Bloodstone smoba-11

by Paul Doherty

  ‘Who’s there?’ Hanep peered anxiously through the murk, fingers stroking the steel coiled hilt of his long, stabbing dagger. He must move on. The sacristan would soon appear with his retinue of acolytes, candles burning, lanterns swaying, keys jangling. Hanep hurried on. He reached the cemetery lychgate, lifted the latch and slipped through the musty entrance into sprawling God’s Acre with its jumbled mounds, tumbled crosses and decaying tombstones. Here the silence was broken by the scurriers of the night. The hush-winged owl, rats scraping from beneath the stone-canopied tombs, as well as foxes foraging for any scraps amongst the thin layers of dirt which covered the dead. Hanep gazed around. Was this the thronging place of the ghostly dead, the stalking ground of the Custos Mortuorum, the Guardian of the Dead, the soul of the last person buried here? Hanep smiled grimly; that would be his boon companion, William Chalk. William, however, had been buried deep. He and Hanep had shared many a girl and a wassail-cup, and sung all the glee songs they knew, but that was in the past. Hanep put the lantern down and followed the pebbled path snaking around the crumbling monuments of the dead. He staggered and slipped over the occasional briar and trailing bramble. The breeze seemed to be stronger here, colder with a knife-edge cut. He pulled at his hood and tucked up the muffler of his cloak. He strained both eyes and ears. He had not forgotten that earlier sound, an alien one in the deserted silence of this place. Hanep, both sword and dagger now drawn, walked on. He passed the soaring cemetery cross with its stone figure of Christ in agony and continued on to Chalk’s grave, a freshly dug mound now glistening with hoar frost. The cross had slipped sideways. Hanep knelt, swiftly blessed himself, put down his weapons and made to straighten the cross. He heard a sound and whirled round, one hand going for the hilt of his sword — too late, too stupid! The hooded figure, black against the poor light, was already swinging back his great sword, a flash of shimmering light as it sliced deep into the side of Hanep’s neck. .

  ONE

  ‘Mummer: an actor wearing a mask!’

  ‘For my sins, truly I know them,’ Athelstan breathed as he plunged the rough rag back in to the bucket and splashed the herb-drenched water on to the last grey flagstone which lay before the door to his priest house.

  ‘My sin is always before me,’ Athelstan continued, ‘against you and you alone have I sinned. .’ Once he’d finished washing the flagstone, Athelstan, Dominican friar and parish priest of St Erconwald’s in Southwark, proudly gazed round on what he’d achieved on this the Feast of St Damasus twenty days before the great celebration of the Nativity. He’d cleaned the house thoroughly. He had scrubbed and polished every nook and cranny. The small bed loft was all clean and sweet-smelling, its linen sheets, bolsters and blankets had been changed, and not a pewter dish or copper pot had been missed by him. After that Athelstan had turned his attention to what he mockingly called his solar, the great flagstone kitchen with its whitewashed walls and rough-stone hearth. Everything had been cleaned, from the tongs and pokers in the hearth to the large oaken table which served as both his supper bench and chancery desk.

  ‘What do you think, Bonaventure?’ Still kneeling Athelstan joined his hands in mock prayer and gazed fondly at the great, one-eyed tom cat sprawling before the crackling hearth like the Grand Cham of Tartary on his gold-encrusted divan. The cat, the prowling scourge of the needle-thin alleyways round St Erconwald’s, deigned to lift his head; he gazed sleepily at his strange master then flopped back as if the effort had proved all too much for him.

  ‘I know what you are waiting for, my friend.’ Athelstan scrambled to his feet. He emptied the pail of water, wrung out the cloth and walked back into the kitchen. He crouched before the hearth next to Bonaventure and stared hungrily at the blackened copper pot hanging by its chain above the darting flames. He closed his eyes and smelt the warm savouriness of the bubbling oatmeal, hot and sweet with the precious honey Athelstan had stirred in.

