Athelstan read the entry on Agnes Fitz-Joscelyn and Ann, daughter of William the warrener.
'They definitely had different fathers,' Athelstan said. 'But they are described as 'sorores', sisters, in the marriage entry.'
'Ah yes.'
Benedicta took the parchment from him. She leafed through and showed another entry. This time the page had a title, written neatly by a learned clerk: 'The Confraternity of St Erconwald'. The first column listed 'brothers of the Confraternity', the second a similar list of 'sisters'. Agnes Fitz-Joscelyn and Ann, daughter of William the warrener, were grouped together as 'sisters'.
Sir John, who had been looking over his shoulder, chuckled.
'You've told me about this problem, Brother.' He tapped the parchment. 'And there's your answer. In my treatise 'On the Governance of this City', I have come across many such confraternities. At one time they were very strong in different parishes. The Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament, the Confraternity of the Angels, the Confraternity of St Luke.'
Athelstan gazed wistfully at the piece of parchment.
'It's a very good idea,' he said. 'And there must have been one here: the Confraternity of St Erconwald's. What I suspect happened is this. Agnes and Ann were bosom friends: that's apparent from the fact that they married on the same day. They were also members, perhaps leading ones, of the parish confraternity. They called each other sister. When the blood book disappeared there was no explanation for why they did this. The Venerable Veronica was speaking the truth. These two women lived and died many years ago. All Veronica could remember is that they called each other sister, hence the mistake.'
'Benedicta!'
The widow woman backed away from Sir John who came, arms stretched out, towards her.
'You should have been a coroner. I mean, after all, you can't be a friar.'
'Benedicta,' Athelstan echoed. 'Your sharp eyes and keen wit have made two young lovers very, very happy'
'Will that mean there's going to be more feasting?' Crim spoke up from where he stood just within the doorway.
'Oh, yes,' Athelstan replied. 'Feasting and dancing, Crim. Now, haste away. Don't tell them what we've found but bring Eleanor and Oswald here!'
Chapter 12
Alice Brokestreet was unaware that she was only minutes away from the death she thought she had so cleverly cheated. She sat in her cell of the gatehouse at Newgate and contemplated the table bearing a pewter jug, cup and a trauncher covered with a linen cloth: gifts, the gaoler had said, from a benefactor. Deciding these could wait, she got up and went to the window to look down into the yard. Fowls and pigs roamed freely about; fierce-looking dogs preyed on the garbage heaps, competing with marauding crows. These scattered as huge vats of water, used for washing, were emptied out to cleanse the yard.
Alice was about to turn away when she noticed two bailiffs drag a cunning man out from the dungeons on the far side. The man was to be branded as a forger, the letter 'F' burned into his cheek. The executioners trailed out after him, their branding-irons already red-hot. One of the bailiffs hastily read out how 'Richard Bracklett, forger, perjurer, had sold false relics, including a piece of Elijah's mantle, two legs of one of the Holy Innocents, a skull of one of the Eleven Thousand Virgins from Cologne.'
'Yet,' the bailiff bawled across the yard, 'the said Richard knew that these were nothing but items of rubbish and the certificates he bore were forged.'
Alice turned away as the executioner advanced on the pinioned man, closing her ears to the terrible screams which rang up from the yard. She sat down on the bed. She was nervous. Tomorrow morning she would be taken into court and the case against Kathryn Vestler would be presented.
'All I have to do,' she murmured, 'is tell the truth.' She smiled to herself. 'Well, as I see it!'
She would repeat her story. How Kathryn Vestler, full of frustrated passion, poisoned the clerk Bartholomew Menster and the tavern wench, Margot Haden, and forced her, Alice, to help her bury them out in Black Meadow.
She breathed in. She felt safe with Master Whittock, that hawk-eyed man with his searching eyes and harsh, guttural voice. He had learned a surprising amount about the Paradise Tree and its owner: stories of hidden treasure, of visitors at night. Time and again he'd refer to other evidence. Time and again he would make her repeat her story. Alice chewed her lip. She had been promised a pardon but was there something else? Whittock had been deeply interested in the stories about the hidden treasure of Gundulf. She had seen Whittock wet his lips and noticed the gleam in his eyes. If Mistress Vestler hanged, she wondered, would the serjeant-at-law buy the tavern and continue the search?
Alice felt her stomach rumble. She went and took the linen cloth from the trauncher revealing a pastry. Then she removed the piece of parchment over the jug and filled the tin cup. Taking that and the pastry, she sat on a stool and began to eat. She also drank rather quickly so the poison in the wine soon made its presence felt with searing pains in her belly which ran up into her chest, sealing off her throat. Alice dropped the cup, spilling the dregs out on to her gown. She staggered towards the door but the pain was dagger-sharp, she couldn't breathe and collapsed on the floor. She stretched out her hand, opened her mouth to scream but no sound came. All she could think of, strangely enough, was Black Meadow, that great oak tree and those graves beneath it.
In St Erconwald's the celebrations were well under way. Athelstan had informed the happy couple that he could now see no impediment to their marriage: at Mass, the following Sunday, he would proclaim their forthcoming nuptials for all to hear. Eleanor and Oswald fairly danced with joy and the news had quickly spread. The Piebald tavern was closed. Basil the blacksmith did the same with his forge. Watkin and Pike, only too eager to hurry from their work, also spread the good news and the parishioners thronged in front of the church steps. Athelstan, Sir John smiling beatifically beside him, announced that they would not pay the fine. The assassins responsible for the murder of Miles Sholter had been unmasked and were now already lodged in the King's prison of Newgate.
'We'll have a celebration!' Pike shouted.
'The parish council will have a celebration!' Watkin declared, eager to exercise his authority. He glared spitefully at Pike's sour-faced wife who kept in the shadows, muttering that she was glad 'the difficulty had been resolved'.
Tables were set up, benches brought out from the church; Watkin brought his bagpipes; Ranulf the ratcatcher his lute; Manger the hangman his tambours. Merry Legs provided pies and pastries which, he proclaimed, were only two days old. Other offerings were made and Joscelyn was cheered to the heavens when he rolled barrels of ale and beer along from the Piebald. Athelstan promised that some of the expense would be met from the parish coffers.
Sir John, of course, was determined to stay. He drank two blackjacks of ale and, when challenged by Watkin and Pike, drank another faster than they. Afterwards he danced a jig with Ursula the pig woman and Pernell the Fleming: even Crim declared him light on his feet and nimble as a juggler.
Athelstan sat on the steps and watched it all. He drank his stoup of ale a little too fast and felt rather tired. Eventually he and Sir Jack left the parishioners and retired to the priest's house where the coroner threw his beaver hat and cloak into a corner, took off his doublet and sat on a bench opposite Athelstan, mopping his face.
'I sometimes curse your parishioners, Athelstan, yet they are a merry lot: it's so good to dance! Did I tell you I was at Windsor when the Countess of Salisbury lost her garter?'
'Tomorrow, Sir John, another lady will lose more than her garter!'
Sir John sobered up. 'Aye, Athelstan. What we've learned is bad enough but only the good Lord knows how much Master Whittock has unearthed. I hope Hengan's wits are sharp and keen for he is going to need all his power to defend Mistress Vestler.'
'Let us say,' Athelstan ventured, 'for sake of argument, that Mistress Brokestreet is a liar.'
'Which she is.'
'Then how, my dear coroner, did she know about those two corpses? That's the nub of the case. The murder of
