Athelstan went down the altar steps, genuflected and followed Crim into the sacristy then back out again to stand on the porch and to shake hands with his parishioners as they left. Watkin and Pike the ditcher stayed behind as he had asked them to before Mass. He said goodbye to Ranulf the rat-catcher, still full of glee at the way he had helped Cranston, Pernell the Fleming, Ursula and her sow, Tab the tinker and Cecily the courtesan, looking resplendent in a corn-coloured dress.
‘You have been behaving yourself?’ Athelstan asked her.
‘Of course, Father.’
So miracles do happen in Southwark, he thought. The last to leave was Jacob Arveld the German with his pleasant-faced wife and brood of children. An industrious parchment-seller, the German had soon settled down in his pleasant, three-storied house and garden just behind The Bishop of Winchester inn, though he was still having difficulty with the language.
‘Those were nice words,’ Jacob reassured Athelstan now. ‘A most precise sermon. I thank you from the heart of my bottom.’
‘Don’t you mean bottom of your heart?’
‘And that, too, Father.’
Athelstan smiled and watched his congregation gather in the alleyway around a small booth where Tab the tinker sold ale and sweetmeats. He walked back up the nave and into the sacristy where Watkin and his formidable wife, and Pike the ditcher and his equally redoubtable spouse, were waiting for him.
Oh, Lord, Athelstan prayed, please make this peaceful. He darted a glance at Pike whom he had secretly met before Mass: the ditcher, who considered himself in the priest’s debt, had quickly agreed that his son’s betrothal to Watkin’s daughter was the best thing possible. He had then attentively listened as Athelstan told him what he must say when they met Watkin.
‘Well, we are here, Father.’ Watkin shuffled his great dirty boots. ‘I know why you want to see us, though it seems we were the last to realize that our daughter is smitten with Pike’s son.’
‘Young man.’ Pike the ditcher’s spouse intervened.
‘I don’t like this at all,’ Pike the ditcher spoke up. ‘I see no future prospects in their being betrothed. My son should look further afield.’
‘What’s wrong with my daughter?’ Watkin’s wife snapped. ‘Do you think your son’s too good for her?’
Athelstan smiled to himself, stood back and watched Watkin and his wife launch the most vitriolic attack on Pike. After that there was little problem. Pike first reluctantly apologized and then, just as reluctantly, it seemed, agreed that the matter was settled; his son would marry Watkin’s daughter on the first Saturday after Easter. After that they crossed to the priest’s house to drink a cup of wine in celebration. Watkin swaggered in like some successful lawyer from the Inns of Court. He had extolled his family’s name, he had defended his daughter’s reputation, he had brought his great rival Pike the ditcher to book and made him accept what he proposed. Athelstan poured the wine, refusing to look Pike in the eye, and whilst they toasted the young couple, quietly prayed that Watkin would never discover how he had been tricked.
After they had left, Athelstan ate a little breakfast and walked back to the deserted church to say his office. He then cleared the table in the kitchen, laid out his writing implements: quill, ink horn, pumice stone and the roll of new parchment Cranston had given him. Once ready, Athelstan sat and wrote everything he and the Coroner had learnt about the Ira Dei: Mountjoy’s stabbing, Fitzroy’s poisoning and Sturmey’s sudden and violent death in Billingsgate. The day wore on. Athelstan paused to eat a little soup, some dried meat and bread. He crossed to the church to say prayers then walked through the graveyard reflecting on what he had written. He drew a fresh diagram of the Guildhall garden, a seating plan of the banquet where Fitzroy had died. Now and again he remembered some other items and made a neat insertion.
By dusk Athelstan believed he had written down everything he and Cranston had learnt and began studying his notes carefully. He smiled as he remembered his mother looking for a thread in an old cloak and, once she did, carefully teasing it out, unravelling the precious wool. However, there was no loose thread here.
‘Cold-blooded murder,’ Athelstan muttered to himself. ‘No crime of passion, no impetuous gesture which would betray the assassin.’ He listed no less than eight possible culprits whilst the identity of Ira Dei remained a mystery. Athelstan got up and stretched, lit the candles and built up the fire as Bonaventure slipped through the open window.