  ‘We’ll eat well, Bonaventure.’ Athelstan stroked the cat’s silky fur. ‘But not yet — God waits.’

  Athelstan stripped, shaved, washed then dressed quickly in woollen leggings, drawers and the hair shirt he always wore beneath the black and white robes of a Dominican friar. He buckled the straps of his stout sandals. Going over to a corner he took out the polished dish, a gift from a parishioner, which also served as his mirror. Athelstan stared hard at the face which gazed back at him: the close-cropped black hair, the rather long, serious face with its furrowed cheeks, the wrinkles round both mouth and eyes. Did the face portray the soul, he wondered, or was it just the eyes? In which case Athelstan reflected ruefully, God help him, his eyes were dark and deep set. He practised that hard stare he often used on some of his parishioners.

  ‘Lord forgive me,’ he prayed, ‘I have to; otherwise they’d lead me an even merrier jig.’

  The thought of his parishioners made Athelstan hurry around. He doused the few candles, banked the fire, gazed proudly around his ‘new swept kingdom’ and, grasping his psalter, left the priest house. He secured the door and began what he called his daily pilgrimage. He walked carefully; a hard frost shimmered on the path leading up to the dark mass of St Erconwald’s. All lay quiet. He crossed to the stables, pushed open the half-door and smiled at Philomel, his mount, sprawling on the thick bed of hay Pike the ditcher had so carefully turned the night before. The old war horse lifted his head, neighed and snatched at the fodder net. Athelstan sketched a blessing in the ancient destrier’s direction and continued on. He stopped by the newly refurbished gate to the cemetery, opened it and stepped into God’s Acre. He quietly thanked the Lord for winter because in summer this was a favourite trysting place for his parishioners and others so much so, as Athelstan had wryly remarked to Sir John Cranston, on a midsummer’s day more of the living lay there than the dead. Now it was murky, forbidding and frostbitten. Only a meagre light gleamed from the ancient death house where the keeper of the cemetery, the beggar Godbless, lived with his constant companion, Thaddeus the goat. Athelstan murmured a prayer of thanks for both of them. Young lovers lying down in the long grass of summer were not so troublesome as the warlocks, sorcerers and witches who plagued the cemeteries of London with their midnight rites to summon up the dark lords of the air. The ever-curious, garrulous Godbless, with his equally curious goat, would put any practitioner of such forbidden ceremonies to flight. Godbless, called so because of his constant use of that benediction, would talk them to death whilst the omnivorous Thaddeus would chew any grimoire of spells to shreds.

  ‘Benedicite,’ Athelstan called out, ‘Pax et bonum.’

  ‘God bless you too, Father,’ came the swift reply.

  Athelstan passed on up to the church. He fumbled with the key ring, opened the battered corpse door and stepped inside. He wrinkled his nose: despite his best efforts to scrub the floor, the mildewed air of the old church caught his nose and mouth. Athelstan peered through the gloom; the charcoal braziers still glowed like welcome beacons fending off the cold mustiness. Athelstan took out a tinder from the pouch on his cord. He lit the candles paid for by the Brotherhood of Rood Light, a wealthy group of local merchants who used St Erconwald’s as their guild chapel. In return they generously supplied the church with tallow and beeswax tapers. Athelstan lit those in front of the Lady chapel as well as the candles before the statue of St Erconwald. He gazed up at the severe face of the Saxon bishop of London who’d founded the first church here. Huddle the painter had elegantly regilded the statue, delicately picking out the scarlets and whites of the bishop’s vestments. Athelstan, ignoring the scurry of mice in the far corner, lit some of the sconce torches. The friar noticed the tendrils of mist seeping under the corpse door as if they were pursuing him and shivered.

