by Paul Doherty
‘Sir Francis Harnett!’ Athelstan exclaimed.
The Harrower shrugged. ‘God knows, Brother, but the two were locked in argument. Sir Francis, drumming his fingers on his sword-hilt, accused Brasenose of robbing him.’
‘And Perline?’ Athelstan asked.
‘He seemed subdued, wary, retreating before the other’s accusations. The discussion ended. The one you call Perline turned on his heels and strode away down towards London Bridge. Harnett shouted after him to come back, that he was a thief, but the young man walked on. After a while Harnett went down the river steps and into a waiting skiff.’ The Harrower sipped from the goblet in his eerie manner. ‘That’s all I know, Sir John, but, if you wish, I shall ask my comrade the Fisher of Men. The river may have the soldier’s corpse.’
‘I’d be grateful,’ Cranston replied. ‘And you know nothing else?’
The Harrower shook his head and drained his cup. He was about to rise when Cranston leaned across and seized him by the wrist.
‘You walk the street,’ the coroner said. ‘I have a little mystery of my own. You have heard, no doubt, of the cats which are disappearing?’
The Harrower chuckled. ‘Sir John, what are you saying? Are you asking for my help or making an allegation?’
‘I am asking a question,’ Cranston declared.
‘I know nothing about your cats, Sir John, except that their disappearance is making my work all the more difficult. The rats and mice have increased four-fold. Yet I have something to tell you.’
Cranston passed a coin across the table. This time the Harrower dug into a small leather bag slung beneath his cloak. He laid two black leather muzzles on the table.
‘Down near Thames Street,’ he declared, ‘I found the corpse of a cat, scarred and wounded, beneath a midden-heap. This muzzle was tight about its jaw. What I suspect is that someone placed the muzzle over its mouth to keep it silent: the animal must have escaped but, unable to take the muzzle off, either starved to death or became so weak that it could not defend itself against the dogs which prowl there.’
Cranston stared at the muzzles distastefully. ‘And the second?’
‘I found it near the stocks in Poultry, just lying there.’ The Harrower rose to his feet. ‘That’s all I know, Sir John. You’ve got what you paid for.’ And, spinning on his heel, the Harrower of the Dead left the tavern as quickly as he came.
Athelstan let out a sigh of relief. ‘Sir John, I do not like some of your acquaintances.’
‘In keeping the king’s peace, dear monk, you end up having some very strange bedfellows. The Harrower is not as fearful as he looks.’ Cranston called over to the ale-wife to refill their blackjacks. ‘What really concerns me is what Sir Francis Harriett, knight of the shire from Shropshire and a member of the Commons, would have to do with young Perline Brasenose.’
Athelstan stared through the doorway: the light was dying, dusk was beginning to fall.
‘Sir John, are you refreshed?’
‘For what?’ Cranston asked.
‘A walk to the Tower.’
Cranston stretched his great legs until the muscles cracked. ‘Why there? Yes, I know Perline was a member of the garrison, but what could we learn?’
‘About Perline, Sir John, very little.’ Athelstan sat up in his seat and rubbed his eyes. ‘Remember, Sir John, on the Sunday before Sir Oliver Bouchon was killed, all the representatives from Shropshire were taken by Coverdale to see the king’s beasts at the Tower. Harnett was amongst them. Since that visit, Perline Brasenose has disappeared and these murders have taken place.’ He plucked at the coroner’s sleeve. ‘Please, Sir John, I have drunk enough, we should be there before dark.’
Cranston hid his annoyance and agreed, calling for the ale-wife to leave his order for another time. They left the Holy Lamb of God, walking briskly along Cheapside, down Lombard Street, into Eastcheap and towards Petty Wales. The evening proved to be warm. The ale-houses were full, doors and windows open, the babble of voices and laughter pouring out. Bailiffs and wardsmen patrolled the narrow alleyways. Athelstan felt safe as they threaded through these, under the overhanging houses disturbed by little more than a barking dog or children chasing each other in wild, antic games of Hodsman Bluff. They walked into Tower Street, past a church where two beadsmen knelt on the hard stone steps, hands clutching their rosary beads as they prayed in atonement for some sin. Further along, a group of men sat in the doorway of a tavern idly watching two puppies play. They called out as Athelstan passed and the friar blessed them. They went down an alleyway and into Petty Wales: a young boy’s voice, clear and lilting, broke into song from a window high above them. They paused for a while to listen. Athelstan closed his eyes; the song was one of his favourites. He remembered how his dead brother Stephen had sung it as they helped their father bring the harvest in during those long, sun-drenched autumn days before he and Athelstan had gone to the wars. Stephen had been killed, only Athelstan had returned.
