The Straw Men Read online

  Athelstan, parish priest of St Erconwald’s in Southwark, stared despairingly at his congregation gathered before the rood screen in the sanctuary of their parish church. They were all grouped together, cloistered like angry sparrows, he thought, on this the feast of St Hilary, the thirteenth of January in the year of our Lord 1381. The parish church was freezing cold despite Athelstan’s best efforts. He had brought in braziers crammed with charcoal fiery as the embers of Hell, or so Moleskin the boatman had described them. Nevertheless, the early morning mist had seeped like some wraith under the door, through any gaps in the horn-filled windows and across the ancient paving stones to freeze them all. Athelstan had decided to wait. He would not continue the Mass. He had recited the consecration, offered the Kiss of Peace then the trouble had surfaced – one incident among many. The source of conflict lay with a separate group to Athelstan’s right, close to the sacristy door: Humphrey Warde, his wife Katherine, their big, strapping son Laurence, Margaret, their daughter and little Odo, a mere babe swaddled in thick cloths now held so protectively by his mother. The Wardes were spicers who had moved into a shop in Rickett Lane, a short walk from the parish church. They had, according to Humphrey, withdrawn from the fierce competition in Cheapside to do more prosperous trade in Southwark, raise sufficient revenue then return to Cheapside, or even move out to a city such as Lincoln or Norwich. A simple humdrum tale, until Watkin the dung collector, Pike the ditcher and Ranulf the rat catcher, together with other luminaries of his parish council, had intervened. They only had to level one accusation against the Wardes – traitors! Athelstan took a deep breath; perhaps that issue would have to wait, along with the other business which had surfaced during the Mass. Despite his involvement in the ritual, Athelstan had seen the narrow-faced rat catcher, as slippery as one of the ferrets he carried in his box, dart under the rood screen to whisper heatedly with Watkin and Pike. Some mischief was afoot! Athelstan glanced expectantly at the lovely face of Benedicta the widow woman, but she could only stare pitiably back. Athelstan searched for another ally, a newcomer to the parish – Giles of Sempringham, the anchorite, otherwise called the Hangman of Rochester, a strange, eerie figure garbed completely in black, his straw-coloured hair framing a ghostly white cadaver’s face. The anchorite, who also worked as an itinerant painter, had recently moved from his cell at the Benedictine abbey of St Fulcher-on-Thames to St Erconwald’s. Athelstan had secured the appropriate licences from both his superiors at Blackfriars as well as the Bishop of London. The anchorite, who had monies from his grisly task as the dispenser of royal justice as well as revenue from painting church walls, had financed the construction of a cell here at St Erconwald’s, turning the disused chantry chapel of St Alphege into an anker hold. The anchorite now sat next to Benedicta, one hand clawing his hair, the other sifting Ave beads through his fingers. Athelstan glanced quickly at Pike and Watkin; they had lost some of their stubborn obduracy, openly agitated by Ranulf’s news.

  ‘Father,’ Crim the altar boy, kneeling on the steps beside him hissed. ‘Father, we should continue the Mass.’

  ‘Aye, we should!’ Athelstan’s strong declaration rang like a challenge across the sanctuary. He left the altar and strode over to Katherine Warde, holding his hands out for the baby.

  ‘Please?’ he whispered, ignoring the surprised murmuring from the rest of his parishioners.

  Pernel the mad Fleming woman sprang to her feet, her thick, matted hair dyed with brilliant streaks of deep red and green. Ursula the pig woman also got up, as did her great lumbering sow; ears flapping, fleshy flanks quivering, the beast followed her everywhere, even into church. Both women were staring at their parish priest as if he had introduced some new rite into the Mass.

  ‘Please?’ Athelstan smiled at Katherine. ‘I need Odo now.’ He turned. ‘Ursula, Pernel, don’t get agitated, sit down.’ The mother handed the baby over. Athelstan hugged the warm little body, kissed him on the brow, then went over to confront his parishioners. ‘Our Mass will now continue,’ he declared loudly. Then, holding up the baby instead of the host and chalice as expected, Athelstan intoned, ‘Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who takes away the sins of the world.’

  ‘He’s not the Lamb of God,’ Pike the ditcher’s sour-faced wife Imelda rasped, eyes glittering with malice, mouth twisted in scorn.

