by Paul Doherty
‘So well kept,’ Athelstan murmured staring around, his gaze caught by the polished brass candle spigot, the clean, swept hearth, the crushed herb powder strewn on the floor, and, in the bed-loft above, the white starched linen.
‘This is a nun’s cell,’ Athelstan whispered. He stared at the crudely carved crucifix on the far wall. Above this hung an embroidered cloth displaying Christ’s wounded face with a prie-dieu pushed firmly beneath it. Athelstan inspected the small buttery and kitchen and soon established that Pernel had not returned. The white manchet bread was turning hard in the bin; the meat and butter wrapped in linen cloths were stale and slightly rancid; the water in the jugs was laced with dust.
‘Oh Lord, Pernel,’ Athelstan prayed, ‘where are you? What has happened?’ He crossed to the coffer standing under the shuttered window. He opened it and took out the rugs and blankets; underneath lay packages wrapped in gauze and a small coffer. The latter contained Ave beads, a simple gold ring and several medals. The biggest of these was on a silver filigree chain, and Athelstan recognised it as one that would be worn by a nun of the Poor Clare Order. The other medals were a motley collection. One displayed the insignia of the Holy Blood at Hailes in Gloucestershire; a number were associated with St Peter’s Abbey in that same shire; and the rest originated from churches in Hainault, Flanders and Zeeland. There was also one from the monastery of Sancto Alberto di Butrio. Athelstan’s curiosity deepened when he untied the packages containing the brown robe, black veil, starched white wimple and waist rope of a Poor Clare nun. There was also a small psalter, its yellowing pages containing the horaria of each particular day as well as the holy seasons. In a blank folio at the front someone had written: ‘This books belongs to Sister Agnes.’
‘Is that who you really were?’ Athelstan whispered, leafing through the psalter. ‘A Poor Clare nun? And what is this?’ The last page of the psalter was embossed with a seal displaying the title, ‘Domus Sanctae Monicae’ – the house or convent of St Monica. Athelstan finished his searches, intrigued by what he had found.
‘Lord forgive me,’ he prayed. ‘The cowl truly doesn’t make the monk. I judge by appearances when I should wait for the truth.’ He closed the chest and crouched beside it for a while. He’d always considered Pernel to be an eccentric old woman who babbled nonsense and was forever curling her crudely dyed hair. But now? Athelstan closed his eyes and a blizzard of thoughts swept his mind: Alberic’s murder, the attacks on him, the disappearance of the men in his parish and the growing violence either side of the river. He must ignore the matters which he had no control over. He must get Sir John safely out of Southwark and return to Blackfriars to see if Pernel was safe. Athelstan recalled the prayer asking God for the energy to solve problems, the patience to accept those he couldn’t and the wisdom to recognise the difference. Athelstan opened his eyes, crossed himself and glanced around. He had no right to be here, searching Pernel’s pathetic belongings, yet he could not ignore the anxiety gnawing at his soul. Pernel was one of his parishioners and therefore his responsibility.
He got up and left, hurrying back down the silent streets. The occasional shutter and door opened and closed swiftly. Athelstan did not stop. Years ago he had served in the royal array. He recognised the tell-tale signs of a small community terrified into a watchful silence and frightful inertia. He reached the priest’s house, where Cranston and Benedicta were sharing a blackjack of ale. The coroner’s mood had changed. He was no longer the bon viveur, the merry soul and humourist. He sat silent, his unsheathed sword close to hand, his face drawn, his eyes watchful, betraying all the tension of a knight before battle. Athelstan beckoned both of them out of the house.
‘Benedicta, we should lock up and get out of here as swiftly as possible. I …’ He paused as the distant echo of conflict echoed around them. The black clouds of smoke above the bridge were thickening and spreading rapidly. ‘I do not feel safe here any longer. The riverside is the only way out.’
They left the priest’s house, Benedicta leading them along needle-thin runnels and alleyways lined with rotting houses. The ground, choked with all kinds of odours, reeked of filth and decay. Cranston called them the alleyways of Hell. Athelstan fully agreed with the coroner’s description. They had entered Satan’s kingdom, where the devils had set up banqueting tables to feast on human souls. Law and order, fragile at the best of times, were crumbling away. Fires had been started. Flames licked at windows. The billowing air reeked of blood, fire and the stench of unwashed bodies crammed into a seething mob hungry for mischief. Executions and slayings were commonplace now. Anyone associated with the law, officials and foreigners were all regarded as natural prey. Nevertheless, beneath the chaos, there was a moving spirit. The Earthworms had now emerged in force. The street fighters of the Upright Men directed the mob to this or that place to carry out grisly executions.
