The Godless Read online

  ‘So he was searching for something?’

  ‘Yes.’ Joscelyn now lumbered to his feet to stand beside the dung-collector. He opened his shabby belt wallet, took out and held up a square of stained parchment. ‘He was secretly looking for this.’

  ‘What is it?’

  Joscelyn glanced over his shoulder at his fellow parishioners then leaned forward. ‘Father, I need to speak to you in private, but …’

  Watkin nodded in support so Athelstan, his curiosity now pricked, beckoned both men forward.

  ‘What is all this?’ he demanded.

  ‘Well,’ Watkin now shoved Joscelyn aside, ‘Roughkin once owned the The Piebald. He probably did a good trade amongst those going on pilgrimage to pray before the blessed bones of Becket as well as those travelling to the eastern ports and towns in Kent.’

  ‘I know all about the roads leading east,’ Athelstan replied drily.

  ‘I know you do, Father,’ Watkin replied loudly. ‘But listen! Roughkin was also gravedigger here at St Erconwald’s, and keeper of the old death house.’

  ‘My home now.’ Godbless the beggar, clutching the lead of his pet goat Thaddeus the Younger, clambered to his feet. Athelstan glanced at the old beggar man with his bald head, wispy moustache and beard, and recalled how Benedicta had become increasingly concerned about Godbless. Generally quiet, a soul who kept himself to himself, Godbless had become strangely excited and agitated of late.

  ‘God bless you, Father,’ the beggar man shouted. ‘And you too, my brothers and sisters in Christ. God bless us all, but the old death house is mine now, my cottage. Me and Thaddeus look after the dead. We keep constant vigil at night. We lock our door and allow no one in but we peer through the cracks in the shutters. Oh yes, when the blackness gathers, all sorts of dark shapes appear amongst the tombs. We see them and drive them off. Father, you gave the house to me for that reason.’

  ‘Hush now,’ Athelstan gently gestured at the beggar man to take his seat next to Moleskin. Athelstan studied the boatman curiously. Usually Moleskin was vociferous and noisy but now he slumped morose and withdrawn. Athelstan glanced away as Godbless once again sprang to his feet, ready to proclaim his ownership of the old mortuary. ‘Don’t worry Godbless,’ Athelstan declared, raising a hand, ‘the old death house in God’s Acre is yours in perpetuity.’

  ‘God bless you Father and—’

  ‘That’s enough,’ Athelstan pointed at Watkin. ‘Continue.’

  ‘Well, Roughkin was tavern master, gravedigger and guardian of the death house for the priest before you, Father. Now, he truly was a wicked wretch.’

  ‘Don’t you have anything,’ Athelstan raised his voice, staring at his parish council, ‘don’t you ever have anything good to say about my poor predecessor?’ Silence greeted his question. ‘Yes?’ he demanded. ‘Surely for once you can say something charitable?’

  ‘Well, the one before him was much worse,’ Pike growled to guffaws of laughter.

  ‘Watkin?’

  ‘Father, Roughkin and his priest were two cheeks of the same dirty arse. Both of them loved money, especially Roughkin. He was a hoarder and a miser. Rumour had it that he’d amassed a treasure which he hid away in God’s Acre.’

  ‘Or the The Piebald,’ Joscelyn shouted. ‘I have searched high and low yet there is bugger-all in the cellars except rats.’

  ‘But now you have found something?’ Athelstan fought to hide his impatience.

  ‘Oh yes we have, as we shall show you!’

  ‘And what does Senlac think of all this?’

  ‘Oh he is sulking in the taproom at the The Piebald.’

  ‘In which case, let us go there.’

  Athelstan turned to Mauger. ‘The other business can wait.’

  ‘Why the hurry, Father?’ the bell clerk asked. ‘Why must we go to the The Piebald?’

  ‘I, not we.’

  ‘Very good, Father, but why now?’

  Athelstan sat down in his chair. ‘My apologies,’ he said, striking his breast. ‘Forgive my impatience but,’ he spread his hands, ‘I can see you are all deeply interested in this matter. A map chart or something has been discovered, yes? But,’ Athelstan smiled thinly, ‘this has not been shared amongst you all?’ Athelstan studied his parish council. He could sense their deep impatience over the matter in hand. They were not in the least interested in any of the usual items, in particular the continued painting of the church walls. The author of these – the Hangman of Rochester – just sat, eyes half closed. The hangman had been held over the font as a child and been baptized Giles of Sempringham; he had been given his new title because of his skill as a hangman. The executioner, however, did not seem at all keen in demanding time to describe his new creations. Instead, he sat head down, clawing his long, straw-coloured hair, twisting its ends into knots. He glanced up and gazed expectantly at his parish priest, his large, dark eyes like pieces of coal in his snow-white face.