The friar’s heart lurched with sadness: the boy’s voice was pure and clear, just as Stephen’s had been. Everyone had praised his brother’s singing, especially at Christmas, when he would stand before the crib in the village church and make the rafters ring with some merry carol.
‘Brother?’
Athelstan opened his eyes. Cranston was staring down at him curiously. The song had finished.
‘Are you well?’ Cranston asked solicitously.
Athelstan shivered and crossed his arms. ‘Nothing, Sir John, just a ghost from the past.’
They crossed a deserted square. Above them soared the sheer crenellated walls, turrets, bastions and bulwarks of the Tower. A mass of carved stone, a huge fortress built not to defend London but to overawe it. They followed the line of the wall round and crossed the drawbridge: beneath them the moat was full of dirty, slimy water. They went through the black arch of Middle Tower, whose huge gateway stood like an open mouth, its teeth the half-lowered iron portcullis. The entrance was guarded by sentries, who stood in the shadows wrapped in brown serge cloaks.
‘Sir John Cranston, Coroner,’ Athelstan explained to one of the guards. ‘We need to see the constable.’
The man groaned, but one glance at Cranston’s angry eyes and he scampered off up the cobbled trackway as his companion took them into the gatehouse. Cranston and Athelstan sat on a bench and cooled their heels until the guard returned, accompanied by a fussy little man dabbing at his face with the hem of his cloak.
‘What’s this?’ What’s this?’ the constable asked, bustling in. ‘Sir John, you have no jurisdiction here.’
‘Oh, don’t be so bloody pompous,’ the coroner snapped. ‘You have a guardsman Perline Brasenose?’
The constable must have been eating; he stood, cleaning his teeth with his tongue in a most disgusting fashion. Cranston pushed his face closer. ‘I have no jurisdiction here,’ he whispered sweetly, ‘but I am on business from His Grace the Regent.’
The constable’s head came up. He forced a smile. ‘Sir John, Sir John. I am sorry,’ he blustered. ‘But Perline Brasenose is a member of the garrison, or I should say was. He’s been absent from his post for days.’
‘And so he is a deserter?’ Athelstan asked anxiously.
The constable patted him kindly on the shoulder. ‘Don’t fret, Brother. The French haven’t landed and the Tower is safe. It’s common for a young man to disappear.’ The constable’s face became grave. ‘Well, within reason. If he isn’t back within the week, I’ll have him proclaimed as a deserter, yes.’
‘Was he on duty?’ Athelstan asked. ‘Last Sunday when members of the Commons visited the Tower?’
The constable pursed his lips together and stared up at the wall behind him. ‘Yes, yes he was. He was one of those who escorted them as they went round the Tower, inspecting the royal muniments, the siege machines and, of course, the royal beastery.’
‘Did anything untoward happen?’
The constable shook his head. ‘The Tower’s a lon
ely place, Brother. All we do is wait here for an enemy who never attacks. We guard some prisoners lodged in the dungeons and, now and again, make a foray into the city or countryside.’
‘You should be more vigilant,’ Cranston urged. ‘If you go into the countryside, you must have heard about the plots and conspiracies amongst the peasants?’
The constable made a rude sound with his lips. ‘Sir John, the Tower has stood for three hundred years. No one has ever taken it, let alone a bunch of ragged-arsed peasants. If they come, our drawbridge will go up, and they can sit outside until the Second Coming. That’s as far as they’ll get.’
‘And the menagerie?’ Athelstan asked.