  ‘Yes, he is!’ Athelstan replied fiercely. ‘Behold the Lamb of God. Behold Him who takes away the sins of the world! If you,’ he continued hotly, ‘cannot see Christ in this little child, then do not look for him under the appearances of bread and wine. You are wasting your time, my time and, more importantly, God’s time. So get out of my church!’ Ursula and Pernel immediately sat down, as awestruck as the rest at the fierce temper of their usually serene parish priest. This little friar with his olive skin, dark, gentle eyes and eccentric ways now throbbed with anger. ‘If you cannot share the kiss of peace with your neighbour,’ Athelstan handed the baby back, thanking the mother with his eyes, ‘you are not welcome here.’ Athelstan moved back to the altar and stood there, his back to his parishioners. He heard movement. A stool scraped, a leaning rod clattered against the wall. When he turned round, Benedicta had risen and was sharing the kiss of peace with the Wardes. Others followed, including Ursula’s sow. The pig sniffed at the baby and then decided to bolt through the rood screen, lumbering down the nave to the front door, now flung open, the great bulk of Sir John Cranston, Lord Coroner of London, blocking the light. Athelstan murmured a prayer of thanks. Cranston slammed the door shut and strode up the nave, kicking aside the great sow, who always regarded the coroner as a close friend. Behind Cranston padded another self-appointed friend, Bonaventure, Athelstan’s sturdy, one-eyed tom cat, who always seemed to know when Mass was finishing and possible morsels were available from visiting parishioners.

  ‘Lord,’ Athelstan murmured, ‘give me patience!’ He nodded at Cranston, who stood just inside the rood screen, and continued with the Mass. He paused before the final blessing to announce that the parish council would not meet that morning but possibly tonight, once Mauger the bell clerk and council secretary had pealed the hour of Vespers. Athelstan then sketched the final blessing, declared the Mass over and swept into the sacristy. He divested, swiftly aware of Cranston standing behind him.

  ‘Good morrow, Sir John,’ he declared without turning. ‘You walk into my church like the Angel of the Second Coming. I am needed, yes? We are needed?’ Athelstan corrected himself. He turned and smiled at the white, bewhiskered face of the coroner, who just stared back, his great blue eyes full of sadness.

  ‘Happy feast day, Sir John. Saint Hilary bless us all. What is the matter?’

  ‘You are.’ Cranston clasped the friar’s outstretched hand. ‘I sense you are upset, Brother. The business of the Wardes, that new family? I received your message. I have whispered to the sheriffs and their underlings but they know little about them. I also approached Magister Thibault, Master of My Lord of Gaunt’s secret matters. He neither said “yea or nay”.’ Cranston clapped his gauntleted hands together. ‘The Great Community of the Realm plots; its leaders the Upright Men prepare for what they call the Day of the Great Slaughter; they promise a new Jerusalem here in Southwark and elsewhere. The storm is coming, Athelstan, mark my words. Some of your parishioners are deep in the councils of the Upright Men.’ Cranston shrugged. ‘But, in the end, it will be your hangman who will be the busiest of them all. He will be kicking them from the scaffold in their hundreds.’ Cranston sighed noisily. ‘You’re needed.’ He beckoned. ‘Master Thibault wants you, so collect your cloak and writing satchel.’ Cranston gestured where the friar had laid these over a small trestle table. ‘Tell the widow woman and the rest to look after your church. A bloody business awaits us.’

  ‘What, Sir John?’ Athelstan’s stomach lurched. He recollected how most of his parishioners had attended Mass except for Ranulf the rat catcher, who’d burst in so unexpectedly.

  ‘We will talk as we walk,’ the coroner s
miled, ‘or at least try to.’

  They re-entered the deserted sanctuary. Benedicta was lighting a taper in the Lady Chapel. Athelstan quickly whispered to her that she and Crim look after the church and the priest’s house, for God only knew at what hour he would return.

  ‘Be careful, Father.’ The widow woman’s lovely face creased with worry. Her anxious eyes held those of this celibate priest whom she loved so much, she had to be shriven at another church in the city. After all, how could she confess her most secret thoughts to the man who was the very cause and root of such thoughts?

  ‘Be careful, Athelstan, please.’

  ‘What, Benedicta . . .’

  She grasped his hand in her mittened fingers. ‘Father?’ She looked over her shoulder at Cranston standing further down the church, admiring Huddle the painter’s most recent offering, ably assisted by the Anchorite, a vivid warning against pride.

  ‘Benedicta?’

  ‘Father, I have heard rumours. They have trapped some Upright Men in the Roundhoop, a tavern near the Tower . . .’

  ‘Brother Athelstan!’ Cranston was marching towards the door. The friar squeezed Benedicta’s hand, raised his eyes heavenwards and hurried after him. Cranston was standing on the top step outside the church, glaring across at Watkin, Pike, Ranulf and others huddled together like the conspirators they were.

  ‘Keep well away from the Roundhoop!’ Cranston roared. ‘I do not want to see any of you fine fellows across the bridge. Do you understand?’ Watkin detached himself from the group as if to challenge the coroner, who went down the steps, hand resting on the hilt of his sword.

