The Field of Blood (14 page)

‘And is that the truth?’

Sir John took his wineskin off its hook on his belt, and the old woman immediately got up and fetched three cups.

‘Oh, you are kindly, sir.’

Athelstan winked at Sir John who had no choice but to fill three cups to the brim. The old woman drank hers in one gulp and held it out for the coroner to refill.

‘I am afraid it is the truth, Brother.’

‘You can remember such detail?’

‘It’s not so much that! They always called each other “sister”, that’s how I remember: it was “sister this” and “sister that”.’

‘You’d go on oath?’ Sir John asked, quietly marvelling at how this old woman could quickly down two cups of claret and appear none the worse.

‘If I had to, I’d swear it’s the truth.’ She extended her cup.

Athelstan took it and gave her his.

‘In which case, Mother, I think we should leave.’

They were at the door when the old woman called out, ‘Brother, I’ve got something for you!’

The Venerable Veronica got up, moaning and grumbling under her breath, and went across to a coffer from which she brought out a small calfskin tome with a glass jewel embedded in the centre. She hobbled across and thrust this into Athelstan’s hands. He opened the covers and saw the strange symbols depicted there.

‘It’s a book of spells,’ she explained. ‘Left by that wicked priest, Fitzwolfe.’

‘And how did you get hold of it?’

‘When he left the church, Brother, he just fled: the King’s officers were pursuing him. I used to tidy his house until I got tired of his games. Anyway, the morning he left, I went in and found this lying beneath his bed. He had apparently hidden it there and forgotten it.

Athelstan leafed through the pages. It contained crude drawings of gargoyles, a dog depicted as a human, spells and incantations.

‘It’s a grimoire,’ he explained. ‘A sorcerer’s book.’

‘I thought I should throw it away, Brother, but I was frightened.’

Athelstan slipped it into his chancery bag and tapped her on the shoulder.

‘Don’t worry. I’ll burn it for you.’

They went down the stairs and out into the street, Athelstan briskly informing Sir John of the latest crisis in the parish council.

‘It’s serious,’ Sir John agreed, glaring across at two ragged boys who were standing beside a wall seeing who could pee the highest. ‘I’ve heard of many a marriage that’s been forbidden because of that.’

They left the lane and went down the main thoroughfare to London Bridge. A cart trundled by. Inside, their hands lashed to the rail, were a group of whores, heads bald as eggs, their wigs piled into a basket pulled at the tail of the cart. Behind this a beadle blew on a set of bagpipes, inviting all and sundry to come and mock these ladies of the night being taken down to the stocks and pillories near London Bridge. Most, however, ignored the invitation. The women were local girls and most of the abuse, both verbal and clods of mud, was directed at the hapless beadle.

Cranston and Athelstan waited a while to let the cart move on. They passed the Priory of St Mary Overy, pausing now and again to greet parishioners. They reached the bridge but, instead of making their way down the narrow thoroughfare between the houses, Athelstan knocked on the metal-studded door of the gatehouse. It was flung open and Robert Burdon, the mannikin keeper of London Bridge, poked his head out. His black hair was greased in spikes, his face half-shaved. In his hand he grasped a horse comb and brush.

‘What is it you want, friar? You’d best come through!’ The little mannikin jumped from foot to foot. ‘The lady wife is out. She has taken all nine children down to the fair at Smithfield so I am doing my heads.’

Sir John snorted in surprise.

‘Don’t look at me like that, Sir John Cranston! You may be a King’s officer but so am I. I am responsible for the gatehouse, and am constable and keeper of the bridge. I also have my heads!’

He led them down a narrow passageway and out into the garden beyond, a small plot of grass with flower beds stretching down to the high rail fence which overlooked the river. Just before this ranged six poles driven deep into the soil.

‘Oh, Lord save us!’ Athelstan whispered.

On three of the poles were severed heads, freshly cut, the blood flowing down the wooden posts. Thankfully they were turned the other way facing out towards the Tower.

‘Must we stand here?’ Sir John murmured, feeling slightly sick.

‘The court says,’ the mannikin replied, ‘that these heads are to be displayed before sunset. River pirates, Sir John, caught in the estuary they were. Sentence was carried out on Tower Hill just after dawn this morning. I comb their hair, wash their faces.’ He pointed further down where the long execution poles jutted out over the river. ‘And then I’ll place them there.’

