by Paul Doherty
‘Benedicta, what brings you here?’
She grinned impishly. ‘How’s the baking going for the autumn festival?’
‘That,’ Athelstan declared heatedly, ‘is the least of my worries.’
He described his previous day’s visit to the Guildhall, breaking off only when Benedicta began to laugh at his description of Cranston and the two wolf hounds. However, as he described the killings, her face grew sombre.
‘You should be careful, Father,’ she murmured. ‘The gossip is spreading through Southwark like fire in dry stubble. There’s talk of a great revolt, of assaults on tax collectors, and Pike the ditcher is up to mischief again.’
‘Does the name Ira Dei mean anything to you, Benedicta?’
I have heard it bandied about, that and the Great Community of the Realm. Pike the ditcher knows everything.’ She smiled wryly. ‘Or at least he says he does. Pike is more full of ale than malice.’
‘I expected Cranston,’ Athelstan said, wistfully staring at the door. ‘You see, one of his old comrades has been murdered, and the city fathers not only want their murders resolved and their gold back, they are also demanding an explanation of why the dismembered limbs of traitors are disappearing from the spikes above London Bridge.’
‘A cup of troubles,’ Benedicta said. ‘But, Father, I have to add to them.’
‘How?’ he asked sharply.
‘A woman came to the church last night.’ Benedicta narrowed her eyes, trying to recall the name. ‘Eleanor Hobden, that’s right.’
Athelstan’s heart sank.
‘She claims her daughter’s possessed,’ Benedicta continued. She says she will take you to her house tonight after Vespers. What’s it all about, Father?’
Athelstan’s dark eyes looked mournful but she resisted the urge to clasp his hand or stroke his cheek.
‘Trouble,’ the priest muttered. ‘Benedicta, when I do go tonight, will you come with me?’
‘Are you frightened?’ she half-teased.
‘No, no. But I’ll ask Sir John to accompany me too. In these cases the salt of common sense can be better than a priest’s blessing.’
‘Caught you at last, monk!’
Athelstan and Benedicta started and looked round as Cranston, hat off, legs astride, stood at the entrance to the church beaming at them.
‘Oh, Lord,’ Athelstan whispered. ‘He’s been at the miraculous wineskin.’
‘Caught you at last!’ Cranston boomed again, and walked down the nave. He stopped and peered about.
‘Where’s that bloody cat?’
‘He’s gone hunting.’
‘Good!’ Cranston came over, put one bear-like arm round Benedicta and planted a juicy kiss on her cheek. ‘Lovely girl!’ he whispered. He smiled at Athelstan.
‘She’ll make someone a lovely wife.’
‘Sir John Cranston!’ Benedicta cried with mock anger.
‘Hold thy tongue, woman,’ Cranston teased back.
‘Brother, you have to come.’
‘Oh no, Sir John, where?’
‘To Billingsgate, Botolph’s Wharf. They have just fished Sturmey’s body from the river — a knife, similar to the one used on Mountjoy, planted deep in his chest. He apparently disappeared yesterday afternoon.’
‘What was he doing in Billingsgate?’
‘God knows!’ Cranston smacked his lips and stared admiringly round the church. ‘This is becoming more like a house of God than a barn.’
Athelstan winked at Benedicta as he turned and led Sir John back to the door. ‘And how are Gog and Magog?’
‘Eating as if there’s no tomorrow.’
Cranston stopped, threw back his head and laughed. ‘Boscombe’s proving worth his weight in gold yet he can’t tell me anything more about Mountjoy’s death. However, what he did tell me,’ Cranston laughed again, ‘is that Gog and Magog chased poor Leif up a tree: the silly bastard wouldn’t come down for hours!’
His face became serious. ‘Gaunt and the Guildmasters interviewed me this morning. They reminded me that I have only ten days to find the gold and trap the murderer.’
‘Are they insisting on this?’
‘Yes, Lord Clifford is also to seek out what he can.’
‘Or else what?’ Athelstan asked curiously.
‘What do you mean, monk?’
‘Well, what happens after ten days?’
‘Gaunt loses his allies, his gold and his power.’
