by Paul Doherty
Peter, narrow of face and weary-eyed, turned away and examined the wall fresco to his right: a most vivid depiction of divine vengeance on a fallen world, rather incongruous for someone seeking mercy. Peter had learnt that many of the paintings in St Erconwald’s were the work of a rather eerie character, baptised as Giles of Sempringham but popularly known as the Hangman of Rochester, a most skilled executioner responsible for the despatch of many a felon at Smithfield, Tyburn Stream and Tower Hill. Peter studied the painting and shivered. The scenes portrayed reflected his own dire visions. He wanted to look away but he was drawn in by the eye-catching images so difficult to ignore: grey seas dark with billowing smoke; distant fires glowing behind a mountain range scorched a reddish-brown. Along this mountain ridge hordes of the dead were being driven and harassed by the invincible armies of Satan, who led his troops astride a skinny hack. He was armed with a long, cruel scythe which he used to sweep his quarry into the gaping jaws of Hell. The frescoes included a wide range of miniature yet menacing scenes: massacres; tortures; hangings; disembowelling and decapitations; cartloads of skulls; trumpet-blowing skeletons; barrow-pushing, monkey-faced demons; gibbets and gallows; earthquakes and shipwrecks, all visions from a nightmare apocalypse.
Peter muttered a prayer as he recalled his own harrowing dreams peopled by hideous spectres: the monstrous reptile with popping eyes which crawled out of his bedclothes to sit on his chest and glare balefully at him, or that ghastly throng of ancient crones with their two-horned coifs and moon-shaped mitres above gloomy, haggard faces and hollow eyes. Last night he had dreamt of a harnessed woman. She was plump, her hair as thick and yellow as wet straw. She would crawl towards him along the ground like some fat-bellied cat, her buttocks and heavy breasts glistening with sweat. On her back rode a bat-faced demon with spurs on his spindly feet, one taloned hand grasping the reins, the other carrying a whip, its thongs decorated with sharp flint. Peter the Penniless rubbed his face.
Amelia called out from where she and Robert stood, just outside the rood screen, but Peter ignored her. He was recalling the vision which had plagued his sleep and ravaged his peace of mind long before sunrise. Peter had left his bed to eat and drink something. Amelia had followed and prepared some bread smeared with honey and a tankard of light ale. Still troubled, Peter had returned to his bedchamber and the memories had come flooding back as he recalled the events of his wild youth. He’d been a member of the Guild of Palmers attending night watches of the dead and trying to raise apparitions. He and others would meet the witches and warlocks during those unholy hours after midnight. He recalled one hag, Petronella, who distilled powders with spiders, black worms and scorpions. She’d mingle milfoil and other detestable herbs into her concoctions. Petronella would then give these to Peter and his companions and the visions would come sweeping in, the faces of those around him becoming bearded and horned like the heads of goats. Peter pushed the sanctuary stool deeper into the dark enclave. He was now as safe as ever he might be from such demons, but for how long? If only Athelstan would come and exorcise them …
Athelstan had left Cranston outside the tavern, Amongst the Tombs. He had bid farewell to the physician Limut, Beatrice and their two children. The day was drawing on and Athelstan felt he had so much to do, especially as the departure date for Canterbury was fast approaching. The friar paused on the corner of Frideswide alleyway. He felt confused and distracted, not really sure of what he should do and when. The clamour of the streets, their noise and smell, the different sights and images, all made him ill at ease and yet, behind that, there was something more sinister, like a ravenous wolf appearing out of the dark to slope along the borders of his life.
Once again murder threatened to enter his humdrum world; that slinky, weasel-faced demon, Satan’s assassin, who tempted man to kill and kill again, was making its presence felt. Simon Mephan, chief clerk of the Secret Chancery, had been the real quarry of that secret assassin. The other two were innocents who happened to be with him on that particular evening at the wrong time and in the wrong place. The deed had been done. Mephan was killed by shock, the other two had their throats twisted as tight as a farmer would a pair of chickens. Now Athelstan had to make a response. He had entered murder’s tournament field and the battle would only end when all that had to be done was fully accomplished. The little friar gripped his chancery satchel even tighter. He now regretted leaving Sir John. Perhaps the coroner could have accompanied him to the bridge … But then Athelstan smiled, crossed himself and murmured a prayer against such selfishness. A huckster approached, offering a powder found, so he claimed, in the ruins of Troy, which had given singular beauty to Helen and Venus.