  ‘Your paintings?’ Athelstan teased. ‘Are we to discuss them?’

  The friar pointed to an unfinished fresco on a nearby pillar. ‘You have Samson trapped by Delilah but you haven’t described what happens next.’

  ‘We know what happens next.’ The hangman’s voice was hardly above a whisper. ‘There will be time enough for them but not for the treasure, our treasure,’ he added pointedly.

  ‘Ah,’ Athelstan relaxed, glancing sharply at Mauger. ‘I now know why this is our only item of business. Treasure found buried in the cemetery of God’s Acre belongs to the parish that owns the cemetery. Canon law says this is the case, but a cemetery is also God’s Acre and canon law argues further that anyone who actually finds such treasure can claim it as their own. The codex is very clear on this. Mauger, I wager you are more than aware of these clauses, hence the present haste to organize a thorough search.’ Athelstan gazed at his parishioners and shook his head in mock sorrow. ‘You are my beloveds but you are also like children racing from one thing to another.’

  ‘Hungry children, Father,’ Imelda, the sharp-faced wife of Pike the Ditcher retorted. ‘Father, if there is treasure in God’s Acre, it’s ours. We need all the money we can get to feed ourselves and our children.’

  Athelstan again struck his breast. ‘Mea culpa,’ he declared. ‘My fault. Of course,’ he sighed. ‘Such news will spread, that St Erconwald’s might conceal a pot of gold.’

  ‘True, true Father,’ Watkin shouted. ‘And all the cunning men in Southwark and beyond will swarm like bees over a flower …’

  ‘Or flies over a turd,’ Pike growled, turning to his fellow parishioners. ‘We should set up guard, strict watch over our cemetery, God’s Acre.’

  ‘So be careful,’ Mauger taunted, pointing at Cecily and her sister.

  Athelstan rose swiftly to his feet and the growing clamour subsided. He glanced at Cecily and Clarissa. The friar felt sorry for both young women as they gazed fearfully back, so he promised they could speak then turned to address the council.

  ‘I will go with Joscelyn, Pike and Watkin to visit the The Piebald, where we shall investigate this matter more closely.’ Athelstan held up a hand. ‘Be prudent in what you do. There is no real need to set up a guard over the graves; our cemetery is too big. It’s nothing more than rambling, common land with sturdy gorse, rank weeds, hard soil, ancient trees, mounds and little pits. I cannot envisage would-be treasure hunters stumbling around these in the dead of night. Indeed, to set up a guard would only deepen interest. What say you?’

  The parish council quickly agreed.

  ‘Very well,’ Athelstan gestured at Cecily to come forward and speak. The courtesan rose and approached the lectern. As usual, Cecily ignored the whispers of the womenfolk and the lewd suggestions mumbled beneath their breath by the likes of Crispin the Carpenter and Ranulf the rat-catcher. The latter sat cradling the cage containing his two ferrets, Ferox and Audax, fast asleep after hunting their quarry in the new death house just before Mass. Both Crispin and Ranulf were sniggering behind their ha
nds; they abruptly stopped as Ursula the pig-woman, her great sow lying stretched out beside her, rose threateningly, fists clenched. Athelstan called for order and gestured at Cecily standing at the lectern. She gripped its sides staring beseechingly across at her parish priest.

  ‘Father,’ she began, ‘over the last few weeks a number of our sisters of the night have been cruelly butchered; their bodies stripped, throats slit, their corpses set adrift in a skiff along the Thames, their heads crowned with fiery-red wigs.’

  ‘But isn’t that the headdress of whores?’ Mauger taunted.

  ‘Silence!’ Athelstan glared at his bell clerk. ‘And I mean silence. Cecily?’

  ‘It’s the coldness of it all,’ she wailed. ‘Stripped naked, throat slashed, the red wig is a cruel mockery. My sisters have now approached me. They seek the help of the parishes along the riverside. But, above all, Father, they want your assistance and that of Sir John Cranston.’

  Athelstan rose and walked over. He gently stroked Cecily’s arm, then turned as the corpse door leading into the cemetery opened. Benedicta the widow-woman came in, her beautiful olive-skin face wreathed in concern.

  ‘Benedicta?’ Athelstan called.

  ‘Father,’ she hurried up the nave, gesturing at the other parishioners, ‘I apologize for being late.’ Benedicta’s lovely eyes filled with tears. ‘But there was a commotion down near the approaches to the bridge.’ She patted the courtesan on the shoulder. ‘Cecily has already told me about her fears.’ Benedicta turned to address the council. ‘They’ve found another corpse! A woman, naked as she was born, hands tied, her throat slit, a flaming red wig pushed over her head. All this before she was set adrift on the Thames. This has caused more than a stir. The dead woman was a favourite of a city alderman, a confidant of Master Thibault.’

