by Paul Doherty
‘It’s good to see you sir,’ Athelstan replied. ‘And may Christ smile on you and your endeavours. Sir John and I are involved in certain mysteries.’
‘And you need my help?’
‘Yes sir, we need your help.’
The thin, bony hands spread out. Athelstan noticed how long and clean the nails were, more like talons than human limbs.
‘We have costs, Brother. I have a family to keep; pleasures to make.’
‘What pleasures?’ Athelstan asked curiously.
The fisher of men leaned forward. ‘I visit Old Mother Harrowtooth on London Bridge. She offers me relief.’
‘Yes, yes, quite.’ Athelstan opened his purse and took out a silver coin, one of those Bladdersniff had handed over.
The fisher of men’s eyes gleamed but Athelstan held on to the coin.
‘I want to tell you a story,’ the friar continued.
‘When you are holding a piece of silver, Brother, I don’t care how long it is.’
‘I am an assassin,’ Athelstan began.
The fisher of men started rocking backwards and forwards with laughter. The rest of his crew joined in.
‘I am an assassin,’ Athelstan repeated. ‘I am riding back through the fields of Southwark. I do not cross the bridge. Instead, I dismount somewhere opposite Billingsgate or even the Wool Quay, a fairly deserted spot. I am disguised and intend to cross the river by barge.’
‘So, it’s useless making enquiries among the boatmen?’ the fisher of men broke in.
‘Precisely. I cross hidden by the cloak and cowl I have brought with me.’
‘But you have to get rid of the horse?’ The fisher of men’s thin lips parted in a smile. ‘In Southwark, that would be easy enough. A horse left wandering by itself is soon taken. What else, Brother?’
‘I don’t really care if the horse is taken or not,’ Athelstan explained. ‘But its harness and housings?’
‘Ah, I see.’ The fisher of men smiled. ‘That must not be discovered. Very difficult to hide eh, Brother? So, if I were an assassin, I would go out somewhere along the mud flats and throw it into the river. If I understand you correctly, you wish us to search for it? A heavy saddle would sink and lie in the mud. However, it might take months before it was completely covered over.’
‘Can you do it?’
‘Before darkness falls: Brother, our barge awaits.’
‘There is one other matter,’ Athelstan persisted.
‘The Paradise Tree?’ The fisher of men spoke up. ‘I know your business, Brother. The good tavern-owner, Kathryn Vestler, stands trial for her life. I cannot believe the stories. A kindly woman who has shown us and others great charity. She has given the Four Gospels the right to pitch camp and await the coming of St Michael and his angels.’
His words provoked laughter among his coven.
‘They’ll have to wait long,’ he continued. ‘We often see the beacon fire they light upon the bank. On dark nights when the moon is hidden, it gives us bearings.’
‘I am not really interested in them,’ Athelstan said.
‘True, Brother, madcaps the lot of them. The sounds we hear from their camp site are strange to say the least.’
‘In your travels,’ Athelstan chose his words carefully, ‘especially at night, sir, you and your crew must see certain sights? Barges which have no lanterns, men masked, hooded and cowled?’
The fisher of men stared coldly back.
‘Brother, I cannot tell you what happens along the Thames at night. We go unarmed. Oh, we carry an arbalest, a sword and a spear but we are left alone because we leave others alone.’
Athelstan sighed and got to his feet. He handed over the silver coin.
‘But I can trust you on this matter?’
The fisher of men shook Athelstan’s hand. The friar was surprised at the strength of his grip.
‘You and Sir John are my friends. I have taken your silver. I have clasped your hand.’
Athelstan thanked them and went down towards the riverside where he hired a barge to take him across the now choppy Thames.
Athelstan dozed in the wherry then made his weary way along the valleys and runnels, passing the priory of St Mary Overy. All around him Southwark was coming to life at the approach of darkness. Taverns and ale-shops were opening; candles glowed in the windows. Dark shadows thronged at the mouths of alleyways or in doorways. Young bloods from the city, mice-eyed, heads held arrogantly, traipsed through their streets, thumbs stuck in their war belts: bully-boys looking for trouble, cheap ale and a fresh doxy.
Athelstan hated such men. They came from the retinues of the nobles at Westminster to seek their pleasures. Fighting men, skilled with sword and dagger, they could challenge the like of Pike in his cups to a fight and, in the twinkling of an eye, stick him like a pig.