‘For your doxy. For your favourite whore, friar!’ the seller jibed.
‘And take this for your penance!’ Athelstan retorted heatedly, smacking the man in the face. The trickster fled. Athelstan hurried on through the streets. Now and again he recognised some of Cranston’s ‘beloved’, those children of the twilight, who lived not so much beyond the law but just within its limits. Creatures like Rattle-Pate and Muckworm. The streets were clogged with such denizens of the night who, attracted by the good weather, had crawled out of their dungeons and midnight castles. Hungry-eyed and eager for mischief, these dwellers of the dark moved and twisted through the colourful, surging crowds. Athelstan pushed his way past. He did not answer their calls for he was immediately recognised as Cranston’s constant companion. They would wish to draw him into conversation, beg for money or seek a favour, and it would be well after dark before he reached Southwark. Moreover, Athelstan felt uneasy. He always did on the busy London streets. Sometimes he could be swept by a panic, dark, nameless fears as if the world was pressing in close about him. At the same time, however, Athelstan remained sensitive to real danger and he felt as if he was being followed and closely observed. Now and again he would pause, turn and stare back, but he could glimpse nothing untoward and so he pressed on, hoping to ignore everything happening around him. However, as he turned a corner he passed a gaggle of mumpers preparing to mumble a sparrow, a cruel, hateful game whereby the little bird’s wings were clipped and it was kept prisoner in a box whilst the mumpers tried to kill it by biting off its head. Athelstan, realising what was happening and full of fury, stormed in, knocking over the box. The sparrow escaped, fluttering away as Athelstan berated the gaggle of tormentors. They would have retaliated but two wardsmen who recognised Athelstan intervened and the gang fled up an alleyway.
The friar continued on, battling the crowds. Now the revolt was crushed, or ostensibly so, and high summer was making its presence felt, all of London had turned out of doors to sell, buy, barter, gawp or parade. Wealthy guildsmen and their overdressed wives moved from stall to stall, lips parted in a constant smile, eyes bright and keen for any hidden bargain. Apprentices hymned their master’s goods and the prices they charged for them. Other boys darted like swallows through the crowds to pluck at sleeve or gown and so entice would-be customers to stop and buy. The real quarry of these barrow boys were the sweaty-faced burgesses and, above all, the court and city fops both male and female who had turned out to strut in all their finery. Athelstan always found their fantastical dress a matter for quiet laughter; he sometimes discussed with Sir John how such people found the time to get dressed in the morning. Occasionally Athelstan would stop and stare but he also kept an eye on anyone following him. He glimpsed a wrestling match taking place outside the Cock a Hoop tavern. Two young men, naked to the waist, were entertaining the crowd. Usually Athelstan would ignore such a contest but this time he stood fascinated. One of the competitors had managed to get behind his opponent, an arm around his throat: his victim kicked and twisted, hands grabbing as he desperately tried to free the lock around his neck.
‘Surely,’ Athelstan whispered to himself, ‘Finchley and Felicity would have done that?’ He closed his eyes. He imagined those two young people with the garrotte string tied tightly around their throats, their arms and legs flail
ing out. He also thought of Simon Mephan sitting at that desk in his bedchamber. The old clerk knew he was trapped. He must have also concluded that he if tried to leave any message this would be destroyed, so instead he left a cipher …
‘Brother? Are you well?’ Athelstan opened his eyes and stared at the pasty-faced tinker, pet ferret in one hand, a box of trifles in the other. ‘Brother, it’s Michael the Mouse, do you remember me? Are you well?’ Athelstan assured him that he was, gesturing at the wrestling match which was becoming more raucous by the moment.
‘I was distracted by that, Michael. But thank you.’ Athelstan walked on. He was still thinking about Simon Mephan hastening up those stairs. A clever and subtle clerk, Mephan knew whatever he wrote would be seized by the assassin. The pains in his chest would have made themselves felt. It would not take Mephan long to open the Book of Gospels, score those two words, leave the quill pen there and mark it, surely?