  ‘God bring us spring soon,’ he murmured, ‘for swarms of bees and beetles bringing in the soft music of the world, for heavy bowls of hazelnuts, sweet apples, plums and whortleberries.’ Athelstan turned to go up into the sanctuary when he glimpsed Huddle’s new painting on the far wall a
bove the leper squint. Athelstan wandered across. Huddle had been busy sketching out in charcoal the Seven Deadly Sins. Athelstan thought the painter would begin with ‘Lust’, which all the parish council wanted. Instead Huddle, who gambled and was desperate for income, had decided on ‘Avarice’. The painting was graphic enough, bold and vigorous, an eye-catching vision of startling colours and images. A goldsmith of Cheapside was Huddle’s incarnation of the deadly sin: a shrivelled up old man, bow-legged and palsy stricken, with a head as bald as a pigeon’s egg, a beard as bushy as a tangle of brier, skimpy loose cheeks, goggling eyes either side of a nose pointed and as sharp as a hook. The goldsmith was being attacked by two shaggy demons that were dragging him away from his money bags. One of these hellish creatures, all hoofed and horned, had wrapped his goatskin legs around the banker and forced his bald head down so as to clamp his wolf fangs into the back of his victim’s exposed neck. The other demon was clawing the goldsmith’s belly, ripping it open to spill out the man’s black and red innards. Gossips, and that was virtually everyone in the parish, claimed Avarice was no less a person than Sir Robert Kilverby, city goldsmith, former alderman and an acquaintance of no less a person than Sir John Cranston, the King’s coroner in London.

  ‘Sweet Lord, I hope not,’ Athelstan murmured, ‘or Cranston will have Huddle’s head. I just wish our painter would paint and leave the cogged dice alone.’

  Athelstan plucked at his waist cord and fingered the three knots symbolizing his vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Cranston could be genial but, like all law officers in London, watchful and wary of any dissent or mockery of authority. Winter was proving very harsh. The price of bread and other purveyance remained high. Defeat abroad and piracy in the Narrow Seas made matters worse, especially in London where The Upright Men, leaders of the Great Community of the Realm, were plotting bloody revolt to turn the world upside down. Huddle should be careful of whom he mocked. Athelstan went back to the corpse door and picked up his psalter from the stool near the collection of leaning poles. He moved under the rood screen, stood at the bottom of the sanctuary steps and stared up at the Pyx dangling on its chain, shimmering in the glow of the red sanctuary lamp hanging close by. Athelstan genuflected then busied himself, taking out the palliasse from the small alcove where any sanctuary man in flight from the law could settle. Thankfully there was no one. Athelstan unrolled the palliasse at the bottom of the steps just outside the rood screen. He prostrated himself on this, intoned psalm fifty then confessed his sins, a litany of weaknesses: his failure to love, his irritation with Watkin the dung collector, his short temper with Ursula the Pig-woman and her godforsaken sow which followed her everywhere, including into Athelstan’s vegetable patch. The friar caught his temper and smiled. If he was not careful he would be sinning again, yet behind all these petty offences gathered greater shadows: the death of his beloved brother, Francis-Stephen, and his secret love for the widow woman Benedicta, though she was not his only distraction from matters spiritual. Even more so was Athelstan’s fascination for hunting down killers, assassins and murderers who believed they could snuff out another’s life as easily as they might a taper, wipe their lips and, like Pilate, wash their hands of any blood and guilt. Athelstan let his mind drift deeper into the gathering darkness to confront more threatening shapes which questioned his very vocation and basic beliefs.

  ‘So much evil, Lord.’ He prayed. ‘So deep the wickedness. The rich wax stronger and more powerful whilst the poor, like naked earth worms, are crushed and stamped even deeper into the mud. Why, Lord?’

