by Paul Doherty
‘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.’
Athelstan hid a shiver.
‘Now there was a man walking up and down, up and down, as if he was waiting for someone. Oh, I thinks, a suicide if ever I saw one. However, I didn’t wish to be greedy, so I walks away. The man was standing behind the stalls, between them and the riverside. I hears a cry. I looks around. The man has gone.’ The fellow sipped from his wine cup. I runs back along the quayside and there he is, bobbing in the river, arms extended, blood gushing from a wound in his chest. I had my fishing line.’
The fellow tapped the leather pouches round his waist. ‘I had him in, clipped my mark on his chest and took him to my shop.’
‘Shop?’ Athelstan queried.
‘You’ll see.’
Cranston looked warningly at Athelstan.
‘But there was no one else?’ the Coroner asked. ‘You saw no one around?’
The fellow shook his head.
‘No one at all. I tell you, Sir John, the place was deserted. I saw no one. I heard no one.’
‘But how?’ Athelstan broke in. ‘How can someone approach Sturmey, stick a knife in his heart then disappear like a puff of smoke?’
The Fisher of Men shrugged and drained his wine cup. ‘I only takes the bodies out,’ he replied. ‘I don’t account for why they died. Come, I’ll show you.’
He led them out of the tavern, down a side street and turned into a narrow alleyway. He stopped beside a long barn-like structure and opened the padlocked door. Athelstan immediately covered his face and mouth against the terrible stench. The Fisher of Men lit torches, the pitch spluttered into life and Athelstan gazed round at the trestle tables, about a dozen in all, which filled the room. Some were empty but others bore bundles covered by leather sheets.
‘Now, which one’s Sturmey?’ the Fisher of Men muttered to himself. He pulled back one sheet. ‘No, that’s the suicide.’ He stopped, a finger to his lips, and pointed to another covered bundle. ‘And that’s the drunk. So this,’ he said triumphantly pulling back the sheet, ‘must be Sturmey!’
The dead locksmith lay sprawled there, his face a ghastly white, his hair and clothes sodden. In the centre of his chest was a dark purple stain. Beside the corpse lay a long knife. Athelstan picked it up gingerly.
‘The same type, ‘he murmured,’ as used on Mountjoy.’ He took another look at the corpse. Cranston turned away and busily helped himself to his wineskin.
‘How do you know it’s Sturmey?’ Athelstan asked.
‘He had a list of provisions in his wallet with his name on,’ the Fisher of Men replied. ‘And My Lord Coroner had already directed myself and others of my Guild to search for this man.’ His face became even longer. ‘The rest you know. Have you seen enough?’
‘Hell’s teeth, yes!’ Cranston snapped. ‘Cover his face!’
‘When you pay the threepence, Sir John, I’ll release the corpse.’
Cranston took another swig from the miraculous wineskin. ‘All right! All right!’ he exclaimed crossly. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Athelstan, let’s get out of here!’
CHAPTER 7
Cranston and Athelstan walked back to collect their horses from the stable.
‘A cup of claret, Brother?’
‘No, Sir John. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Tell me, have you remembered why you knew Sturmey’s name?’
Cranston shook his head. ‘But one thing I do know: Brother, Sturmey was killed because he knew something. He could solve the mystery of how the chest was robbed.’ Cranston stared as two lepers, garbed completely in black, crept along the street, fearful of being recognized. ‘Sturmey was lured,’ he continued, ‘down to Billingsgate. But why? What forced a reputable locksmith to become involved in treason and robbery?’
‘There’s only one answer, Sir John. I doubt if he was bribed so the answer must be blackmail. If you search your prodigious memory, I am sure you’ll find something rather unsavoury about Master Sturmey.’
Cranston nodded and they led their horses further up the street, where their attention was drawn to a huge crowd which had assembled around a sinister figure dressed in goatskin. The man had long, grey hair falling down over his shoulders, the lower half of his face was hidden behind a thick, bushy beard; strange mad eyes scanned the crowds, fascinated by this latter-day prophet and the tall, burning cross he was holding. The latter, coated with pitch and tar along the cross beam, burnt fiercely, the flames and black smoke only emphasizing the mad preacher’s warnings.
‘This city has been condemned like Sodom and Gomorrah! Like those of Tyre and Sidon and the fleshpots of the plain to bear the brunt of God’s anger!’ The man flung one sinewy arm towards Cheapside. ‘I bring the burning cross to this city as a warning of the fires yet to come! So repent ye, you rich who loll in silk on golden couches and drink the juices of wine and stuff your mouth with the softest meats!’
Cranston and Athelstan watched the man rant on, even as soldiers wearing both the livery of the city and of John of Gaunt began to make their presence felt, pouring out of alleyways leading down to the Tower. The soldiers forced their way through the throng with the flats of their swords in an attempt to seize the mad prophet. The mob resisted, their mood sullen; fights broke out and, when Athelstan looked again, the preacher and his fiery cross had disappeared.