In the Penny Market close to the river, a group of Flemings had been decapitated, their torsos stripped of all raiment and left to be nudged and gnawed at by wandering dogs and pigs; their severed heads had been placed on poles, their gaping mouths stuffed with filthy straw. Athelstan had sensed when they first crossed earlier in the day that such executions were the exception. Now it appeared as if killing was a natural business and Southwark had become a slaughterhouse. Moveable gibbets had been seized and those found wanting swiftly hanged. The gallows were being pushed backwards and forwards by a cohort of Earthworms who chanted their doggerel hymns. Rivulets of blood streamed across the trackways curling into small pools and encrusting the dirt-laced puddles. Dense clouds of grey smoke stung the eye and clogged the mouth and nose. Arrow shafts whipped through the air, crossbow bolts smashed into crumbling walls and slingstones sang as citizens defended their houses and storerooms.
Prisons and compters had been stormed, their guardians brutally executed. The dungeons and cells had been opened to release a host of malefactors who clambered out to spread further chaos. Lunatics from the small hospital of St Sulpice wandered aimlessly dragging their chains, wide-eyed, haggard-faced, screaming and cursing as they traversed the bleak, jagged landscape of their own private Hell. They raised their hands, jumping up and down mouthing nonsense, until they were pushed or clubbed out of the way. Laystalls had collapsed or been pulled down, refuse carts overturned so the disturbed filth blocked paths and released the most rank, offensive smells. Taverns and alehouses had also been sacked and the mob were not so much angry as drunk. Mad, garish figures garbed in looted clothes, wearing tawdry jewellery and women’s wigs, danced frenetically, shouting obscenities. The air was constantly riven with screams, yells and mocking laughter.
Athelstan felt he was crossing the landscape of Hades. He was also growing deeply concerned about Cranston. The coroner’s great bulk and whiskered face had been recognised, though his drawn sword and dagger kept the nightmare figures away as they hurried down to the quayside. Athelstan became particularly worried by one coven of malefactors led by two habitual criminals, Stocks and Pillory, their real names long since forgotten, as they had been punished so many times on the Southwark scaffold. When Athelstan first saw them they were forcing a beadle, his head decorated with a whore’s blue and white wig, to jig to the reedy tune of a beggar boy’s flute. They had caught sight of Athelstan and Cranston and were now following the coroner, collecting other ruffians on the way.
They reached the quayside, which reeked of fish as well as dried blood from the makeshift scaffold set up to decapitate foreign merchants and others trapped in the taverns and alehouses of Southwark. Earthworms, baleful figures in their grotesque attire, stood around, swords, clubs and maces at the ready. Alarmed now by how close Stocks and Pillory and their coterie were, Cranston shoved his way through. Mephistopheles, Master of the Minions and owner of the Tavern of Lost Souls, where most of the goods stolen in London ended up, was organising his own abrupt departure. A number of barges under the command of his brown-garbed minions were piled high with sacks, chests and coffers. Cranston, usi
ng his seal of office, commandeered one of these. Mephistopheles, bald-faced and glistening with sweat, did not protest but stared over Cranston’s shoulder.
‘You are the King’s officer,’ he murmured, ‘but whether you remain a live one …’
Cranston and Athelstan whirled around, and Stocks, Pillory and their coven charged in. Cranston, sword and dagger out, went into the half-crouch of a fighting man. Athelstan seized a fallen club which Benedicta snatched from him. Immediately one of the minions thrust a fresh one into his hands.