He passed the Piebald and sketched a blessing in the direction of Cecily the courtesan, dressed in a low, revealing smock, her hair freshly crimped, a blue ribbon tied round her throat.
‘You’ll get up to no mischief, Cecily?’ Athelstan called out.
‘Oh no, Brother,’ she answered sweetly. ‘I’ll be good all evening.’
Athelstan smiled and made his way up the alleyway. The church forecourt was deserted and he sighed in relief. However, as he went down the side of the church towards his house, two figures came through the lych gate of the cemetery.
‘Oswald Fitz-Joscelyn! Eleanor! What are you doing here?’
The young lovers looked rather dishevelled, bits of grass clung to Eleanor’s dress and she had a daisy chain around her neck. The young man, sturdy and broad, with a good honest face, laughed and shook his head.
‘Brother, we may have been lying down in the grass but we were talking to Godbless.’
Eleanor spoke up. ‘Can we see you?’
Athelstan hid his disappointment at not being able to go in and relax.
‘Of course! Of course!’
He took them into the kitchen. The fire was unlit but everything was scrubbed and cleaned: the pie on the table looked freshly baked. Beside it stood a small bowl of vegetables.
‘Would you like to eat?’ Athelstan offered.
‘No, Brother.’
When the two young lovers sat down at the table Athelstan decided the pie could wait. The smiles had gone. Both looked troubled and Athelstan’s heart went out to them. Oswald’s hand covered Eleanor’s; now and again he’d squeeze it.
‘Brother, what are we going to do?’
‘Trust in God, trust in me, say your prayers.’
‘I can’t wait.’ Tears brimmed in Eleanor’s eyes. ‘Pike the ditcher’s wife, her tongue clacks. All the parish know about your visit to the Venerable Veronica.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Oswald broke in. ‘I know, Brother, you have troubles of your own: Mistress Vestler has been taken by the bailiffs.’
‘Do you know her?’
‘Oh yes. A generous woman, well-liked and respected among the victuallers. My father buys wine from her, the best claret of Bordeaux.’
‘But what about your troubles?’ Athelstan asked.
‘What happens,’ Eleanor enquired, ‘if we do lie in the grass and become one? What happens if I become pregnant?’
‘I cannot stop you doing that,’ Athelstan replied coolly.
‘They couldn’t do anything about it then.’
‘No, they couldn’t.’
‘Why do we have to be churched to be married?’ she insisted.
‘When a man and woman become one, they imitate the life of the Godhead. God is present. Such a sacred occasion must, in the eyes of the Church, be blessed, and witnessed, by Christ Himself.’
‘But Christ will be with us?’
‘Christ is always with you,’ Athelstan assured her. ‘But will you be with Him?’
‘Brother!’ Eleanor lowered her head.
‘Listen.’ Athelstan stretched across the table and touched both of them. ‘Just trust me. Wait a while, don’t do anything stupid
, something you’ll regret. Love is a marvellous thing, it will always find a way. You may not believe this but God smiles on you, help will come.’
Eleanor’s face softened.
‘Please!’ Athelstan pleaded. ‘For my sake!’
The two young lovers promised they would.
‘Now, go straight home!’ Athelstan warned as they opened the door. ‘You will go straight home, won’t you?’
‘Brother, we have given our word.’
They closed the door behind them. Athelstan put his face in his hands.
‘Oh friar,’ he murmured. ‘What happens if they can’t trust you? What happens if they shouldn’t?’
‘Evening, Brother. Talking to yourself? You must want company?’
The friar took his hands away. ‘Come in Godbless, there is enough pie for two.’
After the meal was finished, Athelstan left Godbless to clear up the kitchen. He took the keys and went across to the church intent on going up the tower, sitting there and studying stars. He’d revel in their glory, let their sheer vastness and majesty clear his mind. He had the key in the church door when he heard the scrape of steel and whirled round. There were five in all, masked and cowled, the leader standing slightly forward from the rest. He wore a red hood and a blue mask with slits for his eyes, nose and mouth.
‘Well, good evening, Brother Athelstan.’ The voice was taunting. He gave the most mocking bow. ‘Off to study the stars, are we? Perhaps I should join you, it’s the nearest I’ll get to heaven.’
Athelstan felt behind him and turned the key in the lock. If necessary, he would flee into the church then lock and bar the door behind him.