Cranston stopped and peered down at the baptismal font. He studied the carving round the rim: St John the Baptist, waist-high in a River Jordan which reminded the Coroner of the Thames rather than any river in Palestine. ‘Those Guildmasters… Lady, I beg your pardon,’ he also bobbed his head towards the tabernacle, ‘but they are murderous villains! Cheek-biters, gull-catchers, marble-hearted, ass-headed dogs!’ He breathed out. ‘They all sat there like great jellies: pop-eyed Goodman, balding Marshall, foppish Denny, and Sudbury with a face even a pig would despair of. What makes me angry, monk…’
‘Friar, Sir John!’
‘As I was saying, monk, what makes me angry is I know one or more of those bastards is a murderer. He must be!’
Cranston would have continued his litany of curses but Athelstan guided him out on to the sun-washed steps of St Erconwald’s. He locked the door of the church and that of his house and, after grabbing his saddle and bag of writing implements, went to collect Philomel. Cranston, after taking two generous swigs from his wineskin, forgot what he termed the ‘Poxy Guildmasters!’ and returned to his perennial teasing of Benedicta. At last Athelstan was able to saddle a protesting Philomel. He slung his bag over the saddle horn and carefully mounted.
Sir John collected his own horse from where it had been chomping the cemetery grass and swung himself into the saddle with such force that Athelstan winced; no wonder, he reflected, Crim called Sir John ‘Horse Cruncher’. Athelstan urged Philomel forward and, not the best of horsemen, almost careered into Sir John. The friar glared down at a grinning Benedicta and tossed her the keys to both the church and his house.
‘You’ll keep an eye on things, Lady?’
Benedicta, biting her lip to stop her laughter, nodded.
‘And you’ll come back at Vespers?’
Again the nod.
Athelstan urged Philomel on and, with Cranston behind, blowing kisses at Benedicta, they left the churchyard and rode down towards London Bridge.
‘What’s happening at Vespers?’ Cranston abruptly asked.
‘We are going to meet the devil, Sir John. You, me and Benedicta.’
Cranston belched like a trumpet blast. ‘What the hell do you mean, monk?’
‘Wait and see.’
Any further conversation proved impossible; as it was market day, the streets of Southwark were full and Athelstan had to wave to different parishioners.
‘Greetings, My Lord Coroner!’ Pike the ditcher and Tab the tinker bawled as they sat outside a tavern, stoups of ale in their hands.
‘Sod off!’ he roared back, sensing the mockery in their voices.
They passed The Piebald. Cranston looked longingly through its darkened doorways and closed his eyes as he smelt the savoury pies baking there. Athelstan, however, refused to stop. Eventually they had to dismount to get through a crowd clustering round a chaunter who was loudly reciting the news of the day.
‘The French made a landing at Rye and burnt the church! The Lord Sheriff is dead, struck through the heart in his own garden, as is Sir Thomas Fitzroy, dead and stale as many of the fish he sold. A witch has been seen flying over St Paul’s and a boy with two heads has been born in a house near Clerkenwel!’
On and on the chaunter went, reciting what he had learnt, a mixture of half-truths and lies. Athelstan and Cranston passed on. Near the bridge itself the vegetable markets were doing a brisk trade; people walking along with their eyes fixed on the goods, frowning thoughtfully. The stalls were packed with different types of vegetables: crimson love apples, bundles
of white glossy leeks, celery with pink stalks and bright green tops, the white knobs of turnips and the rich brown coats of chestnuts. Stall owners shouted: ‘St Thomas’s onions!’ ‘Leeks fresh from the garden!’ Porters forced their way through, teeth clenched, jerkins wet with sweat as they walked, half-bowed, under the overflowing hampers on their backs. A bird seller, his boots red with the soil of the brick field, stood by a pile of cages, selling linnets, bull finches, gold finches and even nests bearing eggs. A little girl, dressed in black rags, sold water cress from a small tub. She looked so pathetic Athelstan bought tuppence worth and Philomel munched it in the twinkling of an eye.
Cranston and Athelstan, fighting to make their way, passed stalls selling cheese cakes, others combs, old caps, pigs’ feet; a hawker of knives, sharpening hatchets, shouted abuse at a market official trying to collect the tax. Whilst outside a tavern, the Pied Powder, a court sat to regulate, or at least try to, the running of the market. The air was thick with the smoke and odour from the tanners as well as the packed mass of sweaty bodies.
‘Hell’s teeth!’ Cranston breathed. ‘This is the devil’s own kitchen!’