Athelstan was now at the heart of the city, walking down Cheapside towards the bridge. A group of courtiers strode ahead in a brilliant display of ostentatious wealth: their gilt-trimmed jerkins, gleaming medallions, jewelled brooches and shimmering necklaces attracted the legion of thieves or beggars who haunted the doorways and dark entrances along the alleys and runnels. Swarming packs of cut-purses emerged, ready to strike with nimble fingers or needle-thin daggers at anything they could take; be it wallet, purse, satchel, even rings off bare fingers. These were now following the courtiers as a pack of starving dogs would their quarry. Athelstan was not troubled. A poor Dominican friar could almost be invisible both to predator and prey. Athelstan, however, loved to watch, to savour, to study and remember. He revelled in the swirl of smells coming from the bakeries and pie shops, mouth-watering and savoury; a sharp contrast to the foul miasma from the midden heaps and lay stalls reeking of human waste and the rotting corpses of rat, cat and dog. Cook boys paraded with trays offering morsels in order to entice customers into their pastry shops. A much more attractive prospect, as one pastry cook bawled, than the filth being grilled, cooked, stewed, fried or boiled over the moveable stoves of itinerant fleshers and fritterers. Both Athelstan and the cook had to step sharply aside for a number of betrothal parties all garlanded with flowers who fought their way alongside drunken pilgrims heading for this church or that with their statues, candle carriers and pattering priests.
Despite the gaiety and the busyness, Athelstan also glimpsed the effects of the Great Revolt and its sudden and brutal repression; gallows and gibbets had been set up at crossroads and small squares, all of them heavy with the corpses of the hanged; throats squeezed, faces contorted by the rictus of agonised death. Many of the dangling cadavers were naked, savagely bruised from the beatings inflicted before death. Nearby stood the executioners with knives and barrows at the ready. These killers, pardoned criminals, were prepared to cut a cadaver down and, for a price, rent out a barrow so grieving relatives could push the strangled corpse to the nearest church or death house. Close by this grim scene gathered the foreign mercenaries, members of the free companies hired by the city, the guilds and the great lords to root out rebellion. The mercenaries were the sweepings of foreign prisons, grim men, hard of face and hard of heart. Professional killers, the drinkers of other men’s blood, they and their masters swallowed up other people, be it men, women or children, as if they were swilling bread. Athelstan had fulminated against both these mercenaries and those who hired them. The friar argued that such great lords were as wicked and lawless as any in London, be it the brothers of the hood, the cackling cheats, the hog-grabbers and the hen-hearted, all the denizens of the midnight mansions of the damned.
‘Wickedness is wickedness.’ Athelstan had informed Sir John. ‘But wickedness by those in power is given the devil’s baptism to appear all right, legal and moral.’
‘Toad-eater!’ Athelstan broke from his reverie and stared at the bearded, mad-faced beggar dressed in horse-hide, his face daubed yellow and white. ‘Are we not all,’ the grotesque hissed, ‘toad-eaters, sin-swallowers and the gobblers of virtue?’ Athelstan stepped back and stared around: he was now on the approaches to London Bridge. ‘Do you have a bone-box as a heart, Brother Athelstan?’ Startled, Athelstan stared at this grotesque. The thoroughfare on the bridge was always a gathering place for those who lived in the twilight of London life. But how did this one know him by face and name?
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘And I beg yours, Brother. Be ye not afraid. I bring advice. Be prudent and on your sharpest guard in the days ahead.’
‘Why is that?’ the friar demanded.
‘Because Peter the Penniless and all his demons shelter in your church. I heard all about it. So be on your guard.’ The grotesque clapped his hands and slipped away. Athelstan continued onto the bridge, threading his way through the fortifications and the buildings ranged either side. The thoroughfare was busy as people streamed across, almost oblivious to the pounding water of the Thames crashing against the starlings which protected the massive struts underpinning the bridge. He passed the small chapel of St Thomas a Becket and, as he approached the gatehouse leading to the south side, he heard his name called. Robert Burdon, Keeper of the Gates as well as the heads impaled above them, principal member of the Fraternity of the Knife, the Guild of London’s Executioners, came tripping down the steps. Athelstan forced a smile and quietly prayed for strength as this dwarf of a man dressed in the guild livery of blood-red taffeta, huffed and puffed towards him, fingers snapping the air.
‘Brother Athelstan, I understand you are leaving for Canterbury?’
‘Aye and not a moment too soon.’
Burdon, his smooth red face all puckered with concern, ignored Athelstan’s gentle sarcasm and gestured at the iron-bound barrel standing at the foot of the steps.
‘Look at that, Brother! Look at it!’
Athelstan walked gingerly across, picked up the lid then hastily dropped it back and sketched a blessing in the direction of the barrel. ‘There must be at least a dozen heads?’ he queried.
