The Straw Men

by Paul Doherty

  Athelstan walked on, knocking away the apprentices plucking at his sleeves and the fleshy-mouthed whores who sidled up whispering what delights they could offer. Athelstan ignored such harrowers of the dark. Nevertheless, the world and all its business still pressed in. A group of Newgate bailiffs pulled two river pirates to the balustrade overlooking the river. Ignoring their screams, the officials tied nooses around the prisoners’ necks and toppled them over. Athelstan glimpsed a prostitute on her knees before a costermonger, feverishly loosening the points of his hose as both sheltered in a narrow runnel between two soaring houses. Athelstan looked away but his eye was caught by other scenes. A beggar, one leg crushed by a cart, lay dying beneath a stall attended by a Carmelite. Two courtesans from The House of Imminent Pleasure just beyond the bridge sauntered by swathed in cheap finery and even cheaper perfume. A group of armed knights, gorgeous pennants proclaiming John of Gaunt’s arms, forced their destriers through the crowd. Curses and insults were thrown. The leading knight, visor down, lowered his lance and the crowd swiftly parted. A gust of river wind, heavy with the smell of rotting fish, buffeted Athelstan. The friar felt dizzy, disconcerted, as if he could feel the pent-up anger and lusts of the people around him. He took a deep breath and moved on, reaching the end of the bridge and the steps either side leading to the upper stories of the yawning bridge gate.

  Athelstan climbed these, knocked on the iron-studded door and was ushered into what the mannekin Robert Burdon called his ‘workshop’. Custos of the Bridge and Keeper of the Heads, Burdon was scarcely five feet tall, a small, pot-bellied man who loved to dress in blood-red taffeta, the colour of what he jokingly called his ‘fraternity of the shearing knife’.

  In the chambers above Athelstan could hear the screams and shouts of Burdon’s brood of children.

  ‘Brother Athelstan! Brother Athelstan, come deeper in.’ The friar walked up the macabre chamber, long and narrow, lit only by arrow-slit windows, its wooden floor scrubbed clean, as was the long table which ran down the centre of the room. On shelves along the wall ranged rows of freshly severed heads; these had been washed in brine and recently tarred at the neck, glassy eyes above gaping, bloody mouths gazing sightlessly at him from under half-open lids. Athelstan refused Burdon’s offer of refreshment. He explained why he had come and placed the sack on the table. Burdon, calling blessings down on Sir John, undid the twine and brought out both heads. Clicking his tongue noisily as he critically examined them, the mannekin picked each up, sniffed at them in turn, wetted his fingers and stroked the grey, wizened skin of the two severed heads. He then examined the cut necks. Athelstan had to turn away when Burdon prised open the mouths, poking around with his fingers. Once finished he placed both heads in a space along the shelves.

  ‘Do you know, Brother,’ Burdon smiled, ‘at night, when darkness falls like a sheet of blackness and the river mists billow in, they come for their heads. Oh, yes! Heart-stricken, bloated and dangerous, the ghosts, the terrormongers, rise from the dismal woods of Hell. They gather here, ushered in by the night hags, a synod of wraiths.’ Athelstan stared at him in disbelief.

  ‘True, true,’ Burdon lifted his hands towards the shelves, ‘the ghosts of all my guests. I hear them pattering up the steps. Sometimes I glimpse them, smaller than me, hell-borne goblins. They bang on the walls. They gabble like Abraham men then they whisper, a sound like roasted fish hissing on a skillet. But,’ Burdon rose to his feet, ‘not these two. You see, their ghosts cannot cross the sea though their heads did, mind you. I detect salt water on their skins, while I’m sure both were severed not by an English axe but a two-handed broad sword, the execution weapon of Brabant?’ Burdon raised his eyebrows. ‘Flanders? Both heads are dry. The skin withering, the carrion birds will soon peck them to the bone. One head belongs to an old woman, the other to a fairly youngish man. Both have had their tongues plucked out.’

  ‘So,’ Athelstan sketched a blessing in the direction of the heads, ‘two heads brought from Flanders by Gaunt’s agents. They were undoubtedly the victims of judicial decapitation, probably carried out in secret. Before execution, their tongues were plucked out, the usual statutory punishment for those guilty of grievous calumny and slander. Both heads were to be shown to My Lord of Gaunt.’ Athelstan paused. ‘I suspect the heads were taken by the Upright Men during their assault near Aldgate and searched for when Thibault’s men stormed the Roundhoop.’

