by Paul Doherty
And yet, he thought, Cranston despite his bristling, white whiskers, florid face, great balding head and even bigger belly, was as shrewd and cunning as a serpent. Cranston had a nose for mischief; if Sir John thought a foul act had been committed, then he was usually right.
Athelstan picked up another piece of parchment and studied his crude drawing of the garden at the Guildhall where Mountjoy had been murdered. ‘How on earth?’ he muttered to himself. On one side was the high trellis fence against which the Sheriff had been leaning, to his left a sheer brick wall, to his right the garden fence guarded by the dogs and, facing him, the wooden fence of the pentice connecting the Guildhall to its kitchen. How could an assassin enter such an enclosed space and stab the burly Mountjoy to death without any clamour from the Sheriff or his fearsome dogs?
And, finally, there was Fitzroy, killed by an unseen hand. Who could deal poison without revealing how it was done? Who was this Ira Dei? Which of these powerful politicians was the traitor?
Athelstan shook his head and went back to his parish accounts. He felt tired but, since his return from the city, he had snatched only a few hours’ sleep before rising, reciting his office by candlelight, washing and dressing upstairs in his small bed chamber. Athelstan pulled the accounts over. He was sick of murder, intrigue and mystery, and the figures had to be totalled before he met the parish council at Michaelmas.
Athelstan nibbled at the edge of his quill. The power struggle on his little parish council was just as fierce as that of any Guildmasters. Watkin the dung-collector, Mugwort the bell ringer, Tab the tinker, Huddle the painter, Ursula the pig woman, Cecily the courtesan, and Tiptoe the pot boy from The Piebald tavern were still fighting off a bitter attack headed by Pike the ditcher. The latter was aided by Jacob Arveld, a pleasant-faced German with a comely wife and brood of children, Clement of Cock Lane, Pernell the Fleming and Ranulf the rat-catcher, whilst Athelstan and the widow woman, Benedicta, tried to keep the peace.
Benedicta… There she was in his mind’s eye: her jet-black hair framing a smooth olive face which Huddle the painter always used in his depictions of the Virgin Mary.
Athelstan stared at the hungry flames of the fire and remembered Father Paul’s warning: ‘Never forget, it’s not the physical longing for a woman which will haunt you but the sheer, empty loneliness, the bitter-sweet taste of longing for someone you can never possess.’ He jumped as a dark form slunk through the window.
‘Ah, good morning, Bonaventure, my most faithful parishioner.’
The great torn cat padded softly across to his master and looked hungrily at the porridge bubbling over the fire. Athelstan got up and brought him a bowl of milk from the buttery. The cat licked it daintily and nestled down in front of the fire whilst his master went back to considering his troubled parishioners. He had to have peace on the council, particularly if Watkin’s daughter was to be wed to Pike the ditcher’s son.
‘Oh, Lord!’ he said to a now snoozing Bonaventure. ‘That will put the cat amongst the pigeons!’
Bonaventure moved his head lazily; his one good amber eye seemed full of compassion for his master. Athelstan pulled the accounts closer. He wondered if the woman had come back about her possessed stepdaughter and shivered at what could be awaiting him there. He coughed, dipped his quill in the ink pot and began to fill in the entries, listing what he had spent in decorating the church now the new sanctuary had been laid:
• Correcting the Ten Commandments 3s.
• Varnishing Pontius Pilate and putting in a front tooth 5d.
• Renewing Heaven, adusting the stars amp; cleaning the moon 20s.
• Taking the spots off the Son of Tobias 4s. 6d.
• Brightening up the Flames of Hell, putting a new left horn on the Devil amp; cleaning tail 3s.
• Jobs for the Damned 2s. 6d.
• Putting New Shirt on Jonah amp; enlarging the Whale’s mouth accordingly 10s. 6d.
• Putting new leaves on Adam and Eve 15s.
Athelstan looked at the list and smiled. He was about to continue when suddenly he heard a gentle tapping on the door. He went across, opened it and looked out. It was the watching time, just before dawn, the sky already lightening and the shadows beginning to disappear.