  ‘Watkin!’ Athelstan warned, coming out of the church, shifting the strap of his writing satchel more comfortably around his neck.

  ‘Watkin,’ he repeated, ‘go into God’s Acre. Make sure Godbless has enough to keep himself and Thaddeus warm and fed.’ Athelstan forced a smile at the thought of that omnivorous goat ever going hungry. ‘Merrylegs!’ Athelstan beckoned at the pie-shop owner. ‘I will need two of your pies by the time I return. Huddle, you are being given money to finish the Fall of Pride. Ask the anchorite for his advice.’ Athelstan walked down the steps, calling each parishioner by name, giving them either work or advice. The group broke up. Athelstan crossed himself in gratitude. He must not lose his temper. He closed his eyes and whispered the prayer he always did after the Eucharist.

  ‘Jesus Lord, welcome thou me

  In form of bread as I see thee

  Jesus, for thy holy name,

  Shield me today from sin and shame.’

  He opened his eyes. Cranston, despite his bulk and swagger, had come quietly up beside him and was now staring at him curiously.

  ‘Sir John, I am ready.’

  They left the enclosure, going up the alleyway to the main lane leading down to London Bridge. Flaxwith, Cranston’s principal bailiff, together with his mastiff, which Athelstan secretly considered to have the ugliest face in London after its owner, were waiting, swaddled in their heavy cloaks. Flaxwith, along with other members of Cranston’s comitatus, had cornered a relic-seller, who bleatingly introduced himself as ‘John of Burgundy’, more popularly known as ‘Bearded John’. This counterfeit man owned a little fosser of blue and black satin holding what he proclaimed to be the most holy relics, including a finger of one of the Holy Innocents and a bone of one of the Eleven Thousand Virgin Martyrs of Cologne, as well as a piece of rock from where God met Moses. The relic-seller, eyes bright in his chapped face, babbled like a babe. Cranston heard his patter then thrust the fosser back into the man’s trembling hands.

  ‘John of Burgundy, be gone,’ the coroner whispered, pushing him away. ‘Today, we hunt greater prey.’

  ‘I did hear . . .’ Bearded John babbled.

  ‘Yes, yes, I’m sure you did.’ Cranston thrust him out of the way and continued on. Athelstan had to hurry to keep up. He felt like reminding the coroner how he would like to know what was happening but the noise and bustle of the streets made that impossible. The snow clouds had broken and a weak sun had brought out the crowds. For the last few days the grey, icy frostiness had stifled trade and imprisoned people in their chambers and garrets. Now, even this mild change in the weather had enticed them out. Everybody wanted to trade, sale, buy, beg or steal, not to mention visit the cook shops, wine booths, alehouses and taverns. An enterprising leech had set up shop close to Sweet Apple Court, a name Athelstan considered to be the most blatant lie in Southwark as the enclosure was as filthy and stinking as any piggery. Nevertheless, in spite of the reeking odours, the leech had gathered a crowd, assuring all and sundry that if they adjourned to his chambers in nearby Firkin alley, he would examine their urine and let a little blood. Afterwards he would provide them with his miraculous elixir, the cheapest sort containing cloves, nutmeg, mace and similar ingredients; the more expensive, ‘for the more discerning’, would be made up of ambergris, juniper and white frankincense. Athelstan, bemused, shook his head, constantly surprised at the sheer gullibility of the human heart. He walked on cautiously. The ground underfoot was frozen, the rutted ice covering the filthy slops and congealed mud. Athelstan murmured a prayer for safety to St Christopher as he dodged sumpter ponies, high-wheeled carts and lumbering oxen. A stiff river breeze blew a cauldron of smells and odours, a rich stew of fish, spices, fried meat and freshly baked bread along with the stench of animal dung and human waste. The ever pervasive, bitter tang of saltpetre made Athelstan gag. The saltpetre was thrown along the lanes to mask rank odours till the lay stalls, crammed with frozen refuse, were emptied by the dung carts. The scavengers who manned these were now busying to clear the mess left to rot during the previous week’s snow storms. Beadles patrolled the streets, screaming at householders not to empty jakes’ pots. One beadle had been rewarded for his efforts by receiving the entire contents of two night jars over him, and now he and his colleagues were battering at the door of the citizen responsible, determined on punishment.