‘Come on, Sir John, I have a confession to make.’
He led the Coroner further away from the tumult.
‘What is it, Brother?’
‘This leader of the Great Community, Ira Dei. He has sent me a warning.’ Athelstan carefully described his strange visitation earlier in the day as well as the proclam
ation pinned to his church door.
Cranston, tight-lipped, heard him out, so concerned he even forgot his miraculous wineskin.
‘Why would they approach me?’ Athelstan asked.
Cranston blew out his lips. ‘Fear and flattery, Brother. Fear because he knows you are my clerk and secretarius.’
‘And secondly, Sir John?’
Cranston gave a lop-sided smile. ‘You are rather modest for a priest, Athelstan. Haven’t you realized how in Southwark, amongst the poor and the downtrodden, you are respected, even revered?’
Athelstan blushed and looked away.
‘That’s ridiculous!’ he whispered.
‘Oh no, it isn’t!’ Cranston snapped, moving on. ‘Forget Ira Dei, Brother. When the rebellion comes, it will be priests like yourself, John More and Jack Straw, who will lead the commons.’
‘I’ll hide in my church,’ Athelstan retorted. ‘Speaking of which . . .’ He stopped outside St Dunstan’s, looping Philomel’s reins through one of the hooks placed on the wall.
‘What’s the matter, Brother?’
‘I want to think, Sir John, and pray. I advise you to do likewise.’
Muttering and cursing, Cranston hobbled his own horse, took a generous swig from the miraculous wineskin and followed Athelstan into the cool, dark porch.
Inside the church was lit by the occasional torch with candles placed around statues of the Virgin, St Joseph and St Dunstan, as well as the sunlight pouring through the stained-glass windows which made the pictures depicted there flare into life in glorious rays of colour. Athelstan stared admiringly up at these.
‘I’d love one of those!’ he whispered. ‘Just one for St Erconwald!’
He looked again and, as he did so, Cranston took one small nip from his wineskin and followed the friar down the nave to sit on a bench before the rood screen. Behind this, in the choir stalls, the master singer and his choir were rehearsing the Mass of St Michael. Athelstan sat on the bench, closed his eyes and listened to the words.
‘I saw a great dragon appear in the heavens, ten heads and on each a coronet, and its great tail swept a third of the stars from the sky. Then I saw Michael do battle with the dragon.’
The powerful, three-voiced choir triumphantly sang in Latin the description of Archangel Michael’s great triumph over Satan.
Athelstan closed his eyes and prayed for God’s help against the evil he now faced: Mountjoy, blood-stained in that beautiful garden; Fitzroy, choking his life out above the gold and silver platters of John of Gaunt; Sturmey, dragged out of the river like a piece of rubbish by the Fisher of Men, his corpse displayed like that of a dead cod or salmon.
Athelstan remembered the warning delivered to him earlier that day and felt his own temper fray. The man who called himself Ira Dei was a blasphemer! How could God or his just anger be associated with sudden murder and evil assassination? All those souls sent into the great darkness unprepared and unshriven. And the other wickednesses of the city? This possessed girl at the Hobdens. The malefactor who stole the severed limbs of traitors. And old Jack Cranston’s friend, subtly murdered and left to be gnawed by rats. What had these things to do with God’s creation? With the stars spinning in the skies? The green, lush meadow grass? The basic honesty and goodness of many of his parishioners? Athelstan half-murmured the words of his mentor, Father Paul: ‘God is never far away. He can only act through us. Man’s free will is God’s door to humanity.’ So what about these murders? He tried to direct his thoughts and search for a common thread. The singing stopped and he opened his eyes as Cranston, emitting a loud snore, crashed back against the bench.
‘Sir John, come!’
Cranston opened his eyes and smacked his lips.
‘Mine’s a deep bowl of claret!’ he bellowed.
‘Sir John, we are in church.’ Cranston rubbed his eyes and lumbered to his feet.
‘I find it difficult to pray, Brother. So let me show you what I do.’
Like a great bear he lumbered across into the side chapel and stood before the wooden carved statue of the Virgin, her arms wrapped round the shoulders of the boy Jesus. Cranston dropped two coins into an iron-bound chest and fished out ten candles, arranging them like a row of soldiers on the great iron candelabra before the statue.
‘Ten prayers,’ he muttered. ‘One for myself, one for the Lady Maude, one for each of the two poppets, one for Gog and Magog, one for you, one for Boscombe and Leif, one for Benedicta and one for old Oliver.’
‘That’s nine, Sir John.’
‘Oh, yes.’ Cranston lit the last one with a taper. ‘And one for any other poor bugger I should have prayed for!’ He blew the taper out with a gust of wine-drenched breath and charged back down the church. ‘That’s it, Brother. Now it’s The Holy Lamb of God for me!’
They unhitched their horses and walked into a busy thronged Cheapside. Sir John expected his usual rapturous welcome at his favourite tavern but was disappointed. The landlord’s wife was waiting in quivering anticipation.