‘Who is it?’ he called and looked around. It was too early for any urchin’s game. ‘Who is it?’ Athelstan repeated. Only the wind rattling a loose shutter in the church disturbed the silence. The hairs on the nape of his neck prickled. He felt a shiver down his back. He stared down the track beside the church. Was it some rogue? Some drunk from the stews of Southwark? Suddenly he saw the little wicket gate to the church stood half-open. He grasped the staff Cranston had given him and walked across.
‘Brother Athelstan!’
The voice seemed to be coming from behind the church and the friar, followed by an even more inquisitive Bonaventure, warily walked round. Again the voice called his name and Athelstan stared out across the headstones
‘Who is it?’ he shouted angrily. ‘This is no game but God’s house and God’s own acre!’
‘Turn round, Brother Athelstan!’
‘Why should I?’
A crossbow bolt smacked into the church wall beside his head.
‘I am convinced,’ Athelstan shouted back and turned round, eyes closed, fingers clenched.
‘What is it you want?’
‘A message from the Anger of God. You are a friar, a priest of the people. Why do you mingle with the fat lords of the soil?’
‘If you’re his anger,’ Athelstan spat back, ‘then I am his justice!’
Take heed of his anger,’ the voice said clearly.
Athelstan looked down at Bonaventure who seemed to be enjoying this new game.
‘Cranston’s right,’ Athelstan whispered. ‘You are no bloody use!’
‘Take heed,’ the voice repeated.
Athelstan’s fiery temper broke at last.
‘Oh, sod off!’ he shouted and stalked down the church track and into his house, closing the door with a slam.
For a while he just stood with his back to it, trying to calm the trembling in his legs. Who dared taunt him here? What would Cranston do when he heard? Athelstan marched into the buttery and poured himself a cup of wine which he gulped down before going back to sit at the table.
‘God damn it!’ he breathed. He closed the ledger book, cleared up the rest of the manuscripts and took them across to the huge, iron-bound coffer. As he placed them inside and made the lock secure, he thought of the daring robbery at the Guildhall. He only hoped Sturmey was still alive. If Cranston and he found the thief, they would discover the murderer. He jumped at a loud knocking on the door.
‘Father! Father!’
Athelstan went across and opened the door to find Ursula the pig woman, her usually merry, red, warty face now tear-streaked.
‘Oh, Ursula!’ Athelstan said. ‘It’s not your sow? I can’t come and bless it again!’
‘No, no, Father, it’s my mother. She’s dying!’
‘Are you sure?’ Athelstan asked. ‘I have given the last rites to Griselda at least three times.’
‘No, Father, she says she’s going. She can feel she is.’
‘Come on then.’
Athelstan locked the door of the house and hurried across to the church. Inside it was cool and dark, smelling fragrantly of candle grease and incense. The morning light was already beginning to brighten Huddle’s pictures on the wall as Athelstan hurried under the rood screen and into the sanctuary. He genuflected, opening the tabernacle door to remove the Viaticum and phial of holy oils. Then he collected his stole, cloak, tinder and a candle from the sacristy and gave them to Ursula, waiting in the porch of the church. He lit the candle, wrapped the cloak round himself and, with the pig woman shielding the candle’s flame in her great, raw hands, locked the door of his church.
He followed Ursula through the narrow, winding streets of Southwark to the pig woman’s house, a small, two-storied teneme
nt just behind the priory of St Mary Overy. As usual, the great sow, Ursula’s pet and the light of her life, lay basking in front of the fire whilst, behind a curtain in the far corner, Griselda lay on a pallet of straw, head back, her beak-like nose cutting the air, her eyes half-open. Athelstan would have taken her for dead already had it not been for the gentle rise and fall of her skinny chest. As Athelstan crouched beside her, placing the Viaticum and holy oils on a three-legged stool, Ursula stood behind him, still holding the candle. Of course, the sow had to see what was happening and, once she recognized Athelstan, whose cabbage patch she regularly plundered, began to snort and snuffle excitedly.
‘Oh, for God’s sake, go away!’ he breathed. ‘Ursula, for the love of God, give her a cabbage or something!’
‘She doesn’t eat cabbages,’ Ursula curtly replied as she grabbed the sow by the ear and pulled her away.
‘Aye,’ Athelstan whispered to himself. ‘The bloody thing only likes fresh ones!’
