‘A common enough occurrence,’ Cranston confirmed. ‘He,’ the coroner pointed at Icthus, who sat with his back to them crooning a song to the rowers, ‘has one God-given gift: he can swim like an fish whatever the mood of the river.’
‘Where was Osborne found?’ Wenlock asked.
‘Down river,’ Cranston remarked, ‘trapped amongst some reeds. Icthus believes he was thrown in somewhere between the abbey and La Reole.’
‘We have his assurance it’s Osborne?’ Wenlock shifted his gaze from Icthus to Cranston.
‘We shall see,’ the coroner replied. ‘Apparently not only was the victim’s throat slashed but someone used a hammer, or a rock, to pound his face into a soggy mess of blood, bone and tattered flesh.’
‘Sweet Lord,’ Mahant whispered, sitting squashed in the semicircular stern seat, he leaned down and gently touched the hilt of his sword for comfort.
Cranston nudged Athelstan and pointed to a flock of birds which seemed to cover the corpse dangling from a crude gallows on a sandbank.
‘That reminds me — Leda the swan. Do you really think the Upright Men hanged that poor bird?’
Athelstan recalled what he’d glimpsed in the chantry chapel that morning.
‘Leda was hanged,’ he replied evasively, ‘by someone with a deep hatred for my Lord Abbot.’
‘That must include,’ Wenlock declared, ‘virtually most of his community and everyone outside it.’
Athelstan, reluctant to continue the conversation, stared round the awning at the other barges passing close as they moved in towards the quayside. Athelstan studied them and glimpsed Crispin, Kilverby’s secretarius, sitting huddled in the centre of one skiff staring directly at the Fisher of Men’s barge. Athelstan swiftly drew back. Crispin was apparently heading for St Fulcher’s. Athelstan wondered what urgent business brought him back to the abbey? Icthus, in that eerie voice, abruptly called out commands. The barge rocked as it turned and came alongside a deserted wharf just past La Reole. They disembarked and made their way up to what was variously called, ‘The Barque of St Peter’, ‘The Chapel of the Drowned Man’ or ‘The Mortuary of the Sea’, a single storey building of grey brick with a red tiled roof. The corporation had built this so all the corpses harvested from the Thames could be laid out for inspection and collection by relatives; if not recognized, they were placed on to the great cart standing alongside the Barque and taken to some Poor Man’s Lot in one of the city cemeteries.
The mortuary fronted the quayside, on either side ranged the wattle and daub cottages of the Fisher of Men and what he termed ‘his beloved disciples’; others called them ‘the grotesques’. Athelstan stared up at the vigorously carved tympanum above the wooden porch showing the dead rising from choppy waves to be greeted by the angels of God or the demons of Hell. Beneath this ran the words: ‘And the Sea shall give up its dead’. On the right side of the door hung the great net which the Fisher of Men used to bring in the bodies, above it another inscription: ‘The deep shall be harvested’. On the left side of the door a proclamation boldly proclaimed the prices for recovering a corpse. ‘The mad and insane — 6p. Suicides — 10p. Accidents — 8p. Those fleeing from the law — 14p. Animals — 2p. Goods to the value of £5: ten shillings. Goods over the value of £5, one third of their market value’. The Fisher of Men was seated beneath the sign, his bald head and cadaverous face protected by a leather cowl edged with costly fur. A thick military cloak shrouded his body from head to feet, which were pushed into the finest cordovan riding boots. The Fisher of Men rose and greeted his visitors in fluent Norman French and, turning specifically to Athelstan, lapsed into Latin. He asked the friar if he would give him and his ‘beloved disciples’ a formal blessing before leading them in their favourite hymn, ‘ Ave Maris Stella— Hail Star of the Sea’.
Athelstan, as always, was tempted to ask the Fisher about his past, his knowledge of Latin and the classics. Cranston, however, had warned Athelstan how this harvester of corpses was most reluctant to reveal any aspect of his past, be it stories about once being a leper knight or a merchant who had visited the court of the Great Cham of Tartary.
‘Well, Brother?’
‘Of course, of course.’
The Fisher of Men turned to Icthus, who produced a hunting horn and blew a long haunting blast which hastily summoned the members of that strange community to kneel on the cobbles before ‘The Barque of St Peter’. With Cranston and the others looking on, Athelstan delivered the blessing of St Francis.
‘May the Lord bless you and protect you.
May he show you his face and smile on you.
May the Lord turn his face to thee and give you peace.
May the Lord bless you.’
When Athelstan finished he sketched a cross in the air and intoned the ‘ Ave Maris Stella’, the rest of his singular congregation merrily joining in, chanting the Latin hymn learnt by rote to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Once the ‘Amen’ had been sung, the Fisher of Men clapped Athelstan’s shoulder and led him and the others into the Sanctuary of Souls, a rectangular lime-washed chamber. On a dais at the far end stood an altar draped with a purple and gold cloth, above it a large crucifix nailed to the wall. The Fisher’s ‘guests’, as he described the corpses plucked from the Thames, were placed on wooden trestles, each covered with a shroud drenched in pine juice. The stench, despite the herbs, was sharp and pungent, a sombre place of haunting sadness. Athelstan blessed the room even as Icthus and two of his companions came around him swinging thuribles, anointing the air with sweet smoke. The Fisher removed the shroud covering one corpse. Athelstan immediately gagged at the sight and grasped the proffered pomander. Cranston and the two soldiers cursed until the Fisher of Men loudly tutted. The face of the corpse, already bloated liverish by the river, had been reduced to a reddish-black pulp, the nose and lips fragmented into a grotesque mask. The body was naked, the muscular torso, legs and arms streaked with old wounds. Athelstan stared closely; he could not be certain who it was.
‘Osborne,’ Wenlock murmured. ‘It’s Osborne.’ He turned to the Fisher of Men. ‘How did you know?’
The Fisher lifted the arms of the corpse, he pointed to the wrists marked by the bracers now removed and the deep calluses on the arrow fingers of the left hand.
‘We keep our eyes and ears sharp. We read and learnt the description Sir John posted at St Paul’s Cross and elsewhere. How you were seeking Henry Osborne, former master bowman, who fled without permission from the Abbey of St Fulcher. Where would such a man flee, we asked? We heard about the deaths at the abbey so when Icthus fished this corpse from the reeds, throat cut, face all disfigured, corpse stripped, we wondered. I examined the wrists, which the archer braces would usually cover, the fingers worn by years notching a bow. .’
‘Where did you find him?’ Cranston indicated for the cadaver to be covered.
Athelstan didn’t wait for the answer; he took a deep breath on the pomander and walked back to the door. He glanced over his shoulder. Wenlock and Mahant stood apart, hiding in the murky light of that grim place. Cranston was helping with the funeral cloth whilst the Fisher of Men and his acolytes gathered around all pleased, eager for their reward.
‘God forgive me,’ Athelstan murmured, ‘for my lack of thought.’ Clutching his writing satchel, he walked back to the trestle. He took out the small phials of holy oils and insisted on anointing the corpse whilst he whispered the words of absolution. He tried to ignore the brutal remains which once housed a living soul, concentrating on the rite whilst the bile bubbled at the back of his throat. Once finished he gratefully strolled outside to the fiery heat from a huge brazier where the rest were already warming themselves. Wenlock and Mahant, now vociferous, informed Cranston how they no longer wished to reside at St Fulcher’s. Cranston warned them that, until he was finished, they could either stay there or be lodged in the Tower and that applied to anyone else involved in these dire events.