Sir John took a swig from his wineskin then cursed as he realised the Venerable Veronica had already emptied it for him.

‘Come on, Athelstan, get to the point!’ he growled.

Burdon was gazing longingly at his heads.

‘Do you know what, Robert?’ Athelstan asked. ‘You are one of the few adults smaller than me. Anyway, I have one question for you. On Saturday evening, about five o’clock, did two royal messengers ride across the bridge?’

‘Of course they did. Cloaked and cowled, carrying their warrants and, according to custom, they showed me their commissions before they left the city.’

Athelstan clasped the little man round the shoulder.

‘In which case, Robert, we won’t keep you from your heads any longer.’

And, not waiting for the mannikin to lead them, they went back through the house and on to the bridge.

‘I’d forgotten about that.’ Cranston nudged Athelstan playfully. ‘Of course, every royal messenger leaving the city by the bridge must, by regulation, show his commission to the gatekeeper. Why, what did you suspect?’

‘Oh, that something had happened to Miles Sholter and perhaps only one of them left. I don’t know.’ Athelstan shook his head. ‘Now, Sir John, before we go to the Tower, I must have words with Mistress Sholter in Mincham Lane.’

Sir John gazed dolefully up at the sky.

‘Here we are, Brother, on London Bridge, between heaven and earth! My feet are sore, my wineskin’s empty and everywhere we turn there’s no door, just brick walls without even a crack to slip through.’

‘We’ll find one, Jack,’ Athelstan replied. ‘And the sooner the better.’

They crossed the bridge as quickly as they could. Athelstan tried not to look left or right between the gaps in the houses. He always found the drop to the river rather dizzying and disconcerting.

They left the bridge, went down Billingsgate and up Love Lane into Eastchepe. Sir John wanted to stop at an alehouse but Athelstan urged him on. At the entrance to Mincham Lane they found the way barred by a group of wandering troubadours who were playing a scene using mime. Athelstan stood fascinated. The troubadour leader was challenging the crowd to say which scene from the gospels they were copying. Athelstan watched.

‘It’s the sower sowing his seed!’ he called out.

The troubadour’s face became stern. Athelstan realised he had solved the riddle and should collect the reward. The rest of the troupe stopped. The troubadour picked up the little silver cup which was the prize. He looked down at it then at Athelstan.

‘Run for it, lads!’ he bawled.

And the whole group took off down an alleyway pursued by the jeers and cat-calls of their small audience.

‘Very good, Brother.’ Sir John grinned. ‘I’ve never seen that trick before. They collect money from the audience and, if anyone solves the problem, they are off like the wind.’

They went further along into Mincham Lane, a broad thoroughfare with pink plaster houses on either side. Most of the lower stories served as shops with stalls in front displaying clothing, felts, shoes and caps. The sewer, unlike those in Southwark, was clean and smelt of the saltpetre placed over the night soil and other refuse.

Mistress Sholter’s house was at the far end, a two-storied building with a pointed roof and jutting gables. A well-furnished stall stood outside the front door, the lintel of which was draped in mourning clothes.

‘Is your mistress within?’ Sir John asked the two apprentices manning it.

‘Yes, sir, she’s still grieving,’ one of them replied lugubriously. ‘She’s there with her maid and Master Eccleshall.’

Sir John and Athelstan entered the house and waited in the hallway. It was clean and well furnished. Pieces of black lawn now covered the gleaming white plaster on either side. A young woman, her hair gathered up in a mob cap, came out of a room to their right.

‘I beg your pardon, sirs?’

‘Sir John Cranston, coroner, and his secretarius Brother Athelstan.’

‘Oh, do come in,’ a voice called.

The maid stepped aside. Cranston and Athelstan entered a well-furnished parlour where Mistress Sholter and Eccleshall were seated on either side of the hearth. A sewing-basket in the window seat showed where the maid had been sitting. The widow and her companion rose. Athelstan made the introductions and the coroner quickly accepted Mistress Sholter’s offer of refreshment.

Sweet wine was served and a small tray of crusty, sweet marchpane. Athelstan refused this but Sir John took a number of pieces, murmured his condolences and slurped at the wine cup.

‘I’m sorry to intrude on your mourning.’

Athelstan noted that most of the hangings on the walls were hidden by funeral cloths.

‘However, I need to ask further questions.’

Bridget Sholter’s face looked even paler, framed by her dark hair under a mourning veil which fell down beneath her shoulders.

