Paul Doherty - The House of Crows

‘My lord Coroner.’ The voice was well modulated, just above a whisper through the slit in the silken mask. ‘What do you want from the Harrower of the Dead?’

‘We, er. .’ Athelstan stammered. ‘I need your help.’

The Harrower’s eyes never left Cranston’s. ‘I only come when the coroner calls.’ He shifted his gaze; Athelstan was sure the man was smiling. ‘Nevertheless, Brother Athelstan, priest of St Erconwald’s, you need all the help there is, don’t you?’

Athelstan felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle. He silently cursed his fears: it was those eyes and the sweet, perfumed smell which came from the man’s black woollen robes which unnerved him.

‘Don’t you ever take your mask off?’ Athelstan snapped, fighting hard to steady his voice.

‘Do you ever take off your Dominican robes?’ the Harrower replied. The eyes flickered back to Sir John. ‘Tell him, my lord Coroner.’

Cranston sipped from his tankard but, beneath the table, one hand gripped the pommel of his dagger.

‘The Harrower of the Dead,’ Cranston began, holding the visitor’s gaze, ‘is a mysterious figure. Some people claim he is a defrocked priest who committed a terrible blasphemy and suffered God’s vengeance with a malingering disease which has eaten away the lower half of his face. Others say he is a knight who fought in the king’s wars and received an arrow bolt through his mouth. Whatever,’ Cranston placed his tankard down, ‘when the great pestilence visited the city, no one came forward to move the infected corpses except the man now sitting before us. He appeared in the Guildhall and the mayor and the aldermen hired his services. As the great death raged, the Harrower, as he came to be called, took the corpses out to the huge pits near Charterhouse and burnt them. In return, the city council signed an indenture with him; for a monthly payment, the Harrower of the Dead walks the streets of London at night removing any corpses he finds there. The victims of violence, the aged beggar, the unknown foreigner or those who simply die of some terrible sickness, all alone, bereft of any help. The Harrower of the Dead collects them in his red painted cart; with his black handbell he prowls the streets like Death itself. For every corpse he receives twopence. For those who’ve suffered violence, the city fathers pay him sixpence.’

Cranston sipped at his tankard, staring into the Harrower’s light-blue eyes. ‘No one really knows where he comes from, and I don’t care. Sometimes…’ Cranston’s voice fell to a whisper. ‘Sometimes they say that, if the Harrower finds you lingering between life and death, death will always have you.’

‘Such men are liars, my lord Coroner.’

‘Perhaps they are,’ Cranston replied wearily. ‘But the Harrower of the Dead picks up the corpses in the streets and alleyways of the city whilst his comrade, the Fisher of Men, nets those from the river.’

‘What do you want, Cranston?’

‘Brother Athelstan has a parishioner, a young soldier called Perline Brasenose, a member of the Tower garrison. He has disappeared.’ Cranston turned to Athelstan. ‘Give him a description.’

Athelstan obliged and the Harrower of the Dead, chin resting in the palm of his gloved hand, listened attentively.

‘I have discovered no corpse fitting your description, Brother, but…’

‘But what?’ Cranston asked.

‘Sir John, I am your guest. You have offered me neither food nor drink.’

Cranston apologised and called across the taproom but the ale-wife, standing near the casks and tuns, just shook her head: her eyes were rounded in fright as she stared at the Harrower of the Dead.

‘Now you know why I didn’t offer you anything to eat or drink,’ Cranston grated. Heaving his bulk out of the windowseat, the coroner walked across to the ale-wife, then returned with a pewter goblet brimming with claret. ‘She’ll boil the cup after you have left,’ Cranston added.

The Harrower of the Dead sipped delicately at the wine. Athelstan realised there must be something wrong with his lower lip, for the man made a strange sipping noise; eyes closed momentarily in pleasure, the Harrower breathed a sigh of satisfaction.

‘When did the young soldier disappear?’ he asked.

‘About three nights ago.’

The Harrower rocked himself gently to and fro, his eyes never leaving those of Cranston. ‘I’m a busy man, Sir John. I spend my time with you whilst the dead wait for me.’

Cranston slid a coin across the table. The Harrower deftly plucked it up.

‘On Monday night last,’ he replied. ‘I was down near the steel yard where the Hanse berth their ships. There had been a tavern brawl. A sailor from a Lübeck ship had been killed and his corpse stripped. Now usually I don’t go so near the river.’ He smiled beneath his mask. ‘The Fisher of Men is most sensitive about his territory, but the corpse was mine. Now I was tired and drew my cart into the shadows.’ He tapped the bottle beneath his cloak. ‘Like you, Sir John, I need my refreshment. A skiff came to the river steps. A soldier — I recognised him as such because of his livery — came up, accompanied by a small, well-dressed man.’ The Harrower paused to sip from his cup. ‘For a while the two stood there, unaware of me in the shadows. The short, well-dressed man called the soldier “Brasenose”; he in turn called his companion “Sir Francis”.’

‘Sir Francis Harnett!’ Athelstan exclaimed.

The Harrower shrugged. ‘God knows, Brother, but the two were locked in argument. Sir Francis, drumming his fingers on his sword-hilt, accused Brasenose of robbing him.’

‘And Perline?’ Athelstan asked.

‘He seemed subdued, wary, retreating before the other’s accusations. The discussion ended. The one you call Perline turned on his heels and strode away down towards London Bridge. Harnett shouted after him to come back, that he was a thief, but the young man walked on. After a while Harnett went down the river steps and into a waiting skiff.’ The Harrower sipped from the goblet in his eerie manner. ‘That’s all I know, Sir John, but, if you wish, I shall ask my comrade the Fisher of Men. The river may have the soldier’s corpse.’

‘I’d be grateful,’ Cranston replied. ‘And you know nothing else?’

The Harrower shook his head and drained his cup. He was about to rise when Cranston leaned across and seized him by the wrist.

‘You walk the street,’ the coroner said. ‘I have a little mystery of my own. You have heard, no doubt, of the cats which are disappearing?’

The Harrower chuckled. ‘Sir John, what are you saying? Are you asking for my help or making an allegation?’

‘I am asking a question,’ Cranston declared.

‘I know nothing about your cats, Sir John, except that their disappearance is making my work all the more difficult. The rats and mice have increased four-fold. Yet I have something to tell you.’

Cranston passed a coin across the table. This time the Harrower dug into a small leather bag slung beneath his cloak. He laid two black leather muzzles on the table.

‘Down near Thames Street,’ he declared, ‘I found the corpse of a cat, scarred and wounded, beneath a midden-heap. This muzzle was tight about its jaw. What I suspect is that someone placed the muzzle over its mouth to keep it silent: the animal must have escaped but, unable to take the muzzle off, either starved to death or became so weak that it could not defend itself against the dogs which prowl there.’

Cranston stared at the muzzles distastefully. ‘And the second?’

‘I found it near the stocks in Poultry, just lying there.’ The Harrower rose to his feet. ‘That’s all I know, Sir John. You’ve got what you paid for.’ And, spinning on his heel, the Harrower of the Dead left the tavern as quickly as he came.