Paul Doherty - The House of Crows

‘And he would ask us why,’ Athelstan replied. ‘What motive does he have for killing two knights?’

‘Revenge?’ Cranston answered. ‘His father was a petty landowner in Shropshire. Coverdale, nursing wrongs and grievances, may have seized this opportunity to settle scores. And, of course, he is one of Gaunt’s henchmen.’

‘And that is the weakness of your case,’ Athelstan replied. ‘Why should Bouchon agree to meet one of Gaunt’s men at night? And Coverdale entering a busy taproom, even disguised as a priest, would be highly dangerous. Moreover,’ Athelstan stopped and stared up at the red-streaked sky, ‘Coverdale is shrewd. We are here investigating these murders precisely because Gaunt does not wish to be blamed for them. Unless, of course, Coverdale is not really Gaunt’s friend,’ he added. ‘In which case, Sir John, we are like dogs chasing our tails.’

‘Which is why I am returning to Cheapside.’ Cranston called over his shoulder as he strode on. ‘I may not be able to help my lord Regent. .’ he stopped and tapped his fleshy nose. ‘But perhaps I can assist your search for Perline Brasenose.’

They went up on to Holborn Street. The sun was beginning to set, and that broad thoroughfare which swept out of Newgate was full of traders, carters, hucksters and peasants making their weary way home after a day’s business. A hedge-priest, his battered wheelbarrow full of tattered belongings, stopped and begged a penny off Athelstan.

‘Blessings on you, Brother!’ He sketched a benediction. ‘And if I were you I would hurry. The crowds around Newgate are thicker than flies on a cowpat. They’re getting ready to hang a man.’ He then seized his wheelbarrow and hurried on.

Cranston and Athelstan crossed the street where the coroner, using his ponderous bulk and booming voice, stopped a wine cart loaded with tuns and casks. The lord Coroner of the city, together with his secretarius, sat like two boys at the end of the cart, legs dangling, as the wine trader, eager to be in London before curfew, cracked his whip and urged the great dray horses forward. They rattled by Pontypool Street, Leveroune Lane, the Bishop of Ely’s inn, then turned right at Smithfield, past Cock Lane where the whores thronged. One of them recognised Cranston. She steadied the orange wig on her bald head and turned to her sisters. ‘There goes Lord Fat Arse!’

The rest of the group took up the shouts. Cranston smiled beatifically back, sketching a sign of the cross in the air towards them. Athelstan hid his face and just prayed they would reach Newgate without further mishap. They were forced to stop just alongside the great city ditch where the stinking refuse was piled in mounds as high as their heads. The stench was indescribable. Convicted felons, under the supervision of bailiffs, their mouths and eyes covered by scraps of dirty rags, were sprinkling saltpetre over the mounds of slime. Others, armed with bellows, stood round great roaring braziers, fanning the burning charcoal. Athelstan pinched his nostrils and tried not to look at the corpses of rats and other animals which protruded out of the heaps. Cranston, however, shouted encouragement to the bailiffs.

‘Good lads! Lovely boys! It will be ready before nightfall?’

‘Oh yes, Sir John,’ one of them shouted back, leaning on his shovel, ‘Once the curfew bell tolls, we will light the fire.’

‘Thank God,’ Cranston breathed. ‘The ditch is full enough: when the winds come from the north-west, they make Lady Maude sick.’

One of the felons shouted, pulling down the muffler from his face. ‘It’s good to see, how the lord Coroner has now got his own carriage, suitably furnished.’

Cranston peered through the shifting columns of smoke. ‘Is that Tolpuddle? So, you’ve been caught again, you little bastard!’

‘Not really, Sir John,’ the felon shouted cheerily back. ‘Just a little misunderstanding over a baby pig I found.’ Tolpuddle came closer. Athelstan noticed how one eye was sewn up, the other was bright with mischief.

‘Misunderstanding?’ Cranston asked.

‘Aye, the bailiffs caught me with it two nights ago.’

‘So you had stolen it?’

‘No, Sir John.’ The felon leaned on his rake. ‘The saints be my witness, Sir John. I found the little pig wandering alone in the streets. It looked so lonesome. I simply picked it up, put it under my cloak. I was going to take it back to its mother.’

Cranston laughed, dug into his purse, and flicked the man a penny. At last the wine trader saw an opening in the crowds. He cracked his whip and the cart trundled on. Tolpuddle stood, cheerily waving goodbye, until a bailiff clapped him on the ear and sent him back to his work.

The cart rattled on through the old city walls, and Cranston and Athelstan got down in front of Newgate. The great bell of the prison was tolling. On a high-branched scaffold just outside the double gates, a man was about to be turned off. Around the foot of the scaffold thronged men-at-arms and archers wearing the regent’s livery; these held back the crowds, even as a herald in a royal tabard proclaimed how Robert atte Thurlstain, known as the ‘Fox’ and self-proclaimed leader of the so-called ‘Great Community of the Realm’ had been found guilty of the horrible crimes of conspiracy, treason, etc. On a platform next to the scaffold a red-garbed executioner was already sharpening his fleshing knives, laying them out on the great table. The hapless felon would be thrown there after he had been half hung: his body would be cut open, disembowelled, quartered, salted, and then placed in barrels of pickle before being displayed over the principal gateways of London and other cities.

Athelstan watched as the priest at the foot of the ladder quickly gabbled the prayers for the dying, whilst the executioner’s assistant, who bestraddled the jutting arc of the gibbet, placed the noose over the prisoner. The executioner bawled at the priest to hurry up; the crowd didn’t like this and grew restless. Bits of refuse and rotten fruit were thrown at the hangman even as the herald stopped his declamation and a drumbeat began to roll. Athelstan went cold as he recalled the warnings given by Joscelyn, the one-armed taverner of the Piebald. Hadn’t he said that a man calling himself the ‘Fox’ had been one of those Pike had secretly met? He tugged at the coroner’s sleeve.

‘Come on, Sir John,’ he whispered. ‘Let’s be away.’

Cranston agreed, though he paused to grasp the hand of a foist who was busy threading his way through the streets. The coroner seized the man’s wrist, drew out the very thin dagger the felon had concealed up his sleeve, and sent it spinning into a pile of refuse. Sir John tapped the man on the head with his knuckles.

‘Now be a good boy and trot off!’ the coroner growled, and shoved the pickpocket after his knife into the pile of refuse.

‘Did you know anything about that execution?’ Athelstan asked as they hastened down the Shambles into Cheapside.

‘Not a whit,’ Cranston replied. ‘The poor bastard was probably tried before King’s Bench: the regent always demands immediate execution.’

They turned a corner into the broad thoroughfare, which was now emptying as traders dismounted stalls and weary-eyed apprentices stowed away their masters’ belongings into baskets and hampers. Even the stocks had been emptied, and the city bellman strode up and down ringing his bell and proclaiming:

‘All you loyal subjects of the king. Your business is done. Thank the Lord for a good day’s trade and hasten to your homes!’

Rakers were busy cleaning up the refuse and rubbish. Cranston stopped and, shading his eyes against the sunlight, looked down Cheapside.

‘Aren’t you going home?’ Athelstan asked hopefully.