‘Is that you, Father?’
Athelstan bent over the old lady, her cheeks hollow, thick bloodless lips parted. But the small button eyes were still bright with life.
‘Yes, Mother Griselda, it’s Athelstan.’
‘You are a good priest,’ the old woman wheezed, ‘to come and see old Griselda. Do you want to hear my confession, Father?’
Athelstan grinned. ‘Why, what have you been up to, Mother, since I heard it last? How many young men this time?’
The old woman’s lips parted in a gumless smile.
‘What lechery and wantonness?’ Athelstan continued, peering down at the old lady. ‘Come, Griselda, you have long made your peace with God.’
Athelstan opened the golden pyx, took out the white host and placed it between the dying woman’s lips. Then he began to anoint her head and eyes, mouth, chest, hands and feet, whilst the old woman’s mouth chewed the thin wafer host. At last he finished. Ursula went to move across to tend the small fire whilst Griselda took Athelstan’s hand.
‘Will I go to Heaven, Father?’
‘Of course.’
‘Will my husband be there?’
‘Why not?’
‘He loved women, Father! In his youth he was as handsome as the sun. He had hair the colour of corn and eyes blue as the sky. But he wasn’t a bad man, Father, and I loved him.’ She coughed, yellow spittle drooling out of the corner of her mouth. Athelstan picked up a rag and dabbed gently at her lips.
‘God will not reject,’ he said slowly, ‘anyone who has loved or been loved.’
The old woman coughed again. Athelstan looked over his shoulder.
‘Ursula, a cup of water.’
But then he felt the grip on his hand loosen. He looked down. Griselda’s head had rolled slightly to the left. He felt for the beat in her neck but there was nothing. He looked up at Ursula, holding the battered cup, tears streaming down her fat cheeks.
‘She’s left us,’ Athelstan murmured. ‘She’s gone now. Gone ahead of us.’
He stayed for a while to comfort Ursula. Despite his protests, she insisted on giving him a huge flitch of bacon then, with his cope and stole under one arm, the flitch of bacon under another, Athelstan walked back to his church.
Southwark was now coming to life. The petty traders and tinkers trundled their hand carts down towards the bridge whilst sweating, cursing carters tried to get produce from the country across the river before the great markets opened. Two lepers covered in black rags begged for alms outside the hospital of St Thomas whilst the local beadles and bailiffs led the night roisterers they had caught, bound hand and foot, down to the stocks. Two drunks who had pissed out of an upper-floor window had already been tied back-to-back, their breeches about their ankles They would be forced to walk the streets and be pelted with rubbish until noonday when a friend could cut them loose. The officials had apparently also raided a brothel and a cart load of whores, their heads completely shaven, sat morosely manacled together as they were taken down to the river to be punished. A yellow, lean-ribbed dog snarled at Athelstan, jumping, lips curled to bite the bacon. Athelstan shooed it off, went up an alleyway and knocked on the door of Tab the tinker’s house.
His wife, grey-haired and worried-looking, answered. Athelstan thrust the flitch of bacon into her hands.
‘Father,’ she murmured, ‘I can’t.’
‘Yes, you can.’ He pointed to the grubby-faced children clinging to her tattered dress. ‘And they certainly will. But you mustn’t tell Ursula.’
He continued his journey and was about to pass the door of his church when he saw the piece of parchment fluttering there. Athelstan read the scrawled words:
The Anger of God will shout out like lightning from the clouds.
He cursed, pulled the parchment down, threw it into the mud and, ignoring Pike’s salutations, angrily strode back to his house.
CHAPTER 6
Athelstan sat in the nave of his church, a group of young adults and children round him; this being a working day, their parents had attended morning Mass and left for their day’s routine. Athelstan’s school, as Cranston jokingly referred to it, met two hours before noon twice a week so the friar could try to educate the young in reading, writing, and the basics of arithmetic and geometry. Naturally, they were also instructed in their faith and Athelstan had been surprised at how quick and eager some of his students proved to be.
He looked round the group, his heart lurching with compassion as he gazed at their grimy, thin faces, makeshift clothes and tattered sandals. They sat in a circle, Bonaventure included, as Athelstan tried to explain how God was everywhere.
