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.'
Sir John snorted in surprise.
'Don't look at me like that, Sir John Cranston! You may be a King's officer but so am I. I am responsible for the gatehouse, and am constable and keeper of the bridge. I also have my heads!'
He led them down a narrow passageway and out into the garden beyond, a small plot of grass with flower beds stretching down to the high rail fence which overlooked the river. Just before this ranged six poles driven deep into the soil.
'Oh, Lord save us!' Athelstan whispered.
On three of the poles were severed heads, freshly cut, the blood flowing down the wooden posts. Thankfully they were turned the other way facing out towards the Tower.
'Must we stand here?' Sir John murmured, feeling slightly sick.
'The court says,' the mannikin replied, 'that these heads are to be displayed before sunset. River pirates, Sir John, caught in the estuary they were. Sentence was carried out on Tower Hill just after dawn this morning. I comb their hair, wash their faces.' He pointed further down where the long execution poles jutted out over the river. 'And then I'll place them there.'
Sir John took a swig from his wineskin then cursed as he realised the Venerable Veronica had already emptied it for him.
'Come on, Athelstan, get to the point!' he growled.
Burdon was gazing longingly at his heads.
'Do you know what, Robert?' Athelstan asked. 'You are one of the few adults smaller than me. Anyway, I have one question for you. On Saturday evening, about five o'clock, did two royal messengers ride across the bridge?'
'Of course they did. Cloaked and cowled, carrying their warrants and, according to custom, they showed me their commissions before they left the city.'
Athelstan clasped the little man round the shoulder.
'In which case, Robert, we won't keep you from your heads any longer.'
And, not waiting for the mannikin to lead them, they went back through the house and on to the bridge.
'I'd forgotten about that.' Cranston nudged Athelstan playfully. 'Of course, every royal messenger leaving the city by the bridge must, by regulation, show his commission to the gatekeeper. Why, what did you suspect?'
'Oh, that something had happened to Miles Sholter and perhaps only one of them left. I don't know.' Athelstan shook his head. 'Now, Sir John, before we go to the Tower, I must have words with Mistress Sholter in Mincham Lane.'
Sir John gazed dolefully up at the sky.
'Here we are, Brother, on London Bridge, between heaven and earth! My feet are sore, my wineskin's empty and everywhere we turn there's no door, just brick walls without even a crack to slip through.'
'We'll find one, Jack,' Athelstan replied. 'And the sooner the better.'
They crossed the bridge as quickly as they could. Athelstan tried not to look left or right between the gaps in the houses. He always found the drop to the river rather dizzying and disconcerting.
They left the bridge, went down Billingsgate and up Love Lane into Eastchepe. Sir John wanted to stop at an alehouse but Athelstan urged him on. At the entrance to Mincham Lane they found the way barred by a group of wandering troubadours who were playing a scene using mime. Athelstan stood fascinated. The troubadour leader was challenging the crowd to say which scene from the gospels they were copying. Athelstan watched.
'It's the sower sowing his seed!' he called out.
The troubadour's face became stern. Athelstan realised he had solved the riddle and should collect the reward.