  ‘So,’ Athelstan murmured, ‘such a murder tweaks the tail of the powerful.’ He smiled bleakly at Cecily. ‘I am more than sure my Lord High Coroner will be summoned to deal with this. Now,’ Athelstan added briskly, picking up his cloak draped over the arm of the celebrant’s chair, ‘Mauger, see that everything is put back in its proper place. Cecily, Clarissa, light tapers in the lady chapel, and pray for the Virgin’s protection. Go on,’ he urged, ‘there is no need to give a coin. Joscelyn, Watkin, Pike and my lady Benedicta, let us visit that second church of this parish, The Piebald tavern.’

  They left St Erconwald’s by the main door. Athelstan flinched at the bitterly cold breeze as his parishioners pushed by him down the steps. Athelstan stayed, staring out over the great concourse stretching before his church. The gathering place, as he had quietly confided to Benedicta, of all the weird and wonderful, who always dallied here before making their way down to London Bridge or the Southwark quayside, not to mention those journeying in the opposite direction towards the twisting roads of Kent. A throng of chapmen always assembled to do business with these travellers. Itinerant cooks had already pushed barrows into place, their grills and stoves all aflame to roast the putrid meat they’d bought from the offal sellers. The air reeked with the rank odours of the cooking viands and the tang of spices used to disguise both smell and taste. Hotpot sellers offered mulled wine, boiled milk and other drinks to lessen the chill. A group of mummers had set up a makeshift stage to enact Herod’s pursuit of the Three Kings: a sharp reminder to Athelstan that Advent and Christmas were fast approaching. Athelstan quietly promised himself that the parish would be ready for these great feasts. He also wondered when he would next meet Sir John Cranston. Was the coroner busy already? Was he involved in investigating the horrific explosion which destroyed a royal cog only a few days ago? The news had swept the parish, though there were few details. The cog in question, The Knave of Hearts, had left Queenhithe, heading for the estuary, when both ship and crew were totally destroyed by a mysterious explosion. The friar had tried to discover more, but the destruction remained a real mystery, whilst he had to face more pressing concerns.

  Athelstan recalled his meeting with the parish council. He glanced towards God’s Acre; thankfully its great lychgate was closed. However, on either side of this clustered a number of cowled figures. One of these had climbed onto the wall, staring across the sea of gorse and coarse grass. Watkin espied him and roared at the trespasser to get down, which he hurriedly did. Both the climber and his companions moved swiftly away as Crispin and Ranulf escorted Godbless with his ever-present pet goat through the gate to the beggar man’s cottage.

  Athelstan also noticed others had gathered close to the cemetery: a fire-eater; a self-proclaimed magician with his bag of tricks, troubadours and minstrels, itinerant quacks and other cunning men, a moving mass of colour and raucous noise. Athelstan, threading ave beads through his fingers, watched intently. He wondered how many of these were genuinely resting and how many had simply been attracted by the whispered stories of the hidden treasure at St Erconwald’s. A self-proclaimed storyteller had placed his box at the foot of the steps and began to describe the latest news, which included how a royal cog had been utterly destroyed on the Thames, devastated completely by roaring sheets of flame which had devoured both ship and crew.

  Athelstan ignored him, more concerned with his own problems, yet quietly marvelling at how matters had abruptly changed during this tumultuous year. Months ago, before the Great Revolt of the early summer, this concourse, the parish cemetery and The Piebald tavern had been a veritable hot-bed of intrigue as the Great Tumult, as it was now called, boiled to its bloody, violent climax. The secret peasant organization the Great Community of the Realm, its leaders the Upright Men, and their fierce street warriors the Earthworms, regarded St Erconwald’s parish, and The Piebald tavern in particular, as ideal places to plot and plan their great insurrection. In the end, the rebels had been crushed like grapes in a wine-press, their dreams perishing in a welter of violence as the blood of the common man lapped the streets of London. Now it was over, the Lords of the Soil had fully assured themselves that the last flickers of that savage conflagration had been extinguished for good. Indeed, since the end of the revolt, Athelstan had offered one Mass after the other in thanksgiving that St Erconwald’s had escaped relatively unscathed from the retribution of men such as Gaunt and Master Thibault. In some wards across London, taverns which had fallen under suspicion, had been pillaged, burnt and razed to the ground; their owners, together with servants, hanged on makeshift gibbets outside. Thankfully not here! Joscelyn and the likes of Watkin and Pike had been saved from such ferocious culling.