Now and again he stole glances at Pike’s son Thomas who couldn’t sit any closer to Watkin’s beautiful daughter Petronella. Athelstan gazed at the girl’s jet-black hair, smooth, white skin and sea-green eyes. How could Watkin and his portly wife have produced such a beautiful girl? Thomas was so deeply smitten by her, he hardly bothered even to glance in Athelstan’s direction.
‘Go on, Father!’ Crim, the altar boy, shouted
‘Of course.’ Athelstan rubbed his eyes. He was beginning to feel tired after his previous day’s labour.
‘Of course God is everywhere, he sees everything, hears everything.’
‘Is he in my hand?’ Crim asked.
‘Of course.’
Crim clapped his hands together. ‘In which case he’s trapped. I’ve got him!’
‘No, no,’ Athelstan laughingly explained. ‘It’s not like that, Crim.’
‘But you said he was everywhere?’
‘Crim.’ Athelstan leaned back on his ankles, wincing as his knee cracked. ‘God is like the air we breathe. He’s in us, part of us, yet at the same time outside of us. Like the air which you suck into your mouth and yet, at the same time, it is in your hand.’
Mugwort the bell ringer bounded into the church and Athelstan winced as the little goblin of a man disappeared into the small enclosure and began to tug like a demon at the bell, the sign for the mid-day Angelus. Athelstan said the prayer, got to his feet and dusted down his robe.
‘You can play now. Crim, don’t drink from the holy water stoup. John and James,’ he glanced in mock severity at Tab the tinker’s two sons, as like as two peas out of a pod with their grimy faces and greasy, spiked hair, ‘the baptismal font is not a castle. You can play on the steps but not inside the church. Petronella and Thomas, stay for a while.’
The rest of the children grinned behind their hands and there was a chorus of ‘oohing’ and ‘ahhing’ as Athelstan ushered them out of the church. The two lovebirds were well known in the parish; to everyone, that is, except their parents.
‘Father?’
‘Yes, what is it?’ Athelstan looked at the pinched white little face peering out of the tarry, pointed hood.
‘What is it, Roland?’
The little boy whispered something and Athelstan had to crouch to listen as Ranulf the rat-catcher’s son explained that his father wanted an urgent meeting with Athelst
an.
‘Yes, yes,’ he replied, straightening up. ‘Tell your father, I’ll see him tomorrow.’
He chewed his lip to hide his smile for the little boy was the image of his father, with the same cast of features as the very rodents he hunted. The boy scampered off to join the rest and Athelstan walked back up the nave where the two young lovers sat in front of the rood screen.
‘Father.’ Thomas got to his feet. ‘You must see our parents soon.’
‘Why?’ Athelstan looked nervously at the girl. ‘Has anything happened?’
She smiled and shook her head.
‘Father,’ she pleaded, ‘we have come and told you our secret. You have checked the blood book, there are no ties between us except Thomas’s great-great-uncle was married to a relation of my grandmother.’ The girl ticked the points off on her fingers. ‘We have agreed to receive instruction. Thomas has a fine job with the port reeve at Dowgate and I am very good at embroidery. Father, it was I who made the altar cloths. So why can’t the banns be published?’
Athelstan held up his hand. ‘All right. I will see your parents this Sunday after morning Mass. Perhaps they can all come for a glass of wine at my house to celebrate the good news?’ He kept the fixed smile on his face as the two love-birds jumped for joy and almost ran down the nave, hand in hand.
‘Oh, Lord!’ he breathed. ‘There are only five days left till Sunday and the outbreak of civil war!’
‘In which case I had better be there!’
Athelstan smiled. ‘Benedicta,’ he replied without turning round. ‘How long have you been here?’
‘Long enough to hear you talking to yourself, Father.’
Athelstan turned and walked down the church to where the widow woman stood, one hand on a pillar. She looked as elegant and beautiful as ever. Her smooth, olive-skinned face framed in a cream-coloured wimple, and those eyes which could be mocking, smiling, tearful, generous, sad and soulful, and those lips… Athelstan slipped his hands up the sleeves of his gown and pinched himself as he remembered the words of scripture: ‘Even if you desire a woman in your mind’s eye…’ He unclasped his hands.