  The friar recalled the words of his own confessor, the venerable Magister Ailred at Blackfriars, the principal Dominican house in London. ‘Evil is not a problem, Athelstan,’ Ailred had advised. ‘If it was a problem, like those we confront in philosophy or logic, it could be resolved. No, Athelstan, evil is a great mystery which can only be confronted. Christ did that during his passion, singing his own hymn of love as he journeyed into the very heart of evil to confront it. He became one of us to experience that same mystery. Look at the crib at Christmas, the Holy Rood on Good Friday. .’ Athelstan sighed, crossed himself and rose to his feet. He wandered down to the main door and stared at the crude but vivid crib set up by Tab the Tinker, Crispin the Carpenter and others. Athelstan smiled. He had imitated the Franciscan idea of the Bethlehem stable and the chanting of the ‘O Antiphons’ instead of the planned mystery play about the Nativity. He’d had a bellyful of that after Watkin, relegated to being one of the shepherds, had furiously assaulted two of the Wise Men. Athelstan sighed noisily and shook his head in admiration of the large gold star Huddle and Crispin had nailed above the crib. He recalled his own secret passion. On a clear night, he’d be up on the church tower observing the stars, but the dire weather froze even birds on the wing whilst threatening clouds blotted out heaven’s gems.

  Athelstan doused some of the torches and returned to lie before the rood screen. He intended to recite a psalm but, as usual, he drifted into sleep until roused by a hammering on the locked main door. He struggled awake, pulled himself up, quickly rolled up the palliasse and returned it to the recess. He glanced up at one of the windows and groaned as he noticed the grey dawn light. He had slept too long! The door rattled again. Athelstan hurried down, turned the great key, slipped back the bolts and swung it open. Benedicta, hooded and muffled, and Crim the altar boy almost threw themselves into the church.

  ‘Sorry, Father, sorry, Father,’ the boy yelped, jumping up and down. ‘It was so cold, we thought we’d die. We wondered what had happened. .’

  Athelstan peered behind them at the freezing mist boiling over the great cobbled expanse in front of the church. Night was over and a chilly day had dawned.

  ‘Day has come,’ Athelstan murmured, ‘and so we must continue our journey.’

  ‘Father?’

  Athelstan smiled over his shoulder at Benedicta. She looked truly beautiful: a simple grey wimple under a cowl framed her olive-skinned face. Benedicta’s lustrous dark eyes, full of life, reminded Athelstan of the frescoes celebrating beauty in the great cathedrals of northern Italy, but now was not the time for reflection on such matters.

  ‘Never was and never should be,’ Athelstan murmured to himself.

  ‘What?’ Crim was still jumping up and down, as agitated as a box of frogs.

  ‘It’s never the time for certain things,’ Athelstan smiled. ‘So come.’

  There was, in fact, little time for further conversation or greeting. All three hastened under the rood screen, up the sanctuary steps and into the whitewashed sacristy to the left of the high altar. Athelstan unlocked the vestment chest and the coffer holding the sacred vessels, cloths and bread and wine. Candles were brought out and lit. The sanctuary glowed into light. Manyer the bell clerk, all cowled and visored against the cold, hurried in to sound the bell for the Jesus Mass. The clanging echoed out. At short while later Athelstan’s parishioners, bustling and chattering, coughing and spluttering, filed into the church: Watkin the dung collector; Pike the ditcher with his narrow-eyed wife Imelda constantly on the search for insult; Godbless accompanied by his goat; Ranulf the rat catcher who always brought his two prize ferrets, Ferox and Audax; and Ursula and her sow, the great pig’s flanks and ears all flapping. The sight of so much luscious pork on the hoof, and so vulnerable, made people pause, stare and wet their lips. Basil the blacksmith always sat next to the sow so, as he put it, he could savour its warmth, though many noticed how the blacksmith’s fingers never wandered far from the stabbing dagger in his belt. Moleskin the boatman came along with other members of his coven: Merrylegs the pie-maker, Joscelyn the one-armed former pirate and keeper of ‘The Piebald’ tavern, Mauger the hangman and Pernel the mad Fleming woman who, in anticipation of Christ’s nativity, had dyed her wild tangle of hair red and green.

  ‘Green for the eternal Christ,’ she had screeched down the nave. ‘Red for his blood.’

  They all congregated within the rood screen. Some s
quatted on the floor; others used the leaning poles. Athelstan, dressed in the purple and gold vestments of Advent, left the sacristy, approached the high altar and made the sign of the cross.