‘Yes?’
‘I would like to leave here. Would St Erconwald have an anker house?’ He kicked the coffer. ‘I have the money to pay for its construction. I could help your painter.’
Athelstan was about to refuse but softened at the man’s pleading look.
‘Friar!’ Cranston’s booming voice echoed along the south aisle.
‘I must go.’ Athelstan rose. ‘As for your request, let me see.’ The friar left the anker house and found Cranston had moved across the church to admire a scene painted from the Book of Daniel about Susannah facing her lecherous accusers.
‘Sir John, good morrow.’
‘And the same to you, little friar. I’ve heard Mass, I’ve broke my fast. What. .’ He paused as Wenlock and Mahant, their cloaks glistening with wet, came up the aisle. Athelstan noticed the daggers pushed into their war belts. Men of violence, Athelstan reflected, yet they looked cowed, Mahant especially, his hard eyes now red-rimmed, his cheeks unshaven.
‘We are leaving,’ Wenlock declared, ‘no, no, not for good.’
‘I hope not,’ Cranston retorted. ‘You’ll stay here. I sent a lay brother into the city. I’ve asked the sheriff to issue writs for the fugitive Henry Osborne.’
‘He’s not a. .’
‘Master Wenlock, he is. Osborne fled from here by night. He could be the assassin we are hunting.’
‘Never — ’
‘Everyone,’ Cranston insisted, ‘including both of you, are suspects, Osborne even more so. His description will be proclaimed in Cheapside, posted on the ‘ Si Quis’ door at St Paul’s as well as its Great Cross. If Osborne does not surrender himself in ten days he will be declared utlegatum— an outlaw, a wolfshead.’
Mahant glanced sharply at Wenlock, who simply shook his head.
‘Just as well,’ Mahant muttered. ‘It’s best if he’s taken.’
‘Why?’ Cranston demanded.
‘Osborne was our treasurer,’ Wenlock explained. ‘I am sorry. We did not mention this before. When he left Osborne took most of our gold and silver with him. We are going into London to search for him ourselves.’
‘Why there?’ Athelstan asked.
‘Osborne is not a country bumpkin,’ Wenlock replied. ‘He also likes the ladies. Perhaps we’ll find him in the stews or some other brothel.’ Wenlock shrugged. ‘Athelstan, Sir John?’
Both men bowed and left.
‘I’m not too happy,’ Cranston whispered, ‘I would like everyone to stay where they are but so far we have little proof to detain them, yes?’ Cranston’s gaze travelled back to the painting of Susannah. He walked up to it, stared hard for a while then abruptly jumped up and down like a little boy. ‘Lady Purity!’ he exclaimed. ‘Lady Purity, also known as “Mistress Quicksilver”.’
‘Sir John, are you madcap?’
Cranston pointed to the picture of Susannah then grasped Athelstan firmly by the shoulders, his blue eyes blazing with good humour.
‘Eleanor Remiet,’ he whispered, pushing his face close to Athelstan. ‘Eleanor Remiet be damned! She’s Lady Purity. Athelstan, I know London. What you told me about the anchorite? I certainly remember him as an excellent hangman. Nor can I forget that murderous harridan Agnes Rednal whilst Wolfsbane was a demon incarnate. They’ve all crossed my path. I’ve certainly crossed theirs and others. Do you recall Alice Perrers?’
‘The mistress of the late King Edward, she stayed long enough by his corpse to strip it of rings and every other precious item.’
‘Living like a nun now out in Essex.’ Cranston chuckled. ‘Oh yes, I’ve met them all, little friar, the good, the bad and the downright wicked.’
‘And this Lady Purity?’
‘Stare at the painting of Susannah, Friar, gaze at her face. I’ve been studying it since I arrived here this morning. I know that face! This fresco was executed many years ago but the painter certainly used someone as his image.’
‘Eleanor Remiet?’
‘Look and judge.’