  ‘I heard about both incidents, Brother. I took custody of a number of heads . . .’

  ‘Well, Robert,’ Athelstan clasped him on the shoulder, ‘you have two more.’ He bowed and walked towards the door, reluctant to say any more. After all, Master Burdon might be Thibault’s spy. The friar whispered goodbye and walked into the freezing cold.

  PART FOUR

  ‘Vermis: The Serpent’

  The light was dying. People, wrapped in cloaks, mantles and hoods, hurried home. The Southwark gallows rose fearsome and sombre through the murk, the corpses hanging there already freezing hard. The stocks nearby were full of miscreants, locked by neck, wrist or ankle. The moans of the prisoners were so pitiful Athelstan begged the bailiffs, for the love of God and the honour of Sir John, to free them. A couple of coins provided the necessary encouragement. Athelstan walked up the main thoroughfare into the tangle of alleyways leading towards his church. The friar paused, still lost in thought. ‘The heads were severed in Ghent,’ he murmured, ‘their tongues plucked out beforehand. They must have uttered some terrible slander against My Lord of Gaunt, but what? Something connected with that mysterious prisoner?’

  ‘Brother, are you well?’ Athelstan blinked and stared at the sharp features of Ranulf the rat catcher peering out at him from the shelter of his tarred, pointed hood. Ranulf lifted his cage carrying his ferocious ferrets, Ferox and Audax. ‘All quiet at the church, Brother. Master Thibault’s gifts disappeared in the twinkling of an eye. Slices of roast pork and stoups of ale. Well,’ Ranulf shook his cage, ‘Moleskin the boatmen’s shed is plagued by rats. The cold has driven the enemy out into the open,’ and, muttering to himself, Ranulf wandered off, swaying slightly on his feet.

  Athelstan continued up the alleyway on to the open enclosure before St Erconwald’s. The old church rose eerily in the murky light under its carpet of frozen snow, a white wilderness which only emphasized the dull, black mass of the sombre church. A beacon light, lit by Mauger the bell clerk, glowed from the steeple. Candlelight flared behind the shutters of the death house where Godbless and his goat sheltered. Athelstan stared around at the sheer bleakness. He wondered what visions lurked here beyond the veil? He walked to the cemetery lychgate. Did the Soul-harrier, Satan’s apostate angel, hide among the gravestones? Did the shadow spirits, the wandering wraiths and shade-souls, hover to plot dark designs against the living? Athelstan closed his eyes. Was Godbless right? Did the dead swarm here like larvae, squalid ghosts, eyes the colour of boxwood in faces of waxen yellow? The beggar claimed he had heard their night shrieks. Athelstan rubbed his eyes. ‘And you, Friar,’ he quietly accused himself, ‘are becoming tired and your brain fanciful.’ He took a deep breath, tried to clear his mind and went in search of where Benedicta had hidden the house key. Once he found it, he ensured Philomel was comfortable, unlocked the door and walked into the stone-flagged kitchen, clean-swept, tidy but very cold. Athelstan took a taper to the hour candle. He lit the spigots and lantern horns before firing the braziers and the kindling in the hearth. Benedicta had left a lamp with perfumed oil of the anointment of roses to sweeten the air. A scratching at the door disturbed the friar’s enjoyment of the fragrance. He allowed Bonaventure in and the cat immediately joined the friar at the hearth. Athelstan pulled across the two rods; from each hung a small cauldron on a chain, one containing oatmeal, the other a soup, thickened and seasoned with herbs and onions. The room slowly thawed, the savoury smells from the pots curling out. Once the food was ready Athelstan prepared two bowls for himself and a pot of oatmeal for Bonaventure. The friar sat at the
table, blessed both himself and the cat and ate slowly, staring into the flames.

