Field of Blood

Athelstan thanked him and the taverner went back to the kitchen, chuckling at the easy silver he had earned.

'It seems you are wrong, Brother.' Sir John patted him gently on the shoulder. 'Sholter and Eccleshall came here. Sholter left but, if Eccleshall had anything to do with his murder, I can't see how he could be in two places at once!' He looked round the taproom. 'Brother,' he said quietly, leaning across the table. 'What happens if the Great Community of the Realm were here? One of their so-called officers? You heard the taverner. Eccleshall and Sholter swagger in, loudly proclaiming who they are, then one abruptly leaves just before darkness falls.'

'You mean he was followed out and killed?'

'It's possible.' Sir John licked his lips. 'That ale was nice.'

'No, Sir John, you've drunk enough.' Athelstan pushed his tankard across. 'Or, at least I have, you can finish mine then it's back to Southwark and across to the city!'

They left the Silken Thomas and made their way into Southwark. The streets were now busy, the small markets which stood on each street corner doing a busy trade in second-hand goods.

'Or what they've stolen from the other side of the river,' Sir John commented.

Many people recognised Athelstan and his burly companion. In the main, good-natured abuse was called but, on one occasion, the coroner had to draw his sword as some dried dog-turds struck the house wall beside him. The group of roaring boys gathered in an alehouse doorway quietly slunk back.

'Let's move on,' Athelstan urged. He went down an alleyway.

'Brother, I thought we were going to the bridge?'

'No, Sir John, just bear with me. I have a little parish business to do. The Venerable Veronica.'

They found Dog Tail Lane. The Venerable Veronica lived in a mean, shabby tenement thrust between an old warehouse on one side and a dingy cook shop on the other. Her chamber was at the top of rickety stairs which stank of urine. The walls were cracked and split, the flaking plaster covering the shabby, wooden steps like a coating of snow. The Venerable Veronica, however, was welcoming enough and her chamber was neat and tidy. She was sitting on a stool, hand over a small dish of glowing charcoal fixed on a tripod. In a far corner stood a cot bed screened off by a tawdry cloak which hung from hooks fixed into the ceiling.

Despite her great age, Sir John was surprised how striking the old woman was. She was small, narrow-faced; her skin looked lined and seamed but her eyes were sharp and bright as a sparrow's. She responded quickly enough, asking her visitors to bring across a bench so they could sit near her while she 'warmed her poor hands' over the charcoal.

'I should go to church more often, Brother,' she began. 'But my old knees and back hurt.'

'I could bring you the sacrament when I come,' Athelstan offered. 'It's easy enough done.'

'Would you really, Brother, and shrive me?'

'Of course, whenever I visit, just ask.'

The old woman peered up at him, moving her hands as if washing them above the charcoal.

'You are different from the other, Brother, the one who came before you. He was born in sin, he lived in sin and he died in sin. He took everything, he did: chalices, cups, breviary. William Fitzwolfe sold them all.'

'Including the blood book?' Athelstan asked.

The Venerable Veronica sighed and nodded.

'That's why I am here, Mother,' Athelstan continued. 'We truly have a problem in the parish. Eleanor, daughter of Basil the blacksmith, wishes to marry Oswald, Joscelyn's son.'

'Ah yes, yes.' The old woman blinked her eyes, head up, mouth open. She rocked herself backwards and forwards. 'The harridan, that fishwife Imelda, the one who's married to the ditcher, the troublemaker. I met her in the lane below. She was all hot with the gossip, like a sparrow on a spring morning.' Veronica glanced at Athelstan. 'Perhaps I should have kept my words to myself, Brother, but I was so lonely and I wanted someone to talk to. I told them Eleanor's and Oswald's great-grandmothers were sisters. They shared the same womb and the same blood line.'

'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.'