Athelstan did. Cranston snatched a flaming cresset from its sconce and held it up to illuminate the beautiful face shrouded by a mass of golden curls, the downcast eyes, the graceful way that Innocent from the Book of Daniel kept her cloak about her naked body. Athelstan stared, fascinated by the compelling beauty of the woman’s face and the more he looked his doubts began to crumble. The artist, whoever he was, had used the woman now calling herself Eleanor Remiet as his mirror for this biblical heroine. To be sure, Remiet was now old, her face ravaged by time, but a hidden glow of beauty still remained in those haughty features and Athelstan could detect the same in the wall painting before him.
‘Sir John,’ Athelstan stepped back, ‘you are correct. Who was this Lady Purity?’
‘A great courtesan of Cheapside. I used to woo her from afar. She certainly wasn’t for the likes of young Jack Cranston, freshly inducted into the Inns of Court, oh no, but I adored her from a distance, worshipping at her altar. I did all I could to discover more about her.’
‘And?’
‘Lady Purity, as she called herself, reserved her favours for the great ones of the land. She also acquired a rather sinister reputation.’
‘As?’
‘As a cozening blackmailer who, when it suited her, could threaten a cleric with a summons to the Archdeacon’s court or an errant husband with the wrath of his wife. She earned money swiftly and smoothly in both her callings, hence her nickname, “Mistress Quicksilver”. As for her title, “Lady Purity”,’ Cranston laughed, ‘well, that was because of her pious ways, at least publicly. In her youth she was a great beauty who acted so innocently, so decorously, you’d think butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. She was the toast. .’ Cranston walked away as shouts and cries from outside rose and fell. Athelstan remained rooted to the spot, lost in his own wild tumble of thoughts.
‘As I said,’ Cranston continued, coming back, ‘she was the toast of Cheapside. Athelstan, you were right about her relationship with our abbot, that’s what started me thinking. Eleanor Remiet is not the abbot’s sister but his leman.’ Cranston chuckled to himself. ‘She is definitely the mother of the lovely Isabella who, of course, is the abbot’s natural daughter, certainly not his niece. They are, in the eyes of God, though not Holy Mother Church, husband, wife and child. Lady Purity or Mistress Quicksilver, whatever her name, will have her claws very deep into our Lord Abbot. She will demand the best sustenance and purveyance for both herself and her daughter. In her youth, saintly Susannah or not, Lady Purity had a hunger for gold and silver. The passing of the years and the needs of young Isabella will have only whetted her appetite as sharp as a knife.’
‘Which would explain why the abbot stopped paying the Upright Men?’
‘Aye, and God knows what else he has misappropriated. I think it’s time-’
‘Not yet,’ Athelstan gripped Cranston’s sleeve, ‘not yet my Lord Coroner, let me first reflect; there are other matters. .’
Athelstan broke off as the hubbub outside grew. He and Cranston went through a side door into the porch. A group of brothers were gathered round a barrow being pushed up the path. Exclamations rang out, the monks, jostling each other, blocked Athelstan’s view of what was in the barrow. They parted and Athelstan groaned in sheer pity at the horror piled there, the long graceful neck now twisted, the glorious white plumage piled in dirty disarray — Leda the swan! Athelstan stopped the barrow and stared down at the once magnificent bird.
‘How did it happen?’
‘Hanged! Hanged!’ Brother Simon pushed his way through. ‘We found Leda hanged on the gallows near the watergate.’
Athelstan sketched a blessing over the dead bird.
‘Abbot Walter will be distraught,’ one of the brothers exclaimed. ‘He will mourn as if for a loved one.’
‘Aye, but does he love any of us?’ another added.
The question was greeted with silence.
‘Who? How?’ Athelstan asked.
Another monk passed Athelstan a parchment script with the phrase, ‘Answer a fool according to his folly’ scratched in red ink. Beneath this, ‘The Upright Men’.