  ‘Where do I begin, Bonaventure?’ he murmured. The cat scarcely lifted its head. ‘Just like Sir John, absorbed in your food. Well, let me explain. There are two camps. My Lord of Gaunt’s and that of the Upright Men, who definitely have a cell here in Saint Erconwald’s. Each party has a spy deep in the other’s household, and so it begins.’ Athelstan gulped a spoonful. ‘Gaunt brings his agents the Oudernardes from Ghent. They escort a mysterious prisoner, probably a woman, along with those two severed heads: one belongs to a young man, the other to an older woman. Both must have spoken some hideous slander against Gaunt, hence the removal of their tongues before their heads were severed. The gruesome remains were probably brought to London as trophies as well as proof of a task well done, of clacking tongues being silenced forever.’ Athelstan supped another mouthful. ‘The Upright Men stole the heads during that attack but failed to capture the mysterious prisoner. I wonder, Bonaventure, who gave them such excellent intelligence of where Gaunt’s party would be at a certain time on a certain day in the depth of winter?’ Athelstan waved his spoon at Bonaventure. ‘At the Roundhoop Thibault struck like a hawk. Who among the Upright Men told him about such a meeting?’ Bonaventure, who’d licked his bowl clean, cast an envious eye on those of this strange little friar. Athelstan pushed the oatmeal towards his dining companion. ‘Not the best of banquets, Bonaventure, but at least it’s hot. Now, what did really happen at the Roundhoop? Something definitely did but I can’t place it. What did that young man mean when he said the woman should continue gleaning? And what was he looking for? Some people might say he was all feverish due to the shock of death but I don’t think so.’

  Athelstan paused, listening to the faint sounds from outside. Darkness would be falling, and the freezing cold would keep most of his parishioners indoors. ‘I wonder,’ Athelstan put down his spoon and stroked Bonaventure, ‘has Gaunt, my learned cat, truly placed a spy here in my parish?’ He stared at the crucifix fastened above the hearth. ‘None of my parishioners were present in Saint John’s Chapel, thank God.’ Athelstan swiftly crossed himself. ‘But Bonaventure, a clever assassin certainly was.’ Athelstan rose to put a log on the fire; when he turned back Bonaventure was finishing his soup. ‘Wretched cat!’ Athelstan whispered. ‘But who was that Judas man in the chapel? How did he kill? At first I suspected he used Hell’s mouth to shield and hide himself but, to do that, he would have to detach it from the rood screen, and that never happened.’ He breathed out noisily. ‘Yet how could that assassin loose two bolts and not be seen, leave those severed heads and not be detected? And how did the assassin trap Barak in that crypt, strike him at the back of the head, strap on the war belt, thrust a crossbow into his hand then hurl him from that window?’ Athelstan shook his head. ‘All a great mystery, even more so Eli’s death. Imagine a chamber like this, Bonaventure. No secret entrances, the window shuttered both within and outside, the door locked and barred. So how was Eli killed by a crossbow bolt? The eyelet was sealed and stuck?’ Athelstan moved to the door. ‘Even if it wasn’t, if I open the eyelet here and slide the shutter back, I’d see a weapon thrust against the gap. I’d already be vigilant – that’s why we use an eyelet – even more so if I glimpsed a crossbow.’ Athelstan went and stood before the hearth. ‘And that mysterious fire? I am sure it was a diversion so Eli’s killer could slip through the darkness. Why Eli? A simple player? To spread terror or,’ Athelstan wagged a finger, ‘did he see something untoward in that chapel? Or was he simply murdered because he might have done? Yes,’ Athlestan rubbed his hands, ‘that’s a start. After Oudernarde was struck, everyone, including myself, was at the far end of that nave, except Eli. Why was he slain? And, above all,’ Athelstan went back to his chair, ‘how was it done?’ He stared into the fire. As he stroked Bonaventure, his eyes grew heavy so he put his head down on his arms and slept. A loud knocking on the door eventually aroused him. Athelstan glanced at the hour candle – an entire ring had burned. He hurried to the door.

  ‘Brother Athelstan, it’s me, Flaxwith, and two of my bailiffs.’ Athelstan drew the bolts and let them in. All three were draped in cloaks and mantles, mufflers and hoods pulled close. Flaxwith’s mastiff stayed obediently outside; he and Bonaventure had met before and both nourished a lasting hatred for each other.

  ‘Sir John sent you this.’ Flaxwith handed over a small cream-coloured scroll tied with a green ribbon. Athelstan undid this, offering his visitors blackjacks of ale. They refused but gratefully ladled out some of the hot soup while Athelstan read the itemized list of information about Humphrey Warde and his family. The details were succinct and clear. According to Sir John, Warde was a very successful spicer who’d mysteriously left his shop in Cheapside. Rumour had it that he’d fallen on hard times. However, Sir John had learnt on good authority from whisperers in the Guildhall that Warde still enjoyed a lucrative trade with the spicery department of Gaunt’s wardrobe as well as those of the royal household.

  ‘Spices be damned!’ Athelstan whispered, rolling up the scrap of parchment.

  ‘You sound exactly like Sir John.’ Flaxwith put down the bowl, smacking his lips.