‘You will need that,’ he hissed as the attackers swirled in. Mostly drunk, they were little match for Cranston, whilst Mephistopheles and his minions had no choice but to become involved. The fighting spread along the quayside. Athelstan, fearful of Benedicta being hurt, tried to pull her back as they edged towards the steps leading down to the waiting barge. Cranston was roaring his battle cry of ‘St George! St George!’ A grinning Pillory aimed a blow at Athelstan’s head, but the friar caught it on his arm. The shooting pain and the malicious smirk on Pillory’s unshaven, filthy face sent the furies throbbing through the little Dominican’s body. All fear was forgotten as a red mist descended, a battle rage which threw him forward, impervious to the clamour and clatter of weaponry. Athelstan was swept up by a fury at the way things were, of being harassed and hounded when he thought no man, said no man and did no man any ill at all. He whirled the battle club either side as his beloved brother had taught him so expertly. Athelstan shouted with glee as the knotted wood crunched flesh and bone. He took a blow on his shoulder but this only infuriated him further. Time and again he whirled his club until he was pulled vigorously by the cowl. He swung round to face the new threat.
‘Brother, for the love of God!’ Benedicta stood behind the coroner staring at him open-mouthed. She came forward and eased the club from his fingers. Athelstan, sweat-soaked and breathing heavily, stared around: their attackers had vanished. The injured were crawling or hobbling away.
‘Well, I never!’ Cranston grinned as he ushered Athelstan on to the barge. ‘Well, I never!’ he repeated, taking a generous swig from the miraculous wineskin. ‘A monk of war!’
‘Friar, Sir John.’ Athelstan grasped the wineskin, took a mouthful and clambered into the barge.
‘They say you fought like a warrior, Brother Athelstan, but I find that difficult to accept.’
‘Do you now?’ Athelstan smiled down at Isabella, sitting next to him on a cushioned seat just to the right of the Lady Chapel in the main church of Blackfriars.
‘Well, you are a priest, a friar, and you are always gentle with me.’
‘Of course I am. Now, Isabella,’ Athelstan pointed to the great candelabra, a candle on each of the many spigots, ‘go on, light some. Remember, each burning taper is a prayer and as long as the flame lives, your prayer rises up to the Virgin. Pray for your father, pray for me.’
Isabella slid from the bench. Athelstan watched as she carefully lit a taper then knelt to slowly recite an Ave before beginning again. Athelstan stretched and crossed himself. He felt a strange tiredness since that affray on the quayside. They had left safely enough. Mephistopheles’ minions were eager to take them across the river before hastening back to their master, who was fretting impatiently, eager to be away from Southwark. During their uneventful journey to Blackfriars quayside, Cranston and Benedicta had teased him mercilessly about being a berserker. The coroner declared that he had seen the likes before and mentioned the Black Prince, the present king’s father, whose battle rage was a blinding red mist which numbed all fear. Once they had landed and been ushered into the guesthouse, the coroner had carried on exclaiming at the friar’s martial prowess. Athelstan, growing increasingly embarrassed, had slipped away to the silence of the church whilst he waited for Brother Hugh and his shadow John the gatekeeper. Isabella, however, had heard the story about what was now being proclaimed as the ‘Great Battle of Southwark’ and rushed to pester Athelstan with a litany of questions. Athelstan couldn’t answer these; as he had confessed to Cranston and Benedicta, it was just something which had happened. He recalled boyhood fights as well as his days serving abroad in the royal array. As always, he felt guilty about it, a part of his soul which had not been purged or even controlled, a slumbering fire which might erupt at any time. He’d fought so hard to control his temper, what he mockingly called ‘the demon within’. He privately promised he would do some fresh penance, and he would pray that the red mist would evaporate and the fire which fed it be extinguished.
‘Athelstan?’ He glanced up at a smiling Brother John. ‘Our infirmarian has returned. If you wish …’
Athelstan nodded, rose and took Isabella back to her nurse, who was sitting in the transept studying a vivid wall painting depicting the sorrows of Purgatory. He handed Isabella over, kissed her on the brow and followed Brother John out of the church along sun-washed passageways and across to the death house. Brother Hugh was working at the mortuary table with mortar and pestle. He greeted Athelstan and took off his thick butcher’s apron.
‘Brother?’
‘I wish to study a corpse,’ Athelstan replied. ‘An old woman.’ He stared round. ‘She had reddish dyed hair.’ The infirmarian shrugged, went to one of the tables and pulled back the corpse sheet. Athelstan’s heart sank. ‘Poor Pernel,’ he whispered, ‘poor, poor Pernel. Has she been anointed?’