‘You know me?’ Athelstan tried to control his fear.
‘I understand your good friend the coroner, Sir John Cranston, wishes words with the vicar of hell?’
Athelstan relaxed. He had met this reprobate before and knew he posed no danger.
Why do you come with swords and clubs?’ Athelstan asked. ‘I walk your streets daily.’
‘So you do, Brother.’ The vicar of hell resheathed his sword. ‘Whether it be a visit to an alehouse or those strange creatures at the Barque of St Peter.’
He took off his mask and pushed back his hood, revealing a tanned, sardonic face and oiled black hair, tied in a queue behind. A pearl dangled from one ear lobe, his clean-shaven face had soft, even girlish features, except for the wry twist to the mouth and those ever-shifting eyes.
‘We always have to be so careful with Sir Jack. I mean, here I am, Brother, a former priest, a sometime Jack-the-lad at whose feet all the crimes in London are laid.’
‘Cranston’s a man of honour,’ Athelstan retorted. ‘One day, sir, he’ll catch you and you’ll hang.’
‘Oh no, I won’t, Brother: that’s why I brought my boys along, just in case old Jack stands hidden in the shadows with some archers from the Tower. I understand you’ve been there.’ He turned and looked over his shoulder. ‘Guard the alleyway,’ he ordered softly. ‘Let anyone come and go. But, if there’s any sign of danger, give the usual signal. Brother Athelstan, shall we go into church?’
The shadowy figures behind the vicar melted into the darkness. Athelstan turned the key and went in. He led his unexpected visitor up the nave and into the sanctuary where he lit every available candle. The vicar of hell made him open the sacristy and the narrow coffin door which led into the cemetery.
‘Just in case,’ the rogue grinned, clapping Athelstan on the shoulder, ‘I have to leave a little more speedily than I came.’
He sat down on the altar boys’ bench but kept his head back, hidden in the dancing shadows.
‘I was a priest once, Athelstan.’ The vicar picked up the little hand bell. ‘How does it go?’ He rang the bell. ‘Three times for the sanctus.’ He rang it again. ‘One to warn the faithful that the consecration is near.’ Once more he shook the bell. ‘Three times for the host; three times for the chalice and finally for communion: Agnus Dei, Qui tollis peccata mundi . . .’
‘Don’t blaspheme!’ Athelstan protested.
‘I am not blaspheming, Brother. Just remembering. I would have been a good priest. Like you. Ah, but the lure of the flesh, the world and the devil. Anyway, I like your church. You certainly have built a parish here, Brother. I remember the previous incumbent, William Fitzwolfe. Now, he was a wicked bastard!’
‘Why have you come?’ Athelstan sat on the altar steps facing him.
‘Sir John wants to see me.’
‘Then go and visit him yourself.’
The vicar of hell laughed. ‘What is it you want, Brother? And I’ll be gone.’ He opened his purse and shook out some coins.
‘I don’t want your money.’
‘Take it as an offering and tell me what you want.’
‘Alice Brokestreet,’ Athelstan began. ‘She worked in a tavern, the Merry Pig, which is also a brothel.’
‘I know it well. She stabbed a clerk with a firkin opener, pierced him dead. A foul-tempered woman! Now I understand she’ll see Mistress Vestler hang.’
‘You know of the incident?’
‘I was there when it happened, it was murder.’
‘And Mistress Vestler?’
‘A secretive one, our tavern-mistress: keeps herself to herself. I approached her on one occasion.’
‘For what?’
‘To see if we could do business together, moving goods around London. Perhaps hire one or two of my girls for her house but she refused.’
‘And you know nothing of a barge which comes down the Thames at night and moors on the mud flats near the Paradise Tree?’
The vicar of hell laughed softly.
‘The river is not my concern, Brother Athelstan: it belongs to people like the fisher of men. In my new vocation, friar, you have to be careful you do not tread on other people’s toes. It’s the only way you
keep alive. However, I’ll tell you one thing, I give it to you free: the corpses found in Black Meadow? Bartholomew Menster?’ The vicar of hell clicked his tongue. ‘Now, Bartholomew was a clerk, a royal official, yet he approached one of my associates. He asked what price would he pay if a large chunk of solid gold came into his possession!’
‘What?’ Athelstan leaned forward.
