The Devil's Domain (4 page)

Simon sighed and raised his eyes heavenwards. If Sir John started on the history of his exploits in France, they’d be here until Vespers. Thankfully the goat began to edge towards the parchment on the table. Sir Maurice, catching Simon’s look, hastily pushed the wineskin back into Sir John’s hand.

‘My lord coroner, I must hasten back.’

‘Aye.’ Sir John sighed and stretched out a hand. ‘I meant no offence, young man.’

Sir Maurice stared into the ice-blue eyes and recalled what the gossip said about this great coroner with his red face and bristling white moustache and beard. A man of integrity, a warrior, bluff and truthful, who didn’t even spare the Regent his strictures. He grasped the older man’s hand.

‘None taken, Sir John. My Lord of Gaunt will tell you the reason for his summons.’

Sir John snatched the rope from Simon’s hand and stood listening to the young knight go down the stairs.

‘A veritable hero, Simon,’ he repeated dreamily. ‘Perhaps England still produces the like, its crops of heroes, brave men. Have you ever heard that line?’

The scrivener shook his head.

‘I don’t know who wrote it,’ Sir John continued as if speaking to himself. ‘Anyway, it goes something like this.’ He threw his head back and put one leg forward, like a chanteur. ‘Ah yes. That’s it. “Since the beginning of time two things are constant: the greenness of the earth and the courage of man.”’ He wiped a tear from his eyes. ‘Beautiful poetry! Oh, Satan’s arse!’

Judas the goat had sidled up and was now nibbling at the wineskin. The coroner stared down at the goat which, as if he had taken a great liking to his new owner, stared innocently back.

‘Haven’t you read the Scriptures?’ Sir John bawled. ‘Judas went out and hanged himself. If you’re not careful, my lad, the same bloody thing will happen to you! That’s my wineskin.’ He held the precious object up. ‘You never, ever touch it!’

And, dragging the goat by the rope, Sir John left the chamber and went out into Cheapside.

If he had known what was going to happen, Sir John would never have done what he did that morning. The broad thoroughfare of Cheapside was thronged with people swirling like shoals of coloured fish among the many stalls. He was hardly out, pushing his way through the crowds, before people noticed.

‘There goes Sir Jack and his goat!’ someone shouted. A penny for the man who can tell the difference!’

Sir John gazed round, eyes popping.

‘Tadpole!’ he bawled at a scrawny beggar boy. ‘Did you shout that?’

‘Me, Sir John?’ The dirty face was as innocent as an angel’s, eyes rounded. ‘Sir John, would I say such a thing?’

Muttering under his breath, he continued on his way. The sun was strong and the stall-owners were doing a roaring trade: leather goods, silks and tapestries, pots and pans, vegetables and fruits from the outlying farms and villages. The air was rich with the smell of horse dung mingling with the sweeter smells from the cookshops and bakeries. Young gallants from the court paraded in their long, gaudy jackets, tight hose and high-heeled leather riding boots, and protuberant codpieces: round slim waists hung brocaded war belts with sword and dagger pushed in. Their hair was prinked and crimped. The coroner looked away in disgust. He was sure some of the men even wore make-up.

‘Pretty bum-boys!’ he mumbled. ‘No wonder the French have it all their own way.’

Everyone seemed to have thronged into Cheapside. Merchants in their costly robes, their wives in samite dresses, their ornate head-gear created out of wisps of veils which threatened to catch signs hanging over the shops behind the stalls. Apprentices scurried, seeking custom. A farmer was trying to get two bullocks up through the crowds to the slaughterers at Newgate. Outside the Peascod Tavern, men were wagering on a fight between a badger and a dog. In the open space before St Mary-Le-Bow, a blind bear danced while beggar children played a reedy tune on pipes. Felons from the Marshalsea and Fleet prisons, manacled together, clattered and clashed their chains as they were marched up to the courts, the tipstaffs keeping order with their white willow wands. Windows and doors were flung open, people were shouting and talking to passersby. A dung cart had turned over, spilling its messy contents out. Some of the ordure had landed on a fruit stall and bailiffs were desperately striving to prevent a fight breaking out between its owner and the dung-collector. Everyone fell silent as a funeral procession passed. The corpse was laid out on a stretcher covered by a sheet, carried by four friars who mumbled the prayers of the dead; an altar boy ran in front of them, holding a candle and ringing a bell.