‘What questions, Brother? I’ve been sitting here with Philip wondering what had happened.’

‘Tell me again?’

‘I’ve told you,’ Eccleshall said. ‘Miles and I left here about four o’clock.’

‘And you reached the Silken Thomas?’

‘Oh, about six.’

‘You travelled slowly?’

‘What was the hurry? We’d decided to stay at the Silken Thomas and leave before dawn. We would be refreshed and so would our horses.’ He shrugged. ‘Measure out the distance yourself. It takes an age to get across the bridge; we stopped to pray at the chapel of St Thomas à Becket. Then, of course, we had to wait for that officious little gatekeeper.’

‘True, true,’ Sir John agreed. ‘A leisurely ride from here to the Silken Thomas would take that long.’

‘And you, Mistress Bridget?’ Athelstan asked.

She made a face and gestured at her maid.

‘Hilda here will attest to this: shortly after Miles went, I closed the stall, after all it was Saturday afternoon. I left the house and went down to the markets in Petty Wales.’

‘Then you came back here?’

‘Well, of course, Brother.’ She laughed softly. ‘Where else could I go?’

‘It’s true what my mistress says,’ the maid said. ‘The master left. As he did so, the apprentices were bringing the goods in. The mistress then dismissed me and she took her basket out.’

‘You don’t sleep here?’

‘Oh no, Brother, I live with my own family in Shoe Lane.’

‘Our house is very small,’ Bridget Sholter explained. ‘We have a parlour, kitchen and scullery while the upper rooms are used as bedchamber, a small chancery office and storerooms.’

‘But I came back here later,’ Hilda said.

‘At what time?’

‘Oh, it must have been just before curfew, between ten and eleven o’clock.’

‘What is your name?’

‘Hilda Smallwode: when the Master’s away, I always come and see that all is well.’

‘Why these questions?’ Bridget Sholter asked, getting to her feet. ‘What are you implying?’

‘I am implying nothing, madam.’ Athelstan also rose. ‘We are investigating the dreadful murder, not only of your husband, but of two other souls. My parish faces a heavy fine and the people I serve are poor. I need to know every detail if I am to lodge an appeal.’

Eccleshall spread his legs out, stretching them until the muscles cracked.

‘Well, Brother, now you have it: Miles and I left shortly after four o’clock. We crossed London Bridge. We stopped to say a prayer at the chapel of St Thomas à Becket. The gatekeeper, after some delay, let us through. We must have arrived at the Silken Thomas just before six o’clock. At some time before eight Miles decided to return for his St Christopher medal.’

‘Yes, can I see that?’ Athelstan asked.

Bridget Sholter, looking narrow-eyed, made to refuse but Sir John coughed and shuffled his feet.

‘I’ll get it for you.’

She left and came back. The medal was really a large locket, gold gilt on a silver chain. Athelstan prised the clasp open to reveal on one side a picture of Christ, on the other a St Christopher bearing the Infant Jesus. Athelstan snapped it shut and handed it back.

‘I thank you mistress, Master Eccleshall.’

They made their farewells and went out into Eastchepe.

‘What was all that about?’ Sir John asked.

Athelstan led him through a porchway.

‘Sir John, Miles Sholter was murdered. I am sure, as God made little apples, those two are responsible!’

Athelstan stared up at the great keep of the Tower. On the green around him the women of the garrison were washing their clothes in great iron-hooped vats. Children also played in these, splashing water, jumping out and chasing each other. Soldiers lounged in the shadows drinking ale and playing dice. A lazy, pleasant place. The autumn sun was now warm and the grounds of the Tower seemed more like the setting for a midsummer fair than a formidable fortress. The mangonels, catapults and battering rams were all covered with tarred sheets. A horseman rode in, the hooves of his mount clattering on the cobbles. Grooms shouted and ran out to help take off the harness and lead the horse away. Cooking smells drifted from the kitchens and, from the royal menagerie, came the powerful roar of the lion sent as a gift by the Prince of Barbary to John of Gaunt.

The great hall, which lay next to the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula, had its door flung open. Servants and retainers were bringing out the greasy laden trestle tables to be scraped and washed once the women had finished with the vats of water. Two great hunting dogs snarled and fought over blood-spattered bones. Athelstan’s gaze travelled to the parapets where archers, supposedly on guard, sought shade against the autumn sun.