‘The royal beastery. .’ the constable scoffed. He stuck his thumbs in his belt and leaned closer. ‘It’s nothing more than a collection of pits and cages at the other end of the Tower. An elephant, bears, some mangy cats, monkeys and baboons.
Since the old king died there’s very little been done to care for them.’ He smirked. ‘But, there again, they impress our visitors. One knight in particular, Sir Francis Harnett, was much taken by what he saw.’
‘And nothing untoward happened?’ Athelstan repeated.
‘Brother, they came and they went. I have nothing more to add. Now, I must go!’ And he bustled off back to his meal.
Athelstan and Cranston walked back through an alleyway into Petty Wales.
‘Not very helpful,’ Athelstan observed.
Cranston stared back at the Tower through narrowing eyes. He had not liked what he had seen: sleeping guards, a constable more interested in his belly, the way they had been kept in the gatehouse and allowed no further in.
‘Next time I see Gaunt,’ he growled, ‘I’ll have a chat about the Tower. He needs to send the royal commissioners in to check the stores and the muster roll. Our little fat constable is, I believe, not above taking bribes; not only for people to see the royal beastery, but also from members of his own garrison in order that they can slip away.’
‘Do you think that?’ Athelstan asked.
‘I know that,’ Cranston replied. ‘According to the law of arms, and all its usages, Perline Brasenose is a deserter and his name should be posted throughout the city.’ He clapped Athelstan on the shoulder. ‘Which means, my little friar, that Perline is not dead. What he has done is slipped away and paid the constable a few coins not to look for him.’
They continued along Thames Street and into Billingsgate. The air smelt tangy with fish and salt. Here the streets were busy as men prepared for the late-night fishing. The merchants and fishmongers were already preparing their stalls and barrels of brine and salt for the morning’s catch.
On the corner of Bridge Street, Cranston and Athelstan parted, the coroner still fulminating against the constable and promising Athelstan that tomorrow he would make inquiries to learn if the Fisher of Men could contribute anything to the mysteries which confronted them. Athelstan thanked him and walked down to the entrance to the bridge. He stopped at the barrier before the entrance, where soldiers lounged or played dice, impervious to the great poles jutting out over either side of the bridge: each bore the severed head of a pirate caught plundering boats in the Thames estuary. Athelstan showed the pass which Cranston had given him. The barrier was opened and he passed on to the bridge, past the silent shops and houses built on either side.
Half-way across, just near the Chapel of St Thomas à Becket, Athelstan went and stood by the rails; he looked out over the Thames, back towards the Tower. The sky was still lit with the fading rays of the setting sun. He always liked to stop here, with the water rushing past the starlings below and, above him, the sky already peppered with the first stars. It was like being caught between heaven and earth. Athelstan breathed in deeply, his gaze fixed on the evening star. The breeze which curled his hair cooled the sweat on his brow and, for a short while, seemed to blow away the weariness and problems of the day.
‘I wish I could go to the halls of Oxford,’ Athelstan murmured. ‘Study the manuscripts of Roger Bacon.’
Athelstan stared at the star. Bacon had built an observatory on Folly Bridge and written a fascinating work on the stars and the planets. Where had they come from? Why did they move? And, if they did, what kept them fixed in the heavens? Why were some stars brighter than others? And did the moon move? Athelstan leaned against the rail and closed his eyes. He wondered if Father Prior would allow him just a short break from his duties in London. Athelstan had heard the whispers: how newly discovered manuscripts of the Ancients, discovered, copied and translated in Italy, were already causing excited debate amongst the scholars. Some even whispered that these proved that the stars did affect man’s behaviour. Others, citing the great Ptolemy, argued that the earth was not flat but a veritable sphere, one amongst many in the heavens.
Athelstan opened his eyes and smiled. ‘There again,’ he whispered, ‘each way of life has its own problems.’
His own Order played a prominent part in the Inquisition, both in Italy and elsewhere. Yet the Inquisition took a very dim view of whatever was new. And, of course, there was Cranston, St Erconwald’s, and all its parishioners. Athelstan walked on briskly. He stopped at the wicker gate just near the gatehouse on the other side of the bridge. The guards, as usual, began to indulge in some good-natured banter about wandering friars and what they could possibly be up to at the dead of night. Suddenly, a window high in the gatehouse was flung open. Burdon, the diminutive keeper, thrust his head out, hair all spiked.
