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Athelstan handed over the pe
He made his way past the shabby stalls, the little hovels and cottages of his parishioners. The air was thick with the pungent smells from the ta
I’d love to have a stick, Athelstan thought, quietly mourning the succulent cabbages this great beast had plucked from his garden. Instead he sighed, sketched a blessing in the direction of the sow and continued up the alleyway. The church steps were deserted except for Bonaventure, the great one-eyed tomcat who lay sprawled there like some dissolute Roman emperor. He cocked his good eye open as Athelstan came and crouched beside him.
‘Oh, most pious of cats,’ Athelstan breathed, gently rubbing the cat’s tattered ears between his fingers.
He opened the door of the church and went inside, relishing the cool, incense-filled air. The nave was empty. Athelstan felt guilty because there should have been a school today. He checked the sanctuary lamp, a little red beacon in the darkness glowing under the silver pyx hanging from its chain above the high altar. About to go back down the steps, Athelstan sniffed. ‘Fresh paint,’ he murmured.
Then he remembered how Huddle the painter, together with Tab the tinker, had finished a new crucifix to hang in the small alcove behind the baptismal font. Athelstan went to inspect it. The wall behind the font had been covered with a vivid garish painting depicting souls, in the form of worms, being pushed into a fiery furnace by a devil which had the body of a monkey and the head of a wild goat.
‘It’s too savage,’ Athelstan murmured, studying the flames Huddle had painted devouring the black imps and the grotesque beasts of the underworld. However, it was the new crucifix which caught his attention. Huge, at least three foot high and two foot across, the rood was black with the figure of Christ in alabaster-white. This twisted in agony, the head covered with thorns, the face drooping, whilst Huddle had vividly painted the blood pouring out of the wounds in the hands, feet and side. Beneath it, the work of Watkin the dung-collector, leader of the parish council, was a new candelabra made of wrought iron with little spikes for devotional lights to be placed on.
Athelstan studied the scene carefully. ‘A little too vivid,’ he commented but, there again, he admired Huddle’s consummate skill and knew that every aspect of the cross would be carefully studied by each and every one of his parishioners at the parish council tonight. Athelstan genuflected towards the sanctuary, closed the door and, followed by an inquisitive Bonaventure, went across to the priest’s house.
He first checked on Philomel, the old destrier he had bought. The horse seemed happy enough, leaning against the wall, eyes closed, munching the remains of what was left of his oats. Athelstan went into the house. The small kitchen and parlour were clean and swept, the rushes changed and sprinkled with spring flowers and herbs. The wooden table before the kitchen hearth had been scrubbed whilst fresh bread, cheese and a small jar of comfit were in the buttery. Athelstan closed his eyes and thanked God for Benedicta, the widow woman. He took the food and returned to the parlour, filling Bonaventure’s bowl with milk. The great cat sat on the table, sipping at it, now and again raising his head to study his master. Athelstan’s thoughts were elsewhere. He chewed his food carefully, eyes half closed, remembering the problems which had confronted him earlier in the day. He could make no sense of the moneylender’s murder.
Think, Athelstan. For the love of God there must be a solution.
He put the piece of cheese down, closed his eyes and recalled Drayton’s counting room. No entrances, a square of stone, walls, ceiling, floors all sealed in by that great oaken door with its metal studs, locked and barred. How had the assassin got in and out with the stolen silver? If he had knocked at the door, Drayton might have admitted him, but who would have locked and bolted the door behind him? And Athelstan recalled the house: how did the murderer leave, making sure every window and door was locked behind him? Athelstan opened his eyes and shook his head. When he looked down, the piece of cheese had gone. The friar wagged a finger at the cat.
‘Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s cheese, Bonaventura.’
The cat’s little pink tongue came out. Athelstan then thought of the murders amongst the clerks of the Green Wax. Chapler’s was brutal, a bang on the head and tossed over London Bridge. But why? Who would kill a clerk? For what reason? And who was this mysterious young man whom Chapler had met and who was probably responsible for Peslep’s death? And the latter’s wealth, was it ill gotten? And his companions? Why had Athelstan caught that sense of…? He paused in his thoughts: yes, wickedness, that’s what it was, a sense of evil. And the riddles? What did it mean: a king vanquishing his opponents but, in the end, victors and vanquished lying together in the same place? And the riddle that was left on Peslep’s body?
My first is like a selfish brother.
Athelstan shook his head. ‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,’ he declared.
At least, thank God, Cranston had not questioned him. What the coroner did not know, nor did anyone here in Southwark, was that Father Prior seemed intent on moving Athelstan to the Halls of Oxford. Athelstan had protested and, in doing so, realised how much he loved this small poor parish on the south side of the Thames. Moreover, despite the bloody murders they investigated, Cranston was his friend.
Athelstan sighed: his brooding would do no good. He let Bonaventure finish what was left of the cheese and climbed up the steps to the little loft which also served as his bedroom. He sat down on the bed and picked up the book his brethren at Blackfriars had so kindly lent him: the writings of Abbot Richard of Wallingford, the eminent scholar and instrument-maker who, a hundred years ago, had built a great clock at St Albans.
I must go and see it, Athelstan thought. He turned the pages of the folio and studied Wallingford’s drawing of the Albion, an elaborate astrolabe, but he couldn’t concentrate. His mind kept jumping like a flea. Drayton’s corpse locked and sealed in a vaulted chamber; Peslep stabbed whilst sitting on a privy; Chapler’s corpse; the riddles; something else he had seen or heard today which had escaped his tired brain. He put the book down and lay on the bed. He felt Bonaventure come and snuggle up behind him.
‘According to the laws of my order,’ he murmured, ‘a Dominican is supposed to sleep alone, Bonaventure! Whatever would Father Prior think?’