  ‘Father?’

  Athelstan broke from his reverie and stared down at Crispin the Carpenter.

  ‘We have chased off those rogues. Now, do I have your permission to buy materials for your garden? Hubert the hedgehog requires a new house?’

  ‘Of course,’ Athelstan replied. ‘And I need an even stouter fence, a sturdy palisade, against Ursula’s sow ravaging my herb plot and vegetable garden. So yes, buy what you need. Have a word with Mauger.’

  ‘Father?’

  Benedicta, who had stayed in the church to comfort Cecily and Clarissa, now came out, her dark-blue hood and cloak pulled so close she looked like a nun. Athelstan smiled at this beautiful woman whom he secretly loved.

  ‘Benedicta, what is it?’

  She nodded at Joscelyn and his two escorts, who stood waiting at the foot of the steps. ‘Father,’ she whispered, ‘you should go and, trust me, this is going to be interesting.’

  They walked down, pushing their way through the crowd, across the concourse and along the alleyway, a filthy runnel at the best of time, with an open sewer which reeked to high heaven. However, this morning the pungent smells swirled not so strong, the air being laced with heavy fragrances from Merrylegs’ cook shop. The bakers within were producing trays of pastries, their tasty soft crusts crammed with spiced mince and stewed fruits. Merrylegs and his host of helpers, all members of his family, gathered at the open hatch and doorway, as well as parading up and down the alley offering their delicacies for sale ‘a
t a much-reduced price.’ Athelstan sketched a blessing in their direction and followed Joscelyn and the others through the cavernous doorway of The Piebald and into its low-beamed taproom, a place of delicious smells, strong wines, freshly baked bread and roasting pork.

  Joscelyn insisted on serving morning ales and a batch of soft manchets from Merrylegs’ cook shop. He then ushered Athelstan to the high table behind a trellised screen at the far end of the taproom. Apparently, this was a place of honour. Athelstan murmured his thanks and gratefully accepted the tankard of ale and platter of sliced bread smeared with butter and honey. Once seated, Watkin, Pike and Joscelyn immediately began to discuss the possibility of finding Roughkin’s wealth. Benedicta went across to have a word with Joscelyn’s pretty-faced wife. Athelstan was tempted to ask her to search around for anything significant but decided that would be futile. If treasure was hidden away in this tavern, it would be in some secret, greatly disguised enclave, be it in the walls or beneath the floor. Instead, he decided to get the measure of this place and asked Joscelyn’s permission to walk around ‘his splendid tavern’.

  Athelstan finished his ale and bread, then left his parishioners to their own devices. He had been in The Piebald on a number of occasions but always kept, albeit very courteously, from delving too closely into the secret life of this hostelry. Here rebellion and revolt had been plotted. Treasons committed. Crimes which could have led to the most gruesome execution on the scaffolds of Newgate or Smithfield. Moreover, Joscelyn was a former river pirate already under suspicion, a man who had narrowly missed the gallows dance, losing his arm in some violent river affray. Joscelyn, along with his two fellow sinners Watkin and Pike, was steeped in mischief, attracted to it like Bonaventure to a bowl of cream. The Piebald was a veritable kitchen where all kinds of wily stratagems were brought slowly to the boil, be it receiving stolen goods or smuggling wine, precious cloths and other luxuries.

  As he walked, Athelstan noticed with wry amusement how the Hangman or Rochester had been hired by the taverner to decorate the light-pink plaster walls, recently refurbished. The Hangman had been busy, not with carefully lined frescoes as in the parish church, but swiftly executed drawings, outlined in charcoal, revelling in the world of drink and meats. One painting in particular caught Athelstan’s attention. The fresco depicted Satan’s own banquet in the Long Hall of Hell. The Prince of Darkness, skin glowing red, a crown of pearls on his golden hair, sat enthroned, with fire lapping all around him. The Lord Satan presided over a great supper attended by all his henchmen, Beelzebub and the rest of the great dukes of the underworld, the Riders of the Shadowlands, the Guardians of the Gates. A host of minor demons with purple-red skins, eyes glowing like embers, their faces those of bat-eared monkeys or ferocious hunting dogs, feasted below their masters. They all drank from goblets glowing like braziers and supped on platters piled high with black, smoking meats. Athelstan peered closer, fascinated by the detail, when he felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to face the furrowed face of a stranger, a man who looked well past his fortieth summer. A former soldier, Athelstan guessed, glimpsing the cuts and wounds to the side of his face, the shorn hair, the leathery skin and watchful eyes.