‘Sir John, a message from the Guildhall! A servitor has been here at least twice. You are to go there immediately!’ Her voice dropped to a reverential hush. ‘The Lord Regent himself demands your presence!’
Cursing and muttering, Cranston forced his way back across Cheapside with an even more subdued Athelstan trailing behind. At the Guildhall a chamberlain took them to the small privy council chamber which overlooked the gardens where Mountjoy had been killed. He tapped on the door and ushered them in. Cranston swaggered through and glared at the Regent who sat directly opposite, Goodman and the Guildmasters flanking him on either side. Athelstan looked up at the silver and gold stars painted on the blue ceiling then around at the wooden panels. A soft, luxurious room, he thought, where the great ones of the city plotted and drew up their subtle plans. Gaunt beckoned them forward to two quilted, high-backed chairs.
‘Sir John, sit. We have been waiting.’
‘Your Grace,’ Cranston snapped, lowering his great weight into the seat. ‘I have been busy! The locksmith Sturmey has been . . .’
‘I know, I know,’ Gaunt interrupted. ‘Murdered! By person or persons unknown. His body lies in a shed in Billingsgate. And you, Brother?’ The hard, shrewd eyes stared at Athelstan. ‘The traitor Ira Dei has made his presence known to you.’ Gaunt smiled at the friar’s surprise. ‘We have the means, Brother, of discovering what is happening in our city. As for Sturmey, Sir John, I understand you sealed his workshop?’
Cranston nodded.
‘My men broke the seals,’ Gaunt retorted. ‘We have searched his house but can find no trace or mention of Sturmey making a second set of keys.’
‘But he did make them,’ Cranston replied.
‘How do you know that?’ Goodman spitefully snapped.
‘Why else would he be killed?’
Goodman pulled a face.
‘I believe,’ Cranston continued slowly, ‘Sturmey was blackmailed. Like many such men, he led a secret life.’
Athelstan glimpsed a glimmer of fear in Goodman’s eyes but the Mayor lowered his head as Cranston passed on to other matters.
‘Your Grace, I could question everyone here, with your authority of course, about their whereabouts yesterday afternoon when the Lord Sheriff and Master Sturmey were killed. However, I suspect that would be fruitless.’
‘Yes, it would be,’ Denny drawled. ‘We were all busy, My Lord Coroner. Even if Sir Gerard Mountjoy could sit sipping wine and talking to his dogs.’
Beneath the table Athelstan suddenly gripped Cranston’s wrist and the Coroner quickly bit back the question he was about to ask.
‘Then, Your Grace,’ he said instead, ‘why am I summoned here? Do you have news?’
‘Yes, of two things,’ Gaunt replied. ‘First, a proclamation has been pinned on the Guildhall door. A simple message from Ira Dei. It reads: “Death follows death”. What do you make of that, Sir John? Or should I ask Brother Athelstan who is so strangely silent?’
The friar gently tapped the top of the table. ‘A warning, Your Grace, that someone else in this room might be murdered.’ Athelstan glanced at the Guildmasters but they seemed unperturbed by his reply.
‘Has another murder occurred?’ Cranston asked. ‘Where is my Lord Clifford?’
‘A third was planned,’ Gaunt replied. ‘Lord Adam was attacked this morning by a group of malefactors near Bread Street but, thank God, managed to escape. He is now resting at his town house. I suggest you visit him there.’
‘Is that all?’
‘Oh, no.’ Gaunt rose quickly to his feet but his eyes never left those of Athelstan. ‘You are, Brother, a loyal servant of the Crown?’
‘Under God, yes.’ He tried to control his panic: he was the real reason this group of powerful men wanted to see Cranston and he half-suspected what lay behind their smug, complacent looks. Gaunt stood, smoothing his moustache between finger and thumb.
‘Brother, you have been approached by Ira Dei. You are a priest working amongst the poor of Southwark. You are, strangely enough, much loved and respected. If we asked, indeed if the King ordered, would you reply to Ira Dei, join the Great Community of the Realm and . . .?’
‘Betray them?’ Athelstan snapped.
‘Your Grace!’ Cranston shouted, pushing back his chair. ‘The notion is both foolish and rash. Brother Athelstan is my secretarius. I am an officer of the Crown. He would always be held suspect.’
Gaunt shook his head. ‘Sir John, you contradict yourself,’ he replied, choosing his words carefully.
‘Yesterday, both you and Brother Athelstan claimed that Ira Dei, or one of his henchmen, was present at my banquet. If this so-called Great Community of the Realm can turn even the most powerful into a traitor, why not a Dominican who works amongst the poor?’
‘Yes, why not?’ Goodman spoke up, and Cranston softly groaned at the way both he and Athelstan had slipped into this neatly laid trap.
‘After all, Sir John, what are your thoughts on this matter?’ Goodman continued. ‘Are you not for the poor? Have you not advocated reform in the city and the shires? To ease the burden of the petty traders and peasants?’