‘Of course. Absolution has been administered. She will be buried tomorrow morning in Poor Man’s Acre, the same time we will be burying Alberic. Why, Brother, did you know her?’
‘Yes, she was one of my parishioners – mad as a March hare, but,’ Athelstan blessed the corpse, ‘a good soul. Christ have mercy on her.’
‘So what was she doing here?’ Brother John came alongside, staring down at the waxen, white face.
‘She came to see me,’ Athelstan murmured.
‘If she did, Brother, I never admitted her.’ Brother John shook his head and his deep-set eyes crinkled in concern. ‘No, I did not admit her. Neither at the water-gate nor through the gatehouse. You know I am responsible for all guests and visitors. A sentry manning the water-gate yesterday afternoon glimpsed her corpse being washed up against the quayside by the river tide. She was just bobbing there, hair and gown splayed out.’ He shrugged. ‘Of course we brought her in and,’ he gestured, ‘as you can see, that is all.’
Athelstan leaned over the corpse and pulled back the sheet. He searched for any head wound or blow beneath the matted, greasy hair but he could detect no contusion, bruise or blood.
‘God knows,’ Brother Hugh murmured. ‘Did the poor soul fall from a barge or slip on a greasy quayside step? I examined her most rigorously, but I could detect no mark of violence.’
Athelstan stared into the kindly eyes, bright with a sharp mind which, Athelstan knew, loved to probe every effect and demonstrate true cause either in the physical or the metaphysical, be it examining a corpse or some syllogism in logic.
‘She was full of water,’ the infirmarian added. ‘I suspect she fell and floundered for a while, swallowing deeply. Death would have been very swift.’
‘Yes, I can see that,’ Athelstan replied. ‘But what caused that fall? There again,’ he added bleakly, ‘she was so fey and she did like her pottle of ale.’
‘We have her clothes,’ Brother John broke in, ‘a few pathetic items.’ Athelstan nodded, covered the corpse and collected the leather sack containing Pernel’s paltry belongings. He was about to leave when Brother Matthias, face all flushed with excitement, burst into the death house.
‘We have all been summoned.’ He spread his hands. ‘All of us. Our Italian brethren wish to discuss further why they have come here.’
‘We know why they’ve come here,’ Brother Hugh grumbled, ‘and what a time to choose to talk about it. Why do you think they need us?’ He tapped Athelstan’s arm playfully. ‘No doubt they will want to address certain, how can I put it, scientific or medical inquiries, especially when it comes to royal corps
es, but why now?’
‘I believe our beloved chronicler Roger has discovered something amiss,’ Matthias declared.
‘He would,’ Brother Hugh murmured. ‘So we will be busy enough, eh, Athelstan?’
The friar smiled as he stared at these three companions, his former teachers who had dominated his youth and training here as a Dominican priest. Sharp, witty, caustic, slightly sardonic and cynical, but good men. Now he could sense their excitement at being distracted from their usual daily routine, the ordinary tedium of friary life.
‘We are to meet in the council chamber,’ Matthias added, ‘immediately after Compline.’
‘So late?’ Brother John protested.
‘Time is passing.’ Matthias shrugged. ‘Our Italian brothers wish to finish here and return to Gloucester. Naturally, they are growing increasingly concerned by the deepening unrest in the city and elsewhere …’
‘As they should be!’ The door to the death house crashed back and Sir John Cranston, very much the Lord High Coroner, swaggered in.
‘The news is not good,’ he boomed, feet apart, cloak thrown back, thumbs pushed through his great leather warbelt. Athelstan was pleased to see the coroner return to his usual genial self, though he suspected as he made the introductions that the change in mood was due more to the miraculous wineskin than anything else.
‘More trouble, Sir John?’ he asked.
‘Yes, according to my messenger Tiptoft, the rebels have crossed the bars and are now deep in the city. The Fleet prison has been stormed: all the lovelies housed there are now free to inflict whatever mischief they can wreak. They are attacking the houses of royal officials, ripping off roofs and setting buildings alight. They have sacked the Temple, hunting for lawyers. They entered the great round church there, the one built on the plan of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. They forced the treasury, seized all the records and used them to create a huge bonfire on the highway outside.’ The coroner sat down on a stool, mopping his brow. ‘Tiptoft believes they are going to march on Gaunt’s palace of the Savoy.’