‘For the love of God,’ he roared, ‘will you shut up! Can’t a man and his wife, not to mention his children, sleep in peace?’
The guards pulled faces and sniggered behind their hands.
‘Master Burdon!’ Athelstan called. ‘I am sorry. It’s my fault!’
The little head turned. ‘Oh, it’s you, Brother. Sorry!’ he sang out, and the window was drawn sharply shut.
Athelstan left the guards and walked up past the priory of St Mary Overy and along an alleyway leading to St Erconwald’s. At night Southwark never slept. The streets were full of whores, pedlars and hucksters still trying to sell their tawdry goods, most of which, Athelstan knew for a certainty, had been stolen from across the river. Tavern doors stood open, the noise, light and laughter pouring out into the streets. Whores flounced by in their tawdry finery, simpering and winking at him. Two men were involved in a fight over a game of dice. Athelstan looked round. Something was wrong. Usually he’d see at least one of his parishioners: Ursula the pig-woman and her demon sow who followed her everywhere and feasted like a king amongst the cabbages in Athelstan’s garden. But there was none. The bench outside the Piebald tavern was not occupied by Tab the tinker, Manyer the hangman, Mugwort the bell clerk, or even Pernell the old Flemish lady, who dyed her hair orange and spent the night crooning over a tankard of ale.
Athelstan, his heart heavy, turned a corner. He could see the flicker of torchlight and hear the shouts and his anxiety grew. Something was wrong. He hurried on, trying hard to control the beating in his heart, but the scene in front of St Erconwald’s stopped him full in his tracks. The church doors were closed, but a large crowd of his parishioners was assembled on the steps, torches in hand, listening to a speech from Watkin the dung-collector.
‘Oh, no!’ Athelstan groaned. ‘He’s gone and armed himself!’ Watkin was striding backwards and forwards, a small metal cooking-pot on his head, a battered leather sallet round his shoulders, a rusty sword poked into the belt which held in his bulging belly. On either side stood his two lieutenants: Pike the ditcher holding a spear. He also had a cooking-pot on his head whilst, on the other side, Ranulf the rat-catcher had armed himself with a longbow and a quiver full of arrows.
‘We must arm ourselves,’ Watkin repeated, jabbing the air with his stubby fingers and beaming at the chorus of approval. ‘If Father Athelstan does not come back.’ His voice dropped. ‘And who knows if he will, eh? For all we know the demon could have taken him.’
A roa
r of disapproval greeted his words.
‘We must hunt for the demon.’
Again there was a roar of agreement. Athelstan noticed with a sinking heart how Tab the tinker had taken the statue of St Erconwald from its plinth inside the church, whilst Huddle the painter grasped the processional cross as if it was a spear.
‘Benedicta! Benedicta!’ Athelstan groaned. ‘Where are you?’
He searched the crowd and glimpsed the widow at the far back. She seemed to sense his presence, turned and looked straight at him. Athelstan moved out of the shadows. ‘Watkin!’ he shouted.
The dung-collector jumped in surprise. ‘It’s Father!’ he yelled. ‘The demon has released him!’
Athelstan strode across, shouldering his way through the crowd, ignoring the pats and cries of good wishes. He stared up into the dung-collector’s fat, bulbous face.
‘Watkin, Watkin,’ he whispered. ‘In God’s name what are you doing?’
‘We have seen the demon,’ Pike came forward. ‘Just before dusk, Father, a black shape in the cemetery.’
‘Have you been drinking?’ Athelstan accused.
Pike looked stricken. ‘Father, I swear, by the cross!’
‘Don’t blaspheme,’ Athelstan whispered hoarsely. ‘I have come from Newgate where they have just hanged your friend the Fox.’
Pike’s jaw sank.
‘It’s really my fault, Father.’ Ranulf edged nervously forward. ‘Early in the day I was in that house in Stinking Alley. You know, the one the merchant wants to buy. I saw the demon there, it was at the top of the stairs.’