‘Good evening, my prince of the alleyways.’
The great tom cat stretched in front of the hearth, his little pink tongue darting in and out. He purred with pleasure as Athelstan brought out a pitcher of milk from the buttery and filled his battered, pewter bowl. The friar crouched down and stroked the one-eyed torn cat between the ears.
‘I wish you animals could talk,’ he muttered. ‘I wish I was like the great St Francis of Assissi and had the gift of conversing with God’s little creatures. What mysteries do you see, eh, Bonaventure? What wickedness do you glimpse as you hunt amongst the alleyways and runnels?’
Bonaventure kept lapping the milk, his tail twitching with pleasure. Athelstan rose, sipped from his tankard of beer and went back to his problem. Darkness fell, owls hooted from the cemetery and the friar’s irritation grew. He went back upstairs and collected the scroll he had taken from Cranston’s house about the investigation some fifteen years ago in which Sturmey had been involved. He went downstairs and carefully scrutinized the document, using his ruler so as to study each line.
‘Oh, Lord help me!’ he whispered. ‘Please, just one loose thread!’ Athelstan read on and then, in a corner of the margin of the manuscript where the scribe had made a little annotation, he found it. ‘Oh, Lord save us!’ he whispered. ‘Oh, of course!’
The friar extinguished the candle and trudged upstairs, lay down on the cot bed and stared up at the ceiling. On such a beautiful autumn evening, particularly a Sunday, he would usually be at the top of the church tower, scanning the stars and talking to Bonaventure about the theories of Roger Bacon. He had to confess, however, that a study of the human heart was more fascinating as he began to build a logical explanation which might flush out the murderer into God’s own light. His mind sifted the possibilities till his eyes grew heavy. He drifted into a troubled sleep and a recurring nightmare of standing under the moonlight in the Guildhall garden.
He was sitting where Mountjoy had been and could see the assassin moving behind the fence paling. He tried to get up but realized he was fastened and unable to move. He knew the assassin was going to strike. Then Athelstan would turn, conscious of someone beside him, and see the greyish faces and red-rimmed eyes of a line of corpses: Mountjoy, Fitzroy, Sarah Hobden, whilst on a spike in the centre of the garden was the decapitated head of Jacques Larue, the French pirate. The corpses pressed against him, mouths gaping. Athelstan wanted to shove them away but was terrified of taking his eyes off the assassin lurking behind the fence.
At last he awoke, sweating and moaning. He swung his legs off the bed, breathing deeply to control his thudding heart. He looked through the window. The sky was already shot with red so he washed, changed and went down to the kitchen for something to eat. Eventually the terrors of the night faded as he sat before the rekindled fire, gently rocking in the chair with Bonaventure curled in his lap. Then he went back to his writing. At first slowly, then with greater vigour and speed as he drew up what he termed his bill of indictment against the assassin.
Outside the birds stirred, swooping and singing; the sun rose higher and stronger. Athelstan put down his pen and went across to the church to celebrate Mass. No one came. Crim, heavy-eyed, burst through the door just as he finished, shouting his apologies. The lad explained how both his family and that of Pike the ditcher had spent the previous evening celebrating the forthcoming betrothal. Athelstan reassured him all was well, took a penny from his pouch and led Crim out on to the porch of the church.
‘You know the Lord Coroner, Crim?’
‘You mean old Horse Crusher?’
‘No, Crim!’
‘Yes, Father, I know the Lord Coroner and where he lives.’
‘Well, go across and see him. Deliver this message. He is to meet me at The Holy Lamb of God.’ Athelstan paused. ‘Yes, just as the market opens. Also tell him to ask my Lord of Gaunt and the other nobles to meet us at the Guildhall at noon.’ He slipped the penny into the boy’s grimy hand and made him repeat his message three times. Crim faithfully did so, eyes closed in concentration, and then was off, running like a hare down the alleyway.
Athelstan went back into the church and crouched at the foot of one of the pillars. He’d be glad to have this business finished. He only hoped he was right. He had some proof but not enough: that would come when they