Sir John kept his head down as he pulled at Judas who really needed no second bidding but trotted along as obediently as any trained dog. A group of whores came out of an alley, heads bald as pigeons’ eggs, coloured wigs clutched in their hands. They espied Sir John and followed him, making up a lewd song about the coroner and his goat. Only when he turned round, his face like thunder, did the whores stop. One of them turned and lifted her ragged, dusty dress and they all fled laughing and joking among themselves. A few beggar boys then took up the game. Sir John sighed; by evening Lady Maude would know what he had done and he would have to explain.

‘Oh Sir John, Sir John!’

He groaned and stopped. Leif the red-haired, one-legged beggar came hopping towards him as nimble as a cricket. Sir John had never met a more vexatious fellow but one look at poor Leif’s scared face and the coroner’s heart softened. Leif could wheedle a penny out of a miser.

‘Sir John, have you heard me?’

The coroner used the opportunity to flail out at the urchins who scampered away.

‘Why, Sir John, what a beautiful goat. Are you taking it home?’

Sir John gazed bleakly back.

‘You’ve heard me, Sir John,’ Leif gabbled, deciding it best to ignore Sir John’s strange companion.

‘In sweet heaven’s name, Leif, what are you chattering about?’

‘I’ve decided to become a singer, Sir John. A chanteur.’

And, without being invited, Leif threw his head back, one hand on his chest. ‘My love,’ he warbled, ‘is like a flower, fresh and sweet.’

‘Thank you, Leif,’ Sir John bawled.

‘I sang last night, Sir John, outside your chamber.’

I thought it was cats fighting.’

Leif stared mournfully back. Sir John heaved a sigh and delved into his purse. He thrust a coin into the beggar man’s hand.

‘Look, Leif, there’s a penny.’

‘Oh, thank you, Sir John, is that for my singing?’

‘No, Leif, it isn’t. You are not to sing beneath my chamber. You will frighten the poppets. Secondly, you are not to follow me into the Holy Lamb of God. And, thirdly, you are not to tell Lady Maude I’ve been there.’

‘Very good, Sir John.’ Leif hopped away, warbling his head off.

‘Come on, Judas!’ Sir John urged. ‘There’s no problem in life which can’t be resolved by a meat pie and a tankard of ale.’

And, like an arrow finding its mark, Sir John pushed his way across Cheapside into the tangy, warm welcome of the tavern.

The taverner’s wife fussed over him. She brought a frothing tankard of ale and a meat pie. Sir John made the mistake of sitting back in his favourite seat near the garden window; when he glanced down, Judas was munching the greens round the pie and licking the pastry.

‘Oh!’ he groaned and called for a second dish. ‘I just hope Brother Athelstan takes you.’

The taverner’s wife, laughing and joking, brought across a second tray. Sir John held it on his lap and ate quickly, glaring suspiciously at Judas.

I wonder what Athelstan will think about you?’ he muttered.

But, there again, the coroner reflected, there were many questions he would like to ask his secretarius. He had been horrified by the stories, which had not been proved or denied, that Athelstan had been ordered out of London to Oxford. He had only been stopped at the last minute by the direct intervention of Prior Anselm. Cranston had made his own enquiries but could discover nothing. When he had summoned up the courage to question the little Dominican, Athelstan had just shaken his head and smiled.

‘It’s a possibility,’ he confirmed. ‘But I think, Sir John, I’ll be in St Erconwald’s for some time. Prior Anselm says there’s no further need for me to be your secretarius. But I have begged him that I can continue and he has agreed.’

Sir John had to be comforted by that. Athelstan had first been sent to St Erconwald’s and appointed his secretarius as a penance. Years earlier, Athelstan had fled his novitiate and, his mind full of glory, had joined his feckless younger brother in the armies in France. Stephen had been killed and Athelstan had returned, a changed and chastened man. Sir John, who had little time for prattling priests or mouldy monks, as he termed them, regarded Athelstan as a very special friend. If the Dominican ever left, some of the joy and warmth of his own life would be diminished.

The coroner licked his fingers, drained his tankard then put the dish on the floor so Judas could finish what was left of the vegetables. He slammed a coin on the table and walked back into Cheapside. The urchins were waiting. He groaned, gritted his teeth and walked along until he reached the corner of Poultry near the Tun on the corner of Lombard Street. This great open space was used by the beadles and bailiffs of the city to punish malefactors. A whore had been bent over a barrel; her grimy, fat buttocks were being lashed by a switch of canes. A counterfeit man was being branded on his left thumb. Another was getting his ears clipped. Sir John glanced away. He hated such sights. The stocks and pillories were also full. He recognised a cheeky, dirty face under a shock of white hair straining between the wooden slats placed round his neck.