For a while they had to stop whilst a group of exasperated beadles tried to clear a legion of cats and stray dogs which had congregated around a stall which sold offal. Now and again the old lady behind would throw down pieces of stale, dirty meat: this only wetted the strays’ appetites and brought down upon the old crone the imprecations and curses of her fellow traders. Athelstan, leading Philomel, edged his way through, smiling at Cecily who sat on the steps of the market cross, talking earnestly to a young fop in tawdry clothes and stained hose. She waved at Athelstan and cooed at Cranston, who turned away and grunted. Suddenly, the Coroner’s arm shot out and grabbed a ragged-arsed, balding, little man who was slinking through the crowds with a lap-dog in his arms. Athelstan, with Philomel nudging him for more water cress, watched in amazement as the burly Coroner lifted up the little man, still holding the lap-dog, by the scruff of his neck.
‘Well, well, if it’s not old Peterkin!’ Cranston gave the ferret-faced beggar a shake. ‘Old Peterkin the dog catcher. You snivelling little bastard! What are you up to now?’
‘Nothing, Sir John. I found this dog and am trying to find its owner.’
Cranston bellowed across to a beadle and the bleary-eyed official hurried across.
I am Sir John Cranston, Coroner. And this,’ he thrust Peterkin and the dog into the beadle’s arms, ‘is a little turd who goes across into the city, steals some lady’s lap-dog and then brings it back to claim the reward. Take care of him!’
Cranston handed Peterkin over without further ado, winked at Athelstan, and they turned the corner and passed down the thoroughfare to London Bridge.
The stocks and pillories on either side of the road were full of miscreants; night hawks, pickpockets, and every rapscallion in Southwark. Some stoically took the humiliation and the dirt pelted by passersby as if it was an occupational hazard whilst others moaned and cried for water. Athelstan quickly studied their faces, relieved to see none of his parishioners placed there. At the entrance to the bridge Cranston stopped and pounded on the iron-studded door of the gatehouse. There was no reply so the Coroner, ignoring Athelstan’s questions, kicked on it, bawling, ‘Come on, Burdon, you little bastard! Where are you?’
The door was flung open and a small, hairy-faced little creature appeared. A veritable mannikin. Athelstan smiled at Robert Burdon, father of at least thirteen children and constable of the gate tower.
‘Oh, it’s you, Cranston. What do you want?’
‘Can I come in?’ Sir John asked.
‘No, you bloody well can’t! I’m busy!’
Cranston stared up at the spikes above the gatehouse and their grisly burdens: the decapitated heads of traitors and malefactors.
‘Fine,’ Cranston breathed. ‘But who’s stealing the heads?’
‘I don’t bloody well know!’ Burdon replied, sticking his thumbs in his belt, his little dark eyes glaring at Athelstan. ‘What am I supposed to do, Father? My job is very simple. I’m to guard the gatehouse and place the heads on the spikes, and I always look after them. However, if some vile viper wishes to come and steal them, what can I do?’ He puffed his little chest out till he reminded Athelstan even more of a cock sparrow, I am a constable, not a guard.’
‘Robert!’ The woman’s voice inside was soft and alluring.
‘My wife,’ Burdon explained. ‘She’ll tell you the same. I don’t know what happened, Sir John. I goes to bed, the heads are there. I wakes up and, though there’s a guard here, the heads are gone.’ He leaned closer. ‘I think it’s witch hags,’ he whispered, ‘The night riders.’
‘Bollocks!’ Cranston roared.
‘Well, that’s the only bloody answer you’re going to get from me, so sod off!’ Burdon disappeared, slamming the door behind him.
Cranston sighed, shook his head and took a generous swig from the wineskin.
‘Come on, Brother.’
‘Who do you think is stealing the heads?’ Athelstan asked, threading Philomel’s reins round his wrist and riding alongside Cranston.
‘God knows, Brother. This city is full of every fiend in Hell. It could be a warlock or witch. The Corporation were particularly angry at the disappearance of the head of that French privateer, Jacques Larue — you remember, the one taken off Gravesend? Mystery after mystery,’ Cranston moaned. He stopped outside the chapel of St Thomas built midway along the bridge.
