‘Hello!’ he called. ‘Who is there?’
Athelstan’s eyes, now accustomed to the darkness, tried to make out if there was anyone standing in the shadows on the corner of Carter Lane. He looked up at the sky and idly thought it would be a fine night for studying the stars. A slight breeze sprang up, wafting the stench from the Shambles around Newgate. Should he go on? he wondered. Then he heard it: the slither of leather on the dirty cobblestones and a gentle, scraping, hissing sound.
‘Who is. .?’ He broke off as he recalled the sound. He had heard that noise before whenever Cranston drew his stabbing dagger from its leather sheath. Athelstan needed no second urging. He turned Philomel round, kicking with all his might. Usually the old war horse would balk into an ambling trot. Athelstan, not the best of horsemen, urged him on, lashing his withers with the reins. He heard footsteps behind him. One or was it two sets of footsteps.
‘Au secours! Aidez moi!’ Athelstan gave the usual cry of someone being attacked on the streets. Yelling at Philomel and shouting the alarm, he charged back towards the main gate of Blackfriars. The footsteps stopped. He heard a muted shout, a click, and he ducked — but the crossbow bolt whirred well above his head. Lights appeared in the windows of the houses and, thanks be to God, the porter already had the gate open. Athelstan dismounted and pushed the old war horse through.
‘Bolt the gate!’ he ordered.
The porter slammed it shut. Athelstan released Philomel’s reins and, as the old war horse charged like an arrow into the nearby garden to eat the delicious flowers, Athelstan crouched, arms across his stomach, trying to calm the panic within him.
‘Is there anything wrong, Brother?’
Athelstan looked at the lean face of the porter and got wearily to his feet.
‘No, no, just forget it.’
Athelstan took a protesting Philomel back to the stables, unsaddled him, made him comfortable for the night and returned to the guest house. He walked warily as if experiencing one of his nightmares. He realised the ambush out in the street had been planned by someone here at Blackfriars. He checked the guest house carefully, even to the jug of wine in the kitchen, bolted the door, made the shutters secure, and went up for an uneasy night’s sleep.
He rose and left Blackfriars early next morning. The attack of the previous evening had aroused the constant, underlying fear in him. Their investigations had implicated someone powerful or vicious enough to hire felons or footpads who would take their lives at the blink of an eyelid, and for a sum much less than thirty pieces of silver.
The sun had not yet risen as he turned into Thames Street and rode down the Vintry and Ropery into Bridge Street. He guided a still protesting Philomel away from the houses, keeping a watchful eye on the darkened doorways and alleyways, especially those leading down from the slums along the banks of the Thames. The wine merchants and cordwainers were still fast asleep, the street deserted except for carts piled high with produce making their way up to the markets. A yawning beadle, resting half-asleep on his staff of office, wished him good morning. A group of whores, their red heads covered by cloaks, slipped back to their tenements in Cock Lane, Smithfield. A pig, crushed by one of the carts, screeched its death agony until a householder, knife in hand, sped from the doorway, cut the animal’s throat and, with a sly wink at Athelstan, dragged the blood-gushing corpse into his house.
‘They’ll eat well,’ Athelstan murmured.
Philomel snorted, tossing his head at the smell of blood.
At the bridge, the city watch still guarded the entrance. There was no sign of Cranston so Athelstan retraced his steps up to Pountney Inn halfway between the Ropery and Candlewick Street, one of the few taverns licensed to remain open before the bells of St Mary Le Bow gave the signal for the start of day. He ordered watered beer and a meat pie and became involved in an angry altercation with the taverner when he cut it open to find two dead wasps inside. Athelstan, still weary and agitated after the attack of the previous evening, finally gave up in disgust. He stalked out of the tavern, collected Philomel and walked back to Bridge Street where he stood watching the traffic pass on to the bridge. The morning was clear, mist free, and the gulls and other birds hunting along the mud flats rose, soared and dipped, filling the air with their screams.
‘Are you a vagrant?’
Athelstan jumped at the touch of a heavy hand on his shoulder. He turned to see Cranston’s bewhiskered face a few inches from his. Athelstan clutched his chest.
‘Sir John, why can’t you be like other men and just say good morning?’
The coroner grinned and narrowed his eyes.
‘You look frightened — whey-faced. What’s the matter?’
Athelstan told him as they led their horses on to the bridge, the friar as always keeping his eyes away from the sheer drop on either side. He had to pause whilst Cranston threw good-natured abuse at the city watch, but otherwise the coroner patiently heard him out. Sir John then stopped, rubbing his chin and staring blankly at the door of the chapel of St Thomas of Canterbury which stood in the centre of the bridge. Behind them a carter flicked his whip.
‘Come on, you great fat lump! Keep moving!’
‘Piss off!’ Cranston shouted back.
Nevertheless, he guided his horse on, making Athelstan repeat once again his description of the attack.
‘And you found nothing in those damned books?’
‘Not a jot nor a tittle!’
Cranston eased the knife in his belt. ‘But someone in that bloody monastery knows what you are hunting for!’
‘I agree, Sir John. I have concluded that myself. My belief is that all murderers are arrogant. Like their father Cain, they think they can hide from God and everyone else. Our demonstration, however, of what happened to poor Alcuin has provoked the assassin to act. After all, Sir John, if we can resolve one problem then perhaps it’s only a matter of time before we resolve another.’
‘Which brings us to the business of the scarlet chamber,’ Cranston added ominously.
‘Patience, Sir John, patience. And how are Lady Maude and the two poppets?’
Cranston turned and spat as they left the bridge.
‘Those boys have prodigious appetites and powerful lungs. They must get it from their mother.’
Athelstan pulled a face to hide a grin.
‘They are getting so big,’ Cranston moaned.
‘And the Lady Maude?’
Cranston raised his eyebrows. ‘Like a lioness, Brother, like a lioness. She sits like one of those great cats in the King’s Tower, a smile on her face, eyes ever watchful.’ He blew out his cheeks. ‘If I do not extricate myself from this mess, she’ll spring.’ He glared furiously at his companion who was busy gnawing his lower lip.
Lady Maude was so small, Athelstan thought, he couldn’t imagine her as some great cat stalking the mighty coroner.
They entered the alleyways and mean streets of Southwark, Cranston still bemoaning his impending fate. Athelstan looped Philomel’s reins round his wrist, half-listening as he stared around. At first he had hated Southwark, but now he felt that despite the fetid runnels and shabby one-storeyed huts, the place had a vigorous life of its own. Already the little booths were open and in a nearby ale-house someone was singing a hymn to the Virgin Mary. A ward beadle tried to seize a young whore who had been plying her trade on the steps of the priory of St Mary Overy but the young girl raised her skirts, waggled a pair of dirty white buttocks and scampered off, screaming with laughter. They turned down the alley which led to St Erconwald’s. Athelstan heaved a sigh of relief that the church and grounds were empty. No sightseers. Even the serjeant Sir John had sent appeared to have found something more interesting to do and wandered off. They stabled their horses and went into the priest’s house. Athelstan smiled.