‘Oh, it’s common enough, Brother. Stealing a cup, a jewelled plate, a chalice or a pyx. You can’t very well go down to a goldsmith and hand it over. The same goes for a slab of pure gold. Questions will be asked! It’s treason to take treasure trove and not declare it to the Crown.’
‘And Bartholomew Menster asked this? When?’
‘Oh, at the beginning of June.’
‘But the gold was never produced?’
‘We were very interested but there’s an eternity of difference between talk of gold and actually owning it.’
Suddenly, on the night air, came a sharp, piercing whistle. Athelstan jumped to his feet and went to the mouth of the rood screen.
‘Pax et bonum, Brother,’ came the whisper.
Athelstan turned but the vicar of hell had gone.
‘Pax et bonum,’ Athelstan replied. ‘May Christ smile on you.’
He went and locked the coffin door and the sacristy and walked down the church. Godbless and Thaddeus were sitting on the steps. The beggarman stared up at him.
‘I thought I heard a commotion, Brother, so I came out.’
‘Nothing,’ Athelstan replied. ‘Nothing but shadows in the night, Godbless.’
‘Are you well, Brother?
Athelstan started. Benedicta came out of the alleyway, a lantern in one hand, in the other a linen parcel wrapped in twine.
‘I’ve baked some bread,’ she said.
‘You shouldn’t be out,’ Athelstan replied.
‘I was restless.’ She pulled back her cloak. Athelstan glimpsed the Welsh stabbing dirk in her belt. ‘I have friends in Southwark, no one would lift a hand against me.’
Athelstan went across to his house. He had given up any idea of studying
the stars. Godbless had cleared the kitchen table and the lord of the alleyways was now stretched out before the fire-grate. Athelstan put the bread in the small buttery. He filled three cups of ale and shared them out.
‘Why are you restless?’ he asked.
‘For poor Eleanor’s sake.’ Benedicta chewed her lip. ‘It’s so sad to see someone so young, so deeply in love.’ She smiled. ‘I understand you went to see Veronica the Venerable?’
‘Ah yes.’ Athelstan went to fetch the grimoire from his chancery bag. ‘She had this, a relic from William Fitzwolfe, our former priest.’
Benedicta leafed through the pages.
‘You can have it,’ Athelstan told her. ‘Take it over to the parchment sellers in St Paul’s and you’ll get a good price for the cover. In the meantime, Godbless, Benedicta, I want you to do a job for me.’ He emptied the contents of the bag out on to the table, opened an inkpot and scratched a short message on a piece of parchment. ‘Go down to London Bridge. If you can, collect Bladdersniff on the way, I want you to go to the gatekeeper.’
‘The mannikin Robert Burdon?’
‘Yes, that’s the one. Give him this message. Ask him to think carefully then come back to me. He must tell the truth.’
Benedicta looked at the scrap of parchment, shrugged and, with Godbless and Thaddeus escorting her, left the house. Athelstan watched them go then closed and locked the door behind them. He went and sat back at the table.
‘Right, friar.’ He sighed. ‘There’s no rest for the wicked and that includes you.’
Bonaventure lifted his head then flopped down again. Athelstan wrote down his conclusions on the murder of Miles Sholter and the two other unfortunates.
‘Very clever,’ he said to himself. ‘It’s true that the sons and daughters of Cain are more cunning in their ways than the children of the light. But, saying it is one thing, proving it another.’
He wrote a title on a scrap of parchment: the Paradise Tree. Bonaventure jumped on to the table.
‘You’ve come to listen, have you? We have a tavern-owner, Bonaventure.’
The cat nudged his hand and Athelstan stroked Bonaventure’s good ear.
‘We know she is a good victualler and what else? A widow. She allows those Four Gospels to camp on her land. She is undoubtedly innocent of the deaths of those other remains. They are simply the skeletons of poor people who died in the great pestilence. But!’ He spoke the word so loudly Bonaventure started. ‘We have Bartholomew Menster and Margot Haden! They were undoubtedly killed on her land, either in the tavern itself or in Black Meadow. Their corpses were hurriedly buried. Why?’ Athelstan closed his eyes. Gold! He thought: Bartholomew believed Gundulf’s treasure was hidden in the church or chapel beside the Tower. It was a treasure which shone like gold. Bartholomew also made a reference, which I can’t trace, something to do with the treasure shining like the sun buried beneath the sun. So, that means there’s a scrap of parchment, some piece of evidence missing, probably destroyed.