‘Rebels,’ Burdon exclaimed. ‘Captured in Kent and elsewhere. Most of them around Foul Oak. The heads were severed and despatched here to be pickled, tarred and poled on London Bridge, along its gateways and turreted walls. I have to do my duty, Brother, yet I have been given no summer respite.’ Athelstan tried to look as sympathetic as possible, though the sight of so many severed heads, necks all ragged, eyes empty and glassy, turned his stomach. He just wanted to flee. ‘Father?’ Burdon stepped closer.
‘No, Robert,’ Athelstan retorted, ‘before you begin, your guild cannot use St Erconwald’s for its masses. In God’s name, man, to bring a moveable gibbet into the church followed by executioners wearing their blood-red masks – my parishioners would be terrified.’
‘No, no, not that,’ the little man protested.
‘Then what, Master Robert?’ Athelstan gestured at the far end of the bridge. ‘I have a parish to attend to.’
‘Canterbury.’ Burdon opened his hand to show Athelstan a silver coin. ‘Father, will you light three candles before the shrine? One for me, one for Isolda and one for my seven children?’
Athelstan softened and quietly regretted his lack of patience. He gently grasped Burdon’s hand. ‘Robert, keep your coin for your brood of children. I solemnly promise you, as a friend, I shall light four candles before the sacred bones of Becket. I shall pray most fervently for your intentions. There will be the three candles you asked for and an additional one, that you skilfully fulfil all the duties of your important office.’
With Burdon’s thanks ringing in his ears, Athelstan walked on, musing that Master Robert’s request was one of many such coming in. Becket’s shrine was the most famous throughout Christendom. Miracles were commonplace, and the news of his parish pilgrimage was bringing in many similar requests, so what should he do? Athelstan decided that would have to wait. He left the bridge on Southwark side. The approaches to this had become a slaughter yard, the execution
ground for those swept up, tried and convicted after the recent troubles. Athelstan stood, head bowed, and prayed for the victims of what was happening so close to his parish. The usual stocks, thews and pillories had been removed. The entire space was now thronged with gibbets, gallows and scaffolds, most of their branches heavy with a row of corpses dangling from every arm, a forest of the hanged with Brabantine mercenaries on guard against any of the cadavers being secretly taken down and given honourable burial by relatives. Gaunt had seized on this site, the main route from the southern shires into the city. This was now London’s Golgotha; the place of the skull, of harsh and dire punishment as well as clear and terrible warning about the fate of rebels. The friar blessed this Haceldama, this field of blood, and hurried on.
Athelstan’s mind teemed with the gruesome scenes he had just passed through. Vengeance was being meted out, and this was another reason why he had organised the Canterbury pilgrimage. It would be a blessed relief and great protection for his parishioners, not to mention himself, to be away from Southwark and the politics of the city. Sir John Cranston was of a similar mind. The coroner had acted decisively and courageously during the revolt. Now, however, Sir John was beginning to balk at the vengeance being inflicted and the scenes of utter degradation Athelstan had just passed through. Of course Sir John also wanted to rejoin Lady Maude and the rest of his household in Canterbury but, as he quietly confessed to Athelstan, a change was as good as a rest. Nonetheless, the coroner had warned the friar that the pilgrim route to Becket’s holy and blissful bones might not be a peaceful ride through the English countryside. Men from the shire of Kent had played a crucial role in the recent revolt, and Canterbury itself had not escaped unscathed.
There were dangers, but even so, these were nothing compared to what could be found in London, where Thibault’s agents were busy ferreting out the names of those who had aided and supported the rebels. Strangely enough – and Athelstan could not truly understand the reason why – Gaunt’s Master of Secrets had given the pilgrimage his particular blessing and generous financial support. Athelstan had also been provided with a special licence to ‘Go untroubled and be supported and protected by all royal officers and faithful servants of the Crown.’ Albinus, Thibault’s henchman, had delivered this special licence; the parchment all white, the script executed in the elegant calligraphy of the Royal Chancery and clearly sealed with the signet of the young king himself. Albinus had also brought a personal note from his master which politely asked Athelstan to offer a special prayer for the physical and spiritual welfare of Thibault and all his household before Becket’s shrine, and to light a day-long taper. When Cranston was informed of all this, the coroner simply made a face, shrugged and said, ‘There’s no accounting for some people. Thibault’s anxiety over his spiritual state is proof enough that the Age of Miracles is still with us.’