‘Forget the stealer of heads,’ he muttered. ‘Who gives a damn? Burdon doesn’t, and the guards of the Corporation are half-sodden with drink.’ He nodded at the iron-studded chapel door. ‘Years ago, when I was lean and lithe, a veritable greyhound, Oliver Ingham and I came here to take our vows as knights and consecrate our swords to the service of the King. So many years ago.’ The tears pricked at Sir John’s eyes.
‘Now I’m fat and old and Oliver lies murdered, left stinking in his bed, with the rats gnawing at his corpse, by a hard-hearted harridan from hell. She murdered him! You know that, Athelstan. I know that. She knows that.’
‘And so does God,’ Athelstan added gently. ‘Come on, Sir John, leave it be.’
They crossed the bridge and turned right into Billingsgate where the fish market was in full swing. The din of the cries and commotion of both sellers and buyers beat against their ears like the buzzing of a hornet’s nest. The whole of the wharf seemed to be covered in hand barrows: some laden with baskets, others with sacks. Alongside the river bank, the tangled rigging of the fishing boats reminded Athelstan of seaports; the smell of fish, whelks, red herrings, sprats and cod was almost overpowering.
‘Handsome cod, best in the market!’ a stall owner bawled at them. ‘Beautiful lobsters, good and cheap! Fine cock crabs, all alive!’ another shouted.
Cranston and Athelstan led their horses past stalls where the white bellies of turbot shone like mother-of-pearl next to blood-scarlet lobsters. Brown baskets full of wriggling eels stood round bowls of whelks being boiled alive above steaming cauldrons.
‘Where are we going to?’ Athelstan whispered.
Cranston pointed to a large tavern which stood in splendid isolation at the far end of the market. ‘The Ship of Fools,’ he said.
Athelstan groaned. ‘Oh, Sir John, you have had claret enough.’
‘Sod that!’ Cranston shouted back above the din. ‘We are here to see the Fisher of Men.’ But he refused to elaborate any further.
In the tavern yard an ostler took their horses and they walked into the great taproom which stank of beer, ale and salted fish.
‘Your servant.’ A bandy-legged tavern keeper touched his forelock, his small, greedy eyes never leaving the heavy purse on Sir John’s belt.
‘A cup of claret for me, some…’
‘Ale,’ Athelstan supplied.
‘Ale for my clerk, and another cup of claret for the Fisher of Men. I, Sir John Cranston, Coroner, wish to see him.’
The landlord’s manner became even more servile. He conducted Cranston and Athelstan as grandly as he would any prince to a small alcove with a table beneath a window overlooking the river. He fetched two deep bowls of claret, a stoup of ale, and gushingly assured Sir John that he had already sent a boy for the Fisher of Men.
‘Who is this?’ Athelstan asked.
‘The Fisher of Men,’ Cranston replied, sipping from his cup, ‘is a Crown official. There are five in all, working the banks of the river. This one has authority from the Fish Wharf near St Botolph’s down to Petty Wales next to the Tower.’
‘Yes, but what do they do?’
‘They fish bodies from the Thames. Murder victims, suicides, those who have suffered accidents, drunks. If a man’s alive they are paid twopence. For a murder victim threepence. Suicides and accidents only a penny.’
‘Sir John.’
Athelstan looked up as a tall, thin figure silently appeared beside them. Cranston waved to the stool and cup of wine.
‘Be our guest, sir.’
The man stepped out of the shadows. As he sat down Athelstan fought to hide his distaste. The fellow had red, lanky, greasy hair which fell to his shoulders and framed a face as grim as a death mask, alabaster white, a mouth like that of a fish, a snub nose and black button eyes. Cranston made the introductions and the Fisher of Men glanced expressionlessly at the friar.
‘You have come to view the corpse?’
Athelstan nodded.
‘Bobbing he was,’ the man replied. ‘Bobbing like a cork. You see, most murder victims are loaded with stones but this one was strange.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, you see, Sir John,’ the man sipped from his wine cup, face rigid, eyes unblinking, ‘it’s very rare I meet my customers before they die,’ he explained. ‘But yesterday, later in the afternoon, just after the market closed, I came out of St Mary at Hill for my usual walk along the wharf. I like to study the river, the currents, the breeze.’ The strange fellow wanned to his theme. ‘The river tells you a lot. If it’s rough or the wind is strong, the corpses are taken out mid-stream. Yesterday I thinks: The river’s calm, she means me well. The corpses will be lapped into shore.’