  ‘Master Flaxwith, come with me. Leave one of your men to guard my house. He may eat and drink whatever, within reason. Bonaventure will tell me if he doesn’t.’ Athelstan grabbed his cloak, put on his stout walking boots and, followed by a surprised Flaxwith and one of his bailiffs, swept from the house. It was a black night, freezing hard, the ground under foot glitteringly treacherous, a trap for the unwary. The friar recalled the attack on him outside St Peter’s. Was that against him or someone else? To kill or to frighten? Athelstan hurried past his church, his mind teeming with problems and questions. God bless both him and them but what if Pike and the others were correct? Humphrey Warde could well be a spy, a cockle planted deep in Athelstan’s wheat field, a collector of intelligence for his sinister masters at the Savoy palace. Athelstan walked on. The snaking lanes and paths were deserted. Chinks of light gleamed at windows and doors. Snow slid from roofs peppered with icicles. A rat scrabbled across the frost. A black shadow pursued; in the corner of a runnel the hunted gave an eerie screech as it was caught. From somewhere a voice chanted a common song and then faded. Athelstan reached Rickett Lane. Down under the leaning, cramped, crooked little houses, much decayed and held up by crutches, Athelstan found Warde’s narrow, two-storey tenement. The front was boarded up but the door hung slightly open, unlatched and unlocked. A cold and unreasoning dread seized Athelstan as he pushed back the door. Inside the stone-flagged passageway was lit by greasy tallow candles in their niches. Somewhere a child whimpered. Athelstan paused. The house was cold but the air fragrant from the smells of crushed spices stored in the small shop immediately to his left. Athelstan was about to walk on when he glimpsed the shadow slumped between the two tables where the spices were prepared and weighed. He grabbed the box lantern off its hook just within the doorway and walked in. Humphrey Warde lay sprawled on his back, the crossbow bolt almost buried in his chest. The blood from the wound had clotted in an icy puddle. Athelstan murmured a prayer and moved on. Katherine Warde lay face down in the small kitchen, killed by a crossbow bolt to the back of her head. In a small cot beside her, baby Odo murmured fretfully.

  ‘Raise the hue and cry!’ Athelstan whispered to a shocked Flaxwith who had followed him in. ‘Shout “Harrow” and rouse the parish!’ He tapped the small cot. ‘Baby Odo needs attention.’ In the small comfortable solar above, Humphrey’s two children, Laurence and Margaret, had been struck down. Laurence almost blocked the threshold; the barb had sliced his throat, the blood splashing out to stain both lintel and floor. Margaret had been thrown back in the comfortable window seat, the embroidery she had been working on slipping through her fingers as the bolt smashed into her chest, a direct hit to the heart. Her eyes stared in glassy horror, her slack mouth encrusted with blood.

  ‘These are nightmares,’ Athelstan wh
ispered. ‘The blackest sins have been committed here. The demons gather. God have mercy on us all.’ Flaxwith touched him on the shoulder and pointed to a parchment scrap nailed to a wooded settle nearby. Athelstan plucked it down and read the scrawl.

  ‘When Adam delved and Eve span

  Who was then the gentleman?

  Now the world is ours and ours alone

  To cut the Lords to heart and bone.’

  Sir John Cranston gazed down at the four bloody corpses stretched out on a canvas sheet in the spice chamber. Athelstan had swiftly finished the rite for the dead and informed the coroner of what he had found. The lane outside was packed with people. The wardsmen had been alerted by the ringing cries of ‘Harrow! Harrow!’ Bladdersniff, the local beadle and constable, despite his topeish ways, had roused Athelstan’s parishioners. Baby Odo was being looked after by a family. Now the rest of the neighbourhood, armed with staves, clubs, cudgels, daggers and maces, gathered in the freezing cold.

  ‘Father, we are here.’

  ‘So you are.’ Athelstan beckoned Watkin and Pike into the small chamber. ‘Just one question.’ Athelstan’s face was drawn in anger, eyes hard, no smile or understanding look. ‘One question.’ Athelstan repeated. ‘On God’s eternal judgement on your souls, the truth!’ he hissed. ‘Are you responsible for this?’

  Watkin and Pike gaped in horror at the blood-drenched corpses.

  ‘Under the ban!’ Watkin exclaimed. ‘They must have all been placed under the ban! Father, I swear, if they were, the order was not known or carried out by us.’ Watkin scratched his face. ‘The Wardes were a nuisance; they actually learnt very little, nothing more than most of the parish know. Well,’ he shuffled mud-caked boots, ‘until that attack on the Roundhoop.’