The Nightingale Gallery (13 page)

‘Honestly, Father,’ she confessed, leaning on her broom of brittle twigs, ‘I’ve changed. I intend to change.’

Athelstan stared into her child-like eyes and wondered if the woman was a little simple. The friar was sure he had seen her lying in the graveyard amongst the tombs with Simon the tiler, and he a married man with three children.

‘So, Father,’ she had whispered, moving closer and swinging her hips suggestively, ‘can I play the part of the Virgin Mary in the parish masque for Corpus Christi?’

Athelstan had hidden his smile beneath a stern look and said he would discuss it with the church council.

‘Watkin the dung-collector,’ he advised, ‘takes his duties as church warden most seriously. He has his own thoughts in the matter.’

‘I don’t give a fig for what Watkin says!’ Cecily had snapped. I could tell you a lot about Watkin, Father!’

‘Thank you, Cecily,’ Athelstan had said. ‘Soon the church will look nicer.’

Cecily got on with her cleaning. Athelstan felt sorry. Perhaps he had been a little too harsh with her. Cecily was a good girl who meant to do well. He could see no objection to her playing the part of the Virgin. The only obstacle was Watkin the dung-collector whose own ample wife also had her eye on the role.

On balance, decided Athelstan, he was pleased. All was well, apart from Godric, Bonaventure, and of course the pardoner. Huddle had told him about the rogue, turning up in his garish garments and standing on the church steps, offering to sell pardons to those who could afford them. Athelstan swore that if he got his hands on the fellow, Cranston would have another murder to investigate.

He leaned against the rood screen and stared up at his newly repaired roof. He wondered where Cranston was. Why had he allowed two days to go by? Was he sulking or just ill with drinking? Athelstan couldn’t leave his parish and go into the city, but he wished he could speak to the coroner, apologise for leaving him so abruptly the night before last. He hadn’t meant to, it was just that he had become so tired, so exhausted with the Springalls, the murders, the deceit and the lies. He felt Vechey and Brampton had not committed suicide. He also suspected that Sir Thomas Springall had not been murdered by Brampton. The real murderers now hid in the shadows, mocking both him and Cranston, believing they would never search out the truth. Athelstan smiled thinly. Cranston, when he gathered his wits, would soon prove the bastards wrong.

Athelstan heard a sound and looked round. The church door opened and Crim, the young urchin, scampered in. His mother had taken special care to remove the dirt from his face and hands at least.

‘Good morning, Crim,’ Athelstan called. ‘Come!’

He took a taper and lit it from the large wax candle burning in front of the statue of the Madonna.

‘Now hold that and, as I walk through the street, you go before me carrying the light. And here,’ he went behind the altar and took a small bell, ‘you ring this. Now, if the candle goes out, don’t be afraid. Just keep on walking and ringing the bell. You know where we are going?’

The little boy, round-eyed, shook his head.

‘To Hob the grave-digger.’

‘Oh. He’s dying, Father!’

‘Yes, Crim, I know. And he must die with Christ, so it’s important we get there. Do you understand?’

The little fellow nodded solemnly. Athelstan, taking the keys from his belt, went up beneath the winking red sanctuary lamp and opened the tabernacle door. He took out the Viaticum, placing it in a small leather pouch which he slung round his neck, then went into the sacristy to collect the church’s one and only cope. A faded, red and gold garment, showing the Holy Spirit as a dove with one wing, sending faded rays down on an even more faded Christ. Athelstan wrapped the cope around him and, telling Crim to go forward, they left the church, processing down the steps and into the maze of Southwark streets. Athelstan was always surprised at the effect he caused; here he was in a place where men died for the price of a few coins, but at the sight of the lighted wax candle, the sound of the small tinkling bell and him swathed in a cope, the coarsest men and women stood aside as if they acknowledged the great mysteries he carried.

Hob’s cottage was a dour, earth-floored building divided into three rooms; one a bedroom for Hob and his wife, the second for his four children, the third a scullery and eating-place. It was poor but swept clean, a few pewter pots and pans, scrubbed in boiling water, hanging from nails in the wall. Inside, at the far end of the hut, Hob lay on a bed, his face white, the red blood frothing at his lips. Athelstan blessed the man, holding his hand, reassuring his good wife that all would be well whilst trying not to look at the blood. He gave the man the Viaticum and blessed him, anointing him on the head, chest, hands and feet. Afterwards he had a few words with Hob’s wife, the children cowering around her. Athelstan promised he would do something to help her and left quietly, the cope still round his shoulders, Crim jumping up and down in front of him all the way back to the church.