‘Why, if it isn’t old Godbless!’

The man pulled up his head as far as he could, wincing with pain.

‘God bless you, Sir John, it’s kind of you to notice. You have a fine billy goat there. Cleaner and more obedient than a dog, Sir John.’ He stretched his neck. ‘Lord save us, I’m here to dusk and my neck’s already aching.’

‘What did you do?’ Sir John asked, an idea forming in his mind.

‘The watch found me with a piglet under my cloak. They claimed I was stealing it. I said I had found it wandering and was looking for its mother.’

Sir John laughed and called over one of the bailiffs.

‘Free this man!’ he ordered.

The bailiff wiped his dirty, sweaty face on a rag.

‘But, Sir John, the law says . . .’

I am the law. Now, sir, either you free him or I’ll free him and make you take his place!’

Godbless was soon released. A small, sinewy man dressed in a motley collection of rags, he danced in glee at his liberation. The other malefactors in the stocks now began to shout.

‘Sir John, over here!’

‘Innocent as a lamb, I am, Sir Jack!’

‘I didn’t mean to hit the beadle!’ another cried.

‘I only drank four quarts of ale!’ someone else bawled.

Sir John ignored them and seized the dancing Godbless. ‘You’ve worked with animals, haven’t you, Godbless?’ The man stopped his dancing and nodded.

‘Well, you’ve been freed to help the Crown.’ Sir John passed the rope over. ‘This is Judas and he’s well named. I’m taking him to St Erconwald’s. You will follow behind at least a good three yards.’

He passed across a coin. Godbless took it in the twinkling of an eye. The coroner leaned down and, grasping the beggar by the jerkin, picked him up till his face was level with his.

‘Don’t even think of it, Godbless!’

‘What, Sir John?’ Godbless’s bright eyes gleamed.

‘Running!’ Sir John declared. ‘Taking my goat and running.’ He shook Godbless. ‘Understood?’

‘Every word, Sir John. I’ll be your shadow.’

‘Not too close,’ Sir John warned.

He put the beggar man down and, with Godbless trailing behind him leading the little goat at a trot, Sir John Cranston, coroner of the city of London, swept down to London Bridge.

Brother Athelstan leaned back in the sanctuary chair and gazed round at the members of his parish council. He drew a deep breath and glanced warningly at Watkin the dung-collector, leader of this council: one of the prime movers in everything which happened in St Erconwald’s parish.

‘Would you mind repeating that, Watkin?’

The dung-collector got up from his bench and walked into the middle of the circle of benches just inside the porch of the parish church.

‘The cemetery is God’s acre, yes, Brother?’

Athelstan nodded.

‘And, according to Canon Law . . .’ Watkin smiled round at the rest, eager to show his knowledge off.

Athelstan closed his eyes. He regretted, for the umpteenth time, ever telling his parishioners about Canon Law and their rights.

‘According to Canon Law,’ Watkin continued triumphantly, ‘and the sayings of St Judas . . .’

‘Peter,’ Athelstan interrupted. ‘Judas was the traitor. Peter was the chief of the apostles.’

‘Same thing.’ Hig the pigman, who prided himself on some knowledge of the gospels, spoke up.

‘I beg your pardon! Have you been reading the same text as I?’

‘Judas betrayed Jesus,’ Hig the pigman insisted. ‘And so did Peter.’

‘Yes, but Peter asked for forgiveness. Judas didn’t.’

Hig scratched his red, greasy hair. With his flaring nostrils and jutting lower lip, Hig looked like the beasts he cared for. Athelstan nipped his thigh; he should remember charity but he was becoming rather tired. He surveyed the people present. Pernell the Fleming woman was carefully examining the tendrils of her dyed orange hair. Cecily the courtesan kept leaning down to fasten a thong on her sandal. Every time she did so, her well-endowed bodice strained and all the menfolk immediately looked towards her. Ranulf the rat-catcher, however, was becoming impatient and he seemed more interested in his two pet ferrets which nestled on his lap, Audax and Ferrox, the scourge of all rats south of the river. Crim the altar boy was sticking his tongue out at Pike the ditcher’s wife, a veritable virago of a woman; Athelstan wondered how long she would curb her temper. Huddle the painter was staring dreamily at the bare wall, lost in a reverie, desperate to do his painting of the Last Judgement. The rest, including Mugwort the bell-ringer and Amisias the fuller were staring owl-eyed at Watkin who was waiting for the sign to continue.