  The dead were also being buried. The break in the weather meant requiems could be sung, graves hacked out of the iron-hard ground and mourners allowed to provide their beloved departed with the appropriate religious farewell. Coffins bobbed on shoulders or bounced in hand carts as mourners, preceded by a priest pattering the psalms, led funeral processions to this chapel or that cemetery amidst the fiery glow of candles, lantern boxes and torches. Gusts of incense sweetened the air. The throng of citizens divided to allow the dead to pass before the crowds closed again, surging in every direction. Athelstan could only murmur his own prayers and keep his hands, freezing cold despite the woollen mittens, tightly on his writing satchel. The tribe of filchers, nips and foists were out, eager for plunder, hunting the swinging purse or loosely hung wallet. Cranston was recognized. Insults were hurled when the ‘parishioners of the devil’, as the coroner called them, fled up alleyways and runnels. At last they approached the bridge, though this was fast becoming a battleground involving a group of scavengers clearing the dirt. They had clashed with street hawkers, hucksters and chapmen who insisted on taking up their position with their baskets of eggs, butter, cheese, brushwood and heather ‘fresh from the countryside’. A group of fish wives from Billingsgate, their thick leather aprons encrusted with blood, had joined the fray equally determined to sell their eel tarts, fish pies, oysters and mussels. The air was riven with curses and obscenities hurled backwards and forwards. The tumult had blocked the approach to the bridge. Cranston barked out an order. Flaxwith brought out a hunting horn from beneath his cloak and blew strident blasts before bellowing at the top of his voice that everyone was to keep the King’s peace and step aside for the Lord High Coroner. The tumult subsided. As the brawlers dispersed into the shadow of the overhanging houses, Cranston swept on. Once he had passed, the tumult began again. Athelstan heaved a sigh of relief as he glimpsed the bridge’s high gates and towers as well as the cornices, sills and steeple of the Priory of St Mary Overy. They had to pause for a while as an execution party mad
e its way down to the gallows – three wolfsheads who’d escaped from sanctuary at the priory and been wounded during the affray. Each had been summarily tried, condemned and loaded into wheelbarrows, commonly used to collect dung, and were now being taken from the Compter Clink to the riverside gallows. Athelstan blessed each of the groaning men then passed on to the bridge through the cavernous gate, its curving rim spiked with the boiled heads of traitors.

  They made their way along the narrow lane between the houses and shops, which rose above them, leaning over to block out the sky. Beneath them echoed the thunderous roar of the river as it crashed against the starlings protecting the pillars of the bridge. Athelstan was sure the bridge was moving; as always, he tried to distract himself while keeping a wary eye on the ground beneath. A cluster of eel stalls stood at the near end of the thoroughfare and the discarded skins made the lane more slippery than ice. Athelstan glanced to his left and right. He was always fascinated by the apparent wealth displayed by the stalls and shops along the bridge. Some of the costliest items in London could be purchased here. Cloths and fabrics from Constance, Tournai and Rouen. Canvas from Westphalia and silver thread from Cologne were sold alongside amber and bone beads, ivory combs, silk girdles, brass rings, leather hats and hand mirrors of steel, crystal and jasper. Apprentice boys loudly proclaimed the virtues of buckram, silk, sarcanet, lawn and dyed wool. Jewellers and goldsmiths offered diamond necklaces, buckles and girdles, precious stone paternosters, mazer cups, silver gilt goblets and salt cellars, as well as spoons of every precious kind studded with gems or embroidered with gold or silver tracery. Another stall, manned by three clerks, ‘learned in the halls, schools and Inns of Court,’ offered to write or copy letters, deeds, leases, memoranda or bills of exchange. Between life-size statues of St Catherine the Virgin and St Nicholas of Colenso, the haberdashers of the hat, haberdashers of the small wares and ironmongers offered kerchiefs embroidered with religious devices, pyxes or kissing boxes, night-time laces, pepper mills, girdles and pouches, the latter adorned and embroidered with silver clasps. At Becket’s shrine in the centre of the bridge, merchants met bankers before going into the chapel either to seal documents at the altar or pass money over. All this was recorded by the chapel’s clerks in a leather-bound book of debts kept in an iron chest beneath the relic stone; this made repayment a matter of faith not just business. In the stocks next to the chapel, a vintner, found guilty of mixing cobbler’s wax with the dregs of his wine, was sitting with his legs firmly clasped. The disgraced merchant was being forced to drink a draught of his own adulterated beverage. A market beadle slowly emptied another jug over the unfortunate man’s head while a second beadle loudly proclaimed, ‘That Richard Pemrose, vintner, could do no further trade in wine or any other commodity for a year and a day’. Beside Pemrose sat an imprisoned cook’s apprentice from a nearby pie stall. He had sold pies and patties stuffed with the flesh of hen, goose, duck, lark and fish, but he’d also plucked at the costly gowns of passers-by and so, as the notice around his neck proclaimed, ‘damaged their clothes with hands dirtied and fouled’. Cranston paused to take a drink from his wine skin. He offered this to Athlestan, who refused even as he shook off the grasp of a chapman eager to sell him a trinket.