Ranulf the rat-catcher was waiting for him just outside the door, a sleek, well-fed Bonaventure in his hands. He waited until Athelstan had put the black pouch back into the tabernacle and Crim had taken his penny and fled like the wind, before putting the cat down and approaching Athelstan.

‘I found him waiting, Father, but if you want to sell him?’

Athelstan smiled.

‘If you want him, Ranulf, he’s yours. But I doubt if he will leave.’

The friar knelt down and tickled the cat between his ears. He looked up at the lined, seamed face of the rat-catcher, framed by his black, tarry leather hood.

‘He’s a mercenary. If you took him away, he’d be back tonight!’

Bonaventure agreed, stretched, and walked back to his favourite place at the base of the pillar.

Once Ranulf had gone, Athelstan sat on the altar steps, his mind going back to the corpses he had seen: Vechey’s lying cold amongst those dreadful heads on the tower gate of London Bridge; Brampton’s sheathed in dirty canvas in the death house of St Mary Le Bow; Springalls lying alone under its leather covering in the great four poster bed in his mansion. What eluded him still? He thought of Hob dying in his hovel, his wife frightened of the future. Surely he could get some money for her from somewhere? He lifted his hands to his face and smelt the chrism he had used on Hob’s head, hands, chest and feet. The feet!

Athelstan jumped up. Of course, that was it, Brampton’s feet! The manservant hadn’t committed suicide. He couldn’t have done. He had been murdered!

Athelstan looked around the church. He wished Cranston were here. The sun streamed through the horn-glazed windows and Bonaventure stretched out, relaxing after a good night’s hunting. Athelstan turned from the familiar, domestic sight and knelt before the altar, his eyes fixed on the red light.

‘Oh, God,’ he prayed, ‘help me now. Please!’

In his own private chamber at his house in Poultry Sir John also was thinking as he leant over his writing desk, quill in hand. He was engaged in the great love of his life: writing a treatise on the maintenance of law in the city of London. Cranston had a love of the law and, ever since his appointment as coroner, had been engaged in drawing up his own proposals for law reform. He would put them forward in a specially written book, bound in the finest calf, to some powerful patron who, in Cranston’s dreams, would see them as the solution to all of London’s problems.

Sir John loved the city, knew every stone, every church, every highway, every alleyway. Immersed in London’s history, he was constantly begging the monks of Westminster Abbey, or the clerks of the chancery in the Tower, to let him have access to manuscripts and documents. Some he would take home, copying them out most carefully before returning them in their leather cases to their proper places. In a sense Cranston never wished to finish his labour. He believed that his survey would be of use, but privately thought of it as his escape. No one else knew. No one except Maude, of course.

Cranston put down the pen, a wave of self-pity suffusing his huge body. He looked out of the window and heard the cries from Cheapside, the clatter of carts, the rattle against the cobbles of iron-shod horses going towards Smithfield and the horse market. He drank too much, Cranston knew that. He must give it up. He must reform his life. Virtuously, he patted his great stomach. But not today. Perhaps tomorrow. He wondered what Athelstan was doing. He speculated whether he should speak to the friar, open his heart, tell him his secrets, get rid of the sea of misery he felt bathing his body, drowning his mind.

Maude came in and Cranston looked at her, hang-dog, for even in bed his tourney of love was failing. He watched his wife carefully out of the corner of his eye as she busied herself, stacking blankets, opening chests, replacing candles in their holders. He studied her comely figure, her small, full breasts, clear face, bright eyes, ready smile, the slight sway when she walked. Cranston got up. Perhaps there was something wrong but it was not that serious. He moved over and embraced his wife, pulling her close to him.

‘Oh, Sir John!’ she whispered, nestling against him.

‘Bolt the door!’ he murmured thickly. ‘Bolt the door. I wish to show you something!’

She turned, her eyes round.

‘I suspect I have seen it before.’

Nevertheless, the door was locked, the window casement shut, and Cranston proved to his own satisfaction, as well as his wife’s, that perhaps age had not yet drained the juices of his body. As they lay on the great four poster bed, their bodies entwined, Maude almost lost in Cranston’s great fat folds, Sir John stared up at the ceiling, brushing his wife’s hair with his cheek, listening to her chattering about this and that.

