.
‘That’s why I am here, Mother,’ Athelstan continued. ‘We truly have a problem in the parish. Eleanor, daughter of Basil the blacksmith, wishes to marry Oswald, Joscelyn’s son.’
‘Ah yes, yes.’ The old woman blinked her eyes, head up, mouth open. She rocked herself backwards and forwards. ‘The harridan, that fishwife Imelda, the one who’s married to the ditcher, the troublemaker. I met her in the lane below. She was all hot with the gossip, like a sparrow on a spring morning.’ Veronica glanced at Athelstan. ‘Perhaps I should have kept my words to myself, Brother, but I was so lonely and I wanted someone to talk to. I told them Eleanor’s and Oswald’s great-grandmothers were sisters. They shared the same womb and the same blood line.’
‘And is that the truth?’
Sir John took his wineskin off its hook on his belt, and the old woman immediately got up and fetched three cups.
‘Oh, you are kindly, sir.’
Athelstan winked at Sir John who had no choice but to fill three cups to the brim. The old woman drank hers in one gulp and held it out for the coroner to refill.
‘I am afraid it is the truth, Brother.’
‘You can remember such detail?’
‘It’s not so much that! They always called each other “sister”, that’s how I remember: it was “sister this” and “sister that”.’
‘You’d go on oath?’ Sir John asked, quietly marvelling at how this old woman could quickly down two cups of claret and appear none the worse.
‘If I had to, I’d swear it’s the truth.’ She extended her cup.
Athelstan took it and gave her his.
‘In which case, Mother, I think we should leave.’
They were at the door when the old woman called out, ‘Brother, I’ve got something for you!’
The Venerable Veronica got up, moaning and grumbling under her breath, and went across to a coffer from which she brought out a small calfskin tome with a glass jewel embedded in the centre. She hobbled across and thrust this into Athelstan’s hands. He opened the covers and saw the strange symbols depicted there.
‘It’s a book of spells,’ she explained. ‘Left by that wicked priest, Fitzwolfe.’
‘And how did you get hold of it?’
‘When he left the church, Brother, he just fled: the King’s officers were pursuing him. I used to tidy his house until I got tired of his games. Anyway, the morning he left, I went in and fo
und this lying beneath his bed. He had apparently hidden it there and forgotten it.
Athelstan leafed through the pages. It contained crude drawings of gargoyles, a dog depicted as a human, spells and incantations.
‘It’s a grimoire,’ he explained. ‘A sorcerer’s book.’
‘I thought I should throw it away, Brother, but I was frightened.’
Athelstan slipped it into his chancery bag and tapped her on the shoulder.
‘Don’t worry. I’ll burn it for you.’
They went down the stairs and out into the street, Athelstan briskly informing Sir John of the latest crisis in the parish council.
‘It’s serious,’ Sir John agreed, glaring across at two ragged boys who were standing beside a wall seeing who could pee the highest. ‘I’ve heard of many a marriage that’s been forbidden because of that.’
They left the lane and went down the main thoroughfare to London Bridge. A cart trundled by. Inside, their hands lashed to the rail, were a group of whores, heads bald as eggs, their wigs piled into a basket pulled at the tail of the cart. Behind this a beadle blew on a set of bagpipes, inviting all and sundry to come and mock these ladies of the night being taken down to the stocks and pillories near London Bridge. Most, however, ignored the invitation. The women were local girls and most of the abuse, both verbal and clods of mud, was directed at the hapless beadle.
Cranston and Athelstan waited a while to let the cart move on. They passed the Priory of St Mary Overy, pausing now and again to greet parishioners. They reached the bridge but, instead of making their way down the narrow thoroughfare between the houses, Athelstan knocked on the metal-studded door of the gatehouse. It was flung open and Robert Burdon, the mannikin keeper of London Bridge, poked his head out. His black hair was greased in spikes, his face half-shaved. In his hand he grasped a horse comb and brush.
‘What is it you want, friar? You’d best come through!’ The little mannikin jumped from foot to foot. ‘The lady wife is out. She has taken all nine children down to the fair at Smithfield so I am doing my heads.’
Sir John snorted in surprise.
‘Don’t look at me like that, Sir John Cranston! You may be a King’s officer but so am I. I am responsible for the gatehouse, and am constable and keeper of the bridge. I also have my heads!’
He led them down a narrow passageway and out into the garden beyond, a small plot of grass with flower beds stretching down to the high rail fence which overlooked the river. Just before this ranged six poles driven deep into the soil.
‘Oh, Lord save us!’ Athelstan whispered.
On three of the poles were severed heads, freshly cut, the blood flowing down the wooden posts. Thankfully they were turned the other way facing out towards the Tower.
‘Must we stand here?’ Sir John murmured, feeling slightly sick.
‘The court says,’ the mannikin replied, ‘that these heads are to be displayed before sunset. River pirates, Sir John, caught in the estuary they were. Sentence was carried out on Tower Hill just after dawn this morning. I comb their hair, wash their faces.’ He pointed further down where the long execution poles jutted out over the river. ‘And then I’ll place them there.’
Sir John took a swig from his wineskin then cursed as he realised the Venerable Veronica had already emptied it for him.
‘Come on, Athelstan, get to the point!’ he growled.
Burdon was gazing longingly at his heads.
‘Do you know what, Robert?’ Athelstan asked. ‘You are one of the few adults smaller than me. Anyway, I have one question for you. On Saturday evening, about five o’clock, did two royal messengers ride across the bridge?’
