him to my shop.’
‘Shop?’ Athelstan queried.
‘You’ll see.’
Cranston looked warningly at Athelstan.
‘But there was no one else?’ the Coroner asked. ‘You saw no one around?’
The fellow shook his head.
‘No one at all. I tell you, Sir John, the place was deserted. I saw no one. I heard no one.’
‘But how?’ Athelstan broke in. ‘How can someone approach Sturmey, stick a knife in his heart then disappear like a puff of smoke?’
The Fisher of Men shrugged and drained his wine cup. ‘I only takes the bodies out,’ he replied. ‘I don’t account for why they died. Come, I’ll show you.’
He led them out of the tavern, down a side street and turned into a narrow alleyway. He stopped beside a long barn-like structure and opened the padlocked door. Athelstan immediately covered his face and mouth against the terrible stench. The Fisher of Men lit torches, the pitch spluttered into life and Athelstan gazed round at the trestle tables, about a dozen in all, which filled the room. Some were empty but others bore bundles covered by leather sheets.
‘Now, which one’s Sturmey?’ the Fisher of Men muttered to himself. He pulled back one sheet. ‘No, that’s the suicide.’ He stopped, a finger to his lips, and pointed to another covered bundle. ‘And that’s the drunk. So this,’ he said triumphantly pulling back the sheet, ‘must be Sturmey!’
The dead locksmith lay sprawled there, his face a ghastly white, his hair and clothes sodden. In the centre of his chest was a dark purple stain. Beside the corpse lay a long knife. Athelstan picked it up gingerly.
‘The same type, ‘he murmured,’ as used on Mountjoy.’ He took another look at the corpse. Cranston turned away and busily helped himself to his wineskin.
‘How do you know it’s Sturmey?’ Athelstan asked.
‘He had a list of provisions in his wallet with his name on,’ the Fisher of Men replied. ‘And My Lord Coroner had already directed myself and others of my Guild to search for this man.’ His face became even longer. ‘The rest you know. Have you seen enough?’
‘Hell’s teeth, yes!’ Cranston snapped. ‘Cover his face!’
‘When you pay the threepence, Sir John, I’ll release the corpse.’
Cranston took another swig from the miraculous wineskin. ‘All right! All right!’ he exclaimed crossly. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Athelstan, let’s get out of here!’
CHAPTER 7
Cranston and Athelstan walked back to collect their horses from the stable.
‘A cup of claret, Brother?’
‘No, Sir John. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Tell me, have you remembered why you knew Sturmey’s name?’
Cranston shook his head. ‘But one thing I do know: Brother, Sturmey was killed because he knew something. He could solve the mystery of how the chest was robbed.’ Cranston stared as two lepers, garbed completely in black, crept along the street, fearful of being recognized. ‘Sturmey was lured,’ he continued, ‘down to Billingsgate. But why? What forced a reputable locksmith to become involved in treason and robbery?’
‘There’s only one answer, Sir John. I doubt if he was bribed so the answer must be blackmail. If you search your prodigious memory, I am sure you’ll find something rather unsavoury about Master Sturmey.’
Cranston nodded and they led their horses further up the street, where their attention was drawn to a huge crowd which had assembled around a sinister figure dressed in goatskin. The man had long, grey hair falling down over his shoulders, the lower half of his face was hidden behind a thick, bushy beard; strange mad eyes scanned the crowds, fascinated by this latter-day prophet and the tall, burning cross he was holding. The latter, coated with pitch and tar along the cross beam, burnt fiercely, the flames and black smoke only emphasizing the mad preacher’s warnings.
‘This city has been condemned like Sodom and Gomorrah! Like those of Tyre and Sidon and the fleshpots of the plain to bear the brunt of God’s anger!’ The man flung one sinewy arm towards Cheapside. ‘I bring the burning cross to this city as a warning of the fires yet to come! So repent ye, you rich who loll in silk on golden couches and drink the juices of wine and stuff your mouth with the softest meats!’
Cranston and Athelstan watched the man rant on, even as soldiers wearing both the livery of the city and of John of Gaunt began to make their presence felt, pouring out of alleyways leading down to the Tower. The soldiers forced their way through the throng with the flats of their swords in an attempt to seize the mad prophet. The mob resisted, their mood sullen; fights broke out and, when Athelstan looked again, the preacher and his fiery cross had disappeared.
‘Come on, Sir John, I have a confession to make.’
He led the Coroner further away from the tumult.
‘What is it, Brother?’
‘This leader of the Great Community, Ira Dei. He has sent me a warning.’ Athelstan carefully described his strange visitation earlier in the day as well as the proclamation pinned to his church door.
Cranston, tight-lipped, heard him out, so concerned he even forgot his miraculous wineskin.
‘Why would they approach me?’ Athelstan asked.
Cranston blew out his lips. ‘Fear and flattery, Brother. Fear because he knows you are my clerk and secretarius.’
‘And secondly, Sir John?’
Cranston gave a lop-sided smile. ‘You are rather modest for a priest, Athelstan. Haven’t you realized how in Southwark, amongst the poor and the downtrodden, you are respected, even revered?’
Athelstan blushed and looked away.
‘That’s ridiculous!’ he whispered.
‘Oh no, it isn’t!’ Cranston snapped, moving on. ‘Forget Ira Dei, Brother. When the rebellion comes, it will be priests like yourself, John More and Jack Straw, who will lead the commons.’
‘I’ll hide in my church,’ Athelstan retorted. ‘Speaking of which…’ He stopped outside St Dunstan’s, looping Philomel’s reins through one of the hooks placed on the wall.
‘What’s the matter, Brother?’
‘I want to think, Sir John, and pray. I advise you to do likewise.’
Muttering and cursing, Cranston hobbled his own horse, took a generous swig from the miraculous wineskin and followed Athelstan into the cool, dark porch.
Inside the church was lit by the occasional torch with candles placed around statues of the Virgin, St Joseph and St Dunstan, as well as the sunlight pouring through the stained-glass windows which made the pictures depicted there flare into life in glorious rays of colour. Athelstan stared admiringly up at these.
‘I’d love one of those!’ he whispered. ‘Just one for St Erconwald!’
He looked again and, as he did so, Cranston took one small nip from his wineskin and followed the friar down the nave to sit on a bench before the rood screen. Behind this, in the choir stalls, the master singer and his choir were rehearsing the Mass of St Michael. Athelstan sat on the bench, closed his eyes and listened to the words.
‘I saw a great dragon appear in the heavens, ten heads and on each a coronet, and its great tail swept a third of the stars from the sky. Then I saw Michael do battle with the dragon.’
The powerful, three-voiced choir triumphantly sang in Latin the description of Archangel Michael’s great triumph over Satan.
Athelstan closed his eyes and prayed for God’s help against the evil he now faced: Mountjoy, blood-stained in that beautiful garden; Fitzroy, choking his life out above the gold and silver platters of John of Gaunt; Sturmey, dragged out of the river like a piece of rubbish by the Fisher of Men, his corpse displayed like that of a dead cod or salmon.
