‘And that’s all you can tell us?’ Cranston barked.
‘Do I have my freedom, Sir John?’
‘I’ll leave instructions with the chief jailer. You’ll walk free this evening.’
‘You’ll not let it be known what I told you about Alcest?’
‘No. I’ll keep it as if Athelstan heard it under the seal of confession. However, I don’t want to see your pretty face in London for many a summer.’
‘Oh, don’t worry, Sir John.’ The Vicar of Hell welted his lips. ‘I think it’s time I travelled. Perhaps Clarice can join me. But I have your word I won’t hang?’
Cranston agreed again.
‘And mine,’ Brother Athelstan added, turning to shout for the jailer.
‘You are good men.’
Cranston laughed.
‘You are good men,’ the Vicar of Hell repeated, his face now serious.
For the first time ever Athelstan could see this young man as a priest, celebrating Mass or speaking from the pulpit.
‘I am a villain,’ the Vicar continued, ‘and the world is full of knavery, but neither of you are corrupt. What Alcest and the rest did, well, there’s not a Crown Official who doesn’t take a coin slipped under the counter, but you are different. You are honest as the day is long So I’ll give you two pieces of information free. First, that other clerk, the one who was fished from the Thames?’
‘Chapler?’
‘Yes, that’s the one. He was like you, Sir John. He didn’t take bribes. He never consorted with the whores. All my villains steered well clear of him. They did business with Alcest.’
‘That is interesting,’ Athelstan murmured.
‘Aye, Brother, it is, and I’ve got something for you. I’ve heard about your miraculous crucifix. Even the cut-throats and footpads around Whitefriars are wondering whether to pay it a visit.’
‘But you don’t think it’s a miracle, do you?’
‘No, Brother, I don’t The Good Lord is too busy to visit Southwark. You’re the next thing to Christ that lot will get!’
Athelstan sketched a bow in compliment.
‘Now, if our good coroner lets me go before the curfew bell, I know someone who can help, provided he can enter and leave Southwark without arrest.’
‘Who?’ Athelstan asked.
‘The Sanctus Man. There’s not a false relic he hasn’t sold, not one piece of subtle trickery he hasn’t practised. Let Cranston release me and you be at your church when Vespers rings. If your crucifix is miraculous, the Sanctus Man will tell you.’
Cranston clapped his hands. ‘Oh, what a day! What a day!’ he crowed. ‘The Vicar of Hell in Newgate and now the Sanctus Man is about to emerge. How I’d love to finger his collar!’
‘No, Sir John, you must give me your word that he can come and go without fear,’ Athelstan pleaded.
‘Oh, you have my word’ the coroner replied. ‘But the Sanctus Man is another rogue born and bred. He sold Christ’s crown of thorns fifteen times. His ability to make people part with their money is a miracle in itself.’
‘At Vespers then?’ the Vicar of Hell insisted.
Cranston agreed Athelstan sketched a blessing and they walked back through the cavernous passages of Newgate to the jailers’ lodge. Cranston stepped into the keeper’s small office and re-emerged smiling from ear to ear.
‘Our Vicar is now free, Brother, or will be, within the hour.’
‘Will he keep his word?’ Athelstan asked.
‘Oh yes, for such people their word is their bond. The Sanctus Man will be there. Now for Master Alcest…’
Cranston and Athelstan made their way along Westchepe, down Friday Street to where barges waited at the wharf. They clambered into one and the wherry men, straining at their oars, pulled the barge into midstream.
‘Do you think Alcest will confess?’ Cranston asked, making himself comfortable in the stern.
‘Perhaps,’ Athelstan replied. ‘We know he is guilty of counterfeiting but whether he is an assassin or not…?’ Athelstan sat back and closed his eyes.
‘You are not going to sleep, Brother?’
‘No, Sir John, I am not. We are approaching London Bridge and when we go under the arches my stomach positively dances.’
‘O man of little faith,’ Cranston quipped. ‘Why are you so frightened of death?’
‘I am not, Sir John.’ Athelstan smiled. ‘It’s just drowning I fear.’
The coroner sat forward, however, and began to exchange pleasantries with the two wherry men, drawing them into good-natured banter. As they approached the bridge, Cranston’s heart skipped a beat: the water was bubbling like oil in a pot as it gushed under the narrow arches of the bridge. The noise became like thunder. Cranston lost his wager with the wherry men for, as they shot through, narrowly missing the starlings or wooden partitions built to buttress the stone pillars, he closed his eyes as everyone did, not opening them until they were out into the quiet water near Botolph’s Wharf. The pace of their journey slowed down. Eventually the barge turned towards the shore, going past the fish markets of Billingsgate, the air rank with the stench of herring, cod, brine and salt. They disembarked at the Woolquay. Above them soared the Tower with its sheer walls, bulwarks, crenellations and bastions. Even on that sunny day the huge fortress had a threatening and forbidding air. Athelstan disliked the place: he had visited it on many occasions, accompanying Sir John in the pursuit of some red-handed murderer.
‘A narrow, cruel place,’ he muttered. ‘May St Dominic and all the angels take us swiftly in and out, for death and murder always lurk here.’
They crossed the drawbridge. Beneath them the moat was filled with dirty green slimy water which stank worse than any midden heap in the city. They went under the black arch of Middle Tower. The huge gateway stood like an open mouth, its teeth the half-lowered iron portcullis. Above them the severed heads of two felons, now rotting under the sun, grinned down at them.
‘God defend us,’ Athelstan prayed. ‘From all devils, demons, scorpions and malignant sprites who dwell here!’
The gateway was guarded by sentries who stood under the narrow vaulted archway seeking shade from the sun.
‘Sir John Cranston, Coroner!’ Cranston bellowed. ‘I hold the King’s writ and this is my clerk, Brother Athelstan, who for his sins is also parish priest of St Erconwald’s in Southwark. A place,’ Cranston paused and grinned at Athelstan, ‘where, as the Sanctus Man will show, virtue and vice rub shoulders and shake hands.’
In response, one of the sentries hawked and spat, narrowly missing Cranston’s boot. The coroner advanced threateningly towards him. The fellow forced a smile, mumbled an apology and fairly skipped before them, up past Byward Tower. They turned left at the Wakefield, going through another fortified wall and on to Tower Green. Most of the garrison was assembled there: soldiers lying on the grass, their wives at the washtubs, children climbing over the catapults, battering rams, mangonels, huge iron-ringed carts and the other impediments of war. To their right stood the massive half-timbered Great Hall with other rooms built on to it. Here the soldier handed them over to a snivelling red-nosed groom who took them up into the Great Hall. Cranston patted the two rough-haired hunting dogs snuffling amongst the dirty rushes. One of them took this friendliness too far and was about to cock its leg against Sir John but ran off growling when the coroner lashed out with his boot. The hall itself was a vaulting, sombre room with a dirty stone floor and smoke-charred heavy beams. Against the far wall was a fireplace, broad and high enough to roast an ox. The midday meal had just been finished and scullions were clearing the tables on either side of the hall, throwing the pewter and wooden platters into a tub of greasy water which they pushed around on wheels. A group of men stood before the fireplace. The groom hurried over. One of the men, tall and lanky, red-haired with pink-lidded eyes, sauntered over, thumbs stuck into his broad leather belt. He forced a smile as he recognised Cranston and Athelstan.