‘Of course they did. Cloaked and cowled, carrying their warrants and, according to custom, they showed me their commissions before they left the city.’
Athelstan clasped the little man round the shoulder.
‘In which case, Robert, we won’t keep you from your heads any longer.’
And, not waiting for the mannikin to lead them, they went back through the house and on to the bridge.
‘I’d forgotten about that.’ Cranston nudged Athelstan playfully. ‘Of course, every royal messenger leaving the city by the bridge must, by regulation, show his commission to the gatekeeper. Why, what did you suspect?’
‘Oh, that something had happened to Miles Sholter and perhaps only one of them left. I don’t know.’ Athelstan shook his head. ‘Now, Sir John, before we go to the Tower, I must have words with Mistress Sholter in Mincham Lane.’
Sir John gazed dolefully up at the sky.
‘Here we are, Brother, on London Bridge, between heaven and earth! My feet are sore, my wineskin’s empty and everywhere we turn there’s no door, just brick walls without even a crack to slip through.’
‘We’ll find one, Jack,’ Athelstan replied. ‘And the sooner the better.’
They crossed the bridge as quickly as they could. Athelstan tried not to look left or right between the gaps in the houses. He always found the drop to the river rather dizzying and disconcerting.
They left the bridge, went down Billingsgate and up Love Lane into Eastchepe. Sir John wanted to stop at an alehouse but Athelstan urged him on. At the entrance to Mincham Lane they found the way barred by a group of wandering troubadours who were playing a scene using mime. Athelstan stood fascinated. The troubadour leader was challenging the crowd to say which scene from the gospels they were copying. Athelstan watched.
‘It’s the sower sowing his seed!’ he called out.
The troubadour’s face became stern. Athelstan realised he had solved the riddle and should collect the reward. The rest of the troupe stopped. The troubadour picked up the little silver cup which was the prize. He looked down at it then at Athelstan.
‘Run for it, lads!’ he bawled.
And the whole group took off down an alleyway pursued by the jeers and cat-calls of their small audience.
‘Very good, Brother.’ Sir John grinned. ‘I’ve never seen that trick before. They collect money from the audience and, if anyone solves the problem, they are off like the wind.’
They went further along into Mincham Lane, a broad thoroughfare with pink plaster houses on either side. Most of the lower stories served as shops with stalls in front displaying clothing, felts, shoes and caps. The sewer, unlike those in Southwark, was clean and smelt of the saltpetre placed over the night soil and other refuse.
Mistress Sholter’s house was at the far end, a two-storied building with a pointed roof and jutting gables. A well-furnished stall stood outside the front door, the lintel of which was draped in mourning clothes.
‘Is your mistress within?’ Sir John asked the two apprentices manning it.
‘Yes, sir, she’s still grieving,’ one of them replied lugubriously. ‘She’s there with her maid and Master Eccleshall.’
Sir John and Athelstan entered the house and waited in the hallway. It was clean and well furnished. Pieces of black lawn now covered the gleaming white plaster on either side. A young woman, her hair gathered up in a mob cap, came out of a room to their right.
‘I beg your pardon, sirs?’
‘Sir John Cranston, coroner, and his secretarius Brother Athelstan.’
‘Oh, do come in,’ a voice called.
The maid stepped aside. Cranston and Athelstan entered a well-furnished parlour where Mistress Sholter and Eccleshall were seated on either side of the hearth. A sewing-basket in the window seat showed where the maid had been sitting. The widow and her companion rose. Athelstan made the introductions and the coroner quickly accepted Mistress Sholter’s offer of refreshment.
Sweet wine was served and a small tray of crusty, sweet marchpane. Athelstan refused this but Sir John took a number of pieces, murmured his condolences and slurped at the wine cup.
‘I’m sorry to intrude on your mourning.’
Athelstan noted that most of the hangings on the walls were hidden by funeral cloths.
‘However, I need to ask furthe
r questions.’
Bridget Sholter’s face looked even paler, framed by her dark hair under a mourning veil which fell down beneath her shoulders.
‘What questions, Brother? I’ve been sitting here with Philip wondering what had happened.’
‘Tell me again?’
‘I’ve told you,’ Eccleshall said. ‘Miles and I left here about four o’clock.’
‘And you reached the Silken Thomas?’
‘Oh, about six.’
‘You travelled slowly?’
‘What was the hurry? We’d decided to stay at the Silken Thomas and leave before dawn. We would be refreshed and so would our horses.’ He shrugged. ‘Measure out the distance yourself. It takes an age to get across the bridge; we stopped to pray at the chapel of St Thomas à Becket. Then, of course, we had to wait for that officious little gatekeeper.’
‘True, true,’ Sir John agreed. ‘A leisurely ride from here to the Silken Thomas would take that long.’
‘And you, Mistress Bridget?’ Athelstan asked.
She made a face and gestured at her maid.
‘Hilda here will attest to this: shortly after Miles went, I closed the stall, after all it was Saturday afternoon. I left the house and went down to the markets in Petty Wales.’
‘Then you came back here?’
‘Well, of course, Brother.’ She laughed softly. ‘Where else could I go?’
‘It’s true what my mistress says,’ the maid said. ‘The master left. As he did so, the apprentices were bringing the goods in. The mistress then dismissed me and she took her basket out.’
‘You don’t sleep here?’
‘Oh no, Brother, I live with my own family in Shoe Lane.’
‘Our house is very small,’ Bridget Sholter explained. ‘We have a parlour, kitchen and scullery while the upper rooms are used as bedchamber, a small chancery office and storerooms.’