‘What was that?’ He pushed her away sharply.

‘Sir John, what is the matter?’

‘What did you just say?’

Maude shrugged. ‘I was talking about Agnes, the wife of David the waterman. You often hire him to take us across the river. Well, she says that the boatmen and wharfers are drawing up a petition which they would like you to look at. They wish some of the arches of the bridge to be widened, the starlings to be replaced. The water level is so high, it is dangerous and boats are dashed against the pier or the arches. Sir John, men have drowned. Children as well!’

Cranston sat up in bed, his fat body quivering with pleasure.

‘That’s what was wrong! Now I know what I saw on the bridge!’ He turned and embraced his surprised wife, kissing her passionately on the forehead and cheeks.

‘Maude, whatever would I do without you? You and your chatter. Of course! I wonder if Athelstan thought of that?’

Despite his huge bulk, Cranston leapt out of bed.

‘Come, Maude! Come, wife, quickly! Fresh hose, a clean shirt, a cup of claret, a meat pie and a manchet loaf! I must be off! Come on!’

Lady Maude moved just as quickly, glaring at her husband. One minute he was embracing her, kissing her passionately, and now he was leaping around the bedroom like a young gallant, getting ready to get out. Nevertheless, she scurried around, putting on her dress and smock whilst muttering how, if other people had left her alone, she would have things ready anyway.

Sir John ignored her, dressing hastily; he now knew that Vechey had been murdered. Had to have been. The level of the river water would prove that. He would drag that bloody friar from his stars and they would go back to the Springall mansion and this time demand answers to their questions.

CHAPTER 5

As soon as Athelstan skirted the church, he saw the coroner standing beside Philomel. The old destrier was saddled and ready to depart. Cranston grinned.

‘Good morning, Brother!’ he bellowed, loud enough for half the parish to hear. ‘Your horse is ready. Your saddlebags are packed.’ He held them up. ‘Quills, pens, writing tray, parchment, and I have ensured the inkhorn is well sealed, so if it spills don’t blame me.’

Athelstan, still feeling depressed after his visit to Hob’s wife, ignored the coroner and pushed by him into his small, two-roomed house. Cranston followed like an unwelcome draught, sweeping in, filling the room with his broad girth.

‘Really, Brother!’ he boomed, as he looked around. ‘You should live in a little more comfort. Do you have any wine?’

Athelstan gestured towards an earthenware jug and watched with delight as Cranston took a great gulp then, his face puce as a plum, went to the door to spit it out.

‘God’s teeth, man! More water than wine!’ he snapped.

‘St Dominic and my Order,’ Athelstan said tartly, ‘have in their wisdom decreed that wine at full strength is not for monks.’ He tapped Cranston’s great girth. ‘Perhaps not even for king’s coroners!’

Cranston drew himself up to his full height and squinted at Athelstan.

‘My orders, little friar, are that you are to accompany me into Cheapside to a tavern called the Bear and Ragged Staff. You have heard of it?’

Athelstan shook his head, his heart sinking. Cranston smirked.

‘We are going to sit there. I shall remain sober and tell you how Vechey was murdered. He did not commit suicide.’

‘And I shall tell you, my Lord Coroner, how Edmund Brampton, steward to Sir Thomas Springall, did not hang himself in the garret of that house in Cheapside!’

‘So you have been thinking, Friar?’

‘Coroner, I never stop.’

‘Well, come on then!’

‘Sir John, we could stay here and discuss our concerns.’

Cranston turned, shaking his head. ‘Here? Where every little snot from Southwark can come knocking at your door, bothering you with their complaints. Oh, no, Brother. Our stop at the Bear and Ragged Staff is only half our journey. We go then to Newgate, and perhaps elsewhere.’

So saying, he strode out of the house. Athelstan breathed a prayer for patience, made a sign of the cross over himself and followed suit. Cranston, now mounted, watched him.

‘Aren’t you going to lock your door?’ he bellowed.

‘What’s the use?’ Athelstan replied. ‘If I do, thieves will break it down thinking there is something valuable to steal.’

Snorting at the friar’s apparent stupidity, Cranston turned his horse and led them out of the main alleyways of Southwark. A group of urchins, recognising Sir John, followed from afar and, despite Athelstan’s pleas, shouted insults about the coroner’s ponderous girth. Garth the woodcutter, who also took the death carts round the streets, was drinking outside the